. 
 
SERIES OF DISCOURSES 
 

SERIES 
 
 OF 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 OK 
 
 THE 
 
 Yi\VEI> 
 
 IN CONNEXION 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE MODERN ASTRONOMY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 MINISTER OF THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW, 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 T0BLISHED BY KIRK &, MERCI1S, 
 
 No, 22 Wall-Street, 
 1817. 
 
;.25- 
 
 J. & J. Harper, Printers. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A HE astronomical objection against the truth of 
 the Gospel does not occupy a very prominent 
 place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is 
 often, however, met with in conversation and we 
 have known it to be the cause of serious per- 
 plexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid 
 establishment of their religious faith. 
 
 There is an imposing splendour in the science 
 of astronomy ; and it is not to be wondered at, if 
 the light it throws, or appears to throw, over 
 other tracks of speculation than those which are 
 properly its own, should at times dazzle and mis- 
 lead an inquirer. On this account, we think it 
 were a service to what we deem a true and a 
 righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating 
 this illusion; and in stripping Infidelity of those 
 pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain air 
 of philosophical greatness, by which it has often 
 become so destructively alluring to the young? 
 and the ardent, and the ambitious. 
 
In my first Discourse, I have attempted a sketch 
 of the Modern Astronomy nor have I wished to 
 throw any disguise over that comparative little- 
 ness which belongs to our planet, and which gives 
 to the argument of Freethinkers all its plausi- 
 bility. 
 
 This argument involves in it an assertion and 
 an inference. The assertion is, that Christianity 
 is a religion which professes to be designed for 
 the single benefit of our world ; and the inference 
 is,, that God cannot be the author of this religion, 
 lor he would not lavish on so insignificant a field 
 such peculiar and such distinguishing attentions 
 as are ascribed to him in the Old and New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Christianity makes no such profession. That it 
 is designed for the single benefit of our world, is 
 altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself 
 and feeling that this is not the only example of 
 temerity which can be charged on the enemies of 
 our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to 
 the attempt of demonstrating the utter repugnance 
 of such a spirit with the cautious and enlightened 
 philosophy of modern times. 
 
 In the course of this Sermon I have offered a 
 tribute of acknowledgment to the theology of Sir 
 Isaac Newton ; and in such terms, as if not farther 
 explained, may be liable to misconstruction* The 
 
grand circumstance of applause in the character 
 of this great man, is, that unseduced by all the 
 magnificence of his own discoveries, he had a 
 solidity of mind which could resist their fascina- 
 tion, and keep him in steady attachment to that 
 book whose general evidences stamped upon it 
 the impress of a real communication from heaven. 
 This was the sole attribute of his theology which 
 I had in my eye when I presumed to eulogise it 
 I do not think, that, amid the distraction and the 
 engrossment of his other pursuits, he has at all 
 times succeeded in his interpretation of the book; 
 else he would never, in my apprehension, have 
 abetted the leading doctrine of a sect, or a system^ 
 which has now nearly dwindled away from public 
 observation. 
 
 In my third Discourse I am silent as to the as- 
 sertion, and attempt to combat the inference that 
 is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the analo- 
 gies of nature and of providence, we can lay no 
 limit on the condescension of God, or on the mul- 
 tiplicity of bis regards even to the very humblest 
 departments of creation; and that it is not for us* 
 who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care 
 spread in such exhaustless profusion around us, to 
 say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth- 
 of his wondrous attributes on the salvation even of 
 our solitary species. 
 
8 
 
 At this point of the argument I trust that the in- 
 telligent reader may be enabled to perceive in the 
 adversaries of the gospel, a twofold dereliction 
 from the maxims of the Baconian philosophy ; 
 that, in the first instance, the assertion which forms 
 the groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously 
 fetched out of an unknown region where they are 
 utterly abandoned by the light of experience; and 
 that, in the second instance, the inference they 
 urge from it, is in the face of manifold and unde- 
 niable truths, all lying within the safe and accessi- 
 ble field of human observation. 
 
 In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the 
 informations of the record. The Tnfidel objec- 
 tion, drawn from astronomy, may be considered 
 as by this time disposed of; and if we have suc- 
 ceeded in clearing it away, so as to deliver the 
 Christian testimony from all discredit upon this 
 ground, then may we submit, on the strength of 
 other evidences, so be guided by its information. 
 We shall thus learn, that Christianity has a far 
 more extensive bearing on the other orders of 
 creation than the Infidel is disposed to allow ; and 
 whether he will own the authority of this informa- 
 tion or not, he will, at least, be forced to admit, 
 that the subject matter of the Bible jtself is not 
 chargeable with that objection which he has at- 
 tempted to fasten upon it 
 
9 
 
 Thus had my only object been the refutation of 
 the Infidel argument, I might have spared the last 
 Discourses of the Volume altogether. But the 
 tracts of Scriptural information to which they di- 
 rected me, I considered, as worthy of prosecution 
 on their own account and I do think, that much 
 may be gathered from these less observed portions 
 of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to elevate, 
 and to guide the believer. 
 
 But, in the management of such a discussion as 
 this, though for a great degree of this effect it 
 would require to be conducted in a far higher 
 style than I am able to sustain, the taste of the 
 human mind may be regaled, and its understand- 
 ing put into a state of the most agreeable exer- 
 cise. Now, this is quite distinct from the con- 
 science being made to feel the force of a personal 
 application ; nor could I either bring this argu- 
 ment to its close in the pulpit, or offer it to the 
 general notice of the world, without adverting, ia 
 the last Discourse, to a delusion which I fear, is 
 carrying forward thousands, and tens of thousands, 
 to an undone eternity. 
 
 I have closed the Volume with an Appendix of 
 Scriptural authorities. I found that I could not 
 easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, 
 and have, therefore, thought fit to present them 
 in a separate form. I look for a twofold benefit 
 from this exhibition first, on those more general 
 
1Q 
 
 readers, \vho are ignorant of the Scriptures, and 
 of the riches and variety which abound in them 
 and, secondly, on those narrow and intolerant 
 professors, who take an alarm at the very sound 
 and semblance of philosophy, and feel as if there 
 was an utter irreconcileable antipathy between its 
 lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and 
 piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I 
 conceive, for our cause, that the latter could be- 
 come a little more indulgent on this subject ; that 
 they gave up a portion of those ancient and 
 hereditary prepossessions, which go so far to 
 cramp and to enthral them; that they would suffer 
 theology to take that wide range of argument and 
 of illustration which belongs to her; and that, 
 less sensitively jealous of any desecration being 
 brought upon the Sabbath, or the pulpit, they 
 would suffer her freely to announce all those 
 truths, which either serve to protect Christianity 
 from the contempt of science, or to protect the 
 teachers of Christianity from those invasions which 
 are practised both on the sacredness of the office, 
 and on the solitudes of its devotional and intel- 
 lectual labours. 
 
 I shall only add, for the information of readers 
 at a distance, that these Discourses were chiefly 
 delivered on the occasion of the week-day sermon 
 that is preached in rotation by the Ministers of 
 Glasgow. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 Page 
 
 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
 the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; What 
 is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of 
 man ; that thou visitest him ?" PSALM viii. 3, 4. . . . 17 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 "And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he 
 knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." 1 COR. 
 viii. 2 47 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 
 
 "Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on 
 high ? Who humbleth himself to behold the things that 
 are in heaven, and in the earth ? >? PSALM cxiii. 5, 6. . 76 
 
12 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN*S MORAL HISTORY IN THE 
 DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 Page 
 
 " Which things the angels desire to look into." 1 PETER 
 i. 12. . . <....-.... 101 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN IN THE DIS- 
 TANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 tt I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over 
 one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and 
 nine just persons which need no repentance." LUKE 
 xv. 7 127 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 ON THE CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN, AMONGST 
 THE HIGHER ORDERS OF INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 * And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a 
 show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." 
 COL. ii. 15 149 
 
 DISCOURSE VIL 
 
 OS THE SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SEN* 
 SIBILITY IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 
 
 cc And, lo ! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one 
 that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an in- 
 strument : for they hear thy words, but they do them 
 not." EZEKIEL xxxiii. 32 170 
 
 Appendix, 203 
 
DISCOURSE I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY 
 
 t: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
 moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; What is man, 
 that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou 
 visitest him ?" PSALM viii. 3, 4. 
 
 J_N the reasonings of the Apostle Paul, we cannot 
 fail to observe how studiously he accommodates 
 his arguments to the pursuits, or principles, or 
 prejudices of the people whom he was address- 
 ing. He often made a favourite opinion of their 
 own the starting point of his explanation ; and 
 educing a dexterous but irresistible train of argu- 
 ment from some principle upon which each of the 
 parties had a common understanding, did he force 
 them out of all their opposition, by a weapon of 
 their own choosing nor did he scruple to avail 
 himself of a Jewish peculiarity, or a heathen 
 superstition, or a quotation from Greek poetry, by 
 which he might gain the attention of those whom 
 he laboured to convince, and by the skilful appli- 
 cation of which, he might shut them up unto the 
 faith," 
 
18 
 
 Now, when Paul was thus addressing one class 
 of an assembly or congregation, another class 
 might, for the time, have been shut out of all direct 
 benefit and application from his arguments. When 
 he wrote an Epistle to a mixed assembly of Chris- 
 tianized Jews and Gentiles, he had often to direct 
 such a process of argument to the former, as the 
 latter would neither require nor comprehend. 
 Now, what should have been the conduct of the 
 Gentiles at the reading of that part of the Epistle 
 which bore almost an exclusive reference to the 
 JeWs ? Should it be impatience at the hearing of 
 something for which they had no relish or under- 
 standing? Should it be a fretful disappointment, 
 because every thing that was said, was not said 
 for their edification ? Should it be angry discontent 
 with the Apostle, because, leaving them in the 
 dark, he had brought forward nothing for them, 
 through the whole extent of <so many successive 
 chapters? Some of them may have felt in this way; 
 but surely it would have been vastly more Chris- 
 tian to have sat with meek and unfeigned patience, 
 and to have rejoiced that the great Apostle had 
 undertaken the management of those obstinate 
 prejudices, which kept back so many human 
 beings from the participation of the Gospel. And 
 should Paul have had reason to rejoice, that, by 
 the success of his arguments, he had reconciled 
 one or any number of Jews to Christianity, then it 
 was the part of these Gentiles, though receiving 
 no direct or personal benefit from the arguments. 
 
19 
 
 to have blessed God, and rejoiced along with 
 him. 
 
 Conceive that Paul were at this moment alive, 
 and zealously engaged in the work of pressing the 
 Christian religion on the acceptance of the vari- 
 ous classes of society. Should he not still have 
 acted on the principle of being all things to all 
 men ? Should he not have accommodated his dis- 
 cussion to the prevailing taste, arid literature, and 
 philosophy of the times? Should he not have 
 closed with the people, whom he was addressing, 
 on some favourite principle of their own ; and, in 
 the prosecution of this principle, might he not 
 have got completely beyond the comprehension of 
 a numerous class of zealous, humble, and devoted 
 Christians ? Now, the question is not, how these 
 would conduct themselves in such circumstances ? 
 but how should they do it ? Would it be right in 
 them to sit with impatience, because the argument 
 of the Apostle contained in it nothing in the way 
 of comfort or edification to themselves? Should 
 not the benevolence of the Gospel give a different 
 direction to their feelings ? And, instead of that 
 narrow, exclusive, and monopolizing spirit, which 
 I fear is too characteristic of the more declared 
 professors of the truth as it is in Jesus, ought they 
 not to be patient, and to rejoice; when to philo- 
 ^pphers, and to men of literary accomplishment, 
 and to those who have the direction of the public 
 taste among the upper walks of society, such .ar- 
 
20 
 
 guments are addressed as may bring home to their 
 acceptance also, " the words of this life ?" It is 
 under the impulse of these considerations, that I 
 have, with some hesitation, prevailed upon myself 
 to attempt an argument which I think fitted to 
 soften and subdue those prejudices which lie at 
 the bottom of what may be called the infidelity of 
 natural science ; if possible to bring over to the 
 humility of the Gospel, those who expatiate with 
 delight on the wonders and the sublimities of crea- 
 tion ; and to convince them that a loftier wisdom 
 still than that even of their high and honourable 
 acquirements, is the wisdom of him who is resolved 
 to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him cru- 
 cified. 
 
 It is truly a most Christian exercise, to extract 
 a sentiment of piety from the works and the ap- 
 pearances of nature. It has the authority of the 
 Sacred Writers upon its side, and even our Sa- 
 viour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity 
 of his example. " Behold the lilies of the field ; 
 they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your hea- 
 venly Father careth for them." He expatiates on 
 the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it 
 the delightful argument of confidence in God. 
 He gives us to see that taste may be combined 
 with piety, and that the same heart may be occu- 
 pied with all that is serious in the contemplations 
 of religion, and be at the same time alive to the 
 charms and the loveliness of nature. 
 
The Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. He 
 leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that 
 mighty expanse which spreads above it and around 
 it. He wings his way through space, and wanders 
 in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead 
 of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees it 
 crowded with splendour, and filled with the energy 
 of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its im- 
 mensity before him, and the world, with all which 
 it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation 
 so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that 
 he is not overlooked amid the grandeur and the 
 variety which are on every side of him, and pass- 
 ing upward from the majesty of nature to the ma- 
 jesty of nature's Architect, he exclaims, " What is 
 man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
 man that thou shouldest deign to visit him ?" 
 
 It is not for us to say, whether inspiration re- 
 vealed to the Psalmist the wonders of the modern 
 astronomy. But even though the mind be a per- 
 fect stranger to the science of these enlightened 
 times, the heavens present a great and an elevating 
 spectacle, an immense concave reposing upon the 
 circular boundary of the \vorld, and the innumera- 
 ble lights which are suspended from on high, 
 moving with solemn regularity along its surface. 
 It seems to have been at night that the piety of the 
 Psalmist was awakened by this contemplation, 
 when the moon and the stars were visible, and not 
 when the sun had risen in his strength, and thrown 
 
22 
 
 a splendour around him, which bore down and 
 eclipsed all the lesser glories of the firmament. 
 And there is much in the scenery of a nocturnal 
 sky, to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That 
 moon, and these stars, what are they ? They are 
 detached from the world, and they lift you above 
 it. You feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise 
 in lofty abstraction above this little theatre of 
 human passions and human anxieties. The mind 
 abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in 
 the ecstacy of its thoughts, to distant and unex- 
 plored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of 
 her great elements, and it sees the God of nature 
 invested with the high attributes of wisdom and 
 majesty. 
 
 But what can these lights be ? The curiosity of 
 the human mind is insatiable, and the mechanism 
 of these wonderful heavens has, in all ages, been 
 its subject and its employment. It has been re- 
 served for these latter times, to resolve this great 
 and interesting question. The sublimest powers 
 of philosophy have been called to the exercise, 
 and astronomy may now be looked upon as the 
 most certain and best established of the sciences. 
 
 We all know that every visible object appears 
 less in magnitude as it recedes from the eye. The 
 lofty vessel as it retires from the coast, shrinks 
 into littleness, and at last appears in the form of 
 a small speck on the verge of the horizon. The 
 
23 
 
 eagle with its expanded wings, is a noble object; 
 but when it takes its flight into the upper regions 
 of the air, it becomes less to the eye, and is seen 
 like a dark spot upon the vault of heaven. The 
 same is true of all magnitude. The heavenly bo- 
 dies appear small to the eye of an inhabitant of 
 this earth, only from the immensity of their dis- 
 tance. When we talk of hundreds of millions of 
 miles, it is not to be listened to as incredible. For 
 remember that we are talking of those bodies 
 which are scattered over the immensity of space, 
 and that space knows no termination. The con- 
 ception is great and difficult, but the truth is un- 
 questionable. By a process of measurement which 
 it is unnecessary at present to explain, we have 
 ascertained first the distance, and then the mag- 
 nitude of some of those bodies which roll in the 
 firmament; that the sun, which presents itself to 
 the eye under so diminutive a form, is really a 
 globe, exceeding, by many thousands of times, 
 the dimensions of the earth which we inhabit; 
 that the moon itself has the magnitude of a world ; 
 and that even a few of those stars, which appear 
 like so many lucid points to the unassisted eye of 
 the observer, expand into large circles upon the 
 application of the telescope, and are some of them 
 much larger than the ball which we tread upon, 
 and to which we proudly apply the denomination 
 of the universe. 
 
24 
 
 Now, what is the fair and obvious presumption ? 
 The world in which we live, is a round ball of a 
 determined magnitude, and occupies its own place 
 in the firmament. But when we explore the un- 
 limited tracts of that space, which is every where 
 around us, we meet with other balls of equal or 
 superior magnitude, and from which our earth 
 would either be invisible, or appear as small as 
 any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the 
 canopy of heaven. Why then suppose that this 
 little spot, little at least in the immensity which 
 surrounds it, should be the exclusive abode of life 
 and of intelligence ? What reason to think that 
 those mightier globes which roll in other parts of 
 creation, and which w r e have discovered to be 
 worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use 
 and in dignity ? Why should we think that the 
 great Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom as 
 he is in power, would call these stately mansions 
 into existence, and leave them unoccupied? When 
 we cast our eye over the broad sea, and look at 
 the country on the other side, we see nothing but 
 the blue land stretching obscurely over the distant 
 horizon. We are too far away to perceive the 
 richness of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its 
 population. Why not extend this principle to the 
 still more distant parts of the universe ? What 
 though, from this remote point of observation, we 
 can see nothing but the naked roundness of yon 
 planetary orbs ? Are we therefore to say, that they 
 
25 
 
 are so many vast and unpeopled solitudes ; that 
 desolation reigns in every part of the universe 
 but ours ; that the whole energy of the divine at- 
 tributes is expended on one insignificant corner of 
 these mighty works ; and that to this earth alone 
 belongs the bloom of vegetation, or the blessed- 
 ness of life, or the dignity of rational and immor- 
 tal existence ? 
 
 But this is not all. We have something more 
 than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege, 
 in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We 
 know that this earth turns round upon itself; and 
 we observe that all those celestial bodies, which 
 are accessible to such an observation, have the 
 same movement. We know that the earth per- 
 forms a yearly revolution round the sun ; and we 
 can detect in all the planets which compose our 
 system, a revolution of the same kind, and under 
 the same circumstances. They have the same 
 succession of day and night. They have the same 
 agreeable vicissitude of the seasons. To them, 
 light and darkness succeed each other; and the 
 gayety of summer is followed by the dreariness of 
 winter. To each of them the heavens present as 
 varied and magnificent a spectacle ; and this earth, 
 the encompassing of which would require the la- 
 bour of years from one of its puny inhabitants, is 
 but one of the lesser lights which sparkle in their 
 firmament. To them, as well as to us, has God 
 divided the light from the darkness, and he has 
 
26 
 
 called the light day, and the darkness he has call- 
 ed night. He has said, let there be lights in the 
 firmament of their heaven, to divide the day from 
 the night; arid let them be for signs, and for sea- 
 sons, and for days, and for years ; and let them be 
 for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give lights 
 upon their earth ; and it was so. And God has 
 also made to them great lights. To all of them 
 he has given the sun to rule the day; and to many 
 of them has he given moons to rule the night. To 
 them he has made the stars also. And God has 
 set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light 
 unto their earth ; and to rule over the day, and 
 over the night, and to divide the light from the 
 darkness ; and God has seen that it was good. 
 
 In all these greater arrangements of divine wis- 
 dom, we can see that God has done the same^ 
 things for the accommodation of the planets that 
 he has done for the earth which we inhabit. And 
 shall we say, that the resemblance stops here, be- 
 cause we are not in a situation to observe it ? 
 Shall we say, that this scene of magnificence has 
 been called into being merely for the amusement 
 of a few astronomers ? Shall we measure the 
 counsels of heaven by the narrow impotence of the 
 human faculties ? or conceive, that silence and 
 solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of na- 
 ture ; that the greater part of creation is an empty 
 parade ; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity 
 
21 
 
 is to be found through the wide extent of yon vast 
 and immeasurable regions ? 
 
 It lends a delightful confirmation to the argu- 
 ment, when, from the growing perfection of our 
 instruments, we can discover a new point of re- 
 semblance between our Earth and the other bo- 
 dies of the planetary system. It is now ascertain- 
 ed, not merely that all of them have their day and 
 night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes 
 of seasons, and that some of them have their 
 moons to rule their night and alleviate the dark- 
 ness of it. We can see of one, that its surface 
 rises into inequalities, that it swells into mountains 
 and stretches into valleys ; of another, that it is 
 surrounded by an atmosphere which may support 
 the respiration of animals ; of a third, that clouds 
 are formed and suspended over it, which may mi- 
 nister to it all the bloom and luxuriance of vege- 
 tation ; and of a fourth, that a white colour spreads 
 over its northern regions, as its winter advances, 
 and that on the approach of summer this white- 
 ness is dissipated giving room to suppose, that 
 the element of water abounds in it, that it rises 
 by evaporation into its asmosphere, that it freezes 
 upon the application of cold, that it is precipitated 
 in the form of snow, that it covers the ground with 
 a fleecy mantle, which melts away from the heat 
 of a more vertical sun; and that other worlds 
 bear a resemblance to our own, in the same year- 
 ly round of beneficent and interesting changes. 
 
28 
 
 Who shall assign a limit to the discoveries of 
 future ages ? Who can prescribe to science her 
 boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable 
 curiosity of man within the circle of his present 
 acquirements? We may guess with plausibility 
 what we cannot anticipate with confidence. The 
 day may yet be coming, when our instruments of 
 observation shall be inconceivably more powerful. 
 They may ascertain still more decisive points of 
 resemblance. They may resolve the same ques- 
 tion by the evidence of sense which is now so 
 abundantly convincing by the evidence of analogy. 
 They may lay open to us the unquestionable ves- 
 tiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. We 
 may see summer throwing its green mantle over 
 these mighty tracts, and we may see them left 
 naked and colourless after the flush of vegetation 
 has disappeared. In the progress of years, or of 
 centuries, we may trace the hand of cultivation 
 spreading a new aspect over some portion of a 
 planetary surface. Perhaps some large city, the 
 metropolis of a mighty empire, may expand into 
 a visible spot by the powers of some future tele- 
 scope. Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a 
 distant age, may enable him to construct the map 
 of another world, and to lay down the surface of 
 it in all its minute and topical varieties. But 
 there is no end of conjecture, and to the men of 
 other times we leave the full assurance of what 
 we can assert with the highest probability, that 
 yon planetary orbs are so many worlds, that they 
 
29 
 
 teem with life, and that the mighty Being who 
 presides in high authority over this scene of 
 grandeur and astonishment, has there planted the 
 worshippers of his glory. 
 
 Did the discoveries of science stop here, we 
 have enough to justify the exclamation of the 
 Psalmist, " What is man that thou art mindful of 
 him, or the son of man that thou shouldest deign 
 to visit him ?" They widen the empire of creation 
 far beyond the limits which were formerly assign- 
 ed to it. They give us to see that yon sun, 
 throned in the centre of his planetary system, 
 gives light, and warmth, and the vicissitude of 
 seasons, to an extent of surface, several hundreds 
 of times greater than that of the earth which we 
 inhabit. They lay open to us a number of worlds, 
 rolling in their respective circles around this vast 
 luminary and prove, that the ball which we tread 
 upon, with all its mighty burden of oceans and 
 continents, instead of being distinguished from the 
 others, is among the least of them ; and, from some 
 of the more distant planets, would not occupy a 
 visible point in the concave of their firmament 
 They let us know, that though this mighty earth, 
 with all its myriads of people, were to sink into 
 annihilation, there are some worlds where an event 
 so awful to us would be unnoticed and unknown, 
 and others where it would be nothing more than 
 the disappearance of a little star which had ceased 
 from its twinkling. We should feel a sentiment of 
 
30 
 
 modesty at this just but humiliating representa- 
 tion. We should learn not to look on our earth 
 as the universe of God, but one paltry and insig- 
 nificant portion of it ; that it is only one of the 
 many mansions which the Supreme Being has 
 created for the accommodation of his worship- 
 pers, and only one of the many worlds rolling in 
 that flood of light which the sun pours around him 
 to the outer limits of the planetary system. 
 
 But is there nothing beyond these limits ? The 
 planetary system has its boundary, but space has 
 none ; and if we wing our fancy there, do we only 
 travel through dark and unoccupied regions? 
 There are only five, or at most six, of the plane- 
 tary orbs visible to the naked eye. What, then, 
 is that multitude of other lights which sparkle in 
 our firmament, and fill the whole concave of hea- 
 ven with innumerable splendours? The planets 
 are all attached to the sun ; and, in circling around 
 him, they do homage to that influence which binds 
 them to perpetual attendance on this great lumi- 
 nary. But the other stars do not own his do- 
 minion. They do not circle around him. To all 
 common observation, they remain immoveable; 
 and each, like the independent sovereign of his 
 own territory, appears to occupy the same inflexi- 
 ble position in the regions of immensity. What 
 can we make of them ? Shall we take our adven- 
 turous flight to explore these dark and untravelled 
 dominions? What mean these innumerable fires 
 
31 
 
 lighted up in distant parts of the universe ? Are 
 they only made to shed a feeble glimmering over 
 this little spot in the kingdom of nature ? or do 
 they serve a purpose worthier of themselves, to 
 light up other worlds, and give animation to other 
 systems ? 
 
 The first thing which strikes a scientific ob- 
 server of the fixed stars, is their immeasurable 
 distance. If the whole planetary system were 
 lighted up into a globe of fire, it would exceed, by 
 many millions of times, the magnitude of this 
 world, and yet only appear a small lucid point 
 from the nearest of them. If a body were project- 
 ed from the sun with the velocity of a cannon-ball, 
 it would take hundreds of thousands of years be- 
 fore it described that mighty interval which sepa- 
 rates the nearest of the fixed stars from our sun 
 and from our system. If this earth, which moves 
 at more than the inconceivable velocity of a million 
 and a half miles a day, were to be hurried from its 
 orbit, and to take the same rapid flight over this 
 immense tract, it would not have arrived at the 
 termination of its journey, after taking all the time 
 which has elapsed since the creation of the world. 
 These are great numbers, and great calculations, 
 and the mind feels its own impotency in attempt- 
 ing to grasp them. We can state them in words. 
 We can exhibit them in figures. We can demon- 
 strate them by the powers of a most rigid and in- 
 fallible geometry^ But no human fancy can sum- 
 
32 
 
 mon up a lively or an adequate conceptioncan 
 roam in its ideal flight over this immeasurable 
 largeness can take in this mighty space in all its 
 grandeur, and in all its immensity can sweep the 
 outer boundaries of such a creation or lift itself 
 up to the majesty of that great and invisible arm, 
 on which all is suspended. 
 
 But what can those stars be which are seated 
 so far beyond the limits of our planetary system ? 
 They must be masses of immense magnitude, or 
 they could not be seen at the distance of place 
 which they occupy. The light which they give 
 must proceed from themselves, for the feeble re- 
 flection of light from some other quarter, would not 
 carry through such mighty tracts to the eye of an 
 observer. A body may be visible in two ways. 
 It may be visible from its own light, as the flame of 
 a candle, or the brightness of a fire, or the bril- 
 liancy of yonder glorious sun, which lightens all 
 below, and is the lamp of the world. Or it may 
 be visible from the light which falls upon it, as the 
 body which receives its light from the taper that 
 falls upon it or the whole assemblage of objects 
 on the surface of the earth, which appear only 
 when the light of day rests upon them or the 
 moon, which, in that part of it that is towards the 
 sun, gives out a silvery whiteness to the eye of the 
 observer, while the other part forms a black and 
 invisible space in the firmament or as the planets, 
 which shine only because the sun shines upon 
 
33 
 
 them, and which, each of them, present the ap- 
 pearance of a dark spot on the side that is turned 
 away from it. Now apply this question to the 
 fixed stars. Are they luminous of themselves, or 
 do they derive their light from the sun, like the 
 bodies of our planetary system? Think of their 
 immense distance, and the solution of this ques- 
 tion becomes evident. The sun, like any other 
 body, must dwindle into a less apparent magnitude 
 as you retire from it. At the prodigious distance 
 even of the very nearest of the fixed stars, it must 
 have shrunk into a small indivisible point. In 
 short, it must have become a star itself, and could 
 shed no more light than a single individual of those 
 glimmering myriads, the whole assemblage of 
 which cannot dissipate, andean scarcely alleviate 
 the midnight darkness of our world. These stars 
 are visible to us, not because the sun shines upon 
 them, but because they shine of themselves, be- 
 cause they are so many luminous bodies scattered 
 over the tracts of immensity in a word, because 
 they are so many suns, each throned in the centre 
 of his own dominions, and pouring a flood of 
 light uver his own portion of these unlimitable 
 regions. 
 
 At such an immense distance for observation^ it 
 is not to be supposed, that we can collect many 
 points of resemblance between the fixed stars and 
 the solar star which forms the centre of our plane- 
 tary system. There is( one point of resemblance, 
 
 F< 
 
34 
 
 however, which has not escaped the penetration 
 of our astronomers. We know that our sun turns 
 round upon himself, in a regular period of time. 
 We also know, that there are dark spots scattered 
 over his surface, which, though invisible to the 
 naked eye, are perfectly noticeable by our instru- 
 ments. If these spots existed in greater quantity 
 upon one side than upon another, it would have 
 the general effect of making that side darker, and 
 the revolution of the sun must, in such a case, give 
 us a brighter and a fainter side, by regular alterna- 
 tions. Now, there are some of the fixed stars 
 which present this appearance. They present us 
 with periodical variations of light. From the 
 splendour of a star of the first or second magni- 
 tude, they fade away into some of the inferior 
 magnitudes and one, by becoming invisible, 
 might give reason to apprehend that we had lost 
 him altogether but we can still recognize him by 
 the telescope, till at length he re-appears in his 
 own place, and, after a regular lapse of so many 
 days and hours, recovers his original brightness. 
 Now, the fair inference from this is, that the fixed 
 stars as they resemble our sun in being so many 
 luminous masses of immense magnitude, they re- 
 semble him in this also, that each of them turns 
 round upon his own axis ; so that if any of them 
 should have an inequality in the brightness of their 
 sides, this revolution is rendered evident, by the 
 regular variations in the degree of light which if 
 undergoes, 
 
35 
 
 Shall we say, then, of these vast luminaries, 
 that they were created in vain ? Were they called 
 into existence for no other purpose than to throw 
 a tide of useless splendour over the solitudes of 
 immensity ? Our sun is only one of these lumina- 
 ries, and we know that he has worlds in his train. 
 Why should we strip the rest of this princely at- 
 tendance ? Why may not each of them be the cen- 
 tre of his own system, and give light to his own 
 worlds ? It is true that we see them not, but could 
 the eye of man take its flight into those distant 
 regions, it should lose sight of our little world, 
 before it reached the outer limits of our system 
 the greater planets should disappear in their turn 
 before it had described a small portion of that 
 abyss which separates us from the fixed stars, the 
 sun should decline into a little spot, and all its 
 splendid retinue of worlds be lost in the obscurity 
 of distance he should, at last, shrink into a small 
 indivisible atom, and all that could be seen of this 
 magnificent system, should be reduced to the glim- 
 mering of a little star. Why resist any longer 
 the grand and interesting conclusion? Each of 
 these stars may be the token of a system as vast 
 and as splendid as the one which we inhabit. 
 Worlds roll in these distant regions; and these 
 worlds must be the mansions of life and of intel- 
 ligence. In yon gilded canopy of heaven we see 
 the broad aspect of the universe, where each shin- 
 ing point presents us with a sun, and each sun 
 with a system of worlds where the Divinity 
 
36 
 
 reigns in all the grandeur of his attributes where 
 he peoples immensity with his wonders; and tra- 
 vels in the greatness of his strength through the 
 dominions of one vast and unlimited monarchy. 
 
 The contemplation has no limits. If we ask the 
 number of suns and of systems, the unassisted eye 
 of man can take in a thousand, and the best tele- 
 scope which the genius of man has constructed can 
 take in eighty millions. But why subject the do- 
 minions of the universe to the eye of man, or to 
 the powers of his genius ? Fancy may take its 
 flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope. 
 It may expatiate in the outer regions of all that is 
 visible and shall we have the boldness to say, 
 that there is nothing there ? that the wonders of 
 the Almighty are at an end, because we can no 
 longer trace his footsteps ? that his omnipotence 
 is exhausted, because human art can no longer 
 follow him ? that the creative energy of God has 
 sunk into repose, because the imagination is en* 
 feebled by the magnitude of its efforts, and can 
 keep no longer on the wing through those mighty 
 tracts, which shoot far beyond what eye hath seen, 
 or the heart of man hath conceived which sweep 
 endlessly along, and merge into an awful and mys- 
 terious infinity ? 
 
 Before bringing to a close this rapid and imper- 
 fect sketch of our modern astronomy, it may be 
 right to advert to two points of interesting specu- 
 
37 
 
 lation, both of which serve to magnify our con- 
 ceptions of the universe, arid, of course, to give 
 us a more affecting sense of the comparative in- 
 significance of this our world. The first is sug- 
 gested by the consideration, that, if a body be 
 struck in the direction of its centre, it obtains, 
 from this course, a progressive motion, but with- 
 out any movement of revolution being at the same 
 time impressed upon it. It simply goes forward, 
 but does not turn round upon itself. But, again, 
 should the stroke not be in the direction of the 
 centre should the line which joins the point of 
 percussion to the centre, make an angle with that 
 line in which the impulse was communicated, then 
 the body is both made to go forward in space, and 
 also to wheel upon its axis. In this way, each of 
 our planets may have had their compound motion 
 communicated to it by one single impulse ; and, 
 on the other hand, if ever the rotatory motion be 
 communicated by one blow, then the progressive 
 motion must go along with it. In order to have the 
 first motion without the second, there must be a 
 twofold force applied to the body in ojpposite di~ 
 rections. It must be set agoing in the same wajr 
 as a spinning-top, so as to revolve about an axis, 
 and to keep unchanged its situation in space. 
 The planets have both motions; and, therefore, 
 may have received them by one and the same im- 
 pulse. The sun, we are certain, has one of these 
 motions. He has a movement of revolution. If 
 spun round his axis by two opposite forces, one 
 
38 
 
 on each side of him, he may have thisr movement, 
 and retain an inflexible position in space. But, if 
 this movement was given him hy one stroke, he 
 must have a progressive motion, along with a 
 whirling motion ; or, in other words, he is moving 
 forward ; he is describing a tract in space ; and, 
 in so doing, he carries all his planets and all their 
 secondaries along with him. 
 
 But, at this stage of the argument, the matter 
 only remains a conjectural point of speculation. 
 The sun may have had his rotation impressed 
 upon him by a spinning impulse ; or, without re- 
 curring to secondary causes at all, this movement 
 may be coeval with his being, and he may have 
 derived both the one and the other from an imme- 
 diate fiat of the Creator. But, there is an actually 
 observed phenomenon of the heavens, which ad- 
 vances the conjecture into a probability. In the 
 course of ages, the stars in one quarter of the ce- 
 lestial sphere are apparently receding from each 
 other; and, in the opposite quarter, they are ap- 
 parently drawing nearer to each other. If the 
 sun be approaching the former quarter, and re- 
 ceding from the latter, this phenomenon admits of 
 an easy explanation, and we are furnished with a 
 magnificent step in the scale of the Creator's work- 
 manship. In the same manner as the planets, 
 with their satellites, revolve round the sun, may 
 the sun, with all his tributaries, be moving, in com- 
 mon with other stars, around some distant centre. 
 
39 
 
 from which there emanates an influence to bind 
 and to subordinate them all. They may be kept 
 from approaching each other, by a centrifugal 
 force; without which, the laws of attraction might 
 consolidate, into one stupendous mass, all the dis- 
 tinct globes of which the universe is composed. 
 Our sun may, therefore, be only one member of a 
 higher family taking his part, along with millions 
 of others, in some loftier system of mechanism, by 
 which they are all subjected to one law, and to 
 one arrangement describing the sweep of such 
 an orbit in space, and completing the mighty re- 
 volution in such a period of time, as to reduce 
 our planetary seasons, and our planetary move- 
 ments, to a very humble and fractionary rank in 
 the scale of a higher astronomy. There is room 
 for all this in immensity ; and there is even argu- 
 ment for all this, in the records of actual observa- 
 tion ; and, from the whole of this speculation, do 
 we gather a new emphasis to the lesson, how 
 minute is the place, and how secondary is the im- 
 portance of our world, amid the glories of such a 
 surrounding magnificence ! 
 
 But, there is still another very interesting tract 
 of speculation, which has been opened up to us 
 by the more recent observations of astronomy. 
 What we allude to, is the discovery of the nebula. 
 We allow that it is but a dim and indistinct light 
 which this discovery has thrown upon the structure 
 of the universe ; but still it has spread before the 
 
40 
 
 of the mind a field of very wide and lofty 
 contemplation. Anterior to this discovery, the 
 universe might appear to have been composed of 
 an indefinite number of suns, about equi-distant 
 from each other, uniformly scattered over space, 
 and each encompassed by such a planetary at- 
 tendance as takes place in our own system. But, 
 we have now reason to think, that, instead of 
 lying uniformly, and in a state of equi-distance 
 from each other, they are arranged into distinct 
 clusters that, in the same manner as the distance 
 of the nearest fixed stars, so inconceivably superior 
 to that of our planets from each other, marks the 
 separation of the solar systems, so the distance of 
 two contiguous clusters may be so inconceivably 
 superior to the reciprocal distance of those fixed 
 stars which belong to the same cluster, as to mark 
 an equally distinct separation of the clusters, and 
 to constitute each of them an individual member 
 of some higher and more extended arrangement. 
 This carries us upwards through another ascend- 
 ing step in the scale of magnificence, and there 
 leaves us wildering in the uncertainty, whether 
 even here the wonderful progression is ended; 
 and, at all events, fixes the assured conclusion in 
 our minds, that, to an eye which could spread 
 itself over the whole, the mansion which accom- 
 modates our species might be so very small as to 
 lie wrapped in microscopical concealment ; and, 
 in reference to the only Being who possesses this 
 
41 
 
 universal eye, well might we say, " What is man 
 that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
 that thou shouldest deign to visit him ?" 
 
 And, after all, though it be a mighty and diffi- 
 cult conception, yet who can question it ? What 
 is seen may be nothing to what is unseen; for 
 what is seen is limited by the range of our instru- 
 ments. What is unseen has no limit ; and, though 
 all which the eye of man can take in, or his fancy 
 can grasp at, were swept away, there might still 
 remain as ample a field, over which the Divinity 
 may expatiate, and which he may have peopled 
 with innumerable worlds. If the whole visible 
 creation were to disappear, it would leave a soli- 
 tude behind it but to the Infinite Mind, that can 
 take in the whole system of nature, this solitude 
 might be nothing; a small unoccupied point in 
 that immensity which surrounds it, and which he 
 may have filled with the wonders of his omnipo- 
 tence. Though this earth were to be burned up, 
 though the trumpet of its dissolution were sound- 
 ed, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, 
 and every visible glory, which the finger of the 
 Divinity has inscribed on it, were to be put out 
 for ever an event so awful to us, and to every 
 world in our vicinity, by which so many suns 
 would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes 
 of life and of population would rush into forgetful- 
 ness what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's 
 workmanship ? a mere shred, which, though scat- 
 
4B 
 
 tered into nothing, would leave the universe of 
 God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. 
 Though this earth, and these heavens, were to 
 disappear, there are other worlds, which roll 
 afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; 
 and the sky which mantles them, is garnished 
 with other stars. Is it presumption to say, that 
 the moral world extends to these distant and un- 
 known regions ? that they are occupied with peo- 
 ple ? that the charities of home and of neighbour- 
 hood flourish there ? that the praises of God are 
 there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in ? that 
 piety has its temples and its offerings? and the 
 richness of the divine attributes is there felt and 
 admired by intelligent worshippers ? 
 
 And what is this world in the immensity which 
 teems with them and what are they who occupy 
 it ? The universe at large would suffer as little, in 
 its splendour and variety, by the destruction of 
 our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude 
 of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single 
 leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which sup- 
 ports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest ac- 
 cident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, 
 and it lights on the stream of water which passes 
 underneath. In a moment of time, the life, which 
 we know, by the microscope, it teems with, is 
 extinguished ; and, an occurrence so insignificant 
 in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observa- 
 tion, carries in it, to the myriads which people 
 
43 
 
 this little leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive 
 as the destruction of a world. Now, on the grand 
 scale of the universe, we, the occupiers of this 
 ball, which performs its little round among the 
 suns and the systems that astronomy has unfold- 
 ed we may feel the same littleness, and the 
 same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only in 
 this circumstance, that it would require the ope- 
 ration of greater elements to destroy us. But 
 these elements exist. The fire which rages within, 
 may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our 
 planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting 
 volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter 
 in the bowels of the earth and it lies within the 
 agency of known substances to accomplish this 
 may explode it into fragments. The exhalation 
 of noxious air from below, may impart a virulence 
 to the air that is around us; it may affect the 
 Delicate proportion of its ingredients; and the 
 whole of animated nature may wither and die 
 Under the itialignity of a tainted atmosphere. A 
 blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its 
 orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition 
 has conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with 
 precision the consequences of ah event which 
 every astronomer must know to lie within the 
 limits of chance and probability. It may hurry 
 6ur globe towards the sun or drag it to the outer 
 regions of the planetary system or give it a new 
 axis of revolution and the effect, which I shall 
 simply announcej without explaining it, would be 
 
44 
 
 to change the place of the ocean, and bring ano- 
 ther mighty flood upon our islands and continents. 
 These are changes which may happen in a single 
 instant of time, and against which nothing known 
 in the present system of things provides us with 
 any security. They might not annihilate the 
 earth, but they would unpeople it ; and we who 
 tread its surface with such firm and assured foot- 
 steps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, 
 which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the 
 Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and 
 death, over the dominions of the world. 
 
 Now, it is this littleness, and this insecurity 
 which make the protection of the Almighty so dear 
 to us, and bring, with such emphasis, to every 
 pious bosom, the holy lessons of humility and gra- 
 titude. The God who sitteth above, and presides 
 in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of 
 man ; and, though at this moment his energy is 
 felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may 
 feel the same security in his providence, as if we 
 were the objects of his undivided care. It is not 
 for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious 
 agency. But, such is the incomprehensible fact, 
 that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the 
 whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of 
 grass, and motion to every particle of blood which 
 circulates through the veins of the minutest ani- 
 mal ; that, though his mind takes into its compre- 
 hensive grasp, immensity and all its wonders, I 
 
45 
 
 am as much known to him as if I were the single 
 object of his attention; that he marks all my 
 thoughts; that he gives birth to every feeling and 
 every movement within me ; and that, with an ex- 
 ercise of power which I can neither describe nor 
 comprehend, the same God who sits in the highest 
 heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firma- 
 ment, is at my right hand, to give me every breath 
 which I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy. 
 
 But this very reflection has been appropriated 
 to the use of Infidelity, and the very language of 
 the text has been made to bear an application of 
 hostility to the faith. " What is man, that God 
 should be mindful of him, or the son of man, that 
 he should deign to visit him ?" Is it likely, says 
 the Infidel, that God would send his eternal Son, 
 to die for the puny occupiers of so insignificant a 
 province in the mighty field of his creation ? Are 
 we the befitting objects of so great and so signal 
 an interposition ? Does not the largeness of that 
 field which astronomy lays open to the view of 
 modern^ science, throw a suspicion over the truth 
 of the gospel history ; and how shall we reconcile 
 the greatness of that wonderful movement which 
 was made in heaven for the redemption of fallen 
 man, with the comparative meanness and obscu- 
 rity of our species ? 
 
 This is a popular argument against Christianity, 
 not much dwelt upon in books, but we believe, a 
 
46 
 
 good deal insinuated in conversation, and having 
 no small influence on the amateurs of a superficial 
 philosophy. At all events, it is right that every 
 such argument should be met, and manfully con- 
 fronted; nor do we know a more discreditable 
 surrender of our religion, than to act as if she had 
 any thing to fear from the ingenuity of her most 
 accomplished adversaries. The author of the 
 following treatise, engages in his present under- 
 taking, under the full impression, that a something 
 may be found with which to combat Infidelity in 
 all its forms ; that the truth of God and of his 
 message, admits of a noble and decisive manifes- 
 tation, through every mist which the pride, or the 
 prejudice, or the sophistry of man may throw 
 around it; and elevated as the wisdom of him may 
 be, who has ascended the heights of science, and 
 poured the light of demonstration over the most 
 wondrous of nature's mysteries, that even out of 
 his own principles, it may be proved how much 
 more elevated is the wisdom of him who sits with 
 the docility of a little child, to his Bible, and caste 
 down to its authority, all bis lofty imaginations. 
 
DISCOURSE II. 
 
 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 " And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he kno\*^ 
 eth nothing yet as he ought to know." I COR. viii. 2. 
 
 THERE is much profound and important wis- 
 dom in that proverb of Solomon, where it is said, 
 that the heart knoweth its own bitterness. It forms 
 part of a truth still more comprehensive, that 
 every man knoweth his own peculiar feelings, and 
 difficulties, and trials, far better than he can get 
 any of his neighbours to perceive them. It is 
 natural to us all, that we should desire to engross, 
 to the uttermost, the sympathy of others with what 
 is most painful to the sensibilities of our own 
 bosom, and with what is most aggravating in the 
 hardships of our own situation. But, labour it as 
 we may, we cannot, with every power of expres- 
 sion, make an adequate conveyance, as it were, of 
 all our sensations, and of all our circumstances, 
 into another understanding. There is a some- 
 thing in the intimacy of a man's own experience, 
 which he cannot make to pass entire into the 
 
43 
 
 heart and mind even of his most familiar com- 
 panion and thus it is, that he is so often defeated 
 in his attempts to obtain a fall and a cordial pos- 
 session of his sympathy. He is mortified, and he 
 wonders at the obtuseness of the people around 
 hi m and how he cannot get them to enter into 
 the justness of his complainings nor to feel the 
 point upon which turn the truth and the reason of 
 his remonstrances nor to give their interested 
 attention to the case of his peculiarities and of his 
 wrongs nor to kindle, in generous resentment, 
 along with him, when he starts the topic of his 
 indignation. He does not reflect, all the while, 
 that, with every human being he addresses, there 
 is an inner man, which forms a theatre of passions, 
 and of interests, as busy, as crowded, and as fitted 
 as his own to engross the anxious and the exer- 
 cised feelings of a heart, which can alone under- 
 stand its own bitterness, and lay a correct estimate 
 on the burden of its own visitations. Every man 
 we meet, carries about with him, in the unper- 
 ceived solitude of his bosom, a little world of his 
 own and we are just as blind, and as insensible, and 
 as dull, both of perception and of sympathy about 
 his engrossing objects, as he is about ours; and, 
 did we suffer this observation to have all its weight 
 upon us, it might serve to make us more candid, 
 and more considerate of others. It might serve 
 to abate the monopolizing selfishness of our na- 
 ture. It might serve to soften down all the malig- 
 nity which comes out of those envious contempla- 
 
49 
 
 tions that we are so apt to cast on the fancied 
 ease and prosperity which are around us. It 
 might serve to reconcile every man to his own 
 lot, and dispose him to bear, with thankfulness, 
 his own burden ; and sure I am, if this train of 
 sentiment were prosecuted with firmness, and 
 calmness, and impartiality, it would lead to the 
 conclusion, that each profession in life has its own 
 peculiar pains, and its own besetting inconve- 
 niences ; that, from the very bottom of society, up 
 to the golden pinnacle which blazons upon its 
 summit, there is much in the shape of care and of 
 suffering to be found that, throughout all the con- 
 ceivable varieties of human condition, there are 
 trials, which can neither be adequately told on 
 the one side, nor fully understood on the other 
 that the ways of God to man are as equal in this, 
 as in every department of his administration and 
 that, go to whatever quarter of human experience 
 we may, we shall find how he has provided enough 
 to exercise the patience, and to accomplish the 
 purposes of a wise and a salutary discipline upon 
 all his children. 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 I have brought forward this observation, that it 
 may prepare the way for a second. There are 
 perhaps no two sets of human beings, who com- 
 prehend less the movements, and enter less into 
 the cares and concerns of each other, than the 
 wide and busy public on the one hand ; and, on 
 the other, those men of close arid studious retire- 
 
mcnt, whom the world never hears of, save when, 
 from their thoughtful solitude, there issues forth 
 some splendid discovery, to set the world on a 
 gaze of admiration. Then will the brilliancy of 
 a superior genius draw every eye towards it and 
 the homage paid to intellectual superiority, will 
 place its idol on a loftier eminence than all wealth 
 or than all titles can bestow and the name of the 
 successful philosopher will circulate, in his own 
 age, over the whole extent of civilized society, 
 and be borne down to posterity in the characters 
 of ever-during remembrance and thus it is, that, 
 when we look back on the days of Newton, we 
 annex a kind of mysterious greatness to him, who, 
 by the pure force of his understanding, rose to 
 such a gigantic elevation above the level of ordi- 
 nary men and the kings and warriors of other 
 days sink into insignificance around him ; and he, 
 at this moment, stands forth to the public eye, in 
 a prouder array of glory than circles the memory 
 of all the men of former generations and, while 
 all the vulgar grandeur of other days is now moul- 
 dering in forgetfulness, the achievements of our 
 .great astronomer are still fresh in the veneration 
 of his countrymen, and they carry him forward on 
 the stream of time, with a reputation ever gather- 
 ing, and the triumphs of a distinction that will 
 never die. 
 
 Now, the point that I want to impress upon you 
 is, that the same public, who are so dazzled and 
 
overborne by the lustre of all this superiority, are 
 utterly in the dark as to what that is which confers 
 its chief merit on the philosophy of Newton. They 
 see the result of his labours, but they know not 
 how to appreciate the difficulty or the extent of 
 them. They look on the stately edifice he has 
 reared, but they know not what he had to do in 
 settling the foundation which gives to it all its sta- 
 bility nor are they aware what painful encoun- 
 ters he had to make, both with the natural predi- 
 lections of his own heart, and with the prejudices 
 of others, when employed on the work of laying 
 together its unperishing materials. They have 
 never heard of the controversies which this man, 
 of peaceful unambitious modesty, had to sustain, 
 with all that was proud, and all that was intolerant 
 in the philosophy of the age. They have never, 
 in thought, entered that closet which was the scene 
 of his patient and profound exercises nor have 
 they gone along with him, as he gave his silent 
 hours to the labours of the midnight oil, and plied 
 that unwearied task, to which the charm of lofty 
 contemplation had allured him nor have they ac* 
 eompanied him through all the workings of that 
 wonderful mind, from which, as from the recesses 
 of a laboratory, there came forth such gleams and 
 processes of thought as shed an effulgency over 
 the whole amplitude of nature. AH this, the pub- 
 lic have not done ; for of this the great majority, 
 even of the reading and cultivated public, are ut- 
 terly incapable ; and therefore Js it that they need 
 
52 
 
 to be told what that is, in which the main dis- 
 tinction of his philosophy lies ; that, when labour 
 ing in other fields of investigation, they may know 
 how to borrow from his safe example, and how to 
 profit by that superior wisdom which marked the 
 whole conduct of his understanding. 
 
 Let it be understood, then, that they are the 
 positive discoveries of Newton, which, in the eye 
 of a superficial public, confer upon him all his re- 
 putation. He discovered the mechanism of the 
 planetary system. He discovered the composition 
 of light. He discovered the cause of those alter- 
 nate movements which take place on the waters 
 of the ocean. These form his actual and his vi- 
 sible achievements. These are what the world 
 look at as the monuments of his greatness. These 
 are doctrines by which he has enriched the field 
 of philosophy ; and thus it is that the whole of his 
 merit is supposed to lie in having had the sagacity 
 to perceive, and the vigour to lay hold of the 
 proofs, which conferred upon these doctrines all 
 the establishment of a most rigid and conclusive 
 demonstration. 
 
 But, while he gets all his credit, and all his ad- 
 miration for those articles of science which he has 
 added to the creed of philosophers, he deserves 
 as much credit and admiration for those articles 
 which he kept out of this creed, as for those which 
 he introduced into it. It was the property of his 
 
53 
 
 mind, that it kept a tenacious hold of every one 
 position which had proof to substantiate it but it 
 forms a property equally characteristic, and which, 
 in fact, gives its leading peculiarity to the whole 
 spirit and style of his investigations, that he put a 
 most determined exclusion on every one position 
 that was destitute of such proof. He would nof 
 admit the astronomical theories of those who went 
 before him, because they had no proof. He would 
 not give in to their notions about the planets 
 wheeling their rounds in whirlpools of ether for 
 he did not see this ether he had no proof of its 
 existence and, besides, even supposing it to 
 exist, it would not have impressed, on the heavenly 
 bodies, such movements as met his observation. 
 He would not submit his judgment to the reigning 
 systems of the day for, though they had autho- 
 rity to recommend them, they had no proof; and 
 thus it is, that he evinced the strength and the 
 soundness of his philosophy, as much by his de- 
 cisions upon those doctrines of science which he 
 rejected, as by his demonstration of those doc- 
 trines of science which he was the first to propose, 
 and which now stand out to the eye of posterity 
 as the only monuments to the force and superiority 
 of his understanding. 
 
 He wanted no other recommendation for any 
 one article of science, than the recommenda- 
 tion of evidence and, with this recommenda- 
 
54 
 
 tion, he opened to it the chamber of his mind, 
 though authority scowled upon it, and taste was 
 disgusted by it, and fashion was ashamed of it, 
 and all the beauteous speculation of former days 
 was cruelly broken up by this new announcement 
 of the better philosophy, and scattered like the 
 fragments of an aerial vision, over which the past 
 generations of the world had been slumbering 
 their profound and their pleasing reverie. But, 
 on the other hand, should the article of science 
 want the recommendation of evidence, he shut 
 against it all the avenues of his understanding 
 aye, and though all antiquity lent their suffrages 
 to it, and all eloquence had thrown around it the 
 most attractive brilliancy, and all habit had incor- 
 porated it with every system of every seminary in 
 Europe, and all fancy had arrayed it in graces of 
 the most tempting Solicitation ; yet was the steady 
 and inflexible mind of Newton proof against this 
 whole weight of authority and allurement, and, 
 casting his cold and unwelcome look at the spe- 
 cious plausibility, he rebuked it from his presence. 
 The strength of his philosophy lay as much in re- 
 fusing admittance to that which wanted evidence, 
 as in giving a place and an occupancy to that 
 which possessed it. In that march of intellect, 
 which led him onwards through the rich and mag- 
 nificent field of his discoveries, he pondered every 
 step; and, while he advanced with a firm and 
 assured movement, wherever the light of evidence 
 
55 
 
 carried him, he never suffered any glare of imagi- 
 nation or of prejudice to seduce him from his 
 path. 
 
 Sure I am, that, in the prosecution of his won- 
 derful career, he found himself on a way beset 
 with temptation upon every side of him. It was 
 not merely that he had the reigning taste and phi- 
 losophy of the times to contend with; but, he 
 expatiated on a lofty region, where, in all the gid- 
 diness of success, he might have met with much 
 to solicit his fancy, and tempt him to some devious 
 speculation. Had he been like the majority of 
 other men, he would have broken free from the 
 fetters of a sober and chastised understanding, 
 and, giving wing to his imagination, had done 
 what philosophers have done after him been 
 carried away by some meteor of their own form- 
 ing, or found their amusement in some of their 
 own intellectual pictures, or palmed some loose and 
 confident plausibilities of their own upon the world. 
 But Newton stood true to his principle, that 
 he would take up with nothing which wanted evi- 
 dence, and he kept by his demonstrations, and his 
 measurements, and his proofs ; and, if it be true 
 that he who ruleth his own spirit is greater than 
 he who taketh a city, there was won, in the soli- 
 tude of his chamber, many a repeated victory 
 over himself, which should give a brighter lustre 
 to his name than all the conquests he has made on 
 
the field of discovery, or than all the splendour 
 of his positive achievements. 
 
 I trust you understand, how, though it be one of 
 the maxims of the true philosophy, never to shrink 
 from a doctrine which has evidence on its side, it 
 is another maxim, equally essential to it, never to 
 harbour any doctrine when this evidence is want- 
 ing. Take these two maxims along with you, and 
 you will be at no loss to explain the peculiarity, 
 which, more than any other, goes both to charac- 
 terise and to ennoble the philosophy of Newton. 
 What I allude to is, the precious combination of 
 its strength and of its modesty. On the one hand, 
 what greater evidence of strength than the fulfil- 
 ment of that mighty enterprise, by which the hea- 
 vens have been made its own, and the mechanism 
 of unnumbered worlds has been brought within 
 the grasp of the human understanding ? Now, it 
 was by walking in the light of sound and compe- 
 tent evidence, that all this was accomplished. It 
 was by the patient, the strenuous, the unfaultering 
 application of the legitimate instruments of disco- 
 very. It was by touching that which was tangi- 
 ble, and looking to that which was visible, and 
 computing that which was measurable, and in one 
 word, by making a right and a reasonable use of 
 all that proof which the field of nature around us 
 has brought within the limit of sensible observa- 
 tion. This is the arena on which the modern 
 
philosophy has won all her victories, and fulfilled 
 all her wondrous achievements, and reared all 
 her proud and enduring monuments, and gathered 
 all her magnificent trophies to that power of in- 
 tellect with which the hand of a bounteous hea- 
 ven has so richly gifted the constitution of our 
 species. 
 
 But, on the other hand, go beyond the limits of 
 sensible observation, and, from that moment, the 
 genuine disciples of this enlightened school cast 
 all their confidence and all their intrepidity away 
 from them. Keep them on the firm ground of ex- 
 periment, and none more bold and more decisive 
 in their announcements of all that they have evi- 
 dence for but, off this ground, none more hum- 
 ble, or more cautious of any thing like positive an- 
 nouncements, than they. They choose neither to 
 know, nor to believe, nor to assert, where evi~ 
 dence is wanting ; and they will sit, with all the 
 patience of a scholar to his task, till they have 
 found it. They are utter strangers to that haughty 
 confidence with which some philosophers of the 
 day sport the plausibilities of unauthorized specu- 
 lation, and by which, unmindful of the limit that 
 separates the region of sense from the region of 
 conjecture, they make their blind and their im- 
 petuous inroads into a province which does not 
 belong to them. There is no one object to which 
 the exercised mind of a true Newtonian disciple 
 is more familiarized than this limit, and it serve? 
 
as a boundary by which he shapes, and bounds, 
 and regulates, all the enterprises of his philoso- 
 phy. All the space which lies within this limit, 
 he cultivates to the uttermost, and it is by such 
 successive labours, that every year which rolls 
 over the world, is witnessing some new contribu- 
 tion to experimental science, and adding to the 
 solidity and aggrandizement of this wonderful 
 fabric. But, if true to their own principle, then, 
 in reference to the forbidden ground which lies 
 without this limit, those very men, who, on the 
 field of warranted exertion, evinced all the hardi- 
 hood and vigour of a full grown understanding, 
 show, on every subject where the light of evidence 
 is withheld from them, all the modesty of chil- 
 dren. They give you positive opinion only when 
 they have indisputable proof but, when they 
 have no such proof, then they have no such 
 opinion. The single principle of their respect to 
 truth, secures their homage for every one position, 
 where the evidence of truth is present, and, at 
 the same time, begets an entire diffidence about 
 every one position, from which this evidence is 
 disjoined. And thus you may understand, how 
 the first man in the accomplishments of philoso- 
 phy, which the world ever saw, sat at the book of 
 nature in the humble attitude of its interpreter 
 and its pupil how all the docility of conscious 
 ignorance threw a sweet and softening lustre 
 around the radiance even of his most splendid 
 discoveries and, while the flippancy of a few 
 
59 
 
 superficial acquirements is enough to place a phi- 
 losopher of the day on the pedestal of his fancied 
 elevation, and to vest him with an assumed lord- 
 ship over the whole domain of natural and re- 
 vealed knowledge ; I cannot forbear to do honour 
 to the unpretending greatness of Newton, than 
 whom I know not if there ever lighted on the face 
 of our world, one in the character of whose admi- 
 rable genius so much force and so much humility 
 were more attractively blended. 
 
 I now propose to carry you forward, by a few 
 simple illustrations, to the argument of this day. 
 All the sublime truths of the modern astronomy 
 lie within the field of actual observation, and 
 have the firm evidence to rest upon of all that 
 information which is conveyed to us by the avenue 
 of the senses. Sir Isaac Newton never went be- 
 yond this field, without a reverential impression 
 upon his mind, of the precariousness of the ground 
 on which he was standing. On this ground, he 
 never ventured a positive affirmation but, re- 
 signing the lofty tone of demonstration, and put- 
 ting on the modesty of conscious ignorance, he 
 brought forward all he had to say in the humble 
 form of a doubt, or a conjecture, or a question. 
 But, what he had not confidence to do, other phi- 
 losophers have done after him and they have 
 winged their audacious way into forbidden re- 
 gions and they have crossed that circle by which 
 the field of observation is enclosed and there 
 
60 
 
 have they debated and dogmatized with all the 
 pride of a most intolerant assurance. 
 
 Now, though the case be imaginary, let us con- 
 ceive, for the sake of illustration, that one of these 
 philosophers made so extravagant a departure 
 from the sobriety of experimental science, as to 
 pass from the astronomy of the different planets, 
 and to attempt the natural history of their animal 
 and vegetable kingdoms. He might get hold of 
 some vague and general analogies, to throw an 
 air of plausibility around his speculation. He 
 might pass from the botany of the different re- 
 gions of the globe that we inhabit, and make his 
 loose and confident application to each of the 
 other planets, according to its distance from the 
 sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of 
 its annual revolution; and out of some such slen- 
 der materials, he may work up an amusing philo- 
 sophical romance, full of ingenuity, and having, 
 withal, the colour of truth and of consistency 
 spread over it. 
 
 I can conceive how a superficial public might 
 be delighted by the eloquence of such a compo^ 
 sition, and even be impressed by its arguments ; 
 but were I asked, which is the man of all the ages 
 and countries in the world, who would have the 
 least respect for this treatise upon the plants 
 which grow on the surface of Jupiter, I should be 
 at no loss to answer the question. I should say, 
 
61 
 
 that it would be he who had computed the mo- 
 tions of Jupiter that it would be he who had 
 measured the bulk and the density of Jupiter 
 that it would be he who had estimated the periods 
 of Jupiter that it would be he whose observant 
 eye and patiently calculating mind, had traced the 
 satellites of Jupiter through all the rounds of 
 their mazy circulation, and unravelled the intricacy 
 of all their movements. He would see at once 
 that the subject lay at a hopeless distance beyond 
 the field of legitimate observation. It w r ould be 
 quite enough for him, that it was beyond the range 
 of his telescope. On this ground, and on this 
 ground only, would he reject it as one of the pu- 
 niest imbecilities of childhood. As to any cha- 
 racter of truth or of importance, it would have 
 no more effect on such a mind as that of Newton, 
 than any illusion of poetry; and from the emi- 
 nence of his intellectual throne, would he cast a 
 penetrating glance at the whole speculation, and 
 bid its gaudy insignificance away from him. 
 
 But let us pass onward to another case, which* 
 though as imaginary as the former, may still serve 
 the purpose of illustration. 
 
 This same adventurous philosopher may be 
 conceived to shift his speculation from the plants 
 of another world, to the character of its inhabit- 
 ants. He may avail himself of some slender cor- 
 respondencies between the heat of the sun and the 
 
62 
 
 moral temperament of the people it shines upon. 
 He may work up a theory, which carries on the 
 front of it some of the characters of plausibility : 
 but surely it does not require the philosophy of 
 Newton to demonstrate the folly of such an enter- 
 prise. There is not a man of plain understanding, 
 who does not perceive that this said ambitious 
 inquirer has got without his reach that he has 
 stepped beyond the field of experience, and is 
 now expatiating on the field of imagination that 
 he has ventured on a dark unknown, where the 
 wisest of all philosophy, is the philosophy of si- 
 lence, and a profession of ignorance is the best 
 evidence of a solid understanding ; that if he think 
 he knows any thing on such a subject as this, he 
 knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. He 
 knows not what Newton knew, and what he kept 
 a steady eye upon throughout the whole march of 
 his sublime investigations. He knows not the 
 limit of his own faculties. He has overleaped the 
 barrier which hems in all the possibilities of hu- 
 man attainment. He has wantonly flung himself 
 off from the safe and firm field of observation, and 
 got on that undiscoverable ground, where, by 
 every step he takes, he widens his distance from 
 the true philosophy, and by every affirmation he 
 utters, he rebels against the authority of all its 
 maxims. 
 
 I can conceive it the feeling of every one of 
 you, that I have hitherto indulged in a vain ex- 
 
63 
 
 pense of argument, and it is most natural for you 
 to put the question, " What is the precise point 
 of convergence to which I am directing all the 
 light of this abundant and seemingly superfluous 
 illustration ?" 
 
 In the astronomical objection which Infidelity 
 has proposed against the truth of the Christian 
 revelation, there is first an assertion, and then an 
 argument. The assertion is, that Christianity is 
 set up for the exclusive benefit of our minute and 
 solitary world. The argument is, that God would 
 not lavish such a quantity of attention on so insig- 
 nificant a field. Even though the assertion were 
 admitted, I should have a quarrel with the argu- 
 ment. But the futility of the objection is riot laid 
 open in all its extent, unless we expose the utter 
 want of all essential evidence even for the truth of 
 the assertion. How do infidels know that Chris- 
 tianity is set up for the single benefit of this earth 
 and its inhabitants? How are they able to tell 
 us, that if you go to other planets, the person and 
 the religion of Jesus are there unknown to them ? 
 We challenge them to the proof of this said posi- 
 tive announcement of theirs. We see in this ob- 
 jection the same rash and gratuitous procedure, 
 which was so apparent in the two cases that we 
 have already advanced for the purpose of illus- 
 tration. We see in it the same glaring transgres- 
 sion on the spirit and the maxims of that very phi- 
 
64 
 
 losophy which they profess to idolize. They have 
 made their argument against us, out of an assertion 
 xvhich has positively no feet to rest upon an as- 
 sertion which they have no means whatever of ve- 
 rifying an assertion, the truth or the falsehood of 
 which can only be gathered out of some superna- 
 tural message, for it lies completely beyond the 
 range of human observation. It is willingly ad- 
 mitted, that by an attempt at the botany of other 
 worlds, the true method of philosophizing is tram- 
 pled on ; for this is a subject that lies beyond the 
 range of actual observation, and every perform- 
 ance upon it must be made up of assertions with- 
 out proofs. It is also willingly admitted, that an 
 attempt at the civil and political history of their 
 people, would be an equally extravagant depar- 
 ture from the spirit of the true philosophy ; for 
 this also lies beyond the field of actual obser- 
 vation; and all that could possibly be mustered 
 up on such a subject as this, would still be as- 
 sertions without proofs. Now, the theology of 
 these planets is, in every way, as inaccessible a 
 subject as their politics or their natural history ; 
 and therefore it is, that the objection, grounded 
 on the confident assumption of those infidel astro- 
 nomers, who assert Christianity to be the religion 
 of this one world, or that the religion of these 
 other worlds is not our very Christianity, can have 
 no influence on a mind that has derived its habits 
 of thinking from the pure and rigorous school of 
 
65 
 
 Newton : for the whole of this assertion is just a& 
 glaringly destitute, as in the two former instances* 
 of proof. 
 
 The man who could embark in an enterprise so 
 foolish and so fanciful, as to theorise it on the de- 
 tails of the botany of another world, or to theo- 
 rise it on the natural and moral history of its peo- 
 ple, is just making as outrageous a departure from 
 all sense, and all science, and all sobriety, when 
 he presumes to speculate, or to assert on the de- 
 tails or the methods of God's administration among 
 its rational and accountable inhabitants. He 
 wings his fancy to as hazardous a region, and 
 vainly strives a penetrating vision through the 
 mantle pf as deep an obscurity. All the elements 
 of such a speculation are hidden from him. For 
 any thing he can tell, sin has found its way into 
 these other worlds. For any thing he can tell, 
 their people have banished themselves from com- 
 munion with God. For any thing he can tell, many 
 a visit has been made to each of them, on the sub- 
 ject of our common Christianity, by commissioned 
 messengers from the throne of the Eternal. For 
 any thing he can tell, the redemption proclaimed 
 to us is not one solitary instance, or not the whole 
 of that redemption which is by the Son of God 
 but only our part in a plan o( mercy, equal in 
 magnificence to all that astronomy has brought 
 within the range of human contemplation. For 
 any thing he can tell, the moral pestilence, 
 
66 
 
 Walks abroad over the face of our world, may have 
 spread its desolation over all the planets of all the 
 systems, which the telescope has made known to 
 us. For any thing he can tell, some mighty re- 
 demption has heen devised in heaven, to meet this 
 disaster in the whole extent and malignity of its 
 visitations. For any thing he can tell, the wonder- 
 working God, who has strewed the field of im- 
 mensity with so many worlds, and spread the shel- 
 ter of his omnipotence over them, may have sent 
 a message of love to each, and re-assured the 
 hearts of its despairing people by some overpower- 
 ing manifestation of tenderness. For any thing he 
 can tell, angels from paradise may have sped t 
 every planet their delegated way, and sung, from 
 each azure canopy, a joyful annunciation, and 
 said, " Peace be to this residence, and good will 
 to all its families, and glory to Him in the highest, 
 who, from the eminency of his throne, has issued 
 an act of grace so magnificent, as to carry the 
 tidings of life and of acceptance to the unnum- 
 bered orbs of a sinful creation." For any thing 
 he can tell, the Eternal Son, of whom it is said, 
 that by him the worlds were created, may have 
 had the government of many sinful worlds laid 
 upon his shoulders ; and by the power of his mys- 
 terious word, have awoke them all from that spi- 
 ritual death, to which they had sunk in lethargy 
 as profound as the slumbers of non-existence. For 
 any thing he can tell, the one Spirit who moved on 
 the face of the waters, and whose presiding ihflu- 
 
i ' 
 
 nce it was that hushed the wild war of nature'*; 
 -elements, and made a heauteous system emerge 
 .out of its disjointed materials, may now be work- 
 ing with the fragments of another chaos ; and 
 educing order, and obedience, and harmony, out 
 of the wrecks of a moral rebellion, which reaches 
 through all these spheres, and spreads disorder 
 to the uttermost limits of .our astronomy. 
 
 But, here I stop nor shall I attempt to grope 
 my dark and fatiguing way, by another inch, 
 among such sublime and mysterious secrecies. It 
 is not I who am offering to lift this curtain. It is 
 not I who am pitching my adventurous flight to the 
 secret things which belong to God, away from the 
 things that are revealed, and which belong to me 
 and to my children. It is the champion of that 
 very Infidelity which I am now combating. It is 
 he who props his unchristian argument, by pre- 
 sumptions fetched out of those untravelled obscu- 
 rities which lie on the other side of a barrier that 
 I pronounce to be impassable. It is he who trans- 
 gresses the limits which Newton forbore to enter; 
 because, with a justness which reigns throughout 
 all his inquiries, he saw the limit f his own un- 
 derstanding, nor would he venture himself beyond 
 it. It is he who has borrowed from the philosophy 
 of this wondrous man, a few dazzling conceptions, 
 which have only served to bewilder him while, 
 an utter stranger to the spirit of this philosophy, 
 lie has carried a daring and an ignorant sjpec* 
 
68 
 
 lation far beyond the boundary of its prescribed 
 and allowable enterprises. It is he who has mus- 
 tered against the truths of the Gospel, resting, as 
 it does, on evidence within the reach of his facul- 
 ties, an objection, for the truth of which he has no 
 evidence whatever. It is he who puts away from 
 him a doctrine, for which he has the substantial 
 and the familiar proof of human testimony ; and 
 substitutes in its place a doctrine for which he can 
 get no other support than from a reverie of his own 
 imagination. It is he who turns aside from all that 
 safe and certain argument, that is supplied by the 
 history of this world, of which he knows some- 
 thing ; and who loses himself in the work of theo- 
 rizing about other worlds, of the moral and theo- 
 logical history of which he positively knows no- 
 thing. Upon him, and not upon us, lies the folly 
 of launching his impetuous way beyond the pro- 
 vince of observation of letting his fancy afloat 
 among the unknown of distant and mysterious re- 
 gions ; and, by an act of daring, as impious as it 
 is unphilosophical, of trying to unwrap that shroud, 
 which, till drawn aside by the hand of a messen- 
 ger from heaven, will ever veil, from human eye, 
 the purposes of the Eternal. 
 
 If you have gone along with me in the preced- 
 ing observations, you will perceive , how they are 
 calculated to disarm of all its point, and of all its 
 energy, that flippancy of Voltaire ; when, in the 
 examples he gives of the dotage of the human un- 
 
69 
 
 derstanding, he tells us of Bacon having believed 
 in witchcraft, and Sir Isaac Newton having written 
 a Commentary on the Book of Revelation. The 
 former instance we shall not undertake to vindi* 
 cate ; but in the latter instance, we perceive what 
 this brilliant and spacious, but withal superficial, 
 apostle of Infidelity, either did not see, or refused 
 to acknowledge. We see in this intellectual la- 
 bour of our great philosopher, the working of the 
 very same principles which carried him through 
 the profoundest and the most successful of his in- 
 vestigations ; and how he kept most sacredly and 
 most consistently by those very maxims, the au- 
 thority of which he, even in the full vigour and 
 manhood of his faculties, ever recognized. We 
 see in the theology of Newton, the very spirit and 
 principle which gave all its stability, and all its 
 sureness, to the philosophy of Newton. We see 
 the same tenacious adherence to every one doc- 
 trine, that had such valid proof to uphold it, as 
 could be gathered from the field of human expe- 
 rience; and we see the same firm resistance of 
 every one argument, that had nothing to' recom- 
 mend it, but such plausibilities as could easily be 
 devised by the genius of man, when he expatiated 
 abroad on those fields of creation which the eye 
 never witnessed, and from which no messenger 
 ever came to us with any credible information. 
 Now, it was on the former of these two principles 
 that Newton clung so determinedly to his Bible, as 
 the record of an actual annunciation from God to 
 
70 
 
 the inhabitants of this world. When he turned 
 his attention to this book, he came to it with a 
 mind tutored to the philosophy of facts and, 
 when he looked at its credentials, he saw the 
 Stamp and the impress of this philosophy on every 
 one of them. He saw the fact of Christ being a 
 messenger from heaven, in the audible language 
 by which it was conveyed from heaven's canopy 
 to human ears. He saw the fact of his being an 
 approved ambassador of God, in those miracles 
 which carried their own resistless evidence along 
 with them to human eyes. He saw the truth of 
 this whole history brought home to his own convic- 
 tion, by a sound and substantial vehicle of human 
 testimony. He saw the reality of that supernatural 
 light, which inspired the prophecies he himself il- 
 lustrated, by such an agreement with the events of 
 a various and distant futurity as could be taken 
 cognizance of by human observation. He saw 
 the wisdom of God pervading the whole substance 
 ef the written message, in such manifold adapta- 
 tions to the circumstances of man, and to the 
 whole secrecy of his thoughts, and his affections, 
 and his spiritual wants, and his moral sensibilities, 
 as even in the mind of an ordinary and unlettered 
 peasant, can be attested by human consciousness. 
 These formed the solid materials of the basis on 
 which our experimental philosopher stood; and 
 there was nothing in the whole compass of his 
 own astronomy to dazzle him away from it; and 
 he was toq well aware of the limit between what 
 
71 
 
 he knew, and what he did not know, to be se- 
 duced from the ground he had taken, by any of 
 those brilliances which have since led so many of 
 his humbler successors into the track of Infidelity. 
 He had measured the distances of these planets. 
 He had calculated their periods. He had esti- 
 mated their figures, and their bulk, and their den- 
 sities, and he had subordinated the whole intri- 
 cacy of their movements to the simple and sublime 
 agency of one commanding principle. But he 
 had too much of the ballast of a substantial un- 
 erstanding about him, to be thrown afloat by all 
 this success among the plausibilities of wanton 
 and unauthorized speculation. He knew the 
 boundary which hemmed him. He knew that he 
 had not thrown one particle of light on the moral 
 or religious history of these planetary regions. 
 He had not ascertained what visits of communi- 
 cation they received from the God who upholds- 
 them. But he knew that the fact of a real visit 
 made to this planet, had such evidence to rest 
 upon, that it was not to be disposted by any aerial 
 imagination. And when I look at the steady and 
 unmoved Christianity of this wonderful man ; so 
 far from seeing any symptom of dotage and imbe- 
 cility, or any forgetfulness of those principles on 
 which the fabric of his philosophy is reared ; do 
 I see, that in sitting down to the work of a Bible 
 Commentator, he hath given us their most beauti- 
 ful and most consistent exemplification. 
 
72 
 
 I did not anticipate such a length of time, and 
 of illustration, in this stage of my argument. But 
 I will not regret it, if I have familiarized the 
 minds of any of my readers to the reigning prin- 
 ciple of this Discourse. We are strongly disposed 
 to think, that it is a principle which might be 
 made to apply to every argument of every unbe- 
 liever and so to serve not merely as an antidote 
 against the infidelity of astronomers, but to serve 
 as an antidote against all infidelity. We are well 
 aware of the diversity of complexion which Infi- 
 delity puts on. It looks one thing in the man of 
 science and of liberal accomplishment. It looks 
 another thing in the refined voluptuary. It looks 
 still another thing in the common-place railer 
 against the artifices of priestly domination. It 
 looks another thing in the dark and unsettled 
 spirit of him, whose every reflection is tinctured 
 with gall, and who casts his envious and malig- 
 nant scowl at all that stands associated with the 
 established order of society. It looks another 
 thing in the prosperous man of business, who has 
 neither time nor patience for the details of the 
 Christian evidence but Avho, amid the hurry of 
 his other occupations, has gathered as many of 
 the lighter petulancies of the infidel writers, and 
 caught, from the perusal of them, as contemptuous 
 a tone towards the religion of the New Testa- 
 ment, as to set him at large from all the decencies 
 of religious observation, and to give him the die- 
 
73 
 
 dain of an elevated complacency over all the fol- 
 lies of what he counts a vulgar superstition. And. 
 lastly, for Infidelity has now got down amongst us 
 to the humblest walks of life ; may it occasionally 
 be seen louring on the forehead of the resolute 
 and hardy artificer, who can lift his menacing voice 
 against the priesthood, and, looking on the Bible 
 as a jugglery of theirs, can bid stout defiance to 
 all its denunciations. Now, under all these va- 
 rieties, we think that there might be detected the 
 one and universal principle which we have at- 
 tempted to expose. The something, whatever it 
 is, which has dispossessed all these people of their 
 Christianity, exists in their minds, in the shape of 
 a position, which they hold to be true, but which, 
 by no legitimate evidence, they have ever realized 
 and a position which lodges within them as a 
 wilful fancy or presumption of their own, but 
 which could not stand the touchstone of that wise 
 and solid principle, in virtue of which, the follow- 
 ers of Newton give to observation the precedence 
 over theory. It is a principle altogether worthy 
 of being laboured as, if carried round in faithful 
 and consistent application amongst these nume- 
 rous varieties, it is able to break up all the exist- 
 ing Infidelity of the world. 
 
 But there is one other most important conclu- 
 sion to which it carries us. It carries us, with all 
 the docility of children, to the Bible; and puts 
 us down into the attitude of an unreserved sur- 
 
74 
 
 render of thought and understanding, to its au- 
 thoritative information. Without the testimony of 
 an authentic messenger from heaven, I know 
 nothing of heaven's counsels. I never heard of 
 any moral telescope that can bring to my observa- 
 tion the doings or the deliberations which are 
 taking place in the sanctuary of the Eternal. I 
 may put into the registers of my belief, all that 
 comes home to me through the senses of the outer 
 man, or by the consciousness of the inner man 
 But neither the one nor the other can tell me of 
 the purposes of God ; can tell me of the transac- 
 tions or the designs of his sublime monarchy; 
 can tell me of the goings forth of Him who is 
 from everlasting unto everlasting; can tell me of 
 the march and the movements of that great ad- 
 ministration which embraces all worlds, and takes 
 into its wide and comprehensive survey the mighty 
 roll of innumerable ages. It is true that my fancy 
 may break its impetuous way into this lofty and 
 inaccessible field; and through the devices of my 
 heart, which are many, the visions of an ever- 
 shifting theology may take their alternate sway 
 over me; but the counsel of the Lord, it shall 
 stand. And I repeat it, that if true to the leading 
 principle of that philosophy, which has poured 
 such a flood of light over the mysteries of nature, 
 we shall dismiss every self-formed conception of 
 our own, and wait in all the humility of conscious 
 ignorance, till the Lord himself shall break his 
 silence, and make his counsel known, by an act of 
 
75 
 
 communication. And now, that a professed com- 
 munication is before me, and that it has all 
 the solidity of the experimental evidence on its 
 side, and nothing but the reveries of a daring spe- 
 culation to oppose it, what is the consistent, what 
 is the rational; what is the philosophical use that 
 should be made of this document, but to set me 
 down like a school-boy, to the work of turning its 
 pages, and conning its lessons, and submitting the 
 every exercise of my judgment to its information 
 and its testimony? We know that there is a super- 
 ficial philosophy, which casts the glare of a most 
 seducing brilliancy around it; and spurns the 
 Bible, with all the doctrine, and all the piety of 
 the Bible, away from it ; and has infused the spi- 
 rit of Antichrist into many of the literary esta- 
 blishments of the age ; but it is not the solid, the 
 profound, the cautious spirit of that philosophy, 
 which has done so much to ennoble the modern 
 period of our world ; for the more that this spirit 
 is cultivated and understood, the more will it be 
 found in alliance with that spirit, in virtue of 
 which all that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
 of God, is humbled, and all lofty imaginations are 
 cast down, and every thought of the heart is 
 brought into the captivity of the obedience of 
 Christ. 
 
DISCOURSE III. 
 
 ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVIDE CONDESCENSION. 
 
 "' Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high ? 
 Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in hea- 
 ven, and in the earth ?" PSALM cxiii. 5, 6. 
 
 IN our last Discourse, we attempted to expose 
 the total want of evidence for the assertion of the 
 infidel astronomer and this reduces the whole of 
 our remaining controversy with him, to the busi- 
 ness of arguing against a mere possibility. Still, 
 however, the answer is not so complete as it might 
 be, till the soundness of the argument be attended 
 to, as well as the credibility of the assertion or, 
 in other words, let us admit the assertion, and 
 take a view of the reasoning which has been con- 
 structed upon it. 
 
 We have already attempted to lay before you 
 the wonderful extent of that space, teeming with 
 unnumbered worlds, which modern science has 
 brought within the circle of its discoveries. We 
 even ventured to expatiate on those tracts of in- 
 
77 
 
 finity, which lie on the other side of all that eye 
 or that telescope hath made known to us to shoot 
 afar into those ulterior regions, which are beyond 
 the limits of our astronomy to impress you with 
 the rashness of the imagination, that the creative 
 energy of God had sunk exhausted by the magni- 
 tude of its efforts, at that very line, through which 
 the art of man, lavished as it has been on the work 
 of perfecting the instruments of vision, has not yet 
 been able to penetrate ; and upon all this we ha- 
 zarded the assertion, that though all these visible 
 heavens w^ere to rush into annihilation, and the 
 besom of the Almighty's wrath were to sweep from 
 the face of the universe, those millions, and mil- 
 lions more of suns and of systems, which lie within 
 the grasp of our actual observation that this 
 event, which, to our eye, would leave so wide, 
 and so dismal a solitude behind it, might be no- 
 thing in the eye of Him who could take in the 
 whole, but the disappearance of a little speck 
 from that field of created things, which the hand 
 of his omnipotence had thrown around him. 
 
 But to press home the sentiment of the text, it 
 is not necessary to stretch the imagination beyond 
 the limit of our actual discoveries. It is enough 
 to strike our minds with the insignificance of this 
 world, and of all who inhabit it, to bring it into 
 measurement with that mighty assemblage of 
 worlds, which lie open to the eye of man, aided 
 as it has been by the inventions of his genius. 
 
78 
 
 When we told you of the eighty millions of suns, 
 each occupying his own independent territory in 
 space, and dispensing his own influences over a 
 cluster of tributary worlds ; this world could not 
 fail to sink into littleness in the eye of him who 
 looked to all the magnitude and variety which are 
 around it. We gave you but a feeble image of our 
 comparative insignificance, when we said that the 
 glories of an extended forest would suffer no more 
 from the fall of a single leaf, than the glories of 
 this extended universe would suffer, though the 
 globe we tread, " and all that it inherit, should 
 dissolve." Arid when we lift our conceptions to 
 Him who has peopled immensity with all these 
 wonders who sits enthroned on the magnificence 
 of his own works, and by one sublime idea can 
 embrace the whole extent of that boundless am- 
 plitude, which he has filled with the trophies of 
 his divinity ; we cannot but resign our whole heart 
 to the Psalmist's exclamation of " What is man, 
 that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, 
 that thou shouldest deign to visit him !" 
 
 Now mark the use to which all this has been 
 turned by the genius of Infidelity. Such a humble 
 portion of the universe as ours, could never have 
 been the object of such high and distinguishing 
 attentions as Christianity has assigned to it. God 
 would not have manifested himself in the flesh for 
 the salvation of so paltry a world. The monarch 
 of a whole continent, would never move from his 
 
79 
 
 capital, and lay aside the splendour of royalty ; 
 and subject himself for months, or for years, to 
 perils, and poverty, and persecution ; and take 
 up his abode in some small islet of his dominions, 
 which, though swallowed by an earthquake, could 
 not be missed amid the glories of so wide an em- 
 pire ; and all this to regain the lost affections of a 
 few families upon its surface. And neither would 
 the eternal Son of God he who is revealed to us 
 as having made all worlds, and as holding an em- 
 pire, amid the splendours of which the globe that 
 we inherit, is shaded in insignificance ; neither 
 would he strip himself of the glory he had with 
 the Father before the world was, and light on this 
 lower scene, for the purpose imputed to him in 
 the New Testament. Impossible, that the con- 
 cerns of this puny ball, which floats its little round 
 among an infinity of larger worlds, should be of 
 such mighty account in the plans of the Eternal, 
 or should have given birth in heaven to so won- 
 derful a movement, as the Son of God putting on 
 the form of our degraded species, and sojourning 
 amongst us, and sharing in all our infirmities, and 
 crowning the whole scene of humiliation, by the 
 disgrace and the agonies of a cruel martyrdom. 
 
 This has been started as a difficulty in the way 
 of the Christian Revelation ; and it is the boast 
 of many of our philosophical Infidels, that by the 
 light of modern discovery, the light of the New r 
 Testament h eclipsed and overborne ; and the 
 
80 
 
 mischief is not confined to philosophers, for the 
 argument has got into other hands, and the popu- 
 lar illustrations that are now given to the sub- 
 limest truths of science, have widely disseminated 
 all the Deism that has been grafted upon it; and 
 the high tone of a decided contempt for the Gos- 
 pel, is now associated with the flippancy of super- 
 ficial acquirements : and, while the venerable 
 Newton, whose genius threw open those mighty 
 fields of contemplation, found a fit exercise 
 for his powers in the interpretation of the 
 Bible, there are thousands and tens of thousands, 
 who, though walking in the light which "he holds 
 out to them, are seduced by a complacency which 
 he never felt, and inflated by a pride which never 
 entered into his pious and philosophical bosom, 
 and whose only notice of the Bible, is to depre- 
 ciate, and to deride, and to disown it. 
 
 Before entering into what we conceive to be the 
 right answer to this objection, let us previously 
 observe, that it goes to strip the Deity of an attri- 
 bute, which forms a wonderful addition to the glo- 
 ries of his incomprehensible character. It is in- 
 deed a mighty evidence of the strength of his arm, 
 that so many millions of worlds are suspended on 
 it; but it would surely make the high attribute of 
 his power more illustrious, if, while it expatiated 
 at laro;e among the suns and the systems of as- 
 tronomy, it could, at the very same instant, be im- 
 pressing a movement and a direction on all the 
 
81 
 
 minuter wheels of that machinery, which is work- 
 ing incessantly around us. It forms a noble de* 
 monstration of his wisdom, that he gives unremit- 
 ting operation to those laws which uphold the 
 stability of this great universe ; but it would go to 
 heighten that wisdom inconceivably, if, while 
 equal to the magnificent task of maintaining the 
 order and harmony of the spheres, it was lavish- 
 ing its inexhaustible resources on the beauties, 
 and varieties, and arrangements, of every one 
 scene, however humble, of every one field, however 
 narrow, of the creation he had formed. It is a 
 cheering evidence of the delight he takes in com- 
 municating happiness, that the whole of immensity 
 should be so strewed with the habitations of life 
 and of intelligence ; but it would surely bring 
 home the evidence, with a nearer and a more af- 
 fecting impression, to every bosom, did we know, 
 that at the very time his benignant regard took in 
 the mighty circle of created beings, there was not a 
 single family overlooked by him, and that every in- 
 dividual in every corner of his dominions, was as 
 effectually seen to, as if the object of an exclusive 
 and undivided care. It is our imperfection, that 
 we cannot give our attention to more than one ob- 
 ject at one and the same instant of time; but sure- 
 ly it would elevate our every idea of the perfec- 
 tions of God, did we know, that while his com- 
 prehensive mind could grasp the whole amplitude 
 of nature, to the very outermost of its boundaries', 
 he had an attentive eye fastened on, the very hum- 
 
 L 
 
 
82 
 
 blest of its objects, and pondered every thought 
 of my heart, and noticed every footstep of my 
 goings, and treasured up in his remembrance every 
 turn and every movement of my history. 
 
 And, lastly, to apply this train of sentiment to 
 the matter before us; let us suppose that one 
 among the countless myriads of worlds, should be 
 visited by a moral pestilence, which spread 
 through all its people, and brought them under the 
 doom of a law, whose sanctions were unrelenting 
 and immutable ; it were no disparagement to God, 
 should he, by an act of righteous indignation, 
 sweep this offence away from the universe which 
 it deformed nor should we wonder, though, 
 among the multitude of other worlds from which 
 the ear of the Almighty was regaled with the songs 
 of praise, and the incense of a pure adoration as- 
 cended to his throne, he should leave the strayed 
 and solitary world to perish in the guilt of its re- 
 bellion. But, tell me, oh ! tell me, would it not 
 throw the softening of a most exquisite tenderness 
 over the character of God, should we see him 
 putting forth his every expedient to reclaim to 
 himself those children who had wandered away 
 from him and, few as they were when compared 
 with the host of his obedient worshippers, would 
 it not just impart to his attribute of compassion 
 the infinity of the Godhead, that, rather than lose 
 the single world which had turned to its own way, 
 he should send the messengers of peace to woo 
 
83 
 
 and to welcome it back again ; and, if justice 
 demanded so mighty a sacrifice, and the law be- 
 hooved to be so magnified and made honourable, 
 tell me whether it would not throw a moral sub- 
 lime over the goodness of the Deity, should he lay 
 upon his own Son the burden of its atonement, 
 that he might again smile upon the world, and 
 hold out the sceptre of invitation to all its fami- 
 lies ? 
 
 We avow it, therefore, that this infidel argument 
 goes to expunge a perfection from the character 
 of God. The more we know of the extent of na- 
 ture, should not we have the loftier conception of 
 him who sits in high authority over the concerns of 
 so wide a universe ? But, is it not adding to the 
 bright catalogue of his other attributes, to say, 
 that, while magnitude does not overpower him, 
 minuteness cannot escape him, and variety can- 
 not bewilder him ; and that, at the very time while 
 the mind of the Deity is abroad over the whole 
 vastness of creation, there is not one particle of 
 matter, there is not one individual principle of, ra- 
 tional or of animal existence, there is not one 
 single world in that expanse which teems with 
 them, that his eye does not discern as constantly, 
 and his hand does not guide as unerringly, and his 
 spirit does not watch and care for as vigilantly, as 
 if it formed the one and exclusive object of his 
 attention. 
 
84 
 
 The thing is inconceivable to us, whose minds 
 are so easily distracted by a number of objects, 
 and this is the secret principle of the whole Infi- 
 delity I am now alluding to. To bring God to the 
 level of our own comprehension, we would clothe 
 him in the impotency of a man. We would trans- 
 fer to his wonderful mind all the imperfection of 
 our own faculties. When we are taught by as- 
 tronomy, that he has millions of worlds to look 
 after, and thus add in one direction to the glories 
 of his character; we take away from them in 
 another, by saying, that each of these worlds must 
 be looked after imperfectly. The use that we 
 make of a discovery, which should heighten our 
 every conception of God, and humble us into the 
 sentiment, that a Being of , such mysterious eleva- 
 tion is to us unfathomable, is to sit in judgment 
 over him, aye, and to pronounce such a judgment 
 as degrades him, and keeps him down to the 
 standard of our own paltry imagination ! We are 
 introduced by modern science to a multitude of 
 other suns and of other systems; and the perverse 
 interpretation we put upon the fact, that God can 
 diffuse the benefits of his pow r er and of his good- 
 ness over such a variety of worlds, is, that he can- 
 not, or will not, bestow so much goodness on one 
 of those worlds, as a professed revelation from 
 Heaven has announced to us. While we enlarge 
 the provinces of his empire, we tarnish all the 
 glory of this enlargement, by saying, he has so 
 
85 
 
 much to care for, that the care of every one pro- 
 vince must be less complete, and less vigilant, and 
 less effectual, than it would otherwise have been. 
 By the discoveries of jncdern science, we multiply 
 the places of the creation; but along with this, we 
 would impair the attribute of his eye being in 
 every place to behold the evil and the good ; and 
 thus, while we magnify one of his perfections, we 
 do it at the expense of another ; and to bring him 
 within the grasp of our feeble capacity, we would 
 deface one of the glories of that character, which 
 it is our part to adore, as higher than all thought, 
 and as greater than all comprehension. 
 
 The objection we are discussing, I shall state 
 again in a single sentence. Since astronomy has 
 unfolded to us such a number of worlds, it is not 
 likely that God would pay so much attention to 
 this one world, and set up such wonderful pro- 
 visions for its benefit, as are announced to us in 
 the Christian Revelation. This objection will 
 have received its answer, if we can meet it by the 
 following position : that God, in addition to the 
 bare faculty of dwelling on a multiplicity of ob- 
 jects at one and the same time, has this faculty in 
 such wonderful perfection, that he can attend as 
 fully, and provide as richly, and manifest all his 
 attributes as illustriously, on every one of these 
 objects, as if the rest had no existence, and HO 
 place whatever in his government or in his 
 thoughts. 
 
86 
 
 For the evidence of this position, we appeal, 
 in the first place, to the personal history of each 
 individual among you. Only grant us, that God 
 never loses sight of any one thing he has created, 
 and that no created thing can continue either to 
 be, or to act independently of him; and then, 
 even upon the face of this world, humble as it 
 is on the great scale of astronomy, how widely 
 diversified, and how multiplied into many thousand 
 distinct exercises, is the attention of God ! His eye 
 is upon every hour of my existence. His spirit is 
 intimately present with every thought of my heart. 
 His inspiration gives birth to every purpose within 
 me. His hand impresses a direction on every 
 footstep of my goings. Every breath I inhale, is 
 drawn by an energy which God deals out to me. 
 This body, which, upon the slightest derangement, 
 would become the prey of death, or of woful suf- 
 fering, is now at ease, because he at this moment 
 is warding ofF from me a thousand dangers, and 
 upholding the thousand movements of its complex 
 and delicate machinery. His presiding influence 
 keeps by me through the whole current of my 
 restless and ever changing history. When I walk 
 by the way side, he is along with me. When I 
 enter into company, amid all my forgetfulness of 
 him, he never forgets me. In the silent watches 
 of the night, when my eyelids have closed, and 
 iny spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the ob- 
 servant eye of him who never slumbers, is upon 
 me. I cannot fly from his presence. Go where I 
 
87 
 
 will, he tends me, and watches me, and cares for 
 me ; and the same being who is now at work in 
 the remotest domains of Nature and of Provi- 
 dence, is also at my right hand to eke out to me 
 every moment of my being, and to uphold me in 
 the exercise of all my feelings, and of all my 
 faculties. 
 
 Now, what God is doing with me, he is doing 
 with every distinct individual of this world's popu- 
 lation. The intimacy of his presence, and atten- 
 tion, and care, reaches to one and to all of them. 
 With a mind unburdened by the vastness of all its 
 other concerns, he can prosecute, without dis- 
 traction, the government and guardianship of 
 every one son and daughter of the species. And 
 is it for us, in the face of all this experience, un- 
 gratefully to draw a limit around the perfections of 
 God to aver, that the multitude of other worlds 
 has withdrawn any portion of his benevolence 
 from the one we occupy or that he, whose eye 
 is upon every separate family of the earth, would 
 not lavish all the riches of his unsearchable attri- 
 butes on some high plan of pardon and immor- 
 tality, in behalf of its countless generations ? 
 
 But, secondly, were the mind of God so fa- 
 tigued, and so occupied with the care of other 
 worlds, as the objection presumes him to be, should 
 we not see some traces of neglect, or of careless- 
 ness, in his management of ours ? Should we not 
 
86 
 
 behold, in many a field of observation, the evi- 
 dence of its master being overcrowded with the 
 variety of his other engagements ? A man op- 
 pressed by a multitude of business, would sim- 
 plify and reduce the work of any new concern 
 that was devolved upon him. Now, point out a 
 single mark of God being thus oppressed. Astro- 
 nomy has laid open to us so many realms of 
 creation, which were before unheard of, that the 
 world we inhabit shrinks into one remote and so- 
 litary province of his wide monarchy. Tell me, 
 then, if, in any one field of this province, which 
 man has access to, you witness a single indication 
 of God sparing himself of God reduced to 
 languor by the weight of his other employments 
 of God sinking under the burden of that vast su- 
 perintendence which lies upon him of God being 
 exhausted, as one of ourselves would be, by any 
 number of concerns, however great, by any va- 
 riety of them, however manifold ; and do you not 
 perceive, in that mighty profusion of wisdom and 
 of goodness, which is scattered every where 
 around us, that the thoughts of this unsearchable 
 Being are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our 
 ways ? 
 
 My time does not suffer me to dwell on this 
 topic, because, before I conclude, I must hasten 
 to another illustration. But, when I look abroad 
 on the wondrous scene that is immediately before 
 me and see, that in every direction it is a scene 
 
89 
 
 of the most various and unwearied activity and 
 expatiate on all the beauties of that garniture by 
 which it is adorned, and on all the prints of de- 
 sign and of benevolence which abound in it and 
 think, that the same God, who holds the universe, 
 with its every system, in the hollow of his hand, 
 pencils every flower, and gives nourishment to 
 every blade of grass, and actuates the movements 
 of every living thing, and is not disabled, by the 
 weight of his other cares, from enriching the hum- 
 ble department of nature I occupy, with charms 
 and accommodations of the most unbounded va- 
 riety then, surely, if a message, bearing every 
 mark of authenticity, should profess to come to 
 me from God, and inform me of his mighty doings 
 for the happiness of our species, it is not for me, 
 in the face of all this evidence, to reject it as a 
 tale of imposture, because astronomers have told 
 me that he has so many other worlds and other or- 
 ders of beings to attend to and, when I think 
 that it were a deposition of him from his supre- 
 macy over the creatures he has formed, should a 
 single sparrow fall to the ground without his ap- 
 pointment, then let science and sophistry try to 
 cheat me of my comfort as they may I will not 
 let go the anchor of my confidence in God I will 
 not be afraid, for I am of more value than many 
 sparrows. 
 
 But, thirdly, it was the telescope, that, by 
 piercing the obscurity which lies between us and 
 
 M 
 
90 
 
 distant worlds, put Infidelity in possession of the 
 argument, against which we are now contending. 
 But, about the time of its invention, another in- 
 strument was formed, which laid open a scene no 
 less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit 
 of man with a discovery, which serves to neutral- 
 ize the whole of this argument. This was the 
 microscope. The one led me to see a system in 
 every star. The other leads me to see a world in 
 every atom. The one taught me, that this mighty 
 globe, with the whole burden of its people, and 
 of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the higfi 
 field of immensity. The other teaches me, that 
 every grain of sand may harbour within it the 
 tribes and the families of a busy population. The 
 one told me of the insignificance of the world I 
 tread upon. The other redeems it from all its in- 
 significance ; for it tells me that in thejteaves of 
 every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, 
 and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds 
 teeming with life, and numberless as are the 
 glories of the firmament. The one has suggested 
 to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to 
 man, there may lie fields of creation which sweep 
 immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the 
 Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the 
 universe. The other suggests to me, that within 
 and beneath all that minuteness which the aided 
 eye of man has been able to explore, there may 
 be a region of invisibles; and that could we draw 
 aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from 
 
91 
 
 our senses, we might there see a theatre of as 
 many wonders as astropomy has unfolded, a uni- 
 verse within the compass of a point so small, as 
 to elude all the powers of the microscope, but 
 where the wonder-working God finds room for the 
 exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise 
 another mechanism of worlds, and fill and ani- 
 mate them all with the evidences of his glory. 
 
 Now, mark how all this may be made to meet 
 the argument of our infidel astronomers. By the 
 telescope they have discovered, that no magni- 
 tude, however vast, is beyond the grasp of the 
 Divinity. But by the microscope, we have also 
 discovered, that no minuteness, however shrunk 
 from the notice of the human eye, is beneath the 
 condescension of his regard. Every addition to 
 the powers of the one instrument, extends the limit 
 of his visible dominions. But, by every addition 
 to the powers of the jother instrument, we see each 
 part of them more crowded than before, with the 
 wonders of his unwearying hand. The one is 
 constantly widening the circle of his territory. 
 The other is as constantly filling up its separate 
 portions, with all that is rich, and various, and 
 exquisite. In a word, by the one I am told that 
 the Almighty is now at work in regions more dis- 
 tant than geometry has ever measured, arid among 
 worlds more manifold than numbers have ever 
 reached. But, by the other, I am also told, that, 
 with a mind to comprehend the whole, in the vast 
 
92 
 
 compass of its generality, he has also a mind to con- 
 centrate a close and a separate attention on each 
 and on all of its particulars ; and that the same 
 God, who sends forth an upholding influence 
 among the orbs and the movements of astronomy, 
 can fill the recesses of every single atom with the 
 intimacy of his presence, and travel, in all the 
 greatness of his unimpaired attributes, upon every 
 one spot and corner of the universe he has formed. 
 
 They, therefore, who think that God will not 
 put forth such a power, and such a goodness, and 
 such a condescension, in behalf of this world, as 
 are ascribed to him in the New Testament, be- 
 cause he has so many other worlds to attend to, 
 think of him as a man. They confine their view 
 to the informations of the telescope, and forget 
 altogether the informations of the other instru- 
 ment. They only find room in their minds for his 
 one attribute of a large and general superintend- 
 ence, and keep out of their remembrance the 
 equally impressive proofs we have for his other 
 attribute of a minute and multiplied attention to 
 all that diversity of operations, where it is he that 
 worketh all in all. And then I think, that, as one 
 of the instruments of philosophy has heightened 
 our every impression of the first of these attributes, 
 so another instrument has no less heightened our 
 impression of the second of them then I can no 
 longer resist the conclusion, that it would be a 
 transgression of sound argument, as well as a 
 
93 
 
 daring of impiety, to draw a limit around the 
 doings of this unsearchable God and, should a 
 professed revelation from heaven, tell me of an 
 act of condescension, in behalf of some separate 
 world, so wonderful that angels desired to look 
 into it, and the Eternal Son had to move from his 
 seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all 
 I ask is the evidence of such a revelation ; for, let 
 it tell me as much as it may of God letting him- 
 self down for the benefit of one single province 
 of his dominions, this is no more than what I see 
 lying scattered, in numberless examples, before 
 me ; and running through the whole line of my 
 recollections; and meeting me in every walk of 
 observation to which I can betake myself; and, 
 now that the microscope has unveiled the won- 
 ders of another region, I see strewed around me 
 with a profusion which baffles my every attempt 
 to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no 
 one portion of the universe of God too minute 
 for his notice, nor too humble for the visitations of 
 his care. 
 
 As the end of all these illustrations, let me be- 
 stow a single paragraph on what I conceive to be 
 the precise state of this argument. 
 
 It is a wonderful thing that God should be so 
 unincumbered by the concerns of a whole uni- 
 verse, that he can give a constant attention to 
 every moment of every individual in this world's 
 
94 
 
 population. But, wonderful as it is, you do not 
 hesitate to admit it as true, on the evidence of 
 your own recollections. It is a wonderful thing 
 that he whose eye is at every instant on so many 
 worlds, should have peopled the world we inhabit 
 with all the traces of the varied design and be- 
 nevolence which abound in it. But, great as the 
 wonder is, you do not allow so much as the shadow 
 of improbability to darken it, for its reality is what 
 you actually witness, and you never think of 
 questioning the evidence of observation, It is 
 wonderful, it is passing wonderful, that the same 
 God, whose presence is diffused through immen 
 sity, and who spreads the ample canopy of his 
 administration over all its dwelling-places, should, 
 with an energy as fresh and as unexpended as if 
 he had only begun the work of creation, turn him 
 to the neighbourhood around us, and lavish, on its 
 every hand-breadth, all the exuberance of his 
 goodness, and crowd it with the many thousand 
 varieties of conscious existence. But, be the 
 wonder incomprehensible as it may, you do not 
 suffer in your mind the burden of a single doubt 
 to lie upon it, because you do not question the re- 
 port of the microscope. You do not refuse its 
 information, nor turn away from it as an incompe- 
 tent channel of evidence. But to bring it still 
 nearer to the point at issue, there are many who 
 never looked through a microscope, but who rest 
 an implicit faith in all its revelations ; and upon 
 what evidence, I would ask ? Upon the evidence 
 
95 
 
 of testimony upon the credit they give to the 
 authors of the books they have read, and the be- 
 lief they put in the record of their observations, 
 Now, at this point I make my stand. It is won- 
 derful that God should be so interested in the re- 
 demption of a single world, as to send forth his 
 well-beloved Son upon the errand, and he, to ac- 
 complish it, should, mighty to save, put forth all 
 his strength, and travail in the greatness of it. 
 But such wonders as these have already multiplied 
 upon you; and when evidence is given of their 
 truth, you have resigned your every judgment of 
 the unsearchable God, and rested in the faith of 
 them. I demand, in the name of sound and con- 
 sistent philosophy, that you do the same in the 
 matter before us arid take it up as a question of 
 evidence and examine that medium of testimony 
 through which the miracles and informations of 
 the Gospel have come to your door arid go not 
 to admit as argument here, what would not be ad- 
 mitted as argument in any of the analogies of na- 
 ture and observation and take along with you in 
 this field of inquiry, a lesson which you should 
 have learned upon other fields even the depth of 
 the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge 
 of God, that his judgments are unsearchable, and 
 his ways are past finding out. 
 
 I do not enter at all into the positive evidence 
 for the truth of the Christian Revelation, my 
 single aim at present being to dispose of one of 
 
1)6 
 
 the objections which is conceived to stand in the 
 way of it. Let me suppose then that this is done 
 to the satisfaction of a philosophical inquirer, and 
 that the evidence is sustained, and that the same 
 mind that is familiarized to all the sublimities of 
 natural science, and has been in the habit of con- 
 templating God in association with all the mag- 
 nificence which is around him, shall be brought to 
 submit its thoughts to the captivity of the doctrine 
 of Christ. Oh ! with what veneration, and grati- 
 tude, and wonder, should he look on the descent 
 of him into this lower world, who made all these 
 things, and without whom was not any thing made 
 that was made. What a grandeur does it throw 
 over every step in the redemption of a fallen 
 world, to think of its being done by him who un- 
 robed him of the glories of so wide a monarchy, 
 and came to this humblest of its provinces, in the 
 disguise of a servant, and took upon him the form 
 of our degraded species, and let himself down to 
 sorrows, and to sufferings, and to death, for us. 
 In this love of an expiring Saviour to those for 
 whom in agony he poured out his soul, there is 
 a height, and a depth, and a length, and a 
 breadth, more than I can comprehend; and 
 let me never, never from this moment neglect 
 so great a salvation, or lose my hold of an atone- 
 ment, made sure by him who cried, that it was 
 finished, and brought in an everlasting righteous- 
 ness. It was not the visit of an empty parade that 
 he made to us. It was for the accomplishment of 
 
97 
 
 some substantial purpose ; and, if that purpose is 
 announced, and stated to consist in his dying the 
 just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto 
 God, let us never doubt of our acceptance in that 
 way of communication with our Father in heaven, 
 which he hath opened and made known to us. In 
 taking to that way, let us follow his every direction 
 with that humility which a sense of all this won- 
 derful condescension is fitted to inspire. Let us 
 forsake all that he bids us forsake. Let us do all 
 that he bids us do. Let us give ourselves up to his 
 guidance with the docility of children, overpower- 
 ed by a kindness that we never merited, and a love 
 that is unequalled by all the perverseness and all 
 the ingratitude of our stubborn nature for what 
 shall we render unto him for such mysterious be- 
 nefits to him who has thus been mindful of us 
 to him who thus has deigned to visit us ? 
 
 But the whole of this argument is not yet ex- 
 hausted. We have scarcely entered on the de- 
 fence that is commonly made against the plea which 
 Infidelity rests on the wonderful extent of the uni- 
 verse of God, and the insignificancy of our assign- 
 ed portion of it. The way in which we have at- 
 tempted to dispose of this plea, is by insisting on 
 the evidence that is every where around us, of God 
 combining with the largeness of a vast and mighty 
 superintendence, which reaches the outskirts of 
 creation, and spreads over all its amplitudes the 
 faculty of bestowing as much attention, and exer- 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 \ 
 
 cising as complete and manifold a wisdom, arul 
 lavishing as profuse and inexhaustible a goodness^ 
 on each of its humblest departments, as if it form- 
 ed the whole extent of his territory. 
 
 In the whole of this argument we have looked 
 upon the earth as isolated from the rest of the uni- 
 verse altogether. But according to the way in 
 which the astronomical objection is commonly 
 met, the earth is not viewed as in a state of detach- 
 ment from the other worlds, and the other orders 
 of being which God has called into existence. It 
 is looked upon as the member of a more extended 
 system. It is associated with the magnificence of 
 a moral empire, as wide as the kingdom of nature. 
 It is not merely asserted, what in our last Dis- 
 course has been already done, that for any thing 
 we can know by reason, the plan of redemption 
 may have its influences and its bearings on those 
 creatures of God who people other regions, and 
 occupy other fields in the immensity of his do- 
 minions; that to argue, therefore, on this plan 
 being instituted for the single benefit of the world 
 we live in, and of the species to which we belong, 
 is a mere presumption of the Infidel himself; and 
 that the objection he rears on it, must fall to the 
 ground, when the vanity of the presumption is ex- 
 posed. The Christian apologist thinks he can go 
 further than this that he cannot merely expose 
 the utter baselessness of the Infidel assertion, but 
 that he has positive ground for erecting an oppo- 
 
99 
 
 site and a confronting assertion in its place and 
 that after having neutralized their position, by 
 showing the entire absence of all observation in 
 its behalf, he can pass on to the distinct arid af- 
 firmative testimony of the Bible. 
 
 We do think that this lays open a very in- 
 teresting track, not of wild and fanciful, but of 
 most legitimate and sober-minded speculation. 
 And anxious as we are to put every thing that 
 bears upon the Christian argument into ail its 
 lights ; and fearless as we feel for the result of a 
 most thorough sifting of it ; and thinking as we do 
 think it, the foulest scorn that any pigmy philo- 
 sopher of the day should mince his ambiguous 
 skepticism to a set of giddy and ignorant ad- 
 mirers, or that a half-learned and superficial pub- 
 lic should associate with the Christian priesthood, 
 the blindness and the bigotry of a sinking cause 
 with these feelings, we are not disposed to blink 
 a single question that may be started on the sub- 
 ject of the Christian evidences. There is pot 
 one of its parts or bearings which needs the 
 shelter of a disguise thrown over it. Let the 
 priests of another faith ply their prudential expe- 
 dients, and look so wise and so wary in the execu- 
 tion of them. But Christianity stands in a higher 
 and a firmer attitude. The defensive armour of 
 a shrinking or timid policy does not suit her. 
 Hers is the naked majesty of truth ; and with all 
 the grandeur of age, but with none of its infirmi- 
 
100 
 
 ties, has she come down to us, and gathered new 
 strength from the battles she has won in the many 
 controversies of many generations. With such a 
 religion as this there is nothing to hide. All 
 should be above boards. And the broadest light 
 of day should be made fully and freely to circu- 
 late throughout all her secrecies. But secrets 
 she has none. To her belong the frankness and 
 the simplicity of conscious greatness ; and whe- 
 ther she grapple it with the pride of philosophy, 
 or stand in fronted opposition to the prejudices of 
 the multitude, she does it upon her own strength, 
 and spurns all the props and all the auxiliaries of 
 superstition away from her. 
 
DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY IN THE 
 DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 Which things the angels desire to look into."- 
 
 1 PETER i. 12. 
 
 THERE is a limit, across which man cannot car- 
 ry any one of his perceptions, and from the ulte- 
 rior of which he cannot gather a single observation 
 to guide or to inform him. While he keeps by 
 the objects which are near, he can get the know- 
 ledge of them conveyed to his mind through the 
 ministry of several of the senses. He can feel a 
 substance that is within reach of his hand. He 
 can smell a flower that is presented to him. He 
 can taste the food that is before him. He can 
 bear a sound of certain pitch and intensity ; and, 
 so much does this sense of hearing widen his in- 
 tercourse with external nature, that, from the dis- 
 tance of miles, it can bring him in an occasional 
 intimation. 
 
102 
 
 But of all the tracks of conveyance which God 
 has been pleased to open up between the mind of 
 man, and the theatre by which he is surrounded, 
 there is none by which he so multiplies his ac- 
 quaintance with the rich and the varied creation 
 on every side of him, as by the organ of the eye. 
 It is this which gives to him his loftiest command 
 over the scenery of nature. It is this by which so 
 broad a range of observation is submitted to him. 
 It is this which enables him, by the act of a single 
 moment, to send an exploring look over the sur- 
 face of an ample territory, to crowd his mind with 
 the whole assembly of its objects, and to fill his 
 vision with those countless hues which diversify 
 and adorn it. It is this which carries him abroad 
 over all that is sublime in the immensity of dis- 
 tance; which sets him as it were on an elevated 
 platform, from whence he may cast a surveying 
 glance over the arena of innumerable worlds ; 
 which spreads before him so mighty a province of 
 contemplation, that the earth he inhabits, only ap- 
 pears to furnish him with the pedestal on which he 
 may stand, and from which he may descry the 
 wonders of all that magnificence which the Di- 
 vinity has poured so abundantly around him. It 
 is by the narrow outlet of the eye, that the mind 
 of man takes its excursive flight over those golden 
 tracks, where, in all the exhaustlessness of creative 
 wealth, lie scattered the suns, and the systems of 
 astronomy. But oh ! how good a thing it is, and 
 how becoming well, for the philosopher to be hum* 
 
103 
 
 ble even amid the proudest march of human dis- 
 covery, and the sublimest triumphs of the human 
 understanding, when he thinks of that unsealed 
 barrier, beyond which no power, either of eye or 
 of telescope, shall ever carry him ; when he thinks 
 that on the other side of it, there is a height, and 
 a depth, and a length, and a breadth, to which 
 the whole of this concave and visible firmament 
 dwindles into the insignificancy of an atom and 
 above all, how ready should he be to cast his every 
 lofty imagination away from him, when he thinks 
 of the God, who, on the simple foundation of his 
 word, has reared the whole of this stately archi- 
 tecture, and, by the force of his preserving hand, 
 continues to uphold it ; aye, and should the word 
 again come out from him, that this earth shall pass 
 away, and a portion of the heavens which are 
 around it, shall again fall back into the annihilation 
 from which he at first summoned them, what an 
 impressive rebuke does it bring on the swelling 
 vanity of science, to think that the whole field of 
 its most ambitious enterprises may be swept away 
 altogether, and there remain before the eye of 
 him who sitteth on the throne, an untravelled im- 
 mensity, which he hath filled with innumerable 
 splendours, and over the whole. face of which he 
 hath inscribed the evidence of his high attributes, 
 in all their might, and in all their manifestation. 
 
 But man has a great deal more to keep him 
 humble of his understanding, than a mere sense 
 
101 
 
 of that boundary which skirts and which ter- 
 minates the material field of his contemplations. 
 He ought also to feel how within that boundary, 
 the vast majority of things is mysterious and un- 
 known to him ; that even in the inner chamber of 
 his own consciousness, where so much lies hidden 
 from the observation of others, there is also to 
 himself, a little world of incomprehensibles ; that 
 if stepping beyond the limits of this familiar home, 
 he look no further than to the members of his 
 family, there is much in the cast and the colour of 
 every mind that is above his powers of divination ; 
 that in proportion as he recedes from the centre 
 of his own personal experience, there is a cloud 
 of ignorance and secrecy, which spreads, and 
 thickens, and throws a deep and impenetrable 
 veil over the intricacies of every one department 
 of human contemplation; that of all around him, 
 his knowledge is naked and superficial, and con- 
 fined to a few of those more conspicuous linea- 
 ments which strike upon his senses; that the whole 
 face, both of nature and of society, presents him 
 with questions which he cannot unriddle, and tells 
 him how beneath the surface of all that the eye 
 can rest upon, there lies the profoundness of a 
 most unsearchable latency; aye, and should he 
 in some lofty enterprise of thought, leave this 
 world, and shoot afar into those tracks of specu- 
 lation which astronomy has opened should he, 
 baffled by the mysteries which beset his every 
 footstep upon earth, attempt an ambitious flight 
 
105 
 
 toward the mysteries of heaven let him go, but 
 let the justness of a pious and philosophical mo- 
 desty go along with him let him forget not, that 
 from the moment his mind has taken its ascending 
 way for a few little miles above the world he 
 treads upon, his every sense abandons him but 
 one that number, and motion, and magnitude, 
 and figure, make up all the barrenness of its ele- 
 mentary informations that these orbs have sent 
 him scarce another message, than told by their 
 feeble glimmering upon his eye, the simple fact of 
 their existence that he sees not the landscape of 
 other worlds that he knows not the moral system 
 of any one of them nor athwart the long and 
 trackless vacancy which lies between, does there 
 fall upon his listening ear, the hum of their mighty 
 populations. 
 
 But the knowledge which he cannot fetch up 
 himself from the obscurity of this wondrous but 
 untravelled scene, by the exercise of any one of 
 his own senses, might be fetched to him by the 
 testimony of a competent messenger. Conceive 
 a native of one of these planetary mansions to 
 light upon our world, and all we should require, 
 would be, to be satisfied of his credentials, that 
 we may tack our faith to every point of informa- 
 tion he had to offer us. With the solitary excep- 
 tion of what we have been enabled to gather by 
 the instruments of astronomy, there is not one of 
 his communications about the place he came from. 
 
 o 
 
106 
 
 on which we possess any means at all of confront- 
 ing him; and, therefore, could he only appear be- 
 fore us invested with the characters of truth, we 
 should never think of any thing else than taking 
 up the whole matter of his testimony just as he 
 brought it to us. ^ 
 
 It were well had a sound philosophy schooled 
 its professing disciples to the same kind of acqui- 
 escence in another message, which has actually 
 come to the world ; and has told us of matters 
 still more remote from every power of unaided 
 observation ; and has been sent from a more sub- 
 lime and mysterious distance, even from that God 
 of whom it is said, that " clouds and darkness 
 are the habitation of his throne ;" and treating of 
 a theme so lofty and so inaccessible, as the coun- 
 sels of that Eternal Spirit, " Whose goings forth 
 are of old, even from everlasting," challenges of 
 man that he should submit his every thought to 
 the authority of this high communication. Oh! 
 had the philosophers of the day known as well as 
 their great Master, how to draw the vigorous 
 land-mark which verges the field of legitimate 
 discovery, *they should have seen when it is that 
 philosophy becomes vain, and science is falsely so 
 called : and how it is, that when philosophy is 
 true to her principles, she shuts up her faithful 
 votary to the Bible, and makes him willing to 
 count all but loss, for the knowledge of Jesus 
 Christ, and of him crucified. 
 
107 
 
 But let it be well observed, that the object of 
 this message is not to convey information to us 
 about the state of these planetary regions. This 
 is not the matter with which it is fraught. It is a 
 message from the throne of God to this rebellious 
 province of his dominions ; and the purpose of it 
 is, to reveal the fearful extent of our guilt and of 
 our danger, and to lay before us the overtures of 
 reconciliation. Were a similar message sent from 
 the metropolis of a mighty empire, to one of its 
 remote and revolutionary districts, we should not 
 look to it for much information about the state or 
 economy of the intermediate provinces; This 
 were a departure from the topic on hand though 
 still there may chance to be some incidental 
 allusions to the extent and resources of the whole 
 monarchy, to the existence of a similar spirit of 
 rebellion in other quarters of the land, or to the 
 general principle of loyalty by which it was per- 
 vaded. Some casual references of this kind may 
 be inserted in such a proclamation, or they may 
 no t and it is with this precise feeling of ambi- 
 guity that we open the record of that embassy 
 which has been sent us from heaven, to see if we 
 can gather any thing there, about other places of 
 the creation, to meet the objections of the infidel 
 astronomer. But, while we pursue this object, let 
 us have a care not to push the speculation beyond 
 the limits of the written testimony ; let us keep a 
 just and a steady eye on the actual boundary of 
 our knowledge, that, throughout every distinct 
 
108 
 
 step of our argument, we might preserve that 
 chaste and unambitious spirit, which characterizes 
 the philosophy of him who explored these distant 
 heavens, and, by the force of his genius, unra- 
 velled the secret of that wondrous mechanism 
 which upholds them. 
 
 The informations of the Bible upon this subject, 
 are of two sorts that from which we confidently 
 gather the fact, that the history of the redemption 
 of our species is known in other and distant 
 places of the creation and that, from which we 
 indistinctly guess at the fact, that the redemption 
 itself may stretch beyond the limits of the world 
 we occupy. 
 
 And, here it may shortly be adverted to, that, 
 though we know little or nothing of the moral and 
 theological economy of the other planets, we are 
 not to infer, that the beings who occupy these 
 widely extended regions, even though not higher 
 than we in the scale of understanding, know little 
 of ours. Our first parents, ere they committed 
 that act by which they brought themselves and 
 their posterity into the need of redemption, had 
 frequent and familiar intercourse with God. He 
 walked with them in the garden of paradise; and 
 there did angels hold their habitual converse; 
 and, should the same un blotted innocence which 
 charmed and attracted these superior beings to 
 the haunts of Eden, be perpetuated in every 
 
109 
 
 planet but our own, then might each of them be 
 the scene of high and heavenly communications, 
 and an open way for the messengers of God be 
 kept up with them all, and their inhabitants be 
 admitted to a share in the themes and contempla- 
 tions of angels, and have their spirits exercised on 
 those things, of which we are told that the angels 
 desired to look into them ; and thus, as we talk of 
 the public mind of a city, or the public mind of 
 an empire by the well-frequented avenues of a 
 free and ready circulation, a public mind might 
 be formed throughout the whole extent of God's 
 sinless and intelligent creation and, just as we 
 often read of the eyes of all Europe being tumed 
 to the one spot where some affair of eventful im- 
 portance is going on, there might be the eyes of a 
 whole universe turned to the one world, where 
 rebellion against the Majesty of heaven had 
 planted its standard ; arid for the re-admission of 
 which within the circle of his fellowship, God, 
 whose justice was inflexible, but whose mercy he 
 had, by some plan of mysterious wisdom, made to 
 rejoice over it, was putting forth all the might, and 
 travailing in all the greatness of the attributes 
 which belonged to him. 
 
 But, for the full understanding of this argument* 
 it must be remarked, that, while in our exiled ha- 
 bitation, where all is darkness, and rebellion, and 
 enmity, the creature engrosses every heart, and 
 
no 
 
 our affections, when they shift at all, only wander 
 from one fleeting vanity to another, it is not so in 
 ' the habitations of the unfallen. There, every de- 
 sire and every movement is subordinated to God. 
 He is seen in all that formed, and in all that is 
 spread around them and, amid the fulness of that 
 delight with which they expatiate over the good 
 and the fair of this wondrous universe, the ani- 
 mating charm which pervades their every contem- 
 plation, is that they behold, on each visible thing, 
 the impress of the mind that conceived, and of 
 the hand that made and that upholds it. Here, 
 God is banished from the thoughts of every na- 
 tural man, and by a firm and constantly maintain- 
 ed act of usurpation, do the things of sense and 
 of time wield an entire ascendency. There, God 
 is all in all. They walk in his light. They re- 
 joice in the beatitudes of his presence. The veil 
 is from off their eyes, and they see the character 
 of a presiding Divinity in every scene, and in every 
 event to which the Divinity has given birth. It is 
 this which stamps a glory and an importance on 
 the whole field of their contemplations ; arid when 
 they see a new evolution in the history of created 
 things, the reason they bend towards it so atten- 
 tive an eye, is, that it speaks to their understand- 
 ing some new evolution in the purposes of God ; 
 some new manifestation of his high attributes 
 some new and interesting step in the history of his 
 sublime administration. 
 
in 
 
 Now, we ought to be aware how it takes off, 
 not from the intrinsic weight, but from the actual 
 impression of our argument, that this devotedness 
 to God which reigns in other places of the creation; 
 this interest in him as the constant and essential 
 principle of all enjoyment ; this coneern in the 
 untaintedness of his glory ; this delight in the sur- 
 vey of his perfections and his doings, are what the 
 men of our corrupt and darkened world cannot 
 sympathize with. 
 
 But however little we may enter into it, the 
 Bible tells us by many intimations, that amongst 
 those creatures who have not fallen from their al- 
 legiance, nor departed from the living God, God 
 is their all that love to him sits enthroned in their 
 hearts, and fills them with all the ecstasy of an over- 
 whelming affection that a sense of grandeur never 
 so elevates their souls, as when they look at the 
 might and majesty of the Eternal that no field of 
 cloudless transparency so enchants them by the 
 blissfulness of its visions, as when at the shrine of 
 infinite and unspotted holiness, they bend them- 
 selves in raptured adoration that no beauty so 
 fascinates and attracts them, as does that moral 
 beauty which throws a softening lustre over the 
 awfulness of the Godhead in a word, that the 
 image of his character is ever present to their 
 contemplations, and the unceasing joy of their 
 sinless existence lies in the knowledge and the ad~ 
 miration of Deity. 
 
112 
 
 Let us put forth an effort, and keep a steady 
 hold of this consideration, for the deadness of our 
 earthly imaginations makes an effort necessary ; 
 and we shall perceive, that though the world we 
 live in were the alone theatre of redemption, there 
 is a something in the redemption itself that is fitted 
 to draw the eye of an arrested universe towards 
 it. Surely, surely, where delight in God is the 
 constant enjoyment, and the earnest intelligent 
 contemplation of God is the constant exercise, 
 there is nothing in the whole compass of nature 
 or of history, that can so set his adoring myriads 
 upon the gaze, as some new and wondrous evo- 
 lution of the character of God. Now this is found 
 in the plan of our redemption; nor, do I see how 
 in any transaction between the great Father of 
 existence, and the children who have sprung 
 from him, the moral attributes of tke Deity could, 
 if I may so express myself, be put to so severe 
 and so delicate a test. It is true, that the great 
 matters of sin and of salvation fall without im- 
 pression, on the heavy ears of a listless and alien- 
 ated world. But they who, to use the language of 
 the Bible, are light in the Lord, look otherwise al 
 these things. They see sin in all its malignity, 
 and salvation in all its mysterious greatness. Aye, 
 and it would put them on the stretch of all their 
 faculties, when they saw rebellion lifting up its 
 standard against the Majesty of heaven, and the 
 truth and the justice of God embarked on the 
 threatenings he had uttered against all the doers 
 
113 
 
 of iniquity, and the honours of that august throne, 
 which has the firm pillars of immutability to rest 
 upon, linked with the fulfilment of the law that 
 had come out from it ; and when nothing else was 
 looked for, but that God by putting forth the 
 power of his wrath should accomplish his every 
 denunciation, and vindicate the inflexibility of 
 his government, and by one sweeping deed of ven- 
 geance, assert in the sight of all his creatures, the 
 sovereignty which belonged to him Oh ! with 
 what desire must they have pondered on his ways, 
 when amid the urgency of all these demands 
 which looked so high and so indispensable, they 
 saw the unfoldings of the attribute of mercy and 
 how the supreme Lawgiver was bending upon his 
 guilty creatures an eye of tenderness and how 
 in his profound and unsearchable wisdom, he was 
 devising for them some plan of restoration and 
 how the eternal Son had to move from his dwell- 
 ing-place in heaven, to carry it forward through 
 all the difficulties by which it was encompassed 
 and how, after, by the virtue of his mysterious sa- 
 crifice, he had magnified the glory of every other 
 perfection, he made mercy rejoice over them all, 
 and threw open^a way by which we sinful and 
 polluted wanderers might, with the whole lustre 
 of the Divine character untarnished, be re-admit- 
 ted into fellowship with God, and be again brought 
 back within the circle of his loyal and affectionate 
 family. 
 
114 
 
 Now, the essential character of such a transac- 
 tion, viewed as a manifestation of God, does not 
 hang upon the number of worlds, over which this 
 sin and this salvation may have extended. We 
 know that over this one world such an economy 
 of wisdom and of mercy is instituted and, even 
 should this be the only world that is embraced by 
 it, the moral display of the Godhead is mainly 
 and substantially the same, as if it reached 
 throughout the whole of that habitable extent 
 which the science of astronomy has made known 
 to us. By the disobedience of this one world, the 
 law was trampled on; and, in the business of 
 making truth and mercy to meet, and have a har- 
 monious accomplishment on the men of this world, 
 the dignity of God was put to the same trial; the 
 justice of God appeared to lay the same immove- 
 able barrier; the wisdom of God had to clear a 
 way through the same difficulties; the forgiveness 
 of God had to find the same mysterious convey- 
 ance to the sinners of a solitary world, as to the 
 sinners of half a universe. The extent of the 
 field upon which this question was decided, has 
 no more influence on the question iiself, than the 
 figure or the dimensions of that field of combat, 
 XHI which some great political question was fought, 
 has on the importance or on the moral principles 
 of the controversy that gave rise to it This ob- 
 jection about the narrowness of the theatre, car- 
 ries along with it all the grossness of materialism. 
 To the eye of spiritual and intelligent beings, it 
 
115 
 
 is nothing. In their view, the redemption of a 
 sinful world derives its chief interest from the dis- 
 play it gives of the mind and purposes of the 
 Deity and, should that world be but a single 
 speck in the immensity of the works of God, the 
 only way in which this affects their estimate of 
 him, is to magnify his loving kindness who rather 
 than lose one solitary world of the myriads he has 
 formed, would lavish all the riches of his benifi- 
 cence and of his wisdom on the recovery of its 
 guilty population. 
 
 Now, though it must be admitted that the Bible 
 does not speak clearly or decisively as to the 
 proper effect of redemption being extended to 
 other worlds; it speaks most clearly and most 
 decisively about the knowledge of it being dis- 
 seminated amongst other orders of created intel- 
 ligence than our own. But if the contemplation 
 of God be their supreme enjoyment, then the very 
 circumstance of our redemption being known to 
 them, may invest it, even though it be but the re- 
 demption of one solitary world, with an import- 
 ance as wide as the universe itself. It may spread 
 amongst the hosts of immensity a new illustration 
 of the character of him who is all their praise, 
 and in looking toward whom every energy within 
 them is moved to the exercise of a deep and de- 
 lighted admiration. The scene of the transaction 
 may be narrow in point of material extent; while 
 
116 
 
 in the transaction itself there may be such a moral 
 dignity, as to blazon the perfections of the God- 
 head over the face of creation; and from the 
 manifested glory of the Eternal, to send forth a 
 tide of ecstasy, and of high gratulation, through- 
 out the whole extent of his dependent provinces. 
 
 I will not, in proof of the position, that the his- 
 tory of our redemption is known in other and dis- 
 tant places of creation, and is matter of deep in- 
 terest and feeling amongst other orders of created 
 intelligence I will not put down all the quotations 
 which might be assembled together upon this ar- 
 gument. It is an impressive circumstance, that 
 when Moses and Elias made a visit to our Saviour 
 on the mount of transfiguration, and appeared in 
 glory from heaven, the topic they brought along 
 with them, and with which they were fraught, was 
 the decease he was going to accomplish at Jeru- 
 salem. And however insipid the things of our sal- 
 vation may be to an earthly understanding ; we 
 are made to know, that in the sufferings of Christ, 
 and the glory which should follow, there is matter 
 to attract the notice of celestial spirits, for these 
 are the very things, says the Bible, which angels 
 desire to look into. And however listlessly we. 
 the dull and grovelling children of an exiled fa- 
 mily, may feel about the perfections of the God- 
 head, and the display of those perfections in tire 
 economy of the Gospel, it is intimated to us in the. 
 
117 
 
 book of God's message, that the creation has its 
 districts and its provinces ; and we accordingly 
 read of thrones, and dominions, and principali- 
 ties, and powers and whether these terms denote 
 the separate regions of government, or the beings 
 who, by a commission granted from the sanctuary 
 of heaven, sit in delegated authority over them 
 even in their eyes the mystery of Christ stands 
 arrayed in all the splendour of unsearchable 
 riches; for we are told that this mystery was re- 
 vealed for the very intent, that unto the princi- 
 palities and powers in heavenly places, might be 
 made known by the church, the manifold wisdom 
 of God. And while we, whose prospect reaches 
 not beyond the narrow limits of the corner we oc- 
 cupy, look on the dealings of God in the world, 
 as carrying in them all the insignificancy of a pro- 
 vincial transaction; God himself, whose eye 
 reaches to places which our eye hath not seen, 
 nor our ear heard of, neither hath it entered into 
 the imagination of our heart to conceive, stamps 
 a universality on the whole matter of the Christian 
 salvation, by such revelations as the following: 
 That he is to gather together in one all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are 
 in earth, even in him and that at the name of 
 Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
 and things in earth, and things under the earth 
 and that by him God reconciled all things unto 
 himself, whether they be things in earth, or things 
 in heaven. 
 
118 
 
 We will not say in how far some of these pas- 
 sages extend the proper effect of that redemption 
 which is by Christ Jesus, to other quarters of the 
 universe of God; but they at least go to establish 
 a widely disseminated knowledge of this transac- 
 tion amongst the other orders of created intelli- 
 gence. And they give us a distant glimpse of 
 something more extended. They present a faint 
 opening, through which may be seen some few 
 traces of a wider and a nobler dispensation. They 
 bring before us a dim*transparency, on the other 
 side of which the images of an obscure magnifi- 
 cence dazzle indistinctly upon the eye ; and tell us 
 that in the economy of redemption, there is a 
 grandeur commensurate to all that is known of the 
 other works and purposes of the Eternal. They 
 offer us no details ; and man, who ought not to at- 
 tempt a wisdom above that which is written, should 
 never put forth his hand to the drapery of that 
 impenetrable curtain which God in his mysterious 
 wisdom has spread over those ways, of which it is 
 but a very small portion that we know of them. 
 But certain it is, that we know as much of them 
 from the Bible ; and the Infidel, with all the pride 
 of his boasted astronomy, knows so little of them, 
 from any power of observation, that the baseless 
 argument of his, on which we have dwelt so long, 
 is overborne in the light of all that positive evi- 
 dence which God has poured around the record 
 of his own testimony, and even in the light of its 
 more obscure and casual intimations. 
 
119 
 
 The minute and variegated details of the way 
 in which this wondrous economy is extended, 
 God has chosen to withhold from us ; but he has 
 oftener than once made to us a broad and a gene- 
 ral announcement of its dignity. He does not tell 
 us whether the fountain opened in the house of 
 Judah, for sin and for uncleanness, send forth its 
 healing streams to other worlds than our own. 
 He does not tell us the extent of the atonement. 
 But he tells us that the atonement itself, known 
 as it is among the myriads of the celestial, forms 
 the high song of eternity ; that the Lamb who was 
 slain, is surrounded by the acclamations of one 
 wide and universal empire; that the might of his 
 wondrous achievements, spreads a tide of gratu- 
 lation over the multitudes who are about his 
 throne ; and that there never ceases to ascend 
 from the worshippers of him who washed us from 
 our sins in his blood, a voice loud as from numbers 
 without number, sweet as from blessed voices 
 uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and loud 
 hosannas fill the eternal regions. 
 
 " And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many 
 angels round about the throne, and the number of 
 them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
 thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 
 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive 
 power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 
 glory, and honour, and blessing. And every crea- 
 ture which is in heaven, and OD the earth? and 
 
120 
 
 under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and 
 all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and 
 honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that 
 sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 A king might have the whole of his reign 
 crowded with the enterprises of glory ; and by the 
 might of his arms, and the wisdom of his counsels 
 might win the first reputation among the poten- 
 tates of the world ; and be idolized throughout all 
 his provinces, for the wealth and the security that 
 he had spread around them and still it is con- 
 ceivable, that by the act of a single day in behalf 
 of a single family ; by some soothing visitation of 
 tenderness to a poor and solitary cottage ; by 
 some deed of compassion, which conferred en- 
 largement and relief on one despairing sufferer; 
 by some graceful movement of sensibility at a tale 
 of wretchedness; by some noble effort of self- 
 denial, in virtue of which he subdued his every 
 purpose of revenge, and spread the mantle of a 
 generous oblivion over the fault of the man who 
 had insulted and aggrieved him ; above all, by an 
 exercise of pardon so skilfully administered, as 
 that instead of bringing him down to a state of 
 defencelessness against the provocation of future 
 injuries, it threw a deeper sacredness over him, 
 and stamped a more inviolable dignity than ever 
 on his person and character : why, my brethren, 
 on the strength of one such performance done in 
 
121 
 
 & single hour, and reaching no farther in its im- 
 mediate effects than to one house, or to one indi- 
 vidual, it is a most possible thing, that the highest 
 monarch upon earth might draw such a lustre 
 around him as would eclipse the renown of all his 
 public achievements and that such a display of 
 magnanimity, or of worth, beaming from the 
 secrecy of his familiar moments, might waken a 
 more cordial veneration in every bosom, than all 
 the splendour of his conspicuous history aye, and 
 that it might pass down to posterity, as a more en- 
 during monument of greatness, and raise him fur- 
 ther by its moral elevation above the level of or- 
 dinary praise ; and when he passes in review be- 
 fore the men of distant ages, may this deed of 
 modest, gentle, unobtrusive virtue, be at all times 
 appealed to, as the most sublime and touching 
 memorial of his name. 
 
 In like manner, did the King eternal, immortal, 
 and invisible, surrounded as he is with the splen- 
 dours of a wide and everlasting monarchy, turn 
 him to our humble habitation ; and the footsteps 
 of God manifest in the flesh, have been on the 
 narrow spot of ground we occupy ; and small 
 though our mansion be, amid the orbs and the sys- 
 tems cf immensity, hither hath the King of glory 
 bent his mysterious way, and entered the taber- 
 nacle of men, and in the disguise of a servant did 
 he sojourn for years under the roof which cano- 
 pies our obscure and solitary world. Yes ? it is 
 
122 
 
 but a twinkling atom in the peopled infinity of 
 worlds that are around it but look to the moral 
 grandeur of the transaction, and not to the mate- 
 rial extent of the field upon which it was executed 
 and from the retirement of our dwelling-place, 
 there may issue forth such a display of the God- 
 head, as will circulate the glories of his name 
 amongst all his worshippers. Here sin entered. 
 Here was the kind and universal benificence of a 
 Father, repaid by the ingratitude of a whole 
 family. Here the law of God was dishonoured, and 
 that too in the face of its proclaimed and unal- 
 terable sanctions. Here the mighty contest of 
 the attributes was ended and when justice put 
 forth its demands, and truth called for the fulfil- 
 ment of its warnings, and the immutability of God 
 would not recede by a single iota, from any one 
 of its positions, and all the severities he had ever 
 uttered against the children of iniquity, seemed to 
 gather into one cloud of threatening vengeance 
 on the tenement that held us did the visit of the 
 only-begotten Son chase away all these obstacles 
 to the triumph of mercy and humble as the 
 tenement may be, deeply shaded in the obscurity 
 of insignificance as it is, among the statelier man- 
 sions which are on every side of it yet will the 
 recal of its exiled family never be forgotten and 
 the illustration that has been given here, of the 
 mingled grace and majesty of God, will never lose 
 its place among the themes and the acclamations 
 of eternity. 
 

 123 
 
 X 
 
 And here it may be remarked, that as the 
 
 earthly king who throws a moral aggrandizement 
 around him, by the act of a single day, finds, that 
 after its performance, he may have the space of 
 many years for gathering to himself the triumphs 
 of an extended reign so the King who sits on 
 high, and with whom one day is as a thousand 
 years, and a thousand years as one clay, will find, 
 that after the period of that special administration 
 is ended, by which this strayed world is again 
 brought back within the limits of his favoured 
 creation, there is room enough along the mighty 
 track of eternity, for accumulating upon himself a 
 glory as wide and as universal as is the extent of 
 his dominions. You will allow the most illustrious 
 of this world's potentates, to give some hour of 
 his private history to a deed of cottage or of do- 
 mestic tenderness; and every time you think of 
 the interesting story, you will feel how sweetly 
 and how gracefully the remembrance of it blends 
 itself with the fame of his public achievements. 
 But still you think that there would not have been 
 room enough for these achievements of his, had 
 much of his time been spent, either amongst the 
 habitations of the poor, or in the retirement of 
 his own family ; and you conceive, that it is be- 
 cause a single day bears so small a proportion to 
 the time of his whole history, that he has been 
 able to combine an interesting display of private 
 worth, with all that brilliancy of exhibition, which 
 
124 
 
 lias brought him down to posterity in the character 
 of an august and a mighty sovereign. 
 
 Now apply this to the matter before us. Had 
 the history of our redemption been confined within 
 the limits of a single day, the argument that Infi- 
 delity has drawn from the multitude of other 
 worlds, would never have been offered. It is 
 true, that ours is but an insignificant portion of the 
 territory of God but if the attentions by which 
 he has signalized it, had only taken up a single 
 day, this would never have occurred to us as 
 forming any sensible withdrawment of the mind of 
 the Deity from the concerns of his vast and uni- 
 versal government. It is the time which the plan 
 of our salvation requires, that startles all those on 
 whom this argument has any impression. It is the 
 time taken up about this paltry world, which they 
 feel to be out of proportion to the number of 
 other worlds, and to the immensity of the sur- 
 rounding creation. Now, to meet this impression, 
 I do not insist at present on what I have already 
 brought forward, that God, whose ways are not 
 as our ways, can have his eye at the same instant 
 on every place, and can divide and diversify his 
 attention into any number of distinct exercises. 
 What I have now to remark, is, that the Infidel 
 who urges the astronomical objection to the truth 
 of Christianity, is only looking with half an eye 
 to the principle on which it rests. Carry out the 
 
125 
 
 principle, and the objection vanishes. He looks 
 abroad on the immensity of space, and tells us 
 how impossible it is, that this narrow corner of it 
 can be so distinguished by the attentions of the 
 Deity. Why does he not also look abroad on the 
 magnificence of eternity ; and perceive how the 
 whole period of these peculiar attentions, how the 
 whole time which elapses between the fall of man 
 and the consummation of the scheme of his re- 
 covery, is but the twinkling of a moment to the 
 mighty roll of innumerable ages ? The whole 
 interval between the time of Jesus Christ's leaving 
 his Father's abode, to sojourn amongst us, to that 
 time when he shall have put all his enemies under 
 his feet, and delivered up the kingdom to God, 
 even his Father, that God may be all in all ; the 
 whole of this interval bears as small a proportion* 
 to the whole of the Almighty's reign, as this so- 
 litary world does to the universe around it, and an 
 infinitely smaller proportion than any time, how- 
 ever short, which an earthly monarch spends on 
 some enterprise of private benevolence, does to 
 the whole walk of his public and recorded history. 
 
 Why then does not the man, who can shoot his 
 conceptions so sublimely abroad over the field of 
 an immensity that knows no limits why does he. 
 not also shoot them forward through the vista of a 
 succession, that ever flows without stop and with- 
 out termination ? He has burst across the confines 
 of this world's habitation in space, and out of the 
 
326 
 
 field which lies on the other side of it, has he 
 gathered an argument against the truth of revela- 
 tion. I feel that I have nothing to do but to burst 
 across the confines of this world's history in time, 
 and out of the futurity which lies beyond it, can I 
 gather that which will blow the argument to 
 pieces, or stamp upon it all the narrowness of a 
 partial and mistaken calculation. The day is 
 coming, when the whole of this wondrous history 
 shall be looked back upon by the eye of remem- 
 brance, and be regarded as one incident in the 
 extended annals of creation, and with all the illus- 
 tration and all the glory it has thrown on the cha- 
 racter of the Deity, will it be seen as a single step 
 In the evolution of his designs ; and long as the 
 time may appear, from the first act of our redemp- 
 tion to its final accomplishment, and close and ex- 
 clusive as we may think the attentions of God 
 upon it, it will be found that it has left him room 
 enough for all his concerns, and that on the high 
 acale of eternity, it is but one of those passing 
 and ephemeral transactions, which crowd the his- 
 tory of a never-ending administration. 
 
DISCOURSE V. 
 
 ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN IN THE 
 TANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 a I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over onf 
 sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
 persons which need no repentance. 77 LUKE xv. 7. 
 
 I HAVE already attempted at full length to esta- 
 blish the position, that the infidel argument of as- 
 tronomers goes to expunge a natural perfection 
 from the character of God, even that wondrous 
 property of his, by which he, at the same instant 
 of time, can bend a close and a careful attention 
 on a countless diversity of objects, and diffuse the 
 intimacy of his power and of his presence, from 
 the greatest to the minutest and most insignificant 
 of them all. I also adverted shortly to this other 
 circumstance, that it went to impair a moral at- 
 tribute of the Deity. It goes to impair the bene- 
 volence of his nature. It is saying much for the 
 benevolence of God, to say, that a single world, or 
 a single system, is not enough for it that it must 
 
have the spread of a mightier region, on which it 
 may pour forth a tide of exuberancy throughout all 
 its provinces that as far as our vision can carry us, 
 it has strewed immensity with the floating recep- 
 tacles of life, and has stretched over each of them 
 the garniture of such a sky as mantles our own 
 habitation and that even from distances which 
 are far beyond the reach of human eye, the songs of 
 gratitude and praise may now be arising to the 
 one God, who sits surrounded by the regards of 
 his one great and universal family. 
 
 Now it is saying much for the benevolence of 
 God, to say that it sends forth these wide and dis- 
 tant emanations over the surface of a territory so 
 ample, that the world we inhabit, lying imbedded 
 as it does amidst so much surrounding greatness, 
 shrinks into a point that to the universal eye might 
 appear to be almost imperceptible. But does it 
 aot add to the power and to the perfection of this 
 universal eye, that at the very moment it is taking 
 a comprehensive survey of the vast, it can fasten 
 a steady and undistracted attention on each mi- 
 nute and separate portion of it ; that at the very 
 moment it is looking at all worlds, it can look most 
 pointedly and most intelligently to each of them ? 
 that at the very moment it sweeps the field of im- 
 mensity, it can settle all the earnestness of its re- 
 gards upon every distinct hand-breadth of that 
 field; that at the very moment at which it em- 
 braces the totality of existence, it can send a most 
 
129 
 
 thorough and penetrating inspection into each of 
 its details, and into every one of its endless 
 diversities? You cannot fail to perceive how 
 much this adds to the power of the all-seeing eye. 
 Tell me then, if it do not add as much perfection 
 to the benevolence of God, that while it is ex- 
 patiating over the vast field of created things, 
 there is not one portion of the field overlooked by 
 it ; that while it scatters blessings over the whole 
 of an infinite range, it causes them to descend in 
 a shower of plenty on every separate habitation ; 
 that while his arm is underneath and round about 
 all worlds, he enters within the precincts of every 
 one of them, and gives a care and a tenderness to 
 each individual of their teeming population. Oh ! 
 does not the God, who is said to be love, shed 
 over this attribute of his its finest illustration, 
 when, while he sits in the highest heaven, and 
 pours out his fulness on the whole subordinate do- 
 main of nature and of providence, he bows a 
 pitying regard on the very humblest of his children, 
 and sends his reviving Spirit into every heart, and 
 cheers by his presence every home, and provider 
 for the wants of every family, and watches every 
 sick-bed, and listens to the complaints of every 
 sufferer; and while, by his wondrous mind the 
 weight of universal government is borne, oh ! is if 
 not more wondrous and more excellent still, that 
 he feels for every sorrow, and has an ear open to 
 every prayer? 
 
 R 
 
130 
 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be," 
 says the apostfe John, " but we know that when 
 he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall 
 see him as he is." It is the present lot of the 
 angels, that they behold the face of our Father in 
 heaven, and it would seem as if the effect of this 
 was to form and to perpetuate in them the moral 
 likeness of himself, and that they reflect back 
 upon him his own image, and that thus a diffused 
 resemblance to the Godhead is kept up amongst 
 all those adoring worshippers who live in the near 
 and rejoicing contemplation of the Godhead. 
 Mark then how that peculiar and endearing fea- 
 ture in the goodness of the Deity, which we have 
 just now adverted to mark how beauteously it is 
 reflected downwards upon us in the revealed atti- 
 tude of angels. From the high eminences of 
 heaven, are they bending a wakeful regard over 
 the men of this sinful world ; and the repentance 
 of every one of them spreads a joy and a high 
 gratulation throughout all its dwelling places. 
 Put this trait of the angelic character into contrast 
 with the dark and louring spirit of an infidel. He 
 is told of the multitude of other worlds, and he 
 feels a kindling magnificence in the conception, 
 and he is seduced by an elevation which he cannot 
 carry, and from this airy summit does he look 
 down on the insignificance of the world we occupy, 
 and pronounces it to be unworthy of those visits 
 and of those attentions which we read of in the 
 
131 
 
 New Testament. He is unable to wing his up- 
 ward way along the scale, either of moral or of 
 natural perfection ; and when the wonderful ex- 
 tent of the field is made known to him, over which 
 the wealth of the Divinity is lavished there he 
 stops, and wilders, and altogether misses this es- 
 sential perception, that the power and perfection 
 of the Divinity are not more displayed by the mere 
 magnitude of the field, than they are by that mi- 
 nute and exquisite filling up, which leaves not its 
 smallest portions neglected; but which imprints 
 the fulness of the Godhead upon every one of 
 them; and proves, by every flower of the pathless 
 desert, as well as by every orb of immensity, how 
 this unsearchable Being can care for all, and pro- 
 vide for all, and throned in mystery too high for 
 us, can, throughout every instant of time, keep 
 his attentive eye on every separate thing that he 
 has formed, and by an act of his thoughtful and 
 presiding intelligence, can constantly embrace all 
 
 But God, compassed about as he is with light 
 inaccessible, and full of glory, lies so hidden from 
 the ken and conception of all our faculties, that 
 the spirit of man sinks exhausted by its attempts 
 to comprehend him. Could the image of the Su- 
 preme be placed direct before the eye of the 
 mind, that flood of splendour, which is ever is- 
 suing from him on all who have the privilege of 
 beholding, would not only dazzle, but overpower 
 us. And, therefore it is, that I bid you look to 
 
132 
 
 the rejection of that image, and thus to take a 
 view of its mitigated glories, and to gather the 
 lineaments of the Godhead in the face of those 
 righteous angels, who have never thrown away 
 from them the resemblance in which they were 
 created; and, unable as you are to support the 
 grace and the majesty of that countenance, before 
 which the sons and the prophets of other days 
 fell, and became as dead men, let us, before we 
 bring this argument to a close, borrow one lesson 
 of him who sitteth on the throne, from the aspect 
 and the revealed doings of those who are surround- 
 ing it. 
 
 The infidel, then, as he widens the field of his 
 contemplations, would suffer its every separate 
 object to die away into forgetfulness : these angels, 
 expatiating as they do over the range of a loftier 
 universality, are represented as all awake to the 
 history of each of its distinct and subordinate pro- 
 vinces. The infidel, with his mind afloat among 
 suns and among systems, can find no place in his 
 already occupied regards, for that humble planet 
 which lodges and accommodates our species : the 
 angels, standing on a loftier summit, and with a 
 mightier prospect of creation before them, are yefc 
 represented as looking down on this single world, 
 and attentively marking the every feeling and the 
 every demand of all its families. The infidel, by 
 sinking us down to an unnoticeable minuteness, 
 would lose sight of our dwelling-place altogether. 
 
133 
 
 and spread a darkening shroud of oblivion over 
 all the concerns and all the interests of men ; but 
 the angels will not so abandon us ; and undazzled 
 by the whole surpassing grandeur of that scenery 
 which is around them, are they revealed as direct- 
 ing all the fulness of their regard to this our habi- 
 tation, and casting a longing and a benignant eye 
 on ourselves and on our children. The infidel 
 will tell us of those worlds which roll afar, and 
 the number of which outstrips the arithmetic of 
 the human understanding and then with the 
 hardness of an unfeeling calculation, will he con- 
 sign the one we occupy, with all its guilty genera- 
 tions, to despair. But he who counts the number 
 of the stars, is set forth to us as looking at every 
 inhabitant among the millions of our species, and 
 by the word of the Gospel beckoning to him with 
 the hand of invitation, and on the very first step 
 of his return, as moving towards him with all the 
 eagerness of the prodigal's father, to receive him 
 back again into that presence from which he had 
 wandered. And as to this world, in favour of 
 which the scowling infidel'will not permit one soli- 
 tary movement, all heaven is represented as in a 
 stir about its restoration ; and there cannot a sin- 
 gle son or a single daughter be recalled from sia 
 unto righteousness, without an acclamation of joy 
 amongst the hosts of Paradise. Aye, and I can 
 say it of the humblest and the unworthiest of you 
 all, that the eye of angels is upon him, arid that 
 his repentance would at this moment, send forth a 
 
134 
 
 wave of delighted sensibility throughout the mighty 
 throng of their innumerable legions. 
 
 Now, the single question I have to ask, is, On 
 which of the two sides of this contrast do we see 
 most of the impress of heaven ? Which of the two 
 would be most glorifying to God ? Which of them 
 carries upon it most of that evidence which lies in 
 its having a celestial character ? For if it be the 
 side of the infidel, then must all our hopes expire 
 with the ratifying of that fatal sentence, by which 
 the world is doomed, through its insignificancy, to 
 perpetual exclusion from the attentions of the 
 Godhead. I have long been knocking at the door 
 of your understanding, and have tried to find an 
 admittance to it for many an argument. I now 
 make my appeal to the sensibilities of your heart; 
 and tell me, to whom does the moral feeling within 
 it yield its readiest testimony to the infidel, who 
 would make this world of ours vanish away 
 into abandonment or to those angels, who ring 
 throughout all their mansions the hosannas of joy, 
 over every one individual of its repentant popu- 
 lation ? 
 
 And here I cannot omit to take advantage of 
 that opening with which our Saviour has furnish- 
 ed us, by the parables of this chapter, and admits 
 us into a familiar view of that principle on which 
 the inhabitants of heaven are so awake to the de- 
 liverance and the restoration of our species. To 
 
illustrate the difference in the reach of knowledge 
 and of affection, between a man and an angel, let 
 us think of the difference of reach between one 
 man and another. You may often witness a man* 
 who feels neither tenderness nor care beyond the 
 precincts of his own family ; but who, on the 
 strength of those instinctive fondnesses which na- 
 ture has implanted in his bosom, may earn the 
 character of an amiable father, or a kind husband, 
 or a bright example of all that is soft and endear- 
 ing in the relations of domestic society. Now, 
 conceive him, in addition to aM this, to carry his 
 affections abroad, without, at the same time, any 
 abatement of their intensity towards the objects 
 which are at home that, stepping across the 
 limits of the house he occupies, he takes an in- 
 terest in the families which are Eear him that he 
 lends his services to the town or the district 
 wherein he is placed, arid gives up a portion of his 
 time to the thoughtful labours of a humane and 
 public-spirited citizen. By this enlargement in the 
 sphere of his attention he has extended his reach ; 
 and, provided he has not done so at the expense 
 of that regard which is due to his family a thing 
 which, cramped and confined as we are, we are 
 very apt, in the exercise of our humble faculties, 
 to do I put it to you, whether, by extending the 
 reach of his views and his affections, he h-is not 
 extended his worth and his moral respectability 
 along with it ? 
 
136 
 
 But I can conceive a still further enlargement. 
 I can figure to myself a man, whose wakeful sym- 
 pathy overflows the field of his own immediate 
 neighbourhood to whom the name of country 
 comes with all the omnipotence of a charm upon 
 his heart, and with all the urgency of a most 
 righteous and resistless claim upon his services 
 who never hears the name of Britain sounded in 
 his ears, but it stirs up all his enthusiasm in be- 
 half of the worth and the welfare of its people 
 who gives himself up, with all the devotedness of 
 a passion, to the best and the purest objects of 
 patriotism and who, spurning away from him the 
 vulgarities of parly ambition, separates his life and 
 his labours to the fine pursuit of augmenting the 
 science, or the virtue, or the substantial prosperity 
 of his nation. Oh ! could such a man retain all 
 the tenderness, and fulfil all the duties which home 
 and which neighbourhood require of him, and at 
 the same time expatiate, in the might of his un- 
 tired faculties, on so wide a field of benevolent 
 contemplation would not this extension of reach 
 place him still higher than before, on the scale 
 both of moral and intellectual gradation, and give 
 him a still brighter and more enduring name in 
 the records of human excellence ? 
 
 And, lastly, I can conceive a still loftier flight of 
 humanity a man, the aspiring of whose heart for 
 the good of man, knows no limitations whose 
 
137 
 
 longings, and whose conceptions on this subject, 
 overleap all the barriers of geography who, look- 
 ing on himself as a brother of the species, links 
 every spare energy which belongs to him with the 
 cause of its melioration who can embrace with- 
 in the grasp of his ample desires the whole family 
 of mankind and who, in obedience to a heaven- 
 born movement of principle within him, separates 
 himself to some big and busy enterprise, which is 
 to tell on the moral destinies of the world. Oh ! 
 could such a man mix up the softenings of private 
 virtue with the habit of so sublime a comprehen- 
 sion if, amid those magnificent darings of thought 
 and of performance, the mildness of his benign- 
 ant eye could still continue to cheer the retreat 
 of his family, and to spread the charm and the 
 sacredness of piety among all its members 
 could he even mingle himself, in all the gentleness 
 >f a soothed and a smiling heart, with the playful- 
 ness of his children and also find strength to 
 shed the blessings of his presence and his counsel 
 over the vicinity around him ; oh ! would not the 
 combination of so much grace with so much lofti- 
 ness, only serve the more to aggrandize him? 
 Would not the one ingredient of a character so 
 rare, go to illustrate and to magnify the other ? 
 And would not you pronounce him to be the fair-* 
 est specimen of our nature, who could so call out 
 all your tenderness, while he challenged and com- 
 pelled all your veneration? 
 
138 
 
 Nor can I proceed, at this point of* my argument, 
 without adverting to the way in which this last 
 and this largest style of benevolence is exempli- 
 fied in our own country where the spirit of the 
 Gospel has given to many of its enlightened dis- 
 ciples the impulse of such a philanthropy, as car- 
 ries abroad their wishes and their endeavours to 
 the very outskirts of human population a philan- 
 thropy, of which, if you asked the extent or the 
 boundary of its field, we should answer, in the 
 language of inspiration, that the field is the world 
 a philanthropy, which overlooks all the distinc- 
 tions of cast and of colour, and spreads its ample 
 regards over the whole brotherhood of the spe- 
 cies a philanthropy, which attaches itself to 
 man in the general ; to man throughout all his 
 varieties ; to man as the partaker of one common 
 nature, and who, in whatever clime or latitude 
 you may meet with him, is found to breathe the 
 same sympathies, and to possess the same high 
 capabilities both of bliss and of improvement. It 
 is true that, upon this subject, there is often a 
 loose and unsettled magnificence of thought, which 
 is*fruitful of nothing but empty speculation. But. 
 the men to whom I allude have not imaged the en- 
 terprise in the form of a thing unknown. They 
 have given it a local habitation. They have 
 bodied it forth in deed and in accomplishment. 
 They have turned the dream into a reality. In 
 them, the power of a lofty generalization meete 
 
139 
 
 with its happiest attemperment in the principle and 
 perseverance, and all the chastening* and subdu- 
 ing virtues of the New Testament. And, were I 
 in search of that fine union of grace and of great- 
 ness which I have now been insisting on, and in 
 virtqe of which the enlightened Christian can at 
 once find room in his bosom for the concerns of 
 universal humanity, and for the play of kindliness 
 towards every individual he meets with I could 
 no where more readily expect to find it, than with 
 the worthies of our own land the Howard of a 
 former generation, who paced it over Europe in 
 quest of the unseen wretchedness which abounds 
 in it or in such men of our present generation 
 as Wilberforce, who lifted his unwearied voice 
 against the biggest outrage ever practised on our 
 nature, till he wrought its extermination and 
 Clarkson, who plied his assiduous task at rearing 
 the materials of its impressive history, and at length 
 carried, for this righteous cause, the mind of Par- 
 liament and Carey, from whose hand the genera- 
 tions of the East are now receiving the elements 
 of their moral renovation and, in fine, those holy 
 and devoted men, who count not their lives dear 
 unto them ; but,, going forth every year from the 
 island of our habitation, carry the message of 
 heaven over the face of the world; and in the 
 front of severest obloquy are now labouring in 
 remotest lands ; and are reclaiming another and 
 another portion from the wastes of dark and fallen 
 liumanity ; and are widening the domains of gos- 
 
140 
 
 pel light and gospel principle amongst them ; and 
 are spreading a moral beauty around the every 
 spot on which they pitch their lowly tabernacle; 
 and are at length compelling even the eye and the 
 testimony of gainsayers, by the success of their 
 noble enterprise ; and are forcing the exclamation 
 of delighted surprise from the charmed and the 
 arrested traveller, as he looks at the softening tints 
 which they are now spreading over the wilderness, 
 and as he hears the sound of the chapel bell, and 
 as in those haunts where, at the distance of half 
 a generation, savages would have scowled upon 
 his path, he regales himself with the hum of mis- 
 sionary schools, and the lovely spectacle of peace- 
 ful and Christian villages. 
 
 Such, then, is the benevolence, at once so gen- 
 tle and so lofty, of those men, who, sanctified by 
 the faith that is in Jesus, have had their hearts 
 visited from heaven by a beam of warmth and of 
 sacred ness. What, then, I should like to know, 
 is the benevolence of the place from whence such 
 an influence cometh ? How wide is the compass of 
 this virtue there, and how exquisite is the feeling 
 of its tenderness, and how pure and how fervent 
 are its aspirings among those unfallen beings who 
 have no darkness, and no encumbering weight of 
 corruption to strive against ! Angels have a 
 mightier reach of contemplation. Angels can 
 look upon this world, and all which it inherits, as 
 the part of a larger family. Angels were In the 
 
141 
 
 'full exercise of their powers even at the first in- 
 fancy of our species, and shared in the gratula- 
 tions of that period, when at the birth of humanity 
 all intelligent nature felt a gladdening impulse, 
 and the morning stars sang together for joy. 
 They loved us even with the love which a family 
 on earth bears to a younger sister; and the very 
 childhood of our tinier faculties did only serve the 
 more to endear us to them ; and though born at a 
 later hour in the history of creation, did they re- 
 gard us as heirs of the same destiny with them- 
 selves, to rise along with them iji the scale of 
 moral elevation, to bow at the same footstool, and 
 to partake in those high dispensations of a pa- 
 rent's kindness and a parent's care, which are ever 
 emanating from the throne of the Eternal on all 
 the members of a duteous and affectionate family. 
 Take the reach of an angel's mind, but, at the 
 same time, take the seraphic fervour of an angel's 
 benevolence along with it; how, from the emi- 
 nence on which he stands he may have an eye 
 upon many worlds, and a remembrance upon the 
 origin arid the successive concerns of every one 
 of them ; how he may feel the full force of a most 
 affecting relationship with the habitants of each, 
 as the offspring of one common Father; and 
 though it be both the effect and the evidence of 
 our depravity, that we cannot sympathize with 
 these pure and generous ardours of a celestial 
 spirit ; how it may consist with the lofty compre- 
 hension, and the ever-breathing love of an angel* 
 
142 
 
 that he can both shoot his benevolence abroad 
 over a mighty expanse of planets and of systems, 
 and lavish a flqod of tenderness on each individual 
 of their teeming population. 
 
 Keep all this in view, and you cannot fail to 
 perceive how the principle, so finely and so co- 
 piously illustrated in this chapter, may be brought 
 to meet the infidelity we have thus long been em- 
 ployed in combating. It was nature, and the ex- 
 perience of every bosom will affirm it- it was na- 
 ture in the shepherd to leave the ninety and nine 
 of his flock forgotten and alone in the wilderness, 
 and betaking himself to the mountains, to give all 
 his labour and all his concern to the pursuit of one 
 solitary wanderer. It was nature; and we are 
 told in the passage before us, that it is such a 
 portion of nature as belongs not merely to men, 
 but to angels ; when the woman, with her mind in 
 a state of listlessness as to the nine pieces of silver 
 that were in secure custody, turned the whole 
 force of her anxiety to the one piece which she 
 had lost, and for which she had to light a candle,, 
 and to sweep the house, and to search diligently 
 until ehe found it. It was nature in her to rejoice 
 more over that piece, than over all the rest of 
 them, and to tell it abroad among friends and 
 neighbours, that they might rejoice along with 
 her aye, and sadly effaced as humanity is, in all 
 her original lineaments, this is a part of our na- 
 ture, the very movements of which are experi- 
 
143 
 
 enced in heaven, " where there is more joy over 
 one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and 
 nine just persons who need no repentance." For 
 any thing I know, the every planet that rolls in 
 the immensity around me, may be a land of 
 righteousness ; and be a member of the household 
 of God ; and have her secure dwelling-place 
 within that ample limit, which embraces his great 
 and universal family. But I know at least of one 
 wanderer ; and how wofully she has strayed from 
 peace and from purity ; and how in dreary alien- 
 ation from him who made her, she has bewildered 
 herself amongst those many devious tracts, which 
 have carried her afar from the path of immor- 
 tality ; and how sadly tarnished all those beauties 
 and felicities are, which promised, on that morn- 
 ing of her existence when God looked on her, and 
 saw that all was very good which promised so 
 richly to bless and to adorn her ; and how in the 
 eye of the whole unfallen creation, she has re- 
 nounced all this goodliness, and is fast departing 
 away from them into guilt, and wretchedness, and 
 shame. Oh ! if there be any trath in this chapter, 
 and any sweet or touching nature in the principle 
 which runs throughout all its parables, let us cease 
 to wonder, though they who surround the throne 
 of love should be looking so intently towards us 
 or though, in the way by which they have singled 
 us out, all the other orbs of space should, for one 
 short season, on the scale of eternity, appear to 
 be forgotten or though, for every step of her re* 
 
144 
 
 covery, and for every individual who is rendered 
 back again to the fold from which he was separated: 
 another and another message of triumph should 
 be made to circulate amongst the hosts of pa- 
 radise or though, lost as we are, and sunk in de- 
 pravity as we are, all the sympathies of heaven 
 should now be awake on the enterprise of him 
 who has travailed, in the greatness of his strength, 
 to seek and to save us. 
 
 And here I cannot but remark how fine a 
 harmony there is between the law of sympathetic 
 nature in heaven, arid the most touching exhi- 
 bitions of it on the face of our world. When one 
 of a numerous household droops under the power 
 of disease, is not that the one to whom all the 
 tenderness is turned, and who, in a manner, mono- 
 polizes the inquiries of his neighbourhood, and 
 the care of his family ? When the sighing of the 
 midnight storm sends a dismal foreboding into the 
 mother's heart, to whom of all her offspring, I 
 would ask, are her thoughts and her anxieties 
 then wandering ? Is it not to her sailor boy whom 
 her fancy has placed amid the rude and angry 
 surges of the ocean ? Does not this, the hour of 
 his apprehended danger, concentrate upon him 
 the whole force of her wakeful meditations ? And 
 does not he engross, for a season, her every sen- 
 sibility, and her every prayer? We sometimes 
 hear of shipwrecked passengers thrown upon a 
 barbarous shore ; and seized upon by its prowling 
 
145 
 
 inhabitants ; and hurried away through the tracks 
 of a dreary and unknown wilderness ; and sold 
 into captivity; and loaded with the fetters of irre- 
 coverable bondage; and who, stripped of every 
 other liberty but the liberty of thought, feel even 
 this to be another ingredient of wretchedness, for 
 what can they think of but home, and as all its 
 kind and tender imagery comes upon their re- 
 membrance, how can they think of it but in the 
 bitterness of despair ? Oh tell me when the fame 
 of all this disaster reaches his family, who is the 
 member of it to whom is directed the full tide of 
 its griefs and of its sympathies ? Who is it that, 
 for weeks and for months, usurps their every feel- 
 ing, and calls out their largest sacrifices, and sets 
 them to the busiest expedients for getting him 
 back again? Who is it that makes them forgetful 
 of themselves and of all around them ; and tell 
 me if you can assign a limit to the pains, and the 
 exertions, and the surrenders which afflicted pa- 
 rents and weeping sisters would make to seek and 
 to save him? 
 
 Now conceive, as we are warranted to do by 
 the parables of this chapter, the principle of all 
 these earthly exhibitions to be in full operation 
 around the throne of God. Conceive the uni- 
 verse to be one secure and rejoicing family, and 
 that this alienated world is the only strayed, or 
 only captive member belonging to it; and we 
 shall cease to wonder, that from the first period of 
 
U6 
 
 the captivity of our species, down to the consum* 
 mation of their history in time, there should be 
 such a movement in heaven; or that angels should 
 so often have sped their commissioned way on the 
 errand of our recovery; or that the Son of God 
 should have bowed himself down to the burden 
 of our mysterious atonement; or that the Spirit 
 of God should now, by the busy variety of his all- 
 powerful influences, be carrying forward that dis- 
 pensation of grace which is to make us meet for 
 re-admittance into the mansions of the celestial. 
 Only think of love as the reigning principle there ; 
 of love, as sending forth its energies and aspira- 
 tions to the quarter where its object is most in 
 danger of being for ever lost to it ; of love, as 
 called forth by this single circumstance to its ut- 
 termost exertion, and the most exquisite feeling of 
 its tenderness ; and then shall we come to a dis- 
 tinct and familiar explanation of this whole mys- 
 tery: Nor shall we resist by our incredulity the 
 gospel message any longer, though it tells us that 
 throughout the whole of this world's history, long 
 in our eyes, but only a little month in the high 
 periods of immortality, so much of the vigilance, 
 and so much of the earnestness of heaven, should 
 have been expended on the recovery of its guilty 
 population. 
 
 There is another touching f rait of nature, which 
 goes finely to heighten this principle, and still 
 more forcibly to demonstrate its application to oir. 
 
147 
 
 present argument. So long as the dying child of 
 David was alive, he was kept on the stretch of 
 anxiety and of suffering with regard to it. When 
 it expired, he arose and comforted himself. This 
 narrative of King David is in harmony with all that 
 \ve experience of our own movements and our 
 own sensibilities. It is the power of uncertainty 
 which gives them so active and so interesting a 
 play in our bosoms ; and which heightens all our 
 regards to a tenfold pitch of feeling and of exer- 
 cise ; and which fixes down our watchfulness upon 
 our infant's dying bed; and which keeps us so 
 painfully alive to every turn and to every symp- 
 tom in the progress of its malady; and which 
 draws out all our affections for it to a degree of 
 intensity that is quite unutterable ; and which 
 urges us on to ply our every effort and our every 
 expedient, till hope withdraw its lingering beam, 
 or till death shut the eyes of our beloved in the 
 slumber of its long and its last repose. 
 
 I know not who of you have your names written 
 in the book of life nor can I tell if this be known 
 to the angels which are in heaven. While in the 
 land of living men, you are under the power and 
 application of a remedy, which, if taken as the 
 gospel prescribes, will renovate the soul, and 
 altogether prepare it for the bloom and the vigour 
 of immortality. Wonder not then that with this 
 principle of uncertainty in such full operation, 
 ministers should feel for you ; or angels should 
 
148 
 
 feel for you; or all the sensibilitas of heaven 
 should be awake upon the symptoms of your grace 
 and reformation -, or the eyes of those who stand 
 upon the high eminences of the celestial world, 
 should be so earnestly fixed on the every footstep 
 and new evolution of your moral history. Such 
 a consideration as this should do something more 
 than silence the infidel objection. It should give 
 a practical effect to the calls of repentance. 
 How will it go to aggravate the whole guilt of our 
 impenitency, should we stand out against the 
 power and the tenderness of these manifold appli- 
 cations the voice of a beseeching God upon us 
 the word of salvation at our very door the free 
 offer of strength and of acceptance sounded in 
 our hearing the Spirit in readiness with his 
 agency to meet our every desire and our every 
 inquiry angels beckoning us to their company 
 and the very first movements of our awakened 
 conscience drawing upon us all their regards and 
 all their earnestness! 
 
DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 THE CONTEST FOB AN ASCENDENCY OVER MAN, 
 THE HIGHER ORDERS OF INTELLIGENCE 
 
 ft And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show 
 of them openly, triumphing over them in it." COL. ii. 15. 
 
 THOUGH these Astronomical Discourses be now 
 drawing to a close, it is not because I feel that 
 much more might not be said on the subject of 
 them, both in the way of argument arid of illustra- 
 tion. The whole of the infidel difficulty proceeds 
 upon the assumption, that the exclusive bearing 
 of Christianity is upon the people of our earth; 
 that this solitary planet is in no way implicated with 
 the concerns of a wider dispensation; that the 
 revelation we have of the dealings of God, in this 
 district of his empire, does not suit and subordi- 
 nate itself to a system of moral administration, as 
 extended as is the whole of his monarchy. Or, 
 in other words, because infidels have not access 
 to the whole truth, will they refuse a part of it> 
 
150 
 
 however well attested or well accredited it may 
 be ; because a mantle of deep obscurity rests on 
 the government of God, when taken in all its 
 eternity and all its entireness, will they shut their 
 eyes against that allowance 'of light which has been 
 made to pass downwards upon our world from 
 time to time, through so many partial unfoldings ; 
 and till they are made to know the share which 
 other planets' have in these communications of 
 mercy, will they turn them away from the actual 
 message which has come to their own door, and 
 will neither examine its credentials, nor be alarm- 
 ed by its warnings, nor be won by the tenderness- 
 of its invitations. 
 
 On that day when the secrets of all hearts shall 
 be revealed, there will be found such a wilful du- 
 plicity and darkening of the mind in the whole of 
 this proceeding, as shall bring down upon it the 
 burden of a righteous condemnation. But, even 
 now, does it lid*open to the rebuke of philosophy, 
 when the soundness and the consistency of her 
 principles are brought faithfully to bear upon it. 
 Were the character of modern science rightly un- 
 derstood, it would be seen, that the very thing 
 which gave such strength and sureness to all her 
 conclusions, was that humility of spirit which be- 
 longed to her. She promulgates all that is posi- 
 tively known ; but she maintains the strictest si- 
 lence and modesty about all that is unknown. She 
 thankfully accepts of evidence wherever it can bo 
 
151 
 
 found ; nor does she spurn away from her the very 
 humblest contribution of such doctrine as can be 
 witnessed by human observation, or can be attest- 
 ed by human veracity. But with all this she can 
 hold out most sternly against that power of elo- 
 quence and fancy, which often throws so bewitch- 
 ing a charm over the plausibilities of ingenious 
 speculation. Truth is the alone idol of her re- 
 verence ; and did she at all times keep by her at- 
 tachments, nor throw them away when theology 
 submitted to her cognizance its demonstrations 
 arid its claims, we should not despair of witness- 
 ing as great a revolution in those prevailing ha- 
 bitudes of thought which obtain throughout our 
 literary establishments, on the subject of Chris- 
 tianity, as that which has actually taken place in 
 the philosophy of external nature. This is the 
 first field on which have been successfully prac- 
 tised the experimental lessons of Bacon ; and they 
 who are conversant with these matters, know how 
 great and how general a uniformity of doctrine 
 now prevails in the sciences of astronomy, and 
 mechanics, and chemistry, and almost all the other 
 departments in the history and philosophy of 
 matter. But this uniformity stands strikingly con- 
 trasted with the diversity of our moral systems^ 
 with the restless fluctuations both of language and 
 of sentiment which are taking place in the philo- 
 sophy of mind, with the palpable fact, that every 
 new course of instruction upon this subject, has 
 some new articles, or some new explanations tft 
 
peculiarize it : and all this is to be attributed, not 
 to the progress of the science, not to a growing, 
 but to an alternating movement ; not to its per- 
 petual additions, but to its perpetual vibrations. 
 
 I mean not to assert the futility of moral science, 
 or to deny her importance, or to insist on the utter 
 hopelessness of her advancement. The Baconian 
 method will not probably push forward her disco- 
 veries with such a rapidity, or to such an extent, 
 as many of her sanguine disciples have anti- 
 cipated. But if the spirit and the maxims of this 
 philosophy were at all times proceeded upon, it 
 would certainly check that rashness and variety 
 of excogitation, in virtue of which it may almost 
 be said, that every new course presents us with a 
 new system, and that every new teacher has some 
 singularity or other to characterize him. She may 
 be able to make out an exact transcript of the 
 phenomena of mind, and in so doing, she yields a 
 most important contribution to the stock of human 
 acquirements. But when she attempts to grope 
 her darkling way through the counsels of the 
 Deity, and the futurities of his administration; 
 when, without one passing acknowledgment to 
 the embassy which professes to have come from 
 him, or to the facts and to the testimonies by 
 which it has so illustriously been vindicated, she 
 launches forth her own speculations on the charac- 
 ter of God, and the destiny of man; when, though 
 this be a subject on which neither the reeoHecv 
 
153 
 
 tions of history, nor the ephemeral experience of 
 any single life, can furnish one observation to en- 
 lighten her, she will nevertheless utter her own 
 plausibilities, not merely with a contemptuous 
 neglect of the Bible, but in direct opposition 1o 
 it ; then it is high time to remind her of the dif- 
 ference between the rererie of him who has not 
 seen Gad, and the well-accredited declaration of 
 him who was in the beginning with God, and was 
 God ; and to tell her that this, so far from being 
 the argument of an ignoble fanaticism, is in 
 harmony with the very argument upon which the 
 science of experiment has been reared, and by 
 which it has been at length delivered from the in- 
 fluence of theory, and purified of all its vain and 
 visionary splendours. 
 
 In my last Discourses, I have attempted to col- 
 lect from the records of God's actual communica- 
 tion to the world, such traces of relationship be- 
 tween other orders of being and the great family 
 of mankind, as serve to prove that Christianity is 
 not so paltry and provincial a system as Infidelity 
 presumes it to be. And as I said before, I have 
 not exhausted all that may legitimately be derived 
 upon this subject from the informations of Scrip- 
 ture. I have adverted, it is true, to the knowledge 
 of our moral history, which obtains throughout 
 other provinces of the intelligent creation. I 
 have asserted the universal importance which this 
 copfer on thf transactions even of one planet, 
 u 
 
154 
 
 5n as much as it may spread an honourable dis- 
 play of the Godhead amongst all the mansions of 
 infinity. I have attempted to expatiate on the 
 argument, that an event little in itself, may be so 
 pregnant with character, as to furnish all the wor- 
 shippers of heaven with a theme of praise for 
 eternity. I have stated that nothing is of magni- 
 tude in their eyes, but that which serves to endear 
 to them the Father of their spirits, or to shed a 
 lustre over the glory of his incomprehensible at- 
 tributes and that thus, from the redemption even 
 of our solitary species, there may go forth such 
 an exhibition of the Deity, as shall bear the tri- 
 umphs of his name to the very outskirts of the 
 universe. 
 
 I have further adverted to another distinct 
 Scriptural intimation, that the state of fallen man 
 was not only matter of knowledge to other orders 
 of creation, but was also matter of deep regret 
 and affectionate sympathy; that, agreeably to 
 such laws of sympathy as are most familiar even 
 to human observation, the very wretchedness of 
 our condition was fitted to concentrate fcpon us the 
 feelings, and the attentions, and the services, of 
 the celestial to single us out for a time to the 
 gaze of their most earnest and unceasing contem- 
 plation to draw forth all that was kind and all 
 that was tender within them and just in propor- 
 tion to the need and to the helplessness of us> 
 miserable exiles from the family of God, to 
 
155 
 
 ply upon us the regards, and call out in our behalf 
 the fond and eager exertions of those who had 
 never wandered away from him. This appears 
 from the Bible to be the style of that benevolence 
 which glows and which circulates around the 
 throne of heaven. It is the very benevolence 
 which emanates from the throne itself, and the 
 attentions of which have for so many thousand 
 years signalized the inhabitants of our world. 
 This may look a long period for so paltry a world. 
 But how have Infidels come to their conception 
 that our world is so paltry? By looking abroad 
 over the countless systems of immensity. But 
 why then have they missed the conception, that 
 the time of those peculiar visitations, which they 
 look upon as so disproportionate to the magnitude 
 of this earth, is just as evanescent as the earth 
 itself is insignificant ? Why look they not abroad 
 on the countless generations of eternity ; and thus 
 come back to the conclusion, that after all, the 
 redemption of our species is but an ephemeral 
 doing in the history of intelligent nature ; that it 
 leaves the Author of it room for all the accom- 
 plishments of a wise and equal administration; 
 and not to mention, that even during the progress 
 of it, it withdraws not a single thought or a single 
 energy of his from other fields of creation, that 
 there remains time enough to him for carrying 
 round the visitations of as striking and as peculiar 
 a tenderness, over the whole extent of his great 
 and universal monarchy? 
 
156 
 
 It might serve still further to 'incorporate the 
 concerns of our planet with the general history 
 of moral and intelligent beings, to state, not 
 merely the knowledge which they take of us, and 
 not merely the compassionate anxiety which they 
 feel for us ; but to state the importance derived to 
 our world from its being the actual theatre of a 
 keen and ambitious contest amongst the upper 
 orders of creation. You know that how, for the 
 possession of a very small and insulated territory, 
 the mightiest empires of the world have put forth 
 all their resources ; and on some field of muster- 
 ing competition have monarchs met, and embark- 
 ed for victory, all the pride of a country's talent, 
 and all the flower and strength of a country's 
 population. The solitary island around which so 
 many fleets are hovering, and on the shores *f 
 which so many armed men are descending, as to 
 an arena of hostility, may well wonder at its own 
 unlooked for estimation. But other principles are 
 animating the battle : and the glory of nations is 
 at stake; and a much higher result *is in the con- 
 templation of each party, than the gain of so hum- 
 ble an acquirement as the primary object of the 
 war ; and honour, dearer to many a bosom than 
 existence, is now the interest on which so much 
 blood and so much treasure is expended ; and the 
 stirring spirit of emulation has now got hold of the 
 combatants ; and thus, amid all the insignificancy 
 which attaches to the material origin of the con- 
 test, do both the eagerness and the extent of it, 
 
* 157 
 
 receive from the constitution of our nature, their 
 most full and adequate explanation. 
 
 Now, if this be also the principle of higher na- 
 tures if, on the one hand, God be jealous of his 
 honour, and on the other, there be proud and ex- 
 alted spirits, who scowl defiance at him arid at his 
 monarchy if, on the side of heaven, there be 
 an angelic host rallying around the standard of 
 loyalty, who flee with alacrity at the bidding of the 
 Almighty, who are devoted to his glory, and feel 
 a rejoicing interest in the evolution of his coun- 
 sels ; and if, on the side of hell, there be a sullen 
 front of resistance, a hate and malice inextin- 
 guishable, an unquelled . daring of revenge to 
 baffle the wisdom of the Eternal, and to arrest 
 the hand, and to defeat the purposes of Omnipo- 
 tence then let the material prize of victory be 
 insignificant as it may, it is the victory in itself 
 which upholds the impulse of this keen and stimu- 
 lated rivalry. If, by the sagacity of one infernal 
 mind, a single planet has been seduced from its 
 allegiance, and been brought under the ascendency 
 of him who is called in Scripture, " the god of 
 this world," and if the errand on which our Re- 
 deemer came, was to destroy the works of the 
 devil then let this planet have all the littleness 
 which astronomy has assigned to it call it what 
 it is, one of the smaller islets which float on the 
 ocean of vacancy ; it has become the theatre of 
 such a competition, as may have all the desires 
 
158 
 
 and all the energies of a divided universe embark- 
 ed upon it. It involves in it other objects than 
 the single recovery of our species. It decides 
 higher questions. It stands linked with the su- 
 premacy of God, and will at length demonstrate 
 the way in which he inflicts chastisement and 
 overthrow upon all his enemies. I know not if 
 our rebellious world be the only strong-hold which 
 Satan is possessed of, or if it be but the single 
 post of an extended warfare, that is now going on 
 between the powers of light and of darkness. 
 But be it the one or the other, the parties are in 
 array, and the spirit of the contest is in full energy, 
 and the honour of mighty combatants is at stake ; 
 and let us therefore cease to wonder that our 
 humble residence has been made the theatre of 
 so busy an operation, or that the ambition of 
 loftier natures has here put forth all its desire and 
 all its strenuousness. 
 
 This unfolds to us another of those high and 
 extensive bearings, which the moral history of our 
 globe may have on the system of God's universal 
 administration. Were an enemy to touch the 
 shore of this high-minded country, and to occupy 
 so much as one of the humblest of its villages, and 
 there to seduce the natives from their loyalty, and 
 to sit down along with them in entrenched defiance 
 to all the threats, and to all the preparations of 
 an insulted empire oh ! how would the cry of 
 wounded pride resound throughout all the ranks 
 
159 
 
 and varieties of our mighty population ; and this 
 very movement of indignancy would reach the 
 king upon his throne ; and circulate among those 
 who stood in all the grandeur of chieftainship 
 around him; and be heard to thrill in the elo- 
 quence of Parliament ; and spread so resistless an 
 appeal to a nation's honour, and a nation's pa- 
 triotism, that the trumpet of war would summon 
 to its call all the spirit and all the willing energies 
 of our kingdom ; and rather than sit down ift 
 patient endurance under the burning disgrace of 
 such a violation, would the whole of its strength 
 and resources be embarked upon the contest ; and 
 never, never would we let down our exertions and 
 our sacrifices, till either our deluded country- 
 men were reclaimed, or till the whole of this 
 offence were, by one righteous act of vengeance, 
 swept away altogether from the face of the ter- 
 ritory it deformed. 
 
 The Bible is always most full and most expla- 
 natory on those points of revelation in which men 
 are personally interested. But it does at times 
 offer a dim transparency, through which may be 
 caught a partial view of such designs and of such 
 enterprises as are now afloat among the upper 
 orders of intelligence. It tells us of a mighty 
 struggle that is now going on for a moral ascend- 
 ency over the hearts of this world's population. 
 It tells us that our race were seduced from their 
 allegiance to God, by the plotting sagacity of one 
 
160 
 
 who stands pre-eminent against him, among the 
 hosts of a very wide and extended rebellion. It 
 tells us of the Captain of Salvation, who undertook 
 to spoil him of this triumph ; and throughout the 
 whole of that magnificent train of prophecy which 
 points to him, does it describe the work he had 
 to do, as a conflict, in which strength was to be 
 put forth, and painful suffering to be endured, and 
 fury to be poured upon enemies, and princi- 
 palities to be dethroned, and all those toils, and 
 dangers, and difficulties to be borne, which strew- 
 ed the path of perseverance that was to carry him 
 to victory. 
 
 But it is a contest of skill, as well as of strength 
 and of influence. There is the earnest compe- 
 tition of angelic faculties embarked on this struggle 
 for ascendency. And while in the Bible there is 
 recorded, (faintly and partially, we admit,) the 
 $eep and insidious policy that is practised on the 
 one side ; we are also told, that on the plan of our 
 world's restoration, there are lavished all the 
 riches of an unsearchable wisdom upon the other. 
 It would appear, that for the accomplishment of 
 his purpose, the great enemy of God and of man 
 plied his every calculation ; and brought all the 
 devices of his deep and settled malignity to bear 
 upon our species ; and thought that could he in- 
 volve us in sin, every attribute of the Divinity 
 stood staked to the banishment of our race from 
 beyond the limits of the empire of righteousness ; 
 
161 
 
 and thus did he practice his invasions on the 
 moral territory of the unfallen ; and glorying in 
 his success, did he fancy and feel that he had 
 achieved a permanent separation between the 
 God who sitteth in heaven, and one at least of the 
 planetary mansions which he had reared. 
 
 The errand of the Saviour was to restore this 
 sinful world, and have its people re-admitted 
 within the circle of heaven's pure and righteous 
 family. But in the government of heaven, as well 
 as in the government of earth, there are certain 
 principles which cannot be compromised; and 
 certain maxims of administration which must 
 never be departed from ; and a certain character 
 of majesty and of truth, on which the taint even 
 of the slightest violation can never be permitted ; 
 and a certain authority which must be upheld by 
 the immutability of all its sanctions, and the un- 
 erring fulfilment of all its wise and righteous pro- 
 clamations. All this was in the mind of the arch? 
 angel, and a gleam of malignant joy shot athwart 
 him, as he conceived his project for hemming our 
 unfortunate species within the bound of an irre- 
 coverable dilemma ; and as surely as sin and holi- 
 ness could not enter into fellowship, so surely did 
 he think, that if man were seduced to disobedi- 
 ence, would the truth, and the justice, and the 
 immutability of God, lay their insurmountable 
 barriers on the path of his future acceptance. 
 
Itfft 
 
 It was only in that plan of recovery of 
 Jesus Christ was the author and the finisher, that 
 the great adversary of our species met with a 
 wisdom which over-matched him. It is true, that 
 he had reared, in the guilt to which he seduced 
 us, a mighty obstacle in the way of this lofty un- 
 dertaking. But when the grand expedient was 
 announced, and the blood of that atonement, by 
 which sinners are brought nigh, was willingly of- 
 fered to be shed for us, and the eternal Son, to 
 carry this mystery into accomplishment, assumed 
 our nature then was the prince of that mighty 
 rebellion, in which the fate and the history of our 
 world are so deeply implicated, in visible alarm 
 for the safety of all his acquisitions : nor can the 
 record of this wondrous history carry forward its 
 narrative, without furnishing some transient 
 glimpses of a sublime and a superior warfare, in 
 which, for the prize of a spiritual dominion over 
 our species, we may dimly perceive the contest of 
 loftiest talent, and all the designs of heaven in be- 
 half of man, met at every point of their evolution* 
 by the counterwQrkiogs of a rival strength and a 
 rival sagacity. 
 
 We there read of a struggle which the Captain 
 of our salvation had to sustain, when the lustre of 
 the Godhead lay obscured, and the strength of its 
 omnipotence was mysteriously weighed down 
 under the infirmities of our nature how Satan 
 .singled him out, and dared him to the combat of 
 
163 
 
 tlie wilderness how all his wiles and all his in- 
 fluences were resisted how he left our Saviour 
 In all the triumphs of unsubdued loyalty how the 
 progress of this mighty achievement is marked by 
 the every character of a conflict how many of the 
 Gospel miracles were so many direct infringements 
 on the power and empire of a great spiritual re- 
 bellion how in one precious season of gladness 
 among the few which brightened the dark career 
 of our Saviours humiliation, he rejoiced in spirit, 
 and gave as the cause of it to his disciples, that 
 ** he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" - 
 how the momentary advantages that were gotten 
 over him, are ascribed to *he agency of this in- 
 fernal being, who entered the heart of Judas, and 
 tempted the disciple to betray his Master and his 
 Friend. I know that I am treading on the confines 
 of mystery. I cannot tell what the battle that he 
 fought. I cannot compute the terror or the 
 strength of his enemies. I cannot say, for I have 
 not been told, how it was that they stood in *nar- 
 shalled and hideous array against him : nor can 
 I measure how great the firm daring of his soul, 
 when he tasted that cup in all its bitterness, which 
 he prayed might pass away from him ; when with 
 the feeling that he was forsaken by his God, he 
 trod the wine-press alone ; when he entered single- 
 handed upon that dreary period of agony, and 
 insult, and death, in which, from the garden to 
 the cross, he had to bear the burden of a world's 
 atonement. I cannot speak in my own language, 
 
164 
 
 but I can say, in the language of the Bible, of the 
 days and the nights of this great enterprise, that 
 it was the season of the travail of his soul; that 
 it was the hour and the power of darkness ; that 
 the work of our redemption was a work accom- 
 panied by the effort, and the violence, and the 
 fury of a combat ; by all the arduousness of a battle 
 in its progress, and all the glories of a victory in 
 its termination : and after he called out that it was 
 finished, after he was loosed from the prison-house 
 of the grave, after he had ascended up on high, 
 he is said to have made captivity captive : and to 
 have spoiled principalities and powers ; and to 
 have seen his pleasure upon his enemies ; and to 
 have made a show of them openly. 
 
 I will not affect a wisdom above that which is 
 written, by fancying such details of this warfare 
 as the Bible has not laid before me. But surely 
 it is no more than being wise up to that which is 
 written, to assert that in achieving the redemption 
 of our world, a warfare had to be accomplished ; 
 that upon this subject there was among the higher 
 provinces of creation, the keen and the animated 
 conflict of opposing interests ; that the result of 
 it involved something grander and more affecting, 
 than even the fate of this world's population ; that 
 it decided a question of rivalship between the 
 righteous and everlasting Monarch of universal 
 being, and the prince of a great and widely ex- 
 tended rebellion, of which I neither know how 
 
165 
 
 vast is the magnitude, nor how important and di- 
 versified are the bearings : and thus do we gather 
 from this consideration, another distinct argument, 
 helping us to explain, why on the salvation of our 
 solitary species so much attention appears to have 
 been concentred, and so much energy appears to 
 have been expended. 
 
 But it would appear from the Records of Inspi- 
 ration, that the contest is not yet ended ; that on 
 the one hand the Spirit of God is employed in 
 making for the truths of Christianity, a way into 
 the human heart, with all the power of an effect- 
 ual demonstration ; that on the other, there is a 
 spirit now abroad, which worketh in the children 
 of disobedience ; that on the one hand, the Holy 
 Ghost is calling men out of darkness into the mar- 
 vellous light of the Gospel; and that on the other 
 hand, he who is styled the god of this world, is 
 blinding their hearts, lest the light of the glorious 
 gospel of Christ should enter into them ; that they 
 who are under the dominion of the one, are said 
 to have overcome, because greater is he that is in 
 them than he that is in the world; and that they 
 who are under the dominion of the other, are said 
 to be the children of the devil, and to be under 
 his snare, and to be taken captive by him at his 
 will. How these respective powers do operate, 
 is one question. The fact of their operation, is 
 another. We abstain from the former. We 
 attach ourselves to the latter, and gather from it, 
 
166 
 
 that the prince of darkness still walketh abroad 
 amongst us ; that he is still working his insidious 
 policy, if not with the vigorous inspiration of hope, 
 at least with the frantic energies of despair ; that 
 while the overtures of reconciliation are made to 
 circulate through the world, be is plying all his 
 devices to deafen and to extinguish the impression 
 of them ; or, in other words, while a process of 
 invitation and of argument has emanated from 
 heaven, for reclaiming men to their loyalty the 
 process is resisted at all its points, by one who 
 is putting forth his every expedient, and wielding 
 a mysterious ascendency, to seduce and to enthral 
 them. 
 
 To an infidel ear, all this carries the sound of 
 something wild and visionary along with it 
 But though only known through the medium of 
 revelation ; after it is known, who can fail to re- 
 cognize its harmony with the great lineaments 
 of human experience ? Who has not felt the 
 workings of a rivalry within him, between the 
 power of conscience and the power of temptation ? 
 Who does not remember those seasons of retire- 
 ment, when the calculations of eternity had gotten 
 a momentary command over the heart ; and time, 
 with all its interests and all its vexations, had 
 dwindled into insignificancy before them ? And 
 who does not remember, how upon his actual en- 
 gagement with the objects of time, they resumed 
 a control, as great and as omnipotent, as if all the 
 
167 
 
 importance of eternity adhered to them how 
 they emitted from them such an impression upon 
 his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate the whole 
 man into a subserviency to their influence how 
 in spite of every lesson of their worthlessness, 
 brought home to him at every turn by the rapidity 
 of the seasons, and the vicissitudes of life, and the 
 ever-moving progress of his own earthly career, 
 arid the visible ravages of death among his ac- 
 quaintances around him, and the desolations of 
 his family, and the constant breaking up of his 
 system of friendships, and the affecting spectacle 
 of all that lives and is in motion, withering and 
 hastening to the grave ; oh ! how comes it, that 
 in the face of all this experience, the whole eleva- 
 tion of purpose, conceived in the hour of his better 
 understanding, should be dissipated and forgot- 
 ten ? Whence the might, and whence the mys- 
 tery of that spell, which so binds and so infatuates 
 us to the world ? What prompts us so to embark 
 the whole strength of our eagerness and of our 
 desires in pursuit of interests which we know a 
 few little years will bring to utter annihilation? 
 Who is it that imparts to them all the charm and 
 all the colour of an unfailing durability ? Who is 
 it that throws such an air of stability over these 
 earthly tabernacles, as makes them look to the 
 fascinated eye of man like resting-places for eter- 
 nity? Who is it that so pictures out the objects of 
 sense, and so magnifies the range of their future 
 enjoyment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived 
 
168 
 
 imagination, that in looking onward through our 
 earthly career, it appears like the vista, or the 
 perspective of innumerable ages? He who i? 
 called the god of this world. He who can dress 
 the idleness of its waking dreams in the garb of 
 reality. He who can pour a seducing brilliancy 
 over the panorama of its fleeting pleasures and 
 its vain anticipations. He who can turn it into an 
 instrument of deceitfulness ; and make it wield 
 such an absolute ascendency over ah 1 the affec- 
 tions, that man, become the poor slave of its idola- 
 tries, and its charms, puts the authority of con- 
 science, and the warnings of the Word of God, 
 and the offered instigations of the Spirit of God, 
 and all the lessons of calculation, and all the wis- 
 dom even of his own sound and sober experience, 
 away from him. 
 
 But this wondrous contest will come to a close. 
 Some will return to their loyalty, and others will 
 keep by their rebellion; and, in the day of the 
 winding up of the drama of this world's history, 
 there will be made manifest to the myriads of the 
 various orders of creation, both the mercy and 
 vindicated majesty of the Eternal. Oh ! on that 
 day, how vain will this presumption of the Infidel 
 astronomer appear, when the affairs of men come 
 to be examined in the presence of an innumerable 
 company; and beings of loftiest nature are seen 
 to crowd around the judgment-seat; and the Sa- 
 viour shall appear in our sky, with a celestial 
 
169 
 
 retinue, who have come with him from afar to 
 witness all his doings, and to take a deep and 
 solemn interest in all his dispensations ; and the 
 destiny of our species, whom the Infidel would 
 thus detach, in solitary insignificance, from the 
 universe altogether, shall be found to merge and 
 to mingle with higher destinies the good to 
 spend their eternity with angels the bad to 
 spend their eternity with angels the former to 
 be re-admitted into the universal family of God's 
 obedient worshippers the latter to share in the 
 everlasting pain and ignominy of the defeated 
 hosts of the rebellious the people of this planet 
 to be implicated, throughout the whole train of 
 their never-ending history, with the higher ranks, 
 and the more extended tribes of intelligence : And 
 thus it is that the special administration we now 
 live under, shall be seen to harmonize in its bear- 
 ings, and to accord in its magnificence, with all 
 that extent of nature and of her territories, which 
 modern science has unfolded. 
 
 w 
 
DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 OW T&E SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SEN- 
 SIBILITY IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 
 
 " And, lo ! them aft unto them as a very lovely song of one who 
 hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : 
 for they hear thy words, but they do them not." EZEKIEL 
 xxxiii. 32. 
 
 You easily understand how a taste for music is 
 one thing, and a real submission to the influence 
 of religion is another how the ear may be re- 
 galed by the melody of sound, and the heart may 
 utterly refuse the proper impression of the sense 
 that is conveyed by it how the sons and daugh- 
 ters of the world may, with their every affection 
 devoted to its perishable vanities, inhale all the 
 delights of enthusiasm, as they sit in crowded as- 
 semblage around the deep and solemn oratorio 
 aye, and whether it be the humility of penitential 
 feeling, or the rapture of grateful acknowledgment, 
 or the sublime of a contemplative piety, or the as* 
 
171 
 
 piration of pure and of holy purposes, which 
 breathes throughout the words of the performance, 
 and gives to it all the spirit and all the expression 
 by which it is pervaded ; it is a very possible 
 thing, that the moral, and the rational, and the 
 active man, may have given no entrance into hid 
 bosom for any of these sentiments ; and yet so 
 overpowered may lie be by the charm of the 
 vocal conveyance through which they are ad- 
 dressed to him, that he may be made to feel with 
 such an emotion, and to weep with such a tender- 
 ness, and to kindle with such a transport, and to 
 glow with such an elevation, as may one and all- 
 carry upon them the semblance of sacredness. 
 
 But might not this semblance deceive him? 
 Have you never heard any tell, and with compla- 
 cency too, how powerfully his devotion was 
 awakened by an act of attendance on the oratorio 
 how his heart, melted and subdued by the influ- 
 ence of harmony, did homage to all the religion 
 of which it was the vehicle how he was so moved 
 and overborne, that he had to shed the tears of 
 contrition, and to be agitated by the terrors of 
 judgment, and to receive an awe upon hjs spirit 
 of the greatness and the majesty of God and that 
 wrought up to the lofty pitch of eternity, he could 
 look down upon the world, and by the glance of 
 one commanding survey, pronounce upon the lit- 
 tleness and the vanity of all its concerns? Oh! it 
 is very, very possible that all this might thrill upon 
 
172 
 
 the ears of the man, and circulate a succession of 
 solemn and affecting images around his fancy 
 and yet that essential principle of his nature, 
 upon which the practical influence of Christianity 
 turns, might have met with no reaching and no 
 subduing efficacy whatever to arouse it. He 
 leaves the exhibition, as dead in trespasses and 
 sins as he came to it. Conscience has not 
 wakened upon him. Repentance has not turned 
 him. Faith has not made any positive lodgement 
 within him of her great and her constraining re- 
 alities. He speeds him back to his business and 
 to his family, and there he plays off the old man 
 in all the entirenessof his uncrucified temper, and 
 of his obstinate worldliness, and of all those 
 earthly and unsanctified affections, which are 
 found to cleave to him with as great tenacity as 
 ever. He is really and experimentally the very 
 same man as before and all those sensibilities 
 which seemed to bear upon them so much of the 
 air and unction of heaven, are found to go into 
 dissipation, and be forgotten with the loveliness 
 of the song. 
 
 Amid all that illusion which such momentary 
 visitations of seriousness and of sentiment throw 
 around the character of man, let us never lose 
 sight of the test, that " by their fruits ye shall 
 know them." It is not coming up to this test, that 
 you hear and are delighted. It is that you hear 
 and do. This is the ground upon which the re- 
 
173 
 
 ality of your religion is discriminated now ; and 
 on the day of reckoning, this is the ground upon 
 which your religion will be judged then ; and that 
 award is to be passed upon you, which will fix 
 and perpetuate your destiny for ever. You have 
 a taste for music. This no more implies the hold 
 and the ascendency of religion over you, than 
 that you have a taste for beautiful scenery, or a 
 taste for painting, or even a taste for the sensuali- 
 ties of epicurism. But music may be made to ex- 
 press the glow and the movement of devotional 
 feeling; and is it saying nothing to say that the 
 heart of him who listens with a raptured ear, is 
 through the whole time of the performance, in 
 harmony with such a movement ? Why, it is say- 
 ing nothing to the purpose. Music may lift the 
 inspiring note of patriotism ; and the inspiration 
 may be felt; and it may thrill over the recesses 
 of the soul, to the mustering up of all its energies ; 
 and it may sustain to the last cadence of the song, 
 the firm nerve and purpose of intrepidity ; and all 
 this may be realized upon him, who in the day of 
 battle, and upon actual collision with the dangers 
 of it, turns out to be a coward. And music may lull 
 the feelings into unison with piety ; and stir up the 
 inner man to lofty determinations ; and so engage 
 for a time his affections, that as if weaned from 
 the dust, they promise an immediate entrance on 
 some great and elevated career, which may carry 
 him through his pilgrimage superior to all the sor- 
 did and grovelling enticements that abound in it. 
 
174 
 
 But he turns him to the world, and all thi$ glow- 
 abandons him; and the words which he hath 
 heard, he doeth them not; and in the hour o 
 temptation he turns out to be a deserter from the 
 law of allegiance ; and the test I have now speci- 
 fied looks hard upon him, and discriminates him 
 amid all the parading insignificance of his fine but 
 fugitive emotions, to be the subject both of present 
 guilt and of future vengeance. 
 
 The faithful application of this test would put 
 to flight a host of other delusions. It may be 
 carried round amongst all those phenomena of 
 human character, where there is the exhibition of 
 something associated with religion, but which is 
 not religion itself. An exquisite relish for music 
 is no test of the influence of Christianity. Neither 
 are many other of the exquisite sensibilities of our 
 nature. When a kind mother closes the eyes of 
 her expiring babe, she is thrown into a flood of 
 sensibility, and soothing to her heart are the sym- 
 pathy and the prayers of an attending minister. 
 When a gathering neighbourhood assemble to the 
 funeral of an acquaintance, one pervading sense 
 of regret and tenderness sits on the face of the 
 company ; and the deep silence, broken only by 
 the solemn utterance of the man of God t carries 
 a kind of pleasing religiousness along with it. The 
 sacredness of the hallowed day, and the de- 
 cencies of its observation, may engage the af- 
 fections of him who loves to walk in the footsteps 
 
175 
 
 of his father ; and every recurring Sabbath 
 bring to his bosom, the charm of its regularity 
 and its quietness. Religion has its accompani- 
 ments ; and in these, there may be something to 
 soothe, and to fascinate, even in the absence of 
 the appropriate influences of religion. The deep 
 and tender impression of a family-bereavement, is 
 not religion. The love of established decencies, 
 is not religion. The charm of all that sentimental- 
 ism which is associated with many of its solemn 
 and affecting services, is not religion. They may 
 form the distinct folds of its accustomed drapery ; 
 but they do not, any, or all of them put together, 
 make up the substance of the thing itself. A 
 mother's tenderness may flow most gracefully over 
 the tomb of her departed little one; and she may 
 talk the while of that heaven whither its spirit has 
 ascended. The man whom death had widewed 
 of his friend, may abandon himself to the move- 
 ments of that grief, which for a time will claim aa 
 ascendency over him ; and, amongst the multitude 
 of his other reveries, may love to hear of the 
 eternity, where sorrow and separation are alike 
 unknown. He who has been trained, from his in- 
 fant days, to remember the Sabbath, may love 
 the holiness of its aspect ; and associate himself 
 with all its observances; and take a delighted 
 share in the mechanism of its forms. But, let not 
 these think, because the tastes and the sensi- 
 bilities which engross them, may be blended with 
 religion, that they indicate either its strength or 
 
176 
 
 its existence within them. I recur to the test. I 
 press its imperious exactions upon you. I call for 
 fruit, and demand the permanency of a religious 
 influence on the habits and the history. Oh T 
 how many who take a flattering unction to their 
 souls, when they think of their amiable feelings, 
 and their becoming observations, with whom this 
 severe touch-stone would, like the head of Medusa, 
 put to flight all their complacency. The afflictive 
 dispensation is forgotten and he on whom it was 
 laid, is practically as indifferent to God and to 
 eternity as before. The Sabbath services come 
 to a close ; and they are followed by the same 
 routine of week-day worldliness as before. In 
 neither the one case nor the other, do we see 
 more of the radical influence of Christianity, than 
 in the sublime and melting influence of sacred 
 music upon the soul ; and all this tide of emotion 
 is found to die away from the bosom, like the 
 pathos or like the loveliness of a song. 
 
 The instances may be multiplied without num- 
 ber. A man may have a taste for eloquence, and 
 eloquence the most touching or sublime may lift 
 her pleading voice on the side of religion. A man 
 may love to have his understanding stimulated by 
 the ingenuities, or the resistless urgencies of an 
 argument ; and argument the most profound and 
 the most overbearing, may put forth all the might 
 of a constraining vehemence in behalf of religion. 
 A man may feel the rejoicings of a conscious ele- 
 
177 
 
 vation, when some ideal scene of magnificence is 
 laid before him ; and where are these scenes so 
 readily to be met with, as when led to expatiate 
 in thought over the track of eternity, or to survey 
 the wonders of creation, or to look to the magni- 
 tude of those great and universal interests which 
 lie within the compass of religion. A man may 
 have his attention riveted and regaled by that 
 power of imitative description, which brings all 
 the recollections of his own experience before 
 him; which presents him with a faithful analysis 
 of his own heart; which embodies in language 
 such intimacies of observation and of feeling, as 
 have often passed before his eyes, or played 
 within his bosom, but had never been so truly or 
 so ably pictured to the view of his remembrance. 
 Now, all this may be done in the work of pressing 
 the duties of religion ; in the work of instancing 
 the applications of religion ; in the work of point- 
 ing those allusions to life and to manners, which 
 manifest the truth to the conscience, and plant 
 such a conviction of sin, as forms the very basis 
 of a sinners religion. Now, in all these cases, 
 I see other principles brought into action, and 
 which may be in a state of most lively and vigorous 
 movement, and be yet in a state of entire sepa- 
 ration from the principle of religion. I will make 
 bold to say, on the strength of these illustrations, 
 that as much delight may emanate from the pulpit, 
 on an arrested audience beneath it, as ever ema- 
 
178 
 
 6 
 
 nated from the boards of a theatre--aye, and with 
 as total a disjunction of mind too, in the one case 
 as in the other, from the* essence or the habit of 
 religion. I recur to the test. I make my appeal 
 to experience; and I put it to you all, whether 
 your finding upon the subject do not agree with 
 my saying about it, that a man may weep, and 
 admire, and have many of his faculties put upon 
 the stretch of their most intense gratification his 
 judgment established, and his fancy enlivened, 
 and his feelings overpowered, and his hearing 
 charmed, as by the accents of heavenly per- 
 suasion, and all within him feasted by the rich 
 and varied luxuries of an intellectual banquet ! 
 Oh ! it is cruel to frown unmannerly in the midst 
 of so much satisfaction. But I must not forget 
 that truth has her authority, as well as her stern- 
 ness ; and she forces me to affirm, that after all 
 this has been felt and gone through, there might 
 not be one principle which lies at the turning-point 
 of conversation, that has experienced a single 
 movement not one of its purposes be conceived 
 not one of its doings be accomplished not one 
 step of that repentance, which, if we have not, 
 we perish, so much as entered upon not one an- 
 nouncement of that faith, by which we are saved, 
 admitted into a real and actual possession by the 
 inner man. He has had his hour's entertainment, 
 and willingly does he award this homage to the 
 performer, that he hath a pleasant voice, and can 
 play well on an instrument but, in another hour, 
 
179 
 
 it fleets away from his remembrance, and goes all 
 to nothing, like the loveliness of a song. 
 
 Now, in bringing these Astronomical Discourses 
 to a close, I feel it my duty to advert to this ex- 
 hibition of character in man. The sublime and 
 interesting topic which has engaged us, however 
 feebly it may have been handled ; however inade- 
 quately it may have been put in all its worth, and 
 in all its magnitude before you ; however short 
 the representation of the speaker, or the concep- 
 tion of the hearers may have been of that rich- 
 ness, and that greatness, and that loftiness, which 
 belong to. it ; possesses in itself a charm to fix the 
 attention, and to regale the imagination, and to 
 subdue the whole man into a delighted reverence ; 
 and, in a word, to beget such a solemnity of 
 thought, and of emotion, as may occupy and en- 
 large the soul for hours together, as may waft it 
 away from the grossness of ordinary life, and raise 
 it to a kind of elevated calm above all its vul- 
 garities and all its vexations. 
 
 Now, tell me whether the whole of this effect 
 upon the feelings, may not be formed without the 
 presence of religion. Tell me whether there 
 might not be such a constitution of mind, that it 
 may both want altogether that principle in virtue 
 of which the doctrines of Christianity are admitted 
 jnto the belief, and the duties of Christianity are 
 admitted into a government over the practice 
 
aud yet, at the very same time, it may have the 
 faculty of looking abroad over some scene of 
 magnificence, and of being wrought up to ecstasy 
 with the sense of all those glories among which it 
 is expatiating. I want you to see clearly the dis- 
 tinction between these two attributes of the hu- 
 man character. They are, in truth, as different 
 the one from the other, as a taste for the grand 
 and the graceful of scenery differs from the appe- 
 tite of hunger ; and the one may both exist and 
 have a most intense operation within the bosom 
 of that very individual, who entirely disowns, and 
 is entirely disgusted with the other. What ! must 
 a man be converted, ere from the most elevated 
 peak of some Alpine wilderness, he become capa- 
 ble of feeling the force and the majesty of those 
 great lineaments which the hand of nature has 
 thrown around him, in the varied forms of preci- 
 pice, and mountain, and the wave of mighty 
 forests, and the rush of sounding waterfalls, and 
 distant glimpses of human territory, and pinnacles 
 of everlasting snow, and the sweep of that circling 
 horizon, which folds in its ample embrace the 
 whole of this noble amphitheatre ? Tell me whe- 
 ther, without the aid of Christianity, or without a 
 particle of reverence for the only name given 
 under heaven whereby men can be saved, a man 
 may not kindle at such a perspective as this, into 
 all the raptures, and into all the movements of a 
 poetic elevation ; and be able to render into the 
 language of poetry, the whole of that sublime 
 
181 
 
 and beauteous imagery which adorns it : aye, and 
 as if he were treading on the confines of a sanc- 
 tuary which he has not entered, may he not mix 
 up with the power and the enchantment of his 
 description, such allusions to the presiding genius 
 of the scene ; or to the still but animating spirit 
 of the solitude ; or to the speaking silence of some 
 mysterious character which reigns throughout the 
 landscape; or, in fine, to that eternal Spirit, who 
 sits behind the elements he has formed, and com- 
 bines them into all the varieties of a wide and a 
 wondrous creation ; might not all this be said and 
 sung with an emphasis so moving, as to spread 
 the colouring of piety over the pages of him who 
 performs thus w r ell upon his instrument ; and yet, 
 the performer himself have a conscience unmoved 
 by a single warning of God's actual communica- 
 tion, and the judgment unconvinced, and the fears 
 unawakened, and the life unreformed by it? 
 
 Now what is true of a scene on earth, is also 
 true of that wider and more elevated scene which 
 stretches over the immensity around it, into a dark 
 and a distant unknown. Who does not feel an 
 aggrandizement of thought and of faculty, when 
 he looks abroad over the amplitudes of creation 
 w r hen placed on a telescopic eminence, his aided 
 eye can find a pathway to innumerable worlds 
 when that wondrous field, over which there had 
 hung for many ages the mantle of so deep an ob- 
 scurity, is laid opeji to him, and instead of a 
 
182 
 
 dreary and unpeopled solitude, he can see over 
 the whole face of it such an extended garniture 
 of rich and goodly habitations ! Even the Atheist, 
 who tells us that the universe is self-existent and 
 indestructible even he, who instead of seeing 
 the traces of a manifold wisdom in its manifold 
 varieties, sees nothing in them all but the exqui- 
 site structures and the lofty dimensions of mate- 
 rialism even he, who would despoil creation of 
 its God, cannot look upon its golden suns, and 
 their accompanying systems, without the solemn 
 impression of a magnificence that fixes arid over- 
 powers him. Now, conceive such a belief of God 
 as you all profess, to dawn upon his understand- 
 ing. Let him become as one of yourselves and 
 so be put into the condition of rising from the 
 sublime of matter to the sublime of mind. Let 
 him now learn to subordinate the whole of this 
 mechanism to the design and authority of a great 
 presiding Intelligence : and re-assembling all the 
 members of the universe, however distant, into 
 one family, let him mingle with his former concep- 
 tions of the grandeur which belonged to it, the 
 conception of that eternal Spirit who sits en- 
 throned on the immensity of his own wonders, 
 and embraces all that he has made, within the 
 ample scope of one great administration. Then 
 will the images and the impressions of sublimity 
 come in upon him from a new quarter. Then will 
 another avenue be opened, through which a sense 
 of grandeur may find its way into his soul, and 
 
183 
 
 have a mightier influence than ever to fill, and to 
 elevate, and to expand it. Then will he establish- 
 ed a new and a nohle association, by the aid of 
 which all that he formerly looked upon as fair, 
 becomes more lovely; and all that he formerly 
 looked upon as great, becomes more magnificent. 
 But will you belieye me, that even with this ac- 
 cession to his mind of ideas gathered from the 
 contemplation of the Divinity; even with that 
 pleasurable glow which steals over his imagina- 
 tion, when he new thinks him of the majesty of 
 God; even with as much of what you would call 
 piety, as I fear is enough to soothe and to satisfy 
 many of yourselves, and which stirs and kindles 
 within you when you hear the goings forth of the 
 Supreme set before you in the terms of a lofty 
 representation ; even with all this, I say there may 
 be as wide a distance from the habit and the 
 character of godliness, as if God was still atheist- 
 ically disowned by him. Take the conduct of his 
 life and the currency of his affections ; and you 
 may see as little upon them of the stamp of loyalty 
 to God, or of reverence for any one of his authen~ 
 ticated proclamations, as you may see iii him who 
 offers his poetic incense to the genii or weeps en- 
 raptured over the visions of a beauteous mytholo- 
 gy. The sublime of Deity has wrought up his 
 soul to a pitch of conscious and pleasing elevation 
 and yet this no more argues the will of Deity 
 to have a practical authority over him, than does 
 tone of elevation which is caught by looking 
 
181 
 
 at the sublime of a naked materialism. The one 
 and the other have their little hour of ascendency 
 over him ; and when he turns him to the rude and 
 ordinary world, both vanish alike from his sensi- 
 bilities, as does the loveliness of a song. 
 
 To kindle and be elevated by a sense of the 
 majesty of God, is one thing. It is totally another 
 thing, to feel a movement of obedience to the will 
 of God, under the impression of his rightful au- 
 thority over all the creatures whom he has form- 
 ed. A man may have an imagination all alive 
 to the former; while the latter never prompts 
 him to one act of obedience ; never leads him to 
 compare his, life with the requirements of the Law- 
 giver; never carries him from such a scrutiny as 
 this, to the conviction of sin; never whispers 
 such an accusation to the ear of his conscience, 
 as causes him to mourn, and to be in heaviness 
 for the guilt of his hourly and habitual rebellion ; 
 never shuts him up to the conclusion of the need 
 of a Saviour; never humbles him to acquiescence 
 in the doctrine of that revelation, which comes to 
 his door with such a host of evidence, as even his 
 own philosophy cannot bid away ; never extorts 
 a single believing prayer in the name of Christ, 
 or points a single look/'either of trust or of reve- 
 rence, to his atonement; never stirs any effective 
 movement of conversion ; never sends an aspiring 
 energy into his bosom after the aids of that Spirit, 
 who alone can waken him out of his lethargies, 
 
185 
 
 and by the anointing which remaineth, can rivet 
 and substantiate in his practice, those goodly 
 emotions which have hitherto plied him with the 
 deceitfulriess of their momentary visits, and then 
 capriciously abandoned him. 
 
 The mere majesty of God ? s power and great- 
 ness, when offered to your notice, lays hold of one 
 of the faculties within you. The holiness of God, 
 with his righteous claim of legislation, lays hold 
 of another of these faculties. The difference 
 between them is so great, that the one may be en- 
 grossed and interested to the full, while the other 
 remains untouched, and in a state of entire dor- 
 mancy. Now, it is no matter what it be that 
 ministers delight to the former of these two facul- 
 ties : If the latter be not arrested and put on its 
 proper exercise, you are making no approxima- 
 tion whatever to the right habit and character of 
 religion. There are a thousand ways in which we 
 may contrive to regale your taste for that which 
 is beauteous and majestic. It may find its gratifi- 
 cation in the loveliness of a vale, or in the freer 
 and bolder outlines of an upland situation, or in 
 the terrors of a storm, or in the sublime contem- 
 plations of astronomy, or in the magnificent idea 
 of a God who sends forth the wakefulness of his 
 omniscient eye, and the vigour of his upholding 
 hand, throughout all the realms of nature and of 
 providence. The mere taste of the human mind 
 may get its ample enjoyment in each and in all of 
 
 7 
 
186 
 
 these objects, or in a vivid representation of them ; 
 nor does it make any material difference, whether 
 this representation be addressed to you from the 
 stanzas of a poem, or from the recitations of a 
 theatre, or finally from the discourses and the de- 
 monstrations of a pulpit. And thus it is, that still 
 on the impulse of the one principle only, people 
 may come in gathering multitudes to the house of 
 God; and share with eagerness in all the glow 
 and bustle of a crowded attendance; and have 
 their every eye directed to the speaker; and feel 
 a responding movement in their bosom to his 
 many appeals and his many arguments; and 
 carry a solemn and overpowering impression of 
 all the services away with them ; and yet through- 
 out the whole of this seemly exhibition, not one 
 effectual knock may have been given at the door 
 of conscience. The other principle may be as 
 profoundly asleep, as if hushed into the insensi- 
 bility of death. There is a spirit of deep slumber, 
 it would appear, which the music of no descrip- 
 tion, even though attuned to a theme so lofty as 
 the greatness and majesty of the Godhead, can 
 ever charm away. Oh ! it may have been a piece 
 of parading insignificance altogether the minis- 
 ter playing on his favourite instrument, and the 
 people dissipating away their time on the charm 
 and idle luxury of a theatrical emotion. 
 
 The religion of taste, is one thing. The reli- 
 gion of conscience, is another, I recur to the 
 
187 
 
 test. What is the plain and practical doing which 
 ought to issue from the whole of our argument ? If 
 one lesson come more clearly or more authorita- 
 tively out of it than another, it is the supremacy 
 of the Bible. If fitted to impress one movement 
 rather than another, it is that movement of doci- 
 lity, in virtue of which, man, with the feeling that 
 he has all to learn, places himself in the attitude 
 of a little child, before the hook of the unsearcha- 
 ble God, who has deigned to break his silence, and 
 to transmit, even to our age of the w r orld, a faithful 
 record of his own communication. What pro- 
 gress then are you making in this movement ? Are 
 you, or are you not, like new-born babes, desiring 
 the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow 
 thereby ? How are you coming on in Jhe work of 
 casting down your lofty imaginations ? With the 
 modesty of true science, which is here at one 
 with the humblest and most penitentiary feeling 
 which Christianity can awaken, are you bending 
 an eye of earnestness on the Bible, and appro- 
 priating its informations, and moulding your every 
 conviction to its doctrines and its testimonies? 
 How long, I beseech you, has this been your 
 habitual exercise ? By this time do you feel the 
 darkness and the insufficiency of nature ? Have 
 you found your way to the need of an atonement? 
 Have you learned the might and the efficacy 
 which are given to the principle of faith ? Have 
 you longed with all your energies to realize it ? 
 Have vou broken loose from the obvious misdo- 
 
18* 
 
 ings of jour former history ? Are you convinced 
 of your total deficiency from the spiritual obe- 
 dience of the affections ? Have you read of the 
 Holy Ghost, by whom, renewed in the v</hole 
 desire and character of your mind, you are led to 
 run with alacrity in the way of the command- 
 ments ? Have you turned to its practical use, the 
 important truth, that he is given to the believing 
 prayers of all, who really want to be relieved 
 from the power both of secret and of visible ini- 
 quity ? I demand something more than the homage 
 you have rendered to the pleasantness of the 
 voice that has been sounding in your hearing. 
 What I have now to urge upon you, is the bidding 
 of the voice, to read, and to reform, and to pray y 
 and, in a word, to make your consistent step from 
 the elevations of philosophy, to all those exer- 
 cises, whether of doing or of believing, which 
 mark the conduct of the earnest, and the devoted^ 
 and the subdued, and the aspiring Christian. 
 
 This brings under our view a most deeply in- 
 teresting exhibition of human nature, which may 
 often be witnessed among the cultivated orders of 
 society. When a teacher of Christianity addresses 
 himself to that principle of justice within us, in 
 virtue of which we feel the authority of God to be 
 a prerogative which righteously belongs to him, 
 he is then speaking the appropriate language of 
 religion, and is advancing its naked and ap- 
 propriate claim over the obedience of mankind- 
 
189 
 
 He is then urging that pertinent and powerful con- 
 sideration, upon which alone he can ever hope to 
 obtain the ascendency of a practical influence 
 over the purposes and the conduct of human be- 
 ings. It is only by insisting on the moral claim of 
 God to a right of government over his creatures, 
 that he can carry their loyal subordination to the 
 will of God. Let him keep by this single argu- 
 ment, and urge it upon the conscience, and then, 
 without any of the other accompaniments of what 
 is called Christian oratory, he may bring con- 
 vincingly home upon his hearers all the varieties 
 of Christian doctrine. He may establish within 
 their minds the dominion of all that is essential in 
 the faith of the New Testament. He may, by 
 carrying out this principle of God's authority into 
 all its applications, convince them of sin. He 
 may lead them to compare the loftiness and spi- 
 rituality of his law, with the habitual obstinacy of 
 their own worldly affections. He may awaken 
 them to the need of a Saviour. He may urge 
 them to a faithful and submissive perusal of God's 
 own communication. He may thence press upon 
 them the truth and the immutability of their So- 
 vereign. He may work in their hearts an im- 
 pression of this emphatic saying, that God is not 
 to be mocked that his law must be upheld in all 
 the significancy of its proclamations and that 
 either its severities must be discharged upon the 
 guilty, or in some other way an adequate provision 
 be found for its outraged dignity, and its violated 
 
190 
 
 sanctions. Thus may he lead them to flee for re- 
 fuge to the blood of the atonement. And he may 
 further urge upon his hearers, how, such is the 
 enormity of sin, that it is not enough to have 
 found an expiation for it ; how its power and its 
 existence must be eradicated from the hearts of 
 all, who are to spend their eternity in the mansions 
 of the celestial ; how, for this purpose, an ex- 
 pedient is made known to us in the New Testa- 
 ment; how a process must be described upon 
 earth, to which there is given the appropriate 
 name of sanctification ; how, at the very com- 
 mencement of every true course of discipleship, 
 this process is entered upon with a purpose in the 
 mind of forsaking all ; how nothing short of a 
 single devotedness to the will of God, will ever 
 carry us forward through the successive stages of 
 this holy and elevated career,- how, to help the 
 infirmities of our nature, the Spirit is ever in 
 readiness to be given to those who ask it ; and 
 that thus the life of every Christian becomes a 
 life of entire dedication to him who died for us 
 a life of prayer, and vigilance, and close depend- 
 ence on the grace of God and, as the infallible 
 result of the plain but powerful and peculiar 
 teaching of the Bible, a life of vigorous unwearied 
 activity in the doing of all the commandments. 
 
 Now, this I would call the essential business of 
 Christianity. This is the truth as it is in Jesus, in 
 its naked and unassociated simplicity. In the 
 
191 / 
 
 work of urging it, nothing more might have been 
 done, than to present certain views, which may 
 come with as great clearness, and freshness, and 
 take as full possession of the mind of a peasant, 
 as of the mind of a philosopher. There is a sense 
 of God, and of the rightful allegiance that is due 
 to him. There are plain and practical appeals to 
 the conscience. There is a comparison of the 
 state of the heart, with the requireriients of a law 
 which proposes to take the heart under its obedi- 
 ence. There is the inward discernment of its 
 coldness about God ; of its unconcern about the 
 matters of duty and of eternity ; of its de- 
 votion to the forbidden objects of sense ; of 
 its constant tendency to nourish within its own 
 receptacles, the very element and principle of 
 rebellion, and in virtue of this, to send forth 
 the stream of an hourly and accumulating diso- 
 bedience over those doings of the outer man, 
 which make up his visible history in the world. 
 There is such an earnest and overpowering im- 
 pression of all this, as will fix a man down to the 
 single object of deliverance; as will make him 
 awake only to those realities which have a signi- 
 ficant and substantial bearing on the case that en- 
 grosses him ; as will teach him to nauseate all the 
 impertinences of tasteful and ambitious descrip- 
 tion j as will attach him to the truth in its simpli- 
 city ; as will fasten his every regard upon the 
 Bible, where, if he persevere in the work of 
 honest inquiry, he will soon be made to perceive 
 
192 
 
 the accordancy between its statements, and all 
 those movements of fear, or guilt, or deeply-felt 
 necessity, or conscious darkness, stupidity, and 
 unconcern about the matters of salvation, which 
 pass within his own bosom ; in a word, as will 
 endear him to that plainness of speech, by which 
 his own experience is set evidently before him, 
 and that plain phraseology of Scripture, which is 
 best fitted to bring home to him the doctrine of 
 redemption, in all the truth and in all the pre~ 
 ciousness of its applications. 
 
 Now, the whole of this work may be going on* 
 and that too in the wisest and most effectual man- 
 ner, without so much as one particle of incense 
 being offered to any of the subordinate principles 
 of the human constitution. There may be no 
 fascinations of style. There may be no magnifi- 
 cence of description. There may be no poign- 
 ancy of acute and irresistible argument. There 
 may be a riveted attention on the part of those 
 whom the Spirit of God hath awakened to seri- 
 ousness about the plain and affecting realities of 
 conversion. Their conscience may be stricken, 
 and their appetite be excited for an actual settle- 
 ment of mind on those points about which they 
 feel restless and unconfirmed* Such as these are 
 vastly too much engrossed with the exigencies of 
 their condition, to be repelled by the homeliness 
 of unadorned truth. And thus it is, that while the 
 loveliness of the song has done so little in helping 
 
193 
 
 on the influences of the gospel, our men of sim- 
 plicity arid prayer have done so much for it. 
 With a deep and earnest impression of the truth 
 themselves, they have made manifest that truth 
 to the consciences of others. Missionaries have 
 gone forth with no other preparation than the 
 simple Word of the Testimony and thousands 
 have owned its power, by being both the hearers 
 of the word and the doers of it also. They have 
 given us the experiment in a state of unmingled 
 simplicity ; and we learn, from the success of 
 their noble example, that without any one human 
 expedient to charm the ear, the heart may, by 
 the naked instrumentality of the Word of God, 
 urged with plainness on those who feel its deceit 
 and its worthlessness, be charmed to an entire 
 acquiescence in the revealed way of God, and 
 have impressed upon it the genuine stamp and 
 character of godliness. 
 
 Could the sense of what is due to God, be ef- 
 fectually stirred up within the human bosom, it 
 would lead to a practical carrying of all the les- 
 sons of Christianity. Now, to awaken this moral 
 sense, there are certain simple relations between 
 the creature and the Creator, which must be 
 clearly apprehended, and manifested with power 
 unto the conscience. We believe, that however 
 much philosophers may talk about the compara- 
 tive ease of forming those conceptions which are 
 eimpje, they will, if in good earnest after a right 
 
194 
 
 footing with God, soon discover in their own 
 minds, all that darkness and incapacity about spi- 
 ritual things, which are so broadly announced to 
 us in the New Testament. And, oh! it is a deep- 
 ly interesting spectacle, to behold a man, who can 
 take a masterly and commanding survey over the 
 field of some human speculation, who can clear 
 his discriminated way through all the turns and 
 ingenuities of some human argument, who by the 
 march of a mighty and resistless demonstration, 
 can scale with assured footstep the sublimities of 
 science, and from his firm stand on the eminence 
 he has won, can descry some wondrous range of 
 natural or intellectual truth spread out in subor- 
 dination before him : and yet this very man may, 
 in reference to the moral and authoritative claims 
 of the Godhead, be in a state of utter apathy and 
 blindness ! All his attempts, either at the spiritual 
 discernment, or the practical impression of this 
 doctrine, may be arrested and baffled by the 
 weight of some great inexplicable impotency. A 
 man of homely talents, and still homelier educa- 
 tion, may see what he cannot see, and feel what 
 he cannot feel ; and wise and prudent as he is, 
 there may lie the barrier of an obstinate and im- 
 penetrable concealment, between his accomplish?- 
 ed mind, and those things which are revealed unto 
 
 babes. 
 
 - 
 
 But while his mind is thus utterly devoid of 
 may be called the main or elemental princi- 
 
195 
 
 pie of theology, he may have a far quicker appre- 
 hension, and have his taste and his feelings much 
 more powerfully interested, than the simple Chris- 
 tian who is beside him, by what may be called 
 the circumstantials of theology. He can throw a 
 wider and more rapid glance over the magnitudes 
 of creation. He can be more delicately alive to 
 the beauties and the sublimities which abound in 
 it. He can, when the idea of a presiding God is 
 suggested to him, have a more kindling sense of 
 his natural majesty, and be able, both in imagina- 
 tion and in words, to surround the throne of the 
 Divinity by the blazonry of more great, arid 
 splendid, and elevating images. And yet, with 
 all those powers of conception which he does 
 possess, he may not possess that on which prac- 
 tical Christianity hinges. The moral relation be- 
 tween him and God, may neither be effectively 
 perceived, nor faithfully proceeded on. Con- 
 science maybe in a state of the most entire dor- 
 mancy, and the man be regaling himself with the 
 magnificence of God, while he neither loves God, 
 nor believes God, nor obeys God. 
 
 And here I cannot but remark, how much cflect 
 and simplicity go together in the annals of Mora- 
 vianism. The men of this truly interesting de*- 
 nomination, address themselves exclusively to that 
 principle of our nature, on which the proper influ- 
 ence of Christianity turns. Or, in other words, 
 
19G 
 
 they take up the subject of the gospel message, 
 that message devised by him who knew what was 
 in man, and who, therefore, knew how to make 
 the right and the suitable application to man. 
 They urge the plain word of the Testimony ; and 
 they pray for a blessing from on high; and that 
 thick impalpable veil, by which the god of this 
 world blinds the hearts of men who believe not, 
 lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should 
 enter into them that veil, which no power of phi- 
 losophy can draw aside, gives way to the demon- 
 stration of the Spirit ; and thus it is, that a clear 
 perception of Scriptural truth, and all the fresh- 
 ness and permanency of its moral influences, are 
 to be met with among men who have just emerg- 
 ed from the rudest and the grossest barbarity. 
 Oh ! when one looks at the number and the great- 
 ness of their achievements when he thinks of the 
 change they have made on materials so coarse and 
 so unpromising when he eyes the villages they 
 have formed and around the whole of. that en- 
 gaging perspective by which they have chequered, 
 and relieved the grim solitude of the desert, he 
 witnesses the love, and listens to the piety of re- 
 claimed savages; who would not long to be in 
 possession of the charm by which they have 
 wrought this wondrous transformation who 
 would not willingly exchange for it all the parade 
 of human eloquence, and all the confidence of 
 human argument- and for the wisdom of winning* 
 
197 
 
 souls, who is there that would not rejoice to throw 
 the loveliness of the song, and all the insignificancy 
 of its passing fascinations, away from him ? 
 
 And yet it is right that every cavil against 
 Christianity should be met, and every argument 
 for it be exhibited, and all the graces and sublimi- 
 ties of its doctrine be held out to their merited 
 admiration. And if it be true, as it certainly is, 
 that throughout the whole of this process, a man 
 may be carried rejoicingly along from the mere in- 
 dulgence of his taste, and the mere play and ex- 
 ercise of his understanding ; while conscience is 
 untouched, and the supremacy of moral claims 
 upon the heart and the conduct is practically dis- 
 owned by him it is further right that this should 
 be adverted to ; and that such a melancholy 
 unhingement in the constitution of man should be 
 fully laid open; and that he should be driven out 
 of the seductive complacency which he is so apt 
 to cherish, merely because he delights in the love- 
 liness of the song ; and that he should be urged 
 with the imperiousness of a demand which still re- 
 mains unsatisfied, to turn him from the corrupt in- 
 difference of nature, and to become personally a 
 religious man ; and that he should be assured how 
 all the gratification he felt in listening to the word 
 which respected the kingdom of God, will be of 
 no avail, unless that kingdom come to himself in 
 power that it will only go to heighten the per- 
 versity of his character that it will not extenuate 
 
his real and practical ungodliness, but will serve 
 most fearfully to aggravate the condemnation of it 
 
 With a religion so argumen table as ours, it may 
 be easy to gather out of it a feast for the human 
 understanding. With a religion so magnificent as 
 ours, it may be easy to gather out of it a feast for 
 the human imagination. But with a religion so 
 humbling, and so strict, and so spiritual, it is not 
 easy to mortify the pride ; or to quell the strong 
 enmity of nature ; or to arrest the currency of the 
 affections ; or to turn the constitutional habits ; or 
 to pour a new complexion over the moral history ; 
 or to stem the domineering influence of things 
 seen and things sensible ; or to invest faith with a 
 practical supremacy; or to give its objects such a 
 vivacity of influence as shall overpower the near 
 and the hourly impressions, that are ever emanat- 
 ing upon man from a seducing world. It is here 
 that man feels himself treading upon the limit of 
 his helplessness. It is here that he sees where 
 the strength of nature ends ; and the power of 
 grace must either be put forth, or leave him to 
 grope his darkling way, without one inch of pro- 
 gress toward the life and the substance of Chris- 
 tianity. It is here that a barrier rises on the con- 
 templation of the inquirer the barrier of sepa- 
 ration between the carnal and the spiritual, and 
 on which he may idly waste the every energy 
 which belongs to him, in the enterprise of sur- 
 mounting it. It is here, that after having walked 
 
199 
 
 the round of nature's acquisitions, and lavished 
 upon the truth all his ingenuities, and surveyed it 
 in its every palpable character of grace and 
 majesty; he will still feel himself on a level with 
 the simplest and most untutored of the species. 
 He needs the power of a living manifestation. 
 He needs the anointing which remaineth. He 
 needs that which fixes and perpetuates a stable 
 revolution upon the character, and in virtue of 
 which he may be advanced from the state of one 
 who hears, and is delighted, to the state of one who 
 hears, and is a doer. Oh! how strikingly is the 
 experience even of vigorous and accomplished 
 nature at one on this point with the announce- 
 ments of revelation, that to work this change, 
 there must be the putting forth of a peculiar 
 agency ; and that it is an agency, which, withheld 
 from the exercise of loftiest talent, is often brought 
 down on an impressed audience, through the 
 humblest of all instrumentality, with the demon- 
 stration of the Spirit and with power. 
 
 Think it not enough, that you carry in your 
 bosom an expanding sense of the magnificence of 
 creation. But pray for a subduing sense of the 
 authority of the Creator. Think it not enough, 
 that with the justness of a philosophical discern- 
 ment, you have traced that boundary which hems 
 in all the possibilities of human attainment, and 
 have found that all beyond it is a dark and fa- 
 thomless unknown. But let this modesty of 
 
200 
 
 science be carried, as in consistency it ought, to 
 the question of revelation, and let all the antipa- 
 thies of nature be schooled to acquiescence in 
 the authentic testimonies of the Bible. Think it 
 not enough, that you have looked with sensibility 
 and wonder at the representation of God throned 
 in immensity, yet combining with the vastness of 
 his entire superintendence, a most thorough in* 
 spection into all .the minute and countless diversi- 
 ties of existence. Think of your own heart as 
 one of these diversities ; and that he ponders all 
 its tendencies ; and has an eye upon all its move- 
 ments; and marks all its waywardness ; and, God 
 of judgment as he is, records its every secret, and 
 its every sin, in the book of his remembrance. 
 Think it not enough, that you have been led to 
 associate a grandeur with the salvation of the 
 New Testament, when made to understand that it 
 draws upon it the regards of an arrested universe. 
 How is it arresting your own mind ! What has 
 been the earnestness of your personal regards to- 
 wards it ? And tell me, if all its faith, and all its 
 repentance, and all its holiness are not disowned 
 by you ? Think it not enough, that you have felt 
 a sentimental charm when angels were pictured 
 to your fancy as beckoning you to their mansions, 
 and anxiously looking to the every symptom of 
 your grace and reformation. Oh ! be constrained 
 by the power of all this tenderness, and yield 
 yourselves up in a practical obedience to the 
 call of the Lord God merciful and gracious 
 
201 
 
 Think it not enough, that you have shared for a 
 moment in the deep and busy interest of that ar- 
 duous conflict which is now going on for a moral 
 ascendency over the species. Remember that 
 the conflict is for each of you individually; and 
 let this alarm you into a watchfulness against the 
 power of every temptation, and a cleaving de- 
 pendence upon him through whom alone you will 
 be more than conquerors. Above all, forget not, 
 that while you only hear and are delighted, you 
 are still under nature's powerlessness, and na- 
 ture's condemnationand that the foundation is 
 not laid, the mighty and essential change is not 
 accomplished, the transition from death unto life 
 is not undergone, the saving faith is not formed, 
 nor the passage taken from darkness to the mar- 
 vellous light of the gospel, till you are both hear- 
 ers of the word and doers also. " For if any be 
 a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like 
 unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass ; 
 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and 
 straightway forgetteth what manner of man he 
 
 was." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I 
 
 VWVWWV 
 
 THE writer of these Discourses has drawn up 
 the following compilation of prssages from Scrip- 
 ture, as serving to illustrate or to confirm the lead- 
 ing arguments which have been employed in each 
 separate division of his subject. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth , 
 Gen. i. 1. 
 
 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
 host of them. Gen. ii. 1. 
 
 Behold the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord's 
 thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Deut. x. 14. 
 
 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon 
 the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. Deut. 
 xxxiii. 26. 
 
 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God 
 of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the 
 God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth ; thou 
 hast made heaven and earth. 2 Kings xix. 15. 
 
 For all the gods of the people are idols : but the Lord made 
 the heavens. 1 Chronicles xvi. 26. 
 
 Thou, even thou, art Lord alone : thou hast made heaven, the 
 heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things 
 that are therein, the seas and all that is therein ; and thou pre- 
 servest them all 5 and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. N,e- 
 ftemiah ix. 6. 
 
201 
 
 Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the 
 waves of the sea 5 which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, 
 and the chambers of the south. Job ix. 8, 9. 
 
 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth 
 the earth upon nothing. Job xxvi. 7. 
 
 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens. Job xxvi. 13. 
 
 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament 
 showeth his handy-work. Psalm xix. 1. 
 
 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all the 
 host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psalm xxxiii. 6. 
 
 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the hea- 
 vens are the work of thy hands. Psalm cii. 25. 
 
 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who 
 stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. Psalm civ. 2. 
 
 He appointed the moon for seasons ; the sun knoweth his going 
 down. Psalm civ. 19. 
 
 You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth . 
 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's : but the earth 
 hath he given to the children of men. Psalm cxv. 15, 16. 
 
 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 
 Psalm cxxi. 2. 
 
 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and 
 earth. Psalm cxxiv. 8. 
 
 The Lord that made heaven and earth, bless thee out of Zion, 
 Psalm cxxxiv. 3. 
 
 Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is. 
 Psalm cxlvi. 6. 
 
 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth 5 by understand- 
 ing hath he established the heavens. Prov. iii. 19- 
 
 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and 
 meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the 
 earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and 
 the hills in a balance. Isa. xl. 12. 
 
 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inha- 
 bitants thereof are as grasshoppers 5 that stretcheth out the hea- 
 vens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in- 
 Isa. xl. 22. 
 
205 
 
 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and 
 stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that 
 which cometh out of it ; he that giveth breath unto the people 
 upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. Isa. xlii. 5. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee 
 from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that 
 stretch eth forth the heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the 
 earth by myself. Isa. xliv. 24. 
 
 I have made the earth, and created man upon it ; I, even my 
 hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I 
 commanded. Isa. xlv. 12. 
 
 For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself 
 that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he 
 created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. Isa. xlv. 18- 
 
 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my 
 right hand hath spanned the heavens ; when I call unto them, 
 they stand up together. Isa. xlviii. 13. 
 
 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the 
 world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his 
 discretion. Jer. x. 12. 
 
 Ah Lord God ! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the 
 earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is 
 nothing too hard for thee. Jer. xxxii. 17. 
 
 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the 
 world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his 
 understanding. Jer. li. 15. 
 
 It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath found- 
 ed his troop in the earth ; he that calleth for the waters of the 
 sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, The Lord 
 is his name. Amos ix. 6. 
 
 We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto 
 you, that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, 
 which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that 
 are therein. Acts xiv. 15. 
 
 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom h 
 hath appointed heir of ,all things, by whom also he made the 
 worlds. Heb. i. 2. 
 
U06 
 
 Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the 
 earth ; and the heavens are the work of thine hands. Heb. 
 i. 10. 
 
 Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by 
 the word of God. Heb. xi. 3. 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those 
 things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for 
 ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deut xxix. 29. 
 
 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my 
 cause ; Which doeth great things and unsearchable ; marvellous 
 things without number. Job. v, 8, 9. 
 
 Which doeth great things past finding out ; yea, and wonders 
 without number. Job. ix. 10. 
 
 Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find out 
 the Almighty unto perfection ? Job xi. 7- 
 
 Hast thou heard the secret of God ? and dost thou restrain 
 wisdom to thyself ? Job xv. 8. 
 
 Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little a portion is 
 heard of him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand ? 
 Job xxvi. 14. 
 
 Behold, God is great, and we know him not ; neither can the 
 number of his years be searched out. Job. xxxvi. 26. 
 
 God thundereth marvellously with his voice ; great things 
 doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. Job xxxvii. 5. 
 
 Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out : he is ex- 
 cellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice. Job 
 xxxvii. 23. 
 
 Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and 
 thy footsteps are not known. Psalm Ixxvii. 19. 
 
 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised : and his great- 
 ness is unsearchable. Psalm cxlv. 3. 
 
207 
 
 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways 
 my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than 
 the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my 
 thoughts than your thoughts. Isa. Iv. 8, 9. 
 
 Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as 
 little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 Matth. xviii. 3. 
 
 Verily I s,ay unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom 
 of God, as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein. Luke 
 xviii. 17. 
 
 O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past 
 finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? Or who 
 hath been his counsellor ? Rom. xi. 33, 34. 
 
 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth 
 to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be 
 wise. 1 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 For if a man thinketh himself to be something, when he is 
 nothing, he deceiveth himself. Gal. vi. 3. 
 
 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain 
 deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, 
 and not after Christ. Col. ii. 8. 
 
 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding 
 profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so 
 called. 1 Tim. vi. 20. 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 
 But will God indeed dwell on the earth ? Behold, the heaven, 
 and heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee ; how much less 
 this house that I havebuilded? Yet have thou respect unto the 
 prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, 
 to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant 
 prayeth before thee to-day : That thine eyes may be open to- 
 
208 
 
 ward this house night and day, even toward the place of which 
 thou hast said, My name shall be there; that thou mayest 
 hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward 
 this place. 1 Kings viii. 27", 28, 29. 
 
 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the 
 whole heaven. Job xxviii. 24. 
 
 For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his 
 goings. Jobxxxiv. 21. 
 
 Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly. 
 Psalm cxxxviii. 6. 
 
 O Lord thou hast searched me and known me. Thou know- 
 est my down-sitting and mine up-rising : thou understandest my 
 thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down,, 
 and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word 
 in my tongue, but lo, O Lord ! thou knowest it altogether. 
 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon 
 me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I 
 cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or 
 whither shall I flee from thy presence ? Psalm cxxxix. 1 7- 
 
 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God ! how 
 great is the sum of them ! If I should count them, they are more 
 in number than the sand : when I awake, I am still with thee. 
 Psalm cxxxix. 17, 18. 
 
 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and 
 the good. Prov. xv. 3. 
 
 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him ? 
 saith the Lord : do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord. 
 Jer. xxiii. 24. 
 
 Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they 
 reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth 
 them. Are ye not much better than they ? And why take ye 
 thought for raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field how they 
 grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : And yet I say unto you-, 
 That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one 
 of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
 which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not 
 much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ? Matt; vi, 26 ; 28, 29, 
 30, 
 
209 
 
 &ut the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matth. 
 x. 30. 
 
 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight : 
 but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him wijli 
 tfhom we have to do. Heb. iv. IS. 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and 
 the top of it reached to heaven : and behold the angels of God 
 ascending and descending on it. Gen. xxviii. 12. 
 
 For a thousand years in thy sight, are but as yesterday when 
 it is past, and as a watch in the night. Psalm xc. 4. 
 
 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth be- 
 neath : for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the 
 earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein 
 shall die in like manner ; but my salvation shall be for ever, and 
 iny righteousness shall not be abolished. Isa. li. 6. 
 
 For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with 
 his angels ; and then he shall reward every man according to his 
 works. Matth. xvi. 27. 
 
 When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
 angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. 
 Matth. xxv. 31. 
 
 Also, I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, 
 him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angel's of God. 
 But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the 
 angeis of God. Luke xii. 8, 9. 
 
 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter 
 ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and 
 descending upon the Son of Man. John i. 51. 
 
 B b 
 
 
210 
 
 We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to 
 men. 1 Cor. iv. 9. 
 
 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a 
 name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, 
 and things under the earth : and that every tongue should confess 
 that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Phil. 
 ii. 9, 10, 11. 
 
 When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his 
 mighty angels. 2 Thess. i. 7. 
 
 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness : 
 God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, 
 preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up 
 into glory. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
 elect angels, that thou observe these things. 1 Tim. v. 21. 
 
 And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, 
 he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. Heb. i. 6. 
 
 But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company 
 of angels, To the general assembly and church of the first born, 
 which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to 
 the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator 
 of the new covenant. Hebrews xii. 22, 23, 24. 
 
 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day- 
 is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
 one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some 
 men count slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing 
 that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 
 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
 which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 Clements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 
 that are therein, shall be burnt up. 2 Peter iii. 8, 9, 10. 
 
 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the 
 earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth 
 for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that there*- 
 
 I' 
 
211 
 
 in are, and the earth and the things that therein ape, and the sea 
 and the things which are therein, that there should be time no 
 longer. Rev. x. 5, 6. 
 
 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 
 If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his 
 mark in his forehead or in his hand, The same shall drink of the 
 wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture 
 into the cup of his indignation ; and he shall be tormented with 
 fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the 
 presence of the Lamb. Rev. xiv. 9, 10. 
 
 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from 
 whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was 
 found no place for them. Rev. xx. 11. 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 And Nathan departed unto his house : and the Lord struck the 
 child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. 
 David, therefore, besought God for the child : and David fasted^ 
 and went in and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of 
 his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth ; 
 but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it 
 came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the 
 servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead ; 
 for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake 
 unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice ; how will 
 he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead ? But 
 when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived 
 that the child was dead : therefore David said unto his servants, 
 Is the child dead ? And they said, he is dead. Then David 
 
212 
 
 arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and 
 changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and 
 worshipped : then he came to his own house : and, when he re- 
 quired, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his 
 servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done ? Thou 
 didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive : but when the 
 child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, while 
 the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept : for I said, who can 
 tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live ? 
 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast ? can I bring him 
 back again ? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. 
 2 Sam. xii. 1523. 
 
 The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear 
 him, and delivereth them. Psalm xxxiv. 7. 
 
 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in 
 all thy ways. Psalm xci. 2. 
 
 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet; 
 and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, 
 from the one end of heaven to the other. Matth. xxiv. 31. 
 
 Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the 
 angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Luke xv. 10. 
 
 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister fcr 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation? Heb. i. 14. 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be 
 tempted of the devil. Matth. iv. 1. 
 
 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the 
 end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. The Son of 
 Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out ohi$ 
 
213 
 
 kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. 
 Matth. xiii. 39,41. 
 
 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart 
 from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire^ prepared for the devil 
 and his angels. Matth. xxv. 41. 
 
 And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of 
 an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us 
 alone ; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? 
 art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art : the 
 Holy One of God. Luke iv. 33, 34. 
 
 Those by the way-side are they that hear ; then cometh the 
 devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they 
 should believe and be saved. Luke viii. 12. 
 
 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every king- 
 dom divided against itself is brought to desolation ; and a house 
 divided against a house, falleth. If Satan also be divided 
 against himself, how shall his kingdom stand ? because ye say 
 that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. Luke xi. 17, 18. 
 
 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father 
 ye will do ; he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode 
 not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he 
 speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, and the 
 father of it. John viii. 44. 
 
 And supper being ended, (the devil having now put into the 
 heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.) John 
 xiii. 2. 
 
 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to 
 lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of 
 the land ? Acts v. 3. 
 
 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, 
 and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive 
 forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which arc 
 sanctified by faith that is in me. Acts xxvi. 18. 
 
 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet 
 shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Clirist be with you. 
 Amen. Rom. xvi. 20. 
 
214 
 
 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us : for we are not ig- 
 norant of his devices. 2 Cor. ii. 11. 
 
 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them 
 which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, 
 who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 2 Cor. 
 iv. 4. 
 
 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of 
 this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the 
 spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Eph. 
 ii. 2. 
 
 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand 
 against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh 
 and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the 
 rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness- 
 in high places. Eph. vi. II, 12. 
 
 For some are already turned aside after Satan. 1 Tim. v. 15. 
 
 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and 
 blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same 5 that 
 through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, 
 that is the devil. Heb. ii. 14. 
 
 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and 
 he will flee from you. James iv. 1. 
 
 Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a 
 roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour : Whom 
 resist, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are 
 accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 1 Pet. 
 v.8,9. 
 
 He that committeth sin, is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth 
 from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was mani- 
 fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 
 
 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the 
 devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither 
 he that loveth not his brother. 1 John iii. 8, 10. 
 
 Ye are of God, little Children, and have overcome them ; be- 
 cause greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world* 
 3 John iv. 4. 
 
215 
 
 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their 
 own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under 
 darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. Jude 6. 
 
 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment ; 
 and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will 
 confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. Rev. 
 iii. 5. 
 
 And there was war in heaven : Michael and his angels fought 
 against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels, And 
 prevailed not ; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. 
 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the 
 Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whote world ; he was cast 
 out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 
 Therefore rejoke^ ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Wo 
 to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea ! for the devil is come 
 down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he 
 hath but a short time. Rev. xii. 7, 8, 9, 12. 
 
 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the 
 Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And when 
 the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his 
 prison. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake 
 of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, 
 and shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever. Rev. 
 xx. 2, 7 ; It). 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and 
 doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
 house upon a rock : And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
 and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : 
 
for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth 
 these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto 
 a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand ; And the rain 
 descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat 
 upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall of it. Matt, 
 vii. 24 27. 
 
 At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Fa- ' 
 ther ! Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these 
 things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes. Matth. xi. 25. 
 
 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drank in thy 
 presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, 
 I tell you, I know you not whence ye are : depart from me all ye 
 workers of iniquity. Luke xiii. 26, 27. 
 
 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the 
 doers of the law shall be justified. Rom. ii. 13. 
 
 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency 
 of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of 
 God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save 
 Jesus Christ and him crucified. And my speech and my preach- 
 ing was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon- 
 stration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not 
 stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now 
 we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which 
 is of God ; that we might know the things that are freely given 
 to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words 
 which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teach- 
 eth ; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are 
 foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they 
 are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14. 
 
 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 1 Cor. 
 Hi. 19. 
 
 For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 1 Cor. 
 iv. 20. 
 
217 
 
 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of 
 Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit 
 of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of 
 the heart Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any 
 thing as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God ; Who also 
 hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; not of the 
 letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 
 life. 2 Cor. iii. 3, 5, 6. 
 
 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
 may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 
 knowledge of him : The eyes of your understanding being en- 
 lightened ; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and 
 what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And 
 what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who be- 
 lieve, according to the working of his mighty power. Eph. i, 
 17, 18, 19. 
 
 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and 
 sins. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
 good works, Eph. ii. 1, 10. 
 
 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in 
 power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. 1 Thes. 
 i. 5. 
 
 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we 
 should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures. 
 
 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving 
 yourselves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, 
 he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For 
 he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway for- 
 getteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the 
 perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a for- 
 getful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed 
 in his deed. James i. 18. 22 25. 
 
 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy 
 nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of 
 him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. 
 1 Pet. ii. 9- 
 
 c c 
 
218 
 
 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all 
 things. 
 
 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in 
 you : and ye need not that any man teach you : but as the same 
 anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, 
 and even as it hath taught you^ ye shall abide in him. 1 John i.L 
 20,27. 
 
 THE END 
 
SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 RELIEF OF THE DESTITUTE SICK, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 LORD'S DAY, APRIL 18, 1813, 
 
 And published in consequence of their earnest request. 
 
 BY THOMAS CHALMERS, 
 
 MINISTER OF KILMANY. 
 
 XEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCETN, 
 1817. 
 
PSALM XLI. 1. 
 
 Blessed is he that considereth the Poor ; the Lord will de- 
 liver him in time of trouble" 
 
 THERE is an evident want of congeniality be- 
 tween the wisdom of this world, and the wisdom 
 of the Christian. The term " wisdom," carries my 
 reverence along with it It brings before me a 
 grave and respectable character, whose rationality 
 predominates over the inferior principles of his 
 constitution, and to whom I willingly yield that 
 peculiar homage which the enlightened, and the 
 judicious, and the manly, are sure to exact from a 
 surrounding neighbourhood. Now, so long as this 
 wisdom has for its object some secular advantage, 
 I yield it an unqualified reverence. It is a rever- 
 ence which all understand, and all sympathise 
 with. If, in private life, a man be wise in the ma- 
 nagement of his farm, or his fortune, or his family; 
 or if, in public life, he have wisdom to steer an 
 empire through all its difficulties, and to carry it to 
 aggrandisement and renown the respect which I 
 feel for such wisdom as this, is most cordial and 
 entire, and supported by the universal acknowledg- 
 ment of all whom I call to attend to it. 
 
 Let me now suppose that this wisdom has 
 
changed its object that the man whom I am re- 
 presenting to exemplify this respectable attribute,, 
 instead of being wise for time, is wise for eternity 
 that he labours by the faith and .sanctification of 
 the gospel for unperishable honours that, instead 
 of listening to him with admiration at his sagacity, 
 as he talks of business, or politics, or agriculture, 
 we are compelled to listen to him talking of the 
 hope within the vail, and of Christ being the pow- 
 er of God, and the wisdom of God, unto salvation. 
 What becomes of your respect for him now ? Are 
 there not some of you who are quite sensible that 
 this respect is greatly impaired, since the wisdom 
 of the man has taken so unaccountable a change 
 in its object and in its direction ? The truth is, that 
 the greater part of the world feel no respect at all 
 fora wisdom which they do not comprehend. They 
 may love the innocence of a decidedly religious 
 character, but they feel no sublime or command- 
 ing sentiment of veneration for its wisdom. All the 
 truth of the Bible, and all the grandeur of eternity, 
 will not redeem it from a certain degree of con- 
 tempt. Terms which lower, undervalue, and de- 
 grade, suggest themselves to the mind; and strong- 
 ly dispose it to throw a mean and disagreeable co- 
 louring over the man who, sitting loose to the ob- 
 jects of the world, has become altogether a Chris- 
 tian. It is needless to expatiate ; but what I have 
 seen myself, and what must have fallen under the 
 observation of many whom I address, carry in them 
 the testimony of experience to the assertion of the 
 
Apostle, " that the things of the spirit of God are 
 foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know 
 them, for they are spiritually discerned." 
 
 Now, what I have said of the respectable attri- 
 bute of wisdom, is applicable, with almost no vari- 
 ation, to another attribute of the human character, 
 to which I would assign the gentler epithet of 
 " lovely." The attribute to which I allude, is that 
 of benevolence. This is the burden of every poet's 
 song, and every eloquent and interesting enthusi- 
 ast gives it his testimony. I speak not of the en- 
 thusiasm of methodists and devotees I speak of 
 that enthusiasm of fine sentiment which embel- 
 lishes the pages of elegant literature, and is ad- 
 dressed to all her sighing and amiable votaries, in 
 the various forms of novel, and poetry, and dramatic 
 entertainment. You would think if any thing could 
 bring the Christian at one with the world around 
 him, it would be this; and that, in the ardent bene- 
 volence which figures in novels, and sparkles in poe- 
 try, there would be an entire congeniality with the 
 benevolence of the gospel. I venture to say, how- 
 ever, that there never existed a stronger repulsion 
 between two contending sentiments, than between 
 the benevolence of the Christian, and the benevo- 
 lence which is the theme of elegant literature 
 that the one, with all its accompaniments of tears, 
 and sensibilities, and interesting cottages, is neither 
 felt nor understood by the Christian as such ; and the 
 other, with its work and labours of love its en- 
 during hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 
 
G 
 
 and its living, not to itself, but *o the will of Him 
 who died for us, and who rose again, is not only not 
 understood, but positively nauseated, by the poe- 
 tical amateur. 
 
 But the contrast does not stop here. The be- 
 nevolence of the gospel is not only at antipodes 
 ivith the visionary sons and daughters of poetry, 
 butit even varies in some of its most distinguishing 
 features with the experimental benevolence of 
 real and familiar life. The fantastic benevolence 
 of poetry is now indeed pretty well exploded ; and, 
 in the more popular works of the age. there is a be- 
 nevolence of a far truer and more substantial kind 
 substituted in its place the benevolence which 
 you meet with among men of business and obser- 
 vation the benevolence which bustles and finds 
 employment among the most public and ordinary 
 scenes, and which seeks for objects, not where the 
 flower blows loveliest, and the stream, with its gen- 
 tle murmurs, falls sweetest on the ear, but finds 
 them in his every day walks goes in quest of 
 them through the heart of the great city, and is not 
 afraid to meet them in its most putrid lanes and 
 loathsome receptacles. 
 
 Now, it must be acknowledged, that this bene- 
 volence is of a far more respectable kind than that 
 poetic sensibility, which is of no use, because it 
 admits of no application. Yet I am not afraid to 
 say, that, respectable as it is, it does not come up 
 to the benevolence of the Christian, and is at vari- 
 ance, in some of its most capital ingredients, with 
 
the morality of the gospel. It is well, and very 
 well, as far as it goes ; and that Christian is wanting 
 to the will of his master who refuses to share and 
 go along with it. The Christian will do all this, 
 but he would like to do more ; and it is at the pre- 
 cise point where he proposes to do more, that he 
 finds himself abandoned by the co-operation and 
 good wishes of those who had hitherto supported 
 him. The Christian goes as far as the votary of 
 this useful benevolence, but then he \vould like to 
 go further, and this is the point at which he is mor- 
 tified to find that his old coadjutors refuse to 
 go along with him; and that, instead of being 
 strengthened by their assistance, he has their con- 
 tempt and their ridicule ; or, at all events, their 
 total want of sympathy, to contend with. The 
 truth is, that the benevolence I allude to, with all 
 its respectable air of business and good sense, is 
 altogether a secular benevolence. Through all 
 the extent of its operations, it carries in it no 
 reference to the eternal duration of its object. 
 Time, and the accommodations of time, form all 
 its subject, and all its exercise. It labours, and 
 often with success, to provide for its object a warm 
 and well-sheltered tenement, but it looks not be- 
 yond the few little years when the earthly house 
 of this tabernacle shall be dissolved when the 
 soul shall be driven from its perishable tenement, 
 and the only benevolence it will acknowledge or 
 care for, will be the benevolence of those who 
 have directed it to a building not made with hands, 
 
8 
 
 eternal in the heavens. This, then, is the point 
 at which the benevolence of the gospel separates 
 from that worldly benevolence, to which, as far as 
 it goes, I offer my cheerful and unmingled testi- 
 mony. The one minds earthly things, the other 
 has its conversation in heaven. Even when the 
 immediate object of both is the same, you will ge- 
 nerally perceive an evident distinction in the prin- 
 ciple. Individuals, for example, may co-operate, 
 and will often meet in the same room, be members 
 of the same society, and go hand-in-hand cordi- 
 ally together for the education of the poor. But 
 the forming habits of virtuous industry, and good 
 members of society, which are the sole considera- 
 tion in the heart of the worldly philanthropist, are 
 but mere accessions in the heart of the Christian. 
 The main impulse of his benevolence lies in fur- 
 nishing the poor with the means of enjoying that 
 bread of life which came down from heaven, 
 and in introducing them to the knowledge of 
 those scriptures which are the power of God unto 
 salvation to every one who believeth. Now, it is 
 so far a blessing to the world that there is a co-ope- 
 ration in the immediate object. But what I con- 
 tend for, is, that there is a total want of congenial- 
 ity in the principle that the moment you strip the 
 institution of its temporal advantages, and make it 
 repose on the naked grandeur of eternity, it is fallen 
 from, or laughed at, as one of the chimeras of fa- 
 naticism, and left to the despised efforts of those 
 whom they esteem to be unaccountable people. 
 
who subscribe for missions, and squander their 
 money on Bible societies. Strange effect, you 
 would think, of eternity to degrade the object 
 with which it is connected ! But so it is. The 
 blaze of glory, which is thrown around the martyr- 
 dom of a patriot or a philosopher, is refused to the 
 martyrdom of a, Christian. When a statesman dies, 
 who lifted his intrepid voice for the liberty of the 
 species, we hear of nothing but of the shrines and 
 the monuments of immortality. Put into his place 
 one of those sturdy reformers, who, unmoved by 
 councils and inquisitions, stood up for the religious 
 liberties of the world: and it is no sooner done, 
 than the full tide of congenial sympathy and admi- 
 ration is at once arrested. We have all heard of 
 the benevolent apostleship of Howard, and what 
 Christian will be behind his fellows with his ap- 
 plauding testimony ? But will they, on the other 
 hand, share his enthusiasm, when he tells them of 
 the apostleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer sense 
 of the term, accomplished the liberty of the cap- 
 tive, and brought them that sat in darkness out of 
 the prison-house ? Will they share in the holy be- 
 nevolence of the apostle, when he pours out his 
 ardent effusions in behalf of his countrymen? 
 They were at that time on the eve of the cruellest 
 sufferings. The whole vengeance of the Roman 
 power was mustering to bear upon them. The 
 siege and destruction of their city form one of the 
 most dreadful tragedies in the history of war. Yet 
 Paul seems to have had another object in his eye. 
 
10 
 
 It was their souls and their eternity which en- 
 grossed him. Can you sympathise with him in 
 this principle, or join in kindred benevolence with 
 him, when he says, that " my heart's desire and 
 prayer for Israel is that they might be saved ?" 
 
 But to bring my list of examples to a close, the 
 most remarkable of them all may be collected from 
 the history of the present attempts which are now 
 making to carry the knowledge of divine revelation 
 into the Pagan and uncivilized countries of the 
 world. Now, it may be my ignorance, but I am 
 certainly not aware of the fact, that without a book 
 of religious faith without religion, in fact, being 
 the errand and occasion, we have ever been able 
 in modern times so far to compel the attention 
 and to subdue the habits of savages, as to throw 
 in among them the use and the possession of a 
 written language. Certain it is, however, at all 
 events, that this very greatest step in the process of 
 converting a wild man of the woods into a human- 
 ized member of society, has been accomplished by 
 Christian missionaries. They have put into the 
 hands of barbarians this mighty instrument of a 
 written language, and they have taught them how 
 to use it.* They have formed an orthography for 
 
 * As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the Moravian bre- 
 thren among the Indians of New-England and Pennsylvania; 
 the Moravians of South-America ; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Mo- 
 ravians in Greenland ; the latter in Labradore, among the Eski- 
 maux ; the missionaries of Otaheite, and other South Sea islands'; 
 and Mr. Bnmton, under the patronage of the Society for Mis- 
 
11 
 
 wandering and untutored savages. They have 
 given a shape and a name to their barbarous arti- 
 culations ; and the children of men, who lived on 
 the prey of the wilderness, are now forming in vil- 
 lage schools to the arts and the decencies of culti- 
 vated life. Now, I am not involving you in the con- 
 troversy whether civilization should precede Chris- 
 tianity, or Christianity should precede civilization, 
 It is not to what has been said on the subject, but 
 to what has been done that we are pointing your 
 attention. We appeal to the fact ; and as an illus- 
 tration of the principle we have been attempting to 
 lay before you, we call upon you to mark the feel- 
 ings, and the countenance, and the language, of the 
 mere academic moralist, when you put into his 
 hand the authentic and proper document where the 
 fact is recorded we mean a rriissioriary report, or 
 a missionary magazine. We know that there are 
 men who have so much of the firm nerve and hardi- 
 hood of philosophy about them, as not to be re- 
 pelled from truth in whatever shape, or from what- 
 ever quarter it comes to them. But there are 
 others of a humbler cast, who have transferred their 
 homage from the omnipotence of truth, to the om- 
 nipotence of a name, who, because missionaries^ 
 while they are accomplishing the civilization are 
 
 sions to Africa and the East, who reduced the language of the 
 Susoos, a nation on the coast of Africa, to writing and grammati- 
 cal form, and printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, catecnisra, 
 and some tracts, Other instances besides might be given. 
 
labouring also for the eternity of savages, have lilt- 
 ed up the cry of fanaticism against them who, be- 
 cause missionaries revere the word of God, and 
 utter themselves in the language of the New Tes- 
 tament, nauseate every word that comes from 
 them as overrun with the flavour and phraseology 
 of methodism who, are determined, in short, to 
 abominate all that is missionary, and suffer the 
 very sound of the epithet to fill their minds with 
 an overwhelming association of repugnance, and 
 prejudice, and disgust. 
 
 We would not have counted this so remarkable 
 an example, had it not been that missionaries are 
 accomplishing the very object on which the advo- 
 cates for civilization love to expatiate. They are 
 working for the temporal good far more effectually 
 than any adventurer in the cause ever did before ; 
 but mark the want of congeniality between the be- 
 nevolence of Ihis world, and the benevolence of the 
 Christian ; they incur contempt, because they are 
 working for the spiritual and eternal good also. 
 Nor do the earthly blessings which they scatter so 
 abundantly in their way, redeem from scorn the 
 purer and the nobler principle which inspires them. 
 
 These observations seem to be an applicable 
 introduction to the subject before us. I call your 
 attention to the way in which the Bible enjoins us 
 to take up the care of the poor. It does not say, in 
 the text before us, Commiserate the poor; for, if it 
 said no more than this, it would leave their necessi- 
 ties to be provided for by the random ebullitions of 
 
13 
 
 an impetuous and unreflecting sympathy. It pro- 
 vides them with a better security than the mere feel- 
 ing of compassion a feeling which, however useful 
 for the purpose of excitement, must be controlled 
 and regulated. Feeling is but a faint and fluctuat- 
 ing security. Fancy may mislead it. The sober 
 realities of life may disgust it. Disappointment 
 may extinguish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. 
 Deceit, with its counterfeit representations, may 
 allure it to the wrong object. At all events, Time 
 is the little circle within which it in general expa- 
 tiates. It needs the impression of sensible ob- 
 jects to sustain it ; nor can it enter with zeal 
 or with vivacity into the wants of the abstract 
 and invisible soul. The Bible, then, instead of 
 leaving the relief of the poor to the mere instinct 
 of sympathy, makes it a subject for consideration 
 Blessed is he that considered the poor a grave 
 and prosaic exercise I do allow, and which makes 
 no figure in those high wrought descriptions, where 
 the exquisite tale of benevolence is made up of all 
 the sensibilities of tenderness on the one hand, and 
 of all the ecstacies of gratitude on the other. The 
 Bible rescues the cause from the mischief to which 
 a heedless or unthinking sensibility would expose 
 it. It brings it under the cognizance of a higher 
 faculty a faculty of steadier operation than to be 
 weary in well-doing, and of sturdier endurance 
 than to give it up in disgust. It calls you to consi- 
 der the poor. It makes the virtue of relieving them 
 a matter of computation as well as of sentiment: 
 
14 
 
 and, in so doing, it puts you beyond the reach of 
 the various delusions by which you are at one time 
 led to prefer the indulgence of pity to the sub- 
 stantial interest of its object ; at another, are led 
 to retire chagrined and disappointed from the 
 scene of duty, because you have not met with the 
 gratitude or the honesty that you laid your account 
 with ; at another, are led to expend all your anxi- 
 eties upon the accommodation of time, and to 
 overlook eternity. It is the office of consideration 
 to save you from all these fallacies. Under its tu- 
 torage, attention to the wants of the poor ripens 
 into principle. I want, my brethren, to press its 
 advantages upon you, for 1 can in no other way 
 recommend the society whose claims I am ap- 
 pointed to lay before you, &o effectually to your 
 patronage. My time will only permit me to lay 
 before you a few of their advantages, and I shall 
 therefore confine myself to two leading particulars. 
 
 1. The man who considers the poor, instead of 
 slumbering over the emotions of a useless sensi- 
 bility, among those imaginary beings whom poetry 
 and romance have laid before him in all the ele- 
 gance of fictitious history, will bestow the labour 
 and the attention of actual business among the 
 poor of the real and the living world. Benevolence 
 is the burden of every romantic tale, and of every 
 poet's song. It is dressed out in all the fairy en- 
 chantments of imagery and eloquence. All is 
 beauty to the eye and music to the ear. Nothing 
 
seen but pictures of felicity, and nothing heard but 
 the soft whispers of gratitude and affection. The 
 reader is carried along by this soft and delightful 
 representation of virtue. He accompanies his hero 
 through all the fancied varieties of his histoiy. He 
 goes along with him to the cottage of poverty and 
 disease, surrounded, as we may suppose, with all 
 the charms of rural obscurity, and where the mur- 
 murs of an adjoining rivulet accord with the finer 
 and more benevolent sensibilities of the mind. He 
 enters this enchanting retirement, and meets with 
 a picture of distress, adorned in all the elegance of 
 fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed of languish- 
 ing, and supported by the labours of a pious arid 
 affectionate family, where kindness breathes in 
 every word, and anxiety sits upon every counte- 
 nance where the industry of his children strug- 
 gles in vain to supply the cordials which his po- 
 verty denies him where nature sinks every hour, 
 and all feel a gloomy foreboding, which they strive 
 to conceal, and tremble to express. The hero of 
 romance enters, and the glance of his benevolent 
 eye enlightens this darkest recess of misery. He 
 turns him to the bed of languishing, tells the sick 
 man that there is still hope, and smiles comfort on 
 his despairing children. Day after day, he repeats 
 his kindness and his charity. They hail his ap~ 
 proach as the footsteps of an angel of mercy. The 
 father lives to bless his deliverer. The family re- 
 ward his benevolence by the homage of an affec- 
 tionate gratitude ; and, in the piety of their even- 
 
16 
 
 i 
 
 ing prayer, offer up thanks to the God of heaven, 
 for opening the hearts of the rich to kindly and be- 
 neficent attentions. The reader weeps with de- 
 light. The visions of paradise play before his fan- 
 cy. His tears flow, and his heart dissolves in all 
 the luxury of tenderness. 
 
 Now, we do not deny that the members of the 
 Destitute Sick Society may at times have met with 
 some such delightful scene to soothe and encou- 
 rage them. But put the question to any of their 
 visiters, and he will riot fail to tell you, that if they 
 had never moved but when they had something 
 like this to excite and to gratify their hearts, they 
 would seldom have moved at all; and their useful- 
 ness to the poor would have been reduced to a very 
 humble fraction of what they have actually done 
 for them. What is this but to say, that it is the bu- 
 siness of a religious instructor to give you, not the 
 elegant, but the true representation of benevo- 
 lence to represent It not so much as a luxurious 
 indulgence to the finer sensibilities of the mind, 
 but according to the sober declaration of Scripture, 
 as a work and as a labour as a business in which 
 you must encounter vexation, opposition, and fa- 
 tigue ; where you are not always to meet with that 
 elegance which allures the fancy, or with that hum- 
 ble and retired adversity, which interests the more 
 tender propensities of the heart ; but as a business 
 where reluctance must often be overcome by a 
 sense of duty, and where, though oppressed at 
 every step, by envy, disgust, and disappointment. 
 
17 
 
 you are bound to persevere, in obedience to the 
 law of God, and the sober instigation of principle. 
 The benevolence of the gospel lies in actions. 
 The benevolence of our fictitious writers, in a kind 
 of high-wrought delicacy of feeling and sentiment. 
 The one dissipates all its fervour in sighs arid tears, 
 and idle aspirations the other reserves its strength 
 >for efforts and execution. The one regards it as a 
 luxurious enjoyment for the heart the other, as a 
 work and business for the hand. The one sits in 
 indolence, and broods, in visionary rapture, over its 
 schemes of ideal philanthropy the other steps 
 abroad, and enlightens, by its presence, the dark 
 and pestilential hovels of disease. The one wastes 
 away in empty ejaculation the other gives time 
 and trouble to the work of beneficence gives edu- 
 cation to the orphan provides clothes for the na- 
 ked, and lays food on the table of the hungry. The 
 one is indolent and capricious, and often does mis- 
 chief by the occasional overflowings of a whimsi- 
 cal and ill-directed charity the other is vigilant 
 and discerning, and takes care lest his distributions 
 be injudicious, and the effort of benevolence be 
 misapplied. The one is soothed with the luxury 
 of feeling, and reclines in easy and indolent satis- 
 faction the other shakes off the deceitful languor 
 of contemplation and solitude, and delights in a 
 scene of activity. Remember, that virtue, in ge- 
 neral, is not to feel, but to do not merely to con- 
 ceive a purpose, but to carry that purpose into 
 execution not merely to be overpowered by the 
 
 3 
 
impression of a sentiment, but to practise what it 
 loves, and to imitate what it admires. 
 
 To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be 
 selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the 
 indolence of man delude him into a thousand in- 
 consistencies. He professes to love the name and 
 the semblance of virtue, but the labour of exertion 
 and of self-denial terrifies him from attempting it. 
 The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bo- 
 som, but then they are little better than a selfish in- 
 dulgence they terminate in his own enjoyment 
 they are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye 
 melts over the picture of fictitious distress, while 
 not a tear is left for the actual starvation and mi- 
 sery with which he is surrounded. It is easy to 
 indulge the imaginations of a visionary heart in 
 going over a scene of fancied affliction, because 
 here there is no sloth to overcome no avaricious 
 propensity to control no offensive or disgusting cir- 
 cumstance to allay the unmingled impression of 
 sympathy which a soft and elegant picture is cal- 
 culated to awaken. It is not so easy to be benevo- 
 lent in action and in reality, because here there is fa- 
 tigue to undergo there is time and money to give 
 there is the mortifying spectacle of vice, and 
 folly, and ingratitude, to encounter. We like to 
 give you the fair picture of love to man, because to 
 throw over it false and fictitious embellishments, 
 is injurious to its cause. These elevate the fancy 
 by romantic visions which can never be realized. 
 They embitter the heart by the most severe and 
 
19 
 
 mortifying disappointments, and often Foree us to 
 retire in disgust from what heaven has intended to 
 be the theatre of our discipline arid preparation. 
 Take the representation of the Bible. Benevolence 
 is a work and a labour. It often calls for the se- 
 verest efforts of vigilance and industry a habit of 
 action not be acquired in the school of fine senti- 
 ment, but in the walks of business, in the dark and 
 dismal receptacles of misery in the hospitals of 
 disease in the putrid lanes of great cities, where 
 poverty dwells in lank and ragged wretchedness, 
 agonized with pain, faint with hunger, and shiver- 
 ing in a frail and unsheltered tenement. 
 
 You are not to conceive yourself a real lover of 
 your species, and entitled to the praise or the re- 
 ward of benevolence because you weep over a 
 fictitious representation of human misery. A man 
 may weep in the indolence of a studious and con- 
 templative retirement ; he may breathe all the ten- 
 der aspirations of humanity ; but what avails all 
 this warm and effusive benevolence, if it is never 
 exerted if it never rise to execution if it never 
 carry him to the accomplishment of a single be- 
 nevolent purpose if it shrink from activity, and 
 sicken at the pain of fatigue ? It is easy, indeed, to 
 come forward with the cant and hypocrisy of fine 
 sentiment to have a heart trained to the emotions 
 of benevolence, while the hand refuses the labours 
 of discharging its offices to weep for amusement, 
 and to have nothing to spare for human suffering 
 but the tribute of an indolent and unmeaning sym- 
 
26 
 
 pathy. Many of you must be acquainted \vith that, 
 corruption of Christian doctrine which has been 
 termed Antinomianism. It professes the highest 
 reverence for the Supreme Being, while it refuses 
 obedience to the lessons of his authority. It 
 professes the highest gratitude for the suffer- 
 ings of Christ, while it refuses that course of 
 life and action which he demands of his followers. 
 It professes to adore the tremendous Majesty of 
 heaven, and to weep in shame and in sorrow over 
 the sinfulness of degraded humanity, while every 
 day it insults heaven by the enormity of its mis- 
 deeds, and evinces the insincerity of its wilful per- 
 severance in the practice of iniquity. This Antino- 
 mianism is generally condemned; and none repro- 
 bate it more than the votaries of fine sentiment your 
 men of taste and elegant literature your epicures 
 of feeling, who riot in all the luxury of theatrical 
 emotion, and who, in their admiration of \vhat is 
 tender, and beautiful, and cultivated, have always 
 turned with disgust from the doctrines of a sour 
 and illiberal theology. We may say to such, as 
 Nathan to David, "Thou art the man." Theirs 
 is to all intents and purposes Antinomianism and 
 an Antinomianism of a far more dangerous and de- 
 ceitful kind, than the Antinomianism of a spurious 
 and pretended orthodoxy. In the Antinomianism 
 of religion, there is nothing to fascinate or deceive 
 you. It wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more fit- 
 ted to awaken disgust, than to gain the admiration 
 of proselytes. There is a glaring deformity in its 
 

 21 
 
 aspect, which alarms you at the very outset, and is 
 an outrage to that natural morality which, dark 
 and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough to lift 
 its loud remonstrance against it. But in the Anti- 
 nomianism of high-wrought sentiment, there is a 
 deception far more insinuating. It steals upon you 
 under the semblance of virtue. It is supported by 
 the delusive colouring of imagination and poetry. 
 It has all the graces and embellishments of litera- 
 ture to recommend it. Vanity is soothed, and con- 
 science lulls itself to repose in this dream of feeling 
 and of indolence. 
 
 Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and regulate 
 our lives by the truth and soberness of the New 
 Testament. Benevolence is not in word and in 
 tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business 
 with men as they are, and with human life as drawn 
 by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which 
 you must perform at the call of principle,' though 
 there be no voice of eloquence to give splendour 
 to your exertions, and no music or poetry to lead 
 your willing footsteps through the bowers of en- 
 chantment. It is not the impulse of high and ec- 
 static emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You 
 must go to the poor man's cottage, though no ver- 
 dure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to 
 delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If 
 you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction, you 
 will be disappointed : but it is your duty to perse- 
 vere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevo- 
 lence is not merely a feeling, but a principle not 
 

 22 
 
 a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a 
 business for the hand to execute. 
 
 It must now be obvious to all of you, that it is 
 not enough that you give money, and add your 
 name to the contributors of charity you must give 
 it with judgment. You must give your time and 
 your attention. You must descend to the trouble 
 of examination. You must rise from the repose of 
 contemplation, and make yourself acquainted with 
 the objects of your benevolent exercises. Will he 
 husband your charity with care, or will he squander 
 it away in idleness and dissipation ? Will he satisfy 
 himself with the brutal luxury of the moment, and 
 neglect the supply of his more substantial necessi- 
 ties, or suffer his children to be trained in igno- 
 rance and depravity ? Will charity corrupt him by 
 laziness ? What is his peculiar necessity ? Is it 
 the want of health or the want of employment ? 
 Is it.the pressure of a numerous family ? Does he 
 need medicine to administer to the diseases of his 
 children ? Does he need fuel or raiment to protect 
 them from the inclemency of winter? Does he 
 need money to satisfy the yearly demands of his 
 landlord, or to purchase books and to pay for the 
 education of his offspring? 
 
 To give money is not to do all the work and la- 
 bour of benevolence. You must go to the poor 
 man's bed. You must lend your hand to the work 
 of assistance. You must examine his accounts. 
 You must try to recover those debts which are due 
 to his family. You must try to recover those 
 
23 
 
 wages which are detained by the injuries or the ra- 
 pacity of his master. You must employ your me- 
 diation with his superiors. You must represent to 
 them the necessities of his situation. You must 
 solicit their assistance, and awaken their feelings 
 to the tale of his calamity. This is benevolence in 
 its plain, and sober, and substantial reality, though 
 eloquence may have withheld its imagery, and 
 poetry may have denied its graces and its embel- 
 lishments. This is true and unsophisticated good- 
 ness. It may be recorded in no earthly documents ; 
 but if done under the influence of Christian princi- 
 ple in a word, done unto Jesus, it is written in 
 the book of heaven, and will give a new lustre to 
 that crown to which his disciples look forward in 
 time, and will wear through eternity. 
 
 You have all heard of the division of labour, and I 
 wish you to understand, that the advantage of this 
 principle may be felt as much in the operations of 
 charity, as in the operations of trade and manu- 
 factures. The work of beneficence does not lie in 
 the one act of giving money ; there must be the 
 act of attendance ; there must be the act of inqui- 
 ry ; there must be the act of judicious application. 
 But I can conceive that an individual may be so 
 deficient in the varied experience and attention 
 which a work so extensive demands, that he may 
 retire in disgust and discouragement from the prac- 
 tice of charity altogether. Tlie institution of a So- 
 ciety, such as this, saves this individual to the cause. 
 It takes upon itself all the subsequent acts in the 
 
24 
 
 work and labour of love, and restricts his part to 
 the more act of giving money. It fills the middle 
 space, between the dispensers and the recipients of 
 chanty. The habits of many who now hear me. 
 may disqualify them for the work of examination. 
 They may have no time for it; they may live at a 
 distance from the objects ; they may neither know 
 how to introduce, nor how to conduct themselves 
 in the management of all the details ; their want of 
 practice and of experience may disable them for 
 the work of repelling imposition; they should try 
 to gain the necessary habits ; it is right that every 
 individual among us, should each, in his own 
 sphere, consider the poor, and qualify themselves 
 for a judicious and discriminating charity. But, 
 in the meantime, the Society for the Relief of the 
 Destitute Sick, is an instrument ready made to our 
 hands. Avail yourselves of this instrument imme- 
 diately, as, by the easiest part of the exercise of 
 charity, which is to give money, you carry home to 
 the poor all the benefits of its most difficult exer- 
 cises. The experience which you want, the mem- 
 bers of this laudable Society are in possession of. 
 By the work and observation of years, a stock of 
 practical wisdom is now accumulated among them. 
 They have been long inured to all that is loath- 
 some and discouraging in this good work, and 
 they have nerve, and hardihood, and principle to 
 front it. They are every way qualified to be the 
 carriers of your bounty, for it is a path they have 
 long travelled in. Give the money, and these con- 
 
25 
 
 scientious men will soon bring it into contact with 
 the right objects. They know the way through all 
 the obscurities of this metropolis, and they can 
 bring the offerings of your charity to people whom 
 you will never see, and into houses which you will 
 never enter. It is not easy to conceive, far less to 
 compute the extent of human misery; but these 
 men can give you experience for it. They can 
 show you their registers of the sick and of the dy- 
 ing ; they are familiar with disease in all its varie- 
 ties of faintness, and breathlessness, and pain. 
 Sad union ! they are called to witness it in conjunc- 
 tion with poverty ; and well do they know that there 
 is an eloquence in the imploring looks of these 
 helpless poor, which no description can set before 
 you. Oh ! my brethren, figure to yourselves the 
 calamity in all its soreness, and measure your 
 bounty by the actual greatness of the claims, and 
 not by the feebleness of their advocate. 
 
 I have trespassed upon your patience ; but, at the 
 hazard of carrying my address to a length that is 
 unusual, I must still say more. Nor would I ever 
 forgive myself if I neglected to set the eternity of 
 the poor in all its importance before you. This is 
 the second point of consideration to which I wish 
 to direct you. The man who considers the poor 
 will give his chief anxiety to the wants of their 
 eternity. It must be evident to all of you that this 
 anxiety is little felt. I do not appeal for the evi- 
 dence of this to the selfish part of mankind there 
 we are not to expect it. I go to those who are 
 
 4 
 
really benevolent who have a wish to make others 
 happy, and who take trouble in so doing ; and it is 
 a striking observation, how little the salvation of 
 these others is the object of that benevolence which 
 makes them so amiable. It will be found that in 
 and by far the greater number of instances, this 
 principle is all consumed on the accommodations 
 of time, and the necessities of the body. It is the 
 meat which feeds them the garment which co- 
 vers them the house which shelters them the 
 money which purchases all things ; these, I say, 
 are what form the chief topics of benevolent 
 anxiety. Now, we do not mean to discourage 
 this principle. We cannot afford it ; there is too 
 little of it ; and it forms too refreshing an exception 
 to that general selfishness which runs throughout 
 the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say 
 any thing against it. We are not cold-blooded 
 enough to refuse our delighted concurrence to an 
 exertion so amiable in its principle, and so pleas- 
 ing in the warm and comfortable spectacle which 
 it lays before us. The poor, it is true, ought never 
 to forget, that it is to their own industry, and to 
 the wisdom and economy of their own manage- 
 ment, that they are to look for the elements of 
 subsistence that if idleness and prodigality shall 
 lay hold of the mass of our population, no bene- 
 volence, however unbounded, can ever repair a 
 mischief so irrecoverable that if they will not la- 
 bour for themselves, it is not in the power of the 
 rich to create a sufficiency for them ; and that 
 
' 
 
 27 
 
 though every heart were opened, and every purse 
 emptied in the cause, it would absolutely go for 
 nothing towards forming a well-fed, a well-lodged, 
 or a well-conditioned peasantry. Still, however, 
 there are cases which no foresight could prevent, 
 and no industry could provide for where the blow 
 falls heavy and unexpected on some devoted son 
 or daughter of misfortune, and where, though 
 thoughtlessness and folly may have had their share, 
 benevolence, not very nice in its calculations, will 
 feel the overpowering claim of. actual, helpless, and 
 imploring misery. Now, I again offer my cheer- 
 ful testimony to such benevolence as this ; I count 
 it delightful to see it singling out its object, and 
 sustaining it against the cruel pressure of age and 
 of indigence ; and when I enter a cottage where I 
 see a warmer fire-side, or more substantial provi- 
 sion, than the visible means can account for, 1 say 
 that the landscape, in all its summer glories, does 
 not offer an object so gratifying, as when referred 
 to the vicinity of the great man's house, and the 
 people who live in it, and am told that I will find 
 my explanation there. Kind and amiable people ! 
 your benevolence is most lovely in its display, but 
 Oh ! it is perishable in its consequences. Does it 
 never occur to you, that in a few years this favo- 
 rite will die that he will go to the place where 
 neither cold nor hunger will reach him, but that a 
 mighty interest remains, of which both of us may 
 know the certainty, though neither you nor I can 
 calculate the extent. Your benevolence is too 
 
short it does not shoot far enough a-head it is like 
 regaling a child with a sweetmeat or a toy, and 
 then abandoning the happy unreflecting infant to 
 exposure. You make the poor old man happy 
 with your crumbs and your fragments, but he is 
 an infant on the mighty range of infinite duration ; 
 and will you leave the soul, whi^h has this infini- 
 ty to go through, to its chance? How comes it 
 that the grave should throw so impenetrable a 
 shroud over the realities of eternity ? How comes 
 it that heaven, and hell, and judgment, should be 
 treated as fo many nonentities, and that there 
 should be as little real and operative sympathy felt 
 for the soul, which lives for ever, as for the body 
 after it is dead, or for the dust into which it moul- 
 ders? Eternity is longer than time ; the arithme- 
 tic, my brethren, is all on one side upon this ques- 
 tion ; and the wisdom which calculates, and guides 
 itself by calculation, gives its weighty and respect- 
 able support to what may be called the benevo- 
 lence of faith. 
 
 Now, if there be one employment more fitted 
 than another to awaken this benevolence, it is the 
 peculiar employment of that Society for which I 
 am now pleading. I would have anticipated such 
 benevolence from the situation they occupy, and 
 the information before the public bears testimony 
 to the fact. The truth is, that the diseases of the 
 body may be looked upon as so many outlets 
 through which the soul finds its way to eternity. 
 Now, it is at these outlets that the members of this 
 
29 
 
 Society have stationed themselves. This is the in- 
 teresting point of survey at which they stand, and 
 from which they command a look of both worlds. 
 They have placed themselves in the avenues which 
 lead from time to eternity, and they have often to 
 witness the awful transition of a soul hovering at 
 the entrance strugglingits way through the valley 
 of the shadow of death, and at last breaking loose 
 from the confines of all that is visible. Do you think 
 it likely that men, with such spectacles before 
 them, will withstand the sense of eternity ? No, my 
 brethren, they cannot, they have not. Eternity, I 
 rejoice to announce to you, is not forgotten by them; 
 and with their care for the diseases of the body, 
 they are neither blind nor indifferent to the fact, 
 that the soul is diseased also. We know it well. 
 There is an indolent and superficial theology, which 
 turns its eyes from the danger, and feels no pressing 
 call for the application of the remedy which re- 
 poses more in its own vague and self-assumed con- 
 ceptions of the mercy of God, than in the firm and 
 consistent representations of the New Testament 
 which overlooks the existence of the disease alto- 
 gether, and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no 
 urgency in the business which, in the face of all 
 the truths and all the severities that are uttered in 
 the word of God, leaves the soul to its chance : or, 
 in other words, by neglecting to administer every 
 thing specific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it 
 to perish. We do not want to involve you in con- 
 troversies; we only ask you to open the New Tes- 
 
30 
 
 lament, and attend to the obvious meaning of a 
 word which occurs frequently in its pages we 
 mean the word saved. The term surely implies, 
 that the present state of the thing to be saved, is a 
 lost and an undone state. If a tree be in a healthful 
 state from its infancy, you never apply the term 
 saved to it, though you see its beautiful foliage, its 
 flourishing blossoms, its abundant produce, and its 
 progressive ascent through all the varieties incident- 
 al to a sound and a prosperous tree. But if it were 
 diseased in its infancy, and ready to perish, and if 
 it were restored by management and artificial ap- 
 plications, then you would say of this tree that it 
 was saved; and the very term implies some previ- 
 ous state of uselessness and corruption. What, then, 
 are we to make of the frequent occurrence of this 
 term in the New Testament, as applied to a human 
 being? If men come into this world pure and inno- 
 cent, and have nothing more to do but to put forth 
 the powers with which nature has endowed them, 
 and so rise through the progressive stages of virtue 
 and excellence, to the rewards of immortality, you 
 would not say of these men that they were saved 
 when they were translated to these rewards. These 
 rewards of man are the natural effects of his obe- 
 dience, and the term saved is not at all applicable 
 to such a supposition. But the God of the Bible says 
 differently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it is by 
 being saved. He is in a diseased state, and it is by 
 the healing application of the blood of the Son of 
 God, that he is restored from that state. The very 
 
31 
 
 title applied to *him proves the same thing. He is 
 called our Saviour. The deliverance which he 
 effects is called our salvation. The men whom he 
 doth deliver are called the saved. Doth not this im- 
 ply some previous state of disease and helplessness? 
 And from the frequent and incidental occurrence of 
 this term, may we not gather an additional testi- 
 mony to the truth of what is elsewhere more ex- 
 pressly revealed to us, that we are lost by nature, 
 and that to obtain recovery, we must be found in 
 Him who came to seek and to save that which is 
 lost. He that believeth on the Son of God shall be 
 saved, but he that believeth not, the wrath of God 
 abideth on him. 
 
 We know that there are some who loathe this 
 representation ; but this is just another example of 
 the substantial interests of the poor being sacrificed 
 to mismanagement and delusion. It is to be hoped 
 that there are many who have looked the disease 
 fairly in the face, and are ready to reach forward 
 the remedy adapted to relieve it. We should have 
 no call to attend to the spiritual interests of men, if 
 they could safely be left to themselves, and to the 
 spontaneous operation of those powers with which 
 it is supposed that nature has endowed them. But 
 this is not the state of the case. We come into the 
 world with the principles of sin and condemnation 
 within us ; and, in the congenial atmosphere of this 
 world's example, these ripen fast for the execution 
 of the sentence. During the period of this short but 
 interesting passage to another world, the remedy is 
 
32 
 
 in the gospel held out to all, and the freedom and 
 universality of its invitations, while it opens assur- 
 ed admission to all who will, must aggravate the 
 weight and severity of the sentence to those who 
 will not ; and upon them the dreadful energy of 
 that saying will be accomplished, " How shall 
 they escape if they neglect so great a salvation ?" 
 
 We know part of your labours for the eternity 
 of the poor. We know that you have brought the 
 Bible into contact with many a soul. And we are 
 sure that this is suiting the remedy to the disease ; 
 for the Bible contains those words whi^h are the 
 power of God through faith unto salvation, to every 
 one who believes them. 
 
 To this established instrument for working faith 
 in the heart, add the instrument of hearing. When 
 you give the Bible, accompany the gift with the 
 living energy of a human voice let prayer, and 
 advice, and explanation, be brought to act upon 
 them ; and let the warm and deeply felt earnest- 
 ness of your hearts, discharge itself upon theirs in 
 the impressive tones of sincerity, and friendship, 
 and good will. This is going substantially to work. 
 It is, if I may use the expression, bringing the right 
 element to bear upon the case before you ; and be 
 assured, every treatment of a convinced and guil- 
 ty mind is superficial and ruinous, which does not 
 lead it to the Saviour, and bring before it his sacri- 
 fice and atonement, and the influences of that spi- 
 rit bestowed through his obedience on all who be- 
 lieve on Him. 
 
While in the full vigour of health, we may count 
 it enough to take up with something short of this. 
 But striking testimony to evangelical truth ! go 
 to the awful reality of a human soul on the eve of 
 its departure from the body, and you will find that 
 all those vapid sentimentalities which partake not 
 of the substantial doctrine of the New Testament, 
 are good for nothing. Hold up your face, my breth- 
 ren, for the truth and simplicity of the Bible. Be 
 not ashamed of its phraseology. It is the right in- 
 strument to handle in the great work of calling a 
 human soul out of darkness into marvellous light. 
 Stand firm and secure on the impregnable princi- 
 ple, that this is the word of God, and that all taste, 
 and imagination, and science, must give way be- 
 fore its overbearing authority. Walk in the foot- 
 steps of your Saviour, in the twofold office of caring 
 for the diseases of the body, and administering to 
 the wants of the soul ; and though you may fail in 
 the former though the patient may never arise 
 and walk, yet, by the blessing of heaven upon your 
 fervent and effectual endeavours, the latter object 
 may be gained -the soul may be lightened of all its 
 anxietiesthe whole burden of its diseases may 
 be swept away it may be of good cheer, because 
 its sins are forgiven and the right direction may 
 be impressed upon it which will carry it forward 
 in progress to a happy eternity. Death may not be 
 averted, but death may be disarmed. It may be 
 gtript of its terrors, and instead of a devouring ene- 
 my., it may be hailed as a messenger of triumph. 
 
 5 
 
THOUGHTS <W UNIVERSAL PEAGE: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED ON 
 
 THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1816, 
 THE DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING 
 
 FOR THE RESTORATION OF PEACE, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, 
 
 ^Minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCEIN. 
 1817. 
 
THOUGHTS OA* UNIVERSAL PEACK 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 ISAIAH, II. 4. 
 
 Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
 they learn war any more" 
 
 THERE are a great many passages in Scripture 
 which warrant the expectation that a time is com- 
 ing, when war shall be put an end to when its 
 abominations and its cruelties shall be banished 
 from the face of the earth when those restless 
 elements of ambition and jealousy which have so 
 long kept the species in a state of unceasing com- 
 motion, and are ever and anon sending another and 
 another wave over the field of this world's politics, 
 shall at length be hushed into a placid and ever- 
 during calm ; and many and delightful are the 
 images which the Bible employs, as guided by the 
 light of prophecy, it carries us forward to those 
 millennial days, when the reign of peace shall be 
 established, and the wide charity of the gospel, 
 which is confined by no limits, and owns no dis- 
 tinctions, shall embosom th& whole human race 
 
38 
 
 within the ample grasp of one harmonious and 
 universal family. 
 
 But before 1 proceed, let me attempt to do away 
 a delusion which exists on the subject of prophe- 
 cy. Its fulfilments are all certain, say many, and 
 we have therefore nothing to do, but to wait for 
 them in passive and indolent expectation. The 
 truth of God stands in no dependance on human, 
 aid to vindicate the immutability of all his an- 
 nouncements ; and the power of God stands in no 
 need of the feeble exertions of man to hasten the 
 accomplishment of any of his purposes. Let us 
 therefore sit down quietly in the attitude of spec- 
 tators let us leave the Divinity to do his own work 
 in his own w^ay, and mark, by the progress of a 
 history over which we have no control, the evo- 
 lution of his designs, and the march of his wise and 
 beneficent administration. 
 
 Now, it is very true, that the Divinity will do his 
 own work in his own way, but if he choose to tell 
 us that that way is not without the instrumentality 
 of men, but by their instrumentality, might not 
 this sitting down into the mere attitude of specta- 
 tators, turn out to be a most perverse and disobe- 
 dient conclusion ? It is true, that his purpose will 
 obtain its fulfilment, whether we shall offer or not 
 to help it forward by our co-operation. But if the 
 object is to be brought about, and if, in virtue of the 
 same sovereignty by which he determined upon 
 the object, he has also determined on the way 
 which leads to it, and that that way shall be by~ 
 
39 . 
 
 the acting of human principle, -and the putting 
 forth of human exertion, then let us keep back our 
 co-operation as we may, God will raise up the 
 hearts of others to that which- we abstain from ; and 
 they, admitted into the high honour of being fellow- 
 workers with God, may do homage to the truth 
 of his prophecy, while we, perhaps, may uncon- 
 sciously do dreadful homage to the truth of another 
 warning, and another prophecy. " I work a work 
 in your days which you shall not believe, though 
 a man declare it unto you. Behold, ye despisers, 
 and wonder and perish." 
 
 Now this is the very way in which prophecies 
 have been actually fulfilled. The return of the peo- 
 ple of Israel to their own land was an event pre- 
 dicted by inspiration, and was brought about by 
 the stirring up of the spirit of Cyrus, who felt him- 
 self charged with the duty of building a house to 
 God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of the Spi- 
 rit on the day of Pentecost was foretold by the Sa- 
 viour ere he left the world, and was accomplished 
 upon men who assembled themselves together at 
 the place to which they were commanded to re- 
 pair ; and there they waited, and they prayed. The 
 rapid propagation of Christianity in those days 
 was known by the human agents of this propaga- 
 tion, to be made sure by the word of prophecy ; 
 but the way in which it was actually made sure, 
 was by the strenuous exertions, the unexampled 
 heroism, the holy devotedness and zeal of martyrs, 
 and apostles, .and evangelists. And even now, my 
 
40 
 
 brethren, while no professing Christian can deny 
 that their faith is to be one day the faith of all 
 countries ; but while many of them idly sit and wait 
 the time of God putting forth some mysterious and 
 unheard of agency, to bring about the universal 
 diffusion, there are men who have betaken them- 
 selves to the obvious expedient of going abroad 
 among the nations, and teaching them ; and though 
 derided by an undeserving world, they seem to be 
 the very men pointed out by the Bible, who are go- 
 ing to and fro increasing the knowledge of its doc- 
 trines, and who will be the honoured instruments 
 of carrying into effect the most splendid of all its 
 anticipations. 
 
 Now, the same holds true, I apprehend, of the 
 prophecy in my text. The abolition of war will 
 be the effect not of any sudden or resistless visita- 
 tion from heaven on the character of men not of 
 any mystical influence working with all the omni- 
 potence of a charm on the passive hearts of those 
 who are the subjects of it not of any blind or over- 
 ruling fatality which will come upon the earth at 
 some distant period of its history, and about 
 which, we, of the present day, have nothing to do 
 but to look silently on, without concern, and with- 
 out co-operation. The prophecy of a peace as 
 universal as the spread of the human race, and as 
 enduring as the moon in the firmament, will meet 
 its accomplishment, ay, and at that very time 
 which is already fixed by Him who seeth the end 
 of all things from the beginning thereof. But it will 
 
,41 
 
 bB brought about by the activity of men. It will 
 be done by the philanthropy of thinking and intel- 
 ligent Christians. The conversion of the Jews 
 the spread of gospel light among the regions of 
 idolatry these are distinct subjects of prophecy, 
 on which the faithful of the land are now acting, 
 and to the fulfillment of which they are giving 
 their zeal and their energy. I conceive the pro- 
 phecy which relates to the final abolition of war 
 will be taken up in the same manner, and the 
 subject will be brought to the test of Christian 
 principle, and many will unite to spread a grow- 
 ing sense of its follies and its enormities, over the 
 countries of the world and the public will be en- 
 lightened not by the factious and turbulent decla- 
 mations of a party, but by the mild dissemination 
 of gospel sentiment through the land and the pro- 
 phecy contained in this book will pass into effect 
 and accomplishment, by no other influence than 
 the influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts 
 and consciences of individuals and the measure 
 will first be carried in one country, not by the un- 
 hallowed violence of discontent, but by the con- 
 trol of general opinion, expressed on the part of a 
 people, who, if Christian, in tbeir repugnance to 
 war will be equally Christian in all the loyalties 
 and subjections, and meek unresisting virtues of the 
 New Testament and the sacred fire of good- will 
 to the children of men; will spread itself through 
 all climes, and through all latitudes and thus by 
 scriptural truth conveyed with power from onepeo- 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 pie to another, and taking its ample round among 
 all the tribes and families of the earth, shall we ar- 
 rive at the magnificent result of peace throughout 
 all its provinces, and security in all its dwelling- 
 places. 
 
 In the further prosecution of this discourse, I 
 shall, first, expatiate a little on the evils of war. 
 
 In the second place, I shall direct your attention 
 to the obstacles which stand in the w 7 ay of its ex- 
 tinction, and which threaten to retard for a time 
 the accomplishment of the prophecy I have now 
 selected for your consideration. 
 
 And, in the Third place, I shall endeavour to 
 point out, what can only be done at present in a hur- 
 ried and superficial manner, some of the expedi- 
 ents by which these obstacles may be done away. 
 
 1. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of war. 
 The mere existence of the prophecy in my text, 
 is a sentence of condemnation upon war, and 
 stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So 
 soon as Christianity shall gain a full ascendancy in 
 the world, from that moment war is to disappear. 
 We have heard that there is something noble in the 
 art of war ; that there is something generous in 
 the ardour of that fine chivalric spirit which kin- 
 dles in the hour of alarm, and rushes with delight 
 among the thickest scenes of danger and of en- 
 
43 
 
 terprise ; that man is never more proudly arrayed, 
 than when, elevated by a contempt for death, he 
 puts on his intrepid front, and looks serene, while 
 the arrows of destruction are flying on every side 
 of him; that expunge war, and you expunge 
 some of the brightest names in the catalogue of 
 human virtue, and demolish that theatre on which 
 have been displayed some of the sublimest ener- 
 gies of the human character. It is thus that war 
 has been invested with a most pernicious splen- 
 dour, and men have offered to justify it as a bless- 
 ing and an ornament to society, and attempts have 
 been made to throw a kind of imposing morality 
 around it; and one might almost, be reconciled to 
 the whole train of its calamities and its horrors, did 
 he not believe his Bible, and learn from its infor- 
 mation, that in the days of perfect righteousness, 
 there will be no war ; that so soon as the character 
 of man has had the last finish of Christian princi- 
 ple thrown over it, from that moment all the in- 
 struments of war will be thrown aside, and all its 
 lessons will be forgotten ; that therefore what are 
 called the virtues of war, are no virtues at all, or 
 that a better and a worthier scene will be provided 
 for their exercise ; but in short, that at the com- 
 mencement of that blissful era, when the reign 
 of heaven sliall be established, war will take its 
 departure from the world with all the other plagues 
 and atrocities of the species. 
 
 But apart altogether from this testimony to the 
 evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, and 
 
44 
 
 see whether we can find its character engraved on 
 the aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive ob- 
 server. The stoutest h eart of this assembly would 
 recoil, were he who owns it, to behold the de- 
 struction of a single individual by some deed of 
 violence. Were the man who at this moment stands 
 before you in the full play and energy of health, to 
 be in another moment laid by some deadly aim a 
 lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you 
 who would not prove how strong are the relentirrgs 
 of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There 
 are some of you who would be haunted for whole 
 days by the image of horror you had witnessed 
 who would feel the weight of a most oppressive 
 sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time 
 could wear away who would be so pursued by it 
 as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment who 
 would think of it through the day, and it would 
 spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking 
 moments who would dream of it at night, and it 
 would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat 
 from the torments of an ever-meddling memory, 
 into a scene of restlessness. 
 
 But generally the death of violence is not instan- 
 taneous, and there is often a sad and dreary inter- 
 val between its final consummation, and the inflic- 
 tion of the blow which causes it. The winged mes- 
 senger of destruction has not found its direct 
 avenue to that spot, where the principle of life is 
 situated and the soul, finding obstacles to its im- 
 mediate egress, has to struggle it for hours, ere it 
 
45 
 
 can make its weary way through the winding 
 avenues of that tenement, which has been torn 
 open by a brother's hand. O ! my brethren, if there 
 be something appalling in the suddenness of death, 
 think not that when gradual in its advances, you 
 will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contem- 
 plation, by viewing it in a milder form. O ! tell 
 me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bo- 
 som, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies 
 of the dying man as goaded by pain, he grasps 
 the cold ground in convulsive energy, or faint with 
 the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gath- 
 ering paleness spreads itself over his countenance 
 or wrapping himself round in despair, he can 
 only mark by a few feeble quiverings, that life still 
 lurks and lingers in his lacerated body or lifting 
 up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring 
 helplessness, for that succour which no sympathy 
 can yield him. It may be painful to dwell on such 
 a representation but this is the way in which the 
 cause of humanity is served. The eye of the sen- 
 timentalist turns away from its sufferings, and he 
 passes by on the other side, lest he hear that plead- 
 ing voice, which is armed with a tone of remon- 
 strance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot 
 bear thus to pause, in imagination, on the distress- 
 ing picture of one individual, but multiply it ten 
 thousand times say, how much of all this distress 
 has been heaped together upon a single field- 
 give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretch- 
 edness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy 
 
46 
 
 of an official computation and strange to tell, not 
 one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager 
 listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every 
 syllable of utterance, which is read to them out of 
 the registers of death. O ! say, what mystic spell is 
 that, which so blinds us to the sufferings of our 
 brethren which deafens to our ear the voice of 
 bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the 
 shriek of dying thousands which makes the very 
 magnitude of the slaughter, throw a softening dis- 
 guise over its cruelties, and its horrors which 
 causes us to eye with indifference, the field that is 
 crowded with the most revolting abominations, and 
 arrests that sigh, which each individual would 
 singly have drawn from us, by the report of the 
 many who have fallen, and breathed their last in 
 agony, along with him. 
 
 I am not saying that the burden of all this cri- 
 minality rests upon the head of the immediate 
 combatants. It lies somewhere, but who can $eny 
 that a soldier may be a Christian, and that from the 
 bloody field on which his body is laid, his soul may 
 wing its ascending way to the shores of a peaceful 
 eternity. But when I think that the Christians, even 
 of the great world, form but a very little flock, and 
 that an army is not a propitious soil for the growth 
 of Christian principle when I think on the cha- 
 racter of one such army, that had been led on for 
 years by a ruffian ambition and been inured to 
 scenes of barbarity and had gathered a most fe- 
 rocious hardihood of soul, from the many enter- 
 
47 
 
 prises of violence to which an unprincipled com- 
 mander had carried them when I foSlovv them to 
 the field of battle, and further think, that on both 
 sides of an exasperated contest the gentleness of 
 Christianity can have no place in almost any bo- 
 som ; but that nearly every heart is lighted up with 
 fury, and breathes a vindictive purpose against a 
 brother of the species, I cannot but reckon it among 
 the most fearful of the calamities of war that while 
 the work of death is thickening along its ranks, so 
 many disembodied spirits should pass into the pre- 
 sence of Him who sitteth upon the throne, in such 
 a posture, and with such a preparation. 
 
 I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for 
 expatiating on a topic so melancholy, nor can I af- 
 ford at present, to set before you a vivid picture of 
 the other miseries which war carries in its train 
 how it desolates every country through which it 
 rolls, and spreads violation and alarm among its 
 villages how r , at its approach, every home pours 
 forth its trembling fugitives how all the rights of 
 property, and all the provisions of justice must give 
 way before its devouring exactions how, when 
 Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm comes along 
 with it and for the sound of the church bell, 
 which wont to spread its music over some fine 
 landscape of nature, and summon rustic worship- 
 pers to the house of prayer nothing is heard but 
 the deathful vollies of the battle, and the madden- 
 ing outcry of infuriated men how, as the fruit of 
 victory, an unprincipled licentiousness, which no 
 
48 
 
 discipline can restrain, is suffered to walk at large 
 among the people and all that is pure, and rever- 
 end, and holy, in the virtue of families, is cruelly 
 trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. 
 Oh ! my brethren, were we to pursue those details, 
 which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle per- 
 petuates, we should be tempted to ask, what that is 
 which civilization has done for the character of the 
 species ? It has thrown a few paltry embellish- 
 ments over the surface of human affairs, and. for 
 the order of society, it has reared the defences of 
 law around the rights and the property of the 
 individuals who compose it. But let war, le- 
 galised as you may, and ushered into the field with 
 all the parade of forms and manifestoes let this 
 war only have its season, and be suffered to over- 
 leap these artificial defences, and you will soon see 
 how much of the security of the commonwealth is 
 due to positive restrictions, and how little of it is 
 due to a natural sense of justice among men. I 
 know well, that the plausibilities of human charac- 
 ter, which abound in every modern and enlighten- 
 ed society, have been mustered up to oppose the 
 doctrine of the Bible, on the woful depravity of 
 our race. But out of the history of war, I can ga- 
 ther for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. 
 It tells me, that man when left to himself and let 
 loose among his fellows, to walk after the counsel 
 of his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
 will soon discover how thin that tinsel is, which 
 the boasted hand of civilization has thrown ove* 
 
49 
 
 him. And we have only to blow the trumpet of 
 war, and proclaim to man the hour of his opportu- 
 nity, that his character may show itself in its essen- 
 tial elements and that we may see how many, in 
 this our moral and enlightened day, would spring 
 forward, as to a jubilee of delight, and prowl like the 
 wild men of the woods, amidst scenes of rapacity, 
 and cruelty, and violence. 
 
 If. But let me hasten away from thispartof the 
 subject, and in the second place, direct your at- 
 tention to those obstacles which stand in the way 
 of the extinction of war, and which threaten to 
 retard, for a time; the accomplishment of the pro- 
 phecy I have now selected for your consideration. 
 
 Is this the time, it may be asked, to complain 
 of obstacles to the extinction of war, when peace 
 has been given to the nations, and we are assem- 
 bled to celebrate its triumphs ? Is this day of high 
 and solemn gratulation, to be turned to such fore- 
 bodings as these ? The whole of Europe is now 
 at rest from the tempest which convulsed it and 
 a solemn treaty with all its adjustments, and all 
 its guarantees, promises a firm perpetuity to the 
 repose of the world. We have long fought for a 
 happier order of things, and at length we have 
 established it and the hard-earned bequest, we 
 hand down to posterity as a rich inheritance, won 
 by the labours and the sufferings of the present 
 generation. That gigantic ambition which stalked 
 in triumph over the firmest and the oldest of our 
 monarchies, is now laid and can never again 
 
 7 
 
86 
 
 burst forth from the confinement of its prison-hold 
 to waken a new uproar, and to send forth new 
 troubles over the face of a desolated world. 
 
 Now. in reply to this, let it be observed, that 
 every interval of repose is precious every breath- 
 ing time from the work of violence is to be rejoiced 
 in by the friends of humanity every agreement 
 among the powers of the earth, by which a tem- 
 porary respite can be gotten from the calamities of 
 \var, is so much reclaimed from the amount of 
 those miseries that afflict the world, and of those 
 crimes, the cry of which ascendeth unto heaven, 
 and bringeth down the judgments of God on this 
 dark and rebellious province of his creation. I 
 trust, that on this day, gratitude to Him who alone 
 can still the tumults of the people, will be the sen- 
 timent of every heart and I trust that none who 
 now hear me, will refuse to evince his gratitude to 
 the Author of the New Testament, by their obedi- 
 ence to one of the most distinct and undoubted 
 of its lessons I mean the lesson of a reverential 
 and submissive loyalty. 1 cannot pass an impar- 
 tial eye over this record of God's will, without 
 perceiving the utter repugnance that there is be- 
 tween the spirit of Christianity, and the factious, 
 turbulent, unquenchable, and ever-meddling spi- 
 rit of political disaffection. I will not compromise 
 by the surrender of a single jot or tittle the integrity 
 of that preceptive code which my Saviour hath 
 left behind him for the obedience of his disciples. 
 ! will not detach the very minutest of it features, 
 
51 
 
 from the fine picture of morality that Christ hath 
 beqeathed, both by commandment and example, 
 to adorn the nature he condescended to wear 
 and sure I am that the man who has drunk in the 
 entire spirit of the gospel who, reposing himself 
 on the faith of its promised immortality, can main- 
 tain an elevated calm amid all the fluctuations of 
 this world's interest whose exclusive ambition it 
 is to be the unexcepted pupil of pure, and spiritual 
 and self-denying Christianity sure I am that such 
 a man will honour the king and all who are in au 
 thority and be subject unto them for the sake of 
 conscience and render unto them all their dues 
 and not withhold a single fraction of the tribute 
 they impose upon him and be the best of subjects, 
 just because he is the best of Christians resisting 
 none of the ordinances of God, and living a quiet 
 and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 
 But it gives me pleasure to advance a further 
 testimony in behalf of that government with which 
 it has pleased God, who appointeth to all men the 
 bounds of their habitation, to bless that portion of 
 the globe that we occupy. I count it such a govern- 
 ment that I not only owe it the loyalty of my prin- 
 ciples but I also owe it the loyalty of my affec- 
 tions. I could not lightly part with my devotion 
 to that government which the other year opened 
 the door to the Christianization of India I shall 
 never withhold the tribute of my reverence from 
 that government which put an end to the atrocities 
 
of the Slave Trade I shall never forget the tri- 
 umph which in that proudest day of Britain's glo- 
 ry, the cause of humanity gained within the walls 
 of our enlightened Parliament. Let my right 
 hand forget her cunning, ere I forget that country 
 of my birth, where, in defiance to all the clamours 
 of mercantile alarm, every calculation of interest 
 was given to the wind, and braving every hazard, 
 she nobly resolved to shake off the whole burden 
 of the infamy which lay upon her. I shall never 
 forget, that how to complete the object in behalf of 
 which she has so honourably led the way, she 
 has walked the whole round of civilized society, 
 and knocked at the door of every government in 
 Europe, and lifted her imploring voice for injured 
 Africa, and pled with the mightiest monarchs of 
 the world, the cause of her outraged shores, and 
 her distracted families. ! can neither shut my 
 heart nor my eyes to the fact, that at this moment 
 she is stretching forth the protection of her naval 
 arm, and shielding, to the uttermost of her vi- 
 gour, that coast where an inhuman avarice is still 
 plying its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate 
 among an unoffending people, a trade of cruelty, 
 with all the horrid train of its terrors and abomina- 
 tions. Were such a government as this to be 
 swept from its base, either by the violence of fo- 
 reign hostility, or by the hands of her own misled 
 and infatuated children I should never cease to 
 deplore it as the deadliest interruption which ever 
 
had been given to the interests of human virtue, 
 and to the march of human improvement. O ! 
 how it should swell every heart, not with pride, 
 but with gratitude, to think that the land of our 
 fathers, with all the iniquities which abound in 
 it, with all the profligacy which spreads along our 
 streets, and all the profaneness that is heard among 
 our companies to think that this our land, over- 
 spread as it is with the appalling characters of guilt, 
 is still the securest asylum of worth and of liberty 
 that this is the land from which the most copious 
 emanations of Christianity are going forth to all 
 the quarters of the world that this is the land 
 which teems from one end to the other of it with 
 the most splendid designs and enterprizes for the 
 good of the species that this is the land where 
 public principle is most felt, and public objects 
 are most prosecuted, and the fine impulse of a 
 public spirit is most ready to carry its generous 
 people beyond the limits of a selfish and contract- 
 ed patriotism. Yes, and when the heart of the 
 philanthropist is sinking within him at the gloomy 
 spectacle of those crimes and atrocities which still 
 deform the history of man, I know not a single 
 earthly expedient more fitted to brighten and sus- 
 tain him, than to turn his eye to the country in 
 which he lives and there see the most enlightened 
 government in the world acting as the organ of 
 its most moral and intelligent population. 
 
 It is not against the government of my country 
 therefore, that I direct my observations but 
 
54 
 
 i 
 
 against that nature of man in the infirmities of which 
 we all share, and the evil of which no government 
 can extinguish. We have carried a new political 
 arrangement, and we experience the result of it, a 
 temporary calm but we have not yet carried our 
 way to the citadel of human passions. The ele- 
 ments of w r ar are hushed for a season but these 
 elements -are not destroyed. They still rankle in 
 many an unsubdued heart and I am too well 
 taught by the history of the past, and the experi- 
 ence of its restless variations, not to believe that 
 they W 7 ill burst forth again in thunder over the face 
 of society. No, my brethren, it will only be when 
 diffused and vital Christianity comes upon the earth, 
 that an enduring peace will come along with it. 
 The prophecy of my text will obtain its fulfilment 
 but not till the fulfilment of the verses which go 
 before it ; not till the influence of the gospel has 
 found its way to the human bosom, and plucked 
 out of it the elementary principles of war ; not till 
 the law of love shall spread its melting and all-sub- 
 duing efficacy, among the children of one common 
 nature ; not till ambition be dethroned from its 
 mastery over the affections of the inner man; 
 not till the guilty splendours of war shall cease to 
 captivate its admirers, and spread the blaze of a 
 deceitful heroism over the wholesale butchery of 
 the species ; not till national pride be humbled, 
 and man shall learn, that if it be individually the 
 duty of each of us in honour to prefer one another ; 
 then let these individuals combine as they may.) 
 
55 
 
 and form societies as numerous and extensive as 
 they may, and each of these be swelled out to the 
 dimensions of an empire, still, that mutual conde- 
 scension and forbearance remain the unalterable 
 Christian duties of these empires to each other ; 
 not till man learn to revere his brother as man, 
 whatever portion of the globe he occupies, and all 
 the jealousies and preferences of a contracted pa- 
 triotism be given to the wind; not till war shall 
 cease to be prosecuted as a trade, and the charm 
 of all that interest which is linked with its continu- 
 ance, shall cease to beguile men in the peaceful 
 walks of merchandise, into a barbarous longing 
 after war ; not, in one word, till pride, and jea- 
 lousy, and interest, and all that is opposite to the la\v 
 of God and the charity of the gospel, shall be for 
 ever eradicated from the character of those who 
 possess an effectual control over the public and po- 
 litical movements of the species; not till all this 
 be brought about, and there is not another agent in 
 the whole compass of nature that can bring it about 
 but the gospel of Christ, carried home by the all- 
 subduing power of the Spirit to the consciences of 
 men ; then, and not till then, my brethren, will 
 peace come to take up its perennial abode with us, 
 and its blessed advent on earth be hailed by one 
 shout of joyful acclamation throughout all its fa- 
 milies; then, and not till then, will the sacred 
 principle of good-will to men circulate as free as 
 the air of heaven among all countries and the sun 
 looking out from the firmament, will behold one 
 
5G 
 
 line aspect of harmony throughout the wide extent 
 of a regenerated world. 
 
 It will only be in the last days, " when it shall 
 come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house 
 shall be established in the top of the mountains, 
 and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations 
 shall flow into it: And many people shall go, and 
 say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain 
 of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and 
 he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in 
 his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; and he 
 shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke 
 many people ;" then, and not till then, " they shall 
 beat their swords into plough-shares, and their 
 spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
 sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
 any more." 
 
 The above rapid sketch glances at the chief ob- 
 stacles to the extinction of war, and in what re- 
 mains of this discourse, I shall dwell a little more 
 particularly on as many of them as my time will 
 allow me, finding it impossible to exhaust so wide 
 a topic, within the limits of the public services of 
 one day. 
 
 The first great obstacle then to the extinction of 
 war, is the way in which the heart of man is carried 
 off from its barbarities and its horrors, by the splen- 
 dour of its deceitful accompaniments. There is a 
 feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock 
 of armies, just as there is in contemplating the de- 
 
57 
 
 vouringenergy of a tempest, and this so elevates and 
 engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to 
 the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to 
 the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of 
 their desolated families. There is a gracefulness 
 in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for dis- 
 tinction on the field, and lured by this generous as- 
 piration to the deepest of the animated throng, 
 where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons 
 of valour struggle for a remembrance and a name ; 
 and this side of the picture is so much the exclu- 
 sive object of our regard, as to disguise from our 
 view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the 
 writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds 
 more who have been laid on the cold ground, 
 where they are left to languish and to die. There 
 no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over 
 them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the 
 dying posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the 
 maddening fury of the combat, have been given and 
 received by the children of one common Father. 
 There death spreads its pale ensigns over every 
 countenance, and when night comes on, and dark- 
 ness around them, how many a despairing wretch 
 must take up with the bloody field as the untended 
 bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear 
 the message of tenderness to his distant home, 
 without one companion to close his eyes. 
 
 I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at 
 work which go to spread a most delusive colouring 
 over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 the back ground of our contemplations altogether. 
 I see it in the history which tells me of the superb 
 appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their 
 successive charges. I see it in the poetry which 
 lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of 
 blood, and transports its many admirers, as by its 
 images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of 
 chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments 
 over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the 
 music which represents the progress of the battle; 
 and where, after being inspired by the trumpet- 
 notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tender- 
 ness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the 
 sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utter- 
 ance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of 
 the thickening contest, and the moans of the wound- 
 ed men as they fade away upon the ear, and sink 
 into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what 
 strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were 
 it not so, war could never have been seen in any 
 other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; 
 and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Chris- 
 tian sentiment upon earth, to arrest the strong cur- 
 rent of its popular and prevailing partiality for war. 
 Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the 
 check of severe principle, on all the subordinate 
 tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will glo- 
 ry be reduced to its right estimate and the wake- 
 ful benevolence of the gospel chasing away every 
 spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion 
 whatever, from its simple but sublime enterprizes 
 
59 
 
 for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth 
 and quietness will be ushered into the world, and 
 war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will be stript 
 of its many and its bewildering fascinations. 
 
 But again, another obstacle to the extinction of 
 war is a sentiment which seems to be universally 
 gone into, that the rules and promises of the gos- 
 pel which apply to a single individual, do not ap- 
 ply to a nation of individuals. Just think of the 
 mighty effect it would have on the politics of the 
 world, were this sentiment to be practically de- 
 posed from its wonted authority over the counsels 
 and the doings of nations, in their transactions 
 with each other. If forbearance be the virtue of 
 an individual, forbearance is also the virtue of a 
 nation. If it be incumbent on men in honour to 
 prefer each other, it is incumbent on the very 
 largest societies of men, through the constituted 
 organ of their government to do the same. If it 
 be the glory of a man to defer his anger, and to 
 pass over a transgression, that nation mistakes its 
 glory which is so feelingly alive to the slightest 
 insult, and musters up its threats and its arma- 
 ments upon the faintest shadow of a provocation. 
 If it be the magnanimity of an injured man to ab- 
 stain from vengeance, and if by so doing, he 
 heap coals of fire upon the head of his enemy, 
 then that is the magnanimous nation, which, re- 
 coiling from violence and from blood, will do no 
 more than send its Christian embassy, and prefer 
 its miljj and impressive remonstrance : and that is 
 
60 
 
 the disgraced nation which will refuse the impres- 
 siveness of the moral appeal that has been made 
 to it O ! my brethren, there must be the breath- 
 ing of a different spirit to circulate round the globe, 
 ere its Christianized nations resign the jealousies 
 which now front them to each other in the scowl- 
 ing attitude of defiance and much is to do with 
 the people of every land, ere the prophesied influ- 
 ence of the gospel shall bring its virtuous, and its 
 pacifying control to bear with effect on the coun- 
 sels and governments of the world. 
 
 I find that I must be drawing to a close, and that 
 I must forbear entering into several topics on which 
 I meant at one time to expatiate. I wished, in 
 particular, to have laid it fully before you how 
 the extinction of war, though it should withdraw 
 one of those scenes on which man earns the glory 
 of intrepidity yet it would leave other, and better, 
 and nobler scenes, for the display and the exercise 
 of this respectable attribute. I wished also to ex- 
 plain to you, that however much I admired the ge- 
 neral spirit of Quakerism, on the subject of war; 
 yet that I was not prepared to go all the length of 
 its principles, when that war was strictly defensive. 
 It strikes me, that war is to be abolished by the 
 abolition of its aggressive spirit among the differ- 
 ent nations of the world. The text seems to tell 
 me that this is the order of prophecy upon the sub- 
 ject and that it is when nation shall cease to lift 
 up its sword against nation or, in other words, 
 when one nation shall cease to move, for the pur- 
 
Gi 
 
 pose of attacking another, that military science 
 will be no longer in demand, and that the people 
 of the earth will learn the art of war no more. I 
 should also have stated, that on this ground, I re- 
 frained from pronouncing on the justice or necessi- 
 ty of any one war in which this country has ever 
 been involved. I have no doubt that many of those 
 who supported our former wars, looked on several 
 of them as wars for existeace ; but on this matter 
 I carefully abstain from the utterance of a single 
 sentiment : for in so doing, 1 should feel myself to 
 be descending from the generalities of Christian 
 principle, and employing that pulpit as the vehi- 
 cle of a questionable policy, which ought never to 
 be prostituted either to the unworthy object of 
 sending forth the incense of human flattery to any 
 one administration, or of regaling the factious, and 
 turbulent, and disloyal passions of any party. I 
 should next, if I had time, offer such observations 
 as were suggested by my own views of political 
 science, on the multitude of vulnerable points by 
 which this country is surrounded, in the shape of 
 numerous and distant dependencies, and which 
 however much they may tend to foster the warlike 
 politics of our government, are, in truth, so little 
 worth the expense of a war, that should all of them 
 be wrested away from us, they would leave the 
 people of our empire as great, and as wealthy, and 
 as competent to every purpose of home security 
 as ever. Lastly, I might have whispered my in- 
 clination, for a little more of the Chinese policy 
 
being imported into Europe, not for the purpose 
 of restraining a liberal intercourse between its dif- 
 ferent countries, but for the purpose of quieting 
 in each its restless spirit of alarm, about every 
 foreign movement in the politics and designs of 
 other nations ; because, sure I am, that were each 
 great empire of the world to lay it down as the 
 maxim of its most scrupulous observance, not to 
 meddle till it was meddled with, each would feel 
 in such a maxim both its safety and its triumph ; 
 for such are the mighty resources of defensive 
 war, that though the whole transportable force of 
 Europe were to land upon our borders, the result 
 of the experiment would be such, that it should ne- 
 ver be repeated the rallying population of Bri- 
 tain could sweep them all from the face of its ter- 
 ritory, and a whole myriad of invaders would melt 
 away under the power of such a government as 
 ours, trenched behind the loyalty of her defenders, 
 and strong, as she deserves to be, in the love and 
 in the confidence of all her children. 
 
 I would not have touched on any of the lessons 
 of political economy, did they not lead me, by a 
 single step, to a Christian lesson, which I count it 
 my incumbent duty to press upon the attention of 
 you all. Any sudden change in the state of the 
 demand, must throw the commercial world into a 
 temporary derangement. And whether the change 
 be from war to peace, or from peace to war, this 
 effect is sure to accompany it. Now for upwards 
 of twenty years, the direction of our trade has 
 
63 
 
 been accommodated to a war system, and when 
 this system is put an end to, I do not say what 
 amount of the distress will light upon this neigh- 
 bourhood, but we may be sure that all the alarm 
 of falling markets, and ruined speculation, will 
 spread an impressive gloom over many of the 
 manufacturing districts of the land. Now, let my 
 title to address you on other grounds, be as ques- 
 tionable as it may, I feel no hesitation whatever 
 in announcing it, as your most imperative duty, 
 that no outcry of impatience or discontent from you, 
 shall embarrass the pacific policy of his majesty's 
 government. They have conferred a great bless- 
 ing on the country, in conferring on it peace, and 
 it is your part resignedly to weather the languid or 
 disastrous months which may come along with it 
 The interest of trade is an old argument that has 
 been set up in resistance to the dearest and most 
 substantial interests of humanity. When Paul 
 wanted to bring Christianity into Ephesus, he 
 raised a storm of opposition around him, from a 
 quarter which, I dare say, he was not counting on. 
 There happened to be some shrine manufactories 
 in that place, and as the success of the Apostle 
 would infallibly have reduced the demand for that 
 article, forth came the decisive argument of, Sirs, 
 by this craft we have our wealth, and should this 
 Paul turn away the people from the worship of gods 
 made with hands, thereby much damage would ac- 
 crue to our trade. Why, my brethren, if this argu- 
 ment is to be admitted, there is not one conceiva- 
 
64 
 
 ble benefit that can be offered for the acceptance 
 of the species. Would it not be well if all the 
 men of reading in the country were to be diverted 
 from the poison which lurks in many a mischievous 
 publication and should this blessed reformation 
 be effected, are there none to be found who would 
 feel that much damage had accrued to their trade ? 
 Would it not be well, if those wretched sons of 
 pleasure, before whom, if they repent not, there 
 lieth all the dreariness of an unprovided eternity 
 "would it not be well, that they were reclaimed from 
 the maddening intoxication which speeds them on 
 in the career of disobedience and on this event 
 too, would there be none to complain that much 
 damage had accrued to their trade ? Is it not well, 
 that the infamy of the Slave Trade has been swept 
 from the page of British history ? and yet do not 
 many of you remember how long the measure lay 
 suspended, and that about twenty annual flotillas 
 burdened with the load of human wretchedness, 
 were wafted across the Atlantic, while Parliament 
 was deafened and overborne by unceasing cla- 
 mours about the much damage that would accrue 
 to the trade ? And now, is it not well that peace 
 has once more been given to the nations ? and are 
 you to follow up this goodly train of examples, by 
 a single whisper of discontent about the much da- 
 mage that will accrue to your trade? No, my 
 brethren, 1 will not let down a single inch of the 
 Christian requirement that lies upon you. Should 
 a sweeping tide of bankruptcy set in upon the 
 
.65 
 
 land, and reduce every individual who now hears 
 me, to the very humblest condition in society, God 
 stands pledged to give food and raiment to all who 
 depend upon him; and it is not fair to make 
 others bleed, that you may roll in affluence ; it is 
 not fair to desolate thousands of families, that 
 yours may be upheld in luxury and splendour 
 and your best, and noblest, and kindest part is, to 
 throw yourself on the promises of God, and he 
 will hide you and your little ones in the secret of 
 his pavilion till these calamities be overpast, 
 
 III. I trust it is evident from all that has been 
 said, how it is only by the extension of Christiaa 
 principle among the people of the earth, that the 
 atrocities of war will at length be swept away from, 
 it ; and that each of us is hastening the commence- 
 ment of that blissful period, who, in his own sphere^ 
 is doing all that in him lies to bring his own heart, 
 and the hearts of others, under the supreme influ- 
 ence of this principle. It is public opinion, which 9 
 in the long run, governs the world ; and while I 
 look with confidence to a gradual revolution in the 
 state of public opinion from the omnipotence of 
 gospel truth working its silent, but effectual way., 
 through the families of mankind yet I will not 
 deny, that much maybe done to accelerate the ad- 
 vent of perpetual and universal peace, by a dis- 
 tinct body of men embarking their every talent, 
 and their every acquirement in the prosecution of 
 
66 
 
 this, as a distinct object This was the way in 
 which, a few years ago, the British public were 
 gained over to the cause of Africa. This is the 
 way in which some of the other prophecies of the 
 Bible are at this moment hastening to their ac- 
 complishment ; and it is in this way, I apprehend, 
 that the prophecy of my text may be indebted for 
 its speedier fulfilment to the agency of men, select- 
 ing this as the assigned field on which their philan- 
 thropy shall expatiate. Were each individual mem- 
 ber of such a scheme to prosecute his own walk, 
 and come forward with his own peculiar contribu- 
 tion, the fruit of the united labours of all would be 
 one of the finest collections of Christian eloquence, 
 and of enlightened morals, and of sound political 
 philosophy, that ever was presented to the world. 
 I could not fasten on another cause more fitted to 
 call forth such a variety of talent, and to rally around 
 it so many of the generous and accomplished sons 
 of humanity, and to give each of them a devoted- 
 ness and a power far beyond whatever could be 
 sent into the hearts of enthusiasts, by the mere im- 
 pulse of literary ambition. 
 
 Let one take up the question of war in its 
 principle, and make the fell weight of his moral 
 seventy rest upon it, and upon all its abominations. 
 Let another take up the question of war in its 
 Consequences, and bring his every power of gra- 
 phical description to the task of presenting an 
 awakened public with an impressive detail of its 
 
67 
 
 cruelties and its horrors. Let another neutralize 
 the poetry of war, and dismantle it of all those 
 bewitching splendours, which the hand of mis- 
 guided genius has thrown over it. Let another 
 teach the world a truer, and more magnanimous 
 path to national glory, than any country of the 
 world has yet walked in. Let another tell with 
 irresistible argument, how the Christian ethics of 
 a nation is at one with the Christian ethics of its 
 humblest individual. Let another bring all the re- 
 sources of his political science to unfold the vast 
 energies of defensive war, and show, that instead 
 of that ceaseless jealousy and disquietude which 
 are ever keeping alive the flame of hostility among 
 the nations, each may wait in prepared security, 
 till the first footstep of an invader shall be the signal 
 for mustering around the standard of its outraged 
 rights, all the steel, and spirit, and patriotism of 
 the country. Let another pour the light of modern 
 speculation into the mysteries of trade, and prove 
 that not a single war has been undertaken for any 
 of its objects, where the millions and the millions 
 more which were lavished on the cause, have not 
 all been cheated away from us by the phantom of 
 an imaginary interest. This may look to many like 
 the Utopianism of a romantic anticipation- but I 
 shall never despair of the cause of truth addressed 
 to a Christian public, when the clear light of prin- 
 ciple can be brought to every one of its positions, 
 and when its practical and conclusive establish- 
 
68 
 
 meat forms one of the most distinct of Heaven's 
 prophecies " that men shall beat their swords into 
 ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks 
 and that nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn the art of war any 
 
 more." 
 
 mm mm 
 
THE BUTY OP GIVING AN IMMEDIATE DILIGENCE TO TII& 
 BUSINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN LJFK . 
 
 BEING, AN 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 INHABITANTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 IP 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, 
 
 One of the Ministers of Glasgow. 
 
 'NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY KIRK AND MERCEIN. 
 1817. 
 
TO THE 
 
 INHABITANTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PARISH OF KBLMANY. 
 
 WHEN one writes a letter to an intimate and a 
 much-loved friend, he never thinks of the graces 
 of the composition. He unbosoms himself in a 
 style of perfect freeness and simplicity. He gives 
 way to the kindly affections of his heart, and though 
 there may be many touches of tenderness in his 
 performance, it is not because he aims at touches 
 of any kind, but because all the tenderness that is 
 written, is the genuine and the artless transcript of 
 all the tenderness that is felt. Now conceive for a 
 moment, that he wrote his letter under the con- 
 sciousness that it was to be broadly exhibited be- 
 fore the eye of the public, this would immediately 
 operate as a heavy restraint upon him. A man 
 would much rather pour the expression of his 
 friendship into the private ear of him who was the 
 object of it, than he would do it under the full stare 
 of a numerous company. And I, my brethren, could 
 my time have allowed it, would much rather have 
 written my earnest and longing aspiration for the 
 welfare of you all by a private letter to each indi- 
 vidual, than by this general Address, which neces- 
 
72 
 
 aarily exposes to the wide theatre of the public all 
 that I feel, and all that I utter on the subject of my 
 affectionate regard for you. 
 
 It were better then for the exercise to which I 
 have now set myself, that I shut out all idea of the 
 public ; and never, within the whole recollection 
 of my life, was I less disposed to foster that idea. 
 It maybe observed, that the blow of some great and 
 calamitous visitation brings a kind of insensibility 
 along with it. I ought not to lament my withdraw- 
 ment from you as a calamity, but it has had all the 
 effect of a calamity upon me. I am removed from 
 those objects which habitually interested my heart, 
 and, for a time, it refuses to be interested in other 
 objects. I am placed at a distance from that scene 
 to which I was most alive, and I feel a deadness to 
 every other scene. The people who are now around 
 me, carry an unquestionable kindness in their bo- 
 soms, and vie with one another in the expression 
 of it. I can easily perceive that there exists abun- 
 dantly among them ail the constituents of a highly 
 interesting neighbourhood, and it may look cold 
 and ungrateful in me that I am not interested. But 
 it takes a time before the heart can attune itself to 
 the varieties of a new situation. It is ever recur- 
 ring to the more familiar scenes of other days. The 
 present ministers no enjoyment, and in looking to 
 the past the painful circumstance is, that while the 
 fancy will not be kept from straying to that neigh- 
 bourhood which exercises over it all the power of 
 # much-loved home, the idea that it is home no 
 
longer comes with dread reality upon the mind, 
 and turns the whole to bitterness. 
 
 With a heart thus occupied, I do not feel that 
 the admission of the public into our conference 
 will be any great restraint upon me. I shall speak 
 to you as if they were not present, and I do not con- 
 ceive that they can take a great interest in what I 
 say, because I have no time for the full and expli- 
 cit statement of principles. I have this advantage 
 with you that I do not have with others, that with 
 you I can afford to be less explicit. I presume upon 
 your recollections of what I have, for some time, 
 been in the habit of addressing to you, and flatter 
 myself that you may enter into a train of observa- 
 tion which to others may appear dark, and abrupt, 
 and unconnected. In penning this short Address, 
 I follow the impulse of my regard for you. You will 
 receive it with indulgence, as a memorial from one 
 who loves you; who is ever with you in heart, 
 though not in person ; who classes among the dear- 
 est of his recollections, the tranquil enjoyments he 
 has had in your neighbourhood; who carries upon 
 his memory the faithful image of its fields and of 
 its families ; and whose prayer for you all is, that 
 you may so grow in the fruits of our common faith, 
 as to be made meet for that unfading inheritance 
 where sorrow and separation are alike unknown. 
 
 Were I to sit down for the purpose of drawing 
 out a list of all the actions which may be called 
 sinful, it would be long before 1 could complete 
 the enumeration. Nay, I can conceive, that by 
 
 10 
 
74 
 
 adding one peculiarity after another, the variety 
 may be so lengthened out as to make the attempt 
 impossible. Lying, and stealing, and breaking the 
 Sabbath, and speaking evil one of another, these 
 are all so many sinful actions; but circumstances 
 may be conceived which make one kind of lying 
 different from another, and one kind of theft differ- 
 ent from another, and one kind of evil speaking dif- 
 ferent from another, and in this way the number of 
 sinful actions may be greatly swelled out; and 
 should we attempt to take the amount, they may 
 be like the host which no man could number, and 
 every sinner realizing one of these varieties, may 
 wear his own peculiar complexion, and have a 
 something about him which marks him out, and 
 signalizes him from all the other sinners by whom 
 he is surrounded. 
 
 Yet, amid all this variety of visible aspect, there 
 is one summary expression to which all sin may be 
 reduced. There is one principle which, if it al- 
 ways existed in the heart, and were always acted 
 upon in the life, would entirely destroy the ex- 
 istence of sin, and the very essence of sin lies in 
 the want of this one principle. Sin is a want of 
 conformity to the will of God ; and were a desire 
 to do the will of God at ail times the overruling 
 principle of the heart and conduct, there would be 
 no sin. It is this want of homage to him and to his 
 authority, which gives to sini.ts essential character. 
 The evil things coming out of the heart, which is 
 the residence of this evil principle, may be exceed* 
 
75 
 
 ingiy various, and may impart a very different com- 
 plexion to different individuals. This complexion 
 may be more or less displeasing to the outward 
 eye. The evil speaker may look to us more hate- 
 ful than the voluptuary, the man of cruelty than 
 the man of profaneness, the breaker of his word 
 than the breaker of the Sabbath. 1 believe it will 
 generally be found, that the sin which inflicts the 
 more visible and immediate harm upon men, is, in 
 the eye of men the more hateful sin. There is a 
 readiness to execrate falsehood, and calumny, and 
 oppression ; and along with this readiness there is 
 an indulgence for the good-humoured failings of 
 him who is the slave of luxury, and makes a god 
 of his pleasure, and spends his days in all the 
 thoughtlessness of one who walks in the counsel of 
 his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, 
 provided that his love of society leads him to share 
 with others the enjoyment of all these gratifications., 
 and his wealth enables him, and his moral honesty 
 inclines him, to defray the expense of them. 
 I Behold, then, one frequent source of delusion. 
 He whose sins are less hateful to the world than 
 those of others, wraps up himself in a kind of secu- 
 rity. I wrong no man. I have a heart that can 
 be moved by the impulses of compassion. I carry 
 in my bosom a lively sentiment of indignation at 
 the tale of perfidy or violence ; and surely I may 
 feel a satisfaction which others have no title to feel, 
 who are guilty of that from which my nature recoils 
 with a generous abhorrence. He. forgets all the 
 
76 
 
 while, that sin, in its essential character, may have 
 as full and firm a possession of his heart, as of the 
 man's with whom he is comparing himself; that 
 there may be an entire disownal and forgetfulness 
 of God ; that not one particle of reverence, or of 
 acknowledgment, may be given to the Being with 
 whom he has to do ; that whatever he may be in 
 the eye of his neighbour, in the eye of him who 
 seeth not as man seeth, he is guilty ; that, walking 
 just as he would have done though there had been 
 110 divine government whatever, he is a rebel to 
 that government ; and that amid all the compla- 
 cency of his own feelings, and all the applause and 
 good liking of his acquaintances, he wears all the 
 deformity of rebelliousness in the eye of every spi- 
 ritual being, who looks at the state of his heart, and 
 passes judgment upon him by those very princi- 
 ples which are to try him at that great day when 
 the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open. 
 
 If this were kept in view, it would lead to a more 
 enlightened estimate of the character of man, than 
 man in the thoughtlessness and unconcern of his 
 natural state ever forms. It would lead us to see, 
 that under all the hues and varieties of character, 
 diversified as they are by constitutional taste, and 
 the power of circumstances, there lurks one deep 
 and universal disease, and that is the disease of a 
 mindlabouringunderalienationfrom God, and with- 
 out any practical sense of what is due to him. You 
 will all admit it to be true, that the heart of a man 
 may be under the full operation of this deadly poi- 
 
77 
 
 son, while the man himself has a constitutional 
 taste for the pleasures of social intercourse. You 
 see nothing unlikely or impossible in this combi- 
 nation. Now I want you to go along with me, when 
 I carry my assertion still further; and sure I am that 
 experience bears me out when I say, that the heart 
 >f a man may be under the full operation of a dis- 
 Iifce or indifference to God, while the man himself 
 has a constitutional abhorrence at cruelty a con 
 stitutional repugnance to fraud, a constitutional an- 
 tipathy to what is uncourteousin manners, or harsh 
 and unfeeling in conversation, a constitutional gen- 
 tleness of character; or, to sum up the whole in 
 one clause, a man may be free from many things 
 which give him a moral hatefulness in the eye of 
 others and he may have many things which throw 
 a moral loveliness around him, and the soul be un- 
 e entire dominion of that carelessness about 
 )d, which gives to sin its essential character. And 
 upon him even upon him, graceful and engaging 
 as he may be by the lustre of his many accom- 
 plishments, the saying of the Bible does not fail of 
 being realized that the heart of man is deceit- 
 ful above all things, and desperately wicked ; who 
 can know it ?" 
 
 And thus it is, that our great and ultimate aim in 
 the refbrmatbn of a sinner, is the reformation of 
 his heart rhere may be many reformations short 
 of this and ,n which many are disposed to rest with 
 dece,tful complacency. I can conceive, that the 
 man who formerly stole may steal no more, not be- 
 
78 
 
 cause lie is now sanctified, and feels the obligation 
 of religious principle, but because he is now trans- 
 lated into better circumstances, and, by the pow- 
 er of example, has contracted that tone of honour- 
 able feeling which exists among the upper classes 
 of society. Here, then, is a reformation of the con- 
 duct, while the heart, in respect of that which con- 
 stitutes its exceeding sinfulness, is no better than 
 before. The old leaven of ungodliness may over- 
 spread its every desire, and its every affection; and 
 while the outer man has been washed of one of its 
 visible deformities, the inner man may still persist 
 in its unmindfulness of God ; and the pollution of 
 this greatest and vilest of all moral turpitude, may 
 adhere to it as obstinately as ever. 
 
 Now it appears to me, that these views, true in 
 themselves, and deserving to be carried along with 
 us through every inch of our religious progress, 
 have often been practically misapplied. I can con- 
 ceive an inquirer under the influence of these views, 
 to fall into such a process of reflection as the fol- 
 lowing : ' If the outer conduct be of no estimation 
 in the sight of God, unless it stand connected with 
 the actings of a holy principle in the heart, let us 
 begin with the heart, and from the establishment 
 of a holy principle there, purity of conduct will 
 follow as an effect of course. Let us beware of lay- 
 ing an early stress upon the doings of the outer 
 man, lest we and others should have our eye turned 
 from the reformation of the inner man, as the main 
 and almost the exclusive object of a, Christian's 
 
79 
 
 ambition. Let us be fearful how we urge such and 
 such visible reformations, either upon ourselves or 
 those around us, lest they be made to stand in the 
 place of that grand renewing process, by which 
 the soul, dead in trespasses and sins, is made alive 
 unto God. Let us labour to impress the necessity 
 of this process, and seeing the utter inability of man 
 to change his own heart, let us turn his eye from 
 any exertions of his own, to that fulness which is 
 in Christ Jesus, through whom alone he can obtain 
 the forgiveness of all his sins, and such a measure 
 of power resting upon him, as carries along with it 
 all the purifying influences of a spiritual reforma- 
 tion. In the mean time, let us take care how we 
 speak about good works. Let the very mention of 
 them put us into the defensive attitude of coldness 
 and suspicion ; and instead of giving our earnest- 
 ness or our energy to them, let us press upon our- 
 selves and others the exercises of that faith, by 
 which alone we are made the workmanship of God, 
 and created unto such good works as he hath or- 
 dained that we should walk in them.' 
 
 Now there is a great deal of truth throughout 
 the whole of (his train of sentiment ; but truth con- 
 templated under such an aspect, and turned to such 
 a purpose, as has the effect of putting an inquirer 
 into a practical attitude, which appears to me to 
 be unscriptural and wrong. 1 would not have him 
 keep his hand for a single moment from the doing 
 of that which is obviously right. I would not have 
 him to refrain from grappling immediately with 
 
80 
 
 every one sin which is within the reach of his ex- 
 ertions. I would not have him to incur the delay 
 of one instant in ceasing to do that which is evil ; 
 and I conceive that it is not till this is begun to, 
 that he will learn to do that which is well. It ought 
 not to restrain the energy of his immediate doing, 
 that he is told how doings are of no account, unless 
 they are the doings of one who has gone through a 
 previous regeneration. This ought not to keep 
 him from doing. It should only lead him to com- 
 bine with the prescribed doing, an earnest aspiring 
 after a cleaner heart, and a better spirit than he yet 
 finds himself to have. It is very true, that a man 
 may do an outwardly good thing, and rest in what 
 he has done. But it is as true, that a man may do 
 the outwardly good thing he is bidden do, and, in- 
 stead of resting, may look forward with diligent 
 striving, and earnest humble prayer, to some great- 
 er things than this. Now this last, my brethren, is 
 the attitude I want to put you into. Let the thief 
 give up his stealing at this moment. Let the drunk^ 
 ard give up his intemperance. Let the evil speak- 
 er give up his calumnies. Let the doer of all that is 
 obviously wrong, break off his sins, and turn him 
 to the doing of all that is obviously right. Let no 
 one thing, not even the speculations of orthodoxy,* 
 
 * Sorry should I be, if a term expressive of right notions on the 
 most interesting of all subjects, were used by me with a levity at 
 all calculated to beget an indifference to the soundness of your 
 religious opinions, or to divert your most earnest attention from 
 those inquiries, which have for their object the true will, and the 
 true way of God for the sajvation of men, 
 
81 
 
 be suffered to stand a barrier against your entrance 
 into the field of immediate exertion. I raise the 
 very first blow of my trumpet against the visible 
 iniquities which I see to be in you, and if there be 
 any one obviously right thing you have hitherto 
 neglected, I will not consume one particle of time 
 before I call upon you to do it. 
 
 It is quite in vain to say that all this is not called 
 for, or that I am now spending my strength and 
 your time in combating an error which has noprac- 
 tical existence. You must be quite familiarized 
 with the melancholy spectacle of a zealous pro- 
 fessor mourning over the sinfulness of his heart, 
 and at'the same time putting forth his hand, with- 
 out one sigh of remorse, to what is sinful in ordinary 
 conduct. Have you never witnessed one, who 
 could speak evil of his neighbour, and was at the 
 same time trenched among what he thought the 
 speculations of orthodoxy, and made the utter cor- 
 ruption of the soul of man one of these specula- 
 tions? Is it not enough to say that he is a mere 
 speculative Christian; for the very same thing 
 may be detected in the practice of one who feels a 
 real longing to be delivered from the power of 
 that sin, which he grieves has such an entire do- 
 minion over him. And yet, strange to tell, there 
 is many an obvious and every -day sin, which is not 
 watched against, which is not struggled against, 
 and the commission of which gives no uneasiness 
 whatever. The man is as it were so much occu- 
 pied with the sinfulness of his heart, that he neither,. 
 
 11 
 
82 
 
 feels nor attends to the sinfulness of his conduct 
 He wants to go methodically to work. He wants 
 to begin at the beginning, and he forms his esti- 
 mate of what the beginning is upon the arrange- 
 ments of human speculations. It sounds very 
 plausibly, that as out of the heart are the issues of 
 life, the work of an inquiring Christian must be- 
 gin there ; but the mischief I complain of is, that 
 in the first prosecution of this work, months or 
 years- may be consumed ere the purified fountain 
 send forth its streams, or the repentance he is as- 
 piring after tell on the plain and palpable doings 
 of his ordinary conduct. Hence, my brethren, the 
 mortifying exhibition of great zeal, and much talk, 
 and diligent canvassing and conversing about the 
 abstract principles of the Christian faith, combined 
 with what is visible in the Christian practice, be- 
 ing at a dead stand, and not one inch of sensible 
 progress being made in any one thing which the 
 eye can witness,, or the hand can lay a tangible 
 hold upon. The man is otherwise employed. He 
 is busy with the first principles of the subject. He 
 still goes on with his wonted peevishness within 
 doors, and his wonted dishonesties without doors. 
 He has not yet come to these matters. He is taken 
 up with laying and labouring at the foundation. 
 The heart is the great subject of his anxiety ; and in 
 the busy exercise of mourning and confessing, 
 and praying, and studying the right management 
 of his heart, he may take up months or years before 
 he come to the deformities of his outward and or- 
 
83 
 
 -th'nary conduct. I will venture to go farther, my 
 brethren, and assert, that if this be the track he is 
 on, it will be a great chance if he ever come to 
 them at all. To the end of his days he may be a 
 talking, and inquiring, and speculating, and I 
 doubt not, along with all this, a church-going and 
 ordinance-loving Christian. But I am much afraid 
 that he is, practically speaking, not in the way to 
 the solid attainments of a Christian, whose light 
 shines before men. All that meets the eye of daily 
 observers may have undergone no change what- 
 ever, and the life of the poor man may be nothing 
 better than the dream of a delusive and bewilder- 
 ing speculation. 
 
 Now, it is very true that, agreeably to the re- 
 marfcs with which I prefaced this argument, the 
 great and ultimate aim of all reformation is to re- 
 form the heart, and to bring it into such a state of 
 principle and desire, that God may be glorified in 
 soul and spirit as well as in body. This is the point 
 that is ever to be sought after, and ever to be 
 pressed forward to. Under a sense of his deficien- 
 cies from this point, a true Christian will read dili- 
 gently that he may learn the gospel method of 
 arriving at it. He will pray diligently that the clean 
 heart may be created, and the right spirit may be 
 renewed within him. The earnestness of his at- 
 tention to this matter will shut him up more and 
 more into the faith of that perfect sacrifice, which 
 his short-comings from a holy and heart-searching 
 law will ever remind him of ? as the firm and the 
 
84 
 
 only ground of his acceptance with God. The 
 same honest reliance on the divine testimony, 
 which leads him to close with the doctrine of the 
 atonement, and to rejoice in it, will also lead him 
 to close with the doctrine of sanctification, and dili- 
 gently to aspire after it. Now, in the business of 
 so aspiring after this object, it is not enough that 
 he read diligently in the Word; it is not enough 
 that he pray diligently for the Spirit. These are 
 two ingredients in the business of seeking after his 
 object, but they are not the only ones ; and what I 
 lament is, that a fear about the entireness of his 
 orthodoxy leads many a zealous inquirer to look 
 coldly and askance at another ingredient in this 
 business. He should not only read diligently and 
 pray diligently, but he should do diligently every 
 one right thing that is within his reach, and that 
 he finds himself to have strength for. Any one 
 author who talks of the insignificance of doings, 
 in such away as practically to restrain an inquirer 
 from vigorously and immediately entering upon the 
 performance of them, misleads that inquirer from 
 the scriptural method, by which we are directed to 
 a greater measure of light and of holiness than we 
 are yet in possession of. He detaches one essential 
 ingredient from the business of seeking. He may 
 set the spirit of his reader a roaming over some 
 field of airy speculation ; but he works no such 
 salutary effect upon his spirit, as evinces itself by 
 any one visible or substantial reformation. 1 have 
 often and often attempted to press this lesson upon 
 
85 
 
 you, my brethren ; and I bear you testimony, that, 
 while a resistance to practical preaching has been 
 imputed to the zealous professors of orthodoxy, 
 you listened with patience, and 1 trust not without 
 fruit, when addressing you as if you had just be- 
 gun to stir yourselves in the matter of your salva- 
 tion. I ranked it among my preliminary instruc- 
 tions, that you should cease, from the evil of your 
 doings ; that you should give up all that you 
 know to be wrong in your ordinary conduct; that 
 the thief should restrain himself from stealing, the 
 liar from falsehood, the evil speaker from back- 
 biting, the slothful labourer in the field from eye- 
 service, the faithless house maid in the family from 
 all purloining and all idleness. 
 
 The subterfuges of hypocrisy are endless ; and 
 if it can find one in a system of theology, it will 
 be as glad of it from that quarter as from &ny 
 other. Some there are who deafen the impression 
 of all these direct and immediate admonitions, by 
 saying that before all these doings are insisted on, 
 we must lay well and labour well at the founda- 
 tion of faith in Christ, without whom we can do 
 nothing. The truth, that without Christ we can do 
 nothing, is unquestionable ; but it would take ma- 
 ny a paragraph to expose its want of application 
 to the use that is thus made of it. But to cut short 
 this plea of indolence for delaying the painful 
 work of surrendering all that is vicious in conduct ; 
 let me put it to your common sense whether a thief 
 would not, and could not give up stealing for a 
 
week, if he had the reward of a fortune waiting him 
 at the end of it; whether, upon the same reward, 
 an evil speaker could not, for the same time, im- 
 pose a restraint upon his lips, and the slothful ser- 
 vant become a most pains-taking and diligent work- 
 er, and the liar maintain an undeviating truth 
 throughout all his conversations. Each of these 
 would find himself to have strength for these things, 
 were the inducement of a certain temporal reward 
 held out, or the dread of a certain temporal punish- 
 ment were made to hang over him. Now, for the 
 temporal punishment,! substitute the call of, "Flee 
 from the coming wrath." Let this call have the 
 effect it should have, and the effect it actually does 
 have, on many who are not warped by a mislead- 
 ing speculation, and it will make them stir up such 
 strength as they possess, and give up, in deed, much 
 of their actual misconduct. This effect it had in 
 the days of John the Baptist. People on his call, 
 gave up their violence and their extortions, and 
 the evil of many of their doings, and were thus, 
 put into wiiat God in his wisdom counted a fit state 
 of preparation for the Saviour. If there was any 
 thing in the revelation of the Gospel calculated to 
 supersede this call of, " Cease you from the evil of 
 your doings," then I could understand the indiffer- 
 ence, or the positive hostility, of zealous pretend- 
 ers to the work of addressing practical exhortation 
 to inquirers at the very outset of their progress. But 
 so far from being superseded by any thing that the 
 Gospel lays before us, the Author and the first 
 
87 
 
 preachers of the Gospel just took up the lesson of 
 John, and at the very commencement of their mi- 
 nistry did they urge it upon people to turn them 
 from the evil of their doings. Repent and believe 
 the Gospel, says our Saviour. Repent and turn 
 unto God, and do works meet for repentance, says 
 the Apostle Paul. And there must be something 
 wrong, my brethren, if you resist me urging it upon 
 you, to give up at this moment, even though it 
 should be the first moment of your concern about 
 salvation, to give up all that is obviously wrong ; 
 to turn you to all that is obviously right ; to grapple 
 with every sin you can lay your hand upon ; and if 
 it be true, in point of experience and common sense, 
 that many a misdeed may be put away from you 
 on the allurement of some temporal reward; then 
 if you have faith in the reality of eternal things, 
 the hope of an escape from the coming wrath may 
 and will tell immediately upon you, and we shall 
 see among you a stir, and a diligence, and a doing, 
 and a visible reformation. 
 
 It is a great matter to chase away all mysticism 
 from the path by which a sinner is led unto God: 
 and it is to be lamented that many a speculation of 
 many a respected divine, has the effect of throwing 
 a darkening cloud of perplexity over the very en- 
 trance of this path. I tell you a very plain thing, 
 and, if it be true, it is surely of importance that you 
 should know it, when I tell you, that if you are a 
 servant, and are visited with a desire after salva- 
 tion, then a faithful performance of your daily task 
 
88 
 
 is a step without which the object you aim at is un- 
 attainable. If you are a son v a more punctual ful- 
 filment of your parent's bidding is another step. If 
 you are a neighbour, a more civil and obliging de- 
 portment to those around you is another step. If 
 you are a dealer, the adoption of a just weight and 
 a just measure is another step. There are some 
 who, afraid of your attempting to get acceptance 
 with God by the merit of your own doings, would 
 not venture to urge all this at the outset, lest they 
 should lead you to rest on a delusive ground of 
 confidence. They would try to get a perfect and 
 a clear understanding of the right ground of accept- 
 ance established, previous to the use of any such 
 urgency ; and then, upon this principle being well 
 laid within you, they might take the liberty of tell- 
 ing you your duty. Their fearfulness upon this 
 point forms a very striking contrast to the free, and 
 unembarrassed, and energetic manner, in which 
 the Bible, both of the Old and New Testament, 
 calls on every man who comes within the reach of 
 a hearing, to cease from all sin, and turn him to all 
 righteousness. In following its example, let us be 
 fearless of all consequences. It may not suit the ar- 
 tificial processes of some of our systems, nor fall ia 
 with the order of their well-weighed and carefully 
 arranged articles, to tell at the very outset of those 
 obvious reformations which I am now pressing 
 upon you. But sure 1 am that an apostle would 
 have felt no difficulty on the subject; nor whatever 
 the visible sin which deformed vou, or whatever the 
 
89 
 
 visible act of obedience in which you were de- 
 ficient, would he have been restrained from giving 
 his immediate energy to the work of calling on you 
 to abstain from the one and to do the other. 
 
 The disciples of John could not have such a 
 clear view of the ground of acceptance before God, 
 as an enlightened disciple of the apostles. Yet the 
 want of this clear view did not prevent them from 
 being right subjects for John's preparatory instruc- 
 tions. And what were these instructions? Soldiers 
 were called on to give up their violence, and pub- 
 licans their exactions, and rich men the confine- 
 ment of their own wealth to their own gratification ; 
 and will any man hesitate for a moment to decide, 
 whether those who turned away from the directions 
 of the forerunner, or those who followed them, werev 
 in the likeliest state for receiving light and improve- 
 ment from the subsequent teachingof the Saviour? 
 
 But there is one difference between them and 
 us. The whole of Christ's teaching, as put down 
 in the word of God, is already before us. Now what 
 precise effect should this have upon the nature of 
 an initiatory address to sinners ? The right answer 
 to this question will confirm, or it will demolish 
 the whole of our preceding argument. The alone 
 ground of acceptance, is the righteousness of Christ 
 imputed to all who believe. This truth deserves 
 to be taken up, and urged immediately in the hear^ 
 ing of all who are within the reach of the preach- 
 er's voice. Till this truth be received, there should 
 be no rest to the sinner, there is no reconciliation 
 
90 
 
 with Godj nor will he attain that consummation of 
 holiness, without which there can be no meetness 
 for the enjoyment of heaven. But some are rea- 
 dier to receive this truth than others. The reform- 
 ing publicans and harlots of John were in a state of 
 greater readiness to receive this truth, than either 
 the Pharisees, or those publicans and harlots who r 
 unmindful of John, still persisted in their iniquities. 
 And who will be in greater readiness to receive this- 
 truth in the present day ? Will it be the obstinate 
 and determinate doers of all that is sinful, and that 
 too in the face of a call, that they should do works- 
 meet for repentance ? Or will it be those who, un- 
 der the influence of this call, do what the disciples 
 of John did before them, turn them from the evil 
 of their manifest iniquities, and so give proof of 
 their earnestness in the way of salvation ? It is 
 true that, along with such a call, we might now 
 urge a truth which even John could not. But are 
 \ve to suspend the call of doing works meet for re- 
 pentance, till this truth be urged and established in 
 the mind of the hearer ? Surely if God thought it 
 wise to ply sinners with a call to turn them from 
 the evil of their ways, before he fully revealed 
 to them the evangelical ground of their accep- 
 tance, we may count it scriptural and safe to ply 
 them with this call at the same time, that we state 
 to them the evangelical ground of their acceptance* 
 It is true, that the statement may not be compre- 
 hended all at once. It may be years before it i^r 
 listened to by the careless, before it is rested k& 
 
m 
 
 by the desponding, before the comfort of it is at all 
 felt or appropriated by the doubting and melan- 
 choly inquirer. Now what 1 contend for is, that 
 during this interval of time, these people may and 
 ought to be urged with the call of departing from 
 their iniquities. This very call was brought to bear, 
 on the disciples of John, before the ground of their 
 acceptance was fully made known to them ; and it 
 might be brought to bear on sinners now, even 
 though it should be before the ground of their ac- 
 ceptance be fully understood by them. The effect 
 of this preparatory instruction in these days, was to 
 fit John's disciples for the subsequent revelation of 
 Christ and his apostles. It is true, that we are in 
 possession of that doctrine which they only had 
 the prospect of. But it accords with experience, 
 that this doctrine might be addressed without ef- 
 fect for years to men inquiring after salvation. The 
 doctrine of justification by the righteousness of 
 Christ, might be announced in all its force, and in 
 all its simplicity, to men who hold out against it ; 
 and you would surely say of them, that the way of 
 the Lord had not been prepared to their minds, nor 
 his paths made straight. Now we read of such a 
 preparation set a going in behalf of men, to whom 
 this doctrine had not yet been revealed. Will this 
 preparation be altogether ineffectual in behalf of 
 men by whom this doctrine is not yet understood ? 
 Surely it is quite evident, that in the days of John, 
 men who, in obedience to his call, were struggling 
 with their sins, were in a likelier way for receiving 
 
92 
 
 those larger measures of truth, which were after- 
 ward revealed, than they who, in the face of that 
 call, were obstinately and presumptuously retaining 
 them. Suffer us to avail ourselves of the same ad- 
 vantage now. You, my brethren, who, in obedi- 
 ence to the calls that have been sounded in your 
 hearing, are struggling with your sins, are in a like- 
 lier way for receiving those larger measures of truth 
 which are now revealed, than those of you who feel 
 no earnestness, and are making no endeavours upon 
 the subject. While, therefore, I announce to you, 
 in the most distinct terms, that you will not be 
 saved unless you are found in the righteousness of 
 Christ, this will not restrain me at the very same 
 time from doing what John did. You know how 
 his disciples were prepared for the baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost, who guides unto all truth ; and while 
 I do not think that any one point of time is too early 
 for offering Christ to you, in all the benefits of his 
 sacrifice, in all the imputed merits of his perfect 
 righteousness, in all the privileges which he has 
 proclaimed and purchased for believers; all I con- 
 tend for is, that neither is there any point of time 
 too early for letting you know, that all sin must be 
 abandoned, for calling on you to enter into the work 
 of struggling with all sin immediately, for warning 
 you, that while you persist in those sinful actions 
 which you might give up, and would give up, were 
 a temporal inducement held out to you, I have no 
 evidence of your receiving benefit from the word 
 of salvation that I am sounding in your ears. There 
 
93 
 
 is surely room for telling sinners more than one 
 thing, in the course of the very earliest lesson that 
 is laid before them. It is an exclusive deference 
 to the one point, and the one principle, and the 
 bringing of every thing else into a forced subordi- 
 nation upon it, which has enfeebled many an at- 
 tempt to turn sinners to Christ from their iniquities. 
 I can surely tell a man, that unless he is walking 
 in a particular line, he will not reach the object he 
 is aiming at ; and I can tell him at the same time, 
 that neither will he reach it, unless he have his eyes 
 open, and he look upon the object. On these two 
 unquestionable truths, I bid him both walk and 
 look at the same time, and at the same time he can 
 do both. In the same manner I may tell a man, 
 that unless he give up stealing, he shall not reach 
 heaven ; and I may also tell him, that unless he 
 accept, by faith, Christ as his alone Saviour, he shall 
 not reach heaven. On these two truths I found two 
 practical directions; and I must be convinced, that 
 the doing of the one hinders the doing of the other, 
 ere I desist from that which the first teachers of 
 Christianity did before me, proclaim Christ, and 
 within the compass of the same breathing, call on 
 men to do works meet for repentance. 
 
 In the order of time, the practical instructions of 
 John went before the full announcement of the 
 doctrines of salvation. I do not think, however, 
 that this order is authoritative upon us ; but far less 
 do I think that our full possession of the doctrine 
 of salvation confers any authority upon us for re- 
 
94 
 
 versing the historical process of the New Testa- 
 ment. 1 bring all the truths which the teachers of 
 these days addressed to the sinners among whom 
 they laboured, to bear immediately upon you sin- 
 ners now. And while I call upon you to turn from 
 the evil of your ways, I also warn you of the dan- 
 ger of putting away from you the offered Saviour, 
 or refusing all your confidence in that name than, 
 which there is no other given under heaven where- 
 by men can be saved. 
 
 If by faith be meant the embracing of one doc- 
 trine, then I can understand how some might be 
 alarmed lest an outset so practical should depose 
 faith from the precedency which belongs to it. But 
 if by faith be meant a reliance on the whole testi- 
 mony of Scripture, then the precedency of faith is 
 not at all broken in upon. If, on the call of " Flee 
 from the coming wrath," I get you to struggle it 
 with your more palpable iniquities, I see in that 
 very struggle the operation of a faith in the divine 
 testimony about the realities of an invisible world, 
 and I have reason to bless God that he has wrought 
 in you what I am sure no argument and no ve- 
 hemence of mine could, without the power of his 
 Spirit, ever have accomplished. Those of you who 
 have thus evinced one exercise of faith, I look upon 
 as more hopeful subjects for another exercise, than 
 those of you who remain trenched in obstinacy 
 and unconcern. And when I tell the former, that 
 nothing will get them acceptance with God, but 
 the mediation of Christ offered to all who come, it 
 
95 
 
 will be to them, and not to the latter, that I shall 
 look for an earnest desire after the offered Saviour. 
 When I tell them that they affront God by not re- 
 ceiving the record which he gives of his Son, it will 
 be to them, and not to the others, that I shall look 
 for a submissive and thankful acquiescence in the 
 whole of his salvation; and thus passing with the 
 docility of little children from one lesson of the Bi- 
 ble to another ; these are the people who, working 
 because God so bids them, will count that a man 
 is not justified by the works of the law, because 
 God so tells them ; these are the people who, not 
 offended by what Christ told them at the outset, 
 that he who cometh unto him must forsake all, will 
 evince their willingness to forsake all, by turning 
 from their iniquities, and coming unto Christ; these 
 are the people who, while they do what they may 
 with their hands, will think that while their heart 
 is not directed to the love of God, they have done 
 nothing; and counting it a faithful saying, that with- 
 out Christ they can do nothing, they will take to 
 him as their sanctifier as well as their Saviour, and 
 having received him as the Lord their righteous- 
 ness, will ever repair v to him, and keep by him as 
 the Lord their strength. 
 
 While I urge upon you the doing of every obvi- 
 ously right thing, you will not conceive of me that 
 I want you to rest in this doing, I trust that my 
 introductory paragraphs may convince you how 
 much of this doing may be gone through, and yet 
 the mighty object of the obedience of the willing 
 
96 
 
 heart might be imreached and unaccomplished. 
 Not to urge the doing, lest you should rest, would 
 be to deviate from scriptural example. And again, 
 to urge the doing, and leave you to rest, would be 
 also to deviate from scriptural example. John the 
 Baptist urged the doing of many things, and his 
 faithful disciples set themselves to the performance 
 of what he bade them do. They entered imme- 
 diately on the field of active and diligent service. 
 But^did they stop short? No; out of the very 
 preaching of their master did they obtain a caution 
 against resting; and the same submissive deference 
 to his authority, in virtue of which they were set a 
 working, led them also, along with their working 
 at the things which he set them to, to look forward 
 to greater things than these. He told them ex- 
 pressly, that all his preaching was as nothing to the 
 preaching of one who was to come after him. They 
 were diligent with present things, but be assured 
 that they combined with this diligence the attitude 
 of looking forward to greater things. Is this the at- 
 titude of men who place their repose and their 
 dependence upon the performances on hand ? 
 Was it not the attitude of men walking in the way 
 revealed by a messenger from heaven, to the ob- 
 ject which this messenger pointed out to them ? 
 I call on you to commence at this moment an im- 
 mediate struggle with all sin, and an immediate 
 striving after all righteousness ; but I would not be 
 completing even the lesson of John, and far less 
 would I be bringing forward the counsel of God 
 
97 
 
 v as made known to us in his subsequent revelation, 
 were I to say any thing which led you to stop short 
 at those visible reformations, which formed the 
 great burden of John's practical addresses to his 
 countrymen ; and therefore along with your doing, 
 and most diligently doing all that is within your 
 reach, 1 call on you to pray, and most fervently and 
 faithfully to pray for that larger baptism of the Ho- 
 ly Ghost, by which your hearts may be cleansed 
 from all their corruptions, and you be enabled to 
 render unto God all the purity of a spiritual obe- 
 dience. 
 
 I cannot expatiate within the limits of this short 
 Address on the texts both of the Old and New Tes- 
 tament, which serve to establish, that the ri2;ht at- 
 titude of a returning sinner is what 1 have some- 
 times called in your hearing, the compound atti- 
 tude of service and expectation. But I shall re- 
 peat a few of these texts, that they may suggest 
 what you have been in the habit of hearing from 
 me upon this subject. " And Samuel spake to all 
 the house of Israel saying, if ye do return unto the 
 Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange 
 gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare 
 your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and 
 he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philis- 
 tines. Then the children of Israel did put away 
 Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only." 
 " They will not frame their doings to turn unto the 
 Lord." " Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment 
 and do justice, for my salvation is near to come, 
 
 13 
 
98 
 
 and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the 
 man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth 
 hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting 
 it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." 
 " Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the poor 
 that are cast out into thy house. When thou seest 
 the naked, cover him, and hide not thyself from 
 thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth 
 as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth 
 speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before 
 thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy revvard."' 
 " He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me 
 shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, 
 and will manifest myself unto him." " For who- 
 soever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall 
 have more abundance ; but whosoever hath not, 
 from him shall be taken away even that he hath." 
 " Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these 
 least commandments, and shall teach men so, he 
 shall be called the least in the kingdom of hea- 
 ven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the 
 same shall be called great in the kingdom of hea- 
 ven." " And we are witnesses of these things ; and 
 so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given 
 to them that obey him." " Trust in the Lord, and 
 do good." 
 
 But danger presses on us in every direction ; and 
 in the work of dividing the word o/ truth, many, 
 and very many, are the obstacles which lie in the 
 way of our doing it rightly. When a Minister gives 
 
99 
 
 his strength to one particular lesson, it often car- 
 ries in it the appearance of his neglecting all the 
 rest, and throwing into the back ground other les- 
 sons of equal importance. It might require the 
 ministrations of many years to do away this ap- 
 pearance. Sure I am, that I despair of doing it 
 away within the limits of this short Address to any 
 but yourselves. You know all that I have urged 
 upon the ground of your acceptance with God; 
 upon the freeness of that offer which is by Christ 
 Jesus ; upon the honest invitations which every 
 where abound in the Gospel, that all who will may 
 take hold of it; upon the necessity of being found 
 by God, not in your own righteousness, but in the 
 righteousness which is of Christ ; upon the help- 
 lessness of man, and how all the strugglings of his 
 own unaided strength can never carry him to the 
 length of a spiritual obedience ; upon the darkness 
 and enmity of his mind about the things of God, 
 and how this can never be dissolved, till he who by 
 nature stands afar off is brought near by the blood 
 of the atonement, and he receives that repentance 
 and that remission of sins, which Christ is exalted 
 a Prince and a Saviour to dispense to all who be- 
 lieve in him. These are offers and doctrines which 
 might be addressed, and ought to be addressed, 
 immediately to all. But the call I have been urging 
 upon you through the whole of this pamphlet, of 
 " Cease ye from your manifest transgressions," 
 should be addressed along with them. Now here 
 lies the difficulty with many a sincere lover of the 
 
100 
 
 truth as it is in Jesus. He feels a backwardness m 
 urging this call, lest it should somehow or other 
 impair the freeness of the offer, or encroach upon 
 the singleness of that which is stated to be our 
 alone meritorious ground of acceptance before God. 
 In reply to this, let it be well observed, that though 
 the offer be at all times free, it is not at all times 
 listened to ; and though the only ground of accept- 
 ance be that righteousness of Christ which is unto 
 all them and upon all them that believe, yet some 
 are in likelier circumstances for being brought to this 
 belief than others. There is one class of hearers 
 who are in a greater state of readiness for being im- 
 pressed by the Gospel than another, and I fear 
 that all the use has not been made of this principle 
 which Scripture and experience warrant us to do. 
 Every attempt to work man into a readiness for 
 receiving the offer has been discouraged, as if it 
 carried in it a reflection against the freeness of the 
 offer itself. The obedient disciples of John were 
 more prepared for the doctrines of grace, than the 
 careless hearers of this prophet ; but their obedi- 
 ence did not confer any claim of merit upon them, 
 it only made them more disposed to receive the 
 good tidings of that salvation which was altogether 
 of grace. A despiser of ordinances is put into a like- 
 lier situation for receiving the free offer of the Gos- 
 pel, by being prevailed upon to attend a church 
 where this offer is urged upon his acceptance. His 
 attendance does not impair the freeness of the of- 
 fer. Yet where is the man so warped by a mislead- 
 
101 
 
 ing speculation, as to deny that the doing of this 
 previous to his union with Christ, and preparatory 
 to that union, may be the very mean of the free 
 offer being received. Again, it is the lesson both 
 of experience and of the Bible, that the young are 
 likelier subjects for religious intruction than the 
 old. The free offer may and ought to be address- 
 en to both these classes ; but generally speaking, 
 it is in point of fact more productive of good when 
 addressed to the first class than the second. And we 
 do not say that youth confers any meritorious title 
 to salvation, nor do we make any reflection on the 
 freeness of the offer, when we urge it upon the 
 young, lest they should^ get old, and it have less 
 chance of being laid before them with acceptance. 
 We make no reflection upon the offer as to its cha- 
 racter of freeness, but we proceed upon the obvi- 
 ous fact, that, free as it is, it is not so readily listen- 
 ed to or laid hold of by the second class of hearers 
 as by the first. And, lastly, when addressing sin- 
 ners now, all of them might and ought to be plied 
 with the free offer of salvation at the very outset. 
 But if it be true, that those of them who wilfully 
 persist in those misdoings, which they could give 
 up on the inducement of a temporal reward, will 
 not, in point of fact, be so impressed by the offer, 
 or be so disposed to accept of it, as those who (on 
 the call of " Flee from the coming wrath ;" and 
 on being told, that unless they repent they shall 
 perish ; and on being made to know, what our Sa- 
 viour made inquirers know at the very starting point 
 
102 
 
 of their progress as his disciples, that he who fol- 
 loweth after him must forsake all,) have begun to 
 break off their sins, and to put the evil of their do- 
 ings away from them : then we are not stripping the 
 offer of its attribute of perfect freeness, but we are 
 only doing what God in his wisdom did two thou- 
 sand years ago ; we are, under Him, preparing souls 
 for the reception of this offer, when, along with the 
 business of proposing it, which we cannot do too 
 early, we bring the urgency of an immediate call 
 to bear on the children of iniquity, that they should 
 cease to do evil, and learn to do well. 
 
 The publicans and harlots entered into the king- 
 dom of God before the Pharisees, and yet the lat- 
 ter were free from the outward transgressions of the 
 former. Now, the fear which restrains many from 
 lifting the immediate call of, " Cease ye from 
 your transgressions," is, lest it should put those who 
 obey the call into the state of Pharisees ; and there 
 is a secret, though not avowed, impression in their 
 minds, that it were better for their hearers to remain 
 in the state of publicans and harlots, and in this 
 state to have the offer of Christ and all his benefits 
 set before them. But mark well, that it was not 
 the publicans and harlots who persisted in their ini- 
 quities, but they who counted John to be a pro- 
 phet, and in obedience to his call were putting 
 their iniquities away from them, who had the ad- 
 vantage of the Pharisees. None will surely say, 
 that those of ..them who continued as they were, 
 were put into a state of preparation for the Saviour 
 
103 
 
 by the preaching of John. Some will be afraid to 
 say, that those of them who gave up their iniquities 
 at the bidding of John were put into a state of pre- 
 paration, lest it should encourage a pharisaical con- 
 fidence in our own doings. But mark the distinc- 
 tion between these and the Pharisees: The Phari- 
 sees might be as free as the reforming publicans 
 and harlots, of those visible transgressions which 
 characterized them; but on this they rested their 
 confidence, and put the offered Saviour away from 
 them. The publicans and harlots, so far from rest- 
 ing their confidence on the degree of reformation 
 which they had accomplished, were prompted to 
 this reformation by the hope of the coming Sa- 
 viour. They connected with all their doings the ex- 
 pectation of greater things. They waited for the 
 kingdom of God that was at hand; and the preach- 
 ing of John, under the influence of which they had 
 put away from them many of their misdeeds, could 
 never lead them to stop short at this degree of 
 amendment, when the very same John told them 
 of one who was to come after him, in comparison 
 of whom he and all his sermons were as nothing. 
 The Saviour did come, and he said of those publi- 
 cans and harlots who believed and repented at the 
 preaching of John, that they entered the kingdom 
 of heaven before the Pharisees. They had not 
 earned that kingdom by their doings, but they 
 were in a fitter and readier state for receiving the 
 tidings of it. The gospel came to them on the 
 footing of a free and unmerited offer ; and on this 
 
104 
 
 footing it should be proposed to all. But it is not 
 on this footing that it will be accepted by all. Not 
 by men who, free from many glaring and visible 
 iniquities, rest on the decency of their own charac- 
 ter; not by men who, deformed by these iniqui- 
 ties, still wilfully and obstinately persist in them ; 
 but by men who, earnest in their inquiries after 
 salvation, and who, made to know, as they ought 
 to be at the very outset of their inquiries, that it is 
 a salvation from sin as well as from punishment, 
 have given up the practice of their outward ini- 
 quities, as the first fruit and evidence of their ear- 
 nestness. 
 
 Let me, therefore, in addition to the lesson I 
 have already urged upon you, warn you against a 
 pharisaical confidence in your own doings. While, 
 on the one hand, 1 tell you that none are truly seek- 
 ing who have not begun to do ; f, on the other hand, 
 tell you, that none have truly found who have not 
 taken up with Christ as the end of the law for 
 righteousness. Let Jesus Christ, the same to-day, 
 yesterday, and for ever, be the end of your conver- 
 sation. Never take rest till you have found it in 
 him. You never will have a well-grounded com- 
 fort in your intercourse with God, till you have 
 learned the way of going to the throne of his grace 
 in fellowship with Christ as your appointed Media- 
 tor ; you never will rejoice in hope of the coming 
 glory, till your peace be made with God through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord ; you never will be sure of 
 pardon, till you rest in the forgiveness of your sins 
 
105 
 
 as coming to you through the redemption which is 
 in his blood. And what is more, addressing you as 
 people who have received a practical impulse to 
 the obedience of the commandments, never forget, 
 that, while the reformation of your first and earliest 
 stages in the Christian life went no farther than to 
 the amendment of your more obvious and visible 
 deficiencies, this reformation, to be completed, 
 must bring the soul and spirit, as well as the body, 
 under a subserviency to the glory of God; and it 
 never can be completed but by the shedding abroad 
 of that Spirit which is daily poured on the daily 
 prayers of believers: and I call upon you always to 
 look up to God through the channel of Christ's ap- 
 pointed mediatorship, that you may receive through 
 this same channel a constant and ever increasing 
 supply of the washing of regeneration and renew- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 I call upon you to be up arid doing ; but I call 
 upon you with the very same breath, not to rest sa- 
 tisfied with any dark, or doubtful, or confused no- 
 tions about your way of acceptance with God ; and 
 let it be your earnest and never-ceasing object to 
 be found in that way. While you have the com- 
 mandments and keep them, look at the same time 
 for the promised manifestations. To be indifferent 
 whether you have a clear understanding of the righ- 
 teousness of Christ, is the same as thinking it not 
 worth your while to inquire into that which God 
 thought it worth his while to give up his Son unto 
 the death that he might accomplish. It is to af 
 
 14 
 
106 
 
 front God, by letting him speak while yon refuse 
 to listen or attend to him. Have a care, lest it be 
 an insulting sentiment on your part, as to the worth 
 of your polluted services, and that, sinful as they 
 are, and defective as they are, they are good enough 
 for God. Lean not on such a bruised reed; but 
 let Christ, in all the perfection of that righteous- 
 ness, which is unto all them and upon all them that 
 believe, be the alone rock of your confidence. Your 
 feet will never get on a sure place till they be es- 
 tablished on that foundation than which there is 
 no other; and to delay a single moment in your 
 attempts to reach it, and to find rest upon it, after 
 it is so broadly announced to you, is to incur the 
 aggravated guilt of those who neglect the great 
 salvation, and who make God a liar, by suspending 
 their belief of that record which he hath given of 
 his Son, " And this is the record that God hath 
 given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 
 
 Again 1 call upon you to be up and doing : and 
 I call upon you to accept of Christ- as your alone 
 Saviour: but I call upon you, at the same time, to 
 look to the whole extent of his salvation. a You 
 hath he quickened, having forgiven you all tres- 
 passes." There is the forgiveness of all that has 
 been dead, and sinful, and alienated within you ; but 
 there is also a quickening, and a reforming, and a 
 putting within you a near and a lively sense of 
 God, so as that you may henceforth serve him with 
 newness of heart, and walk before him in all new- 
 ness of life and of conversation. Your hearts will 
 
107 
 
 be enlarged, so as that you may run the way of all 
 the commandments. O how it puts to flight all 
 Pharisaical confidence in the present exercises of 
 obedience, when one casts an enlightened eye 
 over the whole extent of the Christian race, and 
 thinks of the mighty extent of those attainments 
 which were exemplified by the disciples of the 
 New Testament! The service which 1 now 7 yield, 
 and is perhaps offered up in the spirit of bondage, 
 must be offered up in the spirit of adoption. It 
 must be the obedience of a child, who yields the 
 willing homage of his affections to his reconciled 
 father. It must be the obedience of the heart ; arid 
 O how far is a slavish performance of the bidden 
 task, from the consent of the inner man to the law 
 of that God whom he delights to honour ! This 
 love to him, and delight in him, occupy the fore- 
 most place in the list of the bidden requirements. 
 J[f I love the creature more than the Creator, I tram- 
 ple on the authority of the first and greatest of the 
 commandments; and what an imposing exhibition 
 of sobriety, and justice, and almsgiving, and reli- 
 gious decency, may be presented in the character 
 and doings of him whose conversation is not in 
 heaven, who minds earthly things, who loves his 
 wealth more than God, who likes his ease and 
 comfort on this side of time more than all his pros- 
 pects on the other side of it, and who, therefore, 
 though he may never have looked upon himself to 
 be any thing else than a fair Christian, is looked 
 upon by every spiritual being as a rebel to his God, 
 
108 
 
 with the principle of rebellion firmly seated in his 
 most vital part, even in his heart turned in cold- 
 ness and alienation away from him. 
 
 But if God be looked upon by you as a Father 
 with whom you are reconciled through the blood 
 of sprinkling, it will not be so with you. Now, this 
 is what he calls you to do. He gives you a warrant 
 to choose him as your God. He offers himself 
 to your acceptance, and beseeches all to whom 
 the word of salvation is sent, to be reconciled to 
 Him. It is indeed a wonderful change in the state 
 of a heart, when, giving up its coldness and indif- 
 ference to God, (and I call upon every careless and 
 unawakened man to tell me, upon his honesty, 
 whether this be not the actual state of his heart,) 
 it surrenders itself to Him with the warm and the 
 willing tribute of all its affections. Now, there is 
 not one power, within the compass of nature, that 
 can bring about this change. It does not lie with 
 man to give up the radical iniquity of an alienated 
 heart; the Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, 
 and the leopard his spots. But what cannot be done 
 by him is done to him, when he accepts of the 
 Gospel. The promises of Christ are abundantly 
 performed upon all who trust in him. Through 
 him is the dispensation of forgiveness, and with 
 him is the dispensation of the all-powerful and all- 
 subduing Spirit. While, then, with the very first 
 mention of his name, I call on you to cease your 
 hand from doing evil, surely there is nothing in the 
 call that can lead you to stop at any one point of 
 
109 
 
 obedience, when I, at the same time, tell you of 
 the mighty change that must be accomplished, ere 
 you are meet for the inheritance of the saints. You 
 must be made the workmanship of God; you must 
 be born again; you must be made to feel your de- 
 pendence on the power of the renewing Spirit ; 
 and that power must come down upon you, and 
 keep by you, and by his ever-needed supplies must 
 form the habitual answer to your habitual and be- 
 lieving prayers. 
 
 I have now got upon ground on which many will 
 refuse to go along with me. I can get their testi- 
 mony to the spectacle of a reforming people, put- 
 ting the visible iniquities of stealing, and lying, 
 and evil speaking, and drunkenness, away from 
 them ; but from the moment we come to the only 
 principle which confers any value on these visible 
 expressions, even the willing homage of the heart 
 to God, and to his law in all its spirituality and ex- 
 tent; and from the moment that we come to the 
 only expedient by which such a principle can ever 
 obtain an establishment within us, (and we chal- 
 lenge them to attempt the establishment of this 
 principle in any other way,) even the operation of 
 that spirit which is given to those who accept of 
 Christ as he is laid before us in the Gospel; then 
 and at that moment, are we looked upon as having 
 entered within the borders of fanaticism ; and, while 
 they lavish their superficial admiration on the flow- 
 ers of virtue, do they refuse the patience of their 
 
110 
 
 attention to the root from which they spring, or to 
 the nourishment which maintains them. 
 
 And here I cannot but record the effect of an ac- 
 tual though undesigned experiment, which 1 pro- 
 secuted for upwards of twelve years among you. 
 For the greater part of that time, I could expatiate 
 on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of 
 falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny, in 
 a word, upon all those deformities of character, 
 which awaken the natural indignation of the human 
 heart against the pests and the disturbers of human 
 society. Now could I, upon the strength of these 
 warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up 
 his stealing, and the evil speaker his censorious- 
 ness, and the liar his deviations from truth, I should 
 have felt all the repose of one who had gotten his 
 ultimate object. It never occurred to me that all 
 this might have been done, and yet every soul of 
 every hearer have remained in full alienation from 
 God; and that even could I have established in 
 the bosom of one who stole, such a principle of 
 abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty, that he 
 was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still 
 have retained a heart as completely unturned to 
 God, and as totally unpossessed by a principle of 
 love to Him, as before. In a word, though I might 
 have made him a more upright and honourable 
 man, I might have left him as destitute of the es- 
 sence of religious principle as ever. But the inte- 
 resting fact is, that during the whole of that period 
 in which I made no attempt against the natural 
 
Ill 
 
 enmity of the mind to God, while I was inattentive 
 to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, even 
 by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing 
 acceptance on the other, of the gospel salvation ; 
 while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who 
 by nature stands afar off, is brought near to the hea- 
 venly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarce- 
 ly ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way, as 
 stripped him of all the importance of his character 
 and his offices, even at this time I certainly did 
 press the reformations of honour, and truth, and 
 integrity among my people ; but I never once heard 
 of any such reformations having been effected 
 amongst them. If there was any thing at all brought 
 about in this way, it was more than ever I got any 
 account of. I am not sensible, that all the vehe- 
 mence with which I urged the virtues and the pro- 
 prieties of social life, had the weight of a feather 
 on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it 
 was not till I got impressed by the utter alienation 
 of the heart in all its desires and affections from 
 God ; it was not till reconciliation to Him became 
 the distinct and the prominent object of my minis- 
 terial exertions ; it was not till I took the scriptural 
 way of laying the method of reconciliation before 
 them ; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness 
 through the blood of Christ was urged upon their 
 acceptance, and the Holy Spirit given through the 
 channel of Christ's mediatorshipto all who ask him, 
 was set before them as the unceasing object of their 
 dependance and their prayers ; it was not 2 in one 
 
112 
 
 word, till the contemplations of my people were 
 turned to these great and essential elements in the 
 business of a soul providing for its interest with 
 God, and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever 
 heard of any of those subordinate reformations 
 which I aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, 
 but I am afraid at the same time, the ultimate ob- 
 ject of my earlier ministrations. Ye servants, whose 
 scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice, 
 and drawn forth in my hearing a delightful testi- 
 mony from your masters, what mischief you would 
 have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacra- 
 ments been accompanied by the sloth and the re- 
 missness, and what, in the prevailing tone of moral 
 relaxation, is counted the allowable purloining of 
 your earlier days ! But a sense of your heavenly 
 Master's eye has brought another influence to bear 
 upon you ; and while you are thus striving to adorn 
 the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, you 
 may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the 
 land to the acknowledgment of the faith. You 
 have at least taught me, that to preach Christ is 
 the only effective way of preaching morality in all 
 its branches ; aad out of your humble cottages have 
 I gathered a lesson, which I pray God I may be 
 enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider 
 theatre, and to bring with all the power of its sub- 
 duing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded 
 population. 
 
 And here it gives me pleasure to observe, that, 
 earnest as I have been for a plain and practical 
 
113 
 
 outset, the very first obedience of John's disciples 
 was connected with a belief in the announcement 
 of a common Saviour. This principle was present 
 with them, and had its influence on the earliest 
 movements of their repentance. Faith in Christ 
 had at that time but an obscure dawning in their 
 minds; but they did not wait for its full and its 
 finished splendour, till they should begin the work 
 of keeping the commandments. To this infant faith 
 there corresponded a certain degree of obedience 
 and this obedience grew more enlightened, more 
 spiritual, more allied with the purity of the heart, 
 and the movements of the inner man, just as faith 
 obtained its brighter and larger accessions in the 
 course of the subsequent revelations. The disci- 
 ple of John keeping himself free from extortion and 
 adultery, was a very different man from the Pha- 
 risee, who was neither an extortioner nor an adul- 
 terer. The mind of the Pharisee rested on his pre- 
 sent performances ; the mind of the disciple was 
 filled with the expectation of a higher Teacher, and 
 he looked forward to him, and was in the attitude 
 of readiness to listen, and believe, and obey. Many 
 of them were transferred from the forerunner to the, 
 Saviour, and they companied with him during his 
 abode in the world, and were found with one ac- 
 cord in one place on the day of Pentecost, and 
 shared in the influences of that Comforter, whooi 
 Christ promised to send down upon his disciples 
 on earth, from the place to which he had ascended 
 in heaven ; and thus it is that the same men who 
 
 15 
 
114 
 
 started with the preaching of John at the work of 
 putting their obvious and palpable transgressions 
 away from them, were met afterwards at the dis- 
 tance of years living the life of faith in Christ, and 
 growing in meetness for a spiritual inheritance, by 
 growing in all the graces and accomplishments of 
 a spiritual obedience. There was a faith in Christ ? 
 which presided over the very first steps of their 
 practical career ; but it is worthy of being remarked, 
 that they did not wait in indolence till this faith 
 should receive its further augmentations. Upon this 
 faith, humble as it was at its commencement, their 
 Teacher exacted a corresponding obedience, and 
 this obedience, so far from being suspended till what 
 was lacking in their faith should be perfected, was the 
 very path which conducted them to larger manifes- 
 tations. Now is not faith a growing principle at this 
 hour ? Is not the faith of an insipient Christian differ- 
 ent in its strength, and in the largeness of its con- 
 templations, from the faith of him who, by reason of 
 use, has had his senses well exercised to discern both 
 the good and the evil? I am willing to concede it, 
 for it accords with all my experience on the sub- 
 ject, that some anticipation, however faint, of the 
 benefit to be derived from an offered Saviour; 
 some apprehension, however indistinct, of the mer- 
 cy of God in Christ Jesus; some hope, inspired by 
 the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, and which 
 nothing but the preaching of that Gospel in all its 
 peculiarity will ever awaken in the mind, that 
 these are the principles which preside over the very 
 
first movements of a sinner, casting away from him 
 liis transgressions, and returning unto God. But let 
 us not throw any impediment in the way of these 
 first movements. Let us have a practical outset. 
 Let us not be afraid of giving an immediate cha- 
 racter of exertion to the very infancy of a Chris- 
 tian's career. To wait in slavish adherence to sys- 
 tem, till the principle of faith be deposited with all 
 the tenacity of a settled assurance in the mind, or 
 the brilliancy of a finished light be thrown around 
 it, would be to act in the face of scriptural exam- 
 ple. Let the gospel be preached in all its freeness 
 at the very outset ; but let us never forget, that to 
 every varying degree of faith in the mind of the 
 hearer there goes an obedience along with it; that 
 to forsake the evil of his ways can never be pressed 
 too early upon his observance ; that this, and every 
 subsequent degree of obedience, is the prescribed 
 path to clearer manifestations;* and that, to at- 
 tempt the establishment of a perfect faith by the 
 single work of expounding the truth, is to strike out 
 a spark of our own kindling it is to do the thing 
 in our own way it is to throw aside the use of 
 scriptural expedients, and to substitute the mere 
 possession of a dogma, for that principle which, 
 growing progressively within us, animates and sus- 
 tains the whole course of a humble, and diligent, 
 and assiduous, and pains-taking Christian. 
 
 Whence the fact, that the deriders and the ene- 
 mies of evangelical truth set themselves forward 
 
 "* John, xiv. fll. ; Acts, r. 32 
 
116 
 
 fts the exclusive advocates of morality ? It is be- 
 cause many of its friends have not ventured to show 
 so bold and so immediate a front on this subject as 
 they ought to have done. They are positively 
 afraid of placing morality on the fore-ground of 
 their speculations. They do not like it to be so pro- 
 minently brought forward at the commencement 
 of their instructions. They have it, ay, and in a 
 purer and holier form than its more ostentatious 
 advocates ; but they have thrown a doctrinal bar- 
 rier around it, which hides it from the general ob- 
 servation. Would it not be better to drag it from 
 this concealment to bring it out to more imme- 
 diate view to place it in large and visible charac- 
 ters on the very threshold of our subject; and if our 
 Saviour told his countrymen, at the very outset of 
 their discipleship, that they who follow after him 
 must forsake all, is there any thing to prevent us 
 from battling it, at the very outset of our minis- 
 trations, with all that is glaringly and obviously 
 wrong? Much should be done to chase away the 
 very general delusion which exists among the peo- 
 ple of this country, that the preachers of faith are 
 not the preachers of morality. If there beany 
 thing in the arrangements of a favourite system 
 which are at all calculated to foster this delusion, 
 these arrangements should just be broke in upon. 
 Obedience should be written upon every signal; 
 and departure from all iniquity, should be made to 
 float, in a bright and legible inscription, upon all 
 our standards. 
 
117 
 
 I call on you, my brethren, to abound in those 
 good deeds, by which, if done in the body, Christ 
 will be magnified in your bodies. 1 call on you for 
 a prompt vindication of the truth as it is in Jesus, 
 by your example and your lives. Let me hear of 
 your being the most equitable masters, and the 
 most faithful servants, and the most upright mem- 
 bers of society, and the most watchful parents, and 
 the most dutiful children. Never forget, that the 
 object of the Saviour is to redeem you from all 
 iniquity, and that every act of wilful indulgence, 
 in any one species of iniquity, is a refusal to go 
 along with him. Do maintain to the eye of by- 
 standers the conspicuous front of a reforming, and 
 conscientious, and ever-doing people. Meet the 
 charge of those who are strangers to the power of 
 the truth, by the noblest of all refutations by the 
 graces and accomplishments of a life given in faith- 
 ful and entire dedication to the will of the Saviour. 
 .Let the remembrance of what he gave for you, 
 ever stir you up to the sense of what you should 
 give him back again; and while others talk of 
 good works, in such a way as to depose Christ 
 from his preeminence, do you perform these good 
 works through Christ, by the power of his grace 
 working in you mightily. 
 
 And think not that you have attained, or are al- 
 ready perfect. Have your eye ever directed to the 
 perfect righteousness of Christ, as the only ground 
 of your acceptance with God, and as the only ex- 
 ample you should never cease to aspire after. Rest 
 
118 
 
 not in any one measure of attainment. Think not 
 that you should stop short till you are righteous, 
 even as he is glorious. Take unto you the whole 
 armour of God, that you may be fitted for the con- 
 test, and prove that you are indeed born again by 
 the anointing which you have received, being an 
 anointing which remaineth. May the very God of 
 peace sanctify you wholly. May he shed abroad 
 his love in your hearts. And may the Spirit which 
 I call on you to pray for, in the faith of Him who 
 is entrusted with the dispensation of it, impel you 
 to all diligence, that you may be found of Him, at 
 his coming, without spot, and blameless. 
 
 I shall conclude this very hurried and imperfect 
 Address, with the last words of my last sermon to 
 you. 
 
 " It is not enough that you receive Christ for the 
 single object of forgiveness, or as a priest who 
 has wrought out an atonement for you ; for Christ 
 offers himself in more capacities than this one, and 
 you do not receive him truly, unless you receive 
 him just as he offers himself. Again, it is not enough 
 that you receive Christ only as a priest and a pro- 
 phet ; for all that he teaches will be to you a dead 
 letter, unless you are qualified to understand and 
 to obey it ; and if you think that you are qualified 
 by nature, you, in fact, refuse his teaching, at the 
 very time that you profess him to be your teacher, 
 for he says, 4 without me ye can do nothing." You 
 must receive him for strength, as well as for for- 
 
119 
 
 giveness and direction, or, in other words, you 
 must submit to him as your King, not merely to 
 rule over you by his law, but to rule in you by 
 his Spirit. You must live in constant depend- 
 ance on the influences of his grace, and if you 
 do so, you never will stop short at any one point 
 of obedience; but, knowing that the grace of God 
 is all-powerful, you will suffer no difficulties to stop 
 your progress ; you will suffer no paltry limit of 
 what unaided human nature can do, to bound your 
 ambition after the glories of a purer and a better 
 character than any earthly principle can accom- 
 plish ; you will enter a career, of which you at this 
 moment see not the end; you will try an ascent, 
 of which the lofty eminence is hid in the darkness 
 of futurity; the chilling sentiment, that no higher 
 obedience is expected of me than what I can yield, 
 will have no influence upon you, for the mighty 
 stretch of attainment that you look forward to, is 
 not what I can do, but what Christ can do in me ; 
 and, with the all-subduing instrument of his grace 
 to help you through every difficulty, and to carry 
 you in triumph over every opposition, you will press 
 forward conquering and to conquer ; and, while the 
 world knoweth not the power those great and ani- 
 mating hopes which sustain you, you will be mak- 
 ing daily progress in a field of discipline and ac- 
 quirement which they have never entered; and in 
 patience and forgiveness, and gentleness and cha- 
 rity, and the love of God and the love of your neigh- 
 bour, which is like unto the love of God, you will 
 
120 
 
 i 
 
 prove that a work of grace is going on in yourhearts, 
 even that work by which the image you lost at the 
 fall is repaired and brought back again, the empire 
 of sin within you is overthrown, the subjection of 
 your hearts to what is visible and earthly is ex- 
 changed for the power of the unseen world over its 
 every affection, and you be filled with such a faith, 
 and such a love, and such a superiority to perish- 
 able things, as will shed a glory over the whole of 
 your daily walk, and give to every one of your do- 
 ings the high character of a candidate for eternity. 
 u Christ is offered to all of you for forgiveness. 
 The man who takes him for this single object must 
 be looking at him with an eye half shut upon the 
 revelation he makes of himself. Look at him with 
 an open and a steadfast eye, and then I will call 
 you a true believer; and sure I am, that if you do 
 so, you cannot avoid seeing him in the earnestness 
 of his desire that you should give up all sin, and 
 enter from this moment into all obedience. True, 
 and most true, my brethren, that faith will save you ; 
 but it must be a whole faith in a whole Bible. 
 True, and most true, that they who keep the com- 
 mandments of Jesus shall enter into life; but you 
 are not to shrink from any one of these command- 
 ments, or to say because they are so much above 
 the power of humanity, that you must give up the 
 task of attempting them. True, and most true, that 
 he who trusteth to his obedience as a saviour, is 
 shifting his confidence from the alone foundation 
 it can rest upon. Christ is your Saviour; and 
 
121 
 
 when I call upon you to rejoice in that reconcilia- 
 tion which is through him, I call upon you not to 
 leave him for a single moment, when you engage 
 in the work of doing those things which if left un- 
 done, will exclude us from the kingdom of heaven. 
 Take him along with you into all your services. 
 Let the sentiment ever be upon you, that w r hat I 
 am now doing I may do in my own strength to the 
 satisfaction of man, but I must have the power of 
 Christ resting upon the performance, if I wish to 
 do it in the way that is acceptable to God. Let 
 this be your habitual sentiment, and then the sup- 
 posed opposition between faith and works vanishes 
 into nothing. The life of a believer is made up 
 of good works; and faith is the animating and the 
 power- working principle of every one of them. The 
 spirit of Christ actuates and sustains the whole 
 course of your obedience. You walk not away frorri 
 him,but in the language of the text, you c walk in him, 7 
 (Col. ii. 6.) and as there is not one of your doings 
 in which he does not feel a concern, and prescribe 
 a duty for you, so there is not one of them in which 
 his grace is not in readiness to put the right prin- 
 ciple into your heart, and to bring it out into your 
 conduct, and to make your walk accord with your 
 profession, so as to let the world see upon you with- 
 out, the power and the efficacy of the sentiment 
 within; and thus, while Christ has the whole merit 
 of your forgiveness, he has the whole merit of you* 
 sanctification also, and the humble and deeply- 
 felt consciousness of ' nevertheless not me, but the 
 
 16 
 
122 
 
 grace of God that is in me,' restores to Jesus Christ 
 all the credit and all the glory which belong to 
 him, by making him your only, and your perfect, 
 and your entire, and your altogether Saviour. 
 
 " Choose him, then, my brethren, choose him 
 as the Captain of your salvation. Let him enter 
 into your hearts by faith, and let him dwell conti- 
 nually there. Cultivate a daily intercourse and a 
 growing acquaintance with him. O, you are in 
 safe company, indeed, when your fellowship is 
 with him ! The shield of his protecting mediator- 
 ship is ever between you and the justice of God ; 
 and out of his fulness there goeth a constant stream, 
 to nourish, and to animate, and to strengthen every 
 believer. Why should the shifting of human in- 
 struments so oppress and so discourage you, when 
 he is your willing friend : when he is ever present, 
 and is at all times in readiness ; when he, the same 
 to-day, yesterday, and for ever, is to be met with 
 in every place; and while his disciples here, giving 
 way to the power of sight, are sorrowful, and in 
 great heaviness, because they are to move at a 
 distance from one another, he, my brethren, he 
 has his eye upon all neighbourhoods and all coun- 
 tries, and will at length gather his disciples into one 
 eternal family? With such a Master, let us quit 
 ourselves like men. With the magnificence of 
 eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, 
 dwindle into its own littleness. If God is pleased 
 to spare me, I trust I shall often meet with you in 
 person, even on this side of the grave ; but if not, 
 
let us often meet in prayer at the mercy-seat of 
 God. While we occupy different places on earth, 
 let our mutual intercessions for each other go to 
 one place in heaven. Let the Saviour put our sup- 
 plications into one censer; and be assured, my 
 brethren, that after the dear and the much-loved 
 scenery of this peaceful vale has disappeared from 
 my eye, the people who live in it shall retain a 
 warm and an ever-during place in my memory; 
 and this mortal body must be stretched on the bed 
 of death, ere the heart which now animates it can 
 resign its exercise of longing after you, and pray- 
 ing for you, that you may so receive Christ Jesus, 
 and so walk in him, and so hold fast the things you 
 have gotten, and so prove that the labour I have 
 had amongst you has not been in vain ; that when 
 the sound of the last trumpet awakens us, these 
 eyes, which are now bathed in tears, may open 
 upon a scene of eternal blessedness, and we, my 
 brethren, whom the providence of God has with- 
 drawn for a little while from one another, may on 
 that day be found side by side at the right hand of 
 the everlasting throne," 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ' felNCE the present edition of this work was putting to press, I have seen a review of it 
 by the Christian Instructor, and the following are the immediate observations which the 
 perusal of this review has suggested. 
 
 I meant no attack on anybody of clergy, and I have made no attack upon them. The 
 people whom I addressed were the main object on which my attention rested; and any 
 thing I have said in the style of animadversion, was chiefly, if not exclusively, with a re- 
 ference to that perverseness which I think I have witnessed in the conceptions and habits 
 of private Christians. 
 
 I have alluded, no doubt, to a method of treatment on the part of some of the teachers 
 of Christianity, and which I believe to be both inefficient and unscriptural. But have I at 
 all asserted the extent to which this method prevails ? Have I ventured to fasten an im- 
 putation upon any marked or general body of Christian ministers ? It was no object of 
 mine to set forth or to signalize my own peculiarity in this matter; and if I rightly under- 
 stand who the men are whom the reviewer has in his eye when he speaks of the evange- 
 lical clergy, then does he represent me as dealing out my censures against those whom I 
 honestly believe to be the instrumental cause of nearly all the vital and substantial Chris- 
 tianity in the land. 
 
 Again, is it not possible for a man to have an awakened and tender sense of the sinful- 
 ness of one sin, and to have a very slender and inadequate sense of the sinfulness of another ? 
 Might not the first circumstance beget in his mind an honest and a general desire to be de- 
 livered from sin ; and might not the second circumstance account for the fact, that with 
 this mourning for sin in the gross, he should put forth his hand without scruple to the com- 
 mission of what is actually sinful f I do not know a more familiar exhibition of this, than 
 that of a man who would be visited with remorse were he to walk in the fields on a Sab- 
 bath day at the time of divine service, and the very same man indulging without remorse 
 his propensity to throw ridicule or discredit on an absent character. His actual remorse 
 on the commission of all that he feels to be sinful, might lead a man to mourn over sin ia 
 the general ; but surely this general direction of his can have no such necessary influence, 
 as the reviewer contends for,-in the way of leading him to renounce what he does not feel 
 to be sinful. But this is what he should be made to feel ; and it may be done in two ways, 
 either in the didactic way, by a formal announcement that the deed in question is con- 
 trary to the law of God; or in the imperative way, by bidding him cease from the doing 
 of it, a way no less effective and scriptural than the former, and brought to bear in the 
 Jvew Testament upon men at the earliest conceivable stage of their progress from sin unto 
 righteousness. 
 
 I share most cordially in opinion with the reviewer, that he might extend his observa- 
 tions greatly beyond the length of the original pamphlet, were he to say all that might be 
 said on the topics brought forward in it. I believe that it would require the compass of an 
 extended volume to meet every objection, and to turn the argument in every possible way. 
 I did not anticipate all the notice that has been taken of this performance, and am fearful 
 lest it should defeat the intended effect on the hearts of a plain people. With this feeling- 
 I close the discussion for the present; and my desire is, that in all I may afterwards say 
 upon this subject, I may be preserved from that tone of controversy, which I feel to be 
 hurtful to the practical influence of every truth it accompanies ; and which, I fear, may 
 Lave in so far infected my former communications, as to make it more fitted to arouse the 
 speculative tendencies of the mind, and provoke to an intellectual warfare, than to tell oe 
 the conscience and on the doings of an earnest inquirer. 
 
 T. C- 
 | Glasgow, Dccemlcr, 1815, 
 
 ' 
 
THE 
 
 INFLUENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 IBUIB3L1S 
 
 ON 
 
 THE TEMPORAL NECESSITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE POOR, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, 
 
 KILMANY. 
 
 JVEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY KIRK & MERCEO, 
 
 No. 22 Wall-Street. 
 18J7. 
 
J. & J. Harper, Printers. 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 1. The Objection stated. 1. The Radical Answer to it. 
 3. But the Objection is not true in point of fact. 4. A 
 former act of chanty does not exempt from the obligation of a 
 new act, if it can be afforded. 5. Estimate of the encroachment 
 made by the Bible Society upon the funds of the country. 6. 
 A Subscriber to the Bible Society does not give less to the Poor 
 on that account. -7. Evidence for the truth of this assertion. 
 8. And explanation of its principle. (1.) The ability for other 
 acts of charity nearly as entire as before. 9. (2.) And the 
 disposition greater. 10. Poverty is better kept under by a 
 preventive, than by a positive treatment 1\. Exemplified in 
 Scotland. 12. The Bible Society has a strong preventive 
 operation. 13. And therefore promotes the secular interests of 
 the Poor. 14. The argument carried down to the case of 
 Penny Societies. 15. Difficulty in the exposition of the argu- 
 ment. 16. The effects of a charitable endowment in aparith 
 pernicious to the Poor. IT. By inducing a dependance upon 
 
 ft 18. And stripping them of their industrious habits. 19. 
 
 The effects of a Bible Association are in an opposite direction 
 to those of a charitable endowment. 20. And it stands complete- 
 ly free of all the objections to which a tax is liable. 21. A 
 Bible Association gives dignity to the Poor. 22. And a 
 delicate reluctance to pauperism. 23. The shame of pauperism 
 is the best defence against it. 24,. How a Bible Association 
 augments this feeling. -25. By dignifying the Poor. 26. 
 And adding to the Influence ofBibk Principle?.-^!. 
 
128 
 
 ^ lifted in the humblest situation. 28. The progress of these 
 Associations in the country. 29. Compared with other As- 
 sociations for the relief of temporal necessities. 30. The more 
 salutary influence of Bible Associations. 31 And how they 
 counteract the pernicious influence of other charities. 32. It is 
 best to confide the secular relief of the Poor to individual be- 
 nevolence. 33. And a Bible Association both augments and 
 enlightens this principle. 
 
ON THE 
 
 INFLUENCE 
 
 BIBLE SOCIETIES, 
 
 1. WITHOUT entering into the positive claims 
 of the Bible Society upon the generosky of the 
 public, I shall endeavour to do away an objection 
 which meets us at the very outset of every attempt 
 to raise a subscription, or to found an institution in 
 its favour. The secular necessities of the poor 
 are brought into competition with it, and every 
 shilling given to the Bible Society is repiesented 
 as an encroachment upon that fund which was be- 
 fore allocated to the relief of poverty. 
 
 2. Admitting the fact stated in the objection to 
 be true, we have an answer in readiness for it 
 If the Bible Society accomplish its professed ob- 
 ject, which is, to make those who were before ig- 
 norant of the Bible better acquainted with it, then 
 the advantage given more than atones for the loss 
 sustained. We stand upon the high ground, that 
 eternity is longer than time, and the unfading en- 
 
130 
 
 joyments of the one a boon more valuable than 
 the perishable enjoyments of the other. Money 
 is sometimes expended for the idle purpose of 
 amusing the poor by the gratuitous exhibition of 
 a spectacle or show. It is a far wiser distribution 
 of the money when it is transferred from this ob- 
 ject to the higher and more useful objects of feed- 
 ing those among them who are hungry, clothing those 
 among them who are naked, and paying for medi- 
 cine or attendance to those among them who are 
 sick. We make bold to say, that if money for the 
 purpose could be got from no other quarter, it 
 would be a wiser distribution still to withdraw it 
 from the objects last mentioned to the supreme 
 object of paying for the knowledge of religion to 
 those among them who are ignorant : and, at the 
 hazard of being execrated by many, we do not he- 
 sitate to affirm, that it is better for the poor to be 
 worse fed and worse clothed, than that they should 
 be left ignorant of those Scriptures, which are able 
 to make them wise unto salvation through the faith 
 that is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 3. But the statement contained in the objection 
 is not true. It seems to go upon the supposition, 
 that the fund for relieving the temporal wants of 
 the poor is the only fund which exists in the coun- 
 try; and that when any new object of benevo- 
 lence is started, there is no other fund to which 
 we can repair for the requisite expenses. But 
 there are other 'funds in the country. There is a 
 prodigious fund for the maintenance of Govern- 
 
131 
 
 ment, nor do we wish that fund to be encroached 
 upon by a single farthing. There is a fund out of 
 which the people of the land are provided in the 
 necessaries of life : and before we incur the odium 
 of trenching upon necessaries, let us first inquire, 
 if there be no other fund in existence. Go then 
 to all who are elevated above the class of mere 
 labourers, and you will find in their possession a 
 fund, out of which they are provided with what 
 are commonly called the superfluities of life. We 
 do not dispute their right to these superfluities, 
 nor do we deny the quantity of pleasure which lies 
 in the enjoyment of them. We only state the ex- 
 istence of such a fund, and that by a trifling act 
 of self-denial on the part of those who possess it, 
 we could obtain all that we are pleading for. It 
 is a little hard, that the competition should be 
 struck betwixt the fund of the Bible Society and 
 the fund for relieving the temporal wants of the 
 poor, while the far larger and more transferable 
 fund for superfluities is left out of consideration 
 entirely, and suffered to remain an untouched and 
 unimpaired quantity. In this way, the odium of 
 hostility to the poor is fastened upon those who are 
 labouring for their most substantial interests, while 
 a set of men who neglect the immortality of the 
 poor, and would leave their souls to perish, are 
 suffered to sheer off with the credit of all the finer 
 sympathies of our nature. 
 
 4. To whom much is given, of them much will 
 be required. Whatever be your former liberal!* 
 
132 
 
 ties in another direction, when a new and a likely 
 direction of benevolence is pointed out, the ques- 
 tion still comes back upon you, What have you to 
 spare ? If there be a remainder left, it is by the 
 extent of this remainder that you will be judged; 
 and it is not right to set the claims of the Bible 
 Society against the secular necessities of the poor, 
 while means so ample are left, that the true way 
 of instituting the competition is to set these claims 
 against some personal gratification which it is in 
 your power to abandon. Have a care, lest with 
 the language of philanthropy in your mouth, you 
 shall be found guilty of the cruellest indifference 
 to the true welfare of the species, and lest the Dis- 
 cerner of your heart shall perceive how it prefers 
 some sordid indulgence of its own to the dearest 
 interests of those around you. 
 
 5. But let me not put to hazard the prosperity 
 of our cause, by resting it on a standard of chari- 
 ty far too elevated for the general practice of the 
 times. Let us now drop our abstract reasoning 
 upon the respective funds, and come to an actual 
 specification of their quantities. The truth is, that 
 the fund for the Bible Society is so very small, 
 that it is not entitled to make its appearance in any 
 abstract argument whatever, and were it not to 
 do away even the shadow of an objection, we 
 would have been ashamed to have thrown the ar- 
 gument into the language of general discussion. 
 What shall we think of the objection when told, 
 that the whole yearly revenue of the Bibk Socie- 
 
133 
 
 ty, as derived from the contributions of those who 
 support it, does not amount to a halfpenny per 
 month from each householder in Britain and Ire- 
 land ? Can this be considered as a serious invasion 
 upon any one fund allotted to other destinations, 
 and shall the most splendid and promising enter- 
 prise that ever benevolence was engaged in bear- 
 rested upon an objection so fanciful? We do not 
 want to oppress any individual by the extrava- 
 gance of our demands. It is not in great sums, 
 but in the combination of littles, that our strength 
 lies. It is the power of combination which re- 
 solves the mystery. Great has been the progress 
 and activity of the Bible Society since its first in- 
 stitution. All we want is, that this rate of activi- 
 ty be kept up and extended. The above state- 
 ment will convince the reader, that there is ample 
 room for the extension. The whole fund for the 
 secular wants of the poor may be left untouched, 
 and as to the fund for luxuries, the revenue of the 
 Bible Society may be augmented a hundred-fold 
 before this fund is sensibly encroached upon. The 
 veriest crumbs and sweepings of extravagance 
 would suffice us; and it will be long, and very 
 long, before any invasion of ours upon this fund 
 shall give rise to any perceivable abridgement of 
 luxury, or have the weight of a straw upon the 
 general style and establishment of families. 
 
 6. But there is still another way of meeting 
 the objection. Let us come immediately to a 
 question upon the point of fact. Does a man, on 
 
 9 
 
134 
 
 becoming a subscriber to the Bible Society, give 
 less to the secular wants of the poor than he did 
 formerly? It is true, there is a difficulty in the 
 way of obtaining an answer to this question. He 
 who knows best what answer to give will be the 
 last to proclaim it. In as far as the subscribers 
 themselves are concerned, we must leave the an- 
 swer to their own experience, and sure we are that 
 that experience will not be against us. But it is 
 not from this quarter that we can expect to obtain 
 the wished-for information. The benevolence of 
 an individual does not stand out to the eye of the 
 public. The knowledge of its operations is con- 
 lined to the little neighbourhood within which it 
 expatiates. It is often kept from the poor them- 
 selves, and then the information we are in quest 
 of is shut up with the giver in the silent conscious- 
 ness of his own bosom, and with God in the book 
 of his remembrance. 
 
 7. But much good has been done of late yeari^ 
 by the combined exertions of individuals; and be- 
 nevolence, when operating in this way, is neces- 
 sarily exposed to public observation. Subscrip- 
 tions have been started for almost every one object 
 which benevolence can devise, and the published 
 lists may furnish us with data for a partial solution 
 of the proposed question. In point of fact then, 
 those who subscribe for a religious object, sub- 
 scribe with the greatest readiness and liberality 
 for the relief of human affliction, under all the va- 
 rious forms in which it pleads for sympathy. This 
 is quite notorious. The human mind, by singling 
 
135 
 
 -oat the eternity of others as the main object of its 
 benevolence, does not withdraw itself from the 
 care of sustaining them on the way which leads 
 to eternity. It exerts an act of preference, but not 
 an act of exclusion. A friend of mine has been 
 indebted to an active and beneficent patron, for a 
 lucrative situation in a distant country, but he 
 wants money to pay his travelling expenses. I 
 commit every reader to his own experience of 
 human nature, when I rest with him the assertion, 
 that if real kindness lay at the bottom of this act 
 of patronage, the patron himself is the likeliest 
 quarter from which the assistance will come. The 
 man who signalizes himself by his religious chari- 
 ties, is not the last but the first man to whom I 
 would apply in behalf of the sick and the destitute. 
 The two principles are not inconsistent. They 
 give support and nourishment to each other, or 
 rather they are exertions of the same principle. 
 This will appear in full display on the day of 
 judgment ; and even in this dark and undiscern- 
 ing world, enough of evidence is before us upon 
 which the benevolence of the Christian stands 
 nobly vindicated, and from which it may be shown, 
 that, while its chief care is for the immortality of 
 others, it casts a wide and a wakeful eye over all 
 the necessities and sufferings of the species. 
 
 8. Nor have we far to look for the explanation. 
 The two elements which combine to form an act 
 of charity, are the ability and the disposition, and 
 the question simply resolves itself into this, " In 
 how far these elements will survive a donation to 
 
136 
 
 the Bible Society, so as to leave the other charities 
 unimpaired by it ?" It is certainly conceivable, 
 that an individual may give every spare farthing 
 of his income to this institution. In this case, 
 there is a total extinction of the first element. But 
 in point of fact, this is never done, or done so 
 rarely as not to be admitted into any general ar- 
 gument. With by far the greater number of sub- 
 scribers, the ability is not sensibly encroached 
 upon. There is no visible retrenchment in the su- 
 perfluities of life. A very slight and partial 
 change in the direction of that fund which is fami- 
 liarly known by the name of pocket-money can, 
 generally speaking, provide for the whole amount 
 of the donation in question. There are a thousand 
 floating and incidental expenses, which can be 
 given up without almost the feeling of a sacrifice, 
 and the diversion of a few of them to the charity 
 we are pleading for, leaves the ability of the giver 
 to all sense as entire as before. 
 
 9. But the second element is subject to other 
 laws, and the formal calculations of arithmetic do 
 not apply to it. The disposition is not like the 
 ability, a given quantity which suffers an abstrac- 
 tion by every new exercise. The effect of a dona- 
 tion upon the purse of the giver, is not the same 
 with the moral influence of that donation upon his 
 heart. Yet the two are assimilated by our anta- 
 gonists, and the pedantry of computation carries 
 them to results which are in the face of all expe- 
 rience. It is not so easy to awaken the benevo- 
 lent principle out of its sleep, as, when once 
 
137 
 
 awakened in behalf of one object, to excite and to 
 interest it in behalf of another. When the bar of 
 selfishness is broken down, and the flood-gates of 
 the heart are once opened, the stream of benefi- 
 cence can be turned into a thousand directions. It 
 is true, that there can be no beneficence without 
 wealth, as there can be no stream without water. 
 It is conceivable, that the opening of the flood- 
 gates may give rise to no flow, as the opening of 
 the poor man's heart to the distresses of those 
 around him may give rise to no act of almsgiving. 
 But we have already proved the abundance of 
 wealth. [Sec 8.] It is the selfishness of the inac- 
 cessible heart which forms the mighty barrier, and 
 if this could be done away, a thousand fertilizing 
 streams would issue from it. Now, this is what 
 the Bible Society, in many instances, has accom- 
 plished. It has unlocked the avenue to many a 
 heart, which was before inaccessible. It has come 
 upon them with all the energy of a popular and 
 prevailing impulse. It has created in them a new 
 taste and a new principle. It has opened the foun- 
 tain, arid we are sure that, in every district of the 
 land where a Bible Association exists, the general 
 principle of benevolence is more active and more 
 expanding than ever. , 
 
 10. And after all, what is the best method of 
 providing for the secular necessities of the poor ? 
 Is it by labouring to meet the necessity after it 
 has occurred, or by labouring to estabish a prin- 
 ciple and a habit which would go far to prevent 
 its existence ? If you wish to get rid of a noxious 
 
138 
 
 stream, you may first try to intercept it by throw* 
 ing across a barrier; but in this way, you only 
 spread the pestilential water over a greater extent 
 of ground, and when the bason is filled, a stream 
 as copious as before is formed out of its overflow* 
 The most effectual method, were it possible to 
 carry it into accomplishment, would be, to dry up 
 the source. The parallel in a great measure holds. 
 If you wish to extinguish poverty, combat with it 
 in its first elements. If you confine your benefi- 
 cence to the relief of actual poverty, you do no- 
 thing. Dry up, if possible, the spring of poverty, 
 for every attempt to intercept the running stream 
 has totally failed. The education and the reli- 
 gious principle of Scotland have not annihilated 
 pauperism, but they have restrained it to a degree 
 that is almost incredible to our neighbours of the 
 South. They keep down the mischief in its prin- 
 ciple. They impart a sobriety and a right sen- 
 timent of independence to the character of our 
 peasantry. They operate as a check upon profli- 
 gacy and idleness. The maintenance of parish 
 schools is a burden upon the landed property of 
 Scotland, but it is a cheap defence against the 
 poor-rates, a burden far heavier, and which is ag- 
 gravating perpetually. The writer of this paper 
 knows of a parish in Fife, the average maintenance 
 of whose poor is defrayed by twenty-four pounds 
 sterling a year, and of a parish, of the same popu- 
 lation, in Somersetshire, where the annual assess- 
 ments come to thirteen hundred pounds sterling. 
 The preventive regimen of the one country does 
 
139 
 
 jaore than the positive applications of the other. 
 IH England, they have suffered poverty to rise to 
 all the virulence of a formed and obstinate disease. 
 But they may as well think of arresting the de- 
 structive progress of a torrent by throwing across 
 an embankment, as think that the mere positive 
 administration of relief, will put a stop to the ac- 
 cumulating mischiefs of poverty. 
 
 II. The exemption of Scotland from the mise- 
 ries of pauperism is due to the education which 
 their people receive at schools, and to the Bible 
 which their scholarship gives them access to. The 
 man who subscribes to the divine authority of this 
 simple saying, " If any would not w r ork neither 
 should he eat," possesses, in the good treasure of 
 his own heart, a far more effectual security against 
 the hardships of indigence, than the man who is 
 trained, by the legal provisions of his country, to 
 sit in slothful dependence upon the liberalities of 
 those around him. It is easy to be eloquent in the 
 praise of those liberalities, but the truth is, that 
 they may be carried to the mischievous extent of 
 forming a depraved and beggarly population. The 
 hungry expectations of the poor will ever keep 
 pace with the assessments of the wealthy, and their 
 eye will be averted from the exertion of their own 
 industry, as the only right source of comfort and 
 independence. It is quite in vain to think, that 
 positive relief will ever do away the wretchedness 
 of poverty. Carry the relief beyond a certain 
 limit, and you foster the diseased principle which 
 gives birth to poverty. On this subject, the pep- 
 
140 
 
 pie of England feel themselves to be in a state of 
 almost inextricable helplessness, and they are riot 
 without their fears of some mighty convulsion, 
 which must come upon them with all the energy 
 of a tempest, before this devouring mischief can 
 be swept away from the face of their community. 
 12. If any thing can avert this calamity from 
 England, it will be the education of their peasant- 
 ry, and this is a cause, to which the Bible Society 
 is contributing its full share of influence. A zeal 
 for the circulation of the Bible, is inseparable from 
 a zeal for extending among the people the capa- 
 city of reading it; and it is not to be conceived, 
 that the very same individual can be eager for the? 
 introduction of this volume into our cottages, and 
 sit inactive under the galling reflection, that it is 
 still a sealed book to many thousands of the occu- 
 piers. Accordingly we find, that the two con- 
 cerns are keeping pace with one another. The 
 Bible Society does not overstep the simplicity of 
 its assigned object : But the members of that So- 
 ciety receive an impulse from the cause, which 
 carries them to promote the education of the poor, 
 either by their individual exertions, or by giving 
 their support to the Society for Schools. The two 
 Societies move in concert. Each contributes an 
 essential element in the business of enlightening 
 the people. The one furnishes the book of know- 
 ledge, and the other furnishes the key to it. This 
 division of employment, as in every other instance, 
 facilitates the work, and renders it more effective. 
 But it does not hinder the same individual from 
 
141 
 
 giving his countenance to both; and sure I am, 
 that the man whose feelings have been already 
 warmed, and whose purse has been already drawn 
 in behalf of the one, is a likelier subject for an ap- 
 plication in behalf of the other, than he whose 
 money is still untouched, but whose heart is un- 
 touched also. 
 
 13. ft will be seen then, that the Bible Socie- 
 ty is not barely defensible, but may be pled for 
 upon that very ground on which its enemies have 
 raised their opposition to it. Its immediate object 
 is neither to feed the hungry nor to clothe the 
 naked, but in every country under the benefit of 
 its exertions, there will be less hunger to feed and 
 less nakedness to clothe. It does not cure actual 
 poverty, but it anticipates eventual poverty. It 
 aims its decisive thrust at the heart and principle 
 of the mischief, and instead of suffering it to form 
 into the obstinacy of an inextirpable disease, it 
 smothers and destroys it in the infancy of its first 
 elements. The love which worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour will not suffer the true Christian to live 
 in idleness upon another's bounty: and he will 
 do as Paul did before him, he will labour with his 
 hands rather than be burdensome. Could we re- 
 . form the improvident habits of the people, and 
 pour the healthful infusion of Scripture principle 
 into their hearts, it would reduce the existing po- 
 verty of the land to a very humble fraction of its 
 present extent. We make bold to say, that : in 
 ordinary times there is not one-tenth of the pau- 
 
 10 
 
142 
 
 perism of England due to unavoidable misfortune 
 It has grown out of a vicious and impolitic sys- 
 tem, and the millions which are raised every year 
 have only served to nourish and extend it. Now, 
 the Bible Society is a prime agent in the work of 
 counteracting this disorder. Its mode of proceed- 
 ing carries in it all the cheapness and all the supe- 
 rior efficacy of a preventive operation. With a 
 revenue not equal to the poor-rates of many a 
 county, it is doing more even for the secular in- 
 terests of the poor than all the charities of England 
 united; and while a puling and injudicious sym- 
 pathy is pouring out its complaints against it, it is 
 sowing the seeds of character and independence, 
 and rearing for future days the spectacle of a thri- 
 ving, substantial, and well-conditioned peasantry. 
 14. I have hitherto been supposing, that the 
 rich only are the givers, but I now call on the 
 poor to be sharers in this work of charity. It is 
 true, that of these poor there are some who de- 
 pend on charity for their subsistence, and these 
 have no right to give what they receive from 
 others. And there are some who have not arrived 
 at this state of dependence, but are on the very 
 verge of it Let us keep back no part of the truth 
 from them, " If any provide not for his own, and 
 specially for those of his own house, he hath 
 denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." 
 There are others again, and these I apprehend 
 form by far the most numerous class of society, 
 who can maintain themselves in humble, but hon- 
 est independence, who can spare a little and not 
 
143 
 
 feel it, who can do what Paul advises,* lay aside 
 their penny arweek as God hath prospered them, 
 who can share that blessedness which the Saviour 
 spoke of when he said, It was more blessed to give 
 than to receive; who, though they cannot equal 
 their richer neighbours in the amount of their do- 
 nation* can bestow their something, and can, at 
 all events, carry in their bosom a heart as warm to 
 the cause, and call down as precious a blessing 
 from the God who witnesses it. The Bible Socie- 
 ty is opposed on the ground of its diverting a por- 
 tion of relief from the secular necessities of the 
 poor, even when the rich only are called upon to 
 support it. When the application for support is 
 brought down to the poor themselves, and instead 
 of the recipients, it is proposed to make them the 
 dispensers of charity, we may lay our account 
 with the opposition being still more clamorous. 
 We undertake to prove, that this opposition is 
 founded on a fallacy, and that, by interesting the 
 great mass of a parish in the Bible Society, and 
 assembling them into a penny association for the 
 support of it, you raise a defence against the ex- 
 tension of pauperism. 
 
 15. We feel a difficuly in this undertaking, not 
 from any uncertainty which hangs over the prin- 
 ciple, but from the difficulty of bringing forward 
 a plain and popular exhibition of it. However 
 familiar the principle may be to a student of po- 
 litical science, it carries in it an air of paradox to 
 the multitude, and it were well if this air of paradox 
 * 1 Corinthians xvi, 2 
 
144 
 
 were the only obstacle to its reception. But to 
 the children of poesy and fine sentiment, the prin- 
 ciple in question carries in it an air of barbarity 
 also, and all the rigour of a pure and impregnable 
 argument has not been able to protect the conclu- 
 sions of Malthus from their clamorous indignation. 
 There is a kind of hurrying sensibility about them 
 which allows neither time nor temper for listen- 
 ing to any calculation on the subject, and there 
 is not a more striking vanity under the sun, than 
 that the substantial interests of the poor have suf- 
 fered less from the malignant and the unfeeling, 
 than from those who give without wisdom and 
 who feel without consideration : 
 
 Blessed is he that wisely doth 
 The poor man's case consider. 
 
 16. Let me put the case of two parishes, in the 
 one of which there is a known and public endow- 
 ment, out of which an annual sum is furnished 
 for the maintenance of the poor; and that in the 
 other the re is no such endowment. At the outset, 
 the poor of the first parjsh may be kept in greater 
 comfort than the poor of the second ; but it is the 
 lesson of all experience, that no annual sum, how- 
 ever great, will be able to keep them permanently 
 in greater comfort. The certain effect of an es- 
 tablished provision for the poor is, a relaxation of 
 their economical habits, and an increased number 
 of improvident marriages. When their claim to a 
 provision is known, that claim is always counted 
 upon, and it were well, if to flatter their natural 
 indolence, they did not carry the calculation 
 
145 
 
 beyond the actual benefit they can ever receive. 
 But this is what they always do. When a public 
 charity is known and counted upon, the relaxation 
 of frugal and providential habits is carried to such 
 an extent, as not only to absorb the whole produce 
 of the charity, but to leave new wants unprovided 
 for, and the effect of the benevolent institution is 
 just to create a population more wretched and 
 more clamorous than ever. 
 
 17. In the second parish, the economical ha- 
 bits of the people are kept unimpaired, and just 
 because their economy is forced to take a higher 
 aim, and to persevere in it. The aim of the first 
 people is to provide for themselves a part of their 
 maintenance : The aim of the second people is to 
 provide for themselves their whole maintenance. 
 We do not deny, that even among the latter we 
 will meet with distress and poverty, just such dis- 
 tress and such poverty as are to be found in the 
 average of Scottish parishes. This finds its allevi- 
 ation in private benevolence. To alleviate pover- 
 ty is all that can be done for it : To extinguish it, 
 we fear is hopeless. Sure we are, that the known 
 and regular provisions of England will never ex- 
 tinguish it, and that, in respect of the poor them- 
 selves, the second parish is under a better system 
 than the first. The poor-rates are liable to many 
 exceptions, but there is none of them more deci- 
 sive with him who cares for the eternity of the 
 poor, than the temptation they hold out to posi- 
 tive guilt, the guilt of not working with their own 
 
146 
 
 hands, and so becoming burdensome to others.* 
 
 18. Let us conceive a political change in the 
 circumstances of the country, and that the public 
 chanty of the first parish fell among the ruin of 
 other institutions. Then its malignant influence 
 would be felt in all its extent ; and it would be 
 seen, tEat it, in fact, had impoverished those whom 
 it professed to sustain, that it had stript them of 
 a possession far more valuable than all it had ever 
 given, that it had stripped them of industrious 
 habits, and left those whom its influence never 
 reached wealthier in the resources of their own su- 
 perior industry, than the artificial provisions of an 
 unwise and meddling benevolence could ever 
 make them. 
 
 19. The comparison betwixt these two parishes 
 paves the way for another comparison. Let me 
 now put the case of a third parish, where a Bible 
 Association is instituted, and where the simple re- 
 gulation of a penny a-week throws it open to the 
 bulk of the people. What effect has thi^ upon their 
 economical habits ? It just throws them at a greater 
 distance from the thriftlessness which prevails in 
 the first parish, and leads them to strike a higher 
 aim in the way of economy than the people of 
 the second. The general aim of economy in hum- 
 ble life is to keep even with the world ; but it is 
 known to every man at all familiar with that class 
 of society, that the great majority may strike their 
 aim a little higher, and in point of fact, have it in 
 
 * Acts xx. 35. 1 Timothy v. 8. 
 
147 
 
 their power to redeem an annual sum from the 
 mere squanderings of mismanagement and care- 
 lessness. The unwise provisions in the first parish 
 have had the effect of sinking the income of the 
 poor below their habits of expenditure, and they 
 are brought, permanently and irrecoverably 
 brought into a state of pauperism. In the second 
 parish, the income, generally speaking, is even 
 with the habits of expenditure. In the third, the 
 income is above the habits of expenditure, and 
 above it by the annual sum contributed to the Bi- 
 ble Society. The circumstance of being mem- 
 bers to such a Society throws them at a greater 
 distance from pauperism than if they had not been 
 members of it. 
 
 20. The effect on the economical habits of the 
 people would just be the same in whatever way 
 the stated annual sum was obtained from them, 
 even though a compulsory tax were the instrument 
 of raising it.* This assimilation of our plan to a 
 tax may give rise to a world of impetuous declama- 
 tion, but let it ever be remembered, that the in- 
 stitution of a Bible Society gives you the whole 
 benefit of such a tax without its odiousness. It 
 brings up their economy to a higher pitch, but it 
 does so, not in the way which they resist, but in 
 the way which they choose. The single circum- 
 stance of its being a voluntary act, forms the de- 
 fence and the answer to all the clamours of an af- 
 
 * I must here suppose the sum to be a stated one, and a feel- 
 ing of security on the part of the people, that the tax shall not 
 be subject to variation at; the caprice of an arbitrary government. 
 
148 
 
 fected sympathy. You take from the poor. No ! 
 they give. You take beyond their ability. Of 
 this they are the best judges. You abridge their 
 comforts. No ! there is a comfort in the exercise 
 of charity : there is a comfort in the act of lending 
 a hand to a noble enterprise: there is a comfort 
 in the contemplation of its progress : there is a com- 
 fort in rendering a service to a friend, and when 
 that friend is the Saviour, and that service the cir- 
 culation of the message he left behind him, it is a 
 comfort which many of the poor are ambitious to 
 share in. Leave them to judge of their comfort, 
 and if, in point of fact, they do give their penny 
 a-week to a Bible Society, it just speaks them to 
 have more comfort in this way of spending it than 
 in any other which occurs to them . 
 
 21. Perhaps it does not occur to those friends 
 of the poor while they are sitting in judgment on 
 their circumstances and feelings, how unjustly and 
 how unworthily they think of them. They do 
 not conceive how truth and benevolence can be 
 at all objects to them, and suppose, that after they 
 have got the meat to feed, the house to shelter, 
 the raiment to cover them, there is nothing else 
 that they will bestow a penny upon. They may 
 not be able to express their feelings on a suspicion 
 BO ungenerous, but I shall do it for them : " We 
 have souls as well as you, and precious to our hearts 
 is the Saviour who died for them. It is true, we 
 have our distresses, but these have bound us more 
 firmly to our Bibles, and it is the desire of our 
 hearts, that a gift so precious, should be sent to the 
 
149 
 
 <poor of other countries. The word of God is our 
 liope and our rejoicing ; we desire that it may be 
 theirs also, that the wandering savage may know 
 it and be glad, and the poor negro, under the lash 
 of his master, may be told of a Master in heaven 
 who is full of pity, and full of kindness. Do you 
 think that sympathy for such as these is your pe- 
 culiar attribute? Know that our hearts are made 
 of the same materials with your own, that we can 
 feel as well as you, and out of the earnings cf a 
 liard and an honest industry, w r e shall give an o. 
 fering to the cause; nor shall we cease our exer- 
 tions till the message of salvation be carried round 
 the globe, and made known to the countless mil- 
 lions who live in guilt, and who die in darkness." 
 22. And here it is obvious that a superior habit 
 of economy is not the cmly defence which the 
 Bible Society raises against pauperism. The 
 smallness of the sum contributed may give a little- 
 ness to this argument, but not, let it be remember- 
 ed, without giving an equal littleness to the objec- 
 tion of those who declaim against the institution^ 
 on the ground of its oppressiveness to the poor con- 
 tributors. The great defence which such a Socie- 
 ty establishes against pauperism, is the superior 
 tone of dignity and independence which it imparts 
 to the character of him who supports it. He 
 stands on the high ground of being a dispenser of 
 charity ; and before he can submit to become a re- 
 cipient of charity, he must let himself farther down 
 lhan a poor man in ordinary eircumaiances, TV 
 
 11 
 
150 
 
 him the transition will be more violent, and the 
 value of this principle will be acknowledged by 
 all who perceive that it is reluctance on the part 
 of the poor man to become a pauper, which forms 
 the mighty barrier against the extension of pauper- 
 ism. A man by becoming the member of a be- 
 nevolent association, puts himself into the situation 
 of a giver. He stands at a greater distance than 
 before from the situation of a receiver. He has a 
 wider interval to traverse before he can reach this 
 point. He will feel it a greater degradation, and 
 to save himself from it, he will put forth all his 
 powers of frugality and exertion. The idea of re- 
 straining pauperism by external administrations, 
 seems now to be generally abandoned. But could 
 we thus enter into the hearts of the poor, we would 
 get in at the root of the mischief, and by fixing 
 there a habit of economy and independence, more 
 would be done for them, than by all the liberali- 
 ties of all the opulent. 
 
 23. In those districts of Scotland where poor- 
 rates are unknown, the descending avenue which 
 leads to pauperism is powerfully guarded by the 
 stigma which attaches to it. Remove this stigma, 
 and our cottagers, now rich in the possession of 
 contentment and industry, would resign their 
 habits, and crowd into the avenue by thousands, 
 The shame of descending, is the powerful stimulus 
 which urges them to contest it manfully with the 
 difficulties of their situation , and which bears them 
 through in all the pride of honest independence. 
 Talk of this to the people of the South, and it 
 
151 
 
 sounds in their ears like an Arcadian story. But 
 there is not a clergyman amongst us who has not 
 witnessed the operation of the principle in all its 
 fineness, and in all its moral delicacy; and surely 
 a testimony is due to those village heroes who so 
 nobly struggle with the difficulties of pauperism, 
 that they may shun and surmount its degradation. 
 24. A Bible Association gives additional vigour 
 and buoyancy to this elevated principle. The 
 trifle which it exacts from its contributor is in 
 truth never missed by him, but it puts him in the 
 high attitude of a giver, and every feeling which 
 it inspires, is on the side of independence and de- 
 licacy. Go over each of these feelings separately, 
 and you find that they are all fitted to fortify his 
 dislike at the shame and dependence of pauperism. 
 There is a consciousness of importance which un- 
 avoidably attaches to the share he has taken in the 
 support and direction of a public charity. There 
 is the expanding effect of the information which 
 comes to him through the medium of the circula- 
 ted reports, which lays before him the mighty pro- 
 gress of an institution reaching to all countries, 
 and embracing in its ample grasp, the men of all 
 latitudes and all languages, which deeply interests 
 him in the object, and perpetuates his desire of 
 promoting it. A man with his heaart so occupied, 
 and his attention so directed, is not capable of a 
 voluntary descent to pauperism. He has in fact 
 become a more cultivated and intellectual being 
 than formerly. His mind gathers an enlargement 
 uorn the wide and animating contemplations which 
 
152 
 
 are set before him, and we appeal to the reflection 
 of every reader, if such a man will descend as rea- 
 dily to a dependence on the chanty of others, aa 
 he whose mind is void x)f information, and whose 
 feelings are void of dignity. 
 
 25. In such associations, the rich and the poor 
 meet together. They share in one object, and are 
 united by the sympathy of one feeling, and of one 
 interest. We have not to look far into human 
 nature to be covinced of the happy and the har- 
 monising influence which this must have upon 
 society, and how in the glow of one common cor- 
 diality, all asperity and discontent must give way 
 to the kindlier principles of our nature. The 
 days have been, when the very name of an associ- 
 ation carried terror and suspicion along with it. 
 In a Bible Association there is nothing which our 
 rulers need to be afraid of, and they may rest as- 
 sured, that the moral influence of such institutions, 
 is all on the side of peace and loyalty. But to* 
 confine myself to the present argument. Who 
 does not see that they exalt the general tone and 
 character of our people, that they bring them 
 nearer to the dignity of superior and cultivated 
 life, and that therefore, though their direct aim is 
 not to mitigate poverty, they go a certain way to 
 dry up the most abundant of its sources. 
 
 26. Let me add, that the direct influence of 
 Bible principles, is inseparable from a zeal for the 
 circulation of the Bible. It is not to be conceiv- 
 ed, that anxiety for sending it to others can exist, 
 while there is no reverence for it among ourselves. 
 
153 
 
 and we appeal to those districts where such associ- 
 ations have been formed, if a more visible atten- 
 tion to the Bible, and a more serious impression of 
 its authority, is not the consequence of them. 
 Now the lessons of this Bible are all on the side of 
 industry. They tell us that it is more blessed to 
 give than to receive, and that therefore, a man* 
 who, by his own voluntary idleness is brought un- 
 der the necessity of receiving, has disinherited 
 himself of a blessing. The poor must have bread, 
 but the Bible commands and exhorts, that where- 
 ever it is possible, that bread should be their own, 
 and that all who are able should make it their own 
 by working for it* No precept can be devised 
 which bears more directly on the source of pau- 
 perism. The minister, who, in his faithful expo- 
 sition of the Bible, urged this precept successfully 
 upon his people, would do much to extinguish 
 pauperism amongst them. It is true that he does 
 not always urge successfully; but surely if success 
 is to be more looked for in one quarter than in an- 
 other, it is among the pious and intelligent pea- 
 santry whom he has assembled around him, whom 
 he has formed into a little society for the circular 
 tion of the Bible, and whose feelings he has inter- 
 ested in this purest qnd worthiest of causes. 
 
 27. Nor is the operation of this principle con- 
 fined to the actual contributor. We have no 
 doubt that it has been beautifully exemplified even 
 among those, who, unable to give their penny a- 
 week, either stand on the very verge of pauperism* 
 * 2 Thess. ill. 12. 
 
or have got within its limits. They are unable' to 
 give any thing of their own, but they may be able 
 at the same time to forego the wonted allowance 
 which they received from another, or a part of it. 
 The refusals of the poor to take an offered chari- 
 ty, or to take the whole amount of the offer, are 
 quite familiar to a Scottish clergyman; and the 
 plea on which they set the refusal, that it would 
 be taking from others who are even needier than 
 they, entities them when honestly advanced to all 
 the praise of benevolence. A spirit of pious at- 
 tachment to the Bible would prompt a refusal of 
 the same kind. You have other and higher claims 
 upon you, you have the spiritual necessities of the 
 world to provide for, and that you may be the 
 more able to make t he provision, leave me to the 
 frugality of my own management. In this way 
 the principle descends, and carries its healthful 
 influence into the very regions of pauperism. It 
 is the only principle competent to its extirpation. 
 The obvious expedient of a positive supply to meet 
 the wants of existing poverty, has failed, and the 
 poor rates of England will ever be a standing tes- 
 timony to the utter inefficiency of this expedient* 
 which, instead of killing the disease, has rooted and 
 confirmed it. Try the other expedient then. The 
 remedy against the extension of pauperism does 
 not lie in the liberalities of the rich. It lies in 
 the hearts and habits of the poor. Plant in their 
 bosoms a principle of independence. Give a 
 higher tone of delicacy to their characters. Teach 
 them to recoil from pauperism as a degradation. 
 
155 
 
 The degradation may at times be unavoidable,, 
 but the thing which gives such alarming extent 
 to the mischief, is the debasing influence of poor 
 rates, whereby, in the vast majority of instances, 
 the degradation is voluntary. But if there be an 
 exalting influence in Bible Associations to coun- 
 teract this, if they foster a right spirit of import- 
 ance ; above all, if they secure a readier submis- 
 sion to the lessons of the volume which they are 
 designed to circulate, who does not see, that in 
 proportion as they are multiplied arid extended 
 over the face of the country, they carry along with 
 them the most effectual regimen for preventing the 
 extension of poverty. 
 
 28. And here it may be asked, if it be at all 
 likely that these Associations will extend to such 
 a degree as to have a sensible influence upon the 
 habits of the country ? Nothing more likely. A 
 single individual of influence in each parish, would 
 make the system universal. In point of fact it is 
 making progress every month, and such is the 
 wonderful spirit of exertion which is now abroad, 
 that in a few years every little district of the land 
 may become the seat of a Bible Society. We are 
 now upon the dawn of very high anticipations, 
 and the wholesome effect upon the habits and 
 principles of the people at home, is not the least 
 of them. That part of the controversy which re- 
 lates to the direct merits of the Bible Society may 
 be looked upon as already exhausted;* and could 
 
 * See Dealtry ? s pamphlets. Letter from the late Dr. Murray, 
 Professor of Hebrew in the University of Edinburgh, to Dr 
 
156 
 
 the objection, founded on its interference with tl*e 
 relief of the poor, be annihilated, or still more, 
 could it be converted into a positive argument in 
 its behalf, we are not aware of a single remaining 
 plea upon which a rational or benevolent man can 
 refuse his concurrence to it. 
 
 29. And the plea of conceived injury to the 
 poor deserves to be attended to. It wears an 
 amiable complexion, and we believe, that in some 
 instances, a real sympathy with their distresses, 
 lies at the bottom of it. Let sympathy be guided 
 by consideration. It is the part of a Christian to 
 hail benevolence in all its forms, but when a plan 
 is started for the relief of the destitute, is he to be 
 the victim of a popular and sentimental indigna- 
 tion, because he ventures to take up the question 
 whether the plan be really an effective one ? We 
 know that in various towns of Scotland you meet 
 with two distinct Penny Societies, one a Bible Asso- 
 ciation, the other for the relief of the indigent. It is 
 to be regretted that there should ever be any jeal- 
 ousy betwixt them, but we believe, that agreeably 
 to what we have already said, it will often be found 
 that the one suggested the other, and that the sup- 
 porters of the former, are the most zealous, and ac- 
 tive, and useful friends of the latter. We cannot 
 
 Charles Stuart. SteinkopfPs Tour on the Continent. Edin- 
 burgh Review, vol. xix. p. 39 ; and above all, the reports and 
 summaries of the institution itself, where you will meet with a 
 ^loud of testimonies from Moravians, Missionaries, Roman 
 Catholics, the Literati of our chief European towns, and men of 
 public spirit in all quarters of the world. 
 
157 
 
 however suppress the fact, that there is now a 
 growing apprehension lest the growth of the latter 
 Societies should break down the delicacies of the 
 lower orders, and pave the way for a permanent 
 introduction of poor-rates. There is a pretty ge- 
 neral impression, that the system may be carried 
 too far, and the uncertainty as to the precise limit 
 has given the feeling to many who embarked with 
 enthusiasm, that they are now engaged in a tick- 
 lish and questionable undertaking. I do not at- 
 tempt either to confirm or to refute this impres- 
 sion, but I count it apiece of justice to the associ- 
 ations I am pleading for, to assert, that they stand 
 completely free of every such exception. The 
 Bible Society is making steady advances towards 
 the attainment of its object, and the sure effect of 
 multiplying its subscribers is to conduct it in a 
 shorter time to the end of its labours. A Society 
 for the relief of temporal necessities is grasping at 
 an object that is completely unattainable, and the 
 mischief is, that the more known, and the more 
 extensive, and the more able it becomes, it is sure 
 to be more counted on, and at last, to create more 
 poverty than it provides for. The Bible Society 
 aims at making every land a land of Bibles, and 
 this aim it will accomplish after it has translated 
 the Bible into all languages, and distributed a 
 sample large enough to create a native and uni- 
 versal demand for them.* Alter the people of the 
 
 * But this native demand never will be created without the ex- 
 ertion of Missionaries, and the above reasoning applies, in its 
 most important parts, to Missionary Associations. See Appendix. 
 
 12 " 
 
158 
 
 world have acquired such a taste for the Bible, 
 and such a sense of its value as to purchase it for 
 themselves, the Society terminates its career, and 
 instead of the corruptions and abuses which other 
 charities scatter in their way, it leaves the poor to 
 whom it gives, more enlightened, and the poor from 
 whom it takes, more elevated, than it found them. 
 
 30. ; Charity,' says Shakespeare, ' is twice blest. 
 It blesses him who gives, arid him who takes.' This 
 is far from being universally true. There is a 
 blessing annexed to the heart which deviseth libe- 
 ral things. Perhaps the founder of the English 
 poor-rates acquired this blessing, but the indolence 
 and depravity which they have been the instru- 
 ment of spreading over the face of the country, 
 are incalculable. If we wish to see the assertion 
 of the Poet realized in its full extent, go to such a 
 charity as we are now pleading for, where the very 
 exercise of giving on the one hand and the in- 
 struction received on the other, have the effect of 
 narrowing the limits of pauperism, by creating a 
 more virtuous and dignified population. 
 
 31. There is poverty to be met with in every 
 land, and we are ready to admit, that a certain 
 proportion of it is due to unavoidable misfortune. 
 But it is no less true, that in those countries where 
 there is a known and established provision for the 
 necessities of the poor, the greater proportion of 
 the poverty which exists in them is due to the de- 
 basing influence of a public charity on the habits 
 of the people. The institution we are pleading 
 for counteracts this influence. It does riot anni- 
 
159 
 
 liilate all poverty, but it tends to annihilate the 
 greater part of it. It arrests the progress of the 
 many who were making a voluntary descent to 
 pauperism, and it leaves none to be provided for 
 but the few who have honestly struggled against 
 their distresses, and have struggled in vain. 
 
 32. And how shall they be provided for ? You 
 may erect a public institution. This in fact is the 
 same with erecting a signal of invitation, and the 
 voluntary and self-created poor will rush in, to the 
 exclusion of those modest and unobtrusive poor 
 who are the genuine objects of charity. This is 
 the never-failing mischief of a known and esta- 
 blished provision,* and it has been sadly exempli- 
 fied in England. The only method of doing away 
 the mischief is to confide the relief of the poor to 
 individual benevolence. This draws no depend- 
 ence along with it. It is not counted upon liko 
 a public and proclaimed charity. It brings the 
 claims of the poor under the discriminating eye of 
 a neighbour, who will make a difference betwixt 
 a case of genuine helplessness, and a case of idle- 
 ness or misconduct. It turns the tide of benevo- 
 lence into its true channel, and it will ever be 
 found, that under its operation, the poverty of mia* 
 fortune is better seen to, and the poverty of im- 
 
 * We must here except all those institutions, the object of which 
 is to provide for involuntary distress, such as hospitals, and dis- 
 pensaries, and asylums for the lunatic or the blind. A man may 
 resign himself to idleness, and become wilfully poor, that he may 
 eat of the public bread, but he will not become wilfully sick or 
 maimed that he may receive medicines from a dispensary, or 
 undergo an operation in an hospital. 
 
160 
 
 providence and guilt is more effectually prevented. 
 33. My concluding observation then is, that 
 the extension of Bible Societies, while it counter- 
 acts in various directions the mischief of poor- 
 rates, augments that principle of individual bene- 
 volence which is the best substitute for poor-rates. 
 You add to the stock of individual benevolence, 
 by adding to the number of benevolent individu- 
 als, and this is the genuine effect of a Bible Asso- 
 ciation. Or, you add to the stock of individual be- 
 nevolence in a country, by adding to the intensity 
 of the benevolent principle, arid this is the un- 
 doubted tendency of a Bible Association.* And 
 what is of mighty importance in this argument, a 
 Bible Association not only awakens the benevo- 
 lent principle, but it enlightens it. It establishes 
 an intercourse betwixt the various orders of socie- 
 ty, and on no former occasion in the history of this 
 country, have the rich and the poor come so often 
 together upon a footing of good will. The kindly 
 influence of this is incalculable. It brings the 
 poor under the eye of their richer neighbours. The 
 visits and inquiries connected with the objects of 
 the Bible Society, bring them into contact with 
 one another. The rich come to be more skilled 
 in the wants and difficulties of the poor, and by 
 entering their houses, and joining with them in 
 conversation, they not only acquire a benevolence 
 towards them, but they gather that knowledge 
 which is so essential to guide and enlighten their 
 benevolence. 
 
 * Sec. 9. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 IT is evident, that the above reasoning applies, 
 in its chief parts, to benevolent Associations, in- 
 stituted for any other religious purpose. It is not 
 necessary to restrict the argument to the case of 
 Bible Associations. I should be sorry if the Bible 
 Society were to engross the religious benevolence 
 of the public, and if, in the multiplication of its 
 auxiliaries over the face of the country, it were to 
 occupy the whole ground, and leave no room for 
 the great and important claims of other institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Of this I conceive that there is little danger. 
 The revenue of each of these Societies is founded 
 upon voluntary contributions, and what is volun- 
 tary may be withdrawn or transferred to other ob- 
 jects. I may give both to a Bible and a Mission- 
 ary Society, or if I can only afford to give to one, 
 I may select either, according to my impression of 
 their respective claims. In this way a vigilant 
 and discerning public will suit its benevolence to 
 the urgency of the case, and it is evident, that each 
 institution can employ the same methods for ob- 
 taining patronage and support. Each can, and 
 does bring forward a yearly statement of its claims 
 and necessities. Each has the same access to the 
 public through the medium of the pulpit or the 
 press. Each can send its advocates over the face 
 of the country, and every individual, forming his 
 own estimate of their respective claims, will ap- 
 portion his benevolence accordingly. 
 
162 
 
 Now what is done by an individual, may be 
 done by every such Association as I am now plead- 
 ing for. Its members may sit in judgment on the 
 various schemes of utility which are now in ope- 
 ration, and though originally formed as an auxili- 
 ary to the Bible Society, it may keep itself open 
 to other calls, and occasionally give of its funds to 
 Missionaries, or Moravians, or the Society for 
 Gaelic Schools, or the African Institution, or to the 
 Jewish, and Baptist, and Hibernian, and Lancas- 
 terian Societies. 
 
 In point of fact, the subordinate Associations of 
 the country are tending towards this arrangement, 
 and it is a highly beneficial arrangement It car- 
 ries in it a most salutary control over all these 
 various institutions, each labouring to maintain it- 
 self in reputation with the public, and to secure 
 the countenance of this great Patron. Indolence 
 and corruption may lay hold of an endowed cha- 
 rity, but when the charity depends upon public 
 favour, a few glaring examples of mismanagement 
 would annihilate it. 
 
 During a few of the first years of the Bible So- 
 ciety, the members of other Societies were alarmed * 
 at the rapid extension of its popularity, and ex- 
 pressed their fears lest it should engross all the at- 
 tention and benevolence of the religious public-. 
 But the reverse has happened, and a principle made 
 use of in the body of this pamphlet may be well 
 illustrated by the history of this matter.* The 
 
 * Sec. 9. 
 
163 
 
 Bible Society has drawn a great yearly sum of 
 money from the public, and the first impression 
 was, that it would exhaust the fund for religious 
 charities. But while it drew money from the hand, 
 it sent a fresh and powerful excitement of Chris- 
 tian benevolence into the heart, and under the in- 
 fluence of this creative principle, the fund has ex- 
 tended to such a degree, as not only to meet the 
 demands of the new Society, but to yield a more 
 abundant revenue to the older Societies than ever. 
 We believe that the excitement goes much farther 
 than this, and that many a deed of ordinary cha- 
 rity could be traced to the impulse of the cause we 
 are pleading for. We hazard the assertion, that 
 many thousands of those who contribute to the 
 Bible Society, find in themselves a greater readi- 
 ness to every good work, since the period of their 
 connexion with it, and that in the wholesome 
 channel of individual benevolence, more hunger 
 is fed, and more nakedness clothed throughout the 
 land, than at any period anterior to the formation 
 of our Religious Societies. 
 
 The alarm, grounded upon the tendency of these 
 Societies with their vast revenues, to impoverish 
 the country, is ridiculous. If ever their total 
 revenue shall amount to a sum which can make 
 it \\ orthy of consideration to an enlightened econ- 
 omist at all, it may be proved that it trenches upon 
 no national interest whatever, that it leaves popu- 
 lation and Public Revenue on precisely the same 
 footing of extent and prosperity in which it foun<l 
 
164 
 
 them, and that it interferes with no one object 
 which Patriot or Politician needs to care for. In 
 the mean time it may suffice to state, that the 
 Income of all the Bible and Missionary Societies 
 in the Island, would not do more than defray the 
 annual maintenance of one Ship of the Line. 
 When put by the side of the millions which are 
 lavished without a sigh, on the enterprises of war, 
 it is nothing, and shall this veriest trifle be grudged 
 to the advancement of a cause, which, when carried 
 to its accomplishment, will put an end to war, and 
 banish all its passions and atrocities from the world. 
 I should be sorry if Penny Associations were to 
 bind themselves down to the support of the Bible 
 Society. I should like to see them exercising a 
 judgment over the numerous claims which are now 
 before the public, and giving occasionally of their 
 funds to other religious institutions. The effect 
 of this very exercise would be to create a liberal 
 and well-informed peasantry, to open a wider 
 sphere to their contemplations, and to raise the 
 standard, not merely of piety, but of general in- 
 telligence amongst them. The diminution of 
 pauperism is only part of the general effect which 
 the multiplication of these Societies will bring 
 about in the country; and if my limits allowed me, 
 I might expatiate on their certain influence in 
 raising the tone and character of the British Po- 
 pulation. 
 
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