a vague credence to the doctrine, their proofs have been inconclusive and without authority, producing little interest with the mass of the people, and affording the learned rather a theme of amusing speculation, than a reason for serious practice. Yes: concerning this most sublime doctrine, which is essential to comfort, to hope, to morality, even the luminaries of the pagan world, their Tully, their Socrates, and their Plato, argued in a most unsatisfactory manner. He that is least in the kingdom of Christ is greater than they were. Speaking in the name of Socrates, Plato asserts the immortality of the soul; but his proof may be thought puerile. "That which is always in motion," saith he, "is immortal." This he applies to the soul. Tully reasons in the same manner. "That which is always moved is eternal." Plato believed, that human souls were emanations from the Deity, or Soul of the universe, at death restored to the fountain whence they came, and therefore immortal; but this would certainly destroy their immortality. A short time before his death, Socrates reasoned thus with his friends, "It is an ancient tradition, that our souls go hence to another world, whence they return to this; therefore they are immortal." Another argument of his was, "All things take their rise from contraries; watching produces sleep, and sleep watching; death arises from life, so must life from death. If living things did not rise from the dead, all things would finally be swallowed up in death; therefore, the immortality of the soul must be granted." Could such reasoning satisfy any mind? Is it strange, then, that Tully, while he often argues

in favour of the doctrine, seriously doubted of the soul's immortality? He says, "While I am reading, I assent; but when I lay aside my book, and begin to meditate by myself, concerning the immortality of souls, all my conviction slides away." From Plutarch we learn, that the opinion, just ascribed to Plato, was common among the Stoicks, and other sects of ancient philosophy, that human souls are portions of the Deity. A doctrine similar to this has been holden from time immemorial by the Brahmins of India, whose sacred books teach, that intellect is a portion of the great soul of the universe, breathed into all creatures, to animate them for a certain time; that after death: it animates other bodies, or returns like a drop into that unbounded ocean from which it first arose. A sober fact it is, at the present moment, that the greaterpart of the human race believe in the doctrine of transmigration, or the transition of souls from one body to another. While we grant that the heathen have had some vague notions of immortality, still was there not a necessity of a revelation to rectify their errours on this point, that the doctrine might become a powerful argument for piety and morality, a source of sublime hope and consolation? It may, however, be rememered, that Tully relates, that the preceptor of Pythagoras was the first man, known to the learned world, who taught the doctrine of immortality. Soccrates says, that most men believed that the soul was at death reduced to nothing.

The views of the heathen concerning their own moral characters were equally confused and wrong. Not having just ideas of the divine holiness, it was

not possible they should have adequate conceptions of human depravity. The malignity of wickedness results from its opposition to infinite goodness. The heathen are successful in the chase, victorious in war, or happy in their domestic circle. They look abroad; the blossoms of spring, the fruits of autumn, the genial sun, the sparkling stars, proclaim the goodness of the great Spirit. Remorse and self-reproach sting the conscience for their ingratitude and malevolence. But the scene changes; they are conquered; or famine and pestilence lay waste their villages; or the angry storm, the furious tornado, its peals of thunder and fatal lightning amaze and distract their souls. Where is now the goodness of the great Spirit? Will they not justify their evil deeds? How great would be the change in their views, should they hear that their first father revolted from God, that his children are born in his likeness, and are in a state of condemnation!

Of a Redeemer, in whom all the families of the earth shall be finally blessed, the heathen have never made any discovery. The word of God contains all our light and knowledge respecting a Mediator between God and man. This glory of the Gospel, this last hope of man, is entirely unknown to all the tribes of the world who have not read the word of God. Yet, as if pressed by the necessity of such a doctrine; as if impelled by an overwhelming sense of their imbecility, or directed by some perverted tradition of a Mediator, most pagan nations have substituted mediators between them and the eternal God. Heroes,

and sages, and ancestors, are addressed in their neces sities, as mediators.

The doctrine of an adequate atonement for sin, is discovered nowhere but in the pages of revelation. There alone we learn that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head;" there alone we learn, that for those who have not done "well," "a sin offering lieth at the door." In the fulness of time, this sacrifice was manifested to the world; because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. This was the language of every victim from the lamb of Abel to the Lamb of God on Mount Calvary. Jesus Christ was "made to be sin," i. e. a sin-offering for his people. "He gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God." "He made

propitiation for the sins of the world." So congenial is this with the convictions of mankind, or so splendid was its first revelation, that in all nations, even where the original tradition had been lost, or perhaps had never been heard, sacrifices have always been offered. The most ancient nations in every quarter of the world offered vicarious sacrifices. The Egyptians, having cut off the head of their victim, and loaded it with execrations, prayed that, if any evil were hanging over the land, it might fall on that head. They then sold it to the Greeks, or threw it into the Nile. Among the Hindoos, also, they offer a sacrifice, resembling that of the scape-goat of the Jews. The blood of sacrifices has been sprinkled from Canaan to Mexico, from China to Europe. They believed that the more precious was the offering, the more acceptable it was to the gods. Hence the universality of human

sacrifices; hence the altars of Moloch have been red with the blood of innocence in every quarter of the earth. That sincerity will meet the same reward as actual services, where the power is wanting; that the mite of the widow is as acceptable as the sacrifices of opulence,' saith M. Neckar, is an idea in the Gospel absolutely new. In no system of paganism has purity of morals constituted any part of the design. The heathen religions have been, merely, an exhibition of rites and ceremonies.* The celebration of these was the whole business of their priests; on these celebrations were supposed to rest the glory of the nation. A perfect rule of life has never been discovered, but in the word of God. Here alone we are taught, that love to God and benevolence to man comprises our whole duty. Of course the heathen have been ignorant of several important duties. A reasonable mode of worship they have never discovered. This most pure, most elevated service, which brings the heart into nearest communion with its God, is often with them a scene of profligacy and crimes. From no part of the world could the first writers of revelation borrow any examples or instructions to establish a rational or decorous mode of worship. In no other country was one God alone the object of worship; in no other country was one national altar erected; in no other country was one precise ritual established for the whole nation.

Whether prayer be a duty, whether it produce any advantage, whether it be not an intrusion on rights divine, has never been ascertained by the wisdom of

* Dr. Clark.