ing that he is. But his character, and the worship which he requires his rational offspring to pay unto him, are exhibited in the gospel alone, in their true and proper light. He is there represented as One infinite Being, most pure and spiritual, most sovereign and omnipotent, most holy and just, most wise and merciful, as the creator and governour of all things, as of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, as of stricter justice than to pardon the guilty, but at the same time as willing to receive the penitent into favour.

The worship which the gospel inculcates as due to God, corresponds with the sublime idea which it gives us of his perfections. Whereas the superstition of the heathens changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and ereeping things. Jesus taught, that, God was a Spirit, and, that they who worship him ought to worship him in spirit and in truth: that he took no delight in burnt offerings and incense, but in the offering of a pure heart, and the simple incense of prayer and praise.

These truths, it must be confessed, were not altogether new. Though they were taught,

most clearly, by Jesus, the world was not wholly ignorant of them before his appearance. God had, at sundry times, and in various ways, revealed himself unto men by his prophets. Under the preparatory dispensation, his unity, his omnipresence, his power, and his justice were fully known. But, even, under that dispensation, his milder attributes were hid or obscured by that severe and strict justice with which he was always attended. There he appeared in terrour and awful majesty: in the gospel we see him clothed in robes of mercy and compassion. In the Old Testament, he is styled "the Lord of hosts," "the great and terrible God:" in the New, he is called the "God of peace and love, of patience and consolation." When the Law was given from Sinai, the mountain burned with fire, and there was blackness and darkness and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard, entreated that the word should not be spoken unto them any more. When God commanded all men to hear Jesus, he displayed himself in the mildest and most engaging light, and gave an emblematical representation of the nature of the religion which was now to be introduced,

by opening the heavens, and causing the Spirit to descend in the manner of a dove upon his beloved Son. This difference between the characters of the Old and New Testaments is so striking that the most ancient hereticks* believed that they did not proceed from the same author, and supposed the existence of two principles; the one, fierce and cruel, who was the God of the Old Testament, the other, good, merciful, and benign, from whom proceeded the new dispensation.

Besides, the worship of the Jews (which God commanded, not as absolutely proper in itself, but because of their hardness of heart, stupidity, and ignorance, and because it was best adapted to the weak and infant state of their knowledge of God) was, in the highest degree, corporeal and sensual. It consisted principally of ceremonies, oblations, and washings, which could be of no account with the Father of Spirits. Nor was this all; in Jerusalem alone could this worship be paid. The temple, the altar, the visible representation of divine glory which overhung the mercy seat, and many other parts of the Jewish economy all tended to lead their minds to consider God

* The Gnosticks.

as a local deity, confined to the descendants of Jacob, and the land of Judea. The messengers of the Most High, it is true, were at pains to correct these ideas, and to recall their thoughts from the objects of sense, about which they were so much conversant, to the spiritual things which were typified by them. But Jesus alone completely dispelled those mistaken notions about the nature and worship of God, to which even his favourite people were held in bondage, by abolishing that economy and worship of which they were the necessary consequence; by introducing a dispensation purely spiritual, by teaching men that the worship of God was not connected with time or place, that he was not confined to temples made with hands, but that the universe was his temple, and that at every time, and in every place, the sincere worshipper might turn, and reverence, and adore.

II. The next class of truths which Jesus published to the world, (we may say, without exception, for the first time) are those which regard the condition of man, and his reconciliation to God. To the most superficial inquirer, who looked abroad into the world, it must have been evident, that some great disas

ter had befallen the human race, that man was fallen from a high estate, and that all his attainments, now, were only the recovery of what had been lost in the universal wreck. This all men, before the time of Jesus, felt and believed. But they went no farther, for they had no principles whereon to proceed. Imagination supplied them with the rest, and the allegorical fictions of a golden and an iron age appeared to them a sufficient account of the former state, and the present degeneracy of mankind. They were ignorant of the extent of the evil; the manner of its introduction; the possibility and method of recovery from it: they knew not whether it was in our power to deliver ourselves, or whether there was a necessity for the interposition and assistance of another and superiour agency. though they offered sacrifices, and practised innumerable rites and ceremonies in their worship, with a design to appease and render propitious the Deity, yet all this originated from tradition, and indicated noknowledge of their true nature, use and intention. Indeed, it was absolutely impossible that they could ever discover the means by which they could procure the favour and acceptance of God, or regain

For