more reason to believe that there is no cause, than you have to believe that there is a cause which no stretch of imagination can reach.

What argument could more forcibly illustrate the importance of the circulation of an opinion which mathematics demonstrate to be a fact, that spirit and matter are coexistent, and that matter is eternal, than the atheists' conclusion from an assumed and generally received premises? Every friend to humanity, and believer in a God, should disseminate the truth I have been advocating, as far as his influence extends, to satisfy the atheistical logician and mathematician, that the Deity is not merely a supposed being we have been speculating upon, and that it is not a principle we believe in without being able to reason upon, but that there is reason to believe, from analogy, that we have a Maker, and that as every thing we see did not proceed from Him, but that he formed the universe from materials which were coeval with himself,

which He could arrange, but not destroy, the atheists' boasted argument of adaptation ceases (as it would be as absurd to say, that, because man made a steam-engine, a steam-engine could make a man). And in looking up to the Deity, as the great and good intelligence, and architect of the universe, we view Him as the interminable lengthening of a line, of which the intelligence and power of man may be considered merely as a point.

The bigot rivals, if not exceeds the atheist in absurdity. ("Extremes meet.") He looks upon every idea, that has the tendency to alter the prejudices of his education, as the enemy of God and man, and combats with it, not by argument, but by declamation, and, when he dare, with persecution. If the atheist may be treacherous from want of a stay for principle, the bigot is always in some degree bloody. He considers his opinions as the laws of God. He tortures his opponents to retrieve their errors, and condemns them in his thoughts

to eternal perdition, when he has not the power to extend his "tender mercies" for their salvation, by pains and penalties.

In the view I have taken of creation, the immortality of the soul, the justice, mercy, and goodness of God, the necessity of religion for man's comfort and happiness, and the reasonableness of a just and benevolent father revealing to his children the mode of procuring terrestial happiness and heaven, we can appreciate the forms and ceremonies of the Jews as necessary to perpetuate the belief of one living and true God among a barbarous and idolatrous people. We can perceive the Christian scheme breaking through the clouds of mystery and error with which the popular idea of creation had it enveloped. We can see and account for the necessity of the mission of Christ, to enlighten the path to happiness and immortality. We can feel love and gratitude towards Him in descending from heaven, as metaphor expresses it, in the shape of a dove, to do that for us on earth which

could not have been done for us in heaven. For if he had not publicly} died and risen again, His benevolent doctrines would never have been taught by his disciples, much less would they have sacrificed their lives in support of them. We can see the necessity there is for our co-operating with the spirit of God, in order to attain present felicity and eternal life. We see there is SOMETHING in ourselves which must be brought into obedience to the will of God. We can also conceive what has been considered inconceivable, and which language by attempting to express in one word, TRINITY, (which is not in scripture,) has rendered unreasonable and mysterious, and which has made religion depend upon a prostration of the human mind, and produced more infidelity, than all the writings of all the infidels that ever lived. We can view our Saviour as an EMANATION from the FATHER, pure, unsullied, and incorruptible as the source from whence He sprung, and that when on earth he was

clothed with human flesh. And the Holy Spirit we can consider as the spirit of the Father acting under the mediation and influence of our Saviour. In short, we can appreciate the religion of Christ, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself." "And this do

and thou shalt live."*

* Luke x. 27, 28, &c; and Matt. xxii. 27.

The following texts, taken collectively, will justify this opinion. St. John i. 1-4, 18, 45; x. 11, 29, 30, 34, &c.; xii. 49; xiv. 28; xv. 26; xvi. 28; xvii. 35, 38: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, aud the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

"No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

"Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, we have found him of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write; Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph.

"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

My Father which gave them me is greater than all,