n it may seem almost needless; it is a truth of which we are
apt to lose sight in the review of our religious Character, and with
which the _habit_, of considering Religion as consisting rather in
external actions, than internal principles, is at direct and open war.
This mode of judging may well be termed _habitual_: for though by some
persons it is advisedly adopted, and openly avowed, yet in many cases
for want of due watchfulness, it has stolen insensibly upon the mind; it
exists unsuspected, and is practised, like other habits, without
consciousness or observation.

In what degree soever this pernicious principle prevails, in that degree
is the mischief it produces. The vicious affections, like noxious weeds,
sprout up and increase of themselves but too naturally; while the graces
of the Christian temper, exotics in the soil of the human heart, like
the more tender productions of the vegetable world, though the light and
breath of Heaven must quicken them, require on our part also, in order
to their being preserved in health and vigour, constant superintendence
and assiduous care. But so far from their being earnestly sought for, or
watchfully reared, with unremitted prayers for that Divine Grace,
without which all our labours must be ineffectual; such is the result of
the principle we are here condemning, that no endeavours are used for
their attainment, or they are suffered to droop and die almost without
an effort to preserve them. The culture of the mind is less and less
attended to, and at length perhaps is almost wholly neglected. Way
being thus made for the unobstructed growth of other tempers, the
qualities of which are very different, and often directly opposite,
these naturally overspread and quietly possess the mind; their
contrariety to the Christian spirit not being discerned, and even
perhaps their presence being scarcely acknowledged, except when their
existence and their nature are manifested in the conduct by marks too
plain to be overlooked or mistaken.

Some of the most important branches of the Christian temper, wherein the
bulk of nominal Christians appear eminently and allowedly defective,
have been already noticed in this and in the preceding chapter. Many
others still remain to be particularized.

First then, it is the comprehensive compendium of the character of true
Christians, that "they are walking by faith, and not by sight." By this
description is meant, not merely that they so firml