Apostle, in my text, farther adds, "and the "weakness of God is stronger than men.”

The truth of this I might shew in a variety of instances. But, unwilling to trespass too long upon your time and patience, I shall confine myself to that single one, which the Apostle St. Paul seems to have had principally in view,the miraculous propagation of the Gospel of Christ. Whoever well considers the circumstances under which the religion we profess made its first appearance in the world, may justly call it the weakness of God. It springs up in an obscure corner of the world; in a nation, once the peculiar care of Providence, but then despised, and groaning under the heavy yoke of Roman usurpation: its doctrines are severe, and contrary to the corruptions of the world: its religious rites are opposite to the impure or depraved worship both of Gentile and Jewish su→ perstition: the natural corruption of the human heart, the interested prejudice of bigotry, and the strength of civil power, are united together, in one confederate band, to oppose its progress. And who, then, are the men, who are to coun teract this formidable alliance, and to introduce the doctrines of Christianity into the world, in spite of all these disadvantages?-An obscure Galilean is its first publisher: illiterate fishermen

and mechanics are its propagators :-men void of every natural and acquired advantage; without birth, without art, without learning, without eloquence, without connections, without power, without wealth; nay, even compelled to earn the very bread they eat by the daily sweat of their brows. Could there be circumstances more unfavourable Could there be a contest more unequal? Could there be a greater appearance of weakness and imbecility? Yet, see! how much the weakness of God is stronger than men ! Under all these disadvantages, the Gospel of Christ makes its way in the world with incredible rapidity, and flies, like the winged lightning, from east to west. Jews and proselytes, strangers of Rome, Cretes and Arabians, all acknowledge the wonderful work of God. The corruption of man is convicted, the pride of reason is humbled, the prejudice of bigotry is conquered, the strength of civil power is broken. Can there be a greater instance of a divine interposition? Can there be a fuller proof, that the weakness of God is stronger than men? Well might, therefore, the Apostle say in the emphatic words following my text, "God hath chosen the foolish things of "the world to confound the wise; and God "hath chosen the weak things of the world "to confound the mighty; and base things of "the world, and things which are despised, hath

5

"God

"God chosen; yea, and things which are not, "to bring to nought things which are; that no "flesh should glory in his presence."

Remember, therefore, my brethren, that as often as you profess your belief in the Gospel of Christ, you are acknowledging a system, which hath God for its author, and is supported by the most cogent arguments:-a system founded on the most perfect rules of wisdom; which provides equally for the honour of God your Maker and the happiness of yourselves; which requires you to believe nothing, which is not perfectly agreeable to right reason, and which lays no restraints upon you, which a wise man would not wish to lay upon himself:- a system, not founded upon prospects of interest, not inculcated by force or terror of arms, not insinuated by enticing words of man's wisdom: which hath maintained its ground, under every seeming disadvantage, against all its enemies, and, we trust, under God, will still continue to do so, till time shall be no more.

Those who are learned in Christ, I need not exhort to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering. They well know in whom they have believed, and want not my feeble and imperfect aid to strengthen and support the grounds

grounds of their belief. But the weak and unlearned brethren in Christ, who have neither the means nor the abilities to inquire for themselves, will suffer me to exhort them not to fall from their stedfastness, or to be shaken, by any licentious opposition against Christianity. The cause of such licentiousness, striking at the very fundamentals of religion, in a country, where in reason one would least expect to find it, I take not upon me to assign be it on the consciences of those who assume it to themselves, or who do not their part to restrain and suppress it. But the effects of it every sincere Christian will join with me in deploring, which tend to weaken the bonds of society, to introduce an inundation of wickedness, and to cut off the only reasonable hope man can entertain, that of a future state of existence and happiness.

It is not, however, from the strength of their arguments, or the weakness of our cause, that danger is to be apprehended. Christianity has stood more dangerous attacks, and has encountered more formidable opponents, than a Rousseau, a Voltaire, or a Gibbon, whom ignorant and superficial reasoners are apt to consider as the unanswerable champions of infidelity, though, in fact, they are only the retailers of stale and hacknied objections. But the misfortune

fortune is, though these audacious sceptics have again and again been answered, they will not be silenced. They echo, with unceasing assiduity, the trite subtleties of ancient deism, or Platonic metaphysics; still hoping, that some unstable soul may be beguiled with their vain words. One advantage, of much more consequence than all their arguments, I fear, we all of us are too ready to give them by our irregular and immoral conduct for it is a truth not to be dissembled, that the unchristian lives of the professors of Christianity have ever afforded the strongest matter of triumph to its enemies. This, however, it is always in our own power to remove; and sure I am, that both the honour of our holy religion, and a regard to our own happiness, call upon us to remove it speedily. And if these are insufficient; if the mercies of God, who has vouchsafed to us the purest profession of the purest religion, cannot prevail upon us to conform to its precepts, it remains only for his judgments to awaken us to a better sense of our duty. For as the unbeliever will one day find, that the foolishness of God is wiser than men; so also the immoral believer will one day severely feel, that the weakness of God is stronger than men.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.