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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The Mental Condition necessary to a due
Inquiry into Religious Evidence, stated
and exemplified.

EIGHT SERMONS
PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN THE YEAR MDCCCXXIII,
At the Lecture founded by
THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON. M. A.
CANON OF SALISBURY.

CHARLES GODDARD, D.D.
ARCHDEACON AND PREBENDARY OP LINCOLN ; RECTOR OP
ST. JAMES'S, GARLICK-HYTHE ; CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY
TO THE KING ; AND DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD GRENVILLE.

WITH
A PREFACE, AND
NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.

OXFORD,
at the university press for the author.
sold by j. parker, oxford ; and messrs. rivington, st.
Paul's church-yard, and Waterloo place, london.
1824.

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD GRENVILLE,
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
&C. &c. &C.
AND
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AND REVEREND
THE HEADS OF COLLEGES
IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
THE FOLLOWING SERMONS
ARE
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY
THE BAMPTON LECTURER.

CONTENTS.

SERMON, L
1 Corinthians xiv. 20.
IN understanding be men. p. 1 .
SERMON IL
1 Peter iii. 15, 16".
Be ready tJways to give an answer to every man that asketh you
a reason of the hope that is in- you with meekness and fear,
having a good conscience. P. 27.
SERMON m.
1 John iv. 1.
Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits Whether they are
of God. P. 47.
SERMON IV.
The same text. P. 79.
SERMON V.
Romans i. 18 — 21.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungod
liness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in un
righteousness ;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ;
for God bath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even
his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without ex
cuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified hira not as
God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imagi
nations, and their foolish heart was darkened. P. ] 13.
SERMON VI.
The same text. P. 151.
a3

vi CONTENTS.
SERMON VII.
Mark iii. 22—26.
And the Scribes which came down from Jerusalem said. He hath
Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out
devils.
And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables,
How can Satan cast out Satan }
And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot
stand ;
And if a house be divided agaitist itself, that house cannot stand ;
And if Satan rise up against hiniself, and be divided, he cannot
stand, but hath an end. P. 1 93.
SERMON VIII.
John xx. 29.
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou
hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed. - P. 235.

SYLLABUS.

SERMON L
Introduction. Religious evidence is here contem
plated through the medium of thq reception it experiences.
This ground less occupied — impqrtan^-r-seasonable. Mo
ral order of the mind implies ascendancy of intellect and
conscience. Grosser instances of this order of the mind
being broken in upon, and the functions of the intellect in
regard to the method and the conduct of religious proof
interfered with, by the inferior cpaalities of the mind under
the forms of infidelity, of superstition, of fanaticism. Lesser
degrees of it will be here considered. This interference is
direct — ^indirect. Probable proof presents an especial mo
ral trial ; and out of the nature of it arise temptations to
an ill-governed mind to such interference. Direct inter
ference from witHn the mind with the method of proof,
from sentiment and volition, froni fancy and affection;
indirect, as veiled under pretences to spiritual means of
assurance, or under endeavours after demonstration, in re
gard to the fundamental verities of natural theology and
ethics. The indirect interference of the inferior quali
ties of the mind with the intellect in the conduct of reli-
^ous proof, is discernible in the partial views taken of the
subject-matter of the evidences, in the rejection or depre
ciation of branches or particulars of proof, or in as undue
fin exaltation of them. And natural and moa-al truths, in
their relations to revealed, a£^rd an extensive field for such
partialities and excesses. Survey of themj notice of an
incidental relation between physics, singly taken, and the
text of Scripture where the 6a,me disproportionate views
pevail. Plan of the present discourses.

a4

viii SYLLABUS.
SERMON n.
Direct interference with the intellect from within the
mind, where evidence is concerned, and the disturbance
given to the foundations and proper character of faith, dis
tinctly considered. The notion that faith and science are
the objects of different faculties refuted. Sentiment and
volition reduced within their just limits. Proper order of.
the mind, and supremacy of intellect and conscience, assert
ed, with reference both to the method of probable proof,
and to the conduct of it.
SERMON m.
Indirect interference of lesser qualities of the mind,:
under the veil of spiritual pretences, examined and con
demned on the authority of the passages of Scripture often
warped to its support.
SERMON IV.
The same indirect interference detected and exposed by
comprehensive views of Scripture facts and truths, of the
general divine economy, and of our mental constitution ;-
and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, when exhibited in its
just relations to the method and the subject-matter of re
ligious proof, seen to coincide with, and maintain the pro
per functions of the intellect in regard to both, and speci
fically to secure an impartial treatment of natural and mo
ral truth in reference to revelation.
SERMON V.
Indirect interference, professedly intellectual, but which;
by aiming at a sort of proof that is unattainable, namely,
demonstration, diverts the mind from its proper and un
divided regard to the probable method. Indirect inter
ference also as to the conduct of probable evidence/ Undue
depression or exaltation of natural and moral truth. In
opposition to both extremes, the proper independence of
natural theology and ethics deduced from that part of ere-

SYLLABUS. ix
ation which consists of our mental constitution, of the inr
tellectual and moral capacities of which we are conscious.
The subordinate question of the actual discovery of such
truths by the human mind reduced to its just place and
order. Sufficient to shew, as here is done, from profane
antiquity, that the human mind has at no time been abso
lutely inert in regard to these truths.
SERMON VI.
Tradition and the Jewish Scriptures, in any such ac-
quaintance of the heathen with them as there is ground
for crediting, insufficient to account for the light, imper
fect as it was, of which the heathen undeniably were in
possession. Express authorities of holy writ adduced in
support of the views here taken. Natural religion at the
same time reduced within its true limits, and defined;
independent, but indebted to revelation for the completer
views of it which now subsist, and has no tendency to
supply the place of this scheme, in any correct apprehen
sion of its proper truths and character.
SERMON VII.
Natural religion, as thus ascertained, as neither unrea
sonably depressed nor unduly exalted, is nex.t brought into
its proper connection with revelation. This connection in
volves, 1 . Preliminary and strictly fundamental points sup
plied by natural religion. 2. Evidence arising to revela
tion from natural and moral truth, when united with tes
timony or with facts. 3. Consonance of scheme and va
rious particulars of revelation with natural and moral no
tions, whence arise strong presumptions in favour of re
velation.
SERMON .VIII.
I. Recapitulation, and confirmation by the text of the
views which have been taken. 2. The incidental connec
tion of physical truth, separately taken, with the text of
Scripture, resumed from the first discourse. 3. The sub
ject-matter of this course of sermons brought home to the

X SYLLAJiUS.
youthful hearer ; in respect of the nature of p^bable pWil*5
.thie duty and the importance of ai;quiegci«ig in the nieth®di
and of rightly treating the branches and particulars of reli
gious evidence ; and in order to this, of the moral go
vernment OF the mind, and of early moral training.
Objections to such training answered. Conclusion.

EXTRACT

FEOM
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OP THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.

 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to
" the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University
" of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular
" the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents
" and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I
" will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the Univer-
" sity of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive
" all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all
" taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that
" he pay all the remainder to the endovn^ent of eight Di-
" vinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the
•^ said UiHversity, and to be performed in the manner fol-
*' lowing :
" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in
« Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
" of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoin-
" ing to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten
" in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight
" Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St.
" Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the
« last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week
" in Act Term.

xii EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL.
" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Dmnity
" Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the
" following Subjects — to confirm and establish the Chris-
" tian Faith, and to confute aU heretics and schismatics
"  upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures —
" upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fa-
" thers, as to the faith and practice of the, primitive
" Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Je-
" sus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon
" the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in
" the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divi-
" nity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two
" months after they are preached, and one copy shall
" be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one
"copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the
" Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into
"the Bodleian Library; and the expense of printing them
" shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates
" given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and
" the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the re-
" venue, before they are printed.
" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qua-
" lified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he
"hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in
« one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and-
« that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lee-
" ture Sermons twice."

PREFACE.

Ihe provisions of the will by which the
Bampton Lecture has been founded appear
well calculated to promote the object which
such institutions have in view. Opportunity
is given for considerable variety, both in the
choice of the subject and in the method of
its treatment, while the injunction that the
Sermons should be printed, secures to the other
regulations their due effect.
From a Lecturer advanced in life, views
proportionably mature may reasonably be ex
pected. Long since presumably iii possession
of well weighed and determinate opinions on
the principal topics of theology, on the spe^
cific points which the Founder's will has here
marked out, not unobservant at the same time
of those fluctuations of the human mind, by
which divinity, in common with every other
branch of knowledge, is affected, he will be
prepared to select from the general mass of
ma;tter under his view that portion of it
which the circumstances of the times may
render seasonable in a pertinent sense; not

xiv PREFACE.
as falling in with the bias that may be pre
valent, hut as opposed to, and corrective of
it. Of this description are the independent
subsistence of moral equally as of natural
truth, and the character and the extent of
their contributions to the evidences of reve
lation. Such also is the distinction between
those contributions when singly taken, and
an internal evidence which they are erro
neously supposed to constitute ; topics which
exemplify, and are here employed to dd so,
the importance to religious proof of a clear
apprehension, wherein the government of the
mind consists, and of an habitual assertion
of it, as the only human security against a
partial treatment of truth or evidence. Hard
ly less opportune will be thought the refe
rence to direct claims of interference with the
understanding from within the mind, such as
subvert the mental order, and disqualify the
intellect for persevering inquiry; or agaiti,
to disturbance not less real from the same
quarter, although veiled under pretences to
the Spirit.
Aware at the same time over how exten
sive a field every main point of theology has
been permitted to diffuse itself, and how am
ple therefore must in some cases be his con-

PREFACE. XV
templation, and how express his notice both
of past and of Subsisting views in order to
the making a way to his own conclusions, an
experienced discourser may see reason to
comprise wiihin the allotted space of eight
Sermons a j)ortion of matter and of allusioni
which, orally delivered, an ordinary degree of
attention will be insufficient to keep pace
with, or a moderate exercise of memory may
hot retain. Here then the requisition to print
is in an especial degree appropriate. It af
fords to all the opportunity of recurring, un
der a more permanent form, to what had in
very different measures been apprehended
and remembered, while it leaves to the Lec
turer himself, in the selection and disposition
of his matter, a proper latitude.
It is by general expressions, for the most
part, and with a view to the assertion of the
mean where truth resides, that in these dis
courses the extremes on either side find their
condemnation ; a method less calculated con
fessedly to obtain popularity for him who
employs it, than specific referenceis to con
temporary writers might ensure. But al
though cases exist where this last expedient
would fitly be resorted to, and though the
benefits derivable from the eontl-oversies to

XVI PREFAUJbi.
which it gives occasion are neither problema
tical nor few, yet since affection, whose inter
ference is always hazardous, and passion,
which is as invariably prejudicial, seldom fail
to mix themselves in such contentions, who
ever is sufficiently impressed with the cha
racter of the cause he is maintaining will ab
stain from needlessly furnishing a plea for
the admission of either. Not the least effec
tual mode of vindicating the claims of evi
dence or doctrine is, to notice error so far
only as may be necessary to a correct and
discriminative exhibition of the truths op
posed to it.
Certain communications verbal and written
with which I was favoured during the de
livery of these Sermons, and which conveyed
the pleasing impression of minds alive to the
most important of all truths, and diligent in
the pursuit of them, have suggested to me
the addition of notes. By the plea of utility
where practical truth is concerned, (and what
just theory is there of religious belief or evi
dence which does not essentially involve it ?)
the dictates of literary taste may properly be
modified ; and I have therefore forborne to in
quire, whether so brief a composition would
otherwise have admitted of the supplement

PREFACE. xvii
in question, or what proportion it might cor
rectly hold to the discourses themselves. In
regard to its contents, these, where I speak
from myself, have for their object the bring
ing to a common understanding those whose
disagreements are rather in words than sub
stance, and the moderating, where differences
are real, not at the expence of truth, but in
order to its security.
With my own remarks however are inter
spersed both extracts and references. It might
be presumed that on any principal points, on
points especially so influential on every other
part of religion as the truth, the character,
and connection of the divine dispensations,
and their relations to the proper constitution
of the being for whom they are designed, our
principal theologians must have insisted with
a force and to an extent commensurate with
the claims of such topics on the attention.
Accordingly, on the more immediate recourse
to those writers, which even with a view to
discriminative observation on my own part
these notes required, I have been gratified on
finding my recollections strengthened and
the presumption verified ; in perceiving fur
ther, what memory had as imperfectly as
sured me of, that in regard to leading points
b

xviii PREFACE.
I am fully borne out by them. Essential no-
velty% if it be attainable on such subjects,
can be so only at the expence of truth ; en
deavours after it would, on a due acquaint^
ance with our earlier theology, be seen to ter
minate usually in the revival, not merely of
what is old, but of what is disputable ; nor
need our labours be withheld because no
other advantage may arise out of a renewed
application to a given topic, than that truths
long since ascertained are thus intelligent
ly upheld amid the versatihties of error, or
are re-impressed with increased effect on the
attention. At the same time, neither the Ser
mons nor the Notes will be found to indicate
an undue recourse to the writings of others,
or an implicit reliance on them. Out of a
subject fairly submitted afresh to the opera
tions of the understanding, novelty of a sub
ordinate description can hardly fail to arise.
Those particular views which have led the
mind to regard the recurrence even to a
beaten subject as seasonable, will invariably
a " The best in each kind (of attacks on revelation.and
« defences of it) have been long since anticipated, and both
« believers and unbelievers must now be content with tra-
" versing over again the same beaten track, or they will
" take into worse, and but expose their cause instead of
" serving it." Waterland's First Charge.

PREFACE. xix
suggest to it, when thus interestingly em
ployed, what may elucidate at least, if not
instruct; will exhibit traces of the mental
character of him who entertains them. The
substance of the truths discussed may never
theless remain unaltered, and be capable of
confirmation from standard writers. Then
the general moderation of such theologians
as I am here contemplating, and their actual
forbearance where essentials are not concern
ed, are equally conspicuous with their preci
sion in fundamentals. The appeals to them,
therefore, which here are largely made, while
they support and fortify what is advanced
in these discourses, will sanction also the
temperate spirit in which they have been
framed. Erroneous, in a degree which exceeds all
ordinary wandering, is the persuasion, that
the continual study of these masters in the
science has a tendency to surfeit and oppress
the mind, serves but to amass materials by
which its energies are encumbered. Its ef
fect, in proportion to the quality of the men
tal soil, is to nourish, to invigorate, to supply
the foundation whence with most advantage
the intellect may proceed to the actual put
ting forth of its proper strength. The dreams
b2

XX PREFACE.
indeed of indolence and self-complaCency* the
vsoTspiKu? 'sttSvia^Us, at whatever age they may
be found subsisting, this study, in proportion
as it fortifies the judgment, has a tendency
to repress. It would forbid the crude appli
cation to such a subject as theology of ta
lents were they as great as fancy represents
them ; and would supply the grounds of cer
tain distinctions of no small importance to
the purposes of evidence. A habit of argu
ing, which, disjoined from the ability or the
Courage to encounter or to employ the full
force of reason, advances not beyond the out
works of truth ; which, instead of exerting
itself to untie the knots it meets with, is ap
plied to the single point of dexterously evad
ing them, and is content, by consequence,
with such relative and temporary success as
the incompetency of the reader or the weak
ness of antagonists may offer, will not be Con
founded with the honest, and ardent, and pa
ramount love of the truth itself, or with the
principled moderation by which she essen
tially is characterised. With equal clearness
will the boundaries be discerned between the
facile exhibition of rhetorical ornament^ an
b « Propter fastidia plurimorum," says St. Austin, « etiam
" ips^ sine quibus vivi non potest alimenta condienda
" sunt."

PREFACE. xxi
habitual recourse to iniagination and senti
ment, to glittering conceits, pathetic and de
clamatory harangues, and highly figurative
diction, between these, on the one hand, which
in the discreetest employment of them can
but, subserve the purposes of truth already
ascertained, and the mental power and the
substantial acquirements through which the
truth itself is to be established. By habi
tual acquaintance with authors pre-eminent
for compass of thought, for a scholastic acute-
ness, for close and accurate reasoning, for a
thorough • insight into the nature on which
religion has to operate, for learning both pro
found and various, for the pursuit of truth
even to her remotest recesses, and for as am
ple and undaunted an assertion of it, exten
sive, yet discriminative and sober views will
unavoidably be generated. If in the result less
anxiety should be shewn for the .communica
tion of thoughts which travel round the sub
ject of theology, and scarcely touch its sur
face ; if fewer diversions from the points at
issue in this science, and fewer liberties in
the handling of them, should be ventured on,
the restraint will have proved a wholesome
one, and the value of what is permitted to
see the light will be proportionably augment-

xxii PREFACE.
ed. But far from discouraging any trains of
thought, or any methods of exhibiting them,
by which a vigorous mind may shew itself,
and the interests of religious truth can really
be promoted, reading of such a description,
wherever steadily pursued, will contribute to
suggest those views of evidence and doc
trine, and that specific treatment of them,
which alone are adequate to the combined
demands of religious and of moral truth, and
alone give ample sCope to the powers of the'
understanding. Minds which such a course
of study can oppress, would under any cir
cumstances be incapable of successful effort.
For the references to foreign theologians,
no apology can properly be requisite. Those
only who are ignorant of the merits of many
of this number, or of the importance of an
early preparation of the understanding for
its appointed trials, will confound them in
one indiscriminate sentence of condemna^
tion, or hinder even a student in the science
from all acquaintance with them. No doubtj
in regard both to the choice of authors and
to the use of them, the youthful mind should
be not merely exercised, but assisted ; and I
have referred to none, from whom, in the

PREFACE. xxiii
qualified sense in which recourse to autho
rity has here been had, still further benefit is
not derivable.
It may be proper to state, that the Notes
bearing a metaphysical aspect are an exten
sion of those appended to a Sermon preached
by me at the Chapel Royal four years ago.
Their design, which is to clear the subject of
the evidences from some arguments claiming
to belong to that science, and to allot to
others their just limits, is far more advanta
geous to the cause of religious proof, than the
undistinguishing censures sometimes passed
on all application of metaphysics and of syn
thetic reasoning to the service of religion.
Indeed the declamation which on these heads
is not unfrequently indulged in, has no re
source but its indistinctness. It is confessed
ly not on reasonings of such a description,
that the fundamental religious verities can
satisfactorily be rested. One object of the
present Discourses is to confirm this point ;
and it is to little purpose to allege, in favour
of endeavours so to rest them, that the fa^
culties of the mind thus obtain their proper
exercise, since they are exercised in error, or
that the antagonists of revelation here are
argued with after their own manner, if the me-

xxiv PREFACE.
thod be inapplicable and inconclusive. Still
metaphysical argument, as in these Discourses
will also be maintained, has its uses even in
regard to those very truths ; gives both exten
sion and precision to them, when otherwise
established ; may within these limits both dis
cipline the mind itself, and enable it to con
tend successfully with error. Then an ad
vantage attaching to such argument, not a
defect to be urged against it, is, that where-
ever properly conducted, it furnishes positive
and substantial grounds of intellectual hu
mility ; satisfies the mind in a sense and mea
sure, not otherwise attainable, of our aspira
tions after knowledge, transcending any means
we have of arriving at it ; of the distinct and
absolute bounds, which in regard to certain
sublimer points, in regard to the methods even
of acquiring the portion of truth within our
reach, reason concurs with revelation in pre
scribing; of the appropriateness of the aid
from truths communicated expressly, and on
authority that is divine. Even then, as the
complaint respects the synthetic mode of rea
soning in its application to the higher sub
jects of "metaphysical science, it can be just
only as it is discriminative and qualified; and
in a general view, yet further deductions may
be made from it. One main part of the duty

PREFACE. XXV
of those who are to build up others in the
truth, must be to acquaint themselves with
whatever is properly introductory to such
edification. Now two great lights, distinct,
though often blended in their influences, God
has given to mankind, to illumine and direct
the conscience, to secure the uprightness of
belief and practice. And the main question
is not how far in the manner of their de
riving to us they may have thus been inter
mixed, with what degree of reflection from
antecedent revelation reason may have been
assisted in her rule over the state of heathen
ism, or what clear and steady rays Chris
tianity may subsequently have shed even on
truths which the light of reason had suc
ceeded in adumbrating. The true point for
determination, and which lies at the founda
tion of those other inquiries, is the proper pro
vince of each of these our appointed guides ;
the province of truths which, however im
parted, have an essential relation to the in
telligent and moral capacities with which the
Deity originally endowed our nature, cannot
therefore be wholly unknown, or without ap
plication to us, however circumstanced ; and
...
the province of positive communications hav
ing a subsequent contingency for their basis,
which introduce a remedial system, such as hu-

xxvi PREFACE.
man reason, even though its discoveries had
embraced all that heathenism knew, all those
illustrations of the truths of natural reli
gion which revelation has supplied, could not
be shewn to have in any degree anticipated
or contributed to provide ; such as even, when
vouchsafed, is appreciated in those respects
alone, which bring it into relation with na
tural and moral notions. If this distinction
be lost sight of, the confusion originating in
a point so fundamental will spread itself
through every part of the subject of theo
logy; but the evidences of revelation espe
cially must suffer ; since truths thus insuffi
ciently distinguished will refuse themselves
to their just connection. But now, towards
the distinction wanted, an acquaintance with
the character of the human mind, of the de
terioration it betrays, of the specific relations
which even as deteriorated it is able to main
tain with the several kinds of truth presented
to it, is indispensable. Here therefore ab
stract discussion, though we should forbear
to term it metaphysical, allying itself to facts,
and proceeding upon them as separately ve
rified, has a proper application to theology,
and claims a place. It has accordingly foUnd
a distinguished one in the older divinity of
the Church of England ; with what advan-

PREFACE. xxvii
tage to the cause of revelation, no one surely
can desire to be thought ignorant.

In conclusion, though I venture not to in
dulge a hope, that the approbation which,
from the quarters whence I most had wished
to receive it, has been afforded to the plan of
these Discourses can be extended to its exe
cution, yet even this will be estimated with
candour ; for to minds whose survey of reli
gion, and of the prevailing views concerning
it, is exact and comprehensive, the difficulty
and the seasonableness of a recurrence to the
subject of the Evidences will be alike appa
rent.

SERMON L

1 Coe. xiv. 20.
In understcmding be men.
±F it be incorrect to suppose that the proper sub
jects of theological discussion, even within the limits
prescribed by the founder of this Lecture, are ex
hausted, hardly less mistake is there, in the opposite
extreme, of a persuasion, that by the degree of no
velty, principally or exclusively considered, the choice
of topics to' be discussed may fitly be determined.
The effect of such errors may be anticipated. In
the one case, points to which full justice is thus as
sumed to have been done, remain in reality insuffi
ciently treated of; in the other, an indefinite search
after what is new inclines religious advocates to the
adoption of what it had been the discretion of sounder
judgments to reject, so it but keep them clear of
others' footsteps.
But if, at the present advanced period of reli
gious inquiry, we can remain satisfied with such. in
cidental originality as may arise out of a renewed
application to a subject selected on other and more
substantial grounds, a due proportion , of it will, in
this qualified sense, not be wanting, where the choice
has been determined by the united considerations of
B
7

2 SERMON L
the importance of the subject itself, and the degree
of occasion there is for actual recurrence to it.
Singly taken, its importance might be construed to
imply, its having already secured a due regard,
would thus exclude the question of novelty alto
gether ; but wherever it can be shewn that fundaj?
mental principles are theoretically disavowed, or in
practice are made light of, there must still be room
for further illustration of them,; and that " scribe"
must indeed be inadequately " instructed," who can
not " bring forth out of his proper and acquired
" treasure things both new and old" towards tlie
supplying it. -^^
No part of theology has been more abundantly
discussed, as there is none assuredly of deeper in^-
terest, than the evidences of religion; and almost
¦equally vain were it to pace again over ground thus
repesEtedly trodden, or to .take a departure from
others' labours to go in quest of suitable additions
to4ljem. But religious proof may be contemplate^ ,
either in itself, and in respect of its proper claims to
reception : or its character and pretensions may be
viewed less directly through the medium of the
treatment which they experience, and the causes, of
it ; of the mental condition requisite to a due appre
ciation of the nature, and to a correct employment
of the subject-matter of religious evidence; of the
influence which directly or otherwise would inter
fere with the proper office of the understandiiig ; of
the results, 4astly, in which such interference is seen
to terftiinate. To these latter views the attention
has less often been specifically directed ; while,- from
their importance, combined with the misconceptions

SERMON L 3
which prevail concerning them, they may fitly be pre
sented anew to a detailed consideration.
Now religion, in that comprehensive sense of the
term which is alone commensurate with the proper
character of the object, addresses itself indeed to all
the powers and qualities of the mind, but not indis
criminately, and to the same extent. Its evidences
are manifestly of the province of the intellect ; and
while this faculty, itself in due relation with con
science, maintains its proper independence in the
mind, so as to apply itself without interruption to
the discharge of its appointed functions, the interests
of religious truth may be regarded as secure. Un
happily, however, instances abound in which an ha
bitual interference of the other mental qualities with
the office of the understanding produces the rejec
tion or the perversifn of religious proof; nor would
it be an easy task to estimate the mischief which
has arisen from such interference under the forms of
infidelity, of superstition, and of fanaticism.
Out of the unbeliever's hands has been wrested
the weapon of an abused reason, with which he took
his stand in natural and moral truth, as on a van
tage-ground, whence he might the more readily
assail the evidences of revelation ; and the com
mon and rational basis on which those dispensa
tions must ultimately repose, has received new
strength by his discomfiture. The more systematic
efforts of infidelity have in consequence, for a con
siderable time pjast, been directed into another chan
nel; have been employed in pisrepresenting the
sense of those records, whose authority it no longesr
B 2

4 SERMON L
availed to question. An evil heart of unbelief, the
predominance of a corrupt will, or of some other un
due influence, may still be traced; but the results
are no longer; directly cognizable under the head of
religious evidence. ^As introducing themselves under
the veil of Scripture-interpretation, they have re
ceived ample notice and correction.
Equally are the just purposes of the understand
ing, in its application to the evidences of religion,
controuled by the implicit submission which the
Chiirch of Rome exacts to what had primarily no
better foundation than the will or fancy of those by
whom it was established. The character of infalli
bility with which the human mind correctly invests
every divine communication; ascertained to be such,
is transferred, without the authority of reason or of
Scripture, to that Church, and to its oral tradition.
The very elements of all belief, and the specific
grounds on which we admit the miracles' of revela
tion, are taken away by the required surrender of
the intellect to what contradicts and to what abuses
the evidence of sense ; and the presumptions on be
half of revealed truth, 'arising out of its internal
character and its correspondence with natural no
tions, are converted, in the Romish exhibitions' of
tliat character and of those relations, into a positive
argument in its disfavour, as unworthy of the source
whence revelation claims to be derived, and corrup
tive of that nature of which a divine communication
would intend the moral benefit. If to these charac
teristics of the papal doctrines it be added, that the
systematic policy of the Church of Rome, were it
seen to have' any'thing in coriimon with that of the

SERMON L 5
founders, of Christianity, would have a, tendency to
account for that early and extensive success which
otherwise and by purely human means is altogether
inexplicable, there will appear, reason for, allowing
that the mischief which the principles and tenets, of
popery have a tendency to prodiice in regard to the
evidences of religion is specific „ and fundamental.
All, however, that solid argument, wielded by minds
of the greatest natural capacity, could suggest to
wards obtaining access to the understandings of per
sons of that persuasion, and bringing home to them
the danger accruing to the foundations of our com
mon Christianity from their irrational scheme . of
subjecting the intellect, has already been employed ;
and as neither, the character of that Church, nor
thes arguments by which it recommends its tenets,
materially alter, the bulwarks of our faith on that
side can need no renewal.
The mischief arising to the same important cause
of religious belief from the quarter of fanaticism,
bears a still graver character. Here the proper ope
rations of the intellect are superseded by the claim
to derive assurance both of the substance and the au
thority of religious truth from immediate and parti
cular revelation ; a pretension which, unsupported as
it is by external attestations, has a tendency to de-
strby the proper criterion, of a divine interposition.
Indeed the degree of prostration of the understand
ing is in this case so great, as to operate in the way
of preservative against, whatever. would remove it.
" The fanatic," as a great prelate^ has expressed
himself, " has no weak side of common sense."
* Doctrine of Grace.
B 3

6 SERMON I.
It would be premature, howeveis to conclude that
the ascendency of the intellect has no other adversia-
ries than those whom I have now particularized;
and that the reception given to religious evidence is
a topic which has no present demand on our atten
tion. In degrees short of these abuses of reason, or
of this actual controul over it, and on the part of
writers whose attachment to the cause of reli^bn is
undisputed, the grounds of satisfaction in regard to its
truth are exhibited in points of view which a correct
application of the intellect to the subject forbids us
to admit, and which appeal in fact to the subordi
nate qualities of the mind rather than to the under
standing. It may be questioned even, whether the
principle itself of the requisite predominance of the
intellect in order to the due reception of evidence
be as fully apprehendted in theory, as its appareijl
simplicity might be thought to imply, and as its im
portance requires. Every one will indeed acknow
ledge, that when employed on religious proof, the
understanding should be free fipom partiality and
prejudice; but that to take any share in the duty
of ascertaining the truth of religion, the intellee^
alone is competent ; that even points, which, when
contemplated in other lights, and referred to for
other purposes, become the fit objects of the subor
dinate mental quaUties, fall entirely, where evidence
is eoncemed, under the dominion of that faculty;
these are propositions very insufficiently inculcated
as principles, and of which practice therefore may
be expected to exhibit the frequent violation. Many
a wnter on religion must himself demur to them if
the views of evidence which he permits himself' to
present to others have been distinctly made out to

SERMON I. 7
his own understanding. These last positions never
theless are plainly deducible from the former; for
whence, in reality, but from the interference of the
other qualities of the mind with the 'proper func
tions of the intellect, arises undue bias of whatever
sort, and when did they interfere without creating
it ? Direct pretences, it is true, on the part of the
subordinate mental qualities, although they exist,
are comparatively rare; but the indirect and un-
avowed intervention is yet more prejudicial ; not
only occurs oftener, but is less easily perceived and
detected. %
And both from the species of proof by which the
truth of religion is established, and out of the pro
cess by which that proof is conducted, arise facili^
ties for creating such disturbances to the intellect,
and for giving to them the forms under which they
especially present themselves. There is not, per
haps, a feature of the mind which bears stronger
traces of the condition whence our nature fell, than
the desire entertained (not in early youth, for this
is credulous, but) in proportion as the faculties ex
pand themselves, of a kind of assurance in regard
to the truth of religion, such as probable evidence is
not fitted to supply. For that description of truth
exists not less than others in an absolute sense, and
independently of the particular way by which we
arrive at our assurance of it, and the human under
standing was designed, had the other qualities of
the mind been retained in due subjection, for clearer
views in these respects, and more intimate commu
nion with the Father of all lights, than we now
enjoy. Analogy, however,, is eafculated to reduce
B 4

8 SERMON I.
our wishes to^*the level of our condition ; and its
influence, and the djity of listening to its conclu
sions, are strengthened by our being enabled to dis
cern a reason of the dependence it is ordered we
should have on moral evidence for satisfaction in
regard to the tniths which most concern us. Once
admit the notion of a probatory state, such as the
Scriptures in fact announce, such as our position
morally viewed exhibits, such as would seem to be
iiffispensable to the establishment of finite virtue,
and we' perceive it to be reasonable, that even the
acts by which the human mind makes its approaches
to truths, themsdves designed to prove and disci
pline oar nature, should involve a trial ; that neither
by the character of the proof, nor by its proq^ssj
the truth of religion should be pressed upon the
mind absolutely and irresistibly.. And as it is not
by arbitrary or merely positive divine appointment,
that such paramount verities are confined to this
description of evidence, so the intelligent, the proper
moral character by which many of the particulars
of this mode; of proof are distinguished, vindicated
its appropriateness to those purposes of faith and
practice which religion has in view. We thus are
called upon to acknowledge the Deity in those na
tural and moral relations to ourselves, whence arise
our primary obligiations. And where this the ap
pointed method of proof is exclusively relied on and
appropriately followed up; where the requisite painS
and integrity have been bestowed on collecting and
appreciating the numerous independent particulars
of which probable evidence is composed ; where these
are duly arranged, exhibited in their mutual rela
tions, and brought to bear in their united force upon-

SERMON I. 9
the points at issue, this species of proof may be said
to differ in character, rather than in weight, from
demonstration. The trial to which the mind finds
itself subjected, is not whether it shall yield to evi
dence less fitted on the whole to satisfy it, than that
which belongs to science or the evidence of sense ;
but whether the price, at which alone such satisfac
tion is attainable, shall be paid or not ; namely, a
conscientious and undivided attention on the part
of the intellect to the appointed method of arriving
at the assurance of religion being true, and an ab
solute disregard of whatever plea would interfere
with an impartial conduct of the proof by the un
derstanding. An especial trial then is involved in probable
evidence. Reason and conscience have ample room
for exercise ; but the province of the understanding
may be interfered with in a degree of which, in
demonstrative or in sensible proof, and in regard to
truths of far less importance than those of religion
and morality, there could not be a question.
And the trial, it is plain, consists of two parts ;
embraces I. The nature of the proof by which the truth
of. religion is ascertained;
II, The proper treatment both of its method and,
its subject-matter by the understanding ;
And entails under each of these heads specific
duties.

10 SERMON I.
I. And first is supposed a just appreciation of
the character and sufficiency of the method of pro
bable proof; such as m^y leave no pretext to the
subordinate qualities of the mind for inclining the
understanding to the adoption of other media.
- >'As an instance of direct interference with the
intellect .under this head, such representations are
hazarded of the methods by which religious faith
may be generated, as tend expressly to withdraw
from the understanding its proper part in the pro
duction of that compound virtue. Difficult as it
might seem to invest in any degree mere suasion
or volition with the character of religious belief, to
establish a claim on the part of sentiment or wiU
to be thesnarbiters of truth, yet has this been at
tempted. Calling into action the moral tendencies
of the human mind prematurely if for a mere mo
ral end, altogether mistakenly if as substitutes for
intellectual exertion, sentimental advocates of the
truth of religion have perplexed, instead of de
veloping, the degree of assistance derivable from
a qualified and argumentative reference to those
tendencies on the part of the understanding ; and
the more unsparing the ornaments which in such
cases have been thrown around the subject of the
evidences, the greater the disturbance introduced'
into the proper character of religious proof by such
ill-timed or unappropriate interference. Or a pos
sitive bias of the will has been insisted on as a-
requisite security for the due reception of evidence ;
a notion not less derogatory to the character and
Weight of the evidences of reli^on, than to the pro
per office of the intellect in respect of them. * In

SERMON I. 11
the one instance, the several provinces of sentiment,
which supplies the moi?al distinctions, and of reason,
which adopts and renders them available to the pur
poses of truth and evidence, are confounded ; in the
other, the will is called into action at the expence of
the understanding, and discharged from the just de
pendence on it.
Well, however, would it be for the cause of re
ligious truth, if the subordinate qualities of the
mind were limited to direct and manifest interfer
ence. In writers not prepared it should seem to
advance beyond the outskirts of fanaticism, yet
under the veil of indefinite references to the graces
of the Holy Spirit, as to an authorized mean of sa
tisfaction in regard to the truth of religion, the or
dinary and appointed method of a rational convic
tion through the customary exercise of the faculties
is dispensed with. Indeterminate expressions on a
subject to which the human mind is so much alive,
have all the effects of positive error; and the no
tion is encouraged where it is not explicitly con
veyed, that even in ordinary periods belief is some
times immediately, and from a divine source, im
pressed upon the passive intellect, or that conviction
is rendered needless by such infusions of moral grace,
as operate on the sentiments and will, without the
intervention of the understanding.
Again, even where the exercise afforded to 4he
functions of the intellect might seem to be the
greatest, where hopes are held out of a kind of
certainty as attainable by that faculty, which pro
bable proof does not pretend to furnish ; yet the

12 SERMON I.
tendency even of this extreme is ultimately to dis
charge the intellect from that part of its probation,
which supposes an adherence to moral evidence ; to
draw off religious inquiry in the first instance from
the channel through which alone satisfaction is de
rivable ; and to indispose the intellect to return to
it in good earnest, when these fallacious hopes have
been disappointed. And most exposed to liberties
of this sort is the description of truths which, ori
ginating in the wider field of the material and mo
ral world, and presenting by consequence to super
ficial inquiry a less distinct and definable character,
have need to be themselves discriminately made out,
before they can be brought to contribute to the evi
dences for revelation. When, for instance, minds of
a vigorous stamp are seen successively to scale in
proof of the existence of the Deity the heights of
a sublime rnetaphysic, how easily is the not less re
gular succession of failures disregarded, amid the
general persuasion which such attempts encourage,
that truths. which lie at the source of all religion,
must in reality admit of demonstration. How apt
is the imagination to wander in quest of what meta
physical, reasoning in any proper application of it
is unable to supply, the groundwork of actual know
ledge in regard to them ; how ready to forget that
they have been otherwise and more appropriately
established. A similar remark is applicable to the endeavours
to, demonstrate morality; and
More generaUy to obtain the character of demon
stration for those high degrees of probability, (the

SERMON I. 13
highest, in fact, of which moral proof is capable,)
that are contained in the evidences for revelation.
II. But secondly, the trial involved in the proba
ble method of proof requires a correct and ade
quate application of this method to the subject-mat
ter of religious evidence ; in other words, requires
the proper conduct o{ the proof by the understand
ing. And here the numerous particulars of which the
proof consists, that are to be assembled from various
quarters, and which are not enchained in any ne
cessary series or dependence, enlarge the sphere of
trial and expose to multiplied temptation, open wide
the door to the lesser qualities of the mind, and to
the partial and erroneous views attendant on their
direct or other inference. An exclusive attachment
thus is generated for some one portion of religious
proof, which thenceforward is regarded as secure
only through the sacrifice of another; whilst this in
its turn is from a different quarter insisted on in as
absolute a sense, and with an equal disregard of its
relation to the general subject-matter of the evi
dences. 1st. And first, there may be a rejection or de
preciation of branches of evidence. This some
times shelters itself under spiritual pFetences, and
specifically under the public and express testimonies
of the Holy Spirit,' which are employed as grounds
for undervaluing the contributions of natural and
moral truth to revelation.

14 SERMON I.
Or, independently of this pretext, the distinct
existence of the truths of natural theology and
ethics is denied or is detracted from, and they are
confounded, not only as to their discovery in each
instance, (a point coinparatively unimportant,) but
as to their proper character and basis with that dis
tinct species of truths which belongs essentially tO
revelation. It is not always easy to ascertain wher6
these indiscriminate views commence, whether with
our mental constitution itself, or with the proof de
ducible thence of the existence and moral attributes
of the Deity ; or lastly, at the point where these
truths, and others immediately consequent on them,
when themselves independently established, pass as
of course into their proper connection with revela^^
tion. More intelligibly, such partial notions obtain
encouragement where lax conceptions prevail in re
gard to the importance of the moral order of the
mind, and of the due ascendency of the understandr
ing as a preparation for these inquiries, and where
the notion of a trial, as involved in the conduct of
probable proof, is not distinctly recognised. Under
these circumstances the argument from abuse against
the use, and the pretext of danger from the appli
cation of a faculty so much perverted as reason has
indisputably been, to truths which especially exer
cise and prove it, are readily resorted to ; and as
fear has nothing in common with a just precaution,
but tends on the contrary to defeat the purposes on
behalf Of which it has been excited, not only, amid
indefinite apprehension, are the claims of natural
and moral truth, and of right reason, as employed
on them with reference to the evidences, rejected,

SERMON I. 15
but the ultimate foundations of revelation itself are
undermined by the defective and erroneous lights in
which religious proof is thus contemplated. In such
cases ah alarmed imagination will not allow the
understanding to " acknowledge, or systematic error
engrafted on such fears precludes it from perceiv
ing, that the moral distinctions which the mind of
man, in the proper employment of its faculties,
elicits, are indications of the character and will of
Him who made us capable of thus eliciting them;
are tests of so much of the positive divine commu
nications, as consist of truths which, though com
mon to both dispensations, appertain essentially to
the moral ; that they lie at the foundation of the
express divine and human attestations to revealed
truth ; that they fortify, in a variety of instances^
this external evidence, and even impart to it, on
some occasions, its principal significancy ; that to
keep back the understanding therefore from a di
rect employment on these truths, is not only to de
prive it of one of its noblest exercises, and most
important applications, to exclude it from one main
part of its offiae in regard to religious proof, and
from a princijral occasion of its appointed trials,
but that it is to aim a mortal blow at the specific
evidences of revelation. All this is either ;not seen
or not acted upon, and an independent foundation
is denied to the truths in, question. The bow which
heretofore was too. strongly bent on the side of a fit
ness of things which affected to stand clear in some
degree of the Deity himself, has of late years been
forced as much the contrary way; and the appa
rent simplicity of a conviction acquired by means of

16 SERMON I.
positive proof, and of this in the insulated and de
fective views of it which in such case are alone
admissible, is adduced to supersede that more labo,
rious application of the understanding to the evi
dences of religion, which an adequate notion of these
would diptate. Indolence is soothed, and, the appre
hensions felt from any considerable dependence upon
reason are abated, by a forbearing to require that
full and discrirninative exercise of the intellect, which
the complex character of religious proof, and the inr
timate connection which subsists between its several
branches, concurrently enjoin. Hence the existence
of the Deity and of his attributes is preferably rested
on merely positive grounds, is not referred to its uIt
timate basis in natural and moral truth, specifically
in the nature with which we are endowed by him.
Even where the appropriateness of these last fouur
dations is not contested, it still is often supposed
rather than asserted ; the 'attention of the inquirer
is coldly invited towards it ; he has to discover for
himself the specific and determinate process by
which, may suitably be established those primary
verities on which a rational ^assurance of the truth
of revelation and the validity of its positive evi
dences substantially depend. The prevalent bias is
plainly towards overlooking the distinction between
truths which, through whatever dispensation they
may have been communicated, have a proper foun
dation in our nature, and in the constitution of
things around us, and those with which reason has
no other direct concern than that of ascertaining
their sense and their authority. Thus is revelation
deprived of an ultimate support, lest what consti-

SERMON I. 17
tutes in fact a necessary preparative for a compe
tent understanding of its specific evidences should
indispose for their reception.
2. But now the licence exhibited in the conduct of
probable proof, and in those applications of it which
afford an especial trial to the human mind, would
be incomplete, unless the natural and moral contri
butions to the evidences of revelation, which some
altogether reject, and others depreciate, were in their
turn immoderately insisted on, and an extreme in
one direction became a pretext, and in some de
gree a cause of equal error in the sense opposed
to it. And with the same incorrectness as under
the former head, though with the contrary design
and application, are the offices of the Holy Spirit
appealed to, as sanctioning and bearing a part in
this second species of abuse to which the conduct of
probable proof is subjected. Sometimes indeed«in
so far as an habitually vague manner of expression
on these topics can be estimated, sometimes it would
seem that the very notion of the moral graces of the
Spirit is merged in an assumed sufficiency of the in
ternal character of revelation itself to all the pur-
.poses of moral influence. But more frequently, an
apparent countenance is obtained for an extreme
and exclusive regard fo the contributions of ethical
truth from the especial relation which the moral
graces of the Spirit possess with truth of that de
scription. Farther ; for exaggerated views of this truth a
plea is derived from the peculiar features which Be
long to it. As its inherent character connects it at
c

18 SERMON I.
once with our mental constitution and with the mo
ral parts of holy writ,' thb support accruing to reve
lation from verities so congenial to the human mind,
and necessarily more or less familiar to it, easily as
sumes an undue importance ; until the inquiry which
bore at first an intellectual character, lapses at length
into a . sentimental one. By degrees those natural
and moral relations, magnified through fancy to the
mind, are represented as supplying a body of evi
dence of itself conclusive ; and revelation is assumed
to derive its principal .claims to belief and to recep
tion, from the exemplifications it affords of moral
truth, and, of the moral character of the revealer
How much the cumulative character in vvhich re
sides the strength of probable proof must suffer from
this perpetual round of error, from the shutting out
or the altogether insisting on any single branch, is
manifest ; and the evil is augmented in this case by
Ag circumstance of the branch selected in order to
exclusive reliance being one which owes its direct
and absolute force to an union with other portions
of the evidences, with those express and positive
testimonies which constitute the specific proofs of
revelation. From Physics, considered as uniting with the
moral constitution of things to furnish the grounds
of natural theology and ethics, and as participating
by consequence in the treatment to which those
systems of truth, in their connection with revelation,
have been subjected, we are conducted to an inci
dental relation between Physiology, separately taken,
and the Scriptures. Whilst in a variety of subor
dinate respects natural knowledge illustrates the

SERMON I. 19
sense of holy writ, a more especial relation presents
itself between the phenomena Which our earth exhi
bits to the geologist, and certain leading facts in the
inspired narrative of Moses. But here also, not less
than in regard to the combined relations of natural
and moral truth with revelation,, views are not un
frequently presented which a sound intellect, con
scientiously applied to the subject, must reject;
which are disproportionate to the proper character
of the connection itself, and to the means there are
of rendering it conducive to the purposes of evi
dence. On the one hand, the tribute derivable from
this source to the authority of Scripture is passed
over, or is regarded with distrust, as affording no
suitable exercise, or a dangerous one, to the under
standing ; as though the relation between the natu
ral and the Scripture record, because contingent,
had no existence ;" or as though the essential nature
of truth could vary with the channels through which
it is communicated, and the word and the works of
God spoke not, in so far as they are truly compre
hended, the same language ; might not, even by due
intellectual application to them, be rendered in some
degree expressive of this harmony. On the other
hand, the importance of the relation itself, and of
its bearings on the evidences, is magnified, as though
the authenticity and divine authority of the Mosaic
history were dependent on the establishment of an
entire accordance. In the first of these instances,
the aggregate force of probable evidence is detracted
from by a timid withholding of the understanding
from its exercise on particulars conducive to the
interests of religious proof, although in no degree
decisive of them ; in the second, the same collec-
c 2

so SERMON I.
tive proof is invalidated, and the office of the in
tellect interfered with by fanciful and forced agree
ment : for under the impression that no point can
safely remain unexplained, or need do so where a
divine wisd<iw3f has on each hand supplied the data,
the imagination -becomes actively engaged in the
indiscriminate removal of difficulties ; of difficulties
which cannot be expected perhaps wholly to disap
pear, probable as it is that between records of so
different a character, and interpreted by a process
so dissimilar, apparent contrarieties there would be,
and outweighed as are these seeming variations hy
opposite certainties ; by the mass of evidence for the
authority of the writings to whose reconcilement
with the phenomena of the natural creation such
difficulties have attached themselves ; by the conse-
quent certainty that these records must agree ; by
the points of indubitable agreentient that actually
have been established.
What is now said, as well as the further consi-
deration which will hereafter be given to this topic,
is not intended, it will be seen, to discourage at
tempts to conciliate the text of Scripture with phy-,
Biological truth; but, by making good the princi
ples on which such endeavours should be conduct?
ed, to secure, in every case, a correct result; to°
temper the zeal and moderate the anxiety which
are sometimes manifested on behalf of a success,
which the evidences of religion do not require, and
which would be as Vainly as unappropriately sought
for through a constrained adjustment. Actual dis
cordance, if ultimately on any point it should re
main, since it can be such only with reference to

SERMON I. 21
our specific means of removing it,, is, preferable to a
concord- effected at the expence of real sacrifices on
either side. For that in these concessions, as they
are sometimes termed, the interests of truth are as
little regarded as its character, expeigjence on this
subject has already shewn ; sooner or later these
unauthorized grants are paid back amid all the dis
advantages to the subject itself, which the necessity
of retractation is sure to bring with it.
On these accounts it appears to be no mean sub
ject of congratulation to the advocates of truth, that
physical science has, in the branch of it which re
gards the study of the earth, obtained of late distin
guished encouragement; obtained it in the place
where exist the strongest pledges for the principles
on which such Itudy wiU be pursued. And the
sound philosophical spirit already manifested by the
Professor appointed to this department, when united,
as in him it is seen to be, with the ardour of inquiry
indispensable to real progress, affords just grounds
of confidence, that truth of whatever kind, simple
and consistent as this approves 'itself, in exact pro
portion to the success with which it has been inves
tigated, will, under such auspices, be secure.
From this general outline of the intended subject-
matter of the present discourses, it is time to pro
ceed to the specific plan on which they will be con
ducted. The proper termination of wanderings is
rest, and order of confusion ; and the advantage de
rivable from a considera.tion of the various possibili
ties of error which the human mind contrives to
realize, is the seeing more distinctly into the means
c 3

22 SERMON I.
by which the truths impugned may most success
fully be asserted. In the present case are brought
under review, and are exemplified, certain errors
more or less systematic in regard to the reception
of the evidences ; and as that reception itself de
pends on the condition of the human mind to some
quahty of which both truth and error must address
themselves, so in fact it is in mistaken or insufficient
views of the mental condition requisite to an inquiry
into the truth of religion, that these errors have their
origin. With the mental condition, therefore, a be
ginning will here be made. The claims of a mo
rally-directed intellect, both absolutely and as com
pared with the other properties of the mind, wiU be
contemplated in deference to faith ; and the proper
intellectual foundation of that virtue will be main
tained against all immediate pretShces from within
the mind to interfere with it. This will be the sub
ject of the next sermon.
But though the true cause of error will thus have
been pointed out and contemplated, and may there
fore be dismissed from all further direct considera-^
tion, yet the indirect pretences under which it con
ceals itself remain, and must be combated on their
own grounds. Accordingly, in the third and fourth
discourses, the notion of interruption to the proper
intellectual process, in regard to religious proof, by
the offices of the Holy Spirit, will be refuted bv such
full and connected views of the relation borne by
them to the human mind, as the desultory and
defective representations which abound concerning
this doctrine require. All pretence of interruption
from this quarter will effectually be shut out; and

SERMON I. 23
the coincidence of the heavenly graces, in ordinary
periods, with the course of the mental faculties and
with the diligent and impartial application of the
intellect to the method and the subject-matter of
religious proof, will be distinctly exhibited.
At the outset of the fifth discourse, the same pro
cess will be pursued in regard to the other pretences
already enumerated, whether as they regard the
choice of the mode of proof, or the conduct of the
method chosen. ,*
And under the first of these heads it will be ex
plicitly though briefly shewn, that even in regard to
primary and fundamental religious, truths of demon
strative proof, there cannot be a question. Thence-
foKward our views wiU be restricted to the probable
method, whose appropriateness to the office of evi
dencing religion and morals has been dwelt upon in
the present sermon ; and the proper conduct of this
method will be exhibited with reference to the ex
amples of undue depression or exaltation of evidence
already adduced. In order to this, a stand wiU be
made, as where probable truth is in question it fitly
may, in actual being; in the fact of our mental
constitution, of whose existence and character con
sciousness, assisted by reason and experience, suf
fices to assure us, and in that primary feature of the
human mind, a reference to causation, for the pur
pose of disengaging the question, wherein consists
the independent character of natural theology and
ethics, from the extraneous matter with which it
sometimes is, embarrassed, and. which hinders the
discernment of its true, solution. Facts and Scrjp-
c 4

24 SERMON I.
ture authority will subsequently come in aid of such
reasoning, and will concur with it in establishing
the independence of the truths in question. Further,
definite views will be presented of the relatioh which
the truths thus ascertained to rest on a distinct foun
dation are thenceforward qualified to bear to the po
sitive communications of the Deity, and of the degree
of actual application to the evidences of revealed
truth of which they are susceptible. Thus, in the
fifth; sixth, and seventh discourses, the errors of thdse
who undervalue, and of those who exaggerate the
proper character of natural and moral proof, will
alike be rectified. -a^ *
In the eightbjj.and last sermon, the more imme
diate conclusions which a review of the previous dis
cussions shall dictate, wiU be brought home to the
younger portion of my hearers. Before, however,
the subject thus is closed, the distinct but incidental
and subordinate relation between physics, singly
taken, and the Mosaic history, will receive tile fur
ther consideration which has in the present discourse
been promised to it.
And on the whole, and although, consistently with
the doing even ordinary justice to the points here
treated of, a selection of examples from the general
subject-matter of the evidences alone was practi
cable, yet the internal condition of the mind requi
site in every case to the impartial consideration^ of
religious proof, will have been represented and in
sisted on ; and the pretences under which the pro
per intellectual process is interfered with, inquired
into, and dissipated. And if it be at the same time

SERMON I. 25
considered, that the portion of the evidences chosen,
as well for the correction of the errors which exist
respecting it, as for the general elucidation of the
principle in exemplification of which these errors
are exhibited, is one, the right apprehension of which
is indispensable to a similar understanding of that
other main branch of evidence, divine and human
testimony ; that with this branch it maintains also
an intimate collateral connection; that the posi
tive attestations have in consequence obtained fre
quent incidental elucidation in these discourses, not
only as much will perhaps appear to have been done
as my limits would allow, or as the subject itself
could still require, but the actual extension of the
same principle to the positive evidences will have
been provided for; although in respect of these it
less is needed. Indeed so essential and specific is
the connection between the several portions of reli
gious evidence, and on so many occasions is an in
quirer into anyone division of it reminded of this
circumstance, that, did not experience teach a con
trary lesson, and theory refer us to adequate causes
within the mind itself, it might seem a harder task
to divorce or to confound such harmonizing parts,
than to exhibit them in their just relations.
And although I am professedly contemplating
eiTors within the pale of Christianity, and such as
are supposed to consist with a sincere profession of
#it, yet if it be considered that one principal class of
these errors gives advantage to the infidel whom it
would oppose, by leaving him in possession of ground
not properly his own ; that another and contrary
class tends to merge in moral representations the

26 SERMON I.
specific truths of Christianity, its facts and its testi
monies, which the infidel would gladly see explained
avvay; it will perhaps be thought that a determinate
issue given to points so handled by the friends of
revelation, as in reality to subserve the purposes of
its enemies, has a proper application to both.
To conclude : the proper ascendency of the intet
lect is a point which requires at all times to be dili
gently upheld ; but a severe additional responsibility
attaches to the maintaining of it where religious
evidence is concerned, while the temptations to its
abandonment are at the same time heightened. In
proportion as an obligation thus circumstanced is
insufficiently acknowledged and inculcated, must it,
require>to be reproduced and to be dwelt upon ; nor
does it seem that one main purpose of this lecture,
"the establishment of the faith," objectively under
stood, can in any way be more effectually attained,
than by vindicating the intellectual character of the
principle of faith by which the truth of religion is
apprehended, and defending it against such open or
secret inroads as may still disturb its application.

SERMON IL

1 Peter iii. 15, 16.
Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asTc-
eth you a reason of the hope that is in you with meek
ness and fear, having a good conscience.
Jb ROM an incipient indulgence of fancy, senti
ment, or will, to the utmost of those excesses in
which it is seen to terminate; as weU amid pre
tences to an exclusive possession and correct em
ployment of the powers of reasoning, as amid a
studied rejection of them ; whatever errors essen
tially affect the existence or the character of re
ligious belief, are referable ultimately to an insuffi
cient apprehension of the nature and importance
of a conscientious conviction of the intellect, and
to the denying in consequence to the operations of
this faculty their proper influence and efficacy in the
composition of faith. Thus an inoperative profes
sion of belief is thought to be accounted for by the
assumption that it resides exclusively in the under
standing, dn which aU the while probably it has no
real hold ; and thus faith and science are conceived
to be the objects of different faculties, a notion
which, though it should admit of an inquu-y by the
intellect into the reasons for beheving, withdraws
indiscriminately from the cognizance of that faculty
the truths which religion comprehends.

28 SERMON II.
Before I proceed then, as is the object of this
second discourse, to consider the specific nature of
certain pretences to interfere with the understand
ing in its application to the evidences, it may be
expedient to assert, in an absolute sense, the proper
claims of this faculty itself.

'#-.

And, in the first place, it deserves attention, that
in a conscientious employment of the intellect on re
ligious evidence is implied much more than the term
assent, historic or other, by which theological writers
usually designate the results of the intellectual pro
cess, might seem to intimate. It is possible, cer
tainly, that by ill-regulated minds the proofs of re
ligion may be entertained, as might subject-matter
of any other kind, without producing any real men^^
tal impression, of course, therefore^ without any
such further effects as faith supposes ; but their in-
efficacy in these cases, instead of detracting froiii
the character of a just intellectual conviction, con
tributes to establish the conclusion, that, for its at
tainment, nothing less than a diligent, persevering,
and conscientious exercise of the understanding wUl
suffice. Again ; a certain assent, and even trust,
may arise out of a defective acquaintance with re
ligious proof; but in proportion to the capacityof
the mind for fuller views, it will be an assent un
productive of the fruits which religion requires.
But a proper conviction is neither inoperative nor
ineffectual. The office, indeed, of the understand,
ing in respect of truth once ascertained to be di
vine, becomes comparatively limited; but a prin,
cipled belief, after taking its root in that faculty,
fails not to present, at every subsequent stage of its

SERMON II. 29
progress, indications of its origin. Further, the
relation which subsists between the other mental
qualities and the intellect has a tendency to for
ward every part of the process necessary to the
completeness of faith. For when the mind is in
that moral state which conscientious inquiry sup
poses, the intellect, even when submitting in com
mon with the other mental qualities to a divine and
paramount authority, still retains over these its cus
tomary controul, so as to ensure the proper dis^-
charge of their subordinate but efficient functions ;
and such functions consist in carrying onward the
convictions of the understanding into all the vari--
ous particulars by which a proper faith discovers
itself. Of the actual influence of such convictions,
of the importance of securing to the intellect its
primary and appropriate office in the production of
them, a remarkable exemplification is supplied in
the restraint experienced on the part of those, who,
by resigning the government of their minds to pas
sion and appetite, are establishing an immoral state
of them. So long as the intellect is not dispossessed
of its convictions, those other qualities are seldom
seen to allow themselves an entire licence.
And if such is the nature and importance of a
proper satisfaction of the intellect, if this faculty
not only has a direct and immediate efficacy in re
gard to religious faith, but is one on which the
other mental powers depend for their due place and
employment, The second proposition noticed, that faith is not
the object of the same faculty with science, is plainly

30 SERMON II.
inadmissible. For although, where the question
is of religious doctrine and precept, and of the mo
tives to hope and fear which reUgion generaUy,
which revelation in its threats and promises; specifi
cally, holds out, another faculty, the will, with which
science has no proper concern, be called into action,
yet is it employed in subordination to the under
standing, cannot claim therefore to be regarded as
appropriate to faith, in contradistinction: to the in
tellect. It is the understanding, in every case,
which must inquire into the grounds for believing,
whether the method of proof be that of sense or
of probability; it is the understanding that deter
mines the belief of those religious truths to be our
duty, which it ascertains to bear the stamp of in
timations from the Deity. Its functions, which have
an unrestricted bearing on natural theology and
ethics, on the evidences which these supply to reve
lation, on the specific testimonies to revealed truth,
are not without a qualified apphcation to that truth
itself For although this faculty pretends not to
bring to the test of reason the proper doctrines of
revelation, yet in some definite sense, and as matter
of fact at the least, it in every instance apprehends
even these ; while it is possessed of principles for
judging more fully and decisively of such natural
and moral truths as are found incorporated amid
truths revealed. Lastly, to the understanding be
longs the giving the impulse to the will and affec
tions ; the authorizing and directing such employ
ment as can fitly be assigned to them in respect both
of the principle and the subject-matter of religious
faith. If then it were said, that science and faith
are the objects of one and the same faculty in dif-

SERMON II. 31
ferent applications of it, the proposition would be
tenable ; they give occupation in effect in two se
veral modes to the human understanding, as di
rected in the . one case to what is demonstrable, and
therefore may be known ; in the other, to what, on
the evidence of probable reasoning, or sense, or testi
mony, may be believed or credited.
On the whole, the principle of belief, employed
first on the evidences of religion, and then on the
truths — ^the subject-matter — ihejuith of which re
ligion is composed, has not merely a rational cha
racter ; it subsists habitually in the intellectual as
well as the moral powers, and in the will and affec
tions under their guidance. Indeed, the determi
nation long since given to the question agitated in
the schools, whether the principle of faith could be
the subject of two distinct faculties, supplies the
just ground of discrimination between the inteUect
and the other mental properties. Faith,, it was
agreed, might reside both in the intellect and the
will, so it were understood to exist in this last sub-
ordinately and iderivatively. To propose to the will
as motives those argments which it has in the first
instance itself adopted, is the proper office of the
understanding. To that operation of the mind,
which is by some attributed to a distinct internal
sense, appertains the bringing home the moral force
of the proofs received ; and from these several men
tal exercises arise respectively, 1st. Conviction. 2d.
An apprehending, and self-appUcatibn of the parti
culars contained in the religion of whose truth we
have been convinced. 3d. Hope and trust ; a cheerful
and fiduciary acquiescence in the promises of reli-

32 SERMON II.
gion, and in the divine authority on which they are
estabUshed. The results are such acts, internal and
outward, as attest to ourselves and others the reaUty
and strengthen the principle of the faith in which
they originate. The Holy Spirit superintends the
process, prevents, accompanies, consummates our en
deavours, converts (where these have not been want
ing) belief upon probable grounds into certainty,
both of behef and of adherence, exalts through its
specific succours the intellectual and moral virtue of
human faith into a faith that is spiritual or divine.
The criterion, mean time, of the soundness of the
human foundations, in which the faith has primarily
been laid, is the believer's ability to " give a reason
" of the hope that is in him ;" not a reason or ac
count of the subject-matter to be behoved, for this
may not always be attainable ; not a reason of that
ultimate " confidence and rejoicing of hope" de
rivable to the individual from his self-application of
the- truth, for this must vary with his internal con
dition, and as arising out of the concurrent testi
monies of the spiritual fruits, and of his own con
science, regards only himself; but an exhibition of
the evidences on which religion demands to be be
lieved, a reason why the « hopes" held out by it may
be confided in.
Experience, however, forbids the expectation, that
in these fuUer and more definite views of faith the
human mind will at any period contentedly ac
quiesce. It exchanges them, in fact, for notions
which, by their partiality, may flatter some one fa
vourite mental quality at the expence of the rest;
or which, by their indiscriminate character, tend to

SERMON II. 33
substitute a general licence in the room of that order
which is essential to true Uberty. Under these cir
cumstances the inteUect is no longer honestly ap
plied to the attainment of a sound beUef ; the ra
tional principle of faith is detached from the fidu
ciary ; hope is entertained on grounds as unappro
priate as they are ineffectual to the purpose for
which they are introduced ; and in this condition of
the mind, inert in respect of its proper duties, and
active only for the purposes of disorder, the hea
venly influences are assumed to descend in a sense
and measure which may supply the place of exer
tions designedly withheld, of a diUgent and un
ostentatious employment of the appointed methods
of conviction.
On proceeding, however, to the consideration of
the specific pretences on which it is thus*attempted
to interfere with the office of the intellect, or to su
persede it, two difficulties present themselves. First,
since the intellectual claims, and their relations to
those of the other mental quaUties, have been now
distinctly, though in general terms, asserted, any
particular inquiry into such pretences as are at va
riance with them, may on a primary view appear
not to deserve, and so wiU not obtain attention ;
while, in the second place, the indeterminate ex
pressions under which the substituted methods of
obtaining satisfaction as to the truth of religion are
exhibited, render it difficult to apply to them so di
rect and specific a refutation, as would bring with it
its own apology. But it should be considered, that
what is admitted in general terms is not therefore
necessarily apprehended in as distinct a sense as the
D

34 SERMON II.
truth requires, while in proportion as the errors m
question would evade our scrutiny, arises an in
creased occasion for applying it. To encounter them
with generaUties, such as they themselves are couch
ed in, would be their safeguard. And the plan on
which these discourses are framed is well adapted
to procure a definite issue to such inquiry ; for of
the powers and quaUties of the human mind, with
whose relations to evidence we are here concerned,
our knowledge, although of a practical character,
is considerable; and the sort of satisfaction in re
gard to religious truth, which any faculty, when
considered as occupying the place of the intellect^
is capable of conveying to the mind, need not long
remain problematical.
Now it were vain theoreticaUy to refuse to in
cidental dl-cumstances an influence, which at aU
events they in fact must have in bringing the mind
to' this inquiry concerning the truth of religion ir
regularly. Except in these seats of learning, reli
gious evidence seldom presents itself in the form of
system, rarely, at the least, is so studied, and the
subject-matter of our faith is famiUarized to the
mind at an age when its proofs would hardly be in^
teUigible. Impressed, therefore, with the moral
beauties of holy writ, or excited by the Offer of
means of grace and happiness, manifestly adapted
to the wants and wishes of our nature, the mind
may insensibly have imbibed that persuasion of the
heart, which the evidences of Christianity wiU not
faU to justify by subinducing the conviction of the
understanding. But though thus much may be al-
lowed in respect of the method of arriving at truths.

SERMON II. 35
whose transcendent importance requires the facUi-
tating through every mean an actual acquaintance
with them, yet even in these instances, and in re
gard to the very points whence so much gratifica
tion of a moral sort is imparted, to ascertain the
character and degree of the proof derivable from
them, and to employ it suitably to the quaUty and
weight so assigned to it, is exclusively the office of
the inteUect. The other mental qualities are con
cerned in the process only as they may purvey ma
terials for the exercise of the judgment. To ima
gine or to feel religion to be true, (and the imagi
nation, though it be not formally insisted on as an
instrument of suasion, has often no small share in
it,) is plainly no step towards the satisfying either
ourselves or others that it is so ; and the ethics of
Scripture might be strictly consonant to the moral
sentiments of the human mind, without invblving
the divine authority, or even the truth of the dis
pensation in which those ethics are incorporated.
Yet has the contrary notion assumed a systematic
form, and the capacity to apprehend the moral dif
ferences, and the tendency to approve and censure
in conformity to them which we are conscious of,
have been proposed as the ultimate tests, not of
moral truth alone, but of truth as such and univer-
saUy. Now this is to confound the moral quaUty
inherent in aU truth, and the spefcific character ap
pertaining to the truths of moraUty, with the intel
lectual or historical .character, in which consists the
distinction of truth from falsehood. In regard to
the two former of these, sentiment, aided by expe
rience, affords to reason and conscience the requisite
distinctions, in order to the judging and applying
D 2

36 SERMON IL
morally ; it furnishes no such means for deciding on
the proper and generic character of truth. This is
the object" solely of the inteUect. The "good con-
" science," mentioned in the text, is introduced
there, not as in any degree supplanting the under
standing, but in order to the ensuring such an actual
condition of this faculty, as may capacitate it for
exercising jointly with the intellect its mental con
troul. More generally the Scriptures rest not the
truth of reUgion in any. degree on appeals to senti
ment or fancy. As a corroboration, indeed, of the
fact of his being sent from God, our Lord adverts
to the purity'' of his doctrine, but the reference is
argumentative ; and though his miracles possessed
incontestably what might captivate the imagination
and interest the feelings of mankind, no stress is
laid on them in this view; their object is beUef;
and they are addressed for this end through the
outward senses to the understanding. The mental
process required was short, but it was rational;
^' No man could do such miracles," could exert that
supernatural power for such purposes, and in such a
cause, " unless God were with him."
On behalf, however, of a sentimental suasion, a
plea is sometimes urged, which, however undeserv-
ing in any other view of the notice of this auditory,
yet inasmuch as it tends, to encroach on the univer-
saUty.of the principle for which I am contending,
must not be allowed, to pass altogether unregarded.
There are, it is assumed, persons capable of readiaig
b Amongst instances of this kind, our Lord's references to " the
I' truth" in St. John have a moral, as well as intellectual, sense.

SERMON IL 37
and meditating upon the Scriptures, and thus, as
weU as by an intelUgent appU cation to the other
outward means of grace, deriving to themselves no
inconsiderable degree of acquaintance with the
truths of religion, who yet are unequal to the ap
prehending of its proofs. To these, it is conceived,
the channel of moral suasion may suffice. Now, if
a comprehension of the entire body of religious evi
dence, its grounds, its relations, its bearings, were
required from the ordinary believer, a difficulty
would certainly thus exist, though mere persuasion
would have no proper tendency to remove it. It is
not, however, a learned " reason" the apostle in the
text intends, but such an one as every sound intel
lect, faithfully applied to the subject, may obtain.
JVom the creation generally, frotti our own mental
constitution in particular, primary religious proofs
admit of being famiUarly induced, so as to become
intelligible to very ordinary understandings; aiid
testimony, a species of evidence whose theory is of
the simplest kind, and with which all are practicaUy
conversant, puts the inquirer in possession of the
Scriptures, and through theni of those divine at
testations to the truth of revelation^ in which thie
moral notions of the Deity, antecedently acquired,
wiU have prepared him to confide. Or suppose
(what, however, experience is far from justifying)
that more is here attributed to ordinary capacities
than the truth of the case allows, that the degree
of intellect and mental culture requisite to a saving
acquaintance with the truths of reUgion suffices not
also (with the aid of such ministerial instruction as
the Scriptures suppose) for thie reception of the coi-
dences, even then the uneducated mind will per.
D 3

38 SERMON IL
form an act of reason in abiding by those sensible
attestations to revealed truth, which the actual sub
sistence of a visible church, not authoritatively, en
joining belief, nor requiring an impUcit one, but
« the witness and keeper of holy writ," which a
standing ministry, which permanent ordinanceSj sup
ply in a certain degree to aU, though in a fuller
sense to the intelUgent and well instructed. It is
not improbable, further, where the volume of reve
lation and other means of grace are duly resorted
to, that on minds not inured to self-observation,
the contents of the Scriptures themselves, as com^
pared together, and coupled with their internal cha
racter, may imperceptibly be operating towards a
proper convictio%of the inteUect. In short, a rear
son there must be, however divested of the forms of
ratiocination, or the faith, not having an ultimate
foundation in the understanding, wiU be unsound.
The extent of the reason must depend on the de
gree of capacity -and culture of the mind which is
to entertain it. The anomalous state of those who
neither can apprehend the fuller evidences of reU
gion, nor will defer to the simple but correct parti-r
culars of proof which they might readily appreciate,
is one for which neither reason nor religion can be
expected to provide. A fanciful and voluntary cha
racter is impUed in the very supposition of such a
state ; there is a moral defect engrafted upon, and
turning to its purposes, the intellectual one; and if
even exceptions wUl not hold on behalf of the suffi
ciency of a sentimental persuasion, what have not
writers to answer for, who expressly lead the way
to enthusiasm, by contending for that sufficiency ab^
solutely and without distinction ?

SERMON IL 39
More plausibly, but with equal incoFrectness, a
positive bias of the will in favour of reUgion is in
sisted on, in order to the estabUshment of the foun
dations of beUef. But first, on the supposition, which
is unwarranted, that any addition to the influence
of the proper proofs of religion on the understanding
could be needed, the wiU has no tendency correctly
to supply it. It is true the argument a tuto, as it
is termed, (in itself not without its use in engaging
the mind to a due examination of the evidences,)
has, by writers of no common celebrity, been ap-
pUed to the enforcing a determination to beUeve
at all events in a reUgion, which offers to the human
mind the happiness it covets ; but a voUtion, how..
ever intense, however absolute, cannot contribute any
thing towards conviction. The only suitable appli
cation to the wUl is that of motives, having a bearing
upon truths already ascertained ; in other words, a
moral one. In this view, the will may be, and by
nature is, under an influence that has need to be re
moved, before the love and desire of truth, which are
otherwise congenial to the human mind, can exert
themselves : for though he who merely wills to be-
Ueve, cannot by this his resolution, and independ
ently of inquiry, induce a proper conviction, yet he
whose wUl is in an immoral state cannot be ex
pected to inquire even ; the intellect is in such case
deprived more or less of its ascendency in the mind,
and of the proper exercise of its functions. The
pretence advanced then relates to a moral bias ; and
if no more be meant by it than a wiUingness to seek
the truth as such, and for its own sake, a disposition
to ascertain the wiU of God, as is the duty of a ra
tional and moral creature, with that ulterior view to
D 4

40 SERMON IL
obedience, which is the proper test of our sincerity,
such a qondition of the will is readily admitted to
be indispensable: it is implied in a moral state of
the mind, or in the possession of a " good con-
« science." But with the proper love of truth isi
connected a jealousy of adopting what may not be
such ; and a very ill effect, one highly injurious to
the character and force of the evidences for reUgion,; ,
must be produced in the mind of an inquirer, by its
being held out to him, that in a matter so properly
intellectual as the examination of proof, such a state
of the wiU was needed, and such an influence was
to be allowed to it over the understanding, as should
detract from the task of full examination, or induce
an acquiescence in reasoning, which on any other,
subject would be regarded as inadmissible. On the
contrary, in proportion to the implicitness of the
submission due to the authority of divine truth when .
ascertained to be such, are we bound to investigater.
strictly the vaUdity of all pretensions to that cha
racter ; and so difficult is it to regulate the opera-,,
tions of the will when introduced antecedently to
the decisions of the understanding, so destructive is
its interference of that main security for the subse*,
quent character of the faith, an impartial conviction
of the inteUect, so numerous and preponderating at
the same time are the evidences of religion, that the
state of mind most favourable on the whole to such
inquiry, because productive ultimately of proper sa
tisfaction, is that which approaches the nearest to a
perfect freedom from whatever human influence.
And the Scriptures require not more than this. It
was a positive averseness of the wiU from truth, as
such, that our Lord reprehended in the Jews, noj;

SERMON IL 41
the absence of an inclination in favour of the spe
cific doctrines he was deUvering, otherwise than as
they were identified with truth itself; " Because I
" tell you the truth, ye beUeve me not^" Less evi
dence, and of a less decisive character than was
afforded them of our Saviour's mission, would have
secured a just determination of their understandings,
if their wiUs had not been under an opposite bias.
But, it wiU from certain quarters be urged, if the
inferior quaUties of the mind cannot in any degree
supersede the proper office of the understanding in
respect of evidence, yet may satisfaction as to the
truth of reUgion be imparted from on high ; and ei
ther the language employed on this head is indeter
minate, and the Scripture authorities introduced are
unaccompanied with- any intimation of the sense and
extent in which the a,pplication of them is intended,
or on the other hand, where a precise meaning is
affixed to terms and to authorities, it is one so posi
tively antiscriptural, that under these representations
of a doctrine which requires more than ordinary
caution in the treatment of it, there is no variety of
error that may not find a shelter. When contem
plated, however, even with a Umited view, such as
that of its relation to the evidences, the subject of
the divine influences involves so much of general
doctrine, as to require a separate and detailed consi
deration of it. What remains of the present dis
course will but suffice to give a definite conclusion
to the points already contemplated.
¦^ John viii. 40,45,

42 SERMON IL
And first, there is equal error in detaching the
proper exercise of the intellect from faith, and con
science from either. Separated from conscience, the
understanding will not adequately address itself to-
religious evidence, or will neglect to carry on its be
lief to the wUl and affections ; wUl not urge the ap
plication of it by the other qualities of the mind, to
the fuller purposes of faith and. obedience. Again>i
unless the inteUect have supplied a groundwork on
which faith may be securely rested, conscience will
be without an adequate rule ; and the errors of an
uninteUigent piety may, as experience testifies, be
fundamental. Where in any way this bond is
broken, and the union between what is true and
good is disregarded ; those active but inferior in
mates of the mind, which under a combined intelf
lectual and moral controul are eminently useful in
struments of truth and duty, become mischievous in
proportion to their efficiency. Conscience or intd->
lect, the appointed governors of the mind, once be
come subservient to their irregular influence, the re^
ception given to proof is disingenuous, is fanciful,
is self-wiUed ; is by necessary consequence unsound
and partial. Sentimental even it may be, where
there is this disunion and misrule, without, as we
have seen, proving on that account the more cor
rect. ' It is in fact amid claims to refined senti
mental persuasion that the Christian scheme is re
solved into a sublime morality, and its positive at
testations, into ordinary Occurrences, or into allegory^
This is indeed an extreme and complex instance of
abuse; but it exempUfies a truth which lies^ at the
foundation of aU inquiries into faith, namely, that in

SERMON IL 43
the absence of a con viction. of the inteUect propor
tioned to the capacity of the individual, and to his
general mental culture and attainment, and of this
conviction cherished as it at first was formed, under
the influence of conscience, the mind, having no ul
timate point of reference within itself, no counter-
poise to the suggestions from without, which even
profane learning may in such case of itself present,
either faUs away amid temptations to increduUty, or
is at the mercy of every mental fantasy ; is in
variably^ tending towards an abandonment of the^
truth, or towards the perversion of it.
On the other hand, where the proper character
of religious proofj and the various and concurrent
branches which constitute its aggregate have been
conscientiously examined and appreciated by the in
teUect, and the mind has had full opportunity of
discovering on how broad and how appropriate a
foundation religion is estabUshed, there will be no
pretext; for complaining of the inoperative character
of a belief originating in the understanding, or vainly
seeking a substitute for it in some, other faculty.
The intellect, when thus discharging, its specific
functions, wiU communicate a correspondent sound
ness and efficiency to every other part of the mental
operations which the completer virtue of Christian
faith requires. As Uttle question wiU there be of
the capricious liberties which are taken by professed
believers with the letter and the sense of Scripture^
and which materiaUy affect the subject-matter of the
evidences. Such partial and insincere treatment of
records, of whose authority the mind entertained an
honest and deliberate conviction, would be inexpli-

44 SERMON IL
cable. The difficulty sometimes experienced in ad
mitting the more mysterious doctrines of revelation,
which yet are so attested as to render the imphcit
beUef of them an act of reason, arises less from an
indisposition to defer to authority acknowledged to
be divine, than from the having neglected the means
of arriving at a sufficient conviction of the claims
of those doctrines to such a character. Again : to
the same defective application of the inteUect to
the subject of the evidences, and to the predomi
nance of passion and affection, are to be attributed
the disproportionate or exclusive attachments to
certain doctrines in reaUty of minor importance to
the faith, and to these in such exaggerated views of
them, as a sound understanding, duly exercising its
legitimate authority within the mind, would not al
low to be entertained there.
What pretext then can remain for interference
from within the mind with the specific functions of
the understanding ? None, certainly, in regard either
to the nature of proof, or to the conduct of it. The
view now taken of the constitution of the human
mind, brief as it has been, forbids the very suppo
sition ; involves a positive exclusion of such inter
ference. Sentiment and wiU, we have seen, and if
so, how much more fancy and affection, are inca
pable of becoming in any degree the vehicles of a
proper conviction ; and they have a subordinate of
fice to perform consequent on the functions of the
intellect in respect of faith, which is incompatible
with such a disorderly state as their giving disturb
ance to the intellect supposes. Even the suasion
which they create will, when they are no longer

SERMON IL 45
under proper government, partake of the distorted
views in which both truth and evidence must pre
sent themselves to minds so circumstanced. If the
question be of the kind of proof, it wiU be well, in
such case, if sensible rather than demonstrative evi
dence be not the imaginary substitute for the pro
bable ; while even where this last method of proof
is acquiesced in, advantage will be taken of the nu
merous occasions of abuse which exist in respect of
the conduct of it. Exalted or depressed according
ly, rejected or exclusively enforced, will be certain
branches or particulars, as sentiment, or fancy, or
self-will may incUne, And if direct interference with
the intellect from such quarters be not admissible,
hardly wiU it be contended for as operating indirect
ly. For where the pretences, which in such cases are
alleged, suffice not to justify themselves, the real
causes, far from affording any help, must, in propor
tion as they are discerned, betray the service they
are employed in ; and when not detected, wiU be
still more dangerous.
Finally, the meekness and fear with which (ac
cording to the most ^ probable interpretation of the
text) the apostle enjoins us to accompany our rea
sons rather than supposes the inquirer to apply for
them ; that temperate and prudent spirit, which not
the first Christians alone had need of, which is in
accordance with the character and essential to the
interests of truth itself, wUl be materially promoted
by a conscientious intellectual application to the sub
ject of the evidences. These, as they gradually sub-
d Verse 16 seems to decide the point.

46 SERMON IL
stitute for the agitations of doubt, the unwarranted
confidence of mere persuasion, or the still less intel
ligent decisions of the wiU, a stable and satisfactory
" reason of the hope" that is in ourselves, wiU infuse
into us the temper in which we best may recommend
the same security for their faith to others ; " Our
" speech will be alway with grace seasoned with
" salt ; and we shall know how we ought to answer
" every man,"

SERMON III.

1 John iv. 1.
Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they
are of God.
XVELIGIOUS error is then least Uable to detec
tion, when it attaches itself to points of primary im
portance, and which, in their full extent, transcend
the reach of human inteUigence, Advantage is in
this case taken of the general interest which the
subject creates, and of the degree of mysteriousness
which belongs to it, to represent as inapplicable and
even presumptuous, the discriminative course of in
quiry which alone can separate what is intelligible
or true, from what is involved in obscurity, or erro
neous. This remark has an especial appUcation to
the subject of the divine influences.
When the due employment of the intellect on re
hgious proof is resisted by the express substitution
of some other property of the mind for the under
standing, the error may be pointed out, and the just
prerogatives of reason be asserted. But if, while we
are required to admit the reality of certain imme
diate communications from on high of truth or evi
dence, or a certain character as belonging to the
moral graces of the Spirit, which would supersede
or interfere with the functions of the intellect, the

48 SERMON III.
objections to these pleas may be anticipated and
overruled by indeterminate references to the unU-
mited and incomprehensible character of spiritual
operations ; the mind wiU be no longer restrained
from expatiating, amid whatever varieties of error
such a subject indistinctly seen may present to an
ill-regulated imagination ; and vague and imperfect
notions on this important topic must be perpetuated.
" Where the Spirit of the Lord is," or under an
eminently spiritual dispensation, " there is liberty,"
not Ucence ; not a discharge from the duty of ascer
taining what such a dispensation, whether in respect
of truth or evidence, has in fact dehvered. How far
writers who claim a latitude in this respect for them
selves or others, or who indulge in it without the
claim, may discern its nature, its tendencies, whither
it in fact is leading them, is comparatively immate
rial. The cause of reUgious truth is concerned in
reducing their pretences to so determinate a form
as may render them the object of refutation ; or if
from their indistinct and ambiguous character this
be not always practicable, in treating so definitely
of the subject itself as to leave no place for error.
And as clear and determinate views are here espe
cially needed, so are they within our reach, provided
we wUl be content to see a boundary interposed be
tween our knowledge and our ignorance, and wiU
forbear to seek for truth beyond the Umits which
that boundary prescribes. For the sacred records,
whence alone we derive any proper knowledge of
the doctrine in question, constitute, when subjected
to just rules of interpretation, a definite source of

SERMON in. 49
instruction ; exclude all occasion of speculating as
to -what may be true, by authoritatively acquainting
us with what is so. Even in the Scriptures indeed
we learn but Uttle as to the nature of the Holy
Spirit ; more on the abstract point of spiritual ex
istence would be unintelligible or useless. Again :
as his actual operation is imperceptible, so neither
are we instructed in the mode of it ; but relatively
we have all the information which our circumstances
can require. For holy writ apprizes us of the reaUty
and specific characters of these aids, of the circum
stances under which they may be expected, of the
fruits through which their habitual presence is dis
coverable ; and this information is sufficient to se
cure every honest and diligent inquirer from igno
rance in respect to this doctrine, and from confound
ing it with the suggestions of his own fancy. And,
as might be expected, we are not without a certain
degree of assistance from our mental constitution,
that is, from the object to which spiritual gifts ap
ply themselves, towards correctly apprehending what
the Scriptures thus deliver, , Indeed, holy writ itself
may be said to point our attention to this quarter,
when it requires on our parts both cooperation and
fruits. In so doing it sanctions the conclusions de
rivable from observation and from consciousness,
that the Holy Spirit alters not the specific character
of our faculties, disturbs not by his ordinary influ
ences the proper course of them, comes into contact
with them in a way not inconsistent with their cus
tomary exercise ; and whatever cannot, from either
of these sources, be clearly and precisely coUected,
we are altogether without any proper Uberty to as
sume ; for it is to little purpose that the Scriptures
E

.50 SERMON IIL
have afforded us definite information, or have con-
yed, under various forms of expression, the cau-

ve

tion not to be wise above what is written, if, fron?
what they have told us on this or on any other sub
ject, we pass on into the regions of mere possibility.
But further, in regard to this very point, holy writ
has in the text enjoined circumspection. The in
junction to " try the spirits whether they are of
" God," had no doubt a primary and especial appli
cation to the age of miracles, supposed a sort of dis
cernment with which we are unprovided, because
we can have no proper occasion of employing it;
but that in a modified sense it refers also to ordi
nary periods, is evident, from our being furnished
in the same Scriptures with a standard of doctrine
in regard to the divine influences, and with a crite
rion for ascertaining whether such graces from on
high, as we stiU are taught to expect, have in any
given instance been in fact imparted. ,
And the character of the errors prevalent on this
subject, while it leaves no room to doubt of the
sanction they afford to a disorderly condition of the
human mind, indicates that they owe their rise to
it. An undisciplined imagination, attaching itself
habitually to those supernatural teachings and ma.
nifestations, which, not for present purposes alone,
but with an ultimate view to the permanent means
of conviction we now enjoy, the Holy Spirit has suc
cessively vouchsafed in former ages, arrives at the
point of misapprehending the real features of those
interpositions, and of the times in which they oc
curred ; perceives not that the character of these
last was that of a mediate divine government, in

SERMON IIL 51
part suspended; that the interpositions which, for
the purposes of a new religion, supplied both evi
dence and truth to the passive inteUect, disturbed
not usuaUy the moral influence on individuals in
respect of their salvation, of which the same displays
of power and knowledge might be productive ; in
terfered not with the customary and ordinary course
of moral grace. Then, these interpositions, thus mis
understood, are supposed to be at all periods within
the scope of revelation.
I, Under these impressions, and in the first place,
the purely moral character of ordinary spiritual in
fluences is lost sight of, and the Holy Spirit is repre
sented as habitually operating not only in order to
the bringing home to the mind truths and evidences
already supplied, but for the purpose of teaching and
convincing anew ; and as operating not through ap
pointed means and generally, but in an immediate
and partial sense, in order to the determining of in
dividual salvation.
II. Next, and as the consequence to such funda
mental error, the conditions on which the divine
influences may in ordinary periods be looked for are
disregarded; and because a passive state of mirtd
was best adapted to render it the instrument of
faithfuUy and for pubUc ends conveying to mankind
truths and attestations to those truths when first
and supernaturally imparted, an indolent dependence
on the Holy Spirit for such influences as may con
troul the mind and supply the place of human exer
tion, is substituted for those free and active endea
vours, which, where individual reUgious welfare is
E 2

52 SERMON HI.
in question, the Scriptures and our mental constitu
tion suppose or prescribe.
III. Thirdly, the indirect indeed but only scrip
tural test by which the inhabitation of the. Holy
Spirit, and the several degrees of it implied in a
progressively . improving . or a confirmed state , of
grace, may be ascertained, namely, the fruits, is ex
changed for a supposed instantaneous and sensible
testimony of the Spirit, which is assumed to be the
proper and only certain indication of his presence.
These several notions once established in the
mind, holy writ is resorted to for what a preoccu^
pied fancy never fails to meet with, texts, which on-
a superficial view appear to sanction them.
The remedy then must be to reverse this process;
to avail ourselves of the hold on error which is af
forded by specific appeals to , Scripture, and to re
claim to the cause of correct and definite doctrine,
in the first place, passages which have been wrested
to a contrary purpose. The sense which a just in
terpretation of these is seen to dictate, wiU of itself
go. far towards exposing and refuting the opinions^*
out of which such perversions have arisen. StiU, so
long as a pretext is left on which these notions can
subsist, the habit of misconstrumg the sacred volume; -
on their behalf wiU scarcely be discontinued. The
conclusions therefore which particular texts may fur
nish wUl have need to be confirmed by more compre
hensive views of Scripture facts and doctrine; such as
may take the ground from under the pretences them
selves ; such as shall establish the proper character

SERMON IIL 53
of the miraculous periods, and of the divine mani
festations which distinguished them ; of their rela
tions to the contemporaneous moral influences of the
same Spirit, to the ordinary divine economy, and to
our own mental habits and constitution ; such as
may exhibit likewise their ultimate relation and re
ference to a period of exclusively mediate and moral
influence. In this way the notions in question may
be effectually disposed of; wiU shew themselves to
be inconsistent with a correct apprehension, whether
of the Christian or of any former revelation, not less
than of the principles by which the natural and mo
ral administration of the Deity is discernibly regu
lated. By no course short of the , one now proposed
can the nature and extent of the relations which
spiritual influences still maintain with the human
mind in respect of reUgious evidence, be appreciated.
So long as partial and confused representations of
the general doctrine prevail, no particular branch. of
it will be secure from error ; and so close is the
connection between the several component parts of
the virtue of faith, between a rational conviction of
the truth of the Christian revelation and a due re
ception on the part of the understanding of its spe
cific doctrines ; so considerable a portion of the evi
dences (when once the authority of the Scriptures
themselves has been established) is derived in com
mon with the doctrines from the inspired records ;
in so many passages of holy writ are certain facts
contemplated in the twofold Ught of doctrine and
of proof, that the greater part of what can be shewn.
to be correct and true in respect of the divine influ
ences in their appUcation to the evidences of our
¦ E 3

54 SERMON III.
faith, will hold good of them also in their appUca-
tion to its doctrines.
To proceed then to such exempUficatiorts of the
three several heads of error already specified, as
texts of Scripture* in the treatment they not unfre
quently experience, will supply.
I. Under the first head, that of an expectation of
immediate and special communications of evidence
or truth for the salvation of the individual, it is ob
servable, that the class of passages usually adduced
for the purpose of depreciating the appointed me
thods of reUgious conviction and instruction, regards
indeed, prospectively or otherwise, an increased diffu
sion of evidence and knowledge, as well as of moral
influence, and assigns it to the Holy Spirit as the
author ; but then it is represented as attached to a
system of means, to a dispensation, to that very dis
pensation under which we live. It is with an uni
form reference to the Christian scheme, that the ex
pression " to be taught of God," and other equiva^
lent phrases of which so inconsiderate an use is
sometimes made, are employed in the Scriptures;
whether by our Lord himself, who in the sixth of
St. John makes this express application of the
prophecy of Isaiah^ or by St. Paul, who reminds the
Thessalonians ^, that through the means of his apo
stolic care they had been " taught of God to love one

» Isaiah liv. 13.
'' 1 Thessal. iv. 9 ; compare the two first verses of the same
chapter.

SERMON IIL 55
«' another ;" or by St. John, who in his first Epistle ""
describes the Christians to whom he writes, as having
an " unction from the Holy One, and knowing all
" things ;" as baptized persons who had received the
instruction which that rite supposes, and the chrism,
which then was consequent upon it; as not "needing
" therefore that any man should teach them," least
of aU the seducers, against whom it was his design
to warn them, who pretended to other views of the
Christian truth than those which a due regard to
this apostle's teaching would have ensured. In
passages of this description, there is an ultimate
question certainly of express revelation, but it is of
that by which the truths of Christianity were pri
marily and for general ends communicated ; of means
of conviction from on high, but it is of those which
were even then accumulating, in order to a purpose
which they have since fulfilled. Emanating from
the Holy Spirit, and transmitted through an in
spired ministry in the first instance, incorporated
subsequently in written records, both the truths
themselves and the divine attestations to them are
there definitively and for the use of all ^ provided.
Accordingly, although truth and evidence are fre
quently spoken of in the New Testament as proceed
ing from the holy Spirit of God, yet wherever such
mention of them occurs, there is usuaUy an express
reference, always an implied one, to the primary
teaching of the Holy Ghost, and to the extraordi
nary manifestations by which that divine tuition
was accompanieid, to the'" demonstrations of Spirit
^ 1 John ii. 20.27. '' -'er. x?xi. 34.
E 4

56 SERMON HL
" and of power" with which the apostlps were " put
" in trust," to the means of universal conviction and
instruction which were to be finaUy supplied through
an inspired volume. And if it be argued that cer
tain expressions in those passages, while they admit
of application to the intellectual faculty alone, or to
influences of the Spirit of God which have the un
derstanding plainly for their object, represent at the
same time these graces as continuaUy and at all pe
riods derivable from on high ; that they cannot be
interpreted of the Christian truth as oraUy taught
under the influences of the Spirit in the apostolic
age, and as now consigned under the same superin
tendence to writing ; the answer is to be found in a
distinction which is indispensable to the right appre
hension of numerous places in the sacred Epistles,
namely, that the intellect is the faculty to which
the moral influences of the Holy Spirit are in such
instances specifically directed. Further, it is in
disputably true, that the success with which this
diffusion of grace and knowledge is to be attended
has been largely spoken of; but theii it is the suc
cess attendant on the general means with which the
dispensation was provided, and as such, embraces
the- early, the rapid, and extensive communication
of Gospel truth in the apostolic age ; the yet fuller
prevalence of the same truth which is to take place
finally;, the intermediate stages, or ordinary Gospel
periods ; lastly, the universaUty of the Gospel design
and tendencies at aU times : and it embraces them
both absolutely, and also a*s contrasted with the ob
ject and the results of former dispensations. Of '
especial CQramunications from on high of any kind.

SERMON III. 57
in order to the^ insuring the salvation of individuals,
there is not in such prophecies and declarations the
slightest question.
Nor were the moral influences of the Spirit, such
as stiU continue to be granted, other than mediate,
^even in the apostoUc age. It was through prayer,
it was in order to the obtaining the fjill moral be
nefit of their appUcation to the Gospel doctrine, that
on behalf of his converts of Corinth, of Ephesus, of
Colosse, St. Paul invoked the appropriate influences
of the Comforter.
Indeed, of the various texts of Scripture employed
in support of notions opposed to the doctrine now
laid down, employed to encourage a hope of imme
diate and particular communications, whether of
truth, of evidence, or of moral grace, it may be
affirmed, that, far from affording to it any real coun
tenance, they, when rightly understood, inculcate
the obUgation of resorting to. those general means
of conviction and of spiritual help, which the divine
dispensations, in proportion as they are accessible,
present. The passages principally enUsted in such a
service therefore, when restored to their true sense,
involve the condemnation also of an inert and pas
sive waiting for communications from above, such as
often accompanies the neglect of means ; and on this
account may not improperly be carried on for con
sideration to my second head, whence they will cast
a strong reflex light upofi the points which I have'
been now establishing. By juxta-position also they
will elucidate each other.

58 SERMON HL
II " If any man wiU do the wiU of him that
" sent me," said our Lord, " he shaU know of the
" doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak
« of myself « :" hnow, as the passage is sometimes
interpreted, by immediate and special supernatural
intimations ; and what is at most supposed to be re
quisite on our parts towards becoming the objects
of such interference, is a certain velleity or faint in
clination of the mind, unattested by acts or evi
dences of its sincerity. But whoever attends to the
series of our Lord's discourses in the fifth and fol
lowing chapters of St. John's Gospel, and to certain
remarkable and mutuaUy iUustrative expressions
which our Lord employs there, wUl, on such a con
nected view of the subject-matter to which this par
ticular text refers, see reason probably to determine,
not only that it lends no support to the notion, that
we may passively wait for impressions of the kind
in question ; (thus much an ordinary interpretation
which is sound and scriptural, though wide, I think,
" John vii. 1 7.
f Namely, that independently of any express promise which,
however, according to this interpretation, the passage may also
contain, practice confirms the principles in which it originates,
gives fiiller insight into the truths we actually are obeying, and
qualifies for further knowledge : as, on the other hand, indolence
and vice disturb the reasoning powers and the judgment. ©cXj), in
that case, would be redundant. But the tenor of these chapters
shews, that wokij' to 6kKi\fMi, must be taken in a more extensive
sense, so as to embrace belief not less than practice. To " do
" ±he will and work of God," was, in the specific instance, to
" believe on him whom God had sent." In order to this, a ge
neral willingness, a principled disposition to do the will of God,
whatever it might be, and whether it regarded belief or practice,
was indispensable.

SERMON, IIL 59
of the point intended, would imply,) but that it ex
pressly discountenances such error. The construc
tion and the phrases employed in the passages al
luded to are not indeed always such, as, on a partial
or transient view, wiU dictate this understanding of
them ; but our Lord's design appears on the whole
to be that of asserting the relations which the doc
trine he was promulgating bore to the general evi
dences, and means of whatever kind, by which the
Deity had prepared the way for its reception. The
Jews adduced s their especial intercourse with God
as a reason for not giving ear to the proofs and
truths presented them by our Saviour. " Every
" one," replies our Lord, " that hath heard''," so
heard as to have profited by the communication,
and " learned of the Father," by the Ught and
through the graces of whatever antecedent dispen
sation, " Cometh unto Christ." " No man can
*' come except it be given to him of the Father^ ;"
unless the Father " give him to Christ^ ;" unless
the Father " draw himk" The circumstance of
their having till then been the pecuUar people of
God, and having, as such, been within the reach
of especial opportunities of knowledge and of grace,
would, if they had made a diligent and proper use
of them, have constituted, in respect of the Jews,
a real traction, would, on our Lord's presenting him
self, have had its due conclusion in their doing the
" wiU or work of God™," by " beUeving on him
" whom God had sent." This argument our Lord

8 John viii. 41, 42. '' John vi. 45.
' John vi. 65. " John vi. 37.
' John vi. 44. ¦" John vi. 28, 29.

60 SERMON IIL
repeatedly and under great variety of form brings
home to those with whom he is discoursing. In the
text which I am more especiaUy considering, he
affirms, not promises : whoever has a principled re
solution to admit and comply with the wiU of God
as such, wiU not fail so to employ the means already
at his disposal, as to exhibit, whenever the occasion
presents itself, that further, that especial, that para
mount proof of his regard for the divine wiU, the
ascertaining, the knowing, the acknowledging, that
the Christian doctrine is from God. Erected into
an universal proposition, the meaning will be this ;
There is an essential connection between the several
divine dispensations. Whoever, by the aid of such
grace as the dispensation he is living under may
supply, has brought his mind into that moral state
in which alone the inteUect can properly approach
reUgious inquiry ; whoever has adopted and is ha
bitually acting upon that only adequate principle of
conscience, conformity to the divine will in what
ever manner and degree imparted ; wUl not fail to
inquire after and to recognise the various particu
lar intimations of that wUl, whose substance is to
conscience as its rule. The circumstance of his be
ing already in possession of so much of this rule as
reason, in its appUcation to natural and moral truth,
or as the Jewish revelation can afford, instead of
discharging him from the duty of examining the
evidences, and assuring himself of the truth and
the particulars of any further divine communica-,
tion, wiU, in exact proportion as it involves the
means of fulfiUing this obUgation, contribute to the
strengthening it. He wiU thus be prepared and
engaged; both by principle and habit, to allow to

SERMON IIL 61
each mode and instance of divine manifestation its
proper weight ; to discern . their mutual relations,
and the harmony which pervades them all ; to ad
mit their common claim upon his regard, on account
of the quarter whence they all proceed, " There are
" some of you that believe not ; therefore said I unto
" you, that no man can come unto me, except it were
" given unto him of the Father" :" except he come
through a ready and persevering employment of those
specific methods which the Father has to this end
provided. No especial channels of beUef, then, are
in this passage declared to be opened from on high,
to enable individuals to " know of the doctrine"
immediately ; nor is there a question of controuUng
influences over a passive and inert understanding.
On. the contrary, materials of conviction, it is seen,
are supplied (though in various degrees) to all ; and
a certain moral condition of the mind is insisted on
as requisite to the correct and the sufficient use of
them. Towards this mental condition, and for the
success of an application to those means, the moral
aids of the Spirit attached to the respective dispen
sations no doubt are absolutely necessary ; they are
implied in the very notion of the Father's traction ;
but these also are mediate, and are withheld from
such as indolently wait for them.
It might be incorrect to assume, that all who en
courage the notion of an inert reliance on immedi
ate impressions from on high, maintain also the doc
trine of absolute and arbitrary election. The two
opinions are however related, and the passage I am
" John vi. 65.

62 SERMON IIL
about to produce has been thought to afford them
a conimon support. " As many as were ordained
« to eternal life beUeved°." Now the analogies
both of Scripture language and of Scripture truth
suggest, that this is one only of several passages
which require a method of interpretation that shall
stand clear of the eiTor, on either side, to which,
from partial or idiomatic expression, they may ap
pear to lean ; the error of explaining away, on the
one hand, the divine superintendence and the moral
cooperation of the Holy Spirit, without which all
our endeavours must be fruitless ; or on the other,
the freedom of human agency, which would leave
that cooperation without a proper object. It is
important therefore to assert the fact of the exists
ence of such passages ; to evade it is not less unwise
than incorrect ; every instance of this kind, by af
fording additional exercise to the discriminative and
moderating principle which such expressions require,
contributes to its maintenance. Those, then, who
insist on the reciprocal sense of Terayfjiivos in this
passage, should consider, that there must still be a
reserve on behalf of the divine grace necessary to
enable the Gentiles to place themselves in the pro
per and orderly state requisite to the reception of
the Gospel, and an admission to its privileges. But
it were as easy to make the like exception on be
half of our own cooperation ; and it would be more
advisable to do so, if of exceptions were a question,
when, as in this case, the passive sense is the most
obvious and natural, when therefore the meaning
which some judge it necessary to contend for, can-
I " Acts xiii. 48.

SEIiMON IIL €3
not be absolutely secured by its rejection. But the
proper question is not of reserves or of partial in
terpretation, such as would only substitute one ex
treme for another. Instead of either insisting on
the reciprocal sense of nrayixaoi, or leaving the pas
sive sense unquaUfied, I would maintain simply, in
so far as this particular term is concerned, what,
according either to Greek or Hebrew idiom, is fuUy
justified, that the notion of human cooperation is
not excluded from it. Then, that this notion is ac-
tuaUy here required, that it forms an essential part
of the true meaning, I would leave to be determined
by the general tenor of the text and context ; by
the contrast manifestly intended between the Sew,
who " contradicted and blasphemed," who " put
" away the word of God from him," and the Gen
tile, who " glorified that word," and rejoiced in the
vocation of the heathen; by the invalidity (if an
arbitrary, overruling interposition be supposed) of
the reason assigned for the turning of Paul and
Barnabas from those who had exercised and abused
a liberty of choice to such as did not possess it;
lastly, by that uniform conviction, of which no
sound mind will allow itself to be dispossessed, and
which the Scriptures themselves, when impartially
and consistently understood, are fitted to estabUsh,
that a divine revelation cannot contradict the prin
ciples of the free and intelUgent and responsible
character which the Deity has bestowed ; that what
we have " learned" of his will through his natural
and moral government, we cannot be required to
unlearn through the dispensation of his Son, Pro
ceeding upon these views we shall readily admit.

64 SERMON HL
that certain means and opportunities of attaining to
evidence, to truth, to the graces of the Holy Spirit,
by which some of the Gentiles were actually brought
into that appointed, that orderly state, which is re
quisite for admission to the benefits of the Gospel
scheme, specifically the preparation they had en-
joyed as proselytes of the gate to Judaism were sup-
pUed to them by " the Father," and through the
dispensations under which they antecedently had
lived ; while yet as they were moral agents equally
with the Jews or with their Gentile brethren, they
might, Uke them, have forborne to cultivate these
means, or to foUow them up by a profession of the
reUgion tendered to them. Such a sense of the
passage suffices to rescue it out of the hands of
those who would derive a pretext from it for inert
ness. It thus .is seen, that even in the infancy of
the Christian dispensation, and while for public ends
extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit were as
yet continued, occasions of beUef, presented through
the mean of an apostolic ministry, availed only in
proportion to the degree of moral or religious train
ing, in which those to whom such offers were made
had previously been exercised ; and the Jew and
Gentile of Antioch are respectively a warning and
an encouragement to those who neglect, and who
diligently use, the means which, through whatever
dispensation, are supplied of arriving at a salvable
state. For, lastly, it was to this state, and not to
eternal life itself, that as many as had been pre
pared by the concurrence of divine grace, with the
exertions of their own free will, obtained admission
by the act of beUeving. On their perseverance in

SERMON IIL 65
such a state would depend whether they should ac
tually reach the happiness which the Gospel scheme
proposed to them.
The last passage I purpose noticing under the
head of error I am now considering, is that which
foUows : " The natural man receiveth not the
" things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolish-
" ness unto him : neither can he know them, be-
" cause they are spiritually discerned p," This text
is employed to support a distinction among Chris
tians, Means, it is admitted, are prescribell indis
criminately ; but with a secret reserve, it is assumed,
on behalf of certain peculiarly favoured persons, to
whom the Spirit manifests himself in a sense and
measure which preclude their own exertions, and in
which he communicates not with the mass of pro
fessing Christians, Now it would seem hardly pos
sible that any one should read this second chapter
with the attention to which the Scriptures are uni-
versaUy entitled, and not perceive that in what the
apostle here attributes to certain spiritually endowed
individuals, he is speaking of privileges which were
confined, not merely to the early periods of Chris
tianity, but to the persons of the apostles themselves.
Any appUcation, therefore, to ordinary persons and
times of those parts of the chapter which may seem
to exhibit the contrast to such privileges, must re
quire, to say the least, extreiAe circuirispection.
Accordingly, and in the first place, the senses
which the word ipv^tKOi possesses in the four other
p 1 Cor. ii. 14.
E

66 SERMON HL
places of the New Testament'i where the term oc
curs, do away the distinction in question, forbid aU
appUcation of the epithet to persons who have re
ceived baptismal regeneration.
Under this limitation three senses remain. First,
that by the natural man is intended merely one to
whom the doctrines of Christianity, in point of fact,
have not been offered. In this case, it is certain, he
cannot " know" them, reason being unequal to their
discovery ; but then, even were such the true sense
of the passage, for the removal of this hitherto un
avoidable ignorance there would be no need of re
course to other sources of conviction and of grace,
than those which exist indiscriminately for all,
through the Christian dispensation ; nor where a
due application to these was neglected, would the
deficiency be suppUed by immediate and extraordi
nary manifestations. This sense, however, seems
inadmissible; for aUhough the term dexerat should
not be judged to have here a more emphatic mean
ing than that of mere acquaintance with the Chris
tian truth, it can hardly be affirmed that this truth is
" foolishness" to one who never heard of it.
According to another interpretation of the pas-
Sage, the apostle designs to speak of one who hav
ing as yet no other guide than the Ught of nature,
becomes apprised of the existence of Christianity;
'i In 1 Cor. XV. 44. the term occurs twice, and or»ce in verse 46.
In James iu. 15. and Jude 19, and in the text which I am here
considering, it has a moral meaning, engrafted on the natural one.
It IS distmguished from :7«^«,«J,, or one baptized, but who has
little profited.

SERMON IIL 67
and even obtains a barren apprehension of its evi
dences and subject-matter, but is incapable of ac
quiring a saving knowledge, of giving it, as it re
spects himself, an adequate reception. In this sense
no stress is laid on actual errors of the understand
ing or the conduct. The passage, however, in such
an interpretation of it, would apply neither to the
doctors of the Jewish Law, who were far removed
from this state of nature, nor to the Gentiles, who
notoriously had abused it; two descriptions of persons,
nevertheless, whom in this epistle and elsewhere St.
Paul appears to have had expressly in his mind when
animadverting on those by whom the Gospel truths
were rejected. Nor, in the next place, and in a
more general view of the passage, would this sense
be consonant to truth and to the Scriptures, Na
tural and moral verities, in proportion as they are
duly apprehended and employed, are so far from in
capacitating men from " coming to Christ," from an
adequate knowledge and reception of his doctrine,
that they are a mean by which the Father draws
them. Common grace, opportunities of a lower sort,
are afforded to all. These rightly used are so many
steps towards the admission of the spiritual things
of revelation. There will always indeed be a mo
ral indisposition in our wills, in so far as it is not
rectified by divine grace, to the embracing of a
highly spiritual doctrine ; but the unavoidable in
firmity of our nature, and an indolent acquiescence
in it, must not be confounded. To this last, as
suredly the Christian dispensation extends not any
offers ; but it is to the very point of " helping" na
tural " infirmity," of fortifying human endeavours, of
rendering available the industrious and persevering
E 2

68 SERMON IIL
use of the means of conviction and instruction with
in our reach, that the moral graces of the Holy
Spirit specifically apply themselves.
The third and in truth only unexceptionable
sense is, that the " natural man," be he Jew or
heathen, is one who has admitted such prejudices
into his understanding, or such habitual vices into
his conduct, as at once unfit and indispose him for
the reception of the pure and practical doctrines of
Christianity. The Jew, who, would he but have
adopted our Lord's recommendation of impartially
studying his own Law, and comparing its predic
tions with what was passing before his eyes, might
have discovered abundant evidence of our Saviour's
mission, had already lent himself to the systematic
corruption of his own religion, and had no mind to
exchange that introductory dispensation for one
whose character was still more spiritual. The Gen
tile philosopher, who, had he allowed to natural and
moral truth their, proper influence over his mind,
would have found in these so many preparatives for
a due acknowledgment of revelation ; who, had
he been duly nourished in the contemplation of the
fair and good, would have discerned his moral anti
cipations to be abundantly realized, the aims of vir
tue to be encouraged, and its ends secured, by that
union of duty and of interest which the Gospiel
scheme exhibits, was now become puffed up with
the vain and erroneous conceptions of reUgion and of
morals, which even amid the better instructed por
tion of the Gentile world were taking place of a
sounder philosophy. How then should not the Gos
pel of the holy and humble Jesus, and the truth as

SERMON IIL 69
it subsisted in perfect purity in him, be " to the
" Jew a stumblingblock" and to the heathen " fool-
" ishness ?" how not be " hid" from those who in
these several ways were " lost ?" Itwas not therefore
in reference to any arbitrary distinction between per
sons who had in common partaken of the rite of
baptism ; it was not merely because the sound of
the Gospel had never reached the ears of this ^xt-
KOi, or " natural man ;" it was not because he had
hitherto " heard and learned of the Father" only
through the means of natural reUgion or of Ju^
daism ; he was a fit subject in proportion as he had
so heard and learned for the truths of the Gospel ;
nor was it from the absence of immediate and parti
cular communications from on high that he was in
capable of spiritual and saving knowledge. The
natural man, in this text, is not merely one who,
inheriting ' the nature of Adam, stands on that ac
count opposed to the spiritual man, whether of ordi
nary or other periods ; but he is one who has super
induced on original sin, actual corruption, and has
allowed the concupiscible part of his nature to ob
tain the mastery over his conscience and under
standing. The order of his mind being perverted,
the subsisting methods of arriving at Christian truth,
and of possessing himself of the Christian graces,
are not employed. The defect is a wilful and a
moral one. Thus it is not " given to him of the Fa-
" ther," or through the introductory dispensations
which the Father has provided, to " come," in a per
tinent sense, " to Christ ;" thus having " judged him-
" self unworthy" of the benefits of the Gospel, and
indolently yielding to this state of moral destitu
tion, he is not " ordained to eternal life," has not
E 3

70 SERMON Ill-
entered even on the course that leads to it ; thus,
and for so long a period as this inert and imnioral
condition lasts, " the natural man" is disabled from
" knowing or receiving the things of the Spmt of
" God ;" disabled even in that ordinary sense in
which every diligent and conscientious inquirer may
at aU periods " receive and know them."
HI. The third and last general head of error to
be distinctly noticed, is that of instantaneous and
sensible inspiration ; but here the time requires I
should content myself with exhibiting certain gene
ral classes into which the various passages exposed
to abuse may correctly be distributed.
1. The first class consists of places of Scripture,
which, in a primary or proper sense, are applicable
only to those inward assurances which the first
Christians received, of their being in possession of
certain spiritual gifts for the public purposes of
the Gospel. And since individuals to whom, for
those specific ends, supernatural endowments were
committed, did not cease to be the objects of the or
dinary and moral graces of the Spirit, requisite to
their own salvation, passages are sometimes ranged
under this head, whose application may be doubtful.
Some of them will admit of a secondary and modi
fied reference to the case of Christians generally; in
others, such application must rest merely on verbal
coincidence, is therefore altogether without autho
rity, cannot, where doctrine is in question, be in
sisted on. But if this class of passages be exposed
to misapplication, the remedy is also within reach.
Those who, under cover of certain interpretations

SERMON IIL 71
of these parts of Scripture, lay claim to one portion
of the extraordinary testimonies of the Spirit, to in
stantaneous and sensible assurances within them
selves, may fitly be expected to realize that other
portion also, with a view to which those inward as
surances were bestowed, and to exhibit, as did the
first Christians, outward and sensible signs for the
conviction of their brethren. TiU then, these pas
sages, diverted from their proper sense or applica
tion, serve but to substantiate the errors of those
who misemploy them.
2, A more serious abuse of Scripture marks a se
cond class of passages ; namely, those which regard
the conversions to Christianity that took place under
the ministry of our Lord and his apostles. These,
it is urged, were on many occasions attended with
sensible divine impressions, and were sudden. But
when it is considered that the parties whom these
conversions regard had been feeUng their way amid
the obscurity of heathenism, or were immersed in
Jewish corruptions; that to the vast and perma
nent object of introducing a new and universal reli
gion, miraculous and sometimes instantaneous ap
peals to, the senses were appropriate and even neces
sary ; and that 'any religious and moral changes,
reaUy possessing the same extraordinary characters,
were appointments of Providence, destined to sub
serve the pubUc purposes of the dispensation ; the
grounds of comparison between cases of this sort
and those of baptized persons living under the esta
bUshed means of conviction and of moral grace, be
come extremely narrowed. In so far, however, as
points of contact exist, they are of a nature to de
feat the purpose for which passages of this descrip-
F 4

72 S]ERMON III-
tion have often been adduced. For instance, al-
tiiongh miracles directly exhibited to the outward
senses were among the ftieans employed^ though
they were productive on many occasions of reU
gious acknowledgments, though by their express
and absolute character they were fitted to accele
rate the inteUectual operations, stiU a reference must,
however rapidly, have been made by the understand
ing from the power exhibited to the authority whence
such acts proceeded. Further, the change which
began by a profession of believing that Jesus was
the Christ remained to be foUowed up by ulterior
inquiry, by instruction through the regular mental
process in all the various particulars of truth and
duty which an acknowledgment of the Messias in
volves. The instance of the thief upon the cross;
although dissimilar in its circumstances, is not essen
tially different from such cases. Properly, it sup
plies no precedent for the ordinary periods of the
Gospel, nor is it proposed to us as such in Scripture.
It is an event occurring under circumstances which
are absolutely without a parallel. Yet incidentaUy
it establishes the duty of preparation, of means, of
humble hope, not sensible assurance, in order to con
viction, to moral grace, and to salvation. No mi
racle appears to have been employed specifically for
this man's conversion ; and his language authorizes
the belief, that he had previously acquainted himself
with so much of our Lord's character, and of th«
prophecies concerning him, as to become satisfied of
his innocence, of his title to the character of Mes
sias, of his having the power ^ to bestow eternal life.
' This thief was ajjparently a Jew, and might have heard of the

SERMON IIL 73
He had to all appearance prepared himself both in-
teUectuaUy and morally in no common degree ; since
he could overcome the prejudices by which his coun
trymen generaUy were blinded; could recognise and
openly admit the pretensions of the Messias at the
moment of his deepest humiliation ; could, with an
express reference to these circumstances, acknow
ledge his own guUt, and exhort his companion to
the like confession. On this suitable use of the
means already supplied, measures of divine grace
proportioned to so critical a moment may be sup
posed to have descended ; to this use of them the
actual promise of eternal life was no doubt conceded.
In such promise, and not by sensible impulses, did
this penitent malefactor receive the assurance, that
his conversion, thus mediately and gradually in
duced, had been effectual.
3, A third class of passages under the same gene
ral head of error, regards the pubUc testimonies af
forded by the Holy Spirit to the mission of our Lord
and his apostles ; a witnessing which, in utter dis
regard of its proper character, has been employed
on behalf of a sudden and sensible inward light im
parted to individuals. No text perhaps has suffered
more in these respects than the declaration of St.
John% that " he that believeth on the Son of God
" hath the witness in himself;" yet is there none
which in its proper sense more directly enforces a
dependence on gradual and external methods of con
viction. The grounds on which the true beUever
emphatic manner in which our Lord had laid claim-to this distinc
tion. See John vi. 27, 33, 39, 40, 44.
^ 1 John V. 10.

74 SERMON III.
was first convinced, he retains, says the apostle; he
can at aU times reproduce them to his own mind,
with an ultimate reference to the veracity* of the
Being who supplied them. It is possible certainly
that the phrase, " hath the witness in himself," may
involve an aUusion to that inward assurance of the
subsistence of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit
within the individual, which accompanied the grant
of them. In this case, the passage will be so far
without any ordinary application, and will belong
to the first of the classes now exhibited. But its
main sense is plainly that of asserting the proper
grounds of Christian belief, namely, the external
evidences which God had afforded of the union of a
divine and human nature in the person of Christ,
a doctrine either part of which was by heretics of
that period contested. The witness or evidence of
this doctrine consisted in the attestations of the
Spirit, who, as St, John emphaticaUy insists, " is
" truth ;" for of truth as openly to be witnessed was
here the question. The Spirit bore witness to our
Lord's divinity through prophecy, through the va
rious miracles which distinguished our Saviour's life
and ministry, through that great doctrinal one, his
resurrection, through the effusion of gifts on the day
of Pentecost, Under the direction of the same Spi
rit, the water and blood, which were obtained in the
natural way by piercing our Lord's side at his cru
cifixion, and which this same apostle has in his Gos
pel insisted on as a specific ground of belief, supplied
the testimony to our Saviour's humanity, to the fact
of his death, which sealed the truth of his doctrine,
' 1 John V. 1 0.

SERMON IIL 75
In their character, and in the manner of exhibiting
them, these witnessings were public, were afforded
in order to general contemporary conviction in the
first place, and also in order to their forming thence
forward a part of the permanent evidences of Chris
tianity, And so far is this or any parallel passage
from authorizing the notion of especial instantaneous
revelations imparted to individuals, that they sup
pose the proper test of a true beUef to be the hold
ing fast, the preserving within the mind, a constant
recollection of that durable, satisfactory, and defi
nitive " record," which, through the numerous di
vine attestations to Christianity, God has openly
given to the world of the mission of his Son,
4. The fourth and last class consists of passages
which regard indeed a. particular internal testimony
of the Spirit, and one not confined to the first ages;
but then it is gradual, not instantaneous, and affords
no test of its existence independently of the fruits.
The Holy Spirit, in this view of his operations, wit
nesses not anew the truth of Christianity, creates not
beUef in a proper sense, supplies not to the mind
either conviction or the materials of it ; but he pre
pares the way for a due inteUectual application to
the evidences by his moral influences, and contri
butes to the moral results in which the sufficient
employment of the mental faculties will have termi
nated. And in regard to our sense of his presence
within us, this is reserved for the stages of a' Chris
tian progress, when a duly informed and honestly
consulted conscience" authorizes confidence towards
" 1 John iii. 21, heart for conscience; spirit is used in the
same sense, Rom. viii. 1 6. and 1 Cor. ii. II.

76 SERMON IIL
God, and a self-appUcation of the Christian hope;
when we exhibit the fruits of our beUef internaUy
in the peaceable and orderly condition of which we
there are conscious, externally in all " goodness,
" righteousness, and truth." Then it is that the
Spirit of God, in the fuller sepse, " beareth witness
" with our Spirit ;" then may we be assured, and
the consolatory graces of the same divine monitor
wiU be at hand to fix in us the impression; that the
assistance, without which we neither can have " good
" desires," nor " bring the same to good effect," has
been actuaUy present'^-
Finally, although the texts, which, with some
trespass, I fear, on your attention, the time has al
lowed of my producing, have been few in compari
son with the number which must remain unnoticed,
yet are they leading instances ; so that to have as
serted their proper sense has been to contribute to a
correct understanding of many others ; a purpose
which the classification here estabUshed may also
subserve. A broader and a deeper foundation, how
ever, for the distinct and decisive refutation which
error on this important topic requires, must be laid
in the more comprehensive views of Scripture doo
trine to be taken in the next discourse.
Meantime, that I may not come under the cen
sure extorted from Origen by the conduct of those
who in his time deduced absolute conclusions from
insufficient premises, a practice which, where reli
gious truth is concerned, supplies, both from its fre-
" John xiv. 23.

SERMON IIL 77
quency and its danger, a perpetual ground of cau
tion, I confine myself to this quaUfied affirmation:
that Umited as the exhibition unavoidably has been
of passages misinterpreted and set right, yet are
their proper sense and tenor so contradictory to the
notions attempted to be fastened on them, that the
Scripture must be rendered inconsistent with itself,
before any other character of the operations of the
Holy Spirit in ordinary periods can be deduced from
it, than that they are moral, mediate, gradual ; that,
far from authoritatively controuUng the human mind,
or sensibly manifesting their actual presence, they
suppose an unreserved application of the inteUect to
the means of evidence, of truth, of grace, which the
dispensation under which we live presents, and are
discernible only in the progressive increase of the
moral results.

SERMON IV.

1 John iv. 1.

Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether tliey
are of God.
X HE mediate and gradual system by which the
natural and moral governments of God are con
ducted, is manifestly adapted to the compound na
ture of man, and to the character of the human fa
culties ; nor were it easy to understand how the
connection of these with either dispensation could
be maintained, if such correspondence were wanting.
This adaptation however of our species to the situa
tion it is appointed to occupy, and to the divine ad
ministration under which it habitually exists, is not
decisive of the question, whether interruptions to
such system have not occurred. The same views of
the material and moral world which discover to us
the relations it bears to ourselves, assure us of two
other and ulterior truths ; of the existence and at
tributes of the Deity, who may indisputably suspend
the laws which he has himself appointed ; and of the
moral need of revelation, which supposes the inter
ruption of a previously subsisting course of things,
in order to its own authentication. Revelations then,
even when viewed in reference to the system they
infringe, are conceivable ; they even derive faciUties

80 SERMON IV.
from the customary order of the divine government,
so long as they retain the character of exceptions.,
Presenting themselves oftener, and on a more exten
sive scale, or continuing longer than such a notion
of them supposes, they fall into the class of ordinary
or periodical occurrences : and their immediate and
instantaneous character becomes thenceforward pro
portionably unavailing to the purposes which revela
tion '" is designed to answer. The boundaries thus
assigned to the occurrence and duration of divine
interpositions, render probable beforehand the fol
lowing conclusions :
I. First, that in the event of the Deity communi
cating directly with his rational and moral creatures,
this departure from the general rules of the divine
government would not be altogether without traces
of the mediate and gradual appointments which it
had interrupted.
II, Secondly, that an epoch would arrive, wheii
all that was necessary for the express information of
mankind, and for divinely authenticating what was
revealed, having been imparted, there would be an
absolute return to those principles of divine admi*
nistration, by which the proceedings of the Deityl
" There is nothing in the history of the Jewish dispensation to
coatradict this principle. In proportion as under that scheme
revelation was, continuous, its present effects approached to thos6
of the ordinary divine administration ; but it was continuous for
ulterior purposes. As the time approached for these being realized
through another dispensation, which would require its own specific
attestation.s, miracles and even prophecy ceased ; so thf>t on their
re-i|ppearance at the -advent, they had recovered their proper cha
racter of strangeness. .

SERMON IV. 81
in respect of mankind, had ordinarily been regu
lated. Now, on an inquiry into the religious history of
the world as exhibited to us in the Scriptures, these
anticipations are seen to be verified.
I, For, first, the interpositions which in contra
distinction to the ordinary government of God are
denominated immediate, can by no means claim that
character in every instance, and absolutely. They
often involved the employment of means; both in
this sense, that direct and instant communications
were comparatively rare, means and gradations
being for the most part, even in the first instance,
intermixed with them ; and also, in the further and
more extensive understanding of the expression, that
those to whom extraordinary manifestations, whether
directly or otherwise, had been afforded, were usuaUy
intrusted with them in the express view of their
becoming the instruments of making known what
they had received to others. During the training
of mankind for a more perfect dispensation, whether
amid the frequent but detached revelations to the
patriarchs, or the continuous interpositions and sen
sible signs of the divine presence, requisite to secure
the subsistence of the true faith amid surrounding
idolatry, the merely satisfying the understanding,
and providing for the instruction of the individuals
to whom the revelation was made, seldom if ever
are seen to be the ultimate objects of the manifesta
tion. The original covenant with Adam (amid seem-
G

82 SERMON IV.
ingly habitual communications of the Deity with
our first parents) included means. It was by the ^
abuse of the moral trial they presented that Adam *
feU. Comparatively indeed with, the subsequent
legation of Moses, the divine revelations to the pa
triarchs were simple both in their form and sub
stance ; yet the commissions of Enoch and of Noah
had for their object the affording a general warning to
mankind of the evils which contingently awaited
them. StiU less did Abraham confine within his
own breast the promised blessings. Isaac and Ja
cob equally with himself were enabled to pierce the
veil of ages, and to behold and to intimate to others
the gradual fulfilment of both the covenants which
God had made with that patriarch. Nevertheless,
the Jewish lawgiver it was, who, as a pre-eminent
pubUc instrument, prepared the way for the execu
tion of the twofold promise by the calling of a whole
people. The scheme thus divinely imparted through
the mediation of Moses was essentially a system of
means, and of means which graduaUy developed the
purpose they were designed to serve : and not only
amid whatever particular revelations, until the closing
of the prophetic period, did this instrumentality,
personal and other, in regard to the successive di
vine communications continue, and means accom
pany both prophecy and miracle, so that the one was
rarely uttered, or the other performed without the
introduction of them ; but from that memorable in
terposition, when the voice of the Lord God was
heard walking in the garden, or approaching gra
dually nearer to the offending pair for the purpose
of announcing at once their doom and the projected
alleviation of it, the intimations fr6m on high, in-

SERMON IV. 83
dependently of the temporary and subordinate ends
they might promote, were a gradation of means in
order to an object without and beyond themselves,
the aecompUshment of that doctrinal event, whose
own specific character was mediaiorial ; the actual
advent of the one sufficient and final intercessor,
whom the mean of sacrifices, of the offering of Isaac,
of the law ordained through the ministry of angels,
and in the hand of a human mediator, had prefigured
or foretold; whom above all the schechinah had
symboUcally represented through a series of ages,
and during the subsistence of the first temple, as
that " Desire of nations," who by his presence should
reaUze what had thus been typified, and fiU the se
cond house with a proper glory.
- When the dispensation thus mediate and gradual,
both in its character and in the mode of introducing
it, appeared, it progressively established itself in .a
subordinate sense by means. How constant was
the recourse to them of Him, in whom i?Bsided the
Spirit without measure ! who, in his habitual com
munion with the Deity, needed not on his own ac
count any such intervention. Not only does the
divine founder of our religion Tepresent himself as
the instrument of man's restoration, and of deriving
from the Father and deUvering to mankind both truth
and evidence, but in the execution of these the specific
objects of his mission, the features of his intercourse
with mankind are essentially mec&ite. Under our
Lord's direction, and by those extraordinary aids
which he secured to them, (yet not altogether with
out means and gradations, even where those aids
were most express and considerable,) the first teachers
G 2

84 SERMON IV.
of the Christian doctrine became, what superna
turally instructed persons had been under former
dispensations, the media of divine communication to
others ; and became such with an ulterior view to
an event which preceding revelations had been gra
duaUy bringing on, namely, the promulgation of such
a measure of divinely authenticated truth, as might
prove a permanent medium of knowledge and con
viction to all succeeding ages,
II. Here then, in the second place, in proportion as
the Scriptures of the New Testament, endited at the
suggestion and under the superintendence of the
Holy Spirit, were taking place of the temporary
mean of our Lord's and his apostles' ministry, the
vast and progressive scheme of divine and human
agency carried on from the faU, developed the per
manent and exclusively mediate character to which
it had been uniformly tending. Thenceforward the
sacred writings became the sole authoritative depo
sitory of divine truth and attestation ''.
Revelation thus has borne the character, and has
had the issue, which a contemplation of the general
features of the divine government would lead us to
expect. But we need not stop here. Of what has

^ As revelation, so long as any of its tmths still continued to
be imparted, employed various means and instruments which now
are merged in the one medium of divine truth and evidence, the
Scriptures ; so it preserved a gradual character, until by successive
communications its primary object of an introduction to the
world had been accomplished. Comprehensively viewed, how
ever, the scheme of revelation still is gradually operating towards
a final issue.

SERMON IV; 85
hitherto been contemplated as fact, the contents of
revelation supply the reason ; account even for the
interpositions themselves whence this series of parti
cular facts proceeded ; evince that both have been
pre-eminently dictated by moral considerations. We
thus discern the intentions of the Deity in Adam's
probation ; that, duly sustained, it would have en
titled him to higher degress of happiness, whilst it
tended to secure his actual felicity ; that evil there
fore was incidental to our nature, not proper to it ;
and that the object of subsequent revelation was
gradually to prepare for and to exhibit a remedy,
such as this contingency required, and which reason
could not supply. Now a scheme having such a
purpose is seen, on the mere statement of it, to in
volve the interposition of a moral governor. At the
same time the restoration intended was that of a
creature so constituted as to be incapable amid
whatever helps of attaining to that happiness which
had been made the object of his desires, otherwise
than through virtue, or to this, except through the
exercise of his intellectual and moral powers. Hen ce,
even amid revelation, the traces of a gradual and
mediate system so requisite to this exercise, and an
absolute resumption of the ordinary course of the di
vine government, so soon as the primary objects
which revelation had to fulfil permitted. Hence so
much of moral truth and nature, even amidst the
most absolute predictions of the prophets, and the
inspired narratives of the most signal miracles.
Hence the distinct exhibition to mankind of such
unmerited and voluntary sufferings on the part of
the one proper mediator, as, whUe they fulfilled their
doctrinal and sacrificial purpose, itself essentially a
G 3

86 SERMON IV.
moral one, might instil the horror of sin. Hence,,
as a most effectual mean of virtue, the spotkss and
complete example of itj and of its fundamental prhi-
ciples, obedience to the will of God, and universal
charity, presented to our imitation, in the nature
of which we participate ; and hence the specific and
moral character of the ordinary influences of the
Spirit. More generaUy, the grounds of increased ex
ertion, as well as the additional resources for it
Which Christianity introduced, were themselves of a
character and were to be exhibited in a way the most
appropriate to the constitution of the being whose
restoration was designed ; and when once the facts
had taken place on which this dispensation essentially
rested, the ordinary operations of the human mind
were not thenceforward to be broken in upon by
further truths and manifestations. What had been
revealed was to become a proper moral trial of the
intellect, by claiming to be received in each succes
sive generation upon the strength of the evidence
from on high already supplied =, and through the
purely mediate channel of human testimony.
If then the course of God's natural and moral
government has been interrupted, and repeated com
munications from the Deity have been made to man;
if, at the same time, these have so far assimilated
themselves to the character of the ordinary divine
administration as to become intermixed with means,
<^ That certain prophecies of holy writ are as^ yet una'ceom-
plished, detracts not from the essential truth of this proposition.
The predictions are already given, and mere human evidence, by
testifying to the actual occurrence of the events foretold, will
convert such predictions into divine attestations.

SERMON IV. 87
and subjected to gradations ; if they superseded not,
but only modified those other dispensations ; if, lastly,
they ceased with the subordinate and present occa
sions which were various, or altogether and at length
with that ultimate and principal one, the estabUsh
ment of the scheme to which they had been intro
ductory; every part of this proceeding is seen to
have been dictated by one common regard to moral
purposes. The subject-matter of revelation at once
confirms and enlarges the notions which our obser
vation of the general divine economy, and of our
own mental constitution, would suggest; the occa
sional suspensions of the ordinary moral administra
tion of the Deity are perceived to have contributed
by their character and their results to its more ex
tensive exempUfication ; and by one and the same
train of reasoning we are able to assert the expe
diency of a certain interruption of the estabUshed
order of things, and of such interruptions having
long since terminated. 'J^
And the sanie views of the divine proceedings
which account for the cessation of all other spiritual
communications, assure us of the continuance of the
moral influences. The specific character belonging
to evidence and to truth allowed of their being im
parted from on high so fully and definitively, as to
need at length no further additions ; allowed also of
a sufficient acquaintance with them through written
documents. An accident it was that gave rise to
this series of extraordinary manifestations ; and the
^neral character both of the divine government
and of the human mind required they should be
temporary. It is intelUgible therefore, that from
G 4

88 SERMON IV.
the period when the Holy Spirit had committed the
subject-matter of an ultimate dispensation, and his
testimonies on its behalf, to Scripture, neither me
diately nor otherwise would he continue to teach or
to attest. But the moral aids of the same Spirit
possess, both in themselves, and with relation to man
kind, a distinct character. The need of them to
our nature is essential, and can never cease ; an as
surance of their having been antecedently and for a
time imparted, could not suffice. Further, they are
of a character t© subserve, not interrupt the ordinary
government of the Deity, and to coincide with the
usual process of the human faculties. As the pur
poses which these influences promote were anterior
to the fall, and to the specific revelations which that
event occasioned, so they must ever be intimately
present to him, who, as the nature he has bestowed
upon US' testifies, is essentially righteous, true, aiid
good ; must be the appropriate foundations of his
intercourse with the 'being to whom such a nature
has been imparted. Then the moral aids, which for
the accomplishment of these purposes were always
requisite to a finite creature, became indispensable
to a lapsed one. For the evil induced by the faU,
and originating in the predominance of wiU and appe
tite, had given such undue preponderance to the in
ferior qualities of the mind, and had so perverted in
consequence its moral order, that truth or evidence
would in vain have been provided for the intellect,
so long as a moral bias stiU prevaUed, by which the
proper exercise of this faculty was hindered. These
moral graces of the Spirit were afforded accordingj|^
to support the endeavours of the faithful under evWj
preceding dispensation ; and Christianity, in develop-

SERMON IV. 89
ing a more extensive scheme of belief and practice,
and in proposing its truths to the acceptance of the
greater number through a species of proof involv
ing in an especial degree a moral trial, appropriately
supplied yet larger measures of them. The per^
manent character of these moral succours, the con
tinual need of them to our deterioratedinature, the
essential connection they have, not with that nature
only, but with the principles and ultimate purpose
of revelation, give them a pre-eminence over the ex
traordinary gifts of the same Spirit, and account for
the subdued and comparatively disparaging tone in
which these last are sometimes spoken of in the
Scriptures. Thus, it was very possible, we find, that
even those, who by immediate commission from
above had become quaUfied on the moment to be
the instruments of imparting doctrine or evidence
to others, themselves might faU short of a faith
sufficient to salvation ; and our Lord, on a variety
of occasions, appears to intimate the danger, and to
regulate his conduct by the consideration, that testi
monies designed to satisfy of the truth of Christi
anity throughout all succeeding ages of the church,
and to procure for it an early and extensive recep
tion from the world, might, in minds not suitably
prepared, disturb, rather than assist, the proper pro
cess of belief ; might excite some undue emotion and
expectation ; might overpower, instead of convinc
ing, when addressed, as in the first instance they
unavoidably must be, to the senses. It was only in
proportion as the moral relation, which these extra
ordinary interpositions of the Spirit bore to those
who experienced and those who witnessed them.

90 SERMON IV.
was actually recognised, that either party could de
rive assistance from them, in order to a saving faith.
In this view, the communications thus divinely au
thenticated proved, in respect of the individuals to
whom they had been imparted, what the Jewish
Scriptures, as they successively appeared, were to
those who .lived under the Law, what the whole
body of written revelation now is in respect of our
selves : they were means ; as such, they appear in
deed in an especial degree fitted to excite attention
and inquiry ; and the moral trial to which they sub
jected the inteUect was on the whole confessedly
inferior to that which the same authentications as
presented to ourselves involve. StiU their primary
effects might be rested in ; still, in so far as indivi
dual belief was concerned, they might be resisted or
abused, stiU, in this respect, the evidence thus ex
pressly and authoritatively delivered was not inde
pendent of the moral condition of the recipient ; of
the diligence and honesty with which these not less
than other means were applied by him to the pur
poses of his own salvation. The ultimate import
ance of the extraordinary manifestations of the
Spirit, even as they respected the individuals who
lived amid them, was derived from their connection
with a system, having a moral character, and dispens
ing the moral assistances of the same Spirit.
Whether, then, the question be of the ordinary
and mediate government of ,God, or of the periods
of its interruption, the moral graces of the Spirit
have been uniformly requisite to individual belief;
so that even amid supernatural revelation, prayer,

SERMON IV. 91
and the study of the sacred writings, as they then
existed, were means prescribed and employed for
the attainment of moral grace.
But is the proposition tenable, that grace of this
description is absolutely and exclusively mediate?
Are we prepared, it is sometimes invidiously asked,
to tie down the Holy Spirit to means ? This ques
tion, in whatever terms it may be stated; is substan-
tiaUy of great importance to the evidences, since
without these graces the inteUect cannot properly
discharge its ofiice in respect of truth and evidence,
while at the same time, in proportion as means are
set aside, all definite assurance of obtaining them is
at an end.
In the first place, then, let it be considered, that
under the Gospel dispensation one main purpose of
moral grace is to bring home to individuals the_ con
tents of the sacred writings which the Holy Ghost
at first inspired ; and since these writings comprcr.
hend whatever is requisite to be believed and prac
tised, instruct specificaUy in the nature and use of
all the other means of grace with which the Chris
tian religion is provided, it should seem, that when
human testimony had authenticated the Scriptures
themselves, the sufficiency of holy writ would ex
tend not only to the shutting out aU other media of
moral grace than itself, and those which it points
out, but to the destroying all probability of imme
diate communications of that character. As those
appointed means cannot safely be neglected or mis
used, the grace be regarded as detached from the
external act, or, again, from the faithful performance

92 SERMON IV.
of it ; so from their number, their character, the
weight assigned to them in the New Testament, it
is hardly credible that these, the appointed means of
moral impressions from on high, should in any in
stance be superseded.
2. More decisively, in the second place, it may be
affirmed, that the mediate character of the ordinary
graces of the Spirit is impUed in the circumstance
of their being moral. It was from considerations
of this latter character, we have seen, that means
were so largely introduced, even amid the express
divine interferences necessary in the first instance to
give authority to revelation ; while the scheme itself
thus ushered in was essentially mediatory. In fact,
with that regular course of the mental operations
which is indispensable to the freedom of moral
agency, means are inseparably connected. What is
immediate disturbs this course ; and the irregularity
primarily thus created must have subsided, and the
ordinary process of the faculties have been resumed,
in order to the operations of moral grace. For this
prevents, works together with the human mind ;
supposes therefore, and has a constant reference
to, the proper mental exercise ; supposes an intel
lectual application to such specific means of religious
knowledge as are within our reach. From an in
dolent and therefore immoral state of the mental
powers, from minds which apply not to the appoint
ed methods of grace, which, for instance, endeavour
not to estabUsh in themselves such dispositions as
may hinder their praying " amiss," the Scriptures
withhold these heavenly influences altogether ; but
with specific regard to man's moral character, they

SERMON IV. 93
promise to reward the act of volition by which the
mind conscious of its need of help applies for it
through the means which He, of whom cometh the
help, has indicated.
But though, for the fuUer elucidation of this in
teresting and greatly misapprehended topic, it has
been thought right distinctly to combat the notion
of immediate ordinary or moral grace, the very
question, in fact, whether such grace operates in
variably through means, is founded in an imperfect
apprehension of the subject generally. It may suit
the antiscriptural purpose of those whose fancies are
conversant only with instantaneous and sensible im
pressions, to represent the moral influences of the
Spirit as transient and desultory ; but the state of
grace, or the salvable .condition in which every bap
tized person is supposed to live, is an uniform and
orderly state, has a continual title to grace, obtains
augmented supplies of it through a constant em
ployment of means : whoever makes not good his bap
tismal privilege by an habitual recurrence to these
means, remains without the grace that should renew
him ; whoever has the due recourse to them will
never want it. Now this doctrine requires not our
maintaining, that the graces consequent on this con
tinual use of means, though imparted at the specific
periods when means are resorted to, are then im
parted exclusively ; doubtless the Spirit of Wisdom
suppUes as he sees best, in respect of the season, as
weU as the measure, graces which are expressly de
signed for " help in time of need:' At moments,
therefore, when means are not actually in use, there
may be illapses of moral grace into the minds of

94 SERMON IV.
such regenerated persons as are careful to maintain
an habitual claim to it ; whUe at the same time this
admission affords no just pretext for divorcing the
mean from the grace, the sign from the thing signi
fied. Next, in the unregenerate state, and sup-*
posing always such a degree of cultivation of the
faculties as aUows of coming to God at all, occasions
of some kind, under the natural and moral system of
the Deity, are seldom wanting. These, be they ever
so scanty, are primary and appointed means ; for
the use of these, ordinary grace will prepare ; on the
diligent employment of them, it will attend : whe
ther the result shall be such as morals and reUgion
would require, depends not merely on the individual
being placed within reach of further instruction,
but also on a certain readiness on his own part to
admit and to concur with the invitation which is im
plied in the fact of means being afforded. The grace,
no doubt, which first presented these means, and
caused them to be noticed by the mind, must also
give to its acts the quality of a " good will ;" but
much of Scripture fact and doctrine would cease to
be intelligible, if a voluntary operation of the human
mind, however imperfect, were not requisite to the
process. " To him that hath shall be given ;" and
they, it would seem, are " without excuse," who,
even amid the obscurity of heathenism, and in pro
portion to the means within their reach, " have not."
The unregenerated person, who, in passive expecta
tion of an impulse from above, should refuse to ap
ply himself to the means and opportunities afforded,
would, by that very act of resistance to the appoint
ments of Providence, disqualify himself from receiv
ing the grace he wished for.

SERMON IV. 95
And this view of the moral influences of the Spi
rit, which shews them to be mediate, and deter
mines the specific sense in which they are so, evinces
them to be also gradual, increasing in proportion as
the faculties are called into action and are appUed
to the means afforded. For since the very nature
of moral conduct requires that the mind, when its
own responsibility is concerned, should proceed in its
ordinary course, that is, by a succession of thoughts
and acts, influences which are designed to assist this
process must also be successive. The heavenly in
fluences, we may be sure, are not poured in on the
mind so suddenly as to disturb, or in such abundance
as to supersede, its proper efforts. And in fact the
ordinary state of grace, though an uniform and ha
bitual one, is not represented in Scripture as station
ary ; there is a growth'^ in it ; a constant tendency
towards higher degrees of spiritual proficiency.
But now, impressions from above, bearing a moral
character, and fulfiUing their appropriate purpose in
that mediate and gradual way which such a pur
pose, taken in connection with the character of our
mental powers, is seen to require, must presumably
be imperceptible to the mind which receives them.
A state of grace, and proportionably therefore a state
of preparation for it, consists, it has been already
observed, in habitual help and direction, not in trans
ient and irregular impulses ; and the interruption
which external influence sensibly imparted must
give to the ordinary process of the human faculties
could be compensated only by its operating as a
•^ 2 Thess. i. 3. 1 Pet. ii. 2. 2 Pet. iii. 18.

96 SERMON IV,
moral motive towards more intense exertion on the
part of the mind which thus perceived itself to be
assisted. But the very contrary effect to this would
in reality be produced by an interference that was
discernible. Not to be previously assured that God
cooperates^, might hinder even the attempt on our
parts to " work ;" and that " fear and trembling,"
that apprehension of not attaining to this grace, or
of not rightly using it, which is fitted to animate
our endeavours, might degenerate into a despon
dency which would preclude them. Again : not to
be provided with a test by which any considerable
degree of progress may be estimated, would also
dispirit and retard : this assurance, therefore, and
this test are furnished ; but the perceiving in each
instance that certain specific succours were actually
bestowed, and from a quarter where uncontroulable
authority is known to reside, could lead only to that
indolent reliance on divine assistance, which is al
ready produced in some minds by the bare imagina
tion of such perceptions. As the case actually is,
the desire to be satisfied in the only scriptural way,
namely, by the fruits, what our faith and spiritual
condition are, and whether the heavenly monitor
does indeed habitually dwell within us, urges to a
" forgetting of those things which are behind," and
to a " reaching forth to those things which are be-
" fore," For with us, as with an otherwise extra
ordinarily gifted apostle, the reference in regard to
our spiritual proficiency is to the conscience ; to the
testimony which it bears of the internal operations

^ " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; /or
" it is God which worketh in you." Phil. ii. 12, 13. "

SERMON IV.~ 97
of the mind, and of the motives whence its external
acts have proceeded.
In these two ways then, by an examination of
specific texts of holy writ, and by reasoning from
the character of the divine dispensations and of our
own mental constitution, may the subject of spiri
tual influences be secured against the multiform and
complex errors which have been engrafted on it.
And these methods assist each other. For the ulti
mate question in regard to comprehensive religious
views must be, whether they are in agreement with
the sense and tenor of holy writ ; whilst, on the
other hand, the partial and incoherent meanings not
unfrequently attached to the less definite parts of
Scripture may be overruled by the analogies which
a reference to the constitution of the human mind,
which a general survey of the divine dispensations,
and which even the Scriptures themselves, compre
hensively and impartially viewed, will furnish.
And now, to sum up so much of the subject-mat
ter presented for consideration in my introductory
discourse as the three last sermons have embraced,
and to apply it to the specific purposes for which it
has been here discussed, it is plain, that in many in
stances reUgious evidence is so represented to the
mind, as not to have its entire and prpper bearings.
And when the incorrect and inadequate employment
of means of conviction is to be defended, by some
the nature of faith is misrepresented, and the intel
lect is assumed to be inimical to its production, or
to have in regard to it no proper functions. As sub
stitutes, the suggestions of sentiment detached from
H

98 SERMON IV.
its proper connection with reason, or the preposses
sions of the wiU, are insisted on ; whilst, from the
difficulties which such pretences create, one princi
pal refuge is thought to exist in undistinguishing
references to the graces of the Holy Spirit. My
purpose then has been to undermine the very foun
dation of these errors. With this view, I have shewn
in what the proper government of the mind and the
essential character of faith consist ; and to how large
a part the intellect is entitled in the production of
that virtue. At the same time, sentiment has been
seen to have no proper connection with the discovery
of truth ; and a neutral state of the wiU to be mo.st
appropriate to the object of a sound and conscien
tious conviction.
The relation of the intellect to the other proper
ties of the mind thus asserted in the second dis
course, in the third the understanding has been con
templated with reference to the Holy Spirit. The
proper determinate character of the doctrine of the
divine influences, as exhibited in Scripture, and as
illustrated by the constitution of the human mindi
was dwelt on ; and vague or positively unsound no
tions in regard to the nature of spiritual communi
cations, the circumstances under which they may be
expected, the test by which they are to be judged
of, were replaced by scriptural representations (ob
tained from the very texts perverted) of the distinc
tion between the extraordinary and other influences
of the Spirit; of the moral character inherent in
those which still continue to be imparted; of the
necessity of a diUgent appUcation to the means of
securing them ; of their rendering themselves sen-

SERMON IV. 99
sible only in the fruits which their cooperation with
the human mind may gradually have induced ; and
of their being, what indeed these several characters
imply, resistible.
StiU a doctrine so essential to the evidences of re
velation, and so bound up with every part of the
scheme itself, could not but admit of being esta
bUshed through views more systematic and compre
hensive than a necessarily limited adduction of Scrip
ture passages could supply. Accordingly the same
conclusions have in the present discourse been ar
rived at through a different method ; by reasoning
upon grounds which the general divine economy,
which our mental constitution, which the holy Scrip
tures, in entire agreement with those sources, have
concurred to furnish. The moral consideratibns in
which the scheme of revelation originated, and by
which it is pervaded, thus become manifest; and
the same reasons which account for immediate, in
stantaneous, overruUng divine interpositions, such as
in fact have taken place, assure us also, that when
the object to which they had been directed was ful
filled by the promulgation of the Gospel, the disturb
ance they occasioned to God's ordinary government
would cease. Thenceforward the written records,
which a series of divine manifestations had provided,
would claim to be regarded as the established and
exclusive depository of truth and evidence ; and all
pretence of spiritual communications to the intellect,
or to any other faculty in these two respects, would
be superseded.
But the inspiration which dictated the Scriptures
H 2

100 SERMON IV.
of the New Testament, although thus ultimate and
final in respect of manifestations from on high of
truth or evidence, and in respect of immediate com
munications altogether, is seen to be preparatory to
a system of purely moral divine influences. These,
even as subsisting amid extraordinary interpositions
of the Deity, preserved their distinct and proper
character; they abound under a dispensation pre
eminently of grace, and are to be applied, for through
the peculiarly significant and efficacious means which
that dispensation has provided. To the inteUect
they are necessary in order to the fortifying of its
moral energy, and to the consolidating of its union
with conscience. But indirectly they in a yet more
important respect facilitate its purposes ; for they
emancipate the will from the undue bias which
Adam's lapse entailed, and estabUsh it in that neu
tral state and in that Uberty of choice, which are the
best preparatives for satisfactory conviction ; they
restrain the affections from opposing obstacles to
the efficient discharge of the duties of the under
standing, and reduce them to their just dependence
upon reason and conscience. Gradually and insen
sibly they thus re-establish the appointed order of
the mind, and render it fit for intellectual and moral
action. Declamations on the corruption of human
nature, which have for their object the depreciating
what is termed a carnal reason, are in reality mis
directed. The understanding, though concerned in
Adam's fault, was not the primary or main agent ;
and as the will and affections bore the principal part
in the original offence, so they stUl retain the strong
est traces of it. The licence given to them in our
own days, under cover of a motley revival of the

SERMON IV. 101
gnostic and the pneumatic pretensions, strikingly ex
empUfies the character of the mischief accruing to the
human mind from the fall, evinces that the proper
relations of its powers have been disturbed, and how
exposed the intellect now is to become the prey of
the subordinate mental qualities. To these, there
fore, as the weaker and more directly peccant part,
the Holy Spirit especially appUes himself; and by
so doing, restores the genuine freedom of the mind,
and the just supremacy of the understanding.
And now may be distinctly perceived the syste
matic and complicated character of the offence com
mitted against the doctrine of the Spirit, by its being
employed to sanction a disturbance to the intellec
tual process in regard to the production of faith.
For instead of interfering with the proper course of
the human faculties, whether in respect of the na
ture of the proof through which conviction is to be
sought, or of the conduct of the proof by the under
standing, the offices of the Holy Spirit coincide with
these, suppose the trial which religious proof im
plies, and assist the human mind towards sustaining
it. At the outset, this divine Guide first promotes,
and then, in order to his fuller cooperation, requires,
that very order of the mind which is indispensable
to the undisturbed exercise of the proper functions
of the intellect. Not only therefore aU claims of
direct interference with the understanding from
within the mind, such as were refuted on distinct
grounds of reason in my second discourse, are also
done away with by the doctrine of the Holy Spirit,
when contemplated as a Spirit of order ; but all in
direct interference with the intellect, in so far as it
H 3

102 SERMON IV.
would derive a sanction from this divine source,
stands condemned on the same account ; since it is
claimed on behalf of a disorderly state of the mental
faculties, such as the Holy Spirit can manifestly
have no concern with, StUl it may be important
expressly to bring to bear on such pretences the re
sults of the inquiries pursued throughout these two
sermons, so as to give to them a fuller refutation, ¦
1, And first, in regard to the nature of reUgious
proof, there is no question, can be none upon the
principles laid down in these discourses, of any ad
ditions from on high to the divine attestations long
since definitively consigned to written documents ;
nor of an inert condition of the human inteUect in
regard to the documents themselves. These are
tests of the fideUty and industry with which that fa
culty applies itself to its offices in respect of the ap
pointed means ; to the investigation and reception
of facts no longer pressing on the senses, and facili
tating*^ extraordinarily the process of conviction.
' This is perfectly consistent with what has in the present
discourse been said of the danger to an adequate moral re
ception of religious truth, arising out of extraordinary attesta
tions. Each mode of conviction, that which appeals to the
senses, and that which only involves such appeals indirectly, has its
advantages and its difficulties. Sensible proof has a greater ten
dency to excite attention and inquiry, and it facilitates to the mo
rally disposed intellect the labour of investigation ; but there is
room for apprehension, lest, in regard to the mass of eye-witnesses,
the objects designed by such manifestations be lost sight of amid
primary and present effect. The conviction obtained indepen
dently of sensible proof promises to be more deliberate and more
durable, and on the whole'-is equally satisfactory ; but it supposes
greater pains and fidelity, in order to its becoming equivalent to
belief on sensible grounds.

SERMON IV, 103
For if the human mind, even when a passive instru
ment for receiving and conveying to others the proof
and doctrine with which it had been miraculously sup
plied, was not discharged from the task of examination
and inquiry in order to its own religious faith, a more
considerable exercise of the inteUect must for the
same purposes be requisite when immediate divine
communications are withdrawn, and probable evi
dence is the mean or species of proof through which
beUef is to be acquired. The moral graces of the
Spirit are indeed always present with the diligent
and honest inquirer ; but they assist his labours, do
not supersede them. Now, as in the periods of su
pernatural manifestation, they prepare for intellec
tual appUcation and cooperate with it ; but in the
mediate and gradual and imperceptible manner
which is characteristic of them ; in a way not in-
terruptive of the proper order of the mind, of the
ascendency and employment of the inteUect, of the
freedom of mental action. Further : as by the con
stitution of the human mind, and the character and
relations of its faculties, no internal substitute can be
found for the specific functions of the intellect, and
as the ordinary influences of the Spirit act in agree
ment with the mental character and process, senti
ment and wiU, which by nature are unfitted to be
the vehicles of conviction, do not become such super-
naturaUy, The Holy Spirit neither applies himself
to quaUties of the mind unappropriate to his pur
pose, nor does he change their nature. Even, there
fore, were truth and evidence stiU imparted directly
from on high, now as heretofore, their correspondent
object would be the inteUect ; but since the Spirit
communicates not otherwise than morally, these his
H 4

104 SERMON IV.
graces must also forego their specific character, be
fore they can be adduced to justify the pretence of
conviction, produced by their specific operation upon
whatever mental quaUty,
2. Next, if the question be of the conduct of re
ligious proof, the offices of the Holy Spirit, commen
surate as they are with all proper truth and evi
dence, comport not with a partial treatment of them.
And first, the contributions of natural and moral
truth to the evidences of revelation cannot be de
preciated but at the expence of the doctrine of the
Spirit, As certainly as moral graces from this high
and holy source attend on those, who, under what
ever dispensation, are " wilUng to do the Father's
" wUls ;" on the Gentiles, who directly or through
the gate of Judaism are "^ prepared for the Gospel
privileges ; graces which the " natural man '" re
mains deprived of through his own apathy ; so cer
tainly a moral dispensation exists, sufficiently in
dependent of revelation to be capable of becoming
introductory to its evidences, and of contributing to
them. Through " the Father," by yielding to his
traction, by a diligent, conscientious use of the de
grees of grace, as well as of truth and evidence^
which (often through natural and moral notions
only) " the Father" has seen it fitting to dispense,
men " come to Christ," correctly and intelligently
may "know of," or acknowledge, in proportion to
their general civilization and mental culture, the
Christian " doctrine" ; are " ordained to eternal
" life," " receive the things of the Spirit of God,"
¦ s John vii. 17. " Acts xiii, 48. ' 1 Cor. ii. 14.

SERMON IV. 105
Again : men born under the Ught and graces of
Christianity " come to the Father'^" in a fuUer sense
and degree " by Christ." Having that general dis
position to inform themselves of the will of God in
whatever manner and degree made known, which
our Lord inculcates, they learn to contemplate the
positive manifestations of the Spirit as so many au
thentications ^ by the Father of his Son's mission ;
obtain fuUer views of the ordinary administration of
the Deity, which such manifestations suspend, and
by consequence of a moral dispensation, through the
Christian scheme, specificaUy through the knowledge
it imparts of the character, as well as the existence
of the offices of the Spirit, For thus, moral grace
becomes contrasted in their minds with the imme
diate and instantaneous, the sensible and controuUng
character of the positive attestations of the divine
witness ; and the universal and perpetual subsistence
of the former influences, when coupled with the U-
mited extent and duration, and the actual ceasing of
immediate and positive vouchsafements, and with
the traces of a mediate and moral superintendence
interspersed even among these, casts a broad and
steady Ught on the general government of the
Deity, and on the relations it maintains with the
permanent character of revelation itself, and with
our mental constitution ; brings into view the proper
moral features of them aU. Thenceforward it is
perceived that the moral graces of the Spirit, whe
ther as they exercise over the Gentile world an in
fluence unknown, or but indistinctly shadowed out

^ John viii. 19. xiv. 6, 7.
'John iii. 33. viii. 19, xvi.3, 1 John ii. 22, 23, 24.

106 SERMON IV.
to those on whom it is bestowed ; or as they are em
ployed in impressing on the human mind the public
attestations of the same Spirit to the truth of reve
lation, or more fully as they assist every part of the
mental process requisite to Christian belief, would
be unintelligible, would be left without a mean of
action, an object on which appropriately to operate,
if a proper moral dispensation were not admitted,
nor the nature of man contemplated as its appointed
subject. Further : those graces, more especiaUy in
the degree of them attendant on express revelation,
not only suppose in the being on whom they are
bestowed faculties capable of apprehending the mo
ral quality which distinguishes them, and a character
on which they may suitably act, and to whose moral
infirmities they may specificaUy apply themselves ;
but as the ulterior and manifestly requisite condi
tion of divine cooperation, they suppose such facul
ties and character in exercise, suppose them not
least engaged on the relations of moral truth to the
evidences and contents of revelation. For truth of
that description is especiaUy fitted to caU into ac
tion certain tendencies of the human mind, which in
effect are correspondent to it ; and with such truth
the moral graces of the Spirit have plainly a direct
affinity. In like manner, the express attestations
of the Spirit afford additional insight into natural
and into moral truth, and into its relations with re
vealed. They cannot be suitably appreciated, can
not even be sufficiently apprehended, where the in
tellect has not been previously exercised on the
truths of natural theology and ethics. Omitting to
establish the principles of these, the mind is without
any orderly and correct introduction to the source

SERMON IV. 107
whence the divine testimonies to revelation claim to
have proceeded, so as intelUgently to recognise it as
the fountain-head of truth and knowledge. These
positive manifestations of the Spirit refer us to
points external to revelation, and of which we are
otherwise and antecedently supposed to be con
vinced ; call upon us to exemplify our belief in pre-
Uminary truths, indispensable to a due reception of
divine interpositions. The refusing to acknow
ledge the records of the mission of his Son is to
" make God a liar™;" to impugn a principle of
which natural and moral data are sufficient to assure
us, and which lies at the foundation of all direct
communications from the Deity, Then, in ordinary
periods of the Gospel, the same attestations involve
a reference to human veracity, and to its ultimate
basis in moral notions.
But now on this very ground that natural and
moral truth, in a reUgious application of it, obtains
a fuller elucidation through the doctrine concerning
the Holy Spirit which Christianity unfolds, all ab
solute unqualified exhibitions of the nature of such
truth, in its connection with revelation, stand con
demned by the same doctrine. For first, the views
which this doctrine presents of the moral graces of
the Spirit, shew them indeed to possess a specific
and uniform character, and to have in consequence
an habitual affinity to the moral tendencies of the
human mind, and a pecuUar relation to moral truth,
but then, as we have seen, it is to the human mind
under due inteUectual and moral government ; and
it is to such truth, correctly viewed and employed,
•n 1 John v. 10.

108 SERMON IV.
not inordinately magnified, or forced unduly into
connection with revelation. To claim a sanction
for views of this last description from the temperate
and orderly influences of the Spirit of truth, would
be the consummation of a moral fanaticism. But
secondly, the circumstance under which the moral
graces of the Spirit have ever since the fall been im
parted, is that of a deteriorated nature in the object
on which they have to operate. Hence the design
of such graces, even under other dispensations, has
been to prepare the way for the restorative system
of which a fallen nature had need ; hence when ac
tuaUy operating under such system, they become
modified in their application" to mankind by the ex-
isjtence of a moral disease, and by the nature of its
remedy ; are imparted more fuUy indeed, but with
a constant reference to the express and positive cha
racter of revelation and of the Christian scheme.
As those representations therefore of natural and
moral evidence cannot but be overstrained, which
insist on it at the expence of the specific truths
or evidences of Christianity; so they are discoun
tenanced by accurate views of moral grace, one of
whose purposes it is to bring home the positive at
testations and doctrinal facts of revelation to the
human mind, and to render them available to a true
conviction. And if exaggerated notions of natural and moral
truth are incompatible with a correct apprehension
of moral grace, equally are they refuted by the con
sideration of them in reference to the positive testi
monies of the same Spirit. A previous conviction
of the existence of the Deity, and of his attributes.

SERMON IV. 109
is indeed indispensable to that methodical and .sys
tematic admission of the express attestations to the
revealed wiU of God, which the interests of reUgious
truth require should be insisted on. Again: in
ordinary periods is needed a similar acquaintance
with the moral principle in which human veracity
is founded ; since on this depends the pertinent re
ception of the writings in which attestations, in the
first instance afforded from on high, are by the
Spirit himself recorded. But then of Uttle avaU
would be this patural and moral preparation, unless
we were further assured of what positive evidence
alone can certify, namely, that the essentiaUy vera
cious Deity has in fact directly revealed his will ;
that man, of whose veracity in certain cases no just
doubt can be harboured, has supplied in sufficient
abundance a discerning and honest testimony to the
genuineness and authenticity of the written record.
It is by allying themselves with proof of this ex
press character, that natural and moral truths, while
they enlarge the field of evidence, and impart a
more intelligent character to what is properly posi
tive, acquire in return such definite features as in
crease the value of their own contributions.
And, on the whole, the doctrine of divine grace;,
when adequately apprehended; secures a due recep
tion of the method of reUgious proof, and an ad-
Hiission and correct appreciation both of the posi
tive and the properly moral branches which consti
tute its substance ; is seen effectually to dissipate
such errors in all these respects as I have now been
combating. Nor where the clear and determinate

110 SERMON IV.
views of which the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in
relation to beUef is thus plainly capable have been
abandoned, do they faU of being vindicated by the
manifest partiality and incoherence of the notions
for which they are exchanged ; by the ignorance
which these betray of the character and order of
our mental faculties, and of their relations to the
general government of the Deity and to revealed
truth ; by the confusion they involve of the ex
traordinary gifts and manifestations of the Spirit
with, his ordinary graces, and of the periods of im
mediate divine communication with those of the
purely mediate and moral system in which that tem
porary and incidental character has been merged.
What wonder, if amid such distraction the point
which more especially concerns ourselves is over
looked ; if a " hope," fuU and ample " reasons" of
which the human intellect, assisted by the ordinary
moral influences of the Spirit, would be competent
to establish, is made to rest on some one portion of
the evidences ; on positive truth exclusively or on
moral; on the testimonies of the Spirit or on his
graces? on these, confounded as though between
them existed no proper distinction ; disjoined as
though they had no bond of union ? What wonder,
since error is progressive, if, in utter neglect of the
functions of the intellect in regard to faith, and of
the substance and method of the religious proof on
which they should be exercised, that " hope" is ul
timately the prey of mere iUusion ; of the facility
with which the mind can transport itself from its
appointed religious condition to an unnatural state,
such as even the age of miracles has never autho-

SERMON IV. Ill
rized ; can exalt into immediate, instantaneous, and
sensible impulses of the Spirit, communicative of
truth, of evidence, and of moral grace, the irregu
lar movements of a morbid sensibility and of un-
governed wUl and affection ?

SERMON V.

Romans i. 18 — 21.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the
truth in unrighteousness ;
Because that which may be hnown of God is manifest in
them ; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and godhead ; so
that they are without excuse :
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as
God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Xn the preceding discourses, all pretext of direct
interference with the province of the intellect from
within the mind, whether in respect of the method
or the conduct of religious evidence, as, also the in
direct attempts from the same quarter to exercise
an influence through the medium of the doctrine of
the Spirit, have been examined and refuted. Nor
can the instances of the Uke covert inference which
still remain for consideration exempt themselves
from a similar inquiry on the plea that their appeal
is to the intellect. The functions of the understand
ing may as effectually be encroached upon under the
veU of argument, as in any other way ; and the very
circumstance of such pretences addressing them-

114 SERMON V.
selves to the reason must, if this faculty should
decUne the investigation of them, give undisturbed
possession of the ground they occupy.
Suppose then an individual to have gone thus far
with us in the present inquiry, and to have become
satisfied of the duty of carefully excluding all inter
ference with the understanding, where religious evi
dence is concerned ; suppose him possessed also of
the real character of spiritual aids, as coinciding
with and as assisting the proper mental process ;
what is the method of proof which he will see rea
son to employ, in order to a sufficient conviction of
the truth of Christianity ? For, although the ge
neral appropriateness of the probable or a poste
riori niode was dwelt on in my first discourse ; yet
since, in respect to the primary truths of religion,
to those whence all the rest in certain respects es
sentially depend, the question has been repeatedly
agitated, whether proper demonstration were not
attainable, an inquirer will not be at Uberty to pass
over this point without regard, without endeavour^
ing to arrive concerning it at some determinate con
clusion. He will be aware, that minds of the great
est inteUectual power are sometimes actuated by a
fancy not less vigorous, and that the soundest reason
ing may be exhibited in the conduct of proofs, whose
fbundations wUl not stand the test of an unbiassed
scrutiny. At a certain period therefore of the dis
cussion which such a topic has undergone, no undue
presumption will attach to the endeavour finaUy to
close it ; to the exhibiting certain reasons as decisive
of the inquiry, why not the stricter a priori argu
ment alone, (for the application of this species of

SERMON V. 115
proof to the fundamental verities of religion must
surely be regarded as abandoned,) but why the or
dinary synthetic mode, as directed to the obtaining
of grounds for the primary truths of natural theo
logy, has been and cannot be otherwise than unsuc
cessful. And first it will occur to him, that these truths,
although connected with others that are purely ab
stract, are facts. And if even mathematical axioms
cannot supply a proper and sufficient basis for any
conclusion concerning actual existences, yet less is
this basis attainable through metaphysical assump
tions, since these are far from possessing the self-
evidence of proper axioms.
In the second place, therefore, he wUl ask himself,
whether synthetic reasoning, when thus employed,
does not indispensably involve a tacit appeal to the
a posteriori method, and depend in the last resort
on causation. Such reference of course is not in
tended, since it would detract from the claim of
demonstration ; but exclusively of it there appears
such defect in the foundation, that even the princi
ple of something having existed from all eternity,
which has been thought to supply a proper meta
physical groundwork whence an argument of the
same character might proceed, itself has need to be
proved, and can be so only from actual existence,
and by the causal argument.
Thirdly, some of the reasonings on these subjects
will be found to have a mixed origin, one com
pounded of metaphysical and probable data ; and
I 2

116 SERMON V.
since the character of the conclusion must partake
of that which belongs to any portion of the pre
mises % nothing is gained towards the absolute de
monstration wanted by such an union.
If the disposition indicated a few years since to
revive in some unexplained combination the ideal
argument of Descartes, and that which -rests on cer
tain conceptions of space and time, had been fol
lowed up, it would have been both seasonable and
important in such case for an inquirer to examine
what new claims to reception these severally ex
ploded grounds of demonstration had acquired by
being united. But this complex argument has not
been produced. In common therefore with the nu
merous attempts which during the last two cen
turies have been made to apply the synthetic me
thod in either form of it to the obtaining of a
foundation on which to establish natural theology
a priori, this question may fitly be left in the ob
scurity from which the pubUc judgment has hardly
raised, or to which it has successively devoted those
other efforts.
Next, on the attempts to prove morality by de
monstration, our inquirer will see no need to dwell,
because he will distinctly perceive'^ why such endea
vours must, in any pertinent sense, be unavailing;:
on what account it is that ethics, in any sufficient
¦' The youthful or otherwise less experienced reader will ob
serve, that the question here is not of the strength of proof, but
simply of the mode of it, or rather of the sort of foimdation on
which the proof of real existence must rest.
^ See the notes to this Sermon.

SERMON V. 117
understanding of the term, are absolutely indemon
strable.

Further, though the desire of carrying probable
evidence beyond its limits, and the consequent con
fusion of it with demonstrative proof, appeared to
require the transient notice which it obtained in the
first discourse, yet argument will not be thought re
quisite to shew that probability, be the strength of
it what it may, cannot exchange its own specific
character for that of demonstration. The effect of
such Ul-directed endeavours must be, that by divert
ing the attention from the quarter in which the real
force of religious proof resides, they render its pro
per claims the less' discernible. Some of our older
diyines indeed apply, as did writers of profane anti
quity, the term demonstration to moral proof; but
the quaUfied sense intended in such employment of
it is at the same time for the most part intimated.
Our inquirer, however, will not on these accounts
hold himself at liberty to depreciate indiscriminately
the appUcation of the synthetic method to the sub
ject of religion, or to encourage, as respects these
very topics, the uninteUigent cry which has been
sometimes raised against it. The cause of truth, in
itself a sacred one, demands the absence of prejudice
and affection ; the cause of religious truth, which is
in an especial sense entitled to the same character,
can, he wiU be aware, be only so maintained. He
wiU perceive that this mode of proof, where the
foundations of theological truth have been once se
cured, is not only available to the encountering of
I 3

118 SERMON V.
objections which take their rise in abstract science ;
but that assuming such a posteriori proofs of the
Deity and his attributes as the phenomena of crea
tion present, it carries on this evidence into particu
lars to which moral proof would be inappUcable.
Restrained to cases where a foundation has thus
been otherwise obtained, metaphysical reasoning can
have no such effect on reUgious evidence as lord
Bacon apprehended from it in regard to natural- phi
losophy; namely, the drawing off the attention from
the inductive method, without, it may be added,
affording in its stead so sure a groundwork.
But -although, in what has here and in the intro
ductory discourse been stated, the inquirer into the
truth of reUgion may discern sufficient reasons for
confining himself in regard of fundamental points
to the probable mode of proof, yet is the decision
of this point but an opening of his career. He stiU
has to encounter, in the conduct of the method
chosen, a severer trial of his diUgence and fidelity.
Unless by minds prepared to merge altogether the
proper exercise of the understanding in systematic
unbelief, or in the excesses of fanaticism, a field for
the lesser qualities of the mind to expatiate in at
the cost of the intellect would vainly be sought
amid the positive divine attestations to revealed
truth, or in its human testimonies ; but it presents
itself without the search in respect of the contribu
tions which natural and moral data afford to the
evidences for revelation ; and so frequent and exten
sive has been the abuse, in these respects, of the
latitude which probable proof presents, that the less

SERMON V. 119
experienced inquirer, though grounded in the truths
of ethics and of natural theology, is in danger of
being bewildered amid contending systems.
With such theories and extremes he will think it
right, no doubt, historically to be acquainted ; biit it
'cannot be amid these that he is to find the security
of truth. What then is his resource? The actual
adoption plainly of the principles which have in my
second discourse been insisted on ; the application
to this subject of a mind, in which, as far as human
influence is concerned, reason and coiiscience have
the exclusive direction : for reason, while- it contents
itself with nothing less than a soUd groundwork on
which' its arguments may be rested, will appreciate
and adhere to such foundation when obtained; and
conscience will keep the mind intent on the love of
truth, as on the object which solely and specifically
it should propose to itself; wiU render it regardless
how far its views can be adapted to any of the pre
conceived systems, by which a fuU discussion or an
equitable decision of the questions at issue on such
subjects is superseded.
Taking the place then of such rational and ho
nest inquirer, let us merge for a while the more im
mediate consideration of the several extremes of an
insufficient or an overstrained estimate of natural
and moral truth in the impartial examination ;
First, What it is that constitutes the proper in
dependent subsistence of truths of any sort :
Secondly, Whether the truths of natural theology
I 4

120 SERMON V.
and ethics have a claim to such independent sub
sistence. The footing on which these truths exist once de
termined, we shaU be prepared to estimate rightly
the specific character which belongs to them, and
the nature and extent of the connection with reve
lation, of which the truths so estabUshed will pro
perly be capable.
I, And in a popular but not unsuitable treatment
of the first of these inquiries, the correct decision
will be no other than that all truths have an inde
pendent existence which stand clear of assumptions,
of references to authority, and of whatever else
would interfere with their being by due course of
argument induced from premises within the cogni
sance of reason, and which approve themselves to
that faculty. Truths are relatively independent,
when their premises and their process are essen
tiaUy distinct from those of any given points with
which they may subsequently be brought into con
nection. The question, in what way truths, which
are of a character to become contributory to the
establishing of others, have in the first instance be
come known to the human mind, or with what in
cidental assistance towards the actual inducing of
their proper proofs the human faculties may at any
time have been supplied, though it were from the
quarter to which such contributions are to be offered,
may, both as it respects the history of the human
mind, and otherwise, have its utiUty ; but the inde
pendent character of truths, which, when once made
out, can appeal exclusively to reason for their foun-

SERMON V. 121
dation and for their proof, are not affected by the
issue, be it what it may, of such investigation,
II, And hence we may advantageously pass on to
the second head of inquiry, whether the truths of
which natural theology and ethics are composed
have in effect such independent subsistence. For
not only are these truths perceived to have a proper
basis, and which introduces between them and the
specific doctrines of revelation a clear Une of demar
cation, but on such basis they may be established by
probable proof of a directer kind than the human
testimony on which truths, when positively commu
nicated, must more or less be grounded. For this
basis is no other than the facts most intimately
known to us ; of our own existence, and of our
being endowed with capacities for intellectual and
moral action ; points of which an inward sense, as
sisted by experience and observation, gives full as
surance. The foundation therefore is as secure and
permanent as the mental constitution of which we
thus are conscious ; and we ascend hence, through
whatever gradations, to a source of what is thus as
certained to subsist within us, such as may satisfy
the demands of causation, by being properly ulti
mate ; to a Being who cannot but exist, although
the principle of such underived existence we are
without the means, perhaps without the faculties,
for comprehending ; to a Being who must be pos
sessed, both inteUectually and morally, of qualities
transcending those which he has communicated to
his creatures. A far greater security for these fun
damental truths exists in the direction which reason
is thus seen to take of an argument from effect to

122 SERMON V.
cause, and in the developement by our faculties of the
essential distinctions in which morality is founded,
than if, as heretofore was supposed, these distinc
tions arose out of ideas implanted in the mind, and
causation were the uniform suggestion of an undis-
cerning instinct. And when we have thus been
supplied with a foundation for our reasonings from
within ourselves, and when our faculties, by an ap
propriate and correct employment of them on this
basis, have assured us of the existence of a First
Cause, or of the distinctive principle of natural
theology; have assured us of the essential mo
ral differences, and of the relations in which we
stand to God, which are the proper source of ethical
obligation ; in no instance is the argument from effect
to cause more valid than in this, whether we regard
the groundwork, the process, or the conclusion.
And yet, incongruous as the plea may seem on
the part of advocates of revelation, by whom pro
bable proof as such cannot consistently be disre
garded, and who might therefore be expected to ab
stain from undervaluing this proof in one of its most
decisive appUcations, it has from such quarters been
argued, that even admitting the existence of a pro
per moral character as appertaining to our nature,
(which some would fain deny, but on the reality of
which it cannot be necessary argumentatively to insist
before my present hearers,) yet consciousness, even
when taking experience and reason to its aid,, ac
quaints us with nothing more than the fact of our pos
sessing the nature thus contended for ; and its exist
ence leaves us passive in regard to moral and religious
truth, although it may assist our apprehension of it

SERMON V. 123
when positively brought home to us, from external
sources. Now, not to dwell on what would be foreign
to my immediate purpose, namely, that conscience, or
the self-application by the individual of some rule
of right, however imperfectly apprehended, and the
sense of approbation and its contrary, and of merit
and demerit as attached to it, take effect to a cer
tain degree, even in the least enlightened of our
species, and excite more or less the mind to intel
lectual and moral action, let it be observed, that the
objection is appUcable only to attempts to derive re
ligious or moral notices from innate ideas or instinc
tive impulses, such as are here discarded. The
mental constitution of which by consciousness duly
exercised we become assured, is so far from being
here regarded as conveying through that inward
sense truth of any kind, that it is not contemplated
as the subject of science even, or in its connection
with metaphysics, but simply as a fact, as a part of
the effjpcts of creation ; as a portion of them, be it
remarked, of whose existence we have at least as
much reason to be satisfied through this internal
sense, and through experience and observation, as
through our outward senses we have grounds for
being convinced of the existence of matter. But
thenceforward, from the marks of power and good
ness, of intelUgence and design, of order and of har
mony, which our mental frame exhibits, not only is
reason authorized to ascend equally as from the
other parts of creation to the existence of a power
ful and wise and benevolent designer, but it ascends
thence with especial advantage. While our proper
constitution bears its proportion of testimony to such
existence, the circumstance of our being so consti-

124 SERMON V.
tuted as to apprehend in some measure those quali
ties, to discern their subsistence in the works of the
Creator, to discriminate and approve in respect of
them, conformably to an intellectual and moral
standard which the exercise of our faculties supplies,
of even giving to certain of our own acts , some im
perfect resemblance of those of the Deity ; the pos
session of such a nature advances us to clearer con
ceptions of the character of Him who has bestowed
it, and establishes an especial bond of connection
' between the moral and intelligent creature, and his
Maker who has so distinguished him.
Further, though we should forbear to call the
synthetic method to our aid for the purpose of esta
blishing what even when metaphysicaUy contemplated
is hardly other than a purely negative conception,
the infinity of the attributes, the method of pro
bable proof will suffice to shew, that we are not at
liberty to set any bounds, whether of perfection or
of extent, to qualities, which, as displayed in our
own frame and make, or more generally in the
works of creation, convey impressions far transcend
ing any distinct conceptions the human mind can
form of limits within which they may be reduced,
or of an adequate standard to which they may be
adjusted. Nor is the Unity of the Deity a point to be sepa
rately established in this way of reasoning; rather
it may be regarded as essentially involved in the
causal argument ; for this requires, and therefore
contents itself with but One First Cause, although if
positive grounds should be desired for the exclusion

SERMON V. 125
of others, they are derivable from the order and
uniformity, and manifestly conspiring tendencies dis
cernible in the creation. At the same time, a me
taphysical argument from the underived perfection
of the Deity will here find a proper place ; will
strengthen the conclusions of probable proof, by an
argument of another character.
Next, the consciousness of inteUectual and moral
capacity, and the conviction which reason will on
this foundation have induced of the attributes of the
Deity, when united with the moral features which
we -thus become qualified for discovering amid the
general government of God, are fitted to satisfy the
mind, that what wisdom and goodness have con
curred with power in producing, is maintained and
superintended ; and that a system is carrying on
towards a final moral issue : in other words, the
doctrine oi providence, and of a future state of re
tribution, though not of that felicity which is the
free and exclusive gift of revelation, are thus ren
dered probable.
Then, as in a theory of this character the notion
of man's free will is included, so, independently of
this freedom being essential to moral responsibiUty,
our consciousness of actuaUy possessing it supplies
an evidence on its behalf sufficient to relieve us
from the difficulties which the abstract question pre
sents to our imperfect understandings. We may in
consequence reject the proffered alternative, of ei
ther yielding to ingeniously devised and plausible
trains of reasoning on behalf of the doctrine of ne-

126 SERMON V.
cessity, or of distinctly and in every point replying
to them.
A portion of the truths which have been here ad
duced may be obtained, no doubt, by a similar ap
plication of reason to the visible world ; but it is on
the basis of our inteUigent and moral constitution
that in some respects they are preferably erected.
More generaUy, this is a foundation which the Deity
has established within the mind itself, in order to a
suitable apprehension' and contemplation of Him.
It is in the nature thus compounded, and in the
truths deduced from it, that those who are deprived
of the positive assurances of revelation have within
their reach (what even we who enjoy, these assu
rances may possess in happy alliance with them) a
resource and refuge within themselves, amid the
anomalies of the present scene ; a preventive of
the partial conclusions which in the absence of this
habitual security such anomaUes might dictate to
an inquisitive and unguarded reason.
Natural theology and ethics then, however in fact
made known to the human mind, have a proper dis
tinct existence ; and the simplicity of the proof is so
far from diminishing yi any degree its weight, or
justifying the neglect with which it has been some
times treated, that both its utiUty and its force are
thus augmented. What the importance is to the
subject of the evidences of asserting such indepen
dent existence of the truths in question, and what
the consequent connection of those truths with re
velation, wiU be seen hereafter. That part of the

SERMON V. 127
subject which we have hitherto been contemplating
cannot yet be dismissed from our consideration.
For although the validity of proof is not, strictly
speaking, affected by the circumstance of truths sa
tisfactorily estabUshed through process of reason
having been originally communicated in an ex
press and positive manner to the mind, nor by that
of the human faculties having subsequently been
aided by revelation in their induction, yet is there a
point of view in which an inquiry into the nature
and degree of the assistance received cannot alto
gether be declined. Theories, it has been seen, there
are, which make no aUowance for the moral capaci
ties of the human mind, and would reduce religious
and ethical truth to a merely positive foundation
and origin. There are others, which though they
admit the moral features of our mental constitution,
refuse to it, nevertheless, the ability to acquire in
any pertinent sense religious or ethical truth, other
wise than through the medium of revelation. In
either instance, any spontaneous workings of the
human mind in regard to such truths, any deduction
of them by unassisted reason from our mental cha
racter, much more the discovery of any part of
them, must, consistently with the maintenance of
these theories, be denied to heathenism. Now al
though a proper discovery of the truths in question
cannot be required, although revelation may have
anticipated the ampler results of the exercise of rea
son, and the human mind, though neither destitute
of a moral capacity, nor of a certain ability to evi
dence itself in action, may have been so circum
stanced in regard to truths of this description, or

128 SERMON V.
so deteriorated by the effects of the faU, as not to
have had the means of acquiring any portion of
them in an absolute sense, yet if the history of opi
nions, when diligently scrutinized, should be found
to justify the presumption, that in some particular
or other a discovery of truths here supposed to be
so congenial to our nature must actuaUy have been
made, the fact is not to be neglected ; whUst no
small degree of original effort would attach to the
human mind, if seen to be habituaUy employed, in
proportion to its circumstances, in the develope
ment and in the evidencing of these truths however
discovered. At all events, and although our men
tal powers have become enfeebled since they first
were given, it may be proper to obviate the suppo
sition of their constant and entire inertness, in re
spect of the truths here contemplated through a se
ries of ages, during which little positive religious
knowledge was generally diffused, and amid various
degrees of mental culture. For this would be a
phenomenon, of which, if in reality it existed, some
account might reasonably be expected. Nor when,
as now, the proper subsistence of the truths them
selves has in the first instance directly been main
tained, and the question of the degree of aid which
our faculties may have received towards their dis
covery or their proof presents itself as, what in
reality it is, a subordinate one, can there be any
danger of perpetuating the confusion of points es
sentially distinct, by the consideration of what these
theories would object. And the views to be taken
will, under such circumstances, be probably im
partial ; since no extreme of system is here de
pendent for its maintenance on the whole weight

SERMON V. 129
being thrown into either balance, To the tradi
tionary remnants of primitive revelation, to the in
direct Ught of the Jewish Scriptures, to the direct
and fuUer beams of the Christian dispensation, may
be ascribed whatever can even presumptively be
claimed for them ; while the proper efforts of the
human mind, and the degree of success with which
it can be shewn to have appUed itself to moral
and reUgious topics, need not on the other hand
be kept out of sight, or be disparaged.
In the first place then, and as the question re
spects the more enlightened heathens whose opi
nions have by themselves or others been handed
down to us, we may, antecedently to the inquiry in
respect of any specific sources to which they were
indebted, determine, that much proper effort and
some successful results must have proceeded from
themselves ; and this, whether we consider,
1. The simple fact of the subjects of natural
theology and ethics having been habitually agitated
by them ; or,
2. Their treatment of the topics discussed ; or,
3. Lastly, the character of the imperfections with
which their reasonings were attended.
I. And under the first head, not only the ques
tions which on the supposition of the existence of a
proper moral capacity most would interfest, attracted
in point of fact the regard of the heathen world,
but they became the points on which their reason,

130 SERMON V.
iri proportion to. its general progress, was mainly
occupied. Hence arose the several sects, and the
various differences and shades of difference in their
opinions. Even the " disturbers of the old philo-
" sophy," who denied aU certainty to human know
ledge, did not on this account the less inquire and
dispute ; and the topics which I have in this dis
course been maintaining on the footing of reason,
the existence and character of the Deity, provi
dence, a future state, free-will, the principles of mo
rals, in a word, the subject-matter of natural theo
logy and ethics, as well as divers points connected
with them, were perpetually discussed. Now from
the circumstance singly taken, of so many cultivated
minds being habituaUy and actively employed on
these points, we should be authorized to infer that
they had some proper hold on our nature ; that this
continual recurrence to them was an unequivocal in
dication of it, and that hence the impulse given to
the mind proceeded.
2. The argument, however, will assume a more
determinate form, if we contemplate, in the second
place, the treatment which these topics experienced
from the Greek phUosophers ; for tothese, as having
had the precedence in point of time, and as being
the models whence the Romans copied," the inquiry
of course must principally be directed. Now in the
unqualified assertion sometimes made, that natural
theology and ethics have a merely positive origin
and foundation, it cannot surely be meant to include
any such notion as, that either for the developement
of truths which external sources might present, or
for the reasonings in which the heathen indulged

SERMON V, 131
concerning them, they were indebted to those
sources. Even if historicaUy or otherwise it could
not be shewn that these truths owed much to the
philosophy which entertained them, and was conti
nually-occupied in their discussion, yet is it not in
the nature of things that such developement and
such reasoning should have been handed down from
early revelation. As little wiU the authoritative
character and the positively communicated truths
of the Jewish Scriptures authorize the supposition,
that from this quarter discussions of religious and
moral truth could directly or otherwise have been
borrowed. At the same time, no inconsiderable
degree of originality is involved in inquiries so va
rious and so multiplied. Let some knowledge of
the truths themselves have preceded any attempts
towards the arriving at them by rational process ;
let such primary acquaintance with them have been
the cause which excited the human mind to occupy
itself in the proving of them, to expand the truths
in question, and to iUustrate them ; yet thus to re
ceive, to place in clearer lights, to render evident
what the mind had not excogitated, implies a cer
tain mental preparation for such truths, implies a
principle of selection, implies certain grounds of
judgment, implies both capacities and acquirements,
which under circumstances still more favourable
would have enabled the human mind to advance yet
further. For instance ; from the effects which the
universe exhibits, and specificaUy from our mental
constitution, the wisest of the ancient philosophers,
infer the existence of a primary and efficient
Cause; an incorporeal and intelUgent, an impassive
and indivisible, an eternal and unchangeable Deity,
K 2

132 SERMON V,
Further, they shew themselves aware of the incon
sequence of forbearing so to reason ; they are careful
to disprove the notion of an infinite succession of
causes ; they distinctly, and with a view to this ap
pUcation of it, assert the principle of causality. Nor
are their reasoning powers less successfully applied
to the subject of the Attributes. From the power,
the wisdom, the goodness apparent in the world,
both Plato and Aristotle infer the absolute existence
of those qualities in the one case in Him who
formed it, in the other, in that eternal Cause of
which the world was from eternity" an effect or a
'^ " Non ex singulis vocibus (says Cicero, Tusc, 5.) philosophi
" spectandi sunt, sed ex perpetuitate et constantia :'' and there is no
writer who has more need of the benefit of this caution than Ari
stotle, scarcely a tenet of whose works has passed imdisturbed.
I purposely forbear anticipating any portion of the continuous
views which the notes will present of his opinions ; for it is by
partial appeals that the extremes of indiscriminately vituperating
and extolling the religious and moral attainments of the ancients
have been upheld. My present purpose is simply to state, what
in regard to his favourite tenet, the eternity of the world, I appre
hend him to have not believed. This notion then was not incon
sistent in his view with the general supremacy of the D^ity, nor
did it detach the world from its dependence on Him. Aristotle
stands distinguished in both these respects from others, who held
in appearance the same tenet. It would probably be correct to
say, that he held not the world to be eternal as to its form, in the
same sense in which in common with every other philosopher of
antiquity he held it eternal as to its matter ; that he considered
the world as produced indeed, but in eternity, not in time ; and
then, though from the absence of any positive conception of eter
nity his notion is not a clear one, yet is it comparatively sheltered
from objections. Inasmuch as the imputation of atheism is con
cerned, so far was the notion of the eternity of the world from im
plying it, in the view of profane antiquity, that, as Cud worth ob
serves, those who denied the Deity, rejected the eternity of the

SERMON V. 133
production. And as Aristotle maintains the ex^
istence of but one such cause, because one suffices to
account for the phenomena which the things around
us, which our own constitution, present ; so Plato,
with still greater accuracy, asserts the same Unity,
Further : these phUosophers concur in maintaining
final causes; and the argumfent in which Plato (iU
seconded, it must be confessed, in these respects by
Aristotle) shews himself to be deeply impressed at
once with the anomaUes of God's moral government,
and with its tendencies, the argument by which he
connects the doctrine of a general and particular
providence with that of the attributes, aiid this
again with a state of retribution, bears marks, if not
of his having arrived at these truths by the mere
operations of his reason, yet of a proper originality
on the part of himself or of some preceding phUo-
sopher in the proof of them. Then the Platonic
topic Ik tou o/xo/ou, though on the face of it metaphy
sical, and as such exhibiting the imperfections of
much of this philosopher's reasoning of the same de
scription, supposes an ultimate reference to the a
posteriori method, and to the causal argument.
As in regard to the truths antecedently adduced,
this mode of proof conducts the mind from the ex
cellencies displayed in the work to a divine artifi
cer, in whom the ^ like qualities exist indefinitely ;
so the argument l| ofMlov supposes the resemblance
world, believed in some sense or other that it was made or gene
rated. ¦¦ It had been my primary intention to have considered in these
discourses the question of the resemblance and analogy between
the moral qualities of the Deity and our own ; but it was un
avoidably reserved for the Notes.
K 3

134 SERMON V.
to have been verified, supposes it to have been so
specificaUy in regard to the inteUectual and moral
quaUties with which, considered as a part of that
work, we are ourselves endued; makes it a ground for
the duty of our imitating the divine perfections. And
in effect the moral, not less than the inteUectual
character of the human mind was apprehended, was
maintained, was on the subject of morals directly em
ployed and put in action. In consequence, utility,
civU or domestic, was not generally admitted to be
the proper and adequate character of ethical truth ;
it found the place which in reality belongs to it as
the concomitant of the " good" and " fair ;" not as
contributing essentially to constitute, yet less as
qualified to supersede them. Even the Peripatetics,
who would fain have administered some present helps
to the infirnjity of human virtue, preferred not the
" agreeable" or the " useful" to the "honest;" held
those external advantages with which they desired to
surround the proper character of virtue to be of no
account when disjoined from it. The sounder philo
sophers discerned the essential tendencies of virtue;
the tendencies also of moral as distinguished from
purely inteUectual truth, towards the production of
happiness. They saw the importance to virtue it
self of moral action, and not of this alone; for the
inquiry, " whether virtue could be taught," involved
'both the question of moral science itself, and of the
character of the human mind, to which, after aU,
that science must be directed. The relation in
deed between ethics and natural theology was
less often and less systematically asserted than its
importance required ; but it was recognised ; indeed
the aptitude of the human mind to elicit the na-

SERMON V. 135
tural and moral differences of good and evil being
neither unperceived nor uiiemployed, the connection
of physical and ethical with reUgious truth could
not altogether remain unknown. And hence, or
from the relative character of ethical truth, philo
sophy was carried on to its absolute and permanent
one ; to that everlasting law which subsists within
the mind of the Deity himself, and of which his
moral will is the expression. It was in ethics, as
they more immediately concern ourselves however,
that the talents of the writers of antiquity were
principally displayed. In this favourite subject they
expatiated to a degree inexpUcable on any other
hypothesis than that of its essential relations with
our proper nature. In respect of topics of this de
scription, that " least fanciful of men%" the " scribe
" of nature V may more especially be said to have
" dipped his pen into the mind ;" even here he has
exhibited that averseness to imitation, that anx
ious desire of originality, by which his character
was generally distinguished. Again, the Socratic
mode of discussion, involving as it does habitual ap
peals to a groundwork within ourselves, must at all
events have been primarily derived from proper men
tal effort ; has nothing in common with the visionary
arguings of Plato, when obviously proceeding upon
extraneous hints, and already in possession of his
conclusion, he is embarrassed in regard to the par
ticular foundation on which he shall establish it.
More generaUy, in the Ethics of Aristotle, as weU
^ " The least credulous or fanciful of men ;" so Aristotle is
termed by fiarrow, vol. ii. So. fol.
f Suidas in voc. Aristoteles.
K 4

136 SERMON V.
as in the moral disquisitions of Socrates, especially
if we receive these last at the hands of Xenophon,
there is a peculiarity severaUy in the turn of thought
not less than in the reasoning, a raciness which
evinces these philosophers to be far other than the
mere retailers of subject-matter handed down to
them ; evinces, that these truths both possess and
were ascertained by them to have a proper connec
tion with the human character ; that hence arose
the faciUties and the motive for original effort to
their mental powers.
Further : the natural indications which our con
stitution affords of the immaterial character and im
mortal destination of the soul did not pass unob
served. Net merely in order to the metaphysical
arguments to which such indications lead, but also
with a moral pm'pose, these have largely, though
with great inequaUties in the reasoning, been in
sisted on by Plato, whUe the tenets theno^elves of
an immortal soul, and of a state of retribution,
h^d long subsisted on the consentient foundations of
traditionary revelation, and of those " admonitions
"• of nature," which the moral action of the mind
suppUes. Nor was the character Of divinity, when
attributed to the soul, or the notion of its ultimate
union with the Deity, exclusive, as sometimes has
been pretended, of the personaUty and consciousness
which are indiapenaabl© to. the notion of reward, to
the retention in another life of the, qnaMties and ha
bits which had here belonged to it.
Then the doctrine of fate, as ^eld by profane an
tiquity, and which in the stricter sense is manifestly

SERMON V. 137
irreconcileable with morals and with natural theo
logy, is not to be confounded in every case with the
tenet of necessity. By some philosophers at least,
perhaps even by Aristotle, on a consistent view of
his writings, fate meant nothing more than the laws
and appointments of the Deity ; and by Plato man's
free will was so distinctly held, that to the abuse of
it he referred the existence of moral evil.
'And as the hints of reUgious and moral truth,
from whatever quarter obtained, were by proper
mental power thus unfolded, so in proportion as the
efforts of the philosopher carried him beyond the
Umits of the notices afforded, he is entitled of course
to the character of originaUty. Now, both in Plato
and in Aristotle we behold the human mind labori
ously and by slow degrees attaining to a perception
of ultimate difficulties which it surveys, on aU sides,
with which it contends, which sometimes and in
part it vanquishes. In Aristotle, who less readily
deferred either to tradition or to the opinions of
those who had preceded him, the process is more
marked, and the results bearing a proper religious
character comparatively few ; but it is hardly possi
ble, I apprehend, dispassionately to study the works
of either phUosopher, without perceiving that their
trains of reasoning in regard to truths however
acquired must unavoidably have augmented the
previously subsisting stock of correct religious and
mpral notions of profane antiquity ; that in respect
of certain metaphysical truths, Plato has actually pre
pared the way for modern improvements.
Even then although the acknowledgments by

138 SERMON V.
these philosophers of assistance from tradition could
so be construed as to have no application to the
discoveries of their predecessors, or to those com
mon notions which must sometimes have sponta
neously presented themselves to the human mind
during antecedent ages; even though such acknow
ledgments had exclusively respect to primary reve
lation, and . to a light imparted directly or other
wise from Judaism ; further, though they were ad
mitted to embrace the seminal principles of every
religious and moral notion which the writings of
heathen philosophy in effect contain ; still further,
although the philosophers had not been of all men
the least likely to rest in mere tradition, and Plato,
who the most employed it, could not be shewn to
have exercised both discretion as to the source,' and
discrimination as to the substance of what was thus
delivered ; yet even then these references to assist
ance from without the mind would be far indeed
from excluding much original and successful mental
effort ; and such efforts oppose an insurmountable
obstacle to the theories that would deprive religious
and moral truth of a specific foundation in our men
tal constitution, or deny to the human mind the
power of in some sort buUding on it. They even
suffice to render probable what in the former part of
this discourse has actually been exemplified, that
under circumstances stiU more* favourable to such
an issue, the connection in question, and the capa
city of the human mind for tracing and for employ
ing it, might be fuUy evidenced.
' With the aid that is of revelation towards inducing a proof
which yet when induced is, both as to premises and process, in
dependent.

SERMON V. 139
But, independently of any purpose still more dis
tinctly to refute those theories, the truth requires
that we rest not here ; that in one main and specific
instance, at the least, we claim for the mental facul
ties under heathenism the province of religious dis
covery. When the tenets conveyed by primitive
tradition were fading away from before the eye of
reason ; when the distinction between the one su
preme Deity and a host of celestial and earthly, of
invisible and sensible objects of worship, was lost amid
the homage paid by the mass of mankind to the crea
ture, and to images, the Ionic phUosophy, after strug
gling long with the materialism from which no con
temporary sect appears effectuaUy to have extricated
itself, was able to pass on by arguments from purely
physical grounds to metaphysical, from a material
and passive Deity to one detached from matter, and
efficient. The recovery of this primary truth of
original revelation was followed up, as might be ex
pected, by an expUcit assertion of Providence and a
future state, such as opened the way to the reason
ings of Plato, and in some degree also to those of
Aristotle, although the Ionic sect had arrived at
greater religious proficiency in one main respect
than either ; at the point of rejecting that planetary
worship which Plato himself could not abandon.
That these truths co-existed in a far higher degree
of purity. in the Hebrew scriptures is indubitable;
that they might still be lying enveloped amid the
corruptions of Egypt and Chaldea, or have been in
some degree revived in those countries on the occa-
g In the hands of Hermotimus and Anaxagoras. Thales, a
century before, had reached no further than to the union of in
telligence with matter.

140 SERMON V,
sion of the Jewish dispersions, is not improbable ;
but no traces are there of any communications hence
to these philosophers of the Ionic sect, whose history
meantime exhibits a tardy and gradual and painful
progress towards the truth which was in. the end
attained by them.
3. But, in the third place, a greater degree of
original effort than my argument would absolutely
require, may be inferred from the very imperfections
with which the reasonings of the ancients, in regard
to the principal truths of natural theology, were ac
companied. In the absence of such clear and posi
tive communications as might satisfy the doubts of
human reason, or of authoritative sanctions which
might repress them, ancient philosophy presents at
first sight little more than numerous differing and
even contradictory tenets, such as supply to writers
of a superficial character plausible grounds enough
for disputing the reality of heathen acquirements.
Even on that nearer and fuller view to which the
conscientious inquirer after truth will hold himself
engaged, the imperfections and discordances in ques
tion by no means vanish ; but they are seen to be
those to which the human mind, after arriving at a
certain stage in its progress towards accurate and
coherent notions, would find itself exposed, in pro
portion as it was left to the direction of its own
reason. And first, whatever may be pretended in respect
of an ultimate reference in every case to the Su
preme Being, as to him on whom, the supposititious
and inferior divine intelligences were regarded as
dependent, yet cannot the notion of a proper Unity

SERMON V. 141
be reconciled with the admission of such inteUi-
gences, and of their claims, however subordinate
and quaUfied, to divine honours. And in fact the
tenet of the Unity only obtained so far as to exclude
an equal Deity.
Next, although the doctrine of an inteUigent First
Cause, distinct from matter, appears to have been
recovered by the efforts of reason, and to have been
maintained by successive philosophers upon the same
foundation, and although this doctrine involved the
inertness of matter itself, supposed it to have re
ceived both its impulse and its order and disposition
from the power and wisdom of the Deity, yet was
the notion of his Supremacy essentially detracted
from by the inability to conceive of matter as con
tingently existing, and by the consequent denial,
virtual or other, of his proper character as a Crea
tor ; of his being, in an unquaUfied sense, the Maker
of the universe. However undesignedly, in some
instances, a principle independent of the Deity was
thus in fact established, which led at a subsequent
period to" the Manichean error, and introduced con
fusion meantime into the views which the ancients
took of other principal tenets of natural theology ;
involved altogether the philosophers in a maze of
visionary expedients and of inconsistencies.
Thus the argument on behalf of Providence, or a
preserving power, from the attributes of a Deity
who was supposed to have only formed the world,
who had even to contend with a renitency in the
matter which composed it, has plainly no longer the
force of one deduced from the fact of a proper crea-

142 SERMON V.
tion ; from the attributes of Him, to whom aU ex
istence is obedient, and who also caUs into being the
things that are not.
Thus again : careful as were the wiser philoso
phers to, remove the notion of all imperfection from
the Deity ; aUve as was Plato in particular to the
portentous error of ascribing to Him the origin of
evil; anxious even as this philosopher shews himself
to inculcate the contrary truth, that neither natural
nor moral evil, properly deserving of that character,
was to be imputed to the Divinity; that goodness
had been the motive to the production of the uni
verse, and that from the Supreme Being what was
good and right could alone proceed ; yet the degree
of influence attributed to the supposed obliquity of
matter, in respect of natural evil, implies something
more on the part of the Deity than a mere permis
sion of such evil, in order to ultimately beneficial
and wise purposes; impljes a want of power or of
goodness in not controuUng it. Nor, though the
abuse of human liberty was assigned by Plato as
the cause of moral evil, can the general resistance
of matter to the divine wiU, and the consequent di
minution of the proper supremacy of the Deity, be
regarded as without considerable bearings upon mo
rals. The same notion of the perversity of a stubborn
matter hindered philosophy from adopting the popu
lar truth of the human body having its part in the
retribution of a future life ; and the prospect of this
state lost much of its proper moral influence by not
being contemplated as final.

SERMON V. 143
The like inconsistency and incompleteness, and,
as connected with them, actuaUy impure and immo
ral notions on certain points, are discernible amid
the details of heathen ethics; and they proceeded
mainly from one of the theoretical errors which have
been now insisted on ; namely, an inadequate appre
hension of the attributes of the one supreme and
only Deity, and an insufficient reference to this
source of the principles of truth and duty.
It were easy almost indefinitely to increase the
catalogue of these deficiencies. Few indeed were
the points, either of natural theology or ethics, in
regard to which any one philosopher was consist
ent ; in regard to which, sects, as well as individual
members of them, were not at variance both with
themselves and others.
But now in the character of the errors which thus
impeded the endeavours of the human mind to elicit
for itself religious and moral truth, we may discover
the absence of any such assistance from without, as
is sometimes gratuitously lent to heathenism. The
failures are of that description which reason, unsup
ported in any available sense, would exhibit, and
which a subsisting and still inteUigent tradition from
primary revelation, or a communication, direct or
other, with the Jewish Scriptures, must have obvi
ated. The proper unity of the Deity, the creation^
^ It is hardly to be believed that any considerable intercourse
with the Jews should have been unaccompanied by some notice
of their manner of life and of their observance of the sabbath ;
and a very slight inquiry into the cause of this remarkable institu
tion would have disclosed to heathenism the fact of a proper ere-

144 SERMON V.
of matter, the history of the fall, distinctly appre
hended, would have sufficed to remove the very
foundations of many errors.
Nor are these deficiencies of the ancients to be
attributed, in a general view, to design and insin
cerity. In regard to the popular creed, the philo
sophers, it is true, sometimes allowed themselves to
dissemble, though in certain instances they believed
in point of fact the same truths which the polluted
stream of tradition was indistinctly seen to bring
with it, and occasionally also those essential errors
which floated on its surface. But in respect of their
own exoteric doctrines, they claimed no such latitude.
The main distinctions between these and their eso
teric opinions regarded sometimes an abstract or a
loose and popular method; sometimes the persons
to whom these sentiments were severaUy delivered ;
sometimes also the subject-matter ; but had not re
spect in any case to inconsistent representations,
esoterically and otherwise, of the same truths. Be
tween the popular and other treatises of Aristotle,
against whom this charge has been especially direct
ed, there appears to have existed no other difference
than such as was occasioned by the discriminative
treatment which the respective conditions of various
descriptions of hearers would require, or an honest
prudence may have dictated ; while the general im
pression which the stile and method of so much of
his writings as remain are fitted to convey, is that
of his having communicated to others the undis
guised and the elaborate conclusions of his own un-
ation, which, though not necessarily implied in the first verse of
Genesis, was yet a point of Hebrew belief.

SERMON V. 145
derstanding. It is true, we are deprived of a part
of his works, in which, more fully and specifically
than in those handed down to us, his sentiments on
properly religious topics would seem to have been
developed ; but those which we possess are appa
rently esoteric; and there is no reason to believe
that any opinion which this great philosopher enter
tained upon the points they treat of has been de
signedly withheld. Of Plato and of Socrates, the
sincerity has less been questioned ; by the demon of
this last phUosopher was intended probably that ce
lestial principle of reason within the mind of man,
of which Plato has otherwise discoursed, and which,
as having been discerped from the divine mind, pos
sessed, as was assumed, a character essentially cor
responding with its origin. Then the sacrifice to
the gods of his country, ordered by Socrates before
his expiration, is an evidence, not of his disbelieving
at that trying moment what he had been all his life
maintaining, nor of his having till then maintained
it insincerely, but of that inconsistency by which the
philosophical creed was generally infected. That Ci
cero, who has done Uttle more than expand the philo
sophical notions of those who preceded him, did not
honestly believe the tenets which with so much skiU
he selected from the mass within his reach, is hardly
to be credited, though the question, as it respects a
phUosopher of this later date, is here of Uttle mo
ment. In truth, the proper belief of the ancients
turned far less on their sincerity than on the degree
of confidence they were able to place in their own
conclusions. Scarcely any point was there of natu
ral theology or ethics, of which they do not appear
L

146 SERMON V.
to have possessed some conception ; scarcely any was
there on which they at the same time felt themselves
at liberty to pronounce in a determinate and abso
lute sense. In every instance were wanting those
fuller and more accurate notions, those enlarged and
connected views of the character of the Deity, and
of the natural and moral dispensations as proceed
ing from him, which express revelation has supplied ;
in the absence of them particular points could not
definitively and with a sufficient understanding of
them be established, nor be fixed within their re
spective limits, nor be brought into agreement.
Then, and in the last place, for truths of such a na
ture and of such importance, sanctions were also
requisite. Now it was a proof of the discernment
of ancient philosophy, and of the progress made by
it, that it had become sensible of these imperfec
tions, and of its inabiUty to supply them ; and the
complaints to which this sense of things gave occa
sion, the distrust which habitually pervaded the
various systems, (not those systems only which in
volved a profession of distrusting,) the liberties the
philosophers allowed themselves in regard to subject-
matter traditionaUy imparted, are indications that,
amid repeated references to the East as a primary
source of knowledge, and to the nakaioi and Ufo\ Ao-
70/ of Greece, or of some other country, they did
not consider truth as deriving to them from these
quarters so absolutely, and on any such authority as
might satisfy them of its proper character, and claim
from them an implicit assent and reception.
But on the whole, even though the probabiUties

SERMON V. 147
which have been now adduced could be distinctly
shewn not to extend to positive discovery, and reli
gious and ethical truth were seen to have owed al
together and in every instance its introduction into
the world to primary or subsequent revelation, yet
would not the writings of the heathen world be di
vested of considerable originality in illustrating and
brining to proof the truths^imparted. Even thus
much however is not essential to my argument. It
is only as the powers of the human mind can be
proved to have remained entirely passive in respect
of this knowledge, whencesoever and under whatever
circumstances obtained ; it is only as Greece and
Rome, the most civilized nations of heathenism,
while abounding in displays of mental effort of
every other description, forbore to occupy their
minds with reUgious and moral inquiry, or to as
sign to it the distinguished place which in effect
is due to it, that a difficulty can present itself, of
which, consistently with the foundation that here is
claimed for truths of these descriptions in our pro
per nature, and with the capacity of more or less
inducing them, the solution might not be obvious.
The history, however, of the first of these coun
tries, (of the country prior in civilization,) of its
progressive advancement in arts and learning, of its
equally gradual improvement in the theories of re
ligion and morals, excludes, to say no more, the sup
position of any such inertness. Here therefore, as
far as the mental operations when contemplat
ed amid great general cultivation are concerned,
the argument, strictly speaking, might close. For
I am not contending on behalf of the sufficiency of
reUgious and moral notions, which, even had they
L 2

148 SERMON V.
been more perfect and coherent than here they are
seen to be, would stiU but have evinced the defec
tiveness of our present mental powers in the ap
prehension and reception of such truth, and must
have been without a tendency to supply the need
of revelation. My purpose is simply to maintain,
what facts are seen abundantly to justify, that the
same faculties which with the aid of clearer light
have enabled us to do justice to the principles of
natural theology and ethics, and to maintain them
on their own specific grounds, were actuaUy applied
to those subjects by the wiser and abler portion of
the heathen philosophers ; and that (on a very mo
derate estimate of the attainments of Gentilism)
they were employed on them in such a sense and
degree as, on the supposition of those principles be
ing in fact derivable from our nature, the theory of
the human mind would prepare us for expecting.
But though the assumption, that mankind have
been the mere passive recipients of religious or mo
ral notions, as positively communicated, is in conse
quence proportionably refuted, yet on a topic which
the intrusion of gratuitous theories has raised to
a degree of importance that would not otherwise
have belonged to it, the demands of truth, even in
so far as the appUcation of the argument to the
more enlightened heathen is concerned, can hardly
thus be satisfied. After contemplating, as I now
have done, the attainments of phUosophy itself, it
still remains to take a discriminative view of the
specific sources whence external assistance may ac
tuaUy have been derived to it. Next, the present in
quiry has need to be extended in a degree proper-

SERMON V, 149
tioned to their respective circumstances to two other
classes of mankind ; I mean the mass of population
as it existed in the civiUzed countries of heathen
ism and under the vulgar system of reUgion, and
the like mass as heretofore or still subsisting amid
less degrees of civiUzation and the common super
stitions of heathen ignorance. Nor can this inquiry
be suitably closed without some notice of the beai'-
ings of express revelation on the moral and reUgious
attainments of our species.
Such then wiU be the object of the next discourse,
in which the sense of my text, and of certain other
passages of Scripture, will also be considered; for
though I have forborne to introduce the authority
or the language of holy writ amid discussions of the
tenets of reUgion and morals as held by profane an
tiquity, yet may they be seasonably adduced to Ulus-
trate and confirm the fact of an independent exist
ence of those truths, and of the consequent relations
which the heathen held with them.
Meantime, both as a conclusion to so much of
this inquiry as already has been pursued, and as
preparatory to its continuation, let it be borne in
mind, that the data on either part of the secondary
and incidental question now agitating, whether it be
that of the success with which the proper efforts of
the human intellect in its application to reUgious
and moral truth have been attended, or that of the
assistance derived to the heathen world from ex
trinsic sources, are insufficient to justify theories that
are exclusive. But short of these extremes con
siderable latitude of opinion may be claimed, on ac-
L 3

150 SERMON V.
count of the doubts inseparable from an inquiry
into dark or distant periods, the difficulty of placing
ourselves in the exact position of those on whom the
light of revelation has not directly shone, or of ac
curately estimating the advantages which from this
quarter have accrued to ourselves, and have contri
buted to the formation of our habits of thought and
reasoning. And those only amid such allowable
pleas for gradations in opinion may we reasonably
affirm to be in error on these topics, who decide
upon them for themselves or others absolutely and
dogmatically.

SERMON VL

Romans i. 18—21.
For the wrath of God is revealed fom heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the
truth in unrighteousness ;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in
them ; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so
that they are without excuse :
Because that, when' they knew God, they glorified him not
as God, neither were thcmkful ; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
iSo moderate is the character of truth, and so diffi
cult the attaining by mere force of reason to correct
and sufficient views of it, that few are the points on
which it can be safe for the human mind to insist
without reserve and qualification. The contrary no
tion however concurs with specific prejudices and
partiaUties to hinder the estabUshment of a proper
measure in the mind; and by theories maintained
in an universal or an indefinite sense, truth becomes
exaggerated or depressed, tiU its proper features are
no longer cognisable.
In no instance is this observation more exactly
l4

152 SERMON VI.
verified than in that of the opinions prevalent within
the pale of Christianity in respect of the sources
whence previously to the Advent religious and moral
light was derived to the GentUes, Under cover of a
fact which all parties equally admit, (however they
may differ as to the extent of the deterioration that
ensued from it,) the proper constitution of the hu
man mind and the specific character of its faculties
are excluded from the question ; and the only means,
it is assumed, which the heathen possessed of arriving
at the knowledge of religious, and even of moral
truth, were the traditions of early revelation, aided by
communications more or less direct from the Jewish
Scriptures, Nor is this all : as until about the
middle of the last century, continental theologians
there were, who successively interpreted the univer
sality which holy writ ascribes to the Christian
scheme, not of its principle only, or of its character,
or of the fact of a very general extension primarily,
and a yet fuUer one which ultimately may be looked
for, but in the sense of this religion having been vir
tually offered to the acceptance of every human
being, so it has been thought advisable, even in more
recent periods, to attempt the establishment of the
proposition, that such positive dispensations of re
vealed truth as existed antecedently to the coming of
Christ, constituted an universal and continuous pro
vision of instruction, reUgious and moral, for the
heathen, throughout the long succession of ages, from
the dispersion at Babel to the Advent ; a provision,
it is assumed, not incommensurate on the whole with
the circumstances and wants of mankind, and adapt
ed to a supposed inability on their parts to think
in any degree religiously or morally without such

SERMON VL 153
aids. Then those who live under revelation are of
course represented as equally destitute of the same
ability ; and their acquirements in these respects are
indiscriminately referred to the fuller and clearer
manifestations of religious and moral truth which
Christianity has suppUed, If it be asked, in what
way a theory thus exclusive, and designed to be so,
of the operations of our inteUigent and moral capa
cities on these subjects is held in consistency with
what is known of the nature and history of tradi
tion, and of the limited sphere of influence to which
the Jewish Scriptures were till a certain period con
fined ; in consistency further with what the text
and its parallels affirm in respect of another and
wholly distinct method of arriving at certain pri
mary religious verities, surmises, conjectures, assump
tions take the place of facts ; or the results in which
these facts may be seen to have terminated are not
regarded. Then the declarations of holy writ are
warped to the purposes of system by unsound inter
pretation, or we are required to accompany the di
rect, the obvious, the apparently complete and defi
nitive sense with a reserve of which neither text
nor context afford the most distant intimation on be
half of tradition, or of still more express revelation, as
of media through which alone the " eternal power
" and Godhead," or the attributes, moral and other,
of the Deity, were in any degree discernible.
Now, that amid a certain degree of civiUzation,
such as existed in Greece and Rome, the human
mind has shewn itself capable of considerable and
of successful efforts towards the attainment of fun
damental reUgious and moral truths, was insisted on

154 SERMON VI.
in the last discourse, efforts which could not, it has
been seen, have wholly owCd their existence and
their character to suggestions from external sources ;
could at all events not have been indebted to this
source for the developement, the iUustrations, the
proofs in which they issued. StiU, how far positive
revelation was concerned in the primary suggestion,
and what were the means of attaining in a direct or
other manner to any of its truths, remains to be ex
amined ; and I am also to inquire, what indications
the less instructed persons of the same communities,
and the mass of mankind as subsisting amid unci
vilized heathenism, present severally of the applica
tion to reUgion and morals of their proper powers,
or of these having been assisted or superseded by
Ught from revelation.
Before however I enter on a discussion which has
for its object to advance as nearly as may be to
wards an adjustment of the balance between what
has been elicited by the human faculties, and what
may from other quarters have been supplied to it, I
would dispose of the excess of theory already in this
discourse adverted to, which assumes, that compe
tent reUgious instruction was provided in regular
succession for mankind through positive methods ;
since if this theory were correct, the proposed in
quiry might altogether be dispensed with. And,
not to insist on the obvious fact of the dearth of po
sitive religious knowledge among the heathen, and
of their own declared sense of this deficiency ; we
may on Scripture authority pronounce the theory
in question to be untenable. Whatever be the pre
cise meaning affixed to the term translated " winked

SERMON VI. 155
" at%" by which the view taken in the divine councUs
of the times of heathen ignorance has been figured to
us; whether it be that of the indignation of the Deity
at what occurred in those times, or of his not being
severe to mark what then was done, or, as is more
probable, of his having merely judged it fitting to
forbear imparting to the heathen world the benefits
of express revelation, no such ambiguity can exist
in regard to the passage in the fourteenth chapter of
the Acts, which declares, that " in times past" God
" suffered aU nations to walk in their own ways ;"
nor in regard to that part of the chapter first re
ferred to, where God is said to have " determined
" the times before appointed, and the bounds of
" their habitation :" " determined" the times of hea
thenism, when once that state had by man's apo
stasy been induced not less than the times of the
Law of Moses and of the Gospel, and " appointed"
that under the former of these states men should
" seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after and
" find him," Not that in consequence of the de
parture of their ancestors from his knowledge and
his worship, God had withdrawn from them the ge
neral protection of his providence, or discharged
them from their responsibility as rational and moral
beings ; or, on the other hand, that they were thus
effectuaUy provided for by the sufficiency of a de
teriorated reason ; but yet in the clear and definite
sense, that he declined to interfere by any such ex
press and habitual provision for the reUgious and
moral instruction of mankind at large, as those who
^ Acts xvii. 30. iicejuidv.

156 SERMON VI.
allow themselves the supposition of what the Deity
cannot but have intended, would fain make out to
have existed. And our admission of this truth is
further secured by a positive instruction from holy
writ, in regard to the sentiments with which this
portion of the divine dispensations is to be con
templated. When the kindred point of national
election, of greater privileges given in this life to
one people than to another, is spoken of by St. Paul,
he is careful to prevent aU attempts to reduce the
divine proceedings to the measure of human con
ceptions, and to comprise them within the limits of
a scheme of man's devising, by the pertinent inter
rogation, " Who hath known the mind of the Lord,
*' or who hath been his counsellor''?" and by re-
faring us, not indeed to arbitrary decrees, for these
would be at variance with the tenor •= of this very
passage, but to the " depth of the riches both of
" the wisdom and knowledge of God," to the " un-
" searchableness of his judgments," to " ways which
" are past finding out." It suffices for us to know,
that in the moral wiU of the Deity we have an ab
solute security under whatever dispensation ; that
our lot wiU be ultimately determined by the Ught
we had, and by the use we shall have made of it.
Dismissing then this notion as anti-scriptural, we
may proceed directly to the question, in what sense,
and with what specific Umitations severally, the facts
of religious and moral Ught derived to mankind
from tradition or from the Jewish revelation may
correctly be upheld.
" Rom. xi. 34. "^ See verses 30, 31, 32.

SERMON VL 157
Now, although tradition divides itself obviously
into oral and written, yet inasmuch as they fre
quently co-existed, the distinction, with a view to
practical conclusions, cannot always be preserved.
The Mosaic history authorizes the beUef, that such
reUgious tradition as had been diffused in conse
quence of the separation at Babel, was even then
not free from corruption ; -and the same narrative
confirms this notion by its accounts of the particu
lar country to which Mizraim removed. But even
though tradition had at the time of the disper
sion been wholly pure, yet oral deUvery must have
changed its nature before it could permanently ex
hibit truths in so correct a state as to supply a de
finite standard of belief to the human mind for any
considerable number of successive generations. Its
character had in no instance so favourable a trial as
when it involved a reference, authoritative or other,
to a written word ; yet with this support to rest on,
and though we should allow some scanty fragments
of the ancient Cabbala to be stiU existing, yet had
the substance of this tradition disappeared before
the Christian era. Indeed, from the Scripture his
tory itself, we may coUect the view that should be
taken of this mean of reUgious communication.
The simpUcity of the one primitive language, the pri
mary longevity of mankind, and the comparatively
limited portion of the earth occupied by the pa
triarchs, might seem favourable to such a method ;
yet was it not altogether confided in without reve
lations. And when, for the purpose of maintaining
a deposit of divine truth in order to further ends,
Abraham in the first instance, and at a subsequent

158 SERMON VL
epoch a whole people, were to be detached from the
mass of mankind, revelations were in an especial
degree vouchsafed until a law had been provided,
of which the writing was divinely supplied^', and
for whose inculcation written remembrancers were
specifically directed "^
Traditions, primarily oral, became intrusted to
symbolic writing, in proportion as mankind were
civUized ; and appear so early to have assumed that
form in Egypt and the other countries of the east,
that we must look to the uncultured heathen of for
mer or of the present times, if we would behold the
oral tradition of religious and moral truth in proper
operation. And what, as respects the conservation
of primitive verities, do we in effect discern ? Traces
faint and slight of early doctrinal truths, for these
would with difficulty retain their specific characters;
more decisive remains of a common origin in rites
and customs, because these are better fitted to hand
down the memory of such events, as being universal
in their character, and, in the interest they at first
inspired, arrested, at the period of their occurrence,
the attention of mankind ; but in rites and customs
detached from the primary and principal reason of
them, which, as dependent on oral transmission,
would soon be lost. As then we must be content
in theory with the admission of the Scripture decla
ration, that God was pleased, for reasons inscrutable
by us, to suffer aU nations, except one, to remain
without direct revelation, so any accurate view that
can be taken of oral tradition will lead us to esti-
'¦ Exod. xxxi. 18. xxxii. 16. xxxiv. I, 28. Deut. ix, 10.
'1 Deut. xi. 18, 20. xii. 1,9, 16. xxxi. 22, 24.

SERMON VL 159
mate at a very low rate the degree of positive reli
gious truth, the remnant of former divine communi
cations, which could be so preserved. In effect, even
amid the less civilized heathens, features may be dis
cerned, for which tradition, singly taken, is insuffi
cient to account. Minds alive to religious hopes and
fears, and to notions of the same character, however
erroneous ; a desire to obtain the favour of beings
superior to our race, and assumed to take an inte
rest in its affairs, and to be the distributors of good
and evil — a notion of their plaicability, which the
traditionary rite of sacrifices would indistinctly en
courage; — actual reference to them, or to sensible
objects as representing or as mistaken for them ; in
other words, the wants and wishes of our moral
constitution exciting reason, even under circum
stances the least favourable to its exercise, to some
imperfect discharge of its office; and this faculty
seen in consequence (almost imperceptibly to itself)
to operate through the principle of causation. In-
' deed so apparent have been these tendencies, that
both anciently and for a considerable period even
in modern times, they were thought to admit of but
one satisfactory explanation, that of an innate or an
instinctive principle of belief in a Deity, exhibiting
itself in an universal acknowledgment of the truth
implanted. More extensive and accurate observa
tion however has shewn, that these moral and reU
gious notions are neither so clear nor accurate, nei
ther so uniform nor universal, as instinct or as in
nate ideas would imply; that they depend for their
actual production on a certain degree of culture of
the mental powers, whUst,' where this exists, they
are never absolutely wanting. It is intelligible, that

160 SERMON VI,
the exercise of the moral capacity should vary with
the cultivation of it ; but such a fact would be irre
concileable with instinct, and hardly consistent with
innate notions. In truth it was through these ten
dencies of man's proper nature towards religion, as
one of its appointed and principal objects, and
through the circumstance of this nature not being
wholly dormant, that tradition itself obtained what
ever hold it possessed on the human mind, and was
kept aUve there, untU its force decreasing in propor
tion as it receded from its source, it gave way more
or less to new inventions. These inventions were
doubtless in many instances, even among barbarous
nations, the effects of artifice and design ; but so far
only as they were adapted to the character of the
human mind, and afforded occasion for some corre
spondent action on the part of it, would such appeals,
however inadequately preferred, fulfil the purpose of
their authors, and be persisted in.
Here, in short, not less than if we carry on our
view to the mass of unlettered population in the
CIVILIZED countries of antiquity, we discover an
attachment to reUgious notions and observances,
which no other description of truths, in their use or
abuse, has ever excited. Oppressed as were the mo
ral and reUgious tendencies of the Greek and Roman
popidation under the load of useless or positively
vicious rites and tenets, which from various sources
had been permitted to accumulate, yet did not these
tendencies cease to manifest themselves in an adhe
rence to such heterogeneous and corrupt mythology,
so long as an impression had not universaUy ob
tained of its actual falsehood. If they were silenced

SERMON VL 161
at length by the multiplied abuses of the only reli
gious system to which the people had access, it was
because this system had become incompatible with
the slightest exercise of reUgious and moral prin
ciple ; was so far from encouraging, that it wholly
thwarted the proper character of the human mind.
The alternative was that of the grossest superstition
and idolatry, or of absolute irreUgion ; and to this
last the popular creed conducted at length its dis
gusted foUowers.
It is true we have now passed on from purely oral
tradition to a written mythology ; but this, in the
exoteric sense in which we have been viewing it,
and in which alone it could be contemplated by the
generaUty, presented no advantage over a tradition
that was unwritten. Nor, esoterically viewed, did
the mythology of Greece and Rome, the civil, poetic,
or vulgar religion, which was substantially one and
the same, exhibit to its more enlightened discil)les
any sound traditional instruction. No doubt, by
such parts of this fabulous system as had been ori-
ginaUy derived from the East, some notices of physi
cal and exact science, some even of the primitive
truths of revelation, might figuratively be repre
sented. But for a mind not previously instructed
on these points to have extracted any one such
truth from amid the mass of error with which it
was surrounded, would have been equivalent almost
to the excogitation of it. One distinguished philo
sopher cUd indeed interweave with his own specula
tions such particulars of the vulgar mythology as
could be strained into accordance with them, and as
might supply materials for the refinements of his
M

162 SERMON VL
own imagination. His followers at a later period
explained away mythological error, or exalted it
into a system emblematic of the truth; but from
any incorporation • of their tenets with the religion
of the country, the ancient philosophers generaUy
were averse. In fact, the received mythology at
no period of its known history appears to have
contained sufficient and intelUgible grounds of be
Uef; it was rather a canvass on which lawgivers
pourtrayed their schemes, and the Ucentious fancies
of the mythological poets their inventions ; and when
at length this religion had attained its utmost point
of depravation, the theory of the philosopher was
seen to be diametrically opposed to it ; so that by a
distinction formally taken, the vulgar belief was re
garded as suited only to the public purposes of the
state and of society, and the philosophic to those of
private study and meditation. The GentUe world,
at two several epochs of the highest degree of civi
lization at which any nations of profane antiquity
arrived, presented the spectacle of such primitive
tradition as was couched under the vulgar religion
disappearing amid the grossest perversions, and of
philosophy emerging into clearer light. While we
perceive the fables, the oracles, the sensible, exter
nal idolatry to die away, purer notions, though con
fined to a smaU number even of the philosophers,
appear to have reached the highest point of heathen
attainment in Plato, in Socrates, and in Tully. It
was not then from the traditions contained in the
popular religion, which possessed but Uttle truth,
and this neither easily extracted, nor the object in
fact of philosophic regard, that any real assistance
towards the acquisition of religious and moral no-

SERMON VL 163
tions could be supplied to Greek or Roman anti
quity. But a more considerable traditionary and written
source whence primitive truths might, it would seem,
be derived through purer channels remains to be con
templated. Religious doctrine had not so lost its pro
per character through the corruption already observ
ed to have existed at the separation of mankind, but
that it stUl involved the primary and most important
truths. These were circulated throughout the several
countries into which the leaders of colonies had trans
planted themselves ; but then it may be questioned
whether the symboUc writing employed to represent
them did not tend more to augment and to perpe
tuate the errors by which oral tradition had in the
first instance been corrupted, than to preserve the
true doctrine. Certain it is, that the neglect or the
perversion of this doctrine became general. Traces
indeed of early truth, of monotheism in particular,
derived' from the dispersion, and fortified by the sub
sequent journeyings of the patriarchs, were never
wholly effaced, and there was a difference as to the
periods when the main abuses respectively establishr
ed themselves ; Persia retaining the distinct know.p
ledge of the one true God longer than Chaldea;
Arabia for a yet further period ; while Egypt was
remarkable for its early and multiplied and gross
idolatry ; for an animal worship, of itself sufficient
to consummate the corruption of the priests who
could encourage it, and of the people on whom such
abominations were imposed. That the East supplied
to Greece some rays of purer light from the moment
when this country became capable of admitting
M 2

164 SERMON VI.
them, is unquestionable ; its older poets, who may
be regarded as its religious historians, as exhibiting
the subsisting state of theology and of morals, teem
with primitive truths, mixed up indeed with their
own or with their country's fables, and with ethical
notions, which needed not any other monitor than
their own highly cultivated faculties for the sug
gestion of them. At the same time Greece re
ceived not those early communications without dis
tinction. Its ancient religious system stands clear
of many abuses and superstitions which had already
introduced themselves into the beUef of eastern
countries. Further, the memory of primary in
struction of a sound reUgious character having been
imparted from those quarters, long survived any
actual transmission of it ; although the corruptions
of the Greek mythology, to which the East itself
also, at a later period, contributed, and the impu
rities of the mysteries, would have rendered a fur
ther communication of fundamental truths hardly
less seasonable than the primary ; whilst the com
merce of the Grecian colonies with the East af
forded a suitable channel for such renewed religious
intercourse. The influence of Judaism on the opi
nions of the East will be considered apart ; but in
whatever degree true religion may have been thus
revived in the countries to which the Jews were
transported, the later philosophers of the Ionic sect,
who of all the investigators of religious truth were
the most successful, appear not to have gone in quest
of it to other lands, or to have derived thence any
assistance towards their reasonings. With the tra
vels of other Greek philosophers, much of fable is
evidently intermixed; though of fable which coii-

SERMON VL 165
tributes to mark at once the source whence light
had been early spread over an apostate world, and
the degree in which that light had wantonly been
obscured. But whether any religious truth, which,
as intrusted first to hieroglyphics and then to the
sacerdotal letters, stUl lay couched there, after so
considerable an interval, as the epoch even of the
earliest Greek sects presents, was not too much op
pressed by figure and by fable to be discernible, ad
mits of question ; unfaithful or ambiguous as were
the signs to which such truth had been confided,
and difficult as must have been the preservation of
their sense, if orally handed down, amid the pre
dominance of habitual and systematic idolatry.
From the limited but real assistance which hea
then philosophy derived through the older tradi
tions of primitive revelation, I pass on to the consi
deration of the relations which profane antiquity
can be shewn to have maintained with the deposit
of reUgious and moral truth subsisting in the Jewish
Scriptures ; relations whose assumed results, in any
sound and sufficient apprehension of this much agi
tated question, will appear far more problematical.
Facts indeed, as the case requues, are alleged, and
conclusions are drawn from them ; but when these
facts have received the qualifications which discri
minate views of ancient history suggest, inferences
will follow very different from those which, for the
purposes of system, are sometimes rested in.
Thus the Jews were indisputably chosen less for
their own sakes, than with a view to the ultimate
benefit of the whole human race; and while by the
M 3

166 SERMON VI,
absolute appointments of Providence this people be
came first the depositories of truth, and then the in
struments of preparing mankind for a general re
ception of it at the Advent ; while to this end con
curred the various and signal events of the Jewish
history, a secondary and more immediate design
proposed through the same events was that of in
fluencing, in a reUgious sense, the heathen ; but
then this design bore no such character of controul
as did the divine provisions for events which were
the result of an absolute determination of the Deity,
It was his moral will or design, but it was not his
decree, that man should have continued upright ;
that when faUen, he should not again have aposta
tised; that when this apostasy had given occasion
to the caUing of a particular people, this event
should, in addition to its ultimate purposes of intro
ducing an universal religion, have had a salutary
effect upon the heathen, should have induced them
not merely to inform themselves of the singular oc
currences of the Jewish history, which lay often
open to their observation, and sometimes pressed
upon their senses, or even to acknowledge the hand
from which they came, but to abandon their idolatry
altogether, and devote themselves to the service of
the One true God, StUl comparatively with the
Jewish people, in respect of whom the revelation
was express, the heathen were " suffered to walk in
" their own ways ;" still the means and opportunities
of returning from apostasy were indirect and par
tial ; and even in so far as they extended they pre
sented only a moral trial to the heathen, which it
was the will, the " good pleasure," the benevolent de
sire of the Deity that they should suitably sustain.

SERMON VL 167
And such is the clue to a correct interpretation of one
class of Scripture passages, sometimes mistakenly
cited to prove that the degree of religious knowledge
which the Deity in those texts declares himself to have
placed within reach of the heathen, and had designed
that they should profit by, must have in fact accrued
to them. There is another class of texts which an
nounces the result, in respect of the heathen world, of
such manifestations. These, were no allowance to be
made for the prophetic manner, and for a certain
blending in the scriptural predictions of the present
and ultimate results of the true reUgion, for the
ordinary ampUfications of language, where a vast
and important subject is concerned, in some places,
and for the eastern style, and for that of royalty in
others ; these, when the requisite modifications of ex
pression are overlooked, may be construed to imply
a contemporaneous conversion of the heathen, such
as would have rendered needless thenceforward the
securities provided by the Deity in the Jewish law
for the preservation of the truth amid idolatry, such
a conversion as the Scriptures otherwise assure us
was as yet not actually in question. But the limits
which the tenor of holy writ concurs with profane
history to affix to the interpretation of such pas
sages, reduce their amount to this ; that in regard
to communications of religious truth the countries of
the East were mainly intended, and that in them
the God of Israel thus became in fact acknowledged,
but imperfectly, but only as one of many deities «,

= Bochart's remarks on the story of Daniel are so judicious
that I subjoin them. " Inde hie fructus emanavit, quod rex Da-
" rius, edicto per totuni imperium promulgato, coli jussit Deum
M 4

168 SERMON VI,
or, as the local and peculiar object of Jewish wor
ship; that His service thus once more became
mixed up with that of the deities of Paganism, as
before the captivity it had so been united by the
Jews themselves ; that the excesses of idolatry were
nevertheless restrained, the knowledge of the One
true God in some degree revived, and a foundation
laid for the fuller acquaintance with the Jewish doc
trines which the settlement of that people in Egypt
under Alexander and the translation of its Scrip
tures were to promote. Meantime, however, both
as this subject regards the eastern nations, and also
as introductory to the connection of the Jewish his
tory with |;hat of the Greek philosophy, it is impor
tant to remark, that the portion of the Jewish na
tion ^ subsisting in Egypt a short time before the
age of that philosophy was Ul prepared to become
the instructors of the heathen, as being itself im
mersed in the grossest idolatry; and though this
obstacle from the time of the captivity was now to
cease, yet for the mean of impure reUgious commu
nication with the heathen thus broken off, a purer
was not substituted. Numerous proselytes of the
gate there had been, and some proselytes of the co-
" Danielis. Non quidem vero cultu. Neque enim Assyrii idoli.s .
" suis renunciaverunt, quorum cultus cum veri Dei cultu stare
" non potest, Proinde Darius Deum non vocat Deum suuin,
" sed Deum Danielis. Nondum scilicet venerat tempus vocatio-
" nis gentium. Tamen hoc edictum Darii et aliud simile Nebu-
" cadnessaris, (Dan. iii. 29.) et jejunium Ninivitis indictum ad
" avertendam summi numinis iram (Jon. iii. 5.) et quae .alia
" fuerunt hujus generis videntur fuisse totidem vpoTcapaa-K^val
" ad populorum conversionem quae Christi adveritum subsecuta
" est." SS. Animal, lib. 3. cap. 3. sub fin.
f Jerem. cap. xii v.

SERMON VL 169
venant, at particular periods ; but there was no general
submission of the heathen to Jewish tenets, even to
the degree in which the Jews had submitted to pagan
idolatry ; nor did this people now manifest any con
siderable zeal to propagate their own doctrine. They
became concentrated in their reUgious worship, whilst
'in proportion as their civil intercourse with the hea
then was from external circumstances augmented, the
laws of the elders imposed proportionate restraints
both on the Jews themselves, and on the admission
of proselytes, • Then must also be considered the
general effect of the Mosaic system, whose main ob
ject was the preservation of the true religion in the
world by the separation of a particular people, an ap
pointment of which the history of mankind confirms
the wisdom, by shewing that the laws of the Jewish
code, expressly framed with a view to this object,
were needed and had been effectual. They had even,
through the wilfulness of the nation, an influence be
yond what had been proposed ; induced an habitual
alienation of their minds from the rest of their fel
low-creatures, who in their turn contemplated the
Jews with correspondent sentiments. These were
not, it is true, that despised or that unknown people
which sometimes they are described to have been, but
in reUgious respects they were absolutely insulated.
Even their dispersions, which it might at first sight
appear would have qualified this mutual estrange-
menti supply but few traces of such a result. Often
in civil and poUtical concerns, always in what re
garded their reUgion, the Jews, whether of Egypt,
or Babylon, or Persia, were a distinct people ; their
own abandonment of idolatry subsequently to the
captivity had disposed them to view it with just ab-

170 SERMON VL
horrence in those by whom they were surrounded ;
and the spirit of separation which pervades their ri
tual, and lies at the foundation of its specific ap
pointments, constantly? operated to the debarring
them from domestic and social intercourse with other
nations. And if these observations apply to the relative
position of the Jews and heathens generaUy, until
yet later periods than those we have been now con
templating, they have an especial bearing on the re
lation of the former people with Greece and with
philosophy. For it was not until the establishment
of the Greek empire in Egypt, until times that are
somewhat subsequent to those of Plato and even
of Aristotle, that any such intercourse between
the Jew and Gentile world becomes apparent, as
might probably lead to a communication of religious
truth. As tiU that epoch the Jews enjoyed not in
Egypt the public use of their own religion, so had
they shewn till then no disposition to modify their
habits of life with reference to those of the people
among whom they dwelt. And hence arises a ques
tion in regard to the notion that even Plato, to say
nothing of earlier philosophers, since he visited
Egypt whUe it was yet under the Persian rule,
might obtain access to the Jewish Scriptures, or
even an acquaintance with their contents. The diffi
culties which he is supposed to have encountered
in procuring communications from the priests of
Egypt, on the subject of their mysteries, would be
greatly enhanced in the instance of a people stiU
8 After the Advent this spirit continues to be strongly marked
in the historical parts of the New Testament.

SERMON VI. 171
jealous, at the period in question, of any interfer
ence with their religion ; and averse, even for secu
lar purposes, to other intercourse with the heathen
than what necessity imposed. Nor is the impres
sion which these historical facts are fitted to create
abated by a view of the internal evidence. The
argument, indeed, that the Scriptures were the
source whence all that the heathen knew of reli
gious truth had primarily been derived, was en
couraged, as is conceivable, by Jewish writers, and
was entiployed also by some of the early Christians
for the purpose of justifying their own reUnquish-
ment of heathenism, and influencing those who stUl
adhered to it. Attempts accordingly were made to
verify the position by detaUs, Eusebius^, more espe
ciaUy, has taken considerable pains to exhibit an
accordance of Plato's writings with the Hebrew re
cords, and specifically with the Pentateuch ; and
both on the general ground of resemblance, and
also with reference to the charge of plagiarism,
Plato has been termed the " Philosopher of the
« Hebrews V and the " Attic Moses''," But- who
ever impartially examines the various points in re
spect of which the comparison has been instituted,
wiU perceive that the argument grounded on it
would prove too much. That even written profane
tradition should be uncertain ; that where it exists
in its purest state, much should stiU be left to the
^ Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. x. xi. xii, in tot. The preventions of
Justin Martyr and of Clem. Alex, are equally apparent ; but the
details of Eusebius are peculiarly interesting and instructive, though
they want a- foundation in respect of this specific object.
' Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 321. Potter; where see note also.
'' Ibid, Strom, lib. i. 411, and see note.

172 SERMON VL
operations of the human mind in respect of the esta
bUshment of moral and religious 4;ruths ; and that
the results should bear decisive marks of the imper
fection both of the mental powers themselves, and
of the notices which have thus been lent to it, is in
telUgible : but the acquaintance with a positive
and definite revelation, such as that of the Jewish
Scriptures, if direct, would have rendered the views
of the Greek philosophy far more distinct and accu
rate and explicit, than now they are seen to be,
whilst even indirect communications from the same
express source could hardly fail to have supplied
certain vaava facts of the Mosaic history, decisive of
points continuaUy and vainly agitated by the hea
then. Facts indeed their le^oi koyoi contained ; but
they were presented with the dimness of remote
tradition ; nor did they come recommended on any
definite authority which might qualify them for
dictating a solution to philosophic difficulties. The
writings of Plato indicate no such clear and cor
rect acquaintance with the truths of the Jewish
Scriptures, as even incidental communications of the
contents of a written and subsisting document of so
express a character would have ensured. Against
Aristotle^ the charge of hebraising has been brought
with yet less appearance of foundation ; and more
generally the points of agreement between the Jew
ish Scriptures and the writings of profane antiquity
are to be accounted for upon grounds much short of
these ; partly by a reference of them to indistinct
views of certain truths of holy writ obtained from
' Brucker, vol. i. 794. has well explained the purposes for
which this charge was brought.

SERMON VL 173
the concurrent stream of primitive tradition, and
then by the obligation which philosophy owes to a
circumstance not unfrequently overlooked amid the
pre-occupations of system, namely, the possession by
mankind at large of a common nature with the
people for whom these Scriptures more expressly
were provided. If indeed in regard to the peculiar
doctrines of revelation an essential and exact re
semblance with the writings of profane antiquity
could have been established, there would be but one
allowable conclusion ; but no such resemblance has
been made good ; and the truths of natural theology
and ethics are a common property ; mankind have,
in proportion to their degree of mental culture, one
general claim to them ; and neither their character
nor the facts of history will allow of an exclusive
and systematic reference of their origin to reve
lation. Although then the incidental spreading of re
vealed truth among the eastern nations appears in
deed to have been contemplated by the Almighty as
a contingent purpose, which the heathen, in propor
tion as they came within the influences of this truth
might realize, yet the predisposing causes which
kept the greater part of Paganism aloof from a
proper belief were not restrained from their na
tural operation ; and the question is rather of means
of knowledge and conviction, of which certain of
the heathen might have avaUed themselves, than of
any proper and sufficient use having actually been
made of them. In respect of the Greeks, these op
portunities appear not to have occurred until the
philosophy of that nation had attained its utmost

174 SERMON VI.
height, and was even on the wane. The superior an
tiquity of the Jewish records, singly taken, though
fit to be borne in mind, proves nothing ; many other
relations besides those of time require to be con
sidered, in order to the adjustment of such a ques
tion. To us, indeed, who appreciate the character
and admit the authority of that code, it seems to be
a Ught which even by its obUquer rays could hardly
faU to dissipate the gloom of Paganism ; yet in
point of fact, and even at that later period, when the
Septuagint translation had been made, and the Jew
ish people rather sought than avoided communica
tion with the heathen, Uttle solicitude was felt by
these concerning the truths of which the Jews might
be the depositories. Some facts of the Jewish his
tory, some especial prophecies thenceforward forced
themselves into notice; but the traces of an ac
quaintance with Jewish tenets, and even of what
was yet more open to observation, with their habits
and observances, to be met with in heathen writers,
are, under a change of circumstances highly favour
able to the knowledge of them, extremely scanty.
There are no vestiges in the national worship of
Greece and Rome of any of the proper features of
Judaism ; as there is no internal or other evidence
of its having influenced the better periods of the
Greek philosophy.
The views then of tradition and of the Jewish
Scriptures, when considered with reference to the
sources whence light was derived to the heathen,
require to be kept distinct. Indiscriminate appeals
to them cannot promote the purposes of truth.
Much, no doubt, was owing to primitive and to

SERMON VL 175
patriarchal revelation ; the very indistinctness of
the traditions on certain points, as compared with
the same points when found in revelation, marks
the specific source and its antiquity. StiU the facts
will not bear us out in attributing, without reserve,
to tradition the religious and ethical truths exhibit
ed by heathen phUosophy, They absolutely desert
those who would ascribe such a mass of imperfect
and incoherent tenets as is ancient philosophy, after
aU, when considered in the aggregate, to an express
and co-existing revelation.
But has holy writ itself cast no light historic or
other upon the question before us? A broad and
clear one, if we forbear to introduce extraneous no
tions into its interpretation. The sacred volume
would even authorize our advancing beyond the
point at which it is the specific object of the pre
sent discussion to arrive. For the Scriptures inti
mate both the practicability of attaining to the pri
mary truths of natural theology and ethics through
the proper employment of the mental powers, and
also the fact of the heathen not having altogether
failed in the discovery. It is true, an objection is
sometimes taken to a scriptural inquiry of this na
ture on the ground that writers themselves inspired,
and also addressing those who Uved under the ge
neral influences of revelation, are to be understood
as speaking with a constant reference to the light
which was thus enjoyed. But first, in some of the
passages to which this objection is applied, it amounts
only to the leaving doubtful the sense and character
in which the speaker is to be understood, does not
authorize the absolute interpretation which is con-

176 SERMON VI.
tended for. And secondly, to quit this debateable
ground, the objection is wholly without a bearing
on my text and on the other passages I shall cite,
which are either of universal application, and so of
course embrace the heathen, or expressly regard the
particular condition of the pagan world, and the
means they had of attaining to reUgious knowledge.
And first, in the nineteenth Psalm a contrast
plainly is intended between such religious and moral
truth as is derivable severaUy from the creation and
the Jewish Law. The heavens^ and the sun as one
principal ornament of that. creation, declare or cause
distinctly and certainly to be known, the glory and the
wisdom, the power and the goodness of Him who
made them ; they speak through a channel which
admits of being understood, not merely by those
who are previously possessed of the assistance of
revealed light, but by every nation whom the ma
terial sun illumines ; by those therefore amid whom
primitive tradition may have become extinct, and
who understand not any other language. AU may
read there, as in a book, the wonderful skiU of that
Almighty Being who framed this well compacted
and well ordered structure. More UteraUy, the
heavens and their revolutions supply so many lines
or letters, which are held forth to the perusal of aU
mankind ; although to us, as at the seventh verse, the
contrast is expressed, although to us the Deity is
conspicuous in a still more perfect way by the reve
lation he has made of himself in the Law of Moses.
It is true, the early part of this Psalm (express as,
may seem its language in respect of the material
creation) has been strained to a Gospel sense, on the

SERMON VL 177
plea that St. Paul, in the tenth of the Epistle to the
Romans, has made a citation from it ; but unhap
pily for the inference, the latter portion of the Psalm,
which extols the Law of the Lord above the sources
of knowledge mentioned in the former part, would
in that case be found to praise the Jewish revelation
at the expence of the Christian ; nor would the mis
apprehension be less of what St. Paul intended ; for
this was plainly to exhibit the analogy between the
natural and moral dispensations of the Deity and
that of revelation ; to mark the spirit of univer
sality that pervades them ; and to convey the inti
mation that the Gospel was in his time diffusing
among the Gentiles the truths of Christianity on as
comprehensive a plan as that by which the visible
world according to the Psalmist* and we may add
according to the Apostle also, since he has cited and
employed the passage, spreads far and wide the pri
mary truths of the existence and attributes of Him
who made it. .
The same source of religious light is pointed out
in the Acts, where we are told, that althpugh in the
" determination of the times before appointed" the
heathen were suffered to " walk in their own ways,"
yet God was " not left without witness™" in the works
of creation and in the gifts of Providence, in those
evidences of his attributes, and pre-eminently of his
goodness. Again, it was the divine intention, that
through these means of knowing Him, and speci
fically 'through that distinguished part of the crea
tion, our bwn physical and mental constitution, man-
" Acts xiv. 1 7.
N

178 SERMON VI.
kind should "seek the Lord, if haply they' hiight
"feel after and find him," although since " in him
¦ ^: we live, and mdve, and have our beingf ' frbm each
of these facts, from existence, from motion, from the
character of our being, each of us^ may by the
causal argument without difficulty ascend to a Creu-
tor ox supreme Mover, endued with like moral arid
intellectual quaUties to those which he has vouch
safed to a portion of his creation, for this purpps^,
amongst others, of acknowledging and of honour
ing him. The circumstance of our being in a cer
tain sense the " offspring of God," a fact which ihe
heathen world could perceive, a heathen poet an
nounce, and an inspired apdstle adopt, should suffice
to prevent the idolatry which would interfere with
our rational adoration of him. In the spiritual es
sence he has bestowed upon ourselves, we are sup
plied both with an appropriate exemplification of his.
character, and with capacities by the aid of which
we may rise to a far more exalted apprehension of
the Giver than as of a being not distinct from mat
ter, and " Uke unto gold or silver."
Yet more explicitly, if possible, in my text, the
wrath of God is declared to have been revealed from
heaven against those who " hold the truth," or
"among whom°" that which "was Or might be
" " Though he be not far from eceri/ one of us ; for in him we
" live, and move, and have our being." Acts xvii. 27, 28, 29.'
° Such I take to be the sense of h aLToi? in this place ; and
therefore I forbear to press the words, as some have done, into
the service of a meaning more directly to my purpose; namely,
as having a specific reference to the mental frame. At the same
t-ime the human mind, as a principal part of creation, is com-

SERMON VL 179
^' known of God was manifest," because God had
.mediately P shewed it to them ; but whp held the
truth in unrighteousness as far as their own reli
gious and moral conduct was concerned, and who
withheld or suppressed it in regard to others. And
the way in which they attained to this knowledge
of God is expressly added. The invisible things of
the Deity, his eternal power, and various other at
tributes, (for these are included in the complex term
Sewr^f,) are clearly seen from, the things that are
made. H6w ? through ¦ the medium of tradition ?
No; but " vowiikva" provided they, be well con
sidered and reflected on, so as to become the ground
work of a facile but rational induction. Those more
enlightfened heathens then to whom the apostle
plainly alludes, were not avaTroAo'y^To/'J, because they
did not " hnow^GoA. in some certain sense, but be^
cause " when" or although, through the visible crear
tion they had become assured of his existence, they
" glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ;"
did not choose, did not care, did not take any pains
sufficiently to " retain" him in their knowledge ; wor-
prehended of course in the wojijiaara, or " things thatiare made,"
whence the existence and attributes of God are deducible. 'Ev ai-
TOK yet less refer to innate ideas, (a customary interpretation while
these were held,) or to self-evident truths ; for no truth can be
evident to the mind without some process, however brief and even
imperceptible. P ^artfoB is often used by St. John in a mediate sense ; see
John ii. II. jx. 3. xvii. 6. 1 John iv. 9. Also by St. Paul; as
2 Cor. vii. 12. and xi. 6.
1 eU TO ilvai might even be translated in order that, without
implying a decree or compulsive and absolute interference : thus ;
" in order that in the contingent event- of their abusing the means
" afforded, God might be justified, aad they without .excuse."
X 2

180 SERMON VL
shipped and served the creature together with' the
Creator, or even more' than him ; " knew" him not
even, in so full and effectual a sense as to receive
him for the only God, and as one who would not
" give his honour to another;" carried not on the
knowledge of him into those acts of exclusive ho
mage which it supposes.
But though the heathen generally were far from
acting up to the notions of religious or of moral
truth which they were in fact possessed of, and al
though they were without a positive law, such as
was enjoyed by the Jews, (a people with whom the
apostle is here contrasting them,) yet did they in
some instances exhibit the " work of the law," or
the same results which, had they been acquainted
with the Jewish code, would have proceeded from
its observance. They were not without a sense
of the judgment of God impending over those who
violate his moral laws ; they discerned in conscience
the representative of a superior power, the witness
of their religious and moral state, and who rewards
and punishes ; nor did their " thoughts^" remain un
exercised in respect of the moral distinctions ; they
argued upon moral grounds, " accused" or " ex-
" cused" others in conformity to this standard, and
with the aid of " conscience*," they applied it also
' ITapa: both senses are historically justified; indeed the one
is but an amplification of the other.
' AoyieriAOf. Properly, reasonings. Our translators, however,
with their usual discrimination, have well rendered the term here
by " thoughts," or by a word which comprehends both intellec
tual and moral discernment.
' ^viiiMifzvpovirrif, testifying to the fact of their own internal

SERMON VL 181
to themselves. Thus does the apostle expressly re
present the heathen as conversant, amid whatever
imperfections, with the prifnary religious and moral
truths, with the existence and attributes of the
Deity, and with the moral distinctions ; and if I in
sist not further, as the case would well allow, in re
gard to the bearings of this first and second chapter
on the present subject, it is because the argument
on behalf of the source whence the human mind is
capable of deriving, and has actuaUy in some degree
obtained, fundamental religious and moral truth,
has thus already received ample sanction. In re
spect of the endeavour to introduce tradition into the
interpretation of the 19th Psalm, and of the two first
chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, the question
is not whether this may not have been one source
(it is admitted as such) of religious knowledge, but
whether it was a source exclusive of another and an
independent one ; of the natural and moral creation,
considered as a distinct foundation for such truth,
and of the efforts of the human mind as employed
on these phenomena ; whether the circumstance that
both the Psalmist and St. Paul expressly insist on
this foundation, apart from tradition, and without
any reference to it, be not sufficient to hinder the
sound conscientious interpreter of Scripture from
attempting to obtain hence on behalf of tradition, as
though without it the religious and moral acquire
ments of the heathen were inexplicable, an indirect
authority. Indeed we may discover in the texts
condition, and coupling it with the law by which that condition
is to be judged of. This term may either imply, that several par
ties know the same thing, or one party several. See Rom. viii.
16. 1 Cor.ii. 11. 1 John iii. 2J.
N 3

182 SERMON VL
themselves, minutely inquired into, or again as elu
cidated in some degree by profane antiquity, reasons
for believing, that in the meaning of these inspired
Writers tradition had no place. The original' ex
pressions in the 19th Psalm imply the possibiUty of
a clear and full, an universal and perpetual declara
tion of the glory of God to his intelligent creatures;
and St, Paul asserts, that the divine power and god
head are " clearly seert" or " understood" from " the
" things that are made." Now on our inquiry into
the reasonings of phUosophy, actual existence or
the creation was perceived to be the groundwork
on which, in regard to the Deity- and his attri
butes, their arguments proceeded ; to which even
metaphysical conclusions'^ were sometimes ultimate
ly referable. St. Paul supposes also that the ac
knowledgment is of one God only ; and the divine
Unity ancient philosophy deduced from the same
foundations, though not in the degree which the pre
mises would have warranted, and to the exclusion
of inferior divine intelligences. Now these express
and unqualified positions of the Scriptures, this con
demnation of the heathen for not making a fuller
use of the means afforded for the acquirement of
reUgious knowledge, as weU as for the intelligent
practice of the duties flowing from it, are inconsist
ent with the notion that the visible creation, duly
resorted to, sufficed not to convey these truths, in a
very considerable degree at least, in a greater than
that to which the heathens, on the authority of the
apostle, and of the history of philosophy, are seen to
have attained ; that it thus speaks to those only who
have at the same time other distinct and positive
" See the argument ef ojwo/ou. Sermon V.

S-ERlVION VL 183
methods of arriving at the same truths. It may in
telligibly be affirmed of the heathen, that they were
" without excuse", for not employing, proportionably
to their general mental culture, and to the faciUties
which certain specified foundations of reUgious truth
afforded, faculties ever present with them, on the dis
covery or maintenance of such truth, or on the ex
emplification of its contents in action : but how could
they be without excuse, or (which is a sound and
scriptural consideration) how could the divine pro
ceedings in regard to the heathen be " justified," and
they be even blameable, for not eliciting truth from
data of themselves unequal to the supplying it ; or
to the supplying it in larger measures than were in
fact obtained from them : how be without excuse,
for not arresting the decUne, and supplying the
deficiencies of a waning tradition ? It deserves at'
tention further, that when, as in his discourse at
Athens, St, Paul would bring home to his hearers
the primary religious verities, and the means they
possessed of becoming acquainted with them, not
the sUghtest allusion is there to tradition as to a
source of instruction still subsisting in sufficient pu
rity to deserve his notice. The apostle refers them
only to the proper truths of natural religion, as hav
ing been within their reach ; and to these, as .dedu
cible by their reason from the premises he pmnts
out ; and he passes on thence to the pecuUar truths
and the specific . object of the Christian revelation,
as to a sort of knowledge which it thenceforward
concerned them to superinduce upon those primary
verities. Enough then of active endeavour and operation
N 4

184 SERMON VI.
on the part of the human mind is discernible in the
religious and moral history of heathenism, and may
on Scripture authority be asserted to have existed,
both to estabUsh the fact of an intimate relation be
tween ethics and our proper nature, and to dissipate
the notion of such inertness as might seem incon
sistent with it. Natural theology and morals are
not only deducible from grounds supplied by the
mental constitution itself, when considered as a part
of the effects of creative wisdom, but the human
mind can to a certain degree exert itself in deducing
them ; can complete the deduction under the cir
cumstances of express assistance.
Nor is the necessity of such assistance to a com
plete induction, of a nature to detract essentially
from the character of the mental powers. The Jew
ish and Christian revelations have not altered, yet
less could traditionary aids have done so, the pro
per features of the mind, or suspended, ordinarily
speaking, the usual operation of its faculties. As
little have they interfered with the distinctive na
ture of the truths themselves. On the contrary, it
is assumed throughout the Scripture, that those
whom it addresses are in a certain degree qualified,
by the previous exercise of their intellectual and
moral powers upon primary truths, for the reception
of the specific doctrines it communicates. The cha
racter of our mental constitution and of natural and
ethical truth is supposed and recognised ; and while
the operations of the human faculties, in this appli
cation of them, are facilitated by the more exten
sive field of knowledge which revelation has dis-
, played, a clearer and fuUer light is imparted even to

SERMON VL 185
those truths themselves. Our views of them are
enlarged and consoUdated ; and they acquire an in
creased importance by their being seen to be inter
woven with the scheme of redemption ; by the rela
tions which they possess with its origin, with its
process, with its ultimate objects. At the same
time, through pecuUar doctrinal communications,
through the new grounds of duty, and the express
sanctions and assistances which the Christian dis
pensation exhibits, a distinction is created, which
enables us to assign bounds to the proper truths of
natural theology and ethics ; a distinction between
the points which however actuaUy discovered, or in
whatever degree elucidated by revelation, have a
basis in our nature, and admit consequently of an
habitual appeal to it by reason ; and truths with
which the concern of reason is indirect and inci
dental. The sum then of what, in these two discourses,
has been maintained, is this : The conscientious ex
ercise of reason supposes, that on subjects of such
importance as those of reUgion and morality we
carry down our foundations tUl we arrive at the liv
ing rock of ultimate truth. Towards the effecting
of this purpose, metaphysical argument appears, for
the reasons offered in the last discourse, to be insuf
ficient; although the synthetic method, as applied
to this specific subject, has a decided use, when once
the argument from effect to cause has suppUed us
with a groundwork in real existence, and specifically
in our own intellectual and moral character. At the
same time, by an inteUectual nature, it will have
been seen, is intended only a nature endued with

186 SERMON VL
the faculty of reason, or that capacity of the simple
essence the mind, which reasons, and which dis
cerns between truth and falsehood. By a moral
nature in like manner is meant that capacity inhe
rent in the same essence, through which, in proportion
as it is cultivated, the mind not merely distinguishes
between right and wrong, good and evil, but ap
proves or condemns, appUes the notion of merit or
demerit, when once experience and observation have
suppUed it with the requisite materials for its exer
cise. And the nature so endowed is not here con
templated metaphysically, yet less as possessed of
innate or instinctive notions, but as a part, and one
most intimate J to ourselves, of actual creation ; one
consequently whence we may most readily and fully
induce the truths in question.
Antecedently however to the employing of the
truths whose independent existence was thus ap
propriately estabUshed, it seemed requisite to advert
to certain theories for the purpose of reducing their
pretensions to a just value, and of shewing their re
lation to my subject to be purely incidental. Upon
such a footing it would have been unsuitable to press
the conclusions deducible from the religious and
ethical attainments of the heathen beyond the de^
gree required to destroy the pretence of the human
capacities for religious and moral truth having ex
hibited no signs of active existence and spontaneous
exercise under Gentilism, and of moral truth having
no proper foundation in our nature. To have done
more than this, although the particulars I have ad
duced, confirmed as they are by the authority of
-Scripture, would have secured success to such an

SERMON VL 187
undertaking, might have contributed ,to perpetuate
the confusion which it is my object; to dissipate, of
the proper chiaracter of the truths themselves with
the subordinate question of the degree in which the
human mind may actually have been assisted in atr
taining to them. Conformably to the views here ex
hibited, let the facts be recognised of these truths
being by a correct train of reasoning deducible from
our nature, and of the heathen having been actively
engaged in the pursuit of them, there is nothing here
which militates against the reception of whatever
can be substantiated in respect of the religious and
moral light derived to the heathen world from tradi
tion or other external sources. In like manner the
assistance which Christianity has afforded to natural
and moral truth may be admitted in perfect consist
ency with the essential character of the human
mind, and of the truths whose developement has
thus been aided.
Two of the points proposed at the outset of the
last discourse, namely, what it is that constitutes
the independence of truths, and how far those of
natural theology and ethics have a claim to this in
dependent character, have been thus considered and
determined ; and the excesses of theory which would
deprive the evidences for Christianity of a proper
support from those quarters have been redressed.
On the next occasion therefore I may proceed to
justify the importance attached to the distinct ex
istence of these truths, by shewing their uses in
respect of revelation, the character and the extent
of their connection with its evidences..

188 SERMON VL
My object however has at the same time been to
obtain precisely such a groundwork as, while it se
cures the independence of natural and moral truths,
and their relations with truths revealed, with the spe
cific proofs and with the subject-matter of revelation,
suppUes no pretext for any unsuitable superstructure ;
for that opposite extreme of system which would
resolve the substance of the evidences into moral
considerations, rest them principaUy or altogether
on natural and moral data, and on overstrained con
clusions from them. On this account, as well as to
avoid aU vain contention, I have hitherto forborne
to give to the truths in question the titles of law, or
light, or religion of nature ; since the propriety of
employing these or any other such comprehensive
terms depends less on any definite sense they ne
cessarily involve, than on the meaning which in a
given instance may be attached to them. After the
views however which have now been taken, no diffi
culty either in defining or in maintaining natural reli
gion, siich as is sometimes objected, can occur. It
includes all such religious and moral truths as (even
though they should be found introduced into revela
tion itself) are correctly deducible from premises in
dependent of it. Truths of this description, so long
as our nature continues what it is, must still exist,
whatever be the extent of the obligations of a fallen
nature to revelation for their discovery, and for
their elucidation. The natural religion so defined
then takes its proper direction when it introduces
the mind to such orderly and discriminative views
of revealed truth, and of the several grounds of
evidence on which it rests, as shew the adaptation

SERMON VL 189
of this truth and evidence to the character and
condition of the being for whom revelation is de
signed, as embrace both the distinctions and the re
lations of the two Systems.
Of the motives in which has originated the denial
or the disregard of an independent subsistence of
truths so fitted to prepare the mind for a due recep
tion of the positive communications of the same Au
thor, so fitted to render that reception if already
afforded more intelUgent and effectual, the most
ordinary is the alarm taken at such exaggerated no
tions of the claims of natural religion as the views of
it here exhibited are calculated to repress.. Extra
vagant, no doubt, are the pretensions which have
been thus advanced, as though a complete scheme of
religious truth and evidence was discoverable, had
actually been struck out by the light of nature.
Still it is not by confounding the incidental fact of
the actual discovery of truths with their essential
character, or representing the question of their dis
covery as the point to be mainly agitated, that jus
tice can be done to the truth's of natural reUgion,
or the demands of revelation itself be satisfied. The
incompetency of human reason in our present dete
riorated state to discover or estabUsh the complex of
natural religion, is indeed a fact which history as
sures us of; and the assistance which revelation has
afforded towards eliciting and towards faciUtating
the apprehension of truths properly belonging to
that system, towards supplying the defects, not of
natural religion itself, but of our imperfect appre
hensions of it, is to an unprejudiced mind not less
apparent ; but the absolute inadequacy of this sys-

190 SERMON VI,
tem, in the most entire and accurate views of it,
to remedy the wants of a lapsed nature, is the point
to which the attention should principally be di
rected. The very circumstance of this religion
having an original, and independent foundation in
our nature, disqualifies it for becoming a sufficient
scheme of belief and duty for that nature when fallen,
even though we were capable without the aid of re
velation of exhibiting its truths in their just perfec
tion. Unless therefore it can be shewn that hea
thenism in its most enlightened state discovered, or
infidelity by the process of reason is able to induce,
the specific truths which constitute the distinction
of the Christian system, the cause of revelation, thus
submitted to its proper issue, is secure. This main
point estabUshed, revelation, which thus is seen to.
have nothing to apprehend within its own peculiar
province frdm the arnplest views which can be taken
of natural religion when retained within its proper
boundaries of reason, derives material assistance frohi
the correct employment of this system. If in natu
ral religion, or rather if under cover of that term, in
abstract reasonings which have no foundation in na
ture or in morals, the deist has sought matter for his
own prejudications against the possibility or the
likelihood, the need or the actual grant of revelation,
and has exaggerated and misrepresented with this
viewthe present powers of the human mind, the ex
tent of its acquirements, and the force and bearings
of moral truth, it is not by the substitution of one
extreme in the place of its opposite, by a disavowal
of the proper mental character and capacities, of the
exertions which they can be proved to have mani
fested on behalf of religious and moral truth, of the

SERMON VL 191
independent existence of the truths themselves, that
such an antagonist can be effectually replied to, or
the cause of revelation be adequately maintained.
This is to cut off from the deist aU mean of a pro
per conviction by argument, and from ourselves the
facility of debating with him upon common ground.
It is by taking a stand on this very foundation of
natural reUgion reclaimied from such perverse exhi
bitions of it, as on a system which We, not our
opponents, in reality are interested in maintaining ;
as on one which in various ways prepares for and
renders intelligible the grant pf revelation, and the
character which in effect belongs to it ; as on one
which an intelligent and conscientious deist would
not regard as his final resting place, but would allow
to have its proper course in conducting him to the
fact of revelation having been afforded. That system
has no proper tendency to supersede the revealed
scheme, or to instiU into the human mind a sense of
the sufficiency either of natural and moral truth, or
of the powers of the human mind as employed on
it. It is true that even under Christianity some
have pretended to derive from it all these notions ;
but a contrary impression, we know, was actuaUy pro
duced upon the wisest heathens.
These perpetual osciUations which the history of
theology brings out to view in regard to the ulti
mate securities of reUgion ; the alternative of ex
tremes alone which that science would appear to
offer, arise not, it is fit the youthful inquirer should
be aware, out of the proper character of the evidences
themselves, but from the want of a just inteUectual
and moral poise in the minds of those who discuss

192 SERMON VL
them. They are abuses ingrafted on the process
of probable proof, and to which, as we have seen,
in unfaithful or incapable hands, this method of
proof peculiarly is liable ; and the present purpose
is to ascertain whether, after the repeated examina
tions which this subject has undergone, some such
understanding may not now at length be acquiesced
in, as shall fix the independent existence of natural
reUgion and its relations to Christianity in that tem
perate sense and measure which revelation as such
supposes, which reason and the Scriptures concur
rently admit, and by which the demands of truth
are satisfied.

SERMON VII.

Make iii. 22—26.
And the Scribes which came down from Jerusalem said. He
hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he
out devils.
And he called them unto him, and said unto them in para
bles. How can Satan cast out Satan ?
And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom
cannot stand ;
And if a house be divided against itself, that liouse cannot
stand ;
And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he
cannot stand, but hath an end.
When the mind, under due inteUectual and
moral government, is directed to the subject of na
tural religion, and to the connection which this sys
tem properly possesses with revelation, the abuses on
these points, from which no age of Christianity has
been free, become distinctly manifest. Scarcely had
this dispensation been consolidated by the promul
gation of a written word, when attempts were ha
zarded for the purpose of estabUshing a complete or
a sufficient system of reUgious truth with the aid,
but at the expence of revelation. In exposing the
unsound and disingenuous character of these endea
vours it was not thought sufficient to maintain, as
could easUy have been done, the greater antiquity
of the Jewish dispensation, and the proper supe-
o

194 SERMON VII.
riority both of this and of the Christian scheme over
heathenism; nor even to assert the fact and point
out the instances of specific obUgations which phi
losophy had owed to traditionary revelation in the
first instance, and at a recent period to the Jewish
or the Christian Scriptures. A positive character
was insisted on as an uniform feature of all religious
truth ; and imaginary or magnified paraUeUsms be
tween the writings of sacred and profane antiquity
were appealed to as the evidences of heathen pla
giarism. This imputation, whether as advanced or
as repeUed, equally secured an undue importance
and authority to the suggestions of human reason ;
for the identity of certain heathen tenets, not with
natural and moral truth alone, but with the specific
doctrines of revelation, having been in the first in
stance mistakenly assumed on both parts, they ob
tained currency in the one case as so many tran
scripts of revealed truth, in the other as not unequal
rivals. Of this compound character was the attach
ment first to an unfaithful exhibition of the opinions
of Plato, and then to a stiU more perverted one of
the Aristotelic philosophy; attachments which threat
ened to introduce severaUy to the religious accept
ance of mankind what in reality was no other than
a refined paganism.
If the discussions which gave occasion to those
early excesses, though somewhat varied in their ap
pUcation, and even occasionally dormant, still subsist,
stUl shew themselves in correspondent results, it is
because the same indiscriminate views have been
perpetuated. Natural and moral truths now, as in
the early periods of the Church, are not sufficiently

SERMON VIL 195
distinguished from those which are of the exclusive
province of revelation.
In the present discourses these points have been
kept distinct. The question of discovery has not
only been confined to natural and moral truths, in
respect of which alone there can be any proper ap
plication of it, but even within these limits it has
been treated as an incidental point ; has not been
employed to decide upon the independence of the
truths themselves, nor on the capacities in relation
to them of the human mind. The foundations of
natural reUgion when considered as subsisting dis
tinctly from the natural and moral truths incorpo
rated in revelation, as weU as from the specific doc
trines of that scheme, have been laid in our mental
constitution, as the principal and most appropriate
part of the extensive groundwork which the crea
tion suppUes ; whilst the question of the degree in
which human reason may actuaUy have been em
ployed on this foundation retains its due and subor
dinate place and character. By such discriminative
arrangement alone can the existence, the character,
and. extent of the connection of natural with revealed
reUgion, which I am now to consider, be accurately
determined ; and the cause of reUgious evidence re
ceive the fuU and the inteUigent support which it
may justly claim.
For whatever may have been the fact, and al
though it could be shewn that the Deity had alto
gether anticipated the operations of the human mind
by positive revelation, so as to impart in this man
ner both the knowledge of himself and also all other
o 2

19'6 SERMON VIL
principles of religious truth and duty, yet would it
be undeniable that the nature to which revelation
addresses itself, first as upright, then as fallen, was
anterior to the several positive divine communica
tions which were made to it. The truths therefore
which even in our present impaired condition (and
with such help only from revelation as detracts
not from the independent character either of these
truths or of our mental constitution) are correctly
atid by the suitable employment of our faculties de
ducible from that nature, must have been always so ;
whether or not they were in fact deduced, or how
ever inadequate the deduction. Such would be the
order of our conceptions and of nature, although it
should not prove to be the order in which these
truths have actually been made known to us.
Some such truths there are then which, partaking
with the sources whence they emanate of the cha
racters of priority and independence, thus become
fitted to supply the primary foundations of a divine
interposition. At the same time, in exhibiting this
^rst branch of the connection between, natural and
revealed truth, great care confessedly is necessary,
lest the approach to revelation be needlessly em-
baiTassed by the maintaining as fundamental, as in
dispensably preliminary to its specific and positive
evidences, what may not be strictly entitled to this
chaj-acter. And if under this impression we con
template the long train of introductory points through
which, in no small number of the systems of theology,
we are expected to make good our way to the im
mediate proofs of Christianity, the question properly
suggests itself, whether even to theoretic and me-

SERMON VIL 197
thodical views of religious evidence so ample a pre
paration indeed be requisite.
And here we must take into account the proper
character of revelation itself This is express and
authoritative ; suited to its design of communicating
truths more clearly and with greater expedition and
effect than is attainable by process of reasoning, and
under sanctions purely human. Even then although
the doctrinal truths which it was the specific object
of an universal revelation to communicatie, had been
wholly within the province of reason, they would
with difficulty have been so arrived at by a consider
able portion of mankind, nor could they appropriately
have been received on merely human authority.
But since reason is not equal to their discovery, the
truths promulgated must on this account also claim
reception upon the footing of their positive evidence !
and this, both from its own nature, and also as cor
responding with the character and purpose of revela
tion, will be direct and obvious, WhUe the requisite
distinction is maintained between the evidences as
exhibited systematically or in a more popular form,
and as presented to minds of greater or less capa
city and attainment ; and whUe room is left for such
natural and moral foundations as the character of
positive proof may require ; and for such collateral
support to it, and to the truths it evidences, as may
be derivable from the same quarters ; it must still be
true, that the substantial proofs of a divine revelation
admit of l?rief and simple statement.
Now, under the joint influence of the two consi
derations which have been here presented, namely,
o 3

198 SERMON VIL
the priority and independence which belong to na
tural reUgion, and the express and obvious character
which is essential to the design and the success of
revelation, we need not hesitate to determine, that
while there are truths of natural reUgion, of which
it may correctly be affirmed, (derivable as is that
system from human nature, and essential as is the
connection of revelation and of its positive attesta
tions with the same nature,) that they contribute
both to the proof of revelation itself, and to the
support pf its specific evidences, yet must these na
tural and moral contributions be reducible within
specific and definite bounds,
I. In the first place, then, certain contributions of
natural religion to the support of the positive evi
dences of revelation may be regarded as fundamen
tal. The intellectual and moral distinctions of true
and good are so uniformly engendered in the mind
by that culture of the human faculties which an
intelligent appUcation to the evidences of reUgion
wiU have pre-supposed, that no truths from without
can be so intimate to our minds, none are there of*
whose existence we are so immediately and fully
assured, as of those rational and moral differences.
Hence they become the groundwork and the test of
other truths. When therefore revelation addressed
itself by miracles and by accompUshments of pro
phecy to the senses, a belief in what was thus at
tested, in so far as it was intelUgent, in so far as it
included the notion of the revelation being from
God, supposed as of course a previous acquaint
ance with those primary tenets of natural theology
the existence and attributes of the Deity ; an ac-

SERMON VIL 199
knowledgment of the author of that ordinary course
of nature which was interrupted ; of the omniscience
which unerringly foresees and predicts ; of the di
vine truth and faithfulness which are our securities
that we shaU not be deceived in giving implicit cre
dence to what proceeds from such a source. But
this beUef, though itself indispensable, was not
alone required. As in order to the appreciating of
a miracle, mankind must first be aware of a course
of nature which such an attestation violates, so the
interruptions of that course which reason could per
ceive to have proceeded from a power more than
human might nevertheless be produced by a being
inferior to the Deity*, and that being an evil one.
Recourse therefore, strictly speaking, would be ne
cessary to the rational and moral character of the
human mind, and to the principles it eUcits, in order
to the estabUshment of a secure chain of connection
between the miracle, the doctrine attested, and a
divine author. When the communications thus
witnessed were seen to be neither contradictory in
themselves, nor at variance with those plain and
primary truths from which the human understand
ing is not at Uberty to depart, nor wdth those ethical
distinctions from which, inasmuch as they are inti
mations through a distinct channel, of the one
moral wUl of the Deity, a positive revelation from
him cannot be discordant, a correct reliance might
thenceforward be placed on their authority as di
vine. It would be conceivable that the Deity might
change the laws of nature which are contingent ; it
would be obviously expedient that he should do so,
" See the notes to this Sermon.
O 4

200 SERMON VIL
in the case of a revelation being granted, as an evi
dence that the communication was supernatural;
but the human mind, constituted as it is intellectu
ally'' and morally, could not consistently have ad
mitted a given revelation to be divine, in which
there had been the like violation of the laws of
truth and of morality. A communication however
witnessed, whose manifest tendency was that of sub
verting the distinctions in question, which, for in
stance, not through a perverse or doubtful interpre
tation of some obscurer passages of a volume teem
ing with the clearest declarations of the divine
equity, but in its plain and collective sense repre
sented the Deity as dooming his creatures absolutely
and irrespectively to everlasting torments, must on
the principle here maintained be regarded as not
coming from him, of whose justice and goodness we
are previously and by an independent process as
sured. A revelation must in like manner forfeit its
claim to reception as divine, which caUed upon ra
tional and moral creatures to perform, in order to
their eternal well-being, not that which their Creator
foresees wUl after aU remain in many instances un
executed, (for this is manifestly not irreconcUeable
with the perfections of the Deity,) but that which
God has at the same time decreed shaU not be ef
fected or be not available. The conditions thus in
sisted on, far from erecting reason into an arbiter of
the specific truths of revelation, or involving the in-
*> " An omnis rationis usus circa revelationem eousque sit tol-
" lendus ut contradictoria etiam admitti possint atque debeant ?
" Negamus contra Judaeos, Pontificios, et crassiores quosdam
" Lutheranos." Lampe Theol. Elench. whence this passage is
taken, might have enlarged the catalogue of his opponents.

SERMON VIL 201
correctness of an appeal to the doctrine on behalf
of the miracle which attests it, concern themselves
even with the rational and moral character of reve
lation, and with its moral contents, (which, pro
perly speaking, it is no part of the object of mi
racles to prove,) only negatively. Presumable as it
might be, that a revelation from God would take a
particular and express account of the nature with
which he had antecedently endowed the being to
whom the revelation is addressed, that it would
even abound with moral truth ; yet is not this as
sumed; these conditions require only the absence
of what is at variance with such truth, and might
thus occasion a reasonable distrust of the doctrine
having originated with the common author of truth of
every kind, and who is himself essentially veracious.
That it actually proceeds from him is to be other
wise and positively attested. Nor let it be thought
that these limitations are either complex or onerous ;
that they militate against the express and obvious
character already in this discourse assigned to reve
lation and its evidences. Of the preparation thus
supposed to be indispensable, the Jews were already
possessed. They had prior revelation, and they had
therefore within reach the moral culture which such
a revelation was fitted to induce and to promote ;
and in respect of the Gentile convert, who should
be deficient in the same particulars, we might an
tecedently presume, and on the authoritative exam
ple of the apostle of the GentUes we may assert,
that .the care of the appointed teachers of Chris
tianity is appropriately directed to the eUciting the
moral distinctions, to the putting such convert in
possession of the natural and moral notions of a

202 SERMON VIL
Creator and Governor'', or of confirming him in them,
if already entertained. Particular cases, no doubt,
may be supposed, where this preparation would be
difficult ; hardly more so, however, than an applica
tion to the direct and positive evidences, if they are
to be intelligently entertained ; while to the full ap
prehension and entertainment even of these, the pre
paration in question is indispensable. And the cor
rect general proposition can be no other, than that
in proportion only as references are actuaUy made
to truths thus properly antecedent, the belief, whe
ther induced or not in this the proper order, wUl on
the whole be adequate.
It is true the Deity so revealed himself to Adam
and to the patriarchs, and at later periods also to
those inspired persons who were intrusted with the
communications of his wiU, as to leave no doubt in
their own breasts with respect to the quarter whence
such interpositions proceeded, and to render super
fluous on their parts all inquiry as to the accord
ance of what was revealed with primary rational
and moral truths ; but the question here is not of
what God has done under circumstances which no
longer exist, and when the purposes for which that
internal divine assurance was granted have been
satisfied. Reason forbids not, and the Scriptures
expressly authorize the supposition, that an infi
nitely wise and good Being may permit his crea
tures to be tempted in this respect as in others, since
he has at the same time supplied them with facul
ties for discriminating in a far greater degree than
'' In the same light may be regarded that moral training for
doctrinal truths with which our Lord's discourses abound!

SERMON VIL 203
is here required between truth and falsehood, be
tween good arid evU. To the mass of persons who
witnessed the miraculous attestations of Christianity,
these presented themselves as a trial; and the cir
cumstance of the period of the Advent being on the
whole apparently the most enUghtened which man
kind since the faU had ever known, contributed per
haps to constitute the " fulness of time" when this trial
would be best sustained, when he who was to resem
ble a " refiner's fire" might most appropriately pre
sent to the examination of mankind those doctrines
and attestations, which were to prove the touchstone
of the moral condition of their hearts and understand
ings. To the assumption, that God has never in
fact permitted impostors or evil spirits to work real
miracles, or exert a proper prescience, we may reply,
that though the supposition of a genuine prophecy
or miracle occurring on behalf of a doctrine that is
false were purely abstract, yet since it is authorized
by the thirteenth of Deuteronomy, it correctly may
be made. The truths indeed hypothetically intro
duced there as contradicted by a false doctrine, and
by that doctrine supernaturally attested, are those
of a prior revelation, but they are also primary
truths *= of natural theology, are therefore of the cog
nisance not of revelation only, but also of reason.
Iri the text and in its paraUels no doubt is raised as
to the fact of the miracle having been performed,
nor does our Lord declare that the Deity alone
worked true miracles. Injurious indeed to the po-
¦= " Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known,
" and let us serve them." Deut. xiii. 2. " To know whether ye
" love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
" soul." Ibid, verse 3,

204 SERMON VIL
sitive evidences of our faith would be the resting
the question upon this issue, and maintaining that
the senses may not be trusted; or, that the miracles
of Christianity were not of so decisive and public a
character but that the reality of them might be dis
puted by those who witnessed them. In refutation
of such an objection, argument must have been alike
unappropriate and unavaiUng, The charge made by
the Jews against our Lord admitted of and even
supposed the reality of his miracles ; but ascribed
them to a mistaken and undue source. According
ly our Saviour, in his reply, insists not on the fact
that such signal evidences of power had actually
been displayed, but on their design and character.
These, both in a general view, and specificaUy in
the instance of a delivery from diabolic possession,
were inconsistent with the notion of the miracles
proceeding from Satan himself; from him whose in
fluence they were counteracting ; although, in defi
ance of common sense, they had, by a bUnd or wan
ton zeal, been imputed to this source. The case is
not essentially different in the instance of prophecy.
The prediction, in its accomplishment, is supposed
to be designed by God to " prove"* the Israelites,
npt whether they could distinguish the casual agree
ment of prophecy with an event from a proper ful
filment, but whether they would aUow a decidedly
supernatural attestation, and which constituted
therefore a proper moral trial, to seduce them from
truths of which reason and revelation concurrently
assured them, and from the duties which such truths
involved. The principle is the same in both cases,
^ "-For the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye
" love the Lord your God," &c, &c.

SERMON VIL 205
though in different and even opposite appUcations.
The point to be determined was not the reality of
the prediction or the miracle, but the quarter whence
they emanated ; and this was to be judged of by
rational and moral and religious criteria.
To proceed : because miraculous attestations, con
sistently with what we discern of the general go
vernment of God, or indeed with the specific inten-
ftion which these attestations are designed to an
swer, cannot be continuous and universal, another
proof is unavoidably interposed in respect of the
greater part of mankind, namely, human testimony.
And as in the case of attestations professing to be
from God, and in order to an inteUigent reception
of the proof so afforded, an appeal is supposed to
certain primary tenets of natural theology, and to
the intellectual and moral distinctions in which
those tenets are founded ; so in the case of human
testimony, on behalf of the genuineness and authen
ticity of the Scriptures in which those divine attes
tations are recorded, on behalf of the events of pro
phecy, on behalf of the early and extensive success
of Christianity, an ultimate foundation of our reli
ance on this method of proof is provided in the same
distinctions, Tp assign a conventional origin to hu
man testimony, is to deprive it of the proper vali
dity arising out of its own intrinsic character, and
of which truths of this importance especially have
need. As the capacity, the instruction, the infor
mation which enable men to testify, or to speak what
is true, are founded in distinctions properly inteUec
tual ; so does that other indispensable quaUfication,
integrity, embrace distinctions that are as properly

206 SERMON VIL
moral ; refers us to a principle of veracity which a
moral character, in union with the intellectual one,
can alone supply. Deduce the credibility of human
testimony from any source short of this, and though
it should stiU be thought applicable to the estabUsh
ment of ordinary and secular facts, it is inadequate
to the support of the weight which revelation im
poses. Refer the principle itself exclusively to the
positive source of revelation, and it can no longer be
to this scheme the source of independent testimony.
FamiUarized indeed as is this sort of evidence to
mankind by habit, and by a real adaptation to our
nature, on which such habit is therefore readily in
duced, its primary origin may escape the notice, of
some, and may be demurred to by others, who, even
where reUgion is concerned, afford to it an entire
credit ; who exempUfy without appreciating its real
character. The kingdom of heaven " gathers of
'* every kind," embraces every degree of mental
power and acquirement, but the origin of testimony
is not obscure. The check which conscience affords
to the want of veracity in ourselves, and the refe
rence which is thus suggested to the moral distinc
tions in our own case, are of easy transfer to the
case of others ; not less facile than is the reference
to the intellectual apprehension of a witness in re
spect of his capacity and his means of testifying.
And whoever carefuUy scrutinizes into the reasons
which induce hirii to repose an absolute confidence
in the cumulative testimony of w^hich Christianity is
possessed, will have no difficulty in discovering his
ultimate security to exist, not in the beauty or uti
lity of truth, or in the notions with which it may
have become associated; not in education as in-

SERMON VIL 207
staling, or custom as having confirmed the propriety
of adhering to it, but in the moral impossibUity of
the concurrence of so many and such complex vio
lations of the essentiaUy veracious character of our
proper nature, as the unfaithfulness of the testimo
nies in question would imply.
Such then is the primary connection between na
tural religion and revelation. Certain tenets of the
former are preUminaries to the acknowledgment of
the positive proofs on which revelation specificaUy
reposes ; are not so properly a portion of its evi
dences, as their foundation. The proofs of natural
religion would exist, although supernatural commu
nications from the Deity had never been made ; but
those of revelation cannot in like manner obtain a
proper footing in the human mind, independently of
the aid which natural and moral truths afford to
wards rendering intelligible and worthy of belief the
fact of its having been imparted. And if, as expe
rience confirms, a certain degree of previous culture
of the mind must, in any, such systematic views of
reUgious truth as I now am taking, be supposed, the
assumption, that the human faculties, when thus
awakened to their appointed functions, may be
brought to acknowledge and even to eUcit in some
degree these fundamental verities, is, as in the two
last discourses was seen, a reasonable one ; and it is
actuaUy justified by Scripture authority. No doubt,
these preUminaries to positive proof should be re
duced to the simplest form and within the narrow
est compass consistent with the intelligent admis
sion of the revelation to which they are introduc
tory ; but when so presented, they claim not merely

208 SERMON VIL
a tacit or reluctant acquiescence in them. They
demand a primary and permanent place in our ex
hibitions of the evidences ; they are essential to such
portion of them as is merely positive ; and facUitate,
not obstruct the direct and immediate purposes of
an express communication.
II. The way thus cleared through natural and mo
ral truth for the inteUigent reception of the positive
evidences to revelation, natural reUgion, whether its
truths be contemplated as subsisting in revelation, or
as they exist independently, maintains yet other bonds
of connection with that scheme, which alike have
suffered by disregard and by over-statement. And,
. First, Its truths, as actually incorporated in the
sacred volume, possess the relation of evidence with
the positive testimonies ; and when united to facts,
with the scheme itself of revelation.
Secondly, Natural religion, considered as an in
dependent system, connects itself with the character
and contents of the same revealed scheme in an
other and further respect than the fundamental one
which has been now at large contemplated.
And in regard to the first of these sources of evi
dence, it wiU be necessary to remove much extra
neous matter, with which the approach to it has
been encumbered, before we can arrive at a percep
tion of the proper character of the proof which may
be hence derived. On the wise and honest prin
ciple then of not straining evidence beyond what it
will bear, the natural and moral truths subsisting

SERMON VIL 209
in the volume of revelation, when singly taken,
must be pronounced incapable of supplying a proper
internal evidence of its divine origin, or even of its
truth. For let it be considered what the footing is
on which the truths of natural reUgion, as found in
revelation, subsist there. An internal evidence no
doubt there is of the scheme of revelation, and of
the Scriptures severally arising out of the relations
of their parts, out of their accordance direct and
incidental; and which supposes no other external
reference than to the principle that truth must be
consistent, that it will even be found coherent and
harmonious. Towards this evidence natural and
moral truth, as wiU be seen hereafter'', when united
with other internal particulars, contributes. But
here the inquiry is, what evidence such truth, when
singly viewed, is capable of affording. Again ; not
only an accession of strength accrues to many of
the particulars concurring to form such proper in
ternal evidence of the Scriptures, but a distinct re
lation of truths, and a separate'' ground of proof
are induced, when particulars which are contribu
tory to that internal evidence have been verified by
a reference to external and independent sources.
Here the question is of an evidence of this last
sort ; of an agreement between natural and moral
truth as subsisting in revelation, and some extemal
standard by which such exhibitions of it as revela^
tion is seen to afford may be estimated. This stand
ard natural religion, as independently estabUshed,
suppUes. But that from natural and moral truth, as
¦^ Page 217.
•i This separate ground of proof is often confounded with the
proper internal evidence arising from the harmony of the parts of
revelation or of the Scriptures. P

210 SERMON VIL
subsisting in revelation, and from the moral charac
ter which pervades the scheme, and from these as
authenticated by an external standard, we cannot
conclude to the general claims of revelation itself
to truth or to a divine origin, will be evident from
the following considerations ;
Revelation may be considered as an event contin
gently occurring, or as a scheme of truths and duties.
As an event, it requires positive testimony of its
having actuaUy occurred, of the revelation having
in fact been made; but natural religion, " though
grounded in actual existence, in that of the mate
rial, the intellectual, the moral world, and consist
ing in part of truths of that description, is neverthe
less a deduction of reason. By this process it is
able to induce from contingent being the existence
of Him whose being is necessary and underived;
and from the fact or reality of our own intellectual
and moral capacities, the correspondent attributes in
the Deity ; but whether the Being at whose exist
ence and character natural theology thus arrives
has vouchsafed any positive revelation to mankind,
this is the question of a contingent occurrence, of
which neither reasoning nor moral considerations
are of a nature to afford a projper evidence. The
verification of natural and moral truths, as existing
in revelation by a reference to their corresponderit
external source in natural religion, has no tendency
to prove a contingent event, for natural religion it
self is incompetent to the proof of it.
" In what sense and with what limitations I apply the .term
" necessary" to the existence of the Deity, will be seen more fully
in the Notes.

SERMON VIL 211
Again : revelation is a scheme of truths, but then
it is of truths not made out to us by reason, but ex
pressly and authoritatively communicated. Although
therefore natural religion furnishes the means of
proving by reason the truth of so much of the con
tents of revelation as is ultimately referable to na
tural and moral principles ; and. although the cir
cumstance of such natural and moral truths being
found incorporated in revelation, and of their par
taking by consequence of its positive foundation,
disqualifies them not from tendering (in virtue of
the other and independent grounds in natural reli
gion itself, on which they ultimately rest,) such con
tributions to revelation as they otherwise may be
capable of, yet does it not follow from the truth of
this part of the contents of revelation, that such part
has been expressly revealed, that it is from God
otherwise than as all truth proceeds from hinj ; and
in respect of another portion of the contents of re
velation, namely, its specific and peculiar tenets,
natural religion cannot even ascertain their truth,
and is still more unprovided with the means of
proving their origin to be divine. Various analo
gies indeed, derivable from the natural and moral
world, prepare in some degree for such an event as
revelation ; obviate objections to the nature and
amount of its proofs, and even to some of its speci
fic truths and facts, when once it has been afforded :
but if the evidence that even such parts of revela
tion as natural reUgion can shew to be probable or
true have also been divinely promulgated, must be
elsewhere sought, yet more must such other source
of evidence be requisite for truths of which natural
reUgion has altogether no proper cognisance.
p 2

212 SERMON VII.
That natural reUgion is without the means of sup
plying such evidence even to the truths which ulti
mately are referable to its scheme, will be further
evident, if we reflect that the introduction of such
truths into a revelation not otherwise authenticated
as divine, must unavoidably be liable to the imputa
tion of an authority purely human. Improbable np
doubt would be the supposition, that the representa
tions of the Deity and of ethical truth, and the pu
rity of character by which the Scriptures are distin
guished, should be the produce of mere human ef
fort. To discover and to appreciate when disco
vered, is confessedly not the same thing. Still we
are without the means of determining absolutely
that the trial of human reason in regard to the
truths of natural reUgion has been complete; and
what can be ascertained and deduced by reason may,
through the same instrumentality, have been exco
gitated. The premises, whether as derivable from
the visible creation, or from our own constitution,
or from observation of the moral government of
God, lie within our reach ; the faculty for deducing
them is also ours : the grounds therefore on which
we recognise the accuracy of the exhibitions of na
tural and moral truth which a professed revelation
may present, the means through which we attain to
such a recognition may have sufficed for the disco
very. In consequence, the judicious advocate of
revealed truth, who exercises a requisite jealousy
in regard to the materials of evidence which he
admits, although aUve to the moral impressions
w'hich the internal character of revelation is fitted
to produce, wUl, in proportion as he is so, be on his
guard, lest he should not sufficiently discriminate be-

SERMON VIL 213
tween these and the intellectual grounds on which a
sound conviction must be rested ; will avoid hazard
ing any portion of evidence in the present case on
what high-wrought sentimental notions may dic
tate ; or even on the opposite improbabiUties, how
ever strong ; on what theory or experience may in
culcate in respect of the degree in which the human
mind is capable of bringing its powers into exercise
on such subjects, and of the limited success with
which such efforts have been hitherto attended. In
sliort, he wiU perceive and admit, that natural and
moral truth, as forming part of a reUgious scheme,
cannot, in virtue of its intrinsic character, evidence
the fact of such scheme having been revealed ; or
obviate the objection, that for its own introduc
tion there, it may have been indebted to the opera
tions of human reason.
Aware of the second^ of these difficulties, but not
possessed, it would seem, of a sufficiently discrimi
native sense of it, writers, who would erect the na
tural and moral truths of revelation, and the charac
ter arising out of them, into a distinct source of evi
dence, have applied themselves to its removal, some
times by lending to the Scripture ethics an air of
strangeness and of paradox ; at others by extract
ing from the sacred volume such particulars of mo
rals, as might seem to approach the nearest to the
description of proper discoveries. In regard to the
first of these attempts, even if a character of strange
ness could be admitted to belong to the moral parts
of holy writ, yet would its existence defeat the pur-
f Whether they are aware of the first of the fundamental ob
jections here stated cannot be known, since they have not en
countered it.
P 3

214 SERMON YII,
pose that is intended by the supposal of it; for
though an extraordinary character might be ex
pected to distinguish an express revelation from
God, yet the presence of such • a character, singly
taken, has no tendency to prove the divine origin,
or even the truth of a given scheme. And where
morals are concerned, it has an expressly contrary
one. For the basis principaUyS on which the moral
contents of a revelation, or any portion of them, can
rest a claim to the character of evidence, is their con
formity, we have seen, to some standard of which
we previously are possessed, and by which they are
to be appreciated ; their conformity to the standard
which the creation generally, which our proper nature
and the moral government of God supply. In pro
portion therefore as the truths subsisting in revela
tion are represented as receding from this standard,
they decline at the same time from the test by which
their capacity (if moral truth as such should possess
any) for contributing to the evidences must be veri
fied. On this same account such representations of
them would not only disserve the cause on behalf of
which they are immediately adduced, but must be
essentiaUy false ; and so to exhibit the moral parts
either of the Jewish or the Christian revelation is
egregiously to misrepresent them. Other advocates
of the same internal evidence have contented them-
s The only exception, the only instance where natural and mo
ral truth as found in revelation, and as contributory to evidence,
has not necessarily and in every point a reference to the standard
of natural religion as independently subsisting, is one which affects
not the present case ; namely, where the question is of the har
mony of the parts or of a purely internal evidence. Even in this
case the natural and moral contents of revelation do not " recede
" from the standard" of natural religion, only there is no imme
diate reference to it in order to such harmony.

SERMON VIL 215
selves with deriving it from the last named source ;
from certain points which, in their representations
of them, are neither so aliene from what natural and
moral data supply as not to be recognised by us
when exhibited, whUe yet they cannot be distinctly
shewn to have preseinted themselves to the attention
of mankind antecedently to the Advent. And though
the selection of these points has not always been ju
dicious, yet that such truths, or rather such modifica
tions of moral truth, there are, may properly be grant
ed; but then the fundamental objection already stated,
and which embraces not merely the question of what
has been, but of what considerably within the Umits
of moral possihiliity might be discovered by purely
human means, is not thus obviated. And the argu
ments on behalf of an internal evidence of revela
tion, as arising out of such truths of natural reUgion
as are to be found there, and out of the moral cha
racter consequent on them, are reducible to this di
lemma : either these truths and this character must
be allowed to retain their hold on natural and moral
principles, and then we have no adequate criterion
for determining whether the human mind might not
deduce them from those principled ; or in proportion
as they are displaced from that foundation they cease
to have a proper and independent existence ; are in
capable thenceforward of contributing to the proof
of revelation ; remain in the number of those spe
cific discoveries of revelation which themselves have
need to be evidenced.
But if, for the substantial reasons now assigned,
something distinct from what reasonings on a mate
rial or moral basis can furnish is required on behalf of
the contingent fact of revelation having been made;
p 4

216 SERMON VIL
if ^ain the natural and moral verities of revela
tion, not from any doubt which exists concerning
them, but partly from the very circumstance of the
independent means we have of making out their pro
per existence, cannot of themselves supply an avaU-
able internal evidence either to the general truth, or
to the divine origin of revelation itself, if out of this
their incompetency when singly taken arises an ar
gument on behalf of positive and miraculous attesta
tions, may not those truths, when contemplated as
a part of revelation, so coalesce with other points as
to partake of the character of proof? No doubt.
Over accumulated testimony, over well attested
facts, over supernatural witnessings, the human mind
has no such controul as it exercises in regard to the
employment of truths deducible more or less by rea
son ; and through an union with what is thus po
sitive and actual, natural and moral truths, as sub
sisting in revelation, and yet more as themselves au
thenticated by reference to an independent standard,
may afford no mean support to the evidences ; as
weU by their influence on the specific attestations to
revelation, as also by contributing to supply new
grounds of proof, or to fortify those already existing.
And first, they add to the credibility of the spe
cific testimonies to revelation. For although, as it
has been already observed, natural and moral truths
themselves receive a divine attestation from the po
sitive evidences of revelation in virtue of their sub
sistence within that specific scheme, yet since they
possess another, a primary, an wholly distinct founda
tion in natural reUgion as independently subsisting,
the contributions which they furnish to the credibility
of testimony are afforded iri a sense and in respects

SERMON VIL 217
essentially different from those in which they them
selves have incidentally been witnessed. If there
fore, to illustrate by instances, we connect the proba-
biUty, derivable from the divine attributes as exhibit
ed in Scripture, of revelation being bestowed, with
the positive attestations that it has in fact been grant
ed, these are seen to acquire an additional claim to
our admission of them ; and this claim is farther
strengthened by these attestations being afforded to
a scheme not merely not discordant from natural and
moral notions, (this was a preUminary point already
insisted on in the early part of the present discourse
as indispensable,) but copiously iUustrative of what
the natural and moral dispensations of the Deity
would teach, or would inteUigently sanction in re
gard to the Supreme Being who has so attested, and
in regard to the character by which many of the
attestations are themselves distinguished. Thus also
in respect of human testimony. Its force is aug
mented when appUed to the authentication of a vo
lume whose internal character is singularly pure,
which specifically condemns all such departures
from the principle of veracity, as must in a long
succession of independent instances have occurred
before that volume could be falsified. If from the
union of the natural and moral truths of revelation
with its positive testimonies, we pass on to a similar
aUiance of them with facts, the result wiU be evi
dence ; evidence created or increased by such con
junction. AlUed to ordinary but well attested^c^*,
those truths wiU contribute to proof; alUed to Scrip-
twre facts, they wUl contribute to constitute a proper
internal'' evidence. Thus the early and extensive
success of Christianity, and of this as proceeding
h See page 209.

218 SERMON VIL
from a country Uttle regarded at the general seat of
empire, the. religious and moral change consequent
on the Advent, and the era produced in .religion,
theoretic and practical, by what certain obscure and
unlearned persorts taught, when joined to the in
ternal consideration of the disinterested features of
Christianity, of a character which courts not, but re
strains the inferior and concupiscible part of our na
ture, which instead of seeking undue favour with a
corrupt world, contains doctrines humiliating to hu
man pride, and imposes duties unpalatable to a de
praved nature ; these facts and this internal character
unitedly contemplated, cease altogether to be explica
ble by purely human means. In a detached state
the high moral exceUence and adaptation to the
better 'part of our nature of the scheme of Chris-;
tianity prove nothing; but they become capable of
a proper testimony to the supernatural character
of the results in which this scheme has issued, when
coupled with \)a.e facts by which those results are
established. Thus again ; and to select an instance
of evidence altogether created by such union, where
none, on either hand, would otherwise have existed.
Neither the natural and moral truths of revelation,
nor the condition of the Jew and GentUe at the time
of their promulgation, severally viewed, furnish any
evidence ; but, connected, they evince that the degree
of religious and moral attainment subsisting in the
world at the periods when the various portions of
the Sacred volume were indited, could not without
the divine assistance have sufficed for the con
temporaneous production of such truths, theological
and moral, as holy writ exhibits. Thus lastly; as
an instance of the union oi Scripture facts with
moral character, it is hardly possible to read our

SERMON VII. 219
Lord's discourses, and contemplate his religious and
moral demeanour as represented in the Gospels,
without receiving, abstractedly from doctrinal facts,
an impression, that in such consummate excellence
there was something more than mortal ; while yet
there is a reality, an adherence to nature and moral
truth, in those representations, which satisfies us, that
this Person both lived on earth, and was clothed
with our form and character. On these anticipa
tions, it is true, nothing in the way of proof could be
safely rested ; but what a preparative, or corrobora
tion, as the case may be, is thus supplied to the
Scripture facts of the union of the divine and human
natures in the one person of Jesus ; of his having
been made " like unto his brethren ;" of his having
been " tempted like as we are, but without sin ;"
while yet he who " was made flesh and dwelt among
" us," was " the Word," the " only begotten of the
" Father," the " Son of God" in a proper sense.
Natural and moral truths then, and the internal
character thence accruing to the revealed scheme with
which they are incorporated, have need to be associat
ed with testimony or with fact, in order to their con
tributing to the evidences of revelation ; unless in
deed the question be of mere internal harmony, which
may be derived from the union of natural and moral
truth with Scripture doctrine.
We have now been considering the relations of
natural and moral truth as subsisting in revelation,
with the general scheme in which they are found ;
and such truths were seen to owe much of the capa>
city they' possess of contributing to the evidences of
i Mwh of the capacity, not all ; see note, page 214.

220 SERMON VIL
that scheme, to the circumstance of their other and
independent foundation in natural religion, of which
they at the same time form a part. Antecedently'',
and with a view to certain preliminary points of
connection, natural religion, contemplated as an in
dependent system, had been brought into relation
with the positive evidences of revealed truth, at the
very foundations of which they in effect exist, and
also with its inteUectual and moral character.
It remains to carry on, as was proposed', the view
taken of natural reUgion as an independent system,
to those points of contact which it possesses not with
the character only, but with the contents of revela
tion. And as the fundamental relation™ already esta
bUshed between the truths of the one scheme, and
the'positive testimonies and character of the other,
though indispensable to the due reception of these
last, constituted not, it was seen, a proper evidence
on behalf of revelation, so the general disability in
this respect, which has since been shewn to attach
to the truths of natural reUgion whenever they are
nPt united with positive proof or with fact, must
stUl continue. There wiU indeed be now no ques
tion of the second" of the objections stated : this ap
plies only to the truths of natural religion as found
in revelation, and contemplated as subsisting there ;
whilst it is with natural and moral truth as subsist
ing out of that scheme, and as brought independ
ently into relation with the aggregate of truths of
whatever description which constitutes revelation,
that I am here concerned: but the first objection which
arises ° out of the essential character of natural reU-
^ See page 1 98, et seq. ' See page 208.
"> Seepage 198. " Seepage 212. ° See page 210.

SERMON VII. 221
gion remains unabated, and suffices to disqualify its
truths from affording of themselves any proper and
substantial evidence to the cause of revelation. In
consequence, the relation of natural religion to reveal
ed, now to be contemplated, though real, and though
extending itself to a great variety of particulars,
both in respect of the scheme and the specific truths
of revelation, will be seen to amount only to Conso-r
nance. In so far as the schemes co-extend, they
unite in producing, amid numerous subordinate points
of mutual illustration, common results ; they concur
in exhibiting the moral wUl of the Deity, whigh,
amid whatever variety in its appUcation, must, we
are assured, be under every dispensation essentially
the same ; and this consonance of truths as positively
communicated with those of natural religion, of
which we have a distinct, and in the proper order of
things an antecedent assurance, has a bearing on the
truth of revelation. Although not itself composing
proper evidence, it facilitates the conviction inde-^
pendently accruing from the proofs by which this
scheme is established, that it has a supernatural ori
gin, and is from God,
And the contributions to the evidences which in
this view natural religion is capable of affording,
may be contempLated as they regard ihe fact of re
velation having been granted, its scheme, or its par
ticular truths. That natural and moral considera
tions render probable the actual grant of it, has been
aheady observed ; that they iUustrate its scheme .
and its particulars, and assist their credibility, are
points on which it may be proper to enlarge,
I In regard to the scheme of revelation, we have

222 SERMON VIL
seen in a former? discourse that divine interpositions
are incidents in the general economy of the Deity ;
and the plan of man's redemption, large as is the
space it occupies in that economy, has the same spe
cific character. The Scriptures acquaint us not,
and human conjectures we may have leave to disre
gard, what extraordinary'^ assistance was afforded to
man while upright ; and though subsequently to the
faU more immediate and more frequent supernatural
communications would seem to have been vouch
safed before than after the granting of the written
law, yet at no time was revelation, like moral truth,
essential to our nature, or proper to the character of
the human mind. The Christian scheme, though
involving an habitual reference to both, takes not its
rise from these, but from an event posterior to the
creation of that nature, and in itself contingent, the
abuse of a state already subsisting. Nor again, is
revelation permanent, like the moral law, which must
ever be applicable to beings possessed of the charac
ter wherein that law has a foundation, and which,
as on the highest authority we are assured, wiU be,
in fact perpetual. Now natural religion, from this
its relative condition, is quaUfied to assist in render
ing intelligible the occasion, the object, and the cha
racter of revelation. The lapse of Adam, as related
in the Scriptures, is seen to have originated in a
violation of that primary dictate of moral law, obe
dience to his Maker, and the plan of redemption to
have had for its object the security of that law, an
acceptable obedience to it on our parts, and the re
storation of mankind to happiness, which is already
the natural object of our desires, a restoration through
acts and habits of virtue, as at once the quaUfication
P Sermon IV. sub init. i See the notes to this Sertilon,

SERMON VIL 223
for feUcity and the condition of it. Moral means, it
is true, were insufficient to restore ; hence the ex
traordinary features of the remedy provided; but
the very need of an atonement, and of the spiritual
assistance which revelation proffers, and the divine
love displayed in the act of redemption itself, and in
the specific means employed, would be very imper
fectly made out, could not be suitably received and
appUed, if the nature of sin itself in some degree,
if the actual helplessness of our state, if our own ha
bitual offendings, were not ascertained by the inde
pendent existence of a moral standard ; as again the
nature of redemption could hardly be understood,
if the mediatory principle, as exhibited in the na
tural and moral government of God, were not fa
miliar to us. Further: the ultimate merging of the
mediatorial kingdom of Christ in the general divine
economy, the final conquest over sin and death, and
the restoration of the order of God's government
which sin had interrupted, are strikingly in accord
ance with moral notions. Then, the most signal of
all testimonies is borne to the moral law by Him,
through whose intervention the extraordinary re
medy was supplied; in his being "made under"
this law not less; than under the ceremonial, and be
coming voluntarily subject to its penalties; in his
sacrifice and obedience, in his moral teaching, in
his perfect exemplification of the duties he enjoined.
Neither amid the positive provisions which the
scheme of redemption, contains, nor throughout its
process, are the moral attributes of the Deity, or
the moral distinctions lost sight of On the con
trary, in proportion as revelation unfolds itself, these
are seen to have been the primary and antecedent
truths out of which arose the need of redemption.

224 SERMON VIL
and with reference to which revelation is conducted ;
and moral terms are employed, not less to designate
the character of the Gospel scheme and of the divine
proceedings under it, than to express the duties
which it imposes on ourselves.
If from the scheme itself we pass on to the par
ticular truths contained in it, the same consonance
may be discerned, and the same light is thrown con
sequently from natural and moral truths on revela
tion. Thus are they seen to prepare for revealed veri
ties, or to secure their more adequate reception, where
they are not, strictly speaking, fundamental to them.
1, Natural religion discovers, for instance, those
anomalies of God's moral government which revela
tion more distinctly explains to belong to a state of
probation ; the anticipations of natural religion that
these anomalies will ultimately disappear, revelation
ratifies : the sense of accountableness, the intima
tions through conscience of a design to reward and
punish, in conformity to certain moral differences,
and the rule of conscience % which through these dis
tinctions is supplied, prepare for the adoption of
those very distinctions by revelation, and for an ul
timate and universal judgment, which is to be con
formable to them ; prepare in some respect, through
the notion of retribution, for the unmerited happi
ness held out in the Gospel, and for this as depend
ent on our present conduct. Then the Gospel re-
" Fanaticism, confounding the rule of faith with the rule of con
science, has but one guide, the Scriptures, and takes of this rule
only what pleases it ; infidelity professes to abide by the rule which
natural religion furnishes, and keeps to it as little. Happy those
who unite and abide by both rules.

SERMON VIL 225
quires reipentance as fundamental, and this condi
tion could not be compUed with, could not be intel
Ugible, if the natural workings of conscience, which
penitence involves, were not antecedently the ob
ject of our knowledge and experience,
2. Great light is thrown even on the doctrinal
facts of revelation by their being seen to possess a
character correspondent to moral truth, and to fur
nish specific grounds to moral obligation; to supply,
amid essential modifications of the circumstances
under which we act, new relations that open a wider
field for moral exercise ; and these additional duties
may often in no inconsiderable degree be traced,
when once the doctrines themselves have been com
municated. Sometimes there is a moral ground-
wprk which revelation adopts, on which it erects its
specific truths, to whose appropriate religious conse
quences it secures the due effect. Thus life and im
mortality are not for the first time taught in the
Gospel, but are " brought to Ught by it;" thus mo
ral action, and the freedom which is essential to it-;
the moral government of the mind, and subjection
of the appetites and passions; the hatefulness of
sin ; the inseparable connection between virtue and
happiness, and between their contraries, are in-
vplved in that signal instance of the abuse of moral
liberty, the faU of Adam, in its remedy, in the
precepts and the exhortations, the promises and the
threats, in the arguments and motives and sanctions
by which the Scriptures would engage us not to re
sist the means of restoration. Thus the graces of
the Holy Spirit, of which our moral nature feels
the need, are in ordinary periods universaUy of a
Q.

226 SERMON VIL
character, and are tendered in a way consistent with
the sanie freedom, and suppose an active employ-
riient of it for moral and i-eligious purposes.' Thus
also the indistinct hopes of mercy derivable from
the attributes of God are supplifed by revelation
with a specific ground on M'^hich such hopes may
be entertairied in larger measure and with greater
clearness, 3. There are seemingly inconsistent representa
tions in holy writ of the character of- human na
ture. . Now natural reUgion deduces from its own
indeperident premises the same apparent Contra
rieties, and thus materiaUy elucidates and confirms
the representations of Scripture. It verifies both
the proper tendencies of our nature, and also the
actual inabiUty which revelation asserts, and of
which it furnishes the reason. But the struggle in
the breast of the unregenerate person between
proneriess to evil and the consciousness of moral
obUgation, which St, Paul, in the seventh of the
Romans, pourtrays, cannot be properly apprehend
ed by those who deny the existence of a riioral cha
racter in man, or admit not its deterioration, of
both which the apostle in that Chapter presents
the indications; or who in equal disregard of what
the human character, when not wilfully silenced,
still iriight teach them, exclude the very notion of
an inward combat, by representing the depravation
from the fall as total.
4. A Consonance even in difficulties which reve
lation has not solved, supplies an occasion to na
tural reUgion of ^Contributing to its service. Thus,

SERMON VII. 227
although even under revealed light we are still un
able to estabUsh the proper point of agreement be
tween the controul of Providence and man's free
wUl, between the divine prescience and the con
tingency of human action, yet may we thus see the
greater reason to acquiesce in difficulties which
appear to be of the province of reason, while yet
the human faculties, independently exercised on
these subjects, have been found incapable of de
termining them. At the same time, the primary
truths of which we are abundantly assured, and
which would authorize the denial of a divine au
thority to miracles that should attest what con
travenes them, are fitted in their consequences to
secure us against such partial interpretations of the
Scriptures in regard to those unfathomable points as
might interfere with some truth of natural religion,
and so involve manifest error ; against such interpre
tations as the analogy of faith, claimed as it is on all
hands, does not suffice to silence, and as would set
at variance truths which we know not indeed how
to reconcile, but which are perceived at the same
time to be not- contradictory,
5, Even the imperfection of our notions of natural
and moral truth, and the insufficiency of that truth
in respect of a fallen creature, are fitted to create
the desire of fuUer views ; of assurances of forgive
ness, which natural reUgion cannot supply ; of a
knowledge of the terms and means of it ; of sanc
tions and assistances, which revelation satisfies. Na
tural reUgion thus facUitates the admission of the
specific communications of revelation, bears testi
mony of their appropriateness to purposes for which
they were already seen to be needed,
Q 2

228 SERMON VIL
Indeed, so essential are the truths of natural re
ligion to the securing a due reception of revealed
truth, that this last scheme assumes them as more
or less understood and acknowledged; appeals to
and employs them ; adopts the data of reason and
of morals as the necessary groundwork of its specific
applications ; regards equally both Jew and GentUe
as intellectual and as moral agents.
In these and numerous other instances, natural
religion, as independently subsisting, iUustrates the
truths of revelation ; enables us to perceive, as in
terwoven with this scheme, a character properly
moral ; adapted, that is, in those parts of it which
contain the subject-matter of natural religion, to
our proper nature ; adapted in its doctrinal parts
to that nature as altered by the faU, but as still re
taining intelUgent and moral capacities, which must
be taken as the ultimate groundwork of any scheme
for its restoration.
And since no testimony can certify to us more
clearly and fully than by consciousness and observa
tion we are assured of our possessing an inteUigent
and moral character; as it ^as not the specific pur
pose of revelation to convey to us such assurance,
or to inform us pf those primary truths which rea
son can deduce from it, but to assert or suppose
such foundations, and to build on them', the rela
tive position of natural religion arid of revelation,
when thus exhibited in consonance, becomes deter
mined. And this last scheme properly acquires ad
ditional security from its conriection with a prior
' See as decisive on this poiiit, St, Paul's discourse at Athens',
already treated of in the sixth of these Sermons.

SERMON VIL

229

and distinct one ; with one fitted to assist in ren
dering it intelUgible and credible, in procuring for
it from mankind an adequate reception, in proportion
as they have cultivated natural and moral truth, of
which they are independently the proper subjects.
What then is the conclusion which we shaU be
justified in adopting, in regard to the connection of
natural with revealed religion, in reference to the
evidences ? So much plainly of natural religion has
with this view need to be maintained and intro
duced, as can be shewn to lie at the foundations of
revelation, and to be indispensable to the apprehen
sion and adoption of its positive attestations, and
to the appreciation of its intellectual and moral
character — so much as when incorporated in reve
lation, although unequal of itself to prove, yet ac
quires this capacity by an union with positive tes
timony, or with facts — so much as prepares for the
fact and is consonant to the scheme and the parti
culars of revelation, and thus assists the human mind
in comprehending and embracing them.
Nor are the results of this connection only posi
tive. The absence of a proper sense of it may be
traced alike in the incUnations towards fanaticism
and towards infideUty ; towards the extreme of re
jecting natural reUgion altogether, and so depriving
revelation of a necessary foundation and of a support ;
towards the extreme of an undue exaltation of na
tural religion at the expence of a revealed system,
which throws great reflex Ught on natural and mo
ral truths, and gives to them a positive and divine
confirmation; gives such confirmation, it has been
Q 3

230 SERMON VII,
seen, in perfect consistency with its being itself sup
ported by those truths, in respect of so much of its
own contents as have in natural religion a test arid
standard. Let it not be said then, that the contributions to
the evidences of revelation arising out of a proper
existence of natural reUgion, and out of certain rela
tions of it with revealed truth, when both have been
incontestably established, may be dispensed with as
not worth contending for, or under an opposite aspect
as not satisfying natural and moral claims, IntelU
gent and conscientious inquirers into the evidences,
.such as I am here supposing, wUl not hold them
selves at liberty arbitrarily to admit or to reject
the relations of truths in whatever degree subsist
ing ; they wiU judge, that where demonstration is
unattainable, we cannot be possessed of too many
holds on moral probabiUty ; they wiU be aware, that
by the aggregate force of particulars, and by this
alone, probable evidence in its results can dispute
the palm with demonstrative ; and they wiU not
consent to be deprived of that intimate convic
tion of the truth of revelation, which arises from
contributions to the evidences whose foundation
is in our nature, and that supply a character of in
telligence, as well as an increase of force, to the
positive attestations. At the same time, beyond
what these premises furnish they wUl not advance ;
they will not indeed so commit themselves, in re
spect of the extent of their views, as to confine them
to purely relative notions ; wiU not forbear to carry
up the moral distinctions to the Deity, and to as
cribe to Him a moral character in an absolute

SERMON VIL 231
sense ' ; for though not of the incommunicable at
tributes of God, yet of the moral it is provided we
should have a distinct apprehension, such as satisfies
us, that though much may exist in the divine nature
of which we have no conception, yet nothing is there
essentiaUy at variance with moral notions. In other
respects, whether the question be of the Deity him
self, or of the specific scheme of redemption which
he has vouchsafed to communicate, they will direct
their attention to those relative views which prin
cipaUy in effect concern us, and which probable proof
is especially fitted to supply. When by the conspiring
force of natural and moral with positive evidence
they are become convinced that a revelation is from
God, they will not delude themselves with the no
tion, that even from those parts of it which have a
proper connection with natural reUgion, they can
ascend to any absolute and universal conclusions in
regard to the divine character or counsels. Much
is there in the scheme of revelation, of which on
natural and moral grounds we can render no ac
count. Enough we can discern for an increased ab
horrence of sin ; enough for gratitude ; enough tp
incite us not to render ineffectual, as to ourselves,
those universal ends for which so much has been
both done and suffered ; but lamentably should we
err in the imagination, that the full designs of Pro
vidence, even as they respect the Christian redemp
tion, have been laid open to us. Were this reaUy
the case, difficulties which now receive a proper
temporary solution from the consideration that we
see only in part, would assume the appearance of
objections absolutely irremoveable ; and revelation
' See the Notes to this Sermon,
q4

asa SERMON VIL
itself is so far from professing to present us with
such views, that it expressly reprehends the pre
sumption that would aspire to them. Under the
like impression of the imperfection on these subjects
of our utmost knowledge, we shall not indulge the
dream of an antecedent necessity for the specific
plan of our redemption, such as scholastics of old
and enthusiasts of aU times have with opposite views
imagined ; shall not reduce revelation from an abun
dantly attested fact to the mere exhibition in action
of natural and moral truths, and its evidences to
moral arguments ; nor sacrifice what is properly of
the province of natural religion to the notion of
an arbitrary or merely positive communication.
It is by the observance of this mean that the in
terests of truths of each description are consulted.
As revelation derives from its connection with natu
ral and moral verities not only material confirmation
in other respects, but also a support and Ulustration
to its specific testimonies ; as the human mind, con
stituted as it is, and in proportion to its actual cul
ture, dwells not satisfactorily amid truths and proofs
as positively communicated, if detached from their
essential relations to our nature ; so by the undue
stress not unfrequently laid on the proof derivable
from this quarter, the positive evidences of reve
lation are in their turn depreciated. This mean
therefore is not a temporising expedient, such as
is sometimes mistakenly employed to reconcile diffi
culties ; such as leaves them in their fuU force, and
even adds to it ; but it is the middle point, where
proofs of both descriptions, with the greatest effect,
and fullest bearings on revelation, may meet ; it

SERMON VIL 233
has therefore the proper moderation and self-evi
dence of truth itself.
And is the hope a vain one, that such chastised
and temperate notions may, at this advanced period
of the inquiry into the evidences, be more exten
sively embraced than they have been heretofore?
On either part, zeal for the interests of revelation is
pretended, and no doubt is felt ; and zeal in such a
cause can offend only by its quality. Let this be
what the cause demands, and views such as have
been now presented will afford it an appropriate ex
ercise. Instead of engaging on their side the pre
judices and partialities of the human mind, they will
exact a diligent internal scrutiny for the purpose of
dispossessing them ; they will suppose them to yield
to the principle of admitting, to disappear amid the
actual reception of whatever the Deity can in any
way be shewn to have communicated ; amid a re
ception of truth and proof strictly commensurate with
the evidence, of whatever kind, for its having in fact
proceeded from him. Our embracing of these views
involves what to the most zealous advocates of the
faith may sometimes afford an abundant employ
ment, (though to honest zeal it ought not to be a
distasteful one,) the excluding from their religious
theories aU fancy, self-will, and affection ; and the
placing themselves under the paramount direction
of intellect and conscience, as the appointed human
securities for the impartiaUty of their views, and- fPr
the spirit and temper in which those views are ad
vocated. "If Satan be divided against himself, his king-

234 SERMON VIL
" dom cannot stand ;" and if error may be thus con
sistent, how much more the truth ! Our Lord, by
the reaUty and the benevolent character of his mi
racles, in some instances by their specific object, op
posed himself to the author of falsehood and of evU,
By connecting the positive attestations with truth
and moral goodness, he more than fulfilled the con
dition requisite to the reception of miracles as a pro
perly divine attestation. Through the same con
nection of positive proof and oi facts, doctrinal and
other, with natural and moral truth, and with a
converse and an example having an essentiaUy mo
ral character, he suppUed to revelation the evidence
which in this discourse has been seen to derive from
such an union ; while at the same time he thus ma
nifested the consonance of revelation in the complex
with what He who gave us our nature has through
this channel enabled us to perceive of truth, of ethi
cal distinction, of his own existence and moral at
tributes. The materials of evidence, as they are
referable to positive and to moral sources, equaUy
pervade revelation. ShaU we not then beware of
disconnecting what He, who best knew the nature
of man, and the relations it should have with his
Gospel, has united? He claimed not indeed to be
beUeved, unless he " did the works of the Father ;"
but a specific appeal to the moral as well as to the
intellectual capacity with which the Father has en
dowed our nature, he at the same time instituted ;
" Which of you convinceth me of sin ? And if I say
" the truth, why do ye not beUeve me ^ ?"
"" John viii. 46.

SERMON VIIL

John XX. 29.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me,
them hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen,
and yet have believed.
The relation between truths and the evidence by
which they are estabUshed is various. In demon
strative science it is absolute and necessary ; in sen
sible proof, the process of reason which connects
that species of evidence with ordinary secular truths
is short, and the previous knowledge required for
the purpose of correctly appreciating the connection
lies often within small compass. Even where the
question is of religious truth, and of sensible but
supernatural attestations to it, the preUminary ve
rities requisite to the rendering intelligible such
manifestations, it has been seen, are few ; nor is the
difficulty great, of ascertaining the absence of self-
contradiction, and of disagreement with primary na
tural and moral notions in the subject-matter to be
evidenced. Further: no proper occasion of doubt
is created, when between the truths themselves and
ocular proof of them is introduced a dependence on
human veracity ; when recourse is become necessary
to the testimony of our fellow-creatures on behalf
of the fact, that to certain truths miraculous wit-

236 SERMON VIIL
nessings had in the first instance been afforded. So
definite and conclusive is the character of positive
evidence, that a very small number of capable and
honest witnesses suffices to establish the existence
of facts and of attestations surpassing the Umits
of ordinary experience ; especially if these be sup
ported by the character of the truths attested, by
the circumstances under which the attestations were
given, and by the consequences in which they are
ascertained to have terminated. And if we sup
pose the human testimony to be cumulative, and to
have arisen in some instances from independent
quarters, in others to have proceeded from persons
prejudiced against the truths whose divine attesta
tions nevertheless they certify and admit, we have
the positive evidence which has in fact been borne
to revelation. The Uke testimony as afforded to
prophecy has a yet further advantage. For not
only is prophecy, from the gradual and successive
accomplishment of its parts, what Pascal and others
have termed it, a permanent miracle, but human
testimony to an ordinary event, when that event is
the completion of a Scripture prediction, assures us
of what in the result is supernatural.
It is the precise and determinate character which
thus belongs to positive evidence, that has gone far
towards securing it from those mistaken views, which
in respect of other portions of probable propf have
been generated by an unintelUgent zeal for the in
terests of revelation. The error within the pale of
Christianity in regard to positive proof has been
less that of tampering with the parts, than of unduly
exalting or depressing this branch of evidence alto-

SERMON VIIL 237
gether ; and even the inequalities in the views thus
aggregately taken of it have been regulated by an
external circumstance ; by the degree in which the
contributions of natural and moral truth to the same
great cause of reUgious evidence have been recog
nised or disallowed. For as it is in this last depart
ment of evidence that the moral latitude inseparable
from probable proof as such has the largest field for
exercise, and consequently for abuse, it is here in
fact that the leading instances of error in regard to
the evidences of reUgion, and which involve a pro
portionate incorrectness in the treatment of positive
proof, originate. On these accounts it is that in the
preceding discourses your attention has been invited
specifically to that branch of the evidences which is
suppUed by natural reUgion, whose existence has
been maintained in that moderate but pertinent and
available sense, which its distinct and definite foun
dations were to authorize.
At the same time, although the essential nature
of truths, as thus asserted and appUed, could not
have been affected by the subordinate and inciden
tal consideration of the degree in which, amid the
varying circumstances of a lapsed creature, such
truths had, by the unassisted human powers, been
discovered or been brought into exercise; yet be
cause considerable stress had been laid upon these
inciderits, it was expedient to set right the fact ; to
exhibit truths of these descriptions as not wholly
dormant, under the greatest apparent disadvan
tages, and as emerging under more favourable cir
cumstances, in a degree far beyOnd what was ne
cessary to establish their proper relation to the hu-

238 SERMON VIIL
man mind even on the footing of experience. Then
this existence of natural religion, and the actual
operations of the human mind with reference to it,
were confirmed by express authorities of holy Writ,
not, constrained to a support of such senses as the
occasion required, but cautiously ^nd consistently
derived from text and context. Lastly, the contri
butions to revelation Of the truths whose indepen
dence had been thus both absolutely and in a rela
tive sense maintained, were reduced within those
limits which the character of revelation, and the
definite views already taken of the truths them
selves, concurred in prescribing ; and the connection
was in consequence seen to be comprised within the
characters pf a foundation — of conditions — of a co
alescence with positive evidence or with facts, in
order to a common proof of revelation ; and lastly,
of consonance, whence arises an united reference to
the One Great Author of both systems, and addi
tional support and iUustration to revealed truth.
It wiU be remembered, however, that the treat
ment which natural and moral truths, considered as
a portion of the subject-matter of which probable
proof, consists, had experienced, and which it was
thus designed to redress, is but an exempUfication
of error more general and more deeply rooted. An
insufficient apprehension and adoption of the kind
of proof by which alone revelation can be estabUsh
ed; an unwarranted resort to the doctrine of spi
ritual influence ; pretences from this quarter or from
within the mind to interfere with a proper intellec
tual appUcation to the subject of the evidences ;
these also are the results lof one and the same cause ;

SERMON VIIL 239
of the mental condition in which the inquiry into
religious proof is undertaken, of an omitting to in
sist on the state of self-government and of intellec
tual ascendancy requisite to such investigation. To
this source accordingly your attention in the first
instance was directed. The question of sound in
teUectual reUgious conviction, not less than of ma
turing such conviction, when obtained, - into the
complex virtue of Christian faith, was seen to in
volve a trial ; which reason and conscience, which
the influences of the Holy Spirit rightly apprehend
ed, duly applied for, and faithfuUy employed, will
enable us to sustain ; which we fall short of in pro
portion as the appointed means and instruments of
conviction are interfered with or perverted. And
interfered with and perverted they unavoidably must
be, whenever from within the mind the subordinate
quaUties have disengaged themselves from a just
controul ; whenever, directly or otherwise, they are
permitted to exert an influence beyond their proper
province. Now the several topics with which these dis
courses have thus been occupied, wiU be found com
prehended in the sense of the text, when fully eli
cited ; and the views I have taken of them wUl ob
tain a confirmation from the highest and most ex
press authority.
And in the first place, the text regards the beUef
of a fact, of our Lord's return to Ufe after cruci
fixion, after interment, after the greatest imaginable
care taken to ascertain the separation of soul and
body. Now, for a fact, sensible evidence or testi-

240 SERMON VIIL
mony would in every case be requisite; and our
Lord pronounces no further upon the kinds of proof,
than to exclude from a particular blessedness
beUef on evidence of sense. Adequate grounds,
though they be not sensible, are stUl supposed ; nor
is it the design of our Redeemer to hold out re
ward or encouragement to those, who should con
tent themselves with less than sufficient evidence of
truths of so practical a character and of such ex
tensive interest. If then it be asked, why the ac
knowledgment of our Lord by Thomas, when at
length sensible evidence was afforded him, is under
valued in comparison with the faith of those who
should be removed by time or local distance from
the age or scene of similar attestations, why an ac
tual blessing was pronounced on the acceptance of
one sort of satisfactory evidence rather than an
other, the answer, as supplied by the tenor of these
discourses, and confirmed by our Lord's decision in
the text, will in the first place be, that it is our duty
to accept and make the utmost of the kind of reli
gious proof afforded, be it what it may; that Thomas
is therefore to a certain degree reprehended, in that
he did not primarily acquiesce in the evidence of
testimony. If subsequently we find him indulged
with sensible proof, it was in consideration that
Christianity as yet remained to be authenticated ;
that Thomas was of the number of those who amid
persecution were to bear witness of a great doctri-"
nal fact to others, of that which they had not merely
" heard\" but " which they had seen with their
" eyes, which they had looked upon, and their hands
" 1 John i, 1 .

SERMON VIIL 241
'' had handled of the Word of life." The absence,
in the first instance, of the evidence fully requisite
to this apostle for such a purpose, was doubtless ap
pointed, in order to " the more confirmation of the
" faith''," and he in consequence was permitted,
though not altogether without his own fault, to be
doubtful ; an additional and marked attestation was
thus afforded to the fact Of our Lord's re-appearance
upon earth in his human body. Secondly, from this
incident our Lord, as is usual with him, takes occa
sion to advance a general proposition. The incre
dulity of Thomas, under the particular circum
stance of his apostleship, it had been seen fit to
dissipate by sensible testimony ; but removed as the
greater part of mankind must be from evidence of
this description, they are not authorized, and in a
right understanding of the case, have not an interest
to desire it. A blessing which cannot be afforded
to this easier and readier method of conviction, wiU
belong to such as arises from a patient persevering
application to proof not pressing on the senses ; to
the sustaining and coming forth a believer out of
the greater moral trial to which probable proof ex
poses both the heart and understanding, A just
expectation may in such case be entertained of a
reward proportioned to the manner in which the
trial is supported, to the degree of resistance made
to the faciUties which* probable proof presents for
evading the proper force of reUgious evidence.
It is true, the advantage which at this period of
Christianity we enjoy, of comprehending in our views
* Collect for St. Thomas's day.
R

242 SERMON VIII.
the whole series of revelation from the first com
munications of God to Adam, and the particulars of
proof which the early success of Christianity, which
the primary religious and moral influence of its, doc
trines, and the completions of prophecy supply, of
scrutinizing .into : the various evidences of our faith,
discerning the appropriateness of their character to
the truths they estabUsh, their mutual relations, and
their harmony, compensate abundantly, not indeed
to the fancy, but to the inteUect, for the absence of
sensible proof: but then aU are not duly aware of
the proper moral character which Ues at the bottom
of religious evidence*, and of which appeals to the
senses comparatively are destitute ; or being aware,
they do not in fact regard it. Something imme
diate, something which presses more or less upon
the senses, which dazzles the imagination, which
agitates the feelings, cannot, even when so stayed
and sober a question as that of religious beUef is
concerned, be altogether dispensed with. There
are those who believe only in virtue of such excite
ment ; and what they do not find, they create by vi
sionary conceits ; by a systematic erection of senti
ment, of will'^, of some lesser quaUty of the mind,
into the instrument of belief, or by unhallowed pre
tences'' to divine communications. Stronger minds
attach themselves to demonstrative^ proof, and seek
in the resources of their £^ep)^ reasoning powers the
means of arriving at a kind of conclusion in regard
to primary truths, to which the premises do not
properly conduct them. Now all these errors stand
'' See the second Sermon.
"^ See the third and fourth Sermons.
' See Sermon V. sub init.

SERMON VIIL 243
condemned by the text, inasmuch as they imply an
unwilUngness to abide by the species of proof af
forded, and to submit to the pecuUar moral trial
which this sort of evidence involves. Even where
the, kind of evidence on which revelation rests is
acquiesced in and employed^ men aUow themselves,
in the conduct of the proof, the yet greater Uberties
to which it in effect lies open. Some, averse from
any appUcation of natural and moral truth to reve
lation, would confine the subject-matter of its proof
to what is positive, to those attestations which
in the first instance were sensible, and which are
brought home to others by human testimony. They
would understand our Lord in the text exclusively
to recommend that branch of evidence which had
primarily but unavailingly been employed for the
conviction of Thomas, namely, conviction on the
testimony, verbal or written, of those who had been
eye-witnesses; regardless of the proper compass of
probable proof, and of the force which arises to it
from the consistence, the convergence, the cohe
rence,' the essential relations of its branches and
particulars. , In another class of believers the same
spirit of partiality takes a different direction ; and
the evidences of revelation are so contemplated, as
though our Lord in the text, or elsewhere, had pro
nounced a blessing on belief which should rest ex
clusively on natural and moral grounds ; on grounds
independent, both directly and otherwise, of the
evidence of sense. Now, to keep clear of these and
other simUar temptations to error, to see the nature
and force of probable proof, and to appreciate and
accept the moral trial which is involved in it ; nei
ther to regard an inquiry into reUgious evidence as
E 2

244 SERMON VIII.
an occasion of remitting the proper use of the un
derstanding, which revelation in no case, and least
of all in the instance of its proof, requires ; nor as
an opportunity of introducing our own caprictes and
feelings in aid or in substitution of due intellectual
application ; nor again, to aUow even intellectual
pretences to divert us from the species of proof, to
which the understanding should be exclusively di
rected and confined ; further, not to imagine our
selves at Uberty to narrow the grounds of reUgious
belief, to withdraw from the body of the evidences
the branch or the particulars of proof which happen
to have least attraction for us, or in which we least
are conversant, diUgently and impartially to coUect,
accurately to arrange, and faithfully to employ what
ever materials of evidence are within our reach ;
this supposes a proper order of the mind and supre
macy of ihteUect and conscience already established.
Well therefore might our Lord determine the con
dition of those persons to be " blessed," who mani
fest the signs of this happy internal government ;
who shew that they have come safely forth from
this complex trial ; who are able to discard what
ever would stand in the way of the full and free
admission, the adequate and impartial treatment of
probable proof, of the less obvious but equaUy satis
factory evidence by which, in ordinary times and
circumstances, revelation approves itself to fair in
quiry. Now from the subject of the evidences, as thus
contemplated through the medium of the reception
which the human mind may give to them, certain
ultimate conclusions are deducible, which though

SERMON VIIL 2U
they wUl already have presented themselves to manv
before whom I speak, may advantageously be preZ
ed on the attention of the less experienced part
even of a wdl instructed auditory; specifically on
those whose office it wUl hereafter be to manifest
the comprehensive and correct, the intelligent and
conscientious character of their own reUgious faith,
m the methods they shaU take to instU a suitable
beUef into the minds of others.
Before however I proceed to this final trespass on
the patient attention with which these sermons have
been heard, that attention is for a few moments in
vited to a point already touched upon in my intro
ductory discourse, but which has purposely been
kept detached from the general subject of the evi
dences, as having in effect only an incidental bearing
on the truth of revelation. It is as supplying that
groundwork for natural theology from the material
world, which spiritual-existence, or our mental con
stitution, furnishes from the moral, that physics ac
quire in a reUgious view their main importance, StUl
various details of agreement between the written vo
lume of revealed truth and the phenomena of crea
tion, between geology in particular and the Mosaic
history, are reasonably to be expected, and may justly
claim a certain proportion of attention. The esta
bUshment of an accordance between these documents
wUl serve to repel objections, and may even supply a
positive evidence on behalf of the inspired narrative
of Moses ; evidence of Which, though it be not abso
lutely needed, we are not at liberty to neglect the
search ; which we may not disregard when found,
R 3 .

246 SERMON VIIL
Now there is no one remark more deserving of
attention in this view than the following ; that the
burthen of the difficulties which occur is usually laid
in the wrong place, on the Scriptures, and not on
the physical theory ; whereas the latitude for which
there is plainly room in respect of this last, is by no
means equally admissible in regard to the volume of
revelation. There is not so close a connection be
tween natural phenomena and the systems formed on
them, as between the text of Scripture and its inter
pretation. The ascertaining it is far more difficult
in the former case ; nor is there equal ground of as
surance in any given instance, that the conclusions
drawn in fact are valid. Notwithstanding the suc
cinctness ^ of the Mosaic history, a just suspicion
Avould attach to attempts to qualify or explain away
the proper grammatical sense of its text; to any
riiodifications of a meaning apparently distinct and
definite, and which are not dictated by the passage
itself, but by a supposed necessity of obtaining an
agreement with some physical theory already em
braced. Where indeed the terms and phrases of
Scriptyre are less exact, a novel sense might not un
fitly be borrowed from weU ascertained discoveries
' David Le Clerc, Quaest. Sacr. p. 169. has well expressed him
self on this head, " Scriptor divinus brevissimum tantum histo-
" rix compendium tradit, unde necessario nascuntur multse difli-
" cultates, quae, si fusior esset narratio, nullBe essent. Hino vi-
" dentur oriri plerseque diflicultates histories Scripturae, quia
" dum res tam breviter perstringuntiir, necesse est multa equivoca
" esse, multa taceri sine quibus alia satis intelligi nequeunt j multa
" videri contraria, varios denique oboriri legentium animis scrupu-
" los, qui nequeunt eximi nisi accuratiori narratione, quae cum nobis
•' desit, nulla spes est ista unquam posse solvi."

SERMON VIIL 247
in physics ; but for this latitude, for the supposition
of a mode of expression which UteraUy taken would
be at variance with the facts of science, there would
seem to be no place in respect of such main occur
rences, as are properly connected with reUgious doc
trine. Of a popular interpretation of Scripture in
the sense of its being adapted to vulgar prejudices,
there ought not to be a question ; and in respect of the
principal reUgious facts of the Mosaic history, an in^
terpretation in conformity to sensible appearances,
such as might be in itself admissible, seems hardly
needed. The text of the Mosaic history, which has
all the marks of a plain and simple narrative, should
be left to express its obvious and literal meaning.
No record could suffice for the various theories with
which that history has successively been forced into
agreement, unless its language were so indefinite as
to have a proper agreement with none. So long
as the sacred text is assumed to be the object on
which experiments may be made, so long as it is
subjected to the several varieties of interpretation
which each physical system in its turn requires, there
remains no one fixed point on which a satisfactory
reconcUement can turn.
Next, when speculation has been confined to, the
natural phenomena, as to thpse with which alone
it can be fitly occupied, the fate of successive theo
ries is of a nature to inspire pertinent grounds of
caution to the theologian and the geologist,
1, Are our physical data sufficient to enable us to
distinguish much that was indisputably miraculous
at the outset, much that was precipitated perhaps
R 4

248 SERMON VIIL
beyond what in the ordinary course of nature would
have been evolved; to distinguish a proper creatipn?
and the primary forms and original adaptations of
matter to its uses, from the established order of Pro
vidence, by which what had been created and adapted
was thenceforward maintained and governed ?
2, Next and even under the ordinary natural go
vernment of God, is the length of time which theo
ries assign for the production of certain effects in
contestably necessary?
3, Be it that we have not with unwashed hands
proceeded to force the sacred text into accordance
with our own conceptions, yet have we taken the
requisite pains for ascertaining, that there is no ad
missible modification of a received hypothesis which
would bring it nearer to the proper sense of Scrip
ture, than what we are now proposing ?
4. Is the observation of phenomena by which facts
have been obtained sufficiently long and repeated,
the sphere of observation duly extended ; are our
generalizations by consequence neither partial nor
hasty; are our theories, and the rules which we
have laid down for our absolute guidance in these in
quiries, so many immediate deductions from well
established premises, and do ihey fully warrant the
conclusions we have drawn from them ?
Here, not less than in respect of the other points
of connection between natural, and reUgious truth
antecedently treated of, much depends on the pre
vious moral condition of the inquirer, especially if

SERMON VIIL 249
that inc^uirer be a youthful one ; for there wiU always
be danger in such case of a leaning to novelty, a
readiness to be captivated by the plausibiUties of
theory, rather than to be bound down by the defi
nite letter and authority of a written volume. Those
even of greater experience, to whom researches of
this description may prove a relaxation from severer
studies, are not unsuitably reminded, that our gene
ral reliance on the evidences of religion cannot ra
tionally be suspended by the circumstance of such
inquiries, or be affected by their issue. We other
wise " know in whom we have believed :" the claims
of the Pentateuch in particular are on the authority
of our Lord and his Apostles incontrovertibly esta
blished; the connection of the books of Moses with
the subject-matter of Christianity is essential; the
creation and the deluge s are points of express re
ference in the New Testament ; and the subordinate
difficulty of a consonant interpretation of the vo
lumes of nature and of grace might stiU subsist without
ariy proper injury to our faith. Such a result how
ever, in regard to any point of magnitude, would be
improbable beforehand, and is in fact not to be ap
prehended. No real discovery is found to miUtate
against the Mosaic account ; much, in so far as geo
logical conclusions have been estabUshed, to fortify
it. Various phenomena are conceivable of which
the solution, in consistency with the reUgious facts
of that history, would be impracticable ; but no such
point has been substantiated. If therefore I here
forbear to enter into the details of this connection,
e The creation, Coloss.i. 16. where see Whitby's note. Heb.
xi. 3. The 4th of Romans, verse 17, does not apply to this sub
ject. See also Amos v. 8. The deluge, Heb. xi. 7, 2 Pet. iii. 7.

250 SERMON VIIL
it is not that I augur less favourably than others of
the success of the inquiries which are now pursuing ;
it is because I would retain them in their proper
subjection to the only principles which can ensure
to them a just success. These principles must of
course be independent of particular theories, so as
to apply to the state whatever it at any given time
may be of physical science, and to the actual position
in which it is supposed to stand with reference to the
text of Scripture, Even those who are employed
on such speculations, in proportion as their views are
correct and discriminative, will themselves desire, on
behalf of the result of their iriquiries, the test of time
and observation ; precipitate - conclusions have on
these very topics proved the bane alike of reUgion
and of science.
And now, to give a definite conclusion to what in
these discourses has been advanced, that the subject
of which I have treated is important will readily be
granted; and I might well be contented to incur the
imputation of want of judgment in its selection, so
the recurrence to it in the particular views here
taken were noi Yikew'xse seasonable.
If in these discourses, and for the purpose of discri
mination, it has been found necessary to contemplate
the branches of probable proof apart, yet let it be re
membered that they are so many portions of an evi
dence which harmoniously unites on behalf of Chris
tianity; and it is only when injudicious attempts
are made to set them in array against each other,
that the degrees of their respective force, and the
order which essentially belongs to them, require to

SERMON VIII. 251
be dwelt upon. Both the method of religious proof
and its subject-matter suffer essentially by such
disjunction; and in an enlarged and most impor
tant application of a Scripture phrase, the enemies
of natural religion and the intemperate assertors of
its claims, may fitly be admonished, that the natu
ral and revealed dispensations of the Deity be not
by them " put asunder," The positive proofs attest
that to have occurred, which natural and moral con
siderations bring home to the human mind in the
way most congenial to its character; and faith in
revelation has a twofold reference to positive and to
moral, to mutually related, but distinct groundworks.
Faith or beUef on the ground of reasoning concurs
with faith in the authority of Him who reveals, and
both are embraced by the evidence for revelation.
Nor let an inquirer into the general subject of
the evidences be disconcerted on perceiving that the
argument from effect to cause, on which natural re
ligion specifically relies, or that synthetic reasoning,
even in the subordinate and quaUfied employment of
it on the same truths, has often been impugned;
for what mode or what materials of proof, what
truth or what principle is there, which, on a refe
rence to reUgious or to moral, to physical or even to
mathematical knowledge, wiU not appear to have
been denied by some one ? And what degree of re
ligious proof would at length be left us, if, while one
party claim the liberty of depreciating the positive,
and another the natural and moral contributions,
each in its turn were to be given up, to such preten
sions ? Out of this very circumstance arises an in
creased occasion on our parts for distinct and defi-

252 SERMON VIIL
nite views ; a duty of not accepting or rejecting in
the mass; of bringing to the test our inteUectual
and moral quaUties by enlisting them in the service
of dUigent investigation ; of not addressing ourselves
to inquiry, as though it depended on us, amid the
vanity of theorising, to give to truth or to with
hold from it an existence and a character. If of the
proofs of natural religion, and of the contributions
which, when itself substantiated, this system affords
to the cause of revelation, some altogether refuse to
hear ; if by others the evidence derived from this
single quarter is deemed all sufficient, it is not there
fore to be yielded up, or to be exclusively insisted
on, as the temper of the times or of individuals may
dictate ; since neither of these extremes can be ac
quiesced in, without shaking the very foundations of
our religious security. If our views of the evidences
be partial, our faith wiU bear throughout the same
character ; nor is this aU ; no branch of proof can be
detracted from without involving a proportionate
injury to every other department of the evidences.
The nature and extent indeed of the mischief which
advocates of revelation are producing by their par
tiaUties and predilections may not be perceptible to
themselves ; but they are in fact converting to the
injury of revelation the very circumstances in which
consists the specific character of its evidences, name
ly, that they are an aggregate of independent branches
and particulars, whose strength resides in combina
tion ; and that it is the specific object of these evi
dences to constitute, both in respect of the under
standing and of the other mental qualities, a trial.
And as there is no branch or subdivision or particu
lar of such evidence which can properly be spared,

SERMON VIII. 253
so is there none respecting which doubts may not
be raised, and the possible side of a question be op
posed to the probable ; none which, if fancy or in-
cUnation be aUowed to dictate, we may not on plau
sible grounds persuade ourselves and others to re
ject. But then in thus bringing into play the op
portunities for objection, for partial exhibition, for
capricious exaltation and depression of evidence,
which probable proof presents, we shaU ultimately
find we have been too hard only for ourselves ; that
we have appUed to reUgious proof a test by which
it professes not to abide ; that we have overlooked
the condition of our own hearts and understandings,
which it was one specific object of such proof to
give us the means of ascertaining. With a view to
the prevention of these dangerous errors, it is im
portant not to soften down, or to disguise from the
youthful mind, the proper character of probable
proof; but to urge this character as the suitable
motive to the adequate and impartial entertainment
of reUgious evidence. On such minds it should ha
bitually be impressed, that this evidence is not of a
nature to supply the defect of the moral action
which is required from themselves ; that to cursory
examination it wiU hardly yield conviction at aU ;
while yet the nature of the truths to be made out
exacts, that they be proceeded upon with as much
decision as though they had been the result of sen
sible evidence or demonstration ; that hence the ne
cessity to a due reception and treatment of the
kind of evidence afforded of the continual refers
ence,' which in these discourses has been maintained
to a moral condition of the mind; not because we
are called upon in any degree to supply by senti-

254 SERMON VIIL
ment, by wiU, or even by intellectual effort, evi
dence in itself defective; nor yet merely on account
of the affinity of that mental condition to the cha
racter of the subject-matter to be believed ; but be
cause such a mental state is the requisite prepara
tion for a thorough and impartial investigation of
the evidence by which that belief is to be induced,
such as the nature of probable proof demands, and
a moral trial supposes. Then how should minds in
other respects cultivated attain sufficiently and upon
system to such a mental condition, but through a
MORAL TRAINING?
And first, in regard to the mental condition re
quired, this is not here contemplated solely as it
shews itself in keeping the conduct free from posi
tive and wilful offence, (although the reaction from
acts and habits to the mind is considerable, and ,
" the holy Spirit of discipline will not abide when un-
" righteousness cometh in'',") but further is meant,
as we have seen, the securing the understanding
from aU such disturbance on the part of the will
and affections, as may naiTow and pervert it; pre
occupy it with partialities, cloud its perceptions of
truth, hinder it from following up its convictions
into their consequences, precipitate it into extremes
on either side. Now it is a peculiar advantage ac
cruing to those designed for the sacred ministry, and
which they cannot too highly estimate, that the na
ture of the subjects to which their attention is ha
bitually directed, the ends proposed by their specific
studies, tend to enforce the subjection of the lesser
'' Wisdom i. 5.

-SERMON VIII. 255
qualities of the mind, and by consequence to ensure
that proper mental government, which a due appli
cation to the evidences requires : but then this ten
dency is not so absolute and exclusive but that the
.proper interest which the sentiments and affections
possess in the circumstance of revelation being true,
may still incline the mind to defer too much to
them ; to anticipate the results of inteUectual in
quiry, to forego the labour of it, to take up with
mere moral suasion, or to suppose the proper mental
industry superseded by the influences of the Spirit.
BeUef meanwhile is in our power, but not on any
such grounds as these; not because dependent on
.arbitrary will, on sentiment, or on any cause exclu
sive of proofs sufficient to satisfy an unbiased under
standing. This position receives the requisite illus
tration from the two considerations already insisted
on ; namely, the character of probable proof, and the
moral order of the mind requisite to its due appre
ciation and employment. For while religious evidence
does not so far press upon the understanding as does
sense or even demonstration, and while the Holy
Spirit does not controul, the moral preparation for
that correct and adequate discharge of the inteUectual
functions, on which conviction turns, and the means
by which the requisite divine graces may be obtained,
are within our reach. With ourselves properly rests
the question, whether we wiU resort to those means
of internal government in the first instance, and then
of intellectual application to the species and the parti
culars of proof afforded, which cannot faU, under the
divine blessing, to terminate in a sound conviction.
Still however we are not arrived at the ultimate

256 SERMON VIIL
security for a due inquiry into religious evidence.
If in proportion as the mental faculties are dor
mant, reUgious proof must be without its proper
hold on them, so when from whatever cause the
powers of the mind have been exerted, a moral
TRAINING becomes indispensable to give them a
due exercise and direction. This training there
fore should begin at an early period of educatiori,
at a time of life when the mind can afford to be
detained amid elementary truths, and is also most
apt for them. Without actual experience and ob
servation of our mental capacities, as exercjsed on
the primary moral truths which those capacities
(when themselves considered as a subject and as
parts of the creation) especially contribute to sup
ply ; without an intimate and habitual acquaintance
with such truths, our notions of revelation will be
inadequate, will not be the more, but the less exact
and appropriate. Doubts will assaU us in regard to
the foundations of our faith, against which we shall,
humanly speaking, have an imperfect refuge ; nor
shaU we be able to apprehend distinctly in what
consists the proper order of the mind, or what are
those relations between its faculties, which a due
reception of religious evidence supposes. Even in
the discussion of the doctrinal truths of revelation,
much of the confusion prevalent in certain minds
would be dissipated by what our mental constitution
teUs us ; points being often insisted on in a sense, or
to an extent, which the proper character of our fa
culties would be seen expressly to exclude. Such a
training can be opposed upon systenj only by the
denial of a proper connection of moral truth (con
sidered as an independent system) with the nature

SERMON VIII. 257
on the one hand, whence it in effect derives, and on
the other with revelation ; by the refusing to such
truth any other foundation than the positive com
munications of the Deity, Those who maintain such
propositions must in the first place detect some fal
lacy in that course of probable reasoning, by which
such primary verities as revelation itself supposes to
be fundamental, to which it gives a more definite
character, and a more extensive appUcation, are de
duced from the creation generally, and from our
mental constitution; or they must disprove the uni
form tendencies of the human mind to elicit the
moral distinctions, and of conscience to apply them.
Next, they will have to explain how profane anti
quity arrived at so much of moral and religious
truth, as undeniably they were possessed of ; at a de
gree of it for which tradition does not suffice to ac
count, and which cannot, without the greatest vio
lation of probabUity, be ascribed to tlie Jewish Scrip
tures ; how it happened, further, that truth of this
descriptiori had the effect of conducting, upon dis
tinct and independent grounds, those who most eni-
ployed their reason in respect of it, to the very
threshold Of revelation. Lastly, they mUst contend
against the sound interpretation of those very Com
munications of the Deity, within whose positive cha
racter they would confine the truth in question. For
holy writ supposes the human mind to be capable of
ascending, in the absence of express revelation, from
the creation to an acknowledgment of certain mo
ral and religious truths, and imputes blame to the
heathen on this specific account, that when they had
through that channel attained to a perception of
these truths, they abused it. Holy writ plainly re-

258 SERMON VIIL
quires us to distinguish with St, Paul the state which
the heathen were by nature placed in^ and the pro
gress which the apostle declares them to have made
in reUgious and in ethical truth, from the corrup
tions and abuses of which they wUfuUy were the au
thors ; from the defective practice, the unrighteous
lives, the incommunicative spirit, amid which they
" held" or maintained the truths they had acquired;
Though aU that Gentile or even Jew could learn or
practise was not of a nature to supersede the spe
cific need of Christianity, would, on the contrary;
but the more lay open to view the particulars of
that necessity ; though it is the object of the apo
stle to assert and to illustrate this, yet is the proper
existence of GentUism, of certain truths independ
ently obtained by reason, implied in this exhibition
of its failures ; yet does the apostle distinctly de
clare, that degrees of natural light the heathen hadj
which they might have turned to better account
than actually they did, which they were " inexcu-
" sable" for not so employing. Nor shall we, to
whom express revelation is supplied, a revelation in
respect of which Judaism itself is but as a shadow,
nor shall we be in our turn excused, if we avail
not ourselves of whatever assistance those introduc
tory dispensations, however imperfect, may be capa
ble of affording, towards the proof of the revelation
in which they severaUy have terminated.
But now there are those, who, though they ven
ture not on the task of detaching natural and moral
truths from their proper foundations, or from their
appointed objects and relations, would yet confine
this moral training to the earlier periods of life.

SERMON VIIL 259
Against primary exercises of such a character
against classical learning, as one of its mam instru
ments, no objection is advanced ; but when the mind
is at length becoming capable of an effectual appli-
ca,tion of its attainments, then this acquaintance
with profane antiquity, on the part of those espe
ciaUy who are designed for the service of the mi
nistry, should, it is assumed, be -altogether discard
ed. But if the connection of natural and moral
truths with revelation be real, can any period justly
be assigned for relinquishing a course of study which
maintains the influence of those truths upon the
mind, instructs it stUl more and more in their cha
racter and appUcation ? Shall that period above all
be chosen, when the youthful mind now at length
discerns the wisdom which has dictated its early
initiation into such truths ; when it perceives the
importance, whether for the defence of our faith,
or for an enlightened apprehension and self-appli
cation of it, of those foundations of moral truth
deposited in their minds, and graduaUy built upon ;
when it finds itself thus possessed of a security for
just and comprehensive views of the dispensations
of the Deity, of their truths and evidences, and
specifically of those of revelation ?
But a yet lower though equally untenable ground
is sometimes taken. Admit the independent exist
ence and the utility of such truths in reference to
revelation, yet are they not too much rested in ? and
have they not a tendency to inflate the mind, and to
divert it from those more humble and more appro
priate views of the capacities and attainments of
a fallen nature, which revelation would inspire, and
s 2

260 SERMON VIIL
which the sacred volume specifically inculcates ?
Now such abuses exist ; but does this lapsed nature,
when honestly consulted, itself supply no corrective ?
It is when we have arrived at the point whence alone
extensive views can be indulged, have experimentally
ascertained the measure of our capacities, and have
acquired this knowledge through the failure of its
aims in some instances, through the success of them
in others ; (through success which shews how much
remains to be acquired, through failures which sa
tisfy us how far we must ever be from the complete
attainment of it,) that we discern solid grounds of
humUity, even in respect of our progress in natural
and moral truth ; that we discover the introductory
character of such truth in respect of revelation ; that
we are in a situation inteUigently to bring our ta
lents and our acquisitions to the foot of the Cross ;
to devote our well exercised energies and a duly at
tempered ambition to that service ; to perceive and
to admit that human learning derives its highest
pretension to regard, and natural and moral truths
an especial claim to distinction, from their capacity
of contributing to the proof and iUustration of truths
revealed. The mind thus initiated into truth, as
positively communicated, wiU best be disposed to
accept the lessons and the example of humility
which are there exhibited.
But why do I still detain your attention on a
subject, which in this haUowed seat of reason and
learning and religion is already understood and ap
preciated? Because in conclusion I would fortify
the principles on which these discourses have been
constructed, by the exempUfications of them which

SERMON VIII. 261
here abound. In this view, even the present at
tempt may go forth into less favoured quarters, and
convey, however inadequately, the impression, that
here the rising generation 'is trained and practised in
so comprehensive and substantial a course of instruc
tion, as " in understanding to become men," as to
be enabled to give " a reason of their Christian
". hope ;" that whUe neither exact nor experimental
science remains without a proportionate regard,
those parts of knowledge, and that specific instru-
menf^ of procuring it, which best prepare for re
velation, and for the species of proof by which be
lief is to be determined, are especiaUy cultivated.
With a view to this ultimate result, reasoning and
ethical science wUl have been directed to the pro
duction of that happiest feature of all preparatory
discipline, a moral condition of the mind. The
moral training by which such condition has been
induced will have quickened the natural operations
of conscience; supplied it with clearer views of its
primary rule; and rendered evident to the mind
the nature and consequences of its own determina
tions, and of the conduct in which they issue ; will
-have imprinted on the understanding the natural
and essential connection of virtue and happiness ;
will have rendered inteUigible the necessity which
revelation inculcates of acts and habits of virtue, and
of Gospel hoUness, to the weU-being of an inteUec
tual and moral, though lapsed creature. Nor does this
ethical training only ensure the mental order; it
strengthens in a yet further sense the human mind ;
i Dialectics as connected with probable proof.

262 SERMON VIIL
it gives vigour and confidence to the understanding
itself; increases the exertions and the efficiency of
this faculty ; raises its operations to a higher level
than they could have attained without a moral im
pulse and a moral character. Lastly, the same
training cultivates, sustains, renders discriminative
and avaUable, that love of truth which must Ue at
the foundation of all successful pursuit of learning ;
which must direct the appUcation of it when at
tained; and which conducts specificaUy to revelation.
Where these ulterior effects have been induced upon
the mental order, where this order itself is fully
established on which the proofs of revelation, even
when they have been suitably presented to the mind,
must still depend for their reception, the other quali
ties subserve the purposes of the understanding with
out interrupting its specific functions ; superadd to
religious beUef the conformity of the will, the per
suasions of the heart, and surround it with those de
cent ornaments, which it belongs only to the imagi
nation when purified by moral culture to supply.
Nor is there any one of the various powers or affec
tions with which a beneficent Deity has endowed
our nature, or of the acquirements, scientific or Ute-
rary, on which they may be occupied, that will not in
its proper place and order contribute something to
the consolidating of A faith, which embraces the
works and the will of the great and common Author.
Here therefore, should fanaticism, which in one
century paved the way for infidelity, and in another
was leagued with it, once more assail the natural
and moral foundations of revealed truth, to which

SERMON VIIL 263
as correctly apprehended they both are hostile; here
may the stand be most appropriately made on behalf
of the reason and reUgion of the community ; since
hence the. proper implements of defence may in the
fuUest measure be supplied, and since fatal indeed
would be the result, if here that bane of truth and
morals should be permitted to intrude itself With
weapons of the temper which belongs to this armoury,
we may with good assurance of success go actively
forth in the defence of the same foundations ; for
though in the natural world " after day cometh
" night," yet error '^ " shall not prevail against wis-
" dom." Or, if Providence, measuring its gifts by our de
serts, rather than as hitherto by its own spontaneous
mercies, should abate for a time of its wonted pro
tection, and true religion, which then only can ex
hibit the proper comprehensiveness of her character,
develope the extent of her relations with reason and
with morals, with science and with learning, with
our civU and our social interests, when estabUshed,
when encouraged in a degree proportioned to the be
neficent influence with which she is able to repay the
support afforded her, should be compeUed to flee
before the combination of the common enemies of
herself and them, yet wiU she Unger to the utmost
amid these abodes which she so long has loved, and
whence the supports of reason, of learning, of na
tural and moral truth, have been largely derived to
^ Wisdom vii. 30. " Vi^e shall not prevail, &c." synonymous
here with error.

264 SERMON VIIL
her ; here, if it may be, will concentrate herself amid
the appointed human securities for her truths and
evidences ; here wiU leave the latest traces of her
footsteps.

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