the fear of deciding amiss, rashness and precipitation of judgment. Such objections carry their own refutation with them.

4. Add to this THE SHIFting and veRSATILITY of these objections in different ages, and by different classes of writers. The infidelity of each age varies from the preceding. The objections relied on now, will be abandoned a few years hence. What Herbert admitted in the seventeenth century as the notices of our reason under all circumstances, Paine, in the eighteenth, spurns and rejects. What was scorned by Hobbes and Shaftesbury, is now tacitly allowed to be right and just. Infidelity is compelled to wear the garb of Christianity, and appear under the form of Neologism and Socinianism. Against this variable and inconsistent opposition, Christianity presents her uniform and unchangeable testimony, her authenticity, her divine authority, her internal excellency. She is defended now, as she was in the days of Justin Martyr and Lactantius. She has the uniformity of truth.

Such, then, being the contradiction of the objections raised against Christianity, we need not regard them with alarm. It would be madness to allow such cavils to disturb our faith. No, my young friends! You have first taken, as you ought, a direct view of the positive evidences; you have found every part abundantly furnished with testimonies; you have seen the inward excellency of the religion. To you, then, the speculative error falls harmless of itself. You have laid the proper foundation n; your mind reposes upon it; and you can now deal with the objections, which might have perplexed you, if you had been unfur

7 This new doctrine, as its name assumes, scarcely disguises its infidelity. It attempts to explain away, not only the capital doctrines of Christianity, with Socinianism, but all miraculous power-every thing, in short, peculiar to revelation.

nished with this knowledge. Your Christian hope is an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast;" and you will never be persuaded to desert your port in order to venture, at the call of human rashness, on the wild sea of endless reasonings. No; if sceptical doubts intrude into the mind, you will fall back on the positive facts and practical benefits of Christianity; you will let conscience reply; you will not be caught in the thin web of a treacherous enemy; but being furnished with a solid, practical persuasion of Christianity, you will burst at once the dangerous delusions, and come forth to liberty and peace.

If we had nothing else to state in answer to the objections of infidelity, this would be more than enough. They are not only inadmissible in themselves, but, when they are looked into, they are found to be contradictory with each other. But we proceed yet further; chiefly for the sake of the young, into whose minds the bold assertions and cavils of the sceptic may at times be injected; and we show,

III. That these objections ARE FRIVOLOUS IN THEMSELVES, AND MANIFESTLY SPRING FROM THE PRIDE AND IGNORANCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.

I can scarcely bring myself to classify these miserable reasonings, even with the purpose of showing how vain and weak they are as advanced against Christianity.

Let us first, however, look at those which are TRIFLING in themselves; then at such as spring especially from the PRIDE of the human heart; and lastly, at those which arise chiefly from IGNORANCE of what Christianity is, and of the facts connected with it.

1. For what can be more TRIFLING in themselves than petty critical or scientific objections on the di

8 Heb. vi. 19.

mensions of the ark; on slight variations in genealogies; on points of chronological minuteness; on circumstances in the lives of the patriarchs; on the quotations in the New Testament from the Old; on the diversities in the narrative of the four gospels; or the various readings in the manuscripts; on the supposed contradictions between geological theories and the Mosaic account of the creation; on the judgments inflicted by the Almighty on guilty nations, by means of the Jewish people? A thousand things such as these-what are they but trifling, petty, microscopic atoms floating in the sun-beams, compared with the gigantic mass of evidences, external and internal, by which Christianity is sustained? In books of such antiquity and diversity; in the accounts of usages and manners which have passed away for ages; in documents, designed for the whole world, and for men of every class and in every period of time, these difficulties might be expected to occur; they are the mere dust in the balance; they are matters which sound criticism explains; which further knowledge of ancient manners elucidates; which every new commentator lessens by more enlarged means of information; and which have been every one shown to admit of a satisfactory answer. To dwell on such points, is as frivolous and absurd, as for a prisoner, condemned to death, to criticize minutely the language of the pardon granted him by his sovereign, at the moment when gratitude and joy should overwhelm every other feeling.

2. But, to pass from this first class, what shall we say to the great speculative objections which involve, indeed, the deepest and most momentous questions, but which, as they affect the evidences of Christianity, are obviously the dictates of HUMan pride and preSUMPTION? For what are difficulties raised about the guilt and corruption of man, and the incomprehensibility of the Christian mysteries, but a confession

of a proud curiosity, which would pry into secrets which God has not revealed, and which Christianity avows to be beyond her design to unfold?

Men urge against Christianity, the existence of moral evil, and the statements of Scripture about the depravity and corruption of man. We acknowledge the impenetrable difficulties to our finite understandings. But does not Christianity profess that her scheme is only partially revealed; that the practical bearings of it are, indeed, clearly made out to guide man in his duties; but that the whole reasons of the Almighty in his permission of evil, in his dealings with his rational and accountable creatures, are not revealed, much less submitted to human judgment and opinion? What, then-must we again remind young persons of the limited faculties of man, and his inability to comprehend the designs of the infinite God? What, then-is it not enough that the Revelation declares that "the Judge of all the earth will do right;" ;" that at the last great assize he will reconcile all the apparent inequalities in his providential dealings, and display his holy character in all its perfection? What are there not sufficient indications of the divine goodness and mercy in the scheme of Revelation, though some parts of man's condition, and some of the causes of things, are not discovered to us? What! can a child, brought up by a kind and considerate parent, discern proofs enough of his love and wisdom, though some of his restraints, and many of his commands, appear harsh to his selfishness and passions; and shall not man, the child of a heavenly parent, acknowledge the numberless instances of God's goodness and mercy, though he cannot understand why he was made with such and such powers, and placed in such and such relations? Nay, is not the fallacy of the sceptic's argument, with respect to the

9 Gen. xviii. 25.

character of the Almighty, infinitely more glaring, than the fallacy of the child's argument would be, if he concluded against the kindness and wisdom of his earthly father!

Or conceive the same thing in another light. Here is a complicated machine invented by one of unquestionably superior ability and integrity-the END to be ultimately accomplished by it, is so simple as to be understood by those of the lowest capacity. We cannot, however, follow out in every instance, the nature of the machinery, merely through our want of understanding; but we are still assured by the Maker, that all is framed in the best manner, but that the effect is yet very imperfectly produced. Surely this assurance, backed with demonstrative evidence of success in a variety of instances that fell within the level of our capacity, would remove all shadow of doubt from every reasonable mind. Now that God is wise and good, and that the proceedings of his government must be wise and good, all acknowledge who admit the perfections of the one Almighty God. Revelation also teaches us the END which he will ultimately bring We find ourselves lost, however, in the mysterious conduct of the means he uses. But we see evidently that we understand not the sum of things; and experience tells us that nothing is more fallible than our judgment in these matters. While, then, we have undoubted proofs that the Revelation is from God that the machinery is of divine formation-we cannot rationally distrust the perfection of his moral government, however incomprehensible to us.10

out.

But why do I thus expose the futility of this objection? For wherefore is it urged at all against Christianity? Christianity did not produce the actual condition of man. Christianity did not occasion the fall of our nature. Christianity did not introduce

10 See Milner against Gibbon, p. 216.