multitude of contradictory dogmas, in order to ascertain what is our duty, and how we may most successfully strive to perform it? It requires no small ingenuity to extract any thing like a congruous system from the works of one of the ! favourers of natural religion, how much more to produce harmony between the whole! If the inquirer after truth be poor, or engaged in business, or of uncultivated mind, however sincere, he will find it little less than the labour of a life, to make himself but partially acquainted with the subject. Meanwhile all the objects for which religion is supposed to be designed, are left neglected. It is no rule of life, no consolation in calamity, no motive to integrity and benevolence. Vicious habits are strengthened; guilt is accumulated, the heart becomes increasingly depraved, and the choicest energies are wasted in frivolous pursuits.

Nor would the difficulties of the case be removed, if that were admitted which we deny, and which the state of mankind at large fully disproves, -that men from their own hearts, may sufficiently understand the will of God. By what means can they acquire the ability to use their knowledge? They cannot, by their unassisted powers, become virtuous and happy, or the world would not abound with vice and wretchedness. It is easy to talk of morality and reformation, but let a man set himself to practise it, and he will soon discover his incapacity. Suppose the case of a person

living in habitual sin ;-say that he has indulged in discontent at his own condition, and envy of that of others, till nothing that he possesses affords him any sort of gratification, and he constantly contemplates the situation of those more wealthy or more exalted than himself with malignancy;we allow that it requires no profound investigation to ascertain such a temper to be evil, but how can he rid himself of it? Does natural religion supply any moral energy, so as to enable him to overcome any such habit of mind? Certainly not: to all practical purposes it is useless.

And this will be an answer to those, who object to the mode of reasoning pursued in the former part of this chapter. They may urge that it is no argument against natural religion, that some of the rejectors of the Bible have been immoral men. This we readily grant, but this is beside the mark. What we assert is, that infidelity gives unrestricted operation to the corruptions of the human heart; that this is the direct, intentional, and essential influence of its doctrines; and we cite in proof, the character of its most eminent champions, in whom beyond all others, we naturally expect to see its legitimate results. And even if infidelity did not boldly avow the lawfulness of covetousness, duplicity, and uncleanness, still its inability to prevent these evils, would be a sufficient argument against it. Whatever keeps man in a state of moral impotency-and this infidelity does,-is the cause of sin in him.

Whatever proposes itself as a sufficient system of religion, and induces any one to receive it as such, if it cannot correct his vices, becomes the most certain means of confirming him in them, since it makes sin appear inevitable, and of consequence not culpable. Every man who relies alone on what infidels call natural religion, as an adequate moral provision, must become increasingly vicious, not only from the absence of every practical corrective, but from the delusive notion that whatever it cannot enable him to avoid, is no more a fault than hunger and thirst.

Were the teachings of infidelity therefore, as pure as they are depraved, it would still be a mischievous, because powerless system. A corpse of perfect symmetry and fair placid complexion, "Before decay's defacing fingers,

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,"

is as fully and entirely dead, as one which lies putrefying in the grave; and to prefer either to a form filled with life and health, and adorned with animated beauty, is,-in a practical sense,equally absurd. He who prefers the cold impotent dogmas of natural religion, however pure, to the energetic and vivifying system of Christianity, is practically as irrational, as the avowed advocate of sensuality and uncleanness. Could he therefore succeed in arranging a system of perfect moral symmetry and ethical beauty, it must remain lifeless and profitless, for he cannot call the vital fire from heaven.

There are certain seasons in the life of every man, in which he seems peculiarly to require the aids of religion, and in which, however careless on the subject in general, he seeks with a sort of instinct, consolations which cannot be obtained from ordinary sources. Let us suppose the case of a person who has spent a long life in the practice of vice, and who is, by the severe but just sentence of his country's law, condemned to a violent death. While he stands on the margin of life, his conscience which has long slumbered, awakes with a giant's power. The scenes of his past history rise in terrifically vivid array before his memory. He is filled with remorse; and notions of God's justice, though faint and inadequate,overwhelm his soul with indescribable anguish.

Now, in such a case, what can natural religion effect? It cannot persuade a sinner, who is infamous among men, condemned by human laws, and tortured by remorse for his past crimes, that he has never done any thing materially wrong. It cannot assure him that God will accept his reformation or repentance. For the one he has no opportunity, and if the other cannot arrest the stroke of human justice, much less can it satisfy the law of God. Repentance is indeed a tacit acknowledgement of his guilt, and of the righteousness of his condemnation. No considerations of God's benevolence will avail him. He is convinced, from the mass of human misery around him, that the Governor of the universe must

C

possess attributes widely different from that of pure benevolence; and he feels that his own life has been so completely sinful, that if God ever give a palpable expression of his purity and abhorrence of evil, it must be in his case. Every consideration which natural religion can suggest, heightens his certainty that he is, and must remain, the subject of God's just judgment. If there be a system of moral government extended over the universe, it must involve future retribution; and if the virtuous be rewarded, he is convinced that he must be punished. The only consolation therefore which a rejector of the Bible can offer him, is the assurance that God exercises no such government, and that there is no hereafter, which is practical atheism. Even this dull and wretched opiate to his fears, is often insufficient. He has that within, which refuses to be so lulled. His torment is aggravated by such attempts to remove it; and he dies as he has lived, in depravity, helplessness, and despair.

But were the case invariably otherwise,-were these atheistical doctrines sufficient to quiet the apprehensions of a dying sinner,-let us conceive how they would operate on the mind of a man in circumstances of great temptation. He expects to reap advantage from the commission of some crime; a favourable opportunity is presented, and the probabilities of detection appear very small. He has not, however, quite dismissed the fear of God from his heart, and he hesitates.