MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS BELIEF.
By Editor
[There are very many apparently good and honest people, who appear to be most sincere in their belief, who yet differ from what is manifestly taught in the Bible. To rank these with unbelievers who can have no part in the kingdom of God, seems to many to be severe, uncharitable, and bigoted. But the question of man's responsibility for his belief, and consequent guiltiness, if he does not come to the light, is well treated in the following lines. A willful rejection of the light when it is seen, or a neglect to come where the light may be seen, are there shown to be alike criminal. That there are many honest souls who are yet in darkness, and have thus far incurred no guilt by being so, is doubtless true. But no man passes through life, without his opportunities; and for these he becomes responsible. If there are any who, like us, have had in times past, perplexing queries arise in their own minds concerning this matter, we think they will not find a perusal of the article unprofitable.—ED. REVIEW.] THE lurking, specious, soul-destroying error, "No matter what a man believes, if he is only sincere," is ably exposed by Dr. Chalmers in a letter to a female friend: "Lord Byron's assertion, that 'man is not responsible for his belief,' seems to have proceeded from the imagination that belief is in no case voluntary. Now, it is very true that we are only responsible for what is voluntary; and it is also true that we cannot believe without evidence. But then it is a very possible thing that a doctrine may possess the most abundant evidence, and yet not be believed, because we choose to shut our eyes against it; and our unbelief in this case is owing, not to the want of evidence, but of the evidence not being attended to. Grant enough for the refutation of Lord Byron's principle, if attention be a voluntary act. One attends to a subject because he chooses; or he does not attend because he so chooses. It is the fact of the attention being given or withheld, which forms the thing that is to be morally reckoned with. And if the attention has been withheld when it ought to have been given, for this we are the subjects of a rightful condemnation. "It is enough to make unbelief a thing of choice, and a thing of affection, that we have power over the direction of our noticing and investigating faculties. You are not to blame if you have not found some valuable article that you have in an apartment of the thickest darkness; but you are to blame if you might have opened the shutters, or lighted a candle so as to have admitted enough of light for the discovery. Neither are you to blame if you find not the hidden treasure of the gospel, provided it is beyond the reach of all your strenuousness, and of every expedient that can be used for its discovery; but you are to blame if you have not gone in quest of it, or if you have willfully and determinedly shut your eyes against it, or if you have not stirred up those powers of your mind over which the mind has a voluntary control, to the inquiring after it. The Discerner of the heart will see where the lurking prejudice lies, and make it manifest of all who remain in darkness—of all who have not come to Christ, that they were not willing to come. "Christianity lays no unreasonable service on men—and far less, that service which were most unreasonable of all, the homage of your belief, without affording such evidence, as, if attended to, will constrain the belief. Our religion has its proofs, and it has also its probabilities. Its proofs can only be gotten at by patient and laborious inquiry; and when they are so gotten at, they carry the belief along with them. Its probabilities, again, may, some of them, be seen at first sight; and though not enough to compel our belief, yet they form a sufficient claim upon our attention. They form that sort of recognition which entitles Christianity at least to a fair and full trial; and if not worthy all at once of a place in our creed, it is worthy of a further hearing. Now, all I want is, that hearing shall be given; that the evidence of Christianity shall be studied; that the Bible shall be read with patience, and prayer, and moral earnestness; and on the principle that he—who seeketh findeth. I have no apprehension of such a course not terminating in a full and steadfast conviction that the Bible is an authentic messenger from heaven to earth, and contains in it the record of God's will for man's salvation."