LECT. flicted upon the earth by a flood of water:

that there is no remiffion of fin without shedding of blood; and that a divine life is fupported in us by partaking of the death of Chrift in the Pafchal or Sacramental Feast of the Lord's table; that there is a restoration to life after death by a refurrection of the body; and lastly, that the world which we inhabit fhall be destroyed by fire,

These are the principles, at least the chief of them, which are peculiar to the fcriptures. He that believes them is a Christian and if the works and ways of nature have a correfpondence with these principles, and with no other, then ought every natural philofopher to be a Christian believer.

I. Let us proceed then to examine how the cafe ftands. The unbelieving philosopher supposes man to be in the same state of perfection now, as when he came from the hands of his Creator. But the infirmities of his mind, with the diseases and

death

death of his body, proclaim the contrary. LECT. When the death of man is from the hand

of man, according to the laws of justice, it is an execution: and it is the fame in its nature, when inflicted

upon all men by the

1

hands of a juft God. The moral history
of man informs us, that he offended God
by eating in fin. His natural history
fhews us, that, in confequence of it, he
now eats in labour and forrow. The world
is full of toil and trouble: and for what
end, but that man may earn his daily
bread? The hands of the husbandman are
hardened, and his back is bowed down
with the cultivation of the earth. Thorns
and thistles prevail against him, and multi-
ply his labour. While fome are toiling
upon
the earth, others are doomed to work
underneath it. Some are exercised and
wafted with works of heat: fome for a live-
lihood are exposed to the storms and perils
of the sea and they, who are called to the
dangers of war, fupport their lives at the
hazard of losing them.

The woman, who was firft in the tranf

Ee 4

greffion,

LECT. greffion, is diftinguished by forrows peculiar to her fex: and if fome are exempt, they are exceptions which confirm the general law; and fhew, that the penalty doth not follow by any neceflity of Nature, but is inflicted.

Many are the unavoidable forrows of life: but if we confider how many more are brought upon man by himself, it is plain his mind is not right: for if he had his fight and his fenfes, he would see better and avoid them.

Suppose human nature to be perfect; what is the confequence? We not only contradict our own daily experience; but we fuperfede the ufe of Christianity, by denying the existence of thofe evils, for which only it is provided. The whole fyftem of it is offered to us as a cure for the confequences of the fall. From the accommodation of its graces, gifts, and facraments to the wants of our nature, we have a demonftration that our minds are in a diftempered and finful ftate: as the drugs

drugs and inftruments in the fhop of the LECT. furgeon are so many arguments that our bodies are frail and mortal.

II. The fcriptures declare farther, that man, thus born in fin and forrow, would grow up in darkness and ignorance, as to all heavenly things, unless he were taught of God: whofe word is therefore faid to be a light. The cafe is the fame in nature. For how doth man receive the knowledge of all diftant objects? not by a light within himself, but by a light which comes to him from heaven, and brings to his fight a sense of the objects from which it is reflected. What an uninformed empty being would man become in his bodily ftate; how deftitute of the knowledge of all remote objects, but for the rays of light which come to him from without? Such would he be in his religious capacity without the light of revelation, which was therefore fent out into all lands, as the light of the fun is diffused throughout the world: The people that walked in darkness (fuch is the state we

are

LECT. are born to) have feen a great light: they

that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined* The fcriptures declare that we are in a state of ftupidity and death, till we are illuminated by the Gofpel: Awake thou that sleepest, and rife from the dead and Chrift shall give thee light. But they cannot make our fouls worfe than our bodies would be without the visible lights of heaven; and therefore in this refpect, the physical state of man answers precisely to his religious state; and if we duly observe and reflect upon the one, we must admit the other alfo, or oppose the testimony of our senses.

III. The gospel informs us, that there is a light of life to the foul of man, and a divine spirit of God which quickens and infpires; and that the whole œconomy of grace is adminiftered to us by the perfons of the Son and the Holy Ghost. And are not the principles of man's natural life maintained by a parallel agency in nature? Do we not there alfo find a light to ani

* Ifa. ix, 2.

Eph. v, 14.

mate,