persuaded though one rose from the dead" to attest it. It is questionable, whether the Jewish revelation explained the state of souls after death so clearly that Jesus Christ had sufficient grounds for his proposition. But were we to grant what this question implies; were we to suppose, that the state of souls after death was as much unknown as our querist pretends; it would be still true, that it was incongruous with the justice and wisdom of God to employ new means of conversion in favour of a Jew, who resisted Moses and the prophets. Our proof follows. Moses and the prophets taught sublime notions of God. They represented him as a Being supremely wise, and supremely powerful. Moreover, Moses and the prophets expressly declared, that God, of whom they gave some sublime ideas, would display his power, and his wisdom, to render those completely happy who obeyed his laws, and them completely miserable who durst affront his authority. A Jew, who was persuaded on the one hand, that Moses and the prophets spoke on the part of God; and, on the other, that Moses and the prophets, whose mission was unsuspected, declared that God would render those completely happy who obeyed his laws, and them completely miserable who durst affront his authority; a Jew, who, in spite of this persuasion, persisted in impenitence, was so obdurate, that his conversion, by means of any new motives, was inconceivable; at least, he was so culpable, that he could not equitably require God to employ new means for his conversion. What does the gospel say more on the punishments which God will inflict on the wicked, than Moses and the prophets said (I speak on the supposition of those who deny any particular explications of the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament.) What did Jesus Christ teach more than Moses and the prophets taught? He entered into a more particular detail; he told his hearers, there was "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; a worm that died not, and a fire that was not quenched." But the general thesis, that God would display his attributes in punishing the wicked, and in rewarding the good, this general thesis was as well known to the Jews as it is to Christians; and this general thesis is a sufficient ground for the words of the text. The most that can be concluded from this objection is, not that the proposition of Jesus Christ was not verified in regard to the Jews, but that it is much more verified in regard to Christians; not that the Jews, who resisted Moses and the prophets, were not very guilty, but that Christians, who resist the gospel, are much more guilty. We are fully convinced of the truth of this assertion. We wish your minds were duly affected with it. purpose we proceed to the application. To this First, We address ourselves to infidels: O that you would for once seriously enter into the reasonable disposition of desiring to know and to obey the truth! At least, examine, and see. If, after all your pains, you can find nothing credible in the Christian religion, we own we are strangers to the human heart, and we must give you up, as belonging to a species of beings different from ours. But what irritates us is to see, that among the many infidels, who are endeavouring to destroy the vitals of religion, there is scarcely one to be found whose erroneous principles do not originate in a bad heart. It is the heart that disbelieves; it is the heart which must be attacked; it is the heart that must be convinced. People doubt because they will doubt.Dreadful disposition! Can nothing discover thine enormity? What is infidelity good for? By what charm does it lull the soul into a willing ignorance of its origin and end? If, during the short space of a mortal life, the love of independence tempt us to please ourselves with joining his monstrous party, how dear will the union cost us when we come to die! O! were my tongue dipped in the gall of celestial displeasure, I would describe to you the state of a man expiring in the cruel uncertainties of unbelief; who sees, in spite of himself, yea, in spite of himself, the truth of that religion, which he has endeavoured to no purpose to eradicate from his heart. Ah! see! every thing contributes to trouble him now. "I am dying-I despair of recovering-physicians have given me over-the sighs and tears of my friends are useless; yet they have nothing else to bestow-medicines take no effect-consultations come to nothing-alas! not you→ not my little fortune-the whole world cannot cure me-I must die-It is not a preacher-it is not a religious book-it is not a trifling de claimer-it is death itself that preaches to me I feel, I know not what, shivering cold in my blood-I am in a dying sweat-my feet, my hands, every part of my body is wasted-I am more like a corpse than a living body—I am rather dead than alive-I must die-Whither am I going? What will become of me? What will become of my body? My God! what a frightful spectacle! I see it! The horrid torches -the dismal shroud-the coffin-the pall-the tolling bell-the subterranean abode-carcases worms-putrefaction-What will become of my soul? I am ignorant of its destiny-I am tumbling headlong into eternal night-my infidelity tells me my soul is nothing but a portion of subtle matter-another world a vision-immortality a fancy-But yet, I feel, I know not what that troubles my infidelity-annihilation, terrible as it is, would appear tolerable to me, were not the ideas of heaven and hell to present themselves to me, in spite of myself-But I see that heaven, that immortal mansion of glory shut against me-I see it at an immense distance-I see it at a place, which my crimes forbid me to enter-I see hell-hell, which I have ridiculed-it opens under my feet-I hear the horrible groans of the damned-the smoke of the bottomless pit chokes my words, and wraps my thoughts in suffocating darkness." Such is the infidel on a dying bed. This is not an imaginary flight; it is not an arbitrary invention, it is a description of what we see every day in the fatal visits, to which our ministry engages us, and to which God seems to call us to be sorrowful witnesses of his displeasure and vengeance. This is what infidelity comes to. This is what infidelity is good for. Thus most skeptics die, although, while they live, they pretend to free themselves from SER. XXIV.] vulgar errors. I ask again, What charms are there in a state that has such dreadful consequences? How is it possible for men, rational men, to carry their madness to such an excess? Without doubt, it would excite many murmurs in this auditory; certainly we should be taxed with strangely exceeding the matter, prayers! To him be honour and glory for After that in the wisdom of God the world by wis- Tertullian hereupon takes an occasion to Of this superiority of knowledge we intend to treat to-day. This St. Paul had in view in the first chapters of this epistle, and particularly in the text. But in order to a thorough knowledge of the apostle's meaning, we must explain his terms, and mark the occasion of them. With this explication we begin. Would to God our hearers had no other interest in the examination of this question than what compassion for the misery of others gave them! May the many false Christians, who live in impenitence, and who felicitate themselves for not living in infidelity, be sincerely affected, dismayed, and ashamed of giving occasion for the question, whether they be not more odious themselves than those whom they account the most odious of man-ble city, was one of those countries which kind, I mean skeptics and atheists! May each of us be enabled to improve the means which God has employed to save us! May our faith and obedience be crowned! and may we be admitted with Lazarus into the bosom of the Father of the faithful! The Lord hear our Greece, of which Corinth was a considera honoured the sciences, and which the sciences honoured in return. It was the opinion there, that the prosperity of a state depended as much on the culture of reason, and on the establishment of literature, as on a well disciplined army, or an advantageous trade; and that neither opulence nor grandeur were of any value in the hands of men who were destitute of learning and good sense. In this they were worthy of emulation and praise. At the same time, it was very deplorable that their love of learning should often be an occasion of their ignorance. Nothing is more common in academies and universities (indeed it is an imperfection almost inseparable from them) than to see each science alternately in vogue; each branch of literature becomes fashionable in its turn, and some doctor presides over reason and good sense, so that sense and reason are nothing without his approbation. In St. Paul's time, philosophy was in fashion in Greece; not a sound chaste philosophy, that always took reason for its guide (a kind of science, which has made greater progress in our times than in all preceding ages;) but a philosophy full of prejudices, subject to the authority of the heads of a sect which was then most in vogue, expressed politely, and to use the language of St. Paul, proposed "with the words which man's wisdom teacheth," 1 Cor. ii. 13. Without this philosophy, and this eloquence, people were despised by the Greeks. The apostles were very little versed in these sciences. The gospel they preached was formed upon another plan; and they who preached it were destitute of these ornaments: accordingly they were treated by the far greater part with contempt. The want of these was a great offence to the Corinthians. They could not comprehend, that a doctrine, which came from heaven, could be inferior to human sciences. St. Paul intended in this epistle to guard the Corinthians against this objection, and to make an apology for the gospel, and for his ministry. The text is an abridgment of his apology. The occasion of the words of the text is a key to the sense of each expression; it explains those terms of the apostle which need explanation, as well as the meaning of the whole proposition: "After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." The wisdom, or the learning, of which St. Paul speaks, is philosophy. This, I think, is incontestable. The first Epistle to the Corinthians, I grant, was written to two sorts of Christians, to some who came from the profession of Judaism, and to others who came from the profession of paganism. Some commentators doubt whether, by the wise, of whom St. Paul often speaks in this chapter, we are to understand Jews or pagan philosophers: whether by wisdom, we are to understand the system of the synagogue, or the system of the porch. They are inclined to take the words in the former sense, because the Jews usually called their divines and philosophers, wise men, and gave the name of wisdom to every branch of knowledge. Theology they called, wisdom concerning God; natural philosophy they called, wisdom concerning nature; astronomy they called, wisdom concerning the stars; and so of the rest. But, although we grant the truth of this remark, we deny the application of it here. It seems very clear to us, that St. Paul, throughout this chapter, gave the Pagan philosophers the appellation wise, which they affected. The verse, that follows the text, makes this very plain: "the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:" that is to say, the Greeks are as earnestly desirous of philosophy, as the Jews of miracles. By wisdom, in the text, then, we are to understand philosophy. But the more fully to comprehend the meaning of St. Paul, we must define this philosophy agreeably to his ideas. Philosophy, then, "is that science of God, and of the chief good, which is grounded, not on the testimony of any superior intelligence, but on the speculations and discoveries of our own reason. ,, There are two more expressions in our text, that need explaining; "the foolishness of preaching," and "them that believe:" "after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." They who believe, are a class of people, who take a method of knowing God, opposite to that of philosophers. Philosophers determine to derive all their notions of God, and of the chief good, from their own speculations. Believers, on the contrary, convinced of the imperfection of their reason, and of the narrow limits of their knowledge, derive their religious ideas from the testimony of a superior intelligence. The superior intelligence, whom they take for their guide, is JESUS CHRIST; and the testimony, to which they submit, is the gospel. Our meaning will be clearly conveyed by a remarkable passage of Tertullian, who shows the difference between him, whom St. Paul calls wise, and him whom he calls a believer. On the fainous words of St. Paul to the Colossians, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit," chap. ii. 8, says this father; "St. Paul had seen at Athens that human wisdom, which curtaileth and disguiseth the truth. He had seen, that some heretics, endeavoured to mix that wisdom with the gospel. But what communion hath Jerusalem with Athens? the church with the academy? heretics with true Christians? Solomon's porch is our porch. We have no need of speculation, and discussion, after we have known Jesus Christ and his gospel. When we believe we ask nothing more; for it is an article of our faith, that he who believes, needs no other ground of his faith than the gospel." Thus speaks Tertullian. But why does St. Paul call the gospel, "the foolishness of preaching?" "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Besides, he calls it, "the foolishness of God: the foolishness of God is wiser than men," ver. 25. And he adds, ver. 27, "God hath chosen the foolish thing of the world to confound the wise." It is usual with St. Paul, and the style is not peculiar to him, to call an object not by a name descriptive of its real nature, but by a name expressive of the notions that are formed of it in the world, and of the effects that are produced by it. Now, the gospel being considered by Jews and heathens as a foolish system, St. Paul calls it, foolishness. That this was the apostle's meaning two passages prove. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are FOOLISHNESS UNTO HIM," chap. ii. 14. You see, then, in what sense the gospel is foolishness; it is so called, because it appears so to a natural man. Again, "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and UNTO THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS." You see in what sense the gospel is called foolishness; it is because the doctrine of Jesus Christ crucified, which is the great doctrine of the gospel, was treated as foolishness. The history of the preaching of the apostles fully justifies our comment. The doctrines of the gospel, in general, and that of a God-man crucified, in particular, were reputed foolish. "We are accounted fools," says Justin Martyr, "for giving such an eminent rank to a crucified man."*"The wise men of the world," says St. Augustine, “insult us, and ask, Where is your reason and intelligence, when you worship a man who was crucified?"t These two words, wisdom and foolishness being thus explained, I think we may easily understand the whole text. "After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." To know God is a short phrase, expressive of an idea of the virtues necessary to salvation; it is equal to the term theology, that is, science concerning God; a body of doctrine, containing all the truths which are necessary to salvation. Agreeably to this, St. Paul explains the phrase to know God, by the expression, to be saved.— "After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe:" and, a little lower, what he had called "knowing God," he calls "knowing the mind of the Lord," chap. ii. 16, that is, knowing that plan of salvation which God has formed in regard to man. When therefore the apostle said, "The world by wisdom knew not God," he meant, that the heathens had not derived from the light of nature all the help necessary to enable them to form adequate notions of God, and of a worship suited to his perfections. Above all, he meant to teach us, that it was impossible for the greatest philosophers to discover by the light of nature all the truths that compose the system of the gospel, and particularly the doctrine of a crucified Redeemer. The accomplishment of the great mystery of redemption depended on the pure will of God, and, consequently, it could be known only by revelation. With this view, he calls the mystery of revelation "things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, but which God hath revealed by his Spirit," ver. 9, 10. The apostle says, "After the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God to save believers by the foolishness of preaching." That is to say, since the mere systems of reason were eventually insufficient for the salvation of mankind, and since it was impossible that their speculations should obtain the true knowledge of God, God took another way to instruct them: he revealed by preaching the gospel, what the light of nature could not discover, so that the system of Jesus Christ, and * Apol. Secund. Serm. viii. de verbo Apost. his apostles, supplied all that was wanting in the systems of the ancient philosophers. But it is not in relation to the ancient philosophers only that we mean to consider the proposition in our text; we will examine it also in reference to modern philosophy. Our philosophers know more than all those of Greece knew; but their science, which is of unspeakable advantage, while it contains itself within its proper sphere, becomes a source of errors when it is extended beyond it. Human reason now lodges itself in new intrenchments, when it refuses to submit to the faith. It even puts on new armour to attack it, after it has invented new methods of self-defence. Under pretence that natural science has made greater progress, revelation is despised. Under pretence that modern notions of God the Creator are purer than those of the ancients, the yoke of God the Redeemer is shaken off. We are going to employ the remaining part of this discourse in justifying the proposition of St. Paul in the sense that we have given it: we are going to endeavour to prove, that revealed religion has advantages infinitely superior to natural religion: that the greatest geniuses are incapable of discovering by their own reason all the truths necessary to salvation: and that it displays the goodness of God, not to abandon us to the uncertainties of our own wisdom, but to make us the rich present of revelation. We will enter into this discussion by placing on the one side, a philosopher, contemplating the works of nature; on the other, a disciple of Jesus Christ, receiving the doctrines of revelation. To each we will give four subjects to examine: the attributes of God; the nature of man; the means of appeasing the remorse of conscience; and a future state. From their judgments on each of these subjects, evidence will arise of the superior worth of that revelation, which some minute philosophers affect to despise, and above which they prefer that rough draught which they sketch out by their own learned speculations. I. Let us consider a disciple of natural religion, and a disciple of revealed religion, meditating on the attributes of God. When the disciple of natural religion considers the symmetry of this universe; when he observes that admirable uniformity, which appears in the succession of seasons, and in the constant rotation of night and day; when he remarks the exact motions of the heavenly bodies; the flux and reflux of the sea, so ordered that billows, which swell into mountains, and seem to threaten the world with a universal deluge, break away on the shore, and respect on the beach the command of the Creator, who said to the sea, "hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," Job xxxviii. 11; when he attends to all thes marvellous works, he will readily conclude, that the Author of nature is a being powerful and wise. But when he observes winds, tempests and earthquakes, which seem to threaten the reduction of nature to its primitive chaos; when he sees the sea overflow its banks, and burst the enormous moles, that the industry of mankind had raised; his speculations will be perplexed, he will imagine he sees characters of imperfection among so many proofs of creative perfection and power. ate it with the perfections of the Creator, how opposite soever it may seem? Do the disorders of the world puzzle the disciple of natural religion, and produce difficulties in his mind? With the principles of the gospel I can solve them all. When it is remembered, that this world has been defiled by the sin of man, and that he is therefore an object of divine displeasure; when the principle is admitted, that the world is not now what it was when it came out of the hands of God; and that, in comparison with its pristine state, it is only a heap of ruins, the truly magnificent, but actually ruinous heap of an edifice of incomparable beauty, the rubbish of which is far more proper to excite our grief for the loss of its primitive grandeur, than to suit our present wants. When these reflections are made, can we find any objections, in the disorders of the world, against the wisdom of our Creator? Are the miseries of man, and is the fatal necessity of death, in contemplation? With the principles of the gospel I solve the difficulties which these sad objects produce in the mind of the disciple of natural religion. If the principles of Christianity be admitted, if we allow that the afflictions of good men are profitable to them, and that, in many cases, prosperity would be fatal to them: if we grant, that the present is a transitory state, and that this momentary life will be succeeded by an immortal state; if we recollect the many similar truths which the gospel abundantly declares; can we find, in human miseries, and in the necessity of dying, objections against the goodness of the Creator? When he thinks that God, having enriched the habitable world with innumerable productions of infinite worth to the inhabitant, has placed man here as a sovereign in a superb palace; when he considers how admirably God has proportioned the divers parts of the creation to the construction of the human body, the air to the lungs, aliments to the different humours of the body, the medium by which objects are rendered visible to the eyes, that by which sounds are communicated to the ears; when he remarks how God has connected man with his own species, and not with animals of another kind; how he has distributed talents, so that some requiring the assistance of others, all should be mutually united together; how he has bound men together by visible ties, so that one cannot see another in pain without a sympathy that inclines him to relieve him: when the disciple of natural religion meditates on these grand subjects, he concludes that the Author of nature is a beneficent being. But when he sees the innumerable miseries to which men are subject; when he finds that every creature which contributes to support, contributes at the same time to destroy us; when he thinks that the air, which assists respiration, conveys epidemical diseases, and imperceptible poisons; that aliments which nourish us are often our bane; that the animals that serve us often turn savage against us; when he observes the perfidiousness of society, the mutual industry of mankind in tormenting each other; the arts which they invent to deprive one another of life; when he attempts Do the prosperities of bad men, and the adto reckon up the innumerable maladies that versities of the good, confuse our ideas of God? consume us; when he considers death, which With the principles of the gospel I can remove bows the loftiest heads, dissolves the firmest all the difficulties which these different con cements, and subverts the best founded for-ditions produce in the mind of the disciple of tunes: when he makes these reflections, he will be apt to doubt, whether it be goodness, or the contrary attribute, that inclines the Author of our being to give us existence. When the disciple of natural religion reads those reverses of fortune of which history furnishes a great many examples; when he sees tyrants fall from a pinnacle of grandeur; wicked men often punished by their own wickedness; the avaricious punished by the objects of their avarice; the ambitious by those of their ambition; the voluptuous by those of their voluptuousness; when he perceives that the laws of virtue are so essential to public happiness, that without them society would become a banditti, at least, that society is more or less happy or miserable, according to its looser or closer attachment to virtue; when he considers all these cases, he will probably conclude, that the Author of this universe is a just and holy Being. But, when he sees tyranny established, vice enthroned, humility in confusion, pride wearing a crown, and love to holiness sometimes exposing people to many and intolerable calamities; he will not be able to justify God, amidst the darkness in which his equity is involved in the government of the world. natural religion. If the principles of the gospel be admitted, if we be persuaded that the tyrant, whose prosperity astonishes us, fulfils the counsel of God; if ecclesiastical history assures us that Herods and Pilates themselves contributed to the establishment of that very Christianity which they meant to destroy; especially, if we admit a state of future rewards and punishments; can the obscurity in which Providence has been pleased to wrap up some of its designs, raise doubts about the justice of the Creator? In regard then to the first object of contemplation, the perfection of the nature of God, revealed religion is infinitely superior to natural religion; the disciple of the first religion is infinitely wiser than the pupil of the last. II. Let us consider these two disciples examining the nature of man and endeavouring to know themselves. The disciple of natural religion cannot know mankind: he cannot perfectly understand the nature, the obligations, the duration of man. 1. The disciple of natural religion can only imperfectly know the nature of man, the difference of the two substances of which he is composed. His reason, indeed, may specuBut, of all these mysteries, can one be pro-late the matter, and he may perceive that there posed which the gospel does not unfold; or, at least, is there one on which it does not give us some principles which are sufficient to concili is no relation between motion and thought, between the dissolution of a few fibres and violent sensations of pain, between an agita |