This, however deplorable, is a true description of no inconsiderable portion of our christian land; to none of _us_, we may hope, is the description strictly applicable; but it is too probable, that there are many amongst us, who partake more or less of the character here delineated; who practically regard the christian religion as a system to be accommodated to their dispositions and habits and pursuits of life, and not as demanding a total alteration in their views and tempers and motives of action. Though their thoughts are directed to objects, far above those of “the heathen who know not God” and though their morality, upon the whole, be of a higher order and a purer cast, yet are their affections willingly led captive by the ensnaring vanities and engrossing interests of this lower world: heaven is the object of their settled creed, but it is not the main purpose to which their endeavours are anxiously and daily directed; in balancing between this or that pursuit, their thoughts are intent only upon providing for “the meat that perisheth,” without any enquiry or concern, how they may best provide for “that which endureth unto eternal life.” {218} And the morality, on which they so complacently rest, has frequently no connexion whatever with the christian faith; referable rather to philosophy than the gospel, to “the praise of men than the praise of God.” Hence it follows, that their moral obedience is lamentably defective; extending only to the performance of those duties, which least oppose their inclination or their temporal advantage; while even such duties are but imperfectly discharged. Their self-government is wretchedly defective; the controul of their thoughts, the mastery over their passions, the command over their tongue, are attainments which they seldom bind it upon their conscience to acquire. And though they be turned from idols to worship the living and the true God, the fruit of their service, as well as the irregularity of it, affords but too clear a proof, that they “worship him not in spirit and in truth.” However improved, in their moral character, by their acquaintance with the christian religion, they cannot possibly have imbibed its spirit; nor have arrived at that happy change of the natural man, which can be denominated by a new creation. They are working out, or rather seeking to work out, their salvation on maxims of human expediency, and in accommodation to human interests; not with “fear and trembling,” lest they should lose the inestimable prize; they are not evincing, that it is “God that worketh in them both to will and to do.” {220}