have failed to deduce right conceptions of God from the works of creation, Deists and sceptics do not think of drawing the inference that these works do not contain sufficient indications of his being and perfections. They maintain their sufficiency; and on this very ground question the necessity of revelation. They speculate on the clearness and fulness of the lessons of nature; showing, in the superiority of their speculations to those of philosophers who have not had their advantages, that they derive their unacknowledged light from the very revelation which they proudly disown. And yet, while they thus loftily and confidently speculate, the very same principles may be preventing them from discerning the marks of Deity in the Bible, that prevent the Heathen from discovering these marks in nature. The communications made in it may not be to their minds. They may not like them.-There is indeed the greater likelihood of this in the one case than in the other, inasmuch as in the written revelation we look for more of the discov

ery of the moral perfections of God, than in the works of his hands. And it is these that are the more direct objects of human aversion. The others, usually distinguished by the designation of his natural attributes, are obnoxious to dislike, chiefly, perhaps I should say solely, in consequence of their connection with these. From this cause it not unfrequently happens, that when, in their minds or in their discourse, men can separate the two, we may hear a great deal of the language of seemingly devout eulogy of Deity, from the lips of those who, alas ! make it sadly manifest otherwise, that they have no spiritual relish for the excellences of his moral nature, his purity and justice, and infinite separation from all evil. How many specimens of such commendation,-elegant sometimes, and sublime, and captivating,-are furnished by the discourses of natural historians and philosophers;-in which God appears as a wonderful artist and generous benefactor, incomparable in skill, transcendent in power, and inexhaustible in bounty:

-whilst to the very eulogists themselves, the Bible views of his holiness and grace would prove insufferably offensive.

From all this, then, you will, I trust, be sensible, that manifestation and evidence may be sufficient, and even superfluous, and yet those to whom they are presented be neither enlightened nor convinced by them. The cause of the failure may lie in themselves; and it may be evil,-deeply evil,—and the Just ground of condemnation.-It is admitted, that, to be a legitimate ground of moral responsibility, the unbelief must be affected by moral causes, and that it can involve guilt, only as springing from an evil heart. That in regard to the discoveries of the gospel, it must be influenced by such causes, is evident from the very nature of those discoveries. The gospel is not a merely speculative doctrine. It is not, in this respect, of the nature of abstract propositions, in geometry or metaphysics. It is, in its substance and tendency, moral. The very facts of the gospel may be truly denominated moral

facts; inasmuch as they contain in them the display of the purest and most sublime moral principles, and the enforcement upon the conscience of the highest moral motives. Now, whatever is thus, in its nature and tendencies, moral, must either harmonize on the one hand, or conflict on the other, with the moral state of the heart. The latter, as we have seen, is peremptorily affirmed, in the text and other parts of scripture, to be the case between the discoveries of the gospel and the principles and feelings of the natural or unrenewed man. This opposition is, without exception or qualification, declared, by the lips of the gracious Author of the gospel himself, to be the cause of the rejection of his testimony :—and it now becomes my province, depending on Divine aid, to endeavour to make good the position, that All unbelief of THE GOSPEL

HAS ITS ORIGIN IN EVIL.

Leaving, however, the establishment of this position to another discourse, I shall conclude the present by repeating, that such

is the unequivocal affirmation of the scriptures. Now the word that contains the affirmation is proved to be Divine, by an immense accumulation of the most conclusive evidence. I therefore believe, that the God himself who searches the heart has declared unbelief to be a sin inferring the pains of hell. I am assuredly satisfied that this it cannot do, except as arising from an evil heart. It is, not for me to enter into the heart's secrets. This is his prerogative. And if he who "knoweth all things" has declared the source of unbelief to be evil, I might leave it with himself to convict the conscience of the truth of his own authoritative testimony. An attempt to prove it, however, may serve to detect some of the modes of prevailing self-deception; and, by undeceiving the self-deluded, to save their souls from death.