early put upon cur guard, and obliged to think and reflect before we commit ourselves to the traditions, professions, and promises of men. Thus we are, on the principles of self-defence, early taught to think for and from ourselves. It is soon discovered that truth and honesty, as well as fraud and fiction, are in the world; and that both have their own appropriate characteristics. Hence the subject of evidence, before we understand the meaning of the word, is forced upon our attention; and we find ourselves engaged in the work of distinguishing truth from fable, and of discriminating between an honest man and an impostor, or a deceiver. Thus early we are taught the useful lesson of thinking before we act, and of thinking for ourselves, rather than implicitly admitting the representations of every one who assumes the garb of wisdom, honesty, and sincerity. This habit of thinking with discrimination, and of thinking for ourselves, grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength. It is, perhaps, a misfortune to learn these lessons, but yet a greater misfortune not to learn them -not to learn them timously and well. This, indeed, is the proper era of mental independence. It is not an independence that elevates us above the neces sity of receiving instruction, guidance, and direction from our superiors in age, in learning, and in experience. To refuse this would be folly, to accept it implicitly might be disastrous to our best interests. Our proper position is, therefore, to receive it on adequate evidences. Hence mental independence emphatically consists not in absolutely refusing, nor in absolutely yielding assent, but in acting in harmony with the evidence we have, fairly construed and impartially weighed. To yield without such evidence, is credulity; and not to yield with it, is presumptuous infidelity. Thus we find a safe passage between Scylla and Charybdis-between the shoals and quicksands of a facile belief, and the rocks and breakers of an obstinate scepticism. All this, however, is but the legitimate fruit of thinking; of thinking rationally, or in harmony with our own constitution, the constitution of society, and the constitution of the universe. Whereas implicit thinking, and no thinking, equally subject their victims to evil designing persons, and make them the dupes of delusion and fanaticism, or the prey of knaves and impostors. Hence, in a kindred category we teach, that to believe without adequate evidence, is credulity; to believe beyond evidence, is enthusiasm; to believe contrary to evidence, is superstition; and not to believe according to evidence, is infidelity. Here, then, are the four cardinal points of all errors in faith; and they are, also, the cardinal points in every form of false philosophy. That you may have the most profitable themes of thinking, of much and continuous thinking, I will suggest to you three topics. Essentially they are theorems, though sometimes called problems. A theorem is, logically, something to be proved-a problem something to be done. In a general sense, any question involving doubt, or any degree of uncertainty, may be called a problem; but this is above all theorems, above all problems, in the mere technical sense. I will propound them in the form of questions. Some venerable philosopher, whose name I have forgotten, suggested to his pupils the same themes, in this form : 1, What am I? 2, Whence came I? 3, Whither do I go? These are topics of thought-lofty, deep, profound. You may embrace in them the whole subject of man-body, soul, and spirit. You may call to your aid all your science and learning. But it is in a moral point of view that I now submit them. You will find in yourselves a microcosm, a miniature world-nay, a miniature universe. There is in man elements divine, angelic, material-the key-stone of the great arch of nature, of creation, on which God inscribes his own name in full. Man is an awful, glorious creature, though in moral ruins. Incorporated now in and with the Creator himself. Of no other creature, in no other nature, is God incarnate but in man. His origin is divine and gloriousan image of God. The wonder, the standing theme of heaven. Think, think, think on man in the species-think of man in yourself, your origin, your nature, your relations, your destiny. This will be a balance wheel in your whole machinery-an impulse to all that is noble, a restraint upon all that is ignoble. On this theme I beseech you to think, think, think. The poet Campbell has given us a beautiful Poem on the Pleasures of Hope, Akenside on the Pleasures of Imagination; but no poet has sung the pleasures, or the pains, of thinking. And yet its pleasures and its pains are the chief pains and pleasures of human life. It is essential to the health and happiness, as well as to the cultivation and enlargement of the human mind. But it may become, and in millions of cases it will become, an undying anguish, a tormenting fire that whole oceans could not quench, nor ages of ages entinguish. Plato has some where said, that every man inhabits, or must inhabit, his own idea. As numerous insects weave out of their own bowels their habitation, the house they live in, so men weave out of their own thoughts an Elysium of bliss, or a Tartarus, dismal and dark as Erebus. During his whole life man is spinning and weaving the web of his own destiny. He will eternally ruminate, but never digest the thoughts, volitions, and passions, which he has nurtured and cherished from the early dawn to the setting sun of his earthly being. The wayward fancy, the impure thought, the unchaste desire, the unbridled passion, and the licentious purpose, as well as the overt act, will constitute his eternal bill of fare, in regions far beyond the realms of hope, where remorse, in dismal silence, reigns supreme. But on the other hand, he that has thought wisely, profoundly, justly on himself who has cherished the pure desire, the benevolent volition, the generous purpose, and the noble aim-who has bridled his passions, curbed his unhallowed appetites, successfully restrained every wayward impulse, and held in perfect abeyance any suggestion of doubtful import-who has firmly placed himself on the side of suffering virtue, and frowned indignant on encroaching or triumphant vice-will find, in all his retrospects of life, springs and fountains of perennial pleasure, pure as the crystal stream that issues from the unwasting fountain of eternal love. All derived life, animal, spiritual, and eternal, has its fountain in the heart. Its food and its pleasures are always homogeneous with its nature. Truth and goodness are twin sisters; the first born of heaven. Falsehood, hatred, and evil are the simultaneous progeny of the devil, and misery and ruin follow in their train. To think is as much the life of a spirit, as to breath is the life of an animal. To think good is the life and happiness of an angel. To think evil is the death and the misery of a demon. The life of the former, and the death of the latter, are equally immutable and eternal. It is only at this awful, elevated stand point, that we can survey the true philosophy of man. Standing here, and only here, with the telescope of faith in our hand, and the light of heaven in our eye, like Moses on Mount Pisgah, we may survey the heavenly Canaan that lies on the other side the river of death. And thence we may bring the clusters from the vine of Paradise, that afford an antepast of the beauty and the riches of the home of the blest. To have these visions of the life and destiny of the blessed, is the only infallible panacea of the maladies of earth-the only sovereign anodyne for all its pains. Solomon, whose wisdom and personal experience of life was in its most splendid forms, has given, in his proverbs, the cream of all human wisdom and prudence. With infallible discernment he has penetrated the deep fountains and springs of human actions. He merely held the pen that eternal wisdom guided in opening the profound recesses of human nature and human action. On this vital subject of imparting to a young man wisdom and discretion, he has directed him to the punctum saliens, the true fountain of all human wisdom and of all human happiIt is the multum in parvo, the alpha and the omega, of all that learning, all that wisdom, and all that philosophy which conserves, elevates, and adorns human nature and human character. It is in this-" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Let it be pure, honorable, elevated, heaven directed, and all the streams of life will be generous, noble, honorable, pleasing to God, and blissful to mankind. ness. Let us all so order our conversation in the world, that we may live when we are dead in the affections of the best, and have an honorable testimony in the conscience of the worst. Let us oppress none, and do good to all, that we may say with good Ambrose-" I am neither ashamed to live, nor ashamed to die." MR. LOCKE's religion was neither enthusiasm nor apathy, but enlightened fervor the conversion of his children was to him as the light of heaven, as life from the dead. Still he did not expect, and would not attempt to make religion precede nature. With the Apostle, he perceived that that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. He expected no miracle in the conversion of his children; they had all been educated by the best masters; he set them an example in his own person, of listening daily to the Bible as to the voice of God; and it might be said, upon the whole, that in the literal sense of the injunction, Mr. and Mrs. Locke brought up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. As the first spirits in the country for Biblical acumen visited the family, their two eldest children, Mary and John, had enjoyed peculiar advantages. Mary was a young person of divine simplicity, distinguished for the graces of religion and nature, rather than for the display of dress and ornament. She was constitutionally delicate, with a little more gravity, perhaps, than might have been expected of the eldest daughter of Mrs. Locke, whose sweet vivacity was always present where she herself was. Mary, however, partook of the sound sense of her father, had a good taste, and was well educated. She now felt herself pressed on all sides by the reformed doctrine. The ancient gospel had made powerful inroads on her party peculiarities; and when its power, and point, and glorious freedom, flashed upon her soul, she rose above herself; and when occasionally conversing with her own brethren, she poured forth her feelings in strains so impressive, as to alarm them for the safety of her religion. But Mary herself felt it was no easy task for her to make any change in her religious sentiments, and often seemed like a bird struggling to escape from the snare. This may account for the strength and floridness of her speech to Sandford on a former evening. At that moment the light of heaven was on her soul: she felt as if the whole world ought to have been converted: she wondered how men, believing themselves purchased by the blood of Christ, and hoping for heaven, could yet be treacherous--could be idle or silent in a cause so singular and divine. "Mr. Stansbury," said she, as she sat in the parlour one evening, "I hope you will not consider me intrusive; but you promised to speak with me on the subject of the ancient gospel. May I ask, Sir, whether you conceive baptism and remission indissolubly united in the Christian religion? Mr. S. Like faith and baptism, Mary, baptism and remission are indissolubly united in the Christian religion. M. But have not men put them asunder, Sir? Do not a proportion of professors say they enjoy remission without baptism, while others practise baptism devoid of all reference to remission? Mr. S.-It is even so, my sister; we have faith apart from baptism, and baptism apart from faith; baptism without remission, and remission without baptism. We have repentance without the Spirit, and the Spirit without repentance. All things have been deranged or changed; the gospel of the grace of God has been dissolved, its elements broken up, torn from their natural and scriptural connection, and insulted and slain like the author of them. M.-Do you, Sir, think these persons who say they enjoy remission apart from immersion, are in reality pardoned because they believe it? Mr. S.—I am no reasoner, my dear sister. We ancient gospel folks are matter of fact people. We know it to be true what you say, that professors of Christianity assert they enjoy the remission of sins apart from baptism, and we know that baptism is for the remission of sins; but whether they are pardoned simply because they believe so, is highly questionable. Our belief does not alter the nature of things; truth is not made falsehood, nor falsehood truth, by our belief: they have not been baptized for the remission of sins-the Scriptures command they should, and this is all we know of the matter. M.-I certainly feel with you, Brother S. in your observation that belief does not change the truth of things; to believe that faith is remission, does not make it remission. But does not the Saviour say, "All things are possible to him that believeth;" and the Apostle, that though he himself "was persuaded, on the authority of the Lord, that nothing was unclean of itself, yet to him that esteemed any thing unclean, it was unclean?" May it not be here also? May it not be said, that to the person who esteems faith without baptism to be remission, it is remission? Mr. S.-Mary, it is an easy matter to make a puzzle of a plain case, and some are very fond of such kind of rhetoric; to pitch a paradox upon principles and thoughts which their opponents have no power to refute, is admirable logic! Be guided by facts and Scripture, my dear child; facts are sober matters, and the Scriptures are true. To the man who believes any thing to be unclean, it is unclean—the apostle says so: and to the man who believes faith to be remission, it may be remission; we don't know, because the Scripture does not say so; and thus of all things else. Remission without baptism, and baptism without faith, is like baptism without remission, or faith without baptism, wholly defective. The ancient gospel, however, is distinguished for its fulness and perfection, putting the believer into immediate and sensible possession of the remission of all past sins, giving him the Spirit of holiness for the time to come, with the forthcoming blessings of the resurrection and life eternal, through our Lord Jesus Christ. M.-Supposing, then, Brother S.-a very possible case-that a person who believes his sins to have been forgiven previous to immersion, should come to you to be baptized, but not for the remission of sins, would you baptize him? Mr. S.—I certainly would not, unless I chose to put asunder those things which God has joined together. Baptism is for the remission of sins, and to administer it without reference to the immediate, direct, and great purpose for which God ordained it, would be consummate arrogance in the person so doing, supposing he knew and understood it as I do:-"Be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." M.-Supposing, however, that you, or some one else, should baptize him, but not for the remission of his sins, and that after two years his knowledge of the Scriptures taught him that what took place before immersion, viz.: his faith, had not been to him remission, would you then think him justified in believing, that the immersion which he did not and would not receive for remission, was, and (had been to him remission, or that now it is remission? I am one of those who obtained a hope before I was baptized—I know some who have been baptized, and dont yet believe themselves pardoned; others think that pardon is not obtained in this world, but at the last judgment; and none of my brethren believe it is obtained in baptism. You see that I have abundance of work for you, Brother S.! Mr. S.-Yes, there is abundance of work, Mary, and you have just enumerated a few, and but a few, of our difficulties; but we must take them up one by one, though I know of no cure but to begin afresh on the plan of the ancient gospel, and that every one, and all together, seek and accept the remission of sin in the way appointed of God. But to your case of the man who has remission before baptism, as he supposes. Pray, sister Mary, make the case your own, and let me hear how you would dispose of it. M.-Why, Sir, on our plan the case would be a very plain one, because we do not immerse for the remission of sins. The experience of such a person would doubtless be very gratifying, and he would be baptized, but not for the remission of sins. Mr. S. Suppose he should afterwards embrace our views, what then, Mary? M.-I should say that he was, according to your gospel, entitled to an immediate personal Mr. S. Pardon interruption, my child; I meant to ask whether you folks would now think the man's faith had been remission, as was supposed? M.-Certainly not. Mr. S. You see, then, my dear Mary, it was safe for me that I did not baptize him without a reference to remission; because that I should have been the cause of presenting the world with the anomalous case of a man having true faith and baptism without the remission of his sins: he would not re ceive it by baptism, and now he has found that he had it not by faith alone. M.-What would you do with him, Sir? Mr. S.-His case is quite changed, my child, and calls for a distinct consideration, if we are to attend to reason and error, rather than facts and Scripture; in the meantime, be assured, my daughter, that to submit to the gospel and receive its blessing in the form, and at the time prescribed of God, is the safe and profitable, because it is the ancient and Scriptural method. But we shall have further opportunity of discoursing of this matter. "John," said Mr. Stansbury, turning to young Locke, who, till now, sat by as a listener-“you have entered the royal house--you have taken lot with the king's family, as we Reformers say; I hope you may ever appreciate the dignity of the calling which we have of God." "Like the messenger to Elijah," answered John, "it is your privilege, Brother Stansbury, to say, I have served God from my youth;" the case is different with me, I am yet in my youth; but our heavenly Father, by whom my understanding has been enlightened to know his Son, is able, I believe, to keep me unto his heavenly appearing and kingdom. "Perfectly able, my dear John," rejoined Mr. S. "and I hope you will ever continue to believe it. The Lord made himself known to Samuel when very young. Jeremiah and John the Baptist were filled with the Holy Spirit from their infancy, and Timothy knew the Scriptures from a child. May the Lord preserve you to eternal life, with all his saints!" "Brother S." said Mary, "you observed, that we had now-a-days, faith without baptism, and baptism without faith; remission without immersion, and immersion without remission;" pray, Sir, in what parties do these different things respectively obtain? Mr. S.-Alas! my dear sister, that they should obtain in any party. shall answer your question, however; but for the present, allow me to call your attention to a phrase which you yourself used when last speaking of the matter: "I am one of those," said you, “who obtained a hope before baptism." Pray, my dear Mary, what did you obtain a hope of before you were baptized? M.-Why, Mr. S. you must be sufficiently aware, I presume, that religion is not more remarkable for any thing, than for the precious hope with which it inspires those who obtain it; and do not the Scriptures command us "to be ready always to give to every one who asketh us, a reason of the hope that is in us, with meekness and fear?" Mr. S.-You must allow me, sister, to be very plain-even the phrase "obtain religion," which you have just used, is unscriptural, and ought to be abandoned. We are, as you have stated, commanded by Peter to be ready always to give to every one who asketh us, a reason of our hope; but I suspect you and your brethren of no slight error on this point, and would, with all brotherly affection, seek to correct it. What did you obtain a hope of, before your baptism? M.-I was baptized, Mr. S. in the full hope that God had received me--that I was a Christian-that he had blessed my soul. God Mr. S.-Very good, my dear child; I doubt not but he had blest your soul, and I doubt not at all, but it was precisely as you experienced; see, however, my sister, the state of the case. had blest your soul-you mean, he had made you a partaker of the spirit of Christ. Now, the Holy Spirit, being by you already received, could not any longer form the object of your hope, "for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" says the Apostle, (Rom. viii. 24.) Or, as it is more properly rendered in our new translation, “Hope attained is not hope; for what man enjoys, how can he hope for it?" In a word, the Holy Spirit is not in the new institution an object of hope, but is given to all the members of the body of Christ; so that if any man have not the spirit of Christ, "he," the Apostle says, "is none of his." M.-Mr. S. the Holy Spirit, I think, is called the "spirit of promise." Now, that which is the subject of promise may very properly become the object of I hope, according to your own reasoning. Mr. S.-Mary, the force of your observation is more specious than real, for the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit. of promise in reference to the Jews, and not to the Christians. God promised by Joel, &c. to the Jews, that in the last days or times of Messiah, he would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. The |