enters? Or, if those who receive and are so deeply moved by it, have no new faculty imparted, either by creation or special gift, what obstructions to the entrance of this knowledge are there in my nature, and how may they be removed?

Very interesting questions are these, and if asked in earnestness and candor, very hopeful questions. Would that all men were earnest and candid in their search after truth! With whatever spiritual ignorance they might begin, obscurity would be dispelled, doubts scattered, and many distressing mysteries would become delightful simplicity before such a spirit.

To such an inquirer we may answer in a single word, that what so darkens his mind, blunts his sensibilities, and closes his heart against the Saviour's love, is UNBELIEF. Not in the decided and positive form, in which we shall presently encounter it, but in a form sufficiently alarming to excite serious apprehension as to what the end shall be.

It is indeed no new faculty which receives this Divine knowledge; though it would often seem not only as if a new faculty had been created, but one of far greater excellence and power than any of our natural endowments. It is rather a new state of the moral and intellectual faculties in their combined and harmonious exercise, that so clearly perceives the characters of infinite wisdom, grace, and truth in the

Bible. Within certain bounds, the intellect is fully competent to discover and comprehend truth; but, under the disadvantages and obstructions that arise from a sinful nature, it proves sadly deficient when exercised on heavenly and spiritual things. The profound and accomplished historian, and mathematician, and philosopher, have their respective departments; and great keenness of perception, and nicely adjusted instruments, for measuring and comparing the subjects of their investigation. But mingle the moral or spiritual with their material, and unless they have been taught in a higher school than that of their favorite science, they have no vessels that can hold it, no processes that can analyze it, no balances that can weigh it; their calculations are disturbed, their estimates are confounded, they are at their wit's end.

To this state of the soul, we repeat, whether manifesting a mere insensibility and indifference to the truth, or a distinct and positive hatred and contradiction, we give the name of unbelief.

We have heard the decided testimony of faith, but does unbelief give no testimony to the excellency and glory of the Gospel, even in its rejection and denial?

Examine first, the consciences of those whose souls have never been penetrated and subdued by the Gospel, whether they have no evidence to give in its favor. We need not here embarrass ourselves with any of the more difficult questions that have arisen as

to the nature and operations of conscience. It is the soul sitting in judgment upon its own acts; censuring or approving, condemning or acquitting. But the very fact of such judgment implies a conviction of the eternal distinction between good and evil, and some knowledge of the law and nature of God. There is indeed such a knowledge, impressed on the hearts of all men by creation. There is a faculty in the fallen nature of man, which, though it neither perceives nor declares with its original distinctness, though it may become more and more impaired by vicious education, or by habits of sinful indulgence and resistance to its light, recognizes with greater or less fidelity, the good, the right, and the true, and testifies for God, to the heart of man.

Hence arises that firm conviction of the truth of. the word of God, which we find in many who cannot join in the testimony of a loving and obedient heart. There is a deep, instinctive feeling that the Bible must be true, because it echoes and interprets the voice of the monitor within. Men are not always so indifferent as they seem. The heart is often troubled, while the brow is smooth, and the speech careless. They perceive that to be lovely and desirable, which they neither desire nor love. They have an intelligent impression, that the time is coming, when they will need the very grace against which their hearts now rebel; and that what they have long willfully reject

ed, is nevertheless the true, the heavenly wisdom, in the light of which they must walk if they would attain salvation. Their consciences sometimes respond tremblingly to the words of Christ;-by the terrors of "judgment to come," they are "almost persuaded to be Christians"-to give up heart and life to these Divine doctrines. They know them to be true.

To such therefore we may confidently appeal : Testify of Christ. Whose son is he? And their consciences shalt answer, He is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. They discern qualities in him which entitle him to universal adoration, love and obedience though these qualities are not so perceived as to excite corresponding desires in the heart.

It were well if the corrupt heart had no interest in obscuring, concealing, or if possible extinguishing the light of conscience. Such efforts may succeed. After many a struggle, the light may be put out, and night, rayless and starless, cheerless and hopeless, settle upon the soul. Not so often, indeed, in fact as in appearance. Many a bold skeptic talks rather to quiet the fears and misgivings of his own heart, than to convince others; and there is often a voice within, which testifies that what he most confidently asserts, is to his own knowledge false, and what he most strenuously denies, nevertheless true. But, if he persists in trying to be an absolute unbeliever, by stifling the testimony of his own conscience, he may per

chance in time succeed. There are those of whom it is written, that "as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them over to a reprobate mind-they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Of others it is declared, that "because they receive not the love of the truth, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Fearful judgment upon a depraved heart! Yet even such must remember the time when they were not as now. Sometimes the simple faith of their childhood comes to their recollection, and still later perhaps, times of deep conviction, before their light was turned into the shadow of death, before their consciences were seared, and their hearts past feeling, when we would not have appealed in vain, even to their consciences, for a testimony in favor of the Bible, as the word of the living God.

But let those who will, whether now destitute of such convictions, or only desirous to conceal them, speak the language of a more decided and absolute unbelief, and we shall only force from it their more decided and absolute testimony to the Divine excellency of the Bible. If the conscience of the unbeliever be dumb, his heart shall speak.

It may seem, indeed, at first view, as if there were no such evidence—as if the testimony of the unbe