car of Juggernaut, and burns alive the widow of his father and, as in the days of Moses, when the people joined themselves to Baal-peor, they not only bowed down to false Gods, but as a part of their worship, committed" whoredom with the daughters of Moab," (Numb. xxv. 1.) so, to this day, prostitution forms a part of the service of heathen temples. In every age Heathenism is the same; and the idolater asks," shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" But it is Revelation alone that teaches him effectually to worship God in Spirit and in truth; and shews him that what the Lord requires of him is" to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly." Independent of a divine Revelation, in no age or country was there ever any pure and holy worship of God; and therefore, it was necessary that he himself should teach mankind that worship and service which was due to a being of infinite purity and holiness. Does any one wish to know, how vain and foolish the wisest of the Heathen were in their imaginations respecting the Deity? Let him read Cicero's treatise on the nature of the Gods; and there he will perceive that the world by its wisdom knew not God ; and that nothing less than divine light could chase away the gross darkness which overspread the minds, not merely of the vulgar, but of those who were most wise, learned, and eloquent.

9. It is only by a divine revelation that the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is, to us, made certain. We admit that human reason can adduce many strong and powerful arguments for its truth; but still they rise only to a high degree of probability-a degree of probability which most certainly

lays us under a full obligation to purity and rectitude of conduct, but which still is not certainty. When Plato and Xenophon labour the question of a future state for the souls of men, the former in the person of Socrates, and the latter in that of Cyrus, they reach no higher than the expression of doubt and uncertainty. But not so the Scriptures of truth; for they declare in the most express terms, that "they who have done good shall rise unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation" "these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." No doubt nor uncertainty hangs now over this most important and awful subject: and what man could not assure to himself, by the utmost exertion of his faculties, is made certain by the Gospel, which has brought life and immortality to light.

1

10. But the necessity of a divine revelation is apparent not only from those things which relate to God, his worship, and to a future state of rewards and punishments, but from those which relate to the first principles of morality, and to human conduct in general. And Mr. Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity, has so happily stated this argument, that I shall much prefer his words to any of my own. The knowledge of human duty, "though cultivated with some care by some of the heathen philosophers, yet got little footing among the people. All men, indeed, under pain of displeasing the gods, were to frequent the temples: every one went to their sacrifices and services but the priests made it not their business to

1 Matt xxv. 46; John v. 29; Acts xxiv. 15.

teach them virtue. If they were diligent in their observations and ceremonies; punctual in their feasts and solemnities and the tricks of religion, the holy tribe assured them the gods were pleased; and they looked no farther. Few went to the schools of the philosophers to be instructed in their duties, and to know what was good and evil in their actions. The priests sold the better pennyworths, and therefore had all their custom. Lustrations and processions were much easier than a clean conscience, and a steady course of virtue; and an expiatory sacrifice that atoned for the want of it, was much more convenient than a strict and holy life. No wonder, then, that religion was every where distinguished from and preferred to virtue; and that it was dangerous heresy and profaneness to think the contrary. So much virtue as was necessary to hold societies together, and to contribute to the quiet of governments, the civil laws of commonwealths taught and forced upon men that lived under magistrates. But these laws being for the most part made by such, who had no other aims but their own power, reached no farther than those things that would serve to tie men together in subjection; or at most were directly conducive to the prosperity and temporal happiness of any people. But natural religion, in its full extent, was nowhere, that I know, taken care of by the force of natural reason. It should seem, by the little that has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task for unassisted reason, to establish morality in all its parts, upon its true foundation, with a clear and convincing light. And it is at least a surer and shorter way to the apprehensions of the vulgar, and mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with visible authority from him, should as

a king and law-maker tell them their duties, and require their obedience, than leave it to the long, and sometimes intricate, deductions of reason, to be made out to them. Such trains of reasonings the greatest part of mankind have neither leisure to weigh, nor, for want of education and use, skill to judge of. We see how unsuccessful in this, the attempts of philosophers were before our Saviour's time. How short their several systems came of the perfection of a true and complete morality, is very visible. And if, since that, the Christian philosophers have much outdone them, yet we may observe, that the first knowledge of the truths they have added is owing to revelation, though, as soon as they are heard and considered, they are found to be agreeable to reason, and such as can by no means be contradicted. Every one may observe a great many truths, which at first he receives from others, and readily assents to as consonant to reason, which he would have found it hard, and perhaps beyond his strength, to have discovered himself, Native and original truth is not so easily wrought out of the mine, as we, who have it delivered, ready dug and fashioned into our hands, are apt to imagine.... Experience shows, that the knowledge of morality, by mere natural light, how agreeable soever it be to it, makes but a slow progress and little advance in the world....And it is plain, in fact, that human reason unassisted, failed men in its great and proper business of morality. It never from unquestionable principles, by clear deductions, made out an entire body of the law of nature. And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers, and compare them with those contained in the New Testament, will find them to come short of the morality, delivered by our Saviour, and taught by

his apostles, a college made up, for the most part, of ignorant but inspired fishermen."

11. Whoever considers the numerous treatises on morality, which have been published to the world both in ancient and modern times, and the variety of principles which have been assumed for their foundation, must feel convinced that the Will of God is the only sure foundation on which a system of morality can be built. One author takes for the foundation of his system the moral sense; another the fitness of things; another the law of the land; a fourth, the reward which virtue is to itself; and others are content with pleasure or expediency. But all these fail of giving full satisfaction either as to their propriety or certainty but, if they thus fail, then is it clear that we want a first principle of moral action, which shall apply in all circumstances and to all people. And this principle is none other than the will of God, which is revealed in the Scriptures of truth. In human systems there will ever be doubt and uncertainty; while in that which is divine there is the authority of the Deity, and the certainty of absolute truth. And though an objector should say, that a sufficient collection of good rules of morality might be made out of the sayings of the wise heathen, who lived before the times of Christ; yet even this would not prove that there was no necessity for a divine revelation, nor any need of our Saviour and the morality which he taught, as contained in the New Testament. 'Let it be granted,' says Mr. Locke again, in his reasonableness of Christianity, though not true, that all the moral precepts of the Gospel were known by somebody or other, amongst mankind, before the times of Christ....Suppose they may