laid open. The whole system is a part of Satan's agency with the intent to ruin man. They are temptations, not reasons; the shafts of the wicked one, not the armor of truth.

Resist, then, these assaults of your spiritual adversary; cherish not the imaginations which subserve your own destruction; treat them as you would the robber who should enter your dwelling, to spoil it of your most valuable possessions; quench the suggestions of the arch-deceiver, and open your hearts to the fair and manly operations of conscience and truth.

VI. Finally, consider these vain objections as THE MOST

DEADLY PRODUCT OF THE CORRUPT AND PROUD REASON OF

A FALLEN CREATURE. This is the sum of the present Lecture, which I must hasten to conclude. Objections are the offspring of man's corrupt and depraved nature, where all the faculties of body and soul are disturbed and weakened. They form an unhealthy atmosphere around this lower world. Christianity comes to remedy the evil. It calls for the humiliation of the understanding before the revealed will of God, and the subjection of the passions and appetites to the revealed precepts of God. It is as much a branch of moral duty to believe, when God grants such evidences as he has done in the case of Christianity, as it is to restrain the inferior appetites, when the same almighty Lord has issued his prohibitions against vice and immorality. To reject interposing doubts, to turn away from objections, to silence vain curiosity, to rebuke presumptuous daring, to check the roving imaginations of the intellect; to call in the aid of grace for this end; to quench the suggestions of Satan by the blessed aid of the Holy Spirit; to enter more and more into the practical experience of religion-this is the wisdom of man. This purifies the atmosphere, or guards us from its destructive qualities. This teaches us to consider all speculative objections which rise in the mind against the evidences or the matter of Christianity, as the noxious vapors generated in a purient soil-as the product of reason weakened and perverted-as the arts of Satan operating upon a sinful imagination.

Cling, then, to Christianity as your light and protection. She throws a safeguard and barrier around you in a dark world. She detects the sophistry of infidelity, and sends you unhurt to pursue your salvation, in the midst of the errors and confusions of this probationary state-she guards you from the unhealthy vapors which collect around, and prevents the explosions which would otherwise prove fatal

to you.

Yes; as the miner is furnished with the LAMP OF SAFETY, and obtains light and security when he descends the subterraneous cavern, where the fire-damp might explode and bury him in destruction; and as, guided by his LAMP, he is protected from the fatal dangers of combustion, pursues his calling, and returns to his home and his family and the light of day, unhurt.

So does Christianity furnish you with THE TRUE SAFETY LAMP, when called to descend the caverns and depths of Satan, in this benighted world-so does Christianity neutralize and carry off the mischievous effects of infidelity— so does she shield your mind and surround you with a defence; which, whilst it affords you light and security for your work, preserves you from the fatal dangers to which an unprotected heart might be exposed, and sends you up again in safety, to the ordinary discharge of your Christian calling in the cheering light of day.

I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea I sought him, but he could not be found. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright; for the end of that man peace.

is

HAVING shown the vanity and futility of the speculative objections raised against Christianity, we proceed now to consider the lives and deaths of those who advance them. For if the general character of infidels should be found to be utterly inconsistent with truth and sincerity in a religious inquiry, and the general character of sincere Christians entirely consistent with them; we shall have an additional proof that objections against the Bible are the mere offspring of human corruption, and that the Christian faith is indeed of God.

"By their fruits ye shall know them," is an adage not only of revealed, but of natural religion. We shall bring before you, then, the two classes; those who give way to speculative infidel objections: and those who devoutly believe and obey the Christian Revelation. We shall summons the body of sceptics who have imbibed and followed out into practice the cavils of infidelity; and contrast them with the body of sincere Christians, who have received and followed

out into practice the doctrines of the Bible. We shall not select doubtful, ambiguous cases which hover between faith and unbelief, but decisive characters on each sidethe thorough infidel, and the spiritual and humble Christian; and we shall contrast them as to THE TENOR OF THEIR LIVES; their WRITINGS AND PUBLIC LABORS; and their DEATHS AND PREPARATION for an eternal state of being.

Let us,

I. Contrast the two classes as TO THE TENOR OF THEIR

LIVES.

In doing this let us consider their respective maintenance of their common principles of morals and religiontheir discharge of the duties of domestic and social lifeand their measure of benevolence and goodwill to their fellow creatures.

1. LET us contrast the infidel with the true Christian, as to the MAINTENANCE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND RELIGION HELD BY THEM IN COMMON. I say, held by them in common, because I wish to concede all that is asked. Allow the infidel his professed principles of natural religion; and then contrast the manner in which he maintains them with the conduct of the sincere believer.

And here a very few words will suffice. We have already shown the absence of any thing like a candid and devout temper in the inquiries of infidels, and their inability to sustain or restore the principles of natural religion when unaided by revelation. We have noticed likewise that entire want of any real intention of carrying into effect the principles of morals, which marks their conduct. The fact is, they seem to have no principles, except those of a general scepticism and contempt of all religion. Grant them all they ask in a moment of controversy, and trace out afterwards the way in which they maintain their principles, and you will see that they leave no foundation to build upon. They profess to believe in one living and true God, to admit some of his essential and moral attributes his omnipresence and omniscience, and his govern(b) Lect. iii.

(a) Lect. ii.

(c) Lect. xvi.

d

ment of the world-they profess to hold the moral and accountable nature of man, his obligations to virtue and piety, to the worship of his Maker, and to the duties of repentance, prayer, and thanksgiving, for the divine benefits. They profess to admit the principles of morals as held by the Heathen sages, and improved by modern philosophy. But the very enumeration of these topics has the appearance of sarcasm, when applied to infidelity. Contradictions without end, as we mentioned in our last Lecture, seem purposely scattered in all they say, as it were with the view of sapping all the elements of morals and religion. They now appear for an instant to favor Christianity; and now, by opposing all religion generally, they show that their hostility is merely a feeling against it, as included in the common mass. They are continually making efforts to oblige themselves to think after a certain fashion, which violates conscience, and those remains of natural light which nothing can altogether obliterate from the heart of man, whilst a real fear of the other side is still lurking within. The infidel maintains little more, in point of principle, than a vague knowledge of God, adopted from a blind deference to the public sentiment, and a general profession of the obligation of virtue, to spare the pains of examination, or from fear of making himself too sure about it. Where is there a single example of the essential principles of religion and virtue being really and bona fide maintained in the face of the world, by infidels? There are many nominal Christians, indeed, who sink down into natural religion from want of acquaintance with the peculiarities of their faith; but where is the example of an unbeliever acting up to his own principles, low and general as those principles are?

Now contrast with all this the manner in which every sincere and pious Christian maintains, and maintains at all hazards, and, if needs be in the face of persecution, exile, and death, the primary elements of religion and morals. In infidelity we find no one principle firm, permanent, uniform;

(d) Lect. xxi.