BX 9943 еть 54 сор.д Entered according to act of Congress, by GEORGE W. MONTGOMERY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of New York. PREFACE. My chief aim, in presenting this volume of sermons to the public, is, to furnish a keepsake to the numerous friends with whom I have enjoyed a delightful acquaintance for many years. I have not the vanity to suppose, that the sermons evince sufficient merit to command any great degree of interest. The feeling which. urged me to the work, is of a far different character. I thought that my friends would welcome the volume, as coming from one who has been with them in seasons of joy and sorrow, and whose prayers are ever uttered for their spiritual and worldly prosperity, and that they would receive it as a memento of its author. And if, in addition to this, it shall stimulate the faith and life of the believer in the least degree, or shall afford one ray of light to the seeker after truth, I shall feel that my labors have been abundantly rewarded. ROCHESTER, N. Y., August, 1849. SERMON I. AUTHENTICITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." (Colossians, 2: 8.) The Revelation of God signifies that he has communicated certain truths to men, which they were incapable of discovering by their own powers, and yet which are of the greatest importance to them. These truths are contained in the Bible, which, we therefore conclude, is of divine origin; and as such, is worthy of all acceptation. The fact that this revelation is from God, is sus. tained by the nature and character of the Father; the mission of Christ; the fulfilment of prophecy; the exhibition of miracles; the adaptation of Christian truth to our intellectual and moral wants; and the testimony furnished by history. This revelation was not made to us personally. It was communicated to inspired men who lived many ages since, on whose experience we rely and in whose records we believe. Hence, as Divine Revelation was not primarily given to us, we receive it through men who were raised up for the purpose of establishing it in the world, for the instruction of all people. Mr. Paine advances the idea, that a truth is a revelation only to the first person to whom it may be communicated; and that to all others, it is B no revelation; being mere hearsay, which they are not bound to believe. Mr. Hume reasons, that as we have never experienced the inspiration of God in our own persons, nor witnessed a miracle, our experience should be decisive against the experience of those who affirm that they were inspired by Deity, and performed miracles in attestation of it-hence, no divine revelation has ever been given. If these posi. tions are true, then it follows that any truth which we have not experienced, and which is made known to us by others, is no revelation to us; and, as it has not come within our experience, it is therefore no truth. This rule would sweep away all the information we have received on the authority of other men, and not by our own experience. From the very nature of the case, certain important branches of our knowledge have not been revealed to us directly, nor through our own experience. They have been revealed to other men, whose researches testify to us that these branches of knowledge are true. For instance; Galileo, the Italian philosopher, discovered that the old notion of the earth being immovable, and of the revolution of all the heavenly bodies around it, is a great error; that it is the rotation of the earth on its axis, which makes the heavenly bodies appear to revolve about it; and that it is the actual revolution of the earth around the sun, which produces the seasons. But we have not had a revelation of this truth made to us-it was made directly to him as the result of his researches; and it is through him that we have received and do believe it. Not only is it not a direct revelation to us, but it is contrary to our experience. Our experience teaches us, though it teaches us |