Then was it, after all these experiments had been tried and tried in vain-then was it that the world's fancied highest wisdom appeared on the scene in the form of Infidelity. The existence of a Deity was denied, "The fool said in his heart, there is no God;' and, could he have had his wish, he would not only have dethroned the Almighty, but would have blotted out from his own creation, the Being at the thought of whom man, as a sinner, had been made to tremble. Atheism braved heaven's thunders. It raised its altars—it proclaimed to its deluded votaries, immunity from all punishment, and all responsibility, and freedom to commit all manner of iniquity without let or hinderance; it allowed full and unrestrained scope to every lust, however vile, and to every passion, however violent; it laughed to scorn every principle of righteousness, and every motive to virtue; it overleaped, or would break down, every barrier which God has in his mercy reared to keep back man from guilt. Thus infidelity stalked abroad, in ancient times, as it does in our own day. It received countenance from the sentiments and conduct, the influence and example, of monarchs, and statesmen, and philosophers. But it failed then, as it fails now, in securing the result it promised and contemplated-the real happiness of mankind. By whatever specious names it may call itself-philosophy, liberalism, socialism, enlightenment, it utterly fails in making men wiser or better. In the ancient world, before the coming of Christ, it had many powerful auxiliaries, and it prevailed, and was professed among the higher and middle classes, to a great extent, in a measure supplanting the old superstitions. But the Being who

permitted it to have existence, and permitted it in his mysterious wisdom to attain the ascendency for a time among his creatures here below, at length caused his voice to be heard, and announced, that now that the world had added this last experiment to all the others, which like it had failed, it was full time that he himself should come forth, and reveal for the world's cure, the remedy which he himself had devised. "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." But upon the detailed consideration of this, which is the third and last head of discourse, we cannot at present enter.

SERMON XI.

"For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."-1 CORINTHIANS, i. 21.

IN formerly discoursing from these words, we remarked that the general purport is evidently this— viz. that when, in accordance with God's wise arrangement, a fair and full trial had been made of the native unaided powers of man; and when it had been clearly ascertained, not from theory but from experiment, not from fancy but from fact, that he was unable of himself to attain to a saving knowledge of God, or secure the glorious ends of religion and virtuethen, God was pleased to proclaim the doctrine of the cross, the preaching of which the world deemed folly, and yet by the very foolishness of preaching which doctrine, he saved and yet saves them that believe. Now, all this ignorance of God, says the text, was permitted and appointed in the exercise of God's sovereign wisdom. For it was desirable that the powers of man should be fully tested before the gospel was introduced, in order to show that it had not originated in, and was not dependent upon him.

Sufficient time, moreover, had been given for the

experiment. It had lasted four thousand years; and it was an experiment which was made under the most favourable circumstances. The human faculties had had time to ripen and expand. Some of the mightiest minds had been brought to bear upon the subject— generation after generation had profited by those who had gone before them ; so that there might have been the accumulated and concentrated wisdom of centuries. But all, all, was ineffectual-Egypt, and Greece, and Rome had brought their science and philosophy to the task in vain: the wisdom of the heathen world had been tried and was found wanting.

If, then, the sages of the east and the philosophers of the west had been baffled in the pursuit of this wisdom of God, it was needless to hope that the common people could ever attain to it. The experiment had been fairly and fully made, and the result was before the world. Then was it that, when the world, i. e. the men of the world, and specially the philosophers' of the world, by their renowned and boasted wisdom, had landed in ignorance of God, God was pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. What an affront to wisdom, that foolishness should succeed where it had failed!

We proposed from the text to bring under your view, the world's great disease, man's fruitless remedies, God's effectual cure. To the two former points we have already adverted. The world's great disease we found to be characterised by a variety of sympviz. guilt, impurity, helplessness, alienation from God, and utter misery. We likewise glanced at some of the fruitless remedies which, before the promulgation of the gospel, man had employed,—such as

toms

the arts of peace, the art of war, the art of legislation, the services and sacrifices of idolatry and superstition, the schemes of philosophy, the gloomy path of scepticism, infidelity, atheism. But all proved unavailing to heal man's deadly plague.

Having now seen, then, how every remedy failed that was devised by man, let us next contemplate, in the third and last place, God's own effectual cure.

"For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Now, you will observe that, in providing a remedy for a world that was sinful, polluted, alienated, helpless, miserable, and that had failed in every experiment made through successive ages to relieve its own malady—the first thing wanting, the main requisite for a perfect cure, was a remedy for man's guilt.

And here, brethren, when we contemplate God providing such a remedy, we do not find him changing one iota of his essential character-we do not see him foregoing the claims of his justice, and proclaiming the transgressor at once free. We do not find him yielding one single atom of his righteous demands in reference to man's fallen race, while he proposes to make them happy. We do not find the honour of God as King, Lawgiver, Judge, at all sinking in the remedy he devises and proposes for the sinner's exaltation. No, we find him still peerless in his majesty as before; his law fulfilled, his justice vindicated, his holiness unsullied, his integrity unimpeached and unimpaired, and the high honours of his throne maintained. And, as he knows well the extent of human guilt and the depth of human corruption—as he has