paratively few, in the existing, or in any past age of the world, have accepted or obeyed the call, in God's chosen way: viz. in sincere faith and good works, according to the purpose of God. For the carnal heart, which is typified by the flesh, and also by Satan, or a spirit of opposition to God, is filled with enmity against the divine mind; and seeks all modęs to evade His law. Our merciful Saviour, however, who knows the heart of man, and foreknows all our devices, has predestinated and solemnly declared by Himself, that unto Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess to the glory of God; and that "all that are incensed against Him, shall be ashamed."* Wherefore, He continues His urgent entreaties, and the exhibitions of His everlasting love; He cuts off, from man, his idols; and hedges us round about by the circumstances and fruits of our own evil works, which, as a fire devouring the soul, permit us to have no peace nor rest, until, in the very midst of this hell, which we ourselves have made, we call out, in agony of heart, and are delivered by the merciful kindness of our Saviour. For sin, in itself, has no tendency to make us love virtue; on the contrary, the more deeply we sink into sin or hell, and the longer we abide in it, the more abhorrent is holiness to our sentiments. But the consequences of sin, its own immediate effect upon us, and the unhappy and afflictive circumstances with which, in the providence of the Lord, it surrounds us, compel us to CONSIDER: We look round, and behold the enormity of the principle upon which we have been acting, and then we exclaim, “O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" When brought to this condition, the sinner sees the light, and gladly rushes to it; and in this manner, will God conquer all his enemies: for even our punishments are so many links in the chain of our unspeakable salvation. We quit falsehood, because, in its own nature and in all its consequences, it is hateful and tormenting; and we embrace and cling to the truth, because, only the truth can satisfy the faculties which our Creator has bestowed upon us; and the more we know and do the truth, the more firmly and persistingly we love and remain in it. In order that we may be brought, more perfectly, to understand these doctrines of God, and that His revelation, or the manifestation of His mind in our hearts, may be increased and enlarged, as * Isaiah xlv. 23, 25; Rom. xiv. 11; Phil. ii. 10. † Rom. vii. 24. time proceeds, (for as the Lord is infinite, He is continually infusing into us fresh portions of His knowledge.)* He has been pleased to prepare and preserve a history of His word, from the earliest creation. This history He has guarded, if not by outward miracles, at least by effectual providences, in such a way, that we can have no doubt it has been kept pure from mixture with false teaching; for it is but reasonable to suppose, that the Lord would preserve it, with accuracy, for the purpose for which it is designed. Some of the holy writers were specially inspired to declare the words which God Himself uttered to them, as prophets or messengers. Others were inspired by the love of truth, truly and faithfully to record, for our instruction, those things, which they themselves were eye or ear witnesses of; or, which were delivered to them by faithful and truth-telling disciples, who themselves spoke of what they themselves knew. If, therefore, typograpical or other errors exist in these sacred canons, we may be certain that they are only of such a kind, as a candid and diligent attention and criticism will detect and rectify. For against all others, God would, most unquestionably, preserve His own book.‡ Infidels, however, object to this book; because, say they, it contains nothing but the history of a revelation made to others, not to us. Why, they ask, does not the Lord reveal Himself to us, as He did formerly to others? Nay, they add, why, if there be a God, does He not write the truths of His existence and government upon the entire vault of heaven, so that every tongue and nation might read His word? It is undeniable that God does make a revelation to every man. For, Christ, our God and only light, "lighteth every man that cometh into the world."§ We are saved, not by a light to others, but by a light or the word, to ourselves. God continually speaks to every descendant of Adam, through all the faculties which the Lord has conferred upon us, and by a voice issuing from all the works and the providences of the Lord. These faculties, however, are of different degrees of power and honor, compared among themselves; and the lower faculties, acted upon by the instrumentality of the bodily senses, are not of the highest glory, or sanctifying influence. Therefore, it is, as I presume, that the Lord says: *Col. ii. 19, † Luke i. 1, 4; John xix. 35; Acts i. 21, 22; Acts i. 8; Luke xxiv. 48. § John i. 9. Rev. xxii. 18, 19; "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."* Higher faculties are employed in the latter instance, than in the former; and the fruit partakes of the fatness of the tree. We cannot rationally suppose that the Lord has left an older age of the world-viz. the present, with fewer or weaker sources of instruction than its infancy; for in addition to all the evidence had by our fathers, we enjoy, every day, from fulfilments of prophecy, and increasing scientific discoveries, new displays and confirmations of divine truth. All men are united by a common bond; our destinies are mingled together; we have faculties or capacities for interchanging sentiment, receiving evidence, and perpetuating instruction : and any revelation made to any messenger, and by him faithfully communicated to the world, is a light, or a revelation to the world. No man, nation, or age, can be perfect without deriving strength from all other men, nations, and ages; for we are members one of another, and the common tie, which I have mentioned, runs throughout the whole creation. But the skeptic is unsatisfied. He would have the great truths of the existence and government of God, written in blazing characters, upon the face of heaven! His wish is already granted. By day and night, the firmament proclaims the eternal power and godhead of our Maker, and His unceasing love and protection. In what speech or language may their lights not be read! And do you not call these a hand-writing upon the vault of heaven? Would it be any more intelligible, think you, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or some other lettering, soon, also, to be numbered with the dead? God has emblazoned it, in His own sacred, all-glorious HIEROGLYPHS, indestructible and ever-living; and yet, because He has so written it, in characters of burning truth, for ever, the atheist or skeptic draws around him the mantle of his own darkness, and says, these are nothing but the laws of nature. Many causes of opposition and unbelief are alleged by infidels against the sacred Scriptures. We might expect this: for how can the finite mind, in its own power, comprehend infinity? Therefore, the carnal mind typified as already stated by the "flesh," or the "natural man, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they * John xx. 29. are spiritually discerned."* All great reforms are in advance of the world, and have to encounter the opposition of ambition, ignorance, and avarice. And more especially is this the case, in the spiritual regeneration of which we speak; for it is actually not a mere advance, but an entire new birth; the "old man," with its deceitful lusts, is put off, and the "new man" is put on, "which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness."† Much is said, by unbelievers, about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the sin of Adam. How hard, say they, that God should forbid free inquiry, and how severe the doom for so venial an offence, as the eating of a trifling fruit. They forget that the principle of obedience to the divine law, necessarily implies or includes the whole question, in all its extent of life and death. God, at the creation of Adam, made himself known to him; placed him in a situation, surrounded with every thing suitable or beneficial; and exhibited before him, as a free agent, the law of life or faith, and the law of death or disobedience. You shall keep my commandments, (we may suppose him to say ;) of the fruits of all these trees you may freely eat, but of this tree, you shall not eat, nor touch it; for I have selected and appointed it, as a test to yourselves, an outward, visible sign and probational "Tree of Knowledge," (to you,)" of good," (or obedience,) "and evil," (or disobedience ;) "for in the day that thou eateth thereof, thou shalt surely die.”‡ No commandment, considered in itself, works love in the heart of the person to whom it is addressed. Whether we love the object or duty commanded, will depend on other circumstances, beside the mere fact of its being commanded. If a father should command a wicked and revengeful son not to hate his brother; the mere fact of this being commanded, would not change his heart. To be sure, if I love my FATHER, this love is another circumstance, adding force to the commandment; and it may impel me to review my conduct and repent. But the mere commandment itself, addressed to a sinful heart, works no change. Something else must be done, to reform the affections; the law itself must be made honorable by some exhibition of truth, or consequence not before perceived or believed by us. But how can this be effected with regard to the divine commandment and righteousness, which are as far above our own unassisted strength as heaven is from hell? God, indeed, can accom† Eph. iv. 22, 24. * 1 Cor. ii. 14; John i. 5. + Gen. ii. 17. plish it. But the mode which he adopts is, in the very first instance, to place us under a law, which is the beginning of all instruction, viz:—the law of obedience.* When a finite being, having no life in himself, violates that law which requires him to be engrafted on his Creator; when he yields to the temptation of lust or pride in his own heart, and says, I will be as GoD, and acknowledge no superior, he dies from the very necessity of his rebellion. For his rebellion itself, is death to all holiness; that is, to a life in God. Certain other objections, which are made against the Holy Bible, are founded on the real or pretended ignorance of the Jews, as to natural science; and the alleged cruelty of this "elect people,” in their extermination, by divine command, of the Canaanites. But why should we suppose that our Lord would bodily descend from heaven to earth, to teach merely natural science? He has not only given us facilities to obtain such knowledge, but has placed the very objects from which it is to be obtained, within our actual grasp and eye-sight. We have nothing to do, therefore, but to look, observe, and receive! But in respect to the knowledge of Himself, it is different; for we can no more of ourselves know the life of God, than we can take wings and fly to the remotest bounds of space. Hence then, our merciful and gracious Father, is pleased to exhibit and reveal Himself in a visible form; and by types, parables, and in every other manner, to put spiritual life and death before us, as distinctly and immediately, as he has already placed matter itself before us. Yet it is not true that the Jews were an ignorant people. Their ceremonies and institutions were purposely designed to keep them a secluded and peculiar race, fenced in and separated from Gentile idolatries until the Messiah should come; who was the "substance" indicated by the Mosaic economy. So far from being an ignorant people, you will look in vain, among other books, for specimens of beauty, sublimity, pathos, and sound wisdom, like those exhibited in the Hebrew prophets, poets, and historians. Deficient, unquestionably, they were, in the arts, discoveries, and refinements which are originated and fostered by commercial activity and enterprise. For the Lord did not cause His own laws of nature and of character to operate with less consistency or power in Jerusalem than in Tyre: the people of both those cities obtained a character governed * Exod. xix. 5; Deut. viii. 20, |