greater vigour; one thing it sees clearly, but it is blind to all beside.  It is in youth that the after tone of the mind is happily formed, when that natural burst of thought is sanctified and quickened by God’s Spirit, and we set up within us to love and adore, all our days, the one image of the truth of God, our Saviour Jesus.  Then, whatever else may befal us afterwards, it rarely happens that our faith will fail; his image, implanted in us, preserves us amid every change; we are counted worthy to escape all the things which may come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

LECTURE XII

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PROVERBS i. 28.

Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.

Christ’s gospel gives out the forgiveness of sins; and as this is its very essence, so also in what we read connected with Christ’s gospel, the tone of encouragement, of mercy, of loving-kindness to sinners, is ever predominant.  What was needed at the beginning of the gospel is no less needed now; we cannot spare one jot or one tittle of this gracious language; now, as ever, the free grace, that most seems to be without the law, does most surely establish the law.  But yet there is another language, which is to be found alike in the Old Testament and in the New; a language not indeed so common as the language of mercy, but yet repeated many times; a language which we also need as fully as it was ever needed, and of whose severity we can no more spare one tittle than we can spare anything of the comfort of the other.  And yet this language has not, I think, been enforced so often as it should have been.  Men have rather shrunk from it, and seemed afraid of it; they have connected it sometimes with certain foolish and presumptuous questions, which we, indeed, do well to turn from; but they have not seen, that with such it has no natural connexion, but belongs to a certain fact in the constitution of our nature, and is most highly moral and practical.

The language to which.  I allude is expressed, amongst other passages, by the words of the text.  They speak of men’s calling upon God, and of his refusing to hear them; of men’s seeking God, and not finding him.  Remember, at the same time, our Lord’s words, “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.”  I purposely put together these opposite passages, because the full character of God’s Revelation is thus seen more clearly.  Do we doubt that our Lord’s words are true, and do we not prize them as some of the most precious which he has left us?  We do well to do so; but shall we doubt any more the truth of the words of the text; and shall we not consider them as a warning no less needful than the comfort in the other case?  Indeed, as true as it is, that, if we seek God, we shall find him; so true is it that we may seek him, and yet not find him.