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to a future life are so difficult to be understood that you can scarcely believe Me, how shall you believe if I endeavoured to explain to you the nature of celestial beings, the designs of Providence, and the mysteries of His dispensations-subjects which you have neither ideas to comprehend, nor language to express?

First, then, The object of this religion is entirely new, and is this to prepare us by a state of probation for the kingdom of heaven. This is everywhere professed by Christ and His apostles to be the chief end of the Christian's life-the crown for which he is to contend, the goal to which he is to run, the harvest which is to pay him for all his labours. Yet previous to their preaching no such prize was ever hung out to mankind, nor any means prescribed for the attainment of it.

It is, indeed, true, that some of the philosophers of antiquity entertained notions of a future state, but mixed with much doubt and uncertainty; their legislators also endeavoured to infuse into the minds of the people a belief of rewards and punishments after death; but by this they only intended to give a sanction to their laws, and to enforce the practice of virtue for the benefit of mankind in the present life. This alone seems to have been their end, and a meritorious end it was; but Christianity not only operates more effectually to this end, but has a nobler design in view, which is, by a proper education here to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter. In all former religions the good of the present life was the first object; in the Christian it is but the second in those, men were incited to promote that good by the hopes of a future reward; in this, the practice of virtue is enjoined in order to qualify them for that reward. There is great difference, I apprehend, in these two plans, that is, in adhering to virtue, from its present utility, in expectation of future happiness, and living in such a manner as to qualify us for the acceptance and enjoyment of that happiness; and the

conduct and dispositions of those who act on these different principles, must be no less different: on the first, the constant practice of justice, temperance, and sobriety, will be sufficient; but on the latter, we must add to these an habitual piety, faith, resignation, and contempt of the world: the first may make us very good citizens, but will never produce a tolerable Christian. Hence it is that Christianity insists more strongly than any preceding institution, religious or moral, on purity of heart and a benevolent disposition; because these are absolutely necessary to its great end; but in those whose recommendations of virtue regard the present life only, and whose promised rewards in another were low and sensual, no preparatory qualifications were requisite to enable men to practise the one or to enjoy the other: and therefore we see this object is peculiar to this religion, and with it was entirely new.

But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded, were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet, when discovered, they are so consonant to it, that we cannot but readily assent to them. For the truth of this principle, that the present life is a state of probation, and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by everything which we see around us it is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs—the only clue which can guide us through that pathless wilderness -and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be comprehended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness; because it is everywhere overspread with innumerable miseries; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments: it could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system

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all that we here meet with may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, neces-sarily results from a state of probation and education—as probation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences.

In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object, and contain ideas of God and of man, of the present and of a future life, and of the relations which all these bear to each other, totally unheard of, and quite dissimilar from any which had ever been thought on, previous to its publication. No other ever drew so just a portrait of the worthlessness of this world, and all its pursuits, nor exhibited such distinct, lively, and exquisite pictures of the joys of another of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." No other has ever represented the Supreme Being in the character of three persons united in one God. No other has attempted to reconcile those seeming contradictory but both true propositions, the contingency of future events and the foreknowledge of God, or the free will of the creature with the overruling grace of the Creator. No other has so fully declared the necessity of wickedness and punishment, yet so effectually instructed individuals to resist the one and to escape the other: no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it: no other has ventured to declare the unpardonable nature of sin without the influence of a mediatorial interposition, and a vicarious atonement from the sufferings of a superior Being. Whether these wonderful doctrines are worthy of our belief, must depend on the opinion which we entertain of the authority of those who published them to the world; but certain it is, that they are all so far removed from every tract of the human imagination,

that it seems equally impossible that they should ever have. been derived from the knowledge or the artifice of man.

And here I cannot omit observing, that the personal character of the Author of this religion is no less new and extraordinary than the religion itself, who "spake as never man spake," and lived as never man lived. In proof of this, I do not mean to allege that He was born of a virgin, that He fasted forty days, that He performed a variety of miracles, and after being buried three days, that He arose from the dead; because these accounts will have but little effect on the minds of unbelievers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit to the relation of these facts; but I will prove it from facts which cannot be disputed. For instance, He is the only founder of a religion in the history of mankind which is totally unconnected with all human policy and government, and therefore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever; all others, Mohammed, Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by them obtained dominion over their respective people; but Christ neither aimed at, nor would accept of any such power; He rejected every object which all other men pursue, and made choice of all those which others fly from and are afraid of. He refused power, riches, honours, and pleasure, and courted poverty, ignominy, tortures, and death. Many have been the enthusiasts and impostors, who have endeavoured to impose on the world pretended revelations, and some of them, from pride, obstinacy, or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their lives rather than retract; but I defy history to shew one who ever made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his original plan, and essential to his mission. This Christ actually did; He foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate the Divine lessons, the perfect precepts, the beautiful discourses, and the consistent conduct of this wonderful person,

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we cannot possibly imagine that He could have been either an idiot or a madman; and yet if He was not what He pretended to be, He can be considered in no other light; and even under this character He would deserve some attention, because of so sublime and rational an insanity there is no other instance in the history of mankind.

If any one can doubt of the superior excellence of this religion above all which preceded it, let him but peruse with attention those unparalleled writings in which it is transmitted to the present times, and compare them with the most celebrated productions of the pagan world; and if he is not sensible of their superior beauty, simplicity, and originality, I will venture to pronounce that he is as deficient in taste as in faith, and that he is as bad a critic as a Christian. For in what school of ancient philosophy can he find a lesson of morality so perfect as Christ's Sermon on the Mount? From which of them can he collect an address to the Deity so concise, and yet so comprehensive, so expressive of all that we want and all that we could deprecate, as that short prayer which He formed for, and recommended to His disciples? From the works of what sage of antiquity can he produce so pathetic a recommendation of benevolence to the distressed, and enforced by such assurances of a reward, as in those words of Christ"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? Then shall he answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto