Gospel; and the revelation of immortality is the golden band which holds all its invitations, its promises, and instructions together, so as to offer them at once as a precious boon to the human heart: and this revelation is so made as to remove every cause of doubt that can exist in a thoughtful and ingenuous spirit; and to render the comprehension of the mystery easy and familiar to the humblest understanding that rebels not against the law of God.

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The pathway to eternity is open, and human life is declared to be commensurate with its untold ages. For this intelligence we are indebted to the Son of God: but with the revelation of our immortality we receive a further revelation of the mystery by which this endless life is beautified, like a stream running through beds of amaranths, with unfading delights and to the Son of God are we indebted for this also: for the eternal love of the Father having decreed, that both our souls and bodies should be saved, and that neither the flux and convulsions of nature, nor the fury of sin should destroy them, the Son has executed the decree, and by his atonement both justified the promise of the Almighty, and raised our nature to the level of his mercy.

It was remarked at the beginning of this Essay, that the little practical influence enjoyed by the philosophy of the ancients, may in great part be

attributed to its separation from the received religions. Philosophy and faith both appeal to the souls of men their ultimate object is properly the same -the sanctifying of the human heart, the naturalization of truth in the world; the reconciling of men to God, by enabling and inducing them to lay upon his altar the sacrifice of pure and elevated affections. When philsophy and religion are opposed to each other, both suffer in their general influences; for, though the one is chiefly taken up with the examination of principles, and the other supposes them known and received, it is in the same substratum of truth both are expected to begin and terminate their course. Now, one of the grand differences between Christianity and the religions of the heathen world is this, that it is not opposed to the inquiries carried on by the learned and the philosophical; that it does not diffuse itself, as polytheism did, in the manner of a vast pool, contented with covering an immense extent of flat surface with its shallow waters, while every little hillock and pointed eminence remain bare and dry: it has nothing to conceal; but much in its very character and structure to stimulate mental activity. If its mysteries are incomprehensible, it is in the same manner that the depths of the purest ether are unfathomable: if it warn us against questioning what we cannot comprehend, it is because, in this as in every other particular, it has the most perfect

respect to the laws of human nature, to the extent and limitation and proper exercise of its powers. In all systems of philosophy the discovery of causes is the main purpose of inquiry; and to know the nature of the great First Cause, the acknowledged privilege of the clearest and most exalted intellects : but Christianity refers at once to this universal source of existence, as the object to be continually contemplated in the course of our progress; it describes the nature of this sublime subject of inquiry; and makes every attribute of divinity appreciable to the understanding, by showing it in its action on the conditions and destinies of our race. Thus religion and philosophy may sit down together at the same heavenly banquet of truth, and each derive strength and vigour, according to their respective origin and nature, from the same food. There is, therefore, no irremediable injury inflicted on the great mass of mankind by their exclusion from the schools of philosophy. Philosophy is glad to be their fellow-guest in the temple; and every believer in the gospel feels ennobled as the Lord's freedman. The perfect law of liberty rules in his mind his soul is as free as truth: it is the will of God that it rise as high as it can by its own force, and when that fails, he gives it the wings of his Spirit.

That the application of any discovery made by reason to the wants and anxieties of human feeling

is uncertain and limited, admits of the strongest proof that can be afforded by experience. Its effect on the discoverers themselves, on the very minds in which the image of virtue has been generated, is, if history speak true, highly problematical. What trust, therefore, can be placed in these means for the renewing of men's minds in general? Or is it not evident, from this consideration, that the light and heat necessary to the success of such a process must be diffused from a source sufficiently elevated to reach, in its descent and re-ascension, intellects of every class, and however numerous or widely separated? And in what can such a source of illumination exist,"except in a divine religion, which having for its substance and object the attributes of God, can never fail in the necessary qualities demanded by an active faith? Christianity not only answers to this; it reaches the remotest wish of human nature, considered in its primary principles; and is, therefore, intimately connected, not only with the highest and grandest qualities of the soul, developed in the workings of pure reason, but with the simple yearnings of sympathy, and every movement of the heart. In the mythological religions, whatever was essentially human had its god; but there is nothing in human passion by which it can dignify or give beauty or interest to itself: whenever passion has a true natural charm or grace, it derives that ornament

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from the corresponding intellectual movement, or from a principle of our being higher and nobler than itself: but where a deity is supposed to exist as the source of that passion, it is itself the thing worshipped as the highest good, and presents its claim to obedience as an isolated power of nature. In the revolution which Christianity has caused in our systems of philosophy and ethics, every passion has its proper laws, and its corresponding spiritual sentiment. Thus nature becomes dignified by a constant appeal to the fountain-head of good; and that which would be doomed to darkness and corruption, were it left to itself, is endued with a lustre pure and bright as that which shines in the innermost recesses of the soul. To every point, therefore, which respects the happiness or improvement of man, and which might be made the subject of philosophical discourse, the religion of Christianity looks with loving and grave attention: nothing is omitted; nothing forgotten which concerns us: it breathes throughout the tender, cautious, and comprehensive wisdom of perfect benevolence; and that which it offers to effect it has effected, and is still effecting for thousands in every quarter of the globe.

The evidence of the truth of Christ's resurrection, or of the divine origin of the religion itself, is in one respect peculiar. Enough is done for the conviction of the understanding when the same degree of