give credence to what it cannot comprehend, the Arabian deceiver, though he professed belief in the inspiration of the Bible, repudiated the doctrine of the Trinity, and thus facilitated the triumphs of the Koran over kingdoms and continents. Had the Gospel been a fable, its fabricators would not have made the plurality of the persons of the Godhead a prominent article of their creed. It was the inspiration of heaven, and not the craft of earth, that announced the existence, and commanded the equal and undivided worship of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, One in Three, and Three in One. The startling mystery would have been eschewed by the cunning of adroit impostors, combined to give wide currency to a fiction which arrogated the character of truth. The agencies of the Holy Spirit, in the work of redemption, will constitute the subject of a future and distinct chapter.

CHAPTER V.

THE MORALITY OF THE GOSPEL.

Gospel system of ethics like solar system in fewness and simplicity of its principles-Consists in love to God and love to man-Regulates thoughts and intents of heart-Disclaims heroic virtuesPlaces humility in front rank of its graces-Has chivalry of its n-Paul and Julius Cæsar contrasted-Other evangelical graces —Forgiveness of injuries—Universal beneficence—Victory over world-Sanctions of Gospel.

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THERE is a striking analogy in their simplicity and grandeur, between the moral and the physical works of the Creator. How symmetrical, how majestic, are the movements of the planetary spheres! And yet they are impelled and governed by two very simple principles; the discursive, technically called the centrifugal force, and the attraction of gravitation; the former urging them onward into the regions of space, and the latter causing them to revolve harmoniously round the central sun. Principles equally limited in number, still more simple in character, and intelligible as daylight to the intellect of early childhood, form the ruling elements of the Gospel system. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,

and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Thus did Jesus Christ declare that love to God and love to man were the two constituents, potent yet simple, of his divine system; the love to man being its discursive force, and the love to God its gravitating power; the former expanding the soul into general philanthropy, the latter drawing it home to the central Sun of righteousness. Had not "sin marred all," the love to God and the love to man would have preserved the same sublime harmony in the moral system that the propelling and the attractive forces have produced in the physical. But sin was a malign comet, loosened from its orbit, and carrying in its lawless track dismay and destruction.

The obligation of supreme affection to the Creator and Governor of the universe was developed by the Gospel and her Jewish predecessor. It lay not within the ken of the uninspired intellect. Fallen reason could no more have discovered it in all its

* Matthew xxii. 37, 38, 39.

bearings, than the naked eye could have discovered the existence and energies of physical gravitation. The material telescope was necessary for the one discovery; the scriptural telescope for the other. The light of depraved nature failed to ascertain the perfections of the true God. How then could it have ascertained the obligation of the creature to love him with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind? The very multifariousness of the heathen divinities precluded the possibility of concentrated affection for any one of them. Athens recognized thirty thousand false deities. Hence the prevalent saying that, in the city of Minerva, it was easier to find a god than a man. The saying might have been of Egyptian origin; but it found a congenial domicil in classic Greece.

Yet since Revelation has unfolded the being and perfections of the true God, even fallen reason must perceive and admit the obligation of loving him with supreme devotion. The Creator justly claims the homage of his rational creatures; and the interchange of love between him and the intellectual emanations of himself is the silken cord, stronger than chain of iron, which should bind together the diversified ranks of spiritual being. There is a transforming power in love. Even love to the

creature assimilates us to the object beloved. Love to God restores to the renovated soul the image and likeness of its Creator, which sin had defaced. If the philosopher or patriot would elevate to its true standard the dignity of human nature, let him press home the obligation of the first and great commandment of the Gospel. Love to God is the food on which angels feed; and if it universally became the spiritual aliment of earth, it would transmute mortals into the similitude of the cherubim and seraphim.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," was a mandate promulgated by the Gospel. It was unknown to the heathen world. Before the great moral Luminary appeared above the horizon, self was the ruling god of this world. Poetry decked with her own never-fading wreaths the brow of the idol. The immortal heroes of the Grecian and Ro

was the Stygian Even history has deformity under

selfishness that

man epic were just as selfish as hero of Milton's Paradise Lost. condescended to hide the idol's dazzling appellations. It was moved Alexander to conquer the world, and then to weep that he had not another world to conquer. It was not to save his country, but to serve himself, that Cæsar passed the Rubicon. Yet has history