DISC. 111. " things which are not, to bring to nought "things that are." Then follows the reafon; "that no flesh should glory in his pre"fence." The cafe of the children in the temple confounding by their Hofannas the pride and malignity of the enemies of Chrift, was, therefore, by no means fingle. It was upon the general scheme of the divine proceedings, as the power and skill of the artist are always proportionably manifested by the meanness and weakness of the instruments employed to effect his purpose. But, fecondly, God is still farther honoured when children are taught to confefs and proclaim his truths, because hereby it is shewn, that his truths are such as children may confess and proclaim. All may receive the saving doctrines of our religion, and learn it's wholesome precepts. Over the door of the school of the celebrated Plato, we are told, was written a sentence, importing, that no one must presume to enter there, who had not first studied and rendered him self master of geometry. No such requifition is made by our blessed Master of those Disc. who mean to enter themselves in the num ber of his scholars. In other respects learned or unlearned, wife or unwife, noble or ignoble, great or small, young or old, come who will, and he shall be instructed in all things necessary for him to learn, in order to his falvation; in a day, in an hour, he shall know more than the sages of antiquity were able to discover, from the difperfion of the nations at Babel to the coming of Christ, or would have discovered, from thence to the confummation of all things. This is a very wonderful confideration; and we must dwell a little upon it, for the honour and praise of Revelation, and of that Being who vouchsafed it to man. "In the beginning God created the "heavens and the earth." A child eafily repeats and understands these few words of Mofes. But the child who does so is at once in poffeffion of a truth, which heathen philosophy, for ages and generations, fought in vain; none could then with any degree 111. III. DISC. of certainty determine, by whom the world was made; whether it were made at all; whether there were many Gods, or one. If the world were made by a good and gracious God, whence came so much evil as we all fee and know to be in it? Here the wifdom of paganism was for ever at a stand. Bewildered and loft in it's reasonings and guesses upon the subject, it foon came to question whether God were indeed good and gracious, or whether there could be any God who governed such a world. Let these men listen to a child, nurtured in the Chriftian Scriptures. "By one man's disobedience " fin entered into the world, and death by " fin; and so death passed upon all men, " for that all have finned." What plainer or farther information can be defired? Mankind have always found themselves tempted and carried on by their lufts and paffions to offend God, by transgressing that law (whatever it might be) under which they lived. But who among them could one. III. could tell the means by which they were to DISC. be reconciled to the offended Deity? Not Infinite were the devices and fancies of fuperftition to effect such reconciliation; but all in vain. It must have been dropped, and "let alone for ever," by them; whereas, every child with us knows, that " Chrift " has appeared to put away fin by the fa"crifice of himself, and is become the "author of salvation to all who believe in " him, and walk according to that belief." At a certain time, we die. Our bodies are laid in the earth, and moulder to dust. And what is to befal them afterwards? Where is the wife man of the world that can give us instruction and assurance on this point? " Son of man, can these dry bones " live?" is a question not to be answered out of the Christian school. In that school any child can answer it. "Now is Chrift " risen from the dead, and become the first " fruits of them that fleep. For as by man " came death, by man came also the resur«rection of the dead. For as in Adam all " die E3 DISC. 111. " die, even so in Christ shall all be made "alive. The hour is coming in which " all that are in their graves shall hear his "voice, and shall come forth; they that " have done good, to the refurrection of life; " and they that have done evil, to the refur" rection of condemnation."-" Had Jesus " Chrift delivered no other declaration than " this last (says an excellent writer), he had " pronounced a message of ineftimable im"portance, and well worthy of that splendid 66 apparatus of prophecy and miracles with "which his miffion was introduced and " attested: a message in which the wifest " of mankind would rejoice to find an an" fwer to their doubts, and rest to their en" quiries." The observation is just and noble. And yet, fuch a message one of the heathen sages, were he now living, might receive by the first child he met in the street. In this manner, to filence false philofophy and pretended wisdom, has God " ordained " strength out of the mouths of babes and " sucklings," while by them are acknowleged |