bited land, he sent them away from his presence, to resume the duties of life, and to replace themselves under the influence of their ordinary habits and motives. It was, indeed, expedient that he who came in the name of God, and was cloth. ed with the attributes of the Eternal, should thus prove his divine commission—that the blind should receive their sight, that the deaf should be made to hear, that the lame should be enabled to walk, and even that the dead should be raised to life, at his omnipotent word—but it was no less expedient that, as soon as he had fulfilled the work which his Father had given him to do, and which the arm of flesh could not achieve, he should permit the train of events to return to its wonted course, and leave to the agency of man all that human means could possibly accomplish.

It were not good for the son of Adam, as he is now constituted, that he should long eat bread without the sweat of his brow, or cease to rely upon the former and the latter rain which refresh the earth when it is weary, and to confide in the blessing of Him who hath made summer and winter, and who hath reserved unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Nor were it good for man, in his present state, that he could become learned without application, or wise in the

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things of nature, without reflection and protracted research; because, from these exertions arise not only the greatest improvement, but also the greatest happiness of which he is susceptible in this lower world. "The intellectual worth and dignity of man," says a modern writer," are "measured, not by the truth that he possesses, "or fancies that he possesses, but by the sincere "and honest pains which he takes to discover "truth. This it is which invigorates his mind, "and by exercising the mental springs, preserves "them in full activity. Possession makes us "indifferent, indolent, and proud. If the Deity "held in his right hand all truth, and in his left "the ever-active impulse only, the fond desire " and longing after truth, even coupled with the "condition of being liable to constant error, and "should offer me the choice, I should humbly "turn towards the left hand, and say, FATHER,

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GIVE ME THIS: pure truth is fit for thee alone; "the search of it better becomes me, in the pre"sent contracted range of my means and my "faculties."*

The very same principle applies to our faith and hopes; to the mental exercises with which they are connected, and to the spiritual improve

TREVIRANUS, Biologie, b. 1.

B

ment in which, through the grace of God, they are usually found to terminate. The numerous inquiries to which religion invites us; the weighing of evidence, and the balancing of probabilities; the earnest desire to learn, and the fear of falling into error; our natural confidence in reason checked by the authority of revelation; our research into the actions and motives of men, as mixed with the counsels of heaven in the first propagation of the Gospel,-these supply a species of training and discipline to the Christian mind, which could not have existed in the absence of those difficulties which must ever attach to the contemplation of divine things, as long as they shall be seen but as through a glass darkly. Were this fight of faith, this conflict of the spirit, to be superseded by the indubitable annunciations of an extraordinary providence; were the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth to afford such overwhelming evidence and such distinct views, in regard to the unseen world, as would enable man to know even as also he is known; were the heavens to be opened, and the angels of God seen descending to confirm the belief, or to enlighten the mind of the doubter,-it is manifest that the use of religion, as the means of enforcing our obedience, and of bending our wills to the authority of the Di

vine Lawgiver, would instantly cease. There would no longer be any room for that sincere. and patient inquiry, for that simple and humble frame of mind which is compared to the docility of a little child; and which is justly regarded as at once the best preparation and the richest recompense that adorns the path of the Christian, in the search of evangelical truth. In a word, the continuance of that supernatural economy which our Lord directed whilst among men, would not have been expedient, viewed in reference to the character and condition of the human being. And I shall now proceed to shew, in the

Second place, That such a dispensation as must have attended the personal ministry of Jesus Christ, after he rose from the dead, would not have produced upon the faith of mankind, in subsequent ages, the effects which, at first view, we might be inclined to expect from it.

We are extremely apt to fall into error on this important subject, and to imagine that the continuance of our Saviour's personal ministry upon earth would necessarily have led to results, in favour of his religion, which could not be produced by the labours of the most enlightened and zealous of his disciples. In our solitary musings, we are sometimes disposed to think,

that had our Lord, after his resurrection, presented himself to Pontius Pilate, who condemned him to be crucified, and before the council of the chief priests and elders, who had thirsted for his blood; shewing to them, as he did to St Thomas, his hands and his feet pierced with the nails, and his side wounded with the spear, it would have been impossible for them any longer to doubt his divine authority, or, at least, to call in question the fact of his having risen from the dead. Had he, after displaying these infallible signs of supernatural power, summoned the leading men of Jerusalem, both Jews and Gentiles, to the hill of Calvary, where he had recently given up the ghost; and, after recapitulating to them all that he had done and taught as the ambassador of Almighty God, and as the Messiah promised to the fathers of the Hebrew nation, renewed his solemn assurance that, as he had died to save the human race from the penalty of their transgressions, so he would, in due time, ascend into heaven, whence, at the end of the world, he would come again to judge all the tribes and kindreds of the earth.

Such evidence, we allow ourselves to imagine, it would have been impossible either to gainsay or to resist. If the same adversaries who had seen him extended on the cross, and laid in the