other truths in its own class, but truths of the first class are connected with those of the second, and of these parts thus united is composed that admirable body of doctrine which forms the system of religion. There are in religion some truths of speculation, there is a chain of doctrines. God is holy: this is the first truth. A holy God can have no intimate communion with unholy creatures: this is a second truth which follows from the first. God, who can have no communion with unholy creatures, can have no communion with men who are unholy creatures : this is a third truth which follows from the second. Men, who are unholy creatures, being incapable as such of communion with the happy God, must on that very account be entirely miserable: this a fourth truth which follows from the third. Men, who must be absolutely miserable, because they can have no communion with the holy, happy God, become objects of the compassion of that God, who is as loving and merciful as he is happy and holy: this is a fifth truth which follows from the fourth. This loving and merciful God is naturally inclined to relieve a multitude of his creatures, who are ready to be plunged into the deepest miseries: this is a sixth truth which follows from the fifth. Thus follow the thread of Jesus Christ's theology, and you will find, as I said, each part that composeth it depending on another, and every one giving another the hand.. For, from the loving and merciful inclination of God to relieve a multitude of his creatures from a threatening abyss of the deepest miseries, follows the mission of Jesus Christ; because it was fit that the remedy chosen of God to relieve the miseries of men should bear a proportion to the causes which produced it. From the doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission follows the necessity of the spirit of God: because it would have been impossi CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 65 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 I 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 tru-. ly 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 |