from an equal number, an equal number will remain. I propose my demonstration to him with all possible clearness, and he hath no less faculty to comprehend it, than I have to propose it. He persists, however, in the opposite proposition: but his obstinacy is the only cause of his error; he refuseth to believe me, because he refuseth to hear me. Were an attentive and teachable man to yield to my demonstration, while the former persisted in denying it, could it be reasonably said then, that motives of incredulity in the latter were superior to motives of credibility? We must distinguish, then, a mean applied to an intelligent being, from a mean applied to an irrational being.

Further. Among the obstacles, with which intelligent beings resist means applied to them, physical obstacles must be distinguished from moral obstacles. Physical obstacles are such as necessarily belong to the being, that resisteth, so that there is no faculty to remove them. I propose to an infant a conclusion, the understanding of which depends on a chain of propositions, which he is incapable of following. The obstacle, which I find in him, is an obstacle merely physical; he hath not a faculty to remove it.

I propose the same conclusion to a man of mature age; he understands no more than the infant just now mentioned: but his ignorance doth not proceed from a want of those faculties, which are necessary to comprehend it, but from his disuse of them. This is a moral obstacle.

It cannot be fairly said, that the power applied to physical resistance is greater than the resistance, unless it necessarily prevail over it: but it is very dif ferent with that power, which is applied to moral resistance. Those who have attended to what

hath been said, easily perceive the reason of the difference, without our detaining you in explaining it.

Why do we not use the same fair reasoning on religious subjects, which we profess to use on all other subjects? Doth religion authorise us to place that to the account of God, which proceedeth solely from the free obstinacy, and voluntary malice of mankind? Jesus Christ did not descend to this world to convert irrational beings; but intelligent creatures: he found two sorts of obstacles in the way of their conversion, obstacles merely physical, and obstacles merely moral. Obstacles merely physical are those, which would have prevented our discovering the plan of redemption, if he had not revealed it; and of the same kind are those, which our natural constitution, being disconcerted by sin, opposeth against the end, which our Saviour proposeth, of rendering us holy. Jesus Christ hath surmounted these obstacles by the light of revelation, and by the aid of his holy Spirit.

But he found also other obstacles merely moral. Such were those, which he met with in the pharisees, and which hindered those execrable men from yielding to the power of his miracles. Such are those still of all erroneous and wicked men, whose errors and vices proceed from similar principles. The superiority of the means, which Jesus Christ useth to reclaim them, doth not depend on the success of those means: they fail, it is evident, through the power of those merely moral obstacles, which a voluntarily malice, and a free obstinacy oppose against them.

This remark, as I said before, elucidates one of the most obscure articles of christianity. It accounts for the conduct of God towards his creatures, and for the language which his servants use on his behalf. The omnipotence of God is more than

sufficient to convince the most obstinate minds, and to change the most obdurate hearts, and yet he declareth, although he hath displayed only some degrees of it, that he hath employed all the means he could to convert the last and to convince the first. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard? Isa. v. 3, 4. Acts of omnipotence might have been done, in order to have forced it to produce good grapes, and to have annihilated its unhappy fertility in producing wild grapes. But no, his vineyard, as he saith, was the house of Israel. The house of Israel consisted of intelligent beings, not of irrational beings. God applied to these beings means suitable, not to irrational, but to intelligent beings. He met with two sorts of obstacles to the conversion of these beings: physical obstacles, and moral obstacles; and he opposeth to each sort of these obstacles a superior power but a power suited to the nature of each. The superiority of that, which he opposed to physical obstacles, necessarily produced its effect, without which it would not have been a superior, but an inferior power. To moral obstacles he opposed a power suited to moral obstacles; if it did not produce its effect, it was not because it had not in itself superior influence; God was not to be blamed, but they, to whom it was applied.

Our remark is, particularly, a key to our text. The means which God employs to irradiate our minds, and to sanctify our hearts, are superior to those, which the world employs to deceive and to deprave us; if that superiority, which is always influential on believers, he destitute of influence on

nature.

obstinate sinners, it is no less superior in its own The unsuccessfulness of the means with the last proceeded solely from their own obstinacy and malice. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Ye have overcome them, because greater is he, that is in you, than he, that is in the world. This, I think, is the substance of the meaning of the apostle.

But, as it is only the general sense, it requires to be particularly developed, and I ought to investigate the subject by justifying three propositions, which are included in it, and which I shall have occasion to apply to the christian religion.

I. Truth hath a light superior to all the glimmerings of falshood.

II. Motives to virtue are stronger than motives

to vice

III. The holy Spirit, who openeth the eyes of a christian to shew him the light of the truth, and who toucheth his heart, in order to make him feel the power of motives to virtue; is infinitely more powerful than Satan, who seduceth mankind by falshood and vice.

Each of these propositions would require a whole discourse; I intend, however, to explain them all in the remaining part of this: the more brevity I am obliged to observe, the more attention you ought to give..

I. Truth hath a light superior to all the glimmerings of error. Some men, I grant, are as tenacious of error, as others are of truth. False religions have disciples, who seem to be as sincerely attached to them, as believers are to the true religion; and if Jesus Christ hath his martyrs, Satan also hath his.

Yet I affirm, that the persuasion of a man, who

deceives himself, is never equal to that of a man, who doth not deceive himself. How similar soever that impression may appear, falshood makes on the mind of him, who is seduced by it, to that, which truth makes on the mind of him, who is enlightened by it; there is always this grand difference, the force of truth is irresistible, whereas it is always possible to resist that of error.

The force of a known truth is irresistible. There are, it is granted, some truths, there are even infinite numbers, which lie beyond the stretch of my capacity and there may also be obstacles, that hinder my knowledge of a truth proportional to the extent of my mind. There may, indeed, be many distractions, which may cause me to lose sight of the proofs, that establish a truth; and there may be many passions in me, which may induce me to wish it could not be proved, and which, by urging me to employ the whole capacity of my mind in considering objections against it, leave me no part of my perception to attend to what establisheth it. Yet all these cannot diminish the light which is essential to truth; none of these can prevent a known truth from carrying away the conAs a cloud, that sent in an invincible manner. conceals the sun, doth not diminish the splendor, which is essential to that globe of fire; so all the obstacles, which prevent my knowledge of a truth, that lies within the reach of my capacity, cannot prevent my receiving the evidence of it, in spite of myself, as soon as I become attentive to it. It doth not depend on me to believe, that from the addition of two to two there results the number four. It is just the same with the truths of philosophy; the same with the truths of religion, and the same with all the known truths in the world. To speak strictly, the knowledge of a truth, and the belief of