state of your hearts. You cannot understand me, because you will not. Your incapacity is not natural, but moral. This is obvious from what he said to them, on the restoration of sight to the blind man. "For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind." Their indignant question, on hearing these words, showed that they had natural capacity enough, had they but been disposed to make a proper use of it: What they ask, "Are we blind also?" And the reply of Jesus further confirms our position: "If ye were blind, ye had not had sin: but now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth." As though he had said, "If ye could not possibly see, through a natural and absolute incapacity, no sin would be laid to your charge for rejecting me. It would be your misfortune, not your fault. But because you are conscious of your power of sight, though you will not make a proper use of it, therefore, your sin is justly charged upon you, and soon you will suffer for it the most just and terrible punishment.

5. We may see the same spirit of prejudice and passion in operation against every thing said by the Apostles on the same subject. We have a remarkable instance in the case of ST. PAUL. "When they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence." They heard him with the closest attention, till, on making a plain statement respecting his conversion, and call to the ninistry, he informed them that he was anxious to have preached the Gospel in Jerusalem, in hope that they would listen to one who had been so lately its most violent opposer; but that the LORD JESUS told him, they would not receive his testimony; and added, "Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." Then arose the storm of passion, and darkened and confounded all judgment, and rendered it utterly impossible for them to listen to him any longer. For "they lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live. And they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air."

6. We may see the very same effect of prejudice and passion in the Apostle himself, previous to his conversion. He ingenuously confesses, that he verily thought within himself that he ought to do many things against the name of JESUS. He then acted under the influence of gross ignorance. But that ignorance was highly culpable; because he had the means of information within his reach, but the depravity of his heart would not suffer him to make use of them. And though he informs us, that God had compassion on that ignorance, he confesses, and that with no affected humility, that he was the chief of sinners, and that God showed him mercy for a pattern of all long-suffering to those that should afterwards believe unto eternal life.

7. Now, what reason have men, in the present day, to presume that

they are exempt from all such prejudices, who reject Christianity altogether, under the pretence of want of evidence of its truth; or deny its distinguishing doctrines, because of their imaginary or pretended contradiction and absurdity? Are they void of passion? Are their minds never beclouded? Do they never err in the judgment which they form of much less extensive and difficult subjects? O the vanity of the human heart! only equalled by its sinfulness. When will men thus cease to impose upon themselves, to their eternal , ruin? When will those who think themselves wise in this world, become fools that they may be wise? Refute the arguments which are adduced in support of Christianity, in any one of the respectable defences of it which have been published to the world, instead of ransacking the bowels of the earth, with our modern Geologists, to find in the disposition of its strata contradictions to the Mosaic account of its formation, or soaring with our Astronomers into the region of the stars, to discover proofs, in a plurality of worlds and the immensity of God's works, against the Scripture doctrine of redemption by the incarnation and death of the Son of GOD. Those who pursue either of the latter courses, only prove that they are prompted by their evil heart of unbelief, to find an excuse, if possible, for their wicked departure from GOD. And as it respects those who pretend to receive the Revelation, but reject its proper and distinguishing truths, because of their irrationality, we would say to them, "Take those doctrines as they are stated in the Book of GOD, or by the truly orthodox believers of that book, and not as they have been caricatured by their enemies or mistaken friends, and prove them irrational if you can. Remember, those statements relate to a subject incomprehensible in its mode of subsistence, because truly Divine. But the statements themselves are neither incomprehensible nor self-contradictory. And we admit that no man can credit a statement which he cannot comprehend, or which absolutely contradicts his reason. Yet, on competent authority, he may receive a statement of matter of fact, the mode of which lies wholly beyond his grasp, and which consequently, in that respect, cannot fairly be subjected to his reason. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. And if we receive, by faith, what he has testified of his Son, we shall be put in possession of truth the most sublime in its nature, and elevating in its influence ;-truth, which will at once teach us the sanctity of the love of God;-truth, which will purify our hearts, while it inspires us with the mest perfect confidence in the Divine mercy;-truth, which will bring us near to GOD, and bless us with true fellowship with the FATHER and with his SON JESUS CHRIST, and make our joy full.

To conclude: Infidelity can never be the proper result either of the want of evidence for the truth of revelation, or of the difficulties to be found in the subjects presented to our faith. Its true cause is "an evil

He is,

heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;" which desires not the knowledge of his ways, or the enjoyment of his presence. God is pure light and love, life and joy; but man is naturally dark, and full of enmity against GOD, because of the purity of his nature, and the strictness of his law. "The carnal mind is enmity against GoD: it is not subject to the law of GoD, neither indeed can be." Man is under a spiritual death, and therefore void of true happiness. however, still possessed of a natural life, vastly superior in its powers and capacities to that of the brutes that perish; and having lost his true felicity, he is ever engaged in the pursuit of a bliss, which as constantly escapes him. "Destruction and misery are in his ways, and the way of peace he knows not." That peace he can only find in the favour of God; which is better than life, and which the Son of GOD came to secure for him by his sacrificial death; and to which he is ever ready to conduct him, by the light of his word, and the inspiration of his SPIRIT. He is "the light of the world; and they that follow him shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." "He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to GOD." They who hear his voice, and receive his testimony, and set to their seal that God is true, in the full persuasion that he whom GOD hath sent, speaketh the very words of GOD, enter into GOD'S rest. Their minds are at rest, in the certain perception of truth; their consciences are at rest, in the full assurance of remission of sins; and their passions are at rest, in the possession and exercise of Divine love, and in the joyful hope of the eternal fruition of GOD.

Here God presents himself to us as an End to be sought. And the whole scheme of Christian Doctrine illustrates that position. The incarnate Son of God is the grand connecting link between God and man; "that mean between both, which is both." "GOD was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "I am the way," says JESUS, "and the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the FATHER but by me." "If ye had known me, ye should have known my FATHER also." So that he is not only the person who atoned for sin by the sacrifice of himself, but he is also in the FATHER, and the FATHER in him, so that when we are united to him, we are united to the FATHER also; and it is thus through him and in him, that God becomes to us all in all. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe in me through their word; that they all may be one in us. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." And then the grand result of all is thus stated, in connexion with its true ground: "FATHER, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may

behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

God also presents himself to us as a faithful Witness, whose testimony we ought to receive. "If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of GoD is greater." And that testimony is communicated to us by his Son, whose voice it is we are called upon to hear, at our peril. He is thus distinguished from all other teachers, when we are commanded to attend to him. "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. If they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven."

Lastly: GoD presents himself to us a supreme Legislator, who obliges us to receive his testimony, or we must perish. And here also it is, that JESUS immediately appears before us in that awful capacity. This voice shook the earth, when he pronounced the decalogue from Sinai. And at his voice, all that are in their graves shall come forth, either to life or death eternal, as he shall adjudge them. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled :-Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," lest he "swear in his wrath," that "ye shall not enter into his rest.” All power is given to him in heaven and in earth; and they who believe shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned.

-Consider the doom of the people in the desert: Consider the doom of the Jews who rejected him in, the days of his flesh; and dread the same condemnation! Wonder not at the severity of the punish. ment threatened against unbelief. It is an evil of incalculable malignity. It is a tissue of all moral evils. It implies an affected ignorance of the most important truths ;-à bad use of reason, in attempting to refute the evidence of those truths; a disregard of the goodness and mercy of GoD, displayed in a work "which angels desire to look into," and which occupied the mind of God himself from everlasting-an enmity against God, shown in an aversion of the mind from him, as he manifests the glory of his grace in the person of his incarnate and suffering SoN. It indicates negligence, indolence, stupidity, prejudice, perverseness, obduracy, petulance, pride, obstinacy, hatred of truth. In a word, the heart of unbelief is an evil heart and it shows its malignity in aversion from God, the Source of all being and blessedness; the only true life, and light, and joy, and glory of man. "Take heed, therefore, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living GOD!"

THE PROPER MANNER OF READING THE SCRIPTURES. (Extracted from the Works of the REV. PHILIP Skelton.)

He who reads the Scriptures with that intention only that GOD had in publishing them, must infallibly find what he looks for; provided he reads on right principles, and with proper dispositions. It was precisely for such men as this, that GoD committed his Revelation to writing; wherein, nevertheless, he must have been wholly disappointed, if minds, so well accommodated to his intentions, cannot arrive at even the foundation of true religion, nor understand its very rudiments. Our endless disputes concerning the Essentials of Christianity do not, in the smallest measure, proceed from the obscurity of those Essentials, as they are set forth in Holy Scripture, but from the obliquity of our own minds, which, prompted by vile affections and prejudices, are ever looking for such information or proofs as God never intended to give; frequently indeed for the confirmation of such opinions as it was his main intention to refute. Now it is no wonder if inquirers of this sort, wedded to their prejudices, should either endeavour to pervert the Scripture, by sophistical constructions, or, what is more consistent with reason, (since it is more likely God should never speak to us at all, than that he should speak falsely or absurdly,) reject it in the lump; because it does not speak as they would have it.

He who reads the Scriptures, in order to the ends for which they, were written, must, first, Firmly believe that they are the Word of God secondly, He must be fully persuaded, that he himself is neither able to find out nor perform his duty so as to arrive at eternal happiness, without the assistance of Divine Revelation thirdly, He must take it for granted, that God can deliver or aver nothing but the truth: fourthly, He must believe that Gop knows how to speak so as to be understood by those to whom he speaks; and, in necessary matters, could not have chosen to be obscure in what he reveals.

It is, in a great measure, for want of due attention to these principles, that such infinite disputes have arisen among Christians concerning the primary articles of faith, and the plainest duties and motives of Christian morality. Did every reader of Scripture consider, that he comes ignorant, weak, under a nature corrupt and prone to sin, when he applies to those books for instruction; that he is, therefore, not to bring his pre-conceptions with him, like one who knows already what he is to think and do; and that he comes to a Teacher who is willing to direct him, who has made provision for all his wants, and is able to help his infirmities; he could have no doubt about his success. In that case, the instructions and the disciple are so well fitted to each other, that he might easily find out "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."