labours were for the most part unproductive from the double curse on the earth: one, the permanent curse of restricted fertility for Adam's sake, and the other from the many awful judgments which made the seasons uncertain, to punish the wickedness of the world. These punishments fall on the unjust and the just alike; the worshippers of Jehovah felt equally with the idolaters the miseries of famine, or the suspension of the regular interchange of day and night, of summer and winter.

*

But as the iniquities of men were now nearly ripe for judgment, so the progress of religious truth made Eden no longer necessary to the preservation of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments beyond the grave. The removal of Eden would cause no shock to men's belief in this important truth; for their ideas of happiness and communion with God were not connected with converse with him in Eden, as were Adam's nor with the enjoyment of delights there which they had never experienced. Adam was now dead; the necessity, therefore, for its existence no longer remained. The symbols of God's presence had ceased to be regarded. The divine honours were impiously assumed by wicked

* Lecture III.

and powerful men, and even his incommunicable name either taken by them or given to them by others. In fine, all things seemed to point to the necessity of a new dispensation, to prepare for the fulfilment of the promise.

Once more we appeal to the reader's candour: let him examine minutely every part of this wondrous history. Was there ever a book written so replete with wisdom, so instructive from its lessons of experience as this? Does it not powerfully plead for its own heavenly origin? This record is beyond the inventive powers of the highest intellect which has ever yet appeared in the world. It bears the impress of inspiration; and the exact agreement of its minutest details with the more serious and important facts, attests the correctness with which it has been transmitted to our times.

LECTURE VI.

SUPPLEMENTAL TO LECTURE I.

THE ARGUMENTS OF BISHOP BUTLER IN HIS ANALOGY, AND OF DR. CHALMERS IN HIS NATURAL THEOLOGY EXAMINED NATURAL RELIGION SHOWN TO HAVE NO REAL EXISTENCE.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."-GENESIS ii. 17.

THE intelligent and well-informed reader, who has gone thus far with me, must have observed that the views entertained by writers on natural religion,* both as to what nature itself teaches, and our ability to discover it, are opposed to the statements of Moses. He relates that immediately after Adam's creation God revealed himself to him, taught him the food proper for him, and instructed him in his duty to reverence, fear, and worship him. These writers, on the contrary, attempt to prove that man's reason can find God from his created works, cherish religious regards to him, discover the attributes of his character, and distinguish between moral good and moral evil, or, in other words, to mark

* The term, natural religion, is a misnomer, for there is no such thing; but for want of a better, and because use has made it familiar, I feel myself compelled, though reluctantly, to retain it.

some actions as praiseworthy, and others as deserving of reprobation. And what is not a little surprising, they, though believing the Bible to be the revealed word of God, imagine their labours in this way needful to manifest the propriety of revealed truth and convince the infidel.

It has been too hastily believed that the nature and existence of God may be discovered from the works of creation; and the heathen are supposed, for this reason, to be inexcusable in denying him, and converting his glory into idols of wood and stone. The works of God do, indeed, manifest his glory-the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work; but it is only to those who know him from revelation they communicate this knowledge of him. We cannot know God, unless from revelation; I do not mean to say that we cannot know him as fully from nature as from revelation; but that we cannot know him at all, unless from revelation. Without it our reason cannot discover him, still less ascertain our duty to him.

If this be true, as most certainly it is, much precious time and ability have been unprofitably spent in showing the analogies of nature to revelation, for those analogies may be no more

than the aspects under which our minds have been taught by revelation to view the works of creation.

Those views have been so long received as undeniable truths, that a writer risks his fame and character in the bare attempt of calling them in question. Prejudices long formed are with dif ficulty removed, and to believe that men whose praise is in the church for their labours in defence of the Christian religion, had, after all, only opposed the revelation they were zealous to maintain, is exceedingly painful. But the truth of God must be upheld, even though names dear to us should suffer in the inquiry. I do, therefore, trust that the proofs I am about to offer will be calmly and unprejudicedly weighed.

"Let it be remembered," then, writes Bishop Butler, "that religion comes under the twofold consideration of internal and external; for the latter is as real a part of religion-of true religion, as the former. Now, when religion is considered under the just notion, as an inward principle to be exerted in such and such inward acts of the mind and heart, the essence of natural religion may be said to consist in religious regards to God the Father Almighty; and the essence of revealed religion, as distinguished from natural,