blind, aliens from God, enemies by wicked works, and that they were renewed by supernatural agency. The very men who give us in their epistles such glowing descriptions of the moral purity and perfection of Heaven also tell us that they have seen and wrought miracles. If, therefore, they invented the Heaven of which they have written, they were not good men, for they professed to write under the express suggestions of God. If, on the other hand, they were wicked men, then they could not invent such a Heaven, and be willing even to encounter martyrdom in order to attain a bliss for which they had no sympathy. The Heaven of the Bible is clearly then a revelation from Heaven. It is a Heaven which man naturally loathes, and which he will never earnestly seek to attain until his soul becomes filled with holy aspirations. This is one of a class of arguments which have not been sufficiently employed, and which, though popular are, in fact, more persuasive than many that have been urged with immense ability and learning. But, indeed, there is no lack of evidence for the divinity of the Bible. It is, I am persuaded, the very redundancy of the evidence; it is its variety and cogency which awakens to so large an extent the hostility of mankind. Did it profess less; did it claim less; did it reveal less; did it command less; were it less faithful in its delineation of human nature; less exacting in its conditions of salvation, many would like it better. It will not flatter; it will not palliate; it will not compromise it humbles man; it exalts God; and hence many hate it as they would hate an honest friend, that told them salutary but unpalatable truth. Light is painful to the diseased eye; truth is painful to the diseased heart. Man naturally seeks to question an authority that commands unpleasant duty, and hence many prefer scepticism in regard to the Bible to an earnest obedience to its commands. so they may question its divinity if they choose. Be it evidence though strong and multiform, is yet only moral evidence. It is not like a flash of lightning, which will even force its way through the closed eyelid and make itself visible; it will not rend its way to the soul. If passion, or selfishness, or pride, stand at the door of the heart resolved to exclude all evidence that would impose unwelcome duty, then I know not that any amount of evidence would suffice short of that which would cancel the freedom of the man. There is evidence enough to satisfy the candid and sincere; and as for others, they possess within them a veil too thick for evidence to pierce. Cling to the Bible, for it has proved like its Author to be immortal. It has been in the furnace of trial times without number, but it has come forth as gold. The waves of controversy have beat against it but it has dashed them back in glittering and harmless spray. Every science in its turn, while in infancy, has looked over its cradle-edge and puled forth its impotent rage against the Bible; but when it has grown up and become strong, it has atoned for its childish follies by bending in adoration, and laying its tributes at its feet. From age to age the Bible keeps its place as the pioneer of progress frowning on sin,— smiling on virtue,-withering hypocrisy, and encouraging the broken hearted to trust in a Saviour whose blood cleanses from sin. Let the world advance as it may, it will never outgrow its need of the Bible, not only for its eternal salvation but for its well-being in the present state. Humanity is climbing up to a higher point from age to age, forgetting! the things that are behind, and pressing on to those which are before; but the Bible still keeps a-head, revealing the pathway, and crying "Excelsior, excelsior!" Is it a mine? oft as the miner delves he will find fresh ore. Is it an ocean? oft as the diver plunges he will discover goodly pearls. The poet will ever find in it flowers for his garland, and the statesman maxims for his policy. With its fragrance health will be always able to regale its senses; and with its fruit sickness will always be able to cool its fever. It will be a light for man, so long as man needs a light, and will only leave him then when he has entered into the presence of Him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all. Then shall it sink from sight as sinks the morning star in the effulgence of the risen sun. |