The mind of man perceives that the eternity of time is a necessary truth, the reverse of which is absurd and impossible. Though it cannot fathom eternity, it must entertain it. It is not clearer that there is time now, than that time never had a beginning. O eternity, thou irresistible, yet most inconceivable thought! Thy existence is as clear as the light of heaven, thy nature is as dark as chaos. The mind of man can neither throw thee off nor bear thy weight.

And space, where are thy limits? That which bounds the greatest conceivable extension is space; when our imagination has travelled to the utmost bounds of its conception, space lies on the other side, and is then only beginning. No man can set bounds to space in his own mind. That it is immense is as clear as that it has the smallest expansion. The mind is convinced as fully, that there is space without end, as that there is space between the eye and the horizon. Yet who can comprehend boundless space? Who can think of extension that never comes to an end? We can conceive the existence of worlds, and of extension beyond all the powers of calculation, but still the mind must have some place to stop. It wistfully looks out for a resting place, but like the dove from the ark, it can find none. There is space beyond its utmost conceptions.

Vain man, when thou canst not fathom things that thou seest not, yet admit, why wilt thou cavil with any thing in the revealed account of the divine character? Wilt thou never cease to be a fool, by a desire to show thy wisdom. Puny intellect, thou wilt receive nothing that thou canst not comprehend, yet there is nothing in the divine character, that is not above thy feeble comprehension! -Let the Christian learn in all things to submit implicitly to what God teaches. Let him not vainly as well as impiously try to explain what is inexplicable to That God says so, should satisfy the believer.

man.

THE

TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL

DEMONSTRATED FROM

THE CHARACTER OF GOD

MANIFESTED IN THE ATONEMENT.

IN A

LETTER TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE.

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil." JESUS.

"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."-PAUL.

"Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word." JESUS.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

If the truth of the gospel is evident from a consideration of the attributes of God, manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a thing of the utmost importance. It places the evidence of Christianity upon ground higher than even Christians themselves have generally dared to rest it. It invests it not only with the highest kind of what has been called moral certainty, but ranks it among self-evident truths. Christianity stands upon prophecy, upon the most unimpeachable testimony, upon the most stupendous miracles. But, distinguished from every other truth not discoverable by the light of nature, it stands also on the ground of its own intrinsic evidence. It is at once a self-evident truth and a revelation. The

very impossibility of its being discovered by the light of nature, is self-evidence of its truth.

The truth of the Scriptures has often been proved from their internal evidence, in the most triumphant manner. An examination of this kind will afford an accumulation of evidence, to which there will be no end; and will afford increased satisfaction in every step of the progress. This may be called a kind of self-evidence. But my argument is not of this kind. It respects solely the view of the character of God; and from the nature and harmony of the divine attributes, professes to demonstrate the truth of the gospel. Without reference to any external source of evidence, I maintain that a true perception of the gospel, will afford self-evidence of its truth. There is not a demonstration in Euclid's Elements clearer to my mind, than the truth of the gospel, independently of all external proof. Christianity, as appears to me, claims attention, not only as resting on moral evidence-evidence that in all other things is accounted sufficient, though of a different kind from that on which the sciences rest; but also as resting on that kind of evidence that has always been accounted the highest-when the truth of the thing asserted is manifest in the very assertion.

In asserting that the truth of the gospel is manifest from itself, I am borne out by the Scriptures themselves. It is called light, and Jesus Christ calls himself the light of the world. His appearing is predicted as the rising of the sun of righteousness; and the universal spreading of his gospel is represented under the figure of that great fountain of natural light diffusing his beams over every part of the earth. Now light necessarily proves itself, and needs nothing to manifest it. It serves to discover other objects of sight, but needs nothing to discover itself. The apostle therefore says, whatever doth make manifest is light. Our Lord himself, though he appeals to his works as proof of his mission, yet declares the self-evidence of the truth to be the condemnation of unbelievers. "This is the condemnation," says he, "that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." It may be asked, if the gospel is self-evi

dent, why do not all men believe it? Jesus in the above passage supplies the answer. They shut their eyes against it, because they love darkness rather than light, their works being evil. The Apostle Paul also declares that if this gospel be hid, it is hid to them only who are blinded by Satan. Were any man so constituted as to hate light, so as never to be induced to open his eyes, he might till his death remain in ignorance of the sun as being the fountain of light. A blind man has no self-evidence of the existence of light: he believes it on testimony. Man by nature is spiritually blind, and the only difference between a blind man and a spiritually blind sinner, is, that the former is unwillingly blind, the latter willingly and wickedly. The sinner is blind because he hates the light. If, according to the supposition of an ancient philosopher, a number of men had been all their lives kept in a cavern, they could have no evidence, except from testimony, of the existence of the sun; but the moment of their coming into light, they would behold the sun, and could not but believe that he exists, and is what they perceive him to be. Just so with sinners and the light of the gospel. They are all blinded by natural aversion to the truth; and though the light of the sun of righteousness shines around them with intense clearness, they do not discover it, because that darkness covers their eyes. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends or perceives it not. But the moment that God opens their eyes, they behold the light of the gospel, and cannot but believe that it is real.

But this objection will not be made by any one acquainted with the history of theology or science. Popery stands on the ruins of self-evident and even necessary truth. Every Roman Catholic in the world must hold his religion by resisting the right of axioms. Ancient philosophy, from its very cradle, trampled on the light of nature, and founded some of its distinguishing principles on the ruins of common sense. The sceptical philosophy of Mr. Hume rested on a foundation self-evidently false. Such known facts, then, ought to prevent any one from being surprised that the gospel is

self-evident, yet misunderstood and rejected by the bulk of the world.

That the gospel is self-evident, is evident from the words of the commission to preach it over the world. He that believes it shall be saved, he that believes not shall be condemned. This makes it condemnation for every man to hear the gospel and not believe it. Now it cannot be truly believed but upon evidence, nor can unbelief be criminal, if evidence is wanting. SupposeTM a man who had never heard of Jesus, comes into an assembly of Christians, and hears the gospel for the first and last time, dying in unbelief before he leaves the house is this man's unbelief condemnation? It is so, if the language of the commission is true. If so, there must be evidence of its own truth in the gospel itself, for this man has no opportunity of consulting any other of all the evidences of Christianity. He cannot be justly condemned for not yielding to evidences altogether inaccessible to him. The testimony of the preacher is not a ground of evidence, for to a man unacquainted with the gospel, it is nothing better than the testimony of a preacher of Mahometanism. How is such a man to judge between the testimony of him who preaches Paul's gospel, and that of those who preach another gospel? It must then be the evidence of the truth contained in the gospel itself, that will be the ground of condemnation. If he has heard of the just God and the Saviour, of the union and harmony of justice and mercy in the salvation of sinners by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, he has heard a thing that never could have suggested itself to the human mind. Nothing but criminal blindness can prevent him from perceiving, in some measure, the evidence, importance, and glory of the truth. He will see that such a salvation, and nothing but such a salvation, is suitable to himself, and available for his redemption.

Indeed it is on this ground that the gospel is generally received. Christians in general have received the truth, not from a long previous examination of evidences, but from the scriptural declarations in which it is contained, either read or preached. When the mind is opened to