the present day, by professed Christians, and with all the aid of long experience, acute talents, and assiduous study—the defects, the gross defects of these systems are notorious.' And yet the morals of the gospel, without any pretensions to scientific arrangement, and composed by men of ordinary talents, amidst persecutions, and exile, and imprisonments, are found to contain the most pure and harmonious system of moral truth. That is, the only perfect code bursts suddenly upon the world complete at once; and the improvement which two thousand years have produced, in those who judge of this subject, and bring the gospel to the trial concerning it, only serves to illustrate the wisdom of divine Revelation by the contrast with human weakness and folly.'

But this consideration is incomparably strengthened, if we turn to the WRETCHED SYS

TEMS WHICH MODERN INFIDELS PROPOSE FOR THE DIRECTION OF MANKIND. I should rather say their want of system—nay, their want of any honest intention to promote morality. They talk sometimes of moral duty, they commend the gospel precepts, they vaunt the light of nature and the sufficiency of human reason; but when you See Reid, Stewart, Brown, &c.

* Dr. Hey's Lect. in Bp. Bird Sumner.

watch them in detail, you discover that there is neither foundation nor superstructure; neither principles nor duties; neither rules nor exhortations in their code of morality. As to authority and sanction, the ablest of them' doubt of the immortality of the soul, doubt of a last judgment, doubt of eternal happiness and misery. Were their systems, therefore, ever so perfect, they would have far less force to bind the conscience than the very morals of heathenism. But what, after all, are their systems? They agree in excluding the divine Being from their theories; but upon no other point. One resolves all morality into self-love-another into the law of the stateanother into motives of interest-another into what is useful in society-whilst another has recourse to feeling, and asserts that whatever he feels to be right, is right. On these quicksands what durable edifice can arise? None. There is no bond of society so sacred which they do not burst asunder-there is no personal duty so universally admitted, which they do not impugn-female modesty itself cannot maintain its ground before their coarse depravity. I do not scruple to say that the tendency, and I believe in most cases the design, of our infidel writings, is to dig up the foundation of morals, to efface the distinctions of good and evil, and resign

'Hume, Gibbon, &c. 2 See Leland and Fuller.

men to the wretched contest of base interests and civil restraints, without a God, without a providence, without a day of retribution, without a futurity.

From such darkness we turn to the soft and healing light of the Christian morality, as the traveller hails the dawn of day after a howling, tempestuous night.

I appeal to every heart before me. I ask every ingenuous youth whether he is not horrorstruck with the frightful projects of unbelief; whether his whole moral nature is not shocked by their principles; and whether their rejection of Christianity is not an unavoidable consequence of their holding such opinions? Yes. You can no more reject Christianity, if you are candid and sincere in your inquiries after morality, than you can cast off your accountableness or your personal identity. Such pure morals, working by such means, sustained by such motives, and sanctioned by an eternal judgment, carry their own divine original with them, and need no detail of arguments.

FAITH.

III. HOLD FAST, then, BY THE CHRISTIAN Remember the argument of this discourse in the hour of temptation. Call it to mind when the series of external proofs may be less vividly present with you. Say to yourself— Even

if I were to be unable to answer the objections of unbelievers on every other question, yet the morals of Christianity make it incomparably my SAFER COURSE to obey the gospel. There can, I know, be no comparison, properly speaking, between the safety of receiving and rejecting such a revelation, resting on such accumulated evidences. But even if an adversary should perplex me in the historical argument, if he should bewilder my mind, and persuade me that the proofs are not sufficiently clear and satisfactory, let me remember that it must ever be my safer course to persevere in my adherence to the gospel. For where a code of morals so pure, so benevolent, so spiritual, so entirely agreeing with the light of reason and the moral sense of man, so directly tending to my present peace of conscience as well as my future happiness; when such a code is set before me, it is infinitely safer for me to obey it, than to take a contrary course; because, in obeying it I lose nothing, I venture nothing, I incur no possible risk. I am following nature; but nature corrected and illuminated-I am following the law of conscience; but elevated and purified-I am acting on the eternal distinctions of right and wrong; but cleared up and defined-I am following the dictates of utility and social peace and general happiness; but

resting on the authority and will of God. I lose nothing, therefore, here: nay, I gain in every point of the enumeration. But then, in addition to this, Christianity gives me motives for obedience, springs of inward affection and delight, the power of the Holy Spirit to aid me in the performance of duty, the mercy of God to pardon my failings, the death and passion of Jesus Christ to supply my want of desert and merit. That is, I have every aid and succour in the performance of this course of obedience. The peculiar doctrines of the gospel relieve me, add consolation to me, soften the yoke of obedience, make the path of duty practicable and easy. I will, therefore, cleave to this holy doctrine, which has formed so many virtuous fathers, faithful wives, docile children, upright magistrates, modest scholars, generous nobles, resigned sufferers. I will cleave to this holy doctrine, which makes the rich benevolent, the exalted meek, the powerful considerate, the learned humble, the lowly contented. I will cleave to this holy doctrine, which works by implanting every virtuous principle in the heart, and which is sustained by all the motives of the stupendous Redemption of the Son and Spirit of God, and which refers every human action to an eternal judgment. No; I will never renounce the Christian religion. It is