DISCOURSE I.

INTRODUCTORY.

BE IT KNOWN UNTO YOU ALL, AND TO ALL THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, THAT BY THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH, WHOM YE CRUCIFIED, WHOM GOD HATH RAISED FROM THE DEAD, EVEN BY HIM DOTH THIS MAN STAND HERE BEFORE YOU ALL. THIS IS THE STONE WHICH WAS SET AT NAUGHT OF YOU BUILDERS, WHICH IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER. NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER, FOR THERE IS NONE OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN WHEREBY WE MUST

BE SAVED. Acts iv. 10, 11, 12.

NOTHING can be more certain, as an historical fact, than that Christianity has been of vast advantage to the world. It has become the basis of modern civilization; its spirit, diffused in society, has mitigated the barbarism of ancient manners, its precepts have entered into modern legislation, and rendered laws more mild, equitable, and just. It has freed the human mind from a load of debasing superstitions. It has purified religious rites from sanguinary usages and shocking immoralities.

Jesus of Nazareth was the corner-stone of Christianity. The world received its new impulse from

his personality, his history, his life, his precepts; from all, in short, which is related of him in the New Testament. It is certain, if anything can be relied on as historical fact, that he extracted all that was spiritual and universal in the religion of Moses, and separated it from the ritual of that ancient institution, connected it with a new ritual, and made it accessible to all mankind. He instituted an outward organization, which he denominated his Church, which had for its object the dissemination of his religion and its transmission to the remotest ages. The Church, which he instituted, has subsisted to the present time. It has been continually spreading wider and wider over the earth, and it has survived everything but Judaism which then existed upon the earth.

The vital principle which brought the Church into existence was faith in Christ, as an authorized and authenticated Teacher sent by God. It was early believed, that no one could speak as he spoke, and teach as he taught, without supernatural aid. The wisdom which he displayed in the enunciation and combination of the truths of religion, and in constructing his Church, so far transcending the wisdom of any one man, and indeed of all the sages and philosophers who have ever appeared upon the earth, has driven men to suppose that it had a divine, and not a merely human origin.

It has seemed, moreover, to thoughtful men, that there are strong indications, not only of supernatural interference, but of providential arrangement, in the appearance of Christianity in the world; in the succession of the religions preceding it, the Patri

archal and Mosaic, by which a portion of the human race had become prepared to receive a spiritual and universal religion; in the contemporaneous preparation of the world to be approached by the propagators of the new faith; and in the diffusion of that culture which rendered the reception of the doctrines and institutions of Christianity a possibility.

The very structure of the Christian Church implies and supposes a supernatural origin. Its two only ordinances appeal to a superhuman authority. Baptism, which we have every reason to believe prevailed from the first, is a formal recognition of a supernatural mission and authority in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of the Church. The Supper was a commemoration of the inauguration of Christianity as a religion specially given by God to man, through the mediation of Jesus Christ. "This is the new covenant in my blood." It derived its main significance and moral power from the fact, that it supposed the subsequent resurrection of Jesus, and its celebration afterwards expressed the belief that he had gone to heaven and to God, and still watched over his Church, and was spiritually present with it.

The Church was founded on the belief in the supernatural origin of the teaching of Christ, and the miraculous attestations of it, which were supposed to seal it as coming from God. If the Gospels are to be trusted as history, the impression was deep and extensive. Notwithstanding the humility of his exterior, he was followed by multitudes. To them his word was with power. They were astonished at his doctrine. They bore testimony, that never man spake like this man. Peter is related to have said, after

having been long his disciple, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. Those teachings were committed by the disciples, his companions, to writing, and although in their reports they may have lost something of their original force, they have made the same impression on all succeeding ages. One of the greatest minds of modern times, and indeed of all times, who has lately passed away from this earth, has left his testimony to the world on his tombstone, that the Sermon on the Mount was to him the strongest evidence, not only of the divine mission of Christ, but of the reality of religion and the immortality of the soul.

It is easy for any person to compare the words of Jesus with all other writings, and to judge by their character whether it is most reasonable to attribute them to unaided human reason, or divine inspiration. The Church, I have said, was founded on a belief in divine and miraculous interposition, authenticating Christ as a divine teacher, and Christianity as a divine institution. The book of Acts, which has every feature of an earnest and truthful account of the very commencement of the Christian Church, shows conclusively, that its foundation was laid in the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, and its growth was aided by the persuasion, that miraculous powers were still continued to the Apostles during their ministry.

The persuasion of the superhuman origin of the doctrines of Christ, and their supernatural attestation by his resurrection, was not only the foundation of the Church, but was the source of its moral power, by which its members were elevated so far above the level

of the world at large, both of contemporary Judaism and surrounding idolatry. The Gospel, as far as we can judge, came home to the consciences of men with irresistible power, because it was a more perfect embodiment and expression of moral truth than had ever been presented to them before. The essential truths of universal religion were exhibited in such a form of beauty and power, as no human wisdom or ingenuity had ever reached, and all the teachings of the wisest philosophers sink into insignificance in comparison with the teachings of Jesus, and seem like the merest babblings of childhood.

The sanction and bond of all moral and religious obligation is the doctrine of immortality, and its natural consequence, that there will be a future and complete retribution. Without this, religion has no vitality, and morality sinks to a mere worldly expediency, and the noblest virtues subside into a fantastic enthusiasm or a selfish caution. Human life, confined within the narrow horizon of the present world, is shorn of its glory, and becomes comparatively dishonored, mean, and valueless. Human nature loses its sacredness, and human rights are trodden under foot without scruple, without sympathy, and without remorse.

The difference is almost infinite in the self-respect that is begotten by the expectation of immortality, and the persuasion that death puts a period to both soul and body. He who expects to die the death of a brute will feel little degradation in living the life of a mere animal. The moral and religious nature of man becomes an absurd superfluity. The natural hope inspired by a life of integrity, of self-denial, of justice