ces but slowly, too often
he finds reason to fear that he has fallen backward in his course. Now
he is cheered with hope, and gladdened by success; now he is disquieted
with doubts, and damped by disappointments. Thus while in nominal
Christians, Religion is a dull uniform thing, and they have no
conception of the desires and disappointments, the hopes and fears, the
joys and sorrows, which it is calculated to bring into exercise; in the
true Christian all is life and motion, and his great work calls forth
alternately the various passions of the soul. Let it not therefore be
imagined that his is a state of unenlivened toil and hardship. His very
labours are "the labours of love;" if "he has need of patience," it is
"the patience of hope;" and he is cheered in his work by the constant
assurance of present support, and of final victory. Let it not be
forgotten, that this is the very idea given us of happiness by one of
the ablest examiners of the human mind; "a constant employment for a
desired end, with the consciousness of continual progress." So true is
the Scripture declaration, that "Godliness has the promise of the life
that now is, as well as of that which is to come."
Our review of the character of the bulk of nominal Christians has
exhibited abundant proofs of their allowed defectiveness in that great
constituent of the true Christian character, _the love of God_. Many
instances, in proof of this assertion, have been incidentally pointed
out, and the charge is in itself so obvious, that it were superfluous to
spend much time in endeavouring to establish it. Put the question fairly
to the test. Concerning the proper marks and evidences of affection,
there can be little dispute. Let the most candid investigator examine
the character, and conduct, and language of the persons of whom we have
been speaking; and he will be compelled to acknowledge, that so far as
love towards the Supreme Being is in question, these marks and evidences
are no where to be met with. It is in itself a decisive evidence of a
contrary feeling in those nominal Christians, that they find no pleasure
in the service and worship of God. Their devotional acts resemble less
the free-will offerings of a grateful heart, than that constrained and
reluctant homage, which is exacted by some hard master from his
oppressed dependents, and paid with cold sullenness, and slavish
apprehension. It was the very charge brought by God against his
ungrateful peo
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