when, indebted as they are to the knowledge communicated by the great Prophet, for their own exemption from the degradation of saying "to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth," they can yet pretend that no revelation of God was necessary. If the history of the world teaches any thing, it surely teaches this, that "the world by wisdom never knew God." Revelation is necessary even to the existence of pure Theism. Polytheism and idolatry is all that man has ever proved himself capable of attaining by his own unaided reason. Somniaverat Deum, non cognoverat, saith Lactantius of Plato; and what was said of Plato, may well be said, I suppose, of all other heathens.

But impressively as the lesson of man's helpless and degraded state is taught by the whole history of man, when left to himself, or with only a traditionary revelation to guide him, the lesson is rendered still more impressive by the exceptions to this state which have occurred. The Israelites were placed in circumstances which might have been expected to repress every corrupt propensity, and to ensure the most devoted obedience. God chose them for his own peculiar people, he was continually manifesting his power, and his presence among them, and that very often in a manner directly miraculous; he gave them a ritual so splendid as to leave them no room to look with envy upon the most splendid ceremonies of the heathens around them; he hired them to obedience by the worldly prosperity which it never

failed to produce, and deterred them from rebellion by the sufferings with which it never failed to be followed. Under such circumstances one would think disobedience almost impossible. And if men were unfallen creatures, or if the perversion of their understanding, and the corruption of their heart, were capable of being corrected by any circumstances however favourable, it would have been so. But what is their whole history? Surely it is a most decisive proof that the native tendencies of the human heart to evil, and the imbecility of the human understanding, are not to be corrected by any external circumstances, however fitted for that purpose. Over barriers which one would conceive to have been almost unsurmountable, they rushed into the most unnatural, and most revolting of the practices of the heathen around them.

It may be said, however, that the dispensation under which the Israelites were placed, though it did present strong motives to obedience, and enlisted the selfish passions on the side of holiness, by its temporal rewards and punishments, was yet defective. It preceded the Incarnation, and the degree of knowledge as to man's eternal prospects, which it communicated, was extremely defective, and wrapped up in all the obscurity of types and shadows. Its appeals to the higher principles of human nature were indistinct, and therefore feeble; and therefore though men under this dispensation did prove both that their reason was blind, and their hearts corrupt; yet still,

man, placed under other circumstances, and under a dispensation more distinctly and more directly appealing to the higher principles of our nature, might prove that that blindness of reason, and that corruption of heart, may be cured, without the direct and immediate agency of the Spirit of God. The experiment has been made. The great Prophet came, and communicated to men that knowledge of divine things, to which no addition has ever been made. He gave to men instructions so clear that it is impossible to mistake them; he sanctioned these instructions by motives of the most resistless urgency, by the prospect of eternal happiness on the one hand, and of eternal woe on the other; he animated them to obedience by providing for them the most effectual assistance and support; and he gave them the most perfect security that their labour should not be in vain, but that their reward should be sure. He established a dispensation which appeals, in the most direct and forcible manner, to all that is lofty in human thought, and to all that is sensible in human feeling, and to all that is pure in human affection; and what was the result? Did the moral darkness of the world pass away before this glorious light, like the darkness of night before the rising sun? Did men every where and eagerly embrace the "glad tidings of great joy" which were announced to them? Exulting in that "life and immortality" which had been brought to light, did the securing of, and preparation for that life and immortality, become the engrossing object

of all their thoughts, sinking all the petty concerns of time into insignificance? No. The result has proved in the most impressive and decisive manner, not only that man is a fallen being, but fallen to a depth from which he cannot be recovered by any means, however well adapted to that end, without the immediate agency of God: that there is an inveteracy in the perversion of man's reason, and in the corruption of his heart, which no other hand can cure. It is in vain that we are surrounded by all the advantages for moral improvement which God can bestow; it is in vain that weapons of the most heavenly temper are put into our hands; till we be quickened by the Spirit, the arm that should wield them is unnerved in all the torpor of spiritual death. The lesson taught by the whole history of Christianity is, that the possession of a dispensation of a religion of absolute and unimproveable perfection, does not in the slightest degree emancipate us from a total dependance upon God, for the possession of all moral good.

Yet that lesson, though so impressively taught, has been very imperfectly learned. There are many, and many of those too who believe the gospel, who maintain that man is not a totally corrupted and depraved creature,-that death and natural evil are the only consequences derived to us from the fall,— and that since God has given to us the gospel, we require no farther aid, but are abundantly able to apply and to improve it of ourselves. Now if there be men who, with the history of Christianity actually

before their eyes, can maintain such doctrines as these, what would have been the consequence, had the gospel, at its first promulgation, spread with resistless force through all the world, and manifested its enlightening and purifying effect in every heart? We are very apt to regret that this should not actually have been the case, and infidelity has reared some of its puny arguments upon the fact, that Christianity has neither been communicated to all lands, nor has given spiritual life to all, to whom it has been communicated. But this fact, like all other facts when properly understood, is a proof of the wisdom of him who does all things well. Had our Lord's object in the establishment of the new dispensation been to save the greatest possible number of persons, in the shortest possible space of time, then the unresisted and universal triumph of the gospel would have been the most direct means of accomplishing his design. But if his object was to give the most important possible instruction to the greatest possible number, both of angels and men, then the early and universal triumph of the Gospel would have defeated that purpose. For if

men who see the determined resistance which has been offered to the reception of the Gospel in all ages and countries, and who are aware of the perpetual tendency in those who do receive it, to modify it to their own views, can yet maintain such doctrines as those just referred to, what would have been the consequence, had the Gos

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