is one Revelation, divided into several parts. It proposes to bring man back to God; it opens a wonderful plan of redemption, which it gradually develops, till, in the later prophets, it melts into the Evangelical history. It bids man pray; it calls him to repent, to believe, to rely on the mercy of God, through an atonement; to obey conscience, to shun the society of the wicked. What does it promise? Not to remove all the evils of this life, which are the consequences of sin, but to allieviate the most pressing-to give pardon, peace, strength, consolation in this world, whilst it prepares man for, what is the consummation of its designs, the happiness of another. With these discoveries, or rather new impressions upon the heart, turn now to the apostolical writings, the last and finishing part of the inspired volume, composed after the ascension of our Saviour, and the promised fulness of the Holy Ghost. You see in the Epistles all the practical bearings of Christianity developed; the ends of Christ's incarnation and death; the virtue of his sacrifice; the intention of the Mosaic ceremonies; the preparatory and imperfect character of the legal dispensation; the perfect provisions of the evangelical. Much will appear to you mysterious, difficult, incomprehensible, in the details; especially at the first perusal. But you have now some humility of mind; and will allow the great Creator to be wiser than man, the creature of a day. And it is to the general impression made upon you, as a serious inquirer, anxious for truthconscious, in some degree, of demerit, aware of weakness and ignorance, that I am now directing your thoughts. I would draw you off from the consideration of the gospel in the mere aspect of its mysteries, to the practical effects which they are designed to produce. You see Christianity is nothing more than natural religion amplified, purged, elevated, rendered practi cable by a stupendous act of mercy, the gift of the only begotten Son of God to die for sin, and of the renovating Spirit of grace. Mark the effects which the gospel produced on the hearts and prospects of its first converts. What a change, what a deliverance, what a light in darkness, what a joy amidst the miseries of a pagan world; what an impress of God upon the soul of the convert! It is a new heart communicated; a new life; a new turn and bias to all the powers of the rational nature; a birth from above. Close now the sacred book, and look around you in the world; recall the annals of the past ages; retrace the history of mankind. You behold every thing with new eyes; you see God knows the state of man; you see that the misery, blindness, perverseness, corruption, folly, vices of mankind; that their uncertainty on all the fundamental points of religion, their dread of God as an enemy, their apprehensions of futurity,-that all meet and agree with the provisions of the gospel; whilst the provisions of the gospel meet and agree with these wants. The phenomena of the world around you exactly correspond with the statements of the Bible. Now then, put these things together; and afterwards reflect on the mass of evidence of every kind, with which the Christian religion was introduced to your notice. I ask, if already some new sensations do not spring up in your bosom? I ask, if some fresh hopes do not visit you of attaining truth? I ask, if a new view of things does not dawn upon your mind, now that you begin in earnest to study what religion is, and what it proposes to do for man? Yes, I have surely gained my cause thus far! Yes, some new persuasion of the divinity of the Scriptures is moving in your mind, quite different from the traditional assent you once gave! Something within you says, "If this surprising exhibition of the love of God in his own Son-if this prodigious scheme of redemption be but true, it will make me happy; it will relieve me from the darkness and agitation and doubt which I sometimes feel. And why should it not be true? Are my prejudices, or those of the world, of any weight on such a subject? How can the gospel be otherwise than true? Is it possible that Almighty God can have surrounded an imposture with such authority of miracles; with such fulfilments of prophecy; with such supernatural aids in the propagation, and continuance, and effects of the religion? Is it possible, that, with such a suitableness to the state and wants of man, with such a sublime system of doctrine, with such a pure morality, with so divine a Founder, with such a holy tendency, the religion should be false? No! it cannot be. The very thought is absurd-impossible! It cannot be, that all the attestations of truth should be a mere signet upon a forged revelation! No--all is true. I leave, for the present, difficulties which may, perhaps, be cleared up hereafter; but the Bible speaks to my heart. It is its own best defence; it carries its own evidence with it; it is divine." II. TRACE OUT, in the next place, IN YOUR OWN HEART AND CHARACTER, THE TRUTH OF THE PARTICULAR STATEMENTS OF THE BIBLE, AS TO THE CONDITION OF MAN AND HIS GUILT BEFORE GOD. You are now in a frame of mind to do this; you are making a trial, in all simplicity, of the first promises of Christianity to those who seek her; you have received an impression from the perusal and comparison of the contents of the Bible, which has brought you out from the mere tameness of educational assent. Take, then, in the next place, one head of revealed truth. Verify in your own heart one part of the Bible, and that a capital part; a part on which all the other divisions proceed; a part which I allow to be most distasteful to man at first, but yet which, if once examined candidly and humbly, will be found to correspond with matter of fact, and to open to you fully the design of the whole Revelation. Read again, and catch the impression of the language of sacred Scripture, as to the state of man since the fall; as to his weakness, blindness, corruption, perverseness, propensity to depart from God, unaptness to what is spiritually good. You will find that Revelation is addressed throughout to the weak, the unworthy, the miserable; and that if you did not feel yourself to be of this number, the Bible would not be suited for you. But go on. You begin to be conscious within yourself of a moral disorder; you will soon lose your high opinion of yourself, and your fond notions of self-righteousness. Consider what a contradictory creature the Bible describes man to be. How it degrades him on one hand, as to his actual condition, and raises him, on the other, as to his original capacities, as we formerly showed. Does not this picture resemble you? Is not this the exact portrait, lineament by lineament, your heart? of Proceed-read the history of the church and of the world, as given in the faithful, but humiliating, records of Revelation, with the view of better discovering the state of man. What are the annals of the chosen people? what are the glimpses given of mankind and the pagan nations? what are the facts, as there collected? How frightful the vices; how unjust and interminable the wars; how debasing the idolatries ; how profligate the cruelties there exhibited! From the history, go on and search the prophetical and devotional books; examine the New Testament; read the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epis 4 Lect. XIV. tles, in order to see what man is; what the extent of his misery and guilt! You discover the same features in every part of the Bible. From the commencement to the close of the sacred canon, man is described, is addressed, is treated, is exhibited as a sinner, guilty, wandering from God, condemned, miserable, unable to deliver himself. Now look within, and ask yourself, "Is not all this truth, so far as my own heart can be a specimen of that of others? Am I not this very perverse, wayward, contradictory, irresolute creature? Is not my mind as prone to wickedness as that of the individuals and nations of whom I read? The conviction on my conscience is faint-self-love struggles hard; but truth will make its way. The Bible knows me better than I know myself. All history, and all experience, confirm its statements; but, what is to me more than a thousand arguments-my own heart confirms the account. I am this weak, fallen creature, thus depicted in the sacred word." Read now, with attention, the strong passages throughout the Scriptures, which assert that depravity of man's nature, as a point of doctrine, from which these histories, and confessions, and facts, spring. Compare, for example, our Lord's declaration of what flows from the human heart. "From within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, pride, blasphemy, foolishness;" with his assertion,- "That no man can come unto him, except the Father draw him.”6 And take both passages, and compare them with St. Paul's statement of "the human heart being enmity against God;" of there "being in our flesh no good thing;" of man" being far from God, alienated in his mind by wicked works, dead in trespasses and sins." 5 Mark vii. 21, 22. |