which we have confined the internal evidences becomes obvious. For of the counsels of the incomprehensible God, what can man, abstractedly speaking, know? Of the various methods of his dealings with his creatures in their fallen state, what can human wisdom, of itself, determine? On such subjects we are silent; and having received the divine communications on the ground of external testimony, we receive the doctrines as converts and disciples, and accept the Revelation itself as an authority for what it contains.'

Having done this, we are in a condition to trace out various indications of glory and excellency in the doctrines thus admitted, or rather in certain parts of them; and these indications furnish a source of important subsidiary evidence.

Let us, then, first enumerate, in this view, the CHIEF DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; and, secondly, point out the particulars in which SOMETHING OF THEIR DIVINE EXCELLENCY MAY BE PERCEIVED.

In doing this, it will be impossible not to touch on some of the points noticed under the adaptation of Christianity, in its most general sense, to the wants of man; for the doctrines are only the details of that subject. At the

'Davison.

same time, a wide distinction in the conduct and results of the argument will appear.'

I. I propose to review the chief doctrines of the Christian religion.

1. The first relates to the BEING, PERFECTIONS, AND PROVIDENCE OF THE ONE LIVING

AND TRUE GOD. The Bible begins here. It teaches us that there is one eternal, self-existing, and all-glorious Being, who created the world out of nothing, and who is the sovereign, the proprietor, the preserver, and the Lord of all things.

The UNITY of this ever-blessed God, in opposition to the idols of the heathen worship; and his GLORIOUS PERFECTIONS, BOTH ESSENTIAL AND MORAL, in opposition to the vices, and passions, and prejudices, by which the pagan deities were described as actuated, are the first elements of revealed truth.

A more serious difficulty arises from the necessity of employing terms and referring to doctrines which suppose a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and some general acquaintance with Christianity in its chief details. This difficulty attends every branch of the internal evidences, but peculiarly the consideration of the doctrines of Revelation. It will be lessened as the student advances in his inquiry -and with regard to the great body of young people, whom I have especially in view, and who have been instructed from infancy in the Christian religion, it scarcely exists.

them their duties, or lifting them out of their station. The institution of a day of repose after the interval of six days' labour, for the worship of God, the contemplation of his spiritual, and the preparation for his eternal, relations and destinies, is an unspeakable blessing, displays the suitableness of Revelation to the powers of man, needing recreation and rest both for body and mind. No attempt was ever made for raising the character and situation of the poor, without inspiring pride or relaxing the bonds of domestic and civil subjection, but by the gospel.

The Bible is suited to all orders of intellect; like the works of nature, where the humblest artizan can trace some of those wonders, which the greatest philosophers cannot exhaust. The child meets with what suits his opening capacities; the old and experienced, that which gives tranquillity and peace to age.

Then it follows all the improvements of mankind in learning and science, in philosophy and the arts; and keeps above and beyond them all-opens its treasures as man advances in capacity for searching them out; is illustrated and confirmed by every solid acquisition in human knowledge; meets and suits the mind of the savage emerging into civilization; and yet

soars far above the intellect of the scholar and the divine in the most refined advances of society. Like all the works of God, it is adapted to men in every stage of improvement; and the more it is studied, the more do the topics of admiration multiply.

There is also a completeness in the Bible for its proper end. All that man's necessities, as to practical knowledge and present aid, require, you find there; all the circumstances, all the duties, all the emergencies, of man are consulted. It is completely fitted for him; having no omissions, no redundancies, no defects, no provisions nor directions forgotten or left out.

And yet, with all this suitableness to mankind in all ages, and under all circumstances, it seems to address each individual in particular. The truth of the description, the exact fitness of the doctrines for man, are such that every one thinks his own case consulted. The Bible, says Mr. Boyle, like a well-drawn portrait, seems to look every beholder full in the face. In fact, it is the book made for man: not for man in this or that age, of this or that class, of this or that order of intellect, but man universally, on the footing of those capacities, wants, feelings, which are common to the whole race.

tacy, by teaching the character of the God whom he has offended and of the law which he has broken. Heathenism had only some faint and partial views of man's sinfulness; it had lost the very notion of sin as committed against the majesty of God. The Christian Revelation opens the whole doctrine, as dependent on the two facts of the original innocency and of the fall of man, which we noticed in the last lecture-it states, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin'-it declares that men are corrupt and depraved, guilty and helpless-it details man's weakness and apathy as to spiritual things, the blindness of his understanding, the perverseness and rebellion of his will, the alienation of his heart from God and goodness.

It treats him as a sinner, accountable indeed, and with some fragments and traces of a moral nature, and capable of restoration by the grace of God in redemption; but in himself impotent-unable to offer any atonement for his past offences-unable, because unwilling, to return to his duty to God-without knowledge of divine truth, without strength, without a right determination of the will-without any means of devising or entering upon a way of deliver

ance.

This description of the guilt and folly of man is widely different from that given in any other

'Rom. v. 12.