the evidence would be striking and the impression deep. Probably, we have all hankered after such intelligence, so communicated. The unavailable, though neither unnatural nor uncommon wish, is sometimes whispered, sometimes breathed aloud, O that a messenger from another world would come to the aid of my staggering and dubious faith!'

The appearance of the desired witness would be an admitted instance of Divine interposition; since, as far as we can decide on the capacity of creatures, we are authorised, independently of Abraham's declaration, to conclude, that, unless specially empowered by the Almighty, none can pass the gulf which He has interposed betwixt world and world. But, should He invest with his commission a spirit dwelling in regions which no mortal can traverse, then indeed the flight would be easy, and we should be provided with irrefragable proofs and ample illustrations of all that it were needful and useful for us to know.

Assuming the deputed witness to be of our own race, we might perhaps consider him equally efficient, whether he reanimated his former body, or became visible through a different medium. The sceptic might choose the first of these appearances, as supplying the means of an easier and surer recognition, and being in more entire sympathy with his frame and nature.

Imagine him a successful petitioner. He is commanded, at midnight, by a voice which he never heard before, to go forth and stand by the side of a grave. There he looks round, awhile, and listens, in solemn and wishful suspense. At length the ground heaves, and is disparted; a coffin is laid bare, and, by a sudden impulse, opens; its late motionless and insensible occupant, again claimed by the spirit from which it had been separated by death, springs from its narrow cell, in its original shape, and once more sees, hears, and speaks.

The most obstinate sceptic must, surely, credit his senses-thus powerfully awakened and accosted; he would gaze, and give mute attention; he would be subdued into a feeling of deference; and, if the witness were communicative, would find it difficult to disbelieve that there are habitations beyond this sublunary sphere, and that somewhere in the immensity of space it will be his destiny to live exultant or miserable, when he shall have bid farewell to all his present connexions. Heroes, monarchs, and philosophers, would, if drawing nigh at that moment, move along, an unheeded procession; or they might well pause with interest there, at sights and sounds more wonderful than any by which they had ever chained the attention of their fellow-creatures' He is

come,' it would echo through the miscellaneous train, he is come from an empire to us unknown, and from associates with whom we have no communion. He inspires me with awe. The few accents which I have already caught, prepare me to believe whatever he may announce, and to do whatever he may command.'

1. Let the mysterious visitor emerge from the realms of gloom and despair. The tempest which bore him thence subsides; the ensuing stillness is fearfully profound; but language much more alarming than that stillness quickly follows:-' Mine inheritance is hell; the participants of my horrors are fallen angels and impenitent men; mine employment is blasphemy, rebellion, and lamentation.' Believe an agonizing transgressor, when he tells thee, that sin degrades, and at last desolates, all whom it continues to infect; that nothing so much facilitates the progress of that pestiferous disease, and renders it so inveterate, on the earth as infidelity; and that of all terrible things the most terrible are "the vials of the wrath of God." Once he made light of these subjects, and rewarded his faithful monitors with a disdainful smile. It was his pride to disparage a system manufactured, according to his insinuation, by the interested and crafty, for the purpose of beguiling the simple, and overawing the timid and dependent. But, though he still "walks in the counsel of the ungodly, and stands in the way of sinners," he has ceased to "sit in the seat of the scornful." No particle of doubt cleaves to him. His mind is the very focus of those burning illuminations which force from him the too late confession, that he rejected, while mortal, what he now knows, in bitterness, to be the cause of Heaven. An irresistible mandate which he only can hear, recals him, this instant, to his intolerable home. But the Deity charges him, before he depart from thee, to say, 'Take warning by his fate; repent and believe the gospel, or thou shalt certainly follow him, and in him experience an unpitying tormentor.'

2. There is, my brethren, a world, the character and the state of which open to our view a cheering contrast. Intercourse with one of its inhabitants, a sceptic may next assume, would be additionally convictive, would yield the full complement of evidence, and would, therefore, be more conducive to his conversion than the appearance and the appeal which we have been considering.

What if his second request were granted? As he wanders contemplative through a grove penetrated by "the moon walking in brightness," a graceful and august personage, no longer the mangled prey of death, advances towards him, and with winning tones and a mild aspect thus breaks the momentary silence,-' As soon as the pangs of death" were over, I quitted my humiliated body, and was

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hailed as a member of the church triumphant. There we are all delighted. Our adorable Head, through faith in whose words, righteousness, sacrifice, resurrection, intercession, and divine perfections, we were exalted thither, is more, and for us has done more, than our sublimest preconceptions had depicted. In our nature there is no sin, in our services no weariness, in our melodies no strains of woe, and in our pleasures no symptoms of dissolution or decline. We adore the once atoning Lamb, saying, “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests." It is from him that I bring a seasonable message unto thee. By his authority I rebuke thine unbelief, thine ingratitude, thy disobedience, thy love of the world, and thy neglect of his "great salvation." Yet am I permitted to speak of "the richness of his goodness," the warmth of his friendship, the aids of his spirit, the joys of immortality. Only flee for refuge to the hope set before thee; receive him in all his offices; confide in him; give him thy heart; be watchful; be "instant in prayer;" so shall my felicity prove the model of thine; my Father shall be thy Father, and my God shall be thy God.'

The attestations, my brethren, of two beings, one sunk in irretrievable wretchedness, the other a just man made perfect, would not be easily evaded or effaced. Many would expect from them, each at least in his own instance, the final adjustment of the great question between the church and the world, and the persevering adoption of Christianity in all its pure and consolatory influence.

A sceptic would attach the greater weight to the things so expressed, as forming a species of evidence selected and solicited by himself. Were the Supreme Disposer of all events,' he might say, 'the Being who would have me "come to the knowledge of the truth;" were he to indulge me by thus deviating from the ordinary style of his procedure, terrifying me by such an exhibition of justice, and encouraging me by such an exhibition of mercy, what reproaches must for ever sting me, if I either withheld my credit from the witnesses, or refused my heart to that cause for the vindication of which he condescended to employ them! O that I were put to the test! Disclosures so interesting, and so exactly responding to my importunity, would make it impossible for me to hesitate again. I would thenceforward embrace the gospel without reserve, and promote the cordial acceptance of it in every direction.'

II. Having developed what the sceptic desires, and having given it all the consideration, if not more than all, to which it seems

entitled, I would now expose its comparative weakness, by unfolding the diversified superiority of what satisfies the Christian-a superiority, be it remembered, which, decisive as it is, meets, in every unrenewed heart, with a resistance conquerable only by him "who is able to subdue all things unto himself." So true it is, that, "if any hear not Moses and the prophets," whose testimony is so much corroborated, and to whose instructions so many additions have been made, by Jesus Christ and his apostles, "neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

1. The accessible evidence surpasses the evidence required, as being more diffusive and permanent.

He whose case is represented in the parable, avows himself ready to admit the evidence arising out of the resurrection and address of a solitary individual; yet, probably, one case, so far from sufficing, would but whet the appetite for cases without number; and the reasonings meant to favour the first in the series would be accounted equally applicable to the last. For, why should this man, or the other, or any mere portion of the human race, think of engrossing what all besides may as justly covet as themselves? The desire of extraordinary events and manifestations is at once morbid, insatiable, and apt to spread. Its gratification, therefore, in a specified circle, might kindle feverish longings and sanguine hopes in every circle; and the experience of the living, as far as it should extend, might be urged as a plea for the repetition of the boon among the successive generations of those who are yet unborn. Thus miracles, hitherto wrought on none but peculiar emergencies, would be daily summoned to invade the course of nature; and while reviewing the antecedent ways of God, we and our descendants might be tempted to ask with impious surprise, 'Why did he not from the beginning habitually employ an expedient better calculated than any other to inform, assure, renovate, and comfort his ignorant, doubting, sinning, and suffering creatures?'

My brethren, let us turn from theory and from presumptuous dictation to the substantial and enduring evidence which pervades the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It recommends itself to the understanding and the conscience; it is capable of circulation every where; and its inextinguishable light is destined to shine, as the prophecies more and more explain and verify themselves in their accomplishment, with large accessions of splendour.

2. We have evidence which creates, when examined either in conjunction with miracles, or apart from them, a rational certainty. Superstition, the prolific parent of needless fears and unwarranted hopes, has, by the aid of imposture, or through the mere imbecility

of her slaves, impressed shapes on the eye of fancy, and sounds on her ear, which have had no real existence. Hence, moping melancholy,' hence enthusiastic raptures, hence delirious predictions. With what rigid caution would it be necessary to scrutinize the averments of a witness insisting on it, that he had seen one who had risen from the dead!

Even if there were no fraud and no mistake; if a spectre should, beyond a doubt, glide into our houses, or our sanctuaries, the consequent amazement and confusion might disqualify us for profiting by the interview. Preternatural phenomena tend to perplex our faculties, and to shatter our nervous system. They may annihilate the power to contradict; they may extort an acquiescence in the report of a witness; but the mind might be too much clouded and agitated, and the occasion might too quickly pass away, to allow the infusion of distinct ideas, and induce a spiritual change. All narratives bearing on such a subject require a combination of circumstances, in order to establish their validity. And here, slightly anticipating a line of arguments which it is proposed distinctly to resume, I would ask, What narratives were ever supported by circumstances more confirmatory than those which attended the narratives of the first christian preachers?

But, setting aside for the present, whatever of the miraculous the sceptic seeks and a Christian pleads, let us look at the case with the Scriptures in our hands. We may inquire of them as alleged witnesses from heaven, free from the embarrassment and consternation which might cause the rising of one from the dead rather to overwhelm our capacity for thinking than to extend and exalt it. We can also revert to the investigation both when alone and when advantageously associated; we can avail ourselves of times and circumstances favourable to the cool and clear exercise of reason; and hence, instead of being dazzled, we may expect to be soberly and satisfactorily argued into our ultimate conclusions.

3. The evidence on which believers, gratefully rely is so diversified and expanded, that it beams forth in the full array of instructions the most important, and appeals the most impressive ;-instructions and appeals for the effectual propagation of which it is adduced, and which of themselves intimate a divine origin.

We might be roused from a fit of indolence, our levity might be suspended, and our curiosity might be gratified by an apparition. But how long must that interview last, which would afford room for sufficiently enlarged communications and how often must it be repeated, that the treasure may, time after time, be deposited again