CHRISTIANS SHOULD STUDY THE PROFOUND

ER MYSTERIES OF THEIR FAITH.

It is the uniform representation of the Bible, that men are sanctified through the truth, are morally transformed by the Gospel of Christ, or that their spiritual education is accomplished by means of the Christian doctrines.

It becomes, therefore, a momentous question, What is the relation between the truth and the human mind and heart? What is the nature and the degree of the communication between them? How far are they in contact? If there be any living sympathy between them, how can the number of vital points be augmented? Where is the process of assimilation active? Where has it become deficient or ceased altogether? It is evident, on a moment's reflection, that the degrees of this transforming process may be almost infinitely various.

In the first place, we may conceive of an individual who has no knowledge whatever of any positive revelation, whose mind is in very great doubt and perplexity on all spiritual subjects, to whom the future is nearly an entire blank; but through the darkness of whose understanding there has, once in a while, shot a ray of light, which has come one knows not whence; a little fragment of traditional truth

has floated to him down those gloomy waters which lie back of him. His mind has become uneasy, his conscience has uttered its faint murmur, a feeble sense of sin and ill-desert has been awakened. He has moments of secret yearning for some better light, some clew that will lead him out of the labyrinth. His mind, dark, confused, almost inextricably perplexed, is in contact with the truth. The spirit of God, in some unknown method, has touched a chord which now tremblingly vibrates. He has, in a small degree, a preparation of heart for some further discovery. He anticipates the truth, rather than possesses it. He is not in the temple, but he has placed his foot on the lowest step of the portico. The darkness has not passed away, but yet it is not increasing. When a purer light shall fall upon his benighted spirit, it may be found that there was some aptitude or readiness to admit it.

We may suppose, in the second place, another individual, who never enjoyed any direct revelation, to whom God never spoke by articulate voice, or in dreams or visions of the night; but by some visible symbol, through some outward rite, in some significant action, there was prefigured to him some great redeeming truth. Through these thick veils he dimly saw and really felt the oped, spiritual principle. A little edge of the curtain which concealed from him the far distant future, was for a moment raised, and faith sprung up in his soul, and took the place of vision.

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There is another large class, in the third place, who look at truth through a discolored medium. The doctrine exerts little of its transforming power, because it cannot pierce the cloud of prejudices by which it is met. It is only occasionally, and at great disadvantage, that it touches the mind

which it is fitted to regenerate. Innumerable foreign objects are interposed between it and the soul. If there be any spiritual life in that soul, its pulsations are feeble and intermittent. If any true conceptions of the Gospel are entertained, they can exert but little practical power, distorted as they are by prepossessions and countless errors.

I would allude, in the fourth place, to a large class who live in Christian lands, where the Gospel is enjoyed in its simplicity and purity, but who receive, for the most part, only a small degree, if it may be so expressed, of saving power, or only an indirect benefit. They are believers by education, or on traditionary evidence. The Gospel does not ordinarily come to them with power, as demanding their individual faith and acceptance. They have received it, rather than believed in it. They have taken it upon trust, or as a bequest, rather than searched into its meaning or imbibed its spirit by a personal and self-appropriating examination. The Gospel is to them an outward and adventitious support, not a life-giving power, not the theme of earnest meditation, and not even the occasion of doubt or perplexity; but it is regarded as a legacy, into the possession of which they have come without any thought or care of their own, and whose indirect and earthly blessings may be enjoyed as a matter of course.

I may name others, in the fifth place, who are interested in the Gospel intellectually, who make it a matter of distinct and earnest investigation, who digest its truths, who obtain clear and discriminating views of its doctrines, who are strenuous and able in the defence of its evidences, and who have oblained the mastery of it, considered as a system of abstract knowledge. But, unhappily, they have not at the same time brought it near to their undying spirit, to their moral nature,

as a medicine of wondrous efficacy. They have dissociated it from that for which it was specially designed. It does not elevate the earthward affections, it does not rectify the perverse tendencies, it does not exorcise the soul of its powers of evil, because it is jealously excluded from this region and made merely the sign of intellectual ideas, or a grateful exercise for the reasoning powers.

I would allude, in the sixth place, to a very large class of Christians, who unite to a certain extent a correct knowledge of the Christian system with a partial obedience to its precepts. They understand at least the first principles of the Gospel, and endeavor not to neglect the duties growing out of their knowledge. Their acquaintance with the Gospel is not merely traditional, or the result of education. Their observance of the requisitions of the Gospel is something more than obedience to the law of custom, or an imitation of the example of others. But, unhappily, little growth is perceptible either in their knowledge or their virtues. In both respects they are contented to remain for ever children, never able to go beyond their elementary lessons, never to be disengaged from the hand of their teacher. The Gospel is not a life within them, a germinating principle that insures a growth and a vigorous maturity. They are satisfied with a small amount of knowledge and of religious experience. This tardy progress, this almost stationary position, is not owing to the lack of opportunities, to any deficiency in natural power, to any unavoidable hindrances in the providence of God. A great proportion of the members of the Christian Church in our country are, doubtless, in this state of comparative infancy, without any sufficient cause. They are not in that condition of extreme poverty which debars them from attending

earnestly and continuously to religious truth. There is such a general competence, so much undisturbed tranquillity, such a sense of security and peace, as to favor and encourage the largest attainments in knowledge and grace, such as the world has rarely, perhaps never, seen. There is likewise a stimulated curiosity on all other subjects, a shrewd and awakened intellect, a remarkable aptness in discovering and investigating truth in all departments of knowledge. But on one subject, and that the most momentous, a theme where knowledge is eternal life, where experience enlarges and ennobles the soul, the mind is satisfied with. contracted views, with the mere elements of truth, with an imperceptible progress, with a feeble and hesitating faith.

Now, in opposition to all these inadequate, partial, unproductive methods of considering truth, in marked contrast with all this indolent, fitful, uninfluential reception of the Gospel, we are urged by the New Testament, not only to a practical use of it, but also to a study which shall be earnest, systematic, steadily advancing till one height after another is gained, till, by the influence of divine truth, the soul is gradually freed from its thraldom and stands erect in its conscious liberty and enlarging knowledge.

It is now time, says the Apostle, in Hebrews vi. 1, 2, to leave your elementary lessons, to throw off the badges of pupilage, no longer to occupy yourselves in laying the foundations. In busying yourselves with these introductory lessons, you give a false impression of the nature of Christianity, as though it were made up of a few rudimental elements, and did not possess a thousand fruitful and inexhaustible principles, and were not a system of perfect truth fitted for the soul in its most enlarged capacity and in its widest investigations. You long ago professed to compre