tified, at once, the power of God to save the world, and his willingness to do it, and to raise up to the woman the seed which He had promised. This miracle, then, sufficed to confirm the hopes of mankind: and while the memory of it was still fresh in their minds, God renewed his promises to Abraham, who dwelt in the midst of idolaters, and opened to him the mystery of the Messiah that was to come. In the days of Isaac and Jacob, the idolatrous abomination was spread over the whole earth; yet these holy men lived in faith, and when Jacob, on his death-bed, blest his children, he exclaimed with an extatic joy, that interrupted his prophetic discourse, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."

The Egyptians were a people infected with idolatry and magic; and even the people of God were drawn aside by their example. Yet Moses and others were permitted to see him who was to them invisible, and they adored him, and had respect unto the eternal blessings which he was preparing for them. The Greeks and Romans have bowed down to fictitious deities. The poets have invented different systems of theology. Philosophers have split into a thousand different sects; yet were there always in one small spot, and that the land of Judea, some chosen men who foretold the coming of that Messiah, whom no one else regarded.

At length, in the fulness of time, that Messiah came; and ever since, in the midst of heresies and schisms, the revolution of empires, and the perpetual change to which all other things are subject, the same church which adores him, who has never been without his chosen worshippers, still subsists without interruption or decay. And, what must be owned to be unparalleled, wonderful, and altogether Divine, this religion, which has ever continued, has subsisted in the face of perpetual opposition. A thousand times has it been on the very verge of total ruin; and as often as it has been so reduced, God has relieved it, by some extraordinary interposition of his power. This is a most wonderful feature of its history, that it should have been so maintained, and that too, even without any unconscientious submission or compromise to the will of tyrannical men.

6. Civil states would infallibly perish, if their laws did not yield sometimes to the control of necessity. But religion has never submitted to this: yet one step or the other is necessary, either compliances or miracles. It is no wonder that the kingdoms of this world should try to save themselves by yielding to circumstances; but, in point of fact, this is not preservation. It is change. And yet with all these variations, still they utterly perish. There is not one state that has lasted for 1500 years. If, then, this religion has always continued somewhere in existence, and continued firm and inflexible, is it not divine?

7. There would be too much obscurity over this question, if the truth had not some unequivocal marks. This is a valuable one, that it has always been preserved in a visible church. The proof would be too bright, if there were but one opinion in the Christian church. This, then, has not been the case; but in order to discover that which is truth, we have only to ascertain that which has always existed, for that which really is the truth, must have been there always, but that which is false, cannot.*

Now, the belief in the Messiah has been ever maintained in the world. The tradition from Adam was yet recent in the days of Noah, and even of Moses. Subsequently the prophets bore testimony

* How completely this simple rule condemns all the Romish superstitions.

to Him; at the same time predicting other things, which, being from day to day fulfilled, in the eyes of the world, established the truth of their mission, and consequently, of their unfulfilled promises concerning the Messiah. They unanimously declared that the law which had been given, was but preparatory to that of the Messiah; that, till then, it must continue; but that the law of Messiah should endure for ever: so that, either the law of Moses, or that of the Messiah, which it prophetically prefigured, should always continue upon earth. And, in fact, there has been that perpetuity. Jesus Christ came agreeably to all the circumstances of their predictions. He wrought miracles; so did his apostles, by whom he converted the Gentile world. And the prophecies being thus fulfilled, the proof of the Messiah's mission is for ever established. 8. I see many opposing religions. Necessarily, these are all false but one. Each seeks to be received on its own authority, and threatens the incredulous. I do not believe them on that account, for any one can say this. Any one may call himself a prophet. But in the Christian religion, I see many accomplished prophecies, and many miracles attested beyond all reasonable doubt; I find this in no other religion in the world.

9. That religion only which is contrary to our nature, in its present estate, which resists our pleasurable inclinations, and which seems, at first, contrary to the general opinion of mankind, that only has perpetually subsisted.

10. The whole course of things should bear upon the establishment and the exaltation of religion; the opinions and feelings of men should be found conformable to what religion enjoins; and, in a word, religion should be so manifestly the great object and centre towards which all things tend, that whoever understands its principles, should be enabled to account by it for the nature of man in particular, and for the government of the world at large.

Now, it is upon this very ground that wicked and profane men blasphemously revile the Christian religion, because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in the adoration of God as great, powerful, and eternal; which is, in fact, merely Deism, and is almost as far removed from Christianity as Atheism, which is directly opposed to it. And then from hence they would infer the falsehood of our religion; because, say they, were it true, God would have manifested himself by proofs so palpable, that no man could remain ignorant of him.

But let them conclude what they will in this way, against Deism; this is no conclusive objection against Christianity; for our religion distinctly states, that, since the fall, God does not manifest himself to us with all the evidence that is possible. It consists properly in the mystery of a Redeemer, who, by uniting in himself the Divine and human natures, has delivered men out of the corruption of sin, and reconciled them to God in his own Divine person.

It inculcates on men these two truths; that there is a God whom they are capable of knowing and enjoying; and that there is a corruption in their nature, which renders them unworthy of the blessing. These truths are equally important; and it is equally dangerous for man, to seek God without the knowledge of his own misery, and to know his own misery without the knowledge of a Redeemer as his remedy. To apprehend the one without the other, begets either that philosophic pride which some men have had, who knew God, but not their own misery; or that despair which we find in Atheists, who know their own misery, but not their Saviour.

And as the knowledge of these two truths is

Have these men discovered the remedy of our evils? Have they found a cure for the presumption of man, who thus make him equal with his God? And they who have levelled us with the brutes, and held up as the chief good the sensual delights of earth; have they found a cure for our corrupt affections? These say to us, "Lift up your eyes to God, behold him whom you resemble, and who has made you for his worship. You may make yourselves altogether like him; and, if you follow the dictates of wisdom, you will become his equals." Those say, "Look to the dust, vile reptiles, and consider the beasts with whom you are associated." What then is to be the lot of man? Is he to be equal with God, or with the beasts that perish? How awful the scope of this alternative.What shall be our destiny? Where is the religion that shall instruct us, at once to correct both our pride and our concupiscence? Where is the religion that shall teach us, at the same time, our happiness and our duty; the weaknesses which cause us to err, the specific for their removal, and the way to obtain it? Hear what the wisdom of God declares on this subject, when it speaks to us in the Christian religion.

It is in vain, O men! that you seek in yourselves the remedy of your miseries. All the light you have can only show you that you cannot find within yourselves either truth or happiness. The philosophers have promised you both; but they could give you neither. They know not your real happiness, nor even your real state. How could they cure those ills, who did not even know them. Your chief mischiefs are, that pride which alienates you from God, and that concupiscence which fetters you to earth; and they have invariably fostered, at least, one or other of these evils. If they set God before you, it was but to excite your pride, by making you believe that your nature was similar to his. And they who saw the folly of such pretensions, have but led you to an equally dangerous precipice. They have taught you that your nature was on a level with the beasts, and that happiness was only to be found in those lusts which you have in common with them. This was not the way to convince you of your errors. Seek not then from men, either truth or consolation. I made you at the first, and I only can teach you what you are. You are not now in the state in which you were created by me. I made man holy, innocent, and perfect. I filled him with light and understanding. I made known to him my glory, and the wonders of my hand. Then it was that the eye of man beheld the majesty of God. He was not then in the darkness which now blinds him. He knew not then mortality or misery. But he did not long enjoy that glory, without declining to presumption. He wished to make himself the centre of his own happiness, and to live independently of my aid. He withdrew from beneath my authority. And when, by the desire to find happiness in himself, he aimed to put himself on a level with me; I abandoned him to his own guidance; and causing all the creatures that I had subjected to him, to revolt from him, I made them his enemies: so that now man himself has actually become similar to the beasts, and he is so far removed from me, that he scarcely retains even a confused notion of the Author of his being: so much have his original impressions been obliterated and obscured. His senses uncontrolled by reason, and often overruling it, hurry him onward to pleasure and to indulgence. All the creatures round him, now minister only sorrow or temptation. They have the dominion over him, either subduing him by their strength, or seducing him by their fascinations; a tyrannical control, which is, of all others, the most cruel and imperious.

Behold then the present state and condition of men. On the one hand they retain a powerful in stinctive impression of the happiness of their primi tive nature; on the other hand, they are plunged in the miseries of their own blindness and lust; and this is now become their second nature.

2. In the principles which I have here stated, you may discern the spring of those wonderful contrarieties which have confounded, while they have distracted and divided all mankind. Watch attentively all the emotions of greatness and glory, which the sense of so many miseries has not been able to extinguish, and see if they must not have their source in another nature.

3. See, then, proud man, what a paradox thou art to thyself. Let impotent reason be humbled; let frail nature be silent. Know that man infinitely surpasseth man; and learn from thy Maker, thy real condition.

For, in fact, had man never been corrupted, he would have ever enjoyed truth and happiness, with an assured delight. And had man never been any other than corrupted, he would never have had any idea of truth and blessedness. But wretched as we are, (more wretched than if we had never felt the consciousness of greatness) we do now retain a notion of felicity, though we cannot attain it. We have some faint impression of truth, while all we grasp is falsehood. We are alike incapable of total ignorance and of sure and definite knowledge. So manifest is it, that we were once in a state of perfection, from which we have unhappily fallen. What then do this sense of want, and this impotency to obtain, declare to us, but that man originally possessed a real bliss, of which no traces now remain, except that cheerless void within, which he vainly endeavors to fill from the things around him; by seeking from those which are absent, a joy which present things will not yield-a joy which neither the present nor the absent can bestow on him; because this illimitable chasm, this boundless void, can never be filled by any but an infinite and immutable object.

4. It is an astonishing thought that of all mysteries, that which seems to be farthest removed from our apprehension, I mean the transmission of original sin, is a fact without the knowledge of which we can never satisfactorily know ourselves. For, undoubtedly, nothing appears so revolting to our reason as to say that the transgression of the first man should impart guilt to those, who, from their extreme distance from the source of the evil, seem incapable of such a participation. This transmission seems to us not only impossible but unjust. For what can be more repugnant to the rules of our despicable justice, than to condemn eternally an infant, yet irresponsible, for an offence, in which he appears to have had so little share, that it was committed six thousand years before he came into existence. Certainly nothing wounds us more cruelly than this doctrine. And yet without this mystery, to us of all others the most incomprehensible, we are utterly incomprehensible to ourselves. The complicated knot of our condition, has its mysteriour folds in this abyss; so that man is more incomprehensible without this mystery, than is this mystery itself to man.

The notion of original sin, is foolishness to men. But then we should not condemn the want of reasonableness in this doctrine, for in fact it is not assumed to be within the province of reason. At the same time, this very foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men: (The foolishness of God, is wiser than men. 1 Cor. i. 25.) For without this, what explanation can we give of man! His whole condition hangs upon this one imperceptible point. Yet how could he have discovered this by his rea

There is, then, an unjustifiable presumption in these reasonings. Though they appear to be founded in humility, yet that humility is neither sincere nor reasonable; but, as it leads us to acknowledge, that as we do not thoroughly know what we are ourselves, we can only learn it from God.

CHAPTER X.

THE DUE SUBORDINATION AND USE OF REASON.

THE highest attainment of reason, is to know that there is an infinity of knowledge beyond its limits. It must be sadly weak if it has not discovered this. We ought to know where we should doubt, where we should be confident, and where we should submit. He who knows not this, does not comprehend the true power of reasoning.There are men who fail severally on each of these points. Some from ignorance of what is demonstration, assume every thing to be demonstrable; others, not knowing where it becomes them to submit silently, doubt of every thing; and others again, unconscious of the right field for the exercise of judgment, submit blindly to all.

2. If we subject every thing to reason, our religion would have nothing in it mysterious and supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion would be absurd and contemptible.

Reason, says St. Augustine, would never submit, if it were not in its nature to judge, that there are occasions when it ought to submit. It is right, then, that reason should yield when it is conscious that it ought, and that it should not yield when it judges deliberately, that it ought not. But we must guard here against self-deceit.

4. Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent; but nothing that they deny. It is always superior, but never opposed to their testimony.

5. Some men say, If I had seen a miracle, I should have been converted. But they would not so speak if they really understood conversion.They imagine that conversion consists in the recognition of a God; and that to adore him, is but to offer him certain addresses, much resembling those which the pagans made to their idols. True conversion is, to feel our nothingness before that Sovereign Being whom we have so often offended; and who might, at any moment, justly destroy us. It is to acknowledge, that without Him we can do nothing, and that we have deserved nothing but his wrath. It consists in the conviction, that between God and us, there is an invincible enmity; and

monies.

7. If any believe truly, without having examined the evidence of religion, it is, that they have received within, a holy disposition, and that they find the averments of our religion conformed to it. They feel that God has made them. They wish but to love him, and to hate only themselves. They feel that they are without strength; that they are unable to go to God, and that unless he comes to them, they can have no communication with him. And then they learn from our religion, that they should love only God, and hate only themselves, but that being utterly corrupt, and alienat from God, God became man, that he might unite himself to us. Nothing more is wanting to convince men, who have this principle of piety in their hearts, and who know also both their duty and their weakness.

8. Those whom we see to be Christians, without the inspection of the prophecies and other evi dences, are found equally good judges of the reli gion itself, as others who have t is knowledge. They judge by the heart, as others do by the understanding. God himself has inci aed their hearts to believe, and hence they are effectively persuaded.

I grant that a Christian who thus believes without examining evidence, would probably not have the means of convincing an infidel, who could put his own case strongly. But those who know well the evidence for Christianity, can prove, without difficulty, that this belief is truly inspired of God, though the man is not able to prove it himself.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CHARACTER OF A MAN WHO IS WEARIED WITH SEEKING GOD BY REASON ONLY, AND WHO BEGINS TO READ THE SCRIPTURES.

WHEN I look at the blindness and misery of man, and at those appalling contrarieties which are apparent in his nature; and when I survey the universe all silent, and man without instruction, left alone, and, as it were, a lost wanderer in this corner of creation, without knowing who placed him here, what he came to do, or what becomes of him at death, I am alarmed as a man is, who has been carried during his sleep to a desolate and gloomy island, and who has awaked, and discovered that he knows not where he is, and that he has no means of escape. I wonder how any one can avoid despair, at the consideration of this wretched state. I see others round me having the same nature: I ask them if they know more on this subject than I; and they answer, no. And I see that these wretched wanderers, like myself, having looked around them, and discovered certain pleasurable objects, have given themselves up to them without reserve. For myself, I cannot rest contented with such pleasures; I cannot find repose in this society of similar beings, wretched and powerless as I am myself. I see that they cannot help me to die. I must die alone. It becomes me then to act as if I were alone. Now, if I were alone here, I should not build mansions. I should not entangle myself with tumultuous cares. I should not court the favor of any, but I should strive to the utmost to discover what is truth. With