such a thing as a Revelation from the great God, comprising such amazing discoveries as the gospel, affecting such all-important interests, promising such mighty aids of the Holy Spirit, laying down such grounds of faith and love and hope in Christ Jesus, delivering man from such complicated misery, and exalting him to such heights of holy peace and joy-it is most reasonable, that there should be such a thing as perceiving the excellency and glory of it, as feeling its efficacy, as having an inward witness of its fulfilment and operations in our own breasts. There is nothing to astonish us in such effects-the matter of astonishment would be, if Christianity did not assert, and Christians did not experience, them.

But we remark, also, that it is NO ARGU

MENT THAT THESE THINGS CANNOT BE, BECAUSE SOME HAVE NEVER FELT THEM. Nothing upon earth can be more unreasonable than to make my experience the standard of all that has occurred, or can occur to others, on such a subject as practical religion. No doubt multitudes, who profess Christianity and pass as Christians, have never experienced these peculiar effects of the gospel, just as there are multitudes who call themselves admirers of the works of nature, who have never made the ex

periments, nor gone through the investigations, which the philosopher has done. They may be discerning men in other matters; but they are no judges of a philosophical question, nor can they ever become such, unless they will either receive the facts of the case upon credible testimony, or go through the course of experiments for themselves.

An astonishing result in chemistry is reported to me. I know nothing of chemistry—I have not read much on the subject-the facts strike me as incredible-I neither examine the writings of the great chemists of the day, and receive their united and well-ascertained testimony; nor do I enter on the business of the laboratory myself-or, if I do, it is without preparation or any knowledge of the elements of the science, and I fail; and yet I refuse to believe the facts, and calumniate and despise those who do, however carefully they have examined and verified them.

Such is the unreasonable conduct of those who reject the doctrine of the inward witness. of Christianity, because they have never felt it themselves. The truth is, they may never have been in a situation to judge of it. They may never have had any religious earnestness; have never applied their minds to the gospel; have never searched the contents of the Revelation. They rashly conclude, indeed, that

what they do not themselves perceive and feel, no one else perceives and feels; that what they have never experienced, is not necessary, not important, not reasonable. And yet what proof is this that other men, with another preparation of mind, and other previous tastes, and a different way of going about things, may not discover that inward excellency, and feel those sacred comforts which these men contemn? If there be a book of God, we may well suppose that the distinguishing glories of its discoveries would be of such a kind as that the corruption and self-confidence of the human heart would be incapable of perceiving them.' The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. There must be the faculty, as well as the object. The natural man must be taught to renounce his wisdom, his alienation from God, his pride, and self-consequence, and he must enter the kingdom of heaven as a little child, or he never will receive those distinguishing truths, nor feel those peculiar blessings, which are spiritually discerned. The conclusions of such a person against the experience of religion, are like the conclusions of a

'J. Edwards, to whom this Lecture is throughout greatly indebted.

21 Cor. xi. 14.

blind man against the beauties of the heavens, or the glories of the rainbow; they are prejudices, not reasons; and they leave our grand position in all its incontrovertible force,—that there is an inward testimony to Christianity, which is supported by the authority of sacred Scripture, confirmed by innumerable witnesses, and lying open to the examination of every humble student; by which the excellency and force of the Christian doctrine may be known from its holy consolations in the heart, in addition to the conviction produced by mere arguments, or the dictates of natural conscience.

But we pass on to consider,

IV. THE SINGULAR IMPORTANCE OF THE PROOF THUS EDUCED.

1. It is the only proof that is ENTIRELY LEVEL to the vast mass of mankind. The other proofs, indeed, are, in a certain degree, level to the common sense of man. The case made out from the miracles, the prophecies, &c. is such as strikes, upon the whole, the conscience. But then it is impossible for the great body of persons to understand fully and adequately the grounds on which the case rests. They take the facts, as it is quite reasonable they should take them, and as they take the facts in medicine, juris

prudence, public statutes, &c. upon what they are told is the concurrent testimony of a vast number of men in different ages and nations, who are known to be competent for deciding.

With regard to the internal evidence, the bulk of mankind are far better capable of judging for themselves, than in the case of the external. The morals especially, and the example of our Lord, are level to every capacity in their chief features; at the same time, as they stand connected with the history of Christianity and its doctrines, they involve matter requiring considerable reflection, and much thought.

But the argument from experience has that sort of force, which strikes an unlettered and plain mind at once. Unless men can come to the knowledge of the truth of the gospel by its own intrinsic light and excellency, and its holy effects upon them, it is impossible for them to have any thorough and adequate conviction at all. Except the arguments from the morals and the example of Christ, (which may be considered as a part of this, in which it centres, and comes to its rest,) they cannot have a clear and satisfying conviction. They may see, indeed, a great probability; it may be reasonable for them to give credit to what learned men tell them, (and under the circumstances it is most