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INST ALL A TION

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DISCOURSE'.

THE ADAPTATION OF THE TRUTH TO PROMOTE THE SALVATION OF MEN,

A DISCOTJESE,

DELIVERED

AT THE INSTALLATION OF
REV. OREN SIKES,
OVER
THE TRINITARIAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AND SOCIETY,
IN BEDFORD, MASS., JUNE 3, 1846.

By WILLLIAM T. (TJWIGHT,
PASTOR OF THE THIRD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
IN PORTLAND, MAINE.

G?MJL& fy ¦u^i «f \U <$L*A la Ski^.

BOSTON:
A. J. WRIGHT'S STEAM PRESS,
NO. 3 WATER STREET.
1846.

DISCOURSE.

James 1 : 18. " Of His own xoill begat He tis, with the
Word of truth."
John 17 : 17. " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy
Word is truth."
One characteristic of the writers of the New Testament,
is the peculiar significance of the words which they
technically use. Matthew and John, Paul and James,
and Peter, although writing upon subjects which were
in one sense entirely new, and although they were thus
constrained to adopt an appropriate phraseology, are not
chargeable — as are so many writers — with the frequent
coining of new words, with the introduction of uncouth
and often unintelligible phrases. As writing under the
guidance of inspiration upon themes most momentous to
their fellow men universally, they have obviously endeav
ored to render themselves intelligible and familiar to
every reader; to the peasant and the child, no less than to
the philosopher ; but they are not less remarkable for the
precision and energy, than the simplicity of their expres
sions. The words " faith, love, hope, adoption, redemp
tion, salvation," with many others, — words almost as
common as household phrases, — have been thus made to
constitute, as it were, an entirely new language, which
has essentially modified the course of human thought for
the last eighteen centuries.
Among these most expressive words, is that which
terminates each of the separate passages selected for the
text, — the word, " Truth." Its recurrence on the pages of

the New Testament is almost constant, and it is used, as
all are aware, in a variety of senses. It denotes not only
as in its ordinary signification, contrariety to falsehood,
or the accordance of our declarations with facts; but in
its scriptural import it also denotes the reality, as opposed
to nonentities or delusions, — as, "the true God," in dis
tinction from imaginary deities ; and also the infallible
verity of the divine declarations as contrasted with the
assertions of men, — as, " thy word is truth." Still an
other of these peculiar significations, though closely allied
to the last, is, the perfect verity of the gospel system as
promulgated in the writings and preaching of the apostles,
in contrast with every scheme of religion which had been
devised and promulgated by men. The one is " the
truth;" all the others are "the deceivableness of un
righteousness," and " a lie." Such is the general import of
the word, Truth, as used in the text. That we may as
certain it still more precisely, I will refer for the moment
to several other passages of an obviously kindred meaning.
" Not handling the word of God deceitfully, but by mani
festation of the truth commending ourselves;" — "chosen
to salvation through belief of the truth ;" — "the truth of
the gospel ; " — " seeing ye have purified your souls, in
obeying the truth," — "thy word is truth." The meaning
which we are thus instructed to attach to the word
" truth," or to the more frequent form of expression, —
"the truth," is evidently this, — The system of religious
truth which is revealed in the gospel, as the supreme
directory of our faith and conduct. This, as it is affirmed
in the text, is God's appointed means of renewing and
sanctifying the soul. Such is also the constant scriptural
affirmation respecting its efficacy. While the Holy Spirit
is uniformly described as the supreme Agent in the accom
plishment of these great results, the Truth is uniformly
asserted to be the instrument or the means, so that the
agency and the instrumentality are to be ever deemed
inseparable.

When we contemplate this unalterable connection be
tween God's sovereign energy and the efficacy of Truth,
and thus discern, as it were, the process by which de
praved man is ultimately prepared for admission to the
purity and bliss of heaven, we are naturally led to in
quire, What is there in the Truth itself which renders it
thus efficacious 1 why has it been constituted the invaria
ble means in the production of this result? In establishing
this connection the divine wisdom must^be no less conspic
uous than in every other great measure of God's moral
government, and it must be profitable to trace out the
characteristic displays of this attribute, which are here
visible. I have accordingly selected, as a theme which is
ever instructive and which is peculiarly appropriate to the
present occasion, The Adaptation or the Truth to pro
mote The salvation or men. To evince this, will be the
design of the ensuing course of remark.
We might argue, I would then proceed to observe, the
reality of this Adaptation, from the great fact that God
has been pleased to establish this inseparable connection
between the agency of His Spirit, and the instrumentality
'of the Truth. It is an ultimate principle with all whom I
am here intentionally addressing, that God is directed by
'His wisdom in every department of His natural and moral
government. Whether in tire structure of a rose leaf or of
the sparrow's wing, — whether in the ascent of vapor, or
in its descent when condensed into the rain drop and the
¦snow flake, — whether in the constitution of man and of
the seraph as free agents, or in the promulgation of His
law as the universal standard of moral rectitude, — we
profess to discern a perfect adaptation of means to ends ;
;and wherever a similar adaptation is but faintly percepti
ble, we doubt not that it no less unquestionably exists.
In accordance with this principle, we necessarily admit
and affirm that the efficacy, which the Truth exerts upon
every heart which is actually renewed and sanctified, ha
1*

not been arbitarily imparted to it by the Most High. God
has not established this connection, we would say 'in
other words, as a mere act of sovereignty ; the Truth is
in itself intrinsically atapted to the promotion of this-
.result This conclusion may be, however, more satisfac
torily established in a different manner, and I shall en
deavor accordingly to evince this Adaptation of the Truth,
from a consideration of the Nature of the Truth itself;
and also of the Nature of Man, to whom it is addressed.
1. The Nature of the Truth itself evinces its Adapta
tion to promote the salvation of men.
We speak of the nature of matter and of its various
forms, of the nature of mind, as considered abstractly, or
as in the individual man or angel, nor do we less famil
iarly speak of the nature of any single mental or moral
operation. With the same propriety we may speak of
the nature of the Truth. The gospel system, or the
scheme of revealed truth, has its own appropriate charac
ter, its essential attributes, which distinguish it from every
other system of faith and practice. When, then, I affirm
that the Nature of the Truth evinces this Adaptation, I
mean particularly, that the great subjects of which it treats
evince this.
The Truth, or the Gospel which contains it, — for in this
respect they are identical — has its appropriate subjects, as
evidently as any other religious system, or any other
volume. These are apparent on its very face, they are
legible on every page, these announce the design of its
revelation to man, these constitute its nature. What then
are these subjects 1 One of them is God. God, the uni
versal Creator and Preserver; God, the Benefactor, Ruler,
and Judge of man ; God, the Supreme and unchangeable
in every natural and moral perfection — whether knowl
edge or power — whether righteousness, goodness, mercy
or truth ; the one God, and at the same time the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Another of these subjects is Man,— his nature, duty)
and destiny. Man, in his intellect, free-agency and im*
mortality, the image of Jehovah ; — but man, depraved ;
man, endowed with many amiable natural affections, but
selfish, rebellious against God, and therefore justly con
demned. These subjects include also redemption, and its
results. Redemption, having its foundation in the self-
moved love of Jehovah, having as the -great Agent in its
accomplishment the incarnate Son of God, and the Holy
Spirit as the Agent in the application of its blessings; and
for its Results, the transformation of depraved men into
disciples of Christ and friends of God, their deliverance
from perdition, and their participation in the endless joys
of heaven.
Of these subjects I would observe that they are the
noblest conceivable. The Truth and the Gospel which
embodies it, are but a solitary volume among hundreds of
thousands now existing, yet how transcendently lofty are
its themes, when contrasted with those of all others !
Intellects the most discriminating, profound, creative,
have selected many of these other themes, as those which
inherently tend to enlarge the mind and to purify its
tastes. But how humble are they all, whether they oc
cupy us on the pages of the historian, the poet or the
moralist; whether they have exhausted the energies of
the jurist, the metaphysician, or the mathematician? The
themes of Herodotus and Livy, what are they, compared
with those of Matthew ; or the creations of Homer and
Shakspeare, when contrasted with the delineations of
John; or the demonstrations of Newton, or La Place,
when compared with the reasonings of Paul. The giddy
or the corrupt mind may be for the season so absorbed in
the subjects which these gifted mortals have treated, that
levity may give place to sobriety, and profligacy may
for the moment breathe the wish that it were purity. But
no mind can become habitually conversant with the sub-

8
jects that occupy the scheme of revealed truth, which is
not, as the result, removed into a far higher and purer
atmosphere. These are not themes for mere intellectual
speculation or for the fervid excitement of the fancy, but
for deep and solemn feeling ; they engross us not with the
fugitive interests of the present hour, but with a stable,
unchangeable eternity. God and His ceaseless superin
tendence of our conduct, Christ and His relations to man's
inmost soul, the duty and the responsibility of this hour,
and of all coming life, — can such subjects be frequently
pondered and the mind still grovel in the slough of epicu
rism ? or continue incrusted with the rust of worldliness ?
will conscience — if previously asleep — not awake from its
lethargy, and the man begin to walk softly on his journey
towards eternity, as if some angel visitant had been com
missioned to warn him ? Converse with these themes,
however frequent and engrossing, will not indeed renew
the heart, for such is its power of resistance to all holy
influences that nothing will thus subdue it but the Spirit's
energy ; but it must at the same time continually main-,
tain this resistance, or this intrinsic power of the truth
would secure the victory. Truth thus imbedded in the
mind, is the seed which has no self-germinating power,
but the seed is still there, often too deeply sown to be
removable, and awaiting the first genial rain and sun
beams of heaven to shoot forth towards an immortal har
vest. These subjects, I would also observe, when once cordi
ally received, constitute salvation itself. They are not
merely verbal descriptions, lifeless delineations, of salva
tion, but they are in themselves salvation. Holiness,
whether it is developed as love to God, or as affiance in
Christ, or as good will to our fellow men, is but the Truth
imbodied and active. It has not in itself a distinct ele
mentary existence, it is not — like matter or like the spirit's
essence — the simple and instant product of creative ener-

gy, but it is the quality of our moral affections. These
affections whether holy or sinful, whether love, trust, and
humility, or enmity, unbelief and pride, have in them
selves no permanent independent being ; neither are they
summoned into existence by a simple act of the will ; they
are cherished only as the effect of contemplating truth,
they start into life only when the mind is in contact with
some actual or supposed reality. What awakens the sigh
of the far distant traveler for his country and his fireside,
but their visible images which become for the moment,
the very texture of his thoughts ; or what kindles the
angel's exulting song, as he looks downward from the
celestial heights over the penitent sinner, but the present
living idea of that sinner as long hopelessly lost, but as
now found forever? It is then the Truth intellectually
received, which brings salvation within the mind ; it is
the Truth cordially received, which constitutes salvation
to the heart. As the clear mental reception of the theo
rems and problems of Euclid, renders the individual a
geometer, so the doctrine of Christ crucified — wherever
written on the heart, renders the individual a believer, so
the doctrine of heaven's immortality, moulds him into a
pilgrim and a stranger on earth. Salvation in its foretaste,
is then but the practical reception of the truth ; the Truth
reveals it, the Truth presents it as the stable object of
contemplation and emotion; separate from the truth it
possesses virtually no existence, and when in full fruition
— so far as fruition can be known on earth — it is but the
ingrafted truth, producing its appropriate fruits of love,
faith, and sacred joy.
As the adaptation of the Truth to promote the salvation
of men is thus seen to belong to its very nature when we
consider the subjects of which it treats, so we may also per
ceive this adaptation when we notice its infallibility. It is
not hyperbolical to affirm that the mind is as precisely
adapted in its constitution to truth, as is the eye to the light

10
of heaven. The eye of man was not originally formed for
fogs and mists, still less for the discolored, restless medium
of vision which is produced by a fever, and less still for
thick darkness; but for light, clear light, only. Mists con
fuse it, the medium which disease occasions but inflames
it, darkness quenches it. As little is the mind of man con
structed for a state of blank ignorance, or for the adoption
of positive error, or for vacillation between doubts and un
certainties, or for any thing but truth. Ignorance, like an
exhausted receiver, occasions its suffocation ; it may be oc
casionally wildly excited, but it speedily withers away un
der the dominion of error ; doubts — while they exist— pre
vent even its hair's breadth progress ; truth only is its food
and strength and life. Wherever we discern truth, and
however familiar the subject, there we repose with con
scious certainty, there is some real enlargement of our
moral being. Whether religious or scientific truth —
whether it respects the operations of art or the daily occur
rences of life — its influence is almost necessarily pleasing
and profitable : even the bright creations of the great epic,
and the great dramatic poet of our language irresistibly
charm us, because they have the verisimilitude of real life
— they are truth possible, if not truth actual. And how- .
ever sacred or tender the theme, let doubts arise as to the
veracity of the narration, or the soundness of the primary
principle, or the conclusiveness of the argument, and the
mind is for the time staggered or unsettled. When the
fear of a future judgment, or an insatiate thirst for wealth
or political eminence, or some other master passion has
gradually constrained an individual to abandon the gospel
scheme for some soothing form of heresy, the distinctness
of his perceptions has become sensibly bedimmed, and in his
willful adoption of sopnistry and error he is often no less
consciously perplexed and wretched. It is then truth —
and truth, discerned to be such, which confers all its real
worth either on art or science, on morals or religion ; and

11
triis is preeminently the case with every thing that con
nects the soul with salvation. It is, I would repeat it, the
infallibility of the gospel system which gives it its immeas
urable value; it is its infallibility, which is not only an
essential prerequisite to its possession of any influence over
the heart, but which also evinces its adaptation to save the
heart, as God's own appointed means. That this system
is infallible truth, that the entire record which contains it
was given by inspiration, that the apostles spoke and wrote
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, none will require
me on such an occasion formally to prove, none probably
professes to doubt. It is an infallibility which pervades it,
not only as a general scheme of truth, but in each of its
primary and subordinate principles ; not only in the struc
ture of each separate component book, but in its seemingly
incidental statements, in its most familiar sentences, and
in the simplest elements of its phraseology. The gospel
system, as was observed in the introduction, is usually
styled " the Truth" — because the record is thus infallible.
It is not a cunningly devised fable, professing to be the
history and the instructions of Jesus Christ, but really the
mere personification of abstract goodness in man : it is not
what would be but little better, the history of a revelation,
drawn up by fallible- and sometimes self-contradicting
writers — whose occasional paralogisms we are to detect,
and whose inconsistencies we are to reconcile in our supe
rior wisdom : but it is all, aside from the unavoidable
mistakes of human transcribers, the very words of the
infallible Jehovah. Yes, the demonstrations of pure mathe
matics, or the testimony of the eye to the presence of
objects in the noonday, furnishes no more satisfactory
evidence of the reality of things than what attends the
announcement of the gospel. Would man in ten thousand
cases, after reading its solemn declarations, persuade him
self to disbelieve? Such is his assurance of its perfect
verity that he cannot. Would he, as an inferior refuge

12
shelter himself behind imagined improbabilities, or rest in
equipoise — neither believing nor disbelieving? The same
assurance forbids him to cherish these welcome doubts,
removes him even from the covert of merely strong proba
bilities, till he is left visibly in the midst of its great and
certain realities. He would still, it may be, turn away
from the view, but they everywhere surround him; he
would sink into forgetfulness of their presence, but when
he awakes they are there, unchanged. Other men, even
the parent, the sage, the saint, may either falsify or mis
take; history, too, is often but the collection of contradic
tory narratives ; his own senses often give him but uncer
tain testimony ; — but the Truth, the gospel, he knows that
it cannot deceive him, for the Hand which wrote the mys
tic characters in the hall of Belshazzar, has also written at
the head of every successive page — " Thus saith the Lord."
Nor is this adaptation of the Truth less apparent, when
we consider its Authority. We exult in the consciousness
of our free agency. Free, absolutely free, as we proudly
affirm, within, and our subjection to any external govern
ment being but partial and occasional only, it is indeed
well for man that there is one authority which he cannot
dispute, and that its voice addresses him from every record
of the creation, in the constant movements of providence,
and in every doctrine and precept of the gospel. It is well,
nay, it is indispensable to men and angels, and the moral
universe — if religion is to have an existence in that uni
verse — that He who upholds it, should address every free
agent with the voice of absolute authority. Were God to
submit his claims upon the perfect love and obedience of
his creatures solely to their discretion, were he to appeal
to reason and conscience as the only assertors of his rights,
Gabriel even — with all "the principalities and powers"
of heaven — would soon follow in the track of Satan and
his legions. God would be still invulnerable and unas
sailable in his omnipotence, but his empire would be a

13
chaos — all beneath his throne would be lost in anarchy
and ruin. Even the purity of heaven can be made secure
from defilement, only as it is guarded by the presence of
His majesty. And were the Truth in all its harmony and
infallibility to be sprea.d before us but as an urgent exhor
tation from its Author — were men to be only advised or
besought to live for conscience, for holiness, for heaven —
need I ask what would be the invariable reception 1 Con
sciously free to choose or to refuse, God's throne of moral
government thus virtually abdicated, no bridle on man's
depravity but his own discretion, — let those who speak of
their reverence for human nature, answer. There are in
deed those who affirm that the mind necessarily believes
in exact accordance with the degree of evidence, thus
making faith in the system of Christ's salvation little else
than the mere result of a law of our nature ; and were this
system but a treatise of pure mathematics, rigorously de
monstrated and perfectly intelligible to an ordinary mind
— were every individual constrained also, faithfully, to
study it, then faith would be the natural and necessary
result. But why speak of such absurdities ! Men can,
and do believe, or disbelieve, the strictest deductions of
Bacon, and Locke, and Edwards — they may despise the
loftiest speculations of Plato, and the profoundest researches
of Aristotle, and it is nothing but the authority of the gos
pel which secures for its revelations a different reception.
That authority speaks in every page, it has consecrated
every line, and it is none other than God's right, as the
moral governor of man, to require our cordial belief of
His truth. No one whom philosophical or fashionable
skepticism has not blinded, can fail to see the broad seal of
heaven attached to each opening of the record : there an
unearthly light is ever shining, there an awful voice is
speaking, thence a mysterious sanctity is emanating that
pervades the inmost soul. Apostles and evangelists, and
prophets were the amanuenses, but they wrote at the dic-
2

14
tation of the eternal Spirit : the words, the sentences, are
human, but they are uttered by a Voice from the very cen
tre of the Throne. God has thus adapted his truth to all
that is serene or exulting in hope and harrowing in fear,
to conscience in all its sentences of conviction or approval,
and has thus rendered it His own most fit and effectual in
strument of salvation. The sense of this authority be
comes sooner or later almost an instinct with every one,
not hardened by profligacy or skepticism. Other volumes
may moulder unopened into dust, other truth may be re
jected ; but the Truth — the gospel — it is thus inscribed
wherever rests the eyes, " Believe, obey, and live : Disbe
lieve, and perish." God's attributes are thus all pledged
to enforce its dictates, and innumerable hearts are thus
made thoughtful, anxious, and in one great sense,; ready
for the grace that seals us heirs of salvation.
Still another intrinsic adaptation of the Truth should be
noticed, — its intelligibleness. I intend by this term, its
perfect transparency of meaning, and this is a character
istic not unfrequently overlooked, but which cannot be too
highly valued. Made more familiar, as we are, with the
gospel than with any other volume from the earliest child
hood, and taught from that childhood to read it with feel
ings which scarce allow the indulgence of ' criticism the
most reverential, we are rendered unconsciously ignorant
of some of its greatest excellencies. If we would duly per
ceive this illustration of the subject, let us consider for the
moment the manner in which the Truth would have been
revealed, had such a matter been submitted to the decision
of human wisdom ? The philosopher would have wished
it to assume the form of an elaborate and stately treatise :
to the mathematician it would have been announced in
the axioms and definitions, and strict demonstrations, re
sembling those of his favorite science : while many a pro
found divine would have received it as a formal and bulky
system of theology. Sacred as was to be its import, the

15
poet would have overloaded it with the gay creations of
imagination : while the man who had been moulded by an
active, busy life would have wished it to be a collection of
brief, practical maxims. And when I speak of the intelli
gibleness of the gospel, I intend that it is as unlike and as
opposite to every such imaginary revelation, as is the wis
dom of God to the ignorance and folly of man. It is no
stately treatise, it contains not a paragraph of hard, cold,
mathematical or metaphysical reasoning, it suggests not
professedly one query for theological speculation. It is
not a poem, it is not a collection of aphorisms for states
men or merchants or husbandmen. But in entire diversity
and contrariety to all these, it is a scheme of faith and du
ty which is to be incidentally formed from a succession of
familiar narratives and equally familiar letters ; or, if we
also refer to the Old Testament, from a succession of na
tional histories, from a code of ancient laws, from a col
lection of devout hymns, and from various prophecies.
This infallible and authoritative truth is now announced
in some brief and simple sentence, or it is a similar com
ment on some instructive narrative : now we read it as ut
tered in the breathings of the devotional hymn, now in
the brief or protracted replies of familiar conversation, and
now — where rendered necessary — by brief courses of rea
soning. Narratives, descriptions of character, doctrines,
precepts, arguments, the allegory and the familiar image,
may be all interwoven in the same book ; and when the
grandeur and the complexity of the theme have demanded
profound discussion, then, as in several of Paul's epistles,
the corresponding attention of the reader is requisite. Now
it is not hyperbole to affirm that the great fundamental
principles which have been thus revealed, (I speak not of
the processes of reasoning by which they are occasionally
maintained) are more intelligible to the human mind,—
to the peasant, the savage, and the child— than those of
any science or art whatever. Such is the distinctness of

16
announcement, such the clearness of illustration, such the
simplicity of the language, that all can readily comprehend
the truth ; while such is its solemnity, its purity, its eleva
tion, that none can reputably contemn it. So intelligible
has God thus rendered the gospel, that its immediate and
its permanent impressions upon every class of minds — the
philosophic no less than the ordinary, the vigorous as tru
ly as the feeble — are visibly the same. The same grand
truths respecting God and Christ, holiness and sin, salva
tion and judgment, are thus written, as it were, upon the
very texture of the soul, — not as speculative propositions
which are to be elaborately demonstrated, but as momen
tous facts which concern the monarch and the slave alike,
for this world and the next. It is to these most grand yet
most simple truths trjat every conscience instinctively
responds ; these visibly bind man to the throne of God as
his moral governor ; these form the basis of all serious and
devout thought; these are the staff and the sunlight to the
saint in his parting hour. And these are the essential
truth which the Holy Spirit ever employs in effecting the
great moral change in man; and how perfectly adapted,
then, is the instrument to the result ! Incapable in itself
of accomplishing this transformation, because the depraved
heart — like the strong man armed — ever successfully re
sists it, its adaptation is still equally perceptible, and
wherever used by the Divine hand its triumph is certain.
II. The Nature of Man, to whom the Truth is addressed,
also evinces this Adaptation.
This portion of our subject has been necessarily antici
pated from time to time, in many of the preceding remarks.
It requires from us, however, a distinct, though a very
brief, notice.
When we speak of Man's Nature, as itself evincing the
adaptation of the Truth to promote his salvation, we ob
viously mean his moral nature, or that element of his be
ing to which the Truth is always addressed. When thus

17
contemplated, the theme is so ample, and its different as
pects are so numerous, that it is scarcely practicable to no
tice it, but in the most abstract and superficial manner.
I would observe, then, that the Nature of Man, as con
sciously sinful, evinces this adaptation.
The metaphysicians of Scotland and of continental Eu
rope would ordinarily describe man as rendered a moral
being by the force of education and external circumstances ;
while the expounder of a faith which is sometimes termed
"liberal," maintains that human nature is intrinsically
pure and good — all its defilement being the result of tempt
ation only. These are self-complacent, if not ingenious,
speculations, but men — as a race — have needed no revela
tion to assure them of their delusiveness ; for conscience, un
less where stifled or stupefied, has almost universally
borne a true witness here. What were the sacrifices, an
imal and human, of the ancient heathen but the confession
of conscious guilt? What but man's degeneracy and cor
ruption was the theme of so many ancient poets and mor
alists ; what other character can any ingenuous mind as
cribe to mankind at large — as he sees it depicted on the page
of ancient history ? Or if we survey the modern Hindoo
in the absurdity and impurity of his idol worship — the
Chinese in his infanticide — the Mohammedan with his
harem, his opium, and his ablutions— or the western sav
age couching in the ambuscade from which he springs
forth to tomahawk the old man and the infant of a hostile
tribe, — what do these religious rites, these characteristic
habits, everywhere proclaim but man's uniform depravi
ty ? But we need only direct the gaze within. Let any
man who has no theory to fortify, no conscious terrors
which he must per force vanquish, but survey himself
in the mirror of conscience,— let him contemplate the
God above as his Maker, Benefactor, and Judge,— and
then recall his own numberless acts of ingratitude, irreve
rence, forgetfulness and positive rebellion, as well as of
2*

18
pride, indifference, unkindness, injustice towards his fel
lows, — and his mouth will be dumb, or he will but articu
late a single wdrd — " guilty." Now it is to man as thus
consciously sinful that the Truth, thus pure and exalted
in its subjects, thus infallible, authoritative, and transpa
rent in its intelligibleness, is addressed ; and its tendency is
but to give tenfold keenness to this previous consciousness
of guilt. Its charge against us is, our life-long sins against
Jehovah; — against Jehovah, not hidden by the thick vail
of the material creation, or faintly discerned by the lamp
of conscience and the torch-light of some ancient tradition
al faith, but shining in the full sun-light of revelation, —
against Jehovah, whose holiness condemns us, whose jus
tice must exactly execute the sentence. To this charge
what shall the sinner answer 1 Shall he deafen his ears
against it? He cannot always constrain himself to be
insensible. By a resolute denial 1 he knows that it is essen
tially true. By successive palliations, each becoming the
scantier, and more translucent, of his depravity? Such is
its blazing light, that the truth, when once directed by divine
power, can instantly pierce through all, convicting him of
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Man's obduracy, how
adapted is the fire of God's truth to melt it : man's enmity,
what instrument but the sword of the Spirit can slay it !
The nature of man in its conscious need of an Expiation
for sin, equally evinces this adaptation. " How shall man
be just with God:" — how shall the sinner be cleansed
from his guilt and be thus entitled to Jehovah's favor : —
this is the great question unceasingly asked of natural relig
ion, and which she is never able to answer. For con
scious guilt will devise and must devise, if possible, some
adequate expiation. The thought of meeting a righteous
God in judgment is unendurable, and who can welcome
non-existence as the alternative ? Where, then, O where,
are reconciliation, pardon, peace, to be found ! Such has
been the instructive, if not the audible, language of the

19
heart in all ages, and man in his ignorance has looked to
every quarter — above him, and around him, and beneath
him — for the answer. With prayers, and tears, and
groans, — with his hecatombs of oxen — with slaughtered
captives — and his sons offered in sacrifice, — with macera
tions and stripes and wasting pilgrimages, — with interces
sions of priests and saints, and of the Virgin Mary, — he
has in every age approached to the footstool of the Throne,
and there listened for the expected answer. But has he
ever, ever, received it ? At one time fear, at another hope,
has given articulation to the convulsive workings of his
own spirit, which he has mistaken for the words of the Di
vinity, but the voice of Jehovah has ever continued silent.
Now it is to man thus guilty, thus needy, that the Truth
exclaims — " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from
all sin :" " Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away
the sin of the world." Expiation complete and final, so
that not one sin however crimson its dye, shall avail to
condemn. And expiation by whom ? By Jesus Christ, the
God-Man, one with me, and one with the eternal Father.
One with God, so that whatever He accomplishes in my
behalf shall avail through its own infinite worthiness.
One with man — with me — so that He may actually die
for me, and become my intercessor before the throne, and
be my sympathizing friend, and sovereign Lord above.
What spirit, trembling and confounded through its sense
of guilt, and looking in vain to penances — sacrifices — and
works of supererogation for relief, has failed to discern the
Adaptation of the Truth to all its need, the first moment
that its eye has rested on the cross of Immanuel ! All
other remedies for its diseases are fatal quackery, but here
it sees Gilead's immortal balm, here flows ever fresh the
stream which issues forth from the throne. Had Socrates,
when doubting whether it is possible for the Deity to for
give sin, have but heard by anticipation of the sufferings
of Calvary, what a wondrous correspondence would he

20
have discerned between the ruin and the remedy, between
the condemned sinner and the justifying Saviour !
Nor is this Adaptation less evinced, when we consider
Man's Nature in its yearnings after immortality. Vividly
conscious, strong in my freedom, 'my intelligence, my
independence of all but the Creator, how can I contem
plate for a moment the idea of annihilation ! It is my
essence to live, and not to die : and with these keen sensa
tions, this active spirit, ever speeding onward from the
goal of being into fuller and nobler life, how can I become
a nonentity! Yes, better were poverty — slavery — a dun
geon — pain — fear — bette~ were any thing save infinite des
pair, than not to be ! 1 grasp the living universe with a
strength which Gabriel can resist as feebly as an infant,
which nothing short of literal Omnipotence can overcome.
But if the spirit thus asserts its title to immortality, if
ancient traditions, and the creed of every extinct or exist
ing nation, but confirm such hopes, what is this immor
tality to prove? If approved hereafter, are we to dwell
forever on Mount Olympus, with the whole herd of ancient
Grecian deities ; or in the halls of Valhalla, with the
Scandinavian Odico? Are we to be absorbed, with the
devotee of Buddhism, into the very essence of the Divinity;
or to rove eternally with the Houris, amid the bowers of
a Mohammedan paradise ? Is the future life to be one long
succession of pleasures or pains, in solitude or society ; a
reviviscence, somewhat brightened — of the present life, or
as unlike it as Omnipotence can effect ?
What has ever broken the awful silence here brooding
but the Gospel, and what is not its Adaptation to these
irrepressible longings of the soul ! A life hereafter, an
immortality certain, emerges from the thick gloom into
distinct vision, and as we trace out its elements they are
seen to correspond with the loftiest and purest aspirations
of which we are capable. Heaven, the city which hath
foundations, whose builder and makeris God — the treasure-

21
house of all that is fair and precious in the universe — the
native home of angels and final abode of the redeemed—
where sin and sorrow, error, fear, decay, weariness, are
unknown — and where the glorified Mediator is the medium
of the most rapturous communion between the spirit and
its Creator, — O can saint or seraph ask for more ! and
what must be the tendency of such truth to transform the
adamantine heart! Man's heart can indeed effectually
resist even such tendencies, when unaided : but whenever
the Spirit is pleased to use the appointed instrument, how
does He multiply its trophies. And what are these? Souls
begotten by the Truth, to be sanctified by the Truth, and
thus made heirs of full salvation.
In now closing after a somewhat extended consideration
of the subject, suffer me to notice for a moment the Error
which affirms, that the Instrumentality of the Truth in
promoting the soul's salvation is a matter of mere sovereign
appointment. There are those who admit that the Truth
is such an instrument, and that it is uniformly thus em
ployed wherever the heart is renewed and sanctified, but
who maintain that any other instrument would be as
effectual — were such the divine pleasure, and that all
instrumentality might be dispensed with — were such the
divine pleasure. Such views it is also said, preeminently
ascribe the due honor to Jehovah, as they represent the
work of conversion to be what it really is — a simple exer
cise of Omnipotence. But what views upon this subject,
or on any other, I would ask, really exalt God, but those
which magnify His wisdom ? Wisdom in Him is in its
essence the same attribute as in the angel, or as in man, —
the adoption of the best means for the promotion of the
best ends. When then the end is, the admission of men to
the holy joys of heaven, or what is virtually the same in
any single instance, the work of conversion and sanctifica-
tion, how must we presume that infinite Wisdom will
appropriately display its resources? Is it, in other words,

22
wise in God, according to all the conceptions that we are
capable of forming respecting this attribute, to draw the
soul to himself through the influence of the Truth, — his
own Truth, which he has precisely adapted in its rela
tions to the soul to this very result ? Or is it equal wisdom
on his part to employ any other means, or to dispense
with any instrumentality ? Do such queries allow of but
a single answer?
If any other means might have been as fitly thus ap
pointed, why — let me ask — is not the heart occasionally
converted through the influence of the wintry tempest, or
of the sunrise y by the waving of the summer harvests, or
the blooming of vernal flowers? Or if mere sovereign
Omnipotence may in itself fitly perform this peculiar work,
why do not the Caffre, and the Esquimaux occasionally
welcome the missionary with kindred love when first
landing on their shores; or why are not the literal stones
of the brook, thus changed into the spiritual children of
Abraham ?
It is not for man in his ignorance to affirm what is here
metaphysically possible, or impossible with God, but what
intimation the most distant does the Bible contain that
any instrumentality but that of the Truth is suppo'sable;
or that the heart of man has been capacitated to yield to
any other ?
Am I then asked, the intent of such interrogatories? Is
it not fit, I would answer, that, on such an occasion as the
present, the Adaptation of the Truth to promote the salva
tion of men, should be considered in its various relations ;
— the Adaptation of that Truth, which is the basis of all
preaching, and of all ministerial instruction ? Yes, I would
ever magnify the Truth, not only as embodying all that
we know of Jehovah in the wonders of his grace ; but as
also the only means by which that grace becomes sal
vation. Suffer me also to remark, that we here discern what is

23
the kind of Preaching, which God may be expected to bless.
It is not the preaching which consists of dissertations on
natural religion, disguised under evangelical phraseology ;
it is not elegant disquisitions on morality ; it is not mere
Biblical criticism — however elaborate and profound. As
little is it the argumentation or the deductions of pure
polemic theology, or any speculative discussion, however
ingenious — on unimportant topics. All such preaching is,
at the best, but an exhibition of the preacher's learning, or
of his acuteness. The only true preaching, if the views
of this discourse are scriptural ; the only preaching which
may be confidently expected to secure the divine blessing,
is that which consists of clear exhibitions — earnest incul
cations of "the Truth." The Truth, not in its mere external
evidences ; not as mainly embodied in rites and ordinances
and ecclesiastical organizations ; but in its internal and all-
pervading life, in its faith and godliness. The Truth, not
as primarily consisting of some one fundamental doctrine,
or paramount duty, but as constituting the complete circle
of evangelical faith and practice. Happy indeed are the
people who are regularly thus instructed; and such —
Brethren and Friends— will, I doubt not, be the preaching
of him who this day becomes your Pastor.

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