Observe their awful deaths. Weigh the manner in which they respectively prepare for an eternal world..

TELL ME, THEN, WHICH COMPANY HAS TRUTH ON ITS SIDE? TELL ME WHICH COMPANY YOU WOULD WISH TO BE FOUND IN AT THE BAR OF GOD?

I cannot but suppose that if an individual of any class of beings, of entire impartiality, of a sound mind, and of a holy disposition, should be shown the two companies of those who have received and those who have rejected the Scriptures; and should compare the seriousness, learning, patient investigation of truth, solid judgment, holy, useful lives, manly and becoming composure in a dying hour, of the one company, with the character and conduct of the other, he would be induced, though he knew nothing of the direct arguments for the Christian Revelation, to take up the Bible with profound veneration, and the strongest prepossession in its favour.22

But, strong as this ground in favour of Christianity is, you do not merely stand here. You place your feet, my young friends, upon the mass of external and internal evidences, on which its divine authority You plant yourselves upon the testimonies by which it is maintained. You fix your standing, in the midst of a confused and dark world, upon an immoveable rock.

rests.

It is only as a subsidiary argument that I have been considering the vanity of the objections against Christianity in themselves and in the persons who advance them.

Choose, then, your part more decidedly and boldly. If you have been at all entangled by the artful sophisms of scepticism, (and nothing is more easy to the corrupt heart of man,) break through the fatal delusion. Awake to the true state of things. If you

22 Scott.

cannot answer those objections specifically, outweigh them by the positive facts of Christianity; outweigh them by considering the impertinence of speculative reasonings, against the historical and uncontroverted evidences of Revelation; outweigh them by remembering that they apply as much to Deism as they do to Christianity; outweigh them by recollecting that they are only trials of your sincerity and submission of heart, to God. But, beside this, especially outweigh them by looking at the lives and deaths of those who make objections to Christianity, and of those who obey Revelation. Death is near. The

solemnities of that hour, no trifling, no obduracy can lessen. The awful consequences of that hour no tongue can describe. Reject, then, all the overtures of unbelief, which has no blessing of God in life nor in death. Fly from the society of those persons with whom you would not wish to be associated in eternity.

Remember, if you would be joined with the righteous in their death, you must follow their example in life. I know that you would prefer to enter another world with the wise and good. But the question of most practical importance is, wHICH COMPANY DO YOU WALK WITH IN THE JOURNEY OF LIFE? Choose now, while time is granted you, the right path. Take, with wisdom and manliness, the side of truth. All infidelity is essentially ungodliness; it springs from that temper-it leads to it. Christianity is essentially godliness and holiness. Obedience and disobedience to Almighty God form the substance of the two classes.

All we have been stating in this Lecture, and, indeed, in all those on the internal evidences, are the declarations of the moral Governor of the world against infidelity, and in favour of Christianity: they are so many stamps and brands of the divine displeasure upon the whole system of unbelief; and of divine approbation upon the whole system of the Christian

evidences. Just as the course of events in the natural world has the impress of God's approbation of prudence and forethought, and his disapprobation of carelessness and improvidence; and as his government of the moral world is filled with indications of his favour towards virtue, and his indignation against vice;23 so are the lives and deaths of infidels, compared with those of sincere Christians, demonstrations in favour of Christianity, and against unbelief; demonstrations which no arts can evade, no sophisms misinterpret ; demonstrations which multiply upon our view the more we pursue the subject and which the inmost soul of man cannot but feel and acknowledge; demonstrations which augment in intenseness in each case, as the respective principles are more fully acted upon, and the termination of life draws nigh; demonstrations which render speculative objections matters of direct criminality and positive perverseness and rebellion of heart in those who adhere to them; and which carry the direct evidences of Revelation to their utmost height of satisfaction to every considerate mind; demonstrations, in a word, which turn the weapons of infidelity, as we predicted would be the case, against itself, and render them the instruments of its overthrow; so that, instead of proving any thing against Christianity, they demonstrate that a religion, attested by such solid evidences on the one hand, and opposed by the weak and unfounded cavils of such unprincipled and unhappy men on the other, cannot but be divine.

28 Butler.

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LECTURE XXIII.

THE FAITH WITH WHICH THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION IS TO BE RECEIVED.

1 JOHN v. 9.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

HAVING Concluded the arguments by which the truth of Christianity is established, it might be thought that nothing further need be observed; but that the whole subject should now be left to the reflections of the humble enquirer. And thus it must be left—but not before we have described the FAITH with which the Revelation should be received, the INTERPRETATION which that faith implies, and the OBLIGATION under which every one is placed to receive and obey the religion.

For such is the corruption of man, that nothing must be taken for granted. Certainly he ought most thankfully to embrace the Christian doctrine. Certainly nothing is so reasonable and so directly calculated to promote his present and future happiness, as to welcome with joy the tidings of salvation. Yet he is far from doing this as he should. After all the arguments in the world, his perverse heart may, and often does, refuse to act upon the conclusions to which

they lead; it too often yields only a tame assent to the Revelation; it explains away the meaning of all the main truths of Scripture; it weakens or denies the practical obligations which the whole subject imposes. Thus, the great design of the Christian religion is defeated. We must explain, therefore, what is meant by faith, what is meant by a sound interpretation of the records which it receives, and the practical obligations resulting from both.

These topics will occupy the three following Lectures, and leave us at liberty to sum up the entire course in a concluding one.

On the present occasion, we shall endeavour to show the NATURE of the faith with which we should receive the Christian Revelation; the REASONABLENESS of our being called on for such a faith, after having admitted the divine authority of Christianity; and the EXTENT to which, from the nature of the case, this faith should be carried.

I. We consider THE NATURE OF FAITH IN DIVINE REVELATION.

Something has been incidentally said on this subject in several of our preceding Lectures,' and the way prepared for the specific consideration which belongs to this place.

Faith, in its general import, is credit given to testimony; it is the reliance of the mind on the report or statement made by another. It is that peculiar act of the understanding by which we avail ourselves of

At every step in the External argument, we pointed out the degree of faith which should follow it, especially in Lectures VI. and VII. on the Credibility and Miracles. When we reviewed the Internal arguments, we showed that they sprung from a just reliance on the truth of the Revelation as established by the preceding string of proofs. In the Lectures (XIX. and XX.) on the test, faith was of necessity again touched upon. Our last two Lectures on the Objections yet more directly prepared the way for considering it.