earth is full of thy riches!" Survey all nature, and all nature's operations,-observe her in her mysterious progress,-view her in her most evident motions, consider the excellence of your own formation, the arrangements that are made for your subsistence, and the subsistence of every creature, and the providence that pervades the whole system of animate and inanimate being, preserving each in its proper sphere, out of which it cannot move, and subjecting it to its appointed laws, which it cannot transgress; and if you have any feeling of piety, any grateful sense of benefits received, you cannot but attest, "the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." He is almighty, all-wise, all-good. Believe that he is so with all your hearts, and souls, and strength; and never suffer yourselves one moment to doubt, that there is the slightest tendency to error in any thing that he has done or ordained. It is wrong and dangerous to suppose, that he has not at all times, and on every occasion, acted

*Rom. xi. 33.

for the best. It is highly impious to question the word of Him, whose grand Attribute it is, that he is all truth. "It is im

possible," says St. Paul, "for God to lie." +"His faithfulness," says the Psalmist, "reacheth unto the clouds, and his truth endureth from generation to generation."

Having fully established in your minds the belief in an Almighty and All-perfect God, great in wisdom, and rich in goodness, and laid therein a foundation of true piety, you are required to put your faith in his Revelations. The book that contains these Revelations is the Bible. That this Book is authentic, that it was written by men evidently inspired by the Holy Ghost, and that there is not in it the smallest error, are truths confirmed by

Heb. vi. 18. + Psalm xxxvi. 5.-c. 5. A few verbal inaccuracies in translations, and some defects of expression arising from the difficulty, and often the impossibility, of giving in one language the full sense and force of the idioms of another, we ⚫ must expect to meet with. But the facts, the doctrines, and the precepts, all that it is material to know, and believe, and do, have suffered nothing by transla

the strongest possible testimony, and resting upon the firmest grounds the reason of man can conceive. Before, therefore, you come to the thorough investigation of the Doctrines therein contained, you should be settled in the belief, that, although it was written by men, it was written by men under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit of God.

It is easy to say, that the Scriptures are false,-that God was not concerned in dictating them, to the holy men who wrote them, and that they were the work of human ability alone. But assertion is no proof. Although a few, through an invincible prejudice, or a love of sin, be induced to avow their disbelief of Holy Writ; yet it has always been found impracticable, to erase characters so evidently impressed by the finger of God. Receive this, therefore, as a fundamental

may

tion, and are as plain, as pure, and as intelligible, as in the Original. It would be well, if some men were less difficult and precise about non-essentials; and more anxious to ascertain the spirit of a passage, than to contend and cavil about the unimportant niceties of the letter.

C

principle, as an undoubted and incontrovertible truth, that the Scriptures are the Word of God, that they contain Doctrines to be believed in, and Precepts to be obeyed, and that it is your duty to regulate your Faith and Practice according to the directions therein laid down. For if God has condescended to instruct you, you cannot but allow, that it is highly impious and ungrateful to refuse to be instructed. If he has required the obedience of your understandings to what he has been pleased to reveal, you cannot stand justified or excused in transgressing his commands, and in setting up your own reason in opposition to his will.

Having satisfied yourselves of the heavenly origin of the Holy Scriptures, you have prepared the way for the admission of those great and sacred truths therein contained. Believing in God, you are next called upon to believe in Christ. Now comes the grand trial of your Faith. Now you enter upon that very important and sublime doctrine, in which both body and soul are so deeply interested, the Salvation of Mankind by the All-suffi

cient and Meritorious Atonement of the Son of God. Having been received by Baptism into the Church of Christ, and having by the sacred rite of Confirmation taken upon yourselves the holy profession of Christianity, and ratified "with your own mouth and consent, openly before the Church," the promise and vow made in your names at your Baptism, it is your part to beware, that you break not the Covenant into which you have so solemnly entered with Almighty God, and that "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called."

you

*

You are to believe, that God, knowing how impossible it was for man, by reason of his fallen nature and of his proneness. to evil, to offer up a spotless sacrifice, and perform a perfect obedience, both of which were necessary for the expiation of sin, and the satisfaction of offended justice, sent his only-begotten Son into the world, +" in the likeness of sinful flesh," to remedy the mischief which the first Adam had occasioned, to make a Cove

Eph. iv. 1.

+ Rom. viii. 3.