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SUBJECT:-Man Speaking to God.

Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God."-Job xiii. 3.

Analysis of Homily the Two Hundred and Sixth.

God, many speak against
Of the last there are two

THERE is a great deal of human speaking that has to do with God. Most speak about God, and some speak to God. classes. Those who occasionally speak to Him under the pressure of trial. Most, perhaps, do this; for the soul in agony instinctively turns to the Everlasting Father. It was under the pressure of trial that Job now resolved to speak to the " Almighty." Trials often drive us to God. The other class are those who regularly speak to Him as the rule of their life. These are the true Christ-like men. They can say, "Our fellowship is with the Father." Now, we shall take the simple but unquestionable fact, that men do speak to God, as showing four important things :—

I, SPEAKING TO GOD SHOWS THE HIGHEST PRACTICAL RECOGNITION OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. The fact that a man speaks to God, either under the pressure of trial, or under the influence of the true Christian sentiment, shows— First A heart-belief in the fact of the Divine existence. Who would speak to an object in whose existence it did not believe, or even of which it had any doubts? Secondly: A heart-belief in the personality of the Divine existence. What rational soul would speak to a vague impersonality? Man may justly infer the personality of God from his own personality. He is conscious that he himself is a person—a selfmoving individuality-a moral cause; and from that he may infer the personality of his Maker. Can the workman, he may reason, put into his work that which does not already exist in him? What I see in the painting, statue, or machine, is in the mind of the artist, statuary, or machinist. No one

can impart what he does not possess.

This is an axiom. I

have personality; the Being, therefore, who made me must have it. But far more convincing than this is the argument for God's personality, from man's instinctive tendency to speak to Him. Thirdly: A heart-belief in the nearness of the Divine existence. What rational soul would attempt to speak to a being whom he felt to be beyond the reach of his voice. The soul that is true to its instincts need not "call to the sun, or ask the roaring sea for its Creator." It feels that He is present the nearest of the near. Fourthly: A heartbelief in the impressibility of the Divine existence. What rational soul would speak to a being on whom it felt that it could make no impression? Your logic may prove that the GREAT ONE cannot be impressed by anything His creatures say, but the human heart spurns your logic. It has no question about the Divine susceptibility. These heartbeliefs are biblical doctrines. Infidels cannot destroy the Bible of the heart.

II. SPEAKING TO GOD SHOWS THE TRUEST RELIEF OF OUR SOCIAL NATURE. Social relief consists principally in the free and full communication to others of all the thoughts and emotions that must affect the heart. Intelligences seem to us not made to retain as secrets their thoughts, but to impart them. Angels, we think, have no secret thoughts. Like plants, every ray of light they catch from the Great Centre they fling forthwith upon the sphere in which they Much of man's misery arises from having within him an accumulation of painful thoughts and anxieties. Now, before a man will fully unbosom his soul to another he must be certified of three things. First: That the other feels the deepest interest in him. If he has any doubt of this he will decline opening his heart. Who has such an interest in us as God? Secondly: That the other

move.

will make full allowance for the infirmities of his nature. If he has any doubt of this he will not frankly tell his weaknesses, &c. Who is so acquainted with our infirmities

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as God? "He knoweth our frame," &c. Thirdly: That the other will be disposed and able to assist in our trials. Who would tell his trials to another without this conviction? Who can question the willingness and capability of God to help. Where, then, can you obtain such social relief as in speaking to God? Tell Him everything: pour out your soul before Him.

III. SPEAKING TO GOD SHOWS THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD OF SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE. Were we to admit, what we know to be contrary to the fact, that there are no answers to prayer, we would still urge its importance, on the ground of its reflex influence upon the soul. First: The effort of speaking to God is most quickening to the soul. Let me be called to speak to an individual of known intellectual superiority, and the very act will strike a quickening impulse to the heart, and give a new proclivity to thought. How much more quickening influence must be felt in feeling ourselves in the presence of the Infinite Intellect. Secondly: The effort of speaking to God is most humbling to the soul. Proud men are the men who associate with their inferiors. The mind, in felt contact with its superior, is ever humbled. How much more true is this of fellowship with God. What said Isaiah?"Woe is me!" Pride hides its head-expires in the presence of the vast. Thirdly: The effort of speaking to God is most spiritualizing to the soul. It breaks the spell of the world upon us; it frees us from secular associations; it detaches us from the earth; and it makes us feel that there is nothing real but spirit, nothing great but God, nothing worthy of man but assimilation to, and fellowship with, the Infinite. Make an earnest effort to speak to God, my brother, if you would have your soul quickened into a new life, and lifted to a right and worthy destiny.

IV. SPEAKING TO GOD SHOWS THE HIGHEST HONOR OF A CREATED SPIRIT. First The act implies a great capacity. What can show the greatness of the human soul so much as

the fact that it can speak to God? The brutes—even the greatest of them-are infinitely too low to speak to us. There is an impassible gulf between us and them. But we can speak to God. We have something of the Godlike in us, else we could have no communion with Him. Man, reverence thy nature. Thou art an emanation of the Infinite; thou art the offspring of God. Secondly: The act implies a great distinction. Men esteem it a great distinction to speak to an earthly sovereign; but what distinction is that compared to the distinction of speaking to Him by whom "kings reign," the only Potentate? But why is man allowed this distinction? Not because of the greatness of his nature. Fallen angels are perhaps greater, and yet they are banished. Not because of the excellence of his character, for he is depraved. But in consequence of what Christ has done on his behoof. "We have boldness," &c. He is the Way. "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Through Him all may approach.

SUBJECT:-The Moral History of a Rising Soul; or, the Way up from Depravity to Holiness.

"Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."-Isa. vi. 5, 8.

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Analysis of Homily the Two Hundred and Seventh.

WHILST holiness is the normal, depravity is the actual, state of man. A restoration to his spiritual condition is his profoundest necesity-his want of wants. The recovery of holiness involves the recovery of all other good. For this

the masses unconsciously sigh and struggle, the thoughtful and the true devoutly toil and pray. How to rise from one state to the other is the question of questions-the great question of life. What is the path of the soul up from the depths of depravity into which it has fallen, to those sunny heights of holiness where unfallen spirits live an exultant life? If the transit is practicable-and scriptural testimony and millions of facts show that it is-there must be a pathway;-a certain fixed and definite course, which, if followed, will conduct the soul from the lowest state of sin to the supernal height of holiness. What is the moral path? Now, there seems to us to be, in the nature of the case, five stages through which the soul must pass in this all-important and glorious transit. In the first stage it must have a vision of the Great Ruler as the holiest of beings;—in the second stage it must have a profound consciousness of its fallen state;—in the third stage it must have a removal of its crushing sense of guilt ;-in the fourth stage it must have an ever-open and sensitive ear to the voice of God;—and, in the fifth stage, it must have a hearty readiness to do whatever the Supreme Will commands.

Now, these stages seem to be very distinctly marked in the sketch of the prophet's spiritual autobiography, which we have in the passage before us.

I. A VISION OF THE GREAT RULER AS THE HOLIEST OF BEINGS IS THE FIRST AND NECESSARY STAGE OF THE SOUL FROM DEPRAVITY TO HOLINESS. Isaiah had this now. "Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." He "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." He saw His Seraphic messengers, and heard them chant His holiness, in strains so vehement and loud that the "posts of the door" of the great temple shook with the verberations of their voice. We are not required to believe that Isaiah saw all this with his outward eye, and heard all this with his outward ear. He may not mean by "mine eyes" his visual organs, made of dust, which can

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