As they are, also, instances alike of pure goodness and of unmerited care. There is no injustice or partiality in their limited introduction, though the whole race of men that has existed on the earth, may not at any time have been admitted to share in the same degrees of supernatural assistance. In every case men will be accepted according to what they have, and not according to what they have not. God is not obliged by any principle to give to all men the means of the same degree of perfection, either in this world or the next; and those whose capacity for revelation falls below that of those who have the advantages of a birth and education in Christendom, will find a reward suited to the enlargement of their minds, or a punishment proportioned to the degree of the advantages which they have abused. To whomsoever much is given, of him only will much be required. We may observe one common intention running through each of these dispensations, and that is, to promote the virtue and happiness of our race; and though we are not placed in precisely the same circumstances with our first parents, to whom the original revelation was made, yet our situation agrees with theirs in this; we are upon probation as they were, in order to form tempers of holiness, and in order to become worthy of eternal life. It cannot fail to be remarked, that, as every preceding dispensation seems to have prepared the way for that which succeeded it, so they were all severally adapted to the capacities, the progress, and the existing moral and religious state of mankind. Every preceding dispensation seems also to have contained some intimations of that under which we live; and from some expressions in the scriptures we have strong reasons to conclude that this is ultimate, and that all that God intends to do for mankind in the way of supernatural interposition, he has done by Jesus Christ. These dispensations, or the history of God's moral government, furnish subjects of sublime and grateful contemplation to angels and to men. They represent God in the fairest and most interesting of lights, when we consider that all these have been known to him from the beginning of the world, and that his parental care discovers itself in every communication, which God has made since man was created. There are many circumstances in this history which once appeared unintelligible, but which now we more clearly understand. Such, in particular, was the rejection and consequent fortune of the Jewish nation, once the people of God, which made the apostle exclaim, 'Oh! the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' Now we perceive how indispensable it was to make the divine origin of the gospel more apparent, and what strength it continues to add to its proofs. If there are difficulties which yet serve to exercise our humanity and our study, we must not be surprised. The great apostasies in Christendom, the growth of infidelity, and the present state of the world, are all preparatory to some more glorious era in the church. The morning of the Reformation was preceded by greater darkness, moral and intellectual, than we have since known, and it is to be hoped that we have not reached the meridian of this day, and that we shall not be obliged to pass through another night of religious darkness before the purposes of God shall be finished. But however this may be, we have nothing to do but to preserve minds sincerely desirous of inquiring after the truth, meekly submissive to what God has revealed, and patiently to persevere in well-doing through all the changes of the present dispensation. To us Christians this is the language of God's grace; Walk thou thy way to the end, for after all thy trials and disquietudes, if thou preservest thy integrity and thy faith, thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.' SERMON X. SOURCES OF INFIDELITY. HEBREWS, III. 12. TAKE HEED, BRETHREN, LEST THERE BE IN YOU AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF. BETWEEN the two propositions that the gospel is true, and that it is false; between the belief that it is the revelation of God, and the opinion that it is the work of men, the chasm is so vast that it is impossible there should not be some great difference in the minds or in the hearts of those men, who, with similar advantages and means, can form different conclusions upon the subject. The question with respect to religion amounts in fact to this; Is there, or is there not, any satisfactory assurance that this life is not the termination of man's existence? Are all the hopes, the fears, and the anticipations of mankind, that there is an eternity to come, merely uncertain and delusive suggestions? The inquiry whether the gospel be true, involves in it the question, whether God, who has given us our mental powers, our moral sense, and our anticipations of another life, has ever interposed for the salvation of this part of his creation, or whether man has always been left, upon a subject of such importance, to the weakness of his own unassisted reason, and the corruption of his actual condition. It involves the question, whether the Jewish history, at present the most authentic in the world, is a mere fable, and especially whether that wonderful event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which so many great and good men have sacrificed their lives to authenticate, is a gross delusion and imposition. In short, by the admission or rejection of Christianity, the aspect of the world is changed. If this source of hopes, fears, comforts, restraints, reasonings, and meditations, is blotted out of the human mind, its whole character must be transformed. Undoubtedly in a fair and uncorrupted mind the bias would be altogether in favor of religion; for it makes of man a creature so much superior to what he would be without it, it raises him so much nearer heaven, and opens to him such sublime and exhilarating views with respect to God, to himself, and to society, that we should think the world would press to receive it, and that without it man would consider himself but half enlightened. Alas! it is not so. Thousands are busy in chasing from their minds every suggestion in its favor, and stopping their ears, lest the news of the gospel of peace should gain access to their hearts. |