truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, this proclamation furnishes a stable ground on which to rest their hopes of pardon and of divine acceptance. The darkness which had intervened between us and the throne of God is dispelled; the doubts, fears, and apprehensions, by which we were held in bondage, are removed; and we are permitted to view without a cloud the infinite kindness and love of that God who pardoneth iniquity because he delighteth in mercy.

22. In contrast with the darkness of nature, behold the brightness of the light of the gospel. That clearly makes known to us that God has devised a plan by which mercy, in consistency with his justice, may be extended to sinful men ;-that God has so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life ;—that, in pursuance of this gracious purpose, Jesus Christ assumed human nature, voluntarily made himself an expiatory sacrifice for sin, and has, by his atonement, saved all who become his disciples from its guilt and from its consequences;—that he has procured divine influence, by which to renew our nature after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, to enable us to subdue sin and to gain the mastery over it, to discharge the duties and to bear the trials of life ;-and to make us meet for entering on the glories and felicity of eternity. The revelation which God has given discovers to us his character as the God of all grace and of all comfort, as the Father and the Friend of his erring and helpless offspring: it makes known to us the condescension and the compassion of that divine person who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich :-it assures us that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and it invites the weary, the wandering, and the heavy laden, to that compassionate and all-powerful Redeemer, who will not cast off any who come to him. This is the knowledge

with which purity, and hope, and happiness, are connected; which creates new views, principles, and desires, in the soul of man; which raises him to the possession and enjoyment of more than sin had forfeited;-which gives him ground to say, when the heavens are no more, and when the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up, that he has lost nothing, and that his felicity and his existence are alike immortal.

CHAPTER V.

THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE REVELATION SHEWN FROM THE AVOWED MORAL PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERS OF DEISTS.

1. If we are able to prove, that there is a natural connexion between a disbelief in the book which Christians receive as a divine revelation, and the disbelief of religion in general, that deism has led and inevitably tends to lead to atheism and irreligion,- -we are furnished with an argument of great strength for the necessity of a revelation of the will of God. If it can be shown, that men of the greatest talents, when they renounce the aid and guidance of revelation, cease, at the same time, to be under the influence of the principles of natural religion, I think, we demonstrate that an authoritative communication from heaven is essential to the moral well-being of

man.

2. (I.) In proof of our position, we refer to the authentic account of the deistical system which has been given by deists themselves, and which is contained in their writings.

The term deist, as applied to those who reject revealed religion, was first assumed about the middle of the sixteenth century, by some gentlemen in France and Italy, with the view of covering their opposition to Christianity by a softer name than that of atheists. According to

Viret, they professed to believe in God, but considered the doctrine of the apostles as fables and dreams. While, however, they professed to admit the existence of a God, and even the immortality of the soul, they nevertheless laughed at all religion. That which properly characterizes deists is, that they reject all revealed religion, and discard all pretences to it, as imposture or enthusiasm. They profess a regard for natural religion; but they are far from being agreed in their notions of it. They are classed by some of their own writers into two sorts, mortal and immortal deists. The latter acknowledge a future state: the former deny it, or at least represent it as a very uncertain thing. But their most eminent modern writers seem to be very easy about these differWith them all are true deists who oppose revelation, whether they own future rewards and punishments or not.*

ences.

3. One of the votaries of deism, Lord Edward Herbert, of Cherbury, who lived in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, was one of the first who formed deism into a system,-a system, however, which he partly borrowed from the Scriptures,-though with the view of discarding all revelation he affirmed the universality, sufficiency, and absolute perfection of natural religion. This religion, which he maintained is universal, though he derived it from Scripture, he regarded as comprehending the five following articles, namely, that there is one God, -that he is to be worshipped,-that his worship chiefly consists in piety and virtue,—that repentance secures the pardon of sin, that there is a future state of rewards and punishment. But this scheme of natural religion, which its author employed for giving a deadlier blow to Christianity, met with little countenance from deists. They have regarded a belief in it as inconsistent with perfect freedom of opinion and action. They expunge an at

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Viret, Bayle's Dictionary. Leland's View, &c., vol. i. p. 2, &c.

tribute from the character of God; or they contend against the belief of his government of the world; or they blot out immortality from the record of human hopes; or they reduce it, from being the great scene of moral retribution, to a mere picture of the fancy,-they do this not only without one sigh of regret, and without one feeling of compunction, but with as much coolness as they would rectify an error in the most common transactions of life."

4. Halyburton has ably refuted the assumptions of Lord Herbert; and has demonstrated in his elaborate performance, by a full consideration of all the particulars comprehended in this scheme of natural religion, the necessity of revelation to the virtue and happiness of man. But even this father of modern deism, the most respectable of his class, by maintaining principles opposed to morality, -by declaring that the indulgence of lust and anger is no more to be blamed than the thirst occasioned by the dropsy, -has proved the utter inadequacy and inefficiency of every system short of a revelation of the will of God, as a directory in religion and morals.

5. The same remark applies to another deist of eminence, who, in the order of time, is next to Lord Herbert of Cherbury,-I mean Hobbes. The writings of this author, no one of which was professedly levelled against revealed religion, have rarely been equalled in their influence in diffusing irreligion and infidelity. Few writers of this school afford a more impressive illustration of our position than Hobbes, namely, that the man who rejects revelation on the alleged ground of the sufficiency of natural religion, is really the enemy of both. He endeavours to undermine the authority of Scripture,-then to sap the foundations of all religion,-and to produce in the minds of his readers the feeling of universal scepticism. His scheme, according to Leland, strikes at the foundation of all religion, both natural and revealed; tends, not only to subvert the authority of Scripture, but to destroy God's moral administration; confounds the natural differences

1

of good and evil, virtue and vice, and takes away the distinction between soul and body, and the liberty of human actions; destroys the best principles of human nature, and, instead of that inward benevolence and social disposition which should unite men together, supposes all men to be naturally in a state of war with one another; erects an absolute tyranny in the state and church, and makes the will of the prince the sole standard of right and wrong; and completes the degradation of man by depriving him of the rights of conscience.

6. Mr Charles Blount, who, in 1680, published a translation of the two first books of Philostratus' Life of Apollonius Tyanæus, with large notes, is the next votary of deism to whom we shall refer. Students of church history need not be told that Apollonius was a Pythagorean philosopher who lived in the first century, whose character and miracles were opposed by the pagans to those of our Lord Jesus Christ. Modern deists have been fond of running a parallel between the one and the other, with the view of showing that the miracles of both rest upon the same foundation ;-wilfully suppressing the fact, that the wonders said to have been wrought by Apollonius tended to uphold that reigning superstition over which Christianity triumphed. The Oracles of Reason was another of Blount's writings, published after his unhappy end, and designed to oppose revelation, and in particular the Mosaic record. The publisher of this work, Mr Gildon, was afterwards convinced of his error, and wrote the Deist's Manuel, in which he vindicates the doctrines of the existence and attributes of God, his providence and government of the world, the immortality of the soul, and a future state; and he assigns as his reason, that many of the deists with whom he was acquainted denied these great principles which lie at the foundation of all religion.

7. Next to Blount in the service of infidelity was Mr Tindal, a man who, under the profession of Christianity, made it the great business of his life to oppose it. The