PART I. THE ESSENCE OF THEOLOGY. THE ADVANTAGES OF REVELATION. REVELATION dissipates all our obscurities, and teacheth us clearly, and without a may-be, that God willeth our immortality. It carries our thoughts forward to a future state, as to a fixed period, whither the greatest part of the promises of God tend. It commandeth us, indeed, to consider all the blessings of this life: the aliments that nourish us, the rays which enlighten us, the air which we breathe, sceptres, crowns, and kingdoms, as effects of the liberality of God, and as grounds of our gratitude. But, at the same time, it requireth us to surmount the most magnificent earthly objects. It commandeth us to consider light, air, and aliments, crowns, sceptres, and kingdoms, as unfit to constitute the felicity of a soul created in the image of the blessed God, and with whom the blessed God hath formed a close and intimate union. It assureth us, that an age of life cannot fill the wish of duration, which it is the noble prerogative of an immortal soul to form. It doth not ground the doctrine of immortality on metaphysical speculations, B nor on complex arguments uninvestigable by the greatest part of mankind, and which always leave some doubts in the minds of the ablest philosophers. The Gospel grounds the doctrine on the only principle that can support the weight, with which it is encumbered. The principle, which I mean, is the will of the Creator, who having created our souls at first by an act of his will, can either eternally preserve them, or absolutely annihilate them, whether they be material, or spiritual, mortal, or immortal, by nature. Thus the disciple of revealed religion doth not float between doubt and assurance, hope and fear, as the disciple of nature doth. He is not obliged to leave the most interesting question, that poor mortals can agitate, undecided; whether their souls perish with their bodies, or survive their ruins. He does not say, as Cyrus said to his children; "I know not how to persuade myself, that the soul lives in this mortal body, and ceaseth to be when the body expires. I am more inclined to think, that it acquires after death more penetration and purity." He doth not say, as Socrates said to his judges; "And now we are going, I to suffer death, and ye to enjoy life. God only knows which is best." He doth not say as Cicero said, speaking on this important article; "I do not pretend to say, that what I affirm is as infallible as the Pythian oracle, I speak only by conjecture." The disciple of revelation, authorized by the testimony of Jesus Christ, who hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel; boldly affirms, Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. We, that are in this tabernacle, do groan being burthened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Saurin. THE MYSTERIES OF REVELATION. WITH respect to a revelation professedly divine, the only proper question is, Have we sufficient evidence of its heavenly origin? If so, the mysteriousness of its doctrines is no argument whatever against their truth. The divine inspiration of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is established, as we have already seen, on the firmest basis; and there is nothing more incomprehensible in their doctrines, than there is in a multitude of acknowledged facts. That the one undivided Deity, or Godhead, should exist in three distinct persons, or subsistences, that the divine and human natures should be united in the person of Christ, are incomprehensible mysteries; but the propositions expressing these doctrines are intelligible; and the facts are scarcely more mysterious, than the union of body, soul, and spirit, constituting one human being. The Scriptures teach us, that the guilt of our first father has brought suffering and vice upon his posterity. This is mysterious; but we see the same kind of mystery exemplified in thousands of families around us.-The Bible teaches us to found our hope on a Mediator; it tells us of the innocent Saviour suffering for the guilty; of life bestowed through the death of a substituted victim. These are mysterious; but they are nothing more than what general history and observation have made perfectly familiar. If mystery is an objection, it may be urged with as much force against numerous facts exhibited in the opera |