brought into one point of view, feems to be among the strongest evidences of the truth of christianity; and of its leading doctrine of the atonement: and he who does not acknowledge it as fuch, muft, I fhould think, be under fome violent prejudices, which prevent his examining it with candour, and attention. On the face of the thing it certainly appears, that all mankind have thus unwittingly been preparing the world for the great christian atonement. What other account can the deift give of this wonderful concurrence in a custom fo apparently unnatural? Nay, when he finds, that in many nations even human facrifices were in ufe. If he can give no account of it, let him take the account given in various parts of fcripture, that the grand archetype was Christ, who was made a facrifice for fin-let him take the account given by the apoftle to the Hebrews, that Chrift being come an high-priest, hath obtained eternal redemption for us, not by the blood of goats, and calves; but by his own blood. For if the blood of bulls, and of goats fatisfieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more fhall the blood of Chrift, who offered himself without spot to God, purge your confciences from dead works to ferve the living God *. * See HEBREWs, ix. from feveral verses of which chapter thefe words are taken. DD 2 XXVII. Father Abraham, have mercy on me Luke, xvi. 24. IT may be matter of furprize, fays the papist, that proteftants are fo warm against the invocation of faints, when we have here an instance from our Saviour's own mouth, of a prayer to a beatified spirit. The proteftant, in his turn, afks, whether the poetical machinery of a parable, and that too conftructed on a Jewish plan*, is a fufficient foundation for a doctrine of fuch importance? Befides, what does father Abraham do? He has no power to relieve his petitioner. Where then is the argument? A wicked man makes a petition to a faint, which the faint expressly tells him he cannot grant.You or I may make a petition to a faint. It is difregarded; but is ftill an argument equally ftrong. *See Dr. LIGHTFOOT's account of this parable, which he fays, is taken from the Gemara. Who, against hope, believed in hope. WE have here, in appearance, a kind of contradiction. The mind of Abraham, the father of the faithful, is represented, at the same time, as hoping, and yet abandoning that hope. But this is a very natural picture of the human mind. Where hope has a great object in view, there will always be fear. If not fear, there will always however be that fort of timorous fluctuation, which distinguishes hope from affurance. It is thus in worldly affairs. When a great good is expected, but not yet poffeffed, there will always be an apprehenfion of lofing it. It is thus too with every good man, who views the christian difpenfation as he ought.When he contemplates the fcheme of man's redemption in all its vaftnefs-the wonderful means employed, and the immenfity of the views it opens-he recoils at his own infignificance; and thinks it against hope to believe, that fuch a creature as he feels himself, can ever be the object of fuch divine beneficence. On the other hand, when he confiders the love of God to man in his creation, which could have no end, but man's happiness-when he confiders, that the very act of his creation is an affurance of God's future protection—when he reflects on the numerous promises of the gospel, of the truth of which he is clearly convinced by abundant evidence-his diffidence vanishes, and he cannot help, in the language of the text, against hope, believing in hope. XXIX. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyfelf-Matthew, xxii. 37. 39. THE ftrength of thefe expreffions hath led fome religious people to make themselves very unhappy at the thoughts of their own deficien cies. They cannot, they conceive, arrive at that height of divine love, which is here prescribed. It hath led others into a contrary extreme. We fometimes meet with very exceptionable language on this fubject-lufcious expreflions of love applied to Christ-and prayers to God, which might be transposed into addresses to a mistress *. In "It is many years fince I read WATTS on the love of "God. His treatifes, hymns, &c. on that fubject, do not "fuit me. He is too much of an enamorato. I do not love "fulfome, luscious divinity. And the Doctor himself al"lowed (in his preface to Mrs. Rowe's Devout Exercifes) "that many of his compofures, in the younger, part of his "life, were of that kind, which his maturer judgment dif "approved. The paffions fhould be confecrated to God, " and it is desirable our devotion, and love to him, fhould "be |