God abhors the occasional exercises of self-confidence in his own people, and still more the habitual self-complacency of hypocrites. I remember a professor of religion, a member of one of our churches, who for a

[A Correspondence between Archippus, a Minister of the Gospel, and Epaphras, a young man who had been one of his hearers.] Letter I [Epaphras to Archippus] My dear Sir, For several years past, you know,

The Scriptures clearly ascribe both repentance and faith wherever they exist to Divine influence.† Whence many have concluded that they cannot be duties required of sinners. If sinners have been required from the pulpit to

Though faith be a duty, the requirement of it is not to be considered as a mere exercise of authority, but of infinite goodness, binding us to pursue our best interest. If a message of

I have been much edified by some things which appeared in print, respecting the present stale of our country, especially by those which have been directed against what may with propriety be called political self-righteousness.

[Written in March, 1808.] The question proposed for discussion is,—Whether the obedience to civil government required in the Scriptures, includes attachment. It certainly does not include attachment to any thing but what is declared to

Beloved Brethren! It is witnessed of David, that he “served the will of God in his generation.” Every generation has its peculiar work. The present age is distinguished, you know, by the progress of infidelity.

How is it that, in countries where Christianity has made progress, men have almost universally agreed in reckoning a true Christian, and an amiable, open, modest, chaste, conscientious, and benevolent character, as the same thing?

So long as our adversaries profess a regard to virtue, and, with Lord Bolingbroke,‡ acknowledge that “the gospel is in all cases one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, of benevolence, and of

It is a distinguishing property of the Bible, that all its precepts aim directly at the heart. It never goes about to form the mere exterior of man. To merely external duties it is a