of the way in which this divinely renovated nature is elevated to the society of all God-like beings, and brought into the immediate presence and communion of the Father of spirits. In this brief enumeration are included all the leading truths of religion. It is not necessary, in order to establish truth, to refute the errors that are opposed to it; but when it is shown from what source every error derives its origin, our belief is doubly fortified by the contemplation of truth, and by the discovery of error. It is therefore proposed, in a separate and subsequent work, to notice and classify, in the briefest manner, all the errors regarding religion. This, with the truths of religion, will complete the outline of the whole subject. Errors, though they appear infinite at first view, may be reduced to a few classes, and to a very few principles. Errors regarding religion, while they have their original cause in the dimness of the Divine image in the fallen mind, and the consequent obscurity of heavenly truth, may be traced, in their proximate causes, either to preconceived opinions, or to partial views. Thus the old errors of the ancient world, after the coming of our Saviour re-appeared in a Christian disguise, giving rise to as many heresies in religion as there had formerly been sects in philosophy; and the good seed of the word had almost been stifled by the indigenous weeds, which revived along with it in the mind, as they rushed up with all the strength and advantage which they derived from being the natural and previous occupants of the soil. More lately, in religion, as in philosophy, imperfect induction has been the stumbling-block, instead of preconceived theories; and a part of Divine truth, separated from its proper place, and exaggerated beyond its just dimensions, has been opposed to the whole. Thus we complete the "intellectual globe," to use an expression of Bacon, when we add the darkened to the enlightened hemisphere of thought. Thep our belief has its highest and perfect repose when we ascend to that point of view which discloses at once the foundations of truth, and the outlets of error, as the wanderings of the planets are explained away, and disappear with all their epicycles, and nothing remains but the immutable order of the heavens, when contemplated from their centre and point of rest. THE TRUTHS OF RELIGION. PART I. THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. 1. Tendency to Religious Belief. 2. Design everywhere. 3. A Future State. 4. The Facts of Religion Future. 5. Christianity the only Religion. 6. Christianity has its proofs on all sides. 7. External Evidence. 8. Evidence of Prophecy. 9. Internal Evidence. 10. Miscellaneous Evidence. 11. Cumulative Proof. 12. Continually Augmenting Proof. I. God has made all things in harmony and congruity. Truth for the mind, the mind for truth. It is not enough for the permanent and practical belief in a Deity, that there should be proofs of his existence,-these proofs must be fitted to the human faculties, and that belief must be adapted to the structure of the mind. Voltaire has observed, with reference to political utility, "Si Dieu n'existoit pas, il faudroit l'inventer;" ;"* and Kant has (so far) justly maintained, that the notion of God is requisite to give unity and system to our principles. And so connatural to us is the belief of a Deity, and so interwoven with all our reasonings, that it forms the ultimate basis both of morality and knowledge. (A.) * "If there was no God, it would be necessary to invent one." Whatever reasoning we pursue, or whatever facts we observe, we must arrive at length at first principles, on which all reasoning must be founded. And these first principles are as much a revelation from God as Christianity itself, and as far removed from the possibility of our acquiring them by the exercise of our faculties as it would have been beyond our power to have lifted up the veil from futurity and invisibility, and to have beheld, by our own unaided reason, the scene of the future judgment, the throne set, and the books of destiny opened. All reasoning must be grounded on previous truths, which are known without reasoning, and in these fundamental truths, we have the counterpart to the truths of Christianity, the former as necessary to the life that now is, as the latter to the immortal life which is to come. If first truths are in a certain sense the voice of God within us, conscience still more loudly proclaims his jurisdiction even over our thoughts, and his intimate presence with our souls as their inspector now, and future judge. Every law implies a lawgiver, and conscience refers us to the supreme legislator, and brings us under the control of the moral order of the universe. But all our knowledge being referable to our first principles, and all our actions and thoughts being subject to conscience, every movement of the mind may lead us to our Author, in whom we not only live, and move, and have our being, but on whom all our thoughts depend as their foundation, and as their end. Such is the original constitution of the mind, though its structure be now impaired, and its mechanism no longer retains its perfect action, but shows through all its movements the evident marks of irregularity and ruin. Still so great is the tendency to religious belief, that it presents the most distinctive as well as universal characteristic of man, nor is there any situation or state of out |