In explaining the drift of his address we shall,
I. Inquire whence it is that men's progress in divine knowledge is so disproportioned to the advan- tages they enjoy — That many who hear the Gospel are but little pro- fited by it, is a melancholy and undeniable fact —
[That persons should continue ignorant when little else than heathen morality is set before them, cannot be wondered at. But many, who for a course of years have had " Christ crucified set before them," and have from time to time been addressed with the gi-eatest plainness and fidelity, yet are surprisingly dark in their views of the Gospel. They think they understand the plan of salvation ; and yet they confound things the most distinct^ and disjoin things the most inseparable^. But, when their notions are ever so clear and accurate, they still remain without any experimental acquaintance with the truths of God. They are " unskilful"^ in the word of righteousness." Whatever they profess to believe respecting the depravity of the heart, and " a life of faith upon the Son of God," they have not an experience of it in their own souls ; so that they still need as much as ever to have " the first principles of the oracles of God" inculcated and enforced. " Considering the time" that they have been learning, " they ought to have been long since qualified to teach others ;" and yet " have they need to be taught the very same things again" and again. They still need as much as ever to have " line upon line, pre- cept upon precept, here a little and there a little."]
The reason for this must be sought for in their own negligence —
[If this want of proficiency had existed only since the days of the Apostles, we might have ascribed it to the weak- ness and insufiiciency of the teachers : nor are we disposed entirely to exclude that as a concurrent cause of the slow pro- gress that is made amongst us. But the same complaints which we make, were uttered by the Apostles ; and the want of proficiency in their hearers is imputed to their " dulness in bearing'^," and slothfulness in improving what they heard. You
^ They mix faith and works, either uniting them as joint grounds of our salvation, or making their works a warrant to believe.
'• They cannot conceive how the exercises of their own free-will must, as far as they are good, be ascribed to the agency of the Holy Spirit, while, as far as they are evil, they are not to be considered as the emanations of their own wicked hearts in concurrence with the agency of Satan.