day and hour. How differently will men argue on the most common subjects, and yet with equal con- fidence of the truth of their opinions ! How will those very arguments, which, under the influence of vanity, or interest, or passion, once seemed to a man unanswerable, afterwards appear to him frivolous in the extreme, when the bias that was upon his mind has ceased to operate !
But it is in things relating to God that the fallibi- lity of our reason more especially appears. How ignorant are the heathen world respecting the will of God, and the way in which they are to obtain accept- ance with him ! And how crude are the notions, which many who have the Bible in their hands, form respecting the path of duty, and the way of salvation ! How absurd, for instance, was the idea that Nico- demus formed of the new birth, when he conceived it to be a repetition of a natural birth '^i Thus it is with many amongst ourselves : they cannot hear of the new birth, or of justification by faith, or of the influences of the Spirit, without annexing to them ideas, if not as gross, yet quite as erroneous, as those of Nicodemus. ' But we may presume that Christ and his Apostles were right in their judgment of spi- ritual matters ; and that others are right in propor- tion as they accord with them in sentiment, in spirit, and in conduct. In what light then will our boasted reason appear, if tried by this touchstone ? Will not its dictates be found in direct opposition to the voice of inspiration, and consequently erroneous ? Is there not such an universal departure from the scripture standard, that the few who adhere to it, are, as the prophet calls them, " Men wondered at" ?"
To become a fool, then, is to feel the insufficiency of our own reason, and to be sensible that we are exceeding prone to form wrong opinions on Divine subjects, insomuch that we need at all times greatly to distrust our own judgment.
But this expression implies also a wilUngness to submit our reaso?i to the teachings of God's word and
^ John iii. 4, 9. « Zech. iii. 8.