Has the changed her weapons? Hear St. Stephen charged with speaking blafphe mous words against Moses and against God. Hear Paul and Silas accufed at Thyatira, as exceedingly troubling the city, and teaching unlawful cuftoms. When they had escaped to Theffalonica, hear them again accused as men who had turned the world upfide down. Behold St. Paul dragged before the judgement feat of the Governor of Corinth, on pretence that he perfuades men to worship God in a manner contrary to the law. Behold him afterwards profecuted before Felix as a peftilent fellow, and a mover of fedition throughout all the world. Examine his epiftles. Do not you read many incidental proofs, that the preachers and followers of Chrift had inceffantly to contend with malicious falfehood? Obferve him in one paffage defending himself and his brethren against the flanderous imputation of holding the abominable maxim, that it is lawful to do evil that good may come. Mark him in others defcribing them as defamed, as labouring under dishonour and evil report, as accounted deceivers, as made a gazing-stock by reproachers, as reproached for the fake of Chrift. Our Saviour had fore

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forewarned his disciples, that men should falfely speak all manner of evil concerning them for his fake. Contemplate the punctual accomplishment of the prophecy. The anxiety with which St. Paul and St. Peter admonish and enjoin their hearers to provide things honeft in the fight of all men. To walk honeftly in wifdom toward them that are without, towards the unbelieving Jews as well as Gentiles; to put to filence by well-doing, the ignorance of foolish men; to fhew themselves patterns of good works, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to fay of them; to maintain a good confcience, that whereas their enemies fpeak evil of them as of evil doers, all may be afhamed who falfely accuse their good converfation in Chrift. Do not these earneft, these reiterated admonitions and injunctions exempt the Apoftles from all fufpicion of wilfully provoking the tongue of calumny? Do not they evince decided folicitude, by patience and meeknefs, and the light of an irreproachable life, to guard Christianity from obloquy, and by the manifeftation of the fruits of the fpirit, to lead men to glorify their Father who is in heaven through faith in the Lord Jesus? Perufe

Perufe the records of the early ages of the Church. You discover that there is scarcely any crime, however enormous, however improbable, with which the Chriftians are not charged by their enemies. Purfue the enquiry lower. You difcern, whenever any Chriftians have diftinguifhed themfelves by oppofition to prevailing corruptions, and by earneftness in genuine religion; an undeniable propensity in others to blacken their characters by mifreprefentation and reproach. Now what has been the main fource of that hatred to Chrift and his followers, which has never ceafed to vent itfelf, among other methods, in flander? Hatred to the doctrine of Chrift: hatred to that felf-abftinence which it inculcates : hatred to that holinefs which it exacts. They who love darkness rather than light hate him who molefts them in their darkness, because they abominate the light by which their deeds would be reproved. They who fupinely flumber on the couch of fecurity endure not the man who disturbs them with warnings of the neceffity of that exertion which they abhor. They who have sheathed themselves in felf-righteousness deteft the man who ftrips them of the armour wherein they truft, and fhames them

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them with the humiliating conviction of their nakednefs. Hence it is that the votaries of iniquity calumniate not only the fervants of religion, but religion itself. Sometimes, like the Jews who denominated John the Baptift a morofe fanatic, they describe the restraints which Christianity imposes on the evil inclinations of men as a yoke of intolerable bondage. They declaim against the Gospel as a system of hardship and rigour; as making no allowance for human infirmities; as prohibiting the indulgence of innocent defires, and the enjoyment of the ease and confolations of focial life. If they are not thus open in their cenfures, they betray their fecret thoughts by invectives against every one who delineates the corruption of human nature, the guilt and confequences of fin, and the import and extent of human duty, faithfully and zealously according to the Scriptures and by their own representations of religion as neither unfolding those views of the depravity and helplessness of man, nor urging thofe demands of conftant watchfulness and ftedfast purity, which the persons whom they deride as righteous overmuch discover in every page of the Word of God. At other times, as

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the enemies of Chrift reviled him as addicted to finful indulgences, they mifreprefent fome of the leading doctrines of the Gospel as virtually affording encouragement to immorality: and with fingular eagerness fet themselves in array against the fundamental principle that man is to be juftified in no respect or degree by works of his own, but entirely by faith in Christ, as though it rendered good works unneceffary, and fubverted and swept away the ground-work of holiness. It is thus that, by multifarious and contradictory flanders, wicked men labour to render true religion abfurd, contemptible, and odious, in order to provide an apology for their own difobedience and unbelief. If you difcover in your own bofom thofe difpofitions, which you perceive to have always prevailed in the breasts of the wicked; are you not conftrained to infer that your mind exhibits a fubftantial resemblance to theirs? If you difcern a lurking inclination to be diffatisfied with the doctrines and precepts of the Bible; if you detect a fecret pleasure in raifing or hearing objections against parts of the Scriptures; if you perceive yourself gladly fnatching at pretexts for depreciating the principles and cenfuring