SERMON II.

CHRISTIANITY AS TAUGHT IN THE GOSPELS.

LUKE i. 1-4.

FORASMUCH AS MANY HAVE TAKEN IN HAND TO SET FORTH IN ORDER A DECLARATION OF THOSE THINGS, WHICH ARE MOST SURELY BELIEVED AMONG US, EVEN AS THEY DELIVERED THEM UNTO US, WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING WERE EYE-WITNESSES, AND MINISTERS OF THE WORD; IT SEEMED GOOD TO ME ALSO, HAVING HAD PERFECT UNDERSTANDING OF ALL THINGS FROM

THE VERY FIRST, TO WRITE UNTO THEE IN ORDER, MOST EXCELLENT THEOPHILUS, THAT THOU MIGHTEST KNOW THE CERTAINTY OF THOSE THINGS WHEREIN THOU HAST BEEN INSTRUCTED.

WHERE shall we go to learn what Christianity is? This is a most interesting and important inquiry, as every person of sound judgment will admit; and it will be my endeavor to give to it a full and distinct answer. The general subject of religion is often spoken of as plain and universally intelligible; and yet as taught by some persons it is involved in great obscurity. Difficulties in some cases so multiply around us that we are obliged either to reject the whole, or sit down before the subject in despair of understanding it. Thus

men are led to entertain unfounded and undeserved prejudices against religion. They see the Christian world rent into parties; they hear their continual disputings about religion, which commonly end as they begin, excepting that where, as is natural, a man is obliged to contend for a possession, he values it the more, in proportion to the difficulty he has had in maintaining it, and clings to it with a pertinacity corresponding to the efforts, which are made to wrest it from him; and they conclude that as the friends of religion are not themselves agreed as to what it is, it is useless for them to attempt to understand it. Other minds, oppressed with an excessive anxiety and timidity, are made wretched, by the obscurity which hangs over the subject, and the difficulties which they meet with in whatever direction they attempt to penetrate it. To some persons it furnishes an apology for the indifference, with which their own want of judgment or candor induces them to regard it. These, then, are reasons, and many others might be urged, which render our inquiries into the subject of religion most important and imperative.

Where then, we repeat the question, shall we go to learn what Christianity is? Shall we apply to this or that sect? Here are innumerable different and conflicting parties, no two of whom, would give you the same reply. Shall we go to this or that book? Here are piles upon piles of commentaries, discourses, catechisms, and creeds, which are sufficient to strike the inquirer with dismay at their number and confusion. Shall we apply to this or that individual? You may often ask the most gifted, and yet find yourself at a loss; for the most gifted as well as the most confident are often, in truth, ignorant of its first principles; have

learnt it in some other school than that of the great Teacher, who alone can claim a just right to explain it; have viewed it under the influence of their own strong prejudices and prepossessions; have often rather imagined what it might be than honestly inquired what it is'; have sometimes mistaken what it is from its very simplicity, and have chosen to give it the form of a complicated scheme or system, thinking and perhaps very honestly, that the more mysterious it is rendered, the stronger claims it is likely to have upon the reverence of mankind. There is always with many men, a strong propensity in favor of what is marvellous and mysterious in religion; they prefer in religion what is unintelligible and inexplicable, provided it is not wholly incomprehensible; the more difficulty attends their faith, so much the more meritorious they deem it; and many systems of philosophy and religion have kept their hold upon the public faith and reverence, solely from the obscure, and undefined form in which they have presented themselves. All of us are apprised to what innumerable optical delusions we are liable. How differently from what they are do objects appear to us, in the partial light of evening or the darkness of the night; what shapes and figures is the imagination prone to give them; and what terror, solicitude and anxious awe do they excite, of which nothing would be felt, could they be seen in their proper dimensions and under the broad light of day. To mistakes and deceptions not less gross and extravagant is our intellectual vision liable; and forms as strange and monstrous rise before the mind as it were at pleasure, when quitting the plain light of reason and common sense, we yield ourselves to the workings of a powerful and heated imagination.

It may savor of presumption, after these remarks, to undertake to say how you may be certain to find what true Christianity is. We pretend to no exemption from the fallibility, which necessarily belongs to all human judgment; but inquiry is the road to truth; and we trust we shall never render ourselves obnoxious to just censure, if while we duly respect the judgment of others, we suggest to those, who are perfectly competent to determine their propriety, certain principles of judgment and inquiry, which may lead to the knowledge that we seek.

If

you desire then to learn what Christianity is, go to the New Testament, the proper records of this religion, and learn it from the words and character of the great Teacher himself. Who can so well understand it? Who above him has authority to teach it? Who is so well qualified to explain it as its author, Jesus himself?

Let us briefly consider some of the claims, which this book has to our respect and confidence as teaching us what Christianity is; and what objections and difficulties are connected with it as an authority.

We will first then take the character of this authority from the remarkable preface, which St. Luke has prefixed to his gospel, and which I have recited as my text. Having had, he says, a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, he thinks it proper to give an historical and digested account of them, in order that the certainty of them might be known. Here, then, the object of his writing is distinctly announced; the manner in which he proposes to execute that object; and the authority, that of his own personal knowledge, on which he grounds the statement of facts, which he undertakes to detail.

upon

Before I proceed farther I propose to remark a topic incidentally and in many respects materially connected with the subject we have in view. The sacred scriptures, denominated the Bible or Book, are not one book, written by one individual at one time and for one particular object or purpose; but they are a collection of different books, by different authors, on various subjects and written at different times, and some of them at intervals of whole centuries from others. The Old Testament is an entirely distinct work from the New Testament. The Old Testament is in many respects as the New Testament a revelation from God. It contains several remarkable prophecies relating to the fortunes of the Jewish nation and the coming of the Messiah; and the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament writings and refer to them frequently as we might expect Jews writing for the benefit of Jews would do; but it is a great mistake to look upon the Old Testament writings as Christian scriptures, or to go to them to learn what the Gospel is. The one contains the religion of Jesus; the other the religion of Moses. There are many points of resemblance between them. The moral features of their religion are of course the same; for the great principles of moral duty are in their nature unchangeable; but in many respects the two religions are totally different; and we can with no more propriety go to the Old Testament to learn what the Gospel is, than we should go to it to find out what our duty is in the ritual and Levitical law. The Old Testament writings are Jewish scriptures; the New Testament writings. are Christian scriptures. The Jews, in this respect, are far more consistent than Christians. The Jews refuse to receive the Gospel because they see that it