SERMON III.

2 CORINTHIANS iv, 4.

The glorious Gospel of Christ.

THE Gospel is that scheme of mercy which is revealed in the word of God. God having condescended to become an Author, we discover a work like himself, sublime and glorious. The Gospel alleviates the heaviest woes of man, and is a source of consolation in his most deplorable necessities. Though the heathen, in his most uncultured state, perceives himself to be vastly superiour to the other creatures around him; still in his most refined elevation, he is oppressed with weakness, terrified with dangers, perplexed with doubts, tormented with sufferings, for which he discovers neither cause nor remedy. His neighbours die; his parents die; his children die; he is dying himself. He exclaims, "Where have my friends gone? What is their state? Shall we ever meet again? Why all this misery?" To his mind is not the scene a chaos of goodness and wrath? He reflects he argues; he is confounded; he despairs. That cheering light, which shall partially dispel his darkness, is like the opening

of the prison to them who are bound. That friendly voice which shall answer some of his anxious inquiries, is glorious like the first song of heaven to the departed saint. Such a light shines, such a voice is heard from the pages of the Gospel.

To mention a few instances in which the Gospel is glorious, is the present design.

I. The Gospel is glorious in revealing truths, most important, but which had been unknown, or not clearly discovered, by the heathen world.

This fact proves the necessity of revelation; and from this we may infer, that God would give a revelation. While destitute of this divine instruction, have mankind ever conceived just ideas of the Divine Being? Which is the nation, learned or unlearned; who is the profound sage, what is his name, who has entertained consistent ideas of the holiness, the justice, or the providence of God? Their gods have been gods of the hills and of the vallies, gods of the sea and of the dry land. Their gods were unrighteous; they were the dupes of intrigue; they were polluted with crimes. I do not however say, that no pagans have ever had any just or sublime conceptions of the Deity. By the force of genius, or the borrowed rays of distant revelation, most sublime thoughts have been elicited; but these are as rare and as useless, compared with the permanent light of the Christian world, as the lucid flashes of the electric cloud, compared with the splendours of the shining

sun.

No pagan nation has adopted rational views of immortality. Though they have generally yielded

a vague credence to the doctrine, their proofs have been inconclusive and without authority, producing little interest with the mass of the people, and affording the learned rather a theme of amusing speculation, than a reason for serious practice. Yes: concerning this most sublime doctrine, which is essential to comfort, to hope, to morality, even the luminaries of the pagan world, their Tully, their Socrates, and their Plato, argued in a most unsatisfactory manner. He that is least in the kingdom of Christ is greater than they were. Speaking in the name of Socrates, Plato asserts the immortality of the soul; but his proof may be thought puerile. "That which is always in motion," saith he, "is immortal." This he applies to the soul. Tully reasons in the same manner. “That which is always moved is eternal." Plato believed, that human souls were emanations from the Deity, or Soul of the universe, at death restored to the fountain whence they came, and therefore immortal; but this would certainly destroy their immortality. A short time before his death, Socrates reasoned thus with his friends, "It is an ancient tradition, that our souls go hence to another world, whence they return to this; therefore they are immortal." Another argument of his was, "All things take their rise from contraries; watching produces sleep, and sleep watching; death arises from life, so must life from death. If living things did not rise from the dead, all things would finally be swallowed up in death; therefore, the immortality of the soul must be granted." Could such reasoning satisfy any mind? Is it strange, then, that Tully, while he often argues

in favour of the doctrine, seriously doubted of the soul's immortality? He says, "While I am reading, I assent; but when I lay aside my book, and begin to meditate by myself, concerning the immortality of souls, all my conviction slides away." From Plutarch we learn, that the opinion, just ascribed to Plato, was common among the Stoicks, and other sects of ancient philosophy, that human souls are portions of the Deity. A doctrine similar to this has been holden from time immemorial by the Brahmins of India, whose sacred books teach, that intellect is a portion of the great soul of the universe, breathed into all creatures, to animate them for a certain time; that after death it animates other bodies, or returns like a drop into that unbounded ocean from which it first arose. A sober fact it is, at the present moment, that the greater part of the human race believe in the doctrine of transmigration, or the transition of souls from one body to another. While we grant that the heathen have had some vague notions of immortality, still was there not a necessity of a revelation to rectify their errours on this point, that the doctrine might become a powerful argument for piety and morality, a source of sublime hope and consolation? It may, however, be rememered, that Tully relates, that the preceptor of Pythagoras was the first man, known to the learned world, who taught the doctrine of immortality. Soccrates says, that most men believed that the soul was at death reduced to nothing.

The views of the heathen concerning their own moral characters were equally confused and wrong. Not having just ideas of the divine holiness, it was

not possible they should have adequate conceptions of human depravity. The malignity of wickedness results from its opposition to infinite goodness. The heathen are successful in the chase, victorious in war, or happy in their domestic circle. They look abroad; the blossoms of spring, the fruits of autumn, the genial sun, the sparkling stars, proclaim the goodness of the great Spirit. Remorse and self-reproach sting the conscience for their ingratitude and malevolence. But the scene changes; they are conquered; or famine and pestilence lay waste their villages; or the angry storm, the furious tornado, its peals of thunder and fatal lightning amaze and distract their souls. Where is now the goodness of the great Spirit? Will they not justify their evil deeds? How great would be the change in their views, should they hear that their first father revolted from God, that his children are born in his likeness, and are in a state of condemnation!

Of a Redeemer, in whom all the families of the earth shall be finally blessed, the heathen have never made any discovery. The word of God contains all our light and knowledge respecting a Mediator between God and man. This glory of the Gospel, this last hope of man, is entirely unknown to all the tribes of the world who have not read the word of God. Yet, as if pressed by the necessity of such a doctrine; as if impelled by an overwhelming sense of their imbecility, or directed by some perverted tradition of a Mediator, most pagan nations have substituted mediators between them and the eternal God. Heroes,