conclude may equally be false; prepossessed against Christianity by difficulties which they imagine it to contain, by witty cavils and objections aimed against it which they take for granted to be just, and by a cause still more to be regretted, the unchristian lives of many of its professors; and above all, averse to abandon those vicious principles and habits which they perceive to be utterly prohibited by the Gospel, and to acknowledge the certainty of that punishment, which, if they admit the Gospel to be true, they must necessarily own to await themselves, should they continue in their sins: actuated by some of these or similar prepossessions, they refuse to examine into the evidences of the Christian religion; or they examine slightly, partially, uncandidly, with minds predisposed to find objections, to take offence, and to condemn. The faith which Christianity claims is not credulity; but assent founded on willing enquiry and rational conviction. “The people of Berea,” saith the evangelical historian, “were more noble than those of Thessalonica; in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so."* “Be ready always," saith the Apostle, “to give an answer to every one that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.”† But in all enquiries respecting religion, as with respect to every other subject, the enquirer, if he would really discover truth, must examine with seriousness, with diligence, with patience, with humility; with a heart sincerely disposed to embrace whatever he shall discover to be true, and with a reverent desire that the Supreme Being, who is the fountain of knowledge, may lead him into all truth. If he examines without † 1 Peter, iii. 15.

* Acts, xvii. 11.

these habits and dispositions, what can be expected but that his examination should prove unsatisfactory, and thus confirm him in his prejudices and errors? "He that will do the will of God," saith our Saviour, "shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."* Have you any doubt as to the truth of Christianity? Let your heart be prepared to obey whatever Christianity, if true, shall be found to command; and you will not conclude a patient enquiry without being convinced of its truth. But "keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."+

John, vii. 17.

† Proverbs, iv. 23.

226

CHAP. VII.

ON THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN

RELIGION.

I. THE being and the attributes of God are truths which lie at the root of all religion. "He that cometh to God, must believe that He is; and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." They are truths to the discovery of which the Heathen world was perfectly competent. In the days of Pagan darkness, when the light of the Divine countenance seemed as it were withdrawn from mankind, God, saith the apostle, "left not himself without witness; in that he did good, and gave us rain from Heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." 2 Why is it that St. Paul pronounces the idolatrous and abandoned Gentiles inexcusable ? "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and Godhead: so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God (or might thus have known him had they been willing), they glorified Him not as God" 3 by purity

1 Heb. xi. 6.

3 Romans, i. 19, 20.

2 Acts, xiv. 17.

DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 227

of worship and holiness of life. The eternal existence and the attributes of the Deity, his omnipresence, his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, his holiness, his justice, and his other unbounded perfections, were inculcated on the Jews by express revelation; and are described in the sublimest language by the sacred writers, especially by the prophets in the Old Testament. These fundamental truths necessarily form the groundwork of Christianity. They are, however, so obvious in their nature, and so generally recognised, that to dilate upon them is not requisite. I proceed, therefore, to consider such of the other leading doctrines of the New Testament as are either peculiar to the Christian religion, or have received from that religion such additional illustration as to require to be separately noticed. These doctrines may be comprised under four general heads, which will be arranged in the order according to which they may be most conveniently discussed. The first will relate to the corruption of human nature; the second, to the resurrection, and the future Judgement; the third, to the nature and offices of Christ; the fourth, to the nature and offices of the Holy Spirit.

II. The depravity of human nature has already been unavoidably noticed in speaking of the fall of man, by which it was produced. We learn from the book of Genesis, that our first parents, deluded by the evil spirit, who availed himself of the instrumentality of the serpent to accomplish their ruin, concurred in disobeying the sole prohibition which their Creator had imposed as the trial of their obedience. By this rebellion against their Sovereign and Benefactor they lost, together with their title to immortality, their primeval innocence: they lost their purity and holiness, the image of God in which they had been created.

Sin, the forerunner of death, entered into the world, and clave inseparably to fallen man. The children of Adam were born "in his own image," no longer that of God. The tide of wickedness, shewing its early power by the murder of Abel, and gradually spreading itself until it had absorbed in its grossest impurities the whole race of man, Noah and his family excepted, proved in the antediluvian world, that from a corrupted origin nothing but that which was corrupt could proceed. After the flood, the antecedent depravity remained unaltered. "The imagination of man's heart" still continued "evil from his youth." At the time of the call of Abraham, almost before the eyes of Noah were closed, and long before the death of his son Shem, idolatry and its attendant enormities had ensnared almost all mankind. The history of the Jews, the chosen people of God, instructed by an immediate and special revelation from Heaven; separated by singular rites and usages, scarcely less than by religious knowledge, from the contagion of surrounding guilt; excited from time to time to stedfastness in their duty by miracles, by prophets, by unmerited mercies and by signal judgements; yet, under all these appeals to their understandings, their gratitude, their hopes, and their fears, obstinately and irreclaimably wicked: the history of this people from their origin to their dispersion by the Romans is no other than a practical and unbroken exemplification of the native corruption of the human heart. The blindness and flagitiousness of the ancient Gentile world, which, enjoying much fainter gleams of religious light, became proportionably immersed in blacker depths of ignorance and profligacy; the continuance of the same state of darkness and guilt in regions not irradiated by revelation; the lamentable prevalence of wickedness among those who enjoy the