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ble for men to have discovered by their own speculations the way of salvation, unless they had been assisted by a supernatural revelation, according to that saying, Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit, 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. From the doctrines of the mission of of the Son God, and of the gift of the holy Spirit, follows this most comfortable truth, that we are the objects of the love of God, even of love the most vehement and sincere that can be imagined: for God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Rom. v. 8. And, as we are objects of that love which God hath commanded to us in his Son, it follows, that no bounds can be set to our happiness, that there is no treasure too rich in the mines of the blessed God, no duration too long in eternity, no communion with the Creator too close, too intimate, too tender, which we have not a right to expect ; according to that comfortable, that extatic maxim of St Paul: God, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. viii, 32.

This is a chain of some truths of the gospel. We do not say it might not be lengthened; we do not pretend to have given a complete system of the doctrines of the gospel; we only say that the doctrines proposed are closely connected, and that one produceth another in a system of speculative gospel truths.

In like manner, there is a connection between practical truths. The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths, and each practical truth is connected with another practical truth.

The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths. As soon as ever we

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are convinced of the truth of the doctrines just now mentioned, we shall be thereby convinced that we are under an indispensible necessity to devote ourselves to holiness. People, who draw consequences from our doctrines injurious to morality, fall into the most gross and palpable of all contradictions. The single doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission naturally produceth the necessity of sanctification. You believe that the love of holiness is so essential to God, that rather than pardon criminals without punishing their crimes, he hath punished his own Son. And can you believe that the God, to whom holiness is so essential, will bear with you while you make no efforts to be holy? Do you not see that in this supposition you imagine a contradictory God, or rather, that you contradict yourselves? In the first supposition, you conceive a God to whom sin is infinitely odious in the second, a God to whom sin is infinitely tolerable. In the first supposition, you conceive a God, who, by the holiness of his nature, exacts a satisfaction; in the second, you conceive a God, who, by the indifference of his nature, loves the sinner while he derives no motives from the satisfaction to forsake his sin. In the first supposition, you imagine a God who opposeth the strongest barriers against vice; in the second, you imagine a God who removeth every obstacle to vice: nothing being more likely to confirm men in sin than an imagination, that to what length soever they go, they may always find, in the sacrifice of the Son of God, an infallible way of avoiding the punishment due to their sin, whenever they shall have recourse to that sacrifice. Were it necessary to enlarge this article, and to take one doctrine after another, you would see that every doctrine of religion proves what we have advanced concerning

the natural connection of religious speculative truths with truths of practice.

But, if practical truths of religion are connected with speculative truths, each of the truths of practice is also closely connected with another. All virtues mutually support each other, and there is no invalidating one part of our morality, without, on that very account, invalidating the whole.

In our treatises of morality, we have usually assigned three objects to our virtues. The first of these objects is God: the second is our neighbor: and the third ourselves. St. Paul is the author of this division. The grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men ; teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Titus ii. 11, 12. But all these are connected together: for we cannot live godly without living at the same time righteously and soberly because to live godly is to perform what religion appoints, and to take that perfect Being for our example, to whom religion conducts and unites us. Now to live as religion appoints, to take that perfect Being for our pattern to whom religion conducts and unites us, is to live righteously with our neighbor, and soberly ourselves. Strictly speaking, we have not one virtue unless we have all virtues; nor are we free from one vice unless we be free from all vices: we are not truly charitable unless we be truly just, nor are we truly just unless we be truly charitable we are not truly liberal but as we avoid profuseness, nor are we truly frugal but as we avoid avarice. As I said before, all virtues naturally follow one another, and afford each other a mutual support.

Such is the chain of religious truths: such is the connection, not only of each truth of speculation

with another truth of speculation, but of speculative truths with the truths of practice. There is then a concatenation, an harmony, a connection in the truths of religion: there is a system, a body of doctrine in the gospel.. This is the article we proposed to prove.

But a religion, in which there is such a chain, such an harmony and connection, a body of doctrine so systematically compacted and united, ought not to be taken by bits and parts.

To illustrate this we may compare spiritual with natural things. The more art and ingenuity there is in a machine composed of divers wheels, the more necessary it is to consider it in its whole, and in all its arrangements, and the more does its beauty escape our observation when we confine our attention to a single wheel: because the more art there is in a machine,the more essential is the minutest part to its perfection. Now deprive a machine of an essential part and you deface and destroy it.

Apply this to spiritual things. In a compact system, in a coherent body of doctrine, there is nothing useless, nothing which ought not to occupy the very place that the genius who composed the whole hath given it. What will become of religion if we consider any of its doctrines separately? What becomes of religion if we consider the holiness of God without his justice, or his justice without his mercy?

II. Let us then proceed to inquire why so many of us confine ourselves to a small number of religious truths, and incapacitate ourselves for examining the whole system. The fact is too certain. Hence, our preachers seem to lead us in obscure paths, and to lose us in abstract speculations, when they treat of some of the attributes of God, such

as his faithfulness, his love of order, his regard for his intelligent creatures. It is owing to this that we are, in some sense, well acquainted with some truths of religion, while we remain entirely ignorant of others, which are equally plain, and equally important. Hence it is that the greatest part of our sermons produce so little fruit, because sermons are, at least they ought to be, connected discourses, in which the principle founds the consequence, and the consequence follows the principle; all which supposes in the hearers an habit of meditation and attention. For the same reason we are apt to be offended when any body attempts to draw us out of the sphere of our prejudices, and are not only ignorant, but, (if you will pardon the expression) ignorant with gravity, and derive I know not what glory from our own stupidity. Hence it is, that a preacher is seldom or never allowed to soar in his sermons, to rise into the contemplation of some lofty and rapturous objects, but must always descend to the first principles of religion, as if he preached for the first time, or as if his auditors for the first time heard. Hence also it is that some doctrines, which are true in themselves, demonstrated in our scriptures, and essential to religion, become errors, yea sources of many errors in our mouths, because we consider them only in themselves and not in connection with other doctrines, or in the proper places to which they belong in the system of religion. This might be easily proved in regard to the doctrines of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of the cross, the necessity of the holy Spirit's assistance: doctrines" true, demonstrated, and essential; but doctrines which will precipitate us from one abyss to another, if we consider them as some people too often consider them, and as they have been too often consi

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