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reader by any reflections of their own. They always feel the holy ground on which they stand. They preserve the gravity of history and the severity of truth, without enlarging the outline or swelling the expression.' "(7)

Another source of INTERNAL EVIDENCE, arising from incidental coincidences, which, from "their latency and minuteness," must be supposed to have their foundation in truth, is opened and ably illustrated by Dr. Paley, in his "Hora Paulina," a work which will well repay the perusal.

Much of the COLLATERAL EVIDENCE of the truth of the Scriptures generally, and of Christianity in particular, has been anticipated in the course of this discussion, and need not again be resumed. The agreement of the final revelation of the will of God by the ministry of Christ and his Apostles with former authenticated revelations, has been pointed out; so that the whole constitutes one body of harmonious doctrines, gradually introduced, and at length fully unfolded and confirmed. The suitableness of the Christian revelation to the state of the world at the time of its communication, follows from the view we have given of the necessity, not only of a revelation generally, but of such a revelation as the mercy of God has vouchsafed to the world through his Son. It has also been shown, that its historical facts accord with the credible histories and traditions of the same times; that monuments remain to attest its truth, in the institutions of the Christian church; and that adversaries have made concessions in its favour.(8) Our farther remarks on this subject, though many other interesting particulars might be embraced, must be confined to two particulars, but each of a very convincing character. The first is, the marvellous diffusion of Christianity in the first three centuries; the second is, the actual beneficial effect produced, and which is still producing, by Christianity upon mankind.

With respect to the first, the fact to be accounted for is, that the first preachers of the Gospel, though unsupported by human power, and uncommended by philosophic wisdom, and even in opposition to both, succeeded in effecting a revolution in the opinions and manners of a great portion of the civilized world, to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind.(9) Though aspersed by the slander of the malicious, and exposed to the sword of the powerful, in a short period of time they induced multitudes of various nations, who were equally distinguished by the peculiarity of their manners, and the diversity of their language, to forsake the religion of their ancestors. The converts whom they made deserted ceremonies and institutions, which were defended by vigorous authority, sanctified by remote age, and associated with the most alluring gratification of the passions."(1)

who confessed themselves to be of that sect; afterward a vast multitude were discovered and cruelly punished." Pliny, the governor of Pontus and Bithynia near 80 years after the death of Christ, in his well-known letter to Trajan, observes-"The contagion of this superstition has not only invaded cities, but the smaller towns also, and the whole country." He speaks too of the idol temples having been "almost forsaken." To the same effect the Christian Fathers speak. About A. D. 140, Justin Martyr writes-"There is not a nation, Greek or Barbarian, or of any other name, even of those who wander in tribes, and live in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified Jesus." In A. D. 190, Tertullian, in his Apology, appeals to the Roman governors--"We were but of yesterday, and we have filled your cities and towns; the camp, the senate, and the forum." In A. D. 220, Origen says-"By the good providence of God, the Christian religion has so flourished and increased, that it is now preached freely, and without molestation." These representations, Gibbon contends, are exaggera tions on both sides, produced by the fears of Pliny, and the zeal of the Christian Fathers. But even granting some degree of exaggeration arising not designedly from warm feelings, an unquestionable occurrence proves the futility of the exceptions taken to these statements by the elegant but infidel historian. The great fact is, that in the year A. D. 300, Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire, and paganism was abolished: and it follows from this event, that the religion which thus became triumphant after unparalleled trials and sufferings must have established itself, previously to its receiving the sanction of the State, in the belief of a great majority of the one hundred and twenty millions of people supposed to be contained in the empire, or no emperor would have been insane enough to make the attempt to change the religion of so vast a state, nor, had he made it, could he have succeeded.

The success of Christianity in the three centuries preceding Constantine, has justly been considered as in no unimportant sense miraculous, and as such, an illustrious proof of its Divinity. "The obstacles which opposed the first reception of Christianity were so numerous and formidable, and the human instruments employed for its diffusion so apparently weak and insufficient, that a comparison between them will not only show that the passions and opposition of man, far from impeding the Divine designs, may ultimately become the means of their perfect accomplishment, but will fully demonstrate the Divine origin of Christianity by displaying the powerful assistance which the Al mighty supplied for its establishment."(2) The astonishing success of Christianity under such circumAfter their death the same doctrines were taught, stances, and at so early a period, affords a strong conand the same effects followed, though successive and firmation to the truth of miracles, because it implies grievous persecutions were waged against all who pro- them, as no other means can be conceived by which an fessed their faith in Christ, by successive emperors attention so general should have been excited to a reliand inferior magistrates. Tacitus, about A. D. 62,gion which was not only without the sanction of auspeaking of Christianity, says,-"This pernicious thority and rank, but opposed by both; the scene of superstition, though checked for a while, broke out whose facts lay in a province the people of which were again, and spread not only over Judea, but reached the despised; and whose doctrines held out nothing but city of Rome also. At first they only were apprehended spiritual attainments. By the effect of miracles during the lives of the first preachers, public curiosity was excited, and they obtained an audience which they could not otherwise have commanded. This power of working miracles was transmitted to their successors, and continued until the purposes of infinite wisdom were accomplished. They decreased in number in the second century, and left but a few traces at the close of the third.(3) The increase of Christians implied even more than miracles; such was the holy character of the majority, during the continuance of the reproach and per

(7) Mrs. MORE's Character of St. Paul. The collateral testimony to certain facts mentioned in Scripture, from coins, medals, and ancient marbles, may be seen well applied in HORNE's Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, vol. i. p. 238.

(9) The success of Mahomet, though sometimes pushed forward as a parallel, is, in fact, both as to the means employed and the effect produced, a perfect contrast. The means were conquest and compulsion; the effect was to legalize and sanctify, so to speak, the natural passions of men for plunder and sensual gratification; and it surely argues either a very frail judgment, or a criminal disposition to object, that a contrast so marked should ever have been exhibited as a correspondence. Men were persuaded, when they were not forced, to join the ranks of the Arabian impostor by the hope of plunder, and a present and future life of brutal gratification. Men were persuaded to join the Apostles by the evidence of truth, and by the hope of future spiritual blessings, but with the certainty of present disgrace and suffering.

(1) KETT's Sermons at the Bampton Lecture.

(2) KETT'S Sermons.

(3) Attempts have been made to deny the existence of miraculous powers in the ages immediately succeeding that of the Apostles, but it stands on the unanimous and successive testimony of the Fathers.. Gibbon, on this subject, has borrowed his objections from "The Free Inquiry" of Dr. Middleton, whose belief in Christianity is very suspicious. This book received many able answers; but none more so than one by the Rev. John Wesley. It is a triumph to truth to state, that Dr. Middleton felt himself obliged to give up his ground by shifting the question.

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men; laying them under rules to which they are averse; threatening them with a result which they dread; holding out to them no pleasures but such as they distaste, and no advantages but those which they would gladly exchange for a perpetual life of sinful in dulgence on earth; will be regarded by many of the most reflecting among them as a system of restraint; and must therefore often excite either direct hostility, or a disposition to encourage and admit suggestions tending to weaken its authority. It may be added, The actual effect produced by this new religion upon that, as the Scriptures cannot be known without caresociety, and which it is still producing, is another point ful examination, which implies a serious habit not to in the collateral evidence: for Christianity has not be found in the majority, objections have been often only an adaptation for improving the condition of so- raised by ingenious men in great ignorance of the vociety; its excellence is not only to be argued from its lume itself against which they are directed; and being effects stated on hypothetical circumstances: but it has sometimes urged on the ground of some popular view actually won its moral victories, and in all ages has of a fact or doctrine, they have been received as careexhibited its trophies. In every pagan country where lessly as they were uttered. Philosophers too have it has prevailed, it has abolished idolatry with its san- sometimes constructed hasty theories on various subguinary and polluted rites. It also effected this mighty jects, which have contradicted or been thought to conrevolution, that the sanctions of religion should no tradict some parts of the Scriptures; and the array of longer be in favour of the worst passions and practices, science, and the fascination of novelty, have equally but be directed against them. It has raised the stand- deceived and misled the theorist himself and his disard of morality, and by that means, even where its ciples. Since the revival of letters, and in countries full effects have not been suffered to display themselves, where freedom of discussion has been allowed, objecthas insensibly improved the manners of every Christian ors have arisen, and numerous attempts have been state: what heathen nations are, in point of morals, made to shake the faith of mankind. That specious is now well known; and the information on this sub- kind of infidelity known by the name of "Deism," made ject which for several years past has been increasing, its appearance in Italy and France about the middle has put it out of the power of infidels to urge the su- of the sixteenth century, and in England early in perior manners of either China or Hindostan. It has the seventeenth. Under this appellation, and that of abolished infanticide and human sacrifices, so preva- "The Religion of Nature," each adopted to deceive the lent among ancient and modern heathens; put an end unwary, the attack upon Christianity was at first cau to polygamy and divorce; and, by the institution of tious, and accompanied with many professions of remarriage in an indissoluble bond, has given birth to a gard for its manifold excellences. Lord HERBERT of felicity and sanctity in the domestic circle which it Cherbury was the first who in this country advocated never before knew. It has exalted the condition and this system. He lays down five primary articles of relicharacter of woman, and by that means has human-gion, as containing every thing necessary to be believed; ized man; given refinement and delicacy to society; and as he contends they are all discoverable by our natuand created a new and important affection in the human ral faculties, they supersede, he informs us, the necessity breast the love of woman founded on esteem; an of a revelation. They are that there is a Supreme affection generally unknown to heathens the most re- God--that he is chiefly to be worshipped--that piety fined.(4) It abolished domestic slavery in ancient and virtue are the principal part of his worship-that Europe; and from its principles the struggle which is repentance expiates offence and that there is a state now maintained with African slavery draws its energy, of future rewards and punishments. The history of inand promises a triumph as complete. It has given a fidelity from this time is a striking comment upon the milder character to war, and taught modern nations to words of St. Paul, "But evil men and seducers shall treat their prisoners with humanity, and to restore them wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived;" by exchange to their respective countries. It has laid for, in the progress of this deadly error, all Lord Her-d the basis of a jurisprudence more just and equal; bert's five articles of Natural Religion have been ques given civil rights to subjects, and placed restraints on tioned or given up by those who followed him in his absolute power; and crowned its achievements by its fundamental principle, "that nothing can be admitted charity. Hospitals, schools, and many other institu- which is not discoverable by our natural faculties." tions for the aid of the aged and the poor, are almost HOBBES, who succeeded next in this warfare against exclusively its own creations, and they abound most the Bible, if he acknowledges that there is a God, rewhere its influence is most powerful. The same effects presents him as corporeal, and our duty to him as a to this day are resulting from its influence in those chimera, the civil magistrate being supreme in all heathen countries into which the Gospel has been car- things both civil and sacred. SHAFTESBURY insists that ried by missionaries sent out from this and other the doctrine of rewards and punishments is degrading Christian states. In some of them, idolatry has been to the understanding and detrimental to moral virtue. renounced; infants and widows and aged persons, who HUME denies the relation between cause and effect, would have been immolated to their gods, or abandoned and thus attempts to overthrow the argument for the by their cruelty, have been preserved, and are now existence of God from the frame of the universe. By "the living to praise its Divine Author, as they do at others the worship of God, which Lord Herbert advo this day." In other instances the light is prevailing cates, has been rejected as unreasonable, because He against the darkness; and those systems of dark and needs not our praises, and is not to be turned from his sanguinary superstition which have stood for ages only purposes by our prayers. As all law, of Divine authority, to pollute and oppress, without any symptom of decay, is on this system renounced, so "piety and virtue" now betray the shocks they have sustained by the must be understood to be what every man chooses to preaching of the gospel of Christ, and nod to their consider them, which amounts to their annihilation final fall (5)egis su 38 809 Wala rd of bay and as for future reward and punishment, philosophy, Brom nove boilgut ansiad) to secon T (6) since Lord Herbert's days, has discovered that the soul don Restorant of man is material; or rather, being a mere result of -39g bare dorong esganpinos buff gorub the organization of the body, that it dies with it. The CHAPTER XX. great principle of the English proto-infidel, "the suffiMISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS ANSWEREDA OTT (ciency of our natural faculties to form a religion for ourselves, and to decide upon the merits of revealed THE system of revealed religion contained in the Old truth," is, however, the principle of all; and this being and New Testaments, being opposed to the natural cor- once conceded, the instances just given are sufficiently rupt inclinations, and often to the actual practice of in proof that the cable is slipped, and that every one is left to take his course wherever the winds and the currents may impel his unpiloted, uncharted, and uncompassed bark. This grand principle of error, between which and absolute Atheism there are but a few steps, has been largely refuted in the foregoing pages, and the claims of the Holy Scriptures to be considered as a Revelation from God, established by arguments the

force of which in all other cases is felt, and acknowledged, and acted upon even by unbelievers themselves. If this has been done satisfactorily, the objections which remain are of little weight, were they even less capable of being repelled; and if no answer can be found to some of the difficulties which may be urged, this circumstance is much more in accordance with the truth of a revelation, than it would be with its falsehood. "We do not deny," says an excellent writer on the Evidences of Christianity,(6) " that the scheme of revelation has its difficulties; for if the things of nature are often difficult to comprehend, it would be strange indeed if supernatural matters were so simple, and obvious, and suited to finite capacities, as never to startle and puzzle us at all.-He who denies the Bible to have come from God because of these difficulties, may for exactly the same reason deny that the world was formed by Him."

The mere cavils of infidel writers may be hastily dismissed; the most plausible objections shall be considered more at large. As to the former, few of them could have been urged if those who have adduced them had consulted the works of commentators and biblical critics, writings with which it is evident they have little acquaintance; and thus they have shown how illdisposed they have been to become fully acquainted with the subjects which they have subjected to their criticism. To this may be added their ignorance of the idiom of the Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament; their inattention to the ancient manners and customs of the countries where the sacred writers lived, to occasional errors in the transcription of numerous copies which may be rectified by collation, and to the different readings, which, to a candid criticism, would generally furnish the solution of the difficulty.

The Bible has been vehemently assaulted, because it represents God as giving command to the Israelites to exterminate the nations of Canaan; but a few remarks will be sufficient to prove how little weight there is in the charges which, on this account, have been made against the author of the Pentateuch. The objection cannot be argued upon the mere ground, that it is contrary to the Divine Justice or Mercy to cut off a people indiscriminately, from the eldest to the youngest, since this is done in earthquakes, pestilences, &c. The cholera morbus, which has been for four years past wasting various parts of Asia, has probably destroyed half a million of persons of all ages. The character of the God of nature is not therefore contradicted by that ascribed to the God of the Bible. The whole objection resolves itself into this question: Was it consistent with the character of God, to employ human agents in this work of destruction? Who can prove that it was not? No one; and yet here lies the whole stress of the objection. The Jews were not rendered more cruel by their being so commissioned; for we find them much more merciful in their institutions than other ancient nations;-nor can this instance be pleaded in favour of exterminating wars, for there was in the case a special commission for a special purpose, and by that it was limited. Other considerations are also to be included. The sins of the Canaanites were of so gross a nature, that it was necessary to mark them with signal punishments for the benefit of surrounding nations; the employing of the Israelites, as instruments under a special and publicly proclaimed commission, connected the punishment more visibly with the offence, than if it had been inflicted by the array of warring elements, while the Israelites themselves would be more deeply impressed with the guilt of idolatry, and its ever accompanying polluted and sanguinary rites; and, finally, the Canaanites had been long spared, and in the mean time both warned by partial judgments, and reproved by the remaining adherents of the patriarchal religion who resided among them.

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cially this, that it might exhibit the evil of a sanguinary and obscene idolatry.

That law in Deuteronomy, which authorizes parents, the father and the mother, to bring "a stubborn and rebellious son," who was also "a glutton and a drunkard," before the elders of the city, that, if guilty, he might be stoned, has been called inhuman and brutal. In point of fact, it was, however, a merciful regulation. In almost all ancient nations, parents had the power of taking away the lives of their children. This was a branch of the old patriarchal authority which did not all at once merge into the kingly governments which were afterward established. There is reason, therefore, to believe that it was possessed by the heads of families among the Israelites, and that this was the first attempt to control it, by obliging the crimes alleged against their children to be proved before regular magistrates, and thus preventing the effects of unbridled passions.

The intentional offering of Isaac by Abraham bas also had its share of censure. The answer is, 1. That Abraham, who was in the habit of sensible communication with God, could have no doubt of the Divine command, and of the right of God to take away the life he had given. 2. That he proceeded to execute the command of God, in faith, as the Apostle Paul has stated, that God would raise his son from the dead. The whole transaction was extraordinary, and cannot therefore be judged by common rules; and it could only be fairly objected to, if it had been so stated as to encourage human sacrifices. Here, however, are sufficient guards; an indubitable Divine command was given, the sacrifice was prevented by the same authority; and the history stands in a book which represents human sacrifices as an abomination to God.

Indelicacy and immodesty have been charged upon some parts of the Scriptures. This objection has something in it which indicates malignity rather than an honest and principled exception; for in no instance are any statements made in order to incite impurity; and nothing, throughout the whole Scripture, is represented as more offensive to God, or as more certainly excluding persons from the kingdom of heaven, than the unlawful gratification of the senses. It is also to be noted, that many of the passages objected to are in the laws and prohibitions of both Testaments, and as well might the statute and common law of this country be the subject of reprehension, and be held up as tending to encourage vices of various kinds, because they must, with more or less of circumstantiality, describe them. We are farther to take into account the simplicity of manners and language in early times. We observe, even among the peasantry of modern states, a language on the subjects referred to, which is more direct, and what refined society would call gross; but greater real indelicacy does not necessarily follow. Countries and classes of people might be pointed out, where the language which expresses sensual indulgence has more of caution and of periphrasis, while the known facts show that their morals are exceedingly polluted.

Several objections which have been raised against characters and transactions in the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, are dissipated by the single consi deration that where they are obviously immoral or unjustifiable, they are never approved, and are merely stated as facts of history. The conduct of Ehud, of Samson, and of Jephthah may be given as instances.

The advice of David, when on his death-bed, respecting Joab and Shimei, has been attributed to his private resentment. This is not the fact. He spoke in his character of king and magistrate, and gave his advice on public grounds, as committing the kingdom to his son.

The conduct of David also towards the Ammonites, Thus the objection rests upon no foundation. The in putting them "under saws and harrows of iron, destruction of infants, so often dwelt upon, takes place has been the subject of severe animadversion. But the in nature and providence; the objection to the employ-expression means no more than that he employed them ment of human agents, arising from habits of inhumanity being thereby induced, assumes what is false in fact; for this effect upon the Jews was prevented by the circumstance of their knowing that they acted as ministers of the Divine displeasure, and under his commission; and some important reasons may be discovered for executing the judgment by men, and espe

(6) Dr. OLINTHUS GREGORY,

in laborious works, as sawing, making iron harrows, hewing wood, and making bricks, the Hebrew prefix signifying to as well as under. "He put them to saws and harrows of iron (some render it iron-mines) and to axes of iron, and made them to pass through the brick-kiln."

With respect to the imprecations found in many parts of Scripture, and which have been represented as expressions of revenge and malice, it has been often and

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an intelligent being, and put that in the scale against brute and inanimate matter, we may affirm, without overvaluing human nature, that the soul of one virtuous man is of greater worth and excellence than the sun and his planets, and all the stars in the world.' Let us not then make bulk the standard of value; or judge of the importance of man from the weight of his body, or from the size or situation of the planet that is now his place of abode."

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between things which have no relations in common, and is therefore absurd; as little will it serve this unnatural attempt to prostrate man to an insect rank, and to inspire him with reptile feelings, to conclude his insignificance from the number of other beings. For it is plain that their number alters not his real character; he is still immortal though myriads besides him are immortal, and still he has his deep capacity of pleasure and of pain. Unless, therefore, it could be proved, that the care of God for each must be diminished as the number of his creatures is increased; there is, as Mr. Penn has stated it, neither "sense nor virtue" in such reflections upon the littleness of man; and they imply, indeed, a base and an unworthy reflection upon the Supreme Creator himself, as though He could not bestow upon all the beings he has made a care and a love adequate to their circumstances. What man is with respect to God, can only be collected from the Divine procedures towards him; and these are sufficient to excite the devout exclamations of the Psalmist, "What is man that THOU art MINDFUL of him? or the son of man that THOU VISITEST him?" That he has not only been made by God, but that he is governed by his providence, none but Atheists will deny; but any argument drawn from such premises as the above would conclude as forcibly against providence as it can be made to conclude against redemption. "Our Saviour," says Dr. Beattie, "as if to obviate objections of this nature, expresses most emphatically the superintending care of providence, when he teaches, that it is God who adorns the grass of the field, that without him a sparrow falls not on the ground, and that even the hairs of our head are numbered. Yet this is no exaggeration; but must, if God is omniscient and almighty, be literally true. By a stupendous exuberance of animal, vegetable, and mineral production, and by an apparatus still more stupendous (if that were possible) for the distribution of light and heat, he supplies the means of life and comfort to the short-lived inhabitants of this globe. Can it then appear incredible, nay, does not this consideration render it in the highest degree probable, that he has also prepared the means of eternal happiness for beings, whom he has formed for eternal duration, whom he has endowed with faculties so noble as those of the human soul, and for whose accommodation chiefly, during their present state of trial, he has provided all the magnificence of this sublunary world?"

To the same effect an ingenious and acute writer remarks upon a passage in Saussure (Voyages dans les Alpes), who speaks of men in the phrase of the modern philosophy, as "the little beings which crawl upon the surface of the earth," and as shrinking into nothing both as to space and time," in comparison with the vast mountains, and "the great epochas of nature." "If," says Mr. Granville Penn,(9) "there is any sense or virtue in this reflection, it must consist in duly estimating the relative importance of the two magnitudes and durations, and in concluding logically, the comparative insignificance of the smaller. And it will then necessarily follow, that the insignificance of the smaller would lessen, in the same proportion in which it might increase in bulk. If the little beings therefore were to be magnified in the proportions of 2, 3, 4, &c., their insignificance, relatively to the great features of the globe, would necessarily diminish in the same ratio. The smaller the disproportion between the man and the mountain, the less would be the relative insignificance of the former; and although the increase of magnitude in the smaller object be ever so inconsiderable, yet if it is positive and real, its dignity must be proportionately increased in the true nature of things: the bigger the being that crawls upon the surface of this globe, the less absurd would be the supposition that he is the final object of this terrestrial creation. The Irish giant, therefore, whose altitude exceeded the measure of eight feet, would exceed in relative dignity, by the same proportion, BACON and NEWTON, whose height did not attain to six feet. If this is nonsense, then must that also be nonsense from which it is the genuine conclusion: viz. that the material magnitudes of the little beings, or their duration upon the earth on which they crawl,' determines, in any manner, their importance, in the creation, relatively to the primordial mountains which arise above it, or to the extent of the regions which may be surveyed from their summits. For, if the same physically small beings possess another magnitude, which can be brought to another and a different scale of computation from that of physical or material magnitude; a scale infinitely surpassing in importance the greatest measures of that magnitude; then there will be nothing astonishing or irrational in the supposition, that the highest mountains, and the widest regions, and the entire sys-ligent creatures; and the "intention" there was in the tem to which they pertain, may be subservient to the ends of those beings, and to that other system to which they pertain; which latter will thus be found superior in importance to the former. Such a scale is that by which the intelligent, moral, and immortal nature of MAN is to be measured, and which the sacred historian calls a formation after the image and likeness of GOD; a scale so little taken into the contemplation of the science of mere physics. As soon, however, as that moral scale of magnitude once supersedes the physical scale in the apprehension of the mind; as soon as the mind perceives that the duration of that intelligent moral nature infinitely exceeds the vastest epocha of Nature' which the imagination of the mineral geology can represent to itself, and that, though the physical nature of man is limited to a very small measure of time, yet his moral nature is unlimited in time, and will outlast all the mountains of the globe; it then perceives, at the same moment, the counterfeit quality of the reflection, which at first appeared so sublime and so humble, so profound and so devout. The sublimity and humility betray themselves to be the disparagement and degradation of our nature; the profundity is found to be mere surface, and the devotion to be a retrocession from the light of revelation."

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There is, however, another consideration, which gives sublime and overwhelming grandeur to the Scripture view of the redemption of the race of man, and of which, for the want of acquaintance with our sacred writings, infidel philosophers appear never to have entertained the least conception. It is the moral connexion of this world with the whole universe of intelDivine Mind to convey to other beings, by the history and great results of his moral government over one branch of his universal family, a view of his own perfections; of the duties and dangers of created and finite beings; of transgression and holiness, in their principles and in their effects; by a course of action so much more influential than abstract truth. Intimations of this great and impressive view are found in various passages of the New Testament, and it opens a scene of inconceivable moral magnificence-"To the intent, that to the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God."(1)

(1) "In this our first period of existence, our eye cannot penetrate beyond the present scene, and the human race appears one great and separate community; but with other worlds, and other communities, we probably may, and every argument for the truth of our religion gives us reason to think that we shall be connected hereafter. And if by our behaviour we may, even while here, as our Lord positively affirms, heighten in some degree the felicity of angels, our salvation may hereafter be a matter of importance, not to us only, but to many other orders of immortal beings. They, it is true, will not suffer for our guilt, nor be rewarded for our obedience. But it is not absurd to imagine, that our

If the comparison of man with mere material magnitude will not then support this effort to effect his degradation and to shame him out of his trust in the loving-fall and recovery may be useful to them as an example; kindness of his God; if the comparison be made

(9)" Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies."

and that the Divine grace manifested in our redemption may raise their adoration and gratitude into higher raptures, and quicken their ardour to inquire, with ever new delight, into the dispensations of Infinite Wiedom.

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