fues his Apostles. Has the changed her weapons? Hear St. Stephen charged with speaking blafphemous words against Mofes and against God. Hear Paul and Silas accufed at Thyatira, as exceedingly troubling the city, and teaching unlawful customs. When they had escaped to Theffalonica, hear them again accused as men who had turned the world upfide down. Behold St. Paul dragged before the judgement feat of the Governor of Corinth, on pretence that he perfuades men to worship God in a manner contrary to the law. Behold him afterwards profecuted before Felix as a peftilent fellow, and a mover of fedition throughout all the world. Examine his epiftles. Do not you read many incidental proofs, that the preachers and followers of Chrift had inceffantly to contend with malicious falfehood? Obferve him in one paffage defending himself and his brethren against the flanderous imputation of holding the abominable maxim, that it is lawful to do evil that good may come. Mark him in others defcribing them as defamed, as labouring under difhonour and evil report, as accounted deceivers, as made a gazing-stock by reproaches, as reproached for the fake of Chrift. Our Saviour had fore E 2 forewarned his difciples, that men should' falfely speak all manner of evil concerning them for his fake. Contemplate the punctual accomplishment of the prophecy. The anxiety with which St. Paul and St. Peter admonish and enjoin their hearers to provide things honeft in the fight of all men; to walk honeftly in wifdom toward them that are without, towards the unbelieving Jews as well as Gentiles; to put to filence by well-doing, the ignorance of foolish men; to fhew themselves patterns of good works, that he that is of the contrary part may be afhamed, having no evil thing to fay of them; to maintain a good confcience, that whereas their enemies. speak evil of them as of evil doers, all may be ashamed who falfely accuse their good converfation in Chrift-Do not these earneft, these reiterated admonitions and injunctions exempt the Apostles from all fufpicion of wilfully provoking the tongue of calumny? Do not they evince decided folicitude, by patience and meeknefs, and the light of an irreproachable life, to guard Chriftianity from obloquy, and by the manifeftation of the fruits of the Spirit to lead men to glorify their Father who is in heaven through faith in the Lord Jetus ? Perute Perufe the records of the early ages of the Church. You difcover that there is fcarcely any crime, however enormous, however improbable, with which the Chriftians are not charged by their enemies. Pursue the enquiry lower. You difcern, whenever any Christians have distinguished themselves by oppofition to prevailing corruptions, and by earneftness in genuine religion, an undeniable propenfity in others to blacken their characters by mifreprefentation and reproach. Now what has been the main fource of that hatred to Chrift and his followers, which has never ceased to vent itfelf, among other methods, in flander? Hatred to the doctrine of Chrift: hatred to that felf-abasement which it inculcates: hatred to that holiness which it exacts. They who have refolved to love darkness rather than light hate him who molefts them in their darkness, because they abominate the light by which their deeds would be reproved. They who fupinely flumber on the couch of fecurity endure not the man who disturbs their repofe, and torments them with warnings of the neceffity of that exertion which they abhor. They who have sheathed themselves in felf-righteoufnefs deteft the man who ftrips them of the E 3 armour armour wherein they truft, and fhames them with the humiliating conviction of their nakedness. Hence alfo it is that the determined votaries of iniquity calumniate not only the fervants of religion, but religion itself. Sometimes, like the Jews, who through averfion to the doctrine of John the Baptift denominated him a morofe fanatic, they describe the restraints which Christianity impofes on the evil inclinations of men as a yoke of intolerable bondage. They declaim against the Gospel as a system of hardship and rigour; as making no allowance for human infirmities; as prohibiting the indulgence of innocent defires, and the enjoyment of the eafe and confolations of focial life. If they are not thus open in their cenfures, they betray their fecret thoughts by invectives against every one who delineates the corruption of human nature, the guilt and confequences of fin, and the import and extent of human duty, faithfully and zealoufly according to the Scriptures and by their own reprefentations of religion as neither unfolding those views of the depravity and helplessnefs of man, nor urging thofe demands of constant watchfulness and ftedfaft purity, which the perfons whom they deride as righteous overmuch overmuch discover in every page of the Word of God. At other times, as the enemies of Chrift reviled him as addicted to finful indulgences, they mifreprefent fome of the leading doctrines of the Gospel as virtually affording encouragement to immorality: and with fingular eagernefs fet themfelves in array against the fundamental principle of redemption, that man is to be juftified in no refpect or degree by works of his own, but entirely by faith in Chrift, as though it rendered good works unneceffary, and fubverted and fwept away the ground-work of holinefs. It is thus that, by multifarious and contradictory flanders, wicked men labour to render true religion abfurd, contemptible, and odious, in order to provide an apology for their own difobedience and unbelief. If you discover in your own bofom thofe difpofitions, which you perceive to have always prevailed in the breafts of the wicked; are you not conftrained to infer that your mind exhibits a fubftantial resemblance to theirs? If you difcern a lurking inclination to be diffatisfied with the doctrines and precepts of the Bible; if detect a you a fecret pleasure in raising or hearing objections against parts of the Scriptures; if you perceive |