and had taught it to his neighbours; the next age exalts him into a god, and pays him divine honors. A beneficient and useful animal, by an eafy transition, is deified in its turn, and the idolatry imperceptibly defcends till is affumes a nutritious or a medicinal plant for its object. For the fame reason, the fears of mankind being ever fully as powerful as their hopes or their gratitude, noxious, dangerous and deftructive plants, animals, and men have obtained religious homage and veneration; and malignant deities have difputed the prize with the benefactors of the human

race.

We refort not to the savage uncivilized tribes for an illuftration of these remarks, but refer you to the hiftory of the moft enlightened nations of the heathen world, Phenicia, ancient Egypt, and Greece, and Rome; whofe agricultorial, commercial, fcientific, political, progrefs and improvement, astonish and delight the world to this day, while their theology and religious ceremonies, only provoke derifion, kindle indignation, or excite abhorrence. That the picture of civilized paganism, painted by the hand of the apoftle Paul, in the firft chapter of his Epiftle to the Romans, in ftrong colours indeed, is not however overcharged, we have the authority of their own writers, who unblushingly relate and describe

what was unblufhingly tranfacted. Their religion, lo far from being the religion of nature, was, almost in every particular, a violation of nature, and a reproach to the human understanding.The question is not, Was the human mind capable of producing a more rational theology, and of prefcribing a more reasonable fervice? but, Did it? and When, or Where? Was not the experiment awfully made? Had not the powers of the human mind full leifure and opportunity afforded them, to produce their nobleft efforts? Have they fucceeded, or have they not? Infidelity, with all its boldness, is not prepred to answer in the affirmative.

Now the Chriftian, without apprehending the imputation of arrogance, prefumes to believe, and thinks he is able to prove, that Jefus of Nazareth has rendered this important fervice to mankind; that he has delivered the only true religion of nature; has alone unfolded the real character of Deity, has taught a worship worthy of man to prefent, and of God to accept; has enforced a law, the counterpart and obligations of which every one recognizes in his own bofom; has prefented an oblation acceptable to God, and falutary to the guilty creature; in a word, has bleffed the world with the very thing which it always did, and ever will need, a theology which the

understanding approves, to which the heart cleaves, and in which the troubled confcience finds certain repofe. God grant that, in speaking on fuch a fubject, we may not be permitted to "darken counfel by words without know, ledge."

PERMIT me to repeat the propofition already announced, as the firft link in the chain of internal evidence which we mean to produce, of the truth and divine original of the Chriftian religion: It is entirely conformable to all the ideas of Deity we are enabled to form by the exercife of our own reafon, on a serious contemplation of the great universe; in other words, it is the true and only religion of nature. "No man hath "feen God at any time: the only begotten Son "which is in the bofom of the Father, he hath "declared him."

I SHALL Confine myself ftrictly to fuch views of God as are prefented to us by Jesus Christ him, felf, in the course of his perfonal miniftry. Our proofs will accordingly be entirely derived from the gospel hiftory, and conveyed in the very words of the Saviour of mankind.

1. THEN, the the great leading idea of nature, which reprefents God under the endearing character of a Father, is alfo the great pervading idea of the Chriftian religion. Nations favage

"

and civilized all agree in this. It is at once an inftinctive feeling of the human heart, and a conclufion of the intellect, derived from obfervation and experience. The fimpleft notion of paternity is that of a being who conferred existence upon us, and confequently was before us. After tracing up our original a flep or two, we find ourfelves brought close to the common Parent of the human race, whofe "offspring we all are," and in whom we live and move and have our be"ing." This relation combines all that is venerable in age, all that is refpectable in authority, all that is dignified in wisdom, all that is amiable and attractive in beneficence, all that is irresistible and triumphant in compaffion and tender mercy. Hence the aged, in general, are faluted by the honorable appellation of Father; hence it is beftowed upon princes, and conftitutes their noble defignation; hence the confolation which foothed the heart of Job under the preffure of calamity, "I was a Father to the poor;" hence the paternal delight which glows in the bofom of a benefactor towards the object of his good will, and the filial affection which overflows at the eyes of grateful fenfibility. Chriftianity, whose object is to purify, to improve and to exalt all our feelings, all our faculties, accordingly difplays, expands this relation, through all its variety of in,

fluence and interest.

Is Deity represented to us as a pattern for imitation? The great Teacher exhibits him not in the exercise of fovereignty, performing acts of power, or executing judgment; but in his character of Father, in which alone he is inimitable, multiplying without end acts of kindness, showering down bleffings even on the evil and the unthankful, and extending one act of grace after another, to the worst of criminals; not overcome of evil, but overcoming evil with good. "If ye love them which "love you, what reward have ye? and if ye sa"lute your brethren only, what do you more "than others? But I fay unto you, love your enemies, blefs them that curfe you, do good to "them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and perfecute you; that ye

may be the children of your FATHER which is " in heaven; for he maketh his fun to rife on the " evil and on the good, and fendeth rain on the 'juft and on the unjuft."

WHAT marks of a divine original are here? And here the fond expectations of nature, the fruit of experience, and the discoveries of revelation are one. If God were to vouchfafe to inAruct men at all in religion, must it not be just fuch a religion as this, which prefents views of himself fo confonant to all that merits the name