The agencies I have enumerated actually accomplish all that Christ's miracles ever did accomplish. They do not convert sinners. They do not compel them to repent, but they do convince them of their sins and of their duty. They arouse the conscience and array it on the side of God. They extort inaudible confessions of deep guilt and ill-desert for not having believed in a crucified Savior.

If the considerations I have adduced shall seem to any to fall short of sustaining the declaration I have ventured to make, that the accumulated argument for religion is no less conclusive than the Savior's miracles, I only need to advert to the result. Did miracles actually accomplish more than the present agencies of the Gospel? So far from it, the great body of the Jews, among whom the Savior wrought his mighty works, wickedly rejected him; and Bethsaida and Chorazin, after witnessing miracles enough to have led Sodom and Nineveh to repentance, still continued impenitent. The truth is simply this: the ministry and miracles of Christ produced the same effect on the Jews as the agencies of the Gospel now exert upon the multitude. They convinced, but they did not convert the people. They made manifest both the danger and duty of men. They appealed to the understanding and the conscience, offered light and motive, and so left men without excuse. They had no cloak for their sin." Farther than this the Savior's ministry did not seek to carry his hearers, only with their own free consent and co-operation.

66

To this point precisely has the Gospel carried its advances upon the sinner's conscience, and here the whole multitude of the irreligious stand at this present moment. Who of them all has not been brought to believe in the reality and necessity of personal religion? Whose conscience does not condemn him and justify God? Who does not know that it is his duty to repent and be converted? Who abides in his sins for lack of light, or motives, or incipient faith? Is there a

man who can truly say that he remains a stranger to piety, because he does not believe that the Bible is the word of God, and Christ the only Savior? Now, if all the miracles of Jesus were reproduced before the eyes of the impenitent, what could it add to their convictions or to their helps? Already the manifestations of divine truth are so convincing as to constitute the chief ground of their condemnation. Light is shining around them, but they love and will have darkness the rather. The kingdom of heaven has come so near that they have seen the Father and the Son," but they have not received them. As yet they do not love them.

Let us inquire if stronger convictions and more powerful manifestations than the sinner now enjoys would be favorable to his conversion, for our text gives out upon this point a fearful intimation. So clear was the evidence exhibited to the Jews, that it is affirmed in a strong figure that "they had seen the Father and the Son ;" and it is added that they hated them both. The light became so intense that it irritated the eye. Conviction too strong to be borne passively provokes active opposition. Weary under the incessant invitations and urgency of the divine compassion, the sinner is provoked to impatience and anger. He can not well endure the perpetual consciousness of ingratitude toward his divine benefactor, and he eludes it by changing his ground and assuming the attitude of an enemy. Every one in the least mindful of the workings of the unsanctified heart, will see in all this no more than is usual and natural. Here is made manifest a fundamental law of Christianity, and of the mind affected by its agencies. There is, there can be no such thing as neutrality in religion. "He that is not for me is against me!" The more Christ does to win a soul, the more flagrant the guilt that rejects him—the more manifest and urgent his overtures, the more egregious and barefaced the folly and sin of the impenitent. If Christ had not done works which no man could do, there had been no sin. Now there

is no cloak for sin. This stripping off of his mask—this exposure of his shame-is what the sinner will not bear quietly. He is even driven into a less equivocal position, in order to remain erect and maintain his self-respect. Increase the pressure of his convictions, and if he do not yield to them he must rally to a stronger opposition. He neglects, he slights, he resists, he contemns, he rejects, and he hates Christ, each in turn as he has occasion to dispose of the increasing clearness and urgency of his convictions. The text was uttered by our Lord just before his crucifixion, and at that period the Jews had run through this entire career of guilt, and so filled up the measure of their iniquities. They were now ready to condemn, to mock, and to murder that divine Redeemer, who had been foretold by their prophets and shadowed forth in their sacrifices-who had come away from fellowship with the Almighty and from the homage of angels, to become a poor, suffering stranger on this polluted earth, that he might gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What a spectacle was then exhibited! What a strange, barbarous people! They hated the Savior. Was he their enemy? he injured them? He went about among them doing good. He stretched out his hands to them all the day long. He wept over their anticipated sufferings. He loved them even unto death. Him, however, they hated, spurned, buffeted, crucified.

Had

You

Impenitent sinners, you are ready to deny that you hate the blessed Redeemer. You think you even love him. freely acknowledge him as Son of God and King of Israel. You do not doubt his word or his works. You admire the unfathomable riches of his wisdom and his grace, and you perhaps exult in the hope of finally becoming true spiritual disciples. You do not hate the Savior? God grant this be so; but I fear for you. If you do not hate Jesus and his word, why reject them? If you approve heartily—if you really adrire-why not receive and obey? You do not hate

may.

Blessed are the wise.

66

religion, but you do its terms, its restraints, its duties, and that amounts to the same thing. Suppose that the Gospel imposed no crosses or self-denial, no mortifications or sacrifices. Suppose Jesus had said, Blessed are the proud. Blessed are the great, the ambitious, the luxurious, the rich." Suppose he had said, “Come unto me all ye that seek for power, or pleasure, or renown, or affluence for costly raiment, and fine houses, and splendid equipages, and high places-come unto me, and I will give you success. I will teach you the art of overcoming obstacles, and supplanting rivals, and winning hearts. I will give health, and plenty, and glory." If these were the conditions of the Gospel, who would reject it? If you felt as sure of securing all this earthly good by becoming Christians as you do that repentance, and faith, and a holy life, will give you peace of mind and eternal glory, would you put off repentance for a single hour? Would you toil and voyage through heat and cold, by land and sea-would you keep midnight vigils —would you practice self-denial, and expose yourselves to bitter disappointments, if, by calling upon God and submitting to Christ, you could enter at once into the fruition of all you desire in life? I know what the answer would be. The preacher's voice would be drowned in a general outery of consent to terms like these, and the whole eager multitude would rush forward to join hands in such a covenant with God. Now, however, when we have no such conditions and rewards to offer-when for this world we can only promise the cross, with "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," and for that which is to come, crowns and spotless robes, and a participation in the Redeemer's glory, men turn their ears away from our message, and begin with one consent to make excuse. Why is it so? Not for want of evidence or conviction-not for lack of light or miracles. Of them they have enough-far more than they like. Religion is unpalatable to them. They do not love it. They hate

its crosses and its unyielding strictness. And yet religion is but the transcript and image of the mind of Christ, and they who hate the Gospel, hate also the Father and the Son. "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father."

VII.

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT A VITAL ELEMENT IN CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.

We can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard.— ACTS, iv., 20.

JUST after the day of Pentecost, and in the midst of the excitement produced by its stirring events, Peter and John entered the temple at the hour of prayer. They were accosted at the gate by a beggar, a man impotent from his birth, who asked alms. These apostles, in their deep poverty, were unable to give pecuniary assistance; but they had just received an endowment of heavenly power, in virtue of which, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, they bade the helpless cripple "Rise up and walk." Restored to perfect soundness by this magic word, the impotent man followed his strange benefactors into the temple, "leaping and praising God." It was the signal for a crowd eager for explanations, and Peter willingly seized the occasion for proclaiming the potency and compassion of that Jesus whom they had so recently rejected and murdered. In the midst of his thrilling discourse, a company of priests and Jewish dignitaries came upon him. At once alarmed and confounded at the boldness of Peter and John, who, nothing daunted by the murder of their Lord, charged home upon them the grievous crime, these respectable functionaries cast the offenders into prison. till they could settle upon the course of policy to be pursued toward them. A grand council was assembled the next morning, before which the apostles were arraigned. Over