gatherer and to the harlot, as to him who was, or fancied himself, righteous. It was not the goodness of men which had entitled them to this new dispensation of favor; it was their sinfulness and misery which had called for this interposition of mercy; "and now to him," says the Apostle, "performing no works" (that is, to him who had performed no works), having faith in God, who receives the sinner to his favor, his faith is accounted righteousness."* His sins were forgiven upon his becoming a Christian; for the first duty of a Christian was reformation; and reformation is the only ground of the forgiveness of sin. Such were the truths maintained by St. Paul. But the bold, brief, unlimited, unguarded language, in which they were occasionally expressed by him, admitted of being misinterpreted in a manner contradictory to the whole spirit of his teaching, and to the fundamental requirements of Christianity. We perceive that he sometimes apprehended that his doctrine might be so perverted. "Brethren," he says to the Galatians, "ye have been called to liberty, only use not your liberty as a pretence for the flesh;" that is, as a pretence for the indulgence of sin * Romans iv. 5. ful appetites and passions.* St. Peter, likewise, exhorts that Christians should conduct themselves as "free, and not using their freedom as a cloak for wickedness, but as servants of God." After strongly stating that the pardon of sin was tendered to all by Christianity, St. Paul asks, with reference probably both to the misrepresentations of the unbelieving Jews, and the loose notions of some Christian converts; "What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin that the favor may superabound?" and earnestly rejects this false inference. How St. Paul's doctrine concerning "works" was abused, we learn from the Epistle ascribed to St. James. § It is evident that there were those, who thought, that to become a Christian, in a loose sense of the word, was all that was required, who had false notions of Christian liberty and of the pardon of sin, and who comprehended the moral duties among the works from which their faith absolved them. GREAT changes in the religious opinions and sentiments of men can hardly be effected with * Galatians, v. 13. Comp. vv. 19-21, where the Apostle enu merates the works of the flesh. 1 Peter ii. 16. § James ii. 14, seqq. Romans vi. 1. out producing also extravagances of speculation, moral irregularities, and skepticism. The belief of the larger part of men has rested, and must ever rest, on authority. They are but sharers in the common belief of the community to which they belong; though this belief, and especially its practical effects, may be greatly modified in different individuals by personal qualities, good or bad. The knowledge of the wisest man is but the result of the action of his mind on the accumulated wisdom and judgments of those who have preceded him, and on what he believes, from testimony, to have been the experience of the past. There are no independent thinkers in the absolute sense of the words. Independent and judicious thinkers, in the more popular sense, are rare. In our intellectual, as well as our moral nature, we are parts of each other, and cannot without a severe struggle release ourselves from the traditionary opinions of those with whom we are connected. One generation inculcates its faith on another, and this is received, and incorporated into the mind, at a period too early for examination or doubt, and is thus perpetuated from age to age. When, therefore, the authority of the past gives way, the minds of many are liable to be greatly unsettled. To some, the rejection of errors that have been long maintained seems equivalent to the denial of the best established truths; for the grounds of their belief in the one and the other are the same; both having been admitted by them on authority.* They either obstinately defend all they have been taught, or, through a tendency * However obvious is the general truth of the remarks above made, it may be thought by some that they are not applicable to the revolution of opinion produced by Christianity; but that, on the contrary, the folly of the Pagan religions was such, that they could have had no strong hold on the belief of men through the influence of authority. But setting aside all other evidence, the proper fanaticism displayed by the Pagans in their contest with Christianity would alone be sufficient to disprove the error. Some time after writing what is in the text, I was struck by accidentally meeting with the following passage of Lactantius, which I had read long before, but had forgotten. It speaks of the state of things, when Christianity had been preached for two centuries and a half. After remarking on the Pagan religions, Lactantius says: "Hæ sunt religiones, quas, sibi a majoribus suis traditas, pertinacissime tueri ac defendere perseverant; nec considerant quales sunt; sed ex hoc probatas atque veras esse confidunt, quod eas veteres tradiderunt; tantaque est auctoritas vetustatis, ut inquirere in eam scelus dicatur. Itaque creditur ei passim, tanquam cognitæ veritati." (Institut. Lib. II. § 6.) "These are the religions, which, handed down to them from their ancestors, they persevere in most obstinately maintaining and defending. Nor do they consider of what character they are; but are confident that they are good and true, because they have been transmitted from the ancients. So great is the authority of antiquity, that to inquire into it is pronounced impiety. It is trusted to everywhere with the same confidence as is felt in ascertained truth." to skepticism, impatience of doubt, and an inability to estimate moral evidence, and consequently to discriminate what may be proved true, and what false, reject the whole together. Others, again, join at once in the new movement; and, feeling themselves released from the ordinary restraints of speculation, confident, like the Corinthians, that they have knowledge, and elated by their victory over what wiser men have reverenced, promulgate, often in a new dialect, their crude and inconsequent doctrines, perhaps as the anticipated wisdom of a coming age. In the breaking up of old opinions, the true and only appeal is to reason. But the process is difficult, and there are few who are capable of carrying it through. When we personify abstract reason we must acknowledge that her decisions. are final. But in a large portion of individual minds, the actual power of reasoning is small; or, rather, if we take into view the whole human race, as spread over the earth, we shall perceive that there is a very large majority, in whom the power of determining by themselves. any controversy concerning the higher objects of thought cannot be said to exist. In revolutions of religious opinion, therefore, it has been common to substitute for reason an imaginary |