STCTION II. 601 the only appointed Saviour, are known, and despised andneg- lected. It is the gospel alone that is the power of God to salva- tion. 1f the prophets will not stand in his counsel, nor cause the people to hear his words, they will never be able to turn Israel /row the iniquity of their ways, nor the evil of their do- 'ings; Jer. xxiii. 22. Perhaps it may be said in opposition to this advice, that the peculiar doctrines and discoveries of the gospel of Christ, were necessary to be published in a more large and particular man- ner, at the first institution of our religion, and to be insisted upon with greater frequency among the Jews, and especially among the Gentiles, who before were unacquainted with the naine, the history and the several offices. of the blessed .Jesus: but there is no such need of repeating them in ebristian countries, where people are trkined up from their infancy to know Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour of the world: and there- fore it is more needful in our land to preach upon the natural duties of piety towards God, of justice and truth and goodness toward our neighbour, and seh'-government and sobriety with regard to ourselves. And this may be doue. with good success among the people, upon the plain principles and motives which arise from the very nature of things, from the beauty and ex- cellency of virtue, and its tendency to make all men happy, and the natural deformity of vice, and the mischiefs that attend it. But give me leave to answer this objection with these three or four enquiries : First, Was -it not the special design of these doctrines of Christ, when they were first graciously communicated to the world, to reform the vices.of mankind which reason could not reform, and to restore the world to piety and virtue, for which the powers of reason appeared so feeble and impotent ? The nations of the earth had made long and fruitless essays, what -the light of nature and philosophy would do, to bring wander- ing degenerate man back again to his Maker.: fruitless and long essays indeed, when after some thousands of years the world, who had forgotten their Maker and his laws, -still run further from God, and plunged themselves into all abontinableimpieties and corrupt practices ! Now if the all-wise God saw the gospel of Christ, to be so fit and happy an instrument, for the recovery ". of wretched man to religion and morality ; if he furnished his apostles with these doctrines for this very purpose, and pro- nounced a blessing upon them as his own appointment, why shouldwe not suppose, that this gospel is still as fit in its own na- ture for the same purposes as it was at first ? And why may we not hope, the same heavenly blessing in a great measure to re- main upon it, for these purposes, to the end of the world ? While we iutroduee these divine topics, drawn from the gospel
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=