The spirit of enquiry upon all subjects now abroad, the diffusion of education, the multiplication of readers and thinkers, call on the ministers of religion to state the Christian evidences again and again. They have no reason to be ashamed of the cause in which they are engaged. On the contrary, Christianity is the glory of our rational nature. It is the foundation of moral order, the bond of civil society, the spring of all mental improvement, the best friend of individuals and communities, the source of mercy, tenderheartedness and beneficence amongst men. And the more fully it is known in the commanding discoveries it makes of the state of man, and the remedy of that state, in the mighty redemption of Christ, the more adequately will it appear to meet all the necessities of our fallen and disordered state-every desire of the human heart. The author is deeply impressed with the persuasion, that to eradicate secret infidelity, or a coldness in the Christian cause, next to infidelity, we must unite the internal with the external evidences of Christianity, and make both to bear upon the conscience of man. Thus will Almighty God be honoured in the arguments adduced for the revelation which he has given us-thus will the sacrifice of the blessed Saviour be continually adverted to as the centre truth of that revelation-thus will the sacred influences of the Holy Spirit be exhibited as the means for the moral restoration of our nature. And thus will manfeeling all his case relieved, all his wants supplied, all his apprehensions and fears calmed, all the capacities and desires of his immortal being directed to an object of corresponding magnitude and elevation-acquiesce with entire repose of mind, in the Christian religion, as emanating from the Fountain of all goodness and holiness, and leading him to the full and exuberant fruition of all the highest ends for which he was created. The Christian's Reason for the hope that is in him The meekness and fear with which he gives it From the vast superiority of the question And from the demand which Christianity makes THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY OF A DI- VINE REVELATION SHOWN FROM THE STATE OF MAN IN ALL AGES.-Roм. i. 19-24. THE HEATHEN WORLD BEFORE THE COMING CHRIST had lost the doctrine of the Being of God . 60 65 |