do, first of all, with a fact; and secondly, | A man will not become more of an aswith the reasons of that fact. The fact tronomer than he was before, nor more of is, that, on conversion, there is given to a chemist, nor more of a linguist. He man an increased measure of understand- will have no greater stock of knowledge ing. The reasons of this fact are to be than he before possessed of subjects looked for in another fact, namely, that which most occupy the learned of his conversion results from the entrance, or fellows. And if he would inform himopening, of God's words. It will be for self in such subjects, the man of religion our profit that we consider attentively must give himself to the same labour as both the fact and the reasons. And, first the man of no religion, and sit down, with of all, as to the fact that, on becoming a the same industry to the treatise and the man of godliness, the simple becomes grammar. The peasant, who becomes increasingly a man of understanding. not the philosopher simply because his mental powers have been undisciplined, will not leave the plough for the orrery, because his understanding is expanded by religion. Education might give, whilst religion will not give, the powers the philosophical bent. But there is a wide difference between the strengthening the mind, and the storing it with information.

Now it is, we believe, commonly observed by those who set themselves to examine the effects of religion upon different characters, that a general strengthening of the mind is amongst the usual accompaniments of piety. The instances, indeed, are of no rare occurrence in which a mental weakness, bordering almost on imbecility, has been succeeded by no inconsiderable soundness and strength of understanding. The case has come within our own knowledge of an individual who, before conversion, was accounted to say the least, of very limited capacities, but who, after conversion, displayed such power of comprehending difficult truths, and such facility in stating them to others, that men of staunch and well informed minds sought intercourse as a privilege. Something of the same kind has frequently been observed in regard to child

ren.

We may plead for the former effect without at all supposing the latter; though we shall come afterwards to see that information of the loftiest description is conveyed through the opening of the Bible, and that, consequently, if the impartment of knowledge be an improving thing to the faculties, an improvement, the most marked, must result from conversion. But we confine ourselves, at present, to the statement of a fact. We assert that, in all cases, a man is intellectually, as well as spiritually, advantaged through becoming a man of piety. He will have a clearer and less biassed judgment. His views will be wider, his estimates more correct. His understanding, having been exercised on truths the most stupendous, will be more competent for the examination of what is difficult or obscure. His reason, having learned that much lies beyond her province, as well as much within, will give herself to inquiries with greater humility and greater caution, and therefore, almost to a moral certainty, with greater success.

The grace of God has fallen, like the warm sun of the east, on their mental faculties, and, ripening them into the richness of the summer, whilst the body had as yet not passed through its spring time, has caused that grey hairs might be instructed by the tender disciple, and brought a neighbourhood roundadeath-bed to learn wisdom from the lips of a youth. And, without confining ourselves to instances which may be reckoned peculiar and extraordinary, we would assert that, in all cases, a marked change passes over the human mind, when the heart is re- And though we may thus seem rather newed by the influences of God's Spirit. to account for the fact than to prove it, We are not guilty of the absurdity of let it be remembered that this fact, being maintaining that there are supernaturally an effect, can only be established, either communicated any of those stores of in- by pointing out causes, or by appealing formation, which are ordinarily gained to experience. The appeal to experience by a patient and pains-taking application. is, perhaps, the correcter mode of the two

And we, therefore, content ourselves with | truths which inspired writers were comsaying, that those who have watched missioned to make known. Thus the character most narrowly will bear out the question before us is reduced to thisstatement, that the opening of God's what connexion subsists between believword is followed, ordinarily, by a surprising in the heart the words of God, and ing opening of man's faculties. If you having the understanding enlightened take the rude and illiterate labourer, you and strengthened? will find that regeneration proves to him Now our great difficulty is not in finda sort of intellectual, as well as a moral ing an answer to this question, but in renovation. There shall generally be no arranging and condensing our material of ploughman in the village who is so reply. We would, first of all, remind sound, and shrewd, and clear-headed a you that the truths, which have been man, as the one who is most attentive to commended to the belief, are the most the salvation of his soul. And if an indi-sublime and spirit-stirring of all that can vidual have heretofore been obtuse and unintelligent, let him be converted, and there shall hereafter be commonly a quickness and animation; so that religion, whose prime business it is to shed light upon the heart, shall appear, at the same time, to have thrown fire into the eye. We do not, indeed, assert that genius and talent are imparted at the new birth. But that it is amongst the characteristics of godliness, that it elevates man in the scale of intellectual being, that it makes him a more thinking, and a more inquiring, and a more discriminating creature, that it both rectifies and strengthens the mental vision; we are guilty of no exaggeration, if we contend for this as universally true; and this, if not more than this, is asserted in the statement, that "the entrance of God's words giveth light, it giveth understand-oceans which can be fathomed, and weighing to the simple."

But we are now, in the second place, to consider certain of the reasons of this fact. What is there in the entrance, or, more strictly, in the opening, of God's words, which may fairly account for so singular a result? We begin by reminding you that the entrance, or opening of God's word, denotes the application of scriptural truth to the heart and conscience by that Almighty agent, the Holy Ghost. Hence a saving, influential, belief in the disclosures of revelation is the distinguishing property of the individuals referred to in our text. And in inquiring, therefore, how it comes to pass that understanding is given to the simple, we are to proceed on the supposition that he is endowed with real faith in those mighty VOL. I.-5

engage the attention of mankind. They are the truths of eternity, and their dimensions correspond with their duration. And we feel that there must be an amazing demand upon the mind, when, after long years of confinement to the petty affairs of this perishing state, it is summoned to the survey of those unmeasured wonders which crowd the platform of the future. I take a man whose attention has been engrossed by commerce, and whose thoughts have been given wholly to the schemings and workings of trade. May we not affirm that, when the grace of God takes possession of this man's soul, there will occur an extraordinary mental revolution, and that, too, brought round by the magnificence of the subjects with which his spirit has newly grown conversant? In place of

ed, and measured, there is an expanse before him without a shore. In place of carrying on intercourse with none but the beings of his own race, separated from him by a few leagues of distance, he sends his vessels, as it were, to lands tenanted by the creatures of a more glorious intelligence, and they return to him freighted with a produce costlier, and brighter, than earthly merchandise. In place of acquaintance with no ledger, save the one in which he casts up the debtor and creditor of a few fellow-worms, there arises before him the vast volume of doomsday, and his gazings are often on the final balance sheet of the human population. And we simply demand whether you think it possible, that there should be this overpowering accession to

money, you will ordinarily find him, in every respect, a narrow-minded being. His intellect, whatever its natural capacities, will embrace little or nothing beyond modes of accumulation, and will grow practically unable to overpass the circles of profit and loss. It is just the same if a man's love be fixed on reputation. We hold it impossible there should be enlarged views, when those views centre in one's self. There may be lofty and far-spreading schemes; for ambition can look upon a world, and think it too small for its marchings. But so long as those schemes are schemes for the aggrandizement of self, they may take a creation for their sphere, and yet require to be described as pitiful and niggardly. It is no mark of an ample mind that it can be filled with an unit. And many a philanthropist, labouring quietly, and

the objects which occupy the mind, and yet that the mind itself should not grow, and enlarge, and strengthen? The mind which deals with both worlds cannot, in the nature of things, be so contracted as that which deals only with one. Can that be a large understanding which is conversant with nothing but the scenery of a finite existence; or, rather, if heretofore the understanding have grasped nothing but the facts of an hour and a league, and these have appeared to crowd it to the full, must there not have taken place a scarcely measurable enlargement if eternity and infinity now be gathered within its spreadings? Besides, there will be a sounder and correcter judgment upon events and probabilities, when reference is always made to the first cause, than when regard is had only to second causes. There will be a fairer and more honest deliberation, when the passions are under unobtrusively, for the well-being of a the sway of divine promises and threatenings, than when there is no higher restraint than the ill-defined ones of human honour. So that it would seem altogether to be expected that, on the mere account of the might and vastness of the truths, into acquaintance with which the mind is introduced, the mind itself will send forth latent and unsuspected powers, or even shoot up into a new stature which shall put to shame its former dwarfishness. Thus the opening of God's words is accompanied, or followed, by the rousing up of dormant energies. The sphere, which the sandgrain seemed to fill, is required to dilate, and take in immensity. The arm which plucked a leaf, or lifted a pebble, must strive to wrench up the oak, and raise the mountain. And in striving it strengthens. The mind, employed on what is great, becomes itself greater; busied with what is bright, it becomes itself brighter. Let the man, therefore, have been even of weak mental capacity-conversion will give something of nerve and tone to that capacity. Besides, it is a thing worthy your remark, and so obvious as scarcely to be overlooked, that all love, except the love of God, reduces and contracts the soul. If a man be a covetous man, fastening the might of his affections upon

solitary parish, or neighbourhood, has thereby proved himself a larger hearted, and a larger souled, creature than an Alexander, boundless in his graspings; and that, too, upon the clear and straight-forward principle, that a heart which holds only one's-self, is a narrower and more circumscribed thing than another which contains a multitude of our fellows. The truth is that all objects of love, except God, are smaller than the heart itself. They can only fill the heart, through the heart being contracted and narrowed. The human soul was framed, in its first creation, to that wideness as to be capable of enjoying God, though not of fully comprehending Him. And it still retains so much of its glorious original, that "all other things gather it in and straiten it from its natural size." Whereas the love of God not only occupies it to the full, but, inasmuch as in its broadest enlargement it is still infinitely too narrow for God, this love, as it were, doth stretch and expand it, enabling it to hold more, and giving it, at the same time, more to hold. Thus, since the converted man loves God, and this new object of love demands amplitude of dwelling, we contend that, as a consequence on conversion, there will be extension of the whole mental apparatus. And if you find the man hereafter, as we

are bold to say you will find him, exer- can truth make with the intellect, when cising a correcter judgment, and displaying a shrewder sense, than had before time seemed in his possession, you have only to advance, in explanation of the phenomenon, that "the entrance of God's words giveth understanding to the simple."

there is something in its character which opposes the inclination! And what do we infer from these undeniable facts? Simply, that whilst the moral functions are disordered, so likewise must be the mental. Simply, that so long as the heart is depraved and disturbed, the But we may state yet more strongly, mind, in a certain degree, must itself be and also multiply our reasons why, on out of joint. And if you would give the becoming religious, the simple man should mind fair play, there must be applied become more a man of understanding. straightways, a corrective process to the Let it just be considered that man, whilst heart. You cannot tell what a man's left in his state of natural corruption, is understanding is, so long as he continues a being, in every respect, disorganized."dead in trespasses and sins." There Under no point of view is he the crea- is a mountain upon it. It is tyrannized ture that he was, as fashioned, originally, over by lusts and passions, and affections after the image of his Maker. He can and appetites. It is compelled to form no longer act out any of the great ends of wrong estimates, and to arrive at wrong his creation; a total disability of loving conclusions. It is not allowed to receive and obeying the Almighty having been as truth what the carnal nature has an fastened on him, by his fore-father's interest in rejecting as falsehood. And apostasy. And when this degraded and what hope, then, is there that the intellect ruined being is subjected to the saving will show itself what it actually is? It operations of the Spirit of God, he is said may be gigantic, when it seems only to be renewed, or remodelled, after the puny; respectable, when it passes for long lost resemblance. The conscience despicable. And thus we bring you back becomes disquieted; and this is convic- again to the argument in hand. We tion. The heart and its affections are prove to you that a weak mind may be given back to God; and this is conversion. so connected with a wicked heart, that to Now we do not say, that, by this great act on the wickedness would be going moral renovation, the injuries which the far towards acting on the weakness. Oh, fall caused to the human intellect are fatal downfall of man's first parent-the necessarily repaired. Nevertheless, we image could not be shivered in its moral shall assert that the moral improvement features, and remain untouched in its inis just calculated to bring about an intel- tellectual. Well has it been said that lectual. You all know how intimately possibly "Athens was but the rudiments mind and body are associated. One plays of Paradise, and an Aristotle only the rubwonderfully on the other, so that disease bish of Adam." But if there be a moral of body may often be traced to gloom of renovation, there will, from the connexion mind, and, conversely, gloom of mind be now traced, be also, to a certain extent, proved to originate in disease of body. an intellectual. And hence, since at the And if there be this close connexion be- entrance of God's words the man is retween mental and corporeal, shall we newed in holiness, we have a right to suppose there is none between mental expect that he will also be renewed in and moral? On the contrary, it is clear understanding. If additional mental cathat the association, as before hinted, is pacity be not given, what he before posof the strictest. What an influence do sessed is allowed to develope itself; and the passions exercise upon the judgment! this is practically the same as though How is the voice of reason drowned in there were a fresh gift. If he receive not the cry of impetuous desires! To what actually a greater measure of understandabsurdities will the understanding give ing, still, inasmuch as the stern embargo assent, when the will has resolved to which the heart laid on the intellect is take us their advocacy! How little way mercifully removed, he is, virtually,

under the same circumstances as if a new | own, it is evident that I occupy, practiportion were bestowed. Thus, with all cally, the position of one to whom has the precision which can fairly be required been given an increased measure of underin the interpretation of such a phrase, standing; and what, consequently, is to we prove that, since man is elevated in prevent the simple man, whose rule of the scale of intelligence through being life is God's word, from acting in all raised from his moral degradation, we circumstances, whether ordinary or exare bound to conclude with the Psalmist, traordinary, with such prudence, and that "the entrance of God's words giv-discretion, and judgment, that he shall eth light, it giveth understanding to the make good, to the very letter, the assersimple." tion, that "the entrance of God's words giveth light, it giveth understanding to

We have yet one more reason to advance, explanatory of the connexion the simple?"

single discourse the varied reasons which might be given for the fact under review. But the causes already adduced will serve, at least, to show that the fact is by no means unaccountable; but that, on the contrary, the connexion is so necessary between spiritual improvement and intellectual, that amongst the accompaniments of a renewed heart we may justly reckon a clearer head.

We desire, in conclusion, to press upon you once more the worth of the Bible, and then to wind up our subject with a word of exhortation.

which we set ourselves to trace. You Now it is not possible to gather into a observe that the entrance, or the opening, of God's words denotes such an application to the soul of the truths of revelation that they become influential on the life and conversation. Now, why should a man who lives by the Bible be, practically, possessed of a stronger and clearer understanding than, apparently, belonged to him ere this rule was adopted? The answer may be found in the facts, that it is a believer's duty, whensoever he lacks wisdom, to ask it of God, and a believer's privilege never to be sent empty away. In all those cases which require the exercise of a sound discretion, which Of all the boons which God has bepresent opposite difficulties, rendering stowed on this apostate and orphaned decision on a course painfully perplexing, creation, we are bound to say that the who is likely to display the soundest Bible is the noblest and most precious. judgment? the man who acts for him- We bring not into comparison with this self, or another who seeks, and obtains, illustrious donation the glorious sundirection from above? We plead not for light, nor the rich sustenance which is rash and unfounded expectations of a poured forth from the storehouses of the divine interference on our behalf. We earth, nor that existence itself which simply hold fast to the promises of Scrip- allows us, though dust, to soar into comture. And we pronounce it to be beyond panionship with angels. The Bible is all peradventure, that, if the Bible be the developement of man's immortality, true, it is also true that they who have the guide which informs him how he been translated from darkness to light are may move off triumphantly from a connever left without the aids of God's tracted and temporary scene, and grasp Spirit, unless they seek not those aids, destinies of unbounded splendour, eteror seek them not earnestly and faith-nity his lifetime and infinity his home. fully. If I have known the entrance, or It is the record which tells us that this the opening, of the word of our God, then, rebellious section of God's unlimited I have practically learned such lessons empire is not excluded from our Maker's as these: "lean not to thine own under- compassions; but that the creatures who standing;"" in all thy ways acknowledge move upon its surface, though they have him, and he shall direct thy paths." basely sepulchred in sinfulness and corAnd if I am not to lean to mine own un-ruption the magnificence of their nature, derstanding, and if I have the privilege are yet so dear in their ruin to Him who of being directed by a higher than mine first formed them, that he hath bowed