The Way Made Plain

IN the great work of delivering lost men from the ruin in which they are involved, the Holy Ghost produces the conviction that they need to be saved. Without this conviction “they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.”* However alarming their state as “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world,”” and however appalling their 1 Ps, lili. 4, 5. 2 Eph. ii. 12.

peril as exposed to the righteous infliction of “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil,”’* they neither understand their condition nor perceive their danger until made to feel that they are sinners.

There are multitudes of our race of whom it can be truthfully said that “they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things;””? and yet they go their downward way profoundly indifferent to their guilt and their doom. They eat and drink, they awake and sleep, they give their thoughts and time entirely to the pursuits of the world, and run their round of business or of pleasure, without one correct conception of the Being who made them, and without one spark of spiritual life.

Their ignorance of their real character and their insensibility to their eternal in-

1 Rom. ii. 8, 9. 2 Phil. iii, 18, 19.

terests furnish conclusive evidence both of their sinfulness and of their deplorable unconsciousness of sin. Hence the first practical step towards their recovery is taken when the Divine Spirit, whose office it is to “reprove [or rather, to convince| the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,’* leads them to see that they are undone, and need an almighty Arm to rescue them from impending destruction.

The agency He employs in teaching them this essential and fundamental truth is the revealed word of God, or the Sacred Scriptures, whether communicated in the pulpit or through the press; whether made known in public instruction or in private study; whether carried to the heart by a popular address or by a personal appeal. “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,”? and in the new creation “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than

1 John xvi. 8.. 2 Ps, xxxiii. 6.

apy two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart:”* “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’”?

If, therefore, we would inquire whether man, as such, and as born into the world, is in urgent need of salvation, we must surely consult the testimony of the “word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”° Remember, it is the word of God, and He is too wise to err, too holy to tell a lie, too just to bring false accusations against His creatures, and too kind to heap upon them undeserved reproaches. Let those who claim that they are entitled to His favour on the ground of their own merits make good their claim, and most gladly will He recognize it and bestow upon them the full reward of their virtue. He is not an unfeeling tyrant rejoicing in the exercise of an unrestrained

2 Hebsiv, 12. VOM eens. 31 Peter i. 23.

power to crush and kill, nor is He an unmerciful Judge eagerly inclining to inflict upon the terrified delinquent the extremest rigours of the law without regard to the palliating ‘circumstances under which the offence was committed. Not only His name, but His very nature, is “Love;”* and it is certain that His testimony concerning man, and His sentence in view of that testimony, are in perfect harmony with His boundless benevolence and His inexhaustible patience.

But every one must at once see the utter absurdity of accepting as true the revelation which He has made of His attributes in the Bible, and of rejecting as false the revelation which He has made in the same Bible of ourselves. Hither all is true or all is false, or, at best, there is no criterion to distinguish the true from the false, except the odd fancies and foolish whims of the reader. If one is at liberty to set aside as incredible what the Scriptures affirm of man’s characteristics, another is at equal liberty to treat with contempt what they declare of God’s perfections; and thus are we hurled back into the darkness of nature, or left to grope our way to the unknown future by the feeble glimmerings of reason.

It must be obvious, after a moment’s reflection, that consistency, logic, and sound sense require us to place the teachings of the Bible on a common footing with respect to their authority, authenticity, and genuineness. Especially is our faith ddvianan’ in a doctrine which pervades the whole book from first to last, and which is interwoven in all the narratives, in all the Psalms, in all the prophecies, in all the parables, in all the sermons, and in all the epistles, that are contained in the inspired records. If, then, it can be shown that a uniform testimony is borne from Genesis to Revelation touching man’s pressing need of salvation, we are

compelled to conclude that by nature we are fallen, lost, and ruined; or, as the only alternative, we are forced to deny that God has spoken the truth in His blessed Word.

My argument here is not designed for the sceptic who can never be convinced of his fatal error by human wisdom, but for the reader whose ear has been opened to hear the “still small voice’”* breathing through the Book of books, and whose head is reverently bowed in the presence of its recognized divinity. Taking it for granted that those for whom these pages are intended are, through infinite grace, past the dreary region of infidelity, and that they are now turning to the “lively oracles”? with the docility of the child Samuel, who said, “Speak, Lorn; for thy servant heareth,’*® I desire to sum up briefly the solemn testimony which God gives of man’s condition apart from redeeming love, and, therefore, of man’s unspeakable need of salvation.

1] Kings xix. 12.? Acts vii. 38. °1 Sam. ili. 9.

I. We assuredly learn from the -language which I have placed at the beginning of this chapter that the Jews as a people, although they were highly favoured above all the nations of the earth, were not delivered from the curse and dominion of sin; for the apostle writes, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” This earnest expression of concern for his countrymen would of course be meaningless or self-contradictory if they were not under the condemnation of God’s broken law; and hence the inspired writer, “moved by the Holy Ghost,”* asserts that they were still unsaved. The unavoidable inference which we thus gather from his words will be confirmed, and the argument to prove man’s need of salvation will be strengthened, if we glance at other statements relative to the condition of the Jewish nation. In the ninth chapter of the

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