But unless these facts had been divinely revealed; unless Jesus had not only been a teacher, but " a teacher sent from God," unless he had not only died, but died as a sacrifice for sin, these qualities of self-abasement, and patience, and zeal in the cause of religion, lose much of their propriety, as well as their strongest enforcement; and it becomes in the highest degree improbable, that the fabricators of a new religion should have recommended and prescribed them.

When, at the present day, I see a person contented to abandon his private comforts and enjoyments, and occupy his life in making the Scriptures known, in teaching the ignorant, and reclaiming the vicious; when he appears to find a sufficient recompense for this labour, if even a very small flock are brought over to Christian faith and practice, I am sure that he must himself believe the condition of these persons to be dangerous, and that they actually need his interposition. If I were to observe further, that he submitted with patience to insult and injury, and was only stimulated by resistance and opposition to more unceasing efforts for the conversion of his adversaries, I should feel assured that he must be actuated by some powerful and uncommon principle, which thus enabled him to overcome the dispositions which are natural to the human mind. And when I hear one who has been habitually watching over his thoughts, and words, and actions, and labouring to regulate them according to what he takes to be the will of God, speak of himself in a strain like this: "I sin, and repent of my sins,

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and sin in my repentance:-I pray for forgiveness, and sin in my prayers:-I resolve against future sin, and sin in forming my resolutions:-so that I may say, my whole life is almost a continued course of sin :"*. language like this assures me that such an one is judging himself according to a law of unusual strictness, and can have derived his idea of the purity required of him from no other source than the Christian Scriptures.

By a like process of argument, when I find a character of this description in the Apostles themselves, and when I find them inculcating this as the character which is to be cherished in others, I am forcibly led to conclude that they personally believed the facts on which such a character is founded, and did not invent them to serve a purpose of their own. I am sure that nothing but an intimate conviction that the matters which they taught were true, could have produced a state of mind, or actuated a course of life, like theirs.

IV. The virtues then which are encouraged, I might say, created by the Gospel, are, in many instances, peculiar. But it still remains to be considered, whether these virtues agree with the purpose which they are professedly destined to serve; the preparing those who cultivate them for another and a higher state of being. This, however, cannot be denied. They have been sometimes accused of unfitting men for earth; but there can be no doubt of their suitableness to the

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most reasonable ideas we can form of heaven. mility is surely the feeling with which a creature like man ought to approach his Creator. Benevolence is the disposition of mind which belongs to a kingdom where all will be love and harmony; and in which there can be no place for malice, hatred, or revenge. And, therefore, unless such a new creation of soul were to be expected as is totally inconsistent with retribution, and would render the present life in a less degree subservient or preparatory to another, than the principle of metempsychosis, humility, and meekness, and brotherly love, must be essential features of the character which shall be hereafter received into the presence of God.

It may be inquired, further, are these qualifications, which are expected in Christians, such as are calculated to promote the well-being and increase the happiness of mankind in their present state? For, although it cannot be thought the business of men to prescribe what God shall reveal to them, or what the immediate effect of a religion ought to be, which professes to look towards and lead to a state very different from this: still it must be allowed to make in favour of the religion, if it assists human happiness. Especially as its avowed object is, to recover mankind to a better state, from which they have fallen. If their fall from that first estate introduced the evils which exist, as the Scriptures declare; we are justified in expecting that the nearer they returned towards that state, the further they would, recede from evil.

This expectation is fully answered. It has been truly observed, that the virtues inculcated in the Gospel, are the only virtues which we can imagine a heavenly teacher to inculcate. As selfishness, rapacity, violence, malice, and revenge, are the vices which occasion a great part of the distress which prevails in human society; so in proportion as these are discouraged, and the contrary virtues established, peace, comfort, and harmony are restored. No doubt men have often urged, that meekness and patience under injuries are incompatible with the condition of mankind, and would surrender the feeble as a prey to the violent, and expose the best to be trampled upon by the worst and vilest of their species. And we can readily conceive, that this reasoning would have occurred to a mere man, who might have assumed to himself the title of a divine legislator. Reverse the case, then, and suppose, that the Christian law, instead of requiring forgiveness, permitted retaliation? Do we not at once acknowledge, that this would be strong internal evidence against its high pretensions? What is the actual state of society, when private vengeance is suffered to prevail? On the other hand, it is proved by experience, that meekness and forbearance prevent and check the evils which insolence and oppression create, and often disarm the violence which resistance tends to exasperate. Christianity, moreover, is designed for all; proposes to itself universal sway and dominion; and therefore cannot be expected to provide for disobedience to its enactments, or be made

accountable for evils which would cease to exist if its precepts were generally followed. This would justify the rules in question, in a dispensation whose object looks beyond this world, even if they were found to occasion present inconvenience. But we possess a further proof of its emanating from more than human wisdom, when it issues a law of which human wisdom would dread the consequences, yet that law is found to correct and diminish mischief, even when imperfectly obeyed.

I conclude, therefore, that the nature of the Christian character affords fresh confirmation of the divine origin of the Gospel which inculcates it. In the course of things, that character could not be altogether new; many of its parts must have been previously recognised, and only derive stronger sanction from its authority. But still there is in it so much of novelty and originality, as must induce us to seek for their peculiar source; and the practical results contribute to persuade us, that the source must have been divine. Though the Christian character, before the preaching of Jesus, was in many points untried and unknown; experience has proved that as far as it has prevailed and been acted upon, it has cleared and brightened the aspect of the moral world; and that it only needs to be universally received, in order to remove the principal evils which disturb our state on earth.

And yet with such an agent as man, and in a condition so complicated as that of human society, it is no less dangerous than difficult to introduce new modes