of mercy; which hath added to all the blessings of creation, that last and supreme gift of heaven, the forgiveness of sins. In the creation there was no room for the exercise of this attribute, and therefore we find no proof of it there. Mercy is the peculiar discovery, and the glory of the gospel, through every page of which it sheds its saving influence. Indeed neither justice nor mercy could find an object in an innocent world. It was on a world involved in guilt and misery that they first met; and when we were sinking into ruin and overwhelmed with despair, then it was that they descended from heaven, holding forth to our view that Roll of Salvation whereon was inscribed, "Glory to God in the highest, and "on earth peace, good-will towards men.” Then did "mercy and truth meet together;" the mercy of God interposing to save the sinful race of men, was reconciled with his truth, which stood engaged to execute the sentence of death upon them; then did "righteous"ness and peace kiss each other;" the closest connection took place, where there seemed to be the strongest opposition, between the righteousness of God, and the peace of man.

We are farther instructed by the christian faith in the true condition of our situation here, and the laws of our nature and our duty are laid before us in the fullest and clearest manner laws so equitable, that even the adversaries of revelation have ever acknowledged their excellence: laws so wisely framed, and

so well adapted to our nature, that when speculative men have undertaken to build their systems of morality, and have furnished them with riches borrowed liberally from the treasures of revelation, they have been apt to mistake the dictates of inspiration, for the deductions of their own reason.

But we are not only instructed in whatever concerns our duty to our happiness here; our understandings are led forth into a future state, all eternity is unveiled before us, and we see the great doctrines of life and immortality in the clearest light. The gospel hath laid open to our view those bright eternal fields, the prospect of which must otherwise have been for ever intercepted by clouds impenetrable to the human eye. The utmost labor of the human understanding, where the most select geniuses of every enlightened age united all their efforts, could do little towards this great discovery. They could do no more than the assistance of art hath enabled the eye to do in surveying the starry firmament. The ablest reason, in its utmost cultivation, could just discern a faint light streaming through that dark expanse of night with which it was surrounded, from whence it might conjecture that there was a brighter world beyond. But this was a light too fine and dubious to be of any service to the vulgar sight, and which every passing cloud concealed even from the philosophic eye. The philosopher could exult in the pleasing theory of immortal happiness, but it generally failed

even him when it was to be brought to the proof. Whereas the faith of a christian is a fixed and a steady light, which never deserts him, but shines the brightest in the darkest seasons of distress.

It is the peculiar happiness of this dispensation that all this knowledge is made level to the meanest capacity. So that we may truly affirm, that the knowledge of all the sages of antiquity put together, is no more to be compared to the knowledge which is now in the power of the humblest christian, than the glimmering of a thousand stars to a sun-beam. A fact of so astonishing a nature, and ever before our eyes, is a public and a standing proof of the reality of that revelation in which we believe, and is alone sufficient to satisfy all gainsayers. It is a proof of the strongest kind, demnostrating the cause from its visible and lasting effects. The effect cannot be denied: it cannot be denied, that since the era of the gospel, vulgar christianity hath excelled learned paganism in the most sublime and important branches of knowledge; nor is it possible to account for this effect on any other supposition, than that there was at that era a revelation from heaven, a new communication of divine knowledge, a light derived from above to lighten the Gentiles.

But the action of faith upon the mind is not confined to the understanding. That light which enters in by the understanding beams into every part of the soul, and revives and

invigorates all its other powers. Like the light of heaven, it brings with it a vital heat which warms the affections.

The influence which the understanding hath over the affections, is well known and it is generally by seducing the understanding that vice maintains its dominion over us. Did we see clearly the true nature, and the different events of virtue and vice, our affections could not be so misplaced as they usually are. Religion shows us both; it shows us the naked deformity of vice, the poison that is mixed with its sweet intoxicating draught of pleasure, and the ruin in which its flowery paths terminate. It shows us the native charms of virtue, its manly and rational joys, and those pure streams of eternal pleasures by which it dwells for ever.

It would carry us far beyond our bounds to enter into every particular, and to show how favorable the christian faith is to the production and increase of every virtue. It will be sufficient briefly to show how powerful an influence it hath in maintaining within us those two great principles of all virtue, the love of God, and the love of man.

The more we know of God, the more clearly we discover the justice of the Apostle's description, that "GOD IS LOVE." The whole of his works is but one grand demonstration, his various dispensations are but so many successive proofs, rising one above another, of this great truth. All that we see in

the creation are but varied expressions of his goodness, and all our enjoyments testimonies of his love. They naturally therefore raise our minds to heaven. Wherever our affections may begin, they terminate in the Creator; and if they rest for a while on his works, it is only to gain strength that they may renew their flight upwards to the Giver of all good gifts.

But redemption takes up the tale which creation had begun, and in a language still more awakening, still infinitely more affecting, repeats to us the heavenly strain, that "GOD IS LOVE." Not content to have created an universe on purpose to bear witness to this, he sends the Lord of the universe himself to give us in person the strongest assurances of it. His own eternal Son vouchsafes to bring the commendations of his Father's love towards us. He veils the brightness of his glory, which we could not directly look upon, by cloathing himself in our nature; and softens the splendor of Divinity to the bearing of our sight, by tempering it with the milder rays of human virtue that thus we might have for our imitation an example of perfection nearer to our own standard, and might receive expressions of divine love in the tenderest language of human affection. But ah! what pledge of love is this which he is preparing to give, and what characters are these in which we see it written! What voice is that, which in the midst of the bitterest sufferings, and the most