single circumstance which could inflame spiritual pride, indulge sensual desire, or gratify idle curiosity. We meet with no minute description of the pleasures, the employments, the glories of that future state, which might perhaps, if strongly impressed upon our imagination, draw us off from the necessary business or make us loathe the innocent pleasures of the present life. We are taught "that it is appointed to all men once to die, and after that the judgment."* But of the intermediate state of those who sleep in death, as we need only know that our state of trial terminates with this life, and "that in the grave no man can work," so this only is positively and distinctly told. Thus also the existence of superior orders of intelligences is asserted; but their distinctions and offices, their powers and employments, as they concern not us, no attempt is made to disclose them.

It deserves to be noticed, that if the writers of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles, had been subject to the dominion of a heated imagination, and been misled by the delusive visions of fanaticism, many facts occurred in the course of the history they relate, which would have naturally led them to indulge in imaginary excursions into the spiritual world, and to gratify their own vanity, as well as catch their readers' attention, by pretending to describe the particulars of that scene so interesting to human curiosity. They sometimes relate appearances of angels. Sometimes they mention visions, by which they were instructed in some important point of doctrine, or directed to some particular mode of conduct. Especially many instances occur of individuals, well known to themselves, who had risen from the dead; and above all, the leading fact on which their relation turns, is the resurrection of their Lord, who they assert for forty days after was seen of them, and spoke "of the things which belong to the kingdom of God." Now did it not require more than ordinary sobriety of mind, as well as the strictest attention to truth, never to be seduced by such alluring opportunities to consecrate the fictions of art, or the delusions of imagination as the dictates of heaven; and never once to break

• Heb. ix. 27. Vide also the entire 25th chapter of Matthew. Vide also Bishop Law on the nature and end of death in the Christian covenant, annexed to his theory of religion, with the appendix.

+ Acts i. 3.

that silence they observed on all points, in which, however ardently men may desire information, it is not necessary they should obtain it.

Thus, whether we consider the importance of the doctrines which Christianity has advanced on the subject of our present relation to the Deity, and our future expectations from him, the clear, dignified, and convincing mode in which they are established; or the omission of all those topics, which either deceivers or fanatics would naturally have descanted on with particularity and eagerness, in every one of these views we perceive that integrity and sobriety of mind, which distinguish the first teachers of our faith; and in every one we discover strong marks of genuine inspiration.

SECTION IV.

The more mysterious Doctrines of Christianity considered.

WE are now to notice, as far as our subject requires, those DOCTRINES of Christianity which are plainly ABOVE REASON, which were adopted, by our Lord and his apostles from the Jewish religion, or which were first promulgated by themselves, and which can be received and understood no further than they have judged it necessary to reveal them.

Our Lord commanded his apostles "to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."* The part therefore which each of these divine persons has taken in the dispensations of God to man, as well as their relation to each other, and their mutual connections, forms a peculiar and † mysterious object in the Christian revelation. On the other hand, ‡ this revelation exhibits to us mankind as a fallen and corrupted race, whose first parents had violated the law of their Creator, and by the violation

*Matt. xxviii. 18.

† On this subject, see the author's opinions in his " Select Proofs of the Trinity Gen. iii. Rom. v. 1 Cor. xv.

materially altered the condition both of themselves and their posterity for the worse. It states further; that this unhappy change gave occasion for that interposition of God, which the Scriptures relate to have taken place for the redemption of man. Thus the circumstances of this change in the original condition of mankind, as well as the nature and extent of the remedy provided for it, forms another most interesting and important part of the Gospel system.

All these doctrines relate to subjects which evidently lie beyond the penetration of human reason, and the discoveries of human experience. To judge about them clearly, and to understand them fully, we must be supposed accurately acquainted with the entire nature of God, and of his attributes, and of the mode of conduct which these attributes would lead him to adopt towards the human race, connected as it may be with his system of government over all intellectual beings. We must also be supposed capable of tracing the effects of the divine conduct on mankind, from the creation of the world till its close; and of estimating, whether on the whole there did not result from the series of dispensations recorded in the Scriptures, the greatest quantity of virtue and happiness, which it was possible to produce consistently with the nature of man as a moral agent, and the views of God as the moral governor of the world. Now, who does not at the first glance see, that any one human being -nay, all human beings united, would be wholly incompetent to judge of these things, if left to their limited capacities and limited experience, without any instruction from divine wisdom? Who does not see, that the nature of these subjects is such, that with regard to them men must be content to proceed as mere learners, convinced that they cannot discover the system of measures which God has adopted, or penetrate into the motives which determine his conduct, further than he has thought fit to disclose them?

The business of reason then, in this case, is plainly confined to two points. First-To be fully assured of the divine authority of those who claim the character of messengers sent from God to instruct men in these mysterious subjects; and next, to take care, that their instructions are rightly understood. We are, however, under no obligation to attend at all to doctrines

on such subjects, as men could know nothing of but by revelation, till we have been satisfied that the men who advance these doctrines have been enlightened by the Divinity. Antecedent therefore to any inquiry into their doctrines, we have a right to demand from them such external proofs of a divine authority as we are competent judges of. If convincing proofs are supplied, we must be satisfied that the general system of doctrines thus attested is undoubtedly of divine original. We shall therefore proceed to examine its parts, and interpret its peculiar tenets with caution and humility, admitting as a rule of interpretation, that nothing directly contradictory to the principles of intuitive or demonstrative certainty can be true, and therefore, that if the revelation is interpreted so as to carry such a sense, it must have been misinterpreted. But these questions cannot arise till the authority of the revelation has been previously established by external proofs. And therefore (as it seems to me) a minute discussion of them is not necessary in a work designed to weigh the direct proofs, and examine the general authority of the Gospel of Christ. The question I propose to discuss is simply this-were the first teachers of Christianity deluded enthusiasts in believing themselves divinely inspired? They appeal to miracles and prophecies, as proofs of a divine interposition; were they in their belief of these facts enthusiasts? If not, neither were they enthusiasts in their belief of those doctrines, in proof of which they appeal to these facts, and therefore all these doctrines, rightly interpreted, are unquestionably true.

The existence of doctrines in Christianity, which we do not fully comprehend, affords no presumption of their having originated in the delusions of fanaticism, when we consider that they relate to subjects, which have in every age exercised the penetration of the most acute and enlightened reasoners, without their having been able to form any clear and certain system relating to them, or to dispel that obscurity, which seems from their very nature to rest upon them. Thus the existence of natural and moral evil, is a fact which experience too fully testifies. The Deist feels it as strongly as the Christian, and it forms a difficulty, a mystery, on the principles of natural religion, of which no human sagacity has yet been able to find an adequate solution. The difficulty of reconciling the omniscience

of God with the free agency of man, is another subject which has perplexed the speculative inquirer. The unequal distribution of all natural and moral advantages amongst men, whether we consider nations or individuals, is not less difficult to account for on the principles of natural religion. We may ask a variety of questions to which the Deist can give no satisfactory answer. Why does that Being, who is the Creator and Lord of all alike, permit some nations to remain barbarous, poor, enslaved, while others are enlightened, rich and free? Why are some individuals wise, strong, healthy, opulent, prosperous; others ignorant, feeble, diseased, dependent, unfortunate?—and this without any regular proportion being observed, to all appearance at least, between each man's external advantages and his moral merit. These, and a variety of other similar difficulties occur, which natural religion does not solve. Yet we admit the principles of natural religion, because they are founded on direct proofs, which are not refuted by our inability to comprehend the entire subject in its minuter detail. Ignorance on such a subject only shows that our faculties are inadequate to its full extent, but is no refutation of what has been positively proved.

Of the doubts and difficulties which obscure natural religion, many remain undetermined and unexplained even by revelation. Some perhaps, remain so, because it may have been impossible to render them clear to beings such as men, in their present state of existence; others, because though a fuller revelation were possible, it yet may have been unnecessary or inexpedient. Of both these points we are evidently incompetent judges. It is however certain, that on many of the most perplexing difficulties of natural religion, Christianity offers a full and satisfactory solution. Thus we are no longer startled at that inequality in the ways of Providence so apparent in this present world, when we are assured that this life is merely a state of probation and discipline; but that in the next this inequality will be completely rectified; since, at the awful hour of the last judgment there will be "no respect of persons with God." On other points the Gospel scheme offers a solution, which though connected

• Rom. ii. 11.