[Nov. 10th, 1861.]
The Scriptures do not teach philosophy, but a philosophy underlies them. Philosophy is only the scientific explanation and arrangement of the facts of consciousness and the laws of our constitution which those facts reveal. The Scriptures, coming from the author of our constitution, are consistent with those facts and assume those laws. The Scriptures, therefore, recognize the soul as one. They have no name exclusively devoted to the several faculties. The same word is used of the intellect and of the seat of the affections.
The thoughts of the heart, the blindness of the heart, are familiar representations. The heart therefore here is the soul. Its obduracy is a state, not of one faculty, but of all. The same word is sometimes translated to blind and sometimes to harden. As there are two words (poros,) a stone, and (porosis,) blindness or hardness. Mark 3:5; Rom. 11:25.
II. The hardness therefore of which the Scriptures speak is,
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Not mere callousness or insensibility of feeling.
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But also the blindness of the mind.
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Fixedness of the will in opposition to God and his truth.
It is of course a matter of degrees. a. Disobedience and secret opposition to the truth. b. Zealous opposition and hatred of it, manifesting itself at length in blasphemy and persecution.
III. This hardness is a sinful state.
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From its very nature.
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In its higher form it is the state or character of the lost and of Satan.
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It is self-induced; a. As it is the natural result or effect of our depravity. b. As it is the consequence, i.e., the natural consequence of the indulgence of sin. As the natural consequence of the cultivation of virtue, is virtue; of kindness, is kindness; of tenderness, is tenderness; so the natural consequence of the indulgence of sin is sin,—a sinful hardness of heart.
IV. It is none the less a divine judgment and a premonition of reprobation. Any degree of it is reason to fear such reprobation. The higher forms of it are direct evidence of it.
- It is attributed to God who is said to harden the hearts of men, as we attribute the results of an agent’s acts to the agent himself. We say a father ruins a child. By this we mean that the ruin is the natural effect of the father’s conduct. It need not be intended.
In case of God, let it be observed,
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That God exerts no efficiency in hardening the hearts of sinners, as he does in working grace in men.
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But it is a punitive withdrawing of the Spirit; the inevitable result of which is obduracy. God determined to let Pharaoh alone, and the result was what it was.
V. This hardness is,
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Beyond the reach of argument, or motive, or discipline, or culture.
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It is beyond our own power to cure or to remove. It is, therefore, a. To be greatly dreaded. b. It is to be withstood and operated against. c. It is to be prayed against. d. It is to be avoided by avoiding grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit.