THE wisdom of mankind has, for several ages, been enquiring into the nature of man, and the nature of the world in which he is placed.
The wants and miseries of human nature, and the vanity of worldly enjoyments, have made it difficult for the wisest men to tell, what human happiness was, or wherein it consisted.
It has pleased the infinite goodness of God to satisfy our enquiries, by a revelation made to the world by his Son Jesus Christ.
This revelation has laid open the great secrets of providence from the creation of the world. It has explained the present state of things, and given man all the information that is necessary, both to give him rest here, and to lead him safely to everlasting happiness.
It is now only necessary that the poor wisdom of man do not exalt itself against God, that we suffer our eyes to be opened by him that made them, and our lives to be conducted by him, in whom _we live, move and have our being_.
II. As happiness is the sole end of all our labours, so this revelation aims at nothing else.
It gives us right notions of ourselves, of our true good and real evil; it shews us our true condition, both our greatness and meanness, our happiness and misery.
*Before this, man was a mere riddle to himself, and his condition full of darkness and perplexity; a restless inhabitant of a miserable disordered world, _walking in a vain shadow and disquieting himself in vain_.
*But this light has dispersed the anxiety of his vain conjectures. It has, by adding heaven to earth, and eternity to time, opened such a glorious view of things, as leads men, even in this world, to a _peace of_ God _which passeth all understanding_.
III. *This revelation acquaints us, that we have a spirit within us, which was created after the divine image; that this spirit is now in a fallen condition; that the body in which it is placed is its sepulchre, where it is enslaved to fleshly thoughts, blinded with false notions of good and evil, and dead to all taste of its true happiness.
It teaches us, that the world in which we live, is also in a disordered, irregular state, and cursed for the sake of man; that it is no longer the paradise that God made it, but the remains of a drowned world, full of marks of God’s displeasure, and the sin of its inhabitants.
That it is a mere wilderness, a state of darkness, a vale of misery, where vice and madness, dreams and shadows, variously please and torment the short, miserable lives of men.
Devils also, and evil spirits have here their residence, promoting the works of darkness, and wandering up and down, seeking whom they may devour.
So that man, in his natural state, is like a person sick of variety of diseases, knowing neither his distemper nor his cure, and inclosed in a place where he can hear or see, or feel, or taste of nothing but what tends to enflame his disorders.
IV. *But Christianity puts an end to this state of things, blots out all the ideas of worldly wisdom, brings the world itself to ashes, and creates all anew. It calls man from an animal life and earthly societies, to be born again of the Holy Ghost, and be made a member of the kingdom of God.
It crushes into nothing the concerns of this life, condemns it as a state of vanity and darkness, and leads man to a happiness with God in the realms of light.
It proposes the purifying of our souls, enlivened with the divine spirit: it sets before us new goods and evils, and forms us to a glorious participation of the divine nature.
This is the one end of Christianity. It does not leave us to grovel on in the desires of the flesh, to cast about for worldly happiness, and wander in darkness and exile from God: but the sole design of it is, to lead us from all thoughts of rest here, to separate us from worldly tempers, to deliver us from the folly of our passions, the slavery of our own natures, the power of evil spirits, and unite us to God, the true fountain of real good. This is the mighty change which Christianity aims at, to reform our whole natures, renew our souls in the image of God, and make them the inhabitants of heavenly and immortal bodies.
V. The manner by which it changes our whole state is equally great and wonderful.
_I am the way, the truth, and the life_, saith our blessed Lord, _no man cometh unto the Father but by me_.
As all things were created by the Son of God, and _without him was not any thing made that was made_, so are all things redeemed and restored by the same divine person.
As nothing could come into being without him, so nothing can enter into a state of happiness but by him.
The dignity of this redemption at once confounds the pride, and relieves the misery of man. How fallen must he be from God, that should need so great a mediator! And, on the other hand, how full of comfort is the thought that so high a method, so stupendous a means should be taken to restore him to a state of peace and favour with God!