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rate consolation; every situation has suggested its suitable religious employments; every period in life, and every relation in society, brings with it vocations and difficulties peculiar to itself, all of which are provided for in the richness and exuberance of Scripture. Nay, even in the last great and solemn change, when the friends of a dying Christian show, by their aching hearts and streaming eyes, that earthly hopes are at an end; when a human creature most needs the consolations and supports of religion, then does the Christian religion often most manifest its power-enabling the weeping relatives to endure the acuteness without the bitterness of grief, and sorrow not as those who are "without hope,”—and, at the same time, plucking away the sting of death, and giving the departing saint to feel that when "flesh and heart fail, God is the "strength of his heart, and his portion for ever.” (x) Such are the benefits, the blessings, and the aids of the Christian religion. It fills the minds of its genuine disciples with true light, it reforms their hearts, it rightly disposes them towards God and their fellowcreatures it teaches them how to bear prosperity without highmindedness, adversity without murmuring; how humility may exist without meanness, and dignity without pride it makes them more reasonable in all their actions; and inspires them with fortitude, contentment, devotion, and contempt of the world: it communicates correct notions of its own supreme value, of the sanctity of morality, the vanity of earthly passions, the misery and corruption of our nature, the (r) Ps. lxxiii. 26.

littleness of every thing but God: it delivers its disciples from the greatest, that is, from moral evils ; teaches them the proper use of temporal mercies: and provides for them an inexhaustible and eternal store of intellectual and moral good. If the religion which accomplishes all this be false, where can we seek for truth? If the inestimable advantages it promises are to be despised and rejected, what is there upon or under the earth (and on this hypothesis there is nothing above it) that is worth retaining?

Be it recollected, however, and with this remark I shall conclude the present letter, that the enjoyments of the Christian religion are confined exclusively to sincere Christians. "To these enjoyments, therefore, you will necessarily continue a stranger unless you resign yourself wholly to its power: for the consola❝tions of religion are reserved to reward, to sweeten, "and to stimulate obedience. Many, without re

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nouncing the profession of Christianity, without for"mally rejecting its distinguishing doctrines, live in "such an habitual violation of its laws, and contradic❝tion to its spirit, that, conscious they have more to "fear than to hope from its truth, they are never able "to contemplate it without terror. It haunts their

imagination instead of tranquillizing their hearts, and "hangs with depressing weight on all their enjoyments "and pursuits. Their religion, instead of comforting "them under their troubles, is itself their greatest "trouble, from which they seek refuge in the dissipa"tion and vanity of the world, until the throbs and "tumults of conscience force them back upon religion,

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"Thus suspended between opposite powers, the sport "of contradictory influences, they are disqualified for "the happiness of both worlds, and neither enjoy the pleasures of sin, nor the peace of piety. Is it sur"prising to find a mind thus bewildered in uncertainty, "and dissatisfied with itself, court deception, and em"brace with eagerness every pretext to mutilate the "claims, and enervate the authority of Christianity;

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forgetting that it is of the very essence of the reli"gious principle to preside and control, and that it is "impossible to serve God and mammon? It is this "class of persons who are chiefly in danger of being “entangled in the snares of infidelity. Yet the ❝champions of infidelity have much more reason to be “ashamed than to boast of such converts." (y)

I am, &c.

(y) See a very profound and eloquent discourse entitled, "Modern 66 Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society," by my highly esteemed friend, Robert Hall, A. M. This author, in the preface to the valuable publication just quoted, pledged himself " to enter into a "fuller and more particular examination of the Infidel Philosophy, both "with respect to its speculative principles, and its practical effects; its "influence on society and the individual:" and every one who has resigned himself to the splendour, and magic, and force of his eloquence, an eloquence, which, like the solar light, warms while it illuminates, and is alike calculated to delight the imagination, to enrich the understanding, and to amend the heart-must lament that he has not long before now redeemed this pledge. O! why will the most captivating, energetic, and profound preacher and religious writer now living, rest satisfied with giving to the world scarcely any but fugitive publications of temporary interest, the whole of which it is already difficult to collect ;-when all who know him, or who are able to appreciate the value of his efforts, have been long and anxiously anticipating the period when he will favour the public with some work of respectable magnitude and permanent interest, which shall enlighten and instruct its successive readers for ages

to come.

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LETTER X.

On the Inspiration of Scripture.

THE various trains of argument and observation laid open to you in my former letters have, I hope, fully convinced you that the several books of Scripture deserve credence as genuine and authentic; but, in order that the truths and doctrines which they contain may press upon your mind with their full weight, it is necessary you should have a conviction of their Divine authority. A firm and cordial belief of the INSPIRATION of the Bible is, indeed, of the highest moment; for unless you are persuaded that those who were employed in the composition of the respective books were entirely preserved from error, a conviction of their honesty and integrity will be but of little avail. Honest men may err, may point out the wrong track, however unwilling they may be to deceive; and if those who have penned what we receive as revelation are thus open to mistakes, we are still left to make the voyage of life in the midst of rocks and shelves, and quick-sands, with a compass vacillating and useless, and our pole-star enveloped in mists and obscurity.

But some of these writers assure us that "all Scrip"ture is given by inspiration of God ;” (~) meaning, at least, the Jewish Scriptures; a declaration which de(z) 2 Tim. iii, 16.

serves attention on the score of the general veracity by which we have already shewn their assertions are always marked. Still, as a like claim is made by writers who, it has been ascertained, were wicked and designing, let us inquire on what grounds and to what extent the divine inspiration of the Bible ought to be admitted.

Theologians have enumerated several kinds of Inspiration; such as an inspiration of superintendency, in which God so influences and directs the mind of any person as to keep him more secure from error in some complex discourse, then he would have been merely by the use of his natural faculties: plenary superintendent inspiration, which excludes any mixture of error whatever from the performance so superintended: inspiration of elevation, where the faculties act in a regular, and, as it should seem, in a common manner, yet are raised to an extraordinary degree, so that the composition shall, upon the whole, have more of the true sublime, or pathetic, than natural genius could have given :—and inspiration of suggestion, in which the use of the faculties is superseded, and God does, as it were, speak directly to the mind, making such discoveries to it as it could not otherwise have obtained, and dictating the very words in which such discoveries are to be communicated, if they are designed as a message to others.

It is not my purpose to attempt to ascertain how far different portions of Scripture were composed under one or other of these kinds of inspiration. I have enumerated them merely to show you that those, who contend