SERMONS. I. [Preached April 29, 1849.] GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 1 COR ii. 9, 10.-"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." THE preaching of the Apostle Paul was rejected by numbers in the cultivated town of Corinth. It was not wise enough, nor eloquent enough, nor was it sustained by miracles. The man of taste found it baibarous; the Jew missed the signs and wonders which he looked for in the new dispensation; and the rhetori cian missed the convincing arguments of the schools. To all which the apostle was content to reply, that his judges were incompetent to try the question. The princes of this world might judge in a matter of poli tics; the leaders in the world of literature were qualified to pronounce on a point of taste; the counsellors of this world to weigh the amount of evidence ;-but, in matters spiritual, they were as unfit to judge as a man without ear is to decide respecting harmony, or a man judging by sensation to supersede the higher truth of science by an appeal to his own estimate of appearances. The world, to sense, seems stationary. To the eye of Reason it moves with lightning speed; and the cultivation of reason alone can qualify for an opinion on the matter. The judgment of the senses is worth nothing in such matters. For every kind of truth a special capacity or preparation is indispensable. For a revelation of spiritual facts two things are needed: First, a Divine Truth; next, a spirit which can receive it. Therefore the apostle's whole defence resolved itself into this: The natural man receiveth not the things which are of the Spirit of God. The world by wis dom knew not God. And his vindication of his teaching was: These Revealed Truths cannot be seen by the eye, heard by the ear, nor guessed by the heart; they are visible, audible, imaginable, only to the spirit. By the spiritually prepared they are recognized as beautiful, though they be folly to all the world beside,as his Master had said before him, "Wisdom is justified by her children." In whatever type of life she might be exhibited, whether in the austere Man of the Desert, or in the higher type of the social life of Christ, the Children of Wisdom recognized her lineaments, jus:ified and loved her: she was felt by them. Two things are contained in this verse: I. The inability of the lower parts of human nature the natural man-to apprehend the higher truths. II. The Nature and Laws of Revelation. I. By the natural man is meant the lower faculties of man; and it is said of these that they cannot discover truth spiritual. 1. Eternal truth is not perceived through sensation. "Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." There is a life of mere sensation. The degree of its enjoyment depends upon fineness of organization. The pleasures of sense arise from the vibration of a nerve, or the thrilling of a muscle,—nothing higher. The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. Sight ranks above all the rest of the senses in dignity. He whose eye is so refined by discipline that he can repose with pleasure upon the serene outline of beautiful form, has reached the purest of the sensational raptures. Now, the Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of Beauty. They read the apostle's letter surrounded by the purest conceptions of art. In the orders of architecture, the most richly graceful of all columnar forms receives its name from Corinth. And yet it was these men, living in the very midst of the chastely beautiful, upon whom the apostle emphatically urged, "Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." Let us not deprecate what God has given. There is a rapture in gazing on this wondrous world. There is a joy in contemplating the manifold Forms in which the All Beautiful has concealed His essence, - the Liv ing Garment in which the Invisible has robed His mysterious loveliness. In every aspect of nature there is joy; whether it be the purity of virgin morning, or the sombre gray of a day of clouds, or the solemn pomp and majesty of night; whether it be the chaste |