have deceived him; he affents to them not with a faith, wavering at best, and always fubject to the encroachments of doubt; he receives them upon the testimony and authority of God; he confides in them as truths, certain as his own existence, and which, even in his widest deviations from the plan of conduct they prefcribe, it is impoffible for him to reject. The experienced Chriftian, in giving credit to this divine fyftem, refts upon evidence, which, though he cannot communicate it to other men, is to him demonstration; by its irrefiftible energy and happy influence upon his own heart and life, he knows and feels that it is the power and the wifdom of God for falvation.

Thus it appears evident, from the ignorance that prevailed in the most cultivated ages, that reafon alone is a moft infufficient guide to those truths which are of chief importance for man to know, that fupernatural difcoveries were abfolutely

C

necessary, and that in this respect the gofpel revelation is admirably adapted to the circumstances and neceffities of human

nature.

THIS will appear no lefs evident from confidering the

Second propofition, That the human mind, upon being enlightened with the true knowledge of God and of duty, must neceffarily be impreffed with a confcioufnefs of guilt, and dread of punishment, for which reafon and nature have provided no remedy.

That mankind in all ages, and under even the most imperfect notions and forms of religion, were affected with a sense of their own ill defert from a fuperior being or beings, appears evident from the whole train of their history. The great Author of nature never left himself without a witnefs in the human breast. The voice of confcience" accufing or excufing"

too much accorded with the decifions of the understanding, to be wholly filenced by bad education, or corrupt fyftems of religion.

Yet it is certain that our ideas and our feelings of moral turpitude must always, in a great degree, depend upon the notions of duty which we have formed or received. It follows, therefore, that they whofe minds, instead of being improved, were debafed and corrupted by prevailing fyftems, must have felt comparatively but little uneafinefs, in confequence of their deviations from the laws of genuine religion and of pure morality. Hence the idea of moral obligation, with the ancient Heathens, was the refult of feeling rather than of reafon; and their religious fervices the extorted drudgery of mercenary dread, rather than the voluntary tribute of reverence and love. It was chiefly their experience of phyfical evil which gave birth to their confcioufacfs of moral guilt,

was when lightnings flashed and thunders rolled, when war and famine and peftilence fpread devastation around, that they were terrified into the belief of having deviated from the will, and tranfgreffed the laws of the God of nature. Hence their omens, their augurs and oracles, their priests and temples, and the whole coftly train of their religious rites; hence in a a particular manner, their victims offered up in facrifice to obtain the favour, or expiate the wrath of offended Deity.

Sacrifices, as has been often observed, afford the most unequivocal proof, not only that a sense of guilt and of deserved punishment, but also of the neceffity of ar atonement, were univerfal among mankind. At the fame time, it must be admitted, that reafon, in vain, feeks to find out a connexion between the fhedding of the blood of an animal, and the remiffion of human tranfgreffion. With much probability, therefore, it has been conclud

ed, that the idea of facrifices originated, not from the natural deductions of reafon, but from a divine revelation handed down by tradition. Yet ftill the univer fality of the practice, while other truths. and ordinances of religion were totally obliterated and forgotten, amounts to a proof, that a fenfe both of guilt, and of the neceffity of an atonement is congenial to the human mind.

If fuch was the general conviction of mankind, when guided by nature alone, and with such imperfect notions of God and duty as fhe afforded, what must be the ideas and feelings of men enlightened in the true knowledge of the Supreme Being, the extent and perfection of his laws, and the awful fanctions by which they are enforced? Many, it is admitted, acknowledge thefe truths, who are but little affected by their practical influence. When ftimulated by the, impulfe of paffion, reafon, and argument, and even obvious in