lieving heart were decidedly and only contradictory to all that we have asserted.

We hear such an one demanding, in the name of a great multitude, that we explain the contradiction between the claims we advance for the Bible, of loveliness, and grace, and wisdom, surpassing the highest conceptions or imaginations of man, and the indifference or aversion with which it is so generally regarded. "You admit," such an one may say, "that I have all the natural faculties of a man; I am capable of seeing and admiring beauty, wisdom, and grace, but here I discover no such pre-eminent loveliness and excellence as you describe. Until they manifest their presence to my own consciousness, I must doubt the very existence of these Divine traits, either in the character of your Saviour, or in the system of religion that bears his name. To speak candidly, I am conscious of a decided distaste for your revelation, at least wherever it goes beyond what I conceive to be the teaching of natural religion, and most of all, I dislike those peculiar features which appear in what you call the doctrines of grace." We are persuaded that many are distinctly conscious of such feelings, though perhaps not accustomed freely to avow them. It is the language of a bolder unbelief. What shall we say to it?

That the main statement upon which the objection rests is true, we must mournfully acknowledge. True

it is, that except as the result of a change in its perceptions and emotions by the transforming grace of God, the heart of man does not give a joyful reception to the words of eternal life, through the sufferings of a crucified Redeemer-does not seize them with delight at the first announcement, crying, "This is just what I need, and have been panting for; this exceeds my highest thoughts and largest desires."

So far from being thus gladly welcomed to the heart, there is no truth received with so great hesitation and reluctance, even by men of apparent candor, as that for which we claim a Divine origin; none in which multitudes who profess to believe it, find so little that is attractive; none to which they do not turn with greater relish; none for the establishment of which so great an amount of evidence is demanded, and the evidence in favor of which is so lightly esteemed; none to which the heart of man has shown a more bitter and determined opposition. But while we freely own that the Gospel is so regarded, we do not conceive that by such condemnation its claims are disproved, nor its excellence disparaged. It is true that an unbelieving world sees "neither form nor comeliness" in our Saviour, but it is not true that the verdict of such a world is a just condemnation. Before we accept their sentence, we demand that the judge and jury shall be unprejudiced men, or else, from their prejudices we shall wrest a judgment in

his favor, and the very character of his accusers shall prove the excellence of the accused. Their indifference shall be his recommendation, and their censure his highest praise.

For our own sakes let us deal fairly in this matter. Jesus Christ and his doctrine are on trial before us, and the result of that trial is of more importance to us than to him. It is of the deepest moment to ourselves, that if he is the Son of God, and his doctrine the word of God, that both should be discerned, and received with the most hearty and practical confidence. If any of us reject the Saviour, we thereby pronounce our judgment against him. In our indifference or aversion we declare, that by whatever outside evidence substantiated, this character of Divinity is not discernible, either in Christ or in his doctrine.

Let us ex

It is a common practice in courts of justice, first to try the jurors, as to whether they are competent to judge intelligently and impartially. From the nature of the case we must reverse the process. We are reviewing a sentence already given forth. amine these hearts of ours, and ask them whether their judgment is to be trusted. We know something of our hearts; of their surface, if not of their depths. However willing to think well of them, or desirous that others should, we know that they are not pure hearts, they are not obedient and affectionate toward God, they are not true and honest hearts. We would

not like the world to know half the evil of us that we know of ourselves. We need go no farther in our confessions. So far, who can refuse to go?

Now, what have we been doing in setting up such hearts as competent judges in the things of God? We have been looking at the sun through a blackened glass. No wonder that we did not see his beams! We have been setting up falsehood to judge of infinite truth,-impurity, of immaculate holiness,-darkness, of ineffable light and glory, and we are conscious of an aversion-of a repulsion. We have discovered something that we dislike. That is all that our verdict amounts to, making the most of it. And we thereupon pronounce our sentence, forgetting that if the Bible is the word of God, pure and true, and Jesus Christ the Son of God, such dislike was to have been expected from such hearts. There is a natural, eternal hostility between these opposite principles; between light and darkness, sin and holiness, falsehood and truth. If we had brought our impurity in contact with other impurity, our falsehood with other falsehood, our evil, of whatever kind, with other evil, there would have been no shrinking back, no aversion. Like does not repel its like. Water does not refuse to mingle with water, nor oil with oil. Is it then to his prejudice, or to his praise, that such hearts as ours do not admire the character of the Saviour, nor love his person, nor enjoy his company? We

have been too ready to take for granted that what we hate is evil, and that what we love is good. We have not made sufficient allowance for the sinfulness of our nature, which we might have been sure would rise up against the highest good. No creature ever liked its enemy and destroyer, recognizing and knowing him to be such; and sin, ruling in our hearts, and governing all our affections, and all our desires, and all the imaginations of the thoughts of our hearts, has a deadly instinctive hatred of Jesus Christ, its enemy and destroyer.

Change the verdict then, and cry it in open court that all may hear, that man in his deepest depravity and greatest wickedness, does perceive and confess the infinite glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ, and never more distinctly than in his most bitter revilings; that if there is no good in his nature that recognizes, by its choice and desires, the true Saviour of the world, that there is an evil there that recognizes him by rejection and dislike. We want no better verdict in his favor, than that the devil in a man's heart cries out, "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment me before the time?"

It seems scarcely necessary to carry out the same line of argument, in its bearing on the other branches of experimental evidence, to which we have adverted in the last chapter. We have shown that another