SERMON XXI.

PSALM cxxxviii, 2.

For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

MANY things are lowered in our estimation, from being constantly enjoyed, or easily acquired. The water of the fountain, and the salubrious atmosphere, though essential to life, are received with feeble emotions of gratitude.

The word of God, as far back as our minds can remember, has been open before us, its precepts are familiar, its doctrines are believed; and we hardly recollect that this knowledge was not born with us, or that all the human race have not the same instruction.

To estimate the value of revelation, we must, in idea at least, visit the benighted pagans, witness the moral blindness of their minds, the dismal scenes of their polluted worship, their ignorance of God, and of divine truth. Go, hear the savage hold frantic converse with invisible spirits; or listen to the shrieks of the innocent babe, from the altar of Moloch. Now, tell us the value of revelation.

What then are some of the advantages of revelation?

To answer this inquiry, attending to such reflections as may occur, is our present design.

I. One great and decisive advantage of a revelation from God, over every other method of moral instruction, is its high authority. Here, revelation stands unrivalled. Much instruction may be communicated from man to man. From the resources of his own mind, from his own experience, from his observation abroad, man has often been a luminary of instruction. Poets and philosophers have reasoned well, respecting the rewards of virtue, the punishments of vice, the being, and attributes of God. But what practical influence followed? Who were made wiser or better? These, and other truths, were like a splendid palace, rising on a hill of moving sand. No confidence could be placed in their permanency. They were only the opinions of men. They might be true, they might be false. They allured the fancy, but they gave no pledge to the understanding. Like the brilliant meteor of midnight, they roused admiration; but afforded the pilgrim no safe guidance, in the journey of life.

Though they were men of powerful intellects, of splendid conceptions, of profound research; yet they did not satisfy or convince themselves. Cicero, and Socrates, and Plato, repeatedly express themselves in the greatest perplexity and doubt, respecting the most important docrines of religion. Not so is it with the heralds of revelation. Their first sentence is, "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah." "I come to

thee in the name of the Lord of hosts." They not only say this, but prove it. By their miracles, by the fulfilment of their prophecies, by other convincing circumstances, it is proved, that pious men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They proved that they were sent of God, that they were his messengers, to instruct and reclaim a lost world. Here is firm ground; here is solid rock. We know, blessed be God, in whom we believe. We know that we are not following cunningly devised fables.

The common people of Palestine, in a moment, perceived the difference between those teachers, who uttered their own opinions and notions, and the oracular voice of Him, "who spake as never man spake." He spoke as one having authority. This is the safety and comfort of those, who receive the word of God; they have divine authority for what they believe.

II. Another advantage of revelation is its evident import, its plain meaning.

Arguing from the cause to the effect, I boldly infer that a revelation from God must be plain and evident. A revelation, not intelligible is no revelation; nothing is revealed. Would God abuse his creatures with unintelligible propositions? Would he speak to them in an unknown tongue? Religious truth is ever the same, and ever distinct from falsehood.

To all this, will you oppose the incontrovertible fact, that a multitude of opinions exist? To this I make as simple a reply. Elevate the moral feelings of all men to a suitable and similar standard, and we shall hear but few complaints respecting the obscurity

of revelation.

But while men have such discordant

tones of moral feeling, and such different degrees of

must expect jarring The fault is not in the estimate the standard.

intellectual improvement, we opinions, and hostile creeds. standard, but in those, who Still, with all our ignorance, and prejudices, and parties, and creeds, and systems, it requires an effort of depravity, to explain away the great and leading doctrines of the bible. While the responses of the pagan oracles were generally ambiguous and equivocal, what is more evident than this great lesson of the sacred volume, Man has revolted from his God?

Will you say this is so evident on the face of society, as to need no revelation to confirm the fact? However palpable the fact may be to us, however irresistible the evidence, it is, after all, fully and distinctly learned only from the sacred oracles. The nature and extent of this moral mischief is taught nowhere but in the word of God. The heathen have had some superficial and vague impressions that human nature was in a disturbed and disordered state; but these obscure impressions were probably conveyed to them by tradition, from some ancient revelation.

Men, who never heard, that the race was once in a more pure and upright state, who have never heard that they ought to be more moral and pious, who have never heard an expectation of future improvement, think little more of reproaching themselves or others, for their moral obliquities, than of accusing the stars for not being luminous, as the sun and moon.

Because certain truths have been familiar from our infancy, we are apt to imagine they might have been known without a revelation. What truth is more evident than that the world was created by God? Every Tyro in science can demonstrate this truth. Yet man, with all his sagacity, did not originate this belief. "By faith," faith in the word of God, "we believe that the worlds were made." Had not this fact been revealed, it had never been known. Men would never have supposed, that the sun had always shone; that the sea had always dashed its billows on the shore; the forests always spread their shade over the land. From revelation alone we learn that "by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin." Though pagans have worshipped lords many, and gods many, though the hills have echoed their cries and prayers, and the heavens been darkened with the smoke of their sacrifices; yet no part of this splendid worship was designed to mend or reform the worshippers. In their numerous prayers, they do not ask to be made better. They thanked the gods for the common blessings of life; but ascribed all the praise to themselves for any progress in good dispositions.

A sense of sin, a broken heart, are not among their sacrifices. Our wickedness, a radical doctrine of revelation, is fully learned only from the word of God. Here it is announced with power and authority.

Redemption from this sin and guilt, is another undeniable doctrine of revelation. This is the keystone of the arch, the main pillar in the temple of rev