the holders of differing creeds; not only the moral precepts, but those fundamental principles of religion, those mysteries of godliness which were alone able to make him wise; and that not merely theoretically, but practically wise, wise unto salvation *. It is the glory also of our reformed Church, that those holy men, to whose wisdom and liberality, to whose labours and courage we owe the opening of the volume of inspiration to the unlearned, while they were contending against the defenders of Popish errors, with a zeal, a manliness, and a varied erudition, which will ever entitle their names to our respect and reverence, condescended from the higher exercise of their faculties to compose Catechisms for infant minds. And surely, surely in no limited sense did the founder himself of Christianity command his disciples, with a mild reproof of their unwillingness in this respect, to suffer little children, and to forbid them not, to come unto him. Should there be any one present who, blinded by the specious liberality of modern philosophy, has ever in sincerity doubted the expedience of the

* 2 Tim. iii. 15.

+ Matt. xix. 14.

initiation of infants into the Church of Christ, and of their early instruction in the principles of the Gospel, (although at first they must promise by sureties, and for a few years receive divine truths on authority,) I would intreat him to meditate on the impressive and affecting solemnity which he has just witnessed in this holy house. Had the fundamental truths of our religion been withholden from these our young Christian brethren, until they might have reached the undefined and indefinable period of maturity of judgment; instead of thronging, as we have seen them, the courts of the Lord's house to ratify and confirm their baptismal vows, few probably would ever have entered these sacred walls! for few would have been aware of the high privilege of membership with Christ in his Church. They would have been left unarmed for the conflict with the world, unwarned even of their danger from its pomps, its vanity, and its sinful lusts.

It is difficult to conceive, that a due sense of moral obligation could at any time be entertained by persons, unenlightened by the truths of religion and history attests that virtue has ever been influenced in its extent and purity,

by the extent and purity of religious knowledge, The ethics of Heathen philosophy derived, indeed, all that was valuable in them from the unacknowledged, perhaps unsuspected, source of the Jewish Scriptures. Yet was this light, pure in its origin, so dimmed and discoloured by the medium through which it passed, the pride of philosophy and the prejudices of the passions, that it was found insufficient for the regulation of human conduct. In one of the proudest eras of civilization and refinement, illuminated as the world had lately been by Socrates, by Plato, by Xenophon, by Cicero ; how humiliating a record of the moral condition of mankind, is contained in the Epistle of St. Paul to the inhabitants of imperial Rome. The Gentiles, indeed, held the truth, as exhibited in what is not very correctly denominated the law of nature, but they held it in unrighteousness. By the general light which was in the world, and by contemplating the order and beauty of creation, they knew God, yet through ignorance of his nature and attributes, they glorified him not as God. They became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. They changed the

truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Well, therefore, might the wisest of Heathen philosophers aspire after a clearer revelation from heaven. And, praised be God! that clearer revelation has been in mercy vouchsafed to the world. The long-expected, and ardently anticipated day-spring from on high, hath visited us. So general has been the diffusion of its light, that religion, now mixing insensibly with every code of law, with every system of morality, purifies, strengthens, and hallows all their enactments. A morality unknown to the ablest, and the best of Heathen philosophers, has been brought to us from heaven. The Son of God himself has taken our nature upon him, to preach and to exemplify it, before he submitted to the pre-ordained sacrifice of himself for the redemption of mankind. Many prophets and righteous men truly had desired to see those things which we have seen, and had not seen them; and to hear the things which we have heard, and had not heard them* And is it, then, for us, so highly favoured

Matt. xiii. 17.

above the prophets and righteous men of old, to disregard all that Christ hath taught; and, in contempt of all that he hath enjoined, to abandon any the least of those for whom he has prepared the spiritual riches of the Gospel, to the weak and beggarly elements of Heathen philosophy? Shall we leave them to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns which can hold no water, when we have in his word a perpetual fountain of living waters *? Forbid it, Reason! forbid it, Justice! forbid it, Christian Charity!

Great, indeed, will be the condemnation of those who, now that the glorious light is come into the world, shut their eyes against it; and because of the evil of their deeds, love the darkness of Heathenism, rather than the light of Christianity. But still greater our condemnation, if, rejoicing ourselves in its beam, we neglect to impart it to others. Not to impart it when in our power, is, in effect, to intercept the light of heaven. Not to enforce Christian doctrine, as the basis, the measure, and the test of all moral virtue; is to proscribe Christianity,

* Jer. ii. 13.