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ment, without arguing the question, that the Bible is from beginning to end the Word of God-I ask our opponents to come to that point for an instant-is it not in the highest degree rational to suppose that there should be an imprimatur, a stamp, an evidence on its very fore-front, that it comes from God, and can be seen and known to be of God? Why, my friends, that is the line of argument that we take up with every kind of invention, with every species of manufacture, with every form of produce, whether it be the produce of thought, or the produce of artisanship, that belongs to the realm of man kind. Does not every thing that is made by man, become very different if imitated by other men, supposing it to evince anything like essential talent, or the stamp of genius, marking an idiosyncrasy? The very fact that it is thus peculiar, that it stands out from the rest of human productions, causes it to be inimitable and uncopyable; and hence, when we see a production of the author, we know that it comes from his hand. Apply this to the case of the heavens; do they not show forth the glory of God? "The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Such is the case with the volume of nature, as well as the volume which we call the Word of God. We see in the skies the stamp and the evidence that they came from the hand of the Creator. What is true of the moon and stars that shine by night, and of the sun that shines by day, is no less true of the tiny leaf that flutters in the evening breeze, and no less true of the little insect that hums in our ears. All are proofs of the hand of an Almighty Being, by whose wisdom and goodness each of these things was originally produced. And now I want to know why, if this be true of God in his works of nature, it should be irrational to suppose that the Bible, coming from the same hand, has to be dealt with in the same manner? If it

be rational in me to say, "I see in the sun above, the work of my Maker, my God, and my Father," why should it be irrational in me to say of a book which professes to come from God, "I see that morally and spiritually that book is divine, just as I see above and around me, external evidences of what is substantially divine ?" This argument ap. pears to me to be altogether sound. I can conceive no possible objection to it, except one which I now proceed to no• tice, and which at first sight seems very plausible. The infidel, when this argument is pressed upon him, almost invariably replies, “Well, but if the Bible be thus self-evidential, if divinity be thus stamped on its pages, why do not all believe it ?" I will state why. The fault does not lie in any lack of evidence, but it lies in the moral state of the objector. Let us ever remember this cardinal truth, that no doctrine in Scripture, no moral precept, no spiritual truth at all, can ever be properly apprehended by the human mind, unless there be a kind of harmony between the truth itself and the mind which has that truth set before it. There must be some kind of moral fitness in the mind to deal with that truth. I will illustrate this in another way. How can a man ever receive the truths of a science, how can he ever be in a fit state to deal with them, to analyze them, to argue about them, and to draw deductions from them, unless his mind have been first cultivated in the modes of thought, in the habits, in the postulates and definitions, and so forth, which belong to that science? It is clear that unless his mind has been to some extent cultivated previously, in accordance with the channel of thought connected with the science, he cannot be in a fit state to deal with it. How can we expect a man to appreciate beauty or excellence in a statue or picture, or any work of art which may be brought before him, unless his mind has been previously, to some extent,

indoctrinated in the principles and standards by which the different points of which he has to judge, are to be regulated or weighed? What evidence can he possibly have, what means of judging, as to whether this particular work be right or wrong, beautiful or deformed? So must it in reality be in regard to things moral and spiritual. If I have to deal with a question that is moral, and my own moral sense be vitiated, am I in a right position to judge on that question? If I have to deal with a doctrine that is spiritual, and my own heart be corrupt, have I in my own mind or my own conscience, any power at all which is calculated to make me fit to deal with it, fit to argue about it, fit to weigh the evidence adduced, as to its beauty or its adaptation to my conscience? The circumstance of a man's conscience being dead, of his heart being corrupt, of his mind being a blank, when it ought to be filled with thoughts suitable to the subject, renders him, when he proceeds to the investigation, nothing more than a mass of prejudice and of darkness. And therefore it is no wonder that the Bible, though it shines by its own light, should be dark to him; just as the sun, though it shines by its own light, is dark to a man who has been blind from his birth, or who has been afflicted with some accident which has deprived him of the blessed sense of sight. Well, now, now, there are evidences within the Bible which are beautiful facts to them that believe. O, the intense holiness of its precepts and doctrines! compared with them, the most sublime speculations of heathen philosophy, are but as torchlights held up before the sun. And then, there is the harmony of all its various parts with the one grand theme of redemption through the blood of Jesus, involving marks of a unity of thought and community of purpose, through many ages, through a multitude of writers of every kind and station, of every form of mind and idiosyncrasy of

thought, from the king upon the throne, to the fisherman upon the lake, in a manner which would be utterly inconceivable, if there had not been a golden web of inspiration from above; if there had not been a power superhuman and altogether divine, which detached these writers from the things that surrounded them, and drew them to a common fountain and centre of light, and life, and love. And then, my friends, there is the agreement of the Word of God, with the conscience and the feelings of human nature in every age, so that whatever the human heart yearns after, is found there; whatever the human mind, in its better moments, values and treasures, of that it says, "The Bible teaches it me." It is only those who hate the light, and who will not come unto it because they love darkness better than light, who fail to see the light of God's word; while others, who read with greater simplicity, taught by God's Spirit, see in the spirit of prophecy a testimony to Jesus. When a man's conscience is really awakened, when he feels his sinfulness and his moral delinquency is painfully apparent to him, then he stands naked in thought before his Maker, feeling that he is lost unless he can find redemption out of himself. When such is my moral position, I see that in the Bible which makes me feel that it is altogether true, positively divine. Though ten thousand objectors should now come to me with their fond speculations and their learning, and say, "We live in the University of Oxford, and we tell you that the result of all our learning and of all our ponderous investigation, and of all te brilliant thoughts which belong to the speculative turn, and the critical spirit of the nineteenth century, have led us to an opposite conclusion to that which you have come to," I answer, "Yes; but my experience is a better teacher than your external testimony; Bible tells me what I know to be true; it tells me what I feel now, though I

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did not feel it once, that I am a sinner in the sight of that God who hates all sin; it offers a remedy, it provides con. solation; it appeals to my sympathies, and powers, and feelings, in a manner in which none of your Essays," and none of your "Reviews," ever can do. And therefore I know, notwithstanding anything that may be brought forward under the name of historical criticism, or learned theory, that not only is the Word of God in the Bible, but that the Bible is the Word of God, and therefore "Let God be true and every man a liar." Now allow me to illustrate this very briefly; I will suppose that I went to a hospital, labouring under severe pains, forced to keep my bed, and crying out at night, "Would to God it were morning," and in the morning, "Would to God it were evening." The physicians, or medical men, prescribe for me in vain; they say, "Take this or that," but their nostrums do me no good; they cry, "Peace," but there is no peace; still the pain, still the fever, still the wasting decay, and apparently the approaching pangs of death. But in comes some simple man, with a kind and gentle voice, and says, "Sir, read this book, and you will find in it an exact description of all your sufferings." Well, I read that book, and I find my pains correctly described; the fever here, the weakness there, and so forth.

I say, "That book exactly corresponds with my feelings; the man who wrote that book, must have understood my case." But the book goes on to say, "Here are remedies; take this kind of medicine, apply that, and so forth, and it will do you good; the fever will subside, the aching will cease, the wasting of disease will be stayed: your strength will be restored, your heart will revive, returning health will come into your wan and wasting cheek." Well, I take this medicine, I apply this remedy, and I find all that is thus stated to be true. Let any one come and tell me, after

that, that I should go and read a learned book on the Pharmacopeia, an elaborate treatise, issued by certain philosophers, for the purpose of proving that that book is false and will not meet my case, and I reply, "In spite of all your learning, and all your investigations, I say that whereas I was sick, now I am well; I have discovered that which has met my case; it has reached my disease, it has supplied my wants, it has raised my thoughts, it has given me better evidence than anything external, for I know and am certain that a cure has been effected." Now why should it be otherwise, my friends, if being sick with sin, I take up a book and can say, "I see in that an exact description of my disease;" and if, moreover, I see and apply a remedy described there, which results in giving me a joy that the world can neither give nor take away; do I want ponderous volumes of scientific criticism and German neology, to convince me of what I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see? I should be a madman indeed, not to say an infidel to the truth of my Lord, if I were to hesitate a moment as to the truth of those pages which had done so much for my soul, turning me from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Now, my friends, do not suppose for a single moment, that I would underrate learning, or that I would depreciate the value, in its proper place, of every conceivable form of external criticism and historical investigation, into the precepts and principles of Christianity. I believe that those who know most and study most, and who are most to be trusted, in regard to this species of investigation, are persons who will endorse the sentiments which I have uttered, and who, while they acknowledge that the internal evidence of the heart that believes, is always the safest and the soundest, would bid us remember that the other kind of evidence is not without value, and that it

is the union of the two in the case of those who have opportunities, and time, and talent for the investigation that makes the evidence so clear, as to be absolutely irrefragible and beyond the possibility of heaven, or earth, or hell, to contravene. It is just the same here as in astronomy. Do I distrust astronomy because I say that I would rather trust my eyes in looking at the sun, than the calculations of astronomers? Astronomy teaches me to judge of the distance of the sun from the earth, the refraction of light, and so forth but does the scientific investigation of these things, make the matter one whit more clear to the poor man as he walks the streets? Science cannot invade the evidence of the senses with regard to the shining of the sun; and so, if a man believes in the Word of God, that Word does, in spite of the Oxford essayist, shine by its own light, even as the sun in the heavens shines by its own light. So that the poorest man, aye, the very poorest, if the Spirit of God be in his heart, to give him the moral condition to receive it, has power to know the Word of the living God; while those who are sitting in doubt and speculation, and in a form of semiinfidelity, in our high places, may peradventure, unless God give them clearer vision, be found at last among those who shall be cast out, because they rejected God's Word.

I shall bring these remarks to a close by applying them first to you, my friends, as Sunday school teachers, in connection with your Sunday school calling. You live in an age of doubt, an age in which learning, speculation, philosophy so called, is making a kind of unhallowed crusade against the divinity of the word of God. You have to deal with a generation who are rising up to take their places in the humblest spheres of human life; and it is a very important thing, that in the face of this crusade you should deal with the word of God on right princi

ples, and fortify the minds of the rising generation in a clear, sensible, accurate manner, suited to the nature of the case, by which means under God's blessing, the children whom you train, may be enabled to resist their temptations, and to believe in spite of prevailing unbelief. I do feel perfectly confident, that, wherever the heart of a Sunday school child is simply, patiently, evangelically, spiritually awakened, prayerfully dealt with by the youngest Sunday school teacher, as a heart that has the sympathy of Christ the Saviour from sin, as a heart that may be, and must be, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, for atonement and for peace-I do feel that if the teacher brings these fundamentally important truths before the heart of the child, then he will indeed fortify it against various forms of unbelief, because the heart will then be spiritually adapted to receive the evidence of which I have been speaking, the internal evidence and not the external. Children thus dealt with and influenced will say, "I believe the Bible to be the word of God, not because the church tells me it is so, not because reason proves that it is so, not because scientific theological critics say that it must be so, but because I am shut up to that conclusion by the witness that is within me." "He that believeth hath the witness in himself." I should like to know whether the Oxford essayist would say that that declaration is irrational. "He that believeth hath the witness in himself." "Well now," the child will say, "I have the witness within me; it is not because the church or reason or theology tells me it is so, that I believe the bible to be true, but because the Spirit of God has impressed my heart with that I have learnt in the Sunday school, from the lips of my teacher; that has placed me in a moral condition, in which I am capable of receiving the evidence of its truth; the Spirit has blessed that evidence, and now I believe the word of

God, not because others say it is true, but because I feel and know it to be true. And, lastly, let me speak to you who are teachers with reference, not to your classes but to yourselves. Of all men, I should pity most the Sunday school teacher, who is all head and no heart. In these days the teacher who is all head and no heart, will vibrate in mind and intellect with all the passing fluctuations of human thought. If there is no root of the matter in his soul to unite him with Christ, if his teaching be merely that of the head, every vibration of thought that proceeds from scientific investigation or theological study, will sway him backwards and forwards, so that he will be like a pendulum in all respects but this, that he will not keep the right time. Now let me advise you to guard against that. Remember that the Bible contains within itself the witness of its own divinity. The teacher must study the Bible for himself; he must read it, pray over it, mourn over all the shortcomings of his heart with regard to it, he must get rooted and grounded in the truth as it is in Jesus, and then he will go forth to his work, "strong is the Lord and in the power of his might;" he will do battle against every form of infidelity, and will fight like a good soldier, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. And O, my dear friends, I speak now to you all, clergy and laity, pastors and teachers, alike, -let us be up and doing in these times. Let us give no heed to doubt in an age of doubt; let us not give way to un. belief, in a time of speculative philosophy and infidelity. Let us remember our duty in this respect, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, and our souls impenetrated with the Spirit of Jesus. Then shall we have not merely the word of God written with pen and ink, but the word Incarnate; we shall hear not the voice of an Apostle, but his own sweet voice, saying, to us "Well done, good and faithful servant," and we may hope

to respond as we look upon many whom we have taught, "Lord here am I, and the children whom thou hast given me."

The Rev. JAMES BARDSLEY, of Manchester, said, the subject which has been assigned to me is " The importance of Sunday Schools to the Nation and the Church." I will, with your permission, make one or two preliminary remarks before I introduce it. Again and again this evening has man been regarded as a thinking, reasonable, and an intelligent creature. The same thing is observable in the creation of man. It is a significant feature in the sublime account of the work of cre ation that while other orders of creatures were called into existence, God simply saying, "Let there be;" when man had to be created Jehovah made a solemn pause. A deliberate counsel seems to have been held between the persons of the Triune Jehovah; they said "Let us make man in our own image:" and man was made in the image of God; "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Now man being endowed with awful faculties to think, to reason, and to judge, he can review past events; he can contemplate present circumstances; he can anticipate future scenes, and in these respects he is pre-eminently distinguished above the brutes that perish. Brutes have instinct, but man has reason; and though instinct is very remarkable, and though its manifestations at first sight seem to approximate to reason, yet upon a close examination we shall find that there is a marked difference between the two. The great peculiarity of instinct is this, that it is perfect from the very first moment of its formation. It cannot be improved by experience, it cannot be advanced by education. You may teach the horse and the elephant to do many wonderful things, but they cannot teach their offspring to do them; they cannot transmit to their offspring what you

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