discussed, speaks pointedly and solemnly to those who are setting up their reason in opposition to God's truth. Reader, are you such a one? pause, before you advance another step, "least haply you be found to fight against God!" Dare you reject any single doctrine, or fact of revelation, because it transcends, in its sublimity and mystery, the finite powers of your mind? What astounding temerity is this! Dare you turn your back upon God's truth-and in rejecting any part of His truth, remember you turn your back upon God Himself-dare you withhold the obedience of your faith, the homage of your affections, the entire consecration, to His service, of your life, because there are parts of His Word which you cannot harmonize, doctrines which you cannot comprehend-and operations of His moral government which accord not with your rule of judgment, and your views of equity and of mercy? what fearful presumption is this! what are you? the infant of a day! and will you oppose your puny intellect to the mind of God! Even were the grasp of your intellect that of an angel, yet, when measured with God's, what is it? what too, are all your literary and scien

tific attainments—the wisdom of ages, which

you

may have toiled to accumulate; the treasures with which you have enriched and garnished your mind ;-what is it all, but foolishness with God? Yea, more than this,—is not the very intellect God has given you, and which He sustains, turned into a weapon of attack against His truth? How then can you escape the woe pronounced upon him, who "striveth with his Maker."

The reader, whose eye traces this page, may be longing to know and experience the truth, but to the present, has "stumbled at the word" through a desire to understand what God has not revealed. Is it so? then tear yourself away from every thing that would keep you from the cross of Christ. To that cross you must come as a poor, ignorant, humble sinner. You must stand, as stood the publican; and you must cry as did he, "God be merciful to me a sinner.” That depraved heart of yours must be changed; that proud intellect must be humbled; that rebellious will must be subdued, before you can know "the blessedness of the man, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Ps.

xxxii. 1. Listen to the solemn words of the Son of God; "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matt. viii. 3. Listen to the word of the Apostle; "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God: for it is written, He taketh the wise in his own craftiness." 1 Cor.

iii. 18, 19. Are you longing to know the truth? then come the heart of GoD bids you come; every promise of His word bids you come; and taking your place low at the feet of Jesus, receive with the simplicity, docility, and ingenuousness of a child, the precious word of God. O lay aside your cavilling, your false reasoning, which does but keep you back from simply receiving Christ as the Saviour of sinners; and impressed with a deep and abasing sense of your ignorance and vileness, let your ardent prayer be, "That which I know not, teach thou me. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation." Job, xxxiv. 32. Ps. xxv. 5. The reader is earnestly requested, to make this pe

tition his own, and breath it at the mercy seat, before he passes to the next chapter, in which the principles broached in this introduction, are fully carried out, and individually applied.

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. ii. 14.

By no stronger argument does the truth of GOD establish the Divinity of its origin, than, that to all, save the regenerate, it is a sublime mystery. Not only the great principles of truth are inexplicable, but the hidden and transforming operation of that truth upon the mind, the alarm, the contrition, the joy, the hope, the varied and often conflicting emotions which are its proper results, all, are perfectly unintelligable. The life of GOD in the soul, the mode of its communication, the peculiarity of its actings, and the source of its