independent of, that natural relation of cause and effect which subsists between the doctrines taught and the moral character recommended by the Bible. When the prophet Elisha was surrounded in Dothan by the Syrian army, he felt no fear, because he placed full confidence in the protection of God. But his servant was terrified by the appearance of inevitable ruin. It pleased God, however, to deliver him at once from his agitation and perplexity, even before he thought fit to remove the appearance of the danger. And how was this effected? God opened the young man's eyes, and he saw and beheld the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. God here interposed miraculously, in order to calm the man's spirit. But mark the nature of the interposition; God dealt with the man as a reasonable Being, he gave him ocular demonstration of his safety. He did not work in his mind an unaccountable intrepidity in the face of danger which he could not have explained, but discovered to him a fact, which, from the nature of the human mind, could not fail of dispelling - his fearful apprehensions. Had he given full credit to the assurances of his master, his mind would have been at peace without the interposition of this supernatural revelation. But although he acknowledged his master to be a prophet, yet he did not place that implicit reliance on his testimony which was sufficient to overcome the violent excitement produced in his mind by the visible objects of terror which surrounded him. When his eyes were opened, he saw and believed; and this belief brought peace. It was not the miraculous interposition abstractly, which produced this effect; it was the glorious army of guardian angels, miraculously unveiled to his eye, which inspired him with confidence, and enabled him to despise the Syrian power: If, instead of these friendly hosts, he had seen the angel whom David saw with a sword drawn over Jerusalem, the sight would only have increased his alarm. It is then the object believed, from whatever source the belief proceeds, whether from seeing or hearing, which operates on the mind. That the belief of the gospel is, in every instance, the work of the Holy Spirit, no one who believes in the Bible can doubt; and indeed this doctrine is the ground of the Christian's confidence that he shall continue stedfast unto the end: But still it must be remembered, that it is not the supernatural agency itself abstractly, which gives Christian peace and Christian strength to the mind, but the history of the Saviour's work, which through this medium is spiritually revealed to it. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia to attend to the things spoken by Paul. If our notions of divine influence lead us away from attendind to the things contained in the gospel, we are deluding ourselves. And on the other hand, if our mode of studying the Bible does not cultivate in us a conviction of our own weakness, and an habitual dependence on the operations of the Holy Spirit, we certainly do not belong to that society who are said to be" all taught of God," and have no spiritual discernment of the truth: When we study the doctrines of revelation, we ought to study them in that connexion in which they stand in the Bible itself. They are not given to us for the purpose of exercising our faculties in speculative discussion, but for practical usefulness. The observance of this rule will save us from much perplexity, and many a thorny and agitating question. In the Bible, this doctrine of Divine influence which we are now considering, is uniformly connected with the most explicit declarations, that man is free to act, and responsible for his actions. Man's inability to obey God consists absolutely in his unwillingness, and is but another name for the greatest degree of this. There is nothing to prevent him from embracing the gospel, and walking in the ways of holiness, but his own opposite inclinations. "This is the condemnation, that light has come unto the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil," John iii. 19. It is worthy of remark, that our Lord makes this statement in that very conversation in which he insists on the necessity under which every individual lies of being spiritually born again, before he can enter the kingdom of God. In the Gospel, sinners are called upon, not to be supernaturally influenced, but to believe the Divine testimony. And the question at last will be, not by what influence or arguments were you led to the Saviour, but, did you embrace his offered salvation? It is not very uncommon to hear religious persons speak of faith and holiness merely as evidences of a Divine operation on the heart, and as valuable simply on this account. But such language is not borrowed from the Scriptures. Here we 66 find faith and holiness considered as qualities valuable in themselves, and as duties imperative on all to whom the message is published. Repent (i. e. change your principles) and believe the gospel," is the substance of the first discourse preached, after the ascension of our Lord, to his very murderers. And this same exhortation is thrown loose upon the world, and when rejected, is rejected wilfully and at the peril of the rejectors. The evidences for the gospel, both external and internal, are suited to the human faculties; and so too is the substance of its contents. A sinner who admits its evidence, and who reads it with the attention which such an admission demands, and who finds in it peace to his conscience and good hope for eternity, through the great atonement, will assured |