It fprings up in an obfcure corner of the world; in a nation, once the peculiar care of Providence, but then defpifed, and groaning under the heavy yoke of Roman ufurpation: its doctrines are fevere, and contrary to the corruptions of the world: its religious rites are oppofite to the impure or depraved worship both of Gentile and Jewith fuperftition: 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 oppofe its progrefs. And who, then, are the man, who are to counteract this formidable alliance, and to introduce the doctrines of Christianity into the world, in spite of all these disadvantages? -An obfcure 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 fweat of their brows. Could there be circumstances more unfavourable? Could there be a contest more unequal? Could there be a greater appearance

of

of weakness and imbecility? Yet, fee! how much the weakness of God is stronger than men! Under all these disadvantages, the Gofpel of Chrift makes its way in the world with incredible rapidity, and flies, like the winged lightning, from east to weft. Jews and profelytes, ftrangers 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 ftrength of civil power is broken. Can there be a greater inftance of a divine interpofition? Can there be a fuller proof, that the weakness of God is ftronger than men? Well might, therefore, the Apostle fay in the emphatic words following my text," God hath chofen the foolish "things of the world to confound the wife; " and God hath chosen the weak things of "the world to confound the mighty; and

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bafe things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chofen; yea, and แ things which are not, to bring to nought

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things which are; that no flesh should glory in his prefence,"

Remember,

Remember, therefore, my brethren, that as often as you profess your belief in the Gofpel of Chrift, you are acknowledging a system, which hath God for its author, and is fupported by the most cogent arguments :a fyftem founded on the most perfect rules of wifdom; 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 wife man would not wish to lay upon himself:—a fystem, not founded upon profpects of intereft, not inculcated by force or terror of arms, not infinuated by enticing words of man's wifdom: which hath maintained its ground, under every seeming disadvantage, against all its enemies, and, we truft, 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 profeffion of their faith without wavering. They well know in whom they have believed, and want not my feeble and imperfect aid to ftrengthen and fupport the grounds of their belief. But the

•

weak

weak and unlearned brethren in Chrift, who have neither the means nor the abilities to inquire for themselves, will fuffer me to exhort them not to fall from their ftedfastness, or to be fhaken, by any licentious oppofition against Christianity. The cause of fuch licentioufness, striking at the very fundamentals of religion, in a country, where in reafon one would leaft expect to find it, I take not upon me to affign: be it on the confciences of those who affume it to themfelves, or who do not their part to restrain and fupprefs it. But the effects of it every fincere Chriftian will join with me in deploring, which tend to weaken the bonds of fociety, 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 ftrength 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 fuperficial reasoners are apt to confider as the unanswerable champions of infidelity,

delity, though, in fact, they are only the retailers of ftale and hacknied objections. But the misfortune is, though these audacious fceptics have again and again been answered, they will not be filenced. They echo, with unceafing affiduity, the trite fubtleties of antient deism, or Platonic metaphyfics; still hoping, that fome unstable foul may be beguiled with their vain words. One advantage, of much more confequence 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 diffembled, 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 fure 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 infufficient; if the mercies of God, who has vouchfafed to us the pureft profeffion of the pureft 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 un

believer