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thing else in the world can do, furely that religion, to which alone we owe these fentiments and hopes, must be the greatest bleffing that ever was conferred on the pofterity of Adam.

AND is it, after all, but a mere human contrivance; the invention of mean and illiterate men, who lived, and who died, in the voluntary promulgation of falfehood? To what other human artifice does this bear any resemblance? Does not this religion as plainly prove itself to be the works of a wife and gracious God, as the abfurdity of the pagan fuperftitions proves them to have been the work of weak and wretched men ?

To the great end of improving, renewing, and perfecting our whole nature, no invention of man could ever have adapted; that being an idea, which could never have occurred to mere human, wisdom, and which, if it had occurred, would have been deemed an impoffibility. But to this great end, fo worthy of God, and fo honourable to man, our religion is adapted in such a way, as fills the humble and confiderate mind with wonder and adoration; and would indeed raise inexpreffible aftonishment, if it had not been familiar to us from our infancy.

CHRISTIANITY proposes to our imitation the highest examples of 'benevolence, purity, and

piety. It fhows, that all our actions, purposes, and thoughts, are to us of infinite importance; their confequences being nothing lefs than happiness or mifery in the life to come: and thus it operates most powerful on our felf-love. By teaching, that all mankind are brethren; by commanding us to love our neighbour as ourselves; and by declaring every man every man our neighbour to whom we have it in our power to do good, it improves benevolence to the highest pitch. By prohibiting revenge, malice, pride, vanity, envy, fenfuality, and covetoufnefs; and by requiring us to forgive, to pray for, and to blefs our enemies, and to do to others as we would that they fhould do to us, it lays a reftraint on every malevolent and turbulent paffion; and reduces the whole of focial virtue to two or three precepts; so brief, that they cannot be forgotten; fo plain, that they cannot be misunderstood; fo reasonable, that no man of fenfe controverts them; and fo well-fuited to human nature and human affairs, that every candid mind may eafily, and on all occafions, apply them to practice.

CHRISTIANITY recommends the ftri&teft felfattention, by this awful confideration, that God is continually prefent with us, knows what we think, as well as what we do, and will judge the world in righteoufnels, and render unto every

It makes us con

man according to his works. fider confcience, as his voice and law within us; purity of heart, as that which alone can qualify us for the enjoyment of future reward; and mutual love, or charity, as that without which all other virtues and accomplishments are of no value and, by a view of things peculiarly ftriking, it caufes vice to appear a moft pernicious and abominable thing, which cannot escape punishment. Purity of heart it ftill further recommends, by teaching this wonderful doctrine; that even the bodies of good men shall at last, in a glorified ftate, be re-united to their fouls, and made, as that of Adam originally was, immortal; and that, therefore, in this life of general probation, they must be kept free from difhonour, and, instead of miniftering to thofe fenfualities that debase our nature, be employed as inftruments in doing good.

In a word, Christianity, as Bishop Taylor well obferves, is a doctrine in which nothing is fuperfluous or burdenfome; and in which there is nothing wanting, which can procure happiness to mankind, or by which God can be glorified. And if,' continues he, wifdom, and mercy, and juftice, and fimplicity, and holinefs, and purity, and meeknefs, and contentedness, and charity, be images of God, and rays cf divinity, then

that doctrine, in which all these fhine fo glorioufly, and in which nothing else is ingredient, 'muft necds be from God.'

I CONCLUDE the chapter in the following words of the fame great author. "If the holy Jefus had ⚫ come into the world with lefs fplendour of power ⚫ and mighty demonftrations, yet the excellency

of what he taught makes him alone fit to be the 'mafter of the world.

CHAP. III.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

THE advocate for Christianity has nothing to

do with the peculiar tenets of Luther, Calvin, or Bellarmine, or with any other fyftem which is hable to be tinctured with human infirmity; his business is, to vindicate the truth as it is in Jefus." I do not therefore think myself concerned to anfwer any objection of those writers, who mistake the corruption of Chriftianity for Chriftianity itfelf. They who perfecuted or hate, or even judge uncharitably of others, act in direct oppofition to the plaineft, and indeed to the effential, doctrines of the gospel and every church that encourages cruelty, injuftice, or uncharitableness, in any degree, is in the fame degree unchrif

tian.

BUT why fhould Chriftianity be liable to corruption? Would not the power and goodness of

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