and in receiving adulation. A perfon acquainted with the ordinary pursuits of men on earth, if he have but a poetic fancy, may easily, as to ideas at leaft, rival the defcription. Their fate of mifery is better conceived, but it is minute and low.

Mahomet, who knew fomethig of the New Teftament, thinking perhaps to improve upon it, and to give a more afiecting view, has prefented us with his ideas of a future world. He indeed gratifies curiofity; but his minute cefcriptions are difgufting in the extreme. His fate of rewards allures every fenfe, and every appetite: it is the happiness of an epicure and a wanton. His ftate of mifery fills the foul with loathing and horror: it is the coarse imagination of an Arab, who had feen and thought of the most brutal cruelty.

Modern Deifts have been rather afraid of the fubject. A few of them have spoken of death as the close of human existence. But there is fomething in this fo degrading, and at the fame time fo irrational, that we can scarcely account for their fentiments in any other way, but by fuppofing that they are afraid of a world of retribution. Others, nay most of them, allow there is fuch a state; but they lay nothing concerning it, which can afford fatisfaction to an inquiring mind. There is happiness to the good; and fome will add, there is mifery to the wicked: But in what the happiness or the mifery confifts, where is the Deift who has ventured to describe? They seem not at home, when a future ftate is the theme of difcourfe: we are left al. together in the dark. Their defcription has no fubftance: it is a fleeting fhade which eludes our grafp. The pagan Elyfium and Tartarus have a body; but they are too grofs for reafon to endure for a fingle moment; we are only introduced to the

Olympic games, and Dionyfius's dungeon. Mahomet's defcription has a body too: but his paradife is an eastern feraglio; and his hell the office of the Spanish Inquifition. Nature is overpowered, and finks beneath the oppreffion of the torture. On taking the New Testament into our hands, what a different fcene is prefented to our view. We are no longer left to grope in the darkness of deifm; nor difgufted and fhocked with the unfeemly particularity of the others. The happiness of the difciples of Jefus is defcribed by images natural, innocent, and moft lovely: and there is always an intimation that they are but images, and are defigned to reprefent to us a ftate of felicity, confisting in perfect knowledge and perfect holinefs; a felicity arifing from conformity to God, and a full fruition of him, and from the fociety of perfectly wife and holy beings. The mifery is defcribed by compar fons from natural objects, which are exceedingly awful; and which, without racking the feelings like the Koran, fill the heart with falutary terror. At the fame time information is plainly conveyed, that the mifery in a great measure confifts in evils difpofitions and paffions, in remorse and defpair, and in the difpleasure of a juftly offended God. The fuperiority of the New Teftament on this moft difficult of fubjects, must be obvious to every reader. Let him fairly afcertain the cause.

There is a peculiarity belonging to the manner in which this fubject is treated, that merits attention. When men write on a future ftate, they are apt to throw the reins upon the neck of fancy. With the exception of the modern Deifts, this has always been the cafe. Hence the defcriptions are minute

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to tediousness. They know not where to stop; and the author's exuberant fancy is difplayed at the expence of his judgement. But we do not find this in the apostles of Chrift. There is a dignified referve. When they have advanced to a certain Imit, a veil is thrown over the reft. If, in one or two of them, this had fprung from a spirit of cautious fagacity, is it not probable that the others would have gone further? Might not one, at least, of a more adventurous foul, and more luxuriant fancy than his fellows, have given a lofe to his imagination, on this alluring theme? This might be the more naturally expected, as fome never faw the writings of the others, and therefore could have no monitor or pattern to regulate their fteps. The remark acquires additional force, if we extend it to the writers of the Old Teftament, to whom it is equally applicable. How fhall we account for it? Was there not a divine hand guiding the pen?

SECTION VII.

The Motives propofed by the Gospel.

FROM its doctrines, precepts, and discoveries of a future ftate, the New Teftament appears to be no common book. The motives it prefents, though partly included in thefe, may yet be confidered as diftinct, and in a peculiar point of view. If the matter be duly examined, it will not be looked upon as a rash affertion; that it is impoffible to conceive ftronger motives to deter from evil, and influence to good, and confequently to banish mifery and produce happiness, than thofe which the gofpel fets before our eyes. Here every spring of

action in the human heart is put in motion: Hope, fear, love, hatred, defire, averfion, gratitude, is addreffed: not a chord in the heart is left untouched. Diversity in motives is of effential benefit.

Is the fear of evil known and felt to be a powerful principle in the foul? Chrift and his apoftles reveal from heaven the wrath of God against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of man; and enumerate the many and bitter miferies which tread on the heels of tranfgreffion, in a prefent life. But a future world is the ftate of retribution; and we are taught by him, who will fit on the tribunal at the day of judgement, " that the wicked fhall go away into everlasting punishment, where there fhall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." Could fear fuggeft a confideration more powerful, for reftraining those strong propensities to evil which are in the human heart?

But motives of a different kind are more fully, and frequently infifted on. Christianity is not the religion of a flave. It does not debafe the mind with terror. It is a noble and generous fyftem; and abounds with motives of love, and promises of bleffings, and the hopes of glory. Here we are entering on a moft extenfive field; but we must pass through it in hafte: yet we may enjoy fomething of the delightful profpect as we advance. The Supreme Being defcribes himself by one word, which contains volumes of ideas: GOD IS LOVE. Infinite mercy to the guilty and the miserable, meets our eye in every page. The boundless compaffion and grace of the Lord Jefus, who came into the world to feek and to fave that which was loft, even the chief of finners; and his inconceivable affection for his difciples, are a frequent and delightful theme.

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The power of the facred Spirit, and his

enlightening, fanctifying, and comforting influences, are often prefented to the mind. God's paternal care of his people, his guidance, his fupport, his prefence, his confolations in affliction, and his more than a father's regard and fympathy at the hour of death, are expreffed in language never ufed in any other book. In addition to all these, the eternal world is unveiled before our eyes; and we are called to behold a state of the nobleft and pureft felicity, continuing and increafing through all eternity.

Such are the motives of the gospel; all tending to promote faith, holiness, and refignation to the divine will, and to make men like God. Stronger cannot be adduced. But how came these fishermen and tent-makers and publicans, to exhaust the mine? Look at the motives of ancient and modern paganism, which the votaries of Jupiter, of Brahma, and of Fc, have held up to the view of their worshippers! Reafon blufhes at the fight, and is afhamed to draw a comparison. If Mahomet could not but perceive the ftrength of the motives from a future ftate of rewards and punishments, he has funk them from spirit to flesh and many of those sweet, tender, and infinuating ones, which spring out of the love of God, and the compaffion of the Mediator, he has entirely left out. Well informed Deifts will own, that their writers feem far more zealous in exclaiming against superstition, than in urging the motives to the practice of natural religion, which even natural religion affords: but these are unfpeakably inferior in number, ftrength, and clearness to those of christianity.