dence, that he had performed them all. Like all others who trust in their keeping of the laws of God, he had very inadequate views of their nature and extent. From this ignorance it is, that any man ever hopes for life, by yielding personal obedience to the law of God. The pride of the virtuous man is altogether founded on this; and were he to understand the real purity, extent, and perfection of the divine law, all his proud pretensions would fall. "I have seen an end of all perfection," says the Psalmist; "but as for thy commandment it is exceeding broad." Man first moulds the law of God to his own supposed duty and taste, before ever he has hopes of living by the keeping of it. The virtue of the philosopher is no more to the demands of the law of God, than the most paltry brass is to the purest gold and diamonds. Here, then, is a person who, in his own opinion, had kept the commandments of God. All these, says he, have I done from my youth up; yet he is not accepted. Learn from this, then, all ye sons of pride, that your boast of virtue will fail you when the Lord shall lay righteousness to the line, &c. Have you fairer pretensions for heaven than this rich, young man? If such a person could be found amongst us, what would the world think of him? A man who had been religious from his youth, exerting his strength in keeping the commandments of God, at a time of life others spend in debauchery and riot; what would our newspapers have said of him had he died? Would the heaven of heavens have been good enough for him? They would have raised him higher than the seventh heaven of Mahomet. God would have, in a manner, been honoured by having him for a companion; they would have thrown him on the justice and not on the mercy of God; yet into heaven he did not enter. He was not worthy of the lowest place there, although he had obtained the highest place of moral worth, virtue, and excellence, among men. How long, ye men of virtue, will you honour God by your moral worth! How long will ye vaunt before him of your moral excellence! How long will ye deceive yourselves! How long will ye reject the light, and continue blind in the midst of day! How long will ye shut your eyes against the light of divine

truth, that, in every page of Scripture, testifies against you! Ye are wise, ye are virtuous; but if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! Can any of our virtuous and wise sages can any of our religious devotees-can any of our preachers of sincerity and good works, bear a comparison with this young man? If he has failed, on his knees with humble supplication, to gain eternal life, though he had the good works of all his former life, in such a measure, that he himself thought sufficient to recommend his application, shall heaven be now stormed by the virtue of the philosopher, the sincere though imperfect good works of the divine, or the austerities and mortifications enjoined by superstition? In the failure of this youth read your doom, all ye who expect eternal life by works of any kind. The manner in which the Lord tried him, proved that he was not righteous, and that all his fair expectations would be disappointed. He thought he loved God and man, while the trial proved that he loved neither, as he ought to love them. For, though it is not the duty of Christians to give all to the poor, it is still their duty to part with all, if obedience to the Lord's commandments require it, yea, and their life also.

When the Lord Jesus called Paul, he informed him that he was about to send him to the Gentiles, "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Here we have the character of the whole Gentile world. They are all as ignorant of the true character of God, and of the way of acceptance with him, as blind men are ignorant of the true nature of the objects of sight-" to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light." Yet there were then, as well as now, boasting philosophers, who gloried in their knowledge, who professed to teach the chief good, and the chief happiness of man. There were before this many great sages, to this very day received and renowned, and many flourishing schools of philosophy, and innumerable disciples, solely directed to the study of virtue, knowledge, and happiness. The boast of virtue and of knowledge was as frequent and as loud as it is now. Indeed, philosophy appears to have been then still more assuming and vain-glorious, in proportion

as it had less of real knowledge. It is, then, out of thorough ignorance of the state and pretensions of the heathen world, that many people now suppose that such descriptions do not suit human nature in general-that they are not applicable to the nations of the world that have professed Christianity, and that they are solely applicable to heathens. Philosophers now speak more rationally of God, in some measure illuminated by the light they hate and affect to despise; but with respect to the scripture character of God, in the knowledge of which the apostles were sent to instruct the world, the present philosophers are generally as blind as the ancient sages. They have never yet seen how he is a just God, yet a Saviour of guilty sinners. It is on account of their ignorance of this, that the Gentiles are denominated blind; when this is removed, their eyes are opened. In the full sense, then, of the apostle's words, this character is as suitable to the Hutchinsons, the Smiths, the Reids, as to Zeno, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. Those who are acquainted with the writings of the ancient philosophers, know well that these illustrious sages discover the utmost zeal for the virtue and happiness of mankind; and those who are acquainted with the writings of modern philosophers, know well that the latter hold the others in the highest admiration, as teachers of truth and virtue. They venerate them as the lights and guides of the heathen world, and consider their systems as being merely defective, not as radically wrong. The greatest of our writers on moral science consider the substance of duty and virtue to have been taught in all the systems of the ancients; not only do they compliment the stern virtue of the stoics, but so averse are they to condemn any of the illustrious fraternity, they are willing even to make Epicurus himself a coadjutor in the great cause of virtue. This will appear to any who read Mr. Stewart's "Life of Dr. Reid," and Ferguson's "Account of the Systems of the Ancient Philosophers." Our modern philosophers do then, themselves, testify, that they are the children of the ancient sages, not only by doing their works, but by approving their doctrines. Consequently, the ancient and the modern philosophers do fall under the same condem

nation. Socrates himself, who is honoured as the great philosophical martyr, was a mere idolater in fact, and is here classed among those who are blind. These sages who boasted of their virtue, and who professed to be able to teach the way of attaining to perfect goodness and perfect happiness, were themselves, as well as the rest of the world, under the power of darkness. They who talked of setting men free from the slavery of the passions, and of vice, were the slaves of sin and of Satan, for the whole Gentile world is here represented as under the power of Satan. This language is, indeed, exceedingly unpalatable to the pride of knowledge and of virtue. No wonder that, with their own ingenuity, seconded by that of Satan, to whom they are slaves, they should succeed in explaining such passages in such a sense, as to save the honour of their craft. But with all their ingenuity, they cannot consistently hold this to be the Word of God, and maintain the honour of philosophy, either ancient or modern. The Gentiles are, without exception, here described as the blind slaves of Satan. There is no way of delivering the philosopher from the common disgrace and misery. Modern systems of virtue, and ancient, are not only in reality substantially the same, but the authors of them own this, and are even found to praise it. If, then, the systems of the ancient schools were darkness, and if their authors were under the power of Satan, Satan still reigns in the schools of philosophy, and darkness, infernal darkness, still covers the chair of wisdom. Even the divines who love to strut in the gown of the philosopher, and affect his phrases and his airs, are forced to censure the ancient sages, and instead of adopting the bold language of Scripture, that pronounces the wisdom of this world to be folly, they speak of the insufficiency of the systems of the ancient philosophers. To justify the introduction of Christianity, they show us that the methods of the ancient sages failed, and gravely give us many reasons for their want of success. But they chiefly throw the blame upon the practical accommodations of the sages ; and while they seem to confess that their doctrines were tolerably good, and fit to guide the world to virtue and happiness, yet these doctrines had not their proper effect,

for want of being acted upon by their authors. Such is the modesty of these divines-such their deference to the philosophers, that, had the lives of the sages been any way agreeable to their doctrines, they would scarcely know how to apologize for the coming of Christ, and the sending out of the apostles. But the Scriptures assure us, not only that the philosophers themselves were the slaves of Satan, but that their systems were darkness, and that by their wisdom they knew not God. Let me, then, entreat my countrymen to weigh well this passage of the divine word, in which the whole world is represented as under darkness and the power of Satan. If the language be harsh, it is the language of God—the language of the Judge before whom we shall all stand. It will be vain to plead innocence, if he has already pronounced the sentence of guilty; rather look to the way of deliverance, and of complete salvation, that the end of this verse points out. The violent opposition to this way, of the wise men of this world, instead of causing you to doubt its truth, is the strongest confirmation of it. For how great must be that darkness that is not dispelled by so clear light! How strong are the chains of Satan-how great is his power, when he can hold them—when all the light and evidence of revelation is labouring ineffectually to set them free!

The apostle Paul teaches us (Ephes. iv. 17-19) what was the character of all Gentiles, except such as had received the Gospel-"This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." Moral writers may draw a beautiful picture of the virtues of many heathens, and may, out of their excessive complaisance, or, rather, their secret hatred of Christianity, exalt them to the highest seats of moral excellence and intellectual attainments. But He who knew the heathen world, testifies by this apostle, that the Gentiles walked in the vanity of their mind; and every one who knows the sages, knows that this characteristic is not so suitable to any