ation of the truth of this one great event. And, surely, it appears that the circumstances attending the resurrection of Jesus were so ordered by divine providence, that it is not in the power of man to imagine any change in them that, according to the known laws of evidence, would make it more credible than it is with respect to distant ages. Every objection that has hitherto been made to this evidence has led to a more rigorous examination of the circumstances; and the consequence of this, has always been an addition of light upon the evidence, and a greater confirmation of it. We are therefore abundantly authorized to consider our faith as founded upon a rock, which no future objection will be able to shake.

Since, therefore, we may consider it as a certain and unquestionable fact, that Christ is risen from the dead, we may likewise, with the apostle, consider him as the first fruits of them that sleep, or that his resurrection is a pledge and assurance of our own, which it is the great object of christianity to inforce. Christ is called the first fruits, and these are the forerunners of a general harvest. Afterwards, says the apostle, they that are Christ's, at his coming. For Christ has only left the present scene for a time. If there be any truth in the facts

the evidence of which has now been laid before you, he will certainly come again, and that with power and great glory, to raise the dead, and to give unto every man according to his works.

Let us, therefore, my christian brethren, be continually looking for this great event, this great day of God, as it is sometimes called. For to all of us it is nigh, even at the doors. Long as the sleep of death may really be, it will appear to each of us to be only a moment. In death we, as it were, only shut our eyes upon this world, and immediately open them in another, with the brightest and most glorious prospects, if our conversation has been such as becomes the gospel, but with the most gloomy and dreadful ones, if this great light hath come into the world, and we have loved darkness rather than light, because our deeds were evil.

The mere profession of christianity will avail us nothing, because it lays us under stronger obligations to a virtuous life, and therefore will aggravate our condemnation if we do not live as, by ranking with christians, we profess to live. Better, far better, would it be for us, at the day of judgment, to be able to say we had never heard of Christ, than naming the name of Christ, or professing his religion, not to have been thereby led to depart from iniquity,

and

and to be to him a peculiar people zealous of good works.

Christianity is much less to be considered as a system of doctrines, than as a rule of practice. Nay the doctrines themselves (the chief of which is that of a future state of retribution) have no other object than the regulation of our lives. What the great duties of the christian life are, we are all sufficiently acquainted with. They are comprehended in two great precepts, the first of which is the love of God with all our hearts, implying an entire and chearful devotedness to his will, in doing and in suffering, in life and in death. And the second is the loving of our neighbour as ourselves, implying a readiness, in all cases, to do to others as we should think it right that they should do to us. We should all habitually consider one another as brethren, the children of the same great universal parent, the care of the same benevolent providence, as training up in the same school of moral discipline here, and as heirs together of the same glorious hope of eternal life hereafter.

To fit us for these devotional and social duties, we should also be careful to exercise a constant government over our appetites and passions, that,

as the apostle says, we may preserve ourselves as the unpolluted temples of the spirit of God.

Thus, my christian brethren, knowing our duty, happy shall we be if we do it; that when our Lord, after his long absence, shall return, to take an account of his servants, when our eyes, and when every eye, shall see him, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming; but having duly improved the talents committed to each of us, may hear from his mouth the joyful sentence, Well done, good and faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord.

THE

THE

IMPORTANCE

OF

FREE INQUIRY.

He that hath cars to hear let him hear.

MATT. XIII. 9.

361

IN these words our Lord several times addressed

his audience, in order to summon their utmost at tention to his doctrine. It was a call to make use of their reason, in a case in which it was of the greatest consequence to apply it, and in which they were likewise capable of applying it with the greatest effect, viz. the investigation of religious truth. Hear and understand is another of his modes of calling the attention of his audience to the instruc tion that he gave them. And when he thought them deficient in their attention to his doctrine, and they did not appear to understand what he laid before them, he was not backward even in his reproaches on that account. Are ye yet also without under

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