There is an important difference between the truth embodied in and taught by the doctrines of Christ, and truth having a relation to the arts and sciences-to mere economical, political, and mathematical truth. In regard, for instance, to philosophical or mathematical truth, the mind may, at once, without any change in its moral condition, proceed to attain to correct knowledge. The right understanding of these truths may consist with a depraved state of the moral nature. The understanding may be conversant with truth in many departments, while the heart has no love for what is spiritually lovely and of good report; but, in regard to the doctrine of Christ-religious truth-the mind, in its natural condition, in our present fallen state as transgressors of God's law, has no love for it, and no sympathy with it,-nay, is even opposed to it, and consequently, a change is necessary in its moral condition before it can know the doctrine, whether it be of God, and that change is evidenced by a readiness to do the will of God,-"Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power." Now, what is this change? It is just regeneration, that great change which affects the whole man,the understanding, the will, the heart, and the conscience. In one word, as formerly stated, it is the restoration in the soul of the image of God in which we were created, and which we lost by our disobedience.

This change is equally necessary as respects the learned and unlearned. I do not here speak only of the man who is ignorant and unlettered, who has never enjoyed the advantages of education, or experienced the influence of refined society; I include the wise and the learned in science and philosophy-men of enlarged conceptions and vigorous intellects, but destitute of the teaching of the spirit of God; and of all these I affirm that, in reference to Divine things, they are as the blind who stumble at noon-day. The chief priests and elders, the philosophers of Athens, of Corinth, and of Rome, rejected the truth of God as well as many of the common people, having no desire to receive it, no willingness to submit to it, no moral capacity to perceive its Divine harmony and beauty. "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." And hence, when the truth of God is presented to men in their natural state, it comes to minds which are strongly set against it; and thus, when the Saviour himself appeared, the embodiment and personification of all

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truth, and grace, and excellency, He was despised and rejected of men; the Beloved of the Father, and the Adored of angels, was to them but as a root out of a dry ground, having no beauty on account of which they should desire Him.

One of the greatest stumbling-Llocks in the way of the reception of the Saviour, by the Jews, was the fact of His deep humiliation. And yet, were it not for their natural indisposition to receive the truth of God,-were it not that their views regarding the Messiah were in direct opposition to the expressed mind of God, they would have easily seen that not only was our Lord's humiliation consistent with the Scriptures, but absolutely required by them, in order to the fulfilment of express prophecies bearing upon that point. He was to be cut off, but not for Himself. The sword of the Almighty was to awake against Him, and to smite Him. He was to be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; He was to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was to be on Him, that by His stripes we might be healed. Yet, with these and other prophecies which testified to the sufferings of the Messiah, in their hands, they rejected the Saviour, and looked upon His humiliation as fatal to His claims as the Christ of God. But had there been a real willingness to submit themselves to the teaching of the Scriptures on this point, and to receive their revelations regarding the character and work of the Messiah, however opposed to their pride of heart and cherished predilections these revelations might be, their eyes would have been opened to see a Divine glory and fitness in a suffering Saviour. What was dark to their carnal minds, and offensive to the pride of unregenerate nature, would have been seen to be the very truth of God, and in all respects consistent with the righteousness of His character, with His holiness, justice, goodness, mercy, and truth. Thus, too, they would have known that the doctrine taught by Christ, though foolishness in the eyes of men who prefer their own wisdom to the teaching of God, and who exalt their own preconceptions above His revelations, is nevertheless of God, and the very expression of His will to sinful men.

There are two important truths which the text teaches. First-That wherever there is a willingness to do the will of God, the teaching of the Spirit will not be withheld, yea, has already been vouchsafed; increased light will be given, which shall eventually lead to a full peruasion of the truth of God. "If any

man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." There is here not only the statement of a fact-a fact as certain as it is encouraging-but also a Divine guarantee and security. He shall know, saith Christ,-as if He had said, ‘I promise and guarantee it.' Thus, a readiness to do the will of God-a right state of our moral nature-is the sure and only effectual means of attaining to a full, and comforting, and saving persuasion of the truth of God-the doctrine of Christ as set forth in the Sscriptures. On the other hand, the converse of this holds equally true,-and this is the second truth taught in the text, viz.-Wherever there is not knowledge of the doctrine of Christ, as the doctrine of God, and revealed by Him, there will be found a will opposed to God's, sinful inclinations, a deceitful heart, a melancholy blindnesss, as respect the moral vision, which lead the subject of it to love the darkness rather than the light; and in this love of darkness consists his condemnation.

Look at the case of the Jews themselves, to whom our Lord originally addressed the words of the text. The Holy Ghost had borne witness of Jesus at His baptism, and God the Father had proclaimed, by a voice from heaven, that he was His Beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. No man could do the works which He did, unless God were with him. He walked upon the sea, and stilled the tempest. He gave hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind; He restored the withered arm to wonted vigour, and recalled the disembodied spirit to reanimate the lifeless frame. They had witnessed the most stupendous displays of His power, and beheld Him exerting absolute and uncontrolled dominion over every department of nature. But in spite of these miraculous displays of power, their unbelief remained as determined as before. They denounced His claims, vilified His character, and rejected Him as the Christ of God. They had no desire to do the will of God, in order that they might know of the doctrine of Christ whether it were of God; and when He who is the light of the world and the life of men, appeared in their midst, they shut their eyes that they might not see, and their ears that they might not hear. The light that was in them was darkness, and great was that darkness. But what was true of the Jews then, holds true still of all forms of unbelief, whether of open and speculative infidelity, or of practical unbelief. Its root is to be found in the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, which is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. Men come to the consideration of the doctrine of Christ full

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of preconceived notions, setting up their own wishes and conceptions as the standard of what ought to be, with no desire to be taught of God or learn of Christ, with pride of intellect and a will disinclined to God; and instead of becoming as little children, that they may enter into the kingdom and be instructed in heavenly wisdom, they follow the rushlight of their own inclinations and intuitions, and thus by wisdom they know not God. Being wise in their own conceits, the things which pertain to the doctrine of Christ and His kingdom are, in righteous judgment, hid from them. Yet, though hid to them, they are revealed unto babes, who yield themselves up to the Divine teaching of the Spirit, and, by His Divine teaching, are cordially inclined to do the will of God; and in this way they come to know of the doctrine of Christ that is of God, in the conciousness of reconciliation to God which they experience, in the pardon which they have received, in a purged and pacified conscience, in a hope of immortality, in a peace which passeth all understanding, and which keeps the heart and mind, through Jesus Christ, in joy in the Holy Ghost-in one word, in a felt adaptation of the salvation which they have received to all the wants of their fallen state,—in the light which it has imparted to the understanding, in the heavenly inclination which it has given to all their desires and affections, in the sublime hope which they are enabled to cherish of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, in the heavens.

It is also evident from this passage, that a moral incapacity for perceiving spiritual things in their true character and relations does not diminish man's responsibility in the sight of God, but is itself a proof of his guilt. Let us remember wherein this moral incapacity consists. It consists among other things, as we have seen, in an inveterate disinclination to return to God; in a vitiated state of the will, affections, and desires; in a willingness to remain in a state of alienation from that glorious Being to whose service we are bound to devote every faculty in our nature. Man's blindness, then, in respect to spiritual things, instead of excusing, is itself the result of his apostacy from God, and constitutes his criminality; and his criminality is greatly enhanced by the fact that he rejects the only remedy for the removal of that blindness. I believe that, in the entire range of human experience, wherever the light of revelation has shone, there has been no instance,-whether as regards speculative unbelief among avowed infidels, or practical unbelief among hearers of the Gospel,-of a man with an honest and earnest desire to know and to do the

will of God, being denied the teaching of the Spirit of God, so as to prevent him from arriving at such a conviction of the truth as to lead him to acquiesce in the method of redemption revealed by God, and to embrace an offered Saviour. No doubt, infidels are often profuse in their professions of honesty; but their professed honesty is more nominal than real and singleminded. For, how stands the case? They come to God's Word with a moral obliquity of feeling and of judgment, and, as a natural result, unless God graciously interposes to prevent the sad and certain consequences of such a state of mind, they find what they wish, and arrive at that conclusion which their hearts have already anticipated and desired.

I would now add, in conclusion, that I believe no conceivable or possible amount of evidence would suffice for the man who resists the evidence already given him by God, in proof that the Scriptures are indeed a revelation from Him to us.

On the principles laid down by some men in these our days, evidence sufficient to prove the trustworthiness of a Divine revelation is impossible, being beyond the power of God Himself to furnish. According to their own confession, were one to rise from the dead, it would be impossible for him, by any kind or degree of evidence, to demonstrate to them the genuineness of his credentials. Even should he work miracles before their eyes, they could be of no possible use. The difficulties they now feel in regard to the testimony of others, they would then feel in regard to their own senses. They must, on their own principles, distrust the one equally with the other. Faith, in the one case, would be as impossible as in the other. Even though they should see it written in characters of fire in the firmament, that the Bible is the Word of God, they could not believe, but must hold it to be a mere appearance, not a reality, a mere delusion of the senses, so true is the divine declaration of Him who is "the faithful and true Witness," who knows the heart, and the terrible resistance which it is capable of presenting to the truth of God. 'They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

Let us remember that, from the nature of the case, the evidence in support of revelation must be of such a kind as to be capable of being doubted, gainsayed, withstood, and resisted. It cannot, from the nature of moral evidence, and the purposes