Page images
PDF
EPUB

nished with sufficient means to engage that belief: but the clearest proofs may fail of conviction, if we refuse to allow them their due weight. Now, of this we may be guilty in several ways: indolence and inattention will not suffer us to form a proper judgment; prejudice and passion will urge us to make a wrong decision; and it is the pride or the weakness of reason, which so often prompts men hastily to condemn the evidence of revelation from its contents. To justify so bold an inference, the contents of a revelation must be clearly such as no evidence can render credible; they must therefore be, not merely strange or inconceivable to us, but absolutely, and in their own nature, false or immoral: for denying the reality of miracles only on account of our ignorance of the doctrines they are brought to confirm, is little better than objecting to the premises of a demonstration, that the conclusion to be deduced from them is not either intuitive or already proved.

Let not reason then transgress the bounds prescribed her by nature. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with us, that, in the infinite counsels of Omniscience, there may be many measures adopted, the reasons of which we cannot discover; and many effects resulting from causes, with which, to us at least, they have no apparent connexion? And surely we, who so imperfectly understand the least part of the human frame, ought not to be much surprised, if we do not perfectly comprehend all the mysteries of the divine nature.

When we reflect on the conduct, and more especially on the nature of the Deity, we are lost and confounded in the immensity of the subject: the more we consider it, the more difficult it appears; the more it is unfolded, the farther it transcends the limits of our conceptions: and as the sun, in his unclouded glory, is least the object of human vision; so is the great Father of light, when most clearly revealed, the most inscrutable to human reason.

We have seen then, that a revelation proceeding from God may justly claim the belief of mankind; that the proper proofs of such a revelation are miracles and prophecy. To examine the reality of these preternatural appearances is the province and the duty of reason: on this point her decisions are always authoritative, and commonly just. But even if we could be

for a time deceived by the delusive arts, or the fortunate successes of an impostor; we have still a secure resource in the incorruptible testimony of internal evidence, which infallibly discovers the falsehood of all weak or wicked pretensions; while it displays, in the clearest light, the beauty, consistence, and dignity of true and undefiled religion. Yet we must always remember that the only internal marks which are really decisive are falsities or immoralities: these it is certainly unworthy of God to reveal, and disgraceful to man to receive. Other difficulties, as we have shown, are the actual tests of speculative virtue, and consequently are useful; they may also rise from the imperfection of our nature, and be so far unavoidable and surely it is vain to argue against the truth of revelation from its obscurities, unless it can first be fully proved, that those obscurities are introduced without any possible necessity, and to answer no valuable end.

SUMMARY OF DISCOURSE II.

GALATIANS, CHAP. III.-VERSE 24.

THERE is abundant reason to conclude, that the religion of that singular people, the Jews, was derived from God, and the course of their fortunes directed by his peculiar providence : this shown.

But it may be asked, why should the Supreme Being adorn the religion of his appointment with a gaudy train of outward ceremonies; or produce so long a series of unexampled events, to confirm a dispensation, which apparently was not designed

extend beyond the limits of the nation in which it arose? - Admission of external rites shown, not only to be necessary to the very existence of public worship, but peculiarly so in the case of the Jews, who were kept by them a separate and distinct family in the midst of a corrupt world.

But, supposing the laws of Moses perfectly suited to the end for which they were designed, still it may be asked, Is not the end itself improper, or unworthy to be pursued? Is it justice in God, so to confine his favor to a peculiar people, and that one, whose conduct was so perverse, ungrateful, and idolatrous? Even to the Jews these questions may not be unanswerable; but the Christian will think most highly of the ends of the Mosaic institution, if he considers, not only its effects on that peculiar people, but also its general influence on human society, and its particular connexion with Christianity: this influence enlarged on.

That the author of the Jewish economy had a farther and better end in view than the temporal prosperity of a single na

tion, appears, in some measure, from the terms of the original promise to Abraham; ' In blessing I will bless thee,' &c. There are many particulars, in which the Jews, by their own conduct, or from the nature of their institutions, undeniably contributed to the success of Christianity: this exemplified in their being the depositaries of God's promises, and the predictions of his inspired prophets; to them being entrusted the mysterious testimony, which one day would point out the Messiah: this topic enlarged on.

The conduct of the Jews, in every age, has been, however undesignedly, of essential service to the cause of Christianity. Previously to the coming of Christ, they prepared the world, unknowingly indeed, for his reception; and the very methods which they afterwards employed to suppress his pretensions, were eventually attended with a contrary effect: this shown in their delivering him up to the Roman governor, and in the precautions which they took respecting his resurrection; also in the excessive enmity with which they harassed the new religion; and their rejection of its claims. Subsequent dispersion of this devoted people, mentioned by Christ, and more largely described by their prophets, treated of in reference to this subject.

If those rites of the law, which are apparently least siguificant, have been so beneficial to our religion, its more important ceremonies will naturally be expected to discover the same tendency. Reference to the origin of sacrifices, and to those of the Jews in particular. Reason given why the most important parts of their legal worship have sunk into disuse while others, seemingly the most trifling, are at this day punctually observed.

;

Another institution, peculiar to the Jewish kingdom, and derived from the nature of its constitution, was destined to furnish one of the leading evidences of Christianity; namely, that of the prophetic office. The spirit of prophecy' is undoubtedly

'the testimony of Jesus' this testimony, with its various and increasing degrees of light, &c. commented on at large.

The argument from prophecy acquires additional force, from the connexion of the predictions belonging to Christianity with those that are confined to the Jewish people: predictions already fulfilled this fully shown. The evidence of prophecy was preserved from difficulties in part also, by the lofty style of figure and allusion, in which the blessings of the new dispensation were often announced: this shown. So wisely was the plan of prophecy constituted, that the passions and prejudices of the Jews, instead of frustrating, fulfilled it; testifying that the person whom they rejected, the suffering and crucified Jesus, was the Saviour who had been promised. Concluding and recapitulatory observations.

« PreviousContinue »