tion, we are bound to perform. They grant no toleration to any of the works of the flesh; but by one, comprehensive sentence they condemn them all as offensive to God, and inconsistent with salvation. No liberty is allowed to any of those appetites and passions, which operate most powerfully in our nature, and to which false religions, finding themselves unable to control them, are necessitated to give some indulgence, as covetousness, ambition, revenge, sensuality. They inculcate all those virtues, and condemn all those vices, which had ever. been the subjects of human injunction and restraint; they prescribe duties which the purblind wisdom of philosophers and statesmen had not discovered, and stigmatize as criminal, certain tempers and practices, which they had permitted as innocent, or recom-、 mended as praise-worthy. Not only do the disorders of the life fall under their disapprobation; but the corrupt principle from which they proceed, even when it lurks unseen, and confines its activity to the heart, is treated with equal severity. The law of man says only, "Thou shalt not steal;" but the law of the scriptures, carrying its prohibition much higher, says, "Thou shalt not covet." The law of man forbids adultery; but the law of the scriptures, the first emotion of criminal desire. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."* In a word, it is their manifest design to destroy sin in its root and in its branches, to crush it in the bud, as well as to blast its flowers and its fruits. They

* Mat. v. 27, 28.

aim at subduing and finally eradicating our sinful appetites and affections; and at establishing as the supreme law of our thoughts, words and actions, the will of God.

Let us now conjoin these too qualities of the scriptures, and ask from what source a book so pure and so pious hath proceeded. It cannot be the work of man, because it is too perfect to come from so imperfect a being. All his works of this nature give manifest proofs of his weakness and depravity. If, however, we should admit for a moment that the scriptures are a human production, it is plain that the authors must have been either good or bad men. That they were good men is impossible; for no good man would act the part of an impious impostor, and pretend a divine inspiration which he did not enjoy. A good man would not speak or act wicked-ly, even for God; and besides, this very book, which persons of this character are supposed to have written, denounces the most dreadful judgments on false prophets, who forge a commission from heaven, and condemns liars of every description to suffer the everlasting torments of hell. Pious frauds, or the use of artifice and falsehood in propagating the truth, and endeavouring to promote the spiritual interests of mankind, though they have been countenanced by the approbation and the practice of some christians, are contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of their religion.* Common sense forbids us to believe, that the writers of the sacred books, if they were impostors, would, without any necessity, have passed sentence on themselves, and inculcated such moral precepts, as were at variance with their

Rom. iii. 5-8.

own conduct, and must have rendered them, if they were ever detected, the objects of universal execration. It is equally evident, that the scriptures were not fabricated by bad men. Would they have devised the most devout system of religion, and the purest system of morality, which were ever presented to mankind? Men who hated and disobeyed God, would not have taught us to love and serve him ; they, who took pleasure in sin, would not have represented it as abominable, and employed the most powerful arguments to dissuade us from committing it. Nay, I will venture to assert, that bad men have a judgment too inaccurate, and a taste too gross, to be able to compose such a book as the Bible, in which moral distinctions are so refined, the corrupt principle is traced to its inmost recesses and detected under its most specious disguises; and certain actions which are admired by the world, as the most sublime efforts of virtue, are pronounced to be of no value. The mode of thinking in morals, which appears in the scriptures, is the most distant imaginable from that of men who were the slaves of vice. It is superior to the ideas even of the most virtuous men, who have not learned to think from it.

It being manifest, then, that the scriptures are not the work of men of any description, it remains that we attribute them to God, whose image and superscription they bear. Their piety and purity are features, by which they are known to be his offspring. As it is their uniform aim to communicate just ideas of his nature, his attributes, and his dispensations; as they inculcate those sentiments and affections which are suitable to his character, and to the relations which he bears to us; and, as they

teach us to detest that abominable thing which he hates, and to cultivate those virtues which he approves; who can doubt that they are a revelation from himself, intended to form us into his likeness, and to excite us to fulfil the purposes for which we were brought into existence, by imitating and glorifying him?

IV. The efficacy of the scriptures furnishes another argument in favour of their inspiration.

By their efficacy, I mean the power which they have exerted in former times, and which they continue to exert, in changing the principles and subduing the passions of men, in purifying their hearts, in inspiring them with undaunted courage, and elevating them above all earthly and selfish considerations; in fine, in causing such moral and spiritual effects, as no means merely human would have been sufficient to produce.

We are naturally led to take notice, in the first place, of the success with which the gospel was crowned at its first publication. Multitudes, in all the countries to which the ministrations of the apostles extended, renouncing the religion of their fathers, the peace which they enjoyed, and the lusts in which they had lived in their ignorance, assumed the profession of christianity, though it demanded many costly sacrifices and difficult services; andthis was done, not only by the poor who had nothing to lose, but by many of the rich and noble, whose estates and honours were at stake; not only by the vulgar who might have been easily imposed upon, but by men of talents and education, versed in learning and philosophy, whom nothing but the irresist ible evidence of truth could have persuaded to dis

claim their former wisdom as folly. There is not in all history so astonishing an event, as the conversion of the world to the christian faith. None of those motives, which usually influence men to change their opinions, had any share in effecting it. On the contrary, it was opposed by a regard to present interest, honour, safety, ease, and by all the corrupt propensities of the heart. This conversion, too, was not accomplished by worldly might and power, by subtle reasonings and captivating eloquence, but by a simple statement of the facts and doctrines of the gospel. Hence we have inferred, in a preceding chapter, that miracles must have been wrought by the first preachers of the truth, to prove their commission from God, and to awaken the attention of mankind.

I now advance a step farther, and say, that miracles alone will not fully account for their success, as is evident from this consideration, that many, who witnessed the wonderful works performed by the apostles, did not acknowledge the truth of their doctrine. I know, indeed, that the rapid progress of the gospel, in the first ages, hath been sometimes attributed solely to the miracles by which it was confirmed; but I know likewise, that christianity hath not seldom been maintained on unchristian grounds. When writers against infidelity deny or overlook the necessity of the illuminating and regenerating influences of the Spirit, they defend a religion, a fundamental article of which they do not know, or they are too proud to admit. Without miracles the world could not have been required to believe; for reasonable beings cannot be convinced without evidence; and God, in propos