Revelation has taught us that Christ is our Mediator and Interceffor. Amongst men, an advocate is engaged to ftate circumstances either altogether unknown, or not fufficiently confidered or viewed in an unfavourable light by those who are appointed to hear and determine. How derogatory is every such idea from the Majefty of the Creator? He difcerns at one view whatever may tend to palliate our offences. Yet he has been pleased to represent himself as prevailed upon by importunity and perfeverance; he allowed the Priests and the Prophets to offer up fupplications for the people, he hath commanded us to pray one for another. From analogy we can justly urge, that in the mixed dispensation of things we perform mutual fervice; the innocent protect the guilty, the righteous defend the wicked, the valiant die to fecure those advantages which others must enjoy, the wife and the upright do more good to their fellow creatures than to themselves; in fhort, one foweth and another reapeth. It will be answered perhaps, that this holds good merely in refpect to temporal advantages. It is true alfo in respect to spiritual. Our inftruction in the way of Godliness is certainly not our own; the wholesome admoB 2 nition

nition of a friend, when he fees us wander out of the way, is certainly adventitious and frequently fortuitous. Yet, by these means, we learn more perfectly and embrace more eagerly the terms of falvation. The arguments, therefore, against the mediation of Chrift, as well as against the affiftance of the Holy Ghost, will in proportion, though infinitely less, be inconclufive against the agency and inftrumentality of our fellow creatures. Why any thing, which is not the effect of our own endeavours, should contribute to our happiness in another world, is matter of gratitude, not of vain curiofity, our conviction of the fact will be fufficient to establish its propriety. Amidst disappointment therefore and forrow, amidst temptation and every kind of wickedness, we may rely upon the great Physician of our fouls, who will cure all our maladies, unless we counteract his defigns. We may deceive ourfelves, but he continueth faithful.

It is another abuse of reafon to enter into a minute enquiry concerning the nature of the rewards and punishments of another world. The general judgment is defcribed in the moft awful language of human judicatures; an account is to be given, the Books are to be opened,

and

and the fudge shall feparate the righteous from the wicked. The righteous fhall fhine as the brightness of the firmament, and the wicked fhall be configned to everlasting darkness and flames. All these descriptions, with others which it is not neceffary to enumerate are intended, through the medium of the fenfes, to make an impreffion upon the mind; they set forth the impartial justice of our Creator and Redeemer, they fet forth exquifite happiness and exquifite mifery, of which nothing we fee or know can give us real conceptions. To give locality to the manfions of blifs and of misery is faid to be unphilofophical. The reality of their existence is the only effential point, which a Chriftian is bound to believe concerning them. The pains and the pleasures of the mind, even in this vale of mifery, can only be described by fenfible ideas. But who ever contended that fuch ideas are adequate? How then could it be expected that any language fhould express the blifs or the wretchedness of thofe, who fhall rife with new faculties and powers, to enjoy the one or to fuffer the other, to all eternity?

Concerning the intermediate state between death and judgment, it is another abuse of reaB 3

fon

i

j

fon to make minute enquiry. All your information, (if such it can be called, where no particular account is given or feems intended to be given) is drawn from the promise made to the penitent thief, and from the declaration of St. Paul, That to be with Chrift was far better for himself. And all the conclufion we can draw is fimply this; that, after our diffolution, we fhall continue to exift, and that we may hope for fome portion of happiness immediately, if our conversation have been fuch as becometh the Gospel of Christ. But here our curiofity is checked; here have commenced those perplexing, embarraffing queftions concerning the fleep or the intermediate ftate of the foul, and from hence probably firft fprung the doctrine of purgatory. To him, who is convinced that there is no work nor device in the grave, whither he is going, it is a fufficient incitement to Religion, that the defires and inclinations he cultivates in this world will follow him into the next, and whatsoever he foweth that shall be also reap.

Another abuse of reafon has been to attempt an expofition of the Doctrine of the

h Luke xxiii.

i Phil. i.

j Phil. i. 27.

Trinity

k

Trinity, by comparisons and familiar illuftrations. Perhaps we fhall be reminded of the three that bear witness in earth, the fpirit, the water, and the blood: as compared with the three that bear witness in heaven.

Here this fimilarity is not a fimilarity of nature, but of certain and concurring evidence. It was the error of the primitive Fa thers to imagine that they could render the doctrine intelligible by familiar inftances, fuch as rays of light iffuing from the fun, and torches lighted, without diminishing the fource. In the darker ages, men proceeded to the groffeft degree of ignorance by exhibiting this mystery in vifible representations. Well might the Almighty have remonftrated in the language of the prophet. To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like? Every true friend of religion wishes that much less had been faid, that much less reasoning had been employed, upon the fubject; that it had been difcuffed with humility, and without refinement; much tumult and distraction would have been prevented in the early ages of the Church, much altercation would have been prevented in later

* John. v.

1 If. xlvi. 5.

B 4

times.