add these, and things like these, to the consideration, and estimate their influence on man's continual restlessness, and on his sensitiveness to a false shame ;-and if there be not ground for fear that all right principles, and more especially the self-renouncing principles derived from revelation, may become confounded, it is not very easy to conceive what intellectual or moral danger is!

Observe the natural operation of such combining influences. And here we must consider what it is, which is opposed to all this overwhelming inroad of distracting speculation; opposed, I mean, to justify and to secure our principles. It is, "the simplicity "that is in Christ." This is our safeguard; our shield to be opposed to every other claim on our acceptance or obedience. But is not this (it may be asked) sufficient to preserve us, under every danger? If used aright, it is: but the particular form iu which I would submit the question for con sideration is the following.

We grant that the simplicity of Christ is wiser than the wisdom of men: we know it; and we bless God for it! But how, and when, is it so found more powerful? Not by

the mere enunciation of just precepts, or unerring principles. Indisputably sound as these may be, they are too few, and soon grow too familiar, to satisfy the craving appetite which longs for " nothing else but either "to tell, or to hear, some new things." Moreover, they are permanent and unchangeable; and therefore not enough accommodated either to the pride which is for ever seeking to amend the things that are; or to the carelessness that is so ready to concede the things which are no more than common property; or to the fashion which (I grieve to think) will even thrust itself into the precincts of the sanctuary. It is not therefore by a simple reference to these that truth is powerful; nor yet is it through the clear certainty of its great influential doctrines, when simply set in answer to the speculations of the self-dependent understanding. Such doctrines are confessedly mysterious; confessedly beyond the grasp of finite intellect, although assuredly not inconsistent with the highest exercise of reason. It is not, therefore, by the mere acknowledgment of these that Truth is strong, and safe.

Acts xvii. 21.

Moreover, both the doctrines and the precepts of eternal life, are something which we all know. We learn them first, when literally little children; it is as little children only, in the spirit of the phrase, that we shall worthily retain them. We may not add to them, nor yet diminish from them. A few plain articles of faith still shew the outlinet, and include the substance, of all Christian doctrine, as in the first days of the Gospel; and still, in reference to precepts and to practice, we can arrive at last only at the old "conclu"sion of the matter; Fear God, and keep "his commandments; for this is the whole

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duty of man"." And the vain natural mind is weary of confinement within the narrow bounds of these.

Let it be repeated, therefore, that it is not either in the mere enunciation of its principles, however truly wise; nor yet in any irresistible and overwhelming force exhibited in the mere declaration of its doctrines, that Christianity is found impregnable to all attacks of a pretending and encroaching human wisdom. The knowledge which

alone can make a Christian safe is not an outward, but an inward knowledge; found by a different path from that of vain discussion, or of daring speculation; found silently, from stage to stage, through the obedient process of a whole life, by being "changed into the image of the Lord from 'glory to glory;" and neither to be found at all in any other way, nor even by this way in its perfection, until that life shall be about to merge in a more pure and noble tenour of existence. In this life, it for ever sees and feels its weakness and its boundaries; it sees its own continual need both of restriction and of modesty. One maxim is perpetually present to it; namely, that "it

may not, knowingly or wilfully, nor even "for the sake of plausible experiment, presume to go beyond the word of the LORD "its God, to do, or to affirm, less or more." Its very strength is in its true simplicity.

We therefore have to estimate the probability of danger to our religious or our moral principles; the danger of our being led away from JESUS CHRIST to follow after other teachers, amidst the turmoil and

2 Cor. iii. 18,

the multiplicity of speculation round about us, from the analogy of what is always more or less probable in any, or in every, case where meekness and humility of heart, a sense of moderation and of justice, and a due mistrust of self-all influenced, and bound together, by the still more dominant impression of responsibility—are found beset by the pretensions of a confident arrogance, and of a tone which could not well prevail among professed disciples of the Gospel, but that the "wisdom" which will venture to employ it must have been first able to convince itself, (we ask not how) that it is not responsible for “idle words."

If, then, we put the Psalmist's question under such circumstances, and ask; "Where"withal shall a young man cleanse his way?" -both in respect of morals and of higher principles-the answer still remains the same as ever; "Even by ruling himself after "GOD's word."

But will be have the courage not to be beguiled from this?-When challenged by pretensions of superior information, he is ashamed of being ignorant of any thing,

1 Psalm cxix. 9.