tered against us as touching our wickedness. His word has been our burden, and has brought us to the dust; but iniquity has been our ruin, and has made us what we are. The children of Israel forsook the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in his book.* And, because of the iniquity of them that dwell therein, the land still mourneth. For three transgressions of Judah and for four-for three transgressions of Ammon, Moab, Edom, Tyrus, Gaza, &c., and for four-the Lord did not take away the punishment thereof. They all multiplied their words, and blasphemies, and transgressions against the Lord; and his word went forth against them. In their pride they exalted themselves to heaven; and they have been brought down to hell. Babylon the great, proud as Lucifer, the son of the morning, has been cut down to the ground, because it was full of iniquity, and strove against the Lord. The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and hath rendered unto them the evil they had done. True and faithful are his judgments. And were there not a veil upon the heart in reading Moses and the prophets, the causes of man's misfortunes lie unveiled and to his view. Do men consult us that they may learn true wisdom? we can teach it by interrogating them. Is not he, whose word hath brought us to the dust, the Ruler among the nations? Who hath declared this from ancient time, and told it from that time? is not he the Lord, the Holy One of Israel? Who hath hardened himself against Him, and prospered? Or who can resist his power, or turn back his word, or abide the destruction that cometh from the Almighty? Have not the things which the prophets said come to pass? And did they not speak as the Lord gave them utterance? Has not, as you see, every desolation a token to show; and has not, as you hear, every ruin a tongue to tell in reason's ear' that the word of prophecy is sure? And do you not know that he who declared it is the Lord, and that there is no God else beside him? 'Names! for ever glorious!' do you call us? And do you not see that righteousness and glory belong unto the Lord, but unto us confusion and shame! Come and see how iniquity has been our burden; and how cities and countries have been brought at last to do homage to the glory of the Lord, and to magnify the word which the kingdoms and nations would not hear. Without a man of our cities to answer, may we not tell and 'teach' you that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 'wisdom,' and to depart from evil is understanding; that sinners shall be consumed out of the earth, and the wicked be no more; and that, if the fear of the Lord be not there, the

* Deut. xxix., 25, 27.

+ Amos i. and ii.

us?

proudest of the cities of the nations shall become as one of Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? If you hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would you be pursuaded though one rose from the dead. According to their word, we wait the time when God shall turn away iniquity from Jacob; when, as judgment now coincides with judgment, blessing shall harmonize with blessing: when He that scattered Israel shall have gathered him, and his light shall break forth as the morning, and they that be of him shall build the old wastes and raise up the desolations of many generations, and he shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.* Then a new song shall be put into our mouths. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. They shall see the glory and the excellence of the Lord."

The first portion of this demonstration of the truth of Christianity is that of the inspiration of the Jewish prophets. And while light thus breaks forth on the dark history of man, their words shining over it as the stars fixed in the firmament of heaven shine into the darkness of night, is it not wise-as an apostle declares it to be well-to take heed to the more sure word of prophecy, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts? knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation (that the event, not the fancy of any man must interpret it). For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.†

Keeping in view the marshalled host of irrefutable facts to which the word of God by the prophets has given irresistible power, and which stand ever ready at a call, we have only -with the same weapon from the armory of heaven, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God-to pass from the tent of one enemy to the tower of another, in order to turn it too into a stronghold of our faith.

CHAPTER II.

THE APPROPRIATION OF HUME'S ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES, &c.

FALSEHOOD is ever opposed to Truth; and it has been the fate of the Christian religion, that false arguments have been

urged against it, as false witnesses were sought against its Author.

Recent historical and geographical researches, which disclose many facts relative to the revolutions of empires, and to the desolation of cities and countries, have been eagerly seized on by zealous skeptics, in order that evidence against revelation might be extorted from them; but, as we have seen, these facts themselves lead directly to the very opposite conclusion, establishing the faith which they were adduced to destroy.

In like manner, with equal eagerness, though not less futile against the truth, nor more helpful to the indefensible cause of error, the discoveries of modern science have been resorted to in order to forge from them a weapon against the Christian faith. But the changeful history of man, which marks the direful revolutions of empires, and the modern discoveries of physical science, which prove that all nature is the work of Him who changeth not, are not only appealed to in vain for such a purpose, but they unite in reversing the rash sentence of a vain philosophy, which is quicksighted as to the history of man and the works of nature, but which hath not an ear to hear the word of God.

The march of intellect has now become a hackneyed phrase. And great, truly, has been the recent intellectual progress of man over the rich domains of nature. In the discovery, combination, and classification of an innumerable multitude of facts, throughout all the various departments of natural history and philosophy, whether ascertained by observation, experiment, or calculation-from the structures of animals and plants, the relation of substances, and the forms of crystals, to the motions and magnitude of the earth, of the moon, and of the planets-there is so clear a manifestation of the regularity which pervades the universe, that design is stamped on every part; and the whole order and course of nature is marked out as the workmanship of the same Almighty hand. There is a consistent harmony in all material things, analogous to the power of attraction which links them together. And there is, to use the beautiful language of Playfair, a "wisdom which presides over the least as well as the greatest things; over the falling of a stone as well as the revolution of a planet, and which not only numbers and names the stars, but even the atoms that compose them."

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The man who can look upon the works of nature and be an atheist, need not be told that there is a God. If the first great truth be not “ clearly seen and understood by the things that are made," it will scarcely be learned by the ear. But the more closely that men look into the works of nature, every new discovery multiplies the proofs of Divine wisdom

and power. And, in all reason, it must be owned that it is the fool who hath said in his heart that there is no God.

But while all things bear witness of the omniscience of the Creator, error is natural to man. And it is not any contradiction to the declaration of Scripture relative to the deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart, that, from the very order which God has impressed upon his works, an argument should have been drawn against the reception and belief of his word. So perfect is that order, that it is held to be absolutely unchangeable. The reasonableness of believing a miracle or the infringement, violation, or suspension of the course of nature-on any evidence whatever, has been expressly denied and derided; and because that God's works are perfect, assent has been refused to all the evidences of a revelation of his will. But is it not the sum of such philosophy, that because God has given laws to nature, he cannot give and accredit as his own a law to man?

It might have savoured more of genuine wisdom, as well as of a becoming humility, had men closed their inquiries into the works of creation by any other argument than that which seems to assume a restriction of the power of the Creator. It might not, perhaps, have been unphilosophical to think that the same Almighty Being who, in such manifest wisdom and power, had established the universe in order and set on it his seal, had still reserved to himself the authority and right of modifying or suspending, for a purpose which he had or might have decreed from the creation of the world, that order which he had impressed upon nature. Its laws, though regulating all material things, and though worlds hung upon nothing revolve by them, are not laws to their Author, of whom they are but the word, and of whose power they are but a symbol and a proof. The plainest principles of reason may serve to confute the most refined speculations of a false philosophy, whenever it becomes their purpose, alike unhallowed and unwise, to show that, while from an atom to a world all things give proof of infinite wisdom, the observed order (that men hence call a law) of nature, which demonstrates the Almighty power of God, demonstrates, also, that a miracle is impossible, or, in other words, that the Most High has left himself powerless to send an accredited message unto man. It is not for unsophisticated and unprejudiced reason to believe that, amid infinite tokens of wisdom, the construction of a machine whereby man might measure the power of the Deity was the ultimate design of the Creator in the formation of the universe, or that the true lesson to be learned from its "mechanism" is how to set a compass on his works. Analogy, at least, from which alone, perhaps, a just and plausible conclusion could here be drawn, might lead us rather to infer that, as laws have been

given to matter, so, in conformity to its nature, a law might be given, or a system established, for the regulation of the mind; and as uniformity is everywhere traced in matter, the moral world would not, under the same good and omnipotent sovereign, be for ever abandoned to lawlessness and sin. The mechanism of the universe unfolds not, indeed, the moral government of the Father of Spirits. The world by wisdom knew not God; though it might clearly discern his eternal power. Yet the more closely that a rational inquirer, when accustomed to look upon the operation of His hands, scans the universal arrangement which external nature presents, and the wisdom which it displays, he might, in moral discernment, the more vividly see the want of a corresponding harmony in the spiritual state of man; and not without reason night he deem it possible that the law which has given its erfect structure to the smallest insect might be suspended or a moment, or in a few solitary instances, to call to like order the spirits of all flesh, and, by such a manifest interposition of his power, to give an evidence to man, who is placed at the head of earthly creatures, that it is the will of Jehovah that harmony should prevail over the moral as well as over the natural world. And as the wisdom of God is seen in every particle of matter; as his goodness fills the earth, and his power hath lighted up the heavens, there is surely no necessity or even warrant from thence to think that he would not-it were blasphemy to say that he could not-give demonstration of his power in order to accredit a system of salvation, calculated to renovate human nature which sin had ruined, and (however introduced) to wipe out the only blot on earth that has stained his works, which lies in the heart of man, whence issues the wickedness that is followed by destruction. The wisdom that is perfect does not necessarily imply the exclusion of the power where there is the need of healing, any more than the most perfect knowledge of anatomy would deter the surgeon from an operation by which the life of his patient might be preserved, for fear of disturbing the perfect texture of the skin.

The argument here alluded to is so essentially atheistical and self-contradictory, that its united impiety and absurdity could not escape the observation of skeptics. "Can God work miracles? that is to say, can he derogate from the laws which he has established?" asks Rousseau. "The question," he adds, "treated seriously, would be impious if it were not absurd."

Well, therefore, might such an argument be at once discarded by every believer in God. But being itself an evidence of scriptural inspiration-supplying a calculus, when rightly applied, most powerful and complete for demonstrating, to a degree that imagination could not have conceived,