8. There are two ways of inculcating the truths of our religion, one by the force of reason, the other by the authority of Him who declares them. Men do not use the latter, but the former. They do not say, We must believe this, for the Scriptures which teach it are divine; but we must believe for this and the other reason, our own weak arguments; for reason itself is easily perverted.

Those who appear most hostile to the glory of religion, are not altogether useless to others. We would conclude, in the first place, that there is something supernatural in their hostility, for a blindness so great is not natural. But if their own folly makes them such enemies to their own welfare, it may serve as a warning to others, by the dread of an example so melancholy, and a'folly so much to be pitied.

9. Without Jesus Christ, the world could not continue to exist. It must either be destroyed, or become a hell.

Does he who knows human nature, know it only to be miserable? And will he only who knows it, be the only miserable?

It was not necessary that man should see nothing at all. It was not necessary that he should see sufficient to believe that he had hold of truth; but it was necessary that he should see sufficient to know that he has lost it. To ascertain what he has lost, he must see and not see; and this is precisely the state of human

nature.

It was necessary that the true religion should teach us both our greatness and our misery, and lead us both to the esteem and contempt, the love and the hatred, of self.

10. Religion is a matter of such importance, that it is quite just, that they who will not be at the pains to seek it, if it is obscure, should not discover it. What can they complain of, if it is such, that it may be found for seeking?

Pride counterbalances and cancels all our miseries. How monstrous this is, and how manifestly man is as

tray! He is fallen from his high estate, and he seeks it again restlessly.

After we had become corrupt, it was right that we who are in that state should know it; delight in it, and those who do not.

both those who But it is not nec

essary that all should see the way of redemption.

When you say that Christ did not die for all, you give occasion to a vice of the human heart, which constantly applies to itself the exception. Thus you give to despair, instead of cherishing hope.

11. The wicked who abandon themselves, blindly to their lusts, without the knowledge of God, and without troubling themselves to seek him, verify in themselves this fundamental principle of the faith which they oppose, that human nature is corrupt.

And the Jews who oppose so stubbornly the Christian religion, confirm also this other fundamental truth of the relig ion which they oppose,―that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah, and that he is come to redeem men, and to deliver them from corruption and misery,-as much by their state at the present day, which is found predicted in their prophetic writings, as by those same prophecies which they hold, and which they scrupulously preserve, as containing the marks by which they are to recognize Messiah. And thus, the proofs of human corruption, and of the redemption of Jesus Christ, which are the two leading truths of the system, are drawn from the profane who boast their utter indifference to this religion, and from the Jews, who are its avowed and irreconcileable enemies.

12. The dignity of man in his state of innocence, consisted in the dominion of the creatures, and in using them; but now it consists in avoiding and subduing them.

13. Many persons go so much the more dangerously astray, because they assume a truth as the foundation of their error. Their fault is not the following a falsehood; but the following of one truth, to the exclusion of another.

There are many truths, both in faith and morals,

which seem repugnant and contrary to each other, and which are yet linked together in a most beautiful order.

The source of all heresies, is the exclusion of some one or other of these truths; and the source of all the, objections which heretics bring forward, is the ignorance of some of these truths. And it usually happens, that being unable to conceive the relation between two apparently opposing truths, and believing that the adoption of one, involves the rejection of the other; they do actually embrace the one, and renounce the other.

The Nestorians maintained, that there were two persons in Jesus Christ, because there were two natures; and the Eutychians, on the contrary, that there was but one nature, because there was but one person. The orthodox unite the two truths, of two natures, and one person.

The shortest way to prevent heresy, is to teach the whole truth; and the surest way of refuting heresy, is to meet it by an unreserved declaration of truth.

Grace will be ever in the world, and nature also.There will always be Pelagians, and always men of the Catholic faith; because our first birth makes the one, and the second birth the other.

It will be one of the severest pangs of the damned, to find that they are condemned, even by their own reason, by which they pretended to condemn the Christian religion.

14. It is a common feature of the lives of ordinary men, and of saints, that they are all seeking happiness; they differ only in respect to the point where they place it. Each counts him an enemy, who prevents his attaining the desired object.

We should determine what is good or evil by the will of God, who can neither be unjust nor blind, and not by our own will which is always full of wickedness and error.

15. Jesus Christ has given in the gospel, this criterion of those who have faith, that they speak a new

language; and, in fact, the renewing of the thoughts and wishes, alters the conversation also. For these new things, which cannot be displeasing to God, in the same way as the old man could not please him, differ widely from earthly novelties. The things of the world, however novel, soon grow old in the using; while this new spiritual nature becomes newer and fresher as it goes forward. Our outward man perishes, says St Paul, but the inner man is renewed day by day. And it will never be completely renewed, but in eternity, where they sing without ceasing, the new song of which David speaks in his Psalms; (Psalm xxxiii. 3.) the song which flows spontaneously from the pure sprit of love.

16. When St Peter and the apostles (Acts xv.) deliberated on the abolishing of circumcision, where the point in question involved an apparent contradiction of the law of God; they did not consult the prophets, but held by the simple fact of the Holy Ghost, to those who were uncircumcised. They judged it a more certain way of settling the question, that God approved those whom he had filled with his Spirit, than that it did not become them to observe the law. They knew that the end of the law was but the gift of the Spirit; and that since they had received it without circumcis. ion, the ceremony was not essentially necessary.

17. Two laws are better fitted to govern the whole Christian republic, than all political codes whatever. These are, The love of God, and the love of our neighbour.

Our religion is adapted to minds of every order.The multitude looks only at its present state and establishment; and our religion is such, that its establishment is a sufficient evidence of its truth. Others trace it up to the apostles. The best informed follow it up to the creation of the world. The angels see better and farther still; they trace it up to God himself.

Those to whom God has given religion as the feeling of the heart, are happy indeed, and thoroughly satisfied of its truth. But for those who have not this experience, we can only reason with them, and wait

till God himself shall stamp this impression on the heart, without which, faith cannot be saving.

God, to reserve to himself the sole right of teaching us, and to render this difficult problem of our being, more completely incomprehensible to us, has concealed the clue to it, so high, or rather so low, that we cannot reach it; so that it is not by the energies of reason, but by the simple submission of reason, that we shall at length really know ourselves.

18. The wicked, who profess to follow the dictates of reason, had need be wonderfully strong in their reasoning. What do they say then? Do we not see, say they, that brutes live and die like men, and Turks like Christians. Have not the Turks their ceremonies, prophets, doctors, saints, and religionists as we have? Well, and is this contrary to Scripture: Do not the Scriptures affirm all this? If you have little care to know the truth, you know enough now to allow you still to slumber. But you wish with all your heart to know the trutht. It is not enough. You must examine it minutely. This might be enough for some mere question of a vain philosophy. But here, where every thing is at stake, it is not. And yet, many a man, after a flimsy reflection like this, returns to trifles.

It is dreadful to feel every thing we possess, and every thing we learn to value, gliding continually away, without a serious wish, on our parts, to inquire, if there is nothing else that is permanent.

A different mode of life in this world, should surely follow these different suppositions, either that we may abide here for ever, or that it being sure that we cannot be here long, it is doubtful whether we shall be here another hour. This last supposition is our actual case.

19. You are bound by your circumstances to make your best exertions for the discovery of the truth. For if you die without the worship of Him, who is the true principle of all things, you are lost. But, you say, if he had wished me to worship him, he