REASON INSUFFICIENT WITHOUT REVELATION: A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, On Sabbath 14th September, 1834. BY THE REV. R. S. CANDLISH, MINISTER OF THAT CHURCH AND PARISH. EDINBURGH : WAUGH AND INNES, ISookscIIn* to fttajcatp. This Sermon having been preached on the occasion of a Collection in aid of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Gaelic School Society, the proceeds of its Sale will be applied to the pur- poses of that Society. EDINBI.'RCH : 1’IUNTED IJY A. BALIOIR AND CO. Nil DDK V STREET. A SERMON. Acts xvii. 23 . Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. This discourse is an admirable specimen of that sound and wise discretion, in the exercise of which, without compromising principle, nay rather for the very purpose of asserting and enforcing principle, the apostle Paul “became all things to all men.” For it was not his doctrine that he accommodated to the views and feelings of his hearers. The truth which he taught was always the same, being the truth as it is in Jesus. It was simply his manner of stating and proving and illustrating it that he altered, according to the different tempers and dif- ferent states of knowledge of those with whom he had to deal, that so the truth might have a fair and favourable hearing. “ He became all things to all men, if by any means he might gain some.” This 4 indeed is plainly necessary, in every attempt to convince and persuade reasonable men. We must have some mutually acknowledged principles, some common ground, on which to build our argument, and that ground must be different, in regard to dif- ferent individuals and classes of individuals. Thus, in arguing with Jews and with Gentiles on the truth and reasonableness of the Gospel, the Christian teacher had a different course to pursue, according to the different principles which they were severally willing to recognise. With the Jews, he had the common ground of the Old Testament Scriptures ; with the Gentiles, his common ground lay in what are called the articles of Natural Religion, whether these be really the discoveries of reason, or the tra- ditionary remains of old revelation. Yet still always he aimed at the same result, to bring both Jews and Gentiles to the knowledge and belief of the grace and the judgment of God in Christ. Here, in particular, in the Areopagus of Athens, address- ing the chief men of that learned and polite city, the apostle takes a high tone of moral reasoning well befitting the place and the audience, — the place, that venerable hall of judgment, where, in circumstances not altogether unlike, he, who was pronounced by the oracle the wisest of men, once pleaded the cause of his sounder faith, against the bi- gotry of his more ignorant countrymen ; the audience, select and choice, claiming kindred with those, whose profound and meditative wisdom, on all topics of human thought, is even yet the admiration and de- 5 light of the world. He meets them in their own field, and partly with their own weapons ; yet not sparing 1 sharp reproof, nor shunning to declare the whole counsel of God ; for the discourse begins with a hold uncompromising charge of ignorance regarding what they professed much to study, the divine nature and the moral state of man, and ends with the solemn announcement of an offensive and unwelcome doctrine, the resurrection of Christ from his vicarious grave, as proving both the present grace and the future judgment of the Lord ; and so the apostle fulfils his purpose, as intimated in our text, “ whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” Now, the charge brought against these men of Athens, placed as they were in the very centre and commanding stronghold of the best resources for the highest cultivation of human reason, may be regard- ed as equivalent to a charge of insufficiency or in- competency, against that reasonitself in its best estate: and the apostle’s undertaking to instruct these learn- ed reasoners, may be held as an assertion of the fit- ness of revelation to supply the defect and to help the infirmity of reason : which two points, accord- ingly, we propose to consider ; only premising far- ther, that when we speak, according to the com- mon language used on this subject, of natural reli- gion, or the religion of reason as distinguished from revelation, we do not mean to hold, either that na- tural reason is able to originate such a religion, or that God ever left religion upon earth to be so ori- 6 ginnted, (the first of which opinions is at least very doubtful, and the second, opposed to history and Scripture, both plainly indicating- a primeval revela- tion, imperfectly preserved and gradually corrupted by tradition ;) — all that we mean is, that there is a certain amount of religious truth, which natural reason, having once got the hint, can ascertain and prove, — which, therefore, in whatsoever way sug- gested, is to be received on the evidence of argu- ment, and which fitly prepares the way for the more proper and peculiar discoveries of revelation, to be received on the evidence of testimony, on the faith of the inspired record of God. I. The religion of these Athenians may be regard- ed as representing the religion of natural reason, as it existed in the most favourable circumstances, and that religion is pronounced to be insufficient, not by a jealous and exclusive advocate of revela- tion, rejecting reason altogether as quite inadmissi- ble in such a question, but by one who himself in this very discourse appeals to reason as good and competent authority so far as it goes, although it does not go far enough. “ I perceive,” says the apostle, (ver. 22.) “ that ye are too superstitious,” too prone, i. c., to the abject fear of invisible power. Such is the literal meaning of the word, and such is the essence of superstition, to stand in awe and in dread of something for- midable, unseen, and unknown. Accordingly, the apostle so explains his own accusation, (ver. 23.) “Ye are too superstitious, for as I passed by, I saw an altar dedicated to the unknown God.” Aptly and emphatically taking advantage of this inscription on one of their own altars, he holds them as by their own confession ignorant regarding the object of their worship, and therefore superstitious in worshipping him. And this their ignorance was twofold — 1. They knew not what God, in his own nature, is — for (ver. 24 and 29.) they believed that He dwelt in temples made with hands, and that the Godhead was like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by art and man’s device. And, again, 2. They knew not what God is, in relation to his creatures, what char- acter he shows, and how he deals with them, for (ver. 25.) they conceived of him as likely to be pleased, and benefited, and propitiated by the of- ferings of men’s hands. 1. They worshipped God in ignorance of his true nature. They knew him not as a Spirit. They conceived of him as having a bodily structure, and occupying an earthly habitation. They thought that the Godhead might be well represented by graven idols, and fitly and literally lodged in temples made with hands. Now, in so far as igno- rance on this point is concerned, it is not chargeable as a defect on natural religion, the religion of rea- son ; it is the fault of those who do not use natural reason rightly on the subject. For, observe — the apostle, in refutation of such unworthy and degrad- ing views of God, appeals to natural reason itself, as quite sufficient to have taught men better. He argues with his hearers, on the principles of their own common sense, (ver. 24.) He who made and 8 who upholds all thing's, the great first cause and ruler of the universe, must be an intelligent mind. He cannot be, as you suppose, like a stock or stone, or any material creature. Your own reason might show that his nature must be a spiritual nature. And again, (ver. 29.) this is farther evident, from the consideration of your own nature. Your own poet has said — we are all his offspring. Now, he whose offspring you are, must possess a similar na- ture with yourselves. He cannot be a mere idol. There must be a correspondence between the cause and the effect. He who made you rational and in- telligent beings must be a rational and intelligent being himself. Whether, therefore, we consider the world around us, so full of all marks and traces of admir- able design, or our own spirits, so fearfully and wonderfully made, natural reason may suffice to teach us that there must be a great designing cause, a spiritual Being, whose intelligence pervades all his works. So far human reason, rightly exercised, is a sure and competent teacher of religion, and as such, it is expressly recognised by the apostle, (Romans i. 20.) who declares the apostate heathen to be without excuse for this very reason, because “ the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, even his eternal power and godhead, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” Ignorance, superstition, on this part of the subject, is not an evil for which natural religion is fairly responsible. Reason, judging from the evidences of design, of intention, of contrivance, 9 in the constitution of external nature, and in the constitution of our own minds, can confidently an- nounce this fundamental truth of religion, that there is a supreme, intelligent, spiritual Being, whose all- wise energy is above, and around, and in all. “ The heavens declare the glory of God.” “ All his works praise him and the more we know of the vast ex- tent, and the minute and varied arrangement of these works, the more shall we know of the won- drous, unsearchable depth of the understanding of the infinite mind who planned them all. O ! it is a glorious and grateful reward of science, — as in her large view she grasps unnumbered worlds, and following the vast orbs as they roll in unmeasured space, almost seems herself to regulate the majesty of their movements, so that the wandering planet shall return after long absence, at the very instant of its appointed time, as if at the bidding of her potent spell : or, again, as with keen and prying eyes, she searches every nook and recess of this lower earth, and drags to light the tokens and traces of another world, and finds still in all new proofs of exquisitely and beautifully adjusted har- mony of design : or again, as she tortures every substance of nature, as with inquisitorial agony, to extort the secrets of its birth : or pores with ever- increasing intensity of interest on all the bones, and sinews, and nerves of this marvellous and mysteri- ously compacted frame of ours : — O ! is it not a glad, and grateful, and glorious reward of science, in all these her several and various paths, to see, at B 10 every step she takes, the Almighty hand, the intel- ligent mind of God — and, instead of impiously ar- rogating to herself any poor honour for the disco- veries which she makes, joyfully, thankfully to ascribe to the Creator alone all the glory, all the praise, of that consummate, unerring wisdom, with which these discoveries do show, more and more every day, all his works in all corners of his domi- nions to be full fraught. Far, very far be it from any devout mind, out of an unwarranted, and unreasonable, and most unne- cessary jealousy, to arrest or stay the progress of inquiry, or to look with a timid and suspicious eye on the efforts made to extend and to diffuse the knowledge of nature. The honest search of truth never can be dangerous to him who engages in it, or dishonourable to Him who is the God of truth. All scope is given to inquiry into all the wonders, whether of the material world with- out, or of the moral world within. It is your dignity and your duty so to inquire. Ye are men, and ye are commanded to “ be men in understand- ing,” and as men ye may assert your privilege of investigating all the works of your Creator ; and in doing so, you are to follow truth whithersoever it may lead. You are not constituted the judges of consequences and results. Your business is with the facts and principles of truth itself. You are not to determine what should be, or what might be — you are to discover what is. This is the course becoming alike the power and the infirmity of rea- 11 son. Within this limit you tread surely and safely. Cast aside then all alarm as to what may follow from your inquiries. Only prosecute these inqui- ries with due caution, and put them fairly and faithfully together, and we may fearlessly run the hazard of any conclusions which they may suggest, confident that they will all tend to shed new light and lustre on the wisdom in which the Lord hath made all his manifold works. Doubtless it may be said, and said truly, that such minute and varied investigation of nature is not necessary to evince the intelligence of nature’s God. There need not be any such accumulation of the proofs and evidences of a contriving mind, as the great first cause of all. The argument from design lies on the very surface of creation, so plainly written that he who runs may read, and the state- ment of the argument, in a single instance of adap- tation, whether in the physical or in the mental department of knowledge, is enough to show the existence of a Being, not confined to temples made with hands, nor like to any material images, but a Spirit, infinite in power and wisdom. Even the unlearned, from a single such instance, may appre- hend the force of such reasoning as the apostle uses, and may see the absurdity of those gross concep- tions of Deity, which vulgar superstition gives. Still it is not unsatisfactory to put the question to a more rigorous test, to trace out more fully the operations of the Divine understanding ; and surely every pursuit is profitable as well as delightful, which 12 tends to open up new mines and quarries of natural theology, and to enlarge our views of the Eternal mind, — removing- us always to a greater distance from those dumb idols which the heathens ignorantly worship, and declaring-tous more and more manifest- ly, the spiritual nature of Him, who in wisdom made the world and all thing's therein, who is Lord of heaven and earth, and of whom we, the intelligent inhabitants of this earth, are all the offspring-. Thus far, therefore, natural reason is competent to the task of removing- the ignorance which Paul charges against the Athenians, and giving right ideas of God as an intelligent Being, the source of all design, the Father of spirits. 2. But this is not enough. This does not fully declare to us that God whom we worship. To know what God is, as the great first cause, the in- telligent author of all being, is much. But some- thing more is necessary ; even to know him in his relation to ourselves, in his designs and dealings with regard to us. This is' chiefly important, this is essential to all real religion. This is wanted to complete our knowledge of God, and to impart to our religious worship its distinctness and its depth. All other views of God, without this, are insufficient. Thus, if we try to conceive of God and to worship him as he is in himself, apart from all manifesta- tions and expressions of his attributes, as the eter- nal Jehovah, the self-existent, who was, and is, and is to come, dwelling in light that is inaccessible and full of glory, supremely excellent and blessed 13 in his own infinite perfections, the mind vainly and painfully labours. Some image of vast and vague sublimity may rise before us, as we strain our ex- hausted powers, to hold immensity in our grasp, and pierce with our glance the gloom of the Eternal. An emotion of awe and astonishment and stupor may overwhelm us. But no definite idea occupies the understanding, no distinct feeling touches the heart. Our religion is merely a visionary and ideal abstraction. We turn, for relief, the eye away from the direct effulgence of the Divine glory, to the re- flection of it in the works and operations of the Divine hand, and we regard God as the Creator of all nature’s wonders, and the upholder of all her wonderful economy of the wisest means adapted to the best of ends. Here we tread on solid ground. Here we are in our own proper sphere, and have something- substantial that we can seize and retain : and rising from nature up to nature’s God, we can know and intelligently worship the Supreme mind. Still sucha religion, though not nowa dimand doubt- ful and sublime abstraction, is essentially defective. It wants a definite and pointed personal application. It does not come home to us as moral beings. It does not meet the necessity of our case. It does not satisfy our natural longings. All men, says an ancient, all men long for, all men desiderate or want a God.* But what sort of a God do they want ? or how do they long to know him ? Surely * n*VTs5 5s @c!JV %StT 16VT Ul'feilTOt. 14 in his relation to themselves. We want to know not what God is, but what he is to us, what his cha- racter is as it may be likely to affect us. This is the question which presses most urgently upon us, and this we are bound to entertain. To evade it is to evade the most practically important and per- sonally interesting view, by far, of religious truth. To rest contented without an adequate and satis- factory settlement of it, is to know God very par- tially indeed, and so to subject ourselves, if we worship him at all, to the charge of ignorantly wor- shipping him, and of being therefore still too super- stitious. You do but half know God, if it be thus only that you know him, as the maker of all things, and the Father of an intelligent offspring. And yet, alas ! there are many who count it enough so to know him. These men profess to be religious, and to be very intellectual in their religion, far removed from every thing like that ignorant superstition which would change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made 1-ike to corruptible man, and to birds and beasts and creeping things. Their Deity is a being of pure intellect, the spirit, the soul of the universe. And yet even to such refined worshippers it were not hard to bring home in an- other way this very charge of superstition which they strongly and scornfully disown. But what ! they will say, charge superstition against us — the very folly which we most of all shun ! W hat reli- gion can be more rational than ours ? what view of the Godhead more spiritual and sublime ? All that 15 in the least savours of corporeal sense or feelingor emo- tion, we carefully and scrupulously exclude — every thing' like the movements of resentment or desire. The infinite mind is regarded as reposing in bless- ed satisfaction with the wisdom of his works, neither moved nor at all affected by aught beyond himself. What is there here of superstition ? Yes, but do you not studiously avoid the consideration of God in his relation to yourselves ? Do you take any account of his moral government, his judicial superintendence of your conduct, his right of autho- ritative interference in your concerns? And sup- pose it should turn out, even according to the dic- tates of sound natural reason, that there in something more to be discovered and known concerning God, than merely that he is the intelligent cause of the order and the harmony and the beauty which appear all throughout his universe, and yet you refuse to consider him in any other light — who now are su- perstitious — regarders of invisible unknown power ? Of whom may it be said, that they ignorantly wor- ship ? Alas ! it is the most melancholy of all delu- sions, worse a thousand times than all the perverse vagaries of the most whimsical idolatry, to acknow- ledge a God at all, if you go no farther than this. What though it be the truth that ye know concern- ing God, if ye seek not to know the whole truth ? Are ye not still superstitious, worshipping ignorantly and deceiving yourselves ? Ye worship still an un- known God — known indeed in one view of his being, as the great creative Intelligence, unknown If) in what is infinitely more important — his relation to yourselves. And what is your worship ? What your religion ? A pleasing sentimental fancy — a poetic figure of personification — a vision of glory and beauty, which lends a living charm and grace to your abstruse researches and laborious specula- tions. O but it is powerless to reach the heart, and recal it to serious and holy thought. It establishes no fellowship between the Creator and the creature. It calls forth no emotion of reverence, no sense of duty. It may amuse the mind occupied with the works of God. It will not bring it near to God himself. For “ he that cometh unto God must be- lieve not only that he is, but that he is the rewarder of all them that diligently seek him.” Well, then, what can reason do towards settling aright this second and most important branch of our knowledge of God ? Here again the apostle charges the Athenians with ignorantly worshipping God. They worship- ped him in ignorance of Jiis real nature. They worshipped him in ignorance of his relation to them- selves. They conceived of him as in some way dependent upon them, as likely to be benefited or pleased by their offerings and services, and so to be propitiated and appeased. His friendship, which they desired, was to be purchased by gifts, or won by flattering obeisance. Now, again, in refutation of such dishonourable views of God’s method of dealing with his creatures, the apostle appeals to the judgment of natural reason, (v. 25.) “ He cannot 17 be thus worshipped as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things.” “ Thou art my God, my goodness extendeth not to thee.” Such is the Psalmist’s language. All our goodness can never profit Him, or acquire for us any merit with Him. Nor can He treat with us on any such terms inconsistent with his indepen- dent sovereignty. But what then? What is God’s method of dealing with us ? Does natural religion tell us ? It tells us of God’s impartial bounty to all, and of his original design with regard to all. (V. 26.) “ He hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” Such is his impartial bounty. And what is the design of that bounty ? (V. 27.) “ That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us ; for in him we live and move and have our being, and we are all his offspring.” This is the view of Providence sanc- tioned by natural reason. We find ourselves placed under the universal care and kindness of God ; and conscience suggests the purpose which that care and kindness is meant to serve, even to make us seek and find him who bestows it. We look abroad, and we see the bounty of God ; we look within, and we feel his original design and our duty as result- ing from it. Thus far all is clear. But then the fact of our sin materially alters the case. For now it stands thus. The bounty of God is continued c 18 and prolonged, while his original design in confer- ring it is not fulfilled. Hence arises a difficulty as to what God now intends, and how he now appears in relation to us, and this precisely is the knot which reason cannot untie without the help of revelation. II. It is at this stage of the argument, accord- ingly, that the apostle calls in the aid of the peculiar discoveries of the gospel, and it is to meet this very difficulty. He states the simple scriptural account of the mystery of God’s providence, in regard to men, as consisting in a dispensation of forbearance, subservient to a dispensation of grace, and this again preparatory to a dispensation of judgment. (V. 30, 31.) 1. “ The times of this ignorance (ignorance regarding his design in placing us on this beautiful and bounteous earth) God winked at. 2. But now he commandeth all men everywhere to repent. 3. Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Thus revelation takes up and completes the scheme which reason in her impotency is compelled to drop. For reason is perplexed by the contradictory sug- gestions of nature and conscience, the wide world without, and the little world of the heart within. Abroad, all nature indicates design, benignant and benevolent design : we observe not a trace of the reverse, no plan contrived for producing misery- So far as there is manifest plan at all, it is wholly 19 for making us happy. The Author of Nature is very kind and bountiful. See how He causes the fair face of creation to smile with ineffably attractive loveliness. See how largely, and pro- fusely, and prodigally he showers down upon us the gifts of his bountiful liberality. Is it not he who clothes the grass with more than a monarch’s glory, and provides munificently for the fowls of heaven ? Is it not he who made us in mind and body for enjoyment, and who gives us all abundant- ly the means of enjoyment? Does not every ob- ject that yields us a moment’s pleasure attest the good will of him who imparts to it the power of pleasing, and to us the capacity of being pleased ? Does not every day multiply the proofs of his desire to bless us ? Why else, at all, does he keep us in safety, and load us with benefits, and supply food and raiment, and send joy into our hearts, and ap- point kind friends to soothe and sympathise with us, and hope, the bright seraph hope, to animate and cheer us ? O, it cannot be, that He who has placed us amid so much that speaks of his own rich and royal bounty, can be otherwise than well dis- posed towards us. His relation to us must be that of fatherly and friendly indulgence. And yet, even in the world of nature, full as it is of proofs and instances of much loving kindness, there are hints of derangement and disorder which might give us pause and suggest a doubt ; traces and tokens some- what alarming in the evils which we suffer and the judgments which we bring upon ourselves ; enough to make us hesitate in interpreting too favourably 20 the indications of benevolence with which all the works and ways of God abound. There may well arise some fear, lest, all-benevolent as he plainly is, his benevolence may be hindered in its exercise to- wards us by a sterner and severer attribute. And this fear is strengthened when we turn from the world without to the voice of conscience within. That too speaks to us of God, and of God as pos- sessed of a holy character, and holding a high su- premacy, himself the end, as well as the author of creation. Our own hearts, conscious of the dignity and the duty of reasonable beings, tell us of the pur- pose which, in all his treatment of us, God must be seeking, and they tell us too of that purpose being unfulfilled. And on this very ground, that all his im- partial distribution of this earth’s advantages, fail to bring us, its inhabitants, to him as our Lord and and our chief good, our own hearts, conscious of guilt, do testify of righteous judgment, and con- demnation and wrath. And now, therefore, the question as to what God is in relation to us, becomes more complicated far, and the mind is involved in painful uncertainty, unwilling to doubt that God is good, yet compelled to believe that in all his good- ness he has a holy object in view, and is justly dis- pleased because that object is not attained. Now, it is precisely because “ the trumpet thus gives an uncertain sound,” that men go wrong in preparing themselves to meet their God, and mul- tiply the forms and devices of blind superstition, to appease the supposed resentment, and purchase the continued bounty, of Ilim “ whom they ignorantly worship.” They feel his kindness, yet they fear his anger on account of that very kindness, which they have not suffered to produce its due effect of causing them to “ seek the Lord.” And in the vain at- tempt to reconcile and harmonize these opposite views of kindness and of anger, they almost necessa- rily err. And you who pity and despise their error, what can you do to put them or to keep them right ? There is indeed a summary method of settling the difficulty which it may suit your convenience to take. You have but to suppress, or modify, or ex- plain away all the evidence on one side, and to lis- ten only to the other, and so to worship God in wilful ignorance of the most important feature of his character. Shut your eyes and your ears to all that seems to indicate any end beyond the en- joyment of God’s present bounty, or to threaten judgment for that end unattained, and then you may quietly rest in the flattering belief, that, what- ever cause of disapprobation, He who made you to dwell on his richly-stored earth, may have, because you have not sought him, yet still he will continue always as now, to treat his wayward children with indulgent fondness. Even you, however, thus par- tially considering God, are fairly chargeable with superstition, for he is to you in great measure an unknown God. And think not that the mind awakened to reflection, the conscience quickened to a sense of guilt, will be so easily soothed or satisfied. Notwithstanding much experience of kindness, and 22 liberality, and love, the sinner cannot banish the idea of a righteous sovereign righteously offended. He receives many blessings, but he trembles lest these very blessings become a curse. “ His own heart condemns him” as not fulfilling the great end of his being, and there is one “greater than his heart,” whose condemnation he anxiously labours to escape by all the vain expedients which abject terror can suggest. “But whom he ignorantly worships, him the gospel declares.” It tells him of that plan of sal- vation which explains and reconciles all. It points his view to the cross of Christ, to the single fact of his atoning death. There, in the cross, love ap- pears, — love infinitely beyond any thing that all nature’s bounty could ever have taught us even to imagine. There too, in the cross, judgment is seen in stern and terrible reality, more than confirming the darkest forebodings of conscience. God is in- deed, as nature paints him, nay, far above nature’s painting, a God of mercy. God is emphatically, as conscience testifies, a God of justice. Here the con- flicting hints, which perplexed reason, meet and are at one. And now the mystery is unfolded. The enigma is solved. The providence of God is for all practical purposes sufficiently understood, as a pro- vidence of present grace and coming judgment. God is not abandoning his claim of sovereignty over us his reasonable creatures. He is not unconcerned about our refusal to seek him. He has visited, and he will yet again visit in wrath. That wrath, which 23 Christ our surety once endured, is still impending- over us — certain, terrible, inevitable. Meantime, in Christ, God is waiting to be gracious ; Christ, our crucified and risen Saviour, averts from us now the doom which we deserve ; and grace, free grace, is now proclaimed, and all may freely partake of it. For God beseeches all to be reconciled, and “ com- mandeth all men everywhere to repent.” But He will not always “ wink at ignorance ” and unbelief. The very cross of Christ, which makes grace free now, makes judgment certain hereafter. Already God has fixed a time, “ has appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world, by the very man Christ Jesus whom he hath ordained to be a Savi- our, whereof he hath given assurance to all, in that he hath raised him from the dead,” — for grace notv, but soon for wrath. Two practical inferences may be drawn from the subject and argument of this discourse. 1. How important is a right knowledge of God above all other knowledge. How necessary is it to take that view of God now, which we must take at last. For if we do not, then our noblest pursuits, however pleasing now, will be found in the end to carry their own condemnation and their own punishment along with them, when “ that God whom now we igno- rantly worship is at last declared to us.” There is a joy elevating and ennobling in the lofty walks of learning and of science. There is a proud satisfaction in the cultivation of high intellec- tual powers, and many there are who can give themselves up with intense and untiring zeal to the glorious labour of advancing the great cause of men- tal cultivation, and enlarging the limits of know- ledge. And independently altogether of the tri- umph of success attained, and the value of disco- veries made, in the very employment of their faculties on themes of absorbing interest, they experience a sort of calm excitement, a rapturous and refined delight. Yes, but alas! in too many an instance, with all their stores of wisdom, they have not that wisdom which is from above, and with all their gettings they get not understanding. In the almost infinitely diversified tracks which they follow, they scarcely ever meet their God, they scarcely ever find him in the way, nor ever once think of going to seek him. Or if, amid the pro- fusely scattered traces of power and wisdom and goodness through which they make their exulting progress, they cannot shut out the evidence of divi- nity, they may acknowledge a God, but it is a God with attributes of their own choosing, a God of their own hearts, not the God of Scripture ; a God of nature, not the God of judgment and of grace. Him they dare not recognise — Him they do not like to retain in their thoughts ; and on the success with which they contrive to prevent the idea of a God from mingling in their researches at all, or to strip that idea of all that might painfully remind them of a yet unsettled personal controversy, much of the happiness peculiar to their favourite lettered occupations practically depends. <25 But now suppose a man of such a stamp so placed, that he must exercise his powers and pro- secute his discoveries, if he do so at all, in the lull blaze of all the glory and dreadful majesty of “ the just God and the Saviour,” intensely revealed to his now fully opened eyes ; let him be left to carry on his once quiet work of inquiry, with a clear and startling apprehension of all the moral attributes of God, his holiness, his justice, his truth, his love, all as harmoniously manifested in the cross of Christ, and all still intolerably offensive to his carnal mind and self-condemned heart ; — and where now will be the joy of his lofty enterprise ? where the satis- faction of his increasing stores of knowledge ? Every object he contemplates is now intimately associated with the idea of a righteous God. Every subject he can examine is full of hints and suggestions of a righteous God. Every new ray of light now re- veals to him with more intolerable brightness the righteous God. Every sound carries to his startled ear the name of the righteous God, repeated by a thousand echoes. He can look at nothing, — he can think of nothing which does not speak to him of God, and remind him of his duty unfulfilled, and announce his doom. All his boasted discoveries of nature’s manifold works only serve as reminis- cences of nature’s God, as the God of judgment ; and the very capacity which was once his pride and pleasure, the capacity of deep reflection and enlightened inquiry, does but add new stings and tortures to his reprobate mind, by suggesting D 26 always, everywhere and in all things, new images and representations of that awful Being, regarding whom he was once ignorant and unbelieving, — but now he knows and believes and trembles. Compare with this fearful prospect the sure hap- piness of him who, no longer ignorantly worship- ping God, but knowing him as declared in the gospel, can carry the deep and grateful sense of his reconciliation to that God along with him, in all his researches into the wondrous depths of his creating intelligence, and his preserving goodness. He, at every new discovery he makes, as throughout eter- nity he goes on enlarging his knowledge of the boundless works of God, will see ever-increasing lustre shed on the harmony of the Divine perfec- tions which he delights more and more to study, and his blessed privilege it is to pause evermore in rapture, over the things all fair and glorious and good, wherewith the universe is stored, and lifting an unpresumptuous eye, to say — My Father made them all. 2. And if the right knowledge of God is thus important, how sacred is our obligation to diffuse it. All sorts of knowledge are interesting, enter- taining, useful. This alone is necessary. This will do, without any thing else. Nothing else will do without this. Recent inquiries in a neighbour- ing land, have proved, that education in the ele- ments of human knowledge does not make the in- habitants more moral; nay, that crime may increase in the very same proportion with education. Nor is this result surprising. Such education does but put into men’s hands a mighty instrument, power- ful almost equally for good and for evil. All depends on the use made of it, and if it be given to persons untaught how to apply it — often taught to apply it ill — what wonder is it that it is much perverted ? And without undervaluing any branch of learning, may we not now assume the incompetency of all learning, merely human, to teach those just and so- lemn views of God’s sovereignty and grace, which alone can make men truly wise and good ? They may be taught much out of the book of nature, and yet they may not be taught to know God ; and either they will not worship him at all, or they will worship him ignorantly, superstitiously. It is the word of God — the Bible, the gospel, which alone can fully declare to them that God. This, this is the book, the only book, out of which all alike, learn- ed and ignorant, need to be taught, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and learning of him. And, therefore, we confidently appeal to you, on behalf of a Society, whose single object it is to communicate a know- ledge of the Scriptures of truth, to those who must otherwise, in great ignorance, worship that God whom these Scriptures will declare to them. To them this knowledge, which is always necessary be- sides all other knowledge, is peculiarly important, as it must serve instead of all other knowledge. Ignorant of all things else — let them learn to know their God ; and their learning this, depends much, under God, on the continued existence and prospe- rity of this Society, whose unforeseen losses, incur- red by no fault or imprudence, yet likely very sadly to cripple its efforts, you are called upon, by your liberality, in some degree to repair. Inhabitants of a rude and rocky soil, variously intersected by lakes and mountains and wide arms of the sea, in parishes of unwieldy and unmanageable extent, and poorly provided with pastors and teachers, these mountaineers, in the remoter districts of our land, were long left literally to perish for lack of know- ledge, experiencing little, and often nothing, of the precious advantages, which, through the admirable machinery of our national schools and churches, their more favoured fellow-countrymen in the low- lands enjoyed. And whatever zeal has lately been kindled in their behalf in other quarters — and it is a noble zeal in a noble cause — still be it remember- ed, that this Society was the first — not yet many years ago — to rouse the public mind from its long lethargic neglect of our northern brethren ; and to this day it is instrumental in communicating to se- veral thousands, in upwards of fifty schools, the be- nefits of a strictly Scriptural education. It has been calculated, that nearly 400 additional schools would yet be necessary to put our highland parishes even on the same footing, in regard to a provision of education, with the now poorly and inadequately pro- vided parishes of the lowlands. In such destitution, can the exertions of this Society be dispensed with? May we not heartily wish it God-speed as a useful and valuable auxiliary of our church in these out- ‘29 skirts of her territory ? It is a society whose ma- nagement is such as to claim implicit confidence. The teachers are chosen men of sound piety and principle, and confining themselves literally to their own proper province, they strengthen the hands of the pastors within whose bounds they labour, who have often found in the society’s agents their most valuable coadjutors. Finally, it is a society whose labours God has been pleased in a remarkable de- gree to own and bless. The testimonies of success are most interesting. The accounts are most af- fecting of the spirit which these poor people whom it instructs evince, their eagerness to learn, their love to those who teach them ; not children only, but aged and venerable, patriarchs have flocked to school, the infant scarcely yet able to tread firmly, conducting the hoary grandsire, provided, at his own request, by this very Society, with the aids now necessary to his dim eyes, that he may yet learn, ere he die, to read for himself the word of the living God : nor is it unusual to see a family of three generations sitting all together on the same rude bench, and conning over the same well- worn spelling-book. And when, according to the Society’s plan, a school is removed from one place to another, that all may in turn receive some bene- fit, the inhabitants have come forward, almost with tears, to prevent the departure of the teacher, as their best friend, and at much sacrifice of their own scanty resources, have raised among themselves the sum necessary to retain his services. These are the 30 men now stretching out their hands to you in their famine — not for bread — but for the word of God, and are they to be refused ? We are all wont to speak with enthusiasm of highland scenery and highland character. Men of science find in the rocks and caves of our wild northern clime, the materials of their profound inquiry, elements of enlarged speculation — men of taste admire her romantic glens and towering hills — men of imagi- nation are roused by her records of heroism — men of feeling touched by her warm-hearted hospitality — the patriot owes a debt of gratitude for many a hard-fought field — all of us alike, from some sort of tender or lofty association, will own that region of poetry and fancy, almost as if it were our own home. Then shall we not contribute a substantial token of our kindness? Shall we not give our mite and our prayers to help on this labour of love, that our brethren, long overlooked, may now, through our means, by the blessing of God, be taught to read for themselves, in their own tongue, the wonderful works of God ?