part of that proof which shews the Bible to be the word of God.

In the views I have ventured to express, in reference to the momentous subject of Inspiration, I am fully aware that I have exposed myself to the criticisms of some of my friends, eminent for their piety and biblical erudition. But this I cannot help. I have gone where truth led me; and I verily believe, in the fullest sense, that the Scriptures are- -The word of God. Should any respectable individual, giving his name, do me the honour to controvert my views of verbal inspiration, I shall, if spared, endeavour to reply to his animadversions. But I will not allow myself to be dragged into the field of controversy by any one who treats this awful subject with irreverence. May all my readers be taught of God!

PART FIRST.

A PORTRAITURE OF MODERN SCEPTICISM.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

"THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EVES:"*-Such is the concluding sentence of a description which strips fallen humanity of all its boasted excellence; which shews, by a most convincing train of reasoning, that Jews and Gentiles are alike guilty before God; and which pictures, in vivid colours, the awful depravity into which men sink without the intervention and the vital reception of the Gospel of peace. As the whole race are involved in one common apostacy, there is only one remedy that meets their case, and that remedy is Christianity. Wherever this divine catholicon is embraced, it ultimately

* Romans, iii. 18.

B

effects the cure of man's moral distempers; it purifies his conscience from guilt, by an application of "the blood of sprinkling;" it purifies his heart by the operation of a living faith; and it purifies his life by the all-subduing influence of motives which animate him with the love of God, and with the quenchless desire of being conformed to his moral image. Wherever Christianity is rejected, man remains the victim of apostacy, the child of wrath, the sport of evil passions, and, in the truest sense," without God, and without hope in the world.”* Whether we survey a state of pure heathenism,† or contemplate a condition of society in which Christianity is rejected as a fable, we behold, in either case, a soil fertile in every species of wickedness that can insult the divine Majesty, or that can degrade and brutalize the human race. Could we conceive of a community wholly made up of men denying Revelation, and wholly imbued

Eph. ii. 12.

It may be fairly questioned, from the practices of all pagan countries, whether there be any people in a state of pure heathenism. Tradition seems every where to have spread some faint glimmerings of celestial light.

with the principles and feelings of modern deism, we should have presented before our minds a scene of moral turpitude and guilt, too fearful to admit of minute examination. In such a community, we should see every social tie dissolved, every virtuous obligation trampled upon, and all the savage passions of the human heart brought into resistless and destructive play. In the creed of an infidel there is nothing whatever to deter him from the basest actions, provided he can screen himself from the eye of public justice, and from the scorn and derision of his fellow men. He is a man altogether without principle, who denies the legitimate distinction between virtue and vice, who resolves all human motive into a principle of self-love, and who is an equal foe to the laws of Heaven, and to the wise and benevolent institutions of men. A powerful writer, and an acute observer of mankind, has said, that "modern unbelievers are Deists in theory, Pagans in inclination, and Atheists in practice."* They profess, indeed, to believe in one supreme and uncreated Intelli

* Rev. Andrew Fuller. See his Works, vol. i. page 178

gence, infinitely benevolent, and infinitely holy; but they neither cultivate his benevolence, nor imitate his purity; and as it respects prayer, and praise, and the homage of devout worship, they are as scornfully neglectful of them as if there were no God, and are practically in that state of total irreligion, which shews that verily "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Though they talk loudly of one God, and profess to pay him homage in the temple of nature, it is most clear that in escaping from the folly and absurdity of the "gods many and lords many"* of the heathen, they have plunged themselves into a state of reckless scepticism and doubt, which leaves every perfection of the Deity undefined, which utterly extinguishes his moral government, and which renders even the belief of his very existence a powerless and uninfluential admission.

By the aid of Revelation, indeed, they have wrought their way out of the Pantheon; but, standing in the full blaze of celestial discovery, they have set themselves to blaspheme “the

* 1 Cor. viii. 5.