God to relieve the miseries of men should bear a proportion to the causes which produced it. From the doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission follows the necessity of the Spirit of God: because it would have been impossible for men to have discovered by their own speculations the way of salvation, unless they had been assisted by a supernatural revelation, according to that saying, "Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, God hath revealed unto us by his spirit," 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. From the doctrines of the mission of the Son of God, and of the gift of the Holy Spirit, follows this most comfortable truth, that we are the objects of the love of God, even of love the most vehement and sincere that can be imagined: for "God commended his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Rom. v. 8. And, as we are objects of that love which God hath commended to us in his Son, it follows, that no bounds can be set to our happiness, that there is no treasure too rich in the mines of the blessed God, no duration too long in eternity, no communion with the Creator too close, too intimate, too tender, which we have not a right to expect ; according to that comfortable, that extatic maxim of St. Paul; God, who "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Rom. viii. 32.

This is a chain of some truths of the gospel. We do not say that it might not be lengthened; we do not pretend to have given a complete system of the

doctrines of the gospel; we only say that the doctrines proposed are closely connected, and that one produceth another in a system of speculative gospel truths.

In like manner, there is a connection between practical truths. The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths, and each practical truth is connected with another practical truth.

The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths. As soon as ever we are convinced of the truth of the doctrines just now mentioned, we shall be thereby convinced that we are under an indispensible necessity to devote ourselves to holiness. People, who draw consequences from our doctrines injurious to morality, fall into the most gross and palpable of all contradictions. The single doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission naturally produceth the necessity of sanctification. Ye believe that the love of holiness is so essential to God, that rather than pardon criminals without punishing their crimes, he hath punished his own Son. And can ye believe that the God to whom holiness is so essential, will bear with you while ye make no efforts to be holy? Do not ye see that in this supposition ye imagine a contradictory God, or rather, that ye contradict yourselves? In the first supposition, ye conceive a God to whom sin is infinitely odious: in the second, ye conceive a God to whom sin is infinitely tolerable. In the first supposition, ye conceive a God, who, by the holiness of his nature,

exacts a satisfaction: in the second, ye conceive a God, who, by the indifference of his nature, loves the sinner while he derives no motives from the satisfaction to forsake his sin. In the first supposition, ye imagine a God who opposeth the strongest barriers against vice: in the second, ye imagine a God who removeth every obstacle to vice: nothing being more likely to confirm men in sin than an imagination, that, to what length soever they go, they may always find, in the sacrifice of the Son of God, an infallible way of avoiding the punishment due to their sin, whenever they shall have recourse to that sacrifice. Were it necessary to enlarge this article, and to take one doctrine after another, you would see that every doctrine of religion proves what we have advanced concerning the natural connection of religious speculative truths with truths of practice.

All

But, if practical truths of religion are connected with speculative truths, each of the truths of practice is also closely connected with another. virtues mutually support each other, and there is no invalidating one part of our morality, without, on that very account, invalidating the whole.

In our treatises of morality, we have usually assigned three objects to our virtues. The first of these objects is God: the second is our neighbor: and the third ourselves. St. Paul is the author of this division. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men; teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this

present world," Titus ii. 11, 12. But all these are connected together: for we cannot live godly without living at the same time righteously and soberly: because to live godly is to perform what religion appoints, and to take that perfect Being for our example to whom religion conducts and unites us. Now to live as religion appoints, and to take that perfect Being for our pattern to whom religion conducts and unites us, is to live righteously with our neighbour, and soberly with ourselves. Strictly speaking, we have not one virtue unless we have all virtues; nor are we free from one vice unless we be free from all vices: we are not truly charitable unless we be truly just, nor are we truly just unless we be truly charitable: we are not truly liberal but as we avoid profuseness, nor are we truly frugal but as we avoid avarice. As I said before, all virtues naturally follow one another, and afford each other a mutual support.

Such is the chain of religious truths: such is the connection, not only of each truth of speculation with another truth of speculation, but of speculative truths with the truths of practice. There is then a concatenation, an harmony, a connection in the truths of religion: there is a system, a body of doctrine in the gospel. This is the article that we proposed to prove.

But, a religion in which there is such a chain, such an harmony and connection; a body of doctrine so systematically compacted and united ought not to be taken by bits and parts.

To illustrate this we may compare spiritual with natural things. The more art and ingenuity there is in a machine composed of diverse wheels, the more necessary it is to consider it in its whole, and in all its arrangements, and the more does its beauty escape our observation when we confine our attention to a single wheel: because the more art there is in a machine the more essential is the minutest part to its perfection. Now deprive a machine of an essential part and you deface and destroy it.

Apply this to spiritual things. In a compact system, in a coherent body of doctrine, there is nothing useless, nothing which ought not to occupy the very place that the genius who composed the whole hath given it. What will become of religion if ye consider any of its doctrines separately? What becomes of religion if ye consider the holiness of God without his justice, or his justice without his mercy?

II. Let us then proceed to enquire why so many of us confine ourselves to a small number of religious truths, and incapacitate ourselves for examining the whole system. The fact is too certain. Hence, our preachers seem to lead us in obscure paths, and to lose us in abstract speculations, when they treat of some of the attributes of God, such as his faithfulness, his love of order, his regard for his intelligent creatures. It is owing to this that we are, in some sense, well acquainted with some truths of religion, while we remain entirely ignorant of others, which are equally plain, and equally important. Hence it is that the greatest part of