uppermost in the hearts of redeemed sinners. They elude all
your endeavours; and if you make mention of it yourself, it is received
with no very cordial welcome at least, if not with unequivocal disgust;
it is at the best a forced and formal discussion. The excellence of our
Saviour's moral precepts, the kindness and simplicity, and self-denial
and unblemished purity of his life, his patience and meekness in the
hour of death, cannot indeed be spoken of but with admiration, when
spoken of at all, as they have often extorted unwilling praise from the
most daring and malignant infidels. But are not these mentioned as
qualities in the abstract, rather than as the perfections and lineaments
of our patron and benefactor and friend, "who loved us, and gave himself
for us;" of him "who died for _our_ offences, and rose again for _our_
justification;" who is even now at the "right hand of God, making
intercession for _us_?" Who would think that the kindness and humanity,
and self-denial, and patience in suffering, which we so drily commend,
had been exerted towards _ourselves_, in acts of more than finite
benevolence of which _we_ were to derive the benefit, in condescensions
and labours submitted to for _our_ sakes, in pain and ignominy, endured
for _our_ deliverance?

But these grand truths are not suffered to vanish altogether from our
remembrance. Thanks to the compilers of our Liturgy, more than to too
many of the occupiers of our pulpits, they are forced upon our notice in
their just bearings and connections, as often as we attend the service
of the church. Yet is it too much to affirm, that though there
entertained with decorum, as what belong to the day and place, and
occupation, they are yet too generally heard of with little interest;
like the legendary tales of some venerable historian, or other
transactions of great antiquity, if not of doubtful credit, which,
though important to our ancestors, relate to times and circumstances so
different from our own, that we cannot be expected to take any great
concern in them? We hear of them therefore with apparent indifference;
we repeat them almost as it were by rote, assuming by turns the language
of the deepest humiliation and of the warmest thankfulness, with a calm
unaltered composure; and when the service of the day is ended, they are
dismissed altogether from our thoughts, till on the return of another
Sunday, a fresh attendance on public worship gives occasion for the