The perusal of LADY MAXWELL'S Life and Correspondence was rendered exceedingly profitable to her; and when she was no longer able to read that excellent piece of Christian Biography herself, she requested me to read it to her; which I did, to our mutual edification. She also derived great comfort from the words of the Psalmist: "My heart and my flesh faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever!". Nine days prior to her death she was exceedingly ill, and racked with strong pain. Being a person that never could endure to give other people the least trouble on her account, she would not allow any of us to sit up with her at nights: but on that night she consented; and while, in the course of it, we were standing around her bed, she said to us, "I long to fall asleep in JEsUs: I would Clap my glad wings, and tower away, "O, assist me to praise him!"—I asked, "Shall we kneel down, and join you in praise and prayer?" She replied, "Yes; and pray that, I may soon be released!"-We knelt down immediately; and while in the fulness of my heart I was praising God for his merciful loving-kindness towards her, I said, "O, LORD, we thank thee that she is in thy gracious hands." She eagerly replied, "O, yes!" And when I had ceased pleading with God for his continued support, weak and exhausted as she was, she began to praise Him aloud for his marvellous goodness, and to pour forth earnest prayers for her youngest daughter. If her strength had not failed suddenly, I have no doubt that she would have commended each and all of us to the protection of the ALMIGHTY, and would have implored for us the covenanted mercies of the SAVIOUR. The night before her release I was compelled, through exhaustion and fatigue, to lie down in the room for the purpose of taking a little repose. Between two and three o'clock in the morning I heard her say, "Come! Come!" Those who were in immediate attendance, supposed that she wished to be turned in bed, which was frequently to be done every night: they attempted, therefore, to turn her; when I heard her say, in a mild and soft tone, "You do not understand me!" I then arose, and approached her bed. As she still repeated the word Come!" I tried to find out what she wanted; and said, "Come, LORD JESUS! Come quickly!" language, she intimated that I had expressed her wishes. said, “Come quickly!", but could proceed no further. afterwards heard to say, in a low voice, "Bid me come! come!" The LORD heard her cry, and delivered her from the pains of mortality, on the 23d of November, 1523, in the sixty-ninth year of her age. In broken She was DIVINITY. CHRISTIANITY ON ITS OWN BASIS, AND THE TRUE CAUSE OF INFIDELITY; A SERMON; 2 1 PREACHED AT THE METHODIST CHAPEL, BRIDGE-STREET, BOLTON-LE MOORS; BY THE REV, WILLIAM FRANCE. HEBREWS iii. 12. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. (Concluded from p. 737.) II. THAT we may be able to form a proper conception of the justice of that awful sentence which JESUS CHRIST will pronounce unbelievers, and may learn to avoid it, let us proceed to consider the true Cause of Unbelief; and to mark its deep malignity. upon 1. It is not, by any means, either in the want of evidence for the truth of Divine Revelation, or in the difficulties and apparent inconsistencies of its doctrines, that we are to seck the true cause of infidelity. We find that cause in the state of the heart alone. According as the heart is disposed, evidence and truth will be viewed by it. "The wise shall understand; but none of the wicked shall understand." If the heart depart from God, and desire not the knowledge of his ways, no wonder it should, in that case, present a medium which distorts every object that is seen through it. That evidence which is perfectly satisfactory to a good mind, will be deemed of no force at all by a bad one and that truth which presents to the former the very image of the divine wisdom, will be deemed by the latter the very essence of folly. Men who "have not faith," are in all cases "wicked," as well as "unreasonable.” 2. We are well aware that this opinion is deemed, by many, to be extremely uncandid and illiberal. They will even assert it to be absolutely contrary to matter of fact. There are men, they will tell us, of excellent morals, of great learning, of most inquisitive minds, and of the most diligent and profound research, who nevertheless either deny the truth of Scripture altogether, or reject all its peculiar and distinguishing doctrines, as absurd and self-contradictory. ** Without the least inclination to uncharitable censure, we would say, in reply to the objection just stated, that we may very easily be mistaken in the judgment we form of men, either as it respects their morals, their learning, or their research. We are totally incompetent to look into the heart: and those who are able to justify themselves before men, may be condemned by that God, who is "greater than the heart, and knoweth all things." And even allowing, in certain cases, the actual existence of correct morals, great learning, and profound research, still there may be in the heart what totally disqualifies it for the formation of just conceptions of the truth of GOD. Wherever there are prejudices against that truth, and those fortified by self-conceit, the heart will be proof against all conviction, and under a total incapacity to form a correct and impartial judgment for, in that case, there will be no proper attention or inquiry. 3. Some of the pagan philosophers, who had an opportunity of knowing Christianity, were, no doubt, men of great general probity, extensive information, and very inquisitive; and yet they treated it with contempt. We cannot properly say, they rejected it; because they never truly considered its evidence, nor sought to obtain a just view of its divine excellence. And we may venture to say, that the whole conduct of the best of them proclaimed, in the ear of the GOD of holiness," Depart from us: for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Nor can we judge more favourably of those in the present age who prefer the name of Philosopher to that of Christian. We see them magnifying imaginary objections and difficulties, which, perhaps, have been answered and solved times without number; and diminishing, and throwing to the greatest possible distance from their view, evidence which never failed to produce the most perfect conviction when seen in its proper form and magnitude. While they would gladly persuade themselves, that they find an argument against Christianity in the wicked lives of multitudes, who have been led by circumstances to profess a religion which they never either understood or loved, they have no eyes to behold the conduct and tempers of the unobtrusive and silent followers of Him who did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets : otherwise, they might see, in the harmony and love of domestic life; in the unostentatious and unwearied benevolence which is ever carrying its possessor to the abodes of the sick and dying poor, to minister at once to their temporal and spiritual necessities; and in the calm and triumphant deaths of the truly faithful; the brightest reflection of that faith which gilds with glory every object on which it falls. But these humble characters make little noise in this world; and, perhaps, when they have left it, not even a stone tells where they lie. So that we cannot wonder, if they fail to attract the notice of those whose manifest wish is to persuade themselves, if possible, not of the excellency, but of the worthlessness of Christianity. If they would even truly consider the proofs we have of the beneficial tendency of our holy religion, in those less unequivocal manifestations of its spirit, which may be seen in the innumerable charitable institutions which have filled the Christian world, and were never more numerous than in our own nation and age, they might be satisfied that it is of God, and a blessing to the world. For whatever may be said of the ostentation and vanity which, it may be allowed, mingle themselves too much with these charities; still they are charities, even of the noblest order,-charities which we shall look for in vain among unbelievers, either ancient or modern. The "meek" GOD will "guide in judgment, and teach his way." But these fierce opposers of the truth of God cannot see its radiance, because they will not. Their impenitent and obstinate spirits are in "the snare of the Devil:" they "are taken captive by him at his will." Who can avoid feeling the strongest pity for the man who could exclaim, "My education is complete: I challenge superiority!" So exclaims one of our modern infidels, whose creed is, "There is no God but matter; no intelligence equal to that of men; and no man to be compared with myself, for penetration and wisdom." It is thus that God allows the malignity of the evil heart of unbelief to show itself in particular instances, that those who are not wholly abandoned to the spirit of error and sin, may seek to "recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil." Such sons of BELIAL, by the full exposure of their hearts, show us the true cause of infidelity. All unbelievers depart from the living GOD, and neglect his salvation, because "they love darkness rather than light." They wilfully shroud themselves in the dense and impervious mists of their own prejudice and impurity, from the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness. "Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD." 4. In the conduct of the Jews, of our LORD's day, we also see many things strongly illustrative of our position, and directly tending to its corroboration. They read the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which clearly testify of the coming of the Just One: they were so well acquainted with the signs of the times, as to be led to expect his speedy appearance; and they were even fully prepared to give him a most hearty reception, according to the notions which they had formed of his person and designs in coming into the world. But their pre-judgments respecting him and his great work, were the very reverse of truth: and, in consequence, their eyes were closed to the light of the clearest evidence arising from his most convincing miracles; their ears were stopped to his most persuasive words, and their hearts were hardened against the most powerful motives to obey the command of God, in the reception of their Divine REDEEMER. It was not the meanness of the birth of Jesus, nor the poverty of his disciples, nor his want of worldly pomp, which caused their rejection of him. For the splendour of his miracles, and the divine dignity of his person and manner, and many other extraordinary circumstances which accompanied the whole of his manifestation, threw all those imaginary disadvantages into the shade, and proved to their manifest satisfaction, that he was indeed the great Prophet that should come into the world. But he told them two things which shocked all their prejudices, and, operating on the evil heart of unbelief, became the means of blinding them still more to "the Light of the world," that came to conduct them to eternal life. They could not, because they would not know, that he came down from heaven to give life to the world by his own death in human nature; in which he then appeared before them for that very purpose. He told them that he was the proper Son of God, and consequently equal with GOD; and that his kingdom was not of this world. He gave them to understand, that they must be taught of God, if ever they meant truly to know him, and to come to him as the Giver of Life: that they must be converted, and become as little children, if they wished to enter into his kingdom. Hence the very persons who, this moment, would have taken him by force, and made him their king, the very next, were so offended with what they deemed his absurd and unintelligible doctrine, that they left him as a person altogether unworthy of their further attention. Now, any one who will look, without prejudice, at that discourse which gave such umbrage to them, will find that it relates precisely to those truths which are so offensive to our modern Infidels and Socinians. In it he tells them, that he came down from heaven to give life to the world,-that he was sent forth by the living FATHER, and lives by the FATHER, ÎN such a manner, that they who eat him shall live by him, that he had assumed our nature, that he might shed his blood for our redemption; and so make his flesh thus assumed, and his blood thus shed, the medium of those words which are spirit and life, even the words of eternal life, uttered by him who has, in all his infinite plenitude, the SPIRIT that quickeneth, without whom the flesh, even the flesh of JESUS CHRIST himself, would profit nothing. "As the FATHER hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and as the FATHER raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." Hence the words, so often repeated in the discourse in question, in reference to every one who comes to him," And I will raise him up at the last day." The man who cannot see the Divinity of the Son of God, the atonement made by his death in human nature, and the communication of life, to those who believe in him, and become one spirit with him, through the eternal SPIRIT, taught in that sublime discourse, must certainly attribute it to the state of his heart: the cause cannot be found in the affected obscurity of the LORD, for it remains to be proved, that he ever affected any thing of the kind. "Why," says JESUS, "cannot ye understand my speech?" It is not because my words are not plain, but because ye cannot hear them, owing to your prejudices and passions. The fault is not in my words, but in the |