priest, discharged his penance, received abfolution, and was buried in the habit of a Francifcan monk, or who had provided for maffes to be faid for him after he was dead, thought himself as fure of the happiness of Heaven as if he had kept all the commandments of God. And too many there are, even among Proteftants, who are far from laying the stress that they ought to do upon their own perfonal virtue.

The fcriptures, however, teach the foundest and pureft morality, free from every thing approaching to fuperftition; and when they fhall be thoroughly understood, and duly attended to, but not till then, this miferable, debafing fuperftition will be banished the world. And then will our undivided homage be paid to the one living and true God, the God and father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and he will be worshipped by purity of heart and integrity of life, in fpirit and in truth. But it is revelation only that fupplies the proper and effectual cure of fuperftition, in this form, as well as in every other, affiguing the true cause of the defired effect.

More,

More, evidently, ftill, are we indebted to revelation, and not at all to human reason, however cultivated, for the knowledge of a future ftate. The thicker is the veil that nature throws over every thing belonging to the state of the dead, the more busy has the imagination of man been in prying into it. When it had been imagined, that not only the celestial bodies, but the earth, feas, rivers, trees, and all the inanimate parts of nature, had fome invifible power accompanying them, fo that they could be invoked, and their affistance engaged by men, a fimilar invisible power, or principle, was foon fuppofed to refide in men and other animals, and even to remain with them after they were dead, so that dead men became the objects of worship, as well as other parts of nature.

Dead men, however, appear to have been invoked for the purpose of necromancy, or in order to pry into futurity, before they were made the proper objects of worship, or ranked among the gods, capable of doing good or evil to living men; and this practice took place before they had any diftin&

idea of an immaterial foul.

For when, in

confequence of thefe arts of necromancy, ufed by the witch of Endor, Samuel was fuppofed to be raised from the dead, there was the appearance of an old man, habited just as Samuel had been, rifing out of the earth, which could not have been the natu ral place of an immaterial foul; and it is not called the foul of Samuel, but Samuel himself. Nor is there in the fcriptures any mention of the foul of any particular perfon as a fubstance distinct from the body, either as exifting in this life, or in another. The rich man and Lazarus, in our Saviour's parable, are not defcribed as the fouls of thofe men, but as the men themselves, fuppofed to be removed into another state.

On whatever principle it was that dead men were thought to be acceffible to the living, the modes of application to them, in the arts of necromancy, form a great part of the religion of all the antient nations; and by this they not only miferably bewildered themfelves, and loft their time in a fruitless purfuit, but were led, as is

well

well known, to fome horrid and cruel practices, numberless living perfons having been facrificed to the manes of the dead.

Among the Jews alone, of all the nations of the world, were the deteftable arts of necromancy ftrictly forbidden. Their religion was the only one that was free from this great ftain. Now, to what could this remarkable exception have been ow ing, but to a wisdom fuperior to their own, or to that of man; which, before they themselves could have discovered that the practices were vain, prevented their adopting them, and revealed to them what is really true, and most important, with refpect to the state of the dead, and which no human reafon could ever have difcovered, viz. that at a future period they are all to rife again, when all men will receive according to their works.

This is the great and peculiar doctrine of revelation, and especially of the New Teftament, Jefus Chrift having been com miffioned to bring life and immortality to light by his gofpel, giving the most ample proof of a divine miffion, by working un

E 2

queftionable

questionable miracles, and what is more, himfelf dying in the most public manner, and rifing again within a limited time, as the most fatisfactory proof, and exemplification, of his doctrine.

To this divine light let us diligently attend, and be thankful to the great Father of lights that to us, in this remote part of the world, fo great a light has fhined. Let us rejoice that we are called out of the state of Heathenifh darkness and fuperftition that I have defcribed to you, and which it pleased God, in his infinite wifdom, fo long to wink at. But now, as the apostle continues, he calls upon all men every where to repent, fince he has appointed a day, and given fufficient notice of it, in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom be bas ordained, even Jefus Chrift.

DISCOURSE