world, in every view, the better and the happier for this wonderful book? Has it not exerted a favourable influence upon the learning, the laws, the liberties, the social institutions, the morality, the holiness, the happiness of mankind? Have any forms of government, any political systems, any theories of social order, any refinements of human philosophy accomplished for men what the Bible has accomplished? Wherever you trace its circulation, you see blessings every where accompanying its progress. Nothing has contributed so largely to the temporal comfort of mankind. It has scattered the darkucss of intellect; it has given security to life, liberty and property; it has imparted mildness and efficacy to law; it has elevated woman from the degradation of a slave; it has set in motion a thousand systems of sacred charity to bless the poor, the diseased, the widow, the orphan, the blind and the dumb. It has strengthened the weak and confirmed the strong; it has convinced the thoughtless, reclaimed the wandering, comforted the mourner, and directed the eye of untold millions to an "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Wherever it has come, it has been a stream of health and salvation. It professes a benevolent design; it has openly pledged itself to become a blessing to the world; and it has been redeeming this pledge and accomplishing this design, ever since it was first published to men. Though the experiment has not been so full and thorough as it will have been hereafter, it has been sufficiently full to evince its triumphs. Had it failed, how many myriads of tongues would have proclaimed its defeat! Every one who looks into the Bible can see that its great object is to make men good, useful and happy. Such is the obvious design and tendency. of its precepts, its prohibitions, its doctrines and principles, its institutions and privileges, its punishments and rewards. Whatever is pure, honest, true, lovely, and of good report, it encourages and requires; while all that is impure, dishonest, false, unlovely and uncommendable, it discourages and forbids. All that can assimilate a creature of yesterday to his Maker, and prepare him for the family and fellowship of angels, it requires; while all that renders him deformed and odious, that severs the bonds of moral union and fits him to become the companion of foul and miserable spirits, and an eternal outcast, it forbids. It encourages no vice, no sinful passions and propensities; while it discountenances and condemns every corrupt principle and every lurking source of evil. Wherever it has exerted its appropriate influence, it has imparted new affections, new hopes, new motives of conduct, and a new and happy character. It imparts views and affections which resemble those of the redeemed in heaven, and differ from them only in degree. They are the opening blossoms, the unripe fruit which will hereafter hang in all its richness and maturity on the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. By gradually diffusing its own spirit of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, it has changed the face of the world, and uprooted those deep foundations of human society which were every where inlaid with injustice, oppression and misery. It has renovated the character of individuals, families and nations; and in the same proportion in which its principles and spirit have prevailed, has banished sin and misery from the abodes of men. Its influence has not always been alike uniform, because it has sometimes had more difficulties and opposition to encounter than at others; nor has it always been alike visible, even where it has been real and felt, because its plans are comprehensive, and it acts upon a large scale. But even where most obstructed it has left sensible traces of its benevolent design; aná where least observed, it has often been preparing the way for its most extended conquests. May it not then be said, that the religion of the Bible is a benevolent religion? Who, that is a friend to man, is not a friend of the Bible? What part of the earth that now enjoys them, can afford to dispense with the Scriptures? What greater calamity could befalt our world than to lose the last copy of this sacred book? What benevolent man could extinguish such a light as this? Who ever was induced, from a sincere regard to the best interests of his fellow men, to subvert the foundation of so much public tranquillity, and so many private virtues and hopes? Who would bring back upon the world the ignorance and servitude, the horror and crime of the dark ages? Who would be the agent in inducing it to retrace its steps to the ignorance and superstitions of paganisin; to the impure and sanguinary altars of Baal-Peor, Moloch, and Ashtaroth; to the obscene groves of oriental idolatry; to the hero gods of Egypt and Greece, and to all that shall foster the basest and most malignant passions of men? Who would throw back the human intellect upon a state of scepticism and uncertainty as to the reality of a future and immortal existence, and the way of securing its blessedness by faith in the only Redeemer? Who would impart anew all their power to those exciting causes of human depravity which the Bible has subdued or restrained? Who would dry up those living fountains of joy which it has opened? Who would destroy or diminish its motives to well doing, and wither its fruits of righteousness? Who would refuse its consolations to the heart of the bereaved, and provoke afresh those tears of the mourner which it has wiped away? Who would tell the widow and the orphan to go and visit the tombs of those they loved, and come trembling away, trembling on through life, trembling and uncertain to the grave, to learn all there, but not to bring back the secret? O, where is the man that would thus consent to restore to death the sting, and to the grave the victory, which the Bible has taken away? No calculations could measure, no numbers estimate the loss, were this book to be blotted out of existence ; nor were it possible to appreciate it, except from the extended cry of misery and despair that would be consequent on excluding it from the world. Fiends alone, and men like fiends, would toll its funeral knell, and crowd in joyful procession to its tomb; while virtuous and holy minds, veiled in mourning, and bathed in tears, would turn away disconsolate, and bury their hopes in the same grave with the Bible. May we not also say, in view of the preceding lectures, THAT THE BIBLE IS A BOOK PRE-EMINENTLY DISTINGUISHED FOR ITS INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY? With very few exceptions, I have carefully read this book every day for more than forty years, and I have never discovered in it a single mark of intellectual imbecility. Though portions of it were written during the periods of this world's infancy and darkness, and when contemporaneous authors evinced nothing more than their ignorance and weakness; though it treats of a vast variety of themes, difficult, complicated, and some of them mysterious; yet does it every where evince a powerful and well-disciplined intelligence. In mere intellectual excellence, it has claims to superiority over every other and all other books. It is in every view an original work. It is impossible for language to speak of it in this respect in the terms of commendation which it deserves. Its amazing thoughts and combinations of thought, discover wonderful originality of mind. Read, for example, the Ten Commandments given from Mount Sinai by Moses; a code of laws so wonderfully comprehensive and perfect, that it cannot be improved upon by ali the legislative wisdom of the world in respect to its influence upon human opinions, affections, and conduct. And the entire book exhibits throughout, the same originality and simplicity of thought. While it aims not at originality for its own sake, yet "it makes disclosures which have eclipsed and consigned to oblivion all prior discoveries." It does not disdain to dwell upon important truths that are old, and give them to the world again with "all that original freshness and force which is the peculiar prerogative of genius," nor does it withhold disclosures which are peculiarly its own. Many of its instructions are common-place to us, while to the most learned minds of Greece and Rome, they were "new and strange things," and have added almost every thing that is original and valuable to our intellectual resources. Its sublimest truths and great peculiarities it places in a clear and strong light; and what is always the work of an original and powerful mind, it makes them as level to the capacities of the meanest, as of the highest intellect. To cursory readers, whose object is amusement, they afford comparatively little interest; but to those who will consent to digest what they read, they will prove a perfectly original source of mental improvement. The ex The Bible is also an inexhaustible book. tent, number, variety and importance of the subjects of which it treats, the weight and pertinence of its instructions, as well as the illimitable extent of views it opens to the mind, give it a pre-eminence above all other books that ever were written. The more you gaze at its splendors, the more is your vision dazzled and overpowered; and the more you investigate its |