of an intelligent person, the proper object of prayer, a law giver, and a judge.

We clearly fee this in the cafe of numbers who, difbelieving revelation, do, at this day, feriously maintain that there is no intelligent principle in the univerfe, besides the visible works of nature. They, therefore, do not admit what we may call the perfonality of the fupreme caufe of all; and without this there will never be any fuch thing as piety towards God, as a Being whom we conceive to be ever present with us, as the infpector and the judge of our conduct. Thefe perfons never pray.

For want of this the best of the heathens were intirely destitute of that most effential branch of virtue. And without an habitual regard to God, as our common parent, there is no fufficient foundation for the duties we owe to his offspring, or even the duties that respect ourselves. Where there is no proper lawgiver, there can be no proper law. Without a proper regard to God in all our ways, our minds would be liable to be disturbed and unhinged by the events of life, and we should more especially find ourselves

ourfelves deftitute of power to carry us through fevere trials and fufferings in the cause of truth and a good confcience. But an habitual respect to the being, the prefence, and the providence of God, extending through this life and the next, is abundantly fufficient for all these purposes. It was therefore moft truly faid by our Lord, No man cometh to the Father but by me, or, as we may interpret it, revealed religion is the only foundation of what is termed natu ral religion.

It is not only on the authority of the most probable reafons, but on the evidence of the most indifputable facts, that we affert the neceffity of extraordinary interpofitions on the part of the Divine Being, to engage the attention of mankind to himself, in order to reform the world, and restore the practice of virtue among men. We fee in history how grofsly ignorant the heathen world remained of the nature and perfections of God, and of the purity of his worship, and how loft they were to a just sense of piety and virtue, while they were fuffered to continue without fupernatural revelation.

velation. And from the length of time in which the wifest and most polished nations continued in this ftate of ignorance and corruption, it was manifeft that natural means were not fufficient to enlighten their minds, and reform their conduct. Thefe, as we are authorised to say, had been long tried without effect. For while arts and fciences were cultivated, and brought to a confiderable degree of perfection, religious notions, and religious rites, became, if posfible, more abfurd. For after the worship of the fun, moon, and ftars (which was the original idolatry of mankind, and continued to be that of the more barbarous part of the world) the polished Egyptians and Greeks added that of dead men. And how deplorable, in a moral refpect, is the ftate of those parts of the world to which the knowledge of Chriftianity has not reached, or in which its glorious and falutary light is extinguished.

It was therefore a measure highly worthy of the wisdom and goodness of almighty God, in order to accomplish his gracious defign of raising men to a state of glory and happiness,

3

happiness, to appoint fome perfons to be,

as it were, his embaffadors to the world lying in darkness and wickedness, to instruct them in the truths relating to their most important concerns, and to lay before them, with plainnefs and energy, the proper motives for reforming their conduct; and it was neceffary that, for this purpose, these persons should come with authority, bearing evident tokens of a divine mission, by the working of miracles, or fuch works as men might be satisfied could not be performed without God (the author of nature, and who alone can control its laws) being with them.

With this view, if any history be credible, the Divine Being has actually commiffioned various perfons to communicate his will to mankind, and especially to warn them of the future confequences of their evil conduct. These perfons were chiefly of the nation of the Jews; and the object of their miffions was to inftruct their countrymen in the firft inftance, and then other nations who had intercourfe with them, in the fundamental principles of true religion,

1

4

in order to guard them against the abominable vices and extravagancies to which idolatry naturally led them. In like manner was Jefus Chrift (of the fame nation of the Jews) commiffioned to bring the laft and most complete revelation of the will of God to man; fo that nothing now remains to be done on the part of God for the moral inftruction and reformation of the world.

What it is that God has by thefe repeated revelations done for mankind, and especially by Jefus Christ, I fhall now proceed to specify. But I must farther premise, that the great and ultimate object of the miffion of Chrift was not at all different from that of the preceding prophets. According to his own representation, in the instructive parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen, God first fent fervants to them, to receive the fruits of the vineyard, and last of all, with the fame general view, he fent his Jon, or a perfon fo much more diftinguifhed, as to be entitled to that peculiar appellation, though he was of the fame na

ture