men.

Affliction and anguish are denounced as the portion of every one that doth evil. The smallest violation of the Divine law subjects to the curse. Every sin of men and angels will be visited with merited punishment. Divine holiness is unsullied in the pardon of the sin of believers, nay, it is rendered infinitely more illustrious in the death of Christ. Now, Sir, is an infinitely holy God, the God of impostors? No, Sir, he is the dread of the wise and the virtuous, and cannot therefore be the delight of men who could have no refuge from his vengeance. If the highest human virtue dare not meet such a God, how could deceivers escape his wrath? Here is an infinitely holy God, yet such a God is naturally the aversion of all men. It is then a self-evident truth that this character of God came from himself.

CONCLUSION.

Such, Sir, are some of the attributes of the God of the Scriptures. What is your god to this God? Here is a God who must be the true God, because he is perfect in every attribute. That cannot be the true

God, a greater than whom it is possible to conceive. That cannot be God, whose attributes are capable of additional perfection. Now the god of the wisdom of this world is imperfect in many of his attributes, and I have here shown one infinitely perfect. Can it then be a question which of these is the true God? Shall imposture and ignorance invent an infinitely perfect God, while wisdom and virtue fail? Shall I give up my God, the harmony of whose attributes secures my salvation, for yours, who cannot look upon me with an eye of pity, without being at war with himself?

Then, Sir, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. In it alone the character of the true God is manifested to the world. I cannot read a page of the Scriptures

without seeing proofs that they are not the work of man; but the character of God manifested in the atonement, independent of all other proofs, demonstrates the truth of the gospel. It is intrinsically light. It is utterly impossible to understand it, and not believe it. It is impossible to see God, and not believe him to be God. But here God is seen. He that hath seen Jesus hath seen the Father. The glory of God shines in his face. The view of this perfect character overwhelms the soul with evidence irresistible as the

light of heaven. A man may as well look upon the sun, and yet be uncertain whether he sees that luminary, as discern the harmony and infinite perfection of this character, and doubt whether this is the true God. This is the reason why the gospel is called light in the Scriptures. This is the reason that the knowledge of God is represented as amounting to the same thing with the belief of it. It cannot be known without being credited. The plan of salvation here revealed, not only harmonizes the Divine attributes, but appears absolutely necessary, for the practical illustration of the Divine character. Had sin never entered, mercy could bave had no scope, justice could have had neither operation nor adequate reparation. Love would have wanted an opportunity of manifesting its infinite perfection. Sovereignty would have been totally hid. Holiness could not have been seen in the same strong light. Without the atonement, God could not have been seen in all the glory of his perfect character. It is not an after thought to repair an evil that could not have been prevented. It is the only light in which the lustre of the Divine character could appear.

If, then, the knowledge of God is the noblest branch of philosophy, the gospel is the most noble science in the world. Here alone is to be found the knowledge of the true God. Philosophers, as well as infidels, are

in the habit of looking on Christians with contempt. It is the contempt of the rustic for the Copernican system. The weakest and most illiterate Christian knows more of the most excellent of all sciences, than the greatest philosopher who is ignorant of the gospel. The Christian is the only man on earth who knows God. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.'

CONFESSIONS OF INFIDELS

IN

FAVOUR OF CHRISTIANITY.

UNDERSTANDING that without any addition to the price of this publication, there is room for a few additional paragraphs, I know not how I can better occupy the space, and conclude this little work, in which I have felt much interest and pleasure, than by collecting and recording a few of the confessions of infidels to the truth and power of Christianity. I do not

speak of men, who, having been born and educated in infidelity, from conviction become believers. There have been many such distinguished persons both in this country, and on the Continent of Europe, from the days of Lord Rochester downwards, the celebrated a noblemen, who, laying his hand upon the Bible, empha

tically said, "The only grand objection to this book, is a bad life." I do not speak of such persons. It is to be expected they should lift up a strong testimony

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in behalf of the truth, which after a long estrangement they have at length found. I allude to men who lived and died infidels; who would not have given the testimony which they rendered, if they had not been thrown off their guard by the power of conscience, and constrained to it; who probably afterwards, would have been glad to recall the secret which they had confessed, when aware how it might be turned to the disadvantage of their system. I allude to Bolingbroke, and Blount, and Paine, and Byron, and men of the same school. Of course the truth of revelation is not affected by their confessions, or by the want of them. The Bible would have been equally Divine all the arguments employed in the preceding Tracts equally just and conclusive-though their reproach and obloquy of the Scriptures had been uniform and unbroken; but it is an additional testimony in behalf of Christianity, and a very strong because a reluctant and impartial one, when the very leaders of infidelity are constrained to speak favourably of its character; and yet strange to say, I believe there is scarcely an eminent adverse writer, who has not in the providence of God been led to admit enough, logically pursued, almost to close his mouth upon the subject of revelation altogether. So great is the power of conscience in the worst—so hopelessly inconsistent and absurd is infidelity. Hence also we see that Deists are inexcusable in their unbelief. They