Huet, the evidences of a Clarke, the reasonings of a Locke, a Grotius, a Hartley, should be presented in the most striking manner, by public authority; and if they are really efficacious in producing conviction, we may be assured that infidelity will vanish at their appearance, like the mists of an autumnal morning, when the meridian sun breaks forth in full splendour. But the truth is, they are already very much diffused, and yet the Christian religion is said to be rapidly on the decline.

Therefore it cannot be blameable to attempt some other method of calling back the attention of erring mortals to the momentous truths of revelation.

I have conceived an idea that our old English divines were great adepts in genuine Christianity, and that their method of recommending it was judicious, because I know it was successful. There was much more piety in the last century than in the present; and there is every reason to believe that infidelity was rare. Bishop Hall appears to me to have been animated with the true spirit of Christianity; and I beg leave to convey my own ideas on the best method of diffusing that spirit, in his pleasingly-pious and simple language.

66

66

There is not," says the venerable prelate, SO much need of learning as of grace to apprehend those things which concern our everlasting peace; neither is it our brain that must be set to work, but our hearts. However excellent the use of scholarship in all the sacred employments of divinity; yet, in the main act, which imports salvation, skill must give place to affection. Happy is the soul that is possessed of Christ, how poor soever

in all inferior endowments. Ye are wide, O ye great wits, while ye spend yourselves in curious. questions and learned extravagances. Ye shall find one touch of Christ more worth to your souls, than all your deep and laborious disquisitions. In vain shall ye seek for this in your books, if you miss it in your bosoms. If you know all things, and cannot say I know whom I have believed,' you have but knowledge enough to know yourselves completely miserable. The deep mysteries of godliness, which, to the great clerks of the world, are as a book clasped and sealed up, lie open before him, (the pious and devout man,) fair and legible; and while those book-men know whom they have heard of, he knows whom he hath believed.'

Christianity indeed, like the sun, discovers itself by its own lustre. It shines with unborrowed light on the devout heart. It wants little external proof, but carries its own evidence to him that is regenerate and born of the Spirit. "The truth of Christianity," says a pious author, "is the Spirit of God living and working in it; and when this Spirit is not the life of it, there the outward form is but like the carcass of a departed soul."

Divinity has certainly been confused and perplexed by the learned. It requires to be disentangled and simplified. It appears to me to consist in this single point, the restoration of the divine life, the image of God, (lost and defaced at the fall,) by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

When this is restored, every other advantage of Christianity follows in course. Pure morals are absolutely necessary to the reception of the Holy Ghost, and an unavoidable consequence of his continuance. The attainment of grace is then the

unum necessarium. It includes in it all gospel comfort, it teaches all virtue, and infallibly leads to light, life, and immortality.

SECTION II.

On the sort of Evidence chiefly recommended and attempted to be displayed in this Treatise.

Quid est fideliter Christo credere? Est fideliter Dei mandata servare.'-SALVIAN. de. Gub. lib. iii.

I THINK it right to apprize my reader, on the very threshold, that if he expects a recapitulation of the external and historical evidence of Christianity, he will be disappointed. For all such evidence I must refer him to the great and illustrious names of voluminous theologists, who have filled with honour the professional chairs of universities, and splendidly adorned the annals of literature. I revere their virtuous characters; I highly appreciate their learned labours; I think the student who is abstracted from active life, and possesses leisure, may derive from them much amusement, while he increases his stores of critical erudition, and becomes enabled to discourse or dispute on theology. But men, able to command their time, and com

"In what consists a faithful belief in Christ? It consists in a faithful obedience to his commandments."

petently furnished with ability for deep and extensive investigation, are but a small number in the mass of mankind. That systematic or speculative treatise which may delight and instruct such men, in the cool shade of philosophical retirement, will have little effect on the minds of others who constitute the multitude of mortals eagerly engaged in providing for the wants of the passing day, or warmly contending for the glittering prizes of secular ambition. Indeed, I never heard that the laborious proofs of Christianity, in the historical and argumentative mode, ever converted any of those celebrated authors on the side of infidelity, who have, from time to time, spread an alarm through Christendom, and drawn forth the defensive pens of every church and university in EuThe infidel wits wrote on in the same cause; rope. deriving fresh matter for cavil from the arguments of the defenders; and re-assailing the citadel with the very balls hurled from its battlements in superfluous profusion.

What then, it may be justly asked, have I to offer? What is the sort of evidence which I attempt to display? It is an internal evidence of the truth of the gospel, consequent on obedience to its precepts. It is a sort of evidence, the mode of obtaining which is pointed out by Jesus Christ himself, in the following declaration: If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.''

But how shall he know? By the illumination of the Holy Spirit of God, which is promised by Christ to those who do his will.

' John, vii. 17.

Therefore, if any man seriously and earnestly desires to become a Christian, let him begin, whatever doubts he may entertain of the truth of Christianity, by practising those moral virtues, and cultivating those amiable dispositions, which the written gospel plainly requires, and the grace of God will gradually remove the veil from his eyes and from his heart, so as to enable him to see and to love the things which belong to his peace, and which are revealed in the gospel only. Let him make the experiment and persevere. The result will be full of conviction that Christianity is true. The sanctifying Spirit will precede, and the illuminating Spirit follow in consequence.

I take it for granted, that God has given all men the means of knowing that which it imports all men to know; but if, in order to gain the knowledge requisite to become a Christian, it is necessary to read such authors as Grotius, Limborch, Clarke, Lardner, or Warburton, how few, in the great mass of mankind, can possibly acquire that knowledge and consequent faith which are necessary to their salvation!

But every human being is capable of the evidence which arises from the divine illumination. It is offered to all. And they who reject it, and seek only the evidence which human means afford, shut out the sun, and content themselves either with total darkness or the feeble light of a taper.

"There is," (says the excellent bishop Sanderson,)" to the outward tender of grace in the ministry of the gospel, annexed an inward offer of the same to the heart, by the Spirit of God going along with his word, which some of the schoolmen call auxilium gratiæ generale, sufficient of itself to