Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Halyburton (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Halyburton

IT is much to be feared, that, in times of peace and prosperity in the church, many have got into her fellowship who know very little, if any thing at all, about the true spirit of Christianity. Impositions of this kind, it is true, like forgeries on our national coinage, have been practised in every age; for there never was a time, at which it could be said, They are all Israel who are of Israel. But at present, and especially in our favoured country, there is evi dence that the church is under an exposure of this kind which is somewhat peculiar. The times are, gone by, at which the man who said he was a Chris tian, had to make good his word at the hazard of his liberty, or his property, or his life; and the spirit of scepticism, which. Something more than half an age ago, was so restless, and so full of arrogance, is now put under a powerful suppression. It is not able, as heretofore, to give currency to the maxim, that saintship and imbecility are one and the same thing. The coarse 'and impious ridicule; which, in those days, laughed the unstable out of his profession, and deterred the timid from putting it on, is, to a greatextent, subdued. Even the imaginary disrepute which a licentious humour had contrived to asso ciate with the higher degrees, at least, of practical Christianity, is in no small degree done away with. As matters now stand, the man of piety may be as rigid in his adherence to the law of his God as he will: he may have as much zeal for the purity of his profession - as much shyness of conformity to the world - as much spirituality, and intensity, and ele vation in his aspirations, as his nature can sustain, without the fear of molestation from any thing in human form.

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