ful consequences of unbelief. Follow the course of argument which will be developed in the succeeding lectures, with a desire to yield yourselves to the voice of mercy, and with the courage to follow it and bear its yoke: Go from this sacred assembly disposed to suspect, not merely your own reasonings and those of the scoffer, but the temper of mind from which they proceed, and which gives audience to them.

It is perhaps to the affectionate warning which I am now giving you, that Providence, which hides its mysterious ways under the veil of human means, has attached your salvation. Perhaps the divine grace has waited for this or that heedless youth till to-day, to give him one more call to repentance. Perhaps truth and conscience are now casting a light into some minds which levity and vice have been long blinding. And why, then, should not the heavenly doctrine gain a victory over you? If it shine before you, turn not from it. If it seek you, flee it not. It is for your good that it wishes to triumph. If once admitted in a humble heart, it will make its own way and plead victoriously its own cause.

II. And as to you, the far larger class of my young hearers, who are uninfected through the singular mercy of God, with the poison of the unbelieving temper, approach ye to the considerations we shall offer on the grounds of your faith in the spirit enjoined in the text. Enter the kingdom of heaven as little children. Examine the foundations of that religion in which you have been instructed, with the docility, the seriousness, the spirit of prayer, and the practical desire to do the will of God, which I have been enforcing. So shall every step in your progress confirm your faith and deepen your impression of the infinite importance of the Christian doctrine, as well as unfold to you its characteristic blessings. Your gratitude shall thus be increased to Almighty God for the abundant means he has given you of ascertaining what is the revelation of his will. You shall go forth into life well-grounded in your religious belief, and. furnished with a knowledge and actual experience of its benefits, which will set you above the reach of scepticism, and make the research of historical testimonies less ne

cessary. And thus shall you transmit to your children the inheritance of Christianity, together with the temper in which you learned to examine and defend it.

III. Finally, let us all imbibe more of this meek and docile spirit. The same temper which prepares us at first for weighing the Christian Evidences, prepares us afterwards for receiving aright all the truths of which Christianity consists. We need to become as little children every day of our lives, to renounce our own pride and self-conceit, to submit to prayer, to purify our hearts from polluted affections, and to receive without gainsaying and in singleness of mind, all the words of the Holy Scriptures, in order that we may enter more into the truth of our fallen state, into the doctrine of the redemption of man by the Son of God, and into the nature of that spiritual life which is implanted and nourished by the Holy Ghost. Docility makes way for knowledge, promotes love, opens the road to all the beneficent pursuits of piety and obedience. It is by a childlike temper we best adorn the divine religion which we profess, and are most likely to win and gain over opponents. It is by this temper, in short, that we not only enter the kingdom of our Lord here, but are prepared and qualified, through the alone merits of his death, to partake of all its infinite blessings hereafter.

LECTURE III.

THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION SHOWN FROM THE STATE OF MAN IN ALL AGES.

ROMANS i, 19-24.

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools: and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God unto an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lust of their own hearts.

HAVING Considered in our last discourse the temper of mind in which an inquiry into the truth and importance of the Christian revelation should be pursued, I now proceed a step further. I address myself to the young Christian, and before I enter upon the direct arguments which may strengthen his conviction of the truth of the scriptures, I beg him to pause and consider the absolute and indispensable necessity of a divine revelation, as it appears from the state of mankind in all ages and nations where Chris

tianity has been unknown, and from the condition of Christian nations, in proportion as Christianity has been inadequately known and obeyed.

Not that man is to presume to set up himself as a judge whether the Almighty should grant him a revelation or not. God forbid! We are weak and ignorant creatures. The Sovereign Lord of all (for I argue not with the atheist) has a right to do what he will with his own. It might have pleased him to make a revelation of his will, without enabling us at all to see the necessity of it in our present circumstances. Or it might have been only to the extent of assisting and aiding us in certain difficulties-or it might have gone. to some improvement merely in our manner of worship, or some advance in our degree of knowledge. In every case, a revelation from God would have been an object of humble and obedient gratitude. But, undoubtedly, it deepens our impression of the incalculable importance of the Christian religion, when we perceive the utter hopelessness and misery of man in all ages and under all circumstances without it. The direct proofs will thus have no antecedent improbability to overcome. The religion will stand clear of any previous imputation of being unnecessary or unlikely. It will come to us with all that strong presumption in its favor which arises from the necessities of mankind, compared with the acknowledged goodness and benevolence of God.

The necessity of a divine revelation, then, will appear, if we consider the state of the HEATHEN WORLD BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST; the state of UNBELIEVERS AT PRESENT scattered in Christian lands; that of the PAGAN NATIONS NOW in different parts of the world; and THE COUNTRIES CHRISTENDOM themselves, in proportion as they do not obey practically the revelation they profess to receive.

OF

I. Let us consider the deplorable ignorance, idolatry, and vice of the HEATHEN WORLD BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST.

It is most difficult to divest ourselves so far of the principles and habits of a Christian education, as to form any just conception of the state of things when the light of the gospel first arose upon the world. It is of itself no slight ar

gument in favor of Christianity, that it has placed us on such an eminence of religious and moral feeling, that we cannot easily explore, even in imagination, that gulf of depravity where mankind previously lay. A few points of contrast is all I shall attempt.

1. The existence of one living and true God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, are the foundation of the Christian faith, and are so generally known amongst us, that the ministers of religion can take them as admitted in their instructions.

and the peasant understand them.

The child

But throughout the heathen world, before the coming of Christ, the doctrine of the Being of God was lost. Idolatry the most debasing universally prevailed-there was no fixed belief of the creation of the world, of a divine providence, of the accountableness of man, of the immortality of the soul, of a future judgment. I say nothing about reconciliation, the means of pardon, the aids of the Holy Spirit, and other blessings of the gospel, because no notion on these important truths was entertained; the broken traditions and indistinct notices of sacrifice could afford no light to guide man aright-and as to those primary questions on which all religion, all obedience, all worship, all love to God, all the authority of conscience, all the sanction of duty, all the fear of future punishment, all moral responsibility rest, the utmost confusion prevailed. The greatest philosophers groped as in the night. Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people.

2. Again, as to the standard of morals and our duties to each other, Christians have the Ten Commandments, summing them up in a brief and intelligible and authoritative code-every creature knows the rule of duty. All is plain, express, binding on the conscience. But the heathen had no distinct knowledge on these subjects, no agreement on what constituted virtue, no clear idea of the supreme good, no fixed and invariable rule of right and wrong. Many virtues were unknown; many vices defended or excused. They had no sufficient motives to enforce what they did know of these things. The light of nature