faith. If God pleases to 'make a written revelation, to a part only of a rebellious world, by what law has either part the right to complain? Or if it claim to be a general revelation, and is partially circulated, what then? Rebels may not demand overtures of pardon. Moreover the whole world, had not the carnal mind been opposed to a divine communication, might have had the bible. Had the world been ready to receive it, as the Gentiles must have had report of it, no province had been without it. The people that God chose, as the depositories of the revelation, were in the very midst of the more enlightened nations, and it is rather difficult to account for the fact, that all nations did not acquire the bible from that central position where it was inspired. How could Greece and Rome and Babylon and Egypt lie so hard by Israel and not have opportunity to receive the Scriptures. Indeed it did go probably among all nations, and they set so light by it that they lost it. And yet we can see wise purposes answered by many nations being long without it. They thus have abundan opportunity to act out the native temper of their hearts, and establish the history of the apostacy. In the meantime those who have the Bible may learn how basely they have neglected and are neglecting their duty in not disseminating it.

But says the objector, I learn from the Bible that those are to perish who have never enjoyed its light. Yes, if they sin against the light they have. They perish however, not because they were so unfortunate as not to have the bible, but because the "invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; and because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God; hence they are without excuse." If any assert that God will destroy the heathen for not knowing what they had not the means to know, their controversy is with him direct. And if they reject the bible because they think it so teaches, they may be found to have reasoned falsely, and to have destroyed themselves by their inquisitiveness into a case they do not understand and that does not secure them. If they would contend that God may not destroy men, unless he first give them a written revelation of his will, and give them opportu nity to reject an offered Savior, they are to see to it that they adopt a sentiment like this, on arguments that God will approve, else they undo themselves by their own vain philosophy.

The discrepancies of the bible, constitute a powerful objection to its reception. The fact we do not dispute that there are some detached passages which appear to be contradictory. But a candid mind, acquainted with the bible, and willing to see those discrep.

ancies reconciled, will rather be strengthened than disturbed in his faith by them. Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, yet Jesus baptized not, but his disciples. He did it as Soloman built the temple, i. e. it was done by his sanction. It is appointed to all men once to die, yet if a man keep my sayings, he shall never see death the one means natural and the other spiritual or eternal death. God will not repent, will not change his mind and counsel as men do from want of foresight; yet it repented the Lord that he had made man, and that he had set up Saul to be king; that is, he changed his course of procedure as men do when they change their minds : all said in condescension to our weak capacities.

The genealogies of Matthew, and Luke differ, without contradiction, because Matthew wrote in Hebrew, principally for the use of the Jews, and therefore traces the pedigree of Jesus Christ, downward from Abraham to David, and through Solomon to Jacob and Joseph the reputed father of Christ. Luke's pedigree was written in Greek for the use of the Gentiles and traced from Heli, the father of Mary, to David through Nathan and Abraham to Adam. As to the order of narrating events in the gospel, we arc to remember that Matthew and John were constant companions of our Lord, and would be most likely to narrate things in their order of time, while Luke and Mark followed the order in which things were narrated to them by the apostles, hence many discrepances in the order of time. One apostle notices one circumstance, and another some other one, in the same narration; here an apparent discrepancy in this story, but no contradiction. For instance, one apostle makes the two thieves and another but one above the Savior as they hung on the cross; but we see in a moment, that the one stated what he saw at an earlier hour, when both the thieves were impenitent, while the other gives us the state of things after one of the thieves was converted, and the other continued to rail. When Paul was on his way to Damascus and the Savior called him, one Evangelist says that his companion heard not the voice that addressed him, while another says they did hear the voice. But how easy to perceive that they might all hear the sound and Paul only distinguish what was said. We should gather from one Evangelist that Christ's celebrated sermon was delivered on a mountain, and from another on the plain, but who can be ignorant that when a mountain drops gradually into a plain there is a spot which one might attach to the mountain and another to the plain. Two Evangelists say, on a certain occasion, that after six days, Jesus taketh Peter and James and John his

brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, another says about an eight days after. Now nothing can be plainer than that the last of the three includes in the eight days the day of the discourse and the day of the transfiguration, which, added to the six days between, make the eight. Thus every discrepancy in the Bible can easily be reconciled by a candid mind. Instead of unsettling our faith in the Bible, they constitute in fact, as we shall see directly, a strong corroborative testimony of its authenticity. Another objection to the bible has been drawn from its history, especially the severity of some of the christian dispensations there recorded. The extirpation of the Canaanites for instance. On this subject let me say, that the Canaanites were notoriously wicked, and deserved to be destroyed. The objection lies against Israel being employed to inflict the judgments they deserved. And why not employ men to do it with as much propriety as famine, or pestilence, or earthquake, or wild beasts? Besides it may be doubted whether Israel had not a better right to the soul than the Canaanites, and were not its first proprietors; and if so they had a prior right to the lands, and might demand their right, and if God so directed, used the sword to obtain it. And this answered most others, that infidels have made a handle of, are answered. If men deserved to be 'destroyed, if nations merit extermination, God may treat them as they deserve, and may employ what instruments he pleases in the execution of his wrath. If he command men to avenge him on his adversaries, it is impeaching his righteousness and his sovereignty to complain of his dealings. "May I not do what I will with mine own," is the only answer in the case, that should satisfy every honest mind.

The inconsistencies of professors of religion have ever constituted one of the boldest pleas of infidelity. On this subject there are a few things to be said which it seems must be sufficient to silence every cavil. Do those who complain feel grieved that Christians are not more holy? Do they then practice themselves a better morality than the christian? Are they more or less pleased with Christians, the more holy they are? These questions are easily answered. We ask again, do they blame Christians for not coming up to the Bible standard of morality? If so, then it is not the Bible but the Christians they would censure. The Bible thus teaches a good and substantial morality? Or do they wish to be understood that the Bible bears Christians out in their sins, and is of course a bad book, and cannot be from God. If so, and this must be the ground they take, else how have the faults of pro

fessors any concern with the authenticity of the Scriptures; then we ask how does it happen again,

That the unreasonable strictness of the Bible morality is also made to constitute an objection to its authenticity? Perhaps no objection is more common. Christians are the subjects of sneer and contempt, more probably than for any other reason, because of their scrupulous regard for Bible precepts, forbidding them this and that and the other (as the world says) innocent gratification. Now the enemies of divine revelation may not bring it as one charge against the bible that it teaches so loose a morality that the Christians who shape their lives by it are not so moral as other men; and yet object to the Bible that its morality is immeasurably rigid, forbidding the innocent indulgence of the right affections. One of these theo. ries destroys the other, and men should be more consistent than to hold to them both. Either admit that the Bible teaches a bad morality, and is to be considered as the cause of the sins of God's people; or it teaches a good morality, and God's people do not regulate their lives by it, and thus the quarrel is not with the Bible but with the hypocrites who pretend to believe it.

Another objection to the Bible is drawn from the tumults occasioned by its advocates. The charge brought against the apostles was in the very spirit of this objection: "Those that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also." And our Lord predicted that this would be the effect of his religion. He came not to bring peace but a sword. His gospel would set a man at variance with his son, and the son with his father; the mother with her daughter, and the daughter with her mother; the motherin-law with her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law; and a man's foes should be, from that time, they of his own household. Now there is one question which every honest man should settle before he uses this argument against the religion of the Gospel. Does religion make war with the peace and happiness of the world, or do the men of the world make war with religion? The angels went down to Sodom, and their coming excited a tumult, but were the angels the aggressors, or the people of Sodom? The coming of the apostles to certain places raised a commotion, but was the tumult excited by some attack which the apostles made upon their quietness, or an attack made upon them by their adversaries? Jesus Christ disturbed the quiet of the world more than any other one that ever dwelt on its surface, but was he a turbulent and warlike spirit, or did the world without cause swear its peace against him? Is his religion pas

sionate, or proud, or overbearing, or selfish, or turbulent? Did he teach his disciples to resist evil, or to be meek ?-to contend for their rights, or take joyfully the spoiling of their goods? To aspire after place, and honor, and office, or to hold themselves the subjects of a kingdom which is not of this world? When they would put him on a throne, did he second their measures, or hide himself from their notice? If the fault is not in this case with the Bible, nor yet with the men of the world who we have supposed waged the quarrel, but with the Christians who do not imbibe the spirit of their Master nor of the Gospel, then why are the faults of professors in this case made an argument against the Bible? The Bible is a good book, and the calamity is that Christians will not imbibe its spirit. And Christians lament this far more than do infidels.

The hardness of the doctrines of the Bible constitutes an objection to its authenticity. Entire depravity, which allows not an unregeneraté man the credit of having one single right affection in his heart; and the sovereignty of God, which gives him entire control of his creatures; and the necessity of regeneration, which reflects upon men as all wrong in their principles and conduct till they are born anew; the necessity of the Spirit's influence which renders men dependant for the agency that sanctifies them-all the doctrines of the Bible are offensive, and together constitute a creed at war with all the native principles of the heart. And the enemies of revelation hardly know here what ground to take, whether to own that these doctrines are in the Bible, and discard the Bible; or to accuse the Christians of teaching what is not in the Bible, and discard them, and become themselves the professors of its religion. Hence the division of the great family of unbelievers into infidels avowedly, and Unitarians with all their variety of subdivisions.

It is not an unfrequent objection to the Bible, that its sanctions are unnecessarily severe. The grand point of attack here is, everlasting misery, threatened for the sins of this short life. Men argue, that it is inconsistent with the Divine goodness, to make sensitive beings, and suffer them so to offend him as to become, by this means, eternally miserable. They do not see, and will not believe, that sin deserves so prolonged a punishment. They do not see why, in every case, God cannot freely pardon the sinner, whether he repent or not, and thus save him from so fearful a doom. But who can say how much punishment sin deserves? and who assert that, that if any less punishment was inflicted than is deserved, it might not do infinite mischief in the Divine government? Who can show, conclusively, that agents would have been erected