ittle reflection, and experience fully proves the
position, that what has been required is not the perception of a subtile
distinction, but a state and condition of heart. To the former, the poor
and the ignorant must be indeed confessed unequal; but they are far less
indisposed than the great and the learned, to bow down to that
"preaching of the cross which is to them that perish foolishness, but
unto them that are saved the power of God, and the wisdom of God." The
poor are not liable to be puffed up by the intoxicating fumes of
ambition and worldly grandeur. They are less likely to be kept from
entering into the strait and narrow way, and when they have entered to
be drawn back again or to be retarded in their progress, by the cares or
the pleasures of life. They may express themselves ill; but their views
may be simple, and their hearts humble, penitent, and sincere. It is as
in other cases; the vulgar are the subjects of phaenomena, the learned
explain them: the former know nothing of the theory of vision or of
sentiment; but this ignorance hinders not that they see and think, and
though unable to discourse elaborately on the passions, they can feel
warmly for their children, their friends, their country.

After this digression, if that be indeed a digression which by removing
a formidable objection renders the truth of the positions we wish to
establish more clear and less questionable, we may now resume the thread
of our argument. Still intreating therefore the attention of those, who
have not been used to think much of the necessity of this undivided,
and, if it may be so termed, unadulterated reliance, for which we have
been contending; we would still more particularly address ourselves to
others who are disposed to believe that though, in some obscure and
vague sense, the death of Christ as the satisfaction for our sins, and
for the purchase of our future happiness, and the sanctifying influence
of the Holy Spirit, are to be admitted as fundamental articles of our
creed, yet that these are doctrines so much above us, that they are not
objects suited to our capacities; and that, turning our eyes therefore
from these difficult speculations, we should fix them on the practical
and moral precepts of the Gospel. "These it most concerns us to know;
these therefore let us study. Such is the frailty of our nature, such
the strength and number of our temptations to evil, that in reducing the
Gospel morality to practice