Aug. Addressing John.-That is just like you with your Turkish wife. I know, for my part, that if I were a woman, and this Turk should come to pay his addresses to me and say, God is God, and Mahommed is his prophet. Oh! oh! oh! F. Imagine to yourself a Corinthian returning from a midnight sacrifice to Bacchus or to Venus, intoxicated, filthy.... Here Mary shrunk with horror.F. Or wishing to take his wife to the Gladiators, in the temple of false gods, &c. Paul, however, settles the pointLet not the wife depart from her husband-let not the husband put away his wife, (ver. 10, and 11.) for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. (ver. 14.) Therefore I would ask, (I say not every one, for some are unjust judges,) but I would ask enlightened and unprejudiced judges: Does the subject here discussed, refer, in any measure, to the union of either of the married couple as such, with the kingdom of God? or is it not rather a question solely relative, whether considered in itself, or the context, to the union of the husband with the wife? Is not the question one between husbands and wives? In other words, is not this evidently the question? Is the union sanctified or unsanctified? I readily grant that it is not here a question in law, on the legitimacy of marriage, as is often said, for want of spirituality of mind, but rather a moral question on that subject. Mary. I understand you again, Sir, and I am ashamed of the impatience and ignorance which I have hitherto shewn, in things I did not understand. I shall be very glad to hear you again on other parts of this question; but I acknowledge that you have already removed the strongest props to my former opinion. F. Having come to this conclusion, the application is very easy. The apostle, speaking on two subjects thus intimately connected, as is the reciprocal relationship of parents and children, he could not make use of the same word in the same sentence in two different senses, and as the word is here applied to the moral purity of the union of the married couple, it must also apply to the moral purity of the birth of their children. "If your union was unsanctified, your children would be unsanctified, but now are they sanctified;" they are born of a union which the holiness of God does not reprove. I have already told you the rest; though some may dispute this explanation, and advance another, yet I think a more satisfactory one cannot be given, or one more just and natural; that which remains for us now is, to sum up the whole (at least according to the above statement,) in these words. Children born of believing parents are not more, nor otherwise sanctified, and have no more right, to baptism, than a heathen who is placed in a connexion with the church of Christ, as outwardly favourable; that is to say, then, they have no right at all to it. This does not imply, that Christian children have not many advantages above those of the heathen. I am well convinced they have, and that they are immense; but I say that these advantages consist in the favorable circumstances in which they are placed, and that they are by no means inward and directly applied to the soul. They hear of the Saviour of mankind, they have the Bible, they receive, when their parents are faithful, continual directions in the way of truth and life. And how shall the poor heathen believe who never hear the gospel? These are evidently In the support of a bad cause, perthe advantages connected with haps, one or two examples might be Christianity; they are so completely adduced of the remarkable consisttheir own as to be an inheritance. But I am convinced that if Providence had sent me, from its birth, a little Indian, to make him a member of my family, he would be as susceptible of the gospel as a baptized child. The milk of a Christian mother is no more christianized than that of a heathen. Mary. Sir, no doubt remains with me on the point. These explanations even give me the key to some other difficulties that I have met with in the Acts of the Apostles on the same subject. Aug. I will be bound it is the baptism of the households of which you are so often talking. Mary. Just so. John. Yes, but we hear of no children among them. Mary. Very true, but I must say, nevertheless, it appears that these conversions by whole families, in which all believed, did not continue long; for we find in the Epistles that there were believing husbands with unbelieving wives, and vice versa. Thus, when one of the wedded pair was decidedly an unbeliever, it appears that he was regarded as such, even in the case when the head of a house became converted; and that when a whole house was baptized, it was because the whole house had believed in God. (Acts xvi. 34.) Letters on the Evidences of Christianity, addressed to a young Person of sceptical Opinions. LETTER III. MY DEAR SIR, In my last letter I requested you to notice the unity of design so remarkable from the commencement to the close of the sacred volume. ency and steady co-operation of many individuals, though a series of ages, like the company of the Jesuits, or the supporters of the papal dignity. But the unanimity of the sacred writers has been produced and sustained by the purest principles, and in the furtherance of a cause which secures the present rights, and tends to the final happiness of mankind. Deceit and falsehood, error and absurdity, superstition and fanaticism, vice and impiety, selfishness and oppression, with all the bad passions and corrupt practices of a fallen world, instead of being sanctioned or allowed in the records of the gospel, are severely censured, and unequivocally forbidden. The doctrines which the sacred volume inculcates, respecting the nature and government of God, the state and destination of man, the means provided by divine wisdom for our redemption, and the person and offices of the Redeemer, all recommend themselves to our belief by their own reasonableness, or by the competent testimony of their divinely authorized teachers. The duties it enjoins in all the branches of piety and virtue, are in the highest degree proper and unexceptionable. Its ritual institutions are at once simple, and yet dignified; rational, and yet impressive; solemn in their nature, and salutary in their influence. Its motives likewise are elevated and powerful, derived not from human authority, or the cold calculations of a narrow selfishness, but from the command of God, the native dignity and usefulness of doing right, mingled with the sanctions of a future judgment. In short, it condemns and opposes sin under every form, directs the mind to universal holiness, and in language the most expressive calls our attention to the highest attainment of moral excellence, as the true end and glory of our being. No collection of books, of the same number and magnitude, chosen from the philosophers of antiquity, could present to the world a system of principles, or a code of morals, at all commensurate, much less superior, to the sacred volume. In comparison with the descriptions given us in the prophetic writings of the Divine attributes and authority, the most sublime paragraphs of heathen writers on the same subject are puerile and contemptible. And in contrast with the proverbs of Solomon, and the moral instructions of the New Testament, the most approved maxims of ancient moralists confess their inferiority and retire. And yet the writers of these books were untutored in the schools, and strangers to the beauty and effect of Grecian eloquence. Whence then, my friend, do you suppose, had these men this wisdom, and how did they compose their invaluable instructions? The only reply you can give must be, "That the prophe cies and precepts of holy writ, came not in old time by the will of men, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." If God had spoken to the fathers by inspiration, merely to inculcate a pure system of morality, the object might have been deemed insufficient to require so extraordinary an interposition. The very idea of a divine salvation includes the discovery of some truths, which it would have been impossible to perceive by the light of nature, though perhaps, in making such discoveries, the promotion of moral purity would be a principal design. Now, in the sacred volume it is uniformly asserted or assumed, that the human race have lost their innocence, and fallen into a state of moral rain, from the fatal consequences of which their own wisdom and virtue are insufficient to deliver them. But, in connexion with these facts, which history and experience verify, it directs our faith to a GLORIOUS DELIVERER, in whom all the families of the earth may be blessed. To make known the designs of God respecting the redemption and final happiness of mankind, and to manifest the Divine Person by whom that redemption should be accomplished, were the primary objects of divine revelation, through all its discoveries, from the first promise to the close of the apocalypse. After being intimated to the patriarchs, typified by the Mosaic law, and predicted in glowing language by the prophets, its manifestation was at length completed and verified in the wonders of the New Testament, when “the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." Here the discoveries of all the dispensations centre, like rays of light issuing from the same sun, and converging to one focus. To the Saviour, whom the apostles published, gave all the prophets witness, proving that "the testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy." His mediatorial work and supreme authority as the Son of God, being thus disclosed and ratified by his ascension into heaven, and by the mission of his apostles, the closing parts of revelation carry us forward, through the lapse of ages, to the last events and eternal consequences of his spiritual reign. It not only foretells the ultimate triumphs of the cross, and the universality of the Lord's kingdom, but announces also the certainty of his second advent, as the Judge of all, and the final retributions he will administer to an assembled world. The parts of this scheme already accomplished, justify and require our be lief in the final consummation of the whole; while the grandeur of its discoveries constrains us to regard them as matters of pure revelation; which no human imagination could conceive, bearing upon their aspect the image and superscription of God. What, then, will you say, my friend, if I mention still further in favour of the gospel, the suitableness and sufficiency of its credentials, and the perpetuity and extent of its saving influence? If it be a right maxim that every kind of truth should be verified by evidences suitable to its own nature, a divine revelation ought, doubtless, to be confirmed by supernatural proof. No person professing to be an inspired prophet, or an angel from heaven, would be entitled to the faith and obedience of mankind, unless he produced credentials to prove his mission, the reality and truth of which might be ascertained by a sober and upright inquirer. Now, in unison with this principle, we are assured by the sacred writers that Moses and the prophets, under the Old Testament, and our Lord and his apostles under the New, ratified their divine mission and authority by a series of miracles which no persons could perform, unless God were with them. To those who were eye-witnesses of these miracles, who accompanied Moses in the wilderness, or saw the works and heard the sayings of our Lord, what evidence could be more unquestionable and convincing? It is in itself a species of evidence suited to the nature of the case, and like the truth it proposes to ratify, is addressed to all men with the same propriety and force, and may be equally understood and ascertained by the prince and the peasant, the philosopher and the clown. If, indeed, the miracles wrought by the founders of our religion had been few 'in number, and those few performed in secret, and concealed in mystery, the possibility of a collusion might have weakened this effect, and justified the refusal of entire confidence. But their number and magnitude, the publicity of their performance, and all the circumstances connected with them, must have rendered their reality incapable of suspicion; while the transfiguration of our Saviour, his resurrection from the dead, and visible ascension into heaven, with the train of conse quences resulting from it, must have raised the evidence of his divine mission to a high degree of sensible demonstration, as well as moral certainty. With respect to ourselves, who live in an age so remote, the conclusion arising from these miraculous interpositions must, of course, be less decisive. But, if the books in which these miracles are recorded be true, and if the facts themselves are thereby sufficiently confirmed, no lapse of time, or distance of situation, can invalidate their authority; but the evidence they afford, in attestation of the Christian faith, is equally conclusive and irresistible. If, however, the written testimony be less convincing than the testimony of our senses, the deficiency thence arising is abundantly supplied by the accomplishment of prophecy, which may be deemed a standing miracle, whose evidence becomes more luminous and indubitable, as time and events verify the anticipations of the prophetic vision. To this may be added, as a confirmation of our faith in modern times, the amazing success of the apostles' ministry, and the moral change produced in the heathen world, merely by the preaching of a few unlettered men, in defiance of the most powerful prejudices and passions, customs and interests, fortified by a combined and implacable opposition. The perpetuity of its influence, also, through a series fit by its instructions. By ourselves of ages, notwithstanding the assaults these holy records have been reof its adversaries and the corrup- ceived under every advantage; tions of its friends, is a fact which while considerations of the utmost nothing can account for but the importance require us personally to force of truth, and the admission of examine and practically to observe its intrinsic worth and immutable them. Happy are they who, like authority, as a divine system. Many, Timothy, from their childhood indeed, have been its moral triumphs have known the holy scriptures, and the trophies of its saving power which are able to make us wise unto in all ages, and in every district of salvation, through our Lord Jesus the Christian world. By a spiritual Christ. "For all scripture divinely efficacy, which no other system can inspired, is profitable for doctrine, boast, it has delivered, and is still for reproof, for correction, for indelivering, multitudes from the gall struction in righteousness, that the of bitterness and the bonds of ini- man of God may be perfect, quity, translating them out of dark- thoroughly furnished unto every ness into marvellous light, and fitting good work." them by its holy influence for the sacred enjoyments of eternity. It may, therefore, be as truly affirmed of persons in the present day, as our Lord said of the Pharisees, If they believe not Moses and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. If, then, all these evidences concur to ratify the Christian doctrine, the inspiration and divine authority of the sacred volume, as the unerring standard of divine truth, arises from it as a natural and necessary conclusion. Every consideration which rendered a divine revelation desirable or expedient, constrains us to believe that, instead of ceasing with the removal of its messengers, or of being left to the doubtful and corrupt medium of tradition, its discoveries and institutions would be preserved entire, and the knowledge of them transmitted to the world by a written testimony. This testimony preserves the truth in its native purity, amidst all the revolutions of society, and the fluctuations of human belief; and is likewise equally accessible to men in all ages and in every tongue, when they inquire after truth, and are willing to bene And this hope I have hitherto felt, and shall still retain, in reference to a friend, for whose best interests, present and eternal, my most fervent prayers shall ascend to the Divine throne. Yes, my dear Sir, I still feel a cheering persuasion that you will, in due time, surmount the difficulties which sophistry has raised around you, and that you will come forth from the trial with your faith strengthened, your piety renewed, and your talents fitted for superior usefulness. If you pursue these inquiries in a right spirit, divine light will disperse the darkness in which the truth seems to be involved. Doubts and difficulties will become less formidable as you approach them; and you will at length reach those delightful regions of faith, hope, and charity, where the Sun of righteousness, in his meridian lustre, irradiates the soul. Many considerations forbid me to apologize for these lengthened epistles, which, I have no doubt, you will read with due seriousness and candour. I need not say it will give me pleasure at all times to solve, as far as I am able, any doubts and perplexities you may wish to communicate. With best |