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It is also as easy to see,

Christian society, is easy to see. that the unjust and lawless will never once think of settling in a country, where they know the laws will be so impartially and so expeditiously put in execution against them.

On the other hand, the advantages such a society will have, in time of war with its neighbours (observe it can never be in danger of a civil war), will be inconceivably great. I need not say that the members of this community, in which they are so happy, will be warmed with the most ardent love for their country, nor that, in consequence of this love, they will do their utmost to defend it. But it will be of use to observe, that they must be as able, as they are willing, to maintain its cause against all invaders. In the first place, as they will have the zeal of patriots, so they will have the courage of heroes, nay, of what is more, of martyrs, in so just and glorious a cause; while they will have to do with wretches, less than women, who are made cowards by their consciences. These wicked mortals 'will flee when no man pursueth,' while those righteous men will be as bold as so many lions.'

In the next place our Christian warriors, being all their lives used to temperance and industry, will look on the hardships and fatigues of war as an amusement; while their enemies softened by luxury, or broken by vice, will be rendered unfit for service in the first month of a campaign. All the rules of discipline, and all the orders of their commander, will be strictly observed by the former; while the latter will be perfectly ungovernable and mutinous. The former will have wealth, the sinew of war; while the latter will have nothing to support so great expences, but what so cowardly and feeble a race of wretches can get by robbery and plunder from the bravest of mankind. And to insure the victory, the God of battles will be the ally of those, and the adversary of these.

By this time I hope the most ignorant person, who hears me, is fully convinced, that Christianity, if heartily embraced, and strictly followed, would make every individual man, and every community of men, happy here, as well as hereafter. And I hope in this conviction he sees, simple and unlearned as he is, a clear demonstration of the truth and excellence of our religion; which, when it is attentively

considered, will preach the gospel to the poor,' in a voice as distinct, and with arguments as strong, as the greatest scholar can draw from all his skill in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and antiquity.

What hath a poor ignorant man to do, but, as far as in him lies, to banish his prejudices, to silence his passions; and, in this frame of mind, calling all his reason to his assistance, to consider, that, as God is infinitely gracious, he must will the happiness of all his creatures; that pure Christianity, as it is plainly set forth in Scripture, is not so much the best, as the only religion in the world, that can make him good and happy; and that, if this is not the true religion, infinite as God is in goodness, and impossible as it is for us to be good and happy without the true religion, he hath never been the author of any religion; from whence it will follow, that our gracious Maker hath left us, his creatures, unavoidably exposed to sin and misery. If the ignorant man duly weighs the arguments I have offered, with that sense and understanding he shews in matters of less moment, but of more difficulty, he will be fully convinced of this, that Christianity is the will, and his Bible the voice, of God. After having thus settled his mind, he will stand fast in the faith;' while others, more conceitedly learned, stagger and wander in endless doubts; he will wisely practise every Christian virtue; while others, who make a bad use, and a vain shew, of higher knowledge, do nothing but dispute and wrangle; he will, in a word, at the great day, when we shall all be tried and sifted by infinite wisdom, be found solid and wholesome wheat, while they shall be thrown aside as empty chaff.

I ought not to dismiss this subject, without observing, that none but the poor ever had, or possibly can have, the gospel effectually preached to them; but I mean by the poor, those whom our Saviour elsewhere calls the poor in spirit.' As Christ himself was not born in a palace, but a stable; nor laid in a sumptuous cradle, but in a manger; so his religion never finds its effectual birth in a mind proud and conceitedly refined, but only in a heart, simple, humble, and mortified with a sense of its own insufficiency. Hence it is, that St. Paul cries out, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not

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God made foolish the wisdom of this world? The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God stronger than men ;' and therefore we see,' as he says, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.' On the contrary, we see, God hath singled out the ignorant for apostles and instructors to the learned; hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; the base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence; but that, according as it is written, he that glorieth should glory in the Lord.' That God first manifested the true wisdom to the ignorant, and sent them to be the teachers of the knowing, was the effect indeed of his own free choice. But he hath assigned us a reason for this choice, namely, that no flesh might glory,' and that all men might acknowledge the true religion to be the work, not of human, but of Divine Wisdom We may guess at another reason for this. The ignorant are more susceptible of true and useful knowledge, than such as are prejudiced to false philosophy, and vain refinements; as they, who have been for some time in the dark, are more readily struck with a true and steady light, than such as are dazzled with false lights. It is still, as it was at first, easier to give light to them that sit in darkness, and are sensible of their own ignorance, than to those who are already too wise to be taught. The truth enters an empty understanding, with greater freedom and facility, than one filled and pre-occupied with its own opinions. This advantage, on the side of the simple and illiterate, is so great, especially in regard to the admission of religious truth, wherein subtilty and refinement have no right to a place, that it were really better for a man to know nothing, in order to 'know Christ crucified,' than to have his head stuffed with the whole circle of human sciences; infinitely better, surely, than to be previously attached to any other system of religion. In this case learning is not half the advantage to the knowing, that a consciousness of their own ignorance is to the illiterate.

Let us now earnestly beseech the good God to give us

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XLIV.] CHRISTIANITY NOT INCREDIBLE, &c. 461

the unfeigned simplicity and humility of Christ, that our hearts may be open to the true wisdom of his gospel, and that we may be among those happy poor, to whom it is preached in its full beauty and power. Grant us this, blessed Lord, we most humbly beseech thee, for the sake of Christ Jesus our Saviour; to whom, with Thee, and the Holy Spirit, be all might, majesty, dignity, and dominion, now, and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE XLIV..

CHRISTIANITY NOT INCREDIBLE BECAUSE

MYSTERIOUS,

ST. JOHN XVII. 25.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.

As, in order to know any particular man, it is not enough to know, that there is a man of such a name or character, but we must also have some intercourse and intimacy with him, and some personal knowledge of him; so merely to know that there is a Being, who made and governs all things, who is infinitely wise, just, powerful, and good, is only to know that there is a God; it is not to know God.

He only knows God, agreeably to the ends and purposes of religion, who compels his low and narrow prejudices to give way, and enlarges his understanding, to make room for a great and exalted idea of the divine Being; who cleanses and opens his heart, that it may, with all possible love and reverence, receive an amiable and awful impression of him; and who, setting wide the gates' of his mind, that the King of glory may come in,' feels him entering that living temple, and possessing himself of an absolute power of all the faculties of his soul, and all the passions of his heart. When God is truly known, the understanding must be convinced, that his nature is incomprehensible, and his majesty incon

ceivable; and the heart must be deeply engaged to him, inasmuch as he is the most amiable and excellent of all beings.

It is plain, therefore, that the vicious person and the libertine know not God; for, if they did, they would fear and love him; they would consider him as a being infinitely glorious and incomprehensible, and would be afraid to make free with him, by presumptuous reasonings about him; they would consider him as always present with them, as a sure witness and just judge, and would not suffer their unruly passions to rebel against him.

What we know of God is spiritually discerned, and not in the common way of knowledge, by our senses or experience. The worldly-minded therefore cannot know God; because, while they follow the track of those false opinions and corrupt passions that govern the world, they can never meet with God, whose paths lie another way, and are past finding out to such minds. The way of God is far above, out of their sight; which is turned downward on the ways of the world, and too intent on the affairs of this life, to consider the nature of an visible and incomprehensible being.

But, to the mind that attends to the voice of religion, and is disposed to receive its instruction, so much of the divine nature discovers itself, as is necessary to the purposes of religion, and the happiness of such a mind.

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If even the most spiritual mind should pry farther, or attempt a deeper inquiry into the divine nature, it would quickly find, that such knowledge is too wonderful for it,' and that it could not attain unto it,' no, not with the assistance of revelation itself; which only lets us so far into the knowledge of God, as is requisiste to our own salvation; but affords neither encouragement or satisfaction to vain inquiries into what we are neither concerned in, nor capable of. The knowledge which our religion affords us of God, is the utmost our narrow faculties can contain, when barely proposed, and infinitely more than they can account for by reason, in its highest improvement.

Our libertines, however, cry out for what they call a rational religion. But is nothing rational which reason cannot perfectly account for? Reason and common sense tell us, God is incomprehensible. Can it be common sense,

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