him to health. soul; the attention and sensibilities of men must be awakened, in order that the truth may effect their understanding, their conscience, and their heart. Whatever, therefore, is adapted to attract the attention and move the sensibilities at the same time that it conveys truth to the mind, would be a means peculiarly efficient to impress the gospel upon the soul.

So with the moral diseases of the

There are but two avenues through which moral truth reaches the soul; and there are but two methods by which it can be conveyed through those avenues. By the living voice truth is communicated through the ear; and by the signs of language it is communicated through the eye. The first of these methods the living voice has many advantages over all other means in conveying and impressing truth. It is necessary that an individual should read with ease in order to be benefited by what he reads. The efforts which a bad reader has to make, both discipline him to the task of reading, and hinder his appreciation of truth. Besides, a large proportion of the human family cannot read, but all can understand their own language when spoken. In order, therefore, that the whole human family might be instructed, the living speaker would be the first, and best, and natural method.

The living speaker has power to arrest attention— to adapt his language and illustrations to the character and occupation of his audience; and to accompany his communications with those emotions and gestures which are adapted to arouse and impress his hearers.

It is evident, from these considerations, that among the means which God would appoint to disseminate his truth through the world, the living teacher would hold a first and important place.-This result is in conformity with the arrangements of Jesus. He appointed a living ministry; endowed them with the ability to speak the languages of other nations; and commissioned them to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

In connection with this subject there is one other inquiry of importance. It concerns not only the harmony of the gospel system with the nature of things, but likewise the harmony of apostolic practice with what has been shown to be necessary in order that the truths of the gospel might produce their legitimate effect upon the mind.

It has been demonstrated that a sense of man's guilt and danger must exist in the mind before there can be gratitude and love to the being who removes the guilt and rescues from the danger. It has likewise been noticed, as a self-evident principle, that before repentance there must be conviction of sin. A sense of guilt and error must necessarily precede reformation of life. A man cannot conscientiously turn from a course of life, and repent of past conduct, unless he sees and feels the error and the evil of that course from which he turns. To suppose that a man would turn from a course of life which he neither thought nor felt to be wrong or dangerous, is to suppose an absurdity; it follows, therefore, that the preacher's first duty in endeavouring to reclaim men to holiness and to God, would be, in all cases, to

present such truths as were adapted to convict their hearers of their spiritual guilt and danger. As God has constituted the mind, repentance from sin and attainment to holiness would for ever be impossible on any other conditions.

But the same truths would not convict all men of sin. In order to convict any particular man, or class of men, of sin, those facts must be fastened upon with which they have associated the idea of moral good and evil, and concerning which they are particularly guilty. Thus, in the days of the apostles, the Gentiles could not be convicted of sin for rejecting and crucifying Christ; but, it being a fact in the case of the Jews, that all their ideas of good and evil, both temporal and spiritual, were associated with the Messiah, nothing in all the catalogue of guilt would be adapted to convict them of sin so powerfully as the thought that they had despised and crucified the Messiah of God.

On the other hand, the heathen, upon whom the charge of rejecting Christ would have no influence, could be convicted of sin only by showing them the falsehood and folly of their idolatry; the holy character of the true God, and the righteous and spiritual nature of the law which they were bound to obey, and by which they would finally be judged. The first preachers of the gospel, therefore, in conformity with these principles, would aim first, and directly, to convince their hearers of their sins, and in accomplishing this end they would fasten upon those facts in which the guilt of their hearers more particularly consisted. And then, when men were thus convicted of their guilt, the salvation through

Christ from sin and its penalty would be pressed upon their anxious souls; and they would be taught to exercise faith in Jesus, as the meritorious cause of life, pardon, and happiness.

Now, the apostolical histories fully confirm the fact, that this course- -the only one consistent with truth, philosophy, and the nature of man—was the course pursued by the primitive preachers.

He

The first movement after they were endowed with the gift of tongues, and filled with the Holy Ghost, was the sermon by Peter on the day of Pentecost, in which he directly charged the Jews with the murder of the Messiah, and produced in thousands of minds, conviction of the most pungent and overwhelming description. At Athens, Paul, in preaching to the Gentiles, pursued a different course. exposed the folly of their idolatry, by appealing to their reason, and their own acknowledged authorities. He spoke to them of the guilt which they would incur if they refused, under the light of the gospel, to forsake the errors, which God, on account of past ignorance, had overlooked. He then closed by turning their attention to the righteous retributions of the eternal world, and to the appointed day when men would be judged by Jesus Christ, according to his gospel.

The manner in which the apostles presented Christ crucified, to the penitent and convicted sinner, as the object of faith, and the means of pardon, and the hope of glory, is abundantly exhibited in the Acts of the Apostles, and in their several epistles to the churches.

Thus did God, by the appointment of the living

preacher as a means of spreading the gospel, adapt himself to the constitution of his creatures; and the apostles, moved by divine guidance, likewise adapted the truth which they preached to the peculiar necessities and circumstances of men.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCERNING THE AGENCY OF GOD IN CARRYING ON THE WORK OF REDEMPTION, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THAT AGENCY IS EXERTED.

God having thus devised the plan, and manifested the truth, and instituted the means of redemption, the inquiry naturally presents itself—In what way would he put the plan into operation, and give efficiency to the means of grace?

We cannot suppose that God would put his own institution beyond his power, or that he would leave it to be managed by the imperfect wisdom, and the limited power, of human instruments. God would not prepare the material, devise the plan, adapt the parts to each other, furnish the instruments for building, and then neglect to supervise and complete the structure. God has put none of his works beyond his power; and especially in a plan of which he is the author and architect, reason suggests that he would guide it to its accomplishment. The inquiry is By what agency, and in what way, would the power of God be exerted, in carrying into effi