the earliest times of which we have any authentic history, or those nearer the birth of our Lord, all was one thick impenetrable mass of moral disorder and ruin. The most abject and disgusting idolatry, the worship of beasts and birds, of stocks and stones, the deification of kings and warriors, of human virtues and vices, of insects and creeping things, and even of that most disgusting of all reptiles, the serpent, prevailed. Practices the most flagitious were interwoven with the histories and ceremonies of these wretched deities. From this source, aided by the corrupt heart of man, flowed out a torrent of vices and abominations in public and private life. Fraud, theft, rapine, fell revenge, suicide, fornication, adultery, systematic abortions, murder of infants, unnatural crimes, the atrocious cruelties of war, the slavery and oppression of captives, gladiatorial shows, not only abounded, but were patronized, countenanced by the great body of men-connived at, if not practised, by statesmen and philosophers-publicly reprobated by

none.

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In fact, the language of the apostle in the text is attested by all kinds of evidence-their knowledge of God in the works of creation was corrupted-their imagination was vain"-their "foolish heart darkened "the whole body of learned men were "become fools," even when "professing themselves to be wise"--the "glory of the uncorruptible God was changed into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." In consequence, as the apostle proceeds to state, as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil

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things, disobedient to parents. Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful."

6. Add to this melancholy, but too faithful picture, that there was no hope of recovery from this state by any means then existing-there was no principle of reformation, no spring of revival from decay. Now, in Christian countries there is a standard of doctrine in our sacred books, where truth remains fresh and vigorous, and ready to be applied to the restoration of piety and virtue, if for a time they have declined -and accordingly reformations of pure religion from time to time take place, and the knowledge and love of the true God, and the purity of his worship, and obedience to his laws, are re-established.

But in the heathen world there was nothing to bring man back to God-no standard of truth-n written revelation-no code of morals-no order of men to instruct the people-no pure religious worship -nothing but the corrupt remains of natural light, with broken and disjointed traditions, and the defective institutions of civil society. These, indeed, just kept men together, and, aided by the enfeebled law of conscience, restrained some of the violence of human injuries—“ aud left man without excuse before God," as the apostle argues-but were utterly insufficient to restore a lost world, to check the current of corruption, to open the path of truth, and make known a way of pardon and holiness.

This state of mankind has been going on for three thousand years. The light even in the sacred, but narrow and almost unknown, land of Judæa had become nearly extinct by prevalent vices, divisions, and notions of a temporal Messiah-so that the condition of the world may be pronounced to have been inveterate and incurable, just before the coming of our Lord. The disease had proved itself to be more and more hopeless as time rolled by-the institutions of

VOL. I./

society were become more corrupt-the standard of morals sunk lower and lower-the excesses of lewdness and cruelty in religious rites were more frightful; whilst, as if to mark the dire necessities of man, demoniacal possessions prodigiously infected the land of Judæa. The moral misery, in short, had reached its deepest point of depression, had intercepted, like a vast portentous cloud, the last scattered rays of truth, and overshadowed with its thickening gloom the prospects of a lost world, exactly when the Christian revelation, as the morning sun, arose to dissipate the darkness and reveal the day.

I ask, then, of any serious inquirer, (and I am concerned with none other,) whether the absolute necessity of a divine revelation be not shown beyond all contradiction? And I assure him that the picture I have drawn is utterly incapable of giving a just conception of the actual ignorance, idolatry, and depravity of the heathen world. The fact is, there never was a case so clearly made out. It is too late in the day of trial for the infidel of the nineteenth century to avail himself of the light of revelation blazing for so many ages, and then to turn about and say, "We can guide ourselves by our own reason, without the aid of Christian truth." But this brings us to consider,

II. The UNBELIEVERS NOW SCATTERED OVER CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES. And here we ask, Whence did they derive their light? Is it sufficient to direct man? Has it any force when disjoined from revelation ?

They tell us, indeed, that they allow the being and attributes of God; that this one God is to be worshipped; that piety and virtue are the principal parts of his worship; that God will pardon our sins upon repentance; that there are rewards for the good, and punishments for the bad, in a future state. They con

sider all these truths as absolutely necessary that is, some amongst them do, for the number is perhaps but small. They call these truths common notices, perfectly clear, so that a man cannot be a rational creature if he deny them.

4

But whence did these truths break in upon men in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, except from the habitual exhibition of them by the Christian revelation, and by the Christian revelation exclusively-all the wisest heathen philosophers having failed to discover one of these truths during the lapse of ages? How came it to pass that Socrates and Plato and Aristotle wandered in total darkness about every one of them? How came it to pass that these principles were first taught by persons who were educated in the Christian religion, who had received these truths in the greatest purity, from the lips of the Christian minister, and who had been trained up in all the habits and usages of a Christian community? Had these doctrines been wrought out by the study of some heathen philosopher of Northern Europe or distant Asia, some recluse in the deserts of Africa or the back settlements of the Western Continent, who had never heard of the Christian faith, an argument might be drawn from the fact; but the claims of men living under the meridian sun of Christianity, and of reformed Christianity, (for it was not till after the Reformation that Deists were known,) can never for a moment be admitted. As well might a foreigner residing amongst the inventions of the arts in England, seize on our brightest discoveries and claim them as his own. The fact is perfectly intelligible; the notions of modern unbelievers are no more than the twilight of revelation, after the sun of it was set, in

4 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the earliest of our English Deists, wrote in 1624. The name of Deist was unknown till about the year 1565.-I.eland's Deistical Writers, vol. 1, p. 2, 3.

their apostacy from God. Christianity has shamed away the grosser errors and vices of heathenism, and the unbeliever borrows now some of the revealed doctrines, in order to gain an audience amongst mankind. There is no proof that any one individual in any age or nation ever discovered any one of these principles, except as enlightened by the religion of the Bible.

There is

But let us ask further, whether, after all, these principles lessen the necessity of a divine revelation? Now it is quite obvious that discoveries made in the seventeenth century can be no reason against the necessity of the Christian faith in the first. But, waving this, let us just ask whether these five common principles and notices are indeed held firmly and unequivocally by modern unbelievers? The fact is, the moment you begin to inquire of them, inconsistency, disagreement, mutual recrimination fill your ears. not one of these principles, (except perhaps that of the being of a God,) which is uniformly admitted, much less taught by infidel writers. Each has his own vague, defective, private, unauthorized system. Then, as to their views of the true nature of piety and virtue, the qualities of repentance, the rule of future rewards and punishments, all is uncertainty, doubt and contradiction. And what standard have they to appeal to upon disputed questions, what authority and sanction for the promulgation of their tenets, what ground to stand upon, when exposed to temptation and the suggestions of passion? Though these five principles are admitted in general terms as the dictates of natural religion by some few unbelievers, yet what influence have unauthorized principles upon men's practice, how can they inculcate them, what sincerity do they show in their belief of them? Is it not notorious that infidels never enforce these truths at all, except as matters of display in argument, never employ them practically and efficiently for the regulation of their own conduct? Is it not notorious, that