"should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, "to the glory of God the father."

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Such is now the glorious completion of that humble and pious life "which was once despised and rejected of men!" And such, my young friends, (whoever you may be,) is the final scene to which ye also are called. Ye are the children of the same Father; ye also are fellow workers in the same service, and the same "mind" which was in him may also be in you. In that Heaven to which he hath ascended, he now prepareth mansions "for those "that love him;" and "your labours and "tribulations, which are but for a moment,” may also be crowned, by his redeeming hand, "with an eternal weight of glory."

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"What then shall separate you from the "love," and from the imitation of Christ? "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecu "tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? God forbid!" for through all these, his triumphant step has passed before you, "and in all these things, ye "also may be more than conquerors, "through him that loved you."

SERMON VII.

ON THE EVIDENCE WHICH ARISES FROM THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL.

ST. MARK Xv. 39.

"And when the Centurion that stood over against Him, "saw these things, he said, truly this man was the Son "of God."

EVERY year, my brethren, to those of our communion, brings round the grateful season, when we commemorate the arrival of the Author of our Faith, and the Leader of our Salvation; and, in the progress of time, every year also brings forward to us the young of our congregations, who are entering upon the eventful stage of life, and taking upon them the obligations of that religion into which they were baptized.

In obedience to these affecting circumstances, it has been the usual practice of this place, to devote the season to some explanation of the nature and evidences of the Christian faith;-to select from the great mass of evidence, some of those familiar illustrations which may suit the apprehensions of the young or the busy,

and, by the prosecution of these subjects, to lead them on, (under the blessing of God,) to a right estimate of the majesty of that service in which they are to be engaged, when they celebrate the birth of the Saviour of the world.

Of this privilege I wish, in the present season, to avail myself, and, (surrounded as we are with the young, not only of our own families, but of those who, at a distance from their families, are assembled in this place to carry on the great business of their education,) to lay before you some views of the divine origin of the Gospel, which I trust may not be unsuited to the character of youth, and to the nature of the studies in which they are engaged.

In

attempting this, I am to entreat my young friends to consider me in no higher light than that of a Father who addresses the family whom he loves, and who wishes, while this grateful season is passing, to lay before them, in the simplest language, the progressive evidences of that religion, which he considers as their greatest and best possession. My elder friends will, I trust, listen not unwillingly to the views I am to present of that faith, of which they experience the value; and those among them who are parents, may perhaps find some subjects suggested to them, which they may perhaps think fit to prosecute in the education of their own children.

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When we hear of a religion descending to us from Heaven; and of one appearing upon earth invested with the lofty commission of revealing the Divine Will to men, the first question is, " Are the facts "ascertained? Was there in truth such a person? or is it the tradition only of dark "and credulous ages?" To this first question, the answer is completely satisfactory. The birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, are proved by the same evidence, and in the same manner, by which the existence and history of any other person is proved at the same distance of time. They are recorded by contemporary historians; they are acknowledged by all the enemies of his religion ;they have undergone a more severe examination; and they are now proved by a more complete accumulation of testimony, than any other events which have occurred at a similar distance in the history of man. Of all this, therefore, we have not only a sufficient evidence, but the same evidence which we uniformly receive in similar investigations.

The next question is, "Are the doctrines "which he taught faithfully transmitted to "us? Is the religion of the Gospel that “which he actually taught? or has it been 'changed or adulterated amid the tradi"tions of the ages which have succeeded?”

VOL. II.

8

To this second question, the answer is equally satisfactory. The religion of the Gospel has not been entrusted to the weakness of human tradition. It exists in a book which is coeval with the religion itself which it announces,-which has remained through every age, and amid all the varieties of subsequent opinion, as the great standard to which all have appealed, and which, from the first age of Christianity to the present, has been hallowed with a care, and preserved with a reverence, which substantiate to all men, not only its authenticity, but its purity. No work of man has ever been guarded with such jealousy, or spread abroad with such zeal, -or examined with such minute accuracy as the book of the New Testament;-and all the evidence, therefore, which satisfies us, with regard to writings of the same distance of time, applies with increased force to the book which contains the principles of our religion.

When we have arrived at these preliminary conclusions,-when we are satisfied. that the Author of Christianity existed, and that the book of the Gospel contains the precise religion which he taught, the next question is, "What is the peculiar nature

of this religion? In what respects does "it differ from the numerous religions "which have arisen among mankind? and