far otherwise.

Although enquiries concerning

truths of doctrine may be actively prosecuted by a few only, they exert a mighty power, in a thousand ways, upon the daily thoughts and practice of the bulk of mankind. The prevalent opinions concerning the first principles of religion and morality, tinge, through innumerable channels, the remotest streams of religious and moral teaching; and thus affect the spiritual welfare of millions of our fellow-christians. Those who employ themselves in the examination of such original principles and sources of truth, may therefore feel themselves entitled to utter the prayer of the faithful servant of old," O Lord God, I pray thee send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham-Behold, I stand here by the well.”

We stand here by the well. We here teach those who are to teach others; we here communicate those governing principles, which in a great degree guide and shape the course of intellectual activity in after-life. What is here imparted to those who repair to our fountains, is transmitted to the whole of our nation, by the various lines of communication which belong to our civil and spi

*Gen. xxiv. 12.

ritual condition-by the channels of our domestic and social life, of our literature, and of our ecclesiastical polity. Who among us can doubt that, in this way, we exercise a vast power, for good or for evil? Men may sometimes scoff at such influences; but what serious man can fail to see, that the doctrines to which we give our sanction here, must sway and have swayed the general bent of men's reasonings and convictions upon the most important points of moral and religious truth?

It cannot then be deemed improper, if, in this and the following discourses, we endeavour to ascertain, what view of the nature of moral and Christian duty is most conformable to the true constitution and condition of man.

The limits of this opportunity do not allow us to speak of a subject like this, in a full and systematic manner; nor, if they did, would such a procedure be here desirable. A few reflexions,

itself, or by the

suggested either by the matter words of Scripture, may tend, we trust, to throw some light, both on the doctrines which claim our acceptance, the reasons on which they rest, and the real value of the difficulties which may be urged against them.

With this view I have selected the portion of Scripture from which I have taken my text.

In this passage, St Paul reminds the Romans, that the invisible things, or properties of God, his eternal power and Godhead, have been clearly discoverable ever since the creation, being understood by the things that are made. These expressions, taken alone, might at first appear to turn our thoughts to the visible and material creation; and to those attributes of the Creator, his omnipotence, his immensity, and his wisdom, which such a prospect suggests. And if this were the true view of the case, the admonition might well fill and elevate our minds. For whose heart does not bound within him, when he looks abroad on all the magnificence of the world in which we are placed; the variegated earth and the boundless ocean ;-the daily splendour and nightly pomp of the sky; - the innumerable forms of beauty and life which unfold themselves to our gaze; and considers all these things, as works that display the hand of the Almighty, and witnesses that tell forth his glory!

But yet, a little reflexion will show us, that something more than this was in the Apostle's mind. It was not alone the power and skill of a divine artificer, which he held to be discoverable in the constitution of the created world, but the holiness of a divine lawgiver, the justice of

a divine judge. For his purpose, in the argument which the text conveys, was to show that the pretended teachers and sages of the world, up to the time of Christianity, "were without excuse," in the degrading representations of the deity which they devised, or at least countenanced. And the monstrous and abominable character of these perversions consisted in a denial of the goodness and purity and righteousness of the divine nature, far more than in a mere limitation of his power and wisdom. For this reason it is, that the Apostle declares them inexcusable ;—because, as he says in our text, the invisible attributes of God may be collected from the things that are made. He had, in the preceding verse, declared that "that which may be known of God was manifest among them, for that God had showed it unto them." But he adds (v. 21.) that “though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God;" and on this account he declares it was, that a penal darkness was spread upon their hearts, and they were given over to impure and vile affections. It was because, as our translators have expressed it, (v. 28.) "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," that "he gave them over to reprobate mind:" they did not conform their

standard of good and evil to their knowledge of God, (for so the metaphor may be rendered) and therefore God allowed them to set up in their minds a base standard, which overwhelmed them with a monstrous mass of vile and corrupt material.† "They knew," he urges (v. 32.), “the judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death;" although they did not cease, not only to do the same, but to "have pleasure in them that do them ;"-to acquiesce in them speculatively, and to accommodate their public professions to the worst propensities of man. And on this fault of theirs the Apostle founds his argument, that all mankind require a new means of light, and life, and salvation.

Thus it appears that St Paul, in this chapter, maintains that the heathen had the means of learning the righteousness of God; not only his power, but also his Godhead;—all those divine attributes and relations by which he is the governor and judge of the world, the enemy and condemner of moral evil. And this, the Apostle declares, be understood by the things that are made ;— may be learned from some part of that world which is God's workmanship.

may