paralleled by all that philosophy or natural reason ever taught.

Such is Christianity in her main doctrines. Let us then proceed to point out,

II. The particulars in which their DIVINE GLORY AND EXCELLENCY MAY, IN CERTAIN RESPECTS, BE PERCEIVED. We observe, then, that,

1. These doctrines ALL EMANATE FROM THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS DRAWN IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. They flow from that assemblage of glorious attributes-from that infinite holiness and goodness which the Revelation ascribes to the one living and true God. All the heathen deities are corrupt, and the corrupters of their followers. The character of their gods is ignoble, vile, contemptible; their vices and follies weigh down their religion, degrade all their ceremonies, infect the elements of their worship.

The heathens sustained their superstitions as well as they could, notwithstanding the character of their deities. Conscience, tradition, political ends, served to bear up the mass of superincumbent absurdity and vice. In Christianity, all depends and rests with its whole weight, on the infinite holiness and goodness of the Almighty Jehovah. It is the character of our God from which all our doctrines emanate; the guilt of man is what this ineffable purity teaches as an inevitable consequence; the mighty work of redemption agrees with the unspeakable love and benevolence of his moral attributes; the gift of his own Son, and the mission of the Spirit, when revealed, are seen exactly to become the divine compassion and grace.

Man has ever been found to bear a resemblance to the object of his worship. In Christianity, the one true God surpasses in purity all his creatures, is the infinitely excellent object of love and imitation, and draws man upwards to holiness and obedience.

This holiness of God penetrates every part of the

religion, sustains it, gives birth to its details, demands and renders necessary its provisions, and constitutes its excellency and glory. It is this which is the spring of all the virtues of Christian worshippers. The more the attributes and works of God-his sovereignty, his law, his providence, his gift of a Saviour, his promise of the Holy Spirit, his declarations of a future judgment—are considered, the better and holier men become. The glory of the Lord is the sum and end of every thing; the first source and final cause of all purity and all joy.

2. There is, in the next place, a SIMPLICITY in the doctrines of Christianity which forms a part of their excellence. They may be summed up in three plain and obvious points: the corruption of man; the reconciliation of man to God; and the restoration of man to his original purity and dignity;-points so simple, that human nature, in all ages, acknowledged them in her feeble manner, or rather guessed at and desired them. The fall she could not but perceive and feel at all times; a way of atonement by sacrifice she ever wished for, but wished for in vain; a source of strength and consolation she breathed after, but knew not whence it must flow. Revelation comes in. Its doctrines are found to embrace the very points after which nature fruitlessly panted. Thus simple is her system-the fall and the recovery of man embrace every thing.

And not only so; these doctrines rest on a very few prominent facts, which are first established, and then employed for the purpose of instructing us in the doctrines. The corruption and guilt of man is a doctrine resting on the fact of the transgression of our first parents. The incarnation, from which the doctrines of justification and sanctification are consequences or uses, is a fact. The existence and operations of the Holy Spirit are facts of practical and universal application in every age.

This simplicity of the Christian system is in remarkable contrast with the confusion and complication of the theories of men, which, resting on no positive facts, are vague and unsubstantial. Like the works of creation, Christianity exhibits an artless simplicity in the few and prominent facts on which it is built; so totally different from the clumsy and artificial productions of man.

3. But there is at the same time A SURPASSING GRANDEUR AND SUBLIMITY in these doctrines, which that very simplicity the more illustrates. It is simple, indeed, as referring to a few points, and resting on certain facts; but these points are so infinitely important to man, and these facts are so grand and stupendous, that it is impossible for the human mind fully to grasp them, even when revealed. All is stupendous in redemption; the divine persons engaged in contriving and executing it; the length of time during which it was preparing; the gradual announcement of it for four thousand years; the glory and difficulty of the Saviour's enterprize in accomplishing it; the mysterious union of Deity and humanity in his person; the force and number of the enemies overcome, especially his conquest over the malice and power of the great spiritual adversary ; 14 the blessings which his redemption procured; the eternal consequences dependent on its acceptance or rejection; the holy angels, the messengers and ministers of it, and the eager inquirers into its manifold wisdom-all give it a greatness and excellency becoming the infinite majesty of the divine Author of our religion. Every thing is little, mean, limited, uninteresting, worthless, compared with THE EXCELLENCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST JESUS

14 The Revelation makes known the existence and agency of angels; both of those who fell, and of those who kept their first innocency.

OUR LORD.15 The value of the soul of man, and the depth of its fall, are best known from the astonishing method of recovery here revealed. A God incarnate, a God humbling himself, a God interposing, bleeding, agonizing, for man his creature, is a fact of such grandeur and majesty as to be quite beyond the command and faculty of the human mind.

As the vastness of the universe, the more it is discovered and traced out, heightens our conception of the glory and power of God-worlds upon worlds— systems upon systems-the starry heavens, an assemblage of suns, each surrounded with its planetary attendants-till the mind is lost in the contemplation. So the magnitude of redemption overwhelms the mind; the greatness of one part pressing upon another; calculation defeated, and imagination exhausted in pursuing consequence after consequence, till faith itself toils in vain to follow out the Revelation which it can never fully comprehend.

4. But the HARMONY of all its parts, and the manner in which it is represented, stamps a divine authority upon the Christian doctrine.

Like the stones of a well-constructed arch, every part of the doctrine of Revelation is not only essential to the rest, but occupies the exact place which gives union and stability to the whole. The different doctrines cohere. They all unite in the guilt and corruption of man, and in the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ. If any one part be taken away, the remainder becomes disjointed and useless. For what is the doctrine of redemption, without that of the fall? or that of the fall, without the doctrine of redemption? And what is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, unless sustained by both the preceding? And what is the infinitely holy character of God, if separated from the other doctrines, of which it is the key-stone-the

15 Phil. iii. 8.

essential, primary part, which knits the whole arch together ?

Redemption displays, also, in combination and harmony, all the divine perfections in undiminished, yea augmented glory. To exercise mercy and grace in accordance with all the ends of justice; to pardon, and yet to express the utmost abhorrence of sin; to unite truth in the same act with compassion; to display a manifold wisdom in the way of reconciling the ends of a holy legislation with the salvation of the sinner; to exhibit all the divine perfections in one scheme which shall obscure none, and yet give to mercy the occasion of "rejoicing against judgment," 16 -all this is the evidence of a harmony truly divine.

Nor do the representations of this scheme fail to give the just impression of this beautiful accordance. All the sacred writers unite in the great outline. It runs through the Bible. The same view of man, and his sin and guilt; the same view of God, and his glorious sovereignty and perfections; the same view of Christ, and his person and sacrifice; the same view of justification and acceptance before God; the same view of the sanctifying influences of the Spirit, of the means of grace, and the hopes of glory-pervade every part of the Scriptures. The degrees of light cast on the details of the scheme differ, but the main principles are the same. Isaiah develops and confirms the writings of Moses; "7 Paul attaches his doctrine of justification to that of Abraham.18 Abel's offering is celebrated in one of the last of the apostolical epistles." Every thing is accordant and consistent, as becomes a divine Revelation.

Contrast with this harmony the contradictions of Infidelity and Paganism. "In the mythology of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and in the fantastical legends of India, China, or Japan, we find many frag17 Isaiah li. 1, 2. 19 Heb. xi. 4.

16 James ii. 13.

18 Rom. iv.