the man is, so is his strength, Judg. viii. 21. A weak genius produces a work imperfect and weak like itself. A. wise, good being produces a work wise and good, and, if his power be equal to his wisdom and goodness, his work will resemble himself, and such a degree of wisdom, animated by an equal degree of goodness, and assisted by an equal degree of power, will produce a work equally wise, equally beneficial, equally effectual. The same degrees of goodness and power accompanied with only half the degree of wisdom, will produce a work as remarkable for a deficiency of skill as for a redundancy of efficiency and benevolence. Thus the flexibility of the hand may be known by the writing; the power of penetrating, and combining in the mind of the physician, may be known by the feelings of the patient, who has taken his prescription; and, by parity of reason, the uniform perfections of an invisible God may be known by the uniform perfection of his productions.

I perceive, I must not launch into this wide ocean of the doctrine of perfection, and I will confine myself to three characters of imperfection, which may serve to explain my meaning. Proposing to obtain a great end without the use of proper means-the employing of great means to obtain no valuable end-and the destroying of the end by the use of the means employed to obtain it; are three characters of im-, perfection rarely found in frail intelligent agents: and certainly they can never be attributed to the great Supreme. A violation of the doctrine of analogy would argue God an unjust being; a violation of that of proportion would prove him an unkind being; and a violation of this of perfection would argue him a being void of wisdom. Were we to suppose him capable of proposing plans impossible to be executed, and then punishing his creatures for not executing them, we should attribute to the best of beings the most odious dispositions of the most infamous of mankind. Heaven forbid the thought!

The first character of imperfection is proposing to obtain . a great end without the use of proper means. To propose a noble end argues a fund of goodness: but not to propose proper means to obtain it argues a defect of wisdom. Christianity proposes the noble end of assimilating man to God! and it employs proper means of obtaining this end. God is an intelligent being happy in a perfection of wisdom; the gospel assimilates the felicity of human intelligences to that

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of the Deity by communicating the ideas of God on certain articles to men. God is a bountiful being happy in a perfection of goodness; the gospel assimilates the felicity of man to that of God by communicating certain benevolent dispositions to its disciples similar to the communicative excellencies of God. God is an operative being happy in the display of exterior works beneficent to his creatures; the gospel felicitates man by directing and enabling him to perform certain works beneficent to his fellow creatures. God condescends to propose this noble end, of assimilating man to himself, to the nature of mankind, and not to certain distinctions foreign from the nature of man, and appendent on exterior circumstances. The boy, who feeds the farmer's meanest animals, the sailor, who spends his days on the ocean, the miner, who, secluded from the light of the day, and the society of his fellow creatures, spends his life in a subterraneous cavern, as well as the renowned heroes of mankind, are all included in this condescending benevolent design of God. The gospel proposes to assimilate all to God: but it proposes such an assimilation, or, may I say? such a degree of moral excellence, as the nature of each can bear, and it directs to means so proper to obtain this end, and renders these directions so extremely plain, that the perfection of the designer shines with the utmost glory.

I have sometimes imagined a Pagan ship's crew in a vessel under sail in the wide ocean; I have supposed not one soul aboard ever to have heard one word of christianity.; I have imagined a bird dropping a New Testament written in the language of the mariners on the upper deck; I have imagined a fund of uneducated, unsophisticated good sense in this company, and I have required of this little world answers to two questions; first, What end do this book propose? The answer is, This book was written, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through his name, John xx. 31. I ask secondly, What means does this book authorize a foremast man, who believes, to employ to the rest of the crew to induce them to believe, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing they also with the foremast man, may have eternal felicity through his name? I dare not answer this question; but I dare venture to guess, should this. foremast man conceal the book from any of the crew, he would be unlike the God, who gave it to all; or should he oblige the cabin-boy to admit his explication of the book, he would VOL. III.

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be unlike the God, who requires the boy to explain it to himself; and should he require the captain to enforce his explication by penalties, the captain ought to reprove his folly for counteracting the end of the book, the felicity of all the mariners; for turning a message of peace into an engine of faction; for employing means inadequate to the end; and so for erasing that character of perfection, which the heavenly donor gave it.

A second character of imperfection is the employing of great means to obtain no valuable end. Whatever end the author of christianity had in view, it is beyond a doubt, he hath employed great means to effect it. To use the language of a prophet, he hath shaken the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, Hag. ii. 6, 7. When the desire of all nations came, universal nature felt his approach, and preternatural displays of wisdom, power, and goodness, have ever attended his steps. The most valuable ends were answered by his coming. Conviction followed. his preaching; and truths, till then shut up in the counsels of God, were actually put into the possession of finite minds. A general manumission followed his meritorious death, and the earth resounded with the praises of a spiritual deliverer, who had set the sons of bondage free. The laws of his empire were published, and all his subjects were happy in obey→ ing them. In his days the righteous flourished, and on his plan, abundance of peace would have continued as long as the moon endured, Psal. lxxii. 7. Plenty of instruction, liberty to examine it, and peace in obeying it, these were ends worthy of the great means used to obtain them.

Let us for a moment suppose a subversion of the seventysecond psalm, from whence I have borrowed these ideas let us imagine the kings of Tarshish and of the isles bringing presents, not to express their homage to Christ; but to purchase that dominion over the consciences of mankind, which belongs to Jesus Christ; let us suppose the boundless wisdom of the gospel, and the innumerable ideas of inspired men concerning in it, shrivelled up into the narrow compass of one human creed; let us suppose liberty of thought taken away; and the peace of the world interrupted by the introduction and support of bold usurpations, dry ceremonies, cant phrases, and puerile inventions; in this supposed case, the history of great means remains, the worthy ends to be answered by them are taken away, and they, who should thus deprive mankind of the end of the sacred code, would charge themselves.

with the necessary obligation of accounting for this character of imperfection. Ye prophets, and apostles! ye ambassadors of Christ! How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo! certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain! Jer. viii. 8. Precarious wisdom, that must not be questioned! useless books, which must not be examined! vain legislation, that either cannot be obeyed, or ruins him, who obeys it!

All the ends that cannot be obtained by human modifications of divine revelation, can never compensate for the loss of that dignity, which the perfection of the system, as God gave it, acquires to him; nor can it indemnify man for the loss of that spontaniety, which is the essence of every effort, that merits the name of human, and without which virtue itself is nothing but a name. Must we destroy the man to make the christian! What is there in a scholastic honour, what in an ecclesiastical emoluinent, what in an archiepiscopal throne, to indemify for these losses! Jesus Christ gave his life a ransom for men, not to empower them to enjoy these momentary distinctions; these are far inferior to the noble ends of his coming: the honour of God and the gospel at large; the disinterested exercise of mental abilities, assimilating the free-born soul to its benevolent God; a copartnership with Christ in promoting the universal felicity of all mankind; these, these are ends of religion worthy of the blood of Jesus, and deserving the sacrifice of whatever is called great among men.

Thirdly, the destruction of the end by the use of the means employed to obtain it is another character of imperfection. St. Paul calls christianity unity, Eph. iv. 3, &c. He denominates it the unity of the Spirit, on account of its author, object, and end. God the supreme Spirit, is the author of it, the spirits, or souls, of men are the object, and the spirituality of human souls, that is, the perfection, of which finite spirits are capable, is the end of it. The gospel proposes the re-union of men divided by sin, first to God, and then to one another, and, in order to effect it, reveals a religion, which teaches one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, one rule of faith, one object of hope, 1 Tim. ii. 5. and, lest we should imagine this revelation to admit of no variety, we are told, Grace is given to every one according to the proportional measure of the gift of christianity. Each believer is therefore exhorted to speak the truth in love, to walk with all

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lowliness, meekness, and long suffering, and to forbear another in love. Here is a character of perfection, for these means employed to unite mankind are productive of union, the end of the means.

Should men take up the gospel in this simplicity: and, accommodating it to their own imaginary superior wisdom, or to their own secular purposes, should they explain this union so as to suit their designs, and employ means to produce it; and should they denominate their system christianity, it would certainly be, in spite of its name, a christianity marked with the imperfections of its authors; for in the christian religion, in the thing itself, and not in its appellation, shines the glorious character of perfection.

The christian religion unites mankind. By what common bond does it propose to do so? By love. This is a bond of perfectness, a most perfect bond. This is practicable, and productive of every desirable end, and the more we study human nature, the more fully shall we be convinced, that we cannot imagine any religion to do more, nor need we desire more, for this answers every end of being religious, Had Jesus Christ formed his church on a sentimental plan, he must have employed many means, which he has not employed, and he must have omitted many directions, which he has given. One of his means of uniting mankind is contained in this direction, Search the scriptures, and call no man your master upon earth; that is to say, exercise your very different abilities, assisted by very different degrees of aid, in periods of very different duration, and form your own notions of the doctrines contained in the Scriptures. Is not this injunction destructive of a sentimental union? Place ten thousand spectators in several circles around a statue erected on a spacious plain, bid some look at it through magnifying glasses, others through common spectacles, some with keen naked eyes, others with weak diseased eyes, each on a point of each circle different from that, where another stands, and all receiving the picture of the object in the eye by different reflections and refractions of the rays of light, and say, will not a command to look destroy the idea of sentimental union; and, if the establishment of an exact union of sentiment be the end, will not looking, the mean appointed to obtain it, actually destroy it, and would not such a projector of uniformity mark his system with imperfection?

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