enjoined, are venerated even beyond the plainest command- ments of our God. In like manner, amongst us Protestants, every sect has its peculiar dogmas, which are adhered to from generation to generation, with a scrupulous and superstitious exactness. Notwithstanding it is manifest that there are pious men of every denomination, and that God may be served and honoured by one as well as by another, yet all are disposed to look with pity or contempt on each other, and to claim to themselves an exclusive conformity to the Divine will. Some, even in their dress and in their language, affect a singularity which they transmit to succeeding generations, and impose as distinctive badges of their community. And all these points of difference form, in the minds of each community, as great a barrier between them and others, as the self-denying habits of the Rechabites did between them and the house of Israel.]
2. The same disregard for the commands of God —
[To all of every denomination God says, as to his people of old, " Return ye now every man from his evil way." But who regards him ? Do drunkards, whoremongers, adulterers, and profane swearers, attend to his voice, or set themselves in earnest to amend their ways ? Do the votaries of pleasure, or the people who are absorbed in the cares of this world, relax their pursuit of earthly things, and begin to set their affections on things above ? Do those who rest in a mere formal round of duties without feeling any of the power of godliness, renounce their proud self-righteous conceits, and humble themselves before God as guilty and undone sinners ? Do they receive with gratitude the glad tidings of salvation, and flee with becoming earnestness to the Lord Jesus Christ as their only hope ? Do not sinners of every class retain their habits as much as if they had never been called upon to renounce them? We ask of every individual, Have you turned from that particular way, in which, from inclination or habit, you have formerly been led ; and have you truly, and penitently, and unreservedly, given up yourselves to God ? We put this question to the decent and the moral, as well as to those who have given a freer scope to their corrupt appetites ; ' Have the commands of God had any considerable influence on your minds?' ' Have you truly studied them, with a view to find out your departures from them, and with a determination of mind to conform yourselves to them to the very utmost of your power?' As for any partial change adopted with a view to advance your character or interest in the world, we inquire not about it : your change must be founded on the authority of God, and be commensurate with his commands, or it is of no value in his sight : the conversion must be from sin to holiness, from the world to God : nothing less than that is