their laws, and to enforce the practice of virtue for the benefit of mankind in the present life. This alone seems to have been their end, and a meritorious end it was; but Christianity not only operates more effectually to this end, but has a nobler design in view, which is by a proper education here to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter.

In all former religions, the good of the present life was the first object; in the Christian, it is but the second; in those, men were incited to promote that good by the hopes of a future reward; in this, the practice of virtue is enjoined in order to qualify them for that reward. There is great difference, I apprehend, in these two plans that is, in adhering to virtue from its present utility in expectation of future happiness, and living in such a manner as to qualify us for the acceptance and enjoyment of that happiness; and the conduct and dispositions of those who act on these different principles must be no less different. On the first, the constant practice of justice, temperance, and sobriety, will be sufficient; but on the latter, we must add to these an habitual piety, faith, resignation, and contempt of the world. The first may make us very good citizens, but will never produce a tolerable Christian. Hence it is that Christianity insists more strongly than any preceding institution, religious or moral, on purity of heart, and a benevolent disposition, because these are absolutely necessary to its great end; but in those whose recommendations of virtue regard the present life only, and whose promised rewards in another were low and sensual, no preparatory qualifications were requisite to enable men to practice the one, or to enjoy the other; and therefore, we see this

object is peculiar to this religion; and with it, was entirely new.

But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded, were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet when discovered, they are so consonant to it that we cannot but readily assent to them. For the truth of this princible, that the present life is a state of probation and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by every thing which we see around as it is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs, the only clue which can guide us through that pathless wilderness, and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be comprehended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness, because it is every where overspread with innumerable miseries; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments. It could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system, all that we here meet with may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, necessarily results from a state of probation and education; as probation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences.

In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object; and contain ideas of God, and of man, of the present, and of a future life

and of the relations which all these bear to each other, totally unheard of, and quite dissimilar from any which had ever been thought on previous to its publication. No other ever drew so just a portrait of the worthlessness of this world, and all its pursuits, nor exhibited such distinct, lively, and exquisite pictures of the joys of another; of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." 1 Cor. 15: 53. No other has ever represented the Supreme Being in the character of three persons united in one God. No other has attempted to reconcile those seeming contradictory, but both true propositions, the contingency of future events, and the foreknowledge of God, or the freewill of the creature with the overruling grace of the Creator. No other has so fully declared the necessity of wickedness and punishment, yet so effectually instructed individuals to resist the one, and to escape the other; no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it; no other has ventured to declare the unpardonable nature of sin without the influence of a mediatorial interposition, and a vicarious atonement from the sufferings of a Superior Being.* Whether these wonderful doc

*That Christ suffered and died, as an atonement for the sins of mankind, is a doctrine so constantly and so stongly enforced through every part of the New Testament, that whoever will seriously peruse those writings, and deny that it is there, may, with as much reason and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides and Livy, assert, that in them no mention is made of any facts relative to the histories of Greece and Rome.

trines are worthy of our belief, must depend on the opinion which we entertain of the authority of those who published them to the world; but certain it is, that they are all so far removed from every track of the human imagination, that it seems equally impossible that they should ever have been derived from the knowledge, or the artifice of man.

Some indeed there are, who, by perverting the established signification of words, (which they call explaining,) have ventured to expunge all these doctrines out of the Scriptures, for no other reason than that they are not able to comprehend them; and argue thus: The Scriptures are the word of God; in his word no propositions contradictory to reason can have a place; these propositions are contradictory to reasion, and therefore they are not there. But if these bold asserters would claim any regard, they should reverse their argument and say: These doctrines make a part, and a material part of the Scriptures; they are contradictory to reason; no propositions contrary to reason can be a part of the word of God; and therefore, neither the Scriptures, nor the pretended revelation contained in them, can be derived from him. This would be an argument worthy of rational and candid deists, and demand a respectful attention; but when men pretend to disprove facts by reasoning, they have no right to expect an answer.

And here I cannot omit observing, that the personal character of the author of this religion is no less new and extraordinary than the religion itself: "who spake as never man spake," (John 7: 49,) and lived as never man lived. In proof of this, I do not mean to allege that he was born of a virgin, that he fasted

forty days, that he performed a variety of miracles, and that after being buried three days, he rose from the dead; because these accounts will have but little effect on the minds of unbelievers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit to the relation of these facts; but I will prove it from facts which cannot be disputed. For instance, he is the cnly founder of a religion, in the history of mankind, which is totally unconnected with all human policy and government, and therefore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever. All others, Mahomet, Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by them obtained dominion over their respective people; but Christ neither aimed at, nor would accept of any such power: he rejected every object which all other men pursue, and made choice of all those which others fly from, and are afraid of: he refused power, riches, honors, and pleasures, and courted poverty, ignominy, tortures, and death. Many have been the enthusiasts and imposters who have endeavored to impose on the world pretended revelation; and some of them, from pride, obstinacy, or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their lives rather than retract; but I defy history to show one who ever made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his original plan, and essential to his mission. This Christ actually did; he foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate the Divine lessons, the perfect precepts, the beautiful discourses, and the consistent conduct of this wonderful person, we cannot possibly imagine that he could have been either an idiot or a madmar.;