was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.-Matthew xxvii. 3, 4, 5. 255 And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter; and Peter re- membered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto 61, 62. 267 An awful Visitation religiously improved. Surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.-Job xiv. 18, 19. 325 .. SERMON I. Character and Claims of Revelation. JOHN V. 39. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES; FOR IN THEM YE THINK YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE; AND THEY ARE THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME. THE works of God confessedly invite and deserve investigation. The more carefully they are examined, the more fully and strikingly they reveal his wisdom, power, and benevolence. Even the scrutiny of philosophical research, when rightly directed, the farther it has been urged, has invariably led to wider and more accurate discoveries of the divine character. But such examination has never been thus directed by man's native powers. Left to himself, man has only departed farther and farther from those truths, which the simple school of nature teaches. And when it was found, that, amidst the grandest and most impressive features of the divine wisdom and goodness stamped upon the fabric of his material works, man by wisdom knew not God, by the loftiest stretch of his unaided powers gained no right views of his character, it pleased him, in condescension to that weakness and ignorance which sin brought over the human mind, to step aside from the course of his creative operations, and to disclose himself to man by intelligible enunciations of his own holy nature, his spiritual requirements, and his merciful designs. He gave to our world the volume of his grace. |