which they have ever after repented. Noah was once intoxicat with the fruit of the vine-Mofes was once out of temper, a fpake unadvifedly with his lips-and, in David's life, we a fhocked by the commiffion of the most horrid fins of adultery and murder. But fhall we think fuch fins are lefs fhameful, or le dangerous, because once committed by thofe, who, in other re fpects, were efteemed for their piety? Or, fhall we, like them, b one wrong act, purchase the privilege of repenting as long as w live? Take care, then, my brethren, how you plead the example of thofe, who have erred and ftrayed from God's ways by many ing unbelievers. They have broken the fence, and, perhaps, my be wicked enough to invite you to follow their example, that ther fin may feem less odious, by having a greater number to counte nance it. But remember, "though the wicked join hand in hand, they shall not go unpunished." It is urged, by fome, that their engagements to marry were en tered into prior to their converfion, and that their honour and their confciences bind them to fulfil their engagements; but had they their choice to make now, they would avoid the connexion with which they are entangled. Promises of this kind, either are, or ought to be, made conditionally. God himfelf hath generally an nexed conditions to the promifes given to mankind. And can we follow a better example? Or, have we a right to make promifes which do not at all depend on circumftances for their fulfilment ? I think not; and, in this cafe, I am fure we ought not. Neither do men in reality thus engage themfelves; for, if a man had promifed to marry a woman, whom he afterwards difcovered to be a harlor, would he confider himself obliged to fulfil his engagements? And, as for honour, I think you should be afhamed of that honour, which cannot be preferved but by the violation of a divine precept. And your confcience must be ftrangely misguided, if you think your own engagements are more binding than the injunctions of the Almighty. Had you, while unconverted, given your word that you would help one man to murder another, would you think your promife ought to be kept? And why not? because it is written, "Thou fhalt do no murder." And hath not he who faid, "Thou shalt not kill," also faid, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers ?" It is urged again, by another, that he has not only a pre-engagement, but also a ftrong attachment; an attachment which can never be broken, without breaking his heart. Your cafe, at the first fight, seems rather hard and difficult, and it may appear un feeling to feparate you from one to whom you are fo attached, and what no man, who understands your cafe, would ever think of doing, were there not an abfolute neceffity. But, as you ought not to pretend to be a chriflian, without loving God; nor ye pretend retend to love God, unless you obey him; "For this is the love God, that we keep his commandments:" your way, though pparently hard, is very plain; either to obey God by refifting our attachment, or, by marrying an unbeliever, difobey God, and nchriftian yourself. But why should you think this a hard faying? Is not this a farifice which every man, who means to go to heaven, has to make fome way or other? Who is there among us, that had not, beore his converfion to God, certain attachments which he was bliged to refift? The mifer loves his money, the gamefter loves is dice, and the drunkard loves his bottle before his converfion, I may be, as much as you love the object of your attachment; and eligion expects that facrifice from you, which it does from every ther man; that is, that you refift your inclination to marry an unbeliever, for the fame reason that a drunkard muft abstain from trong drink, because forbidden by him whom you profefs to revere. And to say that your paffion is irrefiftible; or to be feparated from one you love fo much, is a violence you cannot bear, does not become a wife man who fears God; for you may be obliged to bear what you fuppofe intolerable. If a rival fhould start up, and make an effort to win the heart of her you almost think your own, perhaps a persevering attack might shake her conftancy. Or, if the be above fuch a temptation, death may tear her from you, and force you to bear what you fay you cannot, a feparation from one to whom you are fo much attached. And what either death or a rival may oblige you to part with, you ought to be willing to give up to pleafe God. And again, another, who neither urges pre-engagement, nor unconquerable attachment, has to plead the injunctions of fuperiors. Let us fuppofe this to be a woman who is entreated by her parents to marry a man without religion, because he has money, or goodbreeding, or fome other qualification which they would defire at man to poffefs, who becomes the hufband of their daughter. For fome parents who have been obeyed in all other things, fuppofe that their authority extends to the marriage of their children; at leaft, that they have a right to impofe hufbands upon their daughters. But is a woman, in fuch circumftances, under the neceffity of accepting of a husband, provided for her by her parents, tho' his moral and religious character be contrary to the Bible? It is faid, "Honour thy father and thy mother;" and where they have a right to command, fhe is bound to obey. But in this cafe, they command what God forbids, and fhe muft, therefore, confider herself accountable to God only: for he who faid, "Honour thy father and thy mother," hath alfo declared, by St. Paul, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," and let it not be be faid, let it not be thought, that one precept contradic another. Indeed, whatever right parents may have to forbid the pr jected union of their children, we cannot fuppofe that they h any authority to oblige them to enter into fuch a connexion co trary to their inclinations, although thofe with whom they wi them thus to unite, are truly pious. For though the Jewish h refpecting marriage, were intended to keep the families of the Ifraelites diftinct from each other, and therefore dictated that the next of kin should take to wife the widow or daughter of a reb tion; yet the parties concerned had the liberty of refufing, a was the cafe with the kinfman of Ruth. To compel children to marry for the purpose of connecting families and estates, or to ferve any lucrative or political ends, when they have no predilec tion for each other, is to make merchandise in the temple, and to barter them at the altar, like animals in the market *. (To be concluded in the next.) THE TRUTH OF GOD DEFENDED. A REVIEW OF LETTERS ON THE EVIDENCES, &c. OF THE (Concluded from page 753). THE fecond volume of Dr. Gregory's work, contains an account of the grand, diftinguishing doctrines of Christianity, and concludes with a fummary of Chriftian duties. That the author has clear and diftinct, as well as comprehenfive views of his fubject, appears evidently from the following paffage. Christianity, it is true, is diftinguifhable from all other fyl tems, by the purity, excellency, and extent of the morality it en forces; yet this is not, I conceive, its most pre-eminent charac teristic. It no where prefents us with a connected scheme of ethics, but it does far better in advancing the most fimple precepts relative to every part of moral duty, and accompanying them with the most powerful incentives to upright and holy conduct. Its grand peculiarity confifts in affuming the FACT, that man is in fallen ftate, that he has loft the image of God, that he is of him felf incapable of regaining the favour of his Creator, and in pro viding a remedy by which man may be cured of his moral difor The miferies, indeed, which many women fuffer under conjugal vexations, to be confidered with pity, because their husbands are o ten not taken by them objects of affection, but forced upon them by authority and violence, or by perisa fion and importunity, equally refiftlefs when urged by thofe whom they have been accuftomed to obey; and it very feldom appears, that thofe who are thus depe in the difpofal of their children, pay any regard to their domeftic and perfonal fris city, or think it fo much to be inquired whether they will be happy, as whether they will be rich, The RAMBLER, der; der; this remedy being no lefs than the gift of the Son of God;" who, in relation to mankind, is not fo frequently called their pattern, as the Physician of Souls, the Great Deliverer, the Saviour of the World.' "The more intimately you become acquainted with Christianity, as depicted in the New Teftament, the more forcibly will you be ftruck with its conftitution. It does not, if I may fo fay, infult and triumph over man by prefcribing him a code of laws which he cannot obey, by referring him to ftatutes, every one of which he has broken, and commanding him to preferve them entire; but it takes man as he is, provides for his reftoration, points out the means of falvation, invites him to embrace thofe means, and then prefents him with precepts, by the obfervance of which he may adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour in all things.' The fcheme by which all this is effected, is, doubtless, extraordinary; but it is not lefs worthy of acceptance on that account. Had it not been beyond human capacity, and hunian difcovery, it needed not to have been revealed. God need not make fupernatural communications to reveal to us, what might have been found out by a natural procefs. Having afcertained that the Bible is the Word of God, it is our duty to receive all it makes known to us, (whether it coincide or not with our preconceived notions,) without appeal to any other quarter. I cannot comprehend the reafon of this,' may an inquirer after religious truth often say, 'but it is God who declares it; I receive it on his authority, and I humbly rely upon his promife, that what I know not now, I ball know hereafter."" They who adopt these rational fentiments, will be preserved from the abfurdity of using their ignorance of fome parts of revealed truth, as an argument against Divine Revelation. This, we know, is daily done by infidels, thofe abfurd fticklers for reafon, who moft illogically conclude that Chriftianity is not founded in truth, because fome of its doctrines are incomprehenfible. The second letter in this volume contains feveral conclufive arguments in vindication of the fcriptural doctrine of Original Sin. "Many," fays Dr. G. "will fay, we admit the fact of the great, though not univerfal wickedness that prevails in the world; but we cannot affent to what you give as the Natural Hiftory of it. We do not think it infeparable from man's prefent nature, but an accidental acquifition; we do not afcribe it to the influence of an hereditary taint, but conceive it to be the effect of imitation and cuftom, of acquired habit, of corrupt example, of injudicious tui, tion." This, by the way, is only faying in other words, that depravity is the effect of depravity. Let us, however, examine the matter a little more clearly. That vile paffions may in fome be the refult of improper tuition, or of imitation, I have no inclinaVOL. XXXV. NOVEMBER, 1812. * 5 L * tion tion to deny; but they cannot always be referred to fuch an origin. How often do we fee children in their verieft infancy, exhibit strong and unquestionable indications of boisterous tempers, of obftinacy, or impatience? How often do children of the most pious parents, who are fo brought up as, during the first fix or feven years of their lives, never to witnefs any species of crime, any inftance of ingratitude, of falfehood, or deception, or any indulgence in irafcible paflions,-furnith painful proofs that they can be deceivers, wilful liars, ungrateful, paffionate, malignant, and unforgiving? Thefe inftances, I will venture to say, occur very frequently, when it is impoffible to afcribe them to imitation. But fuppofe the contrary were admitted, the opposers of the scriptural doctrine would gain nothing by the conceffion. For of whom could a child acquire iniquity by imitation, but of some one who was born before him? And whom did that person imitate, but fome one born before him? And where muft the feries terminate. If you fay any where fhort of the first man, you have to account for the remarkable phenomenon of fin's making its inroad at the identical time, and fixing upon the identical perfon you have felected: and this will be found infinitely more difficult than ex tending the feries to the great progenitors of the human race. Befides, does not the very circumftance of an aptitude to imitate evil, and rather to imitate evil than good, indicate fomething like that hereditary taint, which it is brought forward to contravene and fuperfede? Can an inherent tendency to imitate evil, an unde viating propenfity to flide into vice, (unless the ftrong hand of moral difcipline, or the fuafive influence of Divine Grace, prevents,) be fairly or rationally afcribed to any thing less than fuch a caufe as that with which the Bible makes us acquainted. Pur fuing this train, you will fee that the fcriptural folution of the dif ficulty before us is reasonable; and that it has the farther advantage of fhewing, that moral evil was not, as fome have been prefumptuous enough to affert, produced by the Creator, but contracted by the creature, who, though he was endowed with "power to ftand, was free to fall." Every judicious reader will eafily difcern the conclusiveness of this reafoning. But, feeing there are numbers who ftill deny the doctrine which it is ufed to prove, and that many who embrace that doctrine, infer others from it, which have no foundation in Scripture or reason, we fhall make a few obfervations upon the fubject. It is a fact capable of the fulleft proof, nay, one which has been often proved, that all men, until renewed by the power of the Holy Ghoft, are children of wrath, influenced by the carnal mind, and confequently averfe to holiness. Mofes, an inspired historian, by giving the hiftory of the fall, has enabled us to ac count |