g
and enforcing what is thought, we find in abundance; but we certainly do
not find a spirit humbled by a sense of sin and a conscience alive to
the deepest obligations. So far as can be gathered from the writings of
the most conspicuous unbelievers, they do not possess the first
requisite for discerning a Saviour--namely, a sense of need. They lack
the prime preparation for speaking on such a subject; they have never
dealt fairly with their own sin. We do not consult a deaf man if we wish
to ascertain whether the noise we have heard is thunder or the rumbling
of a cart; neither can we expect that those will be the best teachers
regarding God in whom the faculty by which we chiefly discern God--viz.,
the conscience--has been less exercised than any other. It is through
the conscience God makes Himself most distinctly felt; it is in
connection with the moral law we come most clearly in contact with Him;
and convictions of God's Being and connection with us root themselves in
the soul that a sense of sin has ploughed.

I am far from saying that in deciding upon the claims of Christ the
understanding is to have no voice. The understanding must have a voice
here as elsewhere. But it is a strong presumption in Christ's favour
that He offers precisely what sinners need; and it is decisive in His
favour when we find that He actually gives what sinners need. If it is
practically found that He is the force that lifts thousands and
thousands of human beings out of sin; if He has, in point of fact,
brought light to those in deep darkness, comfort and courage to the
desolate and heavily burdened, consecration and purity to the outcast
and the corrupt, then, plainly, He is what He claims to be, and we owe
Him our faith.

If God is to reveal Himself at all, the revelation must be made not
solely or chiefly to the understanding, but to that part of us which
determines character, and is capable of appreciating character. The
revelation must be moral not intellectual. As our Lord's ministry
proceeded He recognised that it was always the simple who most readily
accepted and trusted Him; and He recognised that this was a thing to be
thankful for: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes." And every one who thinks of it sees that it must be
so--that a man's destiny must be decided not by his understanding, but
by his character and leani