SERMON XVI.

ISAIAH XLII. 16.

I WILL BRING THE BLIND BY A WAY THAT THEY KNEW NOT; I WILL LEAD THEM IN PATHS THAT THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN: I WILL MAKE DARKNESS LIGHT BEFORE THEM, AND CROOKED THINGS STRAIGHT. THESE THINGS WILL I DO UNTO THEM, AND NOT FORSAKE THEM."

THE promises of God are not only "exceeding great and precious," but exceeding manifold and varied. Now the eye is caught as by some single star, shining intensely bright in the midnight sky—and now a clustered constellation seems to burst on the sight-and then another-and another—" so that if a man could tell the stars of heaven and be able to number them," then should the glorious galaxy of scripture promises also be numbered. Whatever may be our necessities, or our sorrows, our difficulties, or our doubts; yet, if there be any balm in a Divine pledge, no one can say that he is "straitened in God." Look, for example, at the

text-and learn to blush for the unbelief which keeps your soul "cast down, and your spirit disquieted within you." What a chain of gracious assurances, strung like "goodly pearls" together, is here discovered to the spiritual "merchantman!” Each of them might make a monarch rich-yet all of them are freely offered to you! Brethren, where your faith to appropriate the treasure? In the single verse which I have read for the text there are four distinct promises, each rising above the other in grace and consolation, and requiring a separate, though of necessity, a brief consideration. They are made by God, under the character of a Guide, and they represent him as undertaking

is

I. TO BRING SINNERS INTO THE RIGHT WAY.
II. TO LEAD THEM IN THE WAY.

III. TO REMOVE DIFFICULTIES OUT OF THE WAY.
IV. TO CONTINUE HIS GUIDANCE

THE END.

EVEN UNTO

I. The first promise is addressed to "the ignorant, and them that are out of the way "-wandering in the wilderness of sin. It is in this situation that God finds all his children-not only strangers from "the way of peace," and life, and salvation, but incapable of returning to it-inasmuch as they are

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blind." It is a humbling truth, my brethrencruelly humbling to the pride of man-yet still it is God's own truth-that of all "the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven," not one found his way thither of himself

-not one is there now, who was not first apprehended of Christ, when he was "groping at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness."

There are those in this congregation, who are not wanting in natural understanding-nay there may be some of master minds, and philosophic range of intellect. Consult them as to the business of this life-as to the way in which the course of this world should be ordered-as to the aspect of the political horizon-and you will find them oracles. Like the Jews of our Lord's own day, they "can discern the face of the earth and the sky;" but as to spiritual things, the work of grace, the life of faith;-oh! it is midnight at their heart; -they lack the spiritual organ of discernment ; they have not faith; and " he that lacketh this is blind," as to those things at least, which are not seen and eternal.

Dear brethren, let me ask, is this plain? Is this level to your comprehension? The complaint is sometimes made that you cannot understand the statements of the preacher. But forgive me if I remind you of the proverb which says, ' None are so blind as those who will not see'-and if in applying this proverb to you I should say, None are so dull as those who will not understand.' I shrewdly suspect that truths are sometimes told from this pulpit, which it is not convenient for you to receive, and which you therefore dismiss as impossible that you should understand. Now let me earnestly and affection

ately invite the most simple of you all to hearken to this most simple statement, (and no less would I challenge the attention of the most intelligent and gifted,) that of yourselves, and till a positive miracle takes place in your souls, you are totally and hopelessly "blind" as to the way of salvation. I will descend yet lower in the way of explanation, and dropping all of figurative, (even though they be the words of scripture itself,) will say, that no individual in this congregation, no man of woman born, by his own unassisted reason, knows, or can know, or cares to know, anything of the true way to eternal life. He is as ignorant of the subject, and of all connected with it-his own state of guilt, and ruin, and danger-the refuge provided the foundation laid-the Lamb slainas a blind man is of the beauties of the landscape, or of the colours of the rainbow; and hence it is that he is said to be spiritually blind. The genius of a Newton, (and he would have been the first to acknowledge it,) though it might suffice to measure worlds, and trace the comet's eccentric orbit, would never of itself have discovered the pole-star of salvation-would never have directed him to the cross of Christ. I know, brethren, that there is much of unbelief as to this point-and that not a few now before me are of opinion, that their own natural reason, honestly and judiciously used, would suffice to put them right, and keep them right. Never was a greater fallacy. It starts with a false assumption-for it assumes that man

has the power thus consistently and impartially to employ his reason. It forgets, ignorantly or wilfully, the thousand instances in which reason is made the slave of feeling and inclination-it does not recognize in short, the fundamental truth, that every faculty of the mind, no less than every affection of the heart, is warped and perverted by the fall. The arrow might have reached the mark, had there been no gusts of passion to make it swerve from its direction. As a mere doctrine, men may and will deny this; but facts are stubborn truths, and to facts, notorious and incontrovertible, I would appeal, when the question is started, 'Will not human reason steer the soul into a saving knowledge of truth?' Look at Athens, Rome, Nineveh,-yes, and in later days, I would say, look to France. Was there any lack in either of these, (so far as history and observation are worthy of credit) was there any lack of talent, or science, or philosophy? In each and all, human reason seems to have reared her throne. The musings of ancient sages, the discoveries of ancient philosophers, are still the delight and study of all who aspire to a reputation for learning and enlargement of mind. Yet what did it lead to then?—and in modern days, what has the same experiment led to-save an affecting illustration of the inspired assertion, the world by wisdom. knew not God?" I appeal no further than to the known scepticism of the many, and the flagrant immorality of all, in proof of the position. And