CHAPTER II.

MAN IS A FALLEN CREATURE.

THE Bible is not true, if man is not prone to evil. The holy page has two modes of expression in holding up the fact of man's depravity. The first is his hatred towards God; the second is his love for falsehood. Let us take one of each kind of these assertions, and dwell upon it. 1st-The carnal mind is enmity against God. This seems to the unconverted man as though it must be false. He is not conscious of any enmity against God. He thinks (mostly) that he loves his Creator. Of course, if we talk of his hatred, we cannot gain his assent. The reason it seems to him that he loves, where he really hates, is simply this, he does not hate that which he calls God. He well approves the character which he himself has given to the Creator; but this character always differs in one or more traits from that which is drawn of God in the Bible. It always resembles, more or less, the character of the individual who has drawn

A part of the character accords with the sacred page; but a portion of it, more or less, belongs to the man who draws it; of course he does not hate it. This has been true in every age; and is now a fact, wherever men are living.

Examples.-Could you have asked the ancient Scandinavian, as he stood before you, with a purse in one hand, and a spear in the other," Do you love God?" he would have answered you in the affirmative. Then, had you inquired," Who is God?" he would have told you, Thor-the God of battles and of plunder. The

warrior loved such a Deity, a part of the character belonged to the barbarian. Omnipotence and other traits were correct, and were received from truthful tradition: but holiness and purity the man did not love, and therefore did not receive into his creed as belonging to heaven. Could you have asked the Greek, at Athens, two thousand years ago, if he loved God, he would have told you Yes. "Who is God?" Answer-Bacchus, Venus, or Mars. A Deity of wine, or revelry, or sensuality, or war, he did not hate; but if you had placed before him the full character of the God of the Bible, as the Apostles did, he would have turned away in anger. Go now, and converse with the enfeebled Asiatic concerning his enmity to God, and he will look astonished at your assertion. He is willing to give up his life in the service of his God. But ask after this Deity, and he will name one of lust, cruelty, and pollution; one resembling, to a great extent, the man who stands before you. If you claim his notice to the God who loves justice and humility, purity and peace, he cannot bear to hear you. the land of Bibles and of light ;-so it is in England or America. Go to that Universalist, and ask him if he hates God. He is insulted at the question. He thinks he loves his kind Creator ardently; he thinks he never did hate God. And it is true that he does love a God whose character resembles that of the man before you, in some prominent traits. But place before him the God of the Bible,-one who will say, Depart, to the wicked; one who will not take pollution, and the rejectors of mercy into heaven; one who will see the smoke of their torment ascend up forever and ever: and the Universalist will tell you, earnestly, he hates such a God as that. Just so it is with the Deist. He gives to God a character which he thinks rational; he loves that char

Just so it is in

acter; it resembles, in some main points, the man who frames it. He cannot think that the carnal mind is enmity against God; for he esteems God a Being who has done, and will do, very much in accordance with a plan which he himself esteems rational and proper. It is true, we cannot exhibit the case of Deists, as to what they love or hate, as plainly as the case of others, because there is such an unending variety in their creed. Go to one hundred Deists, and you will rarely find two of them believing alike. They all agree in rejecting the Bible; but on many very important considerations,-whether God will or will not punish the wicked,-whether the soul goes out, or certainly lives on after death,-whether the world is to meet ruin, or continue forever,-if the wicked are to be chastised, what sins are most dangerous, &c. &c. &c,-they have no sameness in their plans. Many Deists, on questions of breathless interest, will refuse to give you any answer; they will tell you they do not know; they have no belief on the point, however interesting. At other times, you will find them maintaining that man's reason was given him as a lamp to enlighten, and as a guide to direct him in these matters. But ask them what kind of conduct here will mostly add to, or diminish from, happiness hereafter; or what kind of life we may certainly look for in the next existence, and no two of them will give you the same instructions as to these inquiries. The reason of a thousand of them seems to have led in a different direction. That Christian denominations should differ, appears to them exceedingly absurd and reproachful; but that Reason, which they say God has given as our only teacher, should give either no opinion, or a very different opinion amongst their own number, does not call forth a bitter remark. If the Bible is disclaimed, thus far they all agree; far

ther than this they do not ask after agreement, or regret it, should there be a thousand different creeds. A God, according to the Bible, they do not love; one conformed to their own proper ideas they do not hate.

SECOND HEAD.

in

"Men have loved darkness rather than light."In this assertion, light stands for truth; and the word darkness means falsehood. It does not seem to any one as though he prefers falsehood to truth. The most prejudiced man thinks himself impartial. It is so on any subject. The most vehement politician thinks himself unbiassed in his judgment; the most deadly enemy, speaking of the one he hates, will tell you that his views are not the offspring of passion; but he certainly would believe evil of his neighbour more readily than good, even when this good is true. We might then very certainly expect, that the man who wishes to live forever; to whom annihilation has no pleasing look, and who even wishes strongly to believe the Bible, would be far from feeling, or believing, that on this subject he would receive darkness rather than light. Nevertheless it is true. Although not in a situation as deplorable as the man who gnashes his teeth on religion,-still it is true, that one small cunningly devised falsehood will influence him further than one hundred plain and forcible arguments in favour of Revelation. A man may stand on the side of a precipitous mountain, and long for the top; yet the impetus of an ounce will push him farther down, than many times that force will cast him up. One who desires the valley below, can go there without a struggle. The man who has sinned, may desire the summit of truth; but he stands on a declivity of a sinful nature. Every transgression, or sensual indulgence, has added to the dark

ness of his soul, without his knowing it. Some examples of this must be given in the following chapter, to make the fact easily understood.

CHAPTER III.

EXAMPLE I.- THAT A TRIFLING FALSEHOOD BEARS HEAVIER

IN INFLUENCING HUMAN BELIEF AGAINST THE BIBLE, THAN DOES GIGANTIC TRUTH IN FAVOUR OF IT.

AN English traveller (Brydone) wrote home a description of Mount Etna. His book was published. He describes her craters and her extended slope, covered occasionally for twenty miles, or more, along the side of the mountain, with vines, villages, and luxuriance. These are sometimes destroyed by the river of melted metal, which issues from the mountain above, many feet deep, and a mile (perhaps more, sometimes less) in width, bears all before it, until it reaches the sea and shoves back its boiling waves. After this burning stream has cooled, there is seen, instead of blooming gardens, a naked, dreary, metalic rock. Eruptions are sometimes many in the course of a year, breaking out at different parts of the mountain, and sometimes none for half a century. The traveller found a cold stream of lava, congealed on the side of the mountain, which attracted his notice more than others. He thought it must have been thrown out by an eruption, which was mentioned by (perhaps) Polybius, as occurring near seventeen hundred years since. There was no soil on it. It was as naked as when first arrested there. The particles of dust floating through the air had not fallen there, so as