res of the frame. This defect is closely connected with that
which was the chief subject of the last chapter: "they that are whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick." Had we duly felt the
burthen of our sins, that they are a load which our own strength is
wholly unable to support, and that the weight of them must finally sink
us into perdition, our hearts would have danced at the sound of the
gracious invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest[24]." But in those who have scarcely
felt their sins as any incumbrance, it would be mere affectation to
pretend to very exalted conceptions of the value and acceptableness of
the proffered deliverance. This pretence accordingly, is seldom now kept
up; and the most superficial observer, comparing the sentiments and
views of the bulk of the Christian world, with the articles still
retained in their creed, and with the strong language of Scripture, must
be struck with the amazing disproportion.

To pass over the throng from whose minds Religion is altogether excluded
by the business or the vanities of life, how is it with the more decent
and moral? To what criterion shall we appeal? Are their hearts really
filled with these things, and warmed by the love which they are adapted
to inspire? Then surely their minds are apt to stray to them almost
unseasonably; or at least to hasten back to them with eagerness, when
escaped from the estrangment imposed by the necessary cares and business
of life. He was a masterly describer of human nature, who thus
pourtrayed the characters of an undissembled affection;

"Unstaid and fickle in all other things,
Save in the constant image of the object,
That is beloved."

"And how," it may be perhaps replied, "do you know, but that the minds
of these people are thus occupied? Can you look into the bosoms of men?"
Let us appeal to a test to which we resorted in a former instance. "Out
of the abundance of the heart," it has been pronounced, "the mouth
speaketh."--Take these persons then in some well selected hour, and lead
the conversation to the subject of Religion. The utmost which can be
effected is, to bring them to talk of things in the gross. They appear
lost in generalities; there is nothing precise and determinate, nothing
which implies a mind used to the contemplation of its object. In vain
you strive to bring them to speak on that topic, which one might expect
to be ever