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the truth of such a representation as he now perceives, but never before adverted to-to such a man we render the homage due to an insight and a sagacity so marvellous, and at length, to border on our argument, this sagacity we may conceive enhanced into a discernment supernatural, which may amount to such a divination of the thoughts of the heart as nought but the interposal of a divinity can explain; it might announce itself to be a higher wisdom than any upon earth-to be a wisdom from above; and so draw the very acknowledgment which the first teachers of Christianity drew, to whom, when an unlearned hearer listened, "he was judged of all, he was convinced of all, and thus were the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he worshipped GOD, and reported that GOD was in them of a truth."

summation. It is not the view of those naked propositions that can evince or establish the general truth of the system which contains them; but they are variously and repeatedly set forth in the sacred record. And this gives rise to innumerable touches of descriptive accuracy in the multiplied and sustained harmony between the inner tablet of the heart and the outward tablet of the presented revelation. There is an evidence offered by the agreement between a complex tally and its alike complex, but accurately resembling counterpart: and there may be a like resemblance in the countless adaptations which obtain between a supernatural application from heaven and the human nature beneath on which it has descended. And besides these, there are many other symptoms or signatures of truth which the conscience can lay hold of. It can discern the apparent honesty of any communication, it can take cognizance of all that marks the worth or simplicity of its bearings; it can feel, and be impressed by, its aspect of undoubted sacredness; it can distin

ambassadors are from GOD, in its promulgation of a righteous law, and in sustained dignity and the effect wherewith it challenges a rightful authority; it can perceive all which appears, in and about the message, to be in keeping with the high ori

After these preliminary observations we now feel ourselves somewhat prepared for stating the argument of the text. The substance of the Apostle's testimony, whether as orally delivered by himself to the people of his own age, or as trans-guish the voice of GOD, or when mitted, in a written record, to the people of all ages, is such as makes manifest its own truth to the conscience of every man. When making demonstration of human guilt, there might be such an accordancy with all that nature felt of its own guiltiness-when making demonstra-ginal which it claims; and, whether tion of the offered atonement, there might be such an accordancy with all that nature felt of its own necessitiesas first to draw the attention, and then to compel the belief of all who were thus aroused. The felt force of the difficulties on the one hand, the felt suitableness of the remedies on the other, might send them, and rightfully send them, on such a con

it looks to the profoundness of its wisdom, or to the august and inviolable purity of its universal character, it will be so plainly perceived, when these evidences are so enhanced and multiplied on the professed communication from heaven, as to announce its descent from a GOD of knowledge and of holiness.

You will now understand what is

meant by the self-evidencing power of the Bible. The evidences of Christianity might be variously distributed-into external, internal, and historical evidences. Well, you will understand from these what is meant by the self-evidencing power of the Bible -strictly an internal evidence. It is that in virtue of which it announces its own authority to the understanding of the reader. It is not only the bearer of its own contents, but is the bearer also of its own credentials. It is by the external and the historical evidences of Christianity that we are enabled to maintain its cause against the infidel, and the lettered academic man; but it is another evidence that recommends it to the acceptance of the general population. Their belief in scripture, and we think all saving belief whatever, is grounded on the instant manifestation of its truth to the conscience, and this without the aid of sensible miracles in the present age, and without even the scholarship which ascertains and verifies the miracles of the past age, do we hold that the divinity of the Bible may be read and recognized in its own pages, and that in virtue of the evidence which might be addressed with effect to the moral nature of man in any quarter of the world. But what gives complete and conclusive effect to this evidence is the revelation of the spirit. For the understanding of this there is one thing of primary importance to be attended to. The Spirit, when he acts as an enlightener, presents us with no new revelation of his own; he only shines on that revelation which is already given in the Bible. He brings no new truths from afar, he but discloses the truth of that word which is nigh unto us. It is true that he opens our eyes, but it is to behold the wondrous things contained in this book. It is true

that he lifts up a veil, but it is but the veil which hides from our view the secrets of any distant or mysterious region. He taketh away the veil from our hearts, and we are made to behold that which is within, and also to behold that which is without, and become alive to the force and fulness of that evidence which lies in the manifested adjustment between them, convinced at once of the magnitude of every man's sin and of the suitableness and reality of the offered salvation. In this process there is no direct announcement made to us by the spirit of GOD, there is neither a voice nor a vision, no whisper to the ear of the inner man, no gleam either of sensible or spiritual representations. There is light, it is true, shining out of darkness, a light which the Bible makes luminous, reflected from the tablet of the conscience, now made visible. It is not a light shining directly upon us from the heavenly objects themselves, but it is a light shining on a medium, the proof of which we are made sensible of its realities. He who has been visited by this manifestation can say, "I was blind, but now I see." He may reremember the days when a darkness inscrutable seemed to hang over those mystic, those then unmeaning passages of the Bible that he now perceives to be full of weight and siguificance. He may remember the day when safe in himself he neither saw the extent nor the purity of God's lofty commandments, nor his own deficiency and distance there from. Though now burdened with the conscious magnitude of his guilt he now sees the need of a Saviour and feels his preciousness. He is now brought within full view of the argument of my text, and the transition, the personal or historical transition which himself has undergone, is to his mind

themselves daily to the perusal of the Scriptures, and have poured forth their hearts in earnest prayer to GoD that he would reveal these Scriptures to their understandings—if in point of fact they are made to feel their weight and significancy, and their manifold and various applications to all the peculiarities of their own hearts and history, they may at least conceive this would be very effective evidence. It would require the illustration of a volume, instead of the synoptical view which can be given in the limits of a single sermon, to follow out the question, through all its bearings. In one sentence we shall now state what the evidence is on which we would vindicate the rationality and the hopefulness of missionary enterprises.

a most impressive argument; it forms to him an experimental evidence of the truth of Christianity, and may be regarded as another appeal to his conscience, or his consciousness, in its favor. He has become a Christian in the true sense and significancy of the term; the gospel has entered his mind in the demonstration of the spirit and with power. He rejoices in the hope of its bright fulfilment, and untutored though he be, in the scholarship of its literary or argumentative evidence, he with an humble education and humble circumstances, can give a reason of his hope. I am quite sensible that this cannot be fully accorded to by the sympathy of those who have not required the transition. I have great hope on the part of those who have equally felt the transition, who remember the time when a veil of hieroglyphical obscurity seemed to hang over the pages of the New Testament, who did not feel the force of its adjustment to the felt moral and spiritual wants of their own nature, and who now feel a weight and see a significancy on every page, which they did not come at by any logical process, but which has been the result, in all probability, of great moral earnestness giving rise to a devout perusal of the Scriptures accompanied with prayer, in answer to which the Spirit has opened their understandings to see the Scriptures. And they appeal to this as a tangible method of proof, that whereas they were blind, now they see. Even those who have not undergone this transition may be made to conceive the evidence, by imagining the possibility of that which they now nauseate, perhaps, as mysticism, or regarded as a non-intelligible something which cannot enter into our sympathies. Let us suppose that they have been roused to the obligation of devoting

We have the Bible which can be multiplied indefinitely and sent to all countries. We have the conscience universal in human nature, and in virtue of which every possessor of this nature, whether Greek or barbarian, might respond to the word which is there addressed to them. We have the Spirit of GOD given in answer to prayer, and promised to accompany and to abide with us even until the end of the world. And what we affirm is, that having these, we have means for the Christianization of the whole earth-a mighty yet marvellous achievement, wrought with the simple apparatus of a Bible and a conscience, and the evidence that is struck out between them by a light from the Spirit of God, irradiating them both. You have the whole philosophy of this evidence condensed within a very narrow compass in those beautiful lines of Cowper, when he compares the Christian intelligence of a poor and aged female, with the accomplishments of the philosopher Voltaire :

"She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
With little understanding, and no wit,
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible

true;

A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew

the historical pathway till they could lay their hands on the authenticity of the books of the New Testament, by the certainty of the narrative contained in it? If these people have faith at all they have a reason for

And in that charter reads with sparkling their faith. They do see the truth of

eyes,

Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O, happy peasant! O, unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel-hers the sure reward!
He praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come;
She never heard of half a mile from home!
He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers ;
She, safe in the simplicity of hers."

the gospel, and the question is, whether they see it immediately in the light of scripture doctrine, or mediately in the light of historical demonstration. When you enter the house of one of your cottage patriarchs and examine the library which lies in a little room upon its shelves, you may there find what that is which has begun and which still manifests his Christianity. Let me speak at least with confidence of the state of matters in our own land. Such books often met with even in the lowest hovels of our peasantry, are not books on the external history of the Bible

II. Having now said all that we can afford on the subject of the manifestation spoken of in the text, we now pass on to the SECOND head of the discourse, under which we proposed that we should at least assert, and, as far as we could, establish the assertion that THE EVIDENCE ADDRESSED TO THE CONSCIENCE WAS THE GREAT, IF they are the Bible itself, and books

on the internal substance and contents of the Bible; they are the Flavels and the Guthries and the Richard Baxters of the patriarchal age which are his favourites-men who say little or nothing on the ar

NOT THE ONLY INSTRUMENT OF CHRISTIANIZATION, BOTH IN AND OUT OF CHRISTENDOM. Here we think it must be quite palpable that it is at least to some such evidence we owe the great bulk of our home Christianity. We on this subject make a confident ap-gumentative evidence of Scripture, peal to the ministers of the gospel who are now present, and bid them tell what that is which originates and which fashions the Christianity of their own people. Was it a series of lectures on the Deistical controversy ? Was it the arguments of Paley, or of Leslie, or of Butler, that germinated their faith? Was it the doctrine in the book, or the history of the book that was the instrument of their conversion? That they might see the truth of the gospel had you to plant an historical ladder, ascending from the present age to that of the apostles, or by the light of criticism and erudition? Had you to guide them by a series of indices along

but who unfold the subject-matter, and who urge, and urge most impressively, on the consciousness of the readers of the lessons of Scripture. In a word, it is by a perpetual interchange between their consciences and the Bible that their Christianity is upholden by a light struck out between the sayings of the one and the findings of the other. It is not a light which is out of this book, but a light which is within the book that commences and sustains the Christianity of our land, the Christianity of our ploughmen, our artisans, our men of handicraft and hard labour. Yet not the Christianity either of deceitful imagination or of implicit deference to

authority, but a Christianity of deep, | parishes. We translate the sacred

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I will even say of rational belief, volume and circulate it amongst them. thoroughly and profoundly seated on We send schoolmasters who might the principles of our moral nature, teach them to read their vernacular and nobly accredited by the virtues Bible. We send ministers who exof our well conditioned peasantry. pound it. We knock at the door of In the olden time of Presbytery, that heaven's sanctuary that a virtue may time of scripture Christianity in our descend from on high-that GOD pulpits and of psalmody in all our may add the grace of his spirit to the cottages, these men grew and multi- testimony of his word. You cannot plied in our land, and though derided overthrow the efficiency of this proin the heartless literature, and dis- cess but by an argument that will countenanced and disowned in the nullify all the Christianizing process earthly politics of other days, it is of our own land. You cannot pull their remnant which acts as a pre- down our cause without passing senserving salt among our people, and tence of extinction on the religious which constitutes the real strength | light of all Christendom. You canand glory of the Scottish nation. not rightfully charge the work of missionaries, with fanaticism and folly, without fastening the brand of these very imputations on the work of ministers within. If no Christianity can be formed there without the power of working present miracles or the power of evincing to the belief of savages, the reality of past miracles, then no Christianity can be formed here throughout the mass or great majority of our own population. But if Christianity can be formed here by the simple power of truth upon the conscience, this is the principle which opens the world to the enterprise of missionaries. Whereever there is a human being there is a conscience, and on this ground alone the message of salvation might circulate around the globe, and be carried with acceptance through all its nations, and tribes, and families. And if it were not so, if there were no such evidence as that for which we are contending, by what practical avenue could the faith of the gospel be made to find an entrance and an establishment amongst the great mass of our population? Take away from us the self evidencing power of the Bible, and you lay an interdict on the

We now begin to feel ourselves on firm vantage ground for the maintenance of our cause, and on which the reasonableness, I would say, the philosophy, of missions might be vindicated. It is an axiom in philosophy that we should look for the like effect from like causes, and like manufacture from like materials. In the work of conversion, the materials on which we operate are the same, whether at home or in India-the identical human nature that is characteristic,-I say the identical human nature that is characteristic, not of tribes, or nations, but is characteristic of the species. The instrument by which we operate is the same, the identical doctrine of the Bible, the identical message from heaven, to all the people that be upon the earth. The power which gives the instrument its efficacy is the same, even that spirit which bloweth where he listeth, and who, with but the Bible to pioneer his way, disowns all the distinctions of savage or civilized life, and all the barriers of geography. In the prosecution of the cause we transfer to other lands the very machinery that is at work in our own

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