so far as they illustrate the inspired writings, are to be duly esteemed. The writings of men handing down the experience and observations of large classes of mankind; explaining matters of history, chronology, geography, laws, manners, habits of thought and conduct, and delivered down from age to age; the inventions continually made in the arts and sciences; the knowledge of languages, and of the sound logical interpretation of them-all these are so far from being to be rejected, that they are to be honored in their due province. We consult antiquity-we unfold the page of human history-we avail ourselves of all helps to the right understanding of Holy Scripture.

Again, forms of worship, ecclesiastical usages, the testimony of the apostolic age and that immediately following the apostolical, to the manner in which the government of the Church was settled under the direction of inspired men; the good order and arrangement of Christian flocks; the use of liturgies; the connection of Church and State; the doctrine and discipline of the different branches of Christ's holy Catholic Church in all periods, are points of useful information and important example.

But what the apostle protests against, is the intrusion of human pride and folly, under these or the like fair names, into the prerogative of Almighty God. Philosophy must not alter the scheme of the gospel ; philosophy must only follow, admire, stand waiting as a handmaid at the porch of revelation. She is not to sit in judgment on matters divinely revealed. She is not to add to, or diminish from the complete and perfect redemption of him in whom dwelt" the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

The tendency of human corruption is the same in every age. The two classes of error alluded to in the text-Heathen philosophy and conceit; and Jewish superstition and formality-have ever oppos

ed in one form or other, the simple grandeur of the gospel.

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We cannot too sedulously guard our native converts against the twofold danger. The same vanity of mind which the apostle describes in his epistle to the Romans, governs still the heathen world, and will harass the young Christian. They became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; PROFESSING THEMSELVES TO BE WISE, they became fools; and as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind." And so in his epistle to the Corinthians; "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the DISPUTER OF THIS WORLD; hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks SEEK AFTER WISDOM; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them that are saved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

And with respect to ablutions, marks, ceremonies, castes, external observances, the native convert must be cautiously guarded against bringing into the Christian Church the burdensome and unauthorized mummeries of the heathen worship.

But in the longest settled Christian communities the caution is important, especially in a day like the present, when the multiplication of the means of education and the cheap diffusion of popular literature exposes the young to especial temptation.

There seems a mighty struggle now carried on by the great Adversary against the completeness of

the person and salvation of Christ. The union of a false philosophy with the gross superstitions of the dark ages presents a most formidable obstacle to the simplicity of the gospel. It is indeed portentous to observe that the most presumptuous claims of superstition, will-worship, and voluntary humility in the form of Popery, should seem to combine with the intellectual pride and the figments of a pretended philosophy, to undermine the gospel of the grace of God.

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Beware," then, my brethren, "lest any man," of whatever pretensions, "beguile you by enticing words." Beware lest any one carry you off as a booty from the fold of Christ by a show of human wisdom. You are 66 complete in Christ." You have the manifestation of all "the fulness of the Godhead" in the person of our Lord. You have every thing relating to the pardon of sin, the implantation of holiness, the rule of moral duty, support in affliction, and the hope of glory, furnished you in him. Man fell by pride; he is raised in a way of humility. Man sinned by presuming to know and to be what God had forbidden; he obtains salvation by submitting in silent adoration to the complete and adequate scheme of mercy in our incarnate God. Humility, not curiosity; self-denial, not conceit; silence, not loquacity; practical subjection of soul, not intellectual hardihood, are agreeable to the genius of the gospel. The inventions and additions of man, whether on the side of what is termed philosophical investigation, or on that of superstitions and idolatries under a Christian name, are inconsistent with God's plan; they are not after Christ;" they are either the "tradition" and doctrine of the heathen newly decked up, or the rudiments" of the Jewish economy under another form; and in each case are a "vain deceit," and contradictory to the completeness of Christ. Many specimens may be given.

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The Neologism, as it was termed, of the German School, for some years so rapidly diffused, but now happily checked both here and in the country which gave it birth, was a specimen of this vain philosophy. Miracles, prophecies, doctrines, parables, facts of history, were all mystified and explained away, by a sort of magical process.

2. The gross and ignorant assertions of an uneducated, or rather half-educated infidelity, is another specimen. For unbelief is commonly disowned. now by men of education and reflection; they have been fairly driven out of the field: but men with only a smattering of knowledge, who know nothing of the laws of evidence, nothing of history, nothing of chronology, nothing of the grounds of testimony on which all the most important concerns of life are regulated, and to whom one assertion is as good as another, are now assuming the name of philosophers; are denying the first principles of morals, and making a prey of an inquisitive and conceited multitude.

3. The unnatural commixture of temporary party politics with religion, and the union for a time of some religious portions of the public with Infidels, Socinians, and Papists to overthrow those establishments which are amongst the chief safeguards of Christianity in Europe, and to divorce our country from the Christianity which sanctifies and upholds it, is another instance of the vain deceit against which our apostle guards his converts.

4. The common apophthegms, also, that knowledge is power, in the sense of mere intellectual attainments being capable of reforming the world— that opinions are innocent; that men are not accountable for their belief; that the morals of Christianity are indeed good, but that her mysteries are of little value; that the doctrines of the gospel chiefly rest on scholastic refinements; that a civil and exter

nal utility to the greatest number is every thing, are other proofs of the existing danger.

5. The loose and ambiguous language sometimes held as to the merely human or ecclesiastical authority, as it is termed, of the Lord's day; and on the credibility of the Bible in opposition to its divine inspiration, is of the same class.

6. As are the hazardous and greedy overstatements on every topic on subjects connected with geology; confessedly hypothetical as much of the theory is, and feeble at present the induction of facts-as if the generally received exposition of the Mosaical account of the creation were doubtful.

7. The affectation, also, of a philosophical and abstruse style in describing the mysteries of the gospel; the use of general and tame language; a cold and jejune description of doctrines, which evaporates all their spirit in a mass of words, and phrases, and arguments unintelligible to the poor, and uninfluential upon the conscience; and the dread of the oldfashioned plain language of Holy Scripture;-all savors of the philosophy and vain deceit of the age.

The check to all these evils, the answer to all these encroachments is, "We are complete in Christ.' The scheme of revelation came perfect from the hands of God; its mysteries are equally above your comprehension and our own, but your refinements obscure and dishonor what they cannot illustrate; and what, till we have other faculties, nothing can illustrate. The wisest philosopher can discover nothing more of the nature of God, or of the incarnation of Christ, or of the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily, or of the atonement of his death, or of the manner of the Spirit's operation on the human heart, or of the secret will of the Most Highest, than the most illiterate. Knowledge on these and like points depends purely and exclusively on the revelation of God himself. We may know