The four great classes of men who have openly rejected the word of God, are Jews and Mohammedans, Heathens and Infidels. Each of these I shall consider, summarily, in the order specified.

1. The Jews, although professedly receiving the old Testament as the word of God, yet as you well know, rejected, and still reject, Christ and his gospel, and of course the system of religion which he has taught to mankind. In rejecting Christ they reject, of course, all the types which shadowed, and all the prophecies which foretold his character, advent, and mediation. As those types and prophecies terminate only in Christ, so without him they have no real meaning. Their true import therefore was denied by the Jews. In rejecting the gospel they set aside all the evangelical declarations and doctrines, contained in the law and the prophets;' particularly the gospel as preached to Abraham and his posterity, and all those just and spiritual exhibitions of the law delivered to us by Christ and his apostles. With these things in view, it must unquestionably be conceded, that the Jews are fairly numbered among those who openly reject the word of God; not less truly so than those of their ancestors, who apostatized to heathenism.

It is unnecessary for me to dwell, in detail, on the doctrines substituted by these people for those in the word of God. You well know, from the Scriptures themselves, that they placed their holiness and their hopes in a mere round of external services; such as long prayers, ostentatious fastings, ablutions, and other external purifications; tything mint, anise, and cummin;' and many other things of the like nature. In all these the heart was utterly unconcerned, and the whole scheme of religion was confined to a course of mere external actions; from which integrity, justice, benevolence, and piety, were wholly excluded. Instead of these things, they licensed and practised the most abominable opposition to God, and the most scandalous hatred and persecution of their fellow men. A considerable part denied a future existence, and justified all the indulgence of pride, avarice and sensuality, which have everywhere been connected with that denial. Another part openly sanctioned disobedience to the fifth command, by permitting a son to devote that part of his property which was necessary for the subsistence of his parents, to the service of

the temple; and warranting him to withhold from them, in this manner, all the duties of filial piety. At the same time, they persecuted with the fury of maniacs, men of real piety; bound heavy burdens; shut up to their countrymen the access to religious knowledge; devoured widows' houses, and wallowed in every species of sensual pollution. For all their iniquities, at the same time, they found a sanction in some 'tradition of their elders,' or some invention of their own; and those who taught these things were believed by their countrymen to be men of distinguished virtue. Such were, summarily, the doctrines, both speculative and practical, which the Jews preferred to the word of God. The spirit which could even acquiesce in such doctrines as these, much more which could deliberately prefer them to the law and gospel of Jehovah, can plainly have been no other than that of 'a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers.'

2. Mohammed, it is well known, adopted, according to his own testimony, the religion of Moses and Christ; and professedly republished it in a new form to mankind. But in this republication he left out, wholly, the spirit of the scriptural religion, and in many respects did not preserve even the form of godliness.' His two great doctrines were, That there is but one God, and that Mohammed is his prophet. By the latter doctrine he secured to himself the right of dictating to his followers just what he pleased. Accordingly he delivered to them a collection of precepts, requiring nothing but a course of external services, without the least goodness of heart; and promised heaven to prayers, ablutions, fastings, alms, pilgrimages to Mecca, and circumcision. Religion he considered as founded on cleanliness, which he declared to be the one half of faith, and the key of prayer.' Fasting he pronounced to be 'the gate of religion.' He allowed four wives to every one of his followers, and as many concubines as each was able to maintain. Heaven he converted into a mere mansion of debauchery, and changed the mild and rational mode of propagating religion, taught by Christ and his apostles, into a regular system of the most brutal and barbarous persecution. In a word, his doctrines flattered and licensed every human corruption, every sordid lust, every sinful indulgence.

3. The doctrines of Heathenism are still more deformed,

and still more expressive of opposition to God. Instead of one God, the heathen, as you know, believed in many. Instead of the perfect Jehovah, they heaped up to themselves gods after their own lusts;' debased by filial impiety, fraud, theft, falsehood, injustice, treachery, murder, and lewdness, indulged in every manner which can debase an intelligent nature. They worshipped men, beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects. They prostrated themselves before trees, shrubs, plants, stocks, and stones. They sacrificed human victims, prostituted men and women in religious services, and sanctioned every violation of purity, justice, kindness, and piety. Read the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and you will find a short, but exact and affecting account of what they not only did, but justified, licensed and enjoined.

4. Modern Infidelity has, in various instances, strongly commended the ancient heathenism, both partially and in the gross and in publishing its own doctrines, has shown that the spirit by which it is actuated, is no other than the very spirit of its predecessors. It has denied the existence and perfections of God, at times partially, at other times wholly. It has admitted his existence, and denied his providence; the accountableness of man, a future state, the distinction between right and wrong, or holiness and sin, piety and rebellion; has declared all that men can do with impunity, to be right; has licensed wrath, revenge, murder, pride, oppression, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, adultery and incest. Surely it is unnecessary for me to observe, that the spirit manifested in the doctrines which teach these things, is in the highest degree hostile to God, to truth, and to righteousness.

To Jews and Infidels, the gospel has been directly published in form. To a great part of mankind it was published in the days of the apostles, and has been extensively offered to many nations in succeeding periods of time. That it has not made a universal progress over the globe, has been owing to the fact, that those to whom it has been offered have in so many instances refused it acceptance. Had the ancestors of the present generation of men given the religion of the bible a welcome admission to their hearts, in the days of the apostles, it would long since have been preached to every family under heaven, Men therefore have stopped its progress, and, not God.

But as the fact has been, the gospel has been published to a great part of the human race; and by a great proportion of these it has been rejected. So general has been this rejection, as entirely to determine the true nature of the human character: for it cannot be pretended, that there is one original nature in those who have heard and rejected the gospel, and another in the rest of mankind.

It ought to be added on this part of the subject, that many of those who have professedly received the word of God in the Christian world, have, in instances innumerable, in every country and every age, exhibited the same disposition in the same manner. These men have almost universally denied the real import of the book, which they have professed to receive. Its spiritual and heavenly doctrines they have, in forms very diverse, but in design and spirit wholly the same, lowered continually down, so as to suit, or at least so as not to disgust, the taste of a sinful heart. The extent also and purity of the scriptural precepts they have contracted and debased, so as to license, in a professed consistency with them, a great part of those evil practices which are gratifying to a polluted, sinful mind. The doctrines of the gospel they have with one consent reduced to the level of mere natural religion; and that the natural religion in substance, which was taught by the graver heathen philosophers, and is now echoed by the more decent infidels. The precepts of the gospel also they have taught to speak a moral language, undistinguishable, as to its import, from that of Plato, Seneca, and Herbert. Thus in truth, notwithstanding their professed belief of the word of God, they have rejected both the law and the gospel; and rejected them for the doctrines and precepts which they thus inculcate. That such is the real design of all these men, I am convinced by this remarkable fact; viz. that when driven from one error, they always take refuge in another; and never come a whit nearer, however often confuted, to the reception of the truth. The sum of the argument then is this: God has given to mankind a law for the government of their moral conduct, which is not only reasonable and just in itself, but dictated by infinite benevolence on his part, and supremely profitable to them: a law demanding of them, that they love him with all the heart,' and that they love each other as themselves.' This character, which is no other than the image of his moral

perfection, is the supreme excellence, and the only moral excellence, of intelligent beings. In itself it is high and indispensable enjoyment to every such being; and in its efficacy it is the only voluntary cause of all other enjoyments: a cause existing originally and supremely in Him, and by derivation existing extensively in them.

This law therefore is a perfect law, and worthy of Jehovah. Were men virtuously disposed; were they not depraved, were they not sinful; their obedience to its commands would be immediate, universal, and absolute. Instead of this, wherever it has been proposed to them, they have chosen to disobey it, notwithstanding the glorious and eternal reward promised to their obedience, and the awful penalty threatened to disobedience. What stronger proof of their depravity can be demanded?

There is however one proof still more affecting. In the miserable situation, into which men brought themselves by their apostasy, God regarded them with infinite compassion, and undertook to rescue them from their sin and misery. For this end he sent his own beloved Son into the world, to live here a humble, painful and persecuted life, and to die an accursed and excruciating death, to make' in the human soul 'an end of sin, to finish transgression, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.' In consequence of his atonement, God has offered, anew, to receive the fallen race of Adam into his favour, on the conditions of faith and repentance in the Redeemer; conditions in themselves indispensable to their return to God, and to obedience; indispensable to their own comfort, honour, and virtue; and beyond expression easy, reasonable, and desirable. As he foresaw that they would still resist this boundless love, and would fail of it through their corruption, ignorance, error, and prejudice; he published his gospel to enlighten them, and sent his Spirit to sanctify them, that by all means they might be saved. Still, in a multitude of instances almost literally endless, a multitude so great as to prove this to be the common character of all the children of Adam, they have rejected these most merciful proffers of boundless good, crucified his Son afresh,' cast contempt on his cross, accounted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of grace.'

And now, my friends and brethren, judge, I pray you,