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government maintained and supported? Behold, here, how awful justice is, fin how odious, the law refpectable, government how vigorous and impartial. Would not the criminal have had good cause to acquiefce, and to rejoice, had it pleafed God to relax fomewhat of the feverity, or of the duration of his punishment? How much more when he graciously remits it altogether? Do the princes of this world remunerate, and exalt to honor, the wretches whofe crimes they have pardoned? Is this a reason why the great God should not? Shall we dare to arraign his wif dom, because his ways are above our ways, and his thoughts above ours? Shall it be thought a thing incredible that God fhould be flow to anger, and of great kindness, bacause man is stern, inplacable and unrelenting?

MAN in his rude, dark, favage flate, and man polished, intelligent, refined, has been, and is impreffed, with the idea of natural diftance from God, of the poffibility, but the difficulty, of reconcileation; he has entertained the idea of expiatory, propitiatory facrifice; of the fubftitution of victim in the place of victim, of the innocent fuffering for the guilty, of "the juft for the "unjuft to bring us unto God." Where could an idea fo univerfal have originated, but in the conftitution and frame of the human mind? And N°. 12. B. 3

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is it to be rejected, merely because it is found to be the leading idea of the gofpel? Are we to admit it where it appears in all its feebleness and abfurdity, and fpurn at it where alone it has a meaning, an object and an end? How ftrange! A man traduce the friend who has, unfolicited, become his fecurity, and actually paid his debt? What! Admire the friendship of a Pylades and an Oreftes, the one of whom was ready to lay down his life for the other? and no admiration expreffed, no emotion felt, no tear of fympathy and contrition flow, when I hear of one who actually "dared to die," to die for me! What can have made the world fo exceedingly mad against the name of Jefus? As a man, so innoffenfive, fo unaffuming; as a fage, fo meek and condefcending; as a benefactor, fo unoftentatious and humble; as a fufferer, fo patient and unrefentful; as a God fo majestic and yet fo mild! What can have made the world fo exceedingly mad against a religion, which encroaches on no · one right or feeling of humanity, which abridges, condemns, restrains no one particular of rational human comfort; which enjoins no one article of belief but what the heart wifhes" and the con"fcience feels" to be true; which impofes no yoke of duty but what it is the intereft of every man voluntarily to affume, and joyfully to wear,

had the name of Chrift never been mentioned on the earth; What can have made the world fo exceedingly mad against a religion, which aims at purifying, improving, exalting, perfecting human nature, by making man "partaker of a divine nature;" which tells him, what his own heart told him before, that in the great God, who made and fuftains the universe, he has a Father in heaven ever able and ready to help; which inftructs him that he who decks the lily, feeds the raven, supports the fparrow, the crane, the fwallow on the wing, takes an intereft far fuperior in himself; which gives him perpetual access to this greatest, wifeft, best of beings, to rejoice in his liberality, to folicit the continuance of his bounty, to appeal to his compaffion, to implore his forgiveness? What, in a word, can have made the world fo exceedingly mad against a religion, which fhews to miserable, guilty man his debt difcharged, his iniquity pardoned, the fentence of his condemnation "nailed to the "crofs;" which difplays "heaven opened and

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Jefus ftanding at the right hand of God;" which exhibits death vanquished, difarmed; the fiery gulph extinguifhed; the great enemy loaded with everlafting chains; which difclofes to our wondering eyes new heavens, and a new earth "wherein dwelleth righteoufnels;" which brings

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to light life and immortality? And yet this is the teligion, with forrow we repeat it, this is the religion which one part of mankind affects to treat with contempt; which another hates and perfe cutes, and which few understand and prize ac cording to its real value and excellence.

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Ir the representation given be any thing like the truth, then be affured, my young friend, that' the person who attempts to put the religion of. Jefus Chrift, its doctrines, its morality, its pofi tive inftitutions, in an odious or ridiculous light to you, cannot poffibly be your friend, any more than he who would teach you to laugh at the beauty and order of nature, to fet your face against the decrees of eternal Providence, or to curse the wife and neceffary reftraints of civil fociety. He who infinuates to you that Christianity is in any one respect inimical to your happiness, is telling you a folemn untruth: is wickedly endeavouring to pervert your understanding, and to harden your heart. If the principle of confcience be deadened within you, morality will not long fur-" vive it; for what hold has the world got of that man who has caft off all fear of God, or who has made a God for himself, except the restraints which the laws of fociety are obliged, to employ against thieves and murderers? Let it be a maxim of prudence with you, both in matters

of life and of religion, never to relinquish the ground you occupy, till you perceive another attainable, at least as good. good. Afk the man who would feduce you from the belief, love, and practice of "the things wherein you have been in"ftructed," What he propofes fhould fupply their place. He would decoy you from your Father's house, but has he provided for you a better home? What harm can it do you, what danger do you run, in living and dying a Chriftian? But is it equally wife and safe, to live and to die an infidel? If the religion of the gospel be of God, then the Chriftian has every thing to hope and nothing to fear; while the unbeliever has every thing to fear and nothing to hope: or, fhould it prove but a cunningly devifed fable, that is fuppofing the worft poffible, the believer in Chrift Jefus is a better and happier, and a more respectable man in this prefent world; if there be an hereafter he cannot fall far below his unbelieving neighbour, and if there be none, he has gained much and loft nothing.

THE next lecture which, if God permit, will be an attempt to prove that as the religion of Jefus Chrift is entirely conformable to all the ideas of Deity, which we are enabled to form by the exercise of our own reafon, on a ferious contemplation of the great univerfe; and accordingly

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