contributed to the happiness of individuals, and to the civilization and prosperity of nations; that, wherever it has prevailed, it has destroyed sanguinary laws and cruel superstitions; that he who heartily embraces it is the best member of civil society, and the most elevated in personal morality and beneficence. These are things so manifest as to have been allowed by infidels themselves. "If all men," says a celebrated French unbeliever, "were perfect Christians, individuals would do their duty; the people would be obedient to the laws; governors would be just, and magistrates incorrupt; the soldiers would despise death; and, in such a state, there would be neither vanity nor luxury." We ought, therefore, earnestly to desire that its evidences might prove satisfactory to every inquirer, since a full persuasion of its truth will tend so materially to human happiness.

(2.) Among the believers in Christianity have been the most talented and the wisest of men. Among our own countrymen, leaving out the names of all divines, the first philosophers, politicians, poets, and philanthropists have been most implicit believers of the Bible and the religion which it teaches, such as Newton, Locke, Boyle, Bacon, and Milton ;-men whose names and

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renown can never perish. This fact supplies an additional reason why we ought to wish the proof of Christianity to be conclusive. It would be a melancholy thing indeed if the minds of such men were incapable of discerning the real state of the case. We should be driven to the conclusion that human reason, however exalted and cultivated, is altogether inadequate to the discrimination of truth from falsehood; a conclusion than which nothing can be more painful and humiliating.

(3.) There is another reason of a somewhat similar kind. It is to be found in the multitudes of eminently virtuous persons who have made every sacrifice in proof of their adherence to Christianity; and who, in the last moments of their lives, have been sustained by the hopes which it supplies, in "joy unspeakable and full of glory." How lamentable would be the reflection, that millions of the most estimable of men should have lived and died in the belief and propagation of error; that apostles and martyrs, and confessors and the holiest of saints, should all have been either dupes or impostors; that all their sacrifices should have been made to falsehood; that all their hopes should have been a mere cheat and mockery; that all their

labours should have been for the promulgation of error!

(4.) Were we to admit such a conclusion, we should not only be compelled to take very low views of human nature, but also to form a very shocking idea of the character of God. What could we think of a Being who allowed the wisest and best of his human creatures to fall victims to a system of imposture and fraud; who suffered the evidences on this subject so to accumulate, that the most acute and powerful intellects were unable to detect their fallacy; and who permitted countless multitudes, under the power of this delusion, to sacrifice every thing they held dear, and even to give up life itself? It is a thought too horrible to dwell upon.

But though it is thus evident that we ought to desire that Christianity may be proved true and divine, yet no one can look over the writings of its opponents without perceiving their abhorrence of it, and that nothing would afford them greater satisfaction than to succeed in demonstrating its falsehood. What possible advantage can be supposed to result from proving that the Bible is not the word of God? Even supposing that the infidel had all the strength of argument on his side, that he were able to demonstrate this book

to be a forgery, what is gained by his success, or, rather, what is not lost? That Christianity makes men virtuous and happy, cannot be denied; and it is equally plain, that its rejection contributes neither to the well-being of individuals nor of nations. Assume it, then, to be what the unbeliever represents it; yet can there be no possible justification of an attempt to induce mankind to renounce their faith. It is the most refined and cold-blooded cruelty of which one man can be guilty to his fellow-man.

Why, then, should this attempt be made? Simply because the Bible is too pure, too moral, too sternly virtuous. Most infidels have been men of corrupt hearts and licentious lives; and is it wonderful that they should dislike a book and a religion which go directly to condemn both the one and the other? Is it possible that the advocate for adultery should regard with complacency a law which prohibits an unchaste thought? What would be thought of the judgment of an assembly of convicts upon the laws by the operation of which they were banished from their country? To my own mind, I confess, a strong proof of the truth of Christianity is to be found in the characters of its enemies. For their rejection of it, I can readily account. The wonder,

indeed, would rather be if they had acted otherwise. But, except upon the supposition of its being true, I cannot account for the reception of it by the most finished of human geniuses. I can easily suppose it consistent with the divine character, that bad men should fall into error; but I cannot reconcile it with one of the attributes of God, that he should allow the very wisest and best of human beings to become the victims of imposture and fraud. It is obviously possible for a corrupt heart and a shallow understanding to reject the truth; but it is not conceivable that a great multitude of the purest and the most profound should accept falsehood. We can never suppose that God would single out the most debauched and depraved as the proper recipients of peculiar light and information, and that the rest of men, including the most exemplary in morals and benevolence, should be shut up in darkness. If we ought to believe that God loves virtue and abhors sin, it is equally our duty to hold that he has not given his sanction to the impure by permitting them alone to ascertain the truth, and withheld his countenance from the pious by allowing them, in every age, to be the subjects of error.

III. The third thing which we proposed was,