heaven, that immortal mansion of glory shut against meI see it at an immense distance--I see it a place, which my crimes forbid me to enter-I see hell-hell, which I have ridiculed it opens under my feet-I hear the horrible groans of the damned-the smoke of the bottomless pit choaks my words, and wraps my thoughts in suffocating darkness.”

Such is the infidel on a dying bed. This is not an imaginary flight: it is not an arbitary invention, it is a description of what we see every day in the fatal visits, to which our ministry engageth us, and to which God seems to call us to be sorrowful witnesses of his displeasure and vengeance. This is what infidelity comes to. This is what infidelity is good for. Thus most sceptics die, although, while they live, they pretend to free themselves from vulgar errors. I ask again, what charms are there in a state, that hath such dreadful consequences? How is it possible for men, rational men, to carry their madness to such an excess?

Without doubt it would excite many murmurs in this auditory; certainly we should be taxed with strangely exceeding the matter, were we to venture to say, that many of our hearers are capable of carrying their corruption to as great a length, as I have described. Well! we will not say So. We know your delicacy too well. But allow us to give you a task. We propose a problem to the examination of each of you.

Who, of two men, appears most odious to you? One resolves to refuse nothing to his senses, to gratify all his wishes without restraint, and to procure all the pleasures, that a worldly life can afford. Only one thought disturbs him, the thought of religion. The idea of an offended benefactor, of an angry supreme Judge, of eternal salvation neglected, of hell contemned; each of these ideas poisons the pleasures, which he wishes to pursue. In order to con

ciliate his desires with his remorse, he determines to try to get rid of the thought of religion. Thus he becomes an obstinate atheist for the sake of becoming a peaceable libertine, and he cannot sin quietly till he hath flattered himself into a helief, that religion is chimerical. This is the case of the first man.

The second man resolves to refuse nothing to his sensual appetites, to gratify all his wishes without restraint, and to procure all the pleasures, that a worldly life can afford. The same thought agitates him, the thought of religion. The idea of an offended benefactor, of an angry supreme Judge,

of

sue.

of an eternal salvation neglected, of hell contemned, each of these ideas poisons the pleasures, which he wishes to purHe takes a different method of conciliating his desires with his remorse. He doth not persuade himself that there is no benefactor: but he rendereth himself insensible to his benefits. He doth not flatter himself into the disbelief of a supreme Judge: but he dares his majestic authority.. He doth not think salvation a chimera: but he hardens his heart against its attractive charms. He doth not question whether there be a hell: but he ridicules its torments. This is the case of the second man. The task, which we take the liberty to assign you, is to examine, but to examine coolly and deliberately, which of these two men is the most guilty.

Would to God, our heaters had no other interest in the examination of this question than what compassion for the misery of others gave them! May the many false christians, who live in impenitence, and who felicitate themselves for not living in infidelity, be sincerely affected, dismayed, and ashamed of giving occasion for the question, whether they be not more odious themselves than those, whom they account the most odious of mankind, I mean, sceptics and atheists! May each of us be enabled to improve the means, which God hath employed to save us! May our faith and obedience be crowned! and may we be admitted with Lazarus into the bosom of the Father of the faithful! The Lord hear our prayers! To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON

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VOL. II.

SERMON XI.

THE ADVANTAGES OF REVELATION.

I COR. i. 21.

After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

I'

T is a celebrated saying of Tertullian, my brethren, that every mechanic among Christians knew God, and could make him known to others. Tertullian spoke thus by way of contrast to the conduct of the philosopher Thales toward Croesus, the king. Croesus asked this philosopher, What is God? Thales, (by the way, some relate the same story of Simonides.) Thales required one day to consider the matter, before he gave his answer. When one day was gone, Croesus asked him again, What is God? Thales intreated two days to consider. When two days were expired, the question was proposed to him again; he besought the king to grant him four days. After four days, he required eight: after eight, sixteen; and in this manner he continued to procrastinate so long, that the king, impatient at his delay, desired to know the reason of it. O king! said Thales, be not astonished that I defer my answer. It is a

question in which my insufficient reason is lost. The of tener I ask myself, What is God? the more incapable I find myself of answering. New difficulties arise every moment, and my knowledge diminisheth as my inquiries

increase.

Tertullian, hereupon, takes an occasion to triumph over the philosophers of paganisin, and to make an eulogium on christianity. Thales, the chief of the wise men of Greece; Thales,

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Thales, who hath added the erudition of Egypt to the wis dom of Greece; Thales cannot inform the king what God is! The meanest christian knows more than he. What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him: even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. ii. 11. The christian hath more understanding than all his teachers, according to the expression of the psalmist: Psal. cxix. 99. for as far as the light of revelation is above that of nature, so far is the meanest christian above the wisest heathen philosopher.

Of this superiority of knowledge we intend to treat to day. This St. Paul had in view in the first chapters of this epistle, and particularly in the text. But in order to a thorough knowledge of the apostle's meaning, we must explain his terms, and mark the occasion of them. With this explication we begin..

Greece, of which Corinth was a considerable city, was one of those countries which honoured the sciences, and which the sciences honoured in return. It was the opinion there, that the prosperity of a state depends as much on the culture of reason, and on the establishment of literature, as on a well disciplined army, or an advantageous trade: and that neither opulence nor grandeur were of any value in the hands of men, who were destitute of learning and good sense. In this they were worthy of emulation and praise. At the same time, it was very deplorable that their love of learning should often be an occasion of their ignorance. Nothing is more common in academies, and universities, (indeed it is an imperfection almost inseparable from them) than to see each science alternately in vogue; each branch of literature becomes fashionable in its turn, and some doctor presides over reason and good sense, so that sense and reason are nothing without his approbation. In St. Paul's time, philosophy was in fashion in Greece; not a sound, chaste philosophy, that always took reason for its guide, a kind of science, which has made greater progress in our times than in all preceding ages: but a philosophy full of prejudices, subject to the authority of the heads of a sect, which was then most in vogue, expressed politely, and to use the language of St. Paul, proposed with the words which man's wisdom teacheth, 1 Cor. ii. 13. Without this philosophy, and this eloquence, people were despised by the Greeks. The apostles were very little versed in these sciences. The gospel they preached was formed upon another plan; and they who preached