those writings which tend to unfold the mysteries of nature, but resolve never to turn over those authors who vainly attempt to establish the truth of the gospel. This subject, though it has occupied the thoughts and engaged the pens of inquiring students for these seventeen hundred years, I shall ever regard as unworthy my attention. I leave it to the vulgar, who are easily persuaded of its importance. My virtues are sufficient to expiate my crimes, and on these I will resolutely depend, as my sole mediators before God." If this is implicitly the language of every man who obstinately rejects the doctrines of the gospel, what heights of presumption, and what depths of depravity, must lie open, in the souls of such, to the eye of Omniscience! Reason and revelation agree to condemn them. Behold the ground of their sentence: "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble."

Reason itself is sufficient to discover, that before the Supreme Being nothing can appear more detestable than the pride of a degenerate and ungrateful creature. And if so, the deists of Socrates' time must have been far less culpable than those of the present day. The former, conscious of the uncertainty with which they were encompassed, made use of every help they could procure, in the pursuit of truth, with unwearied assiduity. The latter, presuming upon their own sufficiency, decide against doctrines of the utmost importance without impartially considering the evidences produced in their favour. The former, by carefully examining every system of morality proposed to their deliberation, discovered a candour and liberality becoming those who were anxiously "feeling after God, if haply they might find him." The latter, by condemning revelation, without calmly attending to the arguments of its advocates, manifest a degree of prejudice, that would be unpardonable in a judge, but which becomes execrable in a criminal, who is pressed by the strongest reasons to search out the truth.

Plato, in the sixth book of his Republic, introduces his Master marking out the dispositions necessary to a virtuous man. "Let us begin," says Socrates, "by recounting what qualities are necessary to him who would one day become an honest man and a true philosopher. The

first quality is the love of truth, which he ought to seek after in every thing and by every means; true philosophy being absolutely incompatible with the spirit of delusion. He who has a sincere desire to obtain wisdom, cannot confine himself to things that are here below, of which he can acquire but an uncertain knowledge. He is born for truth, and he tends to it with an ardour which nothing is able to restrain." Ye who oppose philosophy to revelation, and reject, without thoroughly investigating, the doctrines of the gospel, can you be said to discover an attachment to truth as sincere as that of Socrates? Do ye not rather esteem that an excessive fondness for truth, or even a dangerous species of enthusiasm, which the wisest Heathens have looked upon as the first disposition requisite to an honest man?

Plato and his master, who scrupulously acknowledged the truth wherever they discovered it, were assuredly in a state of acceptance before God, without an explicit acquaintance with Jesus Christ; for where the Almighty hath not strowed, there will he never expect to gather; and where he hath scattered only the first truths of the gospel, there he never will require that precious fruit, which he expects to be produced by the highest truths of revelation. Thus the husbandman is content to reap nothing but barley in a field, where nothing but barley has been sown. But if, after sowing the same field with the purest wheat, it should produce only tares, with a few scattered ears of barley, he would, undoubtedly, express a degree of surprise and displeasure at having his reasonable expectations so strangely disappointed.

In the New Testament we find a remarkable parable to this purpose, where mankind are considered as the domestics of God's immense household. In this parable the Almighty is represented as collecting his servants together, and confiding to the care of each a separate loan, to be employed for the mutual interest of the covenanting parties. To one of his domestics he imparts five talents; to another two; while a third has no more than a single talent committed to his charge: but all are required so to occupy, that their gains may be proportionate to the several sums entrusted to their fidelity. Now, if the Christian, with five talents of spiritual knowledge, acquires no advantage over the Jew, who has received but two, is it not evident

that he has acted the part of an unfaithful servant? Nay, he is to be esteemed even more unprofitable than the Heathen, who suffers his single talent to lie unimproved; since, amidst all his trifling gains, he has slothfully concealed three valuable talents, while the other has buried but one. But were the first and the last to derive equal advantages from the disproportionate privileges permitted them to enjoy, while the latter would be received as a good and faithful servant, the former might deservedly be treated with an unusual degree of severity by his insulted Lord. This parable may assist us to conceive, that a philosopher, who is called by baptism to evangelical perfection, and yet contents himself with practising the morality of a Heathen, has not in reality so much solid virtue as a sincere deist bred up in the bosom of paganism.

Our progress in morality, like our advancement in science, is to be estimated by considering the circumstances in which we are placed, and the privileges we enjoy. A dramatic piece composed by a child or a negro, might be received with plaudits, which would be justly hissed off the stage had it been produced by a Shakspeare or a Corneille. A traveller, who expresses his admiration at the address with which savages manage a hatchet of stone, would express equal astonishment at the weakness of his countrymen, should he see them casting aside their axes of iron, and felling their trees with ill-formed imple- ́ ments of flint. Thus, after admiring the successful efforts of Socrates, who drew many sacred truths from the chaos of paganism, how astonishing is it to behold modern philosophers patching up a confused system of deistical morality, to be substituted in the place of the sublimer doctrines and the purer morality of the gospel. Wherever such retrograde reasoners are discovered, their insignifi cant labours must be universally deplorable by the lovers of truth. But when these champions of false wisdom endeavour to bury, under the ruins of Christianity, those important truths, which Heathens themselves have formerly discovered, it is impossible to behold their impious efforts without feeling all the warmth of an honest indignation.

We shall conclude this essay by transcribing a part of that ancient testimony which was borne by Lactantius, to the power of those doctrines for which we contend.

"That which many have discovered, by the assistance of natural religion, to be their indispensible duty, but which they have never been able either to practise themselves, or to see exemplified in the conduct of philosophers; all this the sacred doctrines of the gospel assist us to perform, because that gospel is wisdom in its highest excellence. How shall philosophers persuade others, while they themselves continue in a state of perplexity? Or how shall they repress the passions of others, while, by giving way to their own, they tacitly confess that na ture, in spite of all their efforts, is still triumphant. But daily experience testifies, how great an influence the ordinances of God have upon the heart. Give me a passionate, slanderous, implacable man; and through the power of our gospel, I will return him to you gentle as a lamb. Give me an avaricious man, whose greediness of gain will suffer him to part with nothing; and I will return him to you so liberal, that he will give away his money by handfuls. Bring me a man who trembles at the approach of pain and death; ere long he shall look with contempt upon crosses, fires, and even the bull of Phalaris itself. Present me with a debauchee, an adulterer, a man wholly lost to good manners; you shall shortly behold him an example of sobriety, uprightness, and continence. Give me a cruel and blood-thirsty man; his ferocious disposition shall suddenly be succeeded by real clemency. Give me an unjust man, a stupid person, an extravagant sinner; you shall shortly behold him scrupulously just, truly wise, and leading a life of innocence. Such is the power of heavenly wisdom, that it is no sooner shed abroad in the heart, but, by a single effort, it chases away folly, the mother of sin. To compose these invaluable ends, a man is under no necessity of paying salaries to masters of philosophy, and passing whole nights in meditating upon their works. Every necessary assistance is imparted without delay, with ease, and free from cost; if there be not wanting an attentive ear, and a heart desirous of wisdom. The sacred source to which we point, is plenteous, overflowing, and open to all men: the celestial light we announce, indiscriminately arises upon all who open their eyes to behold it.

What philosopher has ever done so much? Who among them is able to perform such wonders? After having pass

ed their lives in the study of philosophy, it appears that they have neither bettered themselves nor others, when nature causes them any great resistance. Their wisdom serves rather to cover than to eradicate their vices. Whereas our divine instructions, i. e. the doctrines of the gospel, so totally change a man, that you would no longer know him for the same person." Lact. Lib. iii,

cap. 26.

FINIS.