136

DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

circumstances through which you have all | substantial importance, why put them away to pass-we never saw the man who could from you now? You will recur to them maintain a stability, and a hope, from the then; and for what? that you may get the sense of his own righteousness; but who, forgiveness of your sins. But there is a if leaning on the righteousness of Christ, something else you must get, ere you can could mix a peace and an elevation with obtain an entrance into peace or glory. his severest agonies. We never saw the You must get the renovation of that nature, expiring mortal who could look with an un- which is so deeply tainted at this moment daunted eye on God as his lawgiver; but with the guilt of ingratitude and forgetfuloften has all its languor been lighted up ness towards God. This must be gone with joy at the name of Christ as his Sa- through ere you die; and say if a change so viour. We never saw the dying acquaint- mighty should be wantonly postponed to ance, who upon the retrospect of his virtues the hour of dying ?-when all your refusals and of his doings, could prop the tranquilli- of the gospel have hardened and darkened ty of his spirit on the expectation of a legal the mind against it; when a demonstration reward. O no! this is not the element of the Spirit then, is surely not to be counted which sustains the tranquillity of death- on, as the return that you will experience for beds. It is the hope of forgiveness. It is a resisting all his intimations now; when the believing sense of the efficacy of the atone-effects of the alienation of a whole life, both ment. It is the prayer of faith, offered up in the name of him who is the captain of all our salvation. It is a dependence on that power which can alone impart a meetness for the inheritance of the saints, and present the spirit holy, and unreproveable, and unblamable, in the sight of God,

Now, what we have to urge is, that if these be the topics, which, on the last half hour of your life, are the only ones that will possess, in your judgment, any value or

in extinguishing the light of your con-
science, and in riveting your distaste for
holiness, will be accumulated into such a
barrier in the way of your return to God,
as stamps upon death-bed conversions, a
grievous unlikelihood, and should give
an imperious force to the call of "To-
"" while it is called to-day, harden
day,"-
not your hearts, seeing that now is your
accepted time, and now is your day of
salvation."

SERMON III.

The Preparation necessary for Understanding the Mysteries of the Gospel.

"He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that he hath."-Matthew xiii. 11, 12.

It is of importance to mark the principle | of distribution on which it is given to some to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and it is not given to others. Both may at the outset be equally destitute of a clear understanding of these mysteries. But the former may have what the latter have not. With the former there may be a desire for explanation; with the latter there may be no such desire. The former may, in the earnest prosecution of this desire, be praying earnestly, and reading diligently, and striving laboriously, to do all that they know to be the will of God. With the latter, there may be neither the habit of prayer, nor the habit of inquiry, nor the habit of obedience. To the one class will be given what they have not. From the other class what they have shall be taken away. We have already attempted to excite in the latter class a respectful attention to the truths of the gospel, and shall now confine ourselves chiefly to the object of encouraging and di

recting those who feel the mysteriousness of
these truths, and long for light to arise in
the midst of it ;-shall address ourselves to
those who have an honest anxiety after
that truth, which is unto us salvation, but
find the way to it beset with many doubts
and many perplexities,-to those who are
impressed with a general conviction on
the side of Scripture, but in whose eyes a
darkness impenetrable still broods over its
pages,-to those who are haunted by a
sense of the imperious necessity of religion,
and at the same time cannot escape
the impression, that if it is any where to be
found, it is to be found within the records
of the Old and New Testament, but from
whose heart in the reading of these records
the veil still remains untaken away.

from

In the further prosecution of this discourse, let us attempt, in the first place, to explain what it is that we ought to have, in order to attain an understanding of the mys teries of the gospel; and, in the second

place, how It is that in many cases these be that of a darkness as helpless and as mysteries are evolved upon the mind in a clear and convincing manifestation.

unattainable as can possibly be imagined, there still remains an obvious and practicable direction which you can be doing with in the mean time. You can persevere in the exercise of reading your Bible. There you are at the place of meeting etween the Spirit of God and your own spirit. You may have to wait, as if at the pool of Siloam; but the many calls of the Bible to wait upon God, to wait upon him with patience, to wait and to be of good courage, all prove that this waiting is a frequent and a familiar part of that process by which a sinner finds his way out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel.

I. First, then, we ought to have an honest desire after light; and if we have this desire, it will not remain unproductive. There is a connexion repeatedly announced to us in Scripture between desire upon this subject, and its accomplishment. He that willeth to do the will of God shall know of my doctrine. He who hungereth and thirsteth shall be filled. He who lacketh wisdom and is desirous of obtaining it, let him vent his desire in prayer,-and if it be the prayer of confidence in God, his desire shall be given him. There are thousands to whom the Bible is a sealed book, and who are satis- And we have also adverted already, fied that it should remain so, who share in though in a very general way, to the difthe impetuous contempt of the Pharisees ference in point of result between the active against a doctrine to which they are alto- inquiries of a man who looks forward to gether blind, who have no understanding of the acquisition of saving truth as the natural the matter, and no wish that it should be and necessary termination of his inquiries, otherwise, and unto them it will not be and of a man who mingles with every pergiven to know the mysteries of the king-sonal attempt after this object, the exercise dom of heaven. They have not, and from of prayer, and a reverential sense of his them therefore shall be taken away even dependence on God. The latter is just as that which they have. There are others, active, and just as inquisitive as the former. again, who have an ardent and unquencha- The difference between them does not lie ble thirst after the mysteries of the gospel; who, like the prophet in the apocalypse, weep much because the book is not opened to them; who complain of darkness, like the Apostles of old when they expostulated with their Teacher because he spoke in parables, and, like them, who go to him with their requests for an explanation. These shall find that what they cannot do for themselves, the Lion of the tribe of Judah will do for them. He will prevail to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof. There is something they already have, even an honest wish to be illuminated, and to this more will be given. They are awake to the disirableness, they are awake to the necessity of a revelation, which they have not yet gotten, and to them belongs the promise of, Awake, O sinner, and Christ shall give thee light.

Secondly, We ought to have a habit of prayer conjoined with a habit of inquiry; and to this more will be given. We have already adverted to the circumstance, that it is in the Bible, and not out of the Bible, where this light is to be met with. It is by the Spirit of God, shining upon the word of God, that his truth is reflected with clearness upon the soul. It is by his operation that the characters of this book are made to stand as visibly out to the eye of the understanding, as they do to the eye of the body; and therefore it is evident that it is not in the act of looking away from the written revelation, but in the act of looking towards it, that the wished-for illumination will at length come into the mind of an inquirer. Let your present condition then

S

in the one putting forth diligence without a feeling of dependence, and the other feeling dependence, without a putting forth of diligence. He who is in the right path towards the attainment of light, combines both these properties.

It is through the avenues of a desirous heart and of an exercised understanding, and of sustained attention, and of faculties in quest of truth, and labouring after the possession of it, that God sends into the mind his promised manifestations. All this exercise on the one hand, without such an acknowledgement of him as leads to prayer, will be productive of nothing in the way of spiritual discernment. And prayer, without this exercise, is the mere form and mockery of an acknowledgement. He who calls upon us to hearken diligently, when he addresses us by a living voice, does in effect call upon us to read and to ponder diligently when he addresses us by a written message. To ask truth of God, while we neglect to do for this object what he bids us, is in fact not to recognize God, but to insult him. It is to hold out the appearance of presenting ourselves before him, while we are not doing it at the place of meeting, which he has assigned for us. It is to address an imaginary Being, whom we have invested with a character of our own conception, and not the Being who bids us search his Scriptures, and incline unto his testimonies, and stir ourselves up that we may lay hold of him. Such prayer is utterance, and nothing more. It wants all the substantial characters of prayer. It may amount to the seeking of those who

138

DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

shall not be able to enter the strait gate. It falls short of the striving of those who take the kingdom of heaven by force, and of whom that kingdom suffereth violence.

crisy. If he both read and pray, it is far more likely that he will be brought unto the condition of a man being justified through faith in Christ, than that he will rest his He who without prayer looks confidently hopes before God in the mere exercise of forward to success as the fruit of his own reading. If he both do and pray, it is far investigations, is not walking humbly with more likely that he will come to be estaGod. If he were humble he would pray. blished in the righteousness of Christ, as But whether is he the more humble, who the foundation of all his trust, than that he joins with a habit of prayer all those ac- will rest upon his own righteousness. For companying circumstances which God hath a man to give up sin at the outset, is just to prescribed, or he who, in neglect of these do what God wills him at the outset. For a circumstances, ventures himself into his man at the commencement of his inquiries, presence in the language of supplication? to be strenuous in the relinquishment of alí There may be the show of humility in con- that he knows to be evil, is just to enter on fiding the whole cause of our spiritual and the path of approach towards Christ, in the saving illumination to the habit of praying very way that Christ desires him. He who for it to God. But if God himself tells us, cometh unto me must forsake all. For a that we must read, and seek, and meditate, man to put forth an immediate hand to the then it is no longer humility to keep by the doing of the commandments, while he is solitary exercise of praying. It is, in fact, groping his way towards a firm basis on keeping pertinaciously by our own way, which he might rear his security before heedless of his will and his way altogether. God, is not to deviate or diverge from the It is approaching God in the pride of our Saviour. He may do it with an eye of most own understanding. It is detaching from intense earnestness towards the Saviour,the whole work of seeing after him some and while the artificial interpreter of Christ's of those component parts which he himself doctrine holds him to be wrong, Christ himhath recommended. In the very act of self may recognize him to be one of those making prayer stand singly out as alone who keep his sayings, and to whom thereinstrument of success, we are in fact draw-fore he stands pledged to manifest himself. ing the life and the spirit out of prayer The man in fact by strenuously doing, is itself; and causing it to wither into a thing just the more significantly and the more of no power and no significancy in the sight energetically praying. He is adding one inof God. It is not the prayer of acknow-gredient to the business of seeking, without ledgement, unless it comes from him who which the other ingredient would be in acknowledges the will of God in other things as well as in prayer. It is not the prayer of submission unless it comes from the heart of a man who manifests a principle of submission in all things.

Thirdly, We ought to do all that we know to be God's will; and to this habit of humble earnest desirous reformation, more will be given.

God's sight an abomination. He is struggling against all regard to iniquity in his heart, seeing that if he have this regard God will not hear him. To say, that it is dangerous to tell a man in these circumstances to do, lest he rest in his doings, and fall short of the Saviour, is to say, that it would be dangerous to place a man on the road to his wished-for home, lest, when he has got upon We trust that what has been said will the road, he should stand still and be satisfied. prepare you for the reception of another The more, in fact, that the man's conscience advice besides that of reading or praying is exercised and enlightened (and what more for the attainment of that manifestation fitted than wilful sin to deafen the voice of which you are in quest of,-and that is, conscience altogether?) the less will it let doing. There is an alarm raised in many him alone, and the more will it urge him a heart at the very suggestion of doing for onward to that righteousness which is the an inquirer, lest he should be misled as to only one commensurate to God's law, and the ground of his justification; lest among in which alone the holy and inflexible God the multitude or the activity of his works, can look upon him with complacency. Let he should miss the truth, that a man is ac- him humbly betake himself, then, to the cepted, not through the works of the law, prescribed path of reading, and prayer, and but by faith in Jesus Christ; lest by every obvious reformation, and let us see if there one performance of duty, he should just be do not evolve upon his mind, in the prosecuadding another stone to the fabric of a de- tion of it, the worthlessness of all that man lusive confidence, and presumptuously try can do for his meritorious acceptance with to force his own way to heaven, without the Lawgiver-and the deep ungodliness the recognition of the gospel or any of its of character which adheres to him-and peculiarities. Now, doing stands precisely the suitableness of Christ's atonement to all in the same relation to prayer that reading his felt necessities, and all his moral aspidoes. Without the one or the other it is rations-and the need in which he stands the prayer either of presumption or hypo- of a regenerating influence, to make him a

to be found of those who seek after it. The knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, which is life everlasting, is a knowledge open and acquirable to all. And, on the day of judgment, there will not be found a single instance of a man condemned because of unbelief, who sought to the uttermost of his opportunities; and evinced the

willing and a spiritual subject of God. Let us see whether, though the light which he at length receives be marvellous, the way is not plain which leads to it; and whether though nature be compassed about with a darkness which no power of nature can dissipate, there is not a clear and obvious procedure, by the steps of which the most alienated of her children may be carried on-earnestness of his desire after peace with wards to all the manifestation of the kingdom of grace, and to the discernment of all its mysteries.

Though to the natural eye, then, the doctrine of Christ be not plain, the way is plain by which we arrive at it. Though, ere we see the things of Christ, the Spirit must take of them and show them unto us,-yet this Spirit deals out such admonitions to all, that, if we follow them, he will not cease to enlarge, and to extend his teaching, till we have obtained a saving illumination. He is given to those who obey him. He abandons those who resist him. When conscience tells us to read, and to pray, and to reform, it is he who is prompting this faculty. It is he who is sending through this organ, the whispers of his own voice to the ear of the inner man. If we go along with the movement, he will follow it up by other movements. He will visit him who is the willing subject of his first influences by higher demonstrations. He will carry forward his own work in the heart of that man, who, while acting upon the suggestions of his own moral sense, is in fact acting in conformity to the warnings of this kind and faithful monitor. So that the Holy Spirit will connect his very first impulses on the mind of that inquirer, who, under the reign of earnestness, has set himself to read his Bible, and to knock with importunity at the door of heaven, and to forsake the evil of his ways, and to turn him to the practice of all that he knows to be right,-the Spirit will connect these incipient measures of a seeker after Zion, with the acquirement of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.

God, by doing all that he might have done, and by being all that he might have been.

Be assured, then, that it will be for want of seeking, if you do not find. It will be for want of learning, if you are not taught. It will be for want of obedience to the movements of your own conscience, if the Holy Ghost, who prompts and who stimulates the conscience to all its movements, be not poured upon you, in one large and convincing manifestation. It may still be the day of small things with you-a day despised by the accomplished adepts of a systematic and articled theology. But God will not despise it. He will not leave your longings for ever unsatisfied. He will not keep you standing always at the threshold of vain desires and abortive endeavours, That faith, which is the gift of God, you have already attained, in a degree, if you have obtained a general conviction of the importance and the reality of the whole matter. He will increase that faith. Act up to the light that you have gotten by reading earnestly, and praying importunately, and striving laboriously, and to you more will be given. You will at length obtain a clear and satisfying impression of the things of God, and the things of salvation. Christ will be recognised in all his power and in all his preciousness. You will know what it is to be established upon him. The natural legality of your hearts will give way to the pure doctrine of acceptance with God, through faith in the blood of a crucified Saviour. The sanctifying influence of such a faith will not merely be talked of in word, but be experienced in power; and you will evince that you are God's workmanship in Christ Jesus, by your abounding in all those fruits of righteousness which are through him, to the praise and glory of the Father.

II. We shall now attempt to explain, how it is that the mysteries of the gospel are, in many cases, evolved upon the mind in a clear and convincing manifestation.

Let it not be said, then, that because the doctrine of Christ is shrouded in mystery to the general eye of the world, it is such a mystery as renders it inaccessible to the men of the world. Even to them does the trumpet of invitation blow a certain sound. They may not yet see the arcana of the temple, but they may see the road which leads to the temple. If they are never to obtain admission there, it is not because And here let it be distinctly understood, they cannot, but because they will not, that the way in many cases may be very come to it. "Ye will not come to me,' "far from the way in all cases. The expesays the Saviour, "that ye might have life," rience of converts is exceedingly various,— Reading, and prayer, and reformation, these nor do we know a more frequent, and at are all obvious things; and it is the neglect of these obvious things which involves them in the guilt and the ruin of those who neglect the great salvation. This salvation is

the same time a more groundless cause of anxiety, than that by which the mind of an inquirer is often harassed, when he attempts to realize the very process by which

another has been called out of darkness to the marvellous light of the gospel.

Referring, then, to those grounds of mysteriousness which we have already specified in a former discourse,-God may so manifest himself to the mind of an inquirer, as to convince him, that all those analogies of common life which are taken from the relation of a servant to his master, or of a son to his father, or of a subject to his sovereign, utterly fail in the case of man, as he is by nature, in relation to his God. A servant may discharge all his obligations; a son may acquit himself of all his duties, or may, with his occasional failures, and his occasional chastisements, still keep his place in the instinctive affection of his parents; and a subject may persevere in unseduced loyalty to the earthly government under which he lives. But the glaring and the demonstrable fact with regard to man, viewed as a creature, is, that the habit of his heart is one continued habit of dislike and resistance to the Creator who gave him birth.

rounded as we are by the gifts of nature and of providence, all of which are his, the giver is meanwhile forgotten, and, amid the enjoyments of his bounty, we live without him in the world. If it indeed be true, that it is his sun which lights us on our path, and his earth on which we tread so firmly, and his air which circulates a freshness around our dwellings, and his rain which produces all the luxuriance that is spread around us, and drops upon every field the smiling pro mise of abundance for all the wants of his dependent children,-if all this be true, can it at the same time be right, that this allproviding God should have so little a place in our remembrance? that the whole man should be otherwise engaged than with a sense of him, and the habitual exercise of acknowledgment to him? that in fact the full play of his regards should be expended on the things which are formed, and through the whole system of his conduct and his affairs, there should be so utter a neglect of him who formed them? Surely if this be the true description of man, and the chaThe earthly master may have all those racter of his heart in reference to God, then services rendered to which he has a right, it is a case of too peculiar a nature to be and so be satisfied. The earthly father may illustrated by any of the analogies of human have all the devotedness, and all the attach-society. It must be taken up on its own ment from his family, which he can desire, grounds; and should the injured and ofand so be satisfied. The earthly sovereign fended Lawgiver offer to make it the subject may have all that allegiance from a loyal of any communication, it is our part humsubject, who pays his taxes, and never bly to listen and implicitly to follow it. transgresses his laws, which he expects or And here it is granted, that amongst the cares for, and so be satisfied. But go up-men who are utter strangers to this comward from them to the God who made us,munication, you meet with the better and to the God who keeps us,-to the God in the worse; and that there is an obvious whom we live, and move, and have our being, to the God whose care and whose presence are ever surrounding us, who, from morning to night, and from night to morning, watches over us, and tends us while we sleep, and guides us in our waking moments, and follows us to the business of the world, and brings us back in safety to our homes, and never for a single instant of time withdraws from us the superintendence of an eye that never slumbers, and of a hand that is never weary. Now, all we require is a fair estimate of the claims of such a God. Does he ask too much, when he asks the affections of a heart that receives its every beat, and its every movement, from the impulse of his power? Does he ask too much, when he asks the devoted-tion of humanity, there is one virtue, which, ness of a life, which owes its every hour and its every moment to him, whose right hand preserves us continually? Has he no right to complain, when he knocks at the door of our hearts, and trying to possess himself of the love and the confidence of his own creatures, he finds that all their thoughts, and all their pursuits, and all likings, are utterly away from him? Is there no truth, and no justice in the charge which he prefers against us,-when, sur

line of distinction which marks off the base and the worthless amongst them, from those of them who are the valuable and the accomplished members of society. And yet do we aver that one may step over that line and not be nearer than he was to God,that, between the men on either side of it, and Him who created them, there lies an untrodden gulf of separation, that, with all the justice which rules their transactions, and all the honour which animates their bosoms, and all the compassion which warms their hearts, and streams forth either in tears of pity, or in acts of kindness, upon the miserable,-with all these virtues which they do have, and which serve both to bless and to adorn the condi

prior to the reception and the influence of the gospel of Christ, they most assuredly do not have,-they are utterly devoid of godliness. They have no desire, and no inclination towards God. There may be the dread of him, and the occasional remembrance of him; but there is no affection for him.

This is the charge which we carry round amongst all the sons and daughters of Adam, who have not submitted themselves