that resistance to the will of God, in the obvious dictates of his moral law, blinds the understanding and vitiates the heart, producing a moral incapacity for discerning the excellence of Christian truth. He saw that reason was not accessible to the moral persuasiveness of revelation, unless relieved from her moral thraldom by something more powerful than logical induction; and, after unfolding the glories of the Deity in light of unparalleled clearness—after confirming his doctrines, and illustrating the nature of his mission by stupendous miracles of compassion

-he still had to say to the men of Judah, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." The argument is won, for the Godhead has been revealed: and, to attest the revelation as certain and genuine, the laws of nature have owned the interdict of Him who gave them their ancient dominion; but the hapless children of trespass, to whom the argument is addressed, are utterly dead to its practical conclusions. Thus spake the Author of Christianity himself, and his Apostle was compelled to hold the same language: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." It hates the Almighty in the moral developments of his nature, and therefore it cannot discern him in the revelation of his grace: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things, yet he himself," being spiritual, “is discerned of no man," but such as are spiritual.

We know it is strenuously maintained, that the

man is undoubtedly a Christian who has been brought to admit that the Bible is proven to be the word of God. But we have no hesitation in saying, that no delusion more dangerous can possibly be palmed on the human mind. That man necessarily is whatever his understanding dictates, is contrary to all experience. The persons addressed by Jesus of Naza reth, in the language quoted above, were generally convinced of the truth of his mission, and thus was the Bible proven to them. That many, who resisted him as he taught his doctrines, and wrought his miracles in the villages of Judea, were, in fact, of this description, is obvious from their conduct, in adopting none of the reasonable expedients for detecting imposture and putting it out of countenance. Their reason was convinced, but their hearts were not reclaimed; and, therefore, they could load him with calumny, or pour a torrent of impious derision on the meanness of his earthly extraction-they could wrest his clearest expressions, and say, in the delirium of their enmity, "He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." They could do all this, and much more than it all; but they never once would come forth, in the unbiassed exercise of their understandings, to refute a doctrine which he ever uttered, or disprove a miracle which he openly wrought. Their conviction prevented this, but that conviction was negative, not positive; they saw that the Bible could not be disproven, but they could not find in their heart to embrace its doctrines, or imbibe its spirit; and, as usually happens with the perverse creature whose heart is resolutely at war with his head, the more deeply the force of the argument was impressed on

their understandings, the more powerfully was the enmity of their hearts exasperated. Thus it was in Jewry in the days of the Messiah, thus it is in Britain in our own days, and thus it ever will be, so long as believers and unbelievers are mingled together, under a pure dispensation of the gospel of the grace of God. This reasoning is not invalidated by freely admitting the fact, that many persons are to be found among us, who, because they are aware that the Bible cannot be disproven, are quiet enough, or prudent enough, to let it alone, or even to give their countenance to its public institutions. This is just a milder form of the same state of mind, which probably owes its mildness to the absence of plain dealing; but to tell the man who is even in this condition, that he is a Christian, or to palliate the delusion by which he tells himself so, is to send him away into the presence of his Judge with a lie in his right hand. It is not a merely rational conviction, but a positive moral reception, of the truth, as it is in Jesus, that gives a man a valid title to the high appellation of a believer in the record of Christianity.

It is idle, then, you see, to talk of evidence as sufficient to propagate the belief of the Bible; for the obstacles which oppose the internal reception of it are so peculiar, and so powerful, that no amount of mere evidence can ever clear them away. The heart of man is filled with prejudice against the practical bearings of the Christian system; and although demonstration may destroy his scepticism, yet feelings are not accessible to demonstration, and he cannot bring himself to embrace in heart what his strong propensities oppose in practice. With this fact before

his eyes, and confirmed, as reflection will show it to be, by his every day experience, it becomes a matter of immense importance for the man of decided scepticism, or the merely intellectual believer, to pause at this point, and analyze his moral affections, and compel himself to ascertain how far it is alienated feeling, or habits of mind and conduct produced by such feeling, which prevents the surrender of all that he is to the word of the truth of the gospel. So long as he refuses to do this, or does it superficially, without probing his heart to the bottom, he acts a part the most preposterous, and makes it lamentably certain that something else than want of evidence is the cause of his continued unbelief. But while this is his duty, it becomes the advocates of Christianity to turn their attention to this point also. The argument of the subject is clear and conclusive; it stands out before the public in a great variety of apposite forms; and little more can be done, in the present state of the controversy, to add to its strength or entireness but the moral causes which prevent its success in the hearts of individuals, have been but seldom brought to light with that variety of research, and clearness of expository illustration, which their mischievous magnitude so imperiously demands. To these causes, we should like to see the sanctified talent of the present age particularly directed; because this form of the controversy, which has all the direct advantages of an argument with the conscience, is sanctioned by uniform scripture example, and, although it may lead to violent commotion, is unquestionably the fittest for decisive effect.

On this part of the subject, however, we have

sent.

no intention of entering at present; but there are two propositions, not by any means remote from the subject, which we wish to present to the reader's attention before we part with him for the preThese may be stated together as follows:There is a vital connexion between the soul of a sinner and the spirit of evil, which must be dissolvedand a vital connexion between his soul and the Spirit of God, which must be formed, in order to his deliverance from moral scepticism.

I. There is a vital connexion between the soul of a sinner and the spirit of evil, which must be dissolved in order to his deliverance from moral scepticism. There is no topic, we believe, within the whole compass of revelation, which has oftener been the subject of infidel derision, than the doctrine of satanic influence over the moral conduct of man. But had we the means of tracing this derision up to its real origin, the cases might not be few in which we would find the derision itself to be the offspring of this very influence; for Satan can never be better concealed in the heart of any mortal, than when he hides himself in sceptical derision at the idea of his being there. To refer us to instances in which men of weak or uneducated intellect, tainted or carried away by popular superstition, have been chargeable in this matter with ridiculous extravagance, is to adduce nothing which militates, in the least degree, against the doctrine in question; for that extravagance is disowned by the enlightened believer in the doctrine, as well as by its keenest opponents. But if we separate the doctrine from the excesses which folly has mixed up with it, and examine its own intrinsic merits, we shall very