"And the Lord spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho ; and behold the land of Canaan, which E give unto the children of Esrael for a possession; and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy 132 "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was "Hear ye, mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with His people, and He will plead with Esrael. 66 SERMON XII GOD'S WAY IN THE SANCTUARY PAGE Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God 297 SERMON I JACOB'S VISION AND VOW "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."-GEN. xxviii. 12. IT is the registered saying of a man eminent alike for We are talent and piety, that he had never found such strong arguments against the Bible in the writings of infidels as had suggested themselves to his own mind. inclined to suppose that this individual expressed what many have experienced. We can readily believe that doubts and difficulties will occasionally be presented to those who read the sacred volume as the Word of God which never meet the sceptical, who read only that they may object. There would be nothing to surprise us if such could be proved generally the fact. Where there is a spiritual perception apparent inconsistencies with the Divine character will be more readily detected than where there is a decided aversion to all that is holy. It should moreover be remembered that Satan has a great deal to do with the injecting sceptical thoughts into the mind, and we may fairly expect that he will so proportion his attack to its subject as to suggest the strongest arguments where there is most to overcome. The man who is studying the Bible with the express design of proving it a forgery will have little assistance, as it were, from Satan in prosecuting the attempt: he already disbelieves the Bible, and this is enough for our great adversary the devil. But the man, on the contrary, who is studying the Bible as an inspired book will be continually beset and vehemently assaulted by Satan. There is here a great object to be gained, the shaking his confidence in the Divine origin of Scripture; and it may, therefore, well be expected that the devil will exert all his ingenuity in devising, and all his earnestness in suggesting objections. We do not intend to follow out the train of thought thus opened before you. We have made these remarks as introductory to one which you may have often made for yourselves, namely, that sceptics, as though blinded and bewildered, frequently adduce as arguments against the Bible what are really arguments in its favour. For example, how constantly and eagerly are the faults and crimes of the Old Testament saints brought forward and commented on! In how triumphant a tone is the question proposed, Could these have been men "after God's own heart?" Yet certainly it does not need much acuteness to discover that the recording these faults and crimes is an evidence of the truth of Holy Writ. A mere human biographer, anxious to pass off his hero as specially in favour with God, would not have ascribed to him actions which a righteous God must both disapprove and punish. Every writer of common discernment must have foreseen the objections which such ascriptions would excite if, therefore, he had been only inventing a tale, he would have avoided what was almost sure to bring discredit on the narrative. So that there is a manifestation of honesty |