pal reason of the decay of real Christianity, and the sad diffusion of infidelity or semi-infidelity amongst us is, that we have left the proofs of Christianity in the cold region of historical document and testimony. It has been the fashion of late years, to make the subject of the evidences an intellectual disquisition merely, a matter of argument on external testimonies. This has arisen from a too general decline in spiritual religion, and from the defence of Christianity having, accordingly, fallen into the hands of men of mere talents and skill in human controversy, who, with all their learning and acuteness, were greatly wanting in a persuasion of the glory of the divine things revealed in the Scriptures, and would, on these points, have yielded too much to the spirit of infidelity. Formerly, the historical arguments were less attended to-indeed it is but of late years, that they have been set in a clear and convincing light; perhaps they were previously too much overlooked; men insisted on the inward excellency, the divine character, the self-evident force of the Scriptures.'

These were the topics of the great masters of divinity. Then came the age of extravagance, enthusiasm, hypocritical religion; to make way for the profaneness of the court of our second 1 The τὸ θεῖον, the τὸ αὐτόπιστον.

Charles. Infidelity was not long behind. Then the apologists for Revelation, infected with the iniquity of the times, descended from the height which they no longer knew how to defend, into the field of historical debate. They put the evidences as low as possible. They stopped when they had arranged their historical testimonies, instead of pressing on to the internal evidences and the inward witness of Christianity. They manfully and ably maintained the authenticity, credibility, divine authority of the Scriptures, (the inspiration they abandoned;) they made out a strong case as to the lives and testimonies of the apostles; they touched on prophecy, they said something of the morals of Christianity and the originality of Christ's character; they spoke of the resurrection of the dead and a future state. Here they left men,―scarcely a word of redemption, the fall, the adaptation of Christianity to man's wants, the incarnation, the work of the Holy Spirit, the inward efficacy of religion upon the heart, the practical test to which every sincere inquirer might bring its offers.

What was the effect? There never were fewer true believers amongst those educated in the true religion; and infidelity never prevailed so much as in the age in which these historical arguments were handled in this exclusive man

The gospel doth not go abroad thus begging for its evidences, so much as some think. It has its highest and most proper evidences in itself.1

Nor does God own those efforts which would tacitly detract from the operations of his grace. If we think to beat Satan, the world, and the unbelief of the human heart with arguments merely, we shall fail. Men are told to look to human testimonies. They read sound and They are satisfied.

They rest upon them. well-reasoned treatises. But such a conviction

gives nothing of that warm and holy persuasion of the truth of God, which an inward obedience to the gospel, and a trial of its promises, would produce. The writers know nothing of these things; perhaps nothing of the main doctrines of the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ. The reader rests contented with a general faith-a sort of negative belief-a state of mind neither pleasing to God nor consolatory to man.

But if young people are directed from the

first to consider outward evidences as introductory to internal, and all as leading to a personal experience of the power of Christianity, the result is totally different. When this divine glory and excellency of the gospel

1 J. Edwards.

is felt, and not before, men hold to Christianity as their sheet-anchor, as their joy, their treasure, their boast all the day. They do not let its peculiarities be hidden through false shame; they do not defend it merely as a political engine for the good order of society. They feel that there is a convincing, a subduing power in God's word, which mere schoolmen cannot understand and do not approve; but which the true Christian feels and knows. Neither his reason nor the authority of men have created the belief he has of the truth of the word of God. His reason is satisfied, indeed, and in harmony with its statements, but does not establish its truth. It is the divine glory of redemption, the actual enjoyment and fulfilment of the promises, the real healing of his soul, his communion with God as a father, which commends the gospel to him. As the mirror, brightly polished and cleansed, is fitted to reflect the splendour of the skies; so is his understanding to the truth of the Scriptures, which, as a heavenly and independent sun of glory, darts upon his mind its holy rays, with such a strength and efficacy, that he believes and receives from it what his reason could never have conceived, nor historical arguments have described.

The discoveries of the Bible concerning the

Almighty, his perfections, his grace, his redemption in Christ Jesus and the new-creating energy of his Spirit, are now brought near to his heart, by an inward and personal experience, though they still lift up themselves above the reach of his intellectual powers, which wind about their heights, as the traveller about the inaccessible summits of arduous mountains which he silently contemplates and admires.1

Here, then, we close the argument. In our next Lecture we shall offer some DIRECTIONS to the serious inquirer when entering upon the investigation for himself.

In the mean time, I appeal to all sincere Christians before me, and I ask them whether I have overstated the NATURE of this argument, its SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY, the facts on which it rests, or its SINGULAR IMPORTANCE? You know the excellency and grace of Christianity. You know the way in which it has answered all its promises to you, and fulfilled all the expectations it had raised. You know the peace, the tranquillity of conscience, the love of God and Christ, which it has shed forth in your mind. You are making further trial

'Dr. C. Malan.