and of the wisdom of man, are competent only to ameliorate the circumstantials of his condition. The essentials they cannot alter. They cannot invest him with any modification of potency unsuited to the situation of a guilty being subject to penal effects of sin, yet cheered by prospects of attainable mercy. Man discovers the mechanic powers, the printing press, the tele¿ scope, the electric battery, the mariner's compass, the steam engine. He analyses earth and air by chemical agencies. He mitigates by medical research, and for a season disarms, torturing and perilous diseases. He improves the productions of the soil; and multiplies his accommodations, his comforts, and his luxuries. But the span his existence he cannot prolong. At this hour, as twenty-five centuries ago in the reign of David, the days of our age are threescore years and ten: and though men be so strong, that they come to = fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow. Man cannot check the volcano, nor rein the earthquake. He cannot ensure a prosperous harvest. He cannot call down a shower from the sky. He cannot turn aside from the ship the fury of the hurricane. He cannot foretell the events of the morrow.

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CHAP. XI.

ON MORAL DISCIPLINE, AS INTRODUCTORY AND AUXILIARY TO THE PRACTICAL RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE facts pertaining to Natural Theology which have formed the subjects of the antecedent chapters, have hitherto been contemplated principally as shewing, that man is in a fallen state through transgression; that he is experiencing the penal consequences of sin; and that he is also favoured by his justly offended God with tokens and prospects of mercy. These facts are now to be viewed, generally or severally, as adapted with the most considerate wisdom by the great author of Nature to the purposes such moral discipline, as is calculated specially to prepare men to welcome the plan of salvation revealed by the Gospel.

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If it were in any case inferred, on grounds of natural reason, that it is the gracious intention of a God of holiness to extend to sinful beings par.don and readmission into His favour; the design,

in whatever mode, and by whatever agency, the dispensation of mercy should be accomplished, must be deemed to include the effecting of a radical change of character in every individual who shall ultimately profit by the dispensation. To conceive that a holy God will exempt wilful violators of His law from the penalty annexed to the breach of it, and reinstate them in His favour, while in heart they continue wilfully and pertinaciously bent on transgression; in other words, to conceive that He will deal with obstinate sinners as with righteous beings: would be to suppose that He is not a Holy God, that He is indifferent to righteousness and to iniquity, that He regards alike with complacency the observance and the contempt of His commandments. That it might be within the sphere of Almighty wisdom to devise a plan of mercy, by means of which it might be possible that pardon should be placed within the reach of a sinful world without infringement of the Justice, of the Holiness, of any other of the attributes of God; without giving encouragement to sin in the pardoned race, or in any other portion, present or future, of the moral creation throughout the universe; nay, even, it might be, to devise such a

plan of mercy as should add new sanctions to the Divine Law, new discouragements to transgression, new motives, and persuasives, and aids to holiness: that a plan of mercy of this character might be possible with God, Natural Theology, though unable to aver its possibility, though totally incapable of framing to herself any idea of the mode in which it might be effected, would not utterly despair. That such a plan, if possible with God, might not be beyond the purposes of His ineffable love, the tokens of mercy vouchsafed to sinful man, in the constitution of external nature, and in the daily events and circumstances of life, might induce her humbly to hope. As little would she despair, as gladly would she venture humbly to hope, that to the same Almighty wisdom means might be obvious, that by the same ineffable love they might be employed, for purifying the corrupt heart of man, for delivering it from the dominion of sin, for imbuing it with grateful affection to its God, and with practical reverence for His Laws. If this moral renovation was to be effected in the human heart; the work, it is evident, must be wrought, not by man himself, but by superior influence, by the only adequate

power, by the power of the Creator. Assume such a transformation to have been within the thoughts and the wishes of man. Where were his capabilities for accomplishing it? Will it be said that reason is adequate to the task? Read the answer in the state of the heathen world since the creation; of the heathen world sufficiently left, during nearly six thousand years, to the operations and capabilities of reason. Is it retorted, that multitudes of those persons who have possessed the Jewish or the Christian Revelation have shewn themselves, and are shewing themselves, little preferable in their conduct and in their dispositions to heathens? Allow the fact to be so. If then man, wielding the united weapons of reason and religion, experiences so great difficulty in resisting the assaults of inherent corruption; what can he hope, if you withdraw the force of religion, and leave him to the puny succour of reason only? If an army, backed by a train of the heaviest artillery, can scarcely repel the onset of the foe; what will be the issue of the conflict, if that onset is to be met merely with bows and arrows?

It was not however, to be concluded, that the Deity, if He should vouchsafe to provide for the