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 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.

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

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 to-wards 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 equally necessary to man, so it is of the mercy of God to afford the means of knowing both. Now, the Christian religion does this, and that is its avowed and specific object.

Look into the order of things in this world, and see if all things do not directly tend to the establishment of these two fundamental principles of our religion.

11. If a man does not know himself to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and unrighteousness, he is sadly blind. But, if with the knowledge of the evil, he has no wish to be delivered from it, what shall we say of such folly? Ought we not then to esteem highly a religion which so thoroughly understands our defects; and ardently to hope for the truth of a religion which promises so desireable a remedy?

12. It is impossible to meet all the proofs of the Christian religion, combined in one synoptical review,

without feeling that they have a force which no reasonable man can resist.

Consider its first establishment. That a religion so contrary to our nature, should have established itself so quietly, without any force or restraint; and yet so effectually, that no torments could prevent the martyrs from confessing it; and that this was done, not only without the assistance of any earthly potentate whatever, but in direct opposition to all the kings of earth combined against it.

Consider the holiness, the elevation, and the humility of a Christian spirit. Some of the Pagan philosophers have been elevated above the rest of mankind by a better regulated mode of life, and by the influence of sentiments in a measure conformed to those of Christianity; but they have never recognised as a virtue. that which Christians call humility; and they would even have believed it incompatible with other virtues which they proposed to cherish. None but the Christian religion has known how to unite things which previously appeared so much at variance and has taught mankind, that instead of humility being inconsistent with the other virtues, all other virtues without it are vices and defects.

Consider the boundless wonders of the Holy Scripture; the grandeur, and the super-human sublimity of its statements, and the admirable simplicity of its style which has nothing affected, nothing labored or recondite, and which bears upon the face of it, the irresistible stamp of truth.

Consider especially the person of Jesus Christ. Whatever may be thought of him in other respects, it is impossible not to discern that he had a truly noble and highly elevated spirit, of which he gave proof, even in his infancy before the doctors of the law. And yet, instead of applying himself to the cultivation of his talents by study, and by the society of the learned, he passed thirty years of his life in manual labor, and in an entire separation from the world: and during the three years of his ministry, he called and del

egated as his apostles, men without knowledge, without study, without repute; and he excited as his enemies, all those who were accounted the wisest and the most learned of his day. This was certainly an extraordinary line of conduct, for one whose purpose it was to establish a new religion.

Consider also those chosen apostles of Jesus Christ : men unlettered and without study; yet who found themselves all at once sufficiently learned to confound the most practised philosophers, and sufficiently firm to resist the kings and tyrants who opposed that gospel which they preached.

Consider that extraordinary series of prophets, who have followed each other during a period of two thousand years and who, in so many different ways, have predicted, even to the most minute circumstances, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the mission of his apostles, the preaching of the gospel, the conversion of the Gentiles, and many other matters which regarded the establishment of the Christian religion, and the abolition of Judaism.

Consider the wonderful fulfilment of these prophecies, which have their accomplishment so accurately in the person of Jesus Christ, that none but he who is determined wilfully to blind himself, can fail to admit the fact.

Consider the state of the Jewish people, both previously and subsequently to the coming of Christ; how flourishing before his coming; how full of misery since they rejected him! Even at this day, they are without any peculiar marks of their religion, without a temple, without sacrifices, scattered over the whole world, the contempt and the scoffing of all.

Consider the perpetuity of the Christian religion, which has even subsisted from the beginning of the world, either in the Old Testament saints, who lived in the expectation of Christ before his coming, or in those who have received and believed on him since. No other religion has been perpetual, and this is the chief characteristic of the true religion.