consolations which it yields, and the sublime expectations which it inspires?

"Suppose it granted," says Sumner, "that a Creator exists; only two suppositions can be entertained: either man was turned naked and ignorant into the world, with less power to provide for his comfort and subsistence than the lowest savage whom modern discoveries have brought to our acquaintance; or he was instructed, through the agency of his Creator, in the means of supplying his immediate wants, and of performing the various purposes of his being.

"If we embrace the first of these suppositions, we must believe that this world, and all it contains, was created without any definite or assignable object: that its intelligent inhabitants were summoned into life, and then immediately abandoned by their Maker, retaining no connexion with him, either during the short period of their earthly existence, or after it. If we reject this idea as inconsistent with all reasoning as to the probable operations of divine intelligence, then it is natural to conclude that the Creator would leave some memorial of himself in a world which, as forming a part in the comprehensive scheme of his providence, he beholds with regard and interest. It is evident, however, that as mankind alone, of all the inhabitants of the earth, are gifted with intelligence, mankind alone can hold any connexion with an intelligent Creator. To them, therefore, we must look as the chief objects of creation, and as the depositaries with whom the records of it, supposing such an event to have taken place, would be left to be handed down by them from age to age."

It will be admitted that the habits and pursuits of mankind but ill qualify them to discover the great and fundamental truths of religion from the works of nature. "Simple

* Sumner on the Records of the Creation, vol. i. pp. 29, 30.

as the analogical reasoning from effect to cause, from contrivance to a contriver, may seem, still it is reasoning,-and as such, it is the business of a mind in some degree improved and abstracted from sensible objects. In the first stages of society there are no such minds; and it is no more surprising that, by the great body of mankind in every age, the world is seen and inhabited without exciting awe and admiration, than that a peasant who finds himself placed, by the fortune of his birth, in any particular country, should be little solicitous about its history, antiquity, or earliest founders."- "They are so taken up with worldly concernments, and carried off by a variety of pleasures and cares, so entangled in sensible and material objects, that, if left merely to themselves, there is little likelihood of their forming right ideas of things spiritual and invisible. It is generally by education and instruction that these principles first enter into their minds; and where they have not been taught or instructed, they know little or nothing about them." Observation teaches us that it is by slow degrees the human mind rises to great improvement and cultivation; and that it is by the experience of successive generations that knowledge is accumulated. Had there been no divine instruction directly communicated to mankind, is it probable that they would reserve any portion of their time and attention for the investigation and the practice of religion; and this in resistance to the engrossing influence of the cares of this life? Is it not likely that they would sink into a state of the deepest ignorance and degradation ?

10. But can we suppose that He who made man would not give him by infallible revelation the knowledge of himself, so necessary to the improvement of his faculties, to the maintenance of that rank which Providence has assigned him in the scale of rational and accountable beings, and so essential to his right discharge

of those duties which so clearly devolve upon him? When we consider that benevolence which is inherent and perfect in the divine character, is it not in the highest degree probable that God would communicate to mankind information concerning his own nature and attributes, his moral government and overruling providence, the worship and homage which ought to be rendered to him by his reasonable creatures, the way in which sinful men may obtain pardon and acceptance with him, and a future state of retributions? Would not the Almighty Father of the human race give an express revelation to his children regarding these infinitely important subjects, in place of leaving them to their own. unsatisfactory reasonings? His perfect benevolence, viewed in connexion with the essential importance and utility of religious knowledge, must surely be considered as furnishing a probable ground to expect a divine revelation.

11. (II.) This probability is greatly strengthened when we consider what must have been the circumstances and necessities of the first parents of mankind. However remote the origin of the race may have been, there must have been a period when men were wholly ignorant and inexperienced, and when there was no fellow-creature in the earth from whom they could derive instruction. In whatever state we may suppose them to have been at first brought into being, whether in a state of childhood or maturity, they must have been entirely helpless and destitute without some peculiar aid from God. Without experience, without habits, without parents to give them instruction, or to communicate to them those rules of action which are formed by long-continued observation, their condition must have been totally different from ours: and unless they had other faculties than those which we possess, they must either have received immediate direction from some superior Being, or have perished. It was necessary, therefore, that God should act towards them in the place

of a parent, and either instruct his innocent but helpless offspring himself, or commit their instruction to the care of superior beings.

12. The force of these remarks is strengthened when it is considered by what slow degrees mankind, when left to the progress of their own experience, are found to attain any of the arts which contribute to the ornament and comfort of civilized life. "The barbarous state of the inhabitants of countries newly discovered, their general ignorance of arts and deficiency of morals, has naturally introduced a vague idea, that man was originally at his birth or creation a savage. But according to the Mosaic account, which agrees too with the suggestions of reason, the savage state was not the original state of man. Even among the grandsons of Adam we are told not only of the use of brass and iron, but of the division of labour into separate branches; we read not only of the arts which support life, but of those which contribute to its amusement, the harp and the organ. When we consider in how rude a state, compared with this, the Mexicans and Peruvians were found, though they had belonged for some centuries to a settled and populous community, we shall have reason on our side in concluding that mankind were not at first abandoned altogether to their own ingenuity in the gradual invention of useful arts; and that many of them, under various circumstances of situation and climate, sunk at different periods into a barbarism to which they were not originally created." When to these observations we add, "that it approaches as high a degree of certainty as is consistent with the nature of the case, that man was originally indebted to his Creator, not only for the organs of speech but also for the power of using them, we have the strongest grounds for believing that God would not, and did not, leave man without communicating to him all the instruction which was necessary for his comfort and wellbeing."

But if this divine instruction was necessary to fit man

B

for the ordinary concerns of life, how much more must it have been necessary for the purpose of making him acquainted with the higher objects and duties of his existence ! The latter was as necessary as the former, and infinitely more important; inasmuch as the soul is more valuable than the body, and as eternity cannot bear a comparison with time. If we take into account then the condition of man at the creation-the importance of religious knowledge to the right fulfilment of those duties for which he was called into being-and the goodness of that God who had given him life, and breath, and all things, nothing will appear more improbable than that man should have been left entirely to himself, or that a divine and immediate revelation should not have been given to him.

13. (III.) This conclusion is strengthened, when we consider the provisions of divine providence for supplying the ordinary wants of men. God has "not left himself without witness of his benevolence, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." How constant has been the kindness of Providence in distributing blessings among mankind,-blessings which furnish evidence to every age that God has not left the human race unprovided for! The elements of nature, and the inferior animals above and around them, have been rendered tributary to their subsistence, health, ease, and comfort; and these concur with the established order of things to demonstrate, that they are under the protection and superintending power of the Almighty Maker and Upholder of all things.

But if mercies have been communicated to supply the ordinary wants of men, is it not probable, that the goodness from which those mercies have flowed, would have made provision for the spiritual necessities of our nature ? Is it likely that the infinitely compassionate Being who bestowed the less, would withhold what was incomparably