When Revelation then comes in, it is like opening a new sense to man. He discerns a new world. He finds that he stands in new relations to God-that new facts have taken place, and new duties are imposed on him.

So that we may say with Mr. Locke, that "reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of our faculties. Revelation is natural reli

lively manner the instant change in all our grounds of reasoning, which new facts or new information may occasion.

"One single new fact, one single new principle, may throw light on a whole class of difficulties. There may be periods of Christianity coming on which may unveil much that is now dark and perplexing. What do we know of God's mind? What does a subject of an earthly prince know of that human prince's mind?

"Let us ask whether the sheep that is folded and tended with so much care, can possibly divine the real cause of all that is done by man with regard to his welfare. If we were to suppose the animal gifted with a certain degree of sagacity, we may imagine it might possibly arrive at certain conclusions; it might conjecture, from seeing the fate of its fellowcreatures, that itself was only reserved to be killed hereafter; that it was served with additional food, only to make its carcase larger when killed; but it never could discover that its flesh was designed only for the food of man, or that the candle in the shepherd's lanthorn was made from sheep's fat, or his coat from its wool. Suppose, however, another event. Let a man come and remove this sheep from the pasture where it grazed to other pastures; a circumstance that, as far as it had any observation of such matters, might have happened often before, without any material consequence having been the result. Yet it might happen that the man was a thief, and the act of removal an act of felony, and the man to be put to death in consequence. Now if the sheep could reason with ever so much sagacity, yet from the data which alone would have been afforded it, it could never arrive at any just conclusion in such a case; for though the act concerned itself, yet it referred to principles of which it was not only ignorant, but with which it was wholly unconnected."-Semi-Sceptic. p. 65.

gion enlarged, and a new set of discoveries communicated immediately by God, which reason vouches the truth of by the testimony and proof it gives that they came from God."

To appeal, then, to the moral sense or to conscience, as affording any thing like a ground of objection to the matter of Christianity, is to overthrow all the authority of Revelation. Conscience and reason, or that modification of it which we call the moral sense, do not furnish laws which we should obey, but point out when we agree with that rule of action which had previously been established as our guide; whether that rule be the law of the land, or the precepts of a particular philosophy, or the customs of society, or the commands of God. Reason and conscience are casuists; Revelation alone is the law."

The believer, then, reasons from the Bible, as from self-evident truths. When men say that they can believe nothing that is unreasonable, we agree with them —but the question is, what is unreasonable? If God gives us a Revelation of his will, it is most reasonable for me to believe the things contained in it, though I may not understand them in all their parts. To object to the unreasonableness of this or that fact, this or that doctrine, as unbelievers commonly do, is to suppress the main step in the argument-the Revelation which intervenes; if there were no revelation, to believe certain things might be just as absurd, as it is now fit and becoming, because we receive them on the authority of a divine religion.

66

Having, now," says the greatest master of reason perhaps, which our country ever saw, "with our small bark of knowledge, sailed over and surrounded the globe of the sciences, as well the Old World as the New, there is another part to be viewed-inspired theology; to survey which, we must quit the small vessel

9 Bishop John Bird Sumner.

of human reason, and put ourselves on board the ship of the church, which alone possesses the divine needle for justly shaping our course...... If we should believe only such things as are agreeable to our reason, we assent to the matter and not to the author; and therefore the more absurd and incredible any divine mysteries are, so much the greater honour do we do to God in believing them, and so much the more noble the victory of faith." 10

2. But we have dwelt too long on this topic. We pass to the NECESSITY OF DIVINE AID IN ORDER TO believe ArigHT-the reasonableness of which rests on the same footing of the authority of the Revelation. For if I am to submit myself unreservedly to the divine discoveries of it, I am most of all to submit to those declarations of human depravity, and of the need of the agency of the Holy Spirit, without which, all the other parts of the record will be of little avail to me. The same book which calls me to believe, tells me that I am a corrupt, perverse, prejudiced creature; and that true faith is the gift and operation of the Holy Spirit. I am bound, then, to submit to this statement, and implore the proffered grace. Till this healing influence restores the moral frame, no real and vital trust in the peculiar truths of Christianity can be exercised. "The man is at a loss for the simple conceptions which are the materials of the argument of which Revelation treats. It is not in the power of reasoning to supply those ideas themselves. Reasoning cannot create the primary elements of the question. It can only cement them together."

29 11

Nothing, then, is so reasonable as to follow the divine directions, and seek for grace to produce the faith to which Revelation addresses itself. Nor can any thing be more becoming man, more agreeable to his accountable and immortal being, more dignified and

10 Lord Bacon.

11 Chalmers.

elevating to his intellectual nature, than to bow implicitly to God, and receive all his will with the silence and submission of conscious ignorance and guilt. To act otherwise, is acting the most unreasonable, as well as the most rebellious part; for unless men pray humbly for a vigorous and living faith, they will find out a way to believe only so much of the Bible as they please. Their reason remains under the tyranny of the passions. Instead of being the governing faculty in the mind, she is like a weak eastern prince, dethroned by her usurping subjects, and that on account of her inability to enforce her dictates; so that for once that she issues any orders of her own, she is a thousand times either coaxed or compelled to lend her name and authority, as Prince Henry III. when in the hands of Montfort and the Barons, to the greatest extravagancies and crimes. 12

And, indeed, where the question of the Evidences of Christianity has been candidly examined, the very same temper of mind which led to a fair balancing of testimonies in every step of the argument, will go on to operate when the truth of Christianity is established. It will examine what the faith is with which the religion is to be received; it will perceive the difference between a speculative assent, and a cordial and thorough belief in the matters of Revelation; and when it discerns the reasonableness of exercising such a trust, it will discern also the fitness of submitting to God's directions as to the manner of attaining it; and finding it is described as the gift of God, it will pray and earnestly seek for the communication of the gift from the source of all light and grace.

In fact, it is highly reasonable for man, in every important undertaking, and therefore most of all in the reception of Christianity, to be dependent on God, to feel his weakness and ignorance, and to rely on di

12 Deism Revealed.

vine aid. Even natural religion teaches us man's feebleness. Revelation opens that disease to the bottom. Revelation proceeds on the fall and corruption of man. Revelation declares that faith must be a living principle, operating upon the whole soul. Revelation pronounces the Holy Ghost to be the divine agent who produces such a faith. And nothing can be so clear as the reasonableness of all this; the first step in the argument being granted, that the Revelation requiring this faith and promising this grace which produces it, has come from God.

But let us consider, as we proposed,

III. THE EXTENT TO WHICH, FROM THE NATURE OF THE CASE, FAITH SHOULD BE CARRIED.

For the case is this. We receive a Revelation from Almighty God with a heartfelt repose and acquiescence in the divine testimony. We do this cheerfully as the most reasonable and becoming act of an accountable being to its Creator revealing his will. We seek the grace necessary for believing aright. Then surely the utmost care is necessary not to go beyond, nor stop short in a concern of such importance. We must be much on our guard not to add to, nor diminish from, the testimony on which our faith rests. We must be watchful not to impose our opinions or errors on the divine record. For in proportion as faith resigns us unreservedly to the directions of Christianity, we must see that it be indeed to Christianity that we thus yield up our whole understanding and heart. This is demanded by the very nature of the

case.

We travel an unknown road; dangers beset us on all hands; precipices, and morasses, and bye-paths present themselves. We have an unerring guide; but then we must follow sedulously his conduct. We must not overrun, not linger behind, not start on either side of the path wherein he leads us.