whom the
offence cometh; it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged
about his neck, and that he were cast into the depths of the sea?" The
present instance is perhaps another example of our taking greater
concern in the temporal, than in the spiritual interests of our fellow
creatures. That man would be deemed, and justly deemed, of an inhuman
temper, who in these days were to seek his amusement in the combats of
gladiators and prize fighters: yet _Christians_ appear conscious of no
inconsistency, in finding their pleasure in spectacles maintained at the
risk at least, if not the ruin, of the eternal happiness of those who
perform in them!

SECT. VI.

_Grand defect.--Neglect of the peculiar Doctrines of Christianity._

But the grand radical defect in the practical system of these nominal
Christians, is their forgetfulness of all the peculiar doctrines of the
Religion which they profess--the corruption of human nature--the
atonement of the Saviour--and the sanctifying influence of the Holy
Spirit.

Here then we come again to the grand distinction, between the Religion
of Christ and that of the bulk of nominal Christians in the present
day. The point is of the utmost _practical importance_, and we would
therefore trace it into its actual effects.

There are, it is to be apprehended, not a few, who having been for some
time hurried down the stream of dissipation in the indulgence of all
their natural appetites, (except, perhaps, that they were restrained
from very gross vice by a regard to character, or by the yet unsubdued
voice of conscience); and who, having all the while thought little, or
scarcely at all about Religion, "living," to use the emphatical language
of Scripture, "without God in the world," become in some degree
impressed with a sense of the infinite importance of Religion. A fit of
sickness, perhaps, or the loss of some friend or much loved relative, or
some other stroke of adverse fortune, damps their spirits, awakens them
to a practical conviction of the precariousness of all human things, and
turns them to seek for some more stable foundation of happiness than
this world can afford. Looking into themselves ever so little, they
become sensible that they must have offended God. They resolve
accordingly to set about the work of reformation.--Here it is that we
shall recognize the fatal effects of the prevailing ignorance of the
real nature of Christianity, and the general forgetfulness o