ception, and exculpate them from all guilt in the refusal of it. When they "went into all the world, and preached the gospel to every creature," they subjoined the authori"He that believeth shall be tative assurance, saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned." According to their declarations, the difference between faith and unbelief was of no trivial import. It was all the difference between safety and destruction, between the blessing and the curse of God, between heaven and hell. We do not find them saying to their hearers,-“ We are aware that you have no control over your belief; that it is a thing altogether involuntary; that your believing or not believing what we testify can therefore have no influence whatsoever upon your prospects of retribution as accountable creatures, for it is as unconnected with your will, as is the hue of your skin or the height of your stature. We recommend our testimony to you, knowing it to be from God, and persuaded of its beneficial tendency:-but, if the evidence we set before you of its truth does not produce conviction in your minds, we are far from meaning to insinuate that on this account it will fare at all the worse with you in the end." -They proceeded, as you all know, on no such principles;—but, in direct and unqualified terms, connected salvation with the acceptance of their message, and perdition with its refusal. That this was the simple matter of fact, I may show a little more fully from the inspired record by and by.-But before proceeding further with the scripture argument, I may be allowed to observe, that the principle so unqualifiedly laid down is as inconsistent with the true philosophy of the human mind, and with the numberless and obvious facts of every-day experience, as it is with the dictates and implications of holy writ. Is there, I would ask, no reciprocally influential connection between the understanding and the affections? and more especially, has the state of the latter no influence upon the exercise of the former? Who that knows any thing of even the most ordinary phenomena of human nature,-phenomena which, so far from being recondite, are open to every one's observation,-is not aware how mighty is the power of the desires and inclinations over the operations of intellect? -to what a vast extent, both in the number of instances and in the degree of force, opinion and belief are affected by predisposition, by the previous bent of the will? The thing is notorious-proverbially notorious;-the blindness produced by the want of will to see, being pronounced by proverb, which embodies the authority of experience, the most inveterate and hopeless of all.-I speak, of course, of human nature, according to the appearances which it now presents. The question is not, whether what I now describe be a regular and healthy, or a disordered and morbid exercise of its powers and functions, but simply, whether the fact be or be not as I have stated it:-not what was originally the case, or even, whether the case ever was otherwise,-but what is ac -- tually the case now? impossible to hesitate. And as to this, it is I do not, for my own part, entertain a doubt, but that at the very moment when the sentiment under consideration was publicly uttered, there was a practical exemplification furnished of the truth of the observation just made, concerning it,—an experimental refutation of its principle.-At the time of its being delivered, it was generally and loudly applauded. There might possibly be not a few, especially of the junior part of the auditory, who swelled the noisy acclamation, as they are ever ready to do, without well knowing why:-there might be some, too, who gave it their instant and hearty sanction, because of the decided reprobation which it involved of all religious intolerance, without, at the moment of excited enthusiasm, adverting to its other bearings. But the question I would now ask, is, Was there, in the mind of no one present, an existing predisposition to receive it? Were there none, with whom it was likely 7 beforehand to prove a favourite sentiment, -a sentiment which they would be eager to catch at, and fond to retain? Was there no thoughtless man of the world there,—was there no inconsiderate sceptic there,-who felt inwardly pleased with the sentiment, as one on which his mind could repose, in an easy and self-complacent quietude? Were there none, in a word, (whatsoever might be the inward spring from which the feeling arose) who were gratified with the idea, that they might think and believe even as it chanced to them, without being responsible, -without incurring, for their opinions or their faith, any charge of moral delinquency, more than for the stature or the complexion which nature or circumstances might happen to have given them ?—If in a single bosom present there existed such a predisposition, -a readiness to catch at what was uttered, and to be easily persuaded of its truth,—a wish, however secret, that it might be as the speaker represented it:-then there was in that bosom a refutation of the sentiment ; B |