we close our eyes against the notion, either of a Providence, or of a Revelation. Not that we consider this Providence, or Revelation, so unworthy of God, as of ourselves. Nor is it to a revelation only of the will, but to a demonstration even of the attributes of God, that such men object, as totally unrequired. The creature would disown the Creator; man would be independent upon God.

And, yet, though independent on God, he cannot be independent on his fellow-creatures. How to the most proud and haughty spirit among us, does the experience of common life, and the deductions of his very reason, speak in the awful words of Revelation to his soul. "Thou sayest, I am "rich, and increased with goods, and have need "of nothing-and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and "naked *."

And this is a voice, which, while it speaks in truth, is heard with terror. When the dreams of a man's

proud youth are past, when the season of his gaiety and spirit are fled, when all the sad realities of life croud in upon him, then it is that he sees how frail and how helpless a being he is; how all the visions of his fancy have vanished, how full of disappoint ment is the past; how dark, yet how alarming is the future; then it is that the disease has worked its re

Rev. iii. 17.

medy, and pride has contributed to its own fall. In such a temper of mind the Gospel is often received; less, perhaps, from any particular argument in its favour, than from its general tendency to give satisfaction and comfort, when every other source has utterly failed.

Happy, indeed, it is for a man, when the disease shall have taken so providential a turn. There may be a fascinating elevation in the first draught of infidelity, but the dregs are spiritless and bitter. There are a few cases, and we hope that they are but few, where the same pride of human independence and talent, which in the season of youth generated insolence and conceit, in the decline of age has sunk into spleen, disappointment, and misery. Doubts and fears succeed each other in dreary and desperate succession. Peevish irritation, ill concealed under the cloak of affected philosophy, too surely mark an arrogant and a visionary independence, wounded by approaching reality. A stronger practical argument for the Gospel could not be adduced, than the chamber of an aged and a sinking Sceptic.

The mind cannot be more effectually prepared for the reception of the Gospel, than by placing all human events before it in their real light, and man on his proper level. Could the proud and independent Sceptic be once induced to view himself, and all around him, in the colours which they must soon put on, and to estimate all that this world can af

ford, according to its just value, his mind would be soon subdued into a manly and an effective belief; and reason, which is now exalted as the enemy of Revelation, would then become its brightest ornament, and its surest ally.

CHAPTER III.

Intellectual Causes of Scepticism-Ignorance-Insufficiency of all Human Knowledge.

THE first and by far the most common cause of Scepticism, as far as the understanding is concerned, is IGNORANCE. Of those who reject Revelation, and with it the great doctrines of natural religion, which Revelation both clears and confirms, few, very few, have ever troubled themselves to form any acquaintance with the real merits of a question, upon which they so peremptorily decide. The nature of evidence in general, the particular testimony upon which the Gospel is proposed, are points to which their enquiries have never been directed. Of those who dispute the Divine authority of the Scriptures, not one in a thousand have ever read through the volume which they condemn. Much less have they traced the origin, order, and succession of its parts, enquired into the different circumstances under which each was written, compared them with the records of antiquity which we derive from other

sources, or in short expended even the slightest care and diligence upon a matter of so much concern.

In every stage of Scepticism, there is a very suspicious facility. In other enquiries, the road even to the simplest truth, though direct, is steep and rugged, and the first sign of our having quitted the path, is the easiness of the ground on which we wander. Can we suppose, that religious truth is situated on an eminence less difficult, or that the ascent is less arduous? The Sun of Righteousness, like the luminary in the heavens, is the fountain of light and heat, even to the meanest of the creation; but it is not, therefore, the less long or the less laborious task to investigate the laws under which its rays are transmitted, or to understand the phænomena attending their transmission.

Whatever then may be the termination of the enquiry, even from the very nature and extent of the subject, the discussion must be patient. Now how different is this method of proceeding, from the thoughtless rapidity of Sceptical rejection. A young man of education and talents moderately good, is unfortunately introduced into a society, in which he hears the authority of religion disputed, and its sanctions disregarded. An infidel book is, perhaps, placed in his hands, in which he finds a few plausible arguments advanced against a system, which he has hitherto considered as impregnable. The very novelty arrests his attention, and every objection startles him the more as he feels his inability to