586 ABUSE óZ THE PASSIONS IN RELIGION. are trained up by the piety of this present state, and made fit for theunknown exercises of a sublimer sortof devotion in the king. dom of .glory. Meditation." What a wide and unhappy ruin has the fall of man spread over all the powers of our souls ! Our understanding is darkened, our will grown perverse, and our passions corrupt and irregular in their exercises; and even when they are engaged about the things of God, their conduct is not always wise and holy. We have seen what glorious instru- ments they are, when managed by the hands of divine grace, to promote piety and goodness : But if they are left to themselves, they will sometimes make wild mischief, even in the sacred con- cerns of religion. " Guard and secure me, O my God, against those false lights which my affections may cast upon the objects I converse with, and so delude my judgment. Suffer me not to be im- posed on by the false colours, in which my passions may happen to dress up error, and make it look like truth. Let my judg- ment be always directed steadily by the reason of things and the discoveries of thy word, and not by the delusive flatteries of the passions. Let me remember that these were not given for my guides in the search of duty or truth ; they were not made to teach Inc what is false and what is true, but to awaken me with the greater zeal to pursue truth, and to practise whatever I learn to be my duty. " May I be so happy as always to lay solid reason and sc ipture for the foundation, whence my devout affections may take their rise, and ascend high toward God ! Let them never flutter in the dark, nor break away from the government of my understanding; that if, at any time, my conscience calls me to account for the warmest and boldest flights of my pious affec- tions, I may be able to support and justify themall upon the foot of reason, and by the divine examples and encouragements of the word of God. " If, at any time, my zeal has been too fervent about the lesser matters of christianity, while it has been cold and listless in the things of the highest importance, I would take shame to myself in the 'sight of God and men. Blessed Jesus, never suffer my anxieties, my fears, my desires, and my joys to rise, but in due proportion to the-worth and importance of their ob- jects. Let my name never be numbered among those men of irregular zeal, who strain at agnat, and swallow a camel; Mat. xxiii. 24. When I read or hear of the idolaters and the bigots of the church of Rome, in what a strange childish manner, and with what ridiculous fopperies they express their love to God and Christ, and to saints departed when I read how they scourge their bodies to chew their sorrow for sin, and put their flesh to torments which God never appointed nor required; when
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