the authority attending the giving of the command, or the evidence he had of its coming from the author of his life, and who had power to take it away if he transgressed. When once this impression was made on his heart, or this new dictate took place in his conscience, he behooved, even respecting his own happiness, to judge it more reasonable to comply with a limitation of his freedom, than to forfeit his life and happiness altogether by transgression. In like manner, as to the case of Abraham, we may be very sure his natural notions could never lead him to put to death his own beloved son, in the prospect of whose issue all his hopes of happiness centred. Yea, if he had not had a higher idea of God than most reasoners have, he behooved to have rejected the command at first hearing. But he knew, that the command came from that same God who had given him Isaac, after he and Sarah his wife, were incapable, according to nature, of having children, and who was able to restore him to life again after he should be slain, and so make good the promise he had formerly made concerning him. And thus his obedience was, in every respect, highly reasonable, and issued in a notable confirmation of his hope. Will the word of a great and liberal prince, prove a powerful reason with a man of spirit to animate him to the most hazardous enterprises, and disentangle him at once from many little schemes and projects wherein he formerly found it both reasonable and necessary to interest himself? How much more must the word of the Most High prove a prevailing reason with one who knows he hears his voice? And who can deny, that he who formed the conscience of man, may so speak as to make the hearer fully sensible who is the speaker?

In this view only, we see reason in the conduct of the apostles, which otherwise behooved to appear, in many respects unaccountable. Thus, their doctrine is fitly called (yo yata) the only rational nourishment for the mind of man, and the tenor of life which they enjoined, (Aoyin Aarpeta) a reasonable service. If any one inclines rather to render the Greek epithet, in the two places referred to, by the English one, scriptural or evangelical, I am far from being disposed to contend with him; for scriptural and rational are words of the same import in the ears of a Christian, or rather, the former ascer tains and enlarges the import of the latter. The apostles found all who employed their reasoning faculty against their gospel, to be no less (aroro) unreasonable than wicked. The Scriptures open a new fund of reasoning to Christians; and the apostles serve as an authentic pattern for the fair use of

it, and as a check upon all who would handle the word of God deceitfully.

The utmost length our natural notions can carry us, with regard to the supernatural agency of the Deity, when intimated to us with evidence worthy of our serious attention, is to judge, that what is impossible with men, or as to which men cannot conceive how it is possible, is yet possible with God. Accordingly, the gospel introduces itself to the consciences of men with this question, Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? We have no natural notions helping us to conceive how God can raise one who has suffered death for sin, to an endless life of pleasure, absolutely free from all pain. Neither have we any notions helping us to conceive how God can justify an unjust person, without his doing anything to make himself just; or how he can impart righteousness to such a one, so as he may be sustained as a righteous person in all respects, in his presence, and accordingly entitled to eternal happiness. Yet if it appear by undeniable evidence, that God hath raised one from death to eternal happiness, and the justification of the unjust be declared as the genuine import of this fact, and the same power that was manifest in raising the dead, appear attending this declaration; then, upon my conviction of the truth of the resurrection, I may conceive how God can also justify the ungodly; especially if I find it impossible to account for what has actually happened any other way.

If it appear, by the circumstances, that he who died and rose, was not only a righteous, but also a divine person; if it appear impossible that such a person should lead a life of painful service, and at last become exceedingly sorrowful unto death, unless to expiate the sins of others, and furnish them with a righteousness; and if it also appear impossible, that one suffering death for sin, should be raised again to a happy life, unless the Divine displeasure against sin had been fully manifested in his suffering; or that one undertaking to fulfil all righteousness, should be honoured with a resurrection if he had failed in his undertaking; if, at the same my conscience condemn me as an unrighteous person, and exclude all hope of relief from any natural source; if, I say, my thoughts come thus to be straitened on every other side, I must find a very sensible relief to my mind, in admitting the de

claration issued in the bosom of the evidence of the resurrection, viz. that he who died and rose again, was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. He who has been thus straitened, will find this apostolic de

He

claration to be the only satisfactory, the only rational account that can be given of the forementioned circumstances. will find such an agreement betwixt the doctrine and the fact, as was intimated in the question, "Whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee? or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk."

THOUGH I am not fond of claiming any kindred to philosophers; yet, I shall here quote a passage from the well-known Essays on Morality and Natural Religion; and the rather, as in Scotland they have lately obtained a considerable share of the public attention. In the following passage, the words reason and reasoning are obviously both used in the same sense wherein I have been using the last of them. "To substitute feeling in place of reason and demonstration, may seem to put the evidence of the Deity upon too low a footing. But human reason is not so mighty an affair as philosophers vainly pretend. It affords very little aid in making original discoveries. The comparing of things together, and directing our inferences from feeling and experience, are its proper province. It enlarges our views of final causes, and of the prevalence of wisdom and goodness. But the application of the argument, from final causes, to prove the existence o a Deity, and the force of our conclusion, from the beautifil and orderly effects to a designing cause, are not from reason but from an internal light, which shows things in their relation of cause and effect. These conclusions rest entirely upon sense and feeling. And it is surprising, that writers should overlook what is so natural and obvious. But the pride of man's heart makes him desire to extend his discoveies by dint of reasoning: for reasoning is our own work.There is merit, and acuteness, and penetration; and we are better pleased to assume merit to ourselves, than humbly to acknowledge, that, to the most important discoveries, we are directly led by the hand of the Almighty."

Philosophy could not teach this writer what the Scripture readily teaches the most illiterate, that is, to follow out the dis tinction betwixt conscience and pride, which he has in part discovered. Therefore, he may be said to have pushed his inquiries either too far or too short a length; too far to please some philosophers, and too short to please those who learn their religion simply from the Bible. Accordingly, in his reasoning about liberty and necessity, in order to adjust certain contradictory sentiments or feelings which he observed in human nature, he has found himself obliged to make use of

some obnoxious terms, which even he himself adopts at first with some air of diffidence, and which have exposed him to the charge of heresy in the eyes of many, no better friends to the ancient gospel, and perhaps, less attentive to the subject whereof he treats, than himself. No question relating to actions, as worthy of praise or blame, reward or punishment, can justly be carried higher than, Have we done what we ought, or what we ought not, according to his own will, inclination, or choice? If we go further, we transgress the limits prescribed to man, and step into the peculiar province of the Deity; and, then, as we reason without any rule of reasoning, we can neither speak what is true, nor indeed what is clearly intelligible. All those sentiments or feelings acknowledged to be deceitful, are at the same time disloyal; they belong to the presumptions of that pride which leads us both to extenuate our blame, by throwing it partly on the circumstances wherein the Deity placed us, and to glory in what is praiseworthy about us, as if we held it independently of the Deity. But the Apostle James has fully handled this plea, and to Christians decided it, marking with strong and pertinently significant expressions of blame, all those sentiments which stand opposed to that meekness with which the truth of the gospel is admitted by them who understand it.

*

It may prove no wide digression, to take this occasion of making some comparison betwixt philosophy, as far as it respects religion, and the popular doctrine, in order to show that the former has in the main no room for glorying over the latAnd I choose the rather to take this occasion, as I have not seen any scheme of philosophic religion preferable to that contained in those essays, or wherein human nature has been considered with greater attention.

ter.

It is the business of philosophy to act the same part toward the natural, as the popular doctrine does toward the revealed truth. The ablest popular preacher is he who can most profoundly, or mysteriously accommodate the gospel to the, religious pride of the devotee. And he is the ablest philosopher who an most ingenuously accommodate the law of nature, or the operations of conscience, to the common corruption of human nature; or who can most commodiously adjust the contradictions evidently observable in the nature of man for promoting his quiet and self-satisfaction. In this respect I have not seen our author excelled by any.

He sets out from this principle, [p. 39.,] That "the common nature of every class of beings is felt by us as perfect; and, therefore, if in any instance a particular being swerve from the common nature of its kind, the action upon that account is accompanied by a sense of disorder and wrong. Thus, as we have a sense of right from every action which is conformable to this common nature, the laws which ought to govern every animal, are to be derived from no other source than the common nature of the species."

In surveying the common nature of mankind, he observes two sources of notions, feelings, or sentiments; those proceeding from the one, very contradictory to those proceeding from the other, yea, no less opposite than truth and falsehood. One would have thought, that this peculiarity which he ob served in human nature, might have stopt him short in his course of reasoning, by way of analogy, from the common nature of any other species of animals, or class of beings, which he perceived as perfect, or wherein he observed nothing contradictory; for when we see things contradictory blended together, the idea of disorder and imperfection readi ly arises in our minds. One would have thought, I say, that this might have led him, though no credit were given to ancient books, to suspect that human nature had undergone some change to the worse, since the time when, according to his own assertion, the Deity beheld it, as well as all his other works, to be very good. But instead of suspecting any thing like this, he goes about to adjust our true and our false sentiments in subserviency to each other, and finds so grand purposes promoted by his adjustment, that he at last works himself up into what he calls a noble enthusiasm, in admiration of such wisdom and goodness appearing to him therein, as he scruples not to call divine. Yet while he is straitened in answering objections against the Divine benevolence, drawn from the appearances of moral evil, he is at pains to reconcile man to the thought of his being an imperfect creature. In some parts of his essays he seems likewise to allow, that our deceitful or false sentiments are rather secondary or after thoughts, than primary ones.

To avoid ambiguity in speaking of liberty, we may call that sense or feeling of it which stands opposed to the dependence which all events have on the first cause, the sense of independency; and that which is opposed to compulsion or constraint, the consciousness of inclination or spontaneous choice. To do this, we are abundantly warranted, both by the sense and words of our author. We are likewise al