Surely no intelligent man, in the ordinary use of his faculties, could think for a moment, either of denying the right, or of limiting its exercise; and the objection must therefore result from ignorance or misapprehension, as to our original state. They who are so jealous of God's dictation and of their own liberty, must forget that the two great attributes of our natural condition were IGNORANCE and CONDEMNATION.

1. Our ignorance becomes God's vindication from the charge of arbitrary enactment.

He only was able to reveal to us the things of heaven-the things concerning his own infinite essence and perfections-the things which would "make for our everlasting peace." These things, by nature, we know not, and we could not know. Had they been discoverable by us, Revelation would have been superfluous, and faith would have been precluded. They would have been matters of investigation and of positive knowledge, but not of faith. That same state of man which required a revelation, and the same mercy of God by which it was imparted, left with God the right of demanding its acceptance, or else of affixing penalties to the act of rejection; and placed us under a moral obligation to its acceptance, or else a moral necessity to suffer those penalties.

2. We were in a state of sin and condemnation.

The sentence was upon us; and its reversal rested with him who had pronounced it, not with us. If saved at all, it could only be through the free grace and mercy of God. If that grace and mercy be dispensed, it must be on his own terms. With him assuredly it rested to devise and appoint the scheme or mode, and the conditions of salvation. He has done so, and made them known to us in the Gospel. To refuse assent to his testimony, because the propositions revealed do not altogether square with our ideas or expectations, is to reject the whole system which they form-God's scheme for our salvation; and as we have no right to appoint terms for ourselves, neither can we bind God to their acceptance, we lose the possibility of salvation. Our exclusion from heaven follows as a just and necessary sequence from our presumption and obstinacy.

And then, as to the plea of inability to believe: if not in every case falsely pretended, yet at the best it is but imaginary. What is the true state of the case? In a department of knowledge which is the acknowledged province of Revelation, men subvert the legitimate empire of revealed truth, push forth their own reason, upon a course of investigation to which it is incompetent, give the reins to imagination, and bid it accompany and cmbolden reason in its flight through vast immensity-speculate boldly of earth, and hell, and heaven-rush to conclusions the very opposite

from those which God has established, and rest in them, and act upon them-and then, although the whole matter be of their own wilfulness, they still say that the fault was not theirs; that their unbelief is spontaneous, irresistible, and without sin! Well may we fear "that such an excuse will not be so easily accepted and allowed before God;" for it is not founded in truth. It is not the fact, that such men strive to believe and cannot. On the contrary, it may be fearlessly asserted, that they strive hard to disbelieve. Scepticism is their aim: and when they become accomplished professors of its cheerless theory of doubt and denial, so that they can scoff at all that is sacred here, and have ceased to hope for aught that may be hereafter, " verily they have their reward."

Is exception still taken at God's declared indignation against this unbelief? Let it be stripped, then, of all its disguises, and appear in its true character, and its full deformity. To what does it amount, but to an impeachment of the divine veracity? Saith St. John, "He that believeth not God, HATH MADE HIM A LIAR, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." This is strong language, but not too strong for the truth. Its author was of too enlarged a charity, of too meek, loving, and catholic a spirit, to have slandered even an enemy. He would rather have whispered an excuse, or breathed a

prayer, than have pronounced a censure or proclaimed a judgment. The expression then has double weight, because coming from his pen. He declares the simple truth. Disguise it as we may, under the smooth and captivating terms of" harmless speculation," " thinking for self," "following reason," "following out principles," "going steadily to conclusions," "exercising mind," "exercising natural and moral liberty," daring to be free," and unnumbered others, equally euphonous, equally fashionable, and equally false-still, this is UNBELIEF; when brought out from the covert of deceptive appellation, and called by its just name, and explained according to its real import. It is neither more nor less than giving the lie to God.

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It may be well for those whom this strong language, and this to them new view of the subject, may have startled, to follow up the train of thought which the inspired St. John has opened; and to dwell for a little time upon his original presentation.

To refuse assent even to human testimony, when it is clear and credible, is an offence against reason and common sense; and if this refusal were common, the very foundations of opinion would be subverted, and the bonds of social confidence would be loosened. Hence, therefore, we all do receive, under ordinary circumstances, the direct testimony of those whom we imagine to be honest

men.

Now saith our apostle, "If we receive the witness of man, the witness of God is greater." The inference from the comparison is this, that the rejection of his witness is as much more unreasonable and sinful, than the rejection of credible human testimony, as "the heavens are higher than the earth, or his ways than our ways.'

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Condemn man as justly or as loudly as you will, for not believing his fellow-men, and he still has this extenuation, that they are his fellow-menmen of like passions" with others and with himself; that their senses may deceive them, or their prejudices warp them; that their motives may be unsound, and their aim unhallowed. But such extenuation finds no place, when God is the witness, and man the objector. From his very nature it follows, that the witness cannot err, and will not deceive. And the objector has not even the shadow of justification for his cavillings. He knows nothing, and therefore should say nothing. On the one side, there is infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom, infinite power, and infinite holiness. On the other, there is the profundity of ignorance, the liability to err, the weakness of dependence, and the pollution of sin. I leave it to you, my readers, to perceive and feel how the sin deepens in aggravation, when it is man, ignorant, erring, dependent, sinful man, who would make God a liar;" the all-wise, infallible, self-existent, holy, omnipotent God!