can neither be seen nor heard. Act according to the convictions of conscience; whatever seems a duty, do; whatever is evil, shun. Let your heart and life be under the regulation of what appears to be the divine will, and daily cultivate the love of God and man. This is the path which conducts to the possession of truth. 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.'-John vii. 17. And as every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights, present the most fervent supplications to him, that he would inspire your mind with divine wisdom, and preserve you from the hateful influence of error, and enable you to discover the truth, and incline your heart to embrace it with the most devout affection."

With

Such are the counsels which Jesus gives such the injunctions he lays upon you. But is this the method he would recommend, if his design were to deceive? These are not the words of a deceiver; on the contrary, is there not a consciousness that he is leading you in the path to divine truth? the ideas of moral order which have been suggested, is it possible for us to form a different judgment? This consideration must have much weight on every ingenuous mind. But it will have the best, the intended effect, if it lead you to examine the gospel with the temper he requires; as the consequence will be the profession of one of the first disciples: "Lord, to whom shall we come but to thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

SECTION IV.

The Truth of the Christian Religion believed by those who have spent all their days in studying the New Testament.

THERE is not a book in the world which has undergone so strict a scrutiny as the New Testament. It has been examined by its enemies; and it has been examined by its friends. Ten thousands of the teachers of Christianity have spent a long succession of laborious years in searching into its contents; and they have written in its defence. They have displayed their belief of its truth by a life formed on its precepts, and animated by its principles; and they have died with a lively faith in its promises, rejoicing in its consolations, and expressing a cheerful hope of the blessedness which it engages to bestow in a future state.

This fact is recommended to the consideration of deists.

Will they say, "These men were paid for their faith; by that craft they had their living; there is little credit due to their testimony?" That there have been too many professing to be teachers of Christianity, who entered on the office solely for the loaves and the fishes, and who acted as mere men of the world, and sometimes as men of vice, must be acknowledged; and where a lure has been held out to ambition and avarice, this is not to be wondered at. To their testimony not a grain of credit is due; let them be held in that contempt which their profaneness merits. But at the same time it will be granted, by all whom incurable prejudice has not blinded, that great numbers of the ministers of the gospel have been among the most respectable characters in society. In the whole tenor of their conduct, they have exhibited integrity, sanctity, and goodness; and they have spent their time and employed their talents in doing good to their fellow-creatures, and diffusing virtue and happiness around them. All the temporal remuneration which many of them had, was a scanty pittance, scarcely sufficient to procure an humble subsistence from day to day. Can it be said that these men had very powerful temptations to deceive the world? With such discouraging prospects they entered on their office, and they continued in it till their dying hour; and when they gave up the ghost, they expressed the fullest approbation of their employment, and recommended the gospel to their family and friends, as the best inheritance. It must be allowed that none understood Christianity better than they; and in their intercourse with mankind, they gave as strong proofs that they were upright and conscientious men, as were ever given by any of the sons of Adam. Had they been conscious that the gospel was not true, some of them would have come forward avowing the imposture, and warning men against it. Or if they were ashamed or afraid to do that, and to relinquish their office, death is the hour of honesty; and as they were soon to quit the world, and to be hidden in the grave, and none could upbraid them for their confession, would not some of the best of them have then disclosed the imposture? But so far is this from having been the case, that the more pious they were, the more firm was their belief of the divinity of the Christian religion; and the more lively, in the hour of death, their hope of its eternal joys. This has been uniformly the result, not at one time, and at one place only, but in every country, and in every age, and among every sect of Christians, without distinction.

Give this subject, deists, your serious attention. Judge of

the character and testimony of these men, as you would on other subjects with equal evidence. If in every thing else they show themselves men of intelligence and men of integrity, you have no just reason to suspect them of disingenuity on this one point. The evidence will amount to this: that Christianity has been accounted true by the men who were best qualified to judge of its claims to truth and a divine origin. The measure of evidence will be increased, if you take into view, that thousands of Christian ministers, for the sake of the gospel, have suffered the loss of all things; and have submitted to want, to exile, to imprisonment, and to martyrdom in its most horrid forms.

Thus have I endeavoured to place before your eyes the evidences of the Christian religion. Remember that, by the Christian religion, I mean the system of truth which is contained in the New Testament. The additions made to Christianity, whether by individuals, or by bodies of men calling themselves the church, are destitute of all claim to divine truth; and it would be as great an absurdity to consider them as a part of Christianity, as it would be to add the Koran to the New Testament, and to account its contents a part of the religion of Jesus Christ, and of equal validity with the writings of the apostles. When the witnesses of the life, and sufferings, and resurrection of Christ died, the age of inspiration ceased, for God had revealed by them every truth which it was needful for men to know; and whatever things have been added since, are to be looked upon but as the opinions of fallible men, without weight, and without authority. Let all such additions be swept away as useless rubbish, and as noisome dung which have defiled the sanctuary of God.

CONCLUSION.

HAVING thus briefly, and, I hope I may add, with fairness and candour, stated the evidence of the divine authority of the New Testament, permit me, with all the ardour of heart-felt affection, to entreat you, my dear friends, to read it again and again, and weigh these arguments in the balance of impartial reason. Should any of you, notwithstanding all this evidence, reject the New Testament as an imposture, before you throw the sacred book away, consider the following passages, in which it announces the mournful doom of those who will not receive

Jesus as the Saviour of sinners:-"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned. Mark xvi. 15, 16. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.-John iii. 36. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. -Acts iv. 12. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."-2 Thess. i. 7, 8, 9, 10. Such are the declarations of this book concerning those who reject it in unbelief; and on a supposition of its divine authority, they are both natural and just. For if "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life," not to receive him must be the greatest of all sins, and must involve in it the highest degree of disobedience, ingratitude, and contempt. The unhappy men have refused the only method of obtaining happiness, and with unhallowed hands have shut the gates of mercy against themselves; and when on entering the eternal world, they are cast off by God, and feel that sense of his displeasure which their iniquities have merited, and are left under the full dominion of their evil passions, such a spectacle of misery will be presented, as no words can describe, and no heart conceive.

Should a candid reader say, "I was a deist, but I am now convinced that Jesus is the Christ;" remember, my friend, that a bare profession of Christianity will avail nothing; it is necessary that the principles of the gospel should be written on your heart, and that its precepts should mould your temper and direct your conduct; so that you may be entirely under its influence, and able to say with a disciple of old, "Christ liveth in me."

In order to produce this effect, there is required the energy of a higher power than man's. Jesus, when speaking of the subject, says, "Except a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God."-John iii. 5. And, in chap. vi. 44, “No man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him." By the depravity of human nature

this is become absolutely necessary; and God, who made man at first holy and happy, promises and delights to bestow that grace which renews him in the spirit of his mind, and inclines his heart to embrace Jesus Christ, "as made of God unto him wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." -1 Cor. i. 30. This doctrine, so humiliating to pride, runs through the whole of the New Testament, and is designed to lead the person who is convinced of the guilt of his unbelief, to fall down before God in prayer, and address him in such words as these: "God be merciful to me a sinner. Send forth thy light and thy truth, and let them lead me and guide me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." To animate you with the hope of success, Jesus Christ has said, "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."-Matt. vii. 7, 8. And "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"-Luke xi. 13.

Having received the blessing, and "being in Christ, you are made a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."-2 Cor. v. 17. Living under the influence of the gospel, its doctrines supporting your faith, its precepts forming your temper and regulating your conduct, its promises animating your hopes, and its truths habitually filling your thoughts, and drawing forth your affections, you feel yourself as it were in a new world; your life is unspeakably more happy than before; you have joys which "a stranger intermeddleth not with," and your joy 66 no man taketh from

you."

It will be henceforth the grand business of life to please God, and be wholly devoted to him; to maintain a constant reliance on the mediation of Jesus Christ; to seek after a greater resemblance to your heavenly Father in wisdom, in rectitude, in sanctity, and in goodness: and to exert yourself, in order to be useful to mankind, by promoting their temporal, but especially their eternal, happiness. The pleasures which result from spending your days in such a way, leave all others far behind; they are the purest and sweetest which are enjoyed on earth; but they are only the first fruits, and the pledge and carnest of still greater felicity. Death, so justly dreaded by the greatest of infidels, is often invited by the disciples of Jesus, as the messenger of their Father in heaven, to bring them