3. Then the neglect of religious education, requires this of our hands. The tendency of human nature is so strong to a secular and worldly and formal tone of religion, and the external peace which Christianity has in this country long enjoyed, favours so much the insidious evil, as almost to have extinguished amongst us that bright flame of holy faith and hope in our crucified Lord, which sustained the martyrs and confessors of the primitive church. In such a day, infidelity, the secret infidelity of the heart, always spreads; because Christianity being defended chiefly on the footing of external evidences, and the stronghold of religion, its inward grace and spirituality, being less generally understood, the rising generation are unprepared for a subtle adversary. Men hang loosely upon the Christian profession. Religious education is neglected. The precious deposit of the faith is handed down with little care. The Bible is not studied. The young are unfurnished with knowledge and unfortified with holy principles of judgment. In such a day it is essential to re-impress the minds of youth with the real importance of Christianity, its evidence, its internal excellency, its mighty benefits. In such a day it is necessary to pause in the ordinary course of pastoral instruction, and supply the omissions of education, and solemnly inculcate the paramount evidences of Christianity. In such a day it is more than ever necessary to rekindle the flame of Christian faith and hope, by awakening the consciences of men, and calling them up from a mere indifferent adhesion to the national creed, to a warm and practical perception of the blessed hope which Christianity inspires, and for the sake of which all the external evidences have been accumulated.

4. Then, in the present age, we have seen the moral desolations which a spurious philosophy has spread far and wide-we have heard the loud claims set up for the sovereignty of human reason-we have

been astonished to see a wild and enthusiastical scheme of pretended benevolence raised on the ruins of personal virtue and domestic and civil duties. The most daring and unblushing attacks have been made upon the foundations of all religion-attacks addressed to the common people, and sapping all the first principles of social order and domestic peace. The storm has spent itself. The irruption has become its own cure. It has convinced us of the necessity of that religion which ensures peace and good-will to man. But enough mischief remains. The minister of religion must erect again the standard of the Cross, and display aloft the torch of revelation to guide a bewildered world.

5. It is partly a result of this spurious philosophy, and partly the effect of other causes, that the Christian religion has been too frequently passed by and slighted in our literature, in our projects of education, in our schemes of benevolence, in our plans for diffusing useful knowledge, even where it is far from being expressly disavowed. It has come to be a received maxim with many, that the peculiarities of the Christian faith are, as if by common consent, to be kept out of sight. Our piety rises no higher than natural religion. All beyond is bigotry and superstition. A temporizing policy like this blights with a deadly indifference all the bloom of Christianity, robs it of its peculiar glory, and reduces it to the cold detail of external morals. The channels of public information are poisoned. A pernicious neutrality prevails. Education is divorced from religion. Knowledge is accounted sufficient to restrain the passions and purify the heart. The hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus, the fall of man, the redemption of the cross, the grace of the Holy Spirit, are forgotten, evaded, opposed, maligned. Unless, therefore, heavenly wisdom" utter her voice" loudly "in the streets," and plant the standard of Christianity, as the rallying

point of youth, "in the openings of the gates," and amidst the crowds of our population, we must expect the most daring invasions of human folly, and a still further weakening, in the next age, of the sacred bulwarks of our common faith.

6. As the unavoidable effect of all this, the minds of Christians generally, are in more danger than usual from the assault of sceptical doubts. The very excitement of the present day on subjects connected with religion, which has kept pace with the assaults of infidelity, leaves the uninformed believer more exposed to the revulsion which a state of decayed sensi bility brings on. When men of warm religious affections are thrown upon their principles, if those principles are unsupported by solid grounds of reason, and some acquaintance with the evidences of Christianity, they are apt to give way for a time, and leave the mind open to the temptations of Satan, the spiritual adversary. The rock, indeed, of the Christian faith remains firm and immoveable, and the sincere believer, though shaken for a moment by the swelling surge, will regain a firm footing; yet it is important to prepare him for the storm, and assist him in making fast his position, and resisting and baffling the waves. He must be duly instructed in the foundations of his faith, and have his mind thoroughly imbued with the collective force of the Christian evidences, in order to be prepared against temptation, and preserved from the danger of apostacy.

The thoughtful Christian, however, need not fear the result of the present agitation of the public mind and the activity of unbelievers. Their spirit and morals are indications of a bad cause. The gospel of Christ has stood unmoved for eighteen centuries, and has lost none of its outward evidences, nor of its internal grace and efficacy. We need only a holy boldness to avow the hope that is in us, and give a

reason of it with discretion and meekness, in order to see greater victories achieved than have ever yet been attained. The "arm of the Lord is not shortened." Let our coldness and timidity and worldly-mindedness be renounced, and let vital Christianity be diffused, and the Christian evidences will assume their native dignity and force.

For various advantages for a defence of our faith, are afforded by the circumstances of the times.

The diffusion of education prepares for us a better informed class of hearers, gives us minds more accustomed to reflection, and capable of entering upon the consideration of a great question.

The progress also made generally in the study of the law of evidence, of the nature and bearing of testimony, of the importance of weighing numerous coincident circumstances, and observing how far they converge to a single conclusion, the habit of comparing a series of independent witnesses, and the general acknowledgment of the force of historical testimony, are all in favour of the Christian argument.

Again, the admitted necessity of following, and not prescribing to, nature; of proceeding in every investigation by slow and cautious and adequate experiments, and not by hypothesis and conjecture; of avowing and acting upon man's ignorance, except as clear phenomena lead him on-the whole system, in short, of Lord Bacon's Inductive Philosophy-prepares the mind for a similar suspension of judgment, and a similar subjection to fact and experience, on the question of Christianity.

The revival of primitive piety and zeal which has been so widely diffused in our own country, and in different parts of Christendom, is a yet more prominent vantage-ground on which we may plant our artillery against sin and unbelief. The spirit of inquiry as to real religion, the multiplied translations of the scriptures in every tongue, the propagation and

large success of the gospel in foreign missions, the reproduction of the self same holy faith and joy and obedience in the converts from Paganism now, as in the first age of Christianity, contrasted with the desolations and miseries which the progress of infidelity has uniformly produced-are all so many points in favour of such an exposition of the evidences of our faith as may prepare, by the historical testimony, for the internal evidences of the religion of Christ.

Nor can we doubt that the blessing and grace of that Saviour, who is pleased to honour the humblest means used in his service, will be afforded to us in the course of our argument, if only we enter upon it and pursue it in a spirit of meekness and candour, and with a sincere desire to know, in order that we may do, the will of God.

For I shall take for granted in my argument the Being of a God, and those other truths of natural religion which the Deist is generally so ready to grant, and which he boasts of as all-sufficient for the guidance and happiness of mankind. I assume, therefore, throughout these lectures, the existence of one supreme and infinitely glorious Being, who is to be worshipped and obeyed by man; to whom virtue is pleasing and vice hateful; and who will reward the good and punish the wicked in a future world.

How the unbeliever came by this knowledge, what use he practically makes of it, and whether after all it be indeed sufficient for man in his present state, are other questions. I give our opponent all that he asks. I meet him upon his own ground; and what I undertake to prove is, that Christianity is a revelation from God, and is of supreme obligation upon every human being.

In conducting this great argument upon these admissions of natural religion, the first question to be ́asked is, What is THE TEMPER OF MIND IN WHICH SUCH A SUBJECT SHOULD BE STUDIED, and do

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