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-righ teousness. 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 'Lect. xiv. this picture resemble you? Is not this the exact portrait, lineament by lineament, of your heart? 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 Epistles, 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 The conviction on my con whom I read? science is faint. Self-love struggles hard, but I 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, springs. 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. 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, alien 1 Mark vii. 21, 22. ' John vi. 44. ated in his mind by wicked works, dead in trespasses and sins. Then go back to the first pages of Revelation, and meditate on the declaration, Every imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. And let the holy Psalmist give in his testimony: I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. You see, all conspires to the same result. The general and demonstrable fact with regard to man, is, that the habit of his heart is dislike and resistance to the Creator who gave him birth. The charge is a gloomy one; but shrink not from the consideration of it. A patient does not shrink from knowing his bodily maladies, in order to obtain a cure; he overcomes his reluctance to entertain a bad opinion of himself; he overcomes his reluctance to find the disease is deeply seated, and has infected his whole frame; he overcomes his reluctance to be told that a totally new method of treatment is indispensable. So do you, as to the infinitely more important question of your spiritual condition. Nothing so touches the heart as this discovery of the secret movements of man's perverseness and corruption. Two things strike you: the one is, that you had never attended to the state of your heart, or your spiritual relation to God, but had been Rom. viii. 7; Rom. vii. 18; Eph. ii. 1; Col. i. 21. |