ments be uttered by Christian missionaries, and be repeated with approbation in the periodical publications of a Christian country? "Let me know what you will give, and then I shall know how much you love Jesus." Would Jesus himself have said this?

There is another source of mistake. A man whose heart is a stranger to the power of religion, perhaps commiserates the heathen. I ask him to lend assistance in sending them the gospel. In complying with this request, he indulges the secret persuasion, that it would be enough to raise those heathen to a state as good as his own; while in truth he may be tenfold more guilty than any heathen on the globe. But if I am called to preach on the subject of missions, in the hearing of this man, and if I press on his conscience the aggravated guilt of those who live without personal holiness, under the light of the gospel, and lead him to draw such a comparison as the truth demands, between his own moral condition, and that of an unsanctified heathen, I may offend' his pride, and frustrate the end of my solicitation. What then? That I may gain a dollar to the treasury of Christ, shall I hide the truth of Christ, and become accessory to the delusion that may ruin a soul ?*

Having suggested some of the dangers connected

*I do not say that whenever we ask the aid of an individual to any religious charity, it is indispensable to instruct him in the principles of the gospel. Religion pays due respect to proprieties of time and circumstances, and fidelity needs the guidance of dis

with our systems of benevolent efforts, as they respect men without piety; let us consider these dangers,

II. As they respect real Christians, and the interests of the church. The substantial prosperity of the church is just in proportion to the measure of true piety among its members. And perhaps no maxim of Christian experience is better established than that piety acquires strength by struggling with difficulties. Accordingly it is a remarkable fact, that the most shining individual Christians, and the best devotional books have been produced in periods of persecution.

The dangers which I am to suggest under this head, all result perhaps, from this one source, the tendency there is among pious men to adapt their religion to public sentiment.

We ought to rejoice in that ascendancy of the church, which not only exempts it from persecution, but makes it the object of respect, even to those who love not the truth. We have seen many We have seen many circumstances conspire to promote the Christian societies of the day. Their rapid and cverwhelming progress has swept along with it a vast variety of names, interests

cretion. But as this difficult task devolves chiefly on Christian preachers, it behoves us in our efforts to swell a subscription list, not merely to avoid expedients which the gospel condemns, but to take care that the dignity and sanctity of our office does not suffer, and that the gospel itself does not by our means fail of its proper influence on those whose assistance we solicit in sending it to others.

and connexions; and has consequently given to the cause of religion, a degree of worldly respectability and magnificence, previously unknown in modern times." Here is reason for devout exultation; but here is danger too: danger of retrenching the grand characteristics of the gospel to accommodate the taste of the world.

Let me suppose all the subscribers to the funds of a missionary society, to be collected in one assembly. The question is fairly put, what is the object of this Society? To spread the gospel, is the answer. But what is the gospel? It is a system of religion which declares that man is in a state of moral ruin; that the "carnal mind is enmity against God ;"-that no man can be saved except through the merits of the Redeemer, and by the sovereign, sanctifying efficacy of his grace; and that though we "should give all our goods" in public charities," and our bodies to be burned," without holy love, we are "nothing."

I plead for no dogmas of technical theology. Let bickerings about names and forms be buried forever. But I plead for the gospel itself. And I ask, are there not many who promote the cause of missions on the general assumption that religion is a good thing, is friendly to the interests of philanthropy, and civilization, and social order; who, the moment you avow your belief of the gospel, as Jesus and his apostles gave it to the world, will abandon your society, and

stigmatize it with the charge of sectarian narrowness?

Blessed be God, that the hostility respecting minor subjects, which has so long armed the disciples of Christ against each other, and disgraced the religion they profess, is passing away; and that ages of angry speculation are succeeded at length by an age of fraternal feeling and action. Every step in the advance of genuine catholicism, I would hail as auspicious to the cause of Zion. Still we should remember that there is another extreme. Union is a delightful word. Union in a good cause, and from good principles is a good thing. But we should not give up the gospel for the sake of union; nor be so civil to each other, as to forget the respect that is due to our Master. Action too is valuable, only so far as it is directed by intelligence and truth. Other stimulants, independent of religious knowledge may move the church, but without promoting her beauty or strength. In the material universe, "a system of motion without light would make gloomy worlds."

A compromise, call it what we will, that rests on the basis of an indefinite charity, and that overlooks or deliberately sacrifices the grand essentials of Christianity, is a building of hay, wood, and stubble; it will not stand fire. Let the experiment be tried for a few generations, on this ground, consecrated by the faith and sufferings of our Puritan ancestors, and the

glory of these churches would depart. Let the religious institutions, the pulpits, and the books of Christendom sink out of sight the peculiar doctrines of the cross, for a century, and what new achievement under the banner of the gospel would signalize the period? The vanquished foe would return to the charge. Every inch of territority conquered by the armies of Emmanuel must be abandoned, and paganism would roll back its tide of darkness on the world.

But your Society must have funds, and therefore it must have contributors, and therefore your doctrinal views must not be repulsive to popular taste. Is there no tendency in this to sink the tone of religious sentiment? Let the conversation of professed Christians, in their promiscuous circles, testify. Let the prevailing spirit of those charity sermons, and addresses, and reports, whose great object is to swell the list of names and sums, testify.

From the same principle, the religion of the heart and closet is in danger.

To the question which was put to our Saviour, "When the kingdom of God should come?" he answered," The kingdom of God cometh not with observation," (that is, outward show,) "neither shall they say lo here! or lo there! for behold the kingdom of God is within you." The unostentatious religion of the gospel, did not please those who expected the