Che Sentimentalist.

Corruptions of true religion-Dr. Priestley-Robert Burns-His religious training-Its results-His early views-Ilis wretchedness-ExamplesQuotations from his letters-The poetry of religion-Explanation of his misery-His theology-The impiety of some of his poems-CowperRousseau-John Keates-The sovereign panacea.

Ir would be difficult to enumerate the substitutes for true Christianity which different ages, and countries, and sects, have invented. Bringing their opinions to the Bible instead of deriving them from that inspired source, men have piled error upon error, till the highest product of the Divine Mind which is known to man is buried or obscured by the chaotic mass. So far has this been carried, that one of those who have attempted in modern times to make the truth of God quadrate with what is called, but falsely called, philosophy, has actually written a voluminous work to prove that the very truths contained in the Word of God, are but "early corruptions of Christianity." The divinity of the Saviour the atonement of Christ-justification by faith in his righteousness-the work of the Holy Spirit -in short, all that makes Christianity good news to a fallen race, was treated as a "corruption" by the wisdom of this world.

And while that was the case with the doctrines of our faith, similar perversions have appeared in regard to the application of truth to the soul and the conscience. While the Word of God makes it plain that only his * Dr Priestley wrote a work with the title mentioned in the text.

Y

own Spirit can make his truth practically influential, many have overlooked that intimation, and assumed that, by some human process, the Word of God can be made to produce saving effects. Hence innumerable errors. Hence human speculations substituted for the Spirit's teaching. Hence emotion and excitement taking the place of "the unction from the Holy One." Hence a mutilated revelation. Hence souls misled, and rationalism, or sentimentalism, or Popish corruptions, or Socinian negations, substituted for the revelation and redemption of Christ.

We are now to speak of Sentimentalism.

The ra

vages which it commits, and the various aspects which it assumes, are beyond what can easily he told-as well attempt

"To count the sea's abundant progeny;"

but in the end, they all leave man precisely where they found him, or rather they thicken the folds of that veil which blinds him, and renders his ruin more certain. Of the effects of this phase of religion, we cannot quote a better illustration than that which the life of the poet Burns supplies. He was trained by godly parents, and familiarized at once with the Word and the service of God. Many things occur in his writings to show that he was familiar with the vital doctrines of revelation, and knew what should have been their bearing on the life of man. When he would give solemnity, for example, to certain of his vows, he could inscribe on the blank leaf of a Bible the words, "Ye shall not swear by my name falsely; I am the Lord;" and add, as if to augment the strength of the obligation, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." Truth in one of its forms was thus ascendant in his mind; and were this all that we know of the history of his soul, we might conclude that revelation had acquired its rightful authority there, that in the noble mind of that wondrous man, grace had added its influence to the gifts which dignified his

nature.

THE POETRY OF RELIGION-ITS WEAKNESS.

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It is requisite, however, to study his character more minutely; and in doing so, we find how frail is every barrier, whether it be natural conscience, or rationalism, or sentiment and poetry, against the passions which tyrannize in the heart of unrenewed man. While Burns was yet an obscure youth, and years before he shone forth to amaze and to dazzle so many, he wrote to his father as follows:-"I am quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, and disquietudes, of this weary life; for, I assure you, I am heartily tired of it, and if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it." He proceeds to say, "It is for this reason I am more pleased with the last three verses of the seventh chapter of the Revelations, than with any ten times as many in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer." Now, all this is full of promise-this enthusiasm would be hailed by not a few as constituting pure religion; and yet we know that he who wrote these sentences lived to outrage the truth which he professed to admire. It was mere emotion; there was no work of grace, no guidance of that Spirit who leads into all truth, and the whole was therefore the gleam of a meteor, not the shining of the Sun. The melancholy which dictated such sentiments, inspired many of his verses in future years; and one cannot hear the wail of so noble a mind as it closes one stanza with the words,

"But a' the pride of spring's return

Can yield me nocht but sorrow;"

and another, exclaiming,

"When yon green leaves fade frae the trees,
Around my grave they'll wither,"

without detecting the impotency of the mere sentiment of religion when the power and demonstration of the Spirit do not give direction and force to the truth. Gifts the most noble, and genius the most transcendant,

only render man a more able self-tormentor when grace does not illuminate and guide him. In sober truth, they are as unavailing as the Jup, the Dyan, the Tup, and the Yoga of certain Hindoo ascetics.

But these are only the beginnings of our proof regarding the insufficiency of mere sentiment. The same gifted man, endowed as he was with remarkable versatility and power, was the victim of a sorrow which refused to be soothed. Amid the blaze of his reputation he wrote:-"I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission, for I would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private, and a miserable soldier enough-now I march to the campaign a starving cadet, a little more conspicuously wretched." And again, as if he would open up the very fountains of his chagrin, or display the extent of the moral distemper which continued unhealed in his mind, he says:"When I must escape into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, What merit has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule and the key of riches in his puny fist, while I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly or the victim of pride?" Now, the man who recorded these bitter and distempered complaints was the author of the following exquisite lines:

"Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed:
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped,

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:

How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.'

Or these:

"But, when in life we're tempest-driven,

And conscience but a canker,

A correspondence fixed in Heaven
Is sure a noble anchor."

Now, the instructive point here is, that while this