PREFACE.

THE Redemption of Man, by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is the most important subject that can engage the attention of the human mind; before all others it merits our regard, and requires our love. For rational beings to believe that there is no God, no Supreme Being, and no Redeemer; that the sacred writings are merely historical, and principally fabulous, a complication of imaginary ideas arising from a misguided, or capricious understanding; or to imagine that every thing we see around us, or above us, arose at first by chance, or had eternal existence, and will have perpetual duration, is the very worst of insanity.

This mighty globe we inhabit, the sun, the moon, the starry heavens, their stupendous structure, their swift, unvaried, and perpetual motion, the vicissitude of seasons, the innumerable, and various tribes of living creatures we every day see skim the air, or tread the plain, the matchless beauty and variety of scenery perceivable amid the inanimate works of the creation, and lastly, the

wonderful variety among the human species, two having never been found exactly alike, all give convincing proofs of an Almighty Creator, if no other had been given to man of His existence.

But this Almighty Being has made Himself more perfectly known to us; He has plainly told us that He is God, the Supreme Lord of all things, and who created all things; and has commanded us to worship Himself and no substitute. He has informed us that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; a Being perfectly good, in whom is no evil, nor can any be promoted by Him.

Yet objectors to divine revelation will say, "If there "be a God who created this world, and He be supreme "Governor of it, and perfectly good, why do evil, distress, and confusion, prevail in it ?" "Man is certainly "the noblest of all terrestrial beings, why is he placed "here in a state of misery, and influenced by inordinate "passions and licentious desires so dreadfully degrading "to his pre-eminent faculties." The answer is plain and certain. Every evil thought, word, or work, produced, by man, originated not with God, but with a wicked and malevolent spiritual being always at enmity with Him. Through the crafty influence of this evil spirit our firstparents disobeyed the just command of their Maker, thereby sinned, and so introduced sin into the world; sin wrought death, and every misery afflicting man, but contrary to the will of God. But why did not God pre

vent man from sinning, as if God be omnipotent he certainly could have done? is the next objection raised by infidelity. God created man a free agent, and forewarned him of his danger; God said to him, "Obey Me and "thou shalt live, but if thou wilt not thou shalt surely "die :" therefore man had his choice to live by obedience, or die by disobedience. Temptation caused him to choose the latter; and if God had prevented him fromcommitting the rash act it must have been by compulsion, and contrary to that free will which the Creator had given to the creature.

The predestinarian will widely differ from me when I aver, that it is perfectly inconsistent with the purity and justice of the Creator to refuse to man in his fallen state free agency; as such refusal would make a loving and merciful God the most capricious tyrant, by condemning to eternal misery, numberless individuals for works they could not avoid. Also, that if man be deprived of free will by Him who will be his judge, just judgment cannot be awarded; as properly the actions for which man will be judged, belong to Him who obliged them to be performed, and not to the agent acting through the impulse of compulsion. Then, let us rest assured that infinite wisdom and goodness created man a free agent, and that every mortal being has remained in the same situation ever since.

God certainly has elected numerous individuals to confer upon them special offices of trust under His government of the world, to be his agents in awarding temporal punishment to the wicked, and to

preach salvation to man; and the clay has no right to say to its framer, "Why hast thou made me thus?" Nor need we doubt but the Omnicient selected the properest persons to perform the work entrusted to their care. He selected Cyrus to destroy Babylon, He chose Joshua to extirpate the Canaanites, He appointed Moses first to plague, and then to destroy the king of Egypt and his wicked subjects, He preferred the younger brother Jacob to Esau the elder, He selected Abraham to be the individual from whose offspring the great Redeemer should become mortal, and on that account gave to them His law in order to prepare them to receive His gospel. From these his peculiars, he selected a number of pious individuals to preach repentance; and inspired them with the knowledge of future events. When the Messiah assumed mortal nature, He selected twelve poor fishermen to be His ministers to preach His blessed gospel to the whole world, and gave them power to perform miracles to confirm the truths they declared; but from none of these special selections can we infer that God had, before the foundation of the world, selected a certain number of mankind to inherit eternal life; and these, being predestinated to happiness, shall see heaven let them live here as they will, whilst all the rest shall be left to sink in eternal misery. It appears to me that the sacred writ ings warrant no such conclusion, but positively declare to the contrary and that the Apostle Paul, who the predestinarian with so much eagerness calls to defend his erroneous sentiments, makes no such inferences in any part of his epistles. It must be allowed that the Jews were

God's peculiarly chosen people to receive more of His special care in this world than the rest of mankind; but, because they were thus chosen, dares any one say that they shall all enjoy eternal felicity? The parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and our Lord's frequently denouncing wo to His wicked countrymen afford convincing proofs to the contrary, and tell plainly that though we know the truth, and faithfully practise it, yet we may fall from it and eternally perish.

Thus much had not been said upon this subject had the author not believed that it frequently leads licentiousness to boast in security when travelling upon the brink of eternal destruction. Whatever the predestinarian may think of his faith without holiness, St. James says, it is useless, and St. Paul, "Without godliness, that no man shall see the Lord.".

There are probably upon earth many human beings who never heard of the Mosaic law, nor the Christian dispensation; yet all, of whom I have read an account, believe in the existence of a Being superior to man, and to Whom most of them pay adoration one way or another, and have some knowledge of right and wrong done to themselves; yet, from this, their situation, can any of the more enlightened of their fellow-creatures truly declare to the world, that a God of infinite mercy and goodness created all these poor, ignorant, benighted beings to be condemned to eternal misery? No. Then it will better accord with the goodness of God to say, that every mortal who conscientiously serves his Creator according

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