Page images
PDF
EPUB

51. In these various ways then might Christianity manifest its own truth to the conscience of every man. When making demonstration of human guilt, there might be such an accordancy with all that nature felt of its own guiltiness-when making demonstration of the offered atonement, there might be such an accordance with all that nature felt of its own necessities, as first to draw the attention, and then to compel the belief of all who were thus arrested. The felt force of the disease on the one hand, and the felt suitableness of the remedy on the other, might land them, and rightfully land them in such a consummation. It is not that viewed as two naked propositions, they can evince or establish the general truth of the system which contains them. But they are variously and repeatedly set forth in the sacred record; and this gives rise to innumerable touches of descriptive accuracy, to a multiple and sustained harmony between the inward tablet of the heart and the outward tablet of a professed revelation. There is an evidence afforded by the agreement between a complex tally and its alike complex but accurately resembling counterpart; and there may be a like evidence in the countless adaptations which obtain between a supernal application from heaven, and the human nature beneath, upon which it has descended. And beside these, there are so many other symptoms or signatures of Truth which the conscience can lay hold of. It can discern the apparent honesty of any communication. It can take cognizance of all that marks the worth or the simplicity of its bearers. It can feel and be

impressed by its aspect of undoubted sacredness. It can distinguish the voice of a God, or of an ambassador from God, in its promulgation of a righteous law, and in the sustained dignity and effect wherewith it challenges a rightful authority. It can perceive all which is in and about the message to be in keeping with the high original which it claims; and, whether it looks to the profoundness of its wisdom or to the august and unviolable purity of its moral character, it can perceive when these evidences are so enhanced and multiplied on a professed embassy from heaven, as to announce its descent from a God of knowledge and a God of holiness.

52. We may now understand what is meant by the self-evidencing power of the Bible. It is that in virtue of which it announces its own authority to the understanding of the reader. It is not only the bearer of its own contents, but is the bearer also of its own credentials. It is by the external and historical evidences of Christianity, that we are enabled to maintain its cause against the infidelity of lettered and academic men. But it is another evidence that recommends it to the acceptance of the general population. Their belief in scripture, and we think all saving belief whatever, is grounded on the instant manifestation of its truth unto the conscience. And thus, without the aid of sensible miracles in the present age, and without even the scholarship which ascertains and verifies the miracles of a past age, do we hold that the divinity of the Bible may be read and recognized in its own pages, and that in virtue of an evidence

which might be addressed with effect to the moral nature of man in any quarter of the world.

53. But what gives complete and conclusive effect to this evidence is the revelation of the Spirit. For the understanding of this, there is one thing of prime importance to be attended to. The Spirit when He acts as an enlightener, presents us with no new revelation of His own. He only shines on that revelation which is already given in the Bible. He brings no new truths from afar, He but discloses the truths of that word which is nigh unto us. It is true that He opens our eyes; but it is to behold the wondrous things contained in this book. It is true that He lifts up a veil; but it is not the veil which hides from our view the secrets of any distant or mysterious region. He taketh away the veil from our hearts; and we, made to behold that which is within, and also to behold that which is without become alive to the force and fulness of that evidence which lies in the manifold adjustments between them-convinced at once of the magnitude of our own sin, and of the suitableness and reality of the offered salvation. In this process there is no direct announcement made to us by the Spirit of God. There is neither a voice nor a vision; no whisper to the ear of the inner man-no gleam either of a sensible or spiritual representation. There is light it is true shining out of darkness; but it is the light of the Bible, now made luminous, reflected from the tablet of conscience, now made visible. It is not a light shining direct upon us from the heavenly objects themselves; but it is a light shining on a

medium of proof by which we are made sensible of their reality. He who has been visited by this manifestation can say, I was blind but now I see. He may remember the day when a darkness inscrutable seemed to hang over those mysticthose then unmeaning passages of the Bible, which he now perceives to be full of weight and full of significancy. He may remember the day when, safe and satisfied with himself, he neither saw the extent and the purity of God's lofty commandment, nor his own distance and deficiency therefromthough now burdened with the conscious magnitude of his guilt, he both sees the need of a Saviour, and feels His preciousness. He is now brought within full view of the argument that we have laboured to unfold; and the transition, the personal or the historical transition, which himself has undergone is to his own mind a most impressive argument. It forms to him an experimental evidence of the truth of Christianity-and may be regarded as another appeal to his conscience or to his consciousness in its favour. He has become a Christian in the true sense and significancy of the term. The Gospel hath entered his mind in the demonstration of the Spirit and with power.

He

rejoices in the hope of its bright fulfilments; and, untutored though he be in the scholarship of its literary or argumentative evidences, he, though of humble education and humble circumstances, can give a reason of his hope.

54. It should not be difficult to understand, how, under this process of spiritual illumination, men, in all ages or parts of the world, the most

widely distant from each other, are nevertheless introduced to one and the same Christianity. The Spirit does not make known a different religion to each; but He manifests the same great truths to every understanding-the stable characteristics of human nature, and the no less stable doctrines of revelation, fixed and handed down to us in an imperishable written record. This will explain the mutual recognitions, the felt affinities, the perfect community of soul and sentiment that obtain between the truly regenerated of all countries and all periods. A christian peasant of Scotland, were the barrier of their diverse language removed, could enter with fullest sympathy, into the feelings and the views and the mental exercises. of a christianized Hottentot in South Africa. On the same principle, he would feel the consent of a common intelligence and common sensibility with his author when reading the pages of Augustine, or any other writer on practical Christianity, who, like him, underwent a transition from the darkness of nature to the marvellous light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Were the materials for the observation within our reach, it were most interesting to compare the converse between two devoted Christians brought together from the remotest places of the earth, and that, for example, of a Mahometan Moor with a Mahometan Persian-the first two having the Bible as a common subject of reference; the second two the Alcoran. Each would sympathize with the other of his own kind; but a mighty lesson might be educed from the extent and the character of their respective sympathies. In the

« PreviousContinue »