hand—the strange state in which the world is ; the number of sects; the conduct of Christians; a companion that ridicules religion; an infidel book. One objection or doubt makes way for another. The objections come first, and, ere the individual is aware, his respect for religion, and his confidence in it, are undermined. Especially will this be so if a young man travels much, and sees different forms of religion. He will see the Hindoo bowing before his idol, the Turk praying toward Mecca, the Papist kneeling before his saint, and the Protestant attending his church; and, as each seems equally sincere, and equally certain he is right, he will acquire, insensibly perhaps, a general impression that all religions are equally true, or-which is much the same thing that they are equally false, and any exclusive attachment to the Christian religion will be regarded as bigotry. The religion itself will come to be disliked as a restraint, and despised as a form. It is chiefly from this class that the ranks of fanaticism, on the one hand, and of infidelity, on the other, are filled; and it will often depend on constitutional temperament, or accidental temptation, whether such a one shall become a fanatic or an infidel.

At this point, there is doubtless a fault both in Christian parents and in Christian ministers. Where there is a proper course of training, this class can never become numerous; but it is numerous in all our congregations now. Needless doubts are not to be awakened, but it is no honor to the Christian religion to receive it by prescription. It is no fault to have those questionings, that desire for insight, call them doubts if you will, which always spring up in strong minds, and which will not be quieted till the ground and evidence of those things which they receive are distinctly seen. Are there such among my hearers? Them I hope to benefit. I hope to do for them what Luke did for the

most excellent Theophilus-to show them the "certainty" of those things in which they have been instructed; to refer them, as he does again the same person in the Acts, to those "infallible proofs " on which the religion rests.

Second Class.-To the second class whom I hope to benefit belong those who have gradually passed from the preceding class into doubt and infidelity. For such, I think, there is hope. They are not unwilling to see evidence. Their position has led them to look at objections first, and they have, perhaps, never had time or opportunity to look at the embodied evidence for Christianity. They have fallen into infidelity from association, from vanity, from fashion; they have not found in it the satisfaction they expected, and they are willing to review the ground, or rather to look candidly, for the first time, at the evidences for this religion.

Exceptions. Besides this class of infidels, there are, however, two others, whom I have very little hope of benefiting. One is of those who are made so by their passions, and are under the control of appetite, or ambition, or avarice, or revenge. As these were not made infidels by argument, argument will not be likely to reclaim them. "They never think of religion but with a feeling of enmity, and never speak of it but in the language of sneer or abuse." Another class is of those who have been well characterized as "a cold, speculative, subtle set of skeptics, who attack first principles and confound their readers or hearers with paradoxes.” Apparently influenced by vanity, they adopt principles which would render all argument impossible or nugatory, and which would lead to fundamental and universal skepticism. This class seems not to be as numerous or as dangerous at present as at some former times.*

*Alexander's Evidences, p. 9.

CERTAINTY AND ITS EFFECTS.

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Third Class.-The third class whom I hope to benefit consists of Christians themselves.

Certainty and Efficiency.-It is one of the conditions of Christian character and efficiency, that, on some ground, there should be such a conviction of the truth of Christianity as to form a basis of action and of selfsacrifice, which, if it should be required, would be carried even to martyrdom. The grounds of such a conviction cannot be too well examined. There is no man, who finds himself called to act upon any conviction, who does not feel his self-respect increased, and his peace of mind enhanced, and his strength for action augmented, when he has a clear perception of the ground of the conviction upon which he acts. And even though he may once have seen the Christian evidences in all their force, and been astonished at the mass of proof, and have been perfectly convinced, yet, after a time, these impressions fade away, and it is good for him to have them renewed. It is as when one has looked at the Falls of Niagara, and stood upon the tower, and gone round upon Table rock, and been rowed in the little boat up toward the great fall, and had his mind filled with the scene, but has again been occupied in the business of life till the impression has become indistinct on his mind. He would then gladly return, and have it renewed and deepened.

This feeling of certainty seems to have been one of the elements of the vigorous piety of ancient times. They believed; therefore they spoke. They knew whom they believed; therefore they were ready to be offered. They spoke of "certainty," of "infallible proofs," of being "eye-witnesses," of the "more sure word of prophecy." Their tread was not that of men who were feeling their way in the twilight of doubtful evidence, but that of men who saw every thing in the light of clear and perfect vision.

I would not, indeed, limit the amount of knowledge and conviction with which piety may exist. If it can spring up in the twilight, and grow where doubts overshadow it, and where it never feels the direct rays of truth, we ought to rejoice; but, at the same time, we ought to know that the growth will be feeble, and that the plant must be despoiled of the beauty and fragrance which it will have when it grows as in the light of the open day. To produce this feeling of certainty in one already a Christian, was the avowed object for which the Gospel of Luke was written; and it is this feeling, containing the elements both of peace and of strength, that I hope to produce and to deepen in the minds of Christians.

Cooperation needed. But if I am to be useful to either of these classes, it must be with their own cooperation. The principle involved in this assertion, in reference to all moral truth, and, indeed, to all truth the acquisition of which requires attention, is as obvious to philosophy and common sense as it is plainly announced in the Bible. Nothing is more common, in reference to their present, as well as their future interests, than for men to "have eyes and see not."

This

Objection-Belief necessary. Here, however, I am met by the objection that the belief of a man is not within his own power, but that he is compelled to believe according to certain laws of evidence. objection I do not apprehend to be of very wide influence; but I have met with a few men of intelligence who have held to it, and it has been sustained by some names of high authority. I am therefore bound to notice it.

In this case, as in most others of a similar kind, the objection involves a partial truth, from which its plausibility is derived. It is true, within certain limitations, and under certain conditions, and with respect to cer

BELIEF AND THE WILL.

19

tain kinds of truth, that we are not voluntary in our belief; but then these conditions and limitations are such as entirely to sever from this truth any consequence that we are not perfectly ready to admit.

cases.

We admit that belief is in no case directly dependent on the will; that in some cases it is entirely independent of it; but he must be exceedingly bigoted, or unobservant of what passes around him, who should affirm that the will has no influence. The influence of the will here is analogous to its influence in many other It is as great as it is over the objects which we see. It does not depend upon the will of any man, if he turns his eyes in a particular direction, whether he shall see a tree there. If the tree be there, he must see it, and is compelled to believe in its existence; but it was entirely within his power not to turn his eyes in that direction, and thus to remain unconvinced, on the highest of all evidence, of the existence of the tree, and unimpressed by its beauty and proportion. It is not by his will directly that man has any control over his thoughts. It is not by willing a thought into the mind that he can call it there; and yet we all know that through attention and habits of association the subjects of our thoughts are, to a great extent, directed by the will.

It is precisely so in respect to belief; and he who denies this, denies the value of candor, and the influence of party spirit, and prejudice, and interest, on the mind. So great is this influence, however, that a keen observer of human nature, and one who will not be suspected of leaning unduly to the doctrine I now advocate, has supposed it to extend even to our belief of mathematical truth. Men," says Hobbes, "appeal from custom to reason, and from reason to custom, as it serves their turn, receding from custom when their interest requires it, and setting themselves against