work before our eyes. It is not an operation which took place merely in other times, and which is recorded by the pen of the ecclesiastical historian; but it is now going on. Look around you. See the Christian faith exerting its genuine virtue every day, just as the incumbent weight of hindrances is lightened. The symptoms of a general amendment in individuals, and the nations of the world, wherever Revelation is in force, are numerous and undoubted. The work of God not only began at the first dawn of Revelation, and received a new impulse at the promulgation of the gospel, but is still in progress in the present day. The spirit of Christianity is gaining more and more an ascendancy, in proportion as the known obstacles are lessened, and by that gradual process, in which, from the very nature of the means employed, the work must be expected to proceed.o For God puts in use, ordinarily, no other means than truth, persuasion, example, accompanied by the secret influences of grace. The progress of the work, therefore, will not only be gradual, but will be liable to temporary interruptions; so that at times it may seem not only to stand still, but even to go back, as often as particular circumstances in the affairs of men raise up extraordinary opposition to the doctrines or precepts of the gospel. But the progress upon the whole is undoubted. During the last thirty years, the virtue of Christianity has been making its way strenuously; it has undone the mischiefs of a declining religion, and of semi-infidelity in some countries; and has repaired the desolations of open unbelief in others. As these obstacles have been removed, it has diffused a revived sense of religion in the Old and the New World. It has circulated Bibles; sent forth missionaries; set in motion universal education; raised the tone of public sentiment; abolished many old unchristian practices; carried men on towards substantial happiness.

9 Horsley, Sermon xl.

Christianity is not an exhausted mine; its treasures are not impoverished-they are not even diminished by the lapse of ages: but, like some rich and extensive, though latent, bed of ore, it opens its wealth in proportion as the oppressive hindrances are cleared away; it presents new veins on every side according as it is explored, and retains all its power of rewarding most abundantly the toil of the workmen.

This conclusion is strengthened by considering that almost all the tendency of our religion ARISES FROM PRINCIPLES NEW TO MAN, which have worked themselves into confidence by the progress of time and the testimony of experience. The tendencies of reason, of virtue, of religion in its general acceptation, are indeed such as men might always have expected. We understand the grounds on which they are constantly making their way against the opposing impediments. But look at Christianity. Who amongst the wise of this world ever conceived that this new religion, the scoff of the Greek, and the object of contempt to the Jew, contained in it the principles of human happiness, the only vital seeds of individual and national improvement! Who at first conceived that supreme love to one almighty Creator; confession of guilt and depravity; renunciation of any desert of our own; reliance on the death of the Son of God, crucified as a malefactor; dependance on the agency of the Holy Spirit; humility, meekness, and love to our enemies; submission of the understanding to a Revelation, in many respects mysterious and incomprehensible; a predominant regard for the favour of God and the concerns of eternity;-who ever dreamed that these, and such-like principles, contained the germ of all felicity; when the very terms could not be understood without difficulty, and, when understood, conveyed ideas in open hostility with the intellectual habits of mankind? And yet it is by these principles, brought

10 Bishop J. Bird Sumner.

out into action, that Christianity has been achieving her triumphs; and achieving them just as the known obstacles, pride and prejudice, were overcome. The positive effects of Christianity, by means of such principles, are so many declarations of the great Governor of all in their favour." They prove that there attends Christianity something more than truth, and knowledge, and persuasion; that there is an operation of grace, secret to us, which goes along with it, and infuses into it a virtue and bias, which only requires scope for its development, to expand into the highest measure of individual and national happiness.

Nor is it a small consideration, in addition to what we have been observing, that Christianity has positively

FOREWARNED ITS DISCIPLES OF THE OBSTACLES

which would impede its progress, has suspended its ultimate success on a long series of intermediate struggles, and has especially marked out the eastern and western apostacies, and the power of the delusion accompanying them, as amongst its chief hindrances, permitted for the punishment of preceding unfaithfulness in professed Christian nations. What did our Lord forewarn his followers in every age to expect, but persecution, resistance, reproach, perverse disputations ? What are the histories of the seven Asiatic churches as sketched by the pen of inspiration? What is the apostacy of the latter days? What the mystic twelve hundred years of the church's depressed state, -but so many clues to the labyrinth in which we actually find ourselves? And what can prove a genuine tendency to human happiness, inserted in the very frame-work of our religion, if all these warnings do not evince it? For a system which has been working up against impediments in every age, and displaying its energy in proportion as they have been removed which is doing this now before our eyes, by means of principles which man never could have

11 Butler..

discovered—and which has foreseen and marked in its own records the opposing hindrances; must have received a divine impulse at first, and must be attended with a divine operation now, which give it the supernatural tendency which it displays towards the welfare

of man.

Let us then consider,

IV. THE ULTIMATE EFFECTS WHICH CHRISTIANITY WILL PRODUCE WHEN ALL OBSTACLES ARE REMOVED.

For if we argue, in the case of reason, of moral virtue, or of general religion, that their several tendencies would rush forth into full effects, if the known hindrances were taken away; surely we may infer in a like manner concerning Christianity, that, considering the end it originally aimed at, the obstacles against which it has worked, and its success under every variety of circumstances, in proportion as these impediments were removed-that, supposing these impediments all cleared away, it would break forth like a copious river, when the dam is withdrawn, and pour its rich and abundant blessings on the whole human race. This is the ultimate consummation which all prophecy foretells, towards which the prayers and aspirations of Christians have been in every age directed, and the tendency to produce which it has been the object of this Lecture to demonstrate. But sufficient time must be allowed for this development of the ultimate bearing of Christianity; and this according to its own scheme—that is, the trial must not be a partial one, but must have fair scope for its operation.

And here it is, that Christianity shines forth in its divine splendour. It is not, like the works of man, a brief, narrow, contiguous design-it is a scheme connected with all the ages of this world, and stretching over into eternity. We are at present in an incomplete course of things. We are in a system which is

only partially developed. We see already the strong tendencies of the religion; we see, as the hindrances are partially removed, its real power and influence on individuals and the affairs of the world. But we have never yet seen its full energy. It has never yet had the fair occasion for displaying all its innate virtue to bestow temporal and spiritual blessings. We must wait. How gradual is the plan of the Almighty may be gathered from the four thousand years occupied in making room and disposing the affairs of the world, for the establishment of the gospel. Slow and imperceptible in its progress, it is still going on. The real tendency of Christianity will at length be demonstrated, when, all intervening obstacles being removed, its promises shall become facts, and its buddings and springings a rich and fruitful harvest.

And it is not a little remarkable that all competent judges, including adversaries, admit, that if the Christian religion were acted upon by mankind, the result would be an unexampled degree of general happiness. Men of all characters, even unbelievers themselves, if we except a few of the very grossest; statesmen and legislators of all ages since the promulgation of the gospel; philosophers and moralists of almost every school, unite in their admissions of the excellent tendency of the Christian religion. Many of them are ignorant of its true principles, yet they allow, with one consent, its beneficial tendency upon states and kingdoms-they would have all men Christians from mere regard to the peace of the world; they admit that if mankind were under its practical guidance, the earth would present a scene of happiness, such as has never yet been witnessed nor conceived of.

Of any other religion, or pretended remedy for human evils, who that understands the question, would honestly wish for the universal diffusion, or would augur from that diffusion universal happiness? Who would wish all mankind Epicureans, Stoics, Jewish