And reflects an honour on that church, at whose breast he Every consideration that heightens his virtue, enhances The reason why this appears clearer from the Old Testa- The inflaming circumstances of its guilt Which was punished, in some measure, by its own neces- sary consequences Nor ever can be, while the doctrines that paved the way A deprecation of God's judgments That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. Though the purity of the christian morality is a proof of I. An inquiry into the grounds of this objection: where it - 163 That bad as men are under the christian dispensation, Page - 164 - 165 The author of The Whole Duty of Man a remarkable in- ib. - 166 II. Allowing the complaint to be just, there would be no reason to urge it to the disadvantage of Christianity 1. The holiest and purest doctrine is but doctrine still, and can only instruct and admonish, not compel It is no more an argument against revealed than against 2. Christianity, in its infancy, had all the influence upon the lives of its professors that could be expect- ed; and if it has not the same now, this must not be imputed to its doctrine, but to other reasons As, 1st, because it is not embraced so much upon prin- 2dly, because different schemes of religion have been - ib. 3dly, Christians that reject the means of becoming good men, must be naturally worse for them, as well 4thly, it is hard to make Christianity answerable for the ill lives of those, who do not in good earnest receive it; and harder still, that those very men, III. The inferences from this discourse are, 1. The degeneracy of Christians is no argument against the truth of Christianity, but rather a confirmation of And because the design of Christianity, which was to reform the world, being so remarkably defeated, it must have come to nought long ago, if it had not - ib. 1. The Gospel presses the necessity of repentance in 2. Those that think their repentance ill grounded, be- 1. Because fear is a passion implanted by God in our ib. - ib. · 2. Because God cannot be considered as a law-giver, - - 3. The state of a profligate sinner is such, that nothing If this principle has done the work of a better, it has - At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, and said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist, he is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in The state of the wicked a very restless one The wildness and inconsistency of Herod's imagination 189 The tales of ghosts and spectres accounted for upon II. To account for the difficulties that attend the proof of this, it is to be observed, 1. That our judgments often mislead us, when they are formed only upon the outside and surface of men's 3. The few instances of wicked men that go out of |