303 



The unprejudiced mind will allow lhat a real Christian has, at 

 least, as much charity and liberality of sentiment, as the deist or 

 unitarian : he embraces all mankind as his brethren, and strives 

 to render them as happy as himself, but he certainly views the 

 most important of all concerns very differently from a modern 

 philosopher. His mind having, by divine grace, been prepared 

 for the awful truths of Christianity, he is assured, that without this 

 knowledge, all other acquisitions are comparatively of trifling im- 

 portance. * " If," as a modern divine well observes, " our taste 

 were the most correct, our learning the most profound, our inform- 

 ation the most enlarged,, and our fame the most illustrious that the 

 world ever saw; if we could understand all the curiosities of 

 science, and all the treasures of literature were poured at our feet ; 

 if we could embrace all that the restless mind ever conceived, so 

 that nothing remained for the imagination to invent, or the desires 

 to pursue ; — still, what is all this, if we are ignorant of ourselves, 

 and of Christ and holiness ? " What shall a man be profited, if he 

 gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or, What shall a man 

 give in exchange for his soul ?" What indeed are all the fading 

 scenes of this momentary world? The time is at hand, when the 

 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall 

 melt with fervent heat. The period is hastening apace, which will 

 for ever put an end to this world and all its concerns; which, like 

 a flood, will sweep away its pain and its pleasure, its applause and 

 its frown, its learning and its ignorance, its distinctions and its 

 disgrace, its good and its evil. The awful glories of the last judg- 



* Wilson. 



