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I will perform that good thing, which I have promised to the house of Israel.' Here I feel, that, if no one beside myself could be a witness of the fulfilment of this promise, I must be utterly abandoned to falsehood if I did not acknowledge the accomplishment of it in my own state and heart.

* Whatsoever doth make manifest is light:' but we have a conviction in our breasts, amounting to moral certainty, that it is only by the light of Revelation that we have been enabled to appreciate justly other things, and discern their true colour, worth, and importance. Instructed by this, we perceive, that if modern moralists reason better than their pagan forefathers, it is because they are born under a brighter day, and borrow from it those very assistances which their depravity often employs against it. We cannot but recollect, that, when our hearts became humble, the light of Revelation, like that of the sun, brought its own evidence with it; insomuch, that, when Christ spake to us by his word, he seemed to say to us, as he once said to the man whose eyes he opened, “I that speak unto thee, am He.'

• The instruction, which a Christian receives from this great Teacher, makes all he sees without and feels within both natural and accountable; and his Teacher's counsel also shows him WHAT TO DO in the case.

But, without such help, he feels like one driven out to sea without rudder or compass; and who, for any thing he knows to the contrary, may be dashed to pieces in a moment.

Necessity felt, and Help received, become an argument at hand with Christians in every station. Thus the believing poor feel the use and worth of the Scriptures as an illiterate Mariner feels the use and worth of his Compass. The Mariner, perhaps, has neither curiosity nor capacity enough to inquire why his needle takes. a polar direction; or, what the learned have to say on its observed variations in different parts of the

globe: he knows nothing of the laws of magnetism, why iron and not lead should be the recipient of it, when or by whom it was discovered, or to what variety of purposes it may be applied; but this man knows, illiterate as he is, that it is by this needle only that he finds his way through a trackless ocean: he knows, that, by this alone, he has escaped many dangers, and obtained many deliverances : he knows he can proceed safely, only as he is directed by it; or take rest, only as he attends to it; and that it will bring him home to his family and friends at last. Thus the Poor take the benefit of Revelation, though they are not able accurately to maintain theories, nor answer questions respecting it, as a scholar might. The value of a thing is sometimes best discovered

bserving the effects resulting from the want of it. When I have beheld the desperate malignity of an unbeliever whom I have visited in his dying moments, and have seen him spurn at the only help and kindness that could be afforded him in such circumstances :--or when I have laboured to convince a silly young creature, intoxicated with vanity, sunk in sensuality, deaf to counsel, and plunging into ruin : when I say I have looked on such men, could I doubt for a moment as to what a reception of the Gospel would do for them? I stand assured that it would pluck a brand from the burning; that it would bring a madman to his senses; that it would change a devil into an angel. Can I doubt, after such an assurance, whether this same Gospel be true, and the appointed remedy of God?

Not that a bare assent to the letter of this divine record will produce any such effects. You and I, Madam, know too many who believe the History of of the Bible as firmly as they believe the History of England, and with much the same effect. Such a faith as this will only witness against them. There needs a Teacher, as well as a Book; an influence, as well as a light. “The gospel," as one observes,

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“is a mighty engine for raising the fallen nature of man; but God must have the working of it."

But, whatever use man makes of this standard of truth, the standard itself remains fixed, tried, and unimpaired. When I take down a great author, such as Lord Bacon, I find that time has discovered many errors, and rendered obsolete many positions, to be found in that most comprehensive of human minds. But I see that. Time can take nothing from the Bible. I find it a living monitor. I feel convinced that I I might have escaped all my errors through life, had I paid attention to its admonitions. Like the sun, it is the same in its light and influence to man this day, which it was ages ago.

It can meet every present inquiry ; it can console under every present loss : and it can become, in God's hand, a daily exciting cause of growth and comfort.

But on the supposition that we had not such firm footing for our hope and comfort as has been stated; yet even then, a man, who was not tied and bound by depraved habits or inveterate prejudices would surely avoid the edge of a precipice.

He would say, “In order that I may not make a mistake which cannot afterwards be rectified, I will keep as far as possible from danger. It surely becomes me to act in matters of the last importance with the precaution which I use in matters of the least importance. In matters of such moment, I must avoid even hazard."

Fools make a mock at sin:' but sin appears, from experience as well as from the Scripture, to be an infinite evil. I see it now convulsing the nation. I am shocked at its cruelty and outrages as I pass the streets. It deranges my family. It disorders my worship. It pollutes and torments my heart. I can form, indeed, no right judgment how it may become infinite justice to treat this evil; but I can take the JUDGE'S OWN ACCOUNT.

I can take warning when he declares repeatedly that he will bring the impenitent to a state where the worm dieth not and where the fire is not quenched. I can take divine counsel how to avoid these awful consequences. I can take the safe side : and in so doing, I am sure of losing nothing, even if it could be proved that I should gain nothing.

We cannot avoid perceiving a distinct class of men, who, from the beginning of time, were taught and disposed to serve the living and true God: we cannot help marking the identity of their character, and the superiority of their views; their zeal for truth and their daily anxiety to improve under its direction. Nor can we avoid perceiving the rest of mankind, drowned in cares or pleasures; either casting off all fear of God, or becoming the blind dupes of some contemptible superstition. Nor can we hesitate a moment to which of these two divisions of mankind we should join ourselves ?

As a foolish youth, who knows not how to prize the privileges of his father's house, care, and counsel, seeks the friendship of some dangerous stranger: thus, on taking umbrage at something met with in the Church, I have petulantly walked into the World for relief. Happy for me! what I met there soon convinced me that I must make the best of my way back again. I found hypocrisy and farce in the Church: in the World I found nothing else; and pure truth and solid consolation, only in the Bible.

Happy also for us, if by any means we are brought to receive the truth in time. On my first coming into our neighbourhood, one, who possessed a considerable estate in it, was not satisfied with jocosely expressing his own infidelity, but thought he complimented me by insinuating, that, secretly, I was of his sentiment. A mortification in his bowels soon after made bim serious, and then he discovered his fatal mistake. He sent for me in the greatest anxiety, but too late for conversation. The agony, however, of his mind when dying reminded me of that observation, Hell is truth seen too late."

And is this all that the god of this world can give his servants for believing his lie? One thing more, perhaps, he may add the opiate of a stupid conscience to make them die quietly. But I cannot be content with such wages. Annihilation, which is the Unbeliever's best hope, is the Christian's worst fear. He alone stands a candidate for an enduring substance : the Bible alone purposes it: and what has the world to offer, in its sophistries or satisfactions, which should dissuade him one moment from thus standing ?

On the other hand I see a wild fanatic mangling the Scriptures, till some are ready to call them in question: but I see no question arise from hence. Had this deluded creature ceased to follow his imagination, and trod the humble and practical path of his guide, he would have ceased to be a fanatic.

Nor am I a whit more stumbled at the hypocrite. Like Simon Magus, I see him paying homage to excellence, while he has no part nor lot in the matter. Like a spurious miracle, he derives all his credit from those that are true;'as a counterfeit coin or note would deceive none, if true had never existed. “. Tell me not,?" said your old friend Mrs. to her relation, “how many hypocrites you find in the Church. I tell you I know I am not one myself; and that is enough for me."

To set before you the objections which have been made to Revelation, and the satisfactory answers which have been repeatedly given and are in every body's hands, would be but to trifle with your time. And, indeed, were not such solutions at hand, we know that a well-founded fact is not to be overthrown, because objections may be started against it, which we are not prepared to answer. Many of us, who have been objectors, know.also that the carnal mind, which is enmity against God,' lies at the root of such objec

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