66 Spirit of God." There is aversion : They are foolishness to him." There is perversion: "Neither can he know them.” There is the want of spiritual perception: "Because they are spiritually discerned." There is the reason on which the whole is founded-man is devoid of the power by which these things are suitably apprehended. "How" (says our Lord to the Pharisees) "do ye not understand my speech, because ye cannot hear my words." Of course they heard his words externally, for they were not deaf; and they could understand his speech intellectually, for in that respect it was clear and simple enough: it was therefore not in a natural but in a spiritual sense that our Lord spoke of them, and in this sense he declared, that they had neither ears to hear nor minds to understand the truths which he addressed to them. Shall it be said that it was merely because they had not the will, that the Pharisees and the rest of their countrymen rejected the gospel and crucified the Saviour? If so, what is the meaning of that prayer which Christ uttered on the cross on behalf of his murderers-" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Peter says it was "through ignorance" they committed that act of unparalleled guilt; and Paul tells us that, "had they known" the hidden wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;" and yet, if they were possessed of any spiritual perceptions at all, they would surely have been able to recognise the Messias. He was in person before their eyes; they heard him speak as never man spake; they saw him do signs and wonders such as were never exhibited on earth before; but still, so far from admitting or imagining that he was "the Christ," they believed him to be the very reverse of what he really was: they supposed him to be an impostor, a confederate of Satan, and in league with "Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." 66 So much for the natural ability of the sinner to apprehend God's truth. Here was presented to the view of men, not the written Word only, but the incarnate Word himself—the essential Wisdom and Power of God; and yet the thousands and tens of thousands who saw him, heard him, wondered at him, reasoned and reflected about him, had not the power of discerning "the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." As if to prove by the most remarkable of all evidences the utter blindness of man, and the necessity of spiritual illumination before the truth can be received, the Great Teacher sent from God met with little or no success in the prosecution of his personal ministry; and it was not till the Spirit was poured out from on high-till the special effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost was vouchsafed, that the gospel which he preached, almost in vain, was believed on in the world; and then, that the absolute need and the exclusive efficacy of the Spirit's power might be demonstrated in the most signal and memorable of all possible ways, one of his own disciples made more converts in a single hour than he himself did in the whole course of his lifetime. This great Scripture fact is sufficient of itself to demolish all the theories that have ever been devised to prove that man is capable, by his own powers, of perceiving and embracing the truth; for it shows us that the truth may be preached, not by man only, not even by the holiest and mightiest of men, but by One of the Persons of the Godhead, and yet preached without effect! The case of the Jews, as a nation, continuing, for the space of eighteen hundred years, to reject the doctrines of Christianity, forms another great Scripture fact in proof of the same thing. They have the prophecies in their hands; they possess the volume of the Book in which it is written of Christthat Book concerning which he himself said to their fathers, "Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me;" and yet, though they do search them, and profess to believe them; and though they have persevered, age after age, from the hour in which the vail of the Temple was rent in twain, and the darkness covered the earth at noon-day, and the sheeted dead appeared in the streets of the holy city-though they have persevered, from that hour to this, in reading the "testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy," the countless millions of that race who have lived since the date of our Lord's death, have continued in utter blindness and unbelief! Is this the result of mere wilfulness? Could they apprehend the truth if they chose? Is it possible that a simple spirit of obstinacy should so possess a whole people-a people not combined together in one place, but scattered through all the nations of the earth, and coming into contact with Christianity in every phase and form-is it possible, is it credible, is it consistent with the ordinary laws of human nature, that they should persist, from generation to generation, in shutting their minds against the truth, which is daily before their eyes, if they really had the power of perceiving that truth? Whoever can believe this will believe anything; and to argue with such a person, would be worse than pouring water upon a rock, or casting pearls before swine. The unbelief of the Jews is doubtless a peculiar circumstance. It is admitted that they are under a special malediction; but if man's ability and man's free agency be such as certain parties contend for, they cannot be controlled or prevented from exercising whatever powers they possess, for the purpose of discovering their errors and closing with the offers of salvation. And why do they not? Let these parties answer that question. But shall they ever do so, and when? We answer, Yes! and they shall do it when, according to the Divine promise, "the Spirit shall be poured out upon them." Then, and not till then, will they look unto Him whom their fathers pierced, and whom they themselves have, for eighteen centuries, rejected and despised. 2. But we remark farther, that man, by reason of the fall, is without spiritual desires. In this respect, also, we shall find that there is no life in him—that the breath of holy aspirations is silent, and the "pulse of sacred passions" stirless in his bosom. If "desire fails" as the days of darkness approach; when the hand of death is laid upon us, it becomes altogether extinct. The things most eagerly sought in the hey-day of health-the objects which have the warmest hold of our affections the treasures in pursuit of which we scorn delights and live laborious days-these excite no emotion when the face is covered with the napkin and the body is wrapped in the shroud. You may heap his gold on the miser's hand, but it will not move; you may place the glittering star on the breast of ambition, but it will heave with no swell of pride. Aye, you may lay her infant upon the mother's heart, but neither its smiles nor tears will bring any light over her "chill, changeless brow, That fires not, wins not, weeps not now." The cause is clear enough-Death is there and Desire is gone. Even such is the state of the soul in regard to divine things. These things draw forth no answering response, no sign of sympathy or recognition from it; and, accordingly, we read of unregenerate men, that "God is not in all their thoughts;" or, as the meaning of the statement is, in all their thoughts there is no trace of God; and in the Epistle to the Ephesians it is written of them, that they are "without God (901, atheists) in the world;" while in the fourteenth Psalm it is said that the Most High "looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God," and, as the result of the inspection, it is declared that he found "not one." To the same effect is the testimony of that most eloquent of "the world's grey fathers," the patriarch Job. As he surveyed the busy multitudes of his day, he observed them all with one accord buried in the profoundest indifference regarding Him whose invisible hand was calling forth so sweetly the secret harmonies of nature;"None saith where is God my Maker that giveth songs in the night." Nay, so far is the soul from possessing any spiritual affec 66 tions, that it is, on the contrary, full of carnal antipathies in reference to God, and to all that concerns him. It is charged with a spirit of positive hostility towards himself, and his law, his providence, and his people; insomuch that when any of these obtrude upon its attention, they are either coldly cast aside, or bitterly repelled. Hence we are told of natural, unconverted men, that they are "alienated from the life of God"-that "the love of the Father is not in them"-that they are mies to God in their minds, and by wicked works." It is further asserted, that they "hate" Christ and his followersthat the gospel is to them "a stumbling-block," a mass of "foolishness," a savour of death unto death;" and the Spirit of inspiration, collecting the lights of the Old and New Testaments together, gives, through the pen of Paul, this dark and terrible description of the state of human nature : ene "What, then," says the Apostle, (Romans iii. 9—18,) “are we better than they? No, in nowise, for we have proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one! There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way-they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one! Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Surely here is proof enough that the natural powers of mankind are corrupted and destroyed. Their consciences are so, for they are "not righteous:"—their reasoning faculties, for "there is none that understandeth;"-their moral affections, for they "seek not after God;"-their active powers, for they are "unprofitable" and incapable of "doing good;"—their throats, for they are "open sepulchres;"-their tongues, for they only "devise de |