those of the most important character to man. We would repeat that the number of mysteries in the world now, is not so great as before the coming of Christ; that Nature has more mysteries than Revelation. Before that time, death and a future life were enveloped in mystery. Where are the dead? Do they yet live? and do they love? Parents and children, with breaking hearts asked these questions; but neither priest nor oracle could give an answer; the tombs were silent, and from the heavens came no voice of reply. - But this mystery no longer exists. Christianity has done it away. The dead live and they love. So far as the great truth of a Future Life is concerned, it is revealed and stands as clear before us as the mountain, from whose wooded sides the mists are rolled away by the rising sun. The character of God, before the coming of. Christ, was unknown. What is the character of this power, or of these powers, above me? It is the most important question that a human being can ask, for on it his destiny turns. But all before Christ's time was uncertain. From the ferocious religions of the North, to the sensual and luxurious religions of the South, a thousand answers were given. The wisest sage, when he approached this subject, was lost in doubt. All was mystery. But Christianity has removed the mystery that surrounded the character of Deity. It has disclosed that He is a Father. And by the light of his divine word, we read history and experience and our own hearts and the world around us, and we know that He is a Father. The mist - the mystery - has sunk to the earth, and the sun, full-orbed, shines clear in the heavens. The doctrine of God's forgiveness of sin, on repent ance, was a mystery. So far was it from being known before the coming of Christ, that it was hardly dreamed of. The favor of God was purchased, equivalent for equivalent, by loud honors, by the sheaves of corn, by hecatombs of oxen. The offerings that hung about the temples of the heathen, were but so many signs of their ignorant and unworthy notions of God. When men had done what the Gods had condemned, they did not hope for forgiveness on repentance; they purchased exemption from punishment by offering their treasures; by the sacrifice of what was dearest to them. And the sense of guilt became so oppressive sometimes, and the fear of divine vengeance so overwhelming, as to stifle the strongest affections, till parents again and again laid their own children on the altar, to appease the wrath of their deities. But this mystery, Christ has done away. He has taught that the favor of God returns and rests on the soul of every sinner who sincerely repents. Were there occasion, we might go on to describe other truths that were mysteries before the coming of the Savior, but which are so no longer. We do not mean to say that all mysteries are revealed by Christianity. Only those are revealed which it was important for us to understand. The shades are pressed back, the circle of light is enlarged by Christianityimmensely enlarged but that circle is still bounded by the infinity of mystery, which eternity only can disclose to us. But much has been made known. And here so far as religion is concerned comes in the work of Reason. That reason unaided, would never have solved these mysteries, would never have penetrated through them and discovered the truths which they veil, we have the evidence of forty centuries before Christ to show us. The unhappy errors of the ignorant, the baffled inquiries of the wise, the superstition and the skepticism of age after age, show how short-sighted reason is, and how great was the need of Revelation. But these truths once re vealed, and reason has a most important office, and one to which it is competent. It ponders these truths, comprehends them, appreciates them, appropriates them, gains light from them for the guidance of the will, and through them and in them discerns high and holy and everlasting objects for the affections. Here, it sometimes seems to be thought, are the limits for the use of Reason in Religion. To us it seems that here is but the beginning of its office. As Reason begins, by the aid of revelation, with conquering truth from the realm of mystery — it ends with carrying the soul forward on the other side, by the aid of revelation, into the realm of faith. But here we must explain in what sense we use the word Faith:- for it has several different significations in the Scriptures. We mean by it that faith which Abel and Enoch and Abraham and Moses had. In this its highest sense, it is a union of an intellectual conviction with the religious feelings. It is in other words Trust in God, founded on a perception of the reasonableness of that trust. The relation of child and parent may help to explain the way in which Reason prepares the way for and introduces Faith. The parent lays on the child a great variety of commands and duties. The child does not see the utility and reasonableness of a hundredth part of them. Very often it looks on what the parent requires, as the hardest and most unreasonable thing in the world. But, little by little, the child finds when it obeys the parent, that all things turn out well. It sees that the parent in all his commands is thinking only of its good. It sees the parent's love, sees that he punishes only that he may save his child from some greater evil. Here are materials derived from experience. On these the child's reason begins to act. On this basis of knowledge it rears a superstructure of Faith. It comes to the conviction that in those thousand cases when it cannot at all see the reasonableness and propriety of the commands of the parent, that still they must be wise and good commands. And it goes steadily and hopefully to do what is painful and disagreeable, with the feeling that it is the best thing for it to do; and this because the parent has ordered it. The child's reason cannot explain to itself nor understand the reasonableness of a tithe of the commands of the parent, but its reason is sufficient to enable it to put unlimited trust in the parent that all his commands are prompted by love and by kind and good purposes. The child's reason is sufficient to make it put its hand into its parent's, and say with perfect confidence, My father guide me. This it seems to us is precisely the office of reason in religion. There are a thousand allotments of Providence which are covered with darkness. We cannot comprehend them. But aided by experience and revelation, reason is sufficient to make us feel that they are kindly and wisely ordered. Reason is not sufficient to penetrate the Future and see the wisdom and goodness of those allotments, but it is sufficient to bring us to the footstool of our Heavenly Father, and to make us say with unlim ited trust and submission,-"Thy will be done. Do thou my Father guide me." Thus reason prepares the way for faith, and faith binds the soul to God in immortal bonds. We see this in a good man when called on to discharge painful duties. He may not be able to look through to the end and see how all shall terminate, but reason aids him in ascertaining the duty, and when ascertained, lays a foundation for an undoubting faith that its performance must result in good. All becomes clear. The scoffs and scorn, and persecution of a world are not able to shake his equal mind, or to turn him from the right. Reason has introduced him into the region of faith, and faith leans on God and receives strength from Him. the We see this connexion between reason and faith in cases of affliction. A parent is called to part with a child. The bereavement is shrouded in gloom. The Reason of the parent cannot discern, it can hardly meditate on, beneficent uses and purposes of this affliction. Yet reason has seen enough and learned enough, to give the conviction that all the doings of God are good. Reason cannot see the way itself clearly, but it can lead the pa. rent to Him who does see the way clear, and can cause him to bow before that Being in complete trust and submission. It can give origin to a faith so strong and entire, that the parent, even in the hour and anguish of bereavement, when his heart seems breaking within him, were the power given him to stay the flight of the departing spirit, even in that hour, he would not say, Come back, my child, come back, but rather in the midst of his tears, does he say- "The Lord taketh away, blessed be his holy name." |