But _be astonished, O heavens, at this_--these tidings of salvation are received by many with chilling indifference--the sufferings of the cross are regarded with unconcern--the treaty of reconciliation, written in atoning blood, is by some contemptuously disregarded--by others repelled with determined opposition. These appalling facts display more of the malignity of sin, its blinding, deadening influence, and more of the rancorous enmity of the carnal heart against God, than all the other enormities which blacken the world's history. All other crimes appear less atrocious than this scorn of a Saviour's love--this _trampling under foot the blood of the covenant_. While no finite mind could have conceived it possible, that Almighty love should be so slighted, yet the Spirit of prophecy announced this impious ingratitude, long before the incarnation. When Isaiah _saw the glory of Christ, and spake of him_, he also saw that he would be _despised and rejected of men_. And by all their hostility to the doctrines of grace, sinners are only verifying the description, which inspiration gave long ago, of their blindness and perverseness. By all their vain reasonings and presumptuous objections, they just corroborate revealed truth, and evince the desperate wickedness of the natural heart. As in the days of the apostles, so in this period of increased light, _the preaching of the cross_ is esteemed _foolishness_. The message of redeeming mercy is often received with utter listlessness--often with an evident disgust--and sometimes with an openly avowed hostility. In the apostolic age, it might be supposed that the resistance, with which the Gospel had to contend, arose from the prejudices of a Heathen or Jewish education, and from a very imperfect knowledge of Christianity. But, at the present period, the undiminished hostility, which is displayed against the pure doctrines of redemption, can be attributed to nothing, but that hatred to the ways of God, which the Scriptures represent as rankling in the natural heart, and for which they contain the only remedy.