been actually experienced by many thousands in every age of the church, you will want no further evidence of its divine origin: you will know for yourselves that it is the power and the wisdom of God unto salvation to " every one that believeth." And till this effect is experienced, remember that the great design for which the sacred oracles have been given, has not been answered in your case; that you have hitherto perused them comparatively in vain; nay, that the light which you have derived from them has served greatly to aggravate all your offences against God, and that without repentance it will greatly aggravate your final condemnation. Whenever, therefore, you read the holy scriptures, breathe forth the ardent aspirations of your souls for the enlightening and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, that his word may become "quick and powerful-to open your eyes, and to turn you from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that you may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith which is in Christ Jesus." Amen.

The passage referred to in page 63, is as follows:

"The loftiest passage, in the most sublime of all human productions, is the beginning of the eighth book of Homer's Iliad. There the greatest of all human imaginations labours to describe, not a hero, but a God; not an inferior, but the Supreme God; not to show his superiority to mortals, but to the heavenly powers; and not to one, but to them all united. The following is a verbal translation of it.

“The saffron-coloured morning was spread over the whole earth; and Jupiter, rejoicing in his thunder, held an assembly of the gods upon the highest top of the many-headed Olympus. He himself made a speech to them, and all the gods together listened.

"Hear me, all ye gods, and all ye goddesses, that I may say what my soul in my breast commands. Let not therefore any female deity, or any male, endeavour to break through my word; but all consent together, that I may most quickly perform these works. Whomsoever, therefore, of the gods I shall understand to have gone by himself, and of his own accord, to give assistance either to the Trojans or the Greeks, he shall return to Olympus shamefully wounded; or I will throw him, seized by me, into dark hell, very far off, where the most deep abyss is under the earth; where there are iron gates, and a brazen threshold, as far within hell, as heaven is distant from the earth. He will then know, by how much I am the most powerful of all the gods.

"But come, try, O ye gods, that ye may all see. Hang down the golden chain from heaven, hang upon it all ye gods, and all ye goddesses; but ye shall not be able to draw from heaven to the ground Jupiter the great counsellor, though ye strive ever so much. But when I afterwards shall be willing to draw, I shall lift both the earth itself, and the sea itself. Then I shall bind the chain round the top of Olympus, and they shall all hang aloft. For so much am I above gods and above men.'

“With this most masterly passage of the greatest master of the sublime, of all antiquity, the writer, who probably had the greatest natural and acquired advantages of any mortal for perfecting a genius; let the following verbal translation of a passage from writings penned by one brought up a shepherd, and in a country where learning was not thought of, be compared; that the difference may appear. In this comparison, I know of no unfair advantage given the inspired writer. For both fragments are literally translated; and if the critics are right, the Hebrew original is verse, as well as the Greek.

"O Lord, my God, thou art very great! Thou art clothed with honour and majesty! Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a canopy. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind. Who maketh his angels spirits: his ministers a flame of fire. Who laid the foundation of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains; they go down by the vallies unto the place thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound, that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

"O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches. So is the great and wide sea, wherein are creatures, innumerable, both small and great. There go the ships. There is that leviathan, which thou hast made to play therein. These all wait upon thee, that thou mayest give them their food in due season. That thou givest them they gather. Thou openest thy hand: they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face: they are troubled. They die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit: they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever. The Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth and it trembleth. He toucheth the hills; and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise unto my God, while I have my being.'

"I appeal to every reader, whether the former of these two fragments is not, when compared with the latter, a school-boy's theme, a capucinade, or a Grubstreet ballad, rather than a production fit to be named with any part of the inspired writings. Nor is it only in one instance, that the superiority of the scripture style to all human compositions appear. But taking the whole body of sacred poesy, and the whole of profane, and considering the character of the Jehovah of the former, and the Jupiter of the latter, every one must see the difference to be out of all reach of comparison. And, what is wonder

fully remarkable, Scripture poesy, though penned by a number of different hands, as Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest, in very distant ages, gives a distinct and uniform idea of the Supreme Being, no where deviating into any thing mean, or unworthy of him; and still even where he is spoken of in a manner suited to the general apprehension of mankind, his dignity and majesty are duly kept up. Whereas, there is not one of the ancient Heathen poets, who gives a consistent idea of the Supreme God, or keeps up his character throughout. Homer, in the same poem, describes his Jupiter with a great deal of majesty, and in another represents him as deceived by his wife Juno, and overcome with lust and sleep, while the inferior deities are playing what tricks they please, contrary to his intention. In short, the Supreme God is by Homer described as a bully; by Virgil, as a tyrant; by Ovid, as a beastly voluptuary; and by Lucretius, as a lazy drone. So that, if the cavils of the opposers of Revelation, with respect to the style of Scripture, were of much more consequence than they are; it would still be the easiest, and indeed the only rational way of accounting for the amazing superiority of those writings to the greatest human productions, in spite of the disadvantages of want of learning, and the like, which the sacred penmen laboured under; to ascribe the sentiments in them to Divine Inspiration."-Burgh's Dignity of Human Nature, book iv. sec. i.

LECTURE V.

What do the Scriptures principally teach?

We now proceed to discuss the third answer of our catechism. It is stated thus-"The scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man."

You ought to be distinctly apprized, my young friends, that our Shorter Catechism was intended to contain only a compendious and connected system of revealed truth-That is, it was not intended either to go into long explanations, or to take in all the subordinate parts of the system, but only those things which are of leading importance. Neither was it intended to consider any point of what has been called natural religion, in any other view than as it is found in the Bible. Hence, after having explained what is the chief end or design of man, and recognised the holy scriptures as the only rule of direction in religious duty, the answer before us

makes a distribution, or lays down the method, of the following treatise. The distribution or method is very short and summary, and yet very expressive and complete. It is -I. What we are to believe. II. What we are to do.-Or, in other words, faith and practice; or, doctrines and duties. As the answer before us was intended to specify the plan or method of the following part of the catechism, and as this has just been stated, it would seem that we ought to proceed immediately to the next question. But I remark, that as the authors of the catechism intended it to be as compendious as possible, so they appear to have designed that their very arrangement should have a significant import; and on considering it, I find that some points of much importance, especially to young persons, must be introduced here, or not find so suitable a place, in any other part of our course. I shall proceed, therefore, to notice these points; and shall show, as I proceed, how they arise out of this answer.

My first remark shall be on the word principally.—“The scriptures principally teach" certain truths, or doctrines. It is here intimated that the sacred writings teach some things beside what we are to believe in regard to God, and what we are to consider as our duty to him. The Bible contains a good deal of biography, and history, and many genealogies; and all that it contains is unmixed verity, and none of it is without its use. But the word we consider intimates, and the fact is unquestionably so, that some parts of the scripture are much more important than others. The most important, that is, the principal parts, are those which teach us faith and practice. If men were uninformed in regard to some of the other parts of scripture, they might still understand the revealed plan of salvation: and when real Christians differ, as they often do, about other things, the difference is about the unessentials of religion. But faith and practice-what we are to believe, and what we are to do-constitute the very substance, the principal part of true religion, or of divine revelation. Correctness here,, at least to a certain extent, is essential to salvation.

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This leads me to another remark of importance. answer under consideration, you may observe, places what we are to believe, before what we are to do. This was not without design. It was intended to intimate, that if our practice be not the result of right principles and right motives, it is nothing worth in the sight of God. This is a most interesting truth, and a great part of all the false religion in the world springs from not regarding it. Recollect, I beseech you, my young friends, that in religion we have to do with the all seeing and heart searching God. Nothing is right in his sight, no outward action is acceptable, unless it proceed from a good and proper motive. Nor is this, in any respect, a rigorous procedure. You will find, if you examine attentively, that you act upon the same principle yourselves, so far as your knowledge will permit you to do it. How often has it happened that a man has acquired esteem for his civility, perhaps for real kindheartedness and benevolence, because he has appeared to take a very friendly interest in every thing that related to the character or accommodation of those with whom he had intercourse: And yet it has afterwards been discovered, that this man was unquestionably one of the most selfish of his race; that in all his apparent benevolence he was only seeking to serve himself; that it was in pursuit of this object that all his courtesy and seeming kindness was manifested; and that he had really dishonoured and injured those to whom his plausible behaviour had so strongly recommended him. Do you not estimate this man's character entirely by his motives, and not by his visible conduct? Do you not detest him for having acted so fairly, when his motives were so base-even more than you would have done if he had, without disguise, appeared the selfish being that he really was? Think, then, that the motives of every human action are, at the time it takes place, perfectly known to God; and acknowledge that his proceeding is most equitable, in making motive, and not action, the test by which he will try and treat us. It is from some selfish motive, and not from any love, or any regard to God whatever, that a large

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