preceding inftitution religious or moral, on purity of heart and a benevolent disposition; because these are abfolutely neceffary to its great end; but in those whofe recommendations of virtue regard the prefent life only, and whose promised rewards in another were low and fenfual, no preparatory qualifications were requifite to enable men to practise the one, or to enjoy the other: and therefore we fee this object is peculiar to this religion; and with it was entirely new. But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet when discovered they are fo confonant to it, that we cannot but readily affent to them. For the truth of this principle, that the prefent life is a state of probation, and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by every thing which we fee around us: it is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs, the only clue, which can guide us through that pathlefs wilderness, and the VOL. IV. C only only plan on which this world could poffibly have been formed, or on which the hiftory of it can be comprehended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness because it is every where overspread with innumerable miseries; nor of misery, because it is interfperfed with many enjoyments: it could not have been conftituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and confequently of its own. But on this fyftem all that we here meet with, may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and mifery, of virtue and vice, neceffarily refults from a ftate of probation and education; as probation implies trials, fufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences. In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object; and contain ideas of God, and of man, of the pre fent, fent, and of a future life; and of the relations which all these bear to each other, totally unheard of, and quite diffimilar from which had ever been thought on, previany ous to its publication. No other ever drew fo juft a portrait of the worthleffness of this world, and all its purfuits, nor exhibited fuch distinct, lively, and exquifite pictures of the joys of another; of the refurrection of the dead, the laft judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, "when this corruptible fhall put on incor"ruption, and this mortal fhall put on im"mortality*." No other has ever reprefented the Supreme Being in the character of three perfons united in one Godt. * 1 Cor. xv. 53. That there fubfifts fome fuch union in the divine nature, the whole tenour of the New Teftament feems to exprefs, and it was fo understood in the earliest ages but whether this union does, or does not imply equality, or whether it fubfifts in general, or only in particular circumftances, we are not informed, and therefore on these questions it is not only unneceffary, but improper for us to decide. No other has attempted to reconcile thofe seeming contradictory but both true propofitions, the contingency of future events, and the foreknowledge of God, or the free will of the creature with the over-ruling grace of the Creator. No other has fo fully declared the neceffity of wickedness and punishment, yet fo effectually inftructed individuals to refift the one, and to escape the other: no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it: no other has ventured to declare the unpardonable nature of fin without the influence of a mediatorial interpofition, and a vicarious atonement from the fufferings of a fuperior be ing*. Whether these wonderful doctrines * That Chrift fuffered and died as an atonement for the fins of mankind, is a doctrine fo conftantly and so ftrongly enforced through every part of the New Teftament, that whoever will seriously peruse those writings, and deny that it is there, may, with as much reafon and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides and Livy, affert, that in them no mention is made of any facts relative to the hiftories of Greece and Rome. are are worthy of our belief muft depend on the opinion, which we entertain of the authority of those, who published them to the world; but certain it is, that they are all fo far removed from every tract of the human imagination, that it feems equally impoffible, that they should ever have been derived from the knowledge or the artifice of man. Some indeed there are, who, by perverting the established fignification of words, (which they call explaining) have ventured to expunge all thefe doctrines out of the fcriptures, for no other reason than that they are not able to comprehend them; and argue thus:-The fcriptures are the word of God; in his word no propofitions contradictory to reason can have a place; these propofitions are contradictory to reason, and therefore they are not there. But if these bold affertors would claim any regard, they should reverse their argument, and fay,These doctrines make a part, and a material part of the scriptures, they are contradictory to reafon; no propofitions contradictory to |