him for his sufferings. If by dishonesty I rise to wealth, I can obliterate by liberality, when I repent, the greater part of the evil consequences of the wrong I have done. But the characters of impiety or impurity which my hand has once traced and sent forth into the world, no tears can wash out, no penitence can recal. Like Pilate, what the unbeliever "has written, he has written," and he cannot, if he would, either undo the deed, or frustrate its effects. The Spirit of the Lord may come upon the Infidel writer, and bring his heart into a great and godly sorrow for his sin. He may weep in holy penitence over his past unbelief, and through a renewal of faith be made again a partaker of the graces of redemption and sanctification unto his own eternal glory. But all his hope and assurance of salvation for his own soul in the world to come, will never be able to take away the fearful forebodings he must entertain of the incalculable evil which his sceptical and ungodly writings may have inflicted upon the

souls of others in the world that now is. Let the man of genius who has perverted his talents be never so repentant for the abuse of his powers, and never so certain of having his pardon sealed to him. through the blood of Jesus, still he will feel, and feel wretched when he thinks, that he has been guilty of a crime beyond his abilities to repair. That is a worm which can never die. For the

invention of printing has given such strength, and swiftness, and stability to the thoughts and words of mankind, that when once our opinions have been subjected to the operations of the press, they are withdrawn for ever from our grasp, and will work the work for which they were originally sent forth, in defiance of all our efforts to blot them out. Nay our very efforts to recal the writings we have condemned will but, in many instances, have a tendency to increase their circulation, by more effectually stimulating the passions of the corrupt, the interests of trade, and the curiosity of the inquisitive, to preserve and study what the author seems so anxious to destroy. Whatever then may be the views with which these unbelieving and ungodly writers have promulgated their rebukes and blasphemies against the religion of the Son of God, whether they be deceiving or only deceived, they have done an evil which no subsequent exertions of their pen or their penitence can ever obliterate. Their souls, it is possible, may yet, if they repent and turn to the Lord in faith, be saved; but it is impossible, even if their souls be saved, that their consciences should not through life be irremediably grieved by the melancholy reflection that they have been preparing a mental poison for which their feebleness can administer no certain antidote, and mingling a cup of bitterness for generations yet unborn. In that

conviction they must die. By the anguish of that reflection must their last hours be embittered, and they must quit the earth and its inhabitants conscious that they have sown the seeds of infidelity, and eternal death, in many an unwary and

unstable soul.

Father of Mercies, save us from this woe, and teach us ever to speak and to write such things only as may be pleasing in thy sight, and profitable to thy people! Great Lord of Light and Life, thou that art the Author and the Giver of all wisdom, take away, we beseech thee, the darkness of our minds; enlighten and enliven us with the knowledge of thy truth, and guide our pens, that they err not against the holiness of thy law! And thou, the Eternal Spirit of the Father and the Son, thou that art the Ruler and the Sanctifier of the heart, cleanse us from all filthiness, both of flesh and of spirit, quench in us the lust of curiosity and praise, "increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy" so govern and direct the works of our understandings, that through them may be ascribed unto the Father, unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, all power, might, majesty, dominion, and praise, now, henceforth, and for evermore! Amen.

LECTURES V. AND VI.

ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED IN EXPLAINING
SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES.

JEREM. viii. 9.

"Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord and what wisdom is in them?"

FROM pen to pen, and from age to age, has the same unvaried tone of censure been assumed, with more or less violence, by the Deist, and the same wearisome round of objections heen repeated in, condemnation of the contents of the Bible: and from pen to pen, and from age to age, have the same answers and arguments been urged by the friends of revelation, with more or less of propriety and vigour, in its support. But, as yet, neither party has confessed itself in the wrong, and both accuse their opponents of having failed in their undertaking. The Christian regards the uniform character of the objections urged by the Deist as implying only his presumptuous obstinacy against the truth. The Deist, in return, despises the sameness of the Theologian's arguments as a proof of the weakness of his cause,

and the palpable inconclusiveness of his defence; and to such a fearful height has the presumption of unbelievers now grown, that, as I remarked in the conclusion of my last Discourse, they have taken a tone of the most positive and abusive disrespect, and almost refuse any longer to be confined within the regulations of legitimate reasoning, choosing rather to defy than to dispute with the God of Israel, and to appeal to the passions rather than the understandings of mankind. This could scarcely have occurred had the reasonings of both the Deist and the Christian, been raised upon the same common foundation. This could not but happen where, as is actually the case, they have drawn their conclusions from premises essentially different from each other. For unless the combatants in a logical dispute build upon the same common axioms, and admit the same fundamental propositions, they can neither understand each other's statements, nor appreciate each other's sentiments; and so confusion, inconsistency, misapprehension, and strife forever, must be the necessary result. To ascertain, therefore, those essential principles upon which our endeavours to elucidate the difficulties of Scripture ought uniformly to proceed, it will be expedient not merely to lay down a few arbitrary directions upon the subject; but also to point out, in a clear and satisfactory manner, wherein