pagating true religion in the world. Reafoning will not do the business and therefore the Gospel set out in another manner, by propofing the great truths of religion in the plainest and fimpleft manner in an authoritative way, but by an authority fupported by the plaineft and the strongest proof, the proof of miracles; an argument that was adapted to men of all conditions, and made its way to every understanding.

It is become a fashion to dress up the great doctrines and proofs of religion in axioms and theorems and demonftrations; and those who have taken pains in this way may have done great fervice to men of thought and contemplation: but, had the Gospel fet out at first with this air of mathematics, it had loft one ftrong proof of its divine original, arifing from the plainnefs of its doctrine, and the fimplicity of the evidence which was offered in its behalf; which made the Gospel to be a proper tender to all mankind. All mankind are concerned in the great truths of religion; and nothing can be more abfurd, and contradictory to the notion of God's wifdom and goodness, than to fuppofe God to intend to establish true religion in the world, and yet to offer it in a method which could poffibly have an influence but on very few. Whoever will reflect seriously on the nature and condition of mankind in general, will be able to give himself a clear reason why God did not call in the affiftance of the wisdom of the world to propagate the Gospel, but chofe rather to establish it by the foolishness of preaching, as it is called, and by the demonftration of

the Spirit, manifefted in figns and wonders and mighty works.

I have hitherto confidered this plea, drawn from the case of some great men in the heathen world, upon fuppofition that what is faid of them is true, and that they had indeed extricated themselves from the fuperftitions of their country, and attained just notions of true religion: but this thing, which has been often faid, has never been proved, and I am afraid never will.

I do not wonder that thofe who have been converfant in the writings of the ancients, and have been entertained with the juft and fine reflections to be met with on the attributes of God, confidered as maker and governor of the world, and of mankind in particular, fhould conclude that those who thought and talked so clearly of the great attributes of the Deity, and of his providence over the world, had alfo as clear notions of the religious fervice due to him, and to him only. What has led to this conclufion I conceive to be this: there is fo plain a connection between the relation we bear to God, and the religious duty owing to him, and the argument is fo familiar to us, that we almost naturally suppose that every man, who maintains the principle, cannot fail of feeing the conclufion.

The conclufion indeed is fo natural, that, if it were overlooked, nothing can more fenfibly prove the weakness of human reafon in oppofition to inveterate errors and fuperftition; and nothing can more effectually fhew us how unable these wife men were to reform the world, fince with all their wif

dom they were not able to reform themselves. Yet this was the truth of the cafe; and it was not at random, and without knowledge of the fact, that St. Paul lays this to the charge of the wife men of the world, that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Profeffing themselves to be wife, they became fools; and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beafts, and creeping things.

To prove the truth of the Apostle's affertion, that even the wife men, who knew God, did not glorify him as God, by an induction of particulars, would be undertaking a work which could hardly be well discharged in this place. But yet the point is too material to be paffed over in filence. Let us then confider the cafe of one only, but of one, who among the good men was the best, and among the wife ones the wifeft. I fhall easily be understood to mean Socrates, the great philofopher of Athens: and, were the wife men of antiquity to plead their cause in common, they could not put their defence into better hands.

We have an account of the fpeculative opinions of many of the wife men of Greece preserved to us in authors of great credit; but of their practice, and perfonal behaviour in life, little is faid: which makes it hard to judge how far their own practice and conduct was influenced by their opinions, or how confiftent they were in pursuing the confequences of their own doctrines. The cafe might have been the fame with Socrates, had not a very

particular circumftance put him under a neceffity of explaining his conduct and practice with respect to the religion of his country. He had talked fo freely of the heathen deities, and the ridiculous ftories told of them, that he fell under a fufpicion of defpifing the gods of his country, and of teaching the youth of Athens to despise their altars and their worship. Upon this accufation he is fummoned before the great court of the Areopagites; and happily the apology he made for himself is preserved to us by two the ableft of his scholars, and the best writers of antiquity, Plato and Xenophon: and from both their accounts it appears, that Socrates maintained and afferted before his judges, that he worshipped the gods of his country, and that he facrificed in private and in public upon the allowed altars, and according to the rites and cuftoms of the city. After this public confeffion, fo authentically reported by two fo able hands, there can be no doubt of his cafe. He was an idolater, and had not, by his great knowledge and ability in reafoning, delivered himself from the practice of the fuperftition of his country. You fee how far the wisdom of the world could go give me leave to shew you what the foolishness of preaching could do in the very fame cafe.

St. Paul was in the fame cafe: he was accused in the fame city of Athens of the fame crime, that he was a fetter-forth of ftrange gods; and before the fame great court of Areopagites he made his apology, which is likewise preserved to us by St. Luke in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts. We have then the greatest and the ableft among the wife men of

Greece, and an Apoftle of Chrift, in the fame circumstances. You have heard the philofopher's defence, that he worshipped the gods of his country, and as his country worshipped them. Hear now the Apostle: Ye men of Athens, fays he, I perceive that in all things ye are too fuperftitious: for as I paffed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this infcription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you: God that made the world, and all things therein. This God, he tells them, is not worshipped with men's hands, as though he needeth any thing :Nor was the godhead like unto gold, or filver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. He then calls upon them, in the name of this great God, to repent of their fuperftition and idolatry, which God would no longer bear: because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given affurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Which of these two now was a preacher of true religion? Let those who value human reason at the highest rate determine the point.

The manner in which Socrates died was the calmeft and the braveft in the world, and excludes all pretence to say that he diffembled his opinion. and practice before his judges out of any fear, or meanness of spirit; vices with which he was never taxed, and of which he feems to have been incapable.

Confider then, was it poffible for any man, upon the authority of Socrates, to open his mouth against