SERMON I.

The divine Authority and Sufficiency of the Chriftian Religion.

LUKE XVI. 27-31. Then he faid, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldeft fend him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, left they alfo come into this place of torment. Abraham faith unto him, They have Mofes and the prophets; let them bear them. And be faid, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he faid unto him, If they hear not Mofes and the prophets, neither will they be perfuaded, though one rofe from the dead.

WHA

WHAT Micah faid fuperftitiously, when he was robbed of his idols, ye have taken away my gods; and what have I more? (Judg. xviii. 24.) may be truly spoken with regard to the religion of Jefus, If that be taken from us, what have we more? If the foundations be destroyed, what fhall the righteous do? Pfal. xi. 3. The generality of you owe all your hopes of a glorious immortality to this heaven-born religion, and you make it the rule of your faith and practice; confident that in fo doing you please God.

But what if after all you should be mistaken? what if the religion of Jefus fhould be an imposture?-I know you are ftruck with horror at the thought, and perhaps alarmed at my making fo fhocking a fuppofition. But this fufpicion, horrid as it is, has probably been fuggefted to you at times by infernal agency; this fufpicion may at times have rifen in your minds in their wanton and licentious excurfions, or from the falfe alarms of a melancholy and timorous imagina

tion: and if this fufpicion has never been raised in you by the fophiftical converfation of loofe wits and affected rationalists, it has been owing to your happy retirement from the polite world, where infidelity makes extenfive conquefts, under the fpecious name of Deifm. Since therefore you are fubject to an affault from fuch a fufpicion, when you may not be armed ready to repel it, let me this day start it from its ambush, that I may try the force of a few arguments upon it, and furnish you with weapons to conquer it.

Let me alfo tell you, that that faith in the chriftian religion which proceeds from infufficient or bad principles, is but little better than infidelity. If you believe the chriftian religion to be divine, because you hardly care whether it be true or falfe, being utterly unconcerned about religion in any fhape, and therefore never examining the matter;-If you believe it true, because you have been educated in it; because your parents or minifters have told you fo; or because it is the religion of your country; if these are the only grounds of your faith, it is not fuch a faith as constitutes you true chriftians; for upon the very fame grounds you would have been Mahometans in Turkey, difciples of Confucius in China, or worshippers of the devil among the Indians, if it had been your unhappy lot to be born in thofe countries: for a Mahometan, or a Chinese, or an Indian, can affign these grounds for his faith. Surely, I need not tell you, that the grounds of a mistaken belief in an impofture, are not a fufficient foundation for a faving faith in a divine revelation. I am afraid there are many fuch implicit believers among us, who are in the right only by chance and thefe lie a prey to every temptation, and may be turned out of the way of truth by every wind of doctrine. It is therefore neceflary to teach them the grounds of the chriftian religion, both to prevent their feduction, and to give them a rational and well-grounded faith, inftead of that which is only blind and accidental.

Nay,

Nay, fuch of us as have the clearest conviction of this important truth, had need to have it inculcated upon us, that we may be more and more impreffed with it; for the influence of chriftianity upon our hearts and lives will be proportioned to the realizing, affecting perfuafion of its truth and certainty in our understandings.

If I can prove that christianity answers all the ends of a religion from God;-if I can prove that it is attended with fufficient atteftations ;-if I can prove that no fufficient objections can be offered against it ;-and that men have no reafon at all to defire another; but that if this proves ineffectual for their reformation and falvation, there is no ground to hope that any other would prove fuccefsful:-I fay, if I can prove these things, then the point in debate is carried, and we must all embrace the religion of Jefus as certainly true. These things are afferted or implied in my text, with refpect to the fcriptures then extant, Mofes and the prophets.

My text is a parabolical dialogue between Abraham and one of his wretched pofterity, once rioting in the luxuries of high life, but now tormented in infernal flames.

We read of his brethren in his father's houfe. Among these probably his estate was divided upon his decease; from whence we may infer that he had no children; for had he had any, it would have been more natural to reprefent him as folicitous for their reformation by a meffenger from the dead, than for that of his brothers. He seems therefore, like fome of our unhappy modern rakes, just to have come to his eftate, and to have abandoned himfelf to fuch a course of debaucheries as foon fhattered his conftitution, and brought him down to the grave, and alas! to hell, in the bloom of life, when they were far from his thoughts. May this be a warning to all of his age and circumftances! Whether,

Whether, from fome remaining affection to his brethren, or (which is more likely) from a fear that they who had shared with him in fin would increase his torment, should they defcend to him in the infernal prifon, he is folicitous that Lazarus might be fent as an apostle from the dead to warn them. His petition is to this purpose: "Since no request in my own favour can be granted; fince I cannot obtain the poor favour of a drop of water to cool my flaming tongue, let me at least make one request in behalf of thofe that are as yet in the land of hope, and not beyond the reach of mercy. In my father's houfe I have five brethren, gay, thoughtless, young creatures, who are now rioting in those riches I was forced to leave, who interred my mouldering corpfe in ftate, little apprehenfive of the doom of my immortal part; who are now treading the fame enchanting paths of pleasure I walked in ; and will, unless reclaimed, foon defcend, like me, thoughtless and unprepared, into these doleful regions: I therefore pray, that thou wouldeft fend Lazarus to alarm them in their wild career, with an account of my dreadful doom, and inform them of the reality and importance of everlafting happinefs and mifery, that they may reform, and fo avoid this place of torment, whence I can never efcape."

Abraham's answer may be thus paraphrased: "If thy brothers perifh, it will not be for want of means ; they enjoy the facred fcriptures of the Old Teftament, written by Mofes and the prophets; and these are sufficient to inform them of neceffary truths to regulate their practice, and particularly to warn them of everlafting punishment! Let them therefore hear and regard, ftudy and obey, thofe writings; for they need no further means for their falvation.

To this the wretched creature replies, "Nay, father Abraham, these means will not avail; I enjoyed them all, and yet here I am, a loft foul; and I am afraid they will have as little effect upon them as they had upon me. These means are common and fami

liar, and therefore difregarded. But if one arofe from the dead; if an apostle from the invifible world was fent to them, to declare as an eye-witness the great things he has seen, furely they would repent. The novelty and terror of the apparition would alarm them. Their fenfes would be ftruck with fo unusual a meffenger, and they would be convinced of the reality of eternal things; therefore I must renew my requeft; fend Lazarus to them in all the pomp of heavenly fplendor; Lazarus whom they once knew in fo abject a condition, and whom they will therefore the more regard, when they see him appear in all his present glory."

Thus the miferable creature pleads (and it is natural for us to wifh for other means, when those we have enjoyed are ineffectual, though it should be through our own neglect); but, alas! he pleads in vain.

Abraham continues inexorable, and gives a very good reason for his denial: "If they pay no regard to the writings of Mofes and the prophets, the ftanding revelation God has left in his church, it would be to no purpose to give them another: they would not be perfuaded though one rofe from the dead; the fame difpofition that renders them deaf to fuch meffengers as Mofes and the prophets, would alfo render them imperfuafible by a meffenger from the dead. Such a one might strike them with a panic, but it would foon be over, and then they would return to their ufual round of pleasures; they would prefently think the apparition was but the creature of their own imagination, or fome unaccountable illufion of their fenfes. If one arose from the dead, he could but declare the fame things fubftantially with Mofes and the prophets; and he could not fpeak with greater authority, or give better credentials than they; and therefore they who are not benefited by thefe ftanding means, muft be given up as defperate; and God, for very good reasons, will not multiply new revelations to them."

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