works of God, and because, from the inseparable connection of things in the created system, a disclosure of the plainest must involve a partial disclosure of others eluding our research.

Thirdly, If the Scriptures contained nothing mysterious, they would want one proof of being a revelation. What one man could completely comprehend, another, for aught that appears, might have devised. The very mysteries objected to the Scriptures, carry with them decisive evidence, that they neither were nor could be invented by man.

VI. Objections against revelation, from what it is supposed, God ought to do, are destitute of weight as well as of decency.

"Who," saith St. Paul," hath known the mind of the Lord, " and who hath been his counsellor?" Let me vary this phraseology, and ask, Who can know the mind of the Lord, and who can be his counsellor? Who can determine what ought to be done by a mind, boundless in its attributes, designing and acting for immensity and eternity? Who can tell the nature and design of even a minute part of what he has done? Who, much more, can tell, or even remotely conjecture, what he ought to do?

On these subjects to philosophize is folly in the extreme. They are so entirely removed beyond our reach, that it is impossible for us to know any thing which can be of any value. No efforts of the most capacious human mind have hitherto been able even to lay hold on them. Very many ingenious men have employed themselves, with no small labour, in attempting to form schemes of creation and providence; and in determining what was proper and what was improper to be done by the Ruler of all things. Unsatisfied with that which is disclosed in the Bible, they have wished to substitute a plan of their own for that of God. By this plan they have not only chosen to interpret the designs for which the beings and events which compose the great system were formed, but have strenuously insisted that their fellow-men should adopt this interpretation. To the same plan they have not only bent their own creed, but with a sufficient degree of assurance, have required the Creator to conform his conduct. Wretched philosophers!

Miserable men! How much more rationally and justly would they have acted, had they exclaimed with a man incomparably wiser than themselves, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for "me; it is high; I cannot attain it."

What is it that we attempt to comprehend and explain. The thoughts and works of an infinite mind; plans filling eternity and immensity; a train of causes and effects begun here and reaching in a regular chain through endless duration; causes and effects, now existing, to be explained by consequences situated in the remote regions of being. Who are we that thus resolutely enter upon this mighty task? Worms of the dust. When were we born? Yesterday. What do we know? Nothing.

SERMON IX.

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT IN THE

GOSPEL.

SERMON I.

2 TIMOTHY i. 10.

"But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."

In this passage of Scripture, Christ, according to the common translation, is said to have abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. The word, which is rendered hath abolished, is καταργήσαντος, the proper meaning of which is to render vain or ineffectual, i, e. to deprive a thing of its efficacy. The word rendered, hath brought to light, is purioavros, which signifies to illuminate, to cast a strong light upon, set or exhibit in a clear light. The words in the original for life and immortality are ζωήν και άφθαρσαν, life and incorruption. The life here mentioned is unquestionably the life beyond the grave. The incorruption is an attribute of that life, and may refer, without any impropriety, either to the body or the mind of him who will possess it; or, with equal propriety, to both. In Hebrew phraseology, life and incorruption are the same as incorruptible life. But incorruption, applied to this subject, is the same thing with immortality The words may of course, with the strictest propriety, be rendered immortal life. I would, therefore, translate the whole

verse in the following manner :-And is now made manifest through or by means of the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath rendered death ineffectual, and exhibited immortal life in a clear, strong light, through or by means of the Gospel. Death is rendered ineffectual by the prevention of its dreadful consequences, the sufferings destined to follow it in the future world. These our Savour has effectually prevented by the atonement which he has made for sin, and the application of its blessings to all those who believe on his name. Every such believer will be admitted, notwithstanding the condemning sentence of the divine law, to the enjoyment of that immortal life mentioned in this passage, and the efficacy of death to make him miserable hereafter, will be finally taken away.

Having thus endeavoured to settle the meaning of the text, I shall now proceed to a consideration of the principal doctrine which it contains, viz. that Christ has, in the Gospel, clearly and strongly exhibited to mankind a future immortal life. This doctrine I propose to illustrate by a series of observations under the three following heads ::

I. Immortal life was unknown to mankind by the investigations of reason.

II. It was imperfectly revealed in the Jewish Scriptures. III. It is completely revealed, proved, and explained by Christ in the Gospel.

I. Immortal life was unknown to mankind by the investigations of reason.

To exhibit my own views concerning what is intended in this declaration, I observe,

First, That in most countries the common people have believed the soul to be immortal, and to be rewarded or punished beyond the grave.

It is unnecessary, and indeed impossible for me to recite here the various opinions of mankind concerning this subject. Few persons can be ignorant that the assertion is generally true; few, I mean, who have read to any extent. We can hardly take up a history of any nation without finding this

doctrine a part of their creed. The savages of America, Asia, and Africa have held it with as much confidence, and, I may add, with as much rationality as the nations who were more enlightened.

In a few countries it seems to have faded out of the belief, as it has gradually been lost out of the knowledge, of the inhabitants; I mean, that they ceased to believe a future state of existence, because they ceased to know that there was any such doctrine. This is probably true of the Caffres, bordering on the country of the Hottentots; of the people who inhabit New Holland, and perhaps of some other nations. In all these cases the doctrine seems to have been lost through a general and extreme ignorance and degradation. Wherever the doctrine has been known, it seems regularly to have been admitted by the people at large.

Second, It has also been admitted by some philosophers.

Among these may be enumerated, not however without some uncertainty respecting several of them, and not without some qualifications of their opinions, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and Plutarch, together with some others. Several, also, of the Oriental philosophers held the same doctrine, and it seems to have been admitted by some whole sects, or perhaps more properly by a considerable number of individuals who belonged to these sects.

Third, These philosophers held very defective and very erroneous opinions concerning this doctrine.

Pythagoras, it is universally known, held the doctrine of transmigration, i. e. he supposed that the soul, when it left one body, passed into another, and indifferently into the body of a man or of a brute. This opinion, according to Diodorus Siculus, he derived from the Egyptians, who held that the soul, after leaving the body, passed successively through the body of one animal after another, in a circuit, occupying three thousand years, and then entered again into a human body. When this transmigration was ended, Pythagoras taught that the soul became reunited to the deity a universal soul, of whom he supposed it to be originally a part, having been only separated or lopped off; retaining, through all its various modes of existence, its