tages arising from those difficulties, demonstrating the work of God in their fulfilment, and rendering the collusion of man impossible and ineffectual. Sermons III. IV. "On the ultimate Object of Prophecy," which is shewn to be not the benefit of the Jews, nor of the persons addressed by the prophets, nor of succeeding ages: not to bear witness of Christ only, which is the object of miracles also, but to attest the truth of God. The advantages of this interpretation are, that it makes a proper distinction between the offices of miracles and of prophecies; that while it proves the divine foreknowledge, it assures the divine promises, and is common to all prophecies; at the same time in its operation and tendency it does bear witness to Christ, and thus an obvious objection is refuted. Sermon V. "On the Criterion of a false Miracle," or of miracles in general. The subject is important, and, with the exception of some unnecessary allusion to natural religion, an idol which receives too much homage in these Discourses, is argued in a very masterly manner, in refutation of a deistical position. "It is objected to us, by the adversaries of Christianity, especially by some philosophers of great note fately in a neighbouring kingdom, that in proving the divine authority of the Christian doctrines, we begin with founding it on the evidence of miracles, but that we afterwards turn back, and endeavour to prove the divine origin of the miracles by the intrinsic qualities, the excellence and sublimity of the doctrines, which the miracles were brought to support. This mode of arguing from the miracles to the doctrines, and from the doctrines to the miracles, leaves us, they say, just where it found us, and destitute of any distinct proof either of miracles or doctrines." In answer to this objection, more subtle than just, the Dean argnes: ".....When Christians argue from the doctrine to the miracle, they do not argue from the truth of the doctrine to the reality or truth of the miracle, but from the falsehood of the doctrine to the fiction or false hood of the miracle. For example, the text says, if a miracle teaches idolatry, it is a false miracle, and not to be regarded; but it does not say, if it teaches the worship of the one God, it is therefore true. So again, by parity of reason, we in these latter times say, that if any action claiming to be miraculous teaches us any impiety or immorality, it is not a real miracle, uor did it proceed from God; but we do not say on the converse, that if it docs teach us morality and piety, it is therefore a real miracle, and does proceed from God. So that the answer to the objection may be briefly stated thus: Miracles may, in many cases, be disproved by the doctrines, but it is no where asserted, that they ever can be proved by them. And the objection, therefore, which supposes that Christians prove the truth of the miracles from the truth of the doctrines, is not founded in fact." The propriety of this distinction is argued at considerable length, and it is applied both to real and to pretended miracles, and the Dean concludes: "I cannot dismiss this subject without taking notice of a difficulty which may be thought to attend the foregoing theory. It relates to the assertion that no internal doctrine can be brought in proof of a miracle. For it may be said, that there are certain doctrines conveyed by the help of miracles, which no human reason could ever have discovered; such are, that God on certain conditions will freely forgive sins, and that to the sincere penitent and faithful believer in Jesus Christ, he will grant life eternal. Nay, further, that there are some things revealed to us, which, so far from being discoverable by human reason, are incomprehensible to us after they are discovered. The answer is, that though the truth of these things be beyond the reach of human reason to discover, yet the things themselves are not beyond the reach of the human imagination to conceive. Their truth, therefore, must depend on the evidence of the miracles, which were wrought in their support; and the miracles must first be distinctly proved, before we can give an admission to the doctrines. "Some of the most engaging features in Christianity are the purity, the simpli city, the sublimity of its morality, and that consistency and conformity which it has to every deduction of natural reason, when it describes and heightens the justice and holiness, and goodness and mercy, and power of the Almighty. The use of these doctrines, as an evidence for Christianity, how satisfactory and sublime soever they may be, is not immediately and without miracles to prove the divine origin of the Gospel, but in the manner I before stated, to prevent any disproof being brought from the doctrines against the reality of the miracles by which those doctrines are supported. "And this is perfectly consistent with an argument of great weight, which has often been urged with irresistible force in behalf of Christianity; that its internal characters of wisdom and purity, and consistency and depth, coming from such feeble and illiterate instruments, as the first promulgators of the Gospel were, form a direct and distinct proof of the divinity of its origin. For in this case we do not argue from the doctrines alone, but from the doctrines taken in conjunction with something else, namely, in conjunction with the characters of the first publishers of Christianity. These two things taken together, form a new, and distinct, and independent miracle; and the argument drawn from it is reducible to the general rule of proving the miracles first, before we infer the divine authority of the doctrines." Sermons VI. VII. "On the Grounds of Belief in Christ," contain an historical view of the grounds on which men in different ages have been brought to believe in Christ. Zacharias and John the Baptist believed on the authority of an immediate revelation. The attention of the Apostles was at the first attracted by the testimony of the Baptist, and their faith was afterwards confirmed by a miracle and by Christ's assertion of his authority, corresponding with the writings of the prophets. After his resurrection they believed in the immediate revelation of the Holy Spirit also. The belief of others was grounded on miracles, either seen or reported, and proving a divine commission, and, after the ascen. sion of Christ, in the more full de velopement of prophecies. "After those times, when the power of working miracles was withdrawn, and eye witnesses no longer remained of the miracles which had been performed, the belief of Christians rested on the following grounds: they believed the miraculous facts, on the ground of the historical testimony of those who were eye witnesses and ministers of the word, and they be lieved the spiritual nature of the Gospel, the promises and the threatenings, which animate and restrain the Christian world, on the credit of historians thus authorized and qualified to declare the word of God. "This, which is the belief entertained by us at this day, is similar to what was believed during the time of our Saviour's ministry. Our belief of the miraculous facts recorded in the Gospel, corresponds with the belief of Christ's divine mission, founded on the miracles performed by himself; and our belief of the theory of Christianity corresponds to our Lord's declarations concerning himself as the promised Messiah, which were received as we receive the theory of Christianity, on the ground and on the supposition of its being the word of God. In addition to these two grounds, and to verify and confirm the declaration of God's word, we have historical evidence of prophecies fulfilled, and, what is still more important, have ocular demonstrations of prophecies, at this day fulfilling and fulfilled, in various parts of the world." alone the promise of immortality. The scriptural doctrine appears to be, that eternal life was made known from the beginning of the world, and is thus traditionally received by all mankind, and that the Gospel hath cleared up and thrown light upon this primitive doctrine, by unfolding a state of incorruption. The Deist discovers nothing by his reason he does but repeat the belief of his fathers, more or less illustrated by Christian truth: the Gospel hath made manifest what before was only not unknown. Sermon IX. "On the unequal Distribution of Happiness and Misery." The plausible and ingenious argument of this discourse will be but too powerfully resisted by the experience and operation of the real ills of human life. The good and pious purpose of the preacher is to vindicate the ways of God to man, whose impartial and undiscriminat ing favour he maintains, by referring to the variety of his gifs pro miscuously bestowed, and without the qualification of any common evils. It is thus that our attention is drawn to God; it is thus that virtue and vice, and more especially the latter, have their reward, and that the mercy of God is exhibited in all his dispensations, in exciting hope and perseverance by the delay of the recompence, and in averting by seasonable chastisements the final condemnation of the wicked. Sermon X. "On Affliction." The subject is considered by the light of reason, and by the light of revelation. By the former, prosperity and adversity are compared in themselves, in their consequences, supports, virtues, and opportunities; and by the latter the preacher exhibits the promises of Scripture made to those who are afflicted for their religion, and the effects of afflictive discipline in producing vir tue, which is always contemplated, and ultimately rewarded by God. No notice is taken of the great example of patient suffering, which is so affectingly applied in the exhortation in the Office of the Visitation of the Sick: an exhortation which no repetition, in public or in private, can deprive of its effect. Sermons XI. XII." On the Lord's Prayer." The characters of this prayer, unexhausted and inex. haustible, in matters of edifying discourse, are that it is concise, that it is comprehensive; and, "The next thing to observe in it is, if we may presume to use the expression, the judiciousness that prevails throughout the whole. In all our devotions we are natu rally liable to two errors, both of them, perhaps, arising from a good principle, but productive of great irregularities, these are enthusiasm and superstition.' Enthusiasm, to defiue it in few words, is an excess of hope; superstition an excess of fear: the one is sanguine, the other borders on despair. Both these extremes are guarded against in the Lord's Prayer. The enthusiast is checked in his presumption, when he is taught to pray for his daily bread, to implore the pardon of his sins, and that only on a condition, to which the enthusiast is not the most inclined, that of pardoning those that trespass against him. The superstitious man, on the other hand, is encouraged to conquer his unreasonable fears, by the authority of calling God by with anxious hope to some future perfecthe name of Father; by looking forward tion of God's government, when he prays, Thy kingdom come: by being taught to repose himself with confidence on the divine providence when he says, 'Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, and, lastly, by reflecting that God is the Supreme Being, and able to protect him, when he says, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen.' When we consider how naturally, from our respective tempers, our devotions deviate into excess of hope, or excess of fear, we cannot but admire the wisdom of fectually guards us against both extremes, that divine composition, which thus so efand enables us to pray not only with the spirit, but with the understanding also. "But the wisdom that prevails in the Lord's Prayer, may appear from another consideration. This prayer, like all other prayers, is an address from the creature to the Creator. By all the rules of intercourse, therefore, between one being and another,it should be suited to the characters of both. On the one hand is infinite good ness and almighty power, on the other infirmity, depravity, and sin. How ill should we conform to this rule, if, as too often we do, in our private devotions we were to dwell upon our own wants and necessities alone, and forget the character of the benefactor we are adoring. Not so in the Lord's Prayer, in which our attention is first turned where it ought to be, to God, and not to ourselves; with this exception only, that the single word Father points out at once the idea of ourselves, as well as of God, and encourages us to present our petitions to the throne of grace. It is not till after the three first clauses that we presume to speak any thing distinctly conOur cerning ourselves. We say first: Father, which art in heaven; hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.' In all these clauses our own necesssities are suppressed, and we dwell only on the honour which is due to God. As the introduction is thus suited to the character of the Supreme Being, the following clauses in which we are instructed to pray for ourselves are equally suited to our own character. Humility, contrition, and a sense of our dependence are the qualities which become us in the divine presence. Accordingly we are instructed to begin, not with any aspiring views, though God be able to grant us all things, but with the humblest of all possible petitions, Give us this day our daily bread.' And though a contrite spirit calls naturally aloud for pity, yet our presumption is checked in imploring even forgiveness, which, as if it were too great a favour in itself, we are no further emboldened to ask, than on condition of forgiving them that trespass against us. Lastly, to indicate that all our dependence is upon God, and that we can do nothing of ourselves to help ourselves, we intreat him to guard us against all dangers, ghostly and bodily, that he will 'not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' When we have thus stated our necessities, we do not immediately conclude, as if self were the only object of our devotions: in the end of the prayer our attention is again called off from ourselves to God, as if it were improper for us to retire from so solemn a duty, without offering up our thanksgiving and praise, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever."" This prayer also enables us to answer objections to prayer in general, of which the purport is not to inform God, but to appeal to his good ness, not less than to his justice and wisdom, and of which the natural tendency is to improve and mend the heart; so that if it were true, that God cannot be changed, men may nevertheless be turned by earnest supplication. "It will not be foreign to the present subject, before I conclude, to consider one objection more to which the Lord's Prayer will not suggest to us so immediate an answer. It is that God is unchangeable, that no prayers can therefore make any alteration in him, or induce him to grant favours, which he would not otherwise have done without them. In answer to this we may readily allow, that prayer in its very nature implies a change to be possible somewhere. But where does this change take place? Not in God, who is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever, but in ourselves only, who by the means of prayer and the emotions which accompany it, be come fit objects of his unchangeable good ness. The objectors in this case argue in the same manner as untutored minds do, when they consider the revolutions of the Isun and heavenly bodies. Though these persons themselves and their own earth only are daily in motion, they suppose the earth and themselves to be really at rest, and the sun and the whole universe to be in motion around them. And the truth of this doctrine is recognized in some of the most solemn prayers of our Church. Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. Be favourable O Lord, be favourable to thy people who turn to thee in weeping, fasting, and praying.'" In the twelfth Sermon the Lord's Prayer is contrasted with the objec tions which the ancient heathens entertained against prayer: 1. that man is ignorant of what is good, and unfit to pray; or, 2. he should limit the things for which he prays; or 3. should ask for good indefinitely. This Sermon, abounding in classical allusions, was admirably adapted to interest the congregation for which it was prepared, and is well worthy of the contemplation of the scholar, as well as of the divine and the Christian. Sermon XIII. "On the Assistance derived by Christianity from Human Learning," preached before the University of Cambridge: and shewing that neither experience, nor learning nor revelation alone has produced more than a transient effect, so that it is not by any one of these causes taken separately but by the joint operation chiefly of learning and Christianity, that the progress of mankind towards the perfection for which they were desined has at length been began and must be carried on." Of the two great branches of human learning, classical literature has contributed the knowledge of Scripture language, skill and impartiality in criticising and explaining it; it has qualified the learned "to explode error most effectually, and to elucidate the truth of our religion to the greatest advantage;" and has been instrumental "in forming that character which is the opposite of what is commonly called a contractedness of thinking in the conduct of life, and bigotry in religion:" the other branch of learning, natural philosophy, has made God known by his works, and has invigorated the mind, and produced that abstraction of thought, which is necessary to comprehend the recondite reasoning of the Scriptures, and especially of the Epistles of St. Paul. Sermon XIV. "Christianity favourable to the Progress of Learn. ing." This Sermon is the counterpart of the former, and both are highly interesting and important. It is shewn in opposition to modern free thinkers, that learning has derived advantages from Christianity, and various matters of fact are alleged to prove that Christianity is a learned religion, and that it has enlarged the boundaries of the human understanding. Sermons XV. XVI. XVII. "Chris tian Morality compared with that of the Heathens and the Jews." In the first of these discourses it is shewn, that in respect of our duty to God, whether entertained in the thoughts of the heart, or expressed in acts of sacrifice, divination, and hymns, Christianity surpasses hea thenism, and in respect of sacrifice, Judaism also. In the second and third discourses the surpassing merit of Christianity above heathenism in respect of the duty which we owe to our neighbour and ourselves, is collected not from matters of fact, but from grounds and principles of conduct, namely, civil laws, the moral sense and natural understanding. The civil law is elegantly and succinctly shewn to be a very imperfect school of morality, failing both in its extent and in its principle: the defects of the moral sense are pointed out at greater length, and the principles which the natural understanding involves are shewn to be too complicated to be of general utility. The three discourses shew the man of learning and the man of reflection, but their interest would not have been abated if the comparison of Christianity with Judaism had not been restricted to the first discourse. The Christian far surpasses the Jewish religion in many points besides sacrifice. pre Sermon XVIII. "On the slow Improvement of the World." Men of former ages were prone to complain, that the age in which they lived was more corrupt than the ceding; it is now suddenly pretended that the present surpasses all former times. The old opinion is more natural, more reasonable, more modest, and more useful; it is also more agreeable to fact. The world has always been slow in improvement; it was also slow in renouncing idolatry and sacrifice, and adequate reasons may be assigned, for the three only instances of more rapid improvement which can be alleged, viz. at the return of the Jews after the Babylonish captivity: the age of our Lord and his Apostles, and the revival of literature, and the reformation of religion. The whole discourse deserves to be maturely weighed and considered: and the conclusion is very important to the enthusiast and the radical reformer. |