SUBJECT:-The Relation of Christ to the Human Intellect.

"Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures."-Luke xxiv. 45.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Forty-fifth.

POSTHUMOUS words are rare words. I do not know that you have any on record but those in the context. We have indeed, what are called "posthumous works," but they are not so; the MSS. were penned before their authors died. Out of all the great teachers the world has ever had, only one has ever returned from the grave, and the spiritual world, to teach mankind again, and that is CHRIST. He had passed through the agonies of death, the darkness of the sepulchre, entered the spiritual world, and now returns to utter a few more words to his disciples.

I am disposed to think, that were some of the wisest and holiest of the world's teachers to return from the other state, and recommence their instructive mission, they would repudiate, as false, many, and modify most, of the views they propounded as true before. But we find no alteration in Christ's views; all he now says, is to confirm, illustrate and impress, what He had taught prior to his crucifixion; and more, He opens the understanding of His disciples, in order that they might understand all that the scriptures had stated concerning Himself.

Our subject is, the relation of Christ to the human intellect He opens it. This illustrates three things:-the spiritual condition of the human intellect, the religious importance of the human intellect, and the service of Christ to the human intellect.

I. THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF THE HUMAN INTELLECT. The fact that Christ "opened" it, implies that it was closed. The scriptures represent men as spiritually "blind." Blindness may arise from one of three causes the want of the

visual organ-the eye, the want of the visual mediumlight, and the want of the visual disposition; the individual, by closing his eyes, may be as truly in the dark as if he had neither eyes nor light. From which of these causes is man spiritually blind? Not from the first; he has the organ; the intellect is as fitted to see spiritual things as the eye natural things: not the second; there is plenty of light-intuition, nature, experience, the Bible, throw around the intellect a flood of spiritual light. It is the third. Men will not open their intellectual eye on spiritual things. They will open it to every other branch of truth, historical and scientific; but they close it against this. Why is this? Why is man more indisposed to open his eye on Biblical truth than any other? This is the question. I may mention one or two things which meet man in this department of truth to indispose him to look rightly at it, and which he finds, perhaps, in connexion with no other branch of knowledge.

First: There are unfavourable prejudgments, which he forms of it in the dawn of his intellectual being. If his parents and first companions are numbered amongst its disciples, even then, with the keen sense of consistency, which is peculiar to childhood, he discovers even in the best, such incongruities as are likely to prejudice him against this system; and as he goes out into life, and his realm of observation extends, scenes and circumstances are abundant on all hands to deepen these impressions. But if, as is the case, alas! with the vast majorities of our kind, the parents and first associates are out of sympathy with the Bible, additional elements are brought upon the young mind to prejudice it against it. Now, who does not know something of the force of prejudice? The Jews are a striking illustration. This prejudice is peculiar to the Bible. Men are not generally prejudiced against any other department of truth.

Secondly: There is a general impression made upon the

young mind, that the Bible is unfavourable to those sensual pleasures after which the young nature thirsts, and in which it delights itself. Whether the impression is true or not, is of no moment to our argument, it is a fact that it exists; and its existence as a natural consequence, indisposes the mind to look favourably at that book which is supposed to proscribe and denounce its most precious things. This again is peculiar to the Bible. Men do not feel that any of the sciences are unfavourable to their worldly pleasures and pursuits.

Thirdly: There is a vague, but deep and influential, feeling that the Bible bears a solemn charge against us. The man of business who has the impression that he is running in the line of insolvency, dreads to look into the account book. The vague idea of insolvency terrifies him; the confirmation of that idea he knows would augment his distress, and the consequence is, that he will keep away from the account books so long as it is possible. Men have a kindred feeling about the Bible, they are afraid that it will confirm and impress the fact of their guilt, the mere dreamings of which often terrify them. This feeling, also, is peculiar to the Bible. Men are not afraid of any other system of truth.

Fourthly: There is the action of evil spirits upon the mind for the purpose of indisposing it to look at Biblical truth. "The God of this world blindeth the eyes of men," &c. They would not, perhaps, seek to indispose men to look at any other system of truth.

II. THE RELIGIOUS IMPORTANCE OF THE HUMAN INTELLECT. It is opened that it might understand the scriptures. Three things are here implied :—

It

First That the scriptures have a meaning for man. is no superficial, ephemeral, production. Some books have no meaning, but there are golden strata of divine principles lying deep beneath the outside forms of the Bible. ciples can be appreciated by man.

And these prinThere are some truths,

perhaps, in some of God's revelations to His creatures, that

are as far beyond the reach of the human mind, as moral truth transcends the instinct of the brute. But the truths in the scriptures have a meaning for man.

Secondly: That the scriptures have a meaning for man, to get which, requires the action of his intellect. Christ "opened" this understanding that it "might understand" the scriptures. There are two great errors about the intellect in connexion with religion; the one makes the intellect everything, the other nothing. There are some who deify the intellect; there are others who degrade it. The one error leads to rationalism, the other to mysticism. guard against each extreme.

We must

Were we asked to determine the province of the intellect in the matter, we would say that it has to do four things (1.) to gather a convincing amount of evidence as to the divinity of the scriptures. (2.) to elicit the great truths contained in the scriptures, (3.) to seek after the rationale of the doctrines of the scriptures, and (4.) to apply to our own individual life all the practical elements of the scriptures. A simpering ministry may denounce intellect, but there can be no religion without it-the scriptures are a blank without it.

If one of these functions of the intellect be more important than another, it is the last-that of personal application. And yet, this is the most neglected. Men will employ their intellect to gather and appreciate the evidence to ascertain the theoretical meaning—and even to discover the rationale, who never make the effort to bring the great principles of the gospel into the region of personal experience and every-day life. We want this self-applying power of the intellect to be employed on Christianity;—and then a wonderful change will come over the world. What a marvellous change has been effected in man's secular life by this action of the intellect in relation to physical truths! During the long ages in which the human intellect was speculating about nature, creating one ingenious hypothesis after another, the physical truths which were discovered, were of no practical

advantage to the world. Physical discoveries, even after they had become sciences, were only thought-scenes into which a few gifted minds could rise. But when, in later days, the intellect employed the applying function, the contents of those thought-scenes were brought down and turned to practical account; the sciences became arts; ideas clothed themselves in forms of beauty and strength, and the world was advantaged. Oceans became the high roads of nations, noxious vapours the light of cities, steam the mighty agent to do the hard work of the world-help the farmer, the manufacturer, and the mariner, and bear the chariots of all, as on the wings of the wind. Electricity, too, became our servant, bearing our thoughts with more than the speed of light, through the solid earth and granite rocks. In fact, it is by this applying power of the intellect, man has obtained all those advantages which mark and bless the civilized world. Let men begin to bring Christianity from its thought-scenes into practical life, and what a glorious change will soon come over the world!

Thirdly: The scriptures have a meaning for man, the importance of which to him, no amount of inward light can supercede. Christ opened the understanding, not that he might thereby supercede the necessity of the scriptures, but that his disciples may the better appreciate them. No inner light of Quakerdom can supercede the scriptures. The Bible is our pillar, and we want it in every step of the desert until we reach the promised land.

III. THE SERVICE OF CHRIST TO THE HUMAN INTELLECT. "He opened their understanding."

We infer from this fact:

First That His service is of a restorative character. He "opened their understanding." He did not give them a new one. Christ gives no new powers, but restores, strengthens, and perfects, the old. He retunes the disordered harps and makes every string give music at every touch.