shaken the heavens, and

the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, Hag. ii. 6, 7. When the desire of all nations came, universal nature felt his approach, and preternatural displays of wisdom, power, and goodness, have ever attended his steps. The most valuable ends were answered by his coming. Conviction followed his preaching; and truths, till then shut up in the counsels of God, were actually put into the possession of finite minds. A general manumission followed his meritorious death, and the earth resounded with the praises of a spiritual deliverer, who had set the sons of bondage free. The laws of his empire were published, and all his subjects were happy in obeying them. In his days the righteous flourished, and on his plan, abundance of peace would have continued as long as the moon endured, Psal. lxxii. 7. Plenty of instruction, liberty to examine it, and peace in obeying it, these were ends worthy of the great means used to obtain them.

Let us for a moment suppose a subversion of the seventy-second psalm, from whence I have borrowed these ideas; let us imagine the kings of Tarshish and of the isles bringing presents, not to express their homage to Christ: but to purchase that dominion over the consciences of mankind, which belongs to Jesus Christ; let us suppose the boundless wisdom of the gospel, and the innumerable ideas of inspired men concerning it, shrivelled up into the narrow compass of one human creed; let us suppose liberty of thought taken away; and the peace of the world interrupted by the introduction and support of bold usurpations, dry ceremonies, cant phrases, and pue

rile inventions; in this supposed case, the history of great means remains, the worthy ends to be answered by them are taken away, and they, who should thus deprive mankind of the end of the sacred code, would charge themselves with the necessary obligation of accounting for this character of imperfection. Ye prophets, and apostles! ye ambassadors of Christ! How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo! certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain! Jer. viii. 8. Precarious wisdom, that must not be questioned! useless books, which must not be examined! vain legislation, that either cannot be obeyed, or ruins him who obeys it!

All the ends, that can be obtained by human modifications of divine revelation, can never compensate for the loss of that dignity, which the perfection of the system, as God gave it, acquires to him; nor can it indemnify man for the loss of that spontaneity, which is the essence of every effort, that merits the name of human, and without which virtue itself is nothing but a name. Must we destroy the man to make the Christian! What is there in a scholastic honour, what in an ecclesiastical emolument, what in an archiepiscopal throne, to indemnify for these losses! Jesus Christ gave his life a ransom for men, not to empower them to enjoy these momentary distinctions; these are far inferior to the noble ends of his coming: the honour of God and the gospel at large; the disinterested exercise of mental abilities, assimilating the free-born soul to its benevolent God; a copartnership with Christ in promoting the universal

felicity of all mankind; these, these are ends of religion worthy of the blood of Jesus, and deserving the sacrifice of whatever is called great among men.

Thirdly, The destruction of the end by the use of the means employed to obtain it, is another character of imperfection. St. Paul calls Christianity unity, Eph. iv. 3, &c. He denominates it the unity of the Spirit, on account of its aut! or, object, and end. God the supreme Spirit, is the author of it, the spirits, or souls of men are the object, and the spirituality of human souls, that is, the perfection of which finite spirits are capable, is the end of it. The gospel proposes the re-union of men divided by sin, first to God, and then to one another, and, in order to effect it, reveals a religion, which teaches one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, one rule of faith, one object of hope, 1 Tim. ii. 5. and, lest we should imagine this revelation to admit of no variety, we are told, Grace is given to every one according to the proportional measure of the gift of Christianity. Each believer is therefore exhorted to speak the truth in love, to walk with all lowliness, meekness and long suffering, and to forbear another in love. Here is a character of perfection, for these means employed to unite mankind are productive of union, the end of the means.

Should men take up the gospel in this simplicity; and, accommodating it to their own imaginary superior wisdom, or to their own secular purposes, should they explain this union so as to suit their designs, and employ means to produce it; and should they denominate their system Christianity, it would cer

tainly be, in spite of its name, a Christianity marked with the imperfection of its authors; for in the Christian religion, in the thing itself, and not in its appellation, shines the glorious character of perfection.

The Christian religion unites mankind. By what common bond does it propose to do so? By love. This is a bond of perfectness, a most perfect bond. This is practicable, and productive of every desirable end, and the more we study human nature, the more fully shall we be convinced, that we cannot imagine any religion to do more, nor need we desire more, for this answers every end of being religious. Had Jesus Christ formed his church on a sentimental plan, he must have employed many means, which he has not employed, and he must have omitted many directions, which he has given. One of his means of uniting mankind is contained in this direction, Search the scriptures, and call no man your master upon earth; that is to say, exercise your very different abilities, assisted by very different degrees of aid, in periods of very different duration, and form your own notions of the doctrines contained in the scriptures. Is not this injunction destructive of a sentimental union? Place ten thousand spectators in several circles around a statue erected on a spacious plain, bid some look at it through magnifying glasses, others through common spectacles, some with keen naked eyes, others with weak diseased eyes, each on a point of each circle different from that where another stands, and all receiving the picture of the object in the eye by different re

flections and refractions of the rays of light, and say, will not a command to look destroy the idea of sentimental union; and, if the establishment of an exact union of sentiment be the end, will not looking, the mean appointed to obtain it, actually destroy it, and would not such a projector of uniformity mark his system with imperfection?

Had Jesus Christ formed his Church on the plan of a ceremonial union, or on that of a professional union, it is easy to see, the same reasoning might be applied, the laws of such a legislator would counteract and destroy one another, and a system so unconnected would discover the imperfection of its author, and provide for the ruin of itself.

These principles being allowed, we proceed to examine the doctrines of Christianity, as they are presented to an inquisitive man, entirely at liberty to choose his religion, by our different churches in their several creeds. The church of Rome lays before me the decisions of the council of Trent; the Lutheran church the confession of Augsburg: One nation gives me one account of Christianity, another a different account of it, a third contradicts the other two, and no two creeds agree. The difference of these systems obliges me to allow, they could not all proceed from any one person, and much less could they all proceed from such a person, as all Christians affirm Jesus Christ to be. I am driven, then, to examine his account of his own religion contained in the allowed standard book, to which they all appeal, and here I find, or think I find, a right of reduction, that removes all those suspi.