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The test of the truth.

Sin a disease.

Efficacy of remedies.

which the peace and harmony of families and villages are so often destroyed, are labor spent in vain. The Christian endeavors to reason his brother Christian or his worldly neighbor out of his errors, and begins, perhaps, with honest motives, and certainly with sanguine hopes of success. But he finds that however exclusively he may imagine the truth to be on one side, there may be talking on both, and he soon becomes irritated by formidable opposition, when he expected an immediate surrender. He soon becomes excited, and forgetting the spiritual value of the truth, he contends for victory in the contest, and if he had any right feeling at the beginning, it is all gone before the conversation is closed.

The best way for private Christians to prove the truth, is to let it exercise its whole power upon their own hearts, and then to exhibit its fruits. Try to promote the happiness, and to improve the hearts and lives of those around you, and you will evince the efficacy, and the value, and the truth of the opinions you hold, better than in any other way. If a pestilential disease were raging in a city, and if the community were divided in regard to the method of cure, how preposterous would it be for those who are well, to leave the sick and suffering, and suspend all active efforts, and waste their time in disputes about the nature of the vital powers,- the character of the disease,- and the operation of the various remedies. It would be absurd; but let each one go and try his own plan, and the success of the right one, will secure its universal adoption; and that too, with a rapidity which will be just in proportion to the degree in which all disputing on the subject is avoided. In the same manner, success in turning men to holiness is the great criterion of religious truth. It must be so; the world is full of hearts alienated from God, and enslaved to sin: and nothing but true religion can break these chains, and bring back the wanderer to pardon and

Moral power of the truth.

The means of propagating it.

happiness. Let the advocates then, of every system of religious truth, go abroad among mankind, and try their remedies. That which is really from Heaven must succeed, and success must decide its triumph.

In fact the little progress which religion is making in the world is made in this way. Disputes on all subjects which are involved in real difficulty, generally result in a division of the auditors into parties, proportioned, pretty nearly, to the abilities of the combatants; and in religion there is a bias, which is altogether on the wrong side; discussion, therefore, here will be peculiarly uncertain in its results. It is the visible moral effect of the truth, which really sustains its influence in this world. It is moral power, so evident and so irresistible, which enables pure Christianity to stand her ground; and every thing which diminishes this, or limits the sphere of its influence, or draws off the attention of men from it,—every thing of this kind, retards most directly and most powerfully the progress of the Savior's cause. Let every class of Christians then, who think they love the truth, not waste their time in disputing with their neighbors, but cherish the pure spirit of piety in their hearts, and cultivate in themselves and in all around them, its genuine and happy fruits. The Christian's rule of influence is not to endeavor to establish the truth in the human intellect by the power of subtle disputation; but "by manifestation of the truth, to commend themselves to every man's conscience, in the sight of God." In other words, we must bring piety forward; its nature and tendencies must be made to appear in this world, and to stand out in bold and striking relief, among the prevailing miseries and sins But this must be done, too, with the constant conviction that THE CONSCIENCE is the great avenue by which it is to find access to the human heart, if it is admitted at all.

The command and the promise.

The Savior's preseure.

CHAPTER X.

THE PARTING PROMISE,

OR THE INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

"Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

Ar the time of our Savior's crucifixion, any one who should have looked abroad at the condition and character of mankind, would have pronounced the attempt which the twelve disciples were about to make, the most wild and impracticable scheme which the human heart could devise. Jesus knew, when he commanded his followers to engage in such an enterprise, that they would need help. He coupled therefore a promise to his command,-the one as remarkable as the other.

The Savior's presence with his followers assists them in their work, undoubtedly, in several ways. It cheers and sustains them. It gives them guidance and direction in difficulty and doubt; and the feeling that they are always, with their leader, enjoying his presence and sympathy, gives devoted and honest Christians a support in difficulty, and trial, and affliction, which nothing else could afford.

But Jesus had often said before, that men, when turned from sin, where turned by influences from above, which influences he was to send down from the Father. We cannot therefore doubt that in this his parting promise, he referred in part at least to the co-operation which he should himself render them, in all their efforts to save souls. The disciples understood this, and the first triumphs of Christianity were, in a simple but beautiful manner, ascribed to him: "And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved.”

Proofs of it.

Saul.

Difficulties of the subject.

Their Master, too, gave the disciples an early and most signal proof that he remembered his promise, and was able to fulfil it, by changing Saul, their bitterest and most powerful foe, to their most devoted and most efficient friend. The apostle always attributed his conversion to the direct interposition of his Savior; and with such proofs as the early Christians thus had, that a divine and unwonted influence was exerted upon human hearts, in connexion with their efforts, they could not but take courage, and press on in a cause, which, without such aid, must have been very soon abandoned.

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We have the same evidence now, as I intend to show in this chapter, by a narrative of facts, such as are in substance very common in modern times, and which prove that the enterprise of bringing the world back to God is not a hopeless one. The narrative will

show too that the same kind of aid, so indispensable to success in such a cause as this, is still rendered. Before coming to it, however, a few considerations respecting the general subject must first be offered.

There are certainly great difficulties in connexion with the truth that whenever men turn away from their sins and enter God's service, it is through spiritual life which he awakens in the soul. Into these difficulties, we do not now propose to enter. We feel and know that men are free and accountable; the Bible most explicitly states, too, that all holy desires in the human heart come from God. If however, the question is raised how holy feeling can be the spontaneous movement of the moral agent which exercises it, and yet be the gift of God, we may lose ourselves in boundless perplexities, and return from the fruitless pursuits more dissatisfied than ever. The difficulty is, however, in the subject, rather than in the truth; that is, it appertains to a whole field of thought, and not to one particular proposition. It is difficult for us to understand how a being can be created at all, with

Subject obscure.

Plausible reasoning not to be relied upon.

out having his character determined by the act of creation. If the question, what his first moral acts shall be, is determined by any thing, it would seem that it must be by something in his moral constitution, as it was framed by his Maker; and if it is not determined by any thing, it must, one would think, be left a matter of pure accident; and that which is matter of pure accident, cannot be of a moral nature. We might thus, make out a very respectable argument a priori, that a free moral agent cannot be created; as creating power, unless it leaves the moral character a matter of mere accident, must do something to determine it, in which case it would seem that it is itself responsible for the acts which follow.

It will of course be understood that we do not offer this argument as a sound one,- but only as plausible reasoning which is not to be relied upon, on account of the obscurity and difficulty of the whole subject. Take for instance the question suggested by the last lines of the preceding paragraph;— can creative power really determine the character of the being it forms, without being itself morally responsible for that character. It is a question which might be disputed by philosophers for ages, without victory on either side. The difficulty is in the subject. Wherever we approach it, all is obscurity and doubt. We cannot trust our reasonings, nor believe our conclusions.

There is no objection, perhaps, to an occasional discussion of such points, by Christians, if it is done with the same feelings with which we should investigate any other difficult question, in metaphysics or philosophy: but we must not bring them into the region of religious feeling and duty, and press upon our fellow Christians the theories which we may ourselves be led to form. What human minds see so imperfectly, they never see alike. On such subjects they cannot agree. What is substance to one, is shadow to another: and a thought

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