altogether unknown to them. To them, great as they were, great as their names are, immortal as their fame may be-to them the prospects of the soul were nothing, literally nothing.

What an awful view is this, of the former darkness of heathen lands in consequence of sin! And yet we can try its justice. Let any man point out any prospects they had. Where are they recorded? Not in their works. We find many vain and idle speculations-much vapour-but no prospects.

And what are the prospects of the soul now? Let me observe, that we are just in the position of these men, but for the Gospel; we have no prospects for the future; we are looking upon the same darkness, or the same lurid light (which is tanmount to darkness).

In what way, then are the prospects to be opened? Let the sun arise, whilst you take your stand on the point of sight to which I have been referring, and let it throw down its rays of light up on the plains below; and you will find the vapours roll off, you will find the surface of the country clear, you will find the landscape throwing up beauty after beauty, till you are enabled to go into its minutest features; and heaven's own light will so define those features, that you can trace them all in their loveliness and receive the full impress of their influence on your minds. And this is just the case with regard to the prospects of the soul in reference to a future world. Let the Word of God, the moral Sun, bring its light to tell upon the darkness, which prevented the men I have been naming from enjoying any prospect of the future; and you will find the clouds and shadows, that hung around the minds of Cæsar, of Cato, and of Cicero, and of Aristotle and Homer (eminent among the Greeks as the others stood high among the Romans), all pass away, and "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" will be found to bring up one feature after another of the moral beauty of the Lord, until the whole, in one common loveliness and consistency, shall break upon your minds, and show a God just while He is merciful, and kind while He is holy. The prospects of the soul will open then in all their glory; and heaven with its beauty, and the spirits of the just in their purity, and the angels of light with their "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and the consistent mediation of the great Mediator, and the judgment of the final day, and the new heavens and new earth, and the eternal union of the glorified spirit and the resurrection body, and the everlasting distance of the purity of this happy fellowship from the possibility of sin, and the infallible character thrown over all this moral beauty and all this intellectual brilliancy-will be found to constitute the prospects of the soul hereafter. But if you look, my friends, for these prospects, it must be through the medium of the Word of God.

Are there, however, no other prospects? Is there nothing fearful in the scenery? Is there nothing awfully destructive sometimes associated with the clearing away of that, which impedes the expansive prospect that on other occasions may be thrown out before the eye? Yes. Clouds and thunder and storm have very frequently constituted the covering, under which the earth has been placed, while the fury of the earthquake was raging, swallowing up its towns and villages and their inhabitants; the darkness has cleared away, and the results of the agitation of nature were disclosed; towns had disappeared, villages had sunk into the earth, and the fields once green with verdure or waving with harvests were filled with fragments and with bones; and the wrath of God written by nature's own finger, has been exhibited in the sad and desolate aspect of a scene, which before that gathering cloud had often commanded the admiration of the spectator. It is just the same in morals, as in nature. There is a time coming, when the God of truth shall take to Him His great power, and reign in justice as He has already reigned in mercy and in kindness and in love; and you must look, aided by the same discoveries of Jehovah's government and laws, to this period of the exercise of His justice and His power. There is a period coming-you have it before you in prospect-when God shall bring every soul into judgment, and shall require an account of the obligations under which He has laid it, and of the use of the faculties He has given it. Now if you look at the description of this period in the Word of truth, and see there something yet more terrific than the scenes in nature to which I have referred, what is the choice to which you will come? You have the souls I have

described; those souls have the powers I have laid before you, mighty either for good or for evil; these powers lay you under the obligations I have exhibited to you, and expose you to the hazards I have noticed; the prospects that lie before you are not the prospects to be gathered from human philosophy, however closely studied, (as the darkness of all past philosophers most clearly proves,) but are the prospects opened up by the Word of God. We invite you, therefore, to seek in it the light which it communicates in relation to these prospects; which are as bright to excite your joy and command your confidence and kindle your love, as they are awful and astounding in connection with the doom of the wicked. "Behold, now is the accepted time." The infidel may tell you, that this is all enthusiasm. I have endeavoured to throw no enthusiasm into the plain representation I have placed before you. I have offered to you the warmth of no imagination, the excitement of no rapture, the conjectures of no empty theory; I have endeavoured to speak the words of truth and soberness," and to commend them to you by illustrations with which you are familiar. The consideration of your own duty now remains with you. Will you take the powers of the soul and cast them into the hands of God, and seize the torch of revelation, and hold it up till you have enlightened your future path and cheered the prospects that lie before you? or will you take upon yourself to run on in the dark, with the mighty engines of thought and feeling in motion and carrying your spirits onward, until at last in surrounding desolation you learn to lament (but lament uselessly because too late) the abuse of the powers which God has given you?

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"Who knoweth the spirit of man, that goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast, that goeth downward to the earth?" The beast is as the inert and unconscious movement of the engines which you can command; and you associate no responsibility with these. When they work not according to our safety or our interest, we endeavour to bring them within the reach of our power, or we destroy them; but we connect with them no responsibility. But this is not the case with us, who command the movements of the world.

I leave the consideration of this responsibility with you. It is yours to direct, in order that you may be right; and to direct your own powers, that they may rightly direct you. It is yours to look into the Word of truth, for the information which it brings to bear upon the intellect that God has given you, and the sanctity with which it is able to invest your power of feeling. It is yours to take the Word of truth, and learn the real import of that question-"What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Let these observations lead you to calm consideration. And I trust, that you will be influenced by just views respecting these important subjects, and find then a pleasure and enjoyment and happiness, associated with the due guidance and enlightenment of your powers of thought and of feeling, which will induce you to invite others to come unto Him, whom you have found to be precious to your own souls.

THE FATAL INFLUENCE OF SPECULATIVE INFIDELITY.

REV. R. REDPATH, A.M.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JAN. 27, 1841.

THE subject of this evening's examination is-The fatal influence of speculative infidelity.

When I consider, my friends, the number and the talents of those, who have been engaged in exposing the sophistry and the futile arguments which have been employed on the side of infidelity; when I think of the splendour of the efforts, which have been made by the defenders of Christianity; of the learning, which has been brought forward by its advocates, and the vast variety of argument which they have brought to bear upon the subject; when I remember, that they have gone over the whole field of nature,that they have ransacked every part of the material universe, that they have examined all those laws by which God governs the world whether of matter or of mind, the works of creation and the ways of Providence, and have shown that these are in exact harmony with that which the Scriptures reveal to us respecting the plan of redemption; when I remember, that so many books have been composed, so many sermons and treatises written, so many lectures delivered in every part of the land-I perhaps might wonder, that infidelity should have to be spoken of, that the subject should again be submitted to discussion, and that I should be called upon to follow in the steps of the many who have preceded me in this service, and to direct your attention to the fatal aspects, which infidelity bears on your present welfare and your eternal happiness. The causes of failure, it is perhaps, impossible fully to trace; I would refer to one or two, which I think may in some respect be attributed to the advocates of Christianity.

When they speak against the unbeliever, they are prone to take advantage of having the field entirely to themselves; and having no fear of an immediate answer, they indulge in a tone of invective and denunciation, which excites passion and prejudice, but which never tends to carry conviction to the minds of those, who have adopted contrary theories. It is possible, very frequently, to reduce a man to silence without convincing him; to awaken the strongest feelings of resentment in the minds of those, who may be deterred from openly expressing them. A man under the influence of provocation, easily persuades himself that he has not brought out the strength of his argument, that you are not acquainted with all the merits of his side of the question, and that there is much to be done before he yields himself a conquered adversary. It thus frequently happens, that the best intended efforts fail of producing any success, in consequence of the spirit and temper, which we ourselves display. We forget, that when Jesus Christ was rejected by the Samaritans, and when His beloved disciples would have brought down fire from heaven in order to punish them for their contempt and unbelief, Jesus immediately said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." Every thing like vituperation, intolerance, violence and aversion to the persons of those whom we would convert to our views, is sure to form the most effectual barrier against our making any impression.

Another cause of failure is, that we do not sufficiently advert to the excellencies of the Christian doctrine to its essential peculiarities, and to the extraordinary adaptation of these to meet the urgent necessities and to gratify the noblest aspirations of our nature. We are too apt to confine ourselves to the system of attack; to think of carrying dismay into the ranks of our opponents, while we forget the mighty attractions of the Gospel, and the deep impression which may be produced by a faithful statement of the advantages which we enjoy, and by inciting them to bring the matter to the test of personal experiment, and "taste and see whether the Lord Jesus be not good and gracious.

We have to remember too, in speaking of speculative infidelity, that it has rendered extraordinary service to the cause of Christ; and so far from its being viewed with anything like alarm on the part of Christians, they ought to acknowledge the deep obligation under which it has unintentionally laid them. It is to the attacks of infidels of every degree of talent, knowledge and acquirement-from the scurrility of a Paine, up to the acuteness and extraordinary penetration and sagacity of

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a Hume-from the meanest ribaldry that you may read in the papers of the day, to the brilliancy and sarcasm of a Voltaire-that we are indebted for having the argument brought out in its fullest lustre, and the question investigated in all its bearings. The inhabitants of a country are often indebted to the enemy, who endeavouring to invade it, discovers to them the weak positions which they had overlooked, and leads them to ascertain those positions, which, when properly fortified and defended, are impregnable. So has it been with Christianity. In consequence of the attacks that have been made upon its truth in modern days, all the evidence that can be brought to prove it a revelation from heaven, has been set forth with a fulness and accuracy, with which no part of the Christian world was ever before favoured; we are raised to a vantage ground, which none of our predecessors occupied. So far from being discouraged, therefore, by the exertions of infidels, we feel that we know the worst and utmost which can be said against Christianity -the strongest arguments and objections that can be adduced; and we can see and examine for ourselves the answers that have been given, and judge how far they are satisfactory and conclusive. And believing as I do, that those who have attended most to the subject, have their minds most established and confirmed in our holy faith, I rejoice that speculative infidelity has carried its attack into every part of the field of Christian evidence, because there is not one objection or difficulty, on which it has not sustained a signal discomfiture; not one, affecting the authenticity or Divine authority of the Scriptures, but it has been met and answered. And if those who feel doubts upon any point, would go to individuals that are acquainted with the subject, I am sure they would not be so harassed with difficulties which have no existence, but in the state of their knowledge or their own imaginations.

limited amount of the latter.

In proceding now to point out "the fatal influence of speculative infidelity," I would notice, as of considerable importance in this question, the distinction which exists betweeen infidelity which is speculative and that which is merely practical. It is of great consequence, for the right understanding of the subject. And the distinction is this: that in the one case the powers of judgment and reasoning are engaged on the side of infidelity, and in the other case it is merely the inclinations, the feelings and the practice. The existence of practical infidelity by no means necessarily implies that which is speculative; and the aggravation of the latter is, that it always necessarily implies the former-it is practical unbelief and something more. There may be a very large measure of the former, where there is a very A man may have enjoyed few opportunities of religious information; he may have reflected very little upon such matters; he may be so engrossed with other pursuits, that he has never proposed the question to his own mind, whether there be a revelation from heaven; he may never have taken time to examine the evidence that the Scriptures are the Word of God; he may, for very good reasons, have wilfully kept himself in the dark, and refused to investigate the subject; and thus he may "walk according to the course of this world," he may live without God and without hope, and yet he may have entered but a very small way into the speculative part of the question. But the case of the unbeliever, who has informed his own mind by argument and by reasoning, is totally different. He has investigated the question, however superficially or unfairly; he has furnished his mind with reasons, however futile and often refuted, for believing that the silence of Heaven has never been broken, that there has been no com. munication from the Father of spirits, and that everything pretending to the title of a revelation has been the result merely of imposture. The speculative infidel thus stands in a situation, vastly different from that of the practical unbeliever. He has taken up an advanced position in the territory of the prince of darkness; and it is one, from which it will be very difficult to dislodge his mind. His situation includes all the evils, which attend upon practical infidelity; and it adds some, which are peculiarly its own.

In this address, I have to do with the fatal consequences of speculative infidelity to point out some of its peculiar and aggravated evils.

The first of those evil consequences is, that it exercises a most pernicious influence upon the views which we entertain respecting the supreme Being.

There is no class of our feelings, which it is of so much importance to cultivate carefully and to direct into a right channel, as that, of which the supreme Being is the object. Whether we consider the perfections of the Divine nature, or our connection with and dependence upon God-or the tendency which there is in

all contemplations, that have God for their object, to enlarge, to elevate, to purify the mind-or whether we look upon the influence of these views upon the formation of our own character, as we are always disposed to imitate whatever we profoundly admire and reverentially adore, or upon the comfort and peace of our minds, when we think of the God on whom we depend for life and breath and all things-we -we easily see, that where the religious feelings are without guidance and direction of any sort, or where there are the most effectual measures taken to root them out and cause them to wither and decay, a most serious injury is inflicted upon the character and the improvement of the individual. And this is what all infidelity does, even that which is of a practical kind only. Whatever attainments a man may make in other directions, if he forgets to cultivate towards the Father of his spirit the affection, and to render him the worship, which He claims, depend upon it that he suffers an injury, far transcending any other with which he can be threatened. It is always found, that if a disease seizes upon a part of the frame that is vital-if it seizes upon the head or upon the heart-no man can be exposed to the operation of that disease for any length of time, without the most fatal consequences; and whatever may be the soundness of his health in every other part of the frame, if the disease is allowed to proceed without an attempt to arrest its progress, the result can only have one termination. And in like manner, whatever be the accomplishments of the mind, whatever be the affections it cherishes and the attainments it makes in every other department of knowledge, of science and of moral cultivation, yet if it be destitute of the love and the homage which it owes to its God, it is destitute of that which constitutes the health and the life of the soul. And accordingly you may have a man distinguished for his acquaintance with the whole circuit of the exact sciences, or possessing a mind stored with all the brightest images of literature; he may be a poet, he may be a philosopher, he may be a mathematician, he may be acquainted with all the investigations of modern times, and enabled to trace the laws of matter or of mind in all their varied applications; and yet if he do not regard his Maker as his faithful guardian, as his affectionate Father, as watching over him to bless him and to do him good-if he cannot repose with confidence upon His disposition to bestow upon him His favour, and regard him as one of His family, the object of His care and love, but looks upon himself merely as the child of destiny or the sport of chance then I say, that upon the most important of all points his cable is cut, he is driven from his moorings, he is entirely at sea, at the mercy of every wind and wave; and whatever may be the passions which agitate him, or whatever the attacks which he has to sustain from without, he has nothing to uphold, guide, or comfort him. This is one fatal consequence of infidelity.

Another evil arising from speculative infidelity is, that it shuts a man entirely out from the benefits, which God has provided in the scheme of redemption finished by His own Son.

It is impossible for me to go over all the different parts of that scheme, and show the adaptation of every one to the necessities and the dangers in which we are placed. This is a theme, to which you are accustomed to listen Sabbath by Sabbath; and therefore it is unnecessary for me now to enter into detail. But there are one or two points, to which I think it is of moment to advert.

In the first place, then, I would remark, that if there be any one truth established by the history of the human mind, and especially of the experiments and trials which have been adopted in modern times, it is this: that if you would either inspire men with noble and generous resolves, or if you would correct any evil habits which they have contracted, and rescue them from the power of sin in which they have indulged, you must work upon the feelings of affection and of gratitude. Whatever other methods have been adopted, they have been found a complete failure, wherever kindness and love have not entered largely into the methods employed. It has been found, for example, in dealing with every class of criminals, that if they were to be corrected, if their morals were to be improved, if they were to go forth from their place of confinement to be better members of society, it was not harshness and austerity, nor the severity of the punishment inflicted upon them, that would effect any change upon their character; but it was when with firmness there was displayed a large admixture of kindness, attention and consideration-an appeal to their generous feelings, and a constant anxiety to encourage and reward them, in proportion as they exerted the habits of self-controul