hath employed fifty seven proposi- good action, or even to think a good tions, and sixty explanatory theses, thought. He would then proceed to in illustration of this glorious and the doctrines of irresistible grace; important truth, which St. John hath a triune Deity; the necessity of infinite clearly and emphatically expressed in merit to atone for infinite guilt, three sentences! It hath been said which he imputes to a frail, finite of this eminent divine, that he was, and fallible creature, because com"unhappily subtle and metaphy- mitted against an infinite Being; and sical in every thing." The term the assertion, that if they die without subile, in a bad sense, is ill applied the Christian faith, even when it has to Mr. Baxter, but he is certainly been but briefly proposed to them, liable sometimes to the charge of and they have had little time to exmetaphysical obscurity, which, as amine its evidences, they will be must ever be the case, renders his infallibly condemned to all eternity. works far less useful than otherwise If they should express astonishment they would be. at some of these positions, as "things hard to be understood!" and are dreadfully alarmed at the idea of infinite and everlasting vengeance, he will presently soothe their fears, by informing them, that though their case is at present desperate, it is so far from being hopeless, or without remedy, that it may be changed for the better in an instant; that they have only to accept of Christ, by a strong and lively faith, and the work is done: That he hath wrought out a free and full salvation for all his elect, of which number, each individual to whom he is preached, may hope to be one, seeing we cannot search the book of God's decrees; and who can never finally fall from his grace, for whom he loves, loves to the end:" That it is true, this faith should operate to the mending their manners, and reforming their wicked lives, and that this it will infallibly accomplish; but that at the same time, they must always be exceedingly careful not to pay any undue regard to the good works which they may perform, which, being imperfect, can neither be the cause, matter, nor condition of our justification, and which, in any wise confided in, will ultimately deprive them of all the privileges and blessings of gospel grace. He will guard them against Satanic influence, the author of which, he will describe as a kind of demi-god, possessed of a species of omnipresence, having access to the minds of men in all times, places and circumstances, and tempting them to kinds and degrees of sin, far beyond the extent and discovery of their own natural powers and corruptions. The writer believes, that he does not misrepresent a species of preaching, to be met with in, no But, not to digress, it is to be observed, that although the text above cited, with many others, fully establish this important principle, and thereby decisively prove the acceptableness of natural religion, where no other is to be obtained; yet, it by no means follows that our best endeavours 'should not be exerted, to promote the knowledge and influence of Christianity, where it is at present unknown. On the contrary, possessing as we do, in the enjoyment of this Divine gift, immense privileges and advantages, we should be solicitous, as far as we are able, to communicate these blessings to the comparatively benighted corners of the habitable globe, and to labour as well as pray, in the use of reasonable, probable, and allowed means, (as to the nature and application of which we must be supposed to differ), "That the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, may shine inte them." With this view, much expense and labour have recently been employed in this country, by different denominations, in the institution of Missionary Societies, for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, into the degrees of the success or failure of which we do not now inquire. We may conceive, however, of various methods which ministers of different religious sentiments might naturally be led to adopt in the prosecution of this important object. Let us suppose a zealous Calvinist, engaged in this arduous undertaking. He will probably begin his work with the history of the fall; the supposed consequent inherent depravity of human nature; the utter incapacity of man, in his natural state, to do a "he Now, let us suppose, on the other a hand, Bishop Taylor or a Wilkins, a Clarke or a Tillotson, a Whichcote or a Foster, a Price or a Paley, engaged in the same design. He would probably, like the great founder of Christianity, begin with deducing his instructions from the things around him, and lead his hearers from nature, up to nature's God: he would display the wonders of creation, and the different effects which they produce, upon the mind of the attentive, and of the superficial observer : he would expatiate on the nature and perfections of the Deity, as far as discoverable by us; his unity, and supremacy, his infinite power, presence, wisdom, and goodness; and when they had arrived at some tolerable acquaintance with, and conviction of those important and fundamental principles, he would proceed to demonstrate the justice and holiness of God, the essential and unalterable distinction between moral good and evil, the obligation of gratitude to the Supreme Being for all his benefits, the necessity and advantage of constant and humble prayer in all created natures, and more especially in so frail, fallible, and dependent a being as man, not only as an essential means of religion, but as an integral and constituent part of it, and of conformity to the image of the great wise men and glorious Being whom we wor- he would man to man in more close and intimate bonds: then he would lay before them a moral chart of the world we inhabit, and, perhaps, sometimes in private, a natural one; he would describe the different situations, climates, advantages and disadvantages of the globe; he would acquaint them with the outlines of astronomy, thereby to afford them just views of the grandeur and immensity of the universe; he would lead them from world to world, and from system to system, from this small speck of earth, to worlds and suns above, E Least correspondence with a single star: Nor rear'd an altar to the queen of heaven, innumerable, unknown, and unconceived! and when they were lost in the immense survey, and sinking from this towering height, he would sus tain and renovate their fainting spirits with this glorious and animating truth, that "One soul outweighs them all! And calls th' astonishing magnificence Of unintelligent creation, poor." YOUNG. He would now proceed to consider the different religions in the world, and to shew that all nations have some religion: he would demonstrate that the Deity has various methods of communicating his mind and will to his rational offspring, always and every where by the objects of nature, the course of Providence, and the powers of reason and conscience, sometimes by the instrumentality of superior beings, called angels, who have appeared occasionally in a glorious, and at other times in a human form; but that, as our present faculties are weak and imperfect, and we can scarcely bear the effulgence of angelic, and still less of Divine glory, he hath been graciously pleased for the most part to speak to us by the medium of sages, patriarchs, and prophets, men in all respects like ourselves, except in those extraordinary and supernatural powers with which they were occasionally endowed, and by means of which they were enabled to point out with authority the path of duty to an ignorant and benighted race, who, by neglecting the natural notices of God, and his Providence, and of their duty and expectations, had departed from their allegiance, and rendered themselves obnoxious to his displeasure : he will shew the evils of paganism, as a corruption of the true primitive religion, the absurdity of bowing down to stocks and stones, as to visible gods, which our hands have formed; for, how can those things help us, which, though we cannot create, we can alter or destroy? and even the folly of worshipping the host of heaven, which, though essentially serviceable to man by their benign influences, appear to be as much under a law, as the elements of fire and water which are more imme diately under our cognizance: he will then gradually unfold the history the He will represent the former and the latter prophets, and especially the great prophet of Nazareth and his apostles, as proving their Divine commission, by the performance of incon testible miracles-a species of evidence of which they will readily perceive the force and importance, when they are convinced that all things are equally subject to the Divine jurisdiotion; that the same power which created, can easily change or destroy, and that none can work a true miracle but God, or those conmmissioned by him that therefore a miracle is an occasional departure from the common course of nature, by a Divine interposition, in attestation of the authority of a particular person, or for the accomplishinent portant moral purpose, immediate or remote: that, if they were to see. four thousand persons fed in of some im a wilderness, without any apparent wisdom and goodness continue to adequate means, a withered arm in- regulate and control the exercise of stantly "made whole as the other," his power. or a dead body raised to life again, they must needs be assured of a Divine interposition: that if this were to happen now, it would be equally true 1800 years hence, and to all eternity, and that therefore, if it happened 1800 years ago, it is equally true now, and that we have all the evidence of the reality of these events, from testimony and a legitimate and infallible tradition, which, at this distance of time, the nature of the thing will admit of: that to doubt of the truth of miracles in former ages, because we see none at present, is the most foolish thing in the world, and a principle which would lead us to deny every thing but what we ourselves behold: that an ignorant native of a burning climate might find it difficult, if not impossible to conceive, how water should ever be converted into a solid mass; yet that this is an absolute fact, which such persons ought to believe, upon the testimony of sufficient and credible reporters: that a person brought up in a mine might deny there was such a body as the sun, a man born blind, that there was such a thing as light, or one ignorant of letters, that language aud sentiments could be transported to incalculable distances, without the aid of voice or sound: that the wonders of creation, of which we are daily witnesses, prove a sovereign and uncontrolable Power, who, for wise and obvious reasons does not think proper to depart from those fixed laws which he hath appointed, except in particular cases: that the creation of the world was a miracle in the eye of intelligent beings, then existing, and that a miracle may now take place before they are aware: that the solid ground may instantly give way under their feet, and they may sink into an unfathomable abyss: that the healthful air may become baleful and pestiferous, the sun descend to the earth, and burn it up with fire unquenchable, and afterwards himself be quenched in a mighty ocean, as a twinkling taper in the slender stream! and that all this would certainly happen, and the material universe become an absolute blank, should the Creator once with draw his energy, or should not his He will point out to them the imitable as well as the peculiar and distinguishing character of Christ, his profound humility and subinission to the Divine will, his perfect purity, his heavenly mindedness, his unlimited benevolence, and universal charity, extending even to his enemies, persecutors and murderers, the exalted state to which he is now advanced, and the important consequences that will ensue at his second glorious appearance, the superadditions which are made by the gospel to former systems, natural or revealed, not only in the charity of its precepts, and the immensity of its promises and prospects, but also, as to some of its essential forms and characteristics, namely, that although we may sometimes pray to God, considered only as Creator and Rector of the universe, in which practice the Lord's prayer itself will justify us, which appears to be founded in the principles of simple theism; yet, we are obliged more frequently in private, and invariably in the public religious assemblies, to pray as Christians that is, in the. name of Christ, and with a due regard to his person, character and sufferings, his mediation and intercession, principles often alluded to and inculcated in the New Testament, though we may not always fully comprehend their import, seeing they are such as "the angels desire to contemplate," and must ever be careful not to interpret the passages relating to them, and which are sometimes evidently figurative and metaphorical, in any sense inconsistent with, or dishonourable to the character of the Supreme Deity, who, as he is in himself the great source of all being and perfection, so, he is the original author of all the benefits we derive from the Christian dispensation, which are the effects and not the causes of his infinite and essential benevolence: and that without this open profession of Christian principles, "in the great congregation," we shall not only be guilty of high ingratitude to to God, G and to the Redeemer, but that also, by this unwarrantable omission, the churches of Christ may in the succession of time be converted into assemblies of Deists, or degene rate into a similarity with the schools of the heathen philosophers. He will often impress upon their minds that the doctrines and duties of the gospel are few and simple, but the methods of enforcing and illustrating them, multiform and indefinite; and hence the necessity and utility of an order of men set apart (primi inter pares) as ministers of Divine things, subject at all times to the authority of the great and only head of the church, and to the genuine dictates of the sacred writers; together with the beautiful simplicity and fitness of the two positive ordinances of the gospel, as admirably calculated, in connection with public worship and instruction, to preserve and maintain it in the world. If any of these children of nature, whose spiritual wants we are now contemplating, more sagacious and inquisitive than the rest, should ask how so much evil can arise, under the dominion of an all-wise, gracious, and infinitely powerful Being? the faithful minister will reply, that natural evil is, in one view, a mark of the degeneracy of the mundane system, on account of the transgression of its first in habitants, serving as a perpetual and awful manifestation of the Divine displeasure on that account; of which there appears striking and ample proof in the disorders of the elements, the infirmities of human nature, the general prevalence of death, the discord of the lower orders of beings around us, the peculiar sufferings of women, the necessity of extreme and painful labour in some of the various concerns and avocations of life, which often destroys the individual prematurely, and of animal food to the sustenance of man; none of which circumstances we can reasonably suppose to have taken place in his first state, or to have constituted a part of the original plan of Providence, and of which they will know more, when they shall have become acquainted with the history of the old world, and better understand the methods of the Divine administration: that even here the Deity brings good out of evil: that by the increasing knowledge of the laws of nature, and the progressive improvements in society, painful and excessive labour becomes much diminished: that storms, tempests and volcanoes purify the air and the sea: that frost and snow in the northern regions fructify the earth, and make it approach in the succeeding seasons, to the paradisaical isarcal appearance of more genial and salubrious climes: that earthquakes, though dreadful in themselves, are rare and partial, may render contiguous portions of ground more stable and se cure, sometimes expose new land, more than they have taken away, and produce many valuable ends in the moral world, by alarming the careless and inconsiderate, who are not affected by the common course of nature and Providence: that those who die by these calamities will be impartially dealt with in a future state, and that their uncommon and painful lot may possibly serve to diminish the punish. ment of their iniquity hereafter: nor are we ever to judge of the character or future destination of individuals, by the nature or degree of their sufferings in the present world, where, in many respects, "all things come alike to all." That sometimes natural evil arises from natural good, and that we cannot enjoy the one, without danger of the other: that if the system of the universe is maintained by the same law which causes a stone unsupported to fall from the top of a hill, this law may be the occasion of serious accidents or death in particular cases: that if the fire is to warm us at a distance, and to dress our food, it must be something of prodigious force and efficacy, and which will necessarily hurt or destroy those substances or beings which approach too near it, or unheedingly rush into its bosom: that if the water is to assuage our thirst, to quench the raging flames, to serve the important purposes of navigation and commerce, and to answer many other valuable ends, it will sometimes, from the effect of winds and tides, overflow its banks, and must needs suffocate those animals which are immersed in it, and whose organs are not fitted to live in this element:† that in a state of primitive * "Though winter had been none, had man been true, And earth be punished for its tenants' Yet, not in vengeance!" sake COWPER. + The reader may perhaps think these cases are so plain, that there was no need of expatiating upon them. How it is |