^v OF pmcETo:^ 
 
 BL 253 .C43 1845 ^ 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 1780-1847 
 Discourses on the Christian 
 revelation, viewed in 
 
.V'--» •> 
 
DISCOURSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN REVELATION, 
 
 VIEWED IS CONNECTION WITH THE 
 
 MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 TO WHICH ULE JLDDKD, 
 
 DISCOURSES 
 
 U.LUSTRATIVE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN 
 THEOLOGY AND GENERAL SCIENCE. 
 
 THOMAS CHALJIERS, d.d.&ll.d. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IX THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 
 AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 E O B E K T CARTER, 5 S C A N A L S T R E E T 
 
 AND PITTSBURG, 58 MARKET STREET. 
 
 1S45. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The astronomical objection against the truth of 
 the Gospel, does not occupy a very prominent place 
 in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is often, 
 however, met with in conversation — and we have 
 known it to be the cause of serious perplexity and 
 alarm in minds anxious for the solid establishment 
 of their religious faith. 
 
 There is an imposing splendour in the science 
 of Astronomy ; and it is not to be wondered at, if 
 the light it throws, or appears to throw, over other 
 tracks of speculation than those which are properly 
 its own, should at times dazzle and mislead an 
 inquirer. On this account, we think it were a 
 service to what we deem a true and a righteous 
 cause, could we succeed in dissipating this illusion, 
 and in stripping Infidelity of those pretensions to 
 enlargement, and to a certain air of philosophical 
 greatness, by which it has often become so de- 
 structively alluring to the young, and the ardent, 
 and the ambitious. 
 
 In my first Discourse, I have attempted a 
 sketch of the Modern Astronomy — nor have I 
 wished to throw any disguise over that comparative 
 littleness which belongs to our planet, and which 
 
a PREFACE. 
 
 gives to the argument of Freethinkers all its 
 plausibility. 
 
 This argument involves in it an assertion and an 
 inference. The assertion is, that Christianity is a 
 religion which professes to be designed for the single 
 benefit of our world ; and the inference is, that God 
 cannot be the author of this religion, for He would 
 Xiot lavish on so insignificant a field, such peculiar 
 and such distinguishing attentions, as are ascribed 
 to Him in the Old and New Testament. 
 
 Christianity makes no such profession. That 
 it is designed for the single benefit of our world is 
 altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself — 
 and feeling that this is not the only example of 
 temerity which can be charged on the enemies of 
 our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to 
 the attempt of demonstrating the utter repugnance 
 of such a spirit with the cautious and enlightened 
 philosophy of modern times. 
 
 In the course of this Sermon I have offered a 
 tribute of acknowledgment to the theology of Sir 
 Isaac Newton ; and in such terms, as if not farther 
 explained, may be liable to misconstruction. The 
 grand circumstance of applause in the character of 
 this great man, is, that unseduced by all the mag- 
 nificence of his own discoveries, he had a solidity 
 of mind which could resist their fascination, and 
 keep him in steady attachment to that Book, whose 
 general evidences stamped upon it the impress of a 
 real communication from Heaven. This was the 
 sole attribute of his theology which I had in my 
 eye when I presumed to eulogize it. I do not 
 think, that, amid the distraction and the engross 
 
PREFACE. Tli 
 
 ment of his other pursuits, he has at all times 
 succeeded in his interpretation of the Book ; else 
 he would never, in my apprehension, have abetted 
 the leading doctrine of a sect or a system, which 
 has now nearly dwindled away from public obser- 
 vation. 
 
 In my third Discourse I am silent as to the 
 assertion, and attempt to combat the inference that 
 is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the 
 analogies of nature and of providence, we can lay 
 no limit on the condescension of God, or on the 
 multiphcity of his regards even to the very humblest 
 departments of creation ; and that it is not for us, 
 who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care 
 spread in such exhaustless profusion around us, to 
 say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth 
 of His wondrous attributes on the salvation even of 
 our solitary species. 
 
 At this point of the argument, I trust that the 
 intelligent reader may be enabled to perceive, in 
 the adversaries of the Gospel, a twofold dereliction 
 from the maxims of the Baconian philosophy : that, 
 in the first instance, the assertion which forms the 
 groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously 
 fetched out of an unknown region, where they are 
 utterly abandoned by the light of experience ; and 
 that, in the second instance, the inference they 
 urge from it is, in the face of manifold and unde- 
 niable truths, all lying within the safe and accessible 
 field of human observation. 
 
 In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the 
 informations of the Record. The Infidel objection 
 drawn from Astronomy, may be considered as by 
 
fill PREFACE* 
 
 this time disposed of ; and if we have succeeded in 
 clearing it away, so as to deliver the Christian 
 testimony from all discredit upon this ground, then 
 may we submit, on the strength of other evidences, 
 to be guided by its information. We shall thus 
 learn, that Christianity has a far more extensive 
 bearing on the other orders of creation, than the 
 Infidel is disposed to allow ; and, whether he will 
 own the authority of this information or not, he 
 will at least be forced to admit, that the subject- 
 matter of the Bible itself is not chargeable with 
 that objection which he has attempted to fasten 
 upon it. 
 
 Thus, had my only object been the refutation of 
 the Infidel argument, I might have spared the last 
 Discourses of the Series altogether. But the 
 tracks of Scriptural information to which they 
 directed me, I considered as worthy of prosecution 
 an their own account — and I do think, that much 
 may be gathered from these less observed portions 
 of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to elevate, 
 and to guide the believer. 
 
 But in the management of such a discussion as 
 this, though for a great degree of this effect it 
 would require to be conducted in a far higher style 
 than I am able to sustain, the taste of the human 
 mind may be regaled, and its understanding put 
 into a state of the most agreeable exercise. Now, 
 this is quite distinct from the conscience being made 
 to feel the force of a personal application ; nor could 
 I either bring this argument to its close in the 
 pulpit, or offer it to the general notice of the world, 
 without adverting, in the last Discourse, to a 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 delusion, which, I fear, is carrying forward thou- 
 sands, and tens of thousands, to an undone eternity. 
 
 I have closed the Series with an Appendix of 
 Scriptural Authorities. I found that I could not 
 easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, 
 and have, therefore, thought fit to present them in 
 a separate form. I look for a twofold benefit 
 from this exhibition — first, to those more general 
 readers, who are ignorant of the Scriptures, and 
 of the richness and variety which abound in them 
 — and, secondly, to those narrow and intolerant 
 professors, who take an alarm at the very sound 
 and semblance of philosophy ; and feel as if there 
 was an utterly irreconcilable antipathy between its 
 lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and 
 piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I 
 conceive, for our cause, that the latter could be- 
 come a little more indulgent on this subject ; that 
 they gave up a portion of those ancient and here- 
 ditary prepossessions, which go so far to cramp 
 and to enthral them; that they would suffer 
 theology to take that wide range of argument and 
 of illustration which belongs to her ; and that, less 
 sensitively jealous of any desecration being brought 
 upon the Sabbath or the pulpit, they would suffer 
 her freely to announce all those truths, which either 
 serve to protect Christianity from the contempt of 
 science, or to protect the teachers of Christianity 
 from those invasions, which are practised both on 
 the sacredness of the office, and on the solitude of 
 its devotional and intellectual labours. 
 
 To these Astronomical Discourses, I have added 
 some others, illustrative of the connexion between 
 
PREFA.CB; 
 
 Theology and General Science. The argument 
 on which we have ventured in one of these 
 Discourses, and by which we attempt to reconcile 
 the efficacy of prayer with the constancy of visible 
 nature, was called forth in opposition to the con- 
 temptuous treatment, which certain members of the 
 British Senate thought fit to bestow on the proposal 
 for a National Fast, at a time when the fearful 
 epidemic of cholera had broke forth in various parts 
 of the country. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 <* When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingert, 
 the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; What 
 is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, 
 that thou visitest him ?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. . . ,15 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 ** And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he 
 knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. " — 1 CoR. viiL 2. 42 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 
 
 ** Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on 
 high ? Who humbleth iiimself to behold the things that 
 are in heaven, and in the earth !" — Psalm cxiii. 6, 6. • 68 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 OM THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL HISTORY IN THS 
 DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 «♦ Which things the angels desire to look into." — 1 Pet. i. 12. 90 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 ON THE SYMFATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN IN THE DISTANT 
 
 PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 " I say unto you. That likewise joy shall be in heaven over 
 one sinner that repeateth, more than over ninety and nine 
 just persons, which need no repentance." — LuK£ xv. 7» • 113 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 OK THE CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, AUOUfQWl 
 
 THE HIGHER ORDERS OF INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 •* And, having- spoiled principalities and powers, he made a 
 show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." — Co- 
 LOSSIANS ii. 15 S3 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 ON THE SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE TASTE AND SENSIBILITY 
 IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ** And, lo ! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one 
 that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instru- 
 ment: for tbey hear thy words, but they do them not.'* 
 — EzEKiEL xxxiii. 32. .... .152 
 
 APPENDIX, 181 
 
 DISCOURSES or A KINDRED CHARACTER WITH THE PRECEDING. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS AN ARGUMENT FOR TH£ 
 FAITHFULNESS OF GOD IN HIS WORD. 
 
 •* For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faith- 
 fulness is unto all generations : thou hast established the 
 earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according 
 to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants." — Psalm 
 cxix. 89, 90, 91. 203 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 ON THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER— 
 AND THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 
 
 *• Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days 
 scoffers, walking after their own lusts, — and saying, Where 
 is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell 
 asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning 
 of the creation/'— 2 FBTta iii. 3, 4. . * . » 154 
 
C0NTEN1S. XU 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 •* The things which are seen are temporal."— 2 Cor. iv. 18. 263 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH. 
 
 " Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 2 Peter iii. 13. . . .... 280 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 the nature of the kingdom of god. 
 " For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." — 
 1 Cor. iv. 20 300 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 heaven a character and not a locality. 
 " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which is 
 filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let 
 him be righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy 
 Btill."— Rev. xxii. 1 1 320 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 on the reasonableness of faith. 
 « But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut 
 up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." — 
 Oalatians iii. 23 ^^ 
 
15 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 * Wlien I consider tby heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
 moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is 
 man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of maOf 
 that thou visitest him ?" — Psalm viii. 3, 4. 
 
 In the reasonings of the Apostle Paul, we cannot 
 fail to observe, how studiously he accommodates 
 his arguments to the pursuits or principles or pre- 
 judices of the people whom he was addressing. 
 He often made a favourite opinion of their own the 
 starting point of his explanation ; and, educing a 
 dexterous but irresistible train of argument from 
 some principle upon which each of the parties had 
 a common understanding, it was his practice to 
 force them out of all their opposition, by a weapon 
 of their own choosing, — ^nor did he scruple to avail 
 himself of a Jewish peculiarity, or a heathen su- 
 perstition, or a quotation from Greek poetry, by 
 which he might gain the attention of those whom he 
 laboured to convince, and by the skilful application 
 of which he might " shut them up unto the faith." 
 Now, when Paul was thus addressing one class 
 of an assembly, or congregation, another class 
 might, for the time, have been shut out of all direct 
 
16 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 benefit and application from his arguments. When 
 he wrote an Epistle to a mixed assembly of Chris- 
 tianized Jews and Gentiles, he had often to direct 
 such a process of argument to the former, as the 
 latter would neither require nor comprehend. 
 Now, what should have been the conduct of the" 
 Gentiles at the reading of that part of the Epistle 
 which bore almost an exclusive reference to the 
 Jews ? Should it be impatience at the hearing of 
 something for which they had no relish or under- 
 standing? Should it be a fretful disappointment, 
 because every thing that was said, was not said for 
 their edification ? Should it be angry discontent 
 with the Apostle, because, leaving them in the dark, 
 he had brought forward nothing for them, through 
 the whole extent of so many successive chapters ? 
 Some of them may have felt in this way ; but 
 surely it would have been vastly more Christian to 
 have sat with meek and unfeigned patience, and to 
 have rejoiced that the great Apostle had undertaken 
 the management of those obstinate prejudices, 
 which kept back so many human beings from the 
 participation of the Gospel. And should Paul 
 have had reason to rejoice, that, by the success of 
 his arguments, he had reconciled one or any number 
 of Jews to Christianity, then it was the part of 
 these Gentiles, though receiving no direct or per- 
 sonal benefit from the arguments, to have blessed 
 God, and rejoiced along with him. 
 
 Conceive that Paul were at this moment alive, 
 and zealously engaged in the work of pressing the 
 Christian religion on the acceptance of the various 
 classes of society. Should he not still have acted 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. )7 
 
 on the principle of being' all things to all men? 
 Should he not have acconimodated his discussion to 
 the prevailing taste, and literature, and philosophy 
 of the times? Should he not have closed with the 
 ]jeople, whom he was addressing, on some favourite 
 ])rinciple of their own; and, in the prosecution of 
 this principle, might he not have got completely 
 beyond the comprehension of a numerous class of 
 zealous, humble, and devoted Christians? Now, 
 the question is not, how these would conduct them- 
 selves in such circumstances? but, how should they 
 do it? Would it be right in them to sit with 
 impatience, because the argument of the Apostle 
 contained in it nothing in the way of comfort or 
 edification to themselves ? Should not the bene- 
 volence of the Gospel give a different direction to 
 their feelings? And, instead of that narrow, 
 exclusive, and monopolising spirit, which I fear is 
 too characteristic of the more declared professors 
 of the truth as it is in Jesus, ought they not to 
 be patient, and to rejoice, when to philosophers, 
 and to men of literary accomplishment, and to those 
 who have the direction of the public taste among 
 the upper walks of society, such arguments are 
 addressed as may bring home to their acceptance 
 also, " the words of this life ?" It is under the 
 impulse of these considerations that I have, with 
 some hesitation, prevailed upon myself to attempt 
 an argument, which I think fitted to soften and 
 subdue those prejudices which he at the bottom of 
 what may be called the infidelity of natural science; 
 if possible to bring over to the humility of the Gos- 
 pel, those who expatiate with delight on the won- 
 
18* SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 ders and the sublimities of creation ; and to con- 
 vince them, that a loftier wisdom still than that 
 even of their high and honourable acquirements, is 
 the wisdom of him who is resolved to know nothing 
 but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 
 
 It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract 
 a sentiment of piety from the works and the ap- 
 pearances of nature. It has the authority of the 
 Sacred Writers upon its side, and even our Saviour 
 himself gives it the weight and the solemnity of his 
 example. " Behold the lilies of the field; they toil 
 not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father 
 careth for them." He expatiates on the beauty 
 of a single flower, and draws from it the delightful 
 argument of confidence in God. He gives us to 
 see that taste may be combined with piety, and that 
 the same heart may be occupied with all that is 
 serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at 
 the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness 
 of nature. 
 
 The Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. He 
 leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that 
 mighty expanse which spreads above it and around 
 it. He wings his way through space, and wanders 
 in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead 
 of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded 
 with splendour, and filled with the energy of the 
 Divine presence. Creation rises in its immensity 
 before him ; and the world, with all which it inherits, 
 shrinks into littleness at a contemplation so vast 
 and so overpowering. He wonders that he is not 
 overlooked amid the grandeur and the variety which 
 are on every side of him ; and passing upward from 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. If9 
 
 the majesty of nature to the majesty of nature's 
 Architect, he exclaims, "What is man, that thr»u 
 art mindful of him ; or the son of man, that thou 
 shouldest deign to visit him ?" 
 
 It is not for us to say, whether inspiration re- 
 vealed to the Psalmist the wonders of the modern 
 astronomy. But even though the mind be a perfect 
 stranger to the science of these enlightened times, 
 the heavens present a great and an elevating spec- 
 tacle — an immense concave reposing upon the 
 circular boundary of the world, and the innumerable 
 hghts which are suspended from on high, moving 
 with solemn regularity along its surface. It seems to 
 have been at night that the piety of the Psalmist was 
 awakened by this contemplation, when the moon and 
 the stars were visible, and not when the sun had risen 
 in his strength, and thrown a splendour around 
 him, which bore down and eclipsed all the lesser 
 glories of the firmament. And there is much in the 
 scenery of a nocturnal sky, to lift the soul to pious 
 contemplation. That moon, and these stars, what 
 are they ? They are detached from the world, and they 
 lift us above it. We feel withdrawn from the earth, 
 and rise in lofty abstraction from this little theatre of 
 human passions and human anxieties. The mind 
 abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in the 
 ecstasy of its thoughts, to distant and unexplored 
 regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of her great 
 elements, and it sees the God of nature invested with 
 the high attributes of wisdom and majesty. 
 
 But what can these lights be ? The curiosity of 
 tl.e human mind is insatiable; and the mechanism of 
 these wonderful heavens has, in all ages, been its 
 
20 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 suoject and its employment. It has been reserved 
 for these latter times, to resolve this great and 
 mteresting question. The sublimest powers of 
 philosophy have been called to the exercise, and 
 astronomy may now be looked upon as the most 
 certain and best established of the sciences. 
 
 We all know that every visible object appears 
 less in magnitude as it recedes from the eye. The 
 lofty vessel, as it retires from the coast, shrinks 
 into littleness, and at last appears in the form of a 
 small speck on the verge of the horizon. The 
 eagle, with its expanded wings, is a noble object ; 
 but when it takes its flight into the upper regions 
 of the air, it becomes less to the eye, and is seen 
 like a dark spot upon the vault of heaven. The 
 same is true of all magnitude. The heavenly bodies 
 appear small to the eye of an inhabitant of this 
 earth, only from the immensity of their distance. 
 When we talk of hundreds of millions of miles, it 
 is not to be listened to as incredible. For remem- 
 ber that we are talking of those bodies which are 
 scattered over the immensity of space, and that 
 space knows no termination. The conception is 
 great and difficult, but the truth is unquestionable. 
 By a process of measurement which it is unne- 
 cessary at present to explain, we have ascertained 
 first the distance, and then the n.agnitude of some 
 of those bodies which roll in t'lo firmament; that 
 the sun which presents itself to the eye under so 
 diminutive a form, is really a globe, exceeding, by 
 many thousands of times, the dimensions of the 
 earth which we inhabit ; that the moon itself has 
 the magnitude of a world ; and that even a few n' 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 2! 
 
 those stars, which appear like so many lucid points 
 to the unassisted eye of the observer, expand into 
 large circles upon the application of the telescope, 
 and are some of them much larger than the ball 
 which we tread upon, and to which we proudly 
 apply the denomination of the universe. 
 
 Now, what is the fair and obvious presumption ? 
 The world in which we live, is a round ball of a 
 determined magnitude, and occupies its own place 
 in the firmament. But when we explore the 
 unlimited tracts of that space, which is every where 
 around us, we meet with other balls of equal or 
 superior magnitude, and from which our earth 
 would either be invisible, or appear as small as 
 any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the 
 canopy of heaven. Why then suppose that this 
 little spot, little at least in the immensity which 
 surrounds it, should be the exclusive abode of life 
 and of intelligence ? What reason to think that 
 those mightier globes which roll in other parts of 
 creation, and which we have discovered to be 
 worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use and 
 in dignity ? Why should we think that the great 
 Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom, as He is 
 in power, would call these stately mansions into 
 existence and leave them unoccupied ? When we 
 cast our eye over the broad sea, and look at the 
 country on the other side, we see nothing but the 
 blue land stretching obscurely over the distant ho- 
 rizon. We are too far away to perceive the richness 
 of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its population 
 Why not extend this principle to the still more 
 distant parts of the universe ? What though, from 
 
22 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 this remote point of observation, we can see nothing 
 but the naked roundness of yon planetary orbs ? 
 Are we therefore to say, that they are so many vast 
 and unpeopled soUtudes ; that desolation reigns in 
 every part of the universe but ours ; that the whole 
 energy of the divine attributes is expended on one 
 insignificant corner of these mighty works ; and that 
 to this earth alone belongs the bloom of vegetation, 
 or the blessedness of life, or the dignity of rational 
 and immortal existence ? 
 
 But this is not all. We have something more 
 than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege in 
 favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We know 
 that this earth turns round upon itself; and we 
 observe that all those celestial bodies, which are 
 accessible to such an observation, have the same 
 movement. We know that the earth performs a 
 yearly revolution round the sun ; and we can detect, 
 in all the planets which compose our system, a re- 
 volution of the same kind, and under the same 
 circumstances. They have the same succession of 
 day and night. They have the same agreeable 
 vicissitude of the seasons. To them light and 
 darkness succeed each other; and the gaiety of 
 summer is followed by the dreariness of winter. 
 To each of them the heavens present as varied 
 and magnificent a spectacle; and this earth, the 
 encompassing of which would require the labour of 
 years from one of its puny inhabitants, is but one 
 of the lesser lights which sparkle in their firmament. 
 To them, as well as to us, has God divided the light 
 from the darkness, and he has called the light day, 
 and the darkness he has called night. He has said. 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 23 
 
 let there be lights in the firmament of their 
 heaven, to divide the day from the night ; and 
 let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, 
 and for years ; and let them be for lights in the 
 firmament of heaven, to give hght upon their earth ; 
 and it was so. And God has also made to them 
 great lights. To all of them he has given the sun 
 to rule the day ; and to many of them has he given 
 moons to rule the night. To them he has made 
 the stars also. And God has set them in the 
 firmament of heaven, to give light upon their earth ; 
 and to rule over the day, and over the night, and 
 to divide the light from the darkness ; and God has 
 seen that it was good. 
 
 In all these greater arrangements of divine 
 wisdom, we can see that God has done the same 
 things for the accommodation of the planets that he 
 has done for the earth which we inhabit. And 
 shall we say, that the resemblance stops here, 
 because we are not in a situation to observe it ? 
 Shall we say, that this scene of magnificence has 
 been called into being merely for the amusement 
 of a few astronomers? Shall we measure the 
 councils of heaven by the narrow impotence of the 
 human faculties ? or conceive, that silence and 
 solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of 
 nature ; that the greater part of creation is an empty 
 parade ; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity 
 is to be found through the wide extent of yon vast 
 and immeasurable regions ? 
 
 It lends a delightful confirmation to the argu- 
 ment, when, from the growing perfection of our 
 instruments, we can discover a new point of 
 
24 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 resemblance between our Earth and the other bo- 
 dies of the planetary system. It is now ascertain- 
 ed, not merely that all of them have their day and 
 night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes 
 of seasons, and that some of them have their moons 
 to rule their night and alleviate the darkness of it ; 
 — we can see of one, that its surface rises into in- 
 equalities, that it swells into mountains and stretches 
 into valleys ; of another, that it is surrounded by 
 an atmosphere which may support the respiration 
 of animals ; of a third, that clouds are formed and 
 suspended over it, which may minister to it all 
 the bloom and luxuriance of vegetation ; and of a 
 fourth, that a white colour spreads over its northern 
 regions, as its winter advances, and that, on the 
 approach of summer, this whiteness is dissipated — 
 giving room to suppose, that the element of water 
 abounds in it, that it rises by evaporation into.dts 
 atmosphere, that it freezes upon the application of 
 cold, that it is precipitated in the form of snow, that 
 it covers the ground with a fleecy mantle, which 
 melts away from the heat of a more vertical sun ; 
 and that other worlds bear a resemblance to our 
 own, in the same yearly round of beneficent and 
 interesting changes. 
 
 Who shall assign a limit to the discoveries of 
 future ages ? Who can prescribe to science her 
 boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable 
 curiosity of man within the circle of his present 
 acquirements? We may guess with plausibility 
 what we cannot anticipate with confidence. The 
 day may yet be coming, when our instruments of 
 observation shall be inconceivably more powerful 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 25 
 
 They may ascertain still more decisive points of 
 resemblance, I'hey may resolve the same ques- 
 tion by the evidence of sense, which is now so 
 abundantly convincing by the evidence of analogy. 
 They may lay open to us the unquestionable ves- 
 tiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. We 
 may see summer throwing its green mantle over 
 these mighty tracts, and we may see them left 
 naked and colourless after the flush of vegetation 
 has disappeared. In the progress of years or of 
 centuries, we may trace the hand of cultivation 
 spreading a new aspect over some portion of a 
 planetary surface. Perhaps some large city, the 
 metropolis of a mighty empire, may expand into a 
 visible spot by the powers of some future telescope. 
 Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a distant 
 age, may enable him to construct the map of ano- 
 ther world, and to lay down the surface of it in all 
 its minute and topical varieties. But there is no 
 end of conjecture ; and to the men of other times 
 we leave the full assurance of what we can assert 
 with the highest probability, that yon planetary 
 orbs are so many worlds, that they teem with life, 
 and that the mighty Being who presides in high 
 authority over this scene of grandeur and astonish- 
 ment, has there planted the worshippers of His 
 glory. 
 
 Did the discoveries of science stop here, we 
 have enough to justify the exclamation of the Psal- 
 mist, " What is man, that thou art mindful of him; 
 or the son of man, that thou shouldest deign to 
 visit him?" They widen the empire of creation 
 far beyond the limits which were formerly assigned 
 
 VOL. VII. B 
 
26 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 to it. They give us to see that yon sun, throned 
 in the centre of his planetary system, gives Ught, 
 and warmth, and the vicissitude of seasons, to an 
 extent of surface several hundreds of times greater 
 than that of the earth which we inhabit. They 
 lay open to us a number of worlds, rolling in their 
 respective circles around this vast luminary — and 
 prove, that the ball which we tread upon, with all 
 its mighty burden of oceans and continents, instead 
 of being distinguished from the others, is among 
 the least of them; and, from some of the more 
 distant planets, would not occupy a visible point in 
 the concave of their firmament. They let us know, 
 that though this mighty earth, with all its myriads 
 of people, were to sink into annihilation, there are 
 some worlds where an event so awful to us would 
 be unnoticed and unknown, and others where it 
 would be nothing more than the disappearance of 
 a little star which had ceased from its twinkling. 
 We should feel a sentiment of modesty at this just 
 but humiliating representation. We should learn 
 not to look on our earth as the universe of God, 
 but one paltry and insignificant portion of it ; that 
 it is only one of the many mansions which the Su- 
 preme Being has created for the accommodation 
 of His worshippers, and only one of the many 
 worlds rolling in that flood of light which the sun 
 pours around him to the outer limits of the plane- 
 tary system. 
 
 But is there nothing beyond these limits ? The 
 planetary system has its boundary, but space has 
 lione ; and if we wing our fancy there, do we only 
 vravel through dark and unoccupied regions ? There 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 27 
 
 are only five, or at most six, of the planetary orbs 
 visible to the naked eye. What, then, is that 
 multitude of other lights which sparkle in our fir- 
 mament, and fill the whole concave of heaven with 
 innumerable splendours? The planets are all 
 attached to the sun ; and, in circling around him, 
 they do homage to that influence which binds them 
 to perpetual attendance on this great luminary. 
 But the other stars do not own his dominion. 
 They do not circle around him. To all common 
 observation, they remain immoveable ; and each., 
 like the independent sovereign of his own territory, 
 appears to occupy the same inflexible position in 
 the regions of immensity. What can we make of 
 them ? Shall we take our adventurous flight to 
 explore these dark and untravelled dominions ? 
 W^hat mean these innumerable fires lighted up in 
 distant parts of the universe? Are they only 
 made to shed a feeble glimmering over this little 
 spot in the kingdom of nature ? or do they serve 
 a purpose worthier of themselves, to light up other 
 worlds, and give animation to other systems ? 
 
 The first thing which strikes a scientific observ- 
 er of the fixed stars, is their immeasurable distance. 
 If the whole planetary system were lighted up into 
 a globe of fire, it would exceed, by many millions 
 of times, the magnitude of this world, and yet only 
 appear a small lucid point from the nearest of them. 
 If a body were projected from the sun with the 
 velocity of a cannon-ball, it would take hundreds 
 of thousands of years before it described that 
 mighty interval which separates the nearest of the 
 fixed stars from our sun and from our system. If 
 
28 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 this earth, which moves at more than the incon- 
 ceivable velocity of a million and a half miles a-day, 
 were to be hurried from its orbit, and to take the 
 same rapid flight over this immense tract, it would 
 not have arrived at the termhiation of its journey, 
 after taking all the time which has elapsed since 
 the creation of the world, 'jliese are great num- 
 bers, and great calculations; and the mind feels 
 its own impotency in attempting to grasp them. 
 We can state them in words. We can exhibit 
 them in figures. We can demonstrate them by 
 the powers of a most rigid and infallible geometry. 
 But no human fancy can summon up a lively or an 
 adequate conception — can roam in its ideal flight 
 over this immeasurable largeness — can take in this 
 mighty space in all its grandeur, and in all its im- 
 mensity — can sweep the outer boundaries of such 
 a creation — or lift itself up to the majesty of that 
 great and invisible arm on which all is suspended. 
 But what can those stars be which are seated 
 so far beyond the limits of our planetary system ? 
 They must be masses of immense magnitude, or 
 they could not be seen at the distance of place 
 which they occupy. The light which they give 
 must proceed from themselves, for the feeble reflec- 
 tion of light from some other quarter, would not 
 carry through such mighty tracts to the eye of an 
 observer. A body may be visible in two ways. 
 It may be visible from its own light, as the flame 
 of a candle, or the brightness of a fire, or the bril- 
 liancy of yonder glorious sun, which lightens all 
 below, and is the lamp of the w orld. Or it may 
 be visible from the light which falls upon it, as the 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 29 
 
 body which receives its light from a taper — or the 
 whole assemblage of objects on the surface of 
 the earth, which appear only when the light of 
 day rests upon them — or the moon, which, in that 
 part of it that is towards the sun, gives out a sil- 
 very whiteness to the eye of the observer, while 
 the other part forms a black and invisible space in 
 the firmament — or as the planets, which shine 
 only because the sun shines upon them, and which, 
 each of them, present the appearance of a dark 
 spot on the side that is turned away from it. Now 
 apply this question tc the fixed stars. Are they 
 luminous of themselves, or do they derive their 
 light from the sun, like the bodies of our planetary 
 system? Think of their immense distance, and 
 the solution of this question becomes evident. The 
 sun, like any other body, must dwnidle into a less 
 apparent magnitude as you retire from it. At the 
 prodigious distance even of the very nearest of the 
 rixed stars, it must have sln-unk into a small indi- 
 visible point. In short, it must have become a 
 star itself, and could shed no more light than a 
 single individual of those glimmering myriads, the 
 whole assemblage of which cannot dissipate and 
 can scarcely alleviate the midnight darkness of our 
 world. These stars are visible to us, not because 
 the sun shines upon them, but because they shine 
 of themselves, because they are so many luminous 
 bodies scattered over the tracts of immensity — in a 
 word, because they are so many suns, each throned 
 in the centre of his own aominions, and pouring 
 a flood of light over his own portion of these 
 unlimitable regions. 
 
30 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 At such an immense distance for observation, it 
 is not to be supposed, that we can collect many 
 points of resemblance between the fixed stars, and 
 the solar star which forms the centre of our plane- 
 tary system. There is one point of resemblance, 
 however, which has not escaped the penetration 
 of our astronomers. We know that our sun turns 
 round upon himself, in a regular period of time. 
 We also know that there are dark spots scattered 
 over his surface, which, though invisible to the naked 
 eye, are perfectly noticeable by our instruments. 
 If these spots existed in greater quantity upon one 
 side than upon another, it would have the general 
 effect of making that side darker; and the revolution 
 of the sun must, in such a case, give us a brighter 
 and a fainter side, by regular alternations. Now, 
 there are some of the fixed stars which present this 
 appearance. They present us with periodical vari- 
 ations of light. From the splendour of a star of the 
 first or second magnitude, they fade away into some 
 of the inferior magnitudes — and one, by becoming 
 invisible, might give reason to apprehend that we 
 had lost him altogether — but we can still recognize 
 him by the telescope, till at length he reappears 
 in his own place, and, after a regular lapse of so 
 many days and hours, recovers his original bright- 
 ness. Now, the fair inference from this is, that 
 the fixed stars, as they resemble our sun in being 
 so many luminous masses of immense magnitude, 
 they resemble him in this also, that each of them 
 turns round upon his own axis ; so that if any of 
 them should have an inequality in the brightness 
 of their sides, this revolution is rendered evident, 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 31 
 
 by the regular variations in the degree of light 
 which it undergoes. 
 
 Shall we say, then, of these vast luminaries, 
 that they were created in vain ? Were they called 
 into existence for no other purpose than to throw 
 a tide of useless splendour over the solitudes of 
 immensity ? Our sun is only one of these lumi- 
 naries, and we know that he has worlds in his train. 
 Why should we strip the rest of this princely at- 
 tendance ? Why may not each of them be the 
 centre of his own system, and give light to his own 
 worlds ? It is true that we see them not ; but 
 could the eye of man take its flight into those dis- 
 tant regions, it would lose sight of our little world 
 before it reached the outer limits of our system — 
 the greater planets would disappear in their turn — 
 before it had described a small portion of that 
 abyss which separates us from the fixed stars, the 
 sun would decline into a little spot, and all its 
 splendid retinue of worlds be lost in the obscurity 
 of distance — he would at last shrink into a small 
 indivisible atom, and all that could be seen of this 
 magnificent system, would be reduced to the glim- 
 mering of a little star. Why resist any longer the 
 grand and interesting conclusion ? Each of these 
 stars may be the token of a system as vast and as 
 splendid as the one which we inhabit. Worlds 
 roll in these distant regions; and these worlds 
 must be the mansions of life and of intelligence. 
 In yon gilded canopy of heaven, we see the broad 
 aspect of the universe, where each shining point 
 presents us with a sun, and each sun with a system 
 of worlds — where the Divinity reigns in all the 
 
32 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 grandeur of His attributes — where He peoples im- 
 mensity with His wonders ; and travels in the 
 greatness of His strength through the dominions 
 of one vast and unlimited monarchy. 
 
 The contemplation has no limits. If we ask the 
 number of suns and of systems, the unassisted eye 
 of man can take in a thousand, and the best tele- 
 scope which the genius of man has constructed 
 can take in eighty milUons. But why subject the 
 dominions of the universe to the eye of man, or to 
 the powers of his genius ? Fancy may take its 
 flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope. 
 It may expatiate in the outer regions of all that is 
 visible — and shall we have the boldness to say, 
 that there is nothing there ? that the wonders of 
 the Almighty are at an end, because we can no 
 longer trace His footsteps ? that his omnipotence 
 is exhausted, because human art can no longer 
 follow Him ? that the creative energy of God has 
 sunk into repose, because the imagination is en- 
 feebled by the magnitude of its efforts, and can 
 keep no longer on the wing through those mighty 
 tracts, which shoot far beyond what eye hath seen, 
 or the heart of man hath conceived — which sweep 
 endlessly along, and merge into an awful and mys- 
 terious infinity? 
 
 Before bringing to a close this rapid and im- 
 perfect sketch of our modern astronomy, it may be 
 right to advert to two points of interesting specu- 
 lation, both of which serve to magnify our concep- 
 tions of the universe, and, of course, to give us a 
 more affecting sense of the comparative insignifi- 
 cance of this our world. The first is suggested 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 33 
 
 by the consideration, that if a body be struck in 
 the direction of its centre, it obtains, from this im- 
 pulse, a progressive motion, but without any move- 
 ment of revolution being at the same time impress- 
 ed upon it. It simply goes forward, but does 
 not turn round upon itself. But, again, should 
 the stroke not be in the direction of the centre- 
 should the line which joins the point of percussion 
 to the centre, make an angle with that line in 
 which the impulse was communicated, then the 
 body is both made to go forward in space, and also 
 to wheel upon its axis. In this way, each of our 
 planets may have had its compound motion com- 
 municated to it by one single impulse ; and, on 
 the other hand, if ever the rotatory motion be com- 
 municated by one blow, then the progressive mo- 
 tion must go along with it. In order to have the 
 first motion without the second, there must be a 
 two-fold force applied to the body in opposite di- 
 rections. It must be set a-going in the same way 
 as a spinning-top, so as to revolve about an axis, 
 and to keep unchanged its situation in space. The 
 planets have both motions ; and, therefore, may 
 have received them by one and the same impulse. 
 The sun, we are certain, has one of these motions. 
 He has a movement of revolution. If spun round 
 his axis by two opposite forces, one on each side 
 of him, he may have this movement, and retain an 
 inflexible position in space. But if this movement 
 was given him by one stroke, he must have a pro- 
 gressive motion along with a whirling motion ; or, 
 in other words, he is moving forward ; he is de- 
 scribing a tract in space ; and, in so doing, he car- 
 B 2 
 
84 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 ries all his planets and all their secondaries along 
 with him. 
 
 But, at this stage of the argument, the matter 
 only remains a conjectural point of speculation. 
 The sun may have had his rotation impressed upon 
 him by a spinning impulse ; or, without recurring 
 to secondary causes at all, this movement may be 
 coeval with his being, and he may have derived 
 both the one and the other from an immediate fiat 
 of the Creator. But there is an actually observed 
 phenomenon of the heavens, which advances the 
 conjecture into a probability. In the course 
 of ages, the stars in one quarter of the celestial 
 sphere are apparently receding from each other ; 
 and, in the opposite quarter, they are apparently 
 drawing nearer to each other. If the sun be ap- 
 proaching the former quarter, and receding from 
 the latter, this phenomenon admits of an easy ex- 
 planation ; and we are furnished with a magnifi- 
 cent step in the scale of the Creator's workman- 
 ship. In the same manner as the planets, with 
 their satellites, revolve round the, sun, may the sun, 
 with all his tributaries, be moving, in common with 
 other stars, around some distant centre, from 
 which there emanates an influence to bind and to 
 subordinate them all. They may be kept from 
 approaching each other, by a centrifugal force ; 
 without which, the laws of attraction might conso- 
 lidate, into one stupendous mass, all the distinct 
 globes of which the universe is composed. Our 
 sun may, therefore, be only one member of a higher 
 family — taking his part, along with millions of 
 others, in some loftier system of mechanism, by 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 35 
 
 which they are all subjected to one law, and to 
 one arrangement — describing the sweep of such 
 an orbit in space, and completing the mighty revo- 
 lution in such a period of time, as to reduce our 
 planetary seasons, and our planetary movements, 
 to a very humble and fractionary rank in the scale 
 of a higher astronomy. There is room for all this 
 in immensity ; and there is even argument for all 
 this, in tlie records of actual observation ; and, 
 from the whole of this speculation, do we gather a 
 new emphasis to the lesson, how minute is the 
 place, and how secondary is the importance of our 
 world, amid the glories of such a surrounding mag- 
 nificence. 
 
 But there is still another very interesting tract 
 of speculation, which has been opened up to us by 
 the more recent observations of astronomy. What 
 we alkide to, is the discovery of the nebulce. We 
 allow that it is but a dim and indistinct light which 
 this discovery has thrown upon the structure of 
 the universe ; but still it has spread before the eye 
 of the mind a field of very wide and lofty contem- 
 plation. Anterior to this discovery, the universe 
 might appear to have been composed of an indefi- 
 nite number of suns, about equi-distant from each 
 other, uniformly scattered over space, and each 
 encompassed by such a planetary attendance as 
 takes place in our own system. But, we have 
 now reason to think, that instead of lying uniform- 
 ly, and in a state of equi-distance from each other, 
 they are arranged into distinct clusters — that, in 
 the same manner as the distance of the nearest 
 fixed stars so inconceivably superior to that of our 
 
36 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 planets from each other, marks the separation of 
 the solar systems, so the distance of two contigu 
 ous clusters may be so inconceivably superior to 
 the reciprocal distance of those fixed stars which 
 belong to the same cluster, as to mark an equally 
 distinct separation of the clusters, and to constitute 
 each of them an individual member of some higher 
 and more extended arrangement. This carries us 
 upwards through another ascending step in the 
 scale of magnificence, and there leaves us in the un- 
 certainty, whether even here the wonderful pro- 
 gression is ended; and, at all events, fixes the 
 assured conclusion in our minds, that, to an eye 
 which could spread itself over the whole, the man- 
 sion which accommodates our species might be so 
 very small as to lie wrapped in microscopical con- 
 cealment ; and, in reference to the only Being 
 who possesses this universal eye, well might we 
 say, " What is man, that thou art mindful of him; 
 or the son of man, that thou shouldest deign to 
 visit him ?" 
 
 And, after all, though it be a mighty and diffi- 
 cult conception, yet who can question it ? What 
 is seen may be nothing to what is unseen ; for what 
 is seen is limited by the range of our instruments. 
 What is unseen has no limit; and, though all 
 which the eye of man can take in, or his fancy can 
 grasp, were swept away, there might still remain 
 as ample a field, over which the Divinity may ex- 
 patiate, and which He may have peopled with 
 innumerable worlds. If the whole visible creation 
 were to disappear, it would leave a solitude behind 
 il— but to the Infinite Mind, that can take in the 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 37 
 
 whole system of nature, this solitude might be no- 
 thing ; a small unoccupied point in that immensity 
 which surrounds it, and which he may have filled 
 with the wonders of his omnipotence. Though 
 this earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet 
 of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky 
 were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible 
 glory, which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed 
 on it, were to be put out for ever — an event, so 
 awful to us, and to every world in our vicinity, by 
 which so many suns would be extinguished, and so 
 many varied scenes of life and of population would 
 rush into forgetfulness — what is it in the high scale of 
 the Almighty's workmanship? a mere shred, which, 
 though scattered into nothing, would leave the 
 universe of God one entire scene of greatness and 
 of majesty. Though this earth, and these heavens, 
 were to disappear, there are other worlds which 
 roll afar ; the light of other suns shines upon them; 
 and the sky which mantles them, is garnished with 
 other stars. Is it presumption to say, that the 
 moral world extends to these distant and unknown 
 regions ? that they are occupied with people ? that 
 the charities of home and of neighbourhood flourish 
 there ? that the praises of God are there hfted up, 
 and his goodness rejoiced in ? that piety has there 
 its temples and its oflferings ? and the richness of 
 the divine attributes is there felt and admired by 
 intelligent worshippers ? 
 
 And what is this world in the immensity which 
 teems with them — and what are they who occupy 
 it ? The universe at large would suffer as little, 
 in its splendour and variety, by the destruction of 
 
38 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude 
 of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. 
 The leaf quivers on the branch which supports it. 
 It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A 
 breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it lights 
 on the stream of water which passes underneath. 
 In a moment of time, the life which we know, by 
 the microscope, it teems with, is extinguished ; and 
 an occurrence so insignificant in the eye of man, 
 and on the scale of his observation, carries in it, 
 to the myriads which people this little leaf, an event 
 as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a 
 world. Now, on the grand scale of the universe, 
 we, the occupiers of this ball, which performs its 
 little round among the suns and the systems that 
 astronomy has unfolded — we may feel the same 
 littleness, and the same insecurity. We differ 
 from the leaf only in this circumstance, that it 
 would require the operation of greater elements to 
 destroy us. But these elements exist. The fire 
 which rages within, may lift its devouring energy 
 to the surface of our planet, and transform it into 
 one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden for- 
 mation of elastic matter in the bowels of the earth 
 — and it lies within the agency of known substances 
 to accomplish this — may explode it into fragments. 
 The exhalation of noxious air from below, may 
 impart a virulence to the air that is around us ; 
 it may affect the delicate proportion of its ingre- 
 dients; and the whole of animated nature may 
 wither and die under the malignity of a tainted 
 atmosphere. A blazing comet may cross this 
 fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the terrors 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 39 
 
 which superstition has conceived of it. We cannot 
 anticipate with precision the consequences of an 
 event which every astronomer must know to He 
 within the hmits of chance and probabihty. It 
 may hurry our globe towards the sun — or drag it 
 to the outer regions of the planetary system — or 
 give it a new axis of revolution : and the effect, 
 which I shall simply announce, without explaining 
 it, would be to change the place of the ocean, and 
 bring another mighty flood upon our islands and 
 continents. These are changes which may happen 
 in a single instant of time, and against which no- 
 thing known in the present system of things pro- 
 vides us with any security. They might not an- 
 nihilate the earth, but they would unpeople it ; 
 and we who tread its surface with such firm and 
 assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring 
 elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand 
 of the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, 
 and death, over the dominions of the world. 
 
 Now, it is this littleness, and this insecurity, 
 which make the protection of the Almighty so 
 dear to us, and bring, with such emphasis, to every 
 pious bosom, the holy lessons of humility and gra- 
 titude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in 
 high authority over all worlds, is mindful of man ; 
 and though at this moment His energy is felt in 
 the remotest provinces of creation, we may feel 
 the same security in His providence, as if we were 
 the objects of His undivided care. It is not for us 
 to bring our minds up to this mysterious agency. 
 But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the 
 same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole 
 
40 SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 • 
 
 universe, gives vegetation to every blade of grass, 
 and motion to every particle of blood which cir- 
 culates through the veins of the minutest animal ; 
 that, though His mind takes into its comprehen- 
 sive grasp, immensity and all its wonders, I am as 
 much known to Him as if I were the single object 
 of His attention ; that He marks all my thoughts ; 
 that He gives birth to every feeling and every 
 movement within me ; and that, with an exercise 
 of power which I can neither describe nor compre- 
 hend, the same God who sits in the highest hea- 
 ven, and reigns over the glories of the firmament, 
 is at my right hand, to give me every breath which 
 I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy. 
 
 But this very reflection has been appropriated 
 to the use of Infidelity, and the very language of 
 the text has been made to bear an application of 
 hostility to the faith. " What is man, that God 
 should be mnidfui of him ; or the son of man, that 
 he should deign to visit him ?" Is it likely, says 
 the Infidel, tliat God would send his eternal Son, 
 to die for the puny occupiers of so insignificant a 
 province in the mighty field of his creation? 
 Are we the befitting objects of so great and so 
 signal an interposition? Does not the largeness 
 of that field which astronomy lays open to the view 
 of modern science, throw a suspicion over the truth 
 of the gospel history ? and how shall we reconcile 
 the greatness of that wonderful movement which 
 was made in heaven for the redemption of fallen 
 man, with the comparative meanness and obscu- 
 rity of our species ? 
 
 This is a popular argument against Christianity, 
 
SKETCH OF MODERN ASTRONOMY. 41 
 
 not much dwelt upon in books, but, we believe, a. 
 good deal insinuated in conversation, and having 
 no small influence on the amateurs of a superficial 
 philosophy. At all events, it is right that every 
 such argument should be met, and manfully con- 
 fronted ; nor do we know a more discreditable 
 surrender of our religion, than to act as if she had 
 any thing to fear from the ingenuity of her most 
 accomplished adversaries. The author of the fol- 
 lowing treatise engages in his present undertaking, 
 under the full impression that a something may be 
 found with which to combat Infidelity in all its 
 forms; that the truth of God and of his message 
 admits of a noble and decisive manifestation, 
 through every mist which the pride, or the preju- 
 dice, or the sophistry of man may throw around 
 it ; and elevated as the wisdom of him may be, 
 who has ascended the heights of science, and 
 poured the light of demonstration over the most 
 wondrous of nature's mysteries, that even out of 
 his own principles it may be proved, how inuth 
 more elevated is the wisdom of him who sits with 
 the docility of a little child to his Bible, and casts 
 down 10 its authority all his loffy imaginatio)is. 
 
42 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE, 
 
 DISCOURSE 11. 
 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 " And if any man think that he knoweth any thing-, hi 
 knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." — 1 Corinthians, 
 viii. 2. 
 
 There is much profound and important wisdom in 
 that proverb of Solomon, where it is said, that 
 ** the heart knoweth its own bitterness." It forms 
 part of a truth still more comprehensive, that every 
 man knoweth his own peculiar feelings, and diffi- 
 culties, and trials, far better than he can get any 
 of his neighbours to perceive them. It is natural 
 to us all, that we should desire to engross, to the 
 uttermost, the sympathy of others with what is most 
 painful to the sensibilities of our own bosom, and 
 with what is most aggravating in the hardships of 
 our own situation. But, labour as we may, we 
 cannot, with every power of expression, make an 
 adequate conveyance, as it were, of all our sensa- 
 tions, and of all our circumstances, into another's 
 understanding. There is a something in the 
 intimacy of a man's own experience, which he cannot 
 make to pass entire into the heart and mind even of 
 his most familiar companion, — and thus it is, that 
 he is so often defeated in his attempts to obtain a 
 full and a cordial possession of his sympathy. He 
 is mortified, and he wonders at the obtuseness of 
 the people around him — and that he cannot get 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 43 
 
 them to enter into the justness of his complainings 
 — nor to feel the point upon which turn the truth 
 and the reason of his remonstrances — nor to give 
 their interested attention to the case of his pe- 
 culiarities and of his wrongs — nor to kindle, in 
 generous resentment, along with him, when he 
 starts the topic of his indignation. He does not 
 reflect, all the while, that, with every human being 
 he addresses, there is an inner man, which forms a 
 theatre of passions, and of interests as busy, as 
 crowded, and as fitted as his own to engross the 
 anxious and the exercised feelings of a heart, which 
 can alone understand its own bitterness, and lay a 
 correct estimate on the burden of its own visitations. 
 Every man we meet, carries about with him, in the 
 unperceived solitude of his bosom, a little world of 
 his own — and we are just as blind, and as insensible, 
 and as dull, both of perception and of sympathy, 
 about his engrossing objects, as he is about ours; 
 and, did w^e suffer this observation to have all its 
 weight upon us, it might serve to make us more 
 candid, and more considerate of others. It might 
 serve to abate the monopolizing selfishness of our 
 nature. It might serve to soften down all the 
 malignity which comes out of those envious con- 
 templations that we are so apt to cast on the fancied 
 ease and prosperity which are around us. It might 
 serve to reconcile every man to his own lot, and 
 dispose him to bear, with thankfulness, his own 
 burden ; and if this train of sentiment were prose- 
 cuted with firmness, and calmness, and impartiality, 
 it w ould lead to the conclusion, that each profession 
 in life has its own pecuUar pains, and its own 
 
44 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 besetting inconveniences — that, from the very bot- 
 tom of society, up to the golden pinnacle which 
 blazons upon its summit, there is much in the shape 
 of care and of suffering to be found — that, through- 
 out all the conceivable varieties of human condition, 
 there are trials, which can neither be adequately 
 told on the one side, nor fully understood on the 
 other — that the ways of God to man are as equal 
 in this, as in every department of his administration 
 — and that, go^to whatever quarter of human ex- 
 perience we may, we shall find that he has provided 
 enough to exercise the patience, and to accomplish 
 the purposes of a wise and a salutary discipline 
 upon all his children. 
 
 I have brought forward this observation, that it 
 may prepare the way for a second. There are 
 perhaps no two sets of human beings, who com- 
 prehend less the movements, and enter less into the 
 cares and concerns, of each other, than the wide 
 and busy public on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 those men of close and studious retirement, whom 
 the w^orld never hears of, save when, from their 
 thoughtful solitude, there issues forth some spienaiof 
 discovery, to set the world on a gaze of aamiration. 
 Then will the brilliancy of a superior genius draw 
 every eye towards it — and the homage paid to 
 intellectual superiority, will place its idol on a loftier 
 eminence than all wealth or than all titles can be- 
 stow — and the name of the successful philosopher 
 will circulate, in his own age, over the whole extent 
 of civilized society, and be borne dow^n to posterity 
 in the characters of ever-during remembrance : and 
 thus it is, that, when we look back on the days of 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 45 
 
 NewtoT!, we annex a kind of mysterious greatness 
 to him, who, by the pure force of his understanding, 
 rose to such a gigantic elevation above the level of 
 ordinary men — and the kings and warriors of other 
 days sink into insignificance around him — and he, 
 at this moment, stands forth to the public eye, in a 
 prouder array of glory than circles the memory of 
 all the men of former generations — and, while all 
 the vulgar grandeur of other days is now mouldering 
 in forgetfulness, the achievements of our great 
 astronomer are still fresh in the veneration of his 
 countrymen, and they carry him forward on the 
 stream of time, with a reputation ever gathering, 
 and the triumphs of a distinction that will never die. 
 Now, the point that I want to impress upon you 
 is, that the same public, who are so dazzled and 
 overborne by the lustre of all this superiority, are 
 utterly in the dark as to what that is which confers 
 its chief merit on the philosophy of Newton. They 
 see the result of his labours, but they know not 
 how to appreciate the difficulty or the extent of 
 them. They look on the stately edifice he has 
 reared, but they know not what he had to do in 
 settling the foundation which gives to it all its sta- 
 bility ; nor are they aware what painful encounters 
 he had to make, both with the natural predilections 
 of his own heart, and with the prejudices of others, 
 when employed on the work of laying together its 
 unperishing materials. They have never heard of 
 the controversies which this man, of peaceful un- 
 ambitious modesty, had to sustain with all that was 
 proud, and all that was intolerant in the philosophy 
 of the age. They have never, in thought, entered 
 
46 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 that closet which was the scene of his patient and 
 profound exercises — nor have they gone along with 
 him, as he gave his silent hours to the labours of 
 the midnight oil, and plied that unwearied task, to 
 which the charm of lofty contemplation had allured 
 him — nor have they accompanied him through all 
 the workings of that wonderful mind, from which, as 
 from the recesses of a laboratory, there came forth 
 such gleams and processes of thought as shed an 
 efFulgency over the whole amplitude of nature. All 
 this, the public have not done; for of this the great 
 majority, even of the reading and cultivated public, 
 are utterly incapable ; and therefore is it, that they 
 need to be told what that is, in which the main 
 distinction of his philosophy lies ; that, when la- 
 bouring in other fields of investigation, they may 
 know how to borrow from his safe example, and 
 how to profit by that superior wisdom which marked 
 the whole conduct of his understanding. 
 
 Let it be understood, then, that they are the 
 positive discoveries of Newton, which, in the eye 
 of a superficial public, confer upon him all his 
 reputation. He discovered the mechanism of the 
 planetary system. He discovered the composition 
 of light. He discovered the cause of those al- 
 ternate movements which take place on the waters 
 of the ocean. These form his actual and his 
 visible achievements. These are what the world 
 look to as the monuments of his greatness. These 
 are doctrines by which he has enriched the field of 
 philosophy ; and thus it is, that the whole of his 
 merit is supposed to lie in having had the sagacity 
 to perceive, and the vigour to lay hold of the proofs, 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 4' 
 
 which conferred upon these doctrines all the 
 establishment of a most rigid and conclusive de- 
 monstration. 
 
 But, while he gets all his credit, and all his ad- 
 miration for those articles of science which he has 
 added to the creed of philosophers, he deserves as 
 much credit and admiration for those articles which 
 he kept out of this creed, as for those which he in- 
 troduced into it. It was the property of his mind, 
 that it kept a tenacious hold of every one position 
 which had proof to substantiate it : but it forms a 
 property equally characteristic, and wliich, in fact, 
 gives its leading peculiarity to the whole spirit and 
 style of his investigations, that he put a most deter- 
 mined exclusion on every one position that was 
 destitute of such proof. He would not admit the 
 astrononiical theories of those who went before him, 
 because they had no proof. He would not give in 
 to their notions about the planets wheeling their 
 rounds in whirlpools of ether — for he did not see 
 this ether — he had no proof of its existence : and, 
 besides, even supposing it to exist, it would not 
 have impressed, on the heavenly bodies, such move- 
 ments as met his observation. He would not 
 submit his judgment to the reigning systems of the 
 day— for, though they had authority to recommend 
 them, they had no proof ; and thus it is, that he 
 evinced the strength and the soundness of his philo- 
 sophy, as much by his decisions upon those doctrines 
 of science which he rejected, as by his demonstra- 
 tion of those doctrines of science which he was the 
 first to propose, and which now stand out to the 
 
48 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 eye of posterity as the only monuments to tht* 
 force and superiority of his understanding. 
 
 He wanted no other recommendation for any 
 one article of science, than the recommendation of 
 
 evidence and, with this recommendation, he opened 
 
 to it the chamber of his mind, though authority 
 scowled upon it, and taste was disgusted by it, and 
 fashion was ashamed of it, and all the beauteous 
 speculation of former days was cruelly broken up 
 by this new announcement of the better philosophy, 
 and scattered like the fragments of an aerial vision, 
 over which the past generations of the world had 
 been slumbering their profound and their pleasing 
 reverie. But, on the other hand, should the article ' 
 of science want the recommendation of evidence, 
 he shut against it all the avenues of his under- 
 standing—and though all antiquity lent their suffrages 
 to it, and all eloquence had thrown around it the 
 most attractive brilliancy, and all habit had incor- 
 porated it with every system of every seminary in 
 Europe, and all fancy had arrayed it in graces of 
 tbe most tempting solicitation ; yet w as the steady 
 and inflexible mind of Newton proof against this 
 whole weight of authority and allurement, and, 
 casting his cold and unwelcome look at the specious 
 plausibility, he rebuked it from his presence. The 
 strength of his philosophy lay as much in refusing 
 admittance to that which wanted evidence, as in 
 giving a place and an occupancy to th^t which 
 possessed it. In that march of intellect, which led 
 him onwards through the rich and magnificent field 
 of his discoveries, he pondered every step; and, 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 49 
 
 while he advanced with a firm and assured move- 
 ment, wherever the Ught of evidence carried him, 
 he never suffered any glare of imagination or of 
 prejudice to seduce him from his path. 
 
 Certain it is, that, in the prosecution of his won- 
 derful career, he found himself on a way beset with 
 temptation upon every side of him. It was not 
 merely that he had the reigning taste and philosophy 
 of the times to contend with. But he expatiated on 
 a lofty region, where, in all the giddiness of success, 
 he might have met with much to sohcit his fancy, 
 and tempt him to some devious speculation. Had 
 he been like the majority of other men, he would 
 have broken free from the fetters of a sober and 
 chastised understanding, and, giving w^ng to his 
 imagination, had done what philosophers have 
 done after him — been carried away by some meteor 
 of their own forming, or found their amusement in 
 some of their own intellectual pictures, or palmed 
 some loose and confident plausibilities of their own 
 upon the world. But Newton stood true to his 
 principle, that he would take up with nothing which 
 wanted evidence, and he kept by his demonstrations, 
 and his measurements, and his proofs; and, if it be 
 true that he who ruleth his own spirit is greater 
 than he who taketh a city, there was won, in the 
 solitude of his chamber, many a repeated victory 
 over himself, which should give a brighter lustre to 
 his name than all the conquests he has made on the 
 field of discovery, or than all the splendour of his 
 positive achievements. 
 
 I trust you understand, that, though it be one of 
 the maxims of the true philosophy, never to shrink 
 
 VOL. vn. c 
 
§0 THE MouKSTi^ or tuul: science:. 
 
 from a doctrine which has evidence on its side, it is 
 another maxim, equally essential to it, never to 
 harbour any doctrine when this evidence is wanting. 
 Take these two maxims along with you, and you 
 will be at no loss to explain the peculiarity, which, 
 more than any other, goes both to characterize and 
 to ennoble the philosophy of Newton. What I al- 
 lude to is, the precious combination of its strength 
 and of its modesty. On the one hand, what greater 
 evidence of strength than the fulfilment of that 
 mighty enterprise, by which the heavens have been 
 made its own, and the mechanism of unnumbered 
 worlds has been brought within the grasp of the 
 human understanding ? Now, it was by walking 
 in the light of sound and competent evidence, that 
 all this was accomplished. It was by the patient, 
 the strenuous, the unfaltering application of the 
 legitimate instruments of discovery. It was by 
 touching that which was tangible, and looking to 
 that M^hich was visible, and computing that which 
 was measurable, and, in one word, by making a 
 right and a reasonable use of all that proof which 
 the field of nature around us has brought within the 
 limit of sensible observation. This is the arena on 
 which the modern philosophy has won all her vic- 
 tories, and fulfilled all her wondrous achievements, 
 and reared all her proud and enduring monuments, 
 and gathered all her magnificent trophies, to that 
 power of intellect with which the hand of a bounte- 
 ous heaven has so richly gifted the constitution of 
 our species. 
 
 But, on the other hand, go beyond the hmits of 
 sensible observation, and, from that moment, the 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 51 
 
 genuine disciples of this enlightened school cast all 
 their confidence and all their intrepidity away from 
 them. Keep them on the firm ground of experi- 
 ment, and none more bold and more decisive in their 
 announcements of all that they have evidence for— 
 but, olf this ground, none more humble, or more cau- 
 tious of any thing like positive announcements, than 
 they. They choose neither to know, nor to believe, nor 
 to assert, where evidence is wanting, and they will 
 sit, with all the patience of a scholar to his task, till they 
 have found it. They are utter strangers to that 
 haughty confidence with which some philosophers 
 of the day sport the plausibilities of unauthorized 
 speculation, and by wliich, unmindful of the limit 
 that separates the region of sense from the region 
 of conjecture, they make their blind and their im- 
 petuous inroads into a province which does not 
 belong to them. There is no one object to which 
 the exercised mind of a true Newtonian disciple 
 is more familiarized than this limit, and it serves as 
 a boundary by which he shapes, and bounds, and 
 regulates all the enterprises of his philosophy. All 
 the space which lies within this limit, he cultivates 
 to the uttermost ; and it is by such successive la- 
 bours, that every year which rolls over the world 
 is witnessing some new contribution to experimental 
 science, and adding to the solidity and aggrandize- 
 ment of this wonderful fabric. But, if true to their 
 own principle, then, in reference to the forbidden 
 ground which lies without this limit, those very men, 
 who, on the field ofwarranted exertion, evinced all the 
 hardihood and vigour of a full-grown understanding, 
 show, on every subject where the light of evidence 
 
52 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 is withheld from them, all the modesty of children. 
 They give us positive opinion only when they have 
 indisputable proof — but, when they have no such 
 proof, then they have no such opinion. The single 
 principle of their respect to truth, secures their 
 homage for every one position w^here the evidence 
 of truth is present, and, at the same time, begets 
 an entire diffidence about every one position from 
 whic'h this evidence is disjoined. And thus we may 
 understand, how the first man in the accomplish- 
 ments of philosophy, which the world ever saw, sat 
 at the book of nature in the humble attitude of its 
 interpreter and its pupil — how all the docility of 
 conscious ignorance tjirew a sweet and softening 
 lustre around the radiance even of his most splendid 
 discoveries : and, while the flippancy of a few su- 
 perficial acquirements is enough to place a philo- 
 sopher of the day on the pedestal of his fancied 
 elevation, and to vest him with an assumed lordship 
 over the whole domain of natural and revealed 
 knowledge; we cannot forbear to do honour to the 
 unpretending greatness of Newton, than whom we 
 know not if there ever lighted on the face of our 
 world, one in the character of whose admirable 
 genius so much force and so much humility were 
 more attractively blended. 
 
 I now propose to carry you forward, by a few 
 simple illustrations, to the argument of this day. 
 Ail tlie sublime truths of the modern astronomy lie 
 within the field of actual observation, and have the 
 firm evidence to rest upon of ail that information 
 which is conveyed to us by the avenue of the senses. 
 Sir Isaac Newton never w^ent beyond this field, 
 
THE MODESTY Ol' TRUE SCIENCE. 53 
 
 without a reverential impression upon his mind, of 
 the precariousness of the ground on which he was 
 standing. On this ground he never ventured a 
 positive affirmation — but, resigning the lofty tone 
 of demonstration, and putting on the modesty of 
 conscious ignorance, he brought forward all he had 
 to say in the humble form of a doubt, or a conjecture, 
 or a question. But what he had not confidence 
 to do, other philosophers have done after him — and 
 they have winged their audacious way into forbid- 
 den regions — and they have crossed that circle by 
 which the field of observation is enclosed — and there 
 have they debated and dogmatized with all the pride 
 of a most intolerant assurance. 
 
 Now, though the case be imaginary, let us con- 
 ceive, for the sake of illustration, that one of these 
 philosophers made so extravagant a departure from 
 the sobriety of experimental science, as to pass on 
 from the astronomy of the different planets, and to 
 attempt the natural history of their animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms. He might get hold of some 
 vague and general analogies, to throw an air of 
 plausibility around his speculation. He might pass 
 from the botany of the different regions of the globe 
 that we inhabit, and make his loose and confident 
 apphcations to each of the other planets, according 
 to its distance from the sun, and the inclination of 
 its axis to the plane of its annual revolution ; and 
 out of some such slender materials, he may work 
 up an amusing philosophical romance, full of ingen- 
 uity, and having, withal, the colour of truth and of 
 consistency spread over it. 
 
 I can conceive how a superficial public might be 
 
54 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 delighted by the eloquence of such a composition, 
 and even be impressed by its arguments ; but were 
 I asked, which is the man of all the ages and 
 countries in the world, who would have the least 
 respect for this treatise upon the plants which grow 
 on the surface of Jupiter, I should be at no loss to 
 answer the question. I should say, that it would 
 be he who had computed the motions of Jupiter — 
 that it would be he who had measured the bulk and 
 the density of Jupiter — that it would be he who had 
 estimated the periods of Jupiter — that it would be he 
 whose observant eye and patiently calculating mind, 
 had traced the satellites of Jupiter through all the 
 rounds of their mazy circulation, and unravelled the 
 intricacy of all their movements. He would see at 
 once that the sul)ject lay at a hopeless distance 
 beyond the field of legitimate observation. It would 
 be quite enough for him, that it was beyond the 
 range of his telescope. On this ground, and on this 
 ground only, would he reject it as one of the puniest 
 imbecilities of childhood. As to any character of 
 truth or of importance, it would have no more effect 
 on such a mind as that of Newton, than any illusion 
 of poetry ; and from the eminence of his intellectual 
 throne, would he cast a penetrating glance at the 
 whole speculation, and bid its gaudy insignificance 
 away from him. 
 
 But let us pass onward to another case, which, 
 though as imaginary as the former, may still serve 
 the purpose of illustration. 
 
 This same adventurous philosopher may be con- 
 ceived to shift his speculation from the plants of 
 another world, to the character of its inhabitants. 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 5.) 
 
 He may avail himself of some slender correspond- 
 encies between the heat of the sun and the moral 
 temperament of the people it shines upon. He 
 may work up a theory, which carries on the front 
 of it some of the characters of plausibility ; but 
 surely it does not require the philosophy of Newton 
 to demonstrate the folly of such an enterprise. 
 There is not a man of plain understanding, who does 
 not perceive that this ambitious inquirer has got 
 without his reach — that he has stepped beyond the 
 field of experience, and is now expatiating on the 
 field of imagination — that he has ventured on a dark 
 unknown, where the wisest of all philosophy is the 
 philosophy of silence, and a profession of ignorance 
 is the best evidence of a solid understanding — that 
 if he think he knows any thing on such a subject 
 as this, " he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to 
 know." He knows not what Newton knew, and 
 what he kept a steady eye upon throughout the 
 whole march of his sublime investigations. He 
 knows not the limit of his own faculties. He has 
 overleaped the barrier which hems in all the pos- 
 sibilities of human attainment. He has wantonly 
 flung himself off from the safe and firm field of ob- 
 servation, and got on that undiscoverable ground, 
 where, by every step he takes, he widens his dis- 
 tance from the true philosophy, and by every 
 affirmation he utters, he rebels against the authority 
 of all its maxims. 
 
 I can conceive it to be your feeling, that I have 
 hitherto indulged in a vain expense of argument, 
 and it is most natural for you to put the question, 
 * What is the precise point of convergence to which 
 
56 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 I am directing all the light of this abundant and 
 seemingly superfluous illustration ?' 
 
 In the astronomical objection which Infidelity 
 has proposed against the truth of the Christian 
 revelation, there is first an assertion, and then an 
 argument. The assertion is, that Christianity is 
 set up for the exclusive benefit of our minute 
 and solitary world. The argument is, that God 
 would not lavish such a quantity of attention on so 
 insignificant a field. Even though the assertion 
 were admitted, I should have a quarrel with the 
 argument. But the futility of the objection is not 
 laid open in all its extent, unless we expose the 
 utter want of all essential evidence even for the 
 truth of the assertion. How do infidels know that 
 Christianity is set up for the single benefit of this 
 earth and its inhabitants ? How are they able to 
 tell us, that if you go to other planets, the person 
 and the religion of Jesus are there unknown to 
 them ? We challenge them to the proof of this 
 announcement. We see in this objection the same 
 rash and gratuitous procedure, which was so ap- 
 parent in the two cases that we have already 
 advanced for the purpose of illustration. We see 
 in it the same glaring transgression on the spirit 
 and the maxims of that very philosophy which they 
 profess to idolize. They have made their argument 
 against us, out of an assertion which has positively 
 no ascertained fact to rest upon — an assertion which 
 they have no means whatever of verifying — an 
 assertion, the truth or the falsehood of which can 
 only be gathered out of some supernatural message, 
 for it lies completely beyond the range of human 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 57 
 
 observation. It is willingly admitted, that by an 
 attempt at the botany of other worlds, the true 
 method of philosophizing is trampled on ; for this 
 is a subject that lies beyond the range of actual 
 observation, and every performance upon it must be 
 made up of assertions without proofs. It is also 
 willingly admitted, that an attempt at the civil and 
 political history of their people, would be an equally 
 extravagant departure from the spirit of the true 
 philosophy ; for this also lies beyond the field of 
 actual observation ; and all that could possibly be 
 mustered up on such a subject as this, would still 
 be assertions without proofs. Now, the theology 
 of these planets is, in every way, as inaccessible a 
 subject as their politics or their natural history ; 
 and therefore it is, that the objection, grounded on 
 the confident assumption of those infidel astronomers, 
 who assert Christianity to be the religion of this 
 one world, or that the religion of these other worlds 
 is not our very Christianity, can have no influence 
 on a mind that has derived its habits of thinking, 
 from the pure and rigorous school of Newton ; for 
 the whole of this assertion is just as glaringly des- 
 titute of proof, as in the two former instances. 
 
 The man who could embark in an enterprise so 
 foolish and so fanciful, as to theorize on the details 
 of the botany of another world, or to theorize on 
 the natural and moral history of its people, is just 
 making as outrageous a departure from all sense, 
 and all science, and all sobriety, when he presumes 
 to speculate, or to assert on the details or the 
 methods of God's administration among its rational 
 and accountable inhabitants. He wings his fancy 
 c 2 
 
58 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 to as hazardous a region, and vainly strives a 
 penetrating vision through the mantle of as deep 
 an obscurity. All the elements of such a specu- 
 lation are hidden from him. For any thing he can 
 tell, sin has found its way into these other worlds. 
 For any thing he can tell, their people have banished 
 themselves from communion with God. For any 
 thing he can tell, many a visit has been made to 
 each of them, on the subject of our common 
 Christianity, by commissioned messengers from the 
 throne of the Eternal. For any thing he can tell, 
 the redemption proclaimed to us is not one solitary 
 instance, or not the whole of that redemption which 
 is by the Son of God — but only our part in a plan 
 of mercy, equal in magnificence to all that astron- 
 omy has brought within the range of human 
 contemplation. For any thing he can tell, the 
 moral pestilence, which walks abroad over the face 
 of our world, may have spread its desolations over 
 all the planets of all the systems which the telescope 
 has made known to us. For any thing he can tell, 
 some mighty redemption has been devised in heaven, 
 to meet this disaster in the whole extent and- ma- 
 lignity of its visitations. For any thing he can tell, 
 the wonder-working God, who has strewed the field 
 of immensity with so many worlds, and spread the 
 shelter of His omnipotence over them, may have 
 sent a message of love to each, and re-assured the 
 hearts of its despairing people by some overpower- 
 ing manifestation of tenderness. For any thing 
 he can tell, angels from paradise may have sped to 
 every planet their delegated way, and sung, from 
 each azure canopy, a joyful annunciation, and said, 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 59 
 
 *•' Peace be to this residence, and good-will to all 
 its families, and glory to Him in the highest, who, 
 from the eminency of his throne, has issued an act 
 of grace so magnificent, as to carry the tidings of 
 life and of acceptance to the unnumbered orbs of 
 a sinful creation." For any thing he can tell, the 
 Eternal Son, of whom it is said, that by Him the 
 worlds were created, may have had the government 
 of many sinful worlds laid upon His shoulders ; and 
 by the power of His mysterious word, have awoke 
 them all from that spiritual death, to which they 
 had sunk in lethargy as profound as the slumbers 
 of non-existence. For any thing he can tell, the 
 one Spirit who moved on the face of the waters, 
 and whose presiding influence it was that hushed 
 the wild war of nature's elements, and made a 
 beauteous system emerge out of its disjointed 
 materials, may now be working with the fragments 
 of another chaos; and educing order, and obedience, 
 and harmony, out of the wrecks of a moral rebellion, 
 which reaches through all these spheres, and 
 spreads disorder to the uttermost limits of our 
 astronomy. 
 
 Bat here I stop — nor shall I attempt to grope 
 further my dark and fatiguing way, among such 
 sublime and mysterious secrecies. It is not I who 
 am offering to lift this curtain. It is not I who 
 am pitching my adventurous flight to the secret 
 things which belong to God, away from the things 
 that are revealed, and which belong to us, and to 
 our children. It is the champion of that very Infi- 
 delity which I am now combating. It is he who 
 props his unchristian argument, by presumptions 
 
60 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 fetched out of those untravelled obscurities which 
 lie on the other side of a barrier that I pronounce 
 to be impassable. It is he who trangresses the 
 limits which Newton forbore to^nter; because, 
 with a justness which reigns throughout all his in- 
 quiries, he saw the limit of his own understanding, 
 nor would he venture himself beyond it. It is he 
 who has borrowed from the philosophy of this 
 wondrous man a few dazzling conceptions, which 
 have only served to bewilder him — while, an utter 
 stranger to the spirit of this philosophy, he has 
 carried a daring and an ignorant speculation far 
 beyond the boundary of its prescribed and allowable 
 enterprises. It is he who has mustered against 
 the truths of the Gospel, resting as it does on 
 evidence within the reach of his faculties, an 
 objection, for the truth of which he has no evidence 
 whatever. It is he who puts away from him a 
 doctrine, for which he has the substantial and the 
 familiar proof of human testimony ; and substitutes 
 in its place, a doctrine, for which he can get no 
 other support than from a reverie of his own im- 
 agination. It is he who turns aside from all that 
 safe and certain argument, that is supplied by the 
 history of this world, of which he knows something ; 
 and who loses himself in the work of theorizing 
 about other worlds, of the moral and theological 
 history of which he positively knows nothing. 
 Upon him, and not upon us, lies the folly of 
 launching his impetuous way beyond the province 
 of observation — of letting his fancy afloat among 
 the unknown of distant and mysterious regions — 
 and, by an act of daring, as impious as it is 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 61 
 
 unphilosophical; of trying: to unwrap that shroud, 
 which, till drawn aside by the hand of a messenger 
 from heaven, will ever veil, from human eye, the 
 purposes of the Eternal. 
 
 If you have gone along with us in the preceding 
 observations, you will perceive how they are cal- 
 culated to disarm of all its point, and of all its 
 energy, that flippancy of Voltaire ; when, in the 
 examples he gives of the dotage of the human un- 
 derstanding, he tells us of Bacon having believed 
 in witchcraft, and Sir Isaac Newton having writ- 
 ten a commentary on the Book of Revelation. 
 The former instance we shall not undertake to 
 vindicate ; but, in the latter instance, we perceive 
 what this brilUant and specious, but withal super- 
 ficial apostle of Infidelity, either did not see, or 
 refused to acknowledge. We see in this intellec- 
 tual labour of our great philosopher, the working 
 of the very same principles which carried him 
 through the profoundest and the most successful 
 of his investigations ; and how he kept most sa- 
 credly and most consistently by those very maxims, 
 the authority of which, he, even in the full vigour 
 and manhood of his faculties, ever recognized. 
 We see in the theology..of Newton, the very spirit 
 and principle which gave all its stability, and all 
 its sureness, to the philosophy of Newton. We 
 see the same tenacious adherence to every one 
 doctrine, that had such vahd proof to uphold it, as 
 could be gathered from the field of human expe- 
 rience ; and we see the same firm resistance of 
 every one argument, that had nothing to recom- 
 mend it, but such plausibilities as could easily be 
 
62 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 devised by the genius of man, when he expatiated 
 abroad on those fields of creation which the eye 
 never witnessed, and from which no messenger ever 
 came to us with any credible information. Now, 
 it was on the former of these two principles that 
 Newton clung so determinedly to his Bible, as the 
 record of an actual annunciation from God to the 
 inhabitants of this world. When he turned his 
 attention to this book, he came to it with a mind 
 tutored to the philosophy of facts — and when he 
 looked at its credentials, he saw the stamp and the 
 impress of this philosophy on every one of them. 
 He saw the fact of Christ being a messenger from 
 heaven, in the audible language by which it was 
 conveyed from heaven's canopy to human ears. 
 He saw the fact of his being an approved ambas- 
 sador of God, in those miracles which carried their 
 own resistless evidence along with them to human 
 eyes. He saw the truth of this whole history 
 brought home to his own conviction, by a sound 
 and substantial vehicle of human testimony. He 
 saw the reality of that supernatural light, which 
 inspired the prophecies he himself illustrated, by 
 such an agreement with the events of a various 
 and distant futurity as could be taken cognizance 
 of by human observation. He saw the wisdom of 
 God pervading the whole substance of the written 
 message, in such manifold adaptations to the cir- 
 cumstances of man, and to the whole secrecy of 
 his thoughts, and his affections, and his spiritual 
 wants, and his moral sensibilities, as even in the 
 mind of an ordinary and unlettered peasant, can 
 be attested by human consciousness. These forna- 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 63 
 
 ed the solid materials of the basis on which our 
 experimental philosopher stood; and there was 
 nothing in the whole compass of his own astronomy, 
 to dazzle him away from it ; and he was too well 
 aware of the limit between what he knew, and 
 what he did not know, to be seduced from the 
 ground he had taken, by any of those brilliancies, 
 which have since led so many of his humbler suc- 
 cessors into the track of Infidelity. He had mea- 
 sured the distances of these planets. He had cal- 
 culated their periods. He had estimated their 
 figures, and their bulk, and their densities, and he 
 had subordinated the whole intricacy of their move- 
 ments to the simple and sublime agency of one 
 commanding principle. But he had too much of 
 the ballast of a substantial understanding about 
 him, to be thrown afloat by all this success among 
 the plausibilities of wanton and unauthorized spe- 
 culation. He knew the boundary which hemmed 
 him. He knew that he had not thrown one par- 
 ticle of light on the moral or religious history of 
 these planetary regions. He had not ascertained 
 what visits of communication they received from 
 the God who upholds them. But he knew that 
 the fact of a real visit made to this planet, had 
 such evidence to rest upon, that it was not to be 
 disposted by any aerial imagination. And when 
 I look at the steady and unmoved Christianity of 
 this wonderful man ; so far from seeing any symp- 
 tom of dotage and imbecility, or any forgetfulness 
 of those principles on which the fabric of his phi- 
 losophy is reared ; do I see, that in sitting down 
 to the work of a Bible commentator, he hath given 
 
64 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 
 
 US their most beautiful and most consistent 
 exemplification. 
 
 I did not anticipate such a length of time, and 
 of illustration, in this stage of my argument. But 
 I will not regret it, if I have famiharized the minds 
 of any of my readers to the reigning principle of 
 this Discourse. We are strongly disposed to think, 
 that it is a principle which might be made to apply 
 to every argument of every unbeliever — and so to 
 serve not merely as an antidote against the Infi- 
 delity of astronomers, but to serve as an antidote 
 against all Infidelity. We are all aware of the 
 diversity of complexion which Infidelity puts on. 
 It looks one thing in the man of science and of 
 liberal accomplishment. It looks another thing 
 in the refined voluptuary. It looks still another 
 thing in the common-place railer against the arti- 
 fices of priestly domination. It looks another thing 
 in the dark and unsettled spirit of him, whose every 
 reflection is tinctured with gall, and who casts his 
 envious and malignant scowl at all that stands 
 associated with the estabhshed order of society. 
 It looks another thing in the prosperous man of 
 business, who has neither time nor patience for 
 the details of the Christian evidence — but who, 
 amid the hurry of his other occupations, has gath- 
 ered as many of the lighter petulancies of the in- 
 fidel writers, and caught from the perusal of them, 
 as contemptuous a tone towards the religion of 
 the New Testament, as to set him at large from 
 all the decencies of rehgious observation, and to 
 give him the disdain of an elevated complacency 
 over all the follies of what he counts a vulgar su- 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 65 
 
 f^rstltion. And, lastly, for Infidelity has now got 
 down amongst us to the humblest walks of life ; 
 may it occasionally be seen louring on the forehead 
 of the resolute and hardy artificer, who can lift his 
 menacing voice against the priesthood, and, look- 
 ing on the Bible as a jugglery of theirs, can bid 
 stout defiance to all its denunciations. Now, under 
 all these varieties, we think that there might be 
 detected the one and universal principle which we 
 have attempted to expose. The something, what- 
 ever it is, which has dispossessed all these people 
 of their Christianity, exists in their minds, in the 
 shape of a position, which they hold to be true, 
 but which, by no legitimate evidence, they have 
 ever realized — and a position, which lodges within 
 them as a wilful fancy or presumption of their own, 
 but which could not stand the touchstone of that 
 wise and solid principle, in virtue of which the fol- 
 lowers of Newton give to observation the prece- 
 dence over theory. It is a principle altogether 
 worthy of being laboured — as, if carried round in 
 faithful and consistent application amongst these 
 numerous varieties, it is able to break up all the 
 existing Infidelity of the world. 
 
 But there is one other most important conclu- 
 sion to which it carries us. It carries us, with all 
 the docility of children, to the Bible ; and puts us 
 down into the attitude of an unreserved surrender 
 of thought and understanding, to its authoritative 
 information, Without the testimony of an authen- 
 tic messenger from Heaven, I know nothing of 
 Heaven's counsels. I never heard of any moral 
 telescope that can bring to my observation the 
 
66 THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE* 
 
 doings or the deliberations which are taking place 
 in the sanctuary of the Eternal. I may put into 
 the registers of my belief, all that comes home to 
 me through the senses of the outer man, or by the 
 consciousness of the inner man. But neither the 
 one nor the other can tell me of the purposes of 
 God ; can tell me of the transactions or the designs 
 of His sublime monarchy ; can tell me of the go- 
 ings forth of Him who is from everlasting unto 
 everlasting ; can tell me of the march and the 
 movements of that great administration which em- 
 braces all worlds, and takes into its wide and com- 
 prehensive survey the mighty roll of innumerable 
 ages. It is true that my fancy may break its im- 
 petuous way into this lofty and inaccessible field ; 
 and, through the devices of my heart, which are 
 many, the visions of an ever-shifting theology may 
 take their alternate sway over me ; but the coun- 
 sel of the Lord, it shall stand. And I repeat it, 
 that if true to the leading principle of that philo- 
 sophy, which has poured such a flood of light over 
 the mysteries of nature, we shall dismiss every 
 self-formed conception of our own, and wait, in 
 all the humility of conscious ignorance, till the 
 Lord himself shall break His silence, and make 
 His counsel known, by an act of communication. 
 And now, that a professed communication is be- 
 fore me, and that it has all the solidity of the ex- 
 perimental evidence on its side, and nothing but 
 the reveries of a daring speculation to oppose it, 
 what is the consistent, what is the rational, what 
 is the philosophical use that should be made of 
 this document, but to set me down like a school- 
 
THE MODESTY OF TRUE SCIENCE. 6T 
 
 boy, to the work of turning its pages, and conning 
 its lessons, and submitting the every exercise, of 
 my judgment to its information and its testimony ? 
 We know that there is a superficial philosophy, 
 which casts the glare of a most seducing briUiancy 
 around it ; and spurns the Bible, with all the doc- 
 trine, and all the piety of the Bible, away from it; 
 and has infused the spirit of Antichrist into many 
 of the literary establishments of the age ; but it is 
 not the solid, the profound, the cautious spirit of 
 that philosophy, which has done so much to en- 
 noble the modern period of our world ; for the 
 more that this spirit is cultivated and understood, 
 the more will it be found in alliance with that 
 spirit, in virtue of which all that exalteth itself 
 against the knowledge of God is humbled, and all 
 lofty imaginations are cast down, and every thought 
 of the heart is brought into the captivity of the 
 obedience of Christ. 
 
68 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE 
 CONDESCENSION. 
 
 * "Wiio is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on 
 high ; who humbleth himself to behold the things that 
 are in heaven, and in the earth!" — Psalm cxiii. 5, 6. 
 
 In our last Discourse, we attempted to expose the 
 total want of evidence for the assertion of the infidel 
 astronomer — and this reduces the whole of our 
 remaining controversy with him, to the business of 
 arguing against a mere possibility. Still, however, 
 the answer is not so complete as it might be, till 
 .he soundness of the argument be attended to, as 
 well as the credibility of the assertion — or, in other 
 words, let us admit the assertion, and take a view of 
 the reasoning which has been constructed upon it. 
 We have already attempted to lay before you 
 the wonderful extent of that space, teeming with 
 unnumbered worlds, which modern science has 
 brought within the circle of its discoveries. We 
 even ventured to expatiate on those tracts of infinity, 
 which lie on the other side of all that eye or that 
 telescope hath made known to us — to shoot afar 
 into those ulterior regions, which are beyond the 
 limits of our astronomy — to impress you with the 
 rashness of the imagination, that the creative energy 
 of God had sunk exhausted by the magnitude of 
 its efforts, at that very line, through which the art 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 69 
 
 of man, lavished as it has been on the work of 
 perfecting the instruments of vision, has not yet 
 been able to penetrate ; and upon all this we 
 hazarded the assertion, that though all these visible 
 heavens were to rush into annihilation, and the besom 
 of the Almighty's wrath were to sweep from the face 
 of the universe, those millions, and milUons more 
 of suns and of systems, which lie within the grasp 
 of our actual observation — that this event, which, 
 to our eye, would leave so wide and so dismal a 
 solitude behind it, might be nothing in the eye of 
 Him who could take in the whole, but the disap- 
 pearance of a little speck from that field of created 
 things, which the hand of His omnipotence had 
 thrown around him. 
 
 But to press home the sentiment of the text, it 
 is not necessary to stretch the imagination beyond 
 the limit of our actual discoveries. It is enough 
 to strike our minds with the insignificance of this 
 world, and of all who inhabit it, to bring it into 
 measurement with that mighty assemblage of worlds 
 which lie open to the eye of man, aided as it has 
 been by the inventions of his genius. When we 
 told you of the eighty millions of suns, each oc- 
 cupying his own independent territory in space, 
 and dispensing his own influences over a cluster of 
 tributary worlds ; this world could not fail to sink 
 into littleness in the eye of him, who looked to all 
 the magnitude and variety which are around it. 
 We gave you but a feeble image of our comparative 
 insignificance, when we said, that the glories of an 
 extended forest would suffer no more from the fall 
 of a single leaf, than the glories of this extended 
 
70 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 universe would suifer, though the globe we tread 
 upon, " and all that it inherit, should dissolve." 
 And when we lift our conceptions to Him who has 
 peopled immensity with all these wonders — Who 
 sits enthroned on the magnificence of His own 
 works, and by one sublime idea can embrace the 
 whole extent of that boundless amplitude, which 
 He has filled with the trophies of His divinity ; we 
 cannot but resign our whole heart to the Psalmist's 
 exclamation of " What is man, that thou art mindful 
 of him ; or the son of man, that thou shouldst deign 
 to visit him !" 
 
 Now, mark the use to which all this has been 
 turned by the genius of Infidelity. Such an humble 
 portion of the universe as ours, could never have 
 been the object of such high and distinguishing 
 attentions as Christianity has assigned to it. God 
 would not have manifested Himself in the flesh for 
 the salvation of so paltry a world. The monarch 
 of a whole continent would never move from his 
 capital ; and lay aside the splendour of royalty ; 
 and subject himself for months, or for years, to 
 perils, and poverty, and persecution ; and take up 
 his abode in some small islet of his dominions, which, 
 though swallowed by an earthquake, could not be 
 missed amid the glories of so wide an empire ; and 
 all this to regain the lost affections of a few families 
 upon its surface. And neither would the eternal 
 Son of God — He who is revealed to us as having 
 made all worlds, and as holding an empire, amid 
 the splendours of which, the globe that we inherit 
 is shaded in insignificance ; neither would He strip 
 HimseK of the glory He had with the Father before 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 71 
 
 the world was, and light on this lower scene for 
 the purpose imputed to Him in the New Testament. 
 Impossible, that the concerns of this puny ball, 
 which floats its little round among an infinity of 
 larger worlds, should be of such mighty account in 
 the plans of the Eternal, or should have given birth 
 in heaven to so wonderful a movement, as the Son 
 of God putting on the form of our degraded species, 
 and sojourning amongst us, and sharing in all our 
 infirmities, and crowning the whole scene of hu- 
 miliation by the disgrace and the agonies of a cruel 
 martyrdom. 
 
 This has been started as a difficulty in the way 
 of theChristian Revelation; and it is the boast of 
 many of our philosophical Infidels, that, by the light 
 of modern discovery, the light of the New Testa- 
 ment is eclipsed and overborne ; and the mischief 
 is not confined to philosophers, for the argument has 
 got into other hands, and the popular illustrations 
 that are now given to the sublimest truths of science, 
 have widely disseminated all the Deism that has 
 been grafted upon it ; and the high tone of a decided 
 contempt for the Gospel is now associated with the 
 flippancy of superficial accquirements ; and, while 
 the venerable Newton, whose genius threw open 
 those mighty fields of contemplation, found a fit 
 exercise for his powers in the interpretation of the 
 Bible, there are thousands and tens of thousands, 
 who, though walking in the hght which he holds out 
 to them, are seduced by a complacency which he 
 never felt, and inflated by a pride which never 
 entered into his pious and philosophical bosom, and 
 
72 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 whose only notice of the Bible is to depreciate, and 
 to deride, and to disown it. 
 
 Before entering into what we conceive to be the 
 right answer to this objection, let us previously 
 observe, that it goes to strip the Deity of an 
 attribute, which forms a wonderful addition to the 
 glories of his incomprehensible character. It is 
 .indeed a mighty evidence of the strength of His 
 arm, that so many millions of worlds are suspended 
 on it ; but it would suiely make the high attribute of 
 His power more illustrious, if, while it expatiated at 
 large among the suns and the systems of astronomy, 
 it could, at the very same instant, be impressing a 
 movement and a direction on all the minuter wheels 
 of that machinery which is working incessantly 
 around us. It forms a noble demonstration of His 
 wisdom, that He gives unremitthig operation to 
 those laws which uphold the stability of this great 
 universe ; but it would go to heighten that wisdom 
 inconceivably, if, while equal to the magnificent 
 task of maintaining tlie order and harmony of the 
 spheres, it was lavishing its inexhaustible resources 
 on the beauties, and varieties, and arrangements, 
 of every one scene, however humble, of every one 
 field, however narrow, of the creation He had 
 formed. It is a cheering evidence of the delight 
 He takes in communicating happiness, that the 
 whole of immensity should be so strewed with the 
 habitations of life and of intelligence ; but it would 
 surely bring home the evidence, with a nearer and 
 a more affecting impression, to every bosom, did 
 we know, that at the very time His benignant regard 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 73 
 
 took in the mighty circle of created beings, there 
 was not a single family overlooked by Him, and 
 that every individual in every corner of his do- 
 minions, was as effectually seen to, as if the object of 
 an exclusive and undivided care. It is our imperfec- 
 tion, that we cannot give our attention to more than 
 one object, at one and the same instant of time; but 
 surely it would elevate our every idea of the per- 
 fections of God, did we know, that while his 
 comprehensive mind could grasp the whole amplitude 
 of nature, to the very outermost of its boundaries, 
 He had an attentive eye fastened on the very 
 humblest of its objects, and pondered every thought 
 of my heart, and noticed every footstep of my 
 goings, and treasured up in His remembrance every 
 turn and every movement of my history. 
 
 And, lastly, to apply this train of sentiment to 
 the matter before us; let us suppose that one among 
 the countless myriads of worlds, should be visited 
 by a moral pestilence, which spread through all its 
 people, and brought them under the doom of a law, 
 whose sanctions were unrelenting and immutable ; 
 it were no disparagement to God, should He, by 
 an act of righteous indignation, sweep this offence 
 away from the universe which it deformed — nor 
 should we wonder, though, among the multitude of 
 other worlds, from which the ear of the Almighty 
 was regaled with the songs of praise, and the in- 
 cense of a pure adoration ascended to His throne, 
 He should leave the strayed and solitary world to 
 perish in the guilt of its rebehion. But, would it 
 not throw the softening of a most exquisite tender- 
 ness over the character of God, should we see Him 
 
 VOL. VII. D 
 
74 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 putting forth His every expedient to reclaim to 
 Himself those children who had wandered away 
 from Him — and, few as they were when compared 
 with the host of His obedient worshippers, would 
 it not just impart to his attribute of compas- 
 sion the infinity of the Godhead, that, rather than 
 lose the single world which had turned to its own 
 way, He should send the messengers of peace to 
 woo and to welcome it back again ; and, if justice 
 demanded so mighty a sacrifice, and the law be- 
 hoved to be so magnified and made honourable, 
 would it not throw a moral sublime over the good- 
 ness of the Deity, should He lay upon His own 
 Son the burden of its atonement, that He might 
 again smile upon the world, and hold out the 
 sceptre of invitation to all its families ? 
 
 We avow it, therefore, that this infidel argument 
 goes to expunge a perfection from the character of 
 God. The more we know of the extent of nature, 
 should not we have the loftier conception of Him 
 who sits in high authority over the concerns of so 
 wide a universe ? But is it not adding to the bright 
 catalogue of His other attributes, to say, that, while 
 magnitude does not overpower Him, minuteness 
 cannot escape Him, and vari<ity cannot bewilder 
 Him ; and that, at the very time while the mind of 
 the Deity is abroad over the whole vastness of 
 creation, there is not one particle of matter, there 
 is not one individual principle of rational or of an- 
 imal existence, there is not one single world in that 
 expanse which teems with them, that His eye does 
 not discern as constantly, and His hand does not 
 guide as unerringly, and His Spirit does not watch 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 75 
 
 and care for as vigilantly, as if it formed the one 
 and exclusive object of His attention ? 
 
 The thing is inconceivable to us, whose minds 
 are so easily distracted by a number of objects, and 
 this is the secret principle of the whole Infidelity I 
 am now alluding to. To bring God to the level 
 of our own comprehension, we would clothe him 
 in the impotency of a man. We would transfer 
 to his wonderful mind all the imperfection of our 
 own faculties. When we are taught by astronomy, 
 that He has millions of worlds to look after, and 
 thus add in one direction to the glories of His 
 character ; we take away from them in another, by 
 saying, that each of these worlds must be looked 
 after imperfectly. The use that we make of a 
 discovery, which should heighten our every concep- 
 tion of God, and humble us into the sentiment, 
 that a Being of such mysterious elevation is to us 
 mifathomabie, is to sit in judgment over Him, and 
 to pronounce such a judgment as degrade* 
 Him, and keeps Him down to the standard of our 
 own paltry imagination ! We are introduced by 
 modern science to a multitude of other suns and of 
 other systems; and the perverse interpretation we put 
 upon the fact, that God can diffuse the benefits of 
 His power and of His goodness over such a variety 
 of worlds, is, that He cannot^ or \^^1 not, bestow so 
 much goodness on one of those worlds, as a professed 
 revelation from Heaven has announced to us. While 
 we enlarge the provinces of His empire, w^e tarnish 
 all the glory of this enlargement, by saying. He has 
 so much to care for, that the care of every one 
 province must be less complete, and less vigilant, 
 
76 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 and less effectual, than it would otherwise have been. 
 By the discoveries of modern science, we multiply 
 the places of the creation ; but along with this, we 
 would impair the attribute of His eye being in every 
 place to behold the evil and the good ; and thus, 
 while we magnify one of His perfections, we do it 
 at the expense of another; and, to bring Him within 
 the grasp of our feeble capacity, we would deface 
 one of the glories of that character, which it is our 
 part to adore, as higher than all thought, and as 
 greater than all comprehension. 
 
 The objection we are discussing, I shall state 
 again in a single sentence. Since astronomy has 
 unfolded tons such a number of worlds, it is not likely 
 that God would pay so much attention to this one 
 world, and set up such wonderful provisions for its 
 benefit, as are announced to us in the Christian 
 Revelation. This objection will have received its 
 answer, if we can meet it by the following position : 
 —that God, in addition to the bare faculty of dwell- 
 ing on a multiplicity of objects at one and the same 
 time, has this faculty in such wonderful perfection, 
 that He can attend as fully, and provide as richly, 
 and manifest all His attributes as illustriously, on 
 every one of these objects, as if the rest had no 
 existence, and ujj^place whatever in His government 
 or in His thoughts. 
 
 For the evidence of this position, we appeal,* in 
 the first place, to the personal history of each in- 
 dividual among you. Only grant us, that God 
 never loses sight of any one thing He has created, 
 and that no created thing can continue either to be, 
 or to act independently of Him; and then, even 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 77 
 
 upon the face of this world, humble as it is on the 
 great scale of astronomy, how widely diversified, 
 and how multiplied into many thousand distinct 
 exercises, is the attention of God! His eye is 
 upon every hour of my existence. His spirit is 
 intimately present with every thought of my heart. 
 His inspiration gives birth to every purpose within 
 me. His hand impresses a direction on every 
 footstep of my goings. Every breath I inhale, is 
 (!rawn by an energy which God deals out to me. 
 This body, which, upon the slightest derangement, 
 would become the prey of death, or of woful suff- 
 ering, is now at ease, because He at this moment 
 is warding off from me a thousand dangers, and 
 upholding the thousand movements of its complex 
 and delicate machinery. His presiding influence 
 keeps by me through the whole current of my rest- 
 less and everchanging history. When I walk by 
 •»e wayside. He is along with me. When I enter 
 into company, amid all my forgetfulness of Him, 
 He never foroets me. In the silent watches of the 
 •iglit, when my eyelids have closed, and my spirit 
 has sunk into unconsciousness, the observant eye 
 of Him who never slumbers is upon me. I cannot 
 fly from his presence. Go where I will, He tends 
 me, and watches me, and cares for me; and the 
 same Being who is now at work in the remotest do- 
 mains of Nature and of Providence, is also at my 
 right hand to eke out to me every moment of my 
 being, and to uphold me in the exercise of all my 
 feelings, and of all my faculties. 
 
 Now, what God is doing with me. He is doing 
 with every distinct individual of this world's popu- 
 
78 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 lation. The intimacy of His presence, and atten- 
 tion, and care, reaches to one and to all of them. 
 With a mind unburdened by the vastness of all its 
 other concerns. He can prosecute, without distrac- 
 tion, the government and guardianship of every 
 one son and daughter of the species. And is it 
 for us, in the face of all this experience, ungrate- 
 fully to draw a Umit around the perfections of God 
 
 to aver, that the multitude of other worlds has 
 
 withdrawn any portion of His benevolence from 
 the one we occupy — or that He, whose eye is upon 
 every separate family of the earth, would not lavish 
 all the riches of His unsearchable attributes on 
 some high plan of pardon and immortality, in be- 
 half of its countless generations ? 
 
 But, secondly, were the mind of God so fatigued, 
 and so occupied with the care of other worlds, as 
 the objection presumes Him to be, should we not 
 see some traces of neglect, or of carelessness, in 
 His management of ours ? Should we not behold, 
 in many a field of observation, the evidence of its 
 master being over-crow^ded with the variety of His 
 other engagements ? A man oppressed by a mul- 
 titude of business, would simplify and reduce the 
 work of any new concern that was devolved upon 
 him. Now, point out a single mark of God being 
 thus oppressed. Astronomy has laid open to us 
 so many realms of creation, which were before un- 
 heard of, that the world we inhabit shrinks into 
 one remote and solitary province of His wide 
 monarchy. Tell us then, if, in any one field of 
 this province which man has access to, you witness 
 a single indication of God sparing Himself — of 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION, 79 
 
 God reduced to languor by the weight of His 
 other employments — of God sinking under the 
 burden of that vast superintendance which lies 
 upon Him — of God being exhausted, as one of our- 
 selves would be, by any number of concerns, how- 
 ever great, by any variety of them, however man- 
 ifold ; and do you not perceive, in that mighty 
 profusion of wisdom and of goodness, which is 
 scattered every where around us, that the thoughts 
 of this unsearchable Being are not as our thoughts, 
 nor his ways as our ways ? 
 
 My time does not suffer me to dwell on this 
 topic, because, before I conclude, I must hasten 
 to another illustration. But when I look abroad 
 on the wondrous scene that is immediately before 
 me — and see, that in every direction it is a scene 
 of the most various and unwearied activity — and 
 expatiate on all the beauties of that garniture by 
 which it is adorned, and on all the prints of design 
 and of benevolence which abound in it — and think, 
 that the same God who holds the universe, with its 
 every system, in the hollow of His hand, pencils 
 every flovs^er, and gives nourishment to every blade 
 of grass, and actuates the movements of every liv- 
 ing thing, and is not disabled, by the weight of 
 His other cares, from enriching the humble depart- 
 ment of nature I occupy, with charms and accom- 
 modations of the most unbounded variety — then, 
 surely, if a message, bearing every mark of authen- 
 ticity, should profess to come to me from God, 
 and inform me of his mighty doings for the happi- 
 ness of our species, it is not for me, in the face of 
 all this evidence, to reject it as a tale of imposture, 
 
 J 
 
80 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 because astronomers have told me that He has so 
 many other worlds and other orders of beings to 
 attend to^ — and, when I think that it were a depo- 
 sition of Him from his supremacy over the crea- 
 tures he has formed, should a single sparrow fall 
 to the ground without His appointment, then let 
 science and sophistry try to cheat me of my com- 
 fort, as they may — I will not let go the anchor of 
 my confidence in God — I will not be afraid, for I 
 am of more value than many sparrows. 
 
 But, thirdly, it was the telescope, that, by pierc- 
 ing the obscurity which lies between us and distant 
 worlds, put Infidelity in possession of the argument 
 against which we are now contending. But, about 
 the time of its invention, another instrument was 
 formed, which laid open a scene no less wonderful, 
 and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of man with a 
 discovery, which serves to neutralize the whole of 
 this argument. This was the microscope. The 
 one led me to see a system in every star. The 
 other leads me to see a world in every atom. Th« 
 one taught me, that this mighty globe, with the 
 whole burden of its people and of its countries, is 
 but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity. 
 The other teaches me, that every grain of sand 
 may harbour within it the tribes and the families 
 of a busy population. The one told me of the in- 
 significance of the world I tread upon. The other 
 redeems it from all its insignificance ; for it tells me 
 that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers 
 of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, 
 there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless 
 as are the glories of the firmament. The one has 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 81 
 
 suggested to me, that beyond and above all that 
 is visible to man, there may lie fields of creation 
 which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the 
 impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest 
 scenes of the universe. The other suggests to me, 
 that withhi and beneath all that minuteness which 
 the aided eye of man has been able to explore, 
 there may lie a region of invisibles ; and that, could 
 we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds 
 it from our senses, we might there see a theatre 
 of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a 
 universe within the compass of a point so small, 
 as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but 
 where the wonder-working God finds room for 
 the exercise of all His attributes, where He can 
 raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and 
 animate them all with the evidences of His glory. 
 Now, mark how all this may be made to meet 
 the argument of our infidel astronomers. By the 
 telescope, they have discovered that no magnitude, 
 however vast, is beyond the grasp of the Divinity. 
 But by the microscope, we have also discovered, 
 that no minuteness, however shrunk from the no- 
 tice of the human eye, is beneath the condescen- 
 sion of His regard. Every addition to the powers 
 of the one instrument, extends the limit of His 
 visible dominions. But, by every addition to the 
 powers of the other instrument, we see each part 
 of them more crowded than before, with the won- 
 ders of His unwearying hand. The one is con- 
 stantly widening the circle of His territory. The 
 other is as constantly filling up its separate por- 
 tions, with all that is rich, and various, and exqui- 
 d2 
 
82 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 site. In a word, by the one I am told that the 
 Almighty is now at work in regions more distant 
 than geometry has ever measured, and among 
 worlds more manifold than numbers have ever 
 reached. But, by the other, I am also told, that 
 with a mind to comprehend the whole, in the vast 
 compass of its generality, He has also a mind to 
 concentrate a close and a separate attention on 
 each and on all of its particulars ; and that the 
 same God, who sends forth an upholding influence 
 among the orbs and the movements of astronomy, 
 can fill the recesses of every single atom with the 
 intimacy of his presence, and travel, in all the 
 greatness of His unimpaired attributes, upon every 
 one spot and corner of the universe He has formed 
 They, therefore, who think that God will not 
 put forth such a power, and such a goodness, and 
 such a condescension, in behalf of this world, as 
 are ascribed to Him in the New Testament, because 
 He has so many other worlds to attend to, think 
 of him as a man. They confine their view to the 
 informations of the telescope, and forget altogether 
 the informations of the other instrument. They 
 only find room in their minds for His one attribute 
 of a large and general superintendence ; and keep 
 out of their remembrance the equally impressive 
 proofs we have for his other attribute, of a minute 
 and multiplied attention to all that diversity of 
 operations, where it is He that worketh all in all. 
 And when I think, that as one of the instruments 
 of philosophy has heightened our every impression 
 of the first of these attributes, so another instru- 
 ment has no less heightened our impression of the 
 
X>?.VINE CONDESCENSION. 83 
 
 second of them — then I can no longer resist the 
 conclusion, that it would be a transgression of 
 sound argument, as well as a daring of impiety, 
 to draw a limit around the doings of this unsearch- 
 able God — and, should a professed revelation from 
 heaven tell me of an act of condescension, in be- 
 half of some separate world, so wonderful, that 
 angels desired to look into it, and the Eternal Son 
 had to move from His seat of glory to carry it into 
 accomplishment, all I ask is the evidence of such 
 a revelation ; for, let it tell me as much as it may 
 of God letting himself down for the benefit of one 
 single province of His dominions, this is no more 
 than what I see lying scattered, in numberless ex- 
 amples, before me ; and running through the whole 
 line of my recollections ; and meeting me in every 
 walk of observation to which I can betake myself; 
 and, now that the microscope has unveiled the 
 wonders of another region, I'see strewed around 
 me, with a profusion which baffles my every attempt 
 to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no one 
 portion of the universe of God too minute for His 
 notice, nor too humble for the visitations of His 
 care. 
 
 As the end of all these illustrations, let me be- 
 stow a single paragraph on what I conceive to be 
 the precise state of this argument. 
 
 It is a wonderful thing that God should be so 
 unencumbered by the concerns of a whole universe, 
 that He can give a constant attention to every 
 moment of every individual in this world's popu- 
 lation. But, wonderful as it is, you do not hesi- 
 tate to admit it a$ true, on the evidence of your 
 
84 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 own recollections. It is a wonderful thing that 
 He, whose eye is at every histant on so many 
 worlds, should have peopled the world we inhabit 
 with all the traces of the varied design and bene- 
 volence which abound in it. But great as the 
 wonder is, you do not allow so much as the sha- 
 dow of improbabiUty to darken it, for its reality 
 is what you actually witness, and you never think 
 of questioning the evidence of observation. It is 
 wonderful, it is passing wonderful, that the same 
 God, whose presence is diffused through immen- 
 sity, and who spreads the ample canopy of His 
 administration over all its dwelhng-places, should, 
 with an energy as fresh and as unexpended as if 
 He had only begun the work of creation, turn 
 Him to the neighbourhood around us, and lavish, 
 on its every hand-breadth, all the exuberance of 
 His goodness, and crowd it with the many thou- 
 sand varieties of conscious existence. But, be 
 the wonder incomprehensible as it may, you do 
 not suffer in your mind the burden of a single doubt 
 to lie upon it, because you do not question the re- 
 port of the microscope. You do not refuse its 
 information, nor turn away from it as an in- 
 competent channel of evidence. But to bring 
 it still nearer to the point at issue, there are 
 many who never looked through a microscope, 
 but who rest an implicit faith in all its revelations; 
 and upon what evidence I would ask? Upon tne 
 evidence of testimony — upon the credit they give 
 to the authors of the books they have read, and the 
 belief they put in the record of their observations. 
 Now, at tliis point I make my stand. It is won- 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 85 
 
 derful that God should be so mterested hi the 
 redemption of a single world, as to send forth his 
 well-beloved Son upon the errand; and He, to 
 accomplish it, should, mighty to save, put forth 
 all His strength, and travail in the greatness of it. 
 But such wonders as these have already multi- 
 plied upon you ; and when evidence is given of 
 their truth, you have resigned your every judg- 
 ment of the unsearchable God, and rested in the 
 faith of them. I demand, in the name of sound 
 and consistent philosophy, that you do the same 
 in the matter before us — and take it up as a ques- 
 tion of evidence — and examine that medium of 
 testimony through which the miracles and infor- 
 mations of the Gospel have come to your door — 
 and go not to admit as argument here, what would 
 not be admitted as argument in any of the analo- 
 gies of nature and observation — and take along 
 with you in this field of inquiry, a lesson which 
 you should have learned upon other fields — even 
 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the 
 knowledge of God, that His judgments are un- 
 searchable, and His ways are past finding out. 
 
 I do not enter at all into the positive evidence 
 for the truth of the Christian Revelation, my single 
 aim at present being to dispose of one of the objec- 
 tions which is conceived to stand in the way of it. 
 Let me suppose then, that this is done to the sa- 
 tisfaction of a philosophical inquirer ; and that the 
 evidence is sustained ; and that the same mind that 
 is familiarized to all the sublimities of natural sci- 
 ence, and has been in the habit of contemplating 
 God in association with all the magnificence whicli. 
 
86 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 is around him, shall be brought to submit its 
 thoughts to the captivity of the doctrine of Christ. 
 Oh ! with what veneration, and gratitude, and 
 wonder, should he look on the descent of Him into 
 this lower world, who made all these things, and 
 without whom was not any thing made that was 
 made. What a grandeur does it throw over every 
 step in the redemption of a fallen world, to think 
 of its being done by Him who unrobed Him of the 
 glories of so wide a monarchy, and came to this 
 humblest of its provinces, in the disguise of a ser- 
 vant, and took upon Him the form of our degraded 
 species, and let Himself down to sorrows, and to 
 sufferings, and to death, for us ! In this love of 
 an expiring Saviour to those for whom in agony 
 He poured out His soul, there is a height, and a 
 depth, and a length, and a bread*-h, more than I 
 can comprehend ; and let me never from this mo- 
 ment neglect so great a salvation, or lose my hold 
 of an atonement, made sure by Him who cried 
 that it Mas finished, and brought in an everlasting 
 righteousness. It was not the visit of an empty 
 parade that He made to us. It was for the accom- 
 plishment of some substantial purpose ; and if that 
 purpose is announced, and stated to consist in His 
 dying the just for the unjust, that He might bring 
 us unto God, let us never doubt of our acceptance 
 in that way of communication with our Father in 
 heaven, which he hath opened and made known to 
 us. In taking to that way, let us follow His every 
 direction, with that humihty which a sense of aU 
 this wonderful condescension is fitted to inspire. 
 Let us forsake all that He bids us forsake. Let 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 87 
 
 US do all that He bids us do. Let ns give our- 
 selves up to his guidance with the docility of child- 
 ren overpowered by a kindness that we never 
 merited, and a love that is unequalled by all the 
 perverseness and all the ingratitude of our stubborn 
 nature — for what shall we render unto Him for 
 such mysterious benefits — to him who has thus 
 been mindful of us — to him who thus has deigned 
 to visit us ? 
 
 But the whole of this argument is not yet ex- 
 hausted. We have scarcely entered on the defence 
 that is commonly made against the plea which In- 
 fidelity rests on the wonderful extent of the universe 
 of God, and the insignificancy of oar assigned por- 
 tion of it. The way in which we have attempted 
 to dispose of this plea, is by insisting on the evi- 
 dence that is every where around us, of God com- 
 bining, with the largeness of a vast and mighty 
 superintendance, which reaches the outskirts of 
 creation, and spreads over all its amplitudes — the 
 faculty of bestowing as much attention, and exer- 
 cising as complete and manifold a wisdom, and 
 lavishing as profuse and inexhaustible a goodness, 
 on each of its humblest departments, as if it formed 
 the whole extent of His territory. 
 
 In the whole of this argument we have looked 
 upon the earth as isolated from the rest of the 
 universe altogether. But, according to the way 
 in which the astronomical objection is commonly 
 met, the earth is not viewed as in a state of de- 
 tachment from the other worlds, and the other 
 orders of being which God has called into existence. 
 It is looked upon as the member of a more extend- 
 
88 THE EXTENT OF THE 
 
 ed system. It is associated with the magnificence 
 of a moral empire, as wide as the kingdom of na- 
 ture. It is not merely asserted, what in our last 
 Discourse has been already done, that for any 
 thing we can know by reason, the plan of redemp- 
 tion may have its influences and its bearings on 
 those creatures of God who people other regions, 
 and occupy other fields in the immensity of his 
 dominions ; that to argue, therefore, on this plan 
 being instituted for the single benefit of the world 
 we live in, and of the species to which we belong, 
 is a mere presumption of the Infidel himself ; and 
 that the objection he rears on it must fall to the 
 ground, when the vanity of the presumption is 
 exposed. The Christian apologist thinks he can 
 go farther than this — that he can not merely ex- 
 pose the utter baselessness of the Infidel assertion, 
 but' that he has positive ground for erecting an 
 opposite and a confronting assertion in its place — 
 and that, after having neutrahzed their position, 
 by showing the entire absence of all observation 
 in its behalf, he can pass on to the distinct and 
 affirmative testimony of the Bible. 
 
 We do think that this lays open a very interest- 
 ing track, not of wild and fanciful, but of most 
 legitimate and sober-minded speculation. And 
 anxious as we are to put every thing that bears 
 upon the Christian argument, into all its lights; 
 jind fearless as we feel for the result of a most 
 thorough sifting of it ; and thinking as we do think 
 it, the foulest scorn that any pigmy philosopher of 
 the day should mince his ambiguous scepticism to 
 a set of giddy and ignorant admirers, or that a 
 
DIVINE CONDESCENSION. 89 
 
 half-learned and superficial public should associate 
 with the Christian priesthood, the blindness and 
 the bigotry of a sinking cause — with these feelings 
 we are not disposed to shun a single question that 
 may be started on the subject of the Christian 
 evidences. There is not one of its parts or bear- 
 ings which needs the shelter of a disguise thrown 
 over it. Let the priests of another faith ply their 
 prudential expedients, and look so wise and so 
 wary in the execution of them. But Christianity 
 stands in a higher and a firmer attitude. The de- 
 fensive armour of a shrinking or timid policy does 
 not suit her. Hers is the naked majesty of truth ; 
 and with all the grandeur of age, but with none 
 of its infirmities, has she come down to us, and 
 gathered new strength from the battles she has 
 won in the many controversies of many genera- 
 tions. With such a religion as this there is no- 
 thing to hide. All should be above boards. And 
 the broadest light of day should be made fully and 
 freely to circulate throughout all her secrecies. 
 But secrets she has none. To her belong the 
 frankness and the simplicity of conscious greatness; 
 and whether she has to contend with the pride of 
 philosophy, or stand in fronted opposition to the 
 prejudices of the multitude, she does it upon her 
 own strength, and spurns all the props and all the 
 auxiliaries of superstition away from her. 
 
90 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HIS- 
 TORY IN THE DISTANT PLACESOF CREATION 
 
 *' Which things the angels desire to look into." — 1 Petee i. 12. 
 
 There is a limit, across which man cannot carry 
 any one of his perceptions, and from the ulterior of 
 which he cannot gather a single observation to 
 guide or to inform him. While he keeps by the 
 objects which are near, he can get the knowledge 
 of them conveyed to his mind through the ministry 
 of several of the senses. He can feel a substance 
 that is within reach of his hand. He can smell a 
 flower that is presented to him. He can taste the 
 food that is before him. He can hear a sound of 
 certain pitch and intensity ; and, so much does this 
 sense of hearing widen his intercourse with external 
 nature, that, from the distance of miles, it can bring 
 him in an occasional intimation. 
 
 But of all the tracts of conveyance which God 
 has been pleased to open up between the mind of 
 man, and the theatre by which he is surrounded, 
 there is none by which he so multiplies his acquain- 
 tance with the rich and the varied creation on every 
 side of him, as by the organ of the eye. It is this 
 which gives to man his loftiest command over the 
 scenery of nature. It is this by which so broad a 
 range of observation is submitted to him. It is this 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 91 
 
 which enables him, by the act of a single moment, 
 to send an exploring look over the surface of an 
 ample territory, to crowd his mind with the whole 
 assembly of its objects, and to fill his vision with 
 those countless hues which diversify and adorn it. 
 It is this which carries him abroad over all that 
 is sublime in the immensity of distance ; which 
 sets him as it were on an elevated platform, from 
 whence he may cast a surveying glance over the 
 arena of innumerable worlds ; which spreads before 
 him so mighty a province of contemplation, that the 
 earth he inhabits only appears to furnish him with 
 the pedestal on which he may stand, and from which 
 he may descry the wonders of all that magnificence 
 which the Divinity has poured so abundantly around 
 him. It is by the narrow outlet of the eye, that 
 the mind of man takes its excursive flight over 
 those golden tracks, where, in all the exhaustless- 
 ness of creative wealth, lie scattered the suns and 
 the systems of astronomy. But how good a thing it 
 is, and how becoming well, for the philosopher to 
 be humble even amid the proudest march of human 
 discovery, and the sublimest triumphs of the human 
 understanding, when he thinks of that unsealed 
 barrier, beyond which no power, either of eye or 
 of telescope, shall ever carry him ; when he thinks 
 that, on the other side of it, there is a height, and a 
 depth, and a length, and a breadth, to which the 
 whole of this concave and visible firmament dwindles 
 into the insignificancy of an atom — and above all, how 
 ready should he be to cast every lofty imagination 
 away from him, when he thinks of the God, who, 
 on the simple foundation of His word, has reared 
 
92 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL HISTORY 
 
 the whole of this stately architecture, and, by the 
 force of His preserving hand, continues to uphold 
 it ; and should the word again come out from Him, 
 that this earth shall pass away, and a portion of 
 the heavens which are around it, shall fall back into 
 the annihilation from which He at first summoned 
 
 them what an impressive rebuke does it bring on 
 
 the swelling vanity of science, to think that the 
 whole field of its most ambitious enterprises may 
 be swept away altogether, and still there remain 
 before the eye of Him who sitteth on the throne, 
 an untravelled immensity, which He hath filled 
 with innumerable splendours, and over the whole 
 face of which he hath inscribed the evidence of His 
 high attributes, in all their might, and in all their 
 manifestation. 
 
 But man has a great deal more to keep him 
 humble of his understanding, than a mere sense of 
 that boundary which skirts and which terminates 
 the material field of his contemplations. He ought 
 also to feel, how, within that boundary, the vast 
 majority of things is mysterious and unknown to 
 him — that even in the inner chamber of his own 
 consciousness, where so much lies hidden from the 
 observation of others, there is also to himself a little 
 world of incomprehensibles ; that if stepping beyond 
 the limits of this familiar home, he look no farther 
 than to the members of his family, there is much 
 in the cast and the colour of every mind that is 
 above his powers of divination ; that in proportion as 
 he recedes from the centre of his own personal ex- 
 perience, there is a cloud of ignorance and secrecy 
 which spreads, and thickens, and throws a deep 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 93 
 
 and impenetrable veil over the intricacies of every 
 one department of human contemplation ; that of 
 all around him, his knowledge is naked and super- 
 ficial, and confined to a few of those more conspicu- 
 ous lineaments which strike upon his senses; that 
 the whole face, both of nature and of society, pre- 
 sents him with questions which he cannot unriddle, 
 and tells him that beneath the surface of all that the 
 eye can rest upon, there lies the profoundness of a 
 most unsearchable latency ; and should he in some 
 lofty enterprise of thought, leave this world, and 
 shoot afar into those tracks of speculation which 
 astronomy has opened, should he, baffled by the 
 mysteries which beset his footsteps upon earth, 
 attempt an ambitious flight towards the mysteries 
 of heaven — let him go, but let the justness of a 
 pious and philosophical modesty go along with him 
 
 let him forget not, that from the moment his 
 
 mind has taken its ascending way for a few little 
 miles above the world he treads upon, his every sense 
 abandons him but one — that number, and motion, 
 and magnitude, and figure, make up all the bare- 
 ness of its elementary informations — that these orbs 
 have sent him scarce another message than told by 
 their feeble glimmering upon his eye, the simple 
 fact of their existence— that he sees not the land- 
 scape of other worlds — that he knows not the moral 
 system of any one of them — nor athwart the long 
 and trackless vacancy which lies between, does 
 there fall upon his listening ear the hum of their 
 mighty populations. 
 
 But the knowledge which he cannot fetch up 
 himself from the obscurity of this wondrous but 
 
94 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORA! HISTORY 
 
 untravelled scene, by the exercise of any one of his 
 own senses, migiit be fetched to him by the testi- 
 mony of a competent messenger. Conceive a' 
 native of one of these planetary mansions to Ught 
 upon our world ; and all we should require, w^ould 
 be, to be satisfied of his credentials, that we may 
 give our faith to every point of information he had 
 to offer us. With the solitary exception of what 
 we have been enabled to gather by the instruments 
 of astronomy, there is not one of his communications 
 about the place he came from, on which we possess 
 any means at all of confronting him ; and, there- 
 fore, could he only appear before us invested with 
 the characters of truth, we should never think of 
 any thing else than taking up the whole matter of 
 his testimony just as he brought it to us. 
 
 It were well had a sound philosophy schooled 
 its professing disciples to the same kind of acquies- 
 cence in another message, which has actually come 
 to the world ; and has told us of matters still more 
 remote from every power of unaided observation ; 
 and has been sent from a more sublime and myste- 
 rious distance, even from that God of whom it is 
 said, that "clouds and darkness are the habitation 
 of his throne ;" and treating of a theme so lofty 
 and so inaccessible, as the counsels of that Eternal 
 Spirit, " whose goings forth are of old, even from 
 everlasting," challenges of man that he should sub- 
 mit his every thought to the authority of this high 
 communication. Oh ! had the philosophers of the 
 day known as well as their great master, how to 
 draw the vigorous land-mark which verges the field 
 of legitimate discovery, they should have- seen when 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 95 
 
 it is that philosophy becomes vain, and science is 
 falsely so called ; and how it is, that when philo- 
 sophy is true to her principles, she shuts up her 
 faithful votary to the Bible, and makes him willing 
 to count all but loss, for the knowledge of Jesus 
 Christ, and of Him crucified. 
 
 But let it be well observed, that the object of 
 this message is not to convey information to us 
 about the state of these planetary regions. This is 
 not the matter with which it is fraught. It is a 
 message from the throne of God to this rebellious 
 province of His dominions ; and the purpose of it 
 is, to reveal the fearful extent of our guilt and of 
 our danger, and to lay before us the overtures of 
 reconciliation. *Were a similar message sent from 
 the metropolis of a mighty empire to one of its 
 remote and revoluticmary districts, we should not 
 look to it for much information about the state or 
 economy of the intermediate provinces. This were 
 a departure from the topic on hand — though still 
 there may chance to be some incidental allusions 
 to the extent and resources of the whole monarchy, 
 to the existence of a similar spirit of rebellion in 
 other quarters of the land, or to the general 
 principle of loyalty by which it was pervaded. 
 Some casual references of this kind may be inserted 
 in such a proclamation, or they may not — and it is 
 with this precise feeling of ambiguity that we open 
 the record of that embassy which has been sent us 
 from heaven, to see if we can gather any thing 
 there, about other places of the creation, to meet the 
 objections of the infidel astronomer. But, while we 
 pursue this object, let us be careful not to push 
 
96 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORA.L HISTORY 
 
 tixG speculation beyond the limits of the written 
 testimony; let us keep a just and a steady eye on 
 the actual boundary of our knowledge, that, through- 
 out every distinct step of our argument, we might 
 preserve that chaste and unambitious spirit, which 
 characterizes the philosophy of him who explored 
 these distant heavens, and, by the force of his 
 genius, unravelled the secret of that wondrous 
 mechanism which upholds them. 
 
 The informations of the Bible upon this subject, 
 are of two sorts — that from which we confidently 
 gather the fact, that the history of the redemption 
 of our species is known in other and distant places 
 of the creation — and that from which we indistinct- 
 ly guess at the fact, that the redelnption itself may 
 stretch beyond the limits of the world we occupy. 
 
 And here it may shortly he adverted to, that, 
 though we know little or nothing of the moral and 
 theological economy of the other planets, we are 
 not to infer, that the beings who occupy these widely 
 extended regions, even though not higher than we 
 in tiie scale of understanding, know little of ours. 
 Our first parents, ere they committed that act by 
 which they brought themselves and their posterity 
 into the need of redemption, had frequent and fam- 
 iliar intercourse with God. He walked with them 
 in the garden of paradise, and there did angels hold 
 their habitual converse ; and, should the same un- 
 blotted innocence which charmed and attracted 
 these superior beings to the haunts of Eden, be 
 perpetuated in every planet but our own, then 
 might each of them be tlie scene of high and 
 heavenly communications, and an open way for the 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 97 
 
 messengers of God be kept up with them all, and 
 ttiei)- inhabiianis bo admitted to a share in the themes 
 and contemplations of angels, and have their spirits 
 exercised on those things, of which we are told that 
 the angels desired to look into them ; and thus, as 
 we talk of the public mind of a city, or the public 
 mind of an empire — by the well-frequented avenues 
 of a free and ready circulation, a public mind might 
 be formed throughout the whole extent of God's 
 sinless and intelligent creation — and, just as we 
 often read of the eyes of all Europe being turned 
 to the one spot where some affair of eventful impor- 
 tance is going on, there might be the eyes of a whole 
 universe turned to the one world, where rebellion 
 against the Majesty of heaven had planted its 
 standard ; and for the readmission of which within 
 the circle of His fellowship, God, whose justice was 
 mflexible, but whose mercy He had, by some plan 
 of mysterious wisdom, made to rejoice over it, was 
 putting forth all the might, and travailing in all 
 the greatness of the attributes which belonged to 
 Him. 
 
 But, for the full understanding of this argument, 
 it must be remarked, that while in our exiled 
 habitation, where all is darkness, and rebellion, and 
 enmity, the creature engrosses every heart ; and 
 our affections, when they shift at all, only wander 
 from one fleeting vanity to another, it is not so in 
 the habitations of the unfallen. There, every de- 
 sire and every movement is subordinated to God. 
 He is seen in all that is formed, and in all that is 
 spread around them — and, amid the fulness of that 
 delight w ith which tfaey expatiate over the good and 
 
 VOL. VII. E 
 
98 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MOBAL HISTORY 
 
 the fair of this wondrous universe, the animating 
 cnarm which pervaaes thtir every contemplation, 
 is, that they behold, on each visible thing, the im- 
 press of the mind that conceived, and of the hand 
 that made and that upholds it. Here, God is 
 banished from the thoughts of every natural man, 
 and, by a firm and constantly maintained act of 
 usurpation, do the things of sense and of time wield 
 an entire ascendancy. There, God is all in all. They 
 walk in His light. They rejoice in the beatitudes 
 of His presence. The veil is from oiF their eyes ; 
 and they see the character of a presiding Divinity 
 in every scene, and in every event to which the 
 Divinity has given birth. It is this which stamps 
 a glory and an importance on the whole field of 
 their contemplations ; and when they see a new 
 evolution in the history of created things, the reason 
 they bend towards it so attentive an eye, is, that it 
 speaks to their understanding some new evolution 
 in the purposes of God — some new manifestation of 
 His high attributes — some new and interesting step 
 in the history of His sublime administration. 
 
 Now, we ought to be aware how it takes off, 
 not from the intrinsic weight, but from the actual 
 impression of our argument, that this devotedness 
 to God which reigns in other places of the creation ; 
 this interest in Him as the constant and essential 
 principle of all enjoyment ; this concern in the 
 untaintedness of his glory ; this delight in the survey 
 of His perfections and His doings, are what the 
 men of our corrupt and darkened world cannot 
 sympathize Avith. 
 
 But however little we may enter into it, the Bible 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 99 
 
 teiis us, by many mtimations, that amongst those 
 creatures who have not fallen from their allegiance, 
 nor departed from the living God, God is their all 
 — that love to Him sits enthroned in their hearts, 
 and fills them with all the ecstasy of an overwhelming 
 affection — that a sense of grandeur never so elevates 
 their souls, as when they look at the might and 
 majesty of the Eternal — that no field of cloudless 
 transparency so enchants them by the blissfulness 
 of its visions, as when, at the shrine of infinite and 
 unspotted holiness, they bend themselves in raptured 
 adoration — that no beauty so fascinates and attracts 
 them, as does that moral beauty which throws a 
 softening lustre over the awfulness of the Godhead 
 . — in a word, that the image of his character is ever 
 present to their contemplations, and the unceasing 
 joy of their sinless existence lies in the knowledge 
 and the admiration of Deity. 
 
 Let us put forth an effort, and keep a steady hold 
 of this consideration, for the deadness of our earthly 
 imaginations makes an effort necessary; and we 
 shall perceive, that though the world we live in were 
 the alone theatre of redemption, there is a something 
 in the redemption itself that is fitted to draw the 
 eye of an arrested universe towards it. Surely, 
 where delight in God is the constant enjoyment, and 
 the earnest intelligent contemplation of God is the 
 constant exercise, there is nothing in the -whole 
 compass of nature or of history, that can so set His 
 adoring myriads upon the gaze, as some new and 
 wondrous evolution of the character of God. Now 
 this is found in the plan of our redemption ; nor do 
 we see how, in any transaction between the great 
 
100 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN*S MORAL HISTORY 
 
 Father of existence, and the children who have 
 sprung from Him, the moral attributes of the Deity 
 could, if we may so express ourselves, be put to so 
 severe and so delicate a test. It is true, that the 
 great matters of sin and of salvation, fall without im- 
 pression on the heavy ears of a listless and alienated 
 world. But they who, to use the language of the 
 Bible, are light in the Lord, look otherwise at these 
 things. They see sin in all its malignity, and sal- 
 vation in all its mysterious greatness. And it would 
 put them on the stretch of all their faculties, when 
 they saw rebellion lifting up its standard against the 
 Majesty of heaven, and the truth and the justice of 
 God embarked on the threatenings He had uttered 
 against all the doers of iniquity, and the honours of 
 that august throne, which has the firm pillars of 
 immutability to rest upon, linked with the fulfilment 
 of the law that had come out from it ; and when 
 nothing else was looked for, but that God, by putting 
 forth the power of His wrath, should accomplish 
 His every denunciation, and vindicate the inflexi- 
 bility of His government, and, by one sweeping deed 
 of vengeance, assert, in the sight of all His creatures, 
 the sovereignty which belonged to Him — with what 
 desire must they have pondered on His ways, when, 
 amid the urgency of all those demands which looked 
 so high and so indispensable, they saw the unfoldings 
 of the attribute of mercy — and that the Supreme 
 Lawgiver was bending upon His guilty creatures 
 an eye of tenderness — and that, in His profound 
 and unsearchable wisdom. He w as devising for them 
 some plan of restoration — and that the eternal Son 
 had to move from His dwelhng-place in heaven, to 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 101 
 
 carry it forward through all the difficulties by which 
 it was encompassed — and that, after by the virtue 
 of His mysterious sacrifice He had magnified the 
 glory of every other perfection, He made mercy 
 rejoice over them all, and threw open a way by 
 which we sinful and polluted wanderers might, with 
 the whole lustre of theDivine character untarnished, 
 be re-admitted into fellowship with God, and be 
 again brought back within the circle of His loyal 
 and alFectionate family. 
 
 Now, the essential character of such a transac- 
 tion, viewed as amanifestation of God, does not hang 
 upon the number of woi-lds, over which this sin 
 and this salvation may have extended. We know 
 that over this one world such an economy of wisdom 
 and of mercy is instituted — and, even should this be 
 the only world that is embraced by it, the moral 
 display of the Godhead is mainly and substantially 
 the same, as if it reached throughout the whole of 
 that habitable extent which the science of astronomy 
 has made known to us. By the disobedience of 
 this one world, the law was trampled on — and, in 
 the business of making truth and mercy to meet, 
 and have a harmonious accomplishment on the men 
 of this world, the dignity of God was put to the 
 same trial; the justice of God appeared to lay the 
 same immoveable barrier ; the wisdom of God had 
 to clear a way through the same difficulties ; the 
 forgiveness of God had to find the same mysterious 
 conveyance to the sinners of a solitary world, as to 
 the sinners of half a universe. The extent of the 
 field upon which this question was decided, has no 
 more infiiience on the question itself, than the tigure 
 
102 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL HISTORT 
 
 or the dimensions of that field of combat, on which 
 some great political question was fought, has on 
 the importance or on the moral principles of the 
 controversy that gave rise to it. This objection 
 about the narrowness of the theatre, carries along 
 with it all the grossness of materialism. To the 
 eye of spiritual and intelligent beings, it is nothing. 
 In their view, the redemption of a sinful world 
 derives its chief interest from the display it gives of 
 the mind and purposes of the Deity — and, should 
 that world be but a single speck in the immensity 
 of the works of God, the only way in which this 
 affects their estimate of Him is to magnify His 
 loving-kindness — who, rather than lose one solitary 
 world of the myriads He has formed, would lavish 
 all the riches of His beneficence and of His wisdom 
 on the recovery of its guilty population. 
 
 Now, though it must be admitted that the Bible 
 does not speak clearly or decisively as to the proper 
 eff^ect of redemption being extended to other worlds: 
 it speaks most clearly and most decisively about the 
 knowledge of its being disseminated amongst other 
 orders of created intelligence than our own. But 
 if the contemplation of God be their supreme 
 enjoyment, then the very circumstance of our re- 
 demption being known to them, may invest it, even 
 though itbe but the redemption of one solitary world, 
 with an importance as wide as the universe itself. 
 It may spread amongst the hosts of immensity a 
 new illustration of the character of Him who is all 
 their praise ; ami in looking towards whom every 
 energy within them is moved to the exercise of a 
 deep and delighted admiration. The scene of the 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION, 103 
 
 transaction may be narrow in point of material ex- 
 tent ; while in the transaction itself there may be 
 such a moral dignity, as to blazon the perfections of 
 the Godhead over the face of creation ; and, from 
 the manifested glory of the Eternal, to send forth a 
 tide of ecstasy, and of high gratulation, throughout 
 the whole extent of His dependent provinces. 
 
 We shall not, in proof of the position, that the 
 history of our redemption is known in other and 
 distant places of creation, and is matter of deep 
 interest and feeling amongst other orders of created 
 intelligence — we shall not put down all the quota- 
 tions which might be assembled together upon this 
 argument. It is an impressive circumstance, that 
 when Moses and Elias made a visit to our Saviour 
 on the mount of transfiguration, and appeared in 
 glory from heaven, the topic they brought along 
 with them, and with which they were fraught, was 
 the decease He was going to accomplish at Jer- 
 usalem. And however insipid the things of our 
 salvation may be to an earthly understanding ; we 
 are made to know, that in the sufferings of Christ, 
 and the glory which should follow, there is matter 
 to attract the notice of celestial spirits, for these 
 are the very things, says the Bible, which the angels 
 desire to look into. And however listlessly we, the 
 dull and grovelling children of an exiled family, may 
 feel about the perfections of the Godhead, and the 
 display of these perfections in the economy of the 
 Gospel ; it is intimated to us in ths book of God's 
 message, that the creation has its districts and its 
 provinces ; and we accordingly read of thrones and 
 dominions, and principahties and powers — and 
 
104 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL HISTORY 
 
 whether these terms denote the separate regions of 
 government, or the bemgs who, by a commission 
 granted from the sanctuary of heaven, sit in dele- 
 gated authority over them — even in their eyes the 
 mystery of Christ stands arrayed in all the splendour 
 of unsearchable riches; for we are told that this 
 mystery was revealed for the very intent, that unto 
 the principalities and powers, in heavenly places, 
 might be made known by the church, the manifold 
 wisdom of God. And while we, whose prospect 
 reaches not beyond the narrow limits of the corner 
 we occupy, look on the dealings of God in the world, 
 as carrying in them all the insignificancy of a 
 provincial transaction ; God Himself, whose eye 
 reaches to places which our eye hath not seen, nor 
 our ear heard of, neither hath it entered into the 
 imagination of our heart to conceive, stamps a 
 universality on the whole matter of th^ Christian 
 salvation, by such revelations as the following: — 
 That he is to gather together in one all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are 
 in earth, even in him — and that at the name of Jesus- 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
 things in earth, and things under the earth — and 
 that by him God reconciled all things unto himself, 
 whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 
 We will not say in how far some of these passages 
 extend the proper effect of that redemption which 
 is by Christ Jesus, to other quarters of the universe 
 of God; but they at least go to estabhsh a widely 
 disseminated knowledge of this transaction amongst 
 the other orders of created intelligence. And they 
 give us a distant glimpse of something more exp» 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 105 
 
 tended. They present a faint opening, through 
 which may be seen some few traces of a wider and 
 a nobler dispensation. They bring before us a dim 
 transparency, on the other side of which the images 
 of an obscure magnificence dazzle indistinctly upon 
 the eye ; and tell us, that in fhe economy of 
 redemption, there is a grandeur commensurate to 
 all that is known of the other works and purposes 
 of the Eternal. They offer us no details; and 
 man, who ought not to attempt a wisdom above 
 that which is written, should never put forth his 
 hand to the drapery of that impenetrable curtain 
 which God, in His mysterious wisdom, has spread 
 over those ways, of which it is but a very small 
 portion that we know of them. But certain it is, 
 that we know so much of them from the Bible ; 
 and the Infidel, with all the pride of his boasted 
 astronomy, knows so little of them, from any power 
 of observation — that the baseless argument of his, 
 on which we have dwelt so long, is overborne in 
 the light of all that positive evidence which God 
 has poured around the record of His own testimony, 
 and even in the light of its more obscure and casual 
 intimations. 
 
 The minute and variegated details of the way in 
 which this wondrous economy is extended, God 
 has chosen to withhold from us ; but He has 
 oftener than once, made to us a broad and a 
 general announcement of its dignity. He does not 
 tell us, whether the fountain opened in the house 
 of Judah, for sin and for uncleanness, sends forth 
 its healing streams to other worlds than our own. 
 He does not tell us the extent of the atonement. 
 
106 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S MORAL HISTORY 
 
 But He tells us that the atonement itself, known, 
 as it is, among the myriads of the celestial, forms 
 the high song of eternity ; that the Lamb who was 
 slain, is surrounded by the acclamations of one wide 
 and universal empire; that the might of His 
 wondrous achievements, spreads a tide of gratulation 
 over the multitudes who are about His throne ; and 
 that there never ceases to ascend from the wor- 
 shippers of Him, who washed us from our sins 
 in his blood, a voice loud as from numbers with- 
 out number, sweet as from blessed voices uttering 
 joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and loud hosannahs 
 fill the eternal regions. 
 
 " And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many 
 angels round about the throne ; and the number of 
 them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
 thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud voice, 
 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, 
 and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, 
 and glory, and blessing. And every creature which 
 is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, 
 and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, 
 heard I saying. Blessing, and honour, and glory, 
 and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, 
 and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever." 
 
 A king might have the whole of his reign 
 crowded with the enterprises of glory ; and by the 
 might of his arms, and the wisdom of his counsels, 
 might win the first reputation among the potentates 
 of the world ; and be idolized throughout all his 
 provinces, for the wealth and the security that he 
 had spread around them — J:;nd stiii it is conceivable, 
 that by the act of a single day in behalf of a single 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 107 
 
 family; by some soothing visitation of tenderness to 
 a poor and solitary cottage; by some deed of 
 compassion, which conferred enlargement and relief 
 on one despairing sufferer ; by some graceful move- 
 ment of sensibility at a tale of wretchedness ; by some 
 noble effort of self-denial, in virtue of which he 
 subdued his every purpose of revenge, and spread 
 the mantle of a generous oblivion over the fault of 
 the man who had insulted and aggrieved him; 
 above all, by an exercise of pardon so skilfully 
 administered, as that, instead of bringing him down 
 to a state of defencelessness against the provocation 
 of future injuries, it threw a deeper sacredness 
 over him, and stamped a more inviolable dignity 
 than ever on his person and character; — why, on 
 the strength of one such performance, done in a 
 single hour, and reaching no farther in its immediate 
 effects than to one house, or to one individual, it 
 is a most possible thing, that the highest monarch 
 upon earth might draw such a lustre around him, 
 as would eclipse the renown of all his public 
 achievements — and that such a display of mag- 
 nanimity, or of worth, beaming from the secrecy of 
 his familiar moments, might waken a more cordial 
 veneration in every bosom, than all the splendour 
 of his conspicuous history — and that it might pass 
 down to posterity as a more enduring monument 
 of greatness, and raise him farther, by its moral 
 elevation, above the level of ordinary praise ; and 
 when he passes in review before the men of distant 
 ages, may this deed of modest, gentle, unobtrusive 
 virtue, be at all times appealed to, as the xnost 
 sublime and touching niemorial of his name. 
 
In like manner did the King eternal, immortal, 
 and invisible, surrounded as He is with the splen- 
 dours of a wide and everlasting monarchy, turn 
 Him to our humble habitation ; and the footsteps 
 of God manifest in the flesh, have been on the 
 narrow spot of ground we occupy; and small though 
 Qur mansion be, amid the orbs and the systems of 
 immensity, hither hath the King of glory bent His 
 mysterious way, and entered the tabernacle of men, 
 and in the disguise of a servant did he sojourn for 
 years under the roof which canopies our obscure 
 and solitary world. Yes, it is but a twinkling atom 
 in the peopled infinity of worlds that are around it 
 — but look to the moral grandeur of the transaction, 
 and not to the material extent of the field upon 
 which it was executed — and from the retirement of 
 our dwelling-place, there may issue forth such a 
 display of the Godhead, as will circulate the glories 
 of His name amongst all his worshippers. Here 
 sin entered. Here was the kind and unwearied 
 beneficence of a Father, repaid by the ingratitude 
 of a whole family. Here the law of God was dis- 
 honoured^, and that too in the face of its proclaimed 
 and unalterable sanctions. Here the mighty con- 
 test of the attributes was ended — and when justice 
 put forth its demands, and truth called for the 
 fulfilment of its warnings, and the immutability of 
 God would not recede by a single iota from any 
 one of its positions, and all the severities He ever 
 uttered against the children of iniquity, seemed to 
 gather into one cloud of threatening vengeance on 
 the tenement that held us — did the visit of the only- 
 begotten Son chase away all these obstacles to the 
 
m DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 109 
 
 triumph of mercy — and humble as the tenement 
 may be, deeply shaded m the obscurity of insigni- 
 ficance as it is, among the stateher mansions which 
 are on every side of it — yet will the recall of its 
 exiled family never be forgotten, and the illustration 
 that has been given here of the mingled grace and 
 majesty of God, will never lose its place among the 
 themes and the acclamations of eternity. 
 
 And here it may be remarked, that as the earthly 
 king who throws a moral aggrandizement around 
 him by the act of a single day, finds, that after its 
 performance he may have the space of many years 
 for gathering to himself the triumphs of an extended 
 reign — so the King who sits on higb, and with whom 
 one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day, will find, that after the period of 
 that special administration is ended, by which this 
 strayed world is again brought back within the limits 
 of His favoured creation, there is room enough 
 along the mighty track of eternity, for accumulating 
 upon Himself a glory as wide and as universal as 
 is the extent of his dominions. You will allow the 
 most illustrious of this world's potentates, to give 
 some hour of his private history to a deed of cot- 
 tage or of domestic tenderness ; and every time you 
 think of the interesting story, you will feel how 
 sweetly and how gracefully the remembrance of it 
 blends itself with the fame of his public achieve- 
 ments. But still you think that there would not 
 have been room enough for these achievements of 
 his, had much of his time been spent, either amongst 
 the habitations of the poor, or in the retirement of 
 his own family ; and you conceive, that it is because 
 
110 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL HISTORY 
 
 a single day bears so small a proportion to the 
 time of his whole history, that he has been able to 
 combine an interesting display of private worth, 
 with all that brilliancy of exhibition, which has 
 brought him down to posterity in the character of 
 an august and a mighty sovereign. 
 
 Now apply this to the matter before us. Had the 
 history of our redemption been confined within the 
 limits of a single day, the argument that Infidelity 
 has drawn from the multitude of other worlds would 
 never have been offered. It is true, that ours is 
 but an insignificant portion of the territory of God 
 — but if the attentions by which He has signalized 
 it, had only taken up a single day, this would never 
 have occurred to us as forming any sensible with- 
 draw me nt of the mind of the Deity from the concerns 
 of His vast and universal government. It is the 
 time which the plan of our salvation requires, that 
 startles all those on whom this argument has any 
 impression. It is the time taken up about this 
 paltry world, which they feel to be out of propor- 
 tion to the number of other worlds, and to the im- 
 mensity of the surrounding creation. Now, to 
 meet this impression, we do not insist at present on 
 what we have already brought forward, that God, 
 whose ways are not as oar ways, can have His eye 
 at the same instant on every place, and can divide 
 and diversify His attention into any number of 
 distinct exercises. What we have now to remark 
 is, that the Infidel who urges the astronomical ob- 
 iection to the truth of Christianity, is only looking 
 with half an eye to the principle on which it rests. 
 Carry oat the principle, and the objection vanishes. 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. Ill 
 
 He looks abroad on the immensity of space, and 
 tells us how impossible it is, that this narrow corner 
 of it can be so distinguished by the attentions of 
 the Deity. Why does he not also look abroad on 
 the magnificence of eternity ; and perceive how the 
 whole period of these peculiar attentions, how the 
 whole time which elapses between the fall of man 
 and the consummation of the scheme of his recovery, 
 is but the twinkling of a moment to the mighty roll 
 of innumerable ages ? The whole interval between 
 the time of Jesus Christ's leaving his Father's abode 
 to sojourn amongst us, to that time when He shall 
 have put all his enemies under His feet, and deliver- 
 ed up the kingdom to God even His Father, that 
 God may be all in all ; the whole of this interval 
 bears as small a proportion to the whole of the Al- 
 mighty's reign, as this solitary world does to the 
 universe around it ; and an infinitely smaller pro- 
 portion than any time, however short, which an 
 earthly monarch spends on some enterprise of private 
 benevolence, does to the whole walk of his public 
 and recorded history. 
 
 Why then does not the man, who can shoot his 
 conceptions so sublimely abroad over the field of an 
 immensity that knows no limits — why does he not 
 also shoot them forward through the vista of a suc- 
 cession, that ever flows without stop and without 
 termination ? He has stept across the confines of 
 this world's habitation in space, and out of the field 
 which lies on the other side of it has he gathered 
 an argument against the truth of revelation. We 
 feel that we have nothing to do but to step across 
 the confines of this world's history in time, and out 
 
1 1 2 KNOWLEDGE OF MAN's MORAL, &C. 
 
 of the futurity which lies beyond it can we gather 
 that which will blow the argument to pieces, or 
 stamp upon it all the narrowness of a partial and 
 mistaken calculation. The day is coming when the 
 whole of this wondrous history shall be looked back 
 upon by the eye of remembrance, and be regarded 
 as one incident in the extended annals of creation ; 
 and, with all the illustration and all the glory it has 
 thrown on the character of the Deity, will it be seen 
 as a single step in the evolution of His designs ; 
 and long as the time may appear, from the first act 
 of our redemption to its final accomplishment, and 
 close and exclusive as we may think the attentions 
 of God upon it, it will be found that it has left Him 
 room enough for all His concerns ; and that, on the 
 high scale of eternity, it is but one of those passing 
 and ephemeral transactions which crowd the history 
 of a never-ending administration. 
 
THE SYMPATHY FELT FOR M>N. &C. il3 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 ON THE SYMPATHY THAT IS FELT FOR MAN 
 IN THE DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 
 
 " I say unto you, That likewise joy shall be in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
 persons, which need no repentance.'' — Luke xv. 7. 
 
 We have already attempted at full length to es- 
 tablish the position, that the infidel argument of 
 astronomers goes to expunge a natural perfection 
 from the character of God, even that wondrous 
 property of His, by \vhich He, at the same instant 
 of time, can bend a close and a careful attention 
 on a countless diversity of objects, and diffuse the 
 intimacy of His power and of His presence, from 
 the greatest to the minutest and most insignificant 
 of them all. We also adverted shortly to this other 
 circumstance, that it went to impair a moral at- 
 tribute of the Deity. It goes to impair the bene- 
 volence of His nature. It is saying much for the 
 benevolence of God, to say, that a single world, or 
 a single system, is not enough for it — that it must 
 have the spread of a mightier region, on which it 
 may pour forth a tide of exuberancy throughout all 
 its provinces — that as far as our vision can carry 
 us, it has strewed immensity with the floating re- 
 ceptacles of life, and has stretched over each of 
 them the garniture of such a sky as mantles our 
 
114 THE SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 own habitation — and that even from distances which 
 are far beyond the reach of human eye, the songs 
 of gratitude and praise may now be arising to the 
 one God, who sits surrounded by the regards of 
 His one great and universal family. 
 
 Now it is saying much for the benevolence of 
 God, to say, that it sends forth these wide and 
 distant emanations over the surface of a territory 
 so ample, that the world we inhabit, lying imbed- 
 ded, as it does, amidst so much surrounding great- 
 ness, shrinks into a point that to the universal eye 
 might appear to be almost ' imperceptible. But 
 does it not add to the power and to the perfection 
 of this universal eye, that at the very moment it is 
 taking a comprehensive survey of the vast, it can 
 fasten a steady and undistracted attention on each 
 minute and separate portion of it ; that at the very 
 moment it is looking at all worlds, it can look most 
 pointedly and most intelligently to each of them ; 
 that at the very moment it sweeps the field of im- 
 mensity, it can settle all the earnestness of its 
 regards upon every distinct handbreadth of that 
 field ; that at the very moment at which it embraces 
 the totality of existence, it can send a most thorough 
 and penetrating inspection into each of its details, 
 and into every one of its endless diversities ? We 
 cannot fail to perceive how much this adds to the 
 power of the all-seeing eye. Tell us then, if it do not 
 add as much perfection to the benevolence of God, 
 that while it is expatiating over the vast field of 
 created things, there is not one portion of the field 
 overlooked' by it ; that while it scatters blessings 
 over the whole of an infinite range, it causes them 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 115 
 
 to descend in a shower of plenty on every separate 
 habitation ; that while His arm is underneath and 
 round about all worlds, He enters within the pre- 
 cincts of every one of them, and gives a care and a 
 tenderness to each individual of their teeming po- 
 pulation. Does not the God, who is said to be 
 love, shed over this attribute of his its finest illus- 
 tration — when, while He sits in the highest heaven, 
 and pours out His fulness on the whole subordinate 
 domain of nature and of providence. He bows a 
 pitying regard on the very humblest of His children, 
 and sends His reviving Spirit into every heart, and 
 cheers by His presence every home, and provides 
 for the wants of every family, and watches every 
 sick-bed, and listens to the complaints of every 
 sufferer; and while by his wondrous mind the 
 weight of universal government is borne, is it not 
 more wondrous and more excellent still, that He 
 feels for every sorrow, and has an ear open to every 
 prayer ? 
 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be," says 
 the apostle John, " but we know that when he shall 
 appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
 as he is." It is the present lot of the angels, that 
 they behold the face of our Father in heaven, and it 
 would seem as if the effect of this was to form and 
 to perpetuate in them the moral likeness of Him- 
 self, and that they reflect back upon Him His own 
 image, and that thus a diffused resemblance to the 
 Godhead is kept up amongst all those adoring wor- 
 shippers who live in the near and rejoicing contem- 
 plation of the Godhead. Mark then how that 
 peculiar and endearing feature in the goodness of 
 
116 THE SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 the Deity, which we have just now adverted to — 
 mark how beauteousiy it is retiected downwards 
 upon us in the revealed attitude of angels. From 
 the high eminences of heaven, are they bending a 
 wakeful regard over the men of this sinful world ; 
 and the repentance of every one of them spreads a 
 joy and a high gratulation throughout all its 
 dwelling-places. Put this trait of the angehc 
 character into contrast with the dark and louring 
 spirit of an Infidel. He is told of the multitude of 
 other worlds, and he feels a kindling magnificence 
 in the conception, and he is seduced by an elevation 
 which he cannot carry, and from this airy summit 
 does he look down on the insignificance of the world 
 we occupy, and pronounces it to be unworthy of 
 those visits and of those attentions which we read 
 of in the New Testament. He is unable to wing 
 his upward way along the scale, either of moral or 
 of natural perfection ; and when the wonderful 
 extent of the field is made known to him, over 
 which the wealth of the Divinity is lavished — there 
 he stops, and wilders, and altogether misses this 
 essential perception, that the power and perfection 
 of the Divinity are not more displayed by the mere 
 magnitude of the field, than they are by that minute 
 and exquisite filling up, which leaves not its smallest 
 portions neglected ; but which imprints the fulness 
 of the Godhead upon every one of them ; and proves, 
 by every flower of the pathless desert, as well as 
 by every orb of immensity, how this unsearchable 
 Being can care for all, and provide for all, and, 
 throned in mystery too high for us, can, throughout 
 every instant of time, keep His attentive eye oo 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. . l^ 
 
 every separate thing that He has formed, and, by 
 an act of His thoughtful and presiding intelligence, 
 can constantly embrace all. 
 
 But God, compassed about as He is with light 
 inaccessible, and full of glory, lies so hidden from 
 the ken and conception of all our faculties, that 
 the spirit of man sinks exhausted by its attempts 
 to comprehend Him. Could the image of the 
 Supreme be placed direct before the eye of the 
 mind, that flood of splendour, which is ever issuing 
 from Him on all who have the privilege of behold- 
 ing, would not only dazzle, but overpower us. And 
 therefore it is, that we bid you look to the reflection 
 of that image, and thus to take a view of its miti- 
 gated glories, and to gather the lineaments of the 
 Godhead in the face of those righteous angels, who 
 have never thrown away from them the resemblance 
 in which they were created ; and, unable as you 
 are to support the grace and the majesty of that 
 countenance, before which the seers and the pro- 
 phets of other days fell, and became as dead men, 
 let us, before we bring this argument to a close, 
 borrow one lesson of Him whositteth on the throne, 
 from the aspect and the revealed doings of those 
 who are surrounding it. 
 
 The Infidel, then, as he widens the field of his 
 contemplations, would suffer its every separate ob- 
 ject to die away into forgetfulness : these angels, 
 expatiating as they do, over the range of a loftier 
 universality, are represented as all awake to the 
 history of each of its distinct and subordinate pro- 
 vinces. The Infidel, with his mind afloat among 
 suns and among systems, can find no place in his 
 
118 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 already occupied regards, for that humble planet 
 which lodges and accommodates our species : the 
 angels, standing on a loftier summit, and with a 
 mightier prospect of creation before them, are yet 
 represented as looking down on this single world, 
 and attentively marking the every feeling and the 
 every demand of all its families. The Infidel, by 
 sinking us down to an unnoticeable minuteness, 
 would lose sight of our dwelhng-place altogether, 
 and spread a darkening shroud of oblivion over all 
 the concerns and all the interests of men : but the 
 angels will not so abandon us; and undazzled by the 
 whole surpassing grandeur of that scenery which is 
 around them, are they revealed as directing all the 
 fulness of their regard to this our habitation, and 
 casting a longing and a benignant eye on ourselves 
 and on our children. The Infidel will tell us of 
 those worlds which roll afar, and the number of 
 which outstrips the arithmetic of the human un- 
 derstanding — and then, with the hardness of an 
 unfeeling calculation, will he consign the one we 
 occupy, with all its guilty generations, to despair. 
 But He who counts the number of the stars, is set 
 forth to us as looking at every inhabitant among 
 the millions of our species, and by the word of the 
 Gospel beckoning to him with the hand of invitation, 
 and on the very first step of his return, as moving 
 towards him with all the eagerness of the prodigal's 
 father, to receive him back again into that presence 
 from which he had wandered. And as to Jthis 
 world, in favour of which the scowling Infidel will 
 not permit one solitary movement, all heaven is 
 represented as in a stir about its restoration ; and 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 119 
 
 there cannot a single son, or a single daughter, 
 be recalled from sin unto righteousness, without an 
 acclamation of joy Smongst the hosts of Paradise. 
 And we can say it of the humblest and the unwor- 
 thiest of you all, that the eye of angels is upon him, 
 and that his repentance would, at this moment, 
 send forth a wave of delighted sensibility through- 
 out the mighty throng of their innumerable legions. 
 
 Now, the single question we have to ask, is. 
 On which of the two sides of this contrast do we see 
 most of the impress of heaven ? Which of the two 
 would be most glorifying to God? Which of them 
 carries upon it most of that evidence which lies in 
 its having a celestial character ? For if it be the 
 side of-the Infidel, then must all our hopes expire 
 with the ratifying of that fatal sentence, by which 
 the world is doomed, through its insignificancy, to 
 perpetual exclusion from the attentions of the God- 
 head. We have long been knocking at the door of 
 your understanding, and have tried to find an ad- 
 mittance to it for many an argument. We now 
 make our appeal to the sensibilities of your heart ; 
 and tell us to whom does the moral feeling within 
 it yield its readiest testimony — to the Infidel, who 
 would make this world of ours vanish away into 
 abandonment — or to those angels, who ring through- 
 out all their mansions the hosannas of joy, over 
 every one individual of its repentant population ? 
 
 And here we cannot omit to take advantage of 
 that opening with which the Saviour has furnished 
 us, by the parables of this chapter, and admits us 
 hito a familiar view of that principle on which the 
 inhabitants of heaven are so awake to the deliverance 
 
120 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 and the restoration of our species. To illustrate 
 the difterence in tlie reach of knowledore and of 
 affection, between a man and an angel, let us think 
 of the ditFerence of reach between one man and 
 another. You may often witness a man, who feels 
 neither tenderness nor care beyond the precincts of 
 his own family ; but who, on the strength of those 
 instinctive fondnesses which nature has implanted 
 in his bosom, may earn the character of an amiable 
 father, or a kind husband, or a bright example of 
 all that is soft and endearing in the relations of 
 domestic society. Now conceive him, in addition 
 to all this, to carry his affections abroad, without, 
 at the same time, any abatement of their intensity 
 towards the objects which are at home — that, step- 
 ping across the limits of the house he occupies, he 
 takes an interest in the families which are near him 
 — that he lends his services to the town or the 
 district wherein he is placed, and gives up a portion 
 of his time to the thoughtful labours of a humane 
 and public-spirited citizen. By this enlargement 
 in the sphere of his attention, he has extended his 
 reach ; and, provided he has not done so at the 
 expense of that regard which is due to his family, 
 a thing which, cramped and confined as we are, we 
 are very apt, in the exercise of our humble faculties, 
 to do — I put it to you, whether by extending the 
 reach of his views and his affections, he has not 
 extended his worth and his moral respectability 
 along with it? 
 
 But we can conceive a still farther enlargement. 
 We can figure to ourselves a man, whose wakeful 
 sympathy overflows the field of his own immediate 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 121 
 
 neighbourhood — to whom the name of country- 
 comes with all the omnipotence of a charm upon 
 his heart, and with all the urgency of a most 
 righteous and resistless claim upon his services — 
 who never hears the name of Britain sounded in 
 his ears, but it stirs up all his enthusiasm in behalf 
 of the worth and the welfare of its people — who 
 gives himself up, with all the devotedness of a 
 passion, to the best and the purest objects of 
 patriotism — and who, spurning away from him the 
 vulgarities of party ambition, separates his life and 
 his labours to the fine pursuit of augmenting the 
 science, or the virtue, or the substantial prosperity 
 of his nation. O I could such a man retain all the 
 tenderness, and fulfil all the duties which home and 
 which neighbourlioo<l require of him, and at the 
 same time, expatiate in the might of his untired 
 faculties, on so wide a field of benevolent contem- 
 plation — would not this extension of reach place 
 him still higher than before, on the scale both of 
 moral and intellectual gradation, and give him a 
 still brighter and more enduring name in the records 
 of human excellence ? 
 
 And, lastly, we can conceive a still loftier 
 flight of humanit}' — a man, the aspiring of whose 
 heart for the good of man, knows no limitations— 
 whose longings and whose conceptions on this 
 subject, overleap all the barriers of geography — 
 who, looking on himself as a brother of the species, 
 links every bpare energy which belongs to him, 
 with the cause of its amelioration — who can embrace 
 within the grasp of his ample desires, the whole 
 family of mankind — and who, in obedience to a 
 
 VOL. VII. F 
 
122 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 heaven-born movement of principle within him, 
 separates himself to some big and busy enterprise, 
 which is to tell on the moral destinies of the world. 
 Could such a man mix up the softenings of private 
 virtue, with the habit of so sublime a comprehension 
 — if, amid those magnificent darings of thought and 
 of performance, the mildness of his benignant eye 
 could still continue to cheer the retreat of his family, 
 and to spread the charm and the sacredness of 
 piety among all its members — could he even mingle 
 himself in all the gentleness of a soothed and a 
 smiling heart, with the playfulness of his children 
 — and also find strength to shed the blessings of 
 his presence and his counsel over the vicinity around 
 him ; — would not the combination of so much grace 
 with so much loftiness, only serve the more to 
 aggrandize him ? Would not the one ingredient 
 of a character so rare, go to illustrate and to 
 magnify the other? And would not you pro- 
 nounce him to be the fairest specimen of our na- 
 ture, who could so call out all your tenderness, 
 while he challenged and compelled all your venera- 
 tion? 
 
 Nor can we proceed, at this point of our argu- 
 ment, without adverting to the way in which this 
 last and this largest style of benevolence is ex- 
 emplified in our own country — where the spirit of 
 the Gospel has given to many of its enlightened 
 disciples, the impulse of such a philanthropy, as 
 carries abroad their wishes and their endeavours 
 to the very outskirts of human population — a phil- 
 anthropy, of which, if you asked the extent or the 
 boundary of its field, we should answer in the 
 
IN DISTANT PI,ACES OF CREATION. 123 
 
 language of inspiration, that the field is the world 
 — a philanthropy, which overlooks all the distinctions 
 of cast and of colour, and spreads its ample regards 
 over the whole brotherhood of the species — a 
 philanthropy, which attaches itself to man in the 
 general; to man throughout all his varieties ; to man 
 as the partaker of one common nature, and who, 
 in whatever clime or latitude you may meet with 
 him, is found to breathe the same sympathies, and 
 to possess the same high capabilities both of bliss 
 and of improvement. It is true, that, upon this 
 subject, there is often a loose and unsettled mag- 
 nificence of thought, which is fruitful of nothing 
 but empty speculation. But the men to whom we 
 allude, have not imaged the enterprise in the form 
 of a thing unknown. They have given it a local 
 habitation. They have bodied it forth in deed 
 and in accomplishment. 1 hey have turned the 
 dream into a reality. In them, the power of a 
 lofty generalization meets with its happiest attem- 
 perment, in the principle and perseverance, and 
 all the chastening and subduing virtues of the New 
 Testament. And, were we in search of that fine 
 union of grace and of greatness which we have 
 now been insisting on, and in virtue of which, the 
 enlightened Christian can at once find room in his 
 bosom for the concerns of universal humanity, and 
 for the play of kindliness towards every individual 
 he meets with — we could no where more readily 
 expect to find it, than with the worthies of our own 
 land — the Howard of a former generation, who 
 paced over Europe in quest of the unseen wretch- 
 edness which abounds in it — or in such men of our 
 
124 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 present generation, as Wilberforce, who lifted Iris 
 unwearied voice against the biggest outrage ever 
 practised on our uature, till he wrought its exter- 
 mination — and Clarkson, who pUed his assiduous 
 task at rearing the materials of its impressive 
 history, and, at length carried, for this righteous 
 cause, the mind of Parliament — and Carey, from 
 whose hand the generations of the East are now 
 receiving the elements of their moral renovation — 
 and, in fine, those holy and devoted men, who count 
 not their lives dear unto them; but, going forth 
 every year from the island of our habitation, carry 
 the message of heaven over the face of the world ; 
 and, in the front of severest obloquy, are now 
 labouring in remotest lands; and are reclaiming 
 another and another portion from the wastes of 
 dark and fallen humanity ; and are widening the 
 domains of gospel light and gospel principle 
 amongst them ; and are spreading a moral beauty 
 around the every spot on which they pitched their 
 lowly tabernacle; and are at length compelling even 
 the eye and the testimony of gainsayers, by the 
 success of their noble enterprise ; and are forcing 
 the exclamation of delighted surprise from the 
 charmed and the arrested traveller, as he looks at 
 the softening tints which they are now spreading 
 over the wilderness, and as he hears the sound of 
 the chapel bell, and as in those haunts where, at 
 the distance of half a generation, savages would 
 have scowled upon his path, he regales himself with 
 the hum of missionary schools, and the lovely spec- 
 tacle of peaceful and Christian villages. 
 
 Such, then, is the benevolence, at once so gtntle 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 125 
 
 and so lofty, of those men, who, sanctiried by the 
 faith that is in Jesus, have had their hearts visited 
 from heaven by a beam of warmth and of sacredness^ 
 What, then, we should like to know, is the bene- 
 volence of the place from whence such an influence 
 Cometh ? How wide is the compass of this virtue 
 there, and how exquisite is the feeling of its 
 tenderness, and how pure and how tervent are its 
 aspirings among those un fallen beings who have no 
 darkness, and no encumbering weight of corruption 
 to strive against? Angels have a mightier reach 
 of contemplation. Angels can look upon this world 
 and all which it inherits, as the part of a larger 
 family. Angels were in the full exercise of their 
 powers even at the first infancy of our species, and 
 shared in the gratulations of tliat period, when, at 
 the birth of humanity, all intelligent nature felt a 
 gladdening impulse, and the morning stars sang 
 together for joy. They loved us even with the 
 love which a family on earth bears to a younger 
 sister; and the very childhood of our tinier faculties 
 did only serve the more to endear us to them ; and 
 though born at a later hour in the history of 
 creation, did they regard us as heirs of the same 
 destiny with themselves, to rise along with them in 
 the scale of moral elevation, to bow at the same 
 footstool, and to partake in those high dispensations 
 of a parent's kindness and a parent's care, which 
 are ever emanating from the throne of the Eternal 
 on all the members of a duteous and affectionate 
 family. Take the reach of an angel's mind, but, 
 at the same time, take the seraphic fervour of an 
 angel's benevolence along with it ; how, from the 
 
126 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 eoainence on which he stands, he may have an eye 
 upon many worlds, and a remembrance upon the 
 origin and the successive concerns of every one of 
 them ; how he may feel the fall force of a most 
 affecting relationship with the inhabitants of each, 
 as the offspring of one common Father; and though 
 it be both the effect and the evidence of our 
 depravity, that we cannot sympathize with these 
 pure and generous ardours of a celestial spirit ; how 
 it may consist with the lofty comprehension, and the 
 ever-breathing love of an angel, that he can both 
 shoot his benevolence abroad over a mighty expanse 
 of planets and of systems, and lavish a flood of 
 tenderness on each individual of their teeming 
 population. 
 
 Keep all this in view, and you cannot fail to 
 perceive how the principle, so finely and so copiously 
 illustrated in this chapter, may be brought to meet 
 the infidelity we have thus long been employed in 
 combating. It was nature, and the experience of 
 every bosom will affirm it — it was nature in the 
 shepherd to leave the ninety and nine of his flock 
 forgotten and alone in the wilderness, and betaking 
 himself to the mountains, to give all his labour a.tid 
 all his concern to the pursuit of one solitary 
 wanderer. It was nature — and we are told in the 
 passage before us, that it is such a portion of nature 
 as belongs not merely to men, but to angels — when 
 the woman, with her mind in a state of listlessness 
 as to the nine pieces of silver that were in secure 
 custody, turned the whole force of her anxiety to 
 the one piece which she had lost, and for which 
 she had to light a candle, and to sweep the house, 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 127 
 
 and to search diligently until she found it. It was 
 nature in her to rejoice more over that piece than 
 over all the rest of them, and to tell it abroad 
 among friends and neighbours, that they might 
 rejoice along with her — and sadly eifaced as hu- 
 manity is, in all her original lineaments, this is a 
 part of our nature, the very movements of which 
 are experienced in heaven, " where there is more 
 joy over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety 
 and nine just persons who need no repentance." 
 For any thing we know, every planet that rolls in 
 the immensity around us may be a land of right- 
 eousness ; and be a member of the household of 
 God ; and have her secure dwelling-place within 
 that ample limit, which embraces His great and 
 universal family. But we know at least of one wan- 
 derer; and how wofully she has strayed from peace 
 and from purity ; and how, in dreary alienation from 
 Him who made her, she has bewildered herself 
 amongst those many devious tracks, which have 
 carried her afar from the path of immortality ; and 
 how sadly tarnished all those beauties and felicities 
 are, which promised, on that morning of her existence 
 when God looked on her, and saw that all was very 
 good — which promised so richly to bless and to 
 adorn her; and how, in the eye of the whole unfallen 
 creation, she has renounced all this godliness, and 
 is fast departing away from them into guilt, and 
 wretchedness, and shame. If there be any truth 
 in this chapter, and any sweet or touching nature 
 in the principle which runs throughout all its par- 
 ables, let us ceaee to wonder, though they who 
 surround the throne of love should be looking so 
 
128 SYMPATHY PELT FOR MAN 
 
 intently towards us — or though, in the way by 
 which they have singled us out, all the other orbs 
 of space should, for one short season, on the scale 
 of eternity, appear to be forgotten — or though, for 
 every step of her recovery, and for every individual 
 who is rendered back again to the fold from which 
 he was separated, another and another message of 
 triumph should be made to circulate amongst the 
 hosts of paradise — or though, lost as we are, and 
 sunk in depravity as we are, all the sympathies of 
 heaven should now be awake on the enterprise of 
 Him who has travailed, in the greatness of hi& 
 strength, to seek and to save us. 
 
 And here we cannot but remark how fine ix 
 harmony there is between the law of sympathetiv-? 
 nature in heaven, and the most touching exhibitions 
 of it on the face of our world. When one of a 
 numerous household droops under the power of 
 disease, is not that the one to whom all the tender- 
 ness is turned, and who, in a manner, monopolises 
 the inquiries of his neighbourhood, and the care of 
 his family? When the sighing of the midnight 
 storm sends a dismal foreboding into the mother'^ 
 heart, to whom of all her offspring, we would ask, 
 are her thoughts and her anxieties then wandering? 
 Is it not to her sailor boy whom her fancy has 
 placed amid the rude and angry surges of the ocean ? 
 Does not this, the hour of his apprehended danger, 
 concentrate upon him the whole force of her wake- 
 ful meditations ? And does not he engross, for a 
 season, her every sensibility, and her every prayer? 
 We sometimes hear of shipwrecked passengers 
 thrown upon a barbarous shore ; and seized upon 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 129 
 
 by its prowling inhabitants; and hurried away 
 through the tracks of a dreary and unknown wil- 
 derness ; and sold into captivity ; and loaded with 
 the fetters of irrecoverable bondage ; and who, 
 stripped of every other liberty but the liberty of 
 thought, feel even this to be another ingredient of 
 wretchedness, for what can they think of but home? 
 and, as all its kind and tender imagery comes upon 
 their remembrance, how can they think of it but in 
 the bitterness of despair ? Oh tell us, when the 
 fame of all this disaster reaches his family, who is 
 the member of it to whom is directed the full tide 
 of its griefs and of its sympathies ? Who is it that, 
 for weeks and for rrionths, usurps their every feel- 
 ing, and calls out their largest sacrifices, and sets 
 them to the busiest expedients for getting him back 
 again ? Who is it that makes them forgetful of 
 themselves and of all around them ? and tell us if 
 you can assign a limit to the pains, and the exer- 
 tions, and the surrenders which afflicted parents 
 and weeping sisters would make to seek and to save 
 him? 
 
 Now conceive, as we are warranted to do by 
 the parables of this chapter, the principle of all 
 these earthly exhibitions to be in full operation 
 around the throne of God. Conceive the universe 
 to be one secure and rejoicing family, and that this 
 alienated world is the only strayed, or only captive 
 member beJonging to it; and we shall cease to 
 wonder, that, from the first period of the captivity 
 of our species, down to the consummation of their 
 history in time, there should be such a movement 
 in heaven ; or that angels should so often have sped 
 f2 
 
130 SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN 
 
 their commisioned way on the errand of our reco 
 very ; or that the Son of God should have bowed 
 Himself down to the burden of our mysterious 
 atonement; or that the Spirit of God should now, 
 by the busy variety of His all-powerful influences, 
 be carrying forward that dispensation of grace which 
 is to make us meet for re-admittance into the man- 
 sions of the celestial. Only think of love as ii-ie 
 reigning principle there ; of love, as sending forth 
 its energies and aspirations to the quarter where 
 its object is most in danger of being for ever lost 
 to it ; of love, as called forth by this single circum- 
 stance to its uttermost exertion, and the most 
 exquisite feeling of its tenderness ; and then shall 
 we come to a distinct and familiar explanation of 
 this whole mystery: nor shall we resist, by our 
 incredulity, the gospel message any longer, though 
 it tells us, that throughout the whole of this world's 
 history, long in our eyes, but only a httle month in 
 the high periods of immortality, so much of the 
 vigilance, and so much of the earnestness of heaven, 
 should have been expended on the recovery of its 
 guilty population. 
 
 There is another touching trait of nature, which 
 goes finely to heighten this principle, and still 
 more forcibly to demonstrate its application to our 
 present argument. So long as the dying child of 
 David was alive, he was kept on the stretch of 
 anxiety and of suffering with regard to it. When 
 it expired, he arose and comforted himself. This 
 narrative of King David is in harmony with all that 
 we experience of our own movements and our own 
 sensibilities. It is the power of uncertainty which 
 
IN DISTANT PLACES OF CREATION. 131 
 
 gives them so active and so interesting a play in 
 our bosoms ; and which heightens all our regards 
 to a tenfold pitch of feeling and of exercise ; and 
 which fixes down our watchfulness upon our infant's 
 dying bed ; and which keeps us so painfully aUve to 
 every turn and to every symptom in the progress 
 of its malady ; and which draws out all our affections 
 for it to a degree of intensity that is quite unutter- 
 able ; and which urges us on to ply our every effort 
 and our every expedient, till hope withdraw its 
 lingering beam, or till death shut the eyes of our 
 beloved in the slumber of its long and its last repose. 
 We know not who of you have your names written 
 in the book of life — nor can we tell if this be known 
 to the angels which are in heaven. While in the 
 land of living men, you are under the power and 
 application of a remedy, which, if taken as the 
 Gospel prescribes, will renovate the soul, and 
 altogether prepare it for the bloom and the vigour 
 of immortality. Wonder not then, that with this 
 principle of uncertainty in such full operation, 
 ministers should feel for you ; or angels should feel 
 for you ; or all the sensibilities of heaven should be 
 awake upon the symptoms of your grace and 
 reformation ; or the eyes of those who stand upon 
 the high eminences of the celestial world, should 
 be so earnestly fixed on every footstep and new 
 evolution of your moral history. Such a con- 
 sideration as this should do something more than 
 silence the infidel objection. It should give a 
 practical effect to the calls of repentance. How 
 will it go to aggravate the whole guilt of our 
 impenitency, should we stand out against the power 
 
13^ SYMPATHY FELT FOR MAN, &C. 
 
 and the tenderness of these manifold applicationa 
 — ^the voice of a beseeching God upon us — the 
 word of salvation at our very door — the free offer 
 of strength and of acceptance sounded in our hearing 
 — the Spirit in readiness with His agency to meet 
 our every desire and our every inquiry— angels 
 beckoning us to their company — and the very first 
 movements of our awakened conscience, drawing 
 upon us all their regards and all their earnestness I 
 
CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, &C. 133 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 ON THE CONTEST FOR AN ASCENDANCY 
 
 OVER MAN, AMONGST THE HIGHER ORDERS 
 
 OF INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 " And, having spoiled principalitiss and powers, he made a show 
 of them openly, triumjAuig over them in it." — Colossians 
 ii. 15. 
 
 Though these Discourses be now drawing to a 
 close, it is not because we feel that much more 
 might not be said on the subject of them, both in 
 the way of argument and of illustration. The 
 whole of the infidel difficulty proceeds upon the as- 
 sumption, that the exclusive bearing of Christianity 
 is upon the people of our earth ; that this solitary 
 planet is in no way implicated with the concerns of 
 a wider dispensation ; that the revelation we have 
 of the dealings of God in this district of His empire, 
 does not suit and subordinate itself to a system of 
 moral administration, as extended as is the whole 
 of his monarchy. Or, in other words, because 
 Infidels have not access to the whole truth, do they 
 refuse a part of it, however well attested or well 
 accredited it may be ; because a mantle of deep 
 obscurity rests on the government of God, when 
 taken in all its eternity and all its entireness, do they 
 fehut their eyes against that allowance of light which 
 has been made to pass downwards upon our world 
 
134 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVP:n IM A JC, 
 
 from time to time, through so many partial unfold- 
 ings; and till they are made to know the share 
 which other planets have in these communications 
 of mercy, do they turn them away from the actual 
 message which has come to their own door, and will 
 neither examine its credentials, nor be alarmed by 
 its warnings, nor be won by the tenderness of its 
 invitations. 
 
 On that day when the secrets of all hearts shall 
 be revealed, there will be found such a wilful dupli- 
 city and darkening of the mind in the whole of this 
 proceeding, as shall bring down upon it the burden 
 of a righteous condemnation. But even now does 
 it lie open to the rebuke of philosophy, when the 
 soundness and the consistency of her principles are 
 brought faithfully to bear upon it. Were the char- 
 acter of modern science rightly understood, it would 
 be seen, that the very thing which gave such strength 
 and sureness to all her conclusions, was that humi- 
 lity of spirit which belonged to her. She promul- 
 gates all that is positively known; but she maintains 
 the strictest silence and modesty about all that is 
 unknown. She thankfully accepts of evidence 
 wherever it can be found ; nor does she spurn away 
 from her the very humblest contribution of such 
 doctrine,*as can be witnessed by human observation, 
 or can be attested by human veracity. But with 
 all this she can hold out most sternly against that 
 power of eloquence and fancy, which often throws 
 80 bewitching a charm over the plausibilities of 
 ingenious speculation. Truth is the alone object 
 of her reverence ; and did she at all times keep by 
 her attachments, nor throw them away when theo» 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 135 
 
 logy subinitted to her cognizance its demonstrations 
 and its claims, we should not despair of witnessing 
 as great a revolution in those prevailing habitudes 
 of thought which obtain throughout our literary 
 establishments, on the subject of Christianity, as 
 that which has actually taken place in the views 
 which obtain on the philosophy of external nature. 
 This is the first field on which have been success- 
 fully practised the experimental lessons of Bacon ; 
 and they who are conversant with these matters, 
 know how great and how general a uniformity of 
 doctrine now prevails in the sciences of astronomy, 
 and mechanics, and chemistry, and almost all the 
 other departments in the history and philosophy of 
 matter. But this uniformity stands strikingly con- 
 trasted with the diversity of our moral systems, 
 with the restless fluctuations both of language and 
 of sentiment which are taking place in the philosophy 
 of mind, with the palpable fact, that every new 
 course of instruction upon this subject, has some 
 new articles, or some new explanations to peculiarize 
 it : and all this is to be attributed, not to the pro- 
 gress of the science, not to a growing, but to an 
 alternating movement, not to its perpetual addi- 
 tions, but to its perpetual vibrations. 
 
 We mean not to assert the futility of moral 
 science, or to deny her importance, or to insist on 
 the utter hopelessness of her advancement. The 
 Baconian method will not probably push forward 
 her discoveries with such a rapidity, or to such an 
 extent, as many of her sanguine disciples have 
 anticipated. But if the spirit and the maxims of 
 this philosophy were at all times proceeded upon. 
 
136 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN. 
 
 it would jcertainly check that rashness and variety 
 of excogitation, in virtue of which it may almost be 
 said, that every new course presents us with a new 
 system, and that every new teacher has some 
 singularity or other to characterize him. She may 
 be able to make out an exact transcript of the phe- 
 nomena of mind, and in so doing, she yields a most 
 important contribution to the stock of human 
 acquirements. But, when she attempts to grope 
 her darkling way through the counsels of the Deity, 
 and the futurities of His administration ; when, 
 without one passing acknowledgment to the embassy 
 which professes to have come from him, or to the 
 facts and to the testimonies by which it has so 
 illustriously been vindicated, she launches forth her 
 own speculations on the character of God, and the 
 destiny of man ; when, though this be a subject on 
 which neither the recollections of history, nor the 
 ephemeral experience of any single life, can furnish 
 one observation to enlighten her, she w411 never- 
 theless utter her own plausibilities, not merely with 
 a contemptuous neglect of the Bible, but in direct 
 opposition to it ; then it is high time to remind her 
 of the difference between the reverie of him who 
 has not seen God, and the well-accredited declara- 
 tion of him who was in the beginning with God, and 
 was God; and to tell her, that this, so far from 
 being the argument of an ignoble fanaticism, is in 
 harmony with the very argument upon which the 
 science of experiment has been reared, and by which 
 it has been at length delivered from the influence 
 of theory, and purified of all its vain and visionary 
 splendours. 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 137 
 
 In our last Discourses, we have attempted to 
 collect, from the records of God's actual communi- 
 cation to the world, such traces of relationship 
 between other orders of being and the great family 
 of mankind, as serve to prove that Christianity is 
 not so paltry and provincial a system as Infidelity 
 presumes it to be. And as we said before, we 
 have not exhausted all that may legitimately be 
 derived upon this subject from the informations of 
 Scripture. We have adverted, it is true, to the 
 knowledge of our moral history which obtains 
 throughout other provinces of the intelligent crea- 
 tion. We have asserted the universal importance 
 which this may confer on the transactions even of 
 one planet, in as much as it may spread an honour- 
 able display of the Godhead amongst all the man- 
 sions of infinity. We have attempted to expatiate 
 on the argument, that an event little in itself, may 
 be so pregnant with character, as to furnish all the 
 worshippers of heaven with a theme of praise for 
 eternity. We have stated that nothing is of mag- 
 nitude in their eyes, but that which serves to endear 
 to them the Father of their spirits, or to shed a 
 lustre over the glory of His incomprehensible 
 attributes — and that thus, from the redemption even 
 of our solitary species, there may go forth such an 
 exhibition of the Deity, as shall bear the triumphs 
 of His name to the very outskirts of the universe. 
 
 We have farther adverted to another distinct 
 Scriptural intimation, that the state of fallen man 
 was not only matter of knowledge to other orders 
 of creation, but was also matter of deep regret and 
 affectionate sympathy ; that agreeably to such lawa 
 
138 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 of sympathy as are most familiar even to human 
 observation, the very wretchedness of our condition 
 wais fitted to concentrate upon us the feeUngs, and 
 the attentions, and the services of the celestial— to 
 single us out for a time to the gaze of their most 
 earnest and unceasing contemplation — to draw forth 
 all that was kind and all that was tender within 
 them — and just in proportion to the need and to the 
 helplessness of us miserable exiles from the family 
 of God, to multiply upon us the regards, and call 
 out in our behalf the fond and eager exertions of 
 those who had never wandered away from Him. 
 This appears from the Bible to be the style of that 
 benevolence which glows and which circulates 
 around the throne of heaven. It is the very bene- 
 volence which emanates from the throne itself, and 
 the attentions of which have for so many thousand 
 years signaUzed the inhabitants of our world. This 
 may look a long period for so paltry a world. 
 But how have Infidels come to their conception 
 that our world is so paltry ? By looking abroad 
 over the countless systems of immensity. But why 
 then have they missed the conception, that the time 
 of those peculiar visitations, which they look upon 
 as so disproportionate to the magnitude of this 
 earth, is just as evanescent as the earth itself is 
 insignificant ? Why look they not abroad on the 
 countless generations of eternity ; and thus come 
 back to the conclusion, that after all, the redemption 
 of our species is but an ephemeral doing in the 
 history of intelligent nature ; that it leaves the 
 Author of it room for all the accomplishments of a 
 wise and equal administration ; and not to mention, 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 139 
 
 that even during the progress of it, it withdraws not 
 a single thought or a single energy of His, from 
 other fields of creation, that there remains time 
 enough to Him for carrying round the visitations of 
 as striking and as peculiar a tenderness, over the 
 whole extent of His great and universal monarchy? 
 It might serve still farther to incorporate the 
 concerns of our planet with the general history of 
 moral and intelligent beings, to state, not merely 
 the knowledge which they take of us, and not merely 
 the compassionate anxiety which they feel for us ; 
 but to state the importance derived to our world 
 from its being the actual theatre of a keen and 
 ambitious contest amongst the upper orders of crea- 
 tion. You know that for the possession of a very 
 small and insulated territory, the mightiest empires 
 of the world have put forth all their resources; 
 and on some field of mustering competition, have 
 monarchs met, and embarked for victory, all the 
 pride of a country's rank, and all the flower and 
 strength of a country's population. The solitary 
 island around which so many fleets are hovering, 
 and on the shores of which so many armed men are 
 descending as to an arena of hostility, may well 
 wonder at its own unlooked-for estimation. But 
 other principles are animating the battle ; and the 
 glory of nations is at stake ; and a much higher 
 result is in the contemplation of each party, than 
 the gain of so humble an acquirement as the primary 
 object of the war ; and honour, dearer to many a 
 bosom than existence, is now the interest on which 
 so much blood and so much treasure is expended ; 
 and the stirring spirit of emulation has now got 
 
140 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 hold of the combatants; and thus, amid all the 
 insignificancy which attaches to the material origin 
 of the contest, do both the eagerness and the extent 
 of it, receive from the constitution of our nature, 
 their most full and adequate explanation. 
 
 Now, if this be also the principle of higher natures 
 — if, on the one hand, God be jealous of his honour ; 
 and, on the other, there be proud and exalted spirits 
 who scowl defiance at Him and at His monarchy 
 — if, on the side of heaven, there be an angelic host 
 rallying around the standard of loyalty, who flee with 
 alacrity at the bidding of the Almighty, who are 
 devoted to His glory, and feel a rejoicing interest 
 in the evolution of His counsels ; and if, on the side 
 of hell, there be a sullen front of resistance, a hate 
 and maUce inextinguishable, an unquelled daring of 
 revenge to baffle the wisdom of the Eternal, and '.a 
 arrest the hand, and to defeat the purposes of Omni- 
 potence — then let the material prize of victory be 
 insignificant as it may, it is the victory in itself which 
 upholds the impulse of this keen and stimulated 
 rivalry. If, by the sagacity of one infernal mind, 
 a single planet has been seduced from its allegiance, 
 and been brought under the ascendancy of him who 
 is called in Scripture, "the god of this world;** 
 and if the errand on which our Redeemer came, 
 was to destroy the works of the devil — then let this 
 planet have all the littleness which astronomy has 
 assigned to it — call it what it is, one of the smaller 
 islets which float on the ocean of vacancy ; it has 
 become the theatre of such a competition, as may 
 have all the desires and all the energies of a divided 
 universe embarked upon it. It involves in it other 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 141 
 
 objects than the single recovery of our species. It 
 decides higher questions. It stands linked with 
 the supremacy of God, and will at length demon- 
 strate the way in which He inflicts chastisement 
 and overthrow upon all His enemies. We know 
 not if our rebellious world be the only stronghold 
 which Satan is possessed of, or if it be but the single 
 post of an extended warfare, that is now going on 
 between tiie powers of light and of darkness. But 
 be it the one or the other, the parties are in array, 
 and the spirit of the contest is in full energy, and 
 the honour of mighty combatants is at stake ; and 
 let us therefore cease to wonder that our humble 
 residence has been made the theatre of so busy an 
 operation, or that the ambition of loftier natures has 
 here put forth all its desire and all its strenuousness. 
 This unfolds to us another of those high and 
 extensive bearings, which the moral history of our 
 globe may have on the system of God's universal 
 administration. Were an enemy to touch the shore 
 of this high-minded country, and to occupy so much 
 as one of the humblest of its villages, and there to 
 seduce the natives from their loyalty, and to sit 
 down along with them in entrenched defiance to all 
 the threats, and to all the preparations of an in- 
 sulted empire — how would the cry of wounded pride 
 resound throughout all the ranks and varieties of 
 our mighty population ; and this very movement of 
 indignancy would reach the king upon his throne ; 
 and circulate among those who stood in all the 
 grandeur of chieftainship around him ; and be heard 
 to thrill in the eloquence of parliament ; and spread 
 so resistless an appeal to a nation's honour, and a 
 
H2 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 nation's patriotism, that the trumpet of war would 
 summon to its call all the spirit and all the wilhng 
 energies of our kingdom ; and rather than sit down 
 in patient endurance under the burning disgrace of 
 such a violation, would the whole of its strength 
 and resources be embarked upon the contest ; and 
 never, never would we let down our exertions and 
 our sacrifices, till- either our deluded countrymen 
 were reclaimed, or till the whole of this offence 
 were, by one righteous act of vengeance, swept 
 away altogether from the face of the territory it 
 deformed. 
 
 The Bible is always most full and most explan- 
 atory on those points of revelation in which men 
 are personally interested. But it does at times 
 offer a dim transparency, through which may be 
 caught a partial view of such designs and of such 
 enterprises as are now afloat among the upper 
 orders of intelligence. It tells us of a mighty 
 struggle that is now going on for a moral ascend- 
 ancy over the hearts of this world's population. It 
 tells us that our race were seduced from their al- 
 legiance to God, by the plotting sagacity of one 
 who stands pre-eminent against Him, among the 
 hosts of a very wide and extended rebellion. It 
 tells us of the Captain of salvation, who undertook 
 to spoil him of this triumph ; and throughout the 
 whole of that magnificent train of prophecy which 
 points to Him, does it describe the work he had to 
 do, as a conflict, in which strength was to be put 
 forth, and painful suffering to be endured, and fury 
 to be poured upon enemies, and principalities to be 
 dethroned, and all those toils, and dangers, and 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 143 
 
 difficulties to be borne, which strewed the patlf of 
 perseverance that was to carry him to victory. 
 
 But it is a contest of skill, as well as of strength 
 and of influence. There is the earnest competi- 
 tion of angelic faculties embarked on this struggle 
 for ascendancy. And while in the Bible there is 
 recorded, (faintly and partially, we admit,) the deep 
 and insidious policy that is practised on the one 
 side ; we are also told, that, on the plan of our 
 world's restoration, there are lavished all the riches 
 of an unsearchable wisdom upon the other. It 
 would appear that, for the accomplishment of his 
 purpose, the great enemy of God and of man plied 
 his every calculation ; and brought all the devices 
 of his deep and settled malignity to bear upon our 
 species ; and thought, that could he involve us in 
 sin, every attribute of the Divinity stood staked to 
 the banishment of our race from beyond the limits 
 of the empire of righteousness ; and, thus did he 
 practise his invasions on the moral territory of the 
 unfallen ; and, glorying in his success, did he 
 fancy and feel that he had achieved a permanent 
 separation between the God who sitteth in heaven, 
 and one at least of the planetary mansions which 
 He had reared. 
 
 The errand of the Saviour was to restore this 
 sinful world, and have its people re-admitted within 
 the circle of heaven's pure and righteous family. 
 But in the government of heaven, as well as in the 
 government of earth, there are certain principles 
 which cannot be compromised ; and certain maxims 
 of administration which must never be departed 
 from ; and a certain character of majesty and of 
 
144 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 tri4,th, on which the taint even of the shghtest viola- 
 tion can never be permitted; and a certain authority 
 which must be upheld by the immutabihty of all its 
 sanctions, and the unerring fulfilment of all its wise 
 and righteous proclamations. All this was in the 
 mind of the archangel, and a gleam of malignant 
 joy shot athwart him, as he conceived his project 
 for hemming our unfortunate species within the 
 bound of an irrecoverable dilemma; and as surely 
 as sin and holiness could not enter into fellowship, 
 so surely did he think, that if man were seduced to 
 disobedience, would the truth, and the justice, and 
 the immutability of God, lay their insurmountable 
 barriers on the path of his future acceptance. 
 
 It was only in that plan of recovery of which 
 Jesus Christ was the author and the finisher, that 
 the great adversary of our species met with a wisdom 
 which overmatched him. It is true, that he had 
 reared, in the guilt to which he seduced us, a mighty 
 obstacle in the way of this lofty undertaking. But 
 when the grand expedient was announced, and the 
 blood of that atonement, by which sinners are 
 brought nigh, was willingly offered to be shed for 
 us ; and the eternal Son, to carry this mystery into 
 accomplishment, assumed our nature — then was the 
 prince of that mighty rebellion, in which the fate 
 and the history of our world are so deeply impli- 
 cated, in visible alarm for the safety of all his ac- 
 quisitions : — nor can the record of this wondrous 
 history carry forward its narrative, without furnish- 
 ing some transient glimpses of a sublime and a 
 superior warfare, in which, for the prize of a 
 spiritual dominion over our species, we may dimly 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 145 
 
 perceive the contest of loftiest talent, and all the 
 designs of heaven in behalf of man, met at every 
 point of their evolution, by the counter workings of 
 a rival strength and a rival sagacity. 
 
 We there read of a struggle which the Captain 
 of our salvation had to sustain, when the lustre of 
 the Godhead lay obscured, and the strength of its 
 omnipotence was mysteriously weighed down under 
 the infirmities of our nature — how Satan singled 
 Him out, and dared Him to the combat oi" the 
 wilderness — how all his wiles and all his influences 
 were resisted — how he left our Saviour in all the 
 triumphs of unsubdued loyalty — how the progress 
 of this mighty achievement is marked by every 
 character of a conflict — how many of the gospel 
 miracles were so many direct infringements on the 
 power and empire of a great spiritual rebellion — 
 how, in one precious season of gladness among the 
 few which brightened the dark career of .our Saviour's 
 humiliation. He rejoiced* in spirit, and gave as the 
 cause of it to his disciples, that " he saw Satan fall 
 like lightning from heaven" — how the momentary ad- 
 vantages that were gotten over Him, are ascribed 
 to the agency of this infernal being, who entered 
 the heart of Judas, and tempted the disciple to 
 betray His Master and His Friend. We know 
 that we are treading on the confines of mystery. 
 We cannot tell what the battle that he fought. 
 We cannot compute the terror or the strength of 
 his enemies. We cannot say, for we have not been 
 told, how it was that they stood in marshalled and 
 hideous array against Him ; — nor can we measure 
 how great the firm daring of His soul, when He 
 
 VOL. VII. G 
 
146 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 tasted that cup in all its bitterness, which he pray- 
 ed might pass away from Him ; when, with the 
 feeling that He was forsaken by His God, He trod 
 the wine-press alone ; when He entered single- 
 handed upon that dreary period of agony, and in- 
 sult, and death, in which, from the garden to the 
 cross, He had to bear the burden of a world's atone- 
 ment. We cannot speak in our own language, 
 but we can say, in the language of the Bible, of the 
 days and the nights of this great enterprise, that it 
 was the season of the travail of His soul ; that it 
 was the hour and the power of darkness ; that the 
 work of our redemption, was a work accompanied 
 by the effort, and the violence, and the fury of a 
 combat ; by all the arduousness of a battle in its 
 progress, and all the glories of a victory in its ter- 
 mination : and after He called out that it was 
 finished, after He was loosed from the prison-house 
 of the grave, after He had ascended up on high. He 
 is said to have made captivity captive ; and to have 
 spoiled principalities and powers ; and to have seen 
 His pleasure upon His enemies ; and to have made 
 a show of them openly. 
 
 We shall not affect a wisdom above that which 
 is written, by fancying such details of this warfare 
 as the Bible has not laid before us. But surely it is 
 no more than being wise up to that which is written, 
 to assert, that in achieving the redemption of our 
 world, a warfare had to be accomplished ; that 
 upon this subject there was, among the higher 
 provinces of creation, the keen and the animated 
 conflict of opposing interests ; that the result of it 
 iiivolved something grander and more afiecting, 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 147 
 
 than even the fate of this world's population ; that 
 it decided a question of rivalship between the 
 righteous and everlasting Monarch of universal 
 being, and the prince of a great and widely-extended 
 rebellion, of wtiich we neither know how vast is the 
 magnitude, nor how important and diversified are 
 the bearings : and thus do we gather, from this con- 
 sideration, another distinct argument, helping us to 
 explain why, on the salvation of our solitary species, 
 so much attention appears to have been concentrated, 
 and so much energy appears to have been expended. 
 But it would appear from the Records of In- 
 spiration, that the contest is not yet ended ; that 
 on the one hand the Spirit of God is employed in 
 making, for the truths of Christianity, a way into 
 the human heart, with all the power of an effectual 
 demonstration ; that on the other, there is a spirit 
 now abroad, which worketh in the children of dis- 
 obedience : that on the one hand, the Holy Ghost 
 is caliins^ men out of darkness into the marvellous 
 light of the Gospel ; and that on the other hand, he 
 who is styled the god of this world, is blinding their 
 hearts, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of 
 Christ should enter into them : that they who are 
 under the dominion of the one, are said to have 
 overcome, because greater is He that is in them 
 than he that is in the world ; and that they who are 
 under the dominion of the other, are said to be the 
 children of the devil, and to be under a snare, and 
 to be taken captive by him at his will. How these 
 respective powers do operate, is one question. The 
 fact of their operation, is another. We abstain. 
 from the former. We attach ourselves to the lai- 
 
148 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 ter, and gather from it, that the prince of darkness 
 still walketh abroad amongst us ; that he is still 
 working his insidious policy, if not with the vigor- 
 ous inspiration of hope, at least with the frantic 
 energies of despair ; that while the overtures of 
 reconciliation are made to circulate through the 
 world, he is plying all his devices to deafen and to 
 extinguish the impression of them ; or, in other 
 words, while a process of invitation and of argument 
 has emanated from heaven, for reclaiming men to 
 their loyalty — the process is resisted at all its points, 
 by one who is putting forth his every expedient, 
 and wielding a mysterious ascendancy, to seduce 
 and to enthrall them. 
 
 To an infidel ear, all this carries the sound of 
 something wild and visionary along with it. But 
 though only known through the medium of revel- 
 ation ; after it is known, who can fail to recognize 
 its harmony with the great lineaments of human 
 experience ? Who has not felt the workings of a 
 rivalry within him, between the power of conscience 
 and the power of temptation? Who does not remem- 
 ber those seasons of retirement, when the calcula- 
 tions of eternity had gotten a momentary command 
 over the heart; and time, with all its interests 
 and all its vexations, had dwindled into insignifi- 
 cancy before them? And who does not remember, 
 how, upon his actual engagement with the objects of 
 time, they resumed a control, as great and as omni- 
 potent, as if all the iinportance of eternity adhered 
 to them — how they emitted from them such an im- 
 pression upon his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate 
 the whole man into a subserviency to their influence 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 149 
 
 — how, in spite of every lesson of their worthless- 
 ness, brought home to him at every turn by the 
 rapidity of the seasons, and the vicissitudes of hfe, 
 and the ever-moving progress of his own earthly 
 career, and the visible ravages of death among his 
 acquaintances around him, and the desolations of 
 his family, and the constant breaking up of his 
 system of friendships, and the affecting spectacle 
 of all that lives and is in motion, withering and 
 hastening to the grave ; — how comes it, that, in the 
 face of all this experience, the whole elevation of 
 purpose, conceived in the hour of his better un- 
 derstanding, should be dissipated and forgotten? 
 Whence the might, and whence the mystery of 
 that spell, which so binds and so infatuates us to 
 the world ? What prompts us so to embark the 
 whole strength of our eagerness and of our desires, 
 in pursuit of interests which we know a few little 
 years will bring to utter annihilation ? Who is it 
 that imparts to them all the charm and all the 
 colour of an unfailing durabihty ? W^ho is it that 
 throws such an air of stability over these earthly 
 tabernacles, as makes them look to the fascinated 
 eye of man, like resting-places for eternity ? Who 
 is it that so pictures out the objects of sense, and 
 so magnifies the range of their future enjoyment, 
 and so dazzles the fond and deceived imagination, 
 that, in looking onward through our earthly career, 
 it appears like the vista, or the perspective, of in- 
 numerable ages ? He who is called the god of this 
 world. He who can dress the idleness of its wak- 
 ing dreams in the garb of reality. He who can 
 pour a seducing brilliancy over the panorama of its 
 
150 CONTEST FOR ASCENDANCY OVER MAN, 
 
 fleeting pleasures and its vain anticipations. He 
 who can tarn it into an instrument of deceitfulness ; 
 and make it wield such an absolute ascendancy over 
 all the affections, that man, become the poor slave 
 of its idolatries and its charms, puts the authority 
 of conscience and the warnings of the Word of God, 
 and the offered instigations of the Spirit of God, 
 and all the lessons of calculation, and all the wis- 
 dom even of his own sound and sober experience, 
 away from him. 
 
 But this wondrous contest will come to a close. 
 Some will return to their loyalty, and others will 
 keep by their rebellion ; and, in the day of the 
 winding up of the drama of this world's history, 
 there will be made manifest to the myriads of the 
 various orders of creation, both the mercy and 
 vindicated majesty of the Eternal. On that day, 
 how vain will this presumption of the infidel as- 
 tronomy appear, when the affairs of men come to 
 be examined in the presence of an innumerable 
 company ; and beings of loftiest nature are seen to 
 crowd around the judgment-seat ; and the Saviour 
 shall appear in our sky, with a celestial retinue, who 
 have come with him from afar to witness all His 
 doings, and to take a deep and solemn interest in 
 all His dispensations; and the destiny of our species 
 whom the Infidel would thus detach in solitary in- 
 significance, from the universe altogether, shall be 
 found to merge and to mingle with higher destinies 
 — the good to spend their eternity with angels — 
 the bad to spend tlieir eternity with angels — the 
 former to be re-admitted into the universal family 
 of God's obedient worshippers — the latter to share 
 
AMONG THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCES. 151 
 
 in the everlasting pain and ignominy of the defeated 
 hosts of the rebelhous — the people of this planet to 
 be implicated, throughout the whole train of their 
 never-ending history, with the higher ranks, and 
 the more extended tribes of intelligence : And thus 
 it is, that the special administration we now live 
 under, shall be seen to harmonize in its bearings, 
 and to accord in its magnificence, with all that ex- 
 tent of nature and of her territories, which modern 
 science has unfolded. 
 
152^ SLENDER iNIXUfiNCE Ot T^ASTE 
 
 DISCOURSE VIL 
 
 ON THfe SLENDER INFLUENCE OF MERE 
 TASTE AND SENSIBILITY IN MATTERS OF 
 RELIGION. 
 
 •* And, lo ! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that 
 hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : for 
 they hear thy words^but they do them not." — EzEK, xxxiii. S2^ 
 
 You easily understand how a taste for music is one- 
 thing, and a real submission to the influence of 
 religion is another — how the ear may be regaled by 
 the melody of sound, and the heart may utterly 
 refuse the proper impression of the sense that i& 
 conveyed by it — how the sons and daughters of the 
 world may, with their every affection devoted to its 
 perishable vanities, inhale all the delights of en- 
 thusiasm, as they sit in crowded assemblage around 
 the deep and solemn oratorio — and whether it be 
 the humility of penitential feeling, or the rapture 
 of grateful ackno^wledgment, or the sublime of a 
 contemplative piety, or the aspiration of pure and 
 of holy purposes, which breathes throughout the 
 w^ords of the performance, and gives to it all the 
 spirit and all the expression by which it is pervaded; 
 it is a very possible thing, that the moral, and the 
 rational, and the active man, may have given no 
 entrance into his bosom for any of these sentiments; 
 and yet so overpowered may he be by the charm of 
 the vocal conveyance through which they are ad- 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 15 
 
 dressed to him, that he may be made to feel with 
 such an emotion, and to weep with such a tender- 
 ness, and to kindle with such a transport, and to 
 glow with such an elevation, as may one and all 
 carry upon them the semblance of sacredness. 
 
 But might not this semblance deceive him ? Have 
 you never heard any tell, and with complacency 
 too, how powerfully his devotion was awakened by 
 an act of attendance on the oratorio — how his 
 heart, melted and subdued by the influence of 
 harmony, did homage to all the religion of which 
 it was the vehicle — how he was so moved and 
 overborne, as to shed the tears of contrition, and 
 to be agitated by the terrors of judgment, and to 
 receive an awe upon his spirit of the greatness and 
 the majesty of God— and that, wrought up to the 
 lofty pitch of eternity, he could look down upon the 
 world, and by the glance of one commanding survey, 
 pronounce upon the Uttleness and the vanity of all 
 its concerns ? It is indeed very possible that all 
 this might thrill upon the ears of the man, and 
 circulate a succession of solemn and affecting 
 images around his fancy — and yet that essential 
 principle of his nature, upon which the practical 
 influence of Christianity turns, might have met with 
 no reaching and no subduing efiicacy whatever to 
 arouse it. He leaves the exhibition, as dead in 
 trespasses and sins as he came to it. Conscience 
 has not wakened upon him. Repentance has not 
 turned him. Faith has not made any positive 
 lodgement within him of her great and her con- 
 straining realities. He speeds him back to hiar 
 business and to his family, and there he acts the- 
 
154 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 old man in all the entireness of his unrrucified 
 temper, and of his obstinate worldliness, and of 
 all those earthly and unsanctified affection;? which 
 are found to cleave to him with as great tenacity 
 as ever. He is really and experimentally the very 
 same man as before — and all those sensibilities 
 which seemed to bear upon them so much of the 
 air and unction of heaven, are found to go into 
 dissipation, and be forgotten with the loveliness of 
 the song. 
 
 Amid all that illusion which such momentary 
 visitations of seriousness and of sentiment throw 
 around the character of man, let us never lose sight 
 of the test, that " by their fruits ye shall know 
 them." It is not coming up to this test, that you 
 hear and are delighted. It is that you hear and 
 do. This is the ground upon which the reality of 
 your religion is discriminated now ; and on the day 
 of reckoning, this is the ground upon which your 
 religion will be judged then ; and that award is to 
 be passed upon you, which will fix and perpetuate 
 your destiny for ever. You have a taste for music. 
 This no more implies the hold and the ascendancy 
 of religion over you, than that you have a taste for 
 beautiful scenery, or a taste for painting, or even a 
 taste for the sensualities of epicurism. But music 
 may be made to express the glow and the move- 
 ment of devotional feeling; and is it saying nothing 
 to say that the heart of him who listens with a 
 raptured ear, is, through the whole time of the 
 performance, in harmony with such a movement? 
 Why, it is saying nothing to the purpose. Music 
 ma^ lift the inspiring note of patriotism : and the 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGIONS'. 155 
 
 inspiration may be felt ; and it may thrill over the 
 recesses of the soul, to the mustering up of all its 
 energies ; and it may sustain to the last cadence of 
 the song, the firm nerve and purpose of intrepidity ; 
 and all this may be realized upon him, who, in the 
 dav of battle and upon actual collision with the 
 dangers of it, turns out to be a coward. And 
 music may lull the feelings into unison with piety ; 
 and stir up the inner man to lofty determinations ; 
 and so engage for a time his affections, that, as if 
 weaned from the dust, they promise an immediate 
 entrance on some great and elevated career, which 
 may carry him through his pilgrimage superior to all 
 the sordid and grovelling enticements that abound 
 in it. But he turns him to the world, and all this 
 glow abandons him ; and the words which he had 
 heard, he doeth them not; and in the hour of 
 temptation he turns out to be a deserter from the 
 law of allegiance; and,the test we have now specified 
 looks hard upon him, and discriminates him amid 
 all the parading insignificance of his fine but fugitive 
 emotions, to be the subject both of present guilt 
 and of future vengeance. 
 
 The faithful application of this test would put 
 to flight a host of other delusions. It may be 
 carried round amongst all those phenomena of 
 human character, where there is the exhibition 
 of something associated with religion, but which is 
 not religion itself. An exquisite relish for music 
 is no test of the influence of Christianity. Neither 
 are many other of the exquisite sensibilities of our 
 nature. When a kind mother closes the eyes of her 
 expiring babe, she is thrown into a flood of sensi» 
 
156 SLENlJER INFLUENCE or TASTE 
 
 bility, and soothing to her heart are the sympathy 
 and the prayers of an attending minister. When 
 a gathering neighbourhood assemble to the funeral 
 of an acquaintance, one pervading sense of regret 
 and tenderness sits on the faces of the company ; 
 and the deep silence, broken only by the solemn 
 utterance of the man of God, carries a kind of 
 pleasing religiousness along with it. The sacred- 
 nes3 of the hallowed day, and all the decencies of 
 its observation, may engage the affections of him 
 who loves to w alk in the footsteps of his father ;. 
 and every recurring Sabbath may bring to his bosom 
 the charm of its regularity and its quietness. Re- 
 ligion has its accompaniments ; and in these there 
 may be a something to sooth and to fascinate, even 
 ill the absence of the appropriate influences of re- 
 ligion. The deep and tender impression of a family 
 bereavement, is not religion. The love of estab- 
 lished decencies, is not religion. The charm of all 
 that sentimentalism which is associated with many 
 of its solemn and affecting services, is not religion. 
 They may form the distinct folds of its accustomed 
 drapery ; but they do not, any, oi- all of them put 
 together, make up the substance of the thing itself. 
 A mother's tenderness may flow most gracefully 
 over the tomb of her departed little one ; and she 
 may talk the while of that heaven whither its spirit 
 has ascended. The man whom death hath widow- 
 ed of his friend, may al.andon hiinself to the move- 
 ments of that grief, which for a time will claim an 
 ascendancy over him ; and, amongst the multitude 
 of his other reveries, may love to hear of the 
 eternity,, where sorrow aud separation are alik» 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 157 
 
 unknown. He who has been trained from his 
 infant days to remember the Sabbath, may love 
 the hoUness of its aspect, and associate himself with 
 ail its observances, and take a delighted share in 
 the mechanism of its forms. But let not these think, 
 because the tastes and the sensibilities which en- 
 gross them, may be blended with religion, that they 
 indicate either its strength or its existence within 
 them. We recur to the test. We press its im- 
 perious exactions upon you. We call for fruit, 
 and demand the permanency of a religious influence 
 on the habits and the history. How many who 
 take a flattering unction to their souls, when they 
 think of their amiable feelings, and their becoming 
 observations, with whom this severe touchstone 
 would, like the head of Medusa, put to flight all 
 their complacency ! The afflictive dispensation is 
 forgotten — and he on v, hom it was laid, is practi- 
 cally as indiff'erent to God and to eternity as before. 
 The Sabbath services come to a close, and they 
 are followed by the same routine of week-day 
 worldliness as before. In neither the 6ue case nor 
 the other, do w^ see more of the radical influence 
 of Christianity, than in the sublime and melting in- 
 fluence of sacred music upon the soul ; and all this 
 tide of emotion is found to die away from the bosom, 
 like the pathos or like the loveliness of a song. 
 
 The instances may be multiplied without number. 
 A man may have a taste for eloquence, and elo- 
 quence the most touching or subhme may lift her 
 pleading voice on the side of religion. A man 
 may love to have his understanding stimulated by 
 the ingenuitieSj or the resistless nrgencies of an ar- 
 
158 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 gument ; and argument the most profound and the 
 most over-bearing, may put forth all the might of 
 a constraining vehemence in behalf of religion. A 
 man may feel the rejoicings of a conscious elevation, 
 when some ideal scene of magnificence is laid be- 
 fore him ; and where are these scenes so readily to 
 be met with, as when led to expatiate in thought 
 over the track of eternity, or to survey the wonders 
 of creation, or to look to the magnitude of those 
 great and universal interests which lie within the 
 compass of religion ? A man may have his atten- 
 tion riveted and regaled by that power of imita- 
 tive description, which brings all the recollections 
 of his own experience before him ; which presents 
 him with a faithful analysis of his own heart; which 
 embodies in language such intimacies of observa- 
 tion and of feeling, as have often passed before his 
 eyes, or played within his bosom, but had never 
 been so truly or so ably pictured to the view of his 
 remembrance. Now, all this may be done in the 
 work of pressing the duties of religion ; in the work 
 of instancing the applications of religion ; in the 
 work of pointing those allusions to life and to man- 
 ners, which manifest the truth to the conscience, and 
 plant such a conviction of sin, as forms the very 
 basis of a sinner's religion. Now, in all these 
 cases, we see other principles brought into action, 
 and which may be in a state of most lively and vig- 
 orous movement, and be yet in a state of entire 
 separation from the principle of religion. We will 
 venture to say, on the strength of these illustrations, 
 that as much delight may emanate from the pulpit 
 on an arrested audience beneath itj as ever eman- 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 159 
 
 ated from the boards of a theatre — and with as 
 total a disjunction of mind too, in the one case as 
 in the other, from the essence or the habit of re- 
 ligion. We recur to the test. We make our 
 appeal to experience ; and we put it to you all, 
 whether your finding upon the subject do not agree 
 with our saying about it, that a man may weep and 
 admire, and have many 'A his faculties put upon 
 the stretch of their most intense gratification — his 
 judgment established, and his fancy enlivened, and 
 his feelings overpowered, and his hearing charmed 
 as by the accents of heavenly persuasion, and all 
 within him feasted by the rich and varied luxuries 
 of an intellectual banquet ! — Oh ! it is cruel to 
 frown unmannerly in the midst of so much satis- 
 faction. But I must not forget that truth has her 
 authority, as well as her sternness ; and she forces 
 me to affirm, that after all this has been felt and 
 gone through, there might not be one principle 
 which lies at the turning-point of conversion, 
 that has experienced a single movement — not one 
 of its purposes be conceived — not one of its doings 
 be accomplished — not one step of that repentance, 
 which, if we have not, we perish, so much as enter- 
 ed upon — not one announcement of that faith, by 
 which we are saved, admitted into a real and ac- 
 tual possession by the inner man. He has had his 
 hour's entertainment, and willingly does he award 
 thishomageto the performer, that he hatha pleasant 
 voice, and can play well on an instrument. — but, in 
 another hour, it fleets away from his remembrance, 
 and goes all to nothing, like the loveliness of a song. 
 Now, in bringing these Discourses to a close. 
 
1 60 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 we feel it our duty to advert to this exhibition of 
 character in man. The subUme and interesting 
 topic which has engaged us, however feebly it may 
 have been handled ; however inadequately it may 
 have been put in all its worth, and in all its mag- 
 nitude before you ; however short the represen- 
 tation of the speaker, or the conception of the 
 hearers, may have been of that richness, and that 
 greatness, and that loftiness, which belong to it ; 
 possesses in itself a charm to fix the attention, and 
 to regale the imagination, and to subdue the whole 
 man into a delighted reverence ; and, in a word, to 
 beget such a solemnity of thought and of emotion, 
 as may occupy and enlarge the soul for hours 
 together, as may waft it away from the gross ness of 
 ordinary life, and raise it to a kind of elevated 
 calm above ad its vulgarities and all its vexations. 
 Now, tell us whether the whole of this effect 
 irpou the feelings may not be formed without the 
 presence of religion. Tell us whether there might 
 not be such a constitution of mind, that it may both 
 want altogether that principle, in virtue of which 
 the doctrines of Cln-istianity are admitted into the 
 belief, and the duties of Christianity are admitted 
 into a government over the practice — and yet at 
 the very same time, it may have the faculty of 
 looking abroad over some scene of magnificence, 
 and of being wrought up to ecstasy with the sense 
 of all those glories among which it is expatiating. 
 We want you to see clearly the distinction between 
 these two attributes of the human character. They 
 are, in truth, as different the one from the other, 
 as a taste for the grand and the graceful of scenery 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 161 
 
 differs from the appetite of hunger ; and the one 
 may both exist and have a most intense operation 
 \* iihin the bosom of that very individual, who entirely 
 disowns, and is entirely disgusted with the other, 
 Wiiat 1 must a man be converted, ere from the 
 most elevated peak of some Alpine wilderness, he 
 become capable of feeling the force and the majesty 
 of those great lineaments which the hand of nature 
 has thrown around him, in the varied forms of 
 precipice, and mountain, and the wave of mighty 
 forests, and the rush of sounding waterfalls, and 
 distant glimpses of human territory, and i)innacles 
 of everlasting snow, and the sweep of that circling 
 horizon, which folds in its ample embrace the whole 
 of this noble amphitheatre? Tell us whether, 
 without the aid of Christianity, or without a par- 
 ticle of reverence for the only Name given under 
 heaven whereby men can be saved, a man may not 
 kindle at such a perspective as this, into all the 
 raptures, and into all the movements of a poetic 
 elevation; and be able to render into the language 
 of poetry, tlie whole of that sublime and beauteous 
 imagery which adorns it? and, as if he were tread- 
 ing on the confines of a sanctuary which he has not 
 entered, may he not mix up witli the power and 
 the enchantment of his description, such allusions 
 to the presiding genius of the scene ; or to the still 
 but animating spirit of the solitude; or to the speak- 
 ing silence of some mysterious character which 
 reigns throughout the landscape ; or, in fine, to that 
 Eternal Spirit, who sits behind the elements He has 
 formed, and combines them into ad the varieties of 
 a wide and a wonarous creation ; — mignt not all 
 
162 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 this be said and sung with an emphasis so moving, 
 as t^ spread the colouring of piety over the pages 
 of him who performs thus well upon his instrument; 
 and yet, the performer himself have a conscience 
 unmoved by a single warning of God's actual com- 
 munication, and the judgment unconvinced, and 
 the fears unawakened, and the life unreformed by 
 it? 
 
 Now, what is true of a scene on earth, is also 
 true of that wider and more elevated scene which 
 stretches over the immensity around it, into a dark 
 and a distant unknown. Who does not feel an 
 aggrandizement of thought and of faculty, when he 
 looks abroad over the amphtudes of creation — when, 
 placed on a telescopic eminence, his aided eye can 
 find a pathway to innumerable worlds — when that 
 wondrous field, over which there had hung for many 
 ages the mantle of so deep an obscurity, is laid 
 open to him, and, instead of a dreary and unpeopled 
 sohtude, he can see over the whole face of it such 
 an extended garniture of rich and goodly habita- 
 tions? Even the Atheist, who tells us that the 
 universe is self-existent and indestructible — even 
 he, who instead of seeing the traces of a manifold 
 wisdom in its manifold varieties, sees nothing in 
 them all but the exquisite structures and the lofty 
 dimensions of materialism — even he, who would 
 despoil creation of its God, cannot look upon its 
 golden suns, and their accompanying systems, with- 
 out the solemn impression of a magnificence that 
 fixes and overpowers him. Now, conceive such a 
 belief of God as you all profess, to dawn upon his 
 understanding. Let him become as one of your- 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 16 
 
 selves — and so be put into the condition of rising 
 from the subUme of matter to the subUme of mind. 
 Let him now learn to subordinate the whole of this 
 mechanism to the design and authority of a great 
 presiding Intelligence : and re-assembling all the 
 members of the universe, however distant, into one 
 family, let him mingle with his former conceptions 
 of the grandeur which belong to it, the conception 
 of that Eternal Spirit who sits enthroned on the 
 immensity of His own wonders, and embraces all 
 that He has made, within the ample scope of one 
 great administration. Then will the images and 
 the impressions of sublimity come in upon him from 
 a new quarter. Then will another avenue be 
 opened, through which a sense of grandeur may 
 find its way into his soul, and have a mightier 
 influence than ever to fill, and to elevate, and to 
 expand it. Then will be established a new and a 
 noble association, by the aid of which all that he 
 formerly looked upon as fair, becomes more lovely ; 
 and all that he formerly looked upon as great, be- 
 comes more magnificent. But will you believe us, 
 that even with this accession to his mind of ideas 
 gathered from the contemplation of tlie Divinity ; 
 even with that pleasurable glow which steals over 
 his imagination, when he now thinks of the majesty 
 of God; even with as much of what you would call 
 piety, as we fear is enough to sooth and to satisfy 
 many of yourselves, and which stirs and kindles 
 within you when you hear the goings forth of the 
 Supreme set before you in the terms of a lofty 
 representation; even with all this, we say, there 
 may be as wide a distance from the habit and the 
 
164 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 character of godliness, as if God Avas still atheisti- 
 cally disowned by him. Take the conduct of his 
 life and the currency of his affections ; and yoii 
 may see as little upon them of the stamp of loyalty 
 to God, or of reverence for any one of his authen- 
 ticated proclamations, as you may see in him who 
 offers his poetic incense to the genii, or weeps 
 enraptured over the visions of a beauteous mytho- 
 logy. The sublime of Deity has wrought up his 
 soul to a pitch of conscious and pleasing elevation 
 — and yet this no more argues the will of Deity to 
 have a practical authority over him, than does that 
 tone of elevation which is caught by looking at the 
 sublime of a naked materialism. The one and the 
 other have their little liour of ascendancy over him ; 
 and when he turns him to the rude and ordinary 
 world, both vanish alike from his sensibilities, as 
 does the loveliness of a song. 
 
 To kindle and be elevated by a sense of the 
 majesty of God, is one thing. It is totally another 
 thing, to feel a movement of obedience to the will 
 of God, under the impression of His rightful au- 
 thority over all the creatures whom He has formed. 
 A man may have an imagination all alive to the 
 former ; while the latter never prompts him to one 
 act of obedience ; never leads him to compare his 
 life with the requirements of the Lawgiver ; never 
 carries him from such a scrutiny as this, to the 
 conviction of sin; never whispers such an accusation 
 to the ear of his conscience, as causes him to mourn, 
 and to be in heaviness for the guilt of his hourly 
 and habitual rebellion ; never shuts him up to the 
 conclusion of the need of a Saviour ; never humbles 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 165 
 
 him to acquiescence in the doctrine of that revel- 
 ation, which comes to his door with such a host of 
 evidence, as even his own philosophy cannot bid 
 away ; never extorts a single believing prayer in 
 the name of Christ, or points a single look, either 
 of trust or of reverence, to His atonement ; never 
 stirs any effective movement^ of conversion; never 
 sends an aspiring energy into his bosom after the 
 aids of that Spirit, who alone can waken him out 
 of his lethargies, and by the anointing which 
 remaineth, can rivet and substantiate in his practice, 
 those goodly emotions which have hitherto plied 
 him with the deceitfulness of their momentary visits, 
 and then capriciously abandoned him. • 
 
 The mere majesty of God's power and greatness, 
 when offered to your notice, lays hold of one of 
 the faculties within you. The holiness of God, 
 with His righteous claim of legislation, lays hold 
 of another of these faculties. The difference between 
 them is so great, that the one may be engrossed 
 and interested to the full, while the other remains 
 untouched, and in a state of entire dormancy. Now, 
 it is no matter what it be that ministers delight to 
 the former of these two faculties : If the latter be 
 not arrested and put on its proper exercise, you 
 are making no approximation whatever to the right 
 habit and character of religion. There are a 
 thousand ways in which we may contrive to regale 
 your taste for that which is beauteous and majestic. 
 It may find its gratification in the loveliness of a 
 vale, or in the freer and bolder outlines of an upland 
 situation, or in the terrors of a storm, or in the 
 sublime contemplations of astronomy, or in the 
 
166 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 magnificent idea of a God who sends forth the 
 wakefuhiess of His omniscient eye, and the vigour 
 of His upholding hand, throughout all the realms 
 of nature and of providence. The mere taste of 
 the human mind may get its ample enjoyment in 
 each and in all of these objects, or in a vivid repre- 
 sentation of them ; iwr does it make any material 
 difference, whether this representation be addressed 
 to you from the stanzas of a poem, or from the 
 recitations of a theatre, or finally from the discourses 
 and the demonstrations of a pulpit. And thus it 
 is, that still on the impulse of the one principle only, 
 people may come in gathering multitudes to the 
 houfe of God; and share with eagerness in all the 
 glow and bustle of a crowded attendance ; and have 
 their every eye directed to the speaker ; and feel a 
 responding movement in their bosom to his many 
 appeals and his many arguments; and carry a 
 solemn and overpowering impression of all the 
 services away with them ; and yet, throughout the 
 whole of this seemly exhibition, not one effectual 
 knock may have been given at the door of conscience. 
 The other principle may be as profoundly asleep, 
 as if hushed into the insensibility of death. There 
 is a spirit of deep slumber, it would appear, which 
 the music of no description, even though attuned 
 to a theme so lofty as the greatness and majesty of 
 the Godbead, can ever charm away. Oh ! it may 
 have been a piece of parading insignificance al- 
 together — the minister playing on his favourite 
 mstrument, and the people dissipating away their 
 time on the charm and idle luxury of a theatrical 
 emotion. 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 167 
 
 The religion of taste, is one thing. The religion 
 of conscience, is another. We recur to the tobt. 
 What is the plain and practical doing which ought 
 to issue from the whole of our argument ? If one 
 lesson come more clearly or more authoritatively 
 out of it than another, it is the supremacy of the 
 Bihle. If fitted to impress one movement rather 
 than another; it is that movement of docility, in 
 virtue of which, man, with the feeling that he has 
 all to learn, places himself in the attitude of a little 
 child, before the book of the unsearchable God, who 
 has deigned to break His silence, and to transmit 
 even to our age of the world, a faithful record of his 
 own communication. What progress then are you 
 making in this movement ? Are you, or are you 
 not, like new-born babes, desiring the sincere milk 
 of the word, that you may grow thereby? How are 
 you coming on in the work of casting down your 
 lofty imaginations ? With the modesty of true 
 science, which is here at one with the humblest 
 and most penitentiary feeling which Christianity 
 can awaken, are you bending an eye of earnestness 
 on the Bible, and appropriating its informations, 
 and moulding your every conviction to its doctrines 
 and its testimonies? How long, we beseech you, 
 has this been your habitual exercise ? By this 
 time do you feel the darkness and the insufficiency 
 of nature ? Have you found your way to the need 
 of an atonement ? Have you learned the might 
 and efficacy which are given to the principle of 
 faith ? Have you longed with all your energies 
 to realize it? Have you broken loose from the 
 obvious misdoings of your former history ? Are 
 
168 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 you convinced of your total deficiency from the 
 spiritual obedience of the affections ? Have you 
 read of the Holy Ghost, by whom renewed in the 
 whole desire and character of your mind, you are 
 led to run with alacrity in the way of the command- 
 ments ? Have you turned to its practical use, the 
 important truth, that He is given to the believing 
 prayers of all, who really want to be relieved from 
 the power both of secret and of visible iniquity ? 
 We demand something more than the homage you 
 have rendered to the pleasantness of the voice that 
 has been sounded in your hearing. What we have 
 now to urge upon you, is the bidding of the voice, 
 to read, and to reform, and to pray, and, in a word, 
 to make your consistent step from the elevations 
 of philosophy, to all those exercises, whether of 
 doing or of believing, which mark the conduct of 
 the earnest, and the devoted, and the subdued, 
 and the aspiring Christian. 
 
 This brings under our view, a most deeply in- 
 teresting exhibition of human nature, which may 
 often be witnessed among the cultivated orders of 
 society. When a teacher of Christianity addresses 
 himself to that principle of justice within us, by 
 which we feel the authority of God to be a preroga- 
 tive which righteously belongs to Him, he is then 
 speaking the appropriate language of religion, and 
 is advancing its naked and appropriate claim over 
 the obedience of mankind. He is then urging that 
 pertinent and powerful consideration, upon which 
 alone he can ever hope to obtain the ascendancy 
 of a practical influence over the purposes and the 
 conduct of human beings. It is only by insisting 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 169 
 
 on the moral claim of God to a right of government 
 over his creatures, that he can carry their loyal 
 subordination to the will of God. Let him keep 
 by this single argument, and urge it upon the 
 conscience, and then, without any of the other ac- 
 companiments of what is called Christian oratory, 
 he may bring convincingly home upon his hearers all 
 the varieties ot" Christian doctrine. He may estab- 
 lish within their minds the dominion of all that is 
 essential in the faith of the New Testament. He 
 may, by carrying out this principle of God's autho- 
 rity hi to all its applications, convince them of sin. 
 He may lead them to compare the loftiness and 
 spirituality of His law, with the habitual obstinacy 
 of their own worldly affections. He may awaken 
 them to the need of a Saviour. He may urge them 
 to a faithful and submissive perusal of God's own 
 communication. He may thence press upon tliem 
 the truth and the immutability of their Sovereign. 
 He may work in their hearts an impression of this 
 emphatic saying, that God is not to be mocked — 
 that His law must be upheld in all the significancy 
 of its proclamations — and that either its severities 
 must be discharged upon the guilty, or in some 
 other way an adequate provision be found for its 
 outraged dignity, anu] its violated sanctions. Thus 
 may he lead them to flee for refuge to the blood of 
 the atonement. And he may further urge upon 
 his hearers, that such is the enormity of sin, that 
 it is not enough to have found an expiation for it; 
 that its power and its existence must be eradicated 
 from the hearts of all who are to spend their eternity 
 in the mansions of the celestial ; that ior ihig pur- 
 
 VOL. VIJ. H 
 
170 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 pose, an expedient is made known to us in the New 
 Testament ; that a process must be described upon 
 earth, to which there is given the appropriate name 
 of sanctification ; that, at the very commencement 
 of every true course of discipleship, this process is 
 entered upon with a purpose in the mind of forsaking 
 all; that nothing short of a single .devotedness to 
 the will of God, will ever carry us forward through 
 the successive stages of this holy and elevated 
 career ; that to help the infirmities of our nature, 
 the Spirit is ever in readiness to be given to those 
 who ask it : and that thus the life of every Christian 
 becomes a life of entire dedication to Him who 
 died for us — a life of prayer and vigilance, and 
 close dependence on the grace of God — and, as 
 the infallible result of the plain but powerful and 
 peculiar teaching of the Bible, a life of vigorous 
 unwearied activity in the doing of all the command- 
 ments. 
 
 Now, this we should call the essential business 
 of Christianity. This is the truth as it is in Jesus, 
 in its naked and unassociated simplicity. In the 
 work of urging it, nothing more might have been 
 done, than to present certain views, which may 
 come with as great clearness and freshness, and 
 take as full possession of the mind of a peasant, as 
 of the mind of a philosopher. There is a sense 
 of God, and of the rightful allegiance that is due 
 to Him. There are plain and practical appeals to 
 the conscience. There is a comparison of the state 
 of the heart, with the requirements of a law which 
 proposes to take the heart under its obedience. 
 There is the inward discernment of its coldness 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 171 
 
 about God ; of its unconcern about the matters of 
 duty and of eternity ; of its devotion to the forbidden 
 objects of sense ; of its constant tendency to nourish 
 within its own receptacles, the very element and 
 principle of rebellion, and in virtue of this, to 
 send forth the stream of an hourly and accumula- 
 ting disobedience over those doings of the outer man, 
 which make up his visible history in the world. 
 There is such an earnest and overpowering im- 
 pression of all this, as will fix a man down to the 
 single object of deliverance; as will make him awake 
 only to those realities which have a significant and 
 substantial bearing on the case that engrosses him ; 
 as will teach him to nauseate all the impertinences 
 of tasteful and ambitious description ; as will attach 
 him to the truth in its simplicity ; as will fasten his 
 every regard upon the Bible, where, if he persevere 
 in the work of honest inquiry, he will soon be made 
 to perceive the accordancy between its statements, 
 and all those movements of fear, or guilt, or deeply 
 felt necessity, or conscious darkness, stupidity, and 
 unconcern about the matters of salvation, which 
 pass within his own bosom ; in a word, as will en- 
 dear to him that plainness of speech, by which his 
 own experience is set evidently before him, and 
 that plain phraseology of Scripture, which is best 
 fitted to bring home to him the doctrine of redemp- 
 tion, in all the truth and in all the preciousness of 
 its applications. 
 
 Now, the whole of this work may be going on, 
 and that too in the wisest and most effectual man- 
 ner, without so much as one particle of incense 
 being offered to any of the subordinate principles of 
 
172 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 the human constitution. There may be no fas- 
 cinations of style. There may be no magnificence 
 of description- There may be no poignancy 
 of acute and irresistible argument. There may 
 be a riveted attention on the part of those whom 
 the Spirit of God hath awakened to seriousness 
 about the plain and affecting realities of conver- 
 sion. Their conscience may be stricken, and their 
 appetite be excited for an actual settlement of 
 mind on those points about which they feel restless 
 and unconfirmed. Such as these are vastly too 
 much engrossed with the exigencies of their condi- 
 tion, to be repelled by the homeliness of unadorned 
 truth. And thus it is, that while the loveliness of 
 the song has done so little in helping on the 
 influences of the gospel, our men of simplicity and 
 prayer have done so much for it. With a deep 
 and earnest impression of the truth themselves, they 
 have made manifest that truth to the consciences 
 of others. Missionaries have gone forth with no 
 other preparation than the simple Word of the 
 Testimony, — and thousands have owned its power, 
 by being both the hearers of the word and the doers 
 of it also. They have given us the experiment in 
 a state of unmingled simplicity ; and we learn, from 
 the success of their noble example, that without 
 any one human expedient to charm the ear, the 
 heart may, by the naked instrumentahty of the 
 Word of God, urged with plainness on those who 
 feel its deceit and its worthlessness, be charmed 
 to an entire acquiescence in the revealed way of 
 God, and have impressed upon it the genuine stamp 
 and character of godliness. 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 173 
 
 Could the sense of what is due to God be elFeo 
 tually stirred up within the human bosom, it would 
 lead to a practical carrying of all the lessons of 
 Christianity. Now, to awaken this moral sense, 
 there are certain simple relations between the 
 creature and the Creator, which must be clearly 
 apprehended, and manifested with power unto the 
 conscience. We believe, that however much phil- 
 osophers may talk about that comparative ease of 
 forming those conceptions which are simple, they 
 will, if in good earnest after a right footing with 
 God, soon discover in their own minds, all that 
 darkness and incapacity about spiritual things, which 
 are so broadly announced to us in the New Testa- 
 ment. And oh ! it is a deeply interesting spectacle, 
 to behold a man, who can take a masterly and 
 commanding survey over the field of some human 
 speculation, who can clear his discriminated way 
 through all the turns and ingenuities of some human 
 argument, who, by the march of a mighty and 
 resistless demonstration, can scale with assured 
 footstep the sublimities of science, and, from his 
 firm stand on the eminence he has won, can descry 
 some wondrous range of natural or intellectual truth 
 spread out in subordination before him : — and yet 
 this very man, may, in reference to the moral and 
 authoritative claims of the Godhead, be in a state 
 of utter apathy and blindness ! All his attempts, 
 either at the spiritual discernment, or the practical 
 impression of this doctrine, may be arrested and 
 baffled by the weight of some great inexplicable 
 impotency. A man of homely talents, and still 
 koineiier education, may see what he cannot see. 
 
174 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 and feel what he cannot feel ; and wise and prudent 
 as he is, there may lie the barrier of an obstinate 
 and impenetrable concealment, between his accom- 
 plished mind, and those things which are revealed 
 unto babes. 
 
 Bat while his mind is thus utterly devoid of what 
 may be called the main or elemental principle of 
 theology, he may have a far quicker apprehension, 
 and have his taste and his feelings much more 
 powerfully interested, than the simple Christian 
 who is beside him, by what may be called the cir- 
 cumstantials of theology. He can throw a wider 
 and more rapid glance over the magnitudes of 
 creation. He can be more delicately alive to the 
 beauties and the sublimities which abound in it. 
 He can, when the idea of a presiding God is sug- 
 gested to him, have a more kindling sense of His 
 natural majesty, and be able, both in imagination 
 and in words, to surround the throne of the 
 Divinity by the blazonry of more great, and splendid, 
 and elevating images. And yet, with all those 
 powers of conception which he does possess, he 
 may not possess that on which practical Chris- 
 tianity hinges. The moral relation between him 
 and God, may neither be effectively perceived, nor 
 faithfully proceeded on. Conscience may be in a 
 state of the most entire dormancy, and the man be 
 regaling himself with the magnificence of God, 
 while he neither loves God, nor believes God, nor 
 obeys God. 
 
 And here I cannot but remark, how much effect 
 and simplicity go together 'in the annals of Mor- 
 avianism. The men of this truly interestmg 
 
IN MATTBIS OF BELIGION. 175 
 
 denomination, address themselves exclusively to 
 that principle of our nature, on which the proper 
 mfluence of Christianity turns. Or, in other 
 words, they take up the subject of the gospel 
 message — that message devised by Him who knew 
 what was in man, and who, therefore, knew how 
 to make the right and the suitable application to 
 man. They urge the plain Word of the Testimony: 
 and they pray for a blessing from on high ; and 
 that thick impalpable veil, by which the god of this 
 world blinds the hearts of them who believe not, 
 lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should 
 enter into them — that veil, which no power of 
 philosophy can draw aside, gives way to the de- 
 monstration of the Spirit ; and thus it is, that a 
 clear perception of scriptural truth, and all the 
 freshness and permanency of its moral influences, 
 are to be met with among men who have just emerged 
 from the rudest and the grossest barbarity. When 
 one looks at the number and the greatness of their 
 achievements — when he thinks on the change they 
 have made on materials so coarse and so unpro- 
 mising — when he eyes the villages they have formed 
 — and around the whole of that engaging perspec- 
 tive by which they have chequered and relieved 
 the grim solitude of the desert, he witnesses the 
 love, and listens to the piety of reclaimed savages ; 
 — who would not long to be in possession of the 
 charm by which they have wrought this wondrous 
 transformation — who would not willingly exchange 
 for it all the parade of human eloquence, and all 
 the confidence of human argument — and for the 
 wisdom of winning souls, who is there that would 
 
176 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 not rejoice to throw the loveliness of the song, and 
 all the insignificancy of its passing fascinations away- 
 from him ? 
 
 And yet it is right that every cavil against 
 Christianity should be met, and every argument 
 for it be exhibited, and all the graces and sublim- 
 ities of its doctrine be held out to their merited 
 admiration. And if it be true, as it certainly is^ 
 that throughout the whole of this process, a man 
 may be carried rejoicingly along from the mere in- 
 dulgence of his taste, and the mere play and exercise 
 of his understanding; while conscience is untouched, 
 and the supremacy of moral claims upon the heart 
 and the conduct is practically disowned by him — 
 it is further right that this should be adverted to ; 
 and that such a melancholy unhingement in the 
 constitution of man should be fully laid open ; and 
 that he should be driven out of the seductive com- 
 placency which he is so apt to cherish^ merely be- 
 cause he delights in the loveliness of the song ; and 
 that he should be urged with the imperiousness of a 
 demand which still remains unsatisfied, to turn him 
 from the corrupt indifference of nature, and to be- 
 come personally a religious man; and that he should 
 be assured how all the gratification he felt in listen- 
 ing to the word which respected the kingdom of 
 God, will be of no avail, unless that kingdom come 
 to himself in power — that it will only go to heighten 
 the perversity of his character — that it will not 
 extenuate his real and practical ungodliness, but 
 will serve most fearfully to aggravate its condem- 
 nation. 
 
 With a religion so argumentable as ours, it ii*ay 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 177 
 
 be easy to gather out of it a feast for the h\iman 
 understanding. With a religion so magnificent as 
 ours, it may be easy to gather out of it a feast for 
 the human imagination. But with a reUgion so 
 humbUng, and so strict, and so spiritual, it is not 
 easy to mortify the pride, or to quell the strong 
 enmity of nature ; or to arrest the currency of the 
 affections ; or to turn the constitutional habits ; or 
 to pour a new complexion over the moral history ; 
 or to stem the domineering influence of things seen 
 and things sensible ; or to invest faith with a prac- 
 tical supremacy ; or to give its objects such a 
 vivacity of influence as shall overpower the near 
 and the hourly impressions, that are ever emanating 
 upon man from a seducing world. It is here that 
 man feels himself treading upon the limit of his 
 helplessness. It is here that he sees where the 
 strength of nature ends ; and the power of grace 
 must either be put forth, or leave him to grope his 
 darkling way without one inch of progress towards 
 the life and the substance of Christianity. It is 
 here that a barrier rises on the contemplation of 
 the inquirer — the barrier of separation between the 
 carnal and the spiritual, and on which he may idly 
 waste the every energy which belongs to him in the 
 enterprise of surmounting it. It is here, that after 
 having walked the round of nature's acquisitions, 
 and lavished upon the truth all his ingenuities, and 
 surveyed it in its every palpable character of grace 
 and majesty, he will still feel himself on a level with 
 the simplest and most untutored of the species. 
 He needs the power of a living manifestation. He 
 needs the anointing which remaineth. He needs 
 u2 
 
178 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE 
 
 that which fixes and perpetuates a stable revolution 
 upon the character, and in virtue of which he may 
 be advanced from the state of one who hears and is 
 delighted, to the state of one who hears and is a doer. 
 How strikingly is the experience even of vigorous 
 and accomplished nature at one on this point with 
 the announcements of revelation, that to work this 
 change, there must be the putting forth of a pe- 
 culiar agency ; and thatitis an agency, which, with- 
 held from the exercise of loftiest talent, is often 
 brought down on an impressed audience, through 
 the humblest of all instrumentality, with the de- 
 monstration of the Spirit and with power. 
 
 Think it not enough, that you carry in your 
 bosom an expanding sense of the magnificence of 
 creation. But pray for a subduing sense of the 
 authority of the Creator. Think it not enough, 
 that with the justness of a philosophical discernment, 
 you have traced that boundary which hems in all 
 the possibilities of human attainment, and have 
 found that all beyond it is a dark and fathomless 
 unknown. But let this modesty of science be 
 carried, as in consistency it ought, to the question 
 of revelation, and let all the antipathies of nature 
 be schooled to acquiescence in the authentic tes- 
 timonies of the Bible. Think it not enough, that 
 you have looked with sensibility and wonder at the 
 representation of God throned in immensity, yet 
 combining, with the vastness of his entire super- 
 intendance, a most thorough inspection into all the 
 minute and countless diversities of existence. Think 
 of your own heart as one of these diversities ; and 
 that he ponders all its tendencies ; and has an eye 
 
IN MATTERS OF RELIGION. 179 
 
 Upon all its movements; and marks all its wayward- 
 ness ; and, God of judgment as he is, records its 
 every secret, and its every sin, in the book of his 
 remembrance. Think it not enough, that you 
 have been led to associate a grandeur with the 
 salvation of the New 'J'estament, when made to 
 understand that it draws upon it the regards of an 
 arrested universe. How is it arresting your own 
 mind ? What has been the earnestness of your 
 personal regards towards it ? And tell us, if all its 
 faith, and all its repentance, and all its holiness, 
 are not disowned by you ? Think it not enough, 
 that you have felt a sentimental charm when angels 
 were pictured to your fancy as beckoning you to 
 their mansions, and anxiously looking to the every 
 symptom of your grace and reformation. Be con- 
 strained by the power of all this tenderness, and 
 yield yourselves up in a practical obedience to the 
 call of the Lord God, merciful and gracious. Think 
 it not enough, that you have shared for a moment 
 in the deep and busy interest of that arduous con- 
 flict which is now going on for a moral ascendancy 
 over the species. Remember that the conflict is 
 for each of you individually ; and let this alarm 
 you into a watchfulness against the power of every 
 temptation, and a cleaving dependence upon Him 
 through whom alone you will be more than con- 
 querors. Above all, forget not, that while you 
 only hear and are delighted, you are still under 
 nature's powerlessness and nature's condemnation 
 — and that the fodndation is not laid, the mighty 
 and essential change is not accomplished, the 
 transition from death unto life is not undergone, 
 
180 SLENDER INFLUENCE OF TASTE, &C, 
 
 the saving faith is not formed, nor the passage taken 
 from darkness to the marvellous light of the gospel, 
 till you are both hearers of the word and doers 
 also. " For if any be a hearer of the word, and 
 not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his 
 natural face in a glass : for he beholdeth himseli, 
 and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what 
 manner of man he was." 
 
AT'VLKDIX, 181 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The writer of these Discourses has drawn up the 
 foLowing compilation of passages from Scripture. 
 as servino^ to illustrate or to confirm the leading 
 arguments which have been employed in each se- 
 parate division of his subject. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth. — Gen. i. L 
 
 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, 
 and all the host of them. — Gen. ii. 1. 
 
 Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, 
 is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that 
 therein is. — Deut. x. 14. 
 
 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, 
 who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and m 
 his excellency on the sky Deut. xxxiii. 26. 
 
 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, 
 O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the 
 cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of 
 all the kingdoms of the earth ; thou hast made 
 heaven and earth. — 2 Kings xix. 15. 
 
 For all the gods of the people are idols : but the 
 Lord made the heavens — 1 Chron. xvi. 26. 
 
 Thou, even thou, art Lord alone: thou haai 
 
182 APPENDIX. 
 
 made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their 
 host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the 
 seas, and all that is therein ; and thou preservest 
 them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth 
 thee Nehemiah ix. 6. 
 
 Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and 
 treadeth upon the waves of the sea ; which maketh 
 Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers 
 of the south Job ix. 8, 9. 
 
 He stretcheth out the north over the empty- 
 place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. — Job 
 XX vi. 7. 
 
 By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens. — 
 Job xxvi. 13. 
 
 The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the 
 firmament showeth his handy-work. — Psalm xix. I. 
 
 By the word of the Lord were the heavens madej 
 and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 
 — Psalm xxxiii. 6. 
 
 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; 
 
 and the heavens are the work of thy hands. Psalm 
 
 cii. 25. 
 
 Who coverest thyself with light as with a gar- 
 ment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. 
 — Psalm civ. 2. 
 
 He appointed the moon for seasons ; the sun 
 knoweth his going down Psalm civ. 19. 
 
 Ye are blessed of the Lord, which made heaven 
 and earth. The heaven, even the heavens, are 
 the Lord's; but the earth hath he given to the child- 
 ren of men — Psalm cxv. 15, 16. 
 
 My help cometh from the Lord, which made 
 heaven and earth.—Psalm cxxii 2, 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made 
 heaven and earth Psalm cxxiv. 8. 
 
 The Lord, that made heaven and earth, bless 
 thee out of Zion. — Psalm cxxxiv. 3. 
 
 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all 
 that therein is Psalm cxlvi. 6. 
 
 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; 
 by understanding hath he established the heavens. 
 — Prov. iii. 19. 
 
 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of 
 his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and 
 comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, 
 and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills 
 in a balance? — Isa. xl. 12. 
 
 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, 
 and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; 
 that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and 
 spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. — Isa. 
 xl. 22. 
 
 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the 
 heavens, and stretched them out ; he that spread 
 forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it ; 
 he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and 
 spirit to them that walk therein — Isa. xlii. 5. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he 
 that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord 
 that maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the 
 heavens alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth 
 by himself. — Isa. xliv. 24. 
 
 I have made the earth, and created man upon 
 it : I, even my hands, have stretched out the hea- 
 vens, and all their host have I commanded. — Isa. 
 xlv. 12. 
 
'84 APPENDIX. 
 
 For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, 
 God himself that formed the earth, and made it ; 
 he hath estabUshed it, he created it not in vain, he 
 formed it to be inhabited. — Isa. xlv. 18. 
 
 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the 
 earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: 
 "^hen I call unto them, they stand up together — 
 Isa. xlviii. 13. 
 
 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath 
 established the world by his wisdom, and hath 
 stretched out the heavens by his discretion. — Jer. 
 X. 12. 
 
 Ah Lord God ! behold, thou hast made the 
 heaven and the earth by thy great power and 
 stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for 
 thee. — Jer. xxxii. 17. 
 
 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath 
 established the world by his wisdom, and hath 
 stretched out the heaven by his understanding. — 
 Jer. 11. 15. 
 
 It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, 
 and hath founded his troop in the earth ; he that 
 calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them 
 out upon the face of the earth : The Lord is his 
 name — Amos ix. 6. 
 
 We also are men of like passions with you, and 
 preach unto you, that ye should turn from these 
 vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, 
 and earth, and the sea, and all things that are 
 therein.— Acts xiv. 15. 
 
 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his 
 Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, 
 Dy whom also he made the worlds. — Heb. i. 2. 
 
APPENDIX. 18& 
 
 Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the 
 foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the 
 works of thine hands Heb. i. 10. 
 
 Through faith we understand that the worlds 
 were framed by the word of God. — Heb. xi. 3. 
 
 DISCOURSE 11. 
 
 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; 
 but those things which are revealed belong unto us 
 and to our children for ever, that we may do all 
 the words of this law — Deut. xxix. 29. 
 
 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I 
 commit my cause ; which doeth great things and 
 unsearchable ; marvellous things without number. — 
 Job V. 8, 9. 
 
 Which doeth great things past finding out ; yea, 
 and wonders without number — Job ix. 10. 
 
 Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst 
 thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? — Job 
 xi. 7. 
 
 Hast thou heard the secret of God ? and dost 
 thou restrain wisdom to thyself? — Job xv. 8. 
 
 Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little 
 a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his 
 power who can understand? — Job xxvi. 14. 
 
 Behold, God is great, and we know him not, 
 neither can the number of his years be searched 
 out. — Job xxxvi. 26. 
 
 God thundereth marvellously with his voice: 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. 
 . — Job XXX vii. 5. 
 
 Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out : 
 he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in 
 plenty of justice Job xxxvii. 23. 
 
 Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great 
 waters, and thy footsteps are not known — Psalm 
 Ixxvii. 19. 
 
 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised ; 
 and his greatness is unsearchable — Psalm cxlv. 3. 
 
 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
 are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as 
 the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
 ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
 than your thoughts Isa. Iv. 8, 9. 
 
 Verily I say unto you. Except ye be converted, 
 and become as httle children, ye shall not enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven Matt, xviii. 3. 
 
 Verily I say unto you. Whosoever shall not 
 receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall 
 in nowise enter therein Luke xviii. 17. 
 
 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
 and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his 
 judgments, and his ways past finding out ! For who 
 hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath 
 been his counsellor ? — Rom. xi. 33, 34. 
 
 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among 
 you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him be- 
 come a fool, that he may be wise.— 1 Cor. iii. 18. 
 For if a man thinketh himself to be something, 
 when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.— Gal 
 vi. 3. 
 
 Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso- 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 phy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after 
 the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. — 
 Col. ii. 8. 
 
 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy 
 trust, avoiding profane and vain babhhngs, and 
 oppositions ofscience falsely so called. — 1 Tim.vi. 20 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Be- 
 lli »ld, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot 
 contain thee ; how much less this house that I have 
 buihled ! Yet have thou respect unto the prayer 
 of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my 
 God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer 
 which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day : that 
 thine eyes may be open toward this house night 
 and day, even toward the place of which thou hast 
 said, My name shall be there ; that thou mayest 
 hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall 
 make toward this place 1 Kings viii. 27, 28, 29. 
 
 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and 
 .seeth under the whole heaven — Job xxviii. 24. 
 
 For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he 
 seeth all his goings. — Job xxxiv. 21. 
 
 Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect 
 unto the lowly. — Psalm cxxxviii. 6. 
 
 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 
 Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising ; 
 thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou 
 compassest my path, and my lying down, and art 
 
188 APPENDIX, 
 
 acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a 
 word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest 
 it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and 
 before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such know- 
 ledge is too wonderful for me ; it is high, I cannot 
 attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? 
 or whither shall I flee from thy presence? — Psalm 
 cxxxix. I — 7. 
 
 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O 
 God I how great is the sum of them ! If I should 
 count them, they are more in number than the 
 sand : when I awake, I am still with thee. — Psalm 
 cxxxix. 17, 18. 
 
 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, behold- 
 ing the evil and the good Prov. xv. 3. 
 
 Can any hide himself in secret places that I 
 shall not see him ? saith the Lord : do not I fill 
 heaven and earth ? saith the Lord Jer. xxiii. 24. 
 
 Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, 
 neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your 
 heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much 
 better than they ? And why take ye thought for 
 raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field, how they 
 grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet 
 I say Unto you. That even Solomon, in all his glor}^, 
 was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if 
 God so cloth.e the grass of the field, which to-day 
 is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he 
 not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ? — 
 Matt. vi. 26, 28, 29, 30. 
 
 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered, 
 —Matt. X. 30. 
 
 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest 
 
APPENDIX, 189 
 
 in his sight : but all things are naked and opened 
 
 unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. . 
 
 Heb. iv. 13. 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on 
 the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven ; and 
 behold the angels of God ascending and descending 
 on it. — Gen. xxviii. 12. 
 
 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as 
 yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
 night Psalm xc. 4. 
 
 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon 
 the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away 
 like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a gar- 
 ment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like 
 manner : but my salvation shall be for ever, and my 
 righteousness shall not be abolished — Isa. li. 6. 
 
 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his 
 Father, with his angels ; and then he shall reward 
 every man according to his works — Matt. xvi. 27. 
 
 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, 
 and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit 
 upon the throne of his glory — Matt. xxv. 31. 
 
 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess 
 me before men, him shall the Son of man also con- 
 fess before the angels of God : but he that denieth 
 me before men, shall be denied before the angels 
 of God Luke xii. 8, 9. 
 
 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say 
 
190 ■ APPENDIX. 
 
 unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and 
 the angels of God ascending and descending upon 
 the Son of man — John i. 51. 
 
 We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to 
 angels, and to men — 1 Cor. iv. 9. 
 
 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, 
 and given him a name which is above every name ; 
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
 of things. in heaven, and things in earth, and things 
 under the earth; and that every tongue should 
 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of 
 God the Father.— Phil. ii. 9, 10, II. 
 
 When tiie Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
 heaven with his mighty angels — 2 Thess. i. 7. 
 
 And, without controversy, great is the mystery 
 of godliness : God was manifest in the flesh, justifi- 
 ed in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the 
 Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
 glory. — 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe 
 these things I Tim. v. 21. 
 
 And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten 
 into the world, he saith. And let all the angels of 
 God worship him Heb. i. 6. 
 
 But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto 
 the city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 
 to the general assembly and church of the first- 
 born, which are written in heaven, and to God the 
 Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made 
 perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new cov- 
 enant — Heb. xii. 22, 23, 24 
 
APPENDIX, 191 
 
 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, 
 that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
 and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is 
 not slack concerning his promise, as some men count 
 slackness ; but is long-suffering to us- ward, not 
 willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to repentance. But the day of the Lord 
 will come as a thief in the night ; in the which 
 the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, 
 and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the 
 earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be 
 burnt up 2 Peter iii. 8, 9, 10. 
 
 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea 
 and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, 
 and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who 
 created heaven, and the things that therein are, and 
 the earth, and the things that therein are, and the 
 sea, and the things which are therein, that there 
 should be time no longer — Rev. x. 5, 6. 
 
 And the third angel followed them, saying with 
 a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his 
 image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his 
 hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath 
 of God, which is poured out without mixture into 
 the cup of his indignation ; and he shall be tor- 
 mented with fire and brimstone in the presence of 
 the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. 
 — Rev. xiv. 9, 10. 
 
 And I saw a great white throne, and him that 
 sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven 
 fled away ; and there was found no place for them. 
 — Rev. XX. H. 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 And Nathan departed unto his house : and the 
 Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto 
 David, and it was very sick. David therefore be- 
 sought God for the child ; and David fasted, and 
 v/ent in, and lay all night upon the earth. And 
 the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to 
 raise him up from the earth : but he would not, 
 neither did he eat bread with them. And it came 
 to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. 
 And the servants of David feared to tell him that 
 the child was dead ; for they said. Behold, while 
 the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he 
 would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then 
 vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead? 
 But when David saw that his servants whispered, 
 David per( eived that the child was dead : there- 
 fore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? 
 And they said, He is dead. Then David arose 
 from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, 
 and changed his apparel, and came into the house 
 of the Lord, and worshipped : then he came to 
 his own house ; and when he required, they set 
 bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his 
 servants unto him. What thing is this that thou 
 hast done ? Thou didst fast and weep for the 
 child, while it was alive; but when the child was 
 dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he 
 said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and 
 wept: for I said. Who can tell whether God will 
 be gracious to me, that the child may live ? But 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can 1 
 bring him back again ? 1 shall go to him, but 
 he shall not return to me 2 Sam. xiL 15 — 23. 
 
 The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 
 them that fear him, and delivereth them Psalm 
 
 xxxiv. 7. 
 
 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, 
 to keep thee in all thy ways. — Psalm xci. 11. 
 
 And he shall send his angels with a great sound 
 of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his 
 elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven 
 to the other. — Matt. xxiv. 31. 
 
 Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the 
 presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
 repenteth Luke xv. 10. 
 
 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
 minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? 
 — Heb. i. 14. 
 
 DISCOURSE VL 
 
 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
 wilderness, to be tempted of the devil — Matt. iv. 1. 
 
 The enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the 
 harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers 
 are the angels. The Son of man shall send forth 
 his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom 
 all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. 
 —Matt. xiii. 39. 41. 
 
 Then shall he say also unto them on the left 
 hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
 
 VOL. VII, I 
 
104 APPENDIX. 
 
 fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, — Matt. 
 XXV. 41. 
 
 And in the synagogue there was a man which 
 had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with 
 a loud voice, saying. Let us alone ; what have we 
 to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou 
 come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art : 
 the Holy One of God— Luke iv. 33, 34. 
 
 Those by the way-side are they that hear ; then 
 cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of 
 their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 
 — Luke viii. 12. 
 
 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, 
 Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to 
 desolation; and a house divided against a house 
 falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, 
 how shall his kingdom stand ? because ye say that I 
 cast out devils through Beelzebub — Luke xi.l7, 18. 
 
 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of 
 your father ye will do : he was a murderer from 
 the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because 
 there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, 
 he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, and the 
 father of it John viii. 44. 
 
 And supper being ended, (the devil having now 
 put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, 
 to betray him.) — John xiii. 2. 
 
 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled 
 thine heart to he to the Holy Ghost, and to keep 
 back part of the price of the land ? — Acts v. 3. 
 
 To open their eyes, and to turn them from dark- 
 ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
 God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
 
APPENDIX. 1-95 
 
 inheritance among them which are sanctified by- 
 faith that is in me Acts xxvi. 18. 
 
 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under 
 your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ be with you. Amen Rom. xvi. 20. 
 
 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us : for 
 we are not ignorant of his devices 2 Cor. ii. U. 
 
 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the 
 minds of them which believe not, lest the light of 
 the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of 
 God, should shine unto them 2 Cor. iv. 4. 
 
 Wherein in time past ye walked according to 
 the course of this world, according to the prince of 
 the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh 
 in the children of disobedience Eph. ii. 2. 
 
 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may 
 be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For 
 we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
 principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
 the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
 ness in high places Eph. vi. 1 1, 12. 
 
 For some are already turned aside after Satan 
 
 1 Tim. V. 15. 
 
 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
 flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part 
 of the same ; that through death he might destroy, 
 him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, 
 — Heb. ii. 14. 
 
 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist 
 the devil, and he will flee from you. — James iv. 7. 
 
 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary 
 the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking 
 whom he may devour : whom resist steadfast in the 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accom- 
 plished in your brethren that are in the world -1 
 
 Pet. V. 8, 9. 
 
 He that committeth sin is of the devil ; for the 
 devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose 
 the Son of God was manifested, that he might de- 
 stroy the works of the devil In this the children 
 
 of God are manifest, and the children of the devil : 
 whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, 
 neither he that loveth not his brother. — 1 John iii. 
 8, 10. 
 
 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome 
 them ; because greater is he that is in you, than he 
 that is in the world 1 John iv. 4. 
 
 And the angels which kept not their first estate, 
 but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in 
 everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judg- 
 ment of the great day Jude 6. 
 
 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed 
 in white raiment ; and I will not blot out his name 
 out of the book of life, but I will confess his name 
 before my Father, and before his angels Rev. iii. 5. 
 
 And there was war in heaven : Michael and his 
 angels fought against the dragon ; and the dragon 
 fought and his angels, and prevailed not ; neither 
 was their place found any more in heaven. And 
 the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, 
 called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
 whole world ; he was cast out into the earth, and 
 his angels were cast out with him. Therefore re- 
 joice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe 
 to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea ! for 
 the devil is come down unto you, having great 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short 
 time.— Rev. xii. 7, 8, 9, 12. 
 
 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, 
 which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a 
 thousand years. And when the thousand years are 
 expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. 
 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the 
 lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the 
 false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and 
 night for ever and ever. — Rev. xx. 2, 7, 10. 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of 
 mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
 man, which built his house upon a rock ; and the 
 rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
 blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : 
 for it was founded upon a rock. And every one 
 that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them 
 not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built 
 his house upon the sand : and the rain descended, 
 and the floods came, and the winds blew : and beat 
 upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall 
 of it Matt. vii. 24—27. 
 
 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank 
 thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 
 thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru- 
 dent, and hast revealed them unto babes — Matt. 
 xi. 25. 
 
 Then shall ye begin to say. We have eaten and 
 
193 APPENDIX. 
 
 drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our 
 streets. But he shall say, I tell you, 1 know you 
 not whence ye are : depart from me, all ye workers 
 of iniquity — Luke xiii. 26, 27. 
 
 For not the hearers of the law are just before 
 God, but the doers of the law shall be justified — 
 Rom. ii. 13. 
 
 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not 
 with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring 
 unto you the testimony of God: for I determined not 
 to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified. And my speech and my preaching 
 was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but 
 in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that 
 your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, 
 but in the power of God. Now we have received, 
 not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is 
 of God ; that we might know the things that are 
 freely given to us of God. Which things also we 
 speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, 
 but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing 
 spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; 
 for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 
 — 1 Cor. ii. 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14. 
 
 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with 
 God 1 Cor. iii. 19. 
 
 For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in 
 power 1 Cor. iv. 20. 
 
 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be 
 the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not 
 with ink, but with the Spirit of the hving God ; not 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. 
 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any 
 thing as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God; 
 who also hath made us able ministers of the New 
 Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for 
 the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. — 2 Cor. 
 iii. 3, 5, 6. 
 
 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of 
 wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him : 
 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened ; 
 that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, 
 and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance 
 in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness 
 of his power to usrward who believe, according to 
 
 the working of his mighty power Eph. i. 17, 18, 
 
 19. 
 
 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in 
 trespasses and sins. For we are his workmanship, 
 
 created in Christ Jesus unto good works Eph. ii. 
 
 1, 10. 
 
 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, 
 but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
 much assurance. — 1 Thess. i. 5. 
 
 Of his own will begat he us with the word of 
 truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his 
 creatures. But be ye doers of the word, and not 
 hearers only, deceiving your ownselves. For if any 
 be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like 
 unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass : 
 for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and 
 straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 
 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, 
 
200 APPENDIX. 
 
 and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful 
 hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be 
 blessed in his deed.— James i. 18, 22, 25. 
 
 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
 hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ; that ye 
 should show forth the praises of him who hath call- 
 ed you out of darkness into his marvellous light. — 
 1 Peter ii. 9. 
 
 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and 
 ye know all things. But the anointing which ye 
 have received of him abideth in you ; and ye need 
 not that any man teach you : but as the same an- 
 ointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, 
 and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye 
 shall abide in him. — 1 John ii. 20, 27. 
 
DISCOURSES 
 
 OF A 
 
 KINDRED CHARACTER WITH THE 
 PRECEDING. 
 
 22 
 
THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE, &C. 203 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 THE CONSTANCY OF GOD IN HIS WORKS AN 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE FAITHFULNESS OF 
 GOD IN HIS WORD. 
 
 •* For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in hearen. Thy faithful- 
 ness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, 
 and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine 
 ordinances : for all are thy servants." — Psalm cxix. 89, 90, 91. 
 
 In these verses there is affirmed to be an analogy 
 between the word of God and the works of God. 
 It is said of His word, that it is settled in heaven, 
 and that it sustains its faithfulness from one genera- 
 tion to another. It is said of His works, and more 
 especially of those that are immediatelv around us, 
 even of the earth which we inhabit, that as it was 
 established at the first so it abideth afterwards. 
 And then, as if to perfect the assimilation between 
 them, it is said of both in the 9 1st verse, " They 
 continue this day according to thine ordinances, for 
 all are thy servants ;" thereby identifying the sure- 
 ness of that word w hich proceeded from His lips, 
 with the unfailing constancy of that Nature which 
 was formed and is upholden by His hands. 
 
 The constancy of Nature is taught by universal 
 experience, and even strikes the popular eye as the 
 most characteristic of those features which have 
 been impressed upon her. It may need the aid of 
 philosophy to learn how unvarying Nature is in all 
 her processes — how even her seeming anomalies 
 
204 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 can be traced to a law that is inflexible — how what 
 might appear at first to be the caprices of her way- 
 wardness, are, in fact, the evolutions of a mechanism 
 that never changes — and that the more thoroughly 
 she is sifted and put to the test by the interrogations 
 of the curious, the more certainly will they find 
 that she walks by a rule which knows no abatement, 
 and perseveres with obedient footstep in that even 
 course, from which the eye of strictest scrutiny, 
 has never yet detected one hair-breadth of deviation. 
 It is no longer doubted by men of science, that 
 every remaining semblance of irregularity in the 
 universe is due, not to the fickleness of Nature, but 
 to the ignorance of man — that her most hidden 
 movements are conducted with a uniformity as 
 rigorous as Fate — that even the fitful agitations of 
 the weather have their law and their principle — 
 that the intensity of every breeze, and the number 
 of drops in every shower, and the formation of every 
 cloud, and all the occurring alternations of storm 
 and sunshine, and the endless shiftings of tempera^ 
 ture, and those tremulous varieties of the air which 
 our instruments have enabled us to discover but 
 have not enabled us to explain — that still, they 
 follow each other by a method of succession, which, 
 though greatly more intricate, is yet as absolute in 
 itself as the order of the seasons, or the mathemati- 
 cal courses of astronomy. This is the impression 
 of every philosophical mind with regard to Nature, 
 and it is strengthened by each new accession* that 
 is made to science. The more we are acquainted 
 with her, the more are we led to recognise her 
 constancy ; and to view her as a mighty though 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 205 
 
 complicated machme, ail whose results are sure, 
 and all whose workings are invariable. 
 
 But there is enough of patent and palpable reg- 
 ularity in Nature, to give also to the popular mind, 
 the same impression of her constancy. There is 
 a gross and general experience that teaches the 
 same lesson, and that has lodged in every bosom a 
 kind of secure and steadfast confidence in the uni- 
 formity of her processes. The very child knows 
 and proceeds upon it. He is aware of an abiding 
 character and property in the elements around him 
 — and has already learned as much of the fire, and 
 the water, and the food that he eats, and the firm 
 ground that he treads upon, and even of the gravita- 
 tion by which he must regulate his postures and his 
 movements, as to prove, that, infant though he be, 
 he is fully initiated in the doctrine^ 'that Nature 
 has her laws and her ordinances, and that she con- 
 tinueth therein. And the proofs of this are ever 
 multiplying along the journey of human observation: 
 insomuch, that when we come to manhood, we read 
 of Nature's constancy throughout every department 
 of the visible world. It meets us wherever we 
 turn our eyes. Both the day and the night bear 
 witness to it. The silent revolutions of the firma- 
 ment give it their pure testimony. Even those 
 appearances in the heavens, at which superstition 
 stood aghast, and imagined that Nature was on the 
 eve of giving way, are the proudest trophies of that 
 stability w^iich reigns throughout her processes — 
 of that unswerving consistency wherewith she pro- 
 secutes all her movements. And the lesson that 
 is thus held forth to us from the heavens above, is 
 
206 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 responded to by the earth below ; just as the tides 
 of ocean wait the footsteps of the moon, and, by an 
 attendance kept up without change or intermission 
 for thousands of years, would seem to connect the 
 regularity of earth with the regularity of heaven. 
 But, apart from these greater and simpler energies, 
 we see a course and a uniformity everywhere. We 
 recognise it in the mysteries of vegetation. We 
 follow it through the successive stages of growth, 
 and maturity, and decay, both in plants and animals. 
 We discern it still more palpably in that beautiful 
 circulation of the element of water, as it rolls its 
 way by many thousand channels to the ocean — 
 and, from the surface of this expanded reservoir, 
 is again uplifted to the higher regions of the atmo- 
 sphere — and is there dispersed in light and fleecy 
 magazines over the four quarters of the globe — 
 and at length accomplishes its orbit, by falling in 
 showers on a world that waits to be refreshed by 
 it. And all goes to impress us with the regularity 
 of Nature, which in fact teems, throughout all its 
 varieties, with power, and principle, and uniform 
 laws of operation — and is viewed by us as a vast 
 laboratory, all the progressions, of which have a 
 rigid and unfailing necessity stamped upon them. 
 
 Now, this contemplation has at times served to 
 foster the atheism of philosophers. It has led 
 them to deify Nature, and to make her immutability 
 stand in the place of God. They seem imprest 
 with the imagination, that had the Supreme Cause 
 been a Being who thinks, and wills, and acts as 
 man does, on the impulse of a felt and a present 
 motive, there would be more the appearance of 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 207 
 
 spontaneous activity, and less of mute and uncon^ 
 scious mechanism in the administrations of the 
 universe. It is the very unchangeableness of Na- 
 ture, and the steadfastness of those great and mighty 
 processes wherewith no living power that is superior 
 to Nature, and is able to shift or to control her, is 
 seen to interfere — it is this which seems to have 
 imprest the notion of some blind and eternal fatality 
 on certain men of loftiest but deluded genius. And, 
 accordingly, in France, where the physical sciences 
 have, of late, been the most cultivated, have there 
 also been the most daring avowals of atheism. The 
 universe has been affirmed to be an everlasting and 
 indestructible effect; and from the abiding constancy 
 that is seen in Nature, through all her departments, 
 have they inferred, that thus it has always been, 
 and that thus it will ever J^e. 
 
 But this atheistical impression that is derived 
 from the constancy of Nature is not peculiar to the 
 disciples of philosophy. It is the familiar and the 
 practical impression of every-day life. The world 
 is apprehended to move on steady and unvarying 
 principles of its own ; and these secondary causes 
 have usurped, in man's estimation, the throne of 
 the Divinity. Nature in fact is personified into 
 God: and as we look to the performance of a 
 machine without thinking of its maker, — so the very 
 exactness and certainty, wherewith the machinery 
 of creation performs its evolutions, has thrown a 
 disguise over the agency of the Creator. Should 
 God interpose by miracle, or interfere by sonie 
 striking and special manifestation of providence, 
 then man is awakened to the recognition of hincu 
 
208 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 But he loses sight of the Being who sits behind 
 these visible elements, while he regards those attri- 
 butes of constancy and power which appear in the 
 elements themselves. They see no demonstration 
 of a God, and they feel no need of Him, while such 
 unchanging, and such unfailing energy continues 
 to operate in the visible world around them ; and 
 we need not go to the schools of ratiocination in 
 quest of this infidelity, but may detect it in the 
 bosoms of simple and unlettered men, who, unknown 
 to themselves, make a god of Nature, and just be- 
 cause of Nature's constancy ; having no faith in the 
 unseen Spirit who originated all and upholds all, 
 and that, because all things continue as they were 
 from the beginning of the Creation. 
 
 Such has been the perverse effect of Nature's 
 constancy on the aUenated mind of man : but let us 
 now attend to the true interpretation of it. God 
 has, in the first instance, put into our minds a dis- 
 position to count on the uniformity of Nature, 
 insomuch that we universally look for a recurrence 
 of the same event in the same circumstances. This 
 is not merely the belief of experience, but the belief 
 of instinct. It is antecedent to all the findings 
 of observation, and may be exemplified in the 
 earliest stages of childhood. The infant who makes 
 a noise on the table with his hand, for the first time, 
 anticipates a repetition of the noise from a repetition 
 of the stroke, with as much confidence as he who 
 has witnessed, for years together, the unvariableness 
 wherewith these two terms of the succession have 
 followed each other. Or, in other words, God, by 
 putting this faith into every human creature, and 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 209 
 
 making it a necessary part of his mental constitu- 
 tion, has taught him at all tunes to expect the like 
 result in the like circumstances. He has thus 
 virtually told him what is to happen, and what he 
 has to look for in every given condition — and by its 
 so happening accordingly. He just makes good the 
 veracity of His own declaration. The man who 
 leads me to expect that which he fails to accomplish, 
 I would hold to be a deceiver. God has so framed 
 the machinei-y of my perceptions, as that I am led 
 irresistibly to expect, that everywhere events will 
 follow each other in the very train in which I have 
 ever been accustomed to observe them — and when 
 God so sustains the uniformity of Nature, that in 
 every instance it is rigidly so. He is just manifesting 
 the faithfuhiess of his character. Were it otherwise, 
 he would be practising a mockery on the expecta- 
 tion which He Himself had inspired. God may 
 be said to have promised to every human being, 
 that Nature will be constant — if not by the whisper 
 of an inward voice to every heart, at least by the 
 force of an uncontrollable bias which He has im- 
 pressed on every constitution. So that, when we 
 behold Nature keeping by its constancy, we behold 
 the God of Nature keeping by His faithfulness — 
 and the system of visible things, with its general 
 laws, and its successions which are invariable, instead 
 of an opaque materialism to intercept from the view 
 of mortals the face of the Divinity, becomes the 
 mirror which reflects upon them the truth that is 
 unchangeable, the ordination that never fails. 
 
 Conceive that it had been otherwise — first, that 
 man had no faith in the constancy of Nature — then 
 
210 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 how could all his experience have profited him? 
 How could he have applied the recollections of his 
 past, to the guidance of his future history ? And, 
 what would have been left to signalize the wisdom 
 of mankind above that of veriest infancy? Or, 
 suppose that he had the implicit faith in Nature's 
 constancy, but that Nature was wanting in the 
 fulfilment of it — that at every moment his intuitive 
 reliance on this constancy, was met by some caprice 
 or waywardness of Nature, which thwarted bim 
 in all his undertakings — that, instead of holding 
 true to her announcements, she held the children 
 of men in most distressful uncertainty, by the 
 freaks and the falsities in which she ever indulged 
 herself — and that every design of human foresight 
 was thus liable to be broken up, by ever and anon 
 the putting forth of some new fluctuation. Tell 
 us, in this wild misrule of elements changing their 
 properties, and events ever flitting from one method 
 of succession to another, if man could subsist for a 
 single day, when all the accomplishments without, 
 were thus at war with all the hopes and calculations 
 within. In such a chaos and conflict as this, would 
 not the foundations of human wisdom be utterly 
 subverted ? Would not man, with his powerful 
 and perpetual tendency to proceed on the constancy 
 of Nature, be tempted, at all times, and by the 
 very constitution of his being, to proceed upon a 
 falsehood ? It were the way, in fact, to turn the ad- 
 ministration of Nature into a system of deceit. The 
 lessons of to-day, would be falsified by the events 
 of to-morrow. He were indeed the father of lies 
 who would be the author of such a regimen as this 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 211 
 
 —and well may we rejoice in the strict order of the 
 goodly universe which we inhabit, and regard it as 
 a noble attestation to the wisdom and beneficence 
 of its great Architect. 
 
 But it is more especially as an evidence of His 
 truth, that the constancy of Nature is adverted to 
 in our text. It is of His faithfulness unto all 
 generations that mention is there made — and for 
 the growth and the discipline of your piety, we know 
 not a better practical habit than that of recogniz- 
 ing the unchangeable truth of God, throughout 
 your daily and hourly experience of Nature's un- 
 changeableness. Your faith in it is of His working 
 — and what a condition would you have been reduc- 
 ed to, had the faith which is within, not been met 
 by an entire and unexpected accordancy with the 
 fulfilments that are without ! He has not told you 
 what to expect by the utterance of a voice — but 
 He has taught you what to expect by the leadings 
 and the intimations of a strong constitutional 
 tendency — and, in virtue of this, there is not a hu- 
 man creature who does not believe, and almost as 
 firmly as in his own existence, that fire will continue 
 to burn, and water to cool, and matter to resist, 
 and unsupported bodies to fall, and ocean to bear 
 the adventurous vessel upon its surface, and the 
 solid earth to uphold the tread of his footsteps ; 
 and that spring will appear again in her wonted 
 cmiles, and summer will glow into heat and brilli- 
 ancy, and autumn will put on the same luxuriance 
 as before, and winter, at its stated periods, revisit 
 the world with her darkness and her storms. We 
 cannot sum up these countless varieties of Nature ; 
 
212 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 but the lirm expectation is, that throughout them 
 all, as she has been established, so she will abide 
 to the day of her final dissolution. And we call upon 
 you to recognize in Nature's constancy, the answer 
 of Nature's God to this expectation. All these 
 material agents are, in fact, the organs by which 
 He expresses His faithfulness to the world; and that 
 unveering generality which reigns and continues 
 everywhere, is but the perpetual demonstration of 
 a truth that never varies, as well as of laws that 
 never are rescinded. It is for us, that He upholds 
 the world in all its regularity. It is for us, that 
 He sustains so linviolably the march and the move- 
 ment of those innumerable progressions, which are 
 going on around us. It is in remembrance of His 
 promises to us, that he meets all our anticipations 
 of Nature's uniformity, with the evolutions of a 
 law that is unalterable. It is because He is a God 
 that cannot lie, that He will make no invasion on 
 that wondrous correspondency which he himself 
 hath instituted between the world that is without, 
 and our little world of hopes, and projects, and an- 
 ticipations that are within. By the constancy of 
 Nature, He hath imprinted upon it the lesson of 
 His own constancy — and that very characteristic 
 wherewith some would fortify the ungodliness of 
 their hearts, is the most impressive exhibition which 
 can be given of God, as always faithful, and always 
 the same. 
 
 This, then, is the real character which the con- 
 stancy of Nature should lead us to assign to Him 
 who is the Author of it. In every human under- 
 standing, He hath planted a universal instinct, by 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 213 
 
 which all are led to believe, that Nature will perse- 
 vere in her wonted courses, and that each succession 
 of cause and effect which has been observed by us 
 in the time that is past, will, while the world 
 exists, be kept up invariably, and recur in the very 
 same order through the time that is to come. This 
 constancy, then, is as good as a promise that He 
 has made unto all men, and all that is around us 
 on earth or in heaven, proves how inflexibly the 
 promise is adhered to. The chemist in his labor- 
 atory, as he questions Nature, may be almost said 
 to put her to the torture, when tried in his hottest 
 furnace, or probed by his searching analysis, to 
 her innermost arcana, she by a spark or an explo- 
 sion, or an eiFervescence, or an evolving substance, 
 makes her distinct replies to his investigations. And 
 he repeats her answer to all his fellows in philos- 
 ophy, and they meet in academic state and judg- 
 ment to reiterate the question, and in every quarter 
 of the globe her answer is the same — so that, let 
 the experiment, though a thousand times repeated, 
 only be alike in all its circumstances, the result 
 which cometh forth is as rigidly ahke, without de- 
 ficiency, and without deviation. We know how possi- 
 ble it is for these worshippers at the footstool of 
 science, to make a divinity of matter; and that every 
 new discovery of her secrets, should only rivet them 
 more devotedly to her throne. But there is a God 
 who liveth and sitteth there, and these unvarying i*- 
 sponses of Nature, are all prompted by himself, and 
 are but the utterances of His immutability. They 
 are the replies of a God who never changes, and who 
 hath adapted the whole materialism of creation to the 
 
214 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 constitution of every mind that He hath sent forth 
 upon it. And to meet the expectation which He 
 himself hath given of Nature's constancy, is He at 
 each successive instant of time, vigilant and ready 
 in every part of His vast dominions, to hold out to 
 the eye of all observers, the perpetual and unfailing 
 demonstration of it. The certainties of Nature 
 and of Science, are in fact the vocables by which 
 God announces His truth to the world — and when 
 told how impossible it is, that nature can fluctuate, 
 we are only told how impossible it is that the God 
 of Nature can deceive us. 
 
 The doctrine that Nature is constant when thus 
 related, as it ought to be, with the doctrine that 
 God is true, might well strengthen our confidence 
 in Him anew with every new experience of our 
 history. There is not an hour or a moment, in 
 which we may not verify the one — and, therefore, 
 not an hour or a moment in which we may not in- 
 vigorate the other. Every touch, and every look, 
 and every taste, and every act of converse between 
 our senses and the things that are without, brings 
 home a new demonstration of the steadfastness of 
 Nature, and along with it a new demonstration 
 both of His steadfastness and of His faithfulness, 
 who is the Governor of Nature. And the same 
 lesson may be fetched from times and from places, 
 that are far beyond the limits of our own personal 
 Mfetory. It can be drawn from the retrospect of 
 past ages, where, from the unvaried currency of 
 those very processes which we now behold, we may 
 learn the stability of all His ways, whose goings 
 forth are of old, and from everlasting. It can be 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 215 
 
 gathered from the most distant extremities of the 
 earth, where Nature reigns witn the same unweari- 
 ed constancy, as it does around us — and where 
 savages count as we do on a uniformity, from which 
 she never falters. The lesson is commensurate 
 with the whole system of things — and with an 
 effulgence as broad as the face of creation, and as 
 clear as the light which is poured over it, does it 
 at once tell that Nature is unchangeably constant, 
 and that God is unchangeably true. 
 
 And so it is, that in our text there are present- 
 ed together, as if there was a tie of likeness between 
 them — that the same God who is fixed as to the or- 
 dinances of Nature, is faithful as to the declarations 
 of His word ; and as all experience proves how 
 firmly He may be trusted for the one, so is there 
 an argument as strong as experience, to prove how 
 firmly He may be trusted for the other. By his 
 work in us. He hath awakened the expectation of 
 a constancy in Nature, which He never disappoints. 
 By His word to us, should He awaken the expect- 
 ation of a certainty in His declarations, this he will 
 never disappoint. It is because Nature is so fixed, 
 that we apprehend the God of Nature to be so 
 faithful. He who never falsifies the hope that hath 
 arisen in every bosom, from the instinct which He 
 Himself hath communicated, will never falsify the 
 hope that shall arise in any bosom from the express 
 utterance of His voice. Were He a God in whose 
 hand the processes of Nature were ever shifting, 
 then might we conceive Him a God from whose 
 mouth the proclamations of grace had the like char- 
 acters of variance and vacillation. But it is just 
 
2l6 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 because of our reliance on the one, that we feel so 
 much of repose in our dependence upon the other 
 and the same God who is so unfailing in the or- 
 dinances of His creation, do we hold to be equally 
 unfailing in the ordinances of His word. 
 
 And it is strikingly accordant with these views, 
 that Nature never has been known to recede from 
 her constancy, but for the purpose of giving place and 
 demonstration to the authority of the word. Once, 
 in a season of miracle, did the word take the pre- 
 cedency of Nature, but ever since hath Nature 
 resumed her courses, and is now proving, by her 
 steadfastness, the authority of that, which she then 
 proved to be authentic by her deviations. When 
 the word was first ushered in, Nature gave way 
 for a period, after which she moves in her wonted 
 order, till the present system of things shall pass 
 away, and that faith which is now upholden by 
 Nature's constancy, shall then receive its accom- 
 plishment at Nature's dissolution. And O how 
 God magnifieth His word above all His name, 
 when He tells that heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 but that His word shall not pass away — and that 
 while His creation shall become a wreck, not one jot 
 or one tittle of His testimony shall fail. The world 
 passeth away — but the word endureth for ever — 
 and if the faithfulness of God stand forth so legibly 
 on the face of the temporary world, how surely may 
 we reckon on the faithfulness of that word, which 
 has a vastly higher place in the counsels and fulfil- 
 ments of eternity ? 
 
 The argument may not be comprehended by all; 
 but it will not be lost, should it lead any to feel a 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD, 217 
 
 tiiore emphatic certainty and meaning than before 
 iti the declarations of the Bible — and to conclude, 
 that He, who for ages, hath stood so fixed to all 
 His plans and purposes in Nature, will stand equally 
 fixed to all that He proclaims, and to all that He 
 promises in Revelation. To be in the hands of 
 such a God, might well strike a terror into the 
 hearts of the guilty — and that unrelenting death 
 which, with all the sureness of an immutable laiw^ is 
 seen, before our eyes, to seize upon every individ- 
 aal of every species of our world, full well evinces 
 how He, the uncompromising Lawgiver, will execute 
 every utterance that He has made against the children 
 of iniquity. And, on the other hand, how this very 
 eontemplation ought to encourage all who are look- 
 ing to the announcements of the same God in the 
 Gospel, and who perceive that there Hehas embark- 
 ed the same truth, and the same unchangeableness, 
 on the offers of mercy. All Nature gives testimony 
 to this, that He cannot lie — and seeing that He has 
 stamped such enduring properties on the elements 
 even of our perishable world, never should I falter 
 from that confidence which He hath taught me to 
 feel, when I think of that property wherewith the 
 blood which was shed for me, cleanseth from all sin ; 
 and of that property wherewith the body which was 
 broken, beareth the burden of all its penalties. He 
 who hath so nobly met the faith that He has given 
 unto all in the constancy of Nature, by a uniformity 
 which knows no abatement, will meet the faith 
 that He has given unto any in the certainty of 
 grace, by a fulfilment unto every believer, whi«h 
 know s no exception. 
 
 VOL. VII, K 
 
218 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 And it is well to remark the difference that there 
 is between the explanation given in the text, of 
 Nature's constancy, and the impression which the 
 mere students or disciples of Nature have of it. 
 It is because of her constancy that they have been 
 led to invest her, as it were, in properties of her 
 own; that they have given a kind of independent 
 power and stability to matter; that in the various 
 energies which lie scattered over the field of visible 
 contemplation, they see a native inherent virtue, 
 which never for a single moment is slackened or 
 suspended — and therefore imagine, that as no force 
 from without seems necessary to sustain, so as little, 
 perhaps, is there need for any such force from with- 
 out to originate. The mechanical certainty of all 
 Nature's processes, as it appears in their eyes to 
 supersede the demand for any upholding agency, 
 so does it also supersede, in the silent imaginations 
 of many, and according to the express and bold 
 avowals of some, the demand for any creative agency. 
 It is thus, that Nature is raised into a divinity, and 
 has been made to reign over all, in the state and ju- 
 risdiction of an eternal fatalism; and proud Science, 
 which by wisdom knoweth not God, hath, in her 
 march of discovery, seized upon the invariable 
 certainties of Nature, those highest characteristics 
 of His authority and wisdom and truth, as the 
 instruments by which to disprove and to dethrone 
 him. 
 
 Now compare this interpretation of monstrous 
 and melancholy atheism, with that which the Bible 
 gives, why all things move so invariably. It is 
 because that all are th / servants. It is because 
 
AiMD FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 219 
 
 they are ail under the biddmg of a God who has 
 purposes from which He never falters, and hath 
 issued promises from which He never fails. It is 
 because the arrangements of His vast and capacious 
 household are already ordered for the best, and all 
 the elements of Nature are the ministers by which 
 He fulfils them. That is the master who has most 
 honour and obedience from his domestics, through- 
 out all whose ordinations, there runs a consistency 
 from which He never deviates; and He best sustains 
 His dignity in the midst of them, who, by mild but 
 resistless sway, can regulate the successions of 
 every hour, and affix His sure and appropriate 
 service to every member of the family. It is when 
 we see ail, in any given time, at their respective 
 places, and each distmct period of the day having 
 its own distinct evolution of business or recreation, 
 that we infer the wisdom of the instituted govern- 
 ment, and how irrevocable the sanctions are by 
 which it is upholden. The vexatious alternations 
 of command and of countermand; the endless fancies 
 of humour, and caprice, and waywardness, which 
 ever and anon break forth, to the total overthrow 
 of system ; the perpetual innovations which none 
 do foresee, and for which none, therefore, can pos- 
 sibly be prepared — these are not more harassing to 
 the subject, than they are disparaging to the truth 
 and authority of the superior. It is in the bosom 
 of a well-conducted family, where you witness the 
 sure dispensation of all the reward and encourage- 
 ment which have been promised, and the unfailing 
 execution of the disgrace and the dismissal that are 
 held forth to obstinate disobedience. Kow those 
 
220 THE CONSTANCY OF *JA.TUlE 
 
 very qualities of which this uniformity is the test 
 and tlie characteristic in the government of any 
 human society, of these also is it the test and the 
 characteristic in the government of Nature. It 
 bespeaks the wisdom, and the authority, and the 
 truth of Him who framed and who administers. 
 Let there be a King eternal, immortal, and invisible, 
 and let this universe be His empire — and in all the 
 rounds of its complex but unerring mechanism, do 
 I recognize him as the only wise God. In the 
 constancy of Nature, do I read the constancy and 
 truth of that great master Spirit, who hath imprint- 
 ed His own character on all that hath emanated 
 from His power ; and when told that throughout 
 the mighty lapse of centuries, all the courses both 
 of earth and of heaven, have been upholden as 
 before, I only recognize the footsteps of Him who 
 is ever the same, and whose faithfulness is unto all 
 generations. That perpetuity, and order, and an- 
 cient law of succession, which have subsisted so 
 long, throughout the wide diversity of things, bear 
 witness to the Lord of hosts, as still at the head of 
 His well-marshalled family. The present age is 
 only re-echoing the lesson of all past ages — and 
 that spectacle, which has misled those who by 
 wisdom know not God, into dreary atheism, has 
 enhanced every demonstration both of his veracity 
 and power, to all intelligent worshippers. We 
 know that all things continue as they were from 
 the beginning of creation. We know that the whole 
 of surrounding materialism stands forth, to this very 
 hour, in all the inflexibility of her wonted characters. 
 We know that heaven, and earth, and sea, stiil 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 221 
 
 discharge the same functions, and subserve the very 
 same beneficent processes. We know that astron- 
 omy plies the same rounds as before, that the cycles 
 of the firmainent move in their old and appointed 
 order, and that the year circulates, as it has ever 
 done, in grateful variety, over the face of an ex- 
 pectant world — but only because all are of God, 
 and they continue this day according to His ordin- 
 ances — for all are His servants. 
 
 Now it is just because the successions which take 
 place in the economy of Nature, are so invariable, 
 that we should expect the successions which take 
 place in the economy of God's moral government 
 to be equally invariable. That expectation which 
 He never disappoints when it is the fruit of a 
 imiversal instinct, He surely will never disappoint 
 when it is the fruit of His own express and imme 
 diate revelation. If because God hath so established 
 it, it Cometh to pass, then of whatsoever it may 
 be affirmed that God hath so said it, it will come 
 equally to pass. I should certainly look for the 
 same character in the administrations of His special 
 grace, that I, at all times, witness in the admini- 
 strations of His ordinary providence. If I see in 
 the system of His world, that the law by which two 
 events follow each other, gives rise to a connection 
 between them that never is dissolved, then should 
 He say in his word, that there are certain invariable 
 methods of succession, in virtue of which, when the 
 first term of it occurs, the second is sure at all times 
 to follow, I should be very sure in my anticipations, 
 that it will indeed be most punctually and most 
 rigidly so. It is thus, that the constancy of Nature 
 
222 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 is in fullest harmony with the authority of Revela- 
 tion — and that, when fresh from the contemplation 
 of the one, I would listen with most implicit faith 
 to all the announcements of the other. 
 
 When we behold all to be so sure and settled in 
 the works of God, then may we look for all being 
 equally sure and settled in the word of God. Philo- 
 sophy hath never yet detected one iota of deviation 
 from the ordinances of Nature — and never, there- 
 fore, may we conclude, shall the experience either 
 of past or future ages, detect one iota of deviation 
 from the ordinances of Revelation. He who so 
 pointedly adheres to every plan that He hath es- 
 tablished in creation, will as pointedly adhere to 
 every proclamation that He hath uttered in Scrip- 
 ture. There is nought of the fast and loose in 
 any of His processes — and whether in the terrible 
 denunciations of Sinai, or those mild proffers of 
 mercy that were sounded forth upon the world 
 through Messiah, who upholdeth all things by the 
 word of His power, shall we alike experience that 
 God is not to be mocked, and that with Him there 
 is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 
 
 With this certainty, then, upon our spirits, let 
 us now look not to the successions which He hath 
 instituted in Nature, but to the successions which 
 he hath announced to us in the word of His testi- 
 mony — and let us, while so doing, fix and solemnize 
 our thoughts by the consideration, that as God hath 
 said it, so will He do it. 
 
 The first of these successions, then, on which 
 we may count infalUbly, is that which He hath pro- 
 claimed between sin and punishment. Tlie soul 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 223 
 
 that sinneth it shall die. And here there is a 
 commo 1 ground on which the certainties of divine 
 revelati)n meet and are at one with the certainties 
 of human experience. We are told in the Bible, that 
 all have sinned, and that, therefore, death hath 
 passed upon all men. The connection between 
 these two terms is announced in Scripture to be 
 invariable — and all observation tells us, that it is 
 even so. Such was the sentence uttered in the 
 hearing of our first parents ; and all history can 
 attest how God hath kept by the word of His 
 threatening— and how this law of jurisprudence 
 from heaven is realized before us upon earth, with 
 all the certainty of a law of Nature. The death 
 of man is just as stable and as essential a part of 
 his physiology, as are his birth, or his expansion, 
 or his maturity, or his decay. It looks as much a 
 thing of organic necessity, as a thing of arbitrary 
 histitution — and here do we see blended into one 
 exhibition, a certainty of the divine word that never 
 fails, and a constancy in Nature that never is 
 departed from. It is indeed a striking accordancy 
 that what in one view of it appears to be a uniform 
 process of Nature, in another view of it, is but the 
 unrelenting execution of a dread utterance from the 
 God of Nature. From this contemplation may we 
 gather, that God is as certain in all His words, as 
 he is constant in all His ways. Men can philo- 
 sophize on the diseases of the human system — and 
 the laborious treatise can be written on the class, 
 and the character, and the symptoms, of each of 
 them — and in our hails of learning, the ample de- 
 monstration can be given, and disciples may be 
 
224 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 taught how to judge and to prognosticate, and in 
 what appearances to read the fell precursors of 
 mortality — and death has so taken up its settled 
 place among the immutabilities of Nature, that it 
 is as familiarly treated in the lecture-rooms of 
 science, as any other phenomena which Nature 
 has to offer for the exercise of the human under- 
 standing. And, O how often are the smile and the 
 stoutness of infidelity seen to mingle with this ap- 
 palling contemplation — and how little will its hardy- 
 professors bear to be told, that what gives so dread 
 a certainty to their speculation is, that the God of 
 Nature and the God of the Bible, are one — that 
 when they describe, in lofty nomenclature, the path 
 of dying humanity, they only describe the way in 
 which He fulfils upon it His irrevocable denunci- 
 ation — that He is but doing now to the posterity 
 of Adam what He told to Adam himself on his ex- 
 pulsion from paradise — and that, if the universality 
 of death prove how every law in the physics of 
 creation is sure, it ju.st as impressively proves, how 
 every word of God's immediate utterance to man, 
 or how every word of prophecy is equally sure. 
 
 And in every instance of mortality which you 
 are called to witness, do we call upon you to read 
 in it the intolerance of (iod for sin, arid how un- 
 sparingly and unrelentingly it is, that God carries 
 into effect His every utterance against it. The 
 connection which He hath instituted between the 
 two terms of sin and of death, should lead you 
 fc-om every appeal that is made to your senses by 
 the one, to feel the force of an appeal to your 
 conscience by the other. It proves the hatefulness 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 225 
 
 of sin to God, and it also proves with what unfalter- 
 ing constancy God will prosecute every threat, 
 until He hath made an utter extirpation of sin from 
 His presence. There is nought which can make 
 more palpable the way in which God keeps every 
 saying in His perpetual remembrance, and as sure- 
 ly proceeds upon it, than doth this universal plague 
 wherewith He hath smitten every individual of our 
 species, and carries off its successive generations 
 from a world that sprung from His hand in all the 
 bloom and vigour of immortality. When deatH* 
 makes entrance upon a family, and, perhaps, seizes 
 on that one member of it, all whose actual trans- 
 gressions might be summed up in the out breakings 
 of an occasional waywardness, wherewith the smiles 
 of infant gaiety were chequered — still how it de- 
 monstrates the unbending purposes of God against 
 our present accursed nature, that in some one or 
 other of its varieties, every specimen must die. 
 And so it is, that from one age to another. He 
 makes open manifestation to the world, that every 
 utterance which hath fallen from him is sure ; and 
 that ocular proof is given to the character of Him 
 who is a Spirit, and is invisible ; and that sense 
 lends its testimony to the truth of God, and the 
 truth of His Scripture ; and that Nature, when 
 rightly viewed, instead of placing its inquirers at 
 atheistical variance with the Being who upholds it, 
 holds out to us the most impressive commentary 
 that can be given, on the reverence which is due to 
 all His communications, even by demonstrating, 
 that faith in His word is at unison with the fiadinga 
 of our daily observation, 
 
 9i2 
 
226 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 But God hath further said of sin and of its con- 
 sequences, what no observation of ours has yet re- 
 aUzed. He hath told us of the judgment that 
 Cometh after death, and He hath told us of the two 
 diverse paths which lead from the judgment-seat 
 unto eternity. Of these we have not yet seen the 
 verification, yet surely we have now seen enough 
 to prepare us for the unfailing accomplishment of 
 every utterance that cometh from the lips of God. 
 The unexcepted death which we know cometh 
 Ifpon all men, for that all have sinned, might well 
 convince us of the certainty of that second death 
 which is threatened upon all who turn not from sin 
 unto the Saviour. Tiiere is an indissoluble suc- 
 cession here between our sinning and our dying — 
 and we ought now to be so aware of God as a God 
 of precise and peremptory execution, as to look 
 upon the succession being equally indissoluble, be- 
 tween our dying in sin now, and rising to everlast- 
 ing condemnation hereafter. The sinner who 
 wraps himself in delusive security — and that, be- 
 cause all things continue as they have done, does 
 not reflect of this very characteristic, that it is 
 indeed the most awful proof of God's immutable 
 counsels, and to himself the most tremendous pre- 
 sage of all the ruin and wretchedness which have 
 been denounced upon him. The spectacle of 
 uniformity that is before his eyes, only goes to as- 
 certain that as God hath purposed, so, without 
 vacillation or inconstancy, will he ever perform. He 
 hath already given a sample, or an earnest of this, in 
 the awful ravages of death ; and we ask the sinner 
 to behold, in the ever-recurring spectacle of moving 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 227 
 
 funerals, and desolated families, the token of that 
 still deeper perdition which awaits him. Let him 
 not think that the God who deals His relentless 
 inflictions here on every son and daughter of the 
 species, will falter there from the work of vengeance 
 that shall then descend on the heads of the impen- 
 itent. O how deceived then are all those ungodly, 
 who have been building to themselves a safety and 
 an exemption on the perpetuity of Nature ! All the 
 perpetuity which they have witnessed, is the pledge 
 of a God who is unchangeable — and who, true to 
 His threatening as to every other utterance which 
 passes his lips, hath said, in the hearing of men and 
 of angels, that the soul which is in sin shall perish. 
 But, secondly, there is another succession an- 
 nounced to us in Scripture, and on the certainty 
 of which we may place as firm a reliance as on any 
 of the observed successions of Nature — even that 
 which obtains between faith and salvation. He 
 who believeth in Christ, shall not perish, but shall 
 have life everlasting. The same truth which God 
 hath em"barked on the declarations of His wrath 
 against the impenitent, He hath also embarked on 
 the declarations of His mercy to the believer. 
 There is a law of continuity, as unfailing as any 
 series of events in Nature, that binds with the 
 present state of an obstinate sinner upon earth, all 
 the horrors of his future wretchedness in hell — but 
 there is also another law of continuity just as un- 
 failing, that binds the present state of him who 
 putteth faith in Christ here, with the triumphs and 
 the transports of his coming glory hereafter. And 
 thus it 18, that what we read of God*s constancy in 
 
228 TH15 CONSTAT Cy OF NATURE 
 
 the book of Nature, may well strengthen our every 
 assurance in the promises of the Gospel. It is not 
 in the recurrence of winter alone, and its desolations, 
 that God manifests His adherence to established 
 processes. There are many periodic evolutions of 
 t^e bright and the beautiful along the march of His 
 administrations — as the dawn of morn; and the 
 grateful access of spring, with its many hues, and 
 odours, and melodies ; and the ripened abundance 
 of harvest ; and that glorious arch of heaven, which 
 Science hath now appropriated as her own, but 
 which nevertheless is placed there by God as the 
 unfailing token of a sunshine already begun, and a 
 storm now ended — all these come forth at appoint- 
 ed seasons, in a consecutive order, yet mark the 
 footsteps of a beneficent Deity. And so the 
 economy of grace has its regular successions, which 
 carry however a blessing in their train. The faith 
 in Christ, to which we are invited upon earth, has 
 its sure result, and its landing-place in heaven — 
 ^nd just with as unerring certainty as we behold 
 in the courses of the firmament, will it be followed 
 up by a life of virtue, and a death of hope, and a 
 resurrection of joyfulness, and a voice of welcome 
 at the judgment-seat, and a bright ascent into fields 
 of ethereal blessedness, and an entrance upon glory, 
 and a perpetual occupation in the city of the living 
 God. 
 
 To all men hath He given a faith in the con- 
 stancy of Nature, and He never disappoints it. 
 To some men hath He given a faith in the promises 
 of the Gospel, and He is ready to bestow it upon 
 ajl who ask, or to perfect that which is lacking io 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 229 
 
 it and the one faith will as surely meet with its 
 
 corresponding fulfilment as the other. The invari- 
 ableness that reigns throughout the kingdom of 
 Nature, guarantees the like invariableness in the 
 kingdom of grace. He who is steadfast to all His 
 appointments, will be true to all His declarations — 
 and those very exhibitions of a strict and undeviating 
 order in our universe, which have ministered to the 
 irreligion of a spurious philosophy, form a basis on 
 which the believer can prop a firmer confidence than 
 before, in all the spoken and all the written testi- 
 monies of God. 
 
 With a man of taste, and imagination, and science, 
 and who is withal a disciple of the Lord Jesus, such 
 an argument as this must shed a new interest and 
 glory over His whole contemplation of visible 
 things. He knows of His Saviour, that by Him 
 all things were made, and that by Him too all things 
 are upholden. The world, in fact, was created 
 by that Being whose name is the Word ; and from 
 the features that are imprinted on the one, may he 
 gather some of the leading characteristics of the 
 other. More expressly will he infer from that sure 
 and established order of Nature, in which the 
 whole family of mankind are comprehended, that 
 the more special family of believers are indeed en- 
 circled within the bond of a sure and a well-order- 
 ed covenant. In those beauteous regularities by 
 which the one economy is marked, will he be led 
 to recognise the " yea" and the " amen" which are 
 stamped on the other economy — and when he learns 
 that the certainties of science are unfailing, does 
 he also learn that the sayings of Scripture are un- 
 
230 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 alterable. Both he knows to emanate from the 
 same source ; and every new experience of Nature's 
 constancy, will just rivet him more tenaciously than 
 before to the doctrine and the declarations of his 
 Bible. Furnished with such a method of interpret- 
 ation as this, let him go abroad upon Nature, and 
 ail that he sees will heighten and establish the hopes 
 which Revelation hath awakened. Every recurrence 
 of the same phenomena as before, will be to him a 
 distinct testimony to the faithfulness of God. The 
 very hours will bear witness to it. The lengthening 
 shades of even will repeat the lesson held out to him 
 by the light of early day — and when night unveils 
 to his eye the many splendours of the firmament, 
 will every traveller on his circuit there, speak to 
 him of that mighty and invisible King, all whose 
 ordinations are sure. And this manifestation from 
 the face of heaven, will be reflected to him by the 
 panorama upon earth. Even the buds which come 
 forth at their appointed season on the leafless 
 branches ; and the springing up of the flowers and 
 the herbage, on the spots of ground from which 
 they had disappeared; and that month of vocal 
 harmony wherewith the mute atmosphere is glad- 
 dened as before, with the notes of joyous festival ; 
 and so, the regular march of the advancing year 
 through all its footsteps of revival, and progress, 
 and maturity, and decay — these are to him but the 
 diversified tokens of a God whom he can trust, 
 because of a God who changeth not. To his 
 eyes, the world reflects upon the word the lesson 
 of Its own wondrous harmony ; and his science, 
 instead of a meteor that lures from the greater 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 231 
 
 light of Revelation, serves him as a pedestal on 
 which the stability of Scripture is more firmly up- 
 holden. 
 
 The man who is accustomed to view aright the 
 uniformity of Nature's sequences, will be more im- 
 pressed with the certainty of that sequence, which 
 is announced in the Bible between faith and sal- 
 vation — and he of all others, should re-assure his 
 hopes of immortality, when he reads, that the end of 
 our faith is the salvation of our souls. In this secure 
 and wealthy place, let him take up his rest, and rejoice 
 himself greatly with that God who has so multipli- 
 ed upon him the evidences of His faithfulness. Let 
 him henceforth feel that he is in the hands of one 
 who never deviates, and who cannot lie — and who, 
 as He never by one act of caprice, hath mocked 
 the dependence that is built on the foundation of 
 human experience, so, never by one act of treach- 
 ery, will He mock the dependence that is built on 
 the foundation of the divine testimony. And more 
 particularly, let him think of Christ, who hath all 
 the promises in His hand, that to Him also all 
 power has been committed in heaven and in earth 
 — and that presiding therefore, as he does, over 
 that visible administration, of which constancy is 
 the unfailing attribute. He by this hath given us the 
 best pledge of a truth that abideth the same, to 
 day, and yesterday, and for ever. 
 
 We are aware, that no argument can of itself 
 work in you the faith of the Gospel — that words 
 and reasons, and illustrations, may be multiplied 
 without end, and yet be of no efl&cacy — that if the 
 simple manifestation of the Spirit be withheld, the 
 
232 THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE 
 
 expounder of Scripture, and of all its analogies 
 with Creation or Providence, will lose his labour 
 — and while it is his part to prosecute these to the 
 uttermost, yet nought will he find more surely and 
 experimentally true, than that without a special 
 interposition of light from on high, he runneth in 
 vain, and wearieth himself in vain. It is for him to 
 ply the instrument, it is for God to give unto it the 
 power which availeth. We are told of Christ on His 
 throne of mediatorship, that He hath all the energies 
 of Nature at command, and up to this hour do we 
 know with what a steady and unfaltering hand He 
 hath wielded them. Look to the promise as equally 
 steadfast, of " Lo, I am with you always, even unto 
 the end of the world" — and come even now to His 
 own appointed ordinance in the like confidence of 
 a fellowship with Him, as you would to any of the 
 scenes or ordinations of Nature, and in the confi- 
 dence that there the Lord of Nature will prove 
 Himself the same that He has ever been.* The 
 blood that was announced many centuries ago to 
 cleanse from all sin, cleanseth still. The body 
 which hath borne in all past ages the iniquity of 
 believers, beareth it still. That faith which appro- 
 priates Christ and all the benefits of His purchase, 
 to the soul, still performs the same office. And 
 that magnificent economy of Nature which was 
 established at the first, and so abideth, is but 
 the symbol of that higher economy of grace which 
 continueth to this day according to all its ordin- 
 ances. 
 
 • This Sermon was delivered on the morning of a Communion 
 Sabbath. 
 
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD. 233 
 
 ** Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drhiketh my 
 blood," says the Saviour, *' shall never die." When 
 you sit down at His table, you eat the bread, and 
 you drink the wine by which these are represented 
 — and if this be done worthily, if there be a right 
 correspondence between the hand and the heart in 
 this sacramental service, then by faith do you re- 
 ceive the benefits of the shed blood, and the broken 
 body ; and your so doing will as surely as any suc- 
 cession takes place in the instituted courses of 
 Nature, be followed up by your blessed immortality. 
 And the brighter your hopes of glory hereafter, the 
 holier will you be in all your acts and aifections 
 here. The character even now will receive a tinge 
 from- the prospect that is before you — and the 
 habitual anticipation of heaven will bring down both 
 of its charity and its sacredness upon your heart. 
 He who hath this hope in him puriiieth himself even 
 as Christ is pure — and even from the present if a 
 true approach to the gate of His sanctuary, will you 
 carry a portion of His spirit away with you. In 
 partaking of these His consecrated elements, you 
 become partakers of his gentleness and devotion, 
 and unwearied beneficence — and because like Him 
 in time, you will live with Him through eternity^ 
 
234 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 ON THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE EFFI- 
 CACY OF PRAYER-AND THE UNIFORMITY 
 OF NATURE. 
 
 «* Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, 
 walking after their own lusts,— and saying, Where is the pro- 
 mise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, ail things 
 continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." — 
 2 Peter iii. 3, 4. 
 
 The infidelity spoken of in our text, had for 
 its basis the stability of nature, or rested on the 
 imagination that her economy was perpetual and 
 everlasting — and every day of nature's continuance 
 added to the strength and inveteracy of this de- 
 lusion. In proportion to the length of her past 
 endurance, was there a firm confidence felt in hei 
 future perpetuity. The longer that nature lasted, 
 or the older she grew, her final dissolution was 
 held to be all the more improbable — till nothing 
 seemed so unlikely to the atheistical men of that 
 period, as the intervention of a God with a sys- 
 tem of visible things, which looked so unchanging 
 and so indestructible. It was like the contest of 
 experience and faith, in which the former grew 
 every day stronger and stronger, and the latter 
 weaker and weaker, till at length it was wholly 
 extinguished ; and men in the spirit of defiance or 
 ridicule, braved the announcement of a Judge who 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 235 
 
 should appear at the end of the world, and mocked 
 at the promise of His coming. 
 
 But there is another direction which infidelity 
 often takes, beside the one specified in our text. 
 It not only perverts to ha own argument, what 
 experience tells of the stability of nature ; and so 
 concludes that we have nothing to fear from the 
 mandate of a God, laying sudden arrest and ter- 
 mination on its processes. It also perverts what 
 experience tells of the uniformity of nature ; and 
 so concludes that we have nothing either to hope 
 or to fear, from the intervention of a God during 
 the continuance or the currency of these processes. 
 Beside making nature independent of God for 
 its duration, which they hold to be everlasting ; 
 they would also make nature to be independent of 
 God for its course, which they hold to be unalter- 
 able. They tell us of the rigid and undeviating 
 constancy from which nature is never known to 
 fluctuate ; and that in her immutable laws, in the 
 march and regularity of her orderly progressions, 
 they can discover no trace whatever of any inter- 
 position by the finger of a Deity. It is not only 
 that all things continue to be, as they were from the 
 beginning of creation; but that all things continue 
 to act, as they did from the beginning of the 
 creation — causes and efi'ects following each other 
 in wonted and invariable succession, and the same 
 circumstances ever issuing in the same consequents 
 as before. With such a system of things, there is 
 no room in their creed or in their imagination, for 
 the actings of a God. To their eye, nature pro- 
 ceeds by the sure footsteps of a mute and uncon- 
 
236 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 scious materialism ; nor can they recognize in its 
 evolutions those characters of the spontaneous or 
 the wilful, which bespeak a living God to have 
 had any concern with it. He may have formed 
 the mundane system at the first : he may have 
 devised for matter its properties and its laws : 
 but these properties, they tell us, never change; 
 these laws never are relaxed or receded from. 
 And so we may as well bid the storm itself cease 
 from its violence, as supplicate the unseen Being 
 whom we fancy to be sitting aloft and to direct the 
 storm. This they hold to be a superstitious 
 imagination, which all their experience of nature 
 and of nature's immutability forbids them to 
 entertain. By the one infidelity, they have 
 banished a God from the throne of judgment. 
 By the other infidelity, they have banished a God 
 from the throne of providence. By the first they 
 tell us, that a God has nought to do with the con- 
 summation of nature ; or, ^rather, that nature has 
 no consummation. By the second, they tell us 
 that a God has nought to do with the history of 
 nature. The first infidelity would expunge from 
 our creed the doctrine of a coming judgment. The 
 second would expunge from it the doctrine of a 
 present and a special providence, and the doctrine 
 of the efficacy of prayer. 
 
 Now this last, though not just the infidelity of 
 the text — yet being very much the same with it in 
 principle — we hold it sufficiently textual, though 
 we make it, and not the other the subject of our 
 present argument. We admit the uniformity of 
 visible nature — a lesson forced upon us by all 
 experience. We admit that as far as our obser- 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 23? 
 
 vation extends, nature has always proceeded in 
 one invariable order — insomuch that the same 
 antecedents have, without exception, been ever 
 followed up by the same consequents ; and that, 
 saving the well accredited miracles of the Jewish 
 and Christian dispensations, all things have so 
 continued since the beginning of the creation. 
 
 We admit that, never in our whole lives, have 
 we witnessed as the effect of man's prayer, any 
 infringement made on the known laws of the 
 universe ; or that nature by receding from her 
 constancy, to the extent that we have discovered 
 it, has ever in one instance yielded to his supplica- 
 ting cry. We admit that by no importunity from 
 the voice of faith, or from any number and com- 
 bination of voices, have we seen an arrest or a 
 shift laid on the ascertained courses, whetlier of 
 the material or the mental economy ; or a single 
 fulfilment of any sort, brought about in contraven- 
 tion, either to the known properties of any sub- 
 stance, or to the known principles of any established 
 succession in the history of nature. These are our 
 experiences; and we are aware the very experiences 
 which ministered to the infidelity of our text, and do 
 minister to the practical infidelity of thousands in 
 the present day — yet, in opposition to, or rather 
 notwithstanding these experiences, universal and 
 unexcepted though they be, do we affirm the 
 doctrine of a superintending providence, as various 
 and as special, as our necessities — the doctrine of 
 a perpetual interposition from above, as manifoldly 
 and minutely special, as are the believing requests 
 which ascend from us to Heaven's throne. 
 
 We feel the importance of the subject, both in 
 
238 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 its application to the judgment that now hangs 
 over us,* and to the iniidehty of the present 
 times. But we cannot hope to be fully under- 
 stood, without your most strenuous and sustained 
 attention — an attention, however, which we request 
 may be kept up to the end, even though certain 
 parts in the trahi of observation may not have 
 been followed by you. What. some may lose in 
 those passages, where the subject is presented in 
 the form of a general argument, may agahi be 
 recovered, when we attempt to establish our doc- 
 trine by scripture, or to illustrate it by instances 
 taken from the history of human affairs. In one 
 way or other, you may seize on the reigning prin- 
 ciple of that explanation, by which we endeavour 
 to reconcile the efiicacy of prayer with the unifor- 
 mity of experience. And our purpose shall have 
 been obtained, if we can at all help you to a 
 greater confidence in the reality of a superintending 
 providence, to a greater comfort and confidence in 
 the act of making your requests known unto God. 
 Let us first give our view in all its generality, 
 in the hope that any obscurity which may rest 
 upon it in this form, will be dissipated or cleared 
 up, in the subsequent appeals that we shall make, 
 both to the lessons of the Bible, and to the lessons 
 of human experience. 
 
 We grant then, we unreservedly grant, the 
 uniformity of visible nature; and now let us compute 
 how much, or how little, it amounts to. Grant of 
 all our progressions, that,, as far as our eye can 
 carry us, they are invariable ; and then let us only 
 * This sermon was preaciied during the prevalence of cholera. 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURT3. 239 
 
 reflect how short a way we can trace any of them 
 upwards. In speculating on the oiigm of an 
 event, we may be able to assign the one which 
 immediately preceded, and term it the proximate 
 cause ; or even ascend by two or three footsteps, 
 till we have discovered some anterior event which 
 we term the remote cause. But how soon do we 
 arrive at the limit of possible investigation, beyond 
 which if we attempt to go, we lose ourselves 
 among the depths and the obscurities of a region 
 that is unknown ? Observation may conduct us a 
 certain lensrth backwards in the train of causes 
 and eiFects ; but, after having done its uttermost, 
 we feel, that, above and beyond its loftiest place 
 of ascent, there are still higher steps in the train, 
 which we vainly try to reach, and lind them inac- 
 cessible. It is even so throughout all philosophy. 
 After having arrived at the remotest cause which 
 man can reach his way to, we shall ever find there 
 are higher and remoter causes still, which distance 
 all his powers of research, and so will ever remain 
 in deepest concealment from his view. Of this 
 higher part of the train he has no observation. 
 Of these remoter causes, and their mode of suc- 
 cession, he can positively say nothing. For aught 
 he knows, they may be under the immediate con- 
 trol of higher beings in the universe ; or, like the 
 upper part of a chain, a few of whose closing links 
 are all that is visible to us, they may be directly 
 appended to the throne, and at all times subject 
 to the instant pleasure of a prayer-hearmg God. 
 And it may be by a responsive touch at the higher, 
 and not the lower part of the progression, that He 
 
240 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 answers our prayers. It may be not by an act 
 of intervention among those near and visible 
 causes, where intervention would be a miracle ; it 
 may be by an unseen, but not less effectual act 
 of intervention, among the remote and therefore 
 the occult causes, that He adapts Himself to the 
 various v/ants and meets the various petitions of 
 His children. If it be in the latter way that He 
 conducts the affairs of His daily government — then 
 may He rule by a providence as special, as are the 
 needs and the occasions of His family ; and, with 
 an ear open to every cry, might He provide for 
 all and administer to all, without one infringement 
 on the uniformity of visible nature. If the re- 
 sponsive touch be given at the lower part of the 
 chain, then the answer to prayer is by miracle, or 
 by a contravention to some of the known sequences 
 of nature. But if the responsive touch be given at 
 a sufficiently higher part of the chain, then the 
 answer is as effectually made, but not by miracle, 
 and without violence to any one succession of 
 history or nature which philosophy has ascertained 
 — because the reaction to the prayer strikes at a 
 place that is higher than the highest investigations 
 of philosophy. It is not by a visible movement 
 within the region of human observation, but by an 
 invisible movement in the transcendental region 
 above it, that the prayer is met and responded to. 
 'i'he Su{>ernal Power of the Universe, the mighty 
 and unseen Being who sits aloft, and has been 
 significantly styled the Cause of causes — He, in 
 immediate contact with the upper extremities of 
 iivery progression, there puts forth an overruling 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 241 
 
 influence which tells and propagates downwards 
 to the lovver extremities ; and so, by an agency- 
 placed too remote either for the eye of sense or 
 for all the instruments of science to discover, 
 may God, in answer if He choose to prayer, fix 
 and determine every series of events — of which 
 nevertheless all that man can see is but the uni- 
 formity of the closing footsteps — a few of the last 
 causes and effects following each other in their 
 wonted order. It is thus that we reconcile all 
 the experience which man has of nature's unifor- 
 mity, with the effect and significancy of his prayers 
 to the God of nature. It is thus that at one and 
 the same time, do we live under the care of a 
 presiding God, and among the regularities of a 
 harmonious universe. 
 
 These views are in beautiful accordance with 
 the simple and sublime theology unfolded to us in 
 the book of Job — where, whether in the movements 
 of the animated kingdom below, or the great 
 evolutions that take place in the upper regions of 
 the atmosphere, the phenomena and the processes 
 of visible nature are sketched with a masterly 
 hand. It is in the midst of these scenes and im- 
 pressive descriptions, that we are told — " lo these 
 are parts of his ways." TTie translation does not 
 say what parts ; but the original does. They are 
 but the lower parts — the endings as it were of the 
 different processes — the last and lowest footsteps, 
 which are all that science can investigate ; and of 
 which, throughout the whole of her limited ascent, 
 she has traced the uniformity. But she has traced 
 It a very short way : or, in the language of the 
 
 VOL. VII. h 
 
242 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 patriarch, who estimates aright the achievements 
 of philosophy — how Httle a portion is heard of 
 Him — how few the known footsteps which are 
 beneath the veil to the unknown steps and workings 
 which are above it ; and so, the thunder, or rather 
 the inward and secret movements of His power, 
 who can understand ? 
 
 *' He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds: 
 and the cloud is not rent under them. He hold- 
 eth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his 
 cloud upon it. He hath compassed the waters 
 with bounds, until the day and night come to an 
 end. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are 
 astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea 
 with his power, and by his understanding he 
 smiteth through the proud. By his spirit he hath 
 garnished the heavens ; his hand hath formed the 
 crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of his ways ; 
 but how little a portion is heard of him ? but the 
 thunder of his power who can understand?*' Job 
 xxvi. 8 — 14. 
 
 The last sentence of this magniijcent passage 
 were better translated thus — These are the parts, 
 or the lower endings of his ways ; — but the secret 
 working of his power, who can understand ? 
 
 That part of the economy of the divine adminis- 
 tration, in virtue of which God works, not without 
 but by secondary causes, is frequently intimated in 
 the book of Psalms. 
 
 " Who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a 
 flaming fire." Ps. civ. 4, 
 
 Or, as it might have been translated — '* Who 
 maketh the winds his messengers, and the flaming 
 fire his servant." 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 243 
 
 But without the aid of any emendations in our 
 version, this subserviency of visible nature to the 
 invisible God, is distinctly laid before us in the 
 following passages. 
 
 *' They that go down to the sea in ships, that 
 do business in great waters ; 'J'hese see the works 
 of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For 
 he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, 
 which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount 
 up to the heaven, they go down again to the 
 depths ; their soul is melted because of trouble. 
 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken 
 man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry 
 unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth 
 them out of their distresses. He maketh the 
 storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. 
 Then are they glad, because they be quiet ; so he 
 bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh, 
 that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, 
 and for his wonderful works to the children of 
 men." Psalm cvii. 23— 3 L 
 
 He raises the tempest, not without the wind, 
 but by the wind. In the one way, it would have 
 been a miracle ; in the other way it is alike 
 effectual, but without any change in the properties 
 or laws of visible nature — without what we com- 
 monly understand by a miracle. He does not 
 bring the vessel against the wind to its desired 
 haven ; but he makes the storm a calm, and so 
 the waves thereof are still. Our Saviour also 
 bade the winds into peace ; and the miracle there 
 lay in the eifect following on the heard utterance 
 of His voice. A voice no less effectual though 
 unheard by us, overrules at all times the working 
 
244 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 of nature's elements ; and brings the ordinary pro- 
 cesses, as well as the marked and miraculous 
 exception to them, under the control of a divine 
 agency. 
 
 " Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in 
 heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep 
 places. He causeth the vapours to ascend from 
 the ends of the earth ; he maketh lightnings for 
 the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his 
 treasuries." Psalm cxxxv. 6, 7. 
 
 Here, without any change of translation, we are 
 told of the subserviency of the visible instruments, 
 to the invisible but real agency of Him who wields 
 them at His pleasure. In this passage, the winds 
 are plainly represented to us as the messengers of 
 God, and the flaming fire as his servant. He 
 changes no properties, and no visible processes — 
 working, not without the wind, but by it — not 
 without the electric matter, but by it — not without 
 the rain, but by it — not without the vapour, but 
 by it. Let the philosopher tell how far back he 
 can go, in exploring the method and order of these' 
 respective agencies. Then we have only to point 
 further back and ask — on what evidence he can 
 tell, that the fiat and the finger of a God are not 
 there. We grant the observed order to be 
 invariable, save when God chooses to interpose by- 
 miracle. But whether he does or not — from that 
 chamber of his hidden operations, which philosophy 
 has not found its way to, can he so direct all, so 
 subordinate all, that whatever the Lord pleases, 
 that does he in heaven and in earth, in the seas, 
 and all deep places. 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 245 
 
 " Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, 
 and all deeps : Fire and hail ; snow and vapour ; 
 stormy wind fulfilling his word." Psalm cxlviii. 7, 8, 
 
 The stormy wind fulfilleth his word. 
 
 Our last example shall be from the New Testa- 
 ment. " Nevertheless he left not himself without 
 witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain 
 from heaven, and fi'uitful seasons, filling our hearts 
 with food and gladness." Acts xiv. 17. 
 
 This last example will prepare you to go along 
 with one of the particular instances we are just to 
 bring forward, of a special prayer met by a special 
 fulfilment. 
 
 We are thus enabled to perceive what the 
 respective provinces are of philosophy and faith. 
 Every event in nature or history, has a cause in 
 some prior event that went before it, and that 
 again in another, and that again in another still 
 higher than itself in this scale of precedency ; and 
 so might we cHmb our ascending way from cause 
 to cause, from consequent to antecedent — till the 
 investigation has been carried upwards, from 
 the farthest possible verge of human discovery. 
 There it is that the domain of observation or of 
 philosophy terminates ; but we mistake, if we 
 think that there the progression, whose terms or 
 whose footsteps we have traced thus far, also ter- 
 minates. Beyond this limit we cannot track the 
 pathway of causation — not because the pathway 
 ceases, but because we have lost sight of it — 
 having now retired from view among the depths 
 and mysteries of an unknown region, which we, 
 with our bounded faculties, cannot enter. ThJB 
 
246 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 may be termed the region of faith — placed as it 
 were above the region of experience. The things 
 which are done in the higher, have an overruhng 
 influence, by hnes of transmission, on all that 
 happens in the lower — yet without one breach or 
 interruption to the uniformity of visible nature. 
 Whatever is done in the transcendental region — 
 be it by the influence of prayer ; by the immediate 
 finger of God ; by the ministry of angels ; by the 
 spontaneous movements, whether of displeasure 
 or of mercy above, responding to the sins or to 
 the supplicating cries that ascend from earth's 
 inhabitants below — that will pass by a descending 
 influence into the palpable region of sense and 
 observation — yet, from the moment it comes within 
 its limits, will it proceed without the semblance of 
 a miracle, but by the march and the movement of 
 nature's regularity, to its final consummation. God 
 hath in wisdom ordained a regimen of general laws; 
 and, that man might gather from the memory of 
 the past those lessons of observation which serve 
 for the guidance of the future. He hath enacted 
 that all those successions shall be invariable, which 
 have their place and their fulfilment within the 
 world of sensible experience. Yet God has not, 
 on that account, made the world independent of 
 Himself. He keeps a perpetual hold on all its 
 events and processes notwithstanding. He does not 
 dissever Himself, for a single instant, from the 
 government and the guardianship of His own uni- 
 verse ; and can still, notwithstanding all we see of 
 nature's rigid uniformity, adapt the forth-goings of 
 His power to all the wants and all the prayers of His 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 247 
 
 dependent family. For this purpose, He does not 
 need to stretch forth His hand on the inferior and 
 the visible links of any progression, so as to shift 
 the known successions of experience ; or at all to 
 intermeddle with the lessons and the laws of this 
 great schoolmaster. He may work in secret, and 
 yet perform all His pleasure — not by the achieve- 
 ment of a miracle on nature's open platform ; but 
 by the touch of one or other of those master springs, 
 which lie within the recesses of her inner laboratory. 
 There, and at His place of supernal command bv 
 the fountain heads of influence, He can turn 
 whithersoever He will the machinery of our world, 
 and without the possibility by human eye of de- 
 tecting the least infringement on any of its processes 
 — at once upholding the regularity of visible nature, 
 and the supremacy of nature's invisible God. 
 
 But we are glad to make our escape, and now 
 to make it conclusively, from the obscurer part 
 of our reasoning on this subject — although, most 
 assuredly, these are not the times for passing it 
 wholly by ; or for withholding aught which can 
 make in favour of the much derided cause of 
 humble and earnest piety. But, instead of pro- 
 pounding our doctrine in the terms of a general 
 argument, let us try the effect of a few special 
 instances — by which, perhaps, we might more 
 readily gain the consent of your understanding to 
 our views. 
 
 When the sigh of the midnight storm sends 
 fearful agitation into a mother's heart, as she 
 thinks of her sailor boy, now exposed to its fury, 
 on the waters of a distant ocean — these stern dis- 
 
2i8 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 ciples of a hard and stern infidelity would, on thi& 
 notion of a rigid and impracticable constancy in 
 nature, forbid her prayers — holding them to be a& 
 impotent and vain, though addressed to the God 
 who has all the elements in his hand, as if lifted 
 up with senseless importunity to the raving 
 ele-ments themselves- Yet nature would strongly 
 prompt the aspiration; and, if there be truth in 
 our argument, there is nothing in the constitution 
 of the universe to forbid its accomplishment. God 
 might answer the prayer, not by unsettling the 
 order of secondary causes — not by reversing any 
 of the wonted successions that are known to take 
 place, in the ever-restless ever-heaving atmosphere 
 —not by sensible miracle among those nearer 
 footsteps which the philosopher has traced ;. but by 
 the touch of an immediate hand among the deep 
 recesses of materialism, which are beyond the 
 ken of all his instruments. It is thence that the 
 Sovereign of nature might bid the wild uproar of 
 ttie elements into silence. It is there that the 
 tirtue comes out of Him, which passes like a winged 
 messenger from the invisible to the visible ; and, 
 at the threshold of separation between these twa 
 regions, impresses the direction of the Almighty's 
 will on the remotest cause which science can 
 ^ount her way to. From thi& paint in the series, 
 the path of descent along the line of nearer and 
 proximate causes may be rigidly invariable ; and 
 in respect of the order, the precise undeviating 
 order, wherewith they follow each other, all things 
 continue as they were from the beginning of the 
 creation. The heat, and the vapour, and the 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 249 
 
 atmospherical precipitates, and the consequent 
 moving forces by which either to raise a new tem- 
 pest or to hiyan ohi one — all these may proceed, and 
 without one hair- breadth of deviation, according to 
 the successions of our established philosophy — yet 
 each be but the obedient messenger of that voice, 
 w hich gave forth its command at the fountain-head 
 of the whole operation ; which commissioned the 
 vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth, and 
 made lightnings for the rain, and brought the 
 wind out of his treasuries. These are the palpa- 
 ble steps of the process ; but an unseen influence, 
 behind the farthest limit of man's boasted dis- 
 coveries, may have set them agoing. And that 
 influence may have been accorded to prayer — the 
 power that moves Him, who moves the universe ; 
 and who, without violence to the known regularities 
 of nature, can either send forth the hurricane over 
 the face of the deep or recall it at His pleasure. 
 Such is the joyful persuasion of faith, and proud 
 philosophy cannot disprove it. A woman's feeble 
 cry may have overruled the elemental war ; and 
 hushed into silence this wild frenzy of the winds 
 and the waves ; and evoked the gentler breezes 
 from the cave of their slumbers ; and wafted the 
 vessel of her dearest hopes, and which held the 
 first and fondest of her earthly treasures, to its 
 desired haven. 
 
 And so of other prayers. It is not without in- 
 strumentality, but by means of it, that they are 
 answered. The fulfilment is preceded by the 
 accustomed series of causes and eff'ects ; and pre- 
 ceded as far upward, as the eye of man can trace 
 l2 
 
250 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 the pedigree of sensible catisation. Were it by a 
 break anywhere in the traceable part of this series 
 that the prayer was answered, then its fulfilment 
 would be miraculous. But without a miracle the 
 prayer is answered as effectually. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, is met the cry of a people under famine, 
 for a speedy and plenteous harvest — not by the 
 instant appearance of the ripened grain, at the 
 bidding of a voice from heaven — not preternaturally 
 cherished into maturity, in the midst of storms ; 
 but ushered onwards, by a grateful succession of 
 shower and sunshine, to a prosperous consumma- 
 tion. An abundant harvest is granted to prayer — . 
 yet without violence, either to the laws of the vege- 
 table physiology, or to any of the known laws by 
 which the alterations of the weather are determined. 
 It must be acknowledged by every philosopher, 
 how soon it is that we arrive in both departments 
 on the confines of deepest mystery : and, let the 
 constancy of patent and palpable nature be as 
 unaltered and unalterable as it may, God reserves 
 to Himself the place of mastery and command, 
 whether among the arcana of vegetation or the 
 depths of meteorology. He may at once permit 
 a most rigid uniformity to the visible workings of 
 nature's mechanism — while among its invisible, 
 which are also its antecedent workings, He retains 
 that station of preeminence and power, whence He 
 brings all things to pass according to His pleasure. 
 It is not by sending bread from the upper store- 
 houses of the firmament, that He answers this 
 prayer. It is by sending rain and fruitful seasons. 
 The intermediate machinery of nature is not cast 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 251 
 
 aside, but pressed into the service ; and the prayer 
 is answered by a secret touch from the finger of 
 the Almighty, which sets all its parts and all its 
 processes agoing. With the eye of sense, man 
 sees nothing but nature revolving in her wonted 
 cycles, and the months following each other in 
 bright and beautiful succession. In the eye of 
 faith, ay and of sound philosophy, every year of 
 smiling plenty upon earth is a year crowned with 
 the goodness of heaven. 
 
 But to touch on that which more immediately 
 concerns us, let us now instance prayer for health. 
 We ask, if here philosophy has taken possession 
 of the whole domain, and left no room for the pre- 
 rogatives and the exercise of faith — no hope for 
 prayer ? Has the whole intermediate space 
 between the first cause and the ultimate phenomena, 
 been so thoroughly explored ; and the rigid uni- 
 formity of every footstep in the series been so fixed 
 and ascertained by observation, as to preclude the 
 rationality of prayer, and leave it without a mean- 
 ing, because without the possibility of a fulfilment? 
 Where is the physician or the physiologist who 
 can tell, that he has made the ascent from one 
 prognostic or one predisposition to another — till he 
 reached even to the primary fountain-head of that 
 influence, which either medicates or distempers 
 the human frame ; and found throughout an ada- 
 mantine chain of necessity, not to be broken by the 
 sufi'erer's imploring cry ? We ask the guardians 
 of our health, how far upon the pathway of causa- 
 tion, the discoveries of medical science have carried 
 them ; and whether, above and beyond their 
 
25^ EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 farthest look into the mysteries of our frameworky 
 there are not higher mysteries ; where a God may 
 work in secret, and the hand of the Omnipotent be 
 stretched forth to heal or to destroy ? It is thence. 
 He may answer prayer. It is from this summit of 
 ascendancy, that He may direct all the processes 
 of the human constitution — yet without violating 
 in any instance, the uniformity of the few last and 
 visible footsteps. Because science has traced*, and 
 so far determined this uniformity, she has not 
 therefore exiled God from His own universe : She 
 has not forced the Deity to quit His hold of its 
 machinery, or to forego by one iota the most per- 
 fect command of all its evolutions. His superin- 
 tendence is as close and continuous and special, as 
 if all things were done by the visible intervention 
 of his hand. Without superstition, with the 
 fullest recognition of science in all its prerogatives 
 and all its glories — might we feel our immediate 
 dependence on God ; and, even in this our philo- 
 sophic day, and notwithstanding all that philosophy 
 has made known to us, might we still assert and 
 vindicate the higher philosophy of prayer — asking 
 of God, as patriarchs and holy men of old did 
 before us, for safety and sustenance and health 
 and all things. 
 
 And if ever in the dealings of God with the 
 people of the earth, if ever science had less of the 
 territory and faith had more of it, it is in that un- 
 disclosed mystery which still hangs over us ; which 
 now for many months has shed baleful influences 
 on your crowded city ; and whereof no man can 
 tell whether in another day or another hour, it 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 253 
 
 might not descend with fell swoop into the midst 
 of his own family — entering there with rude un- 
 ceremonious footstep, and hurrying to one of its 
 rapid and inglorious funerals the dearest of the 
 inmates. Never on any other theme did philosophy 
 make more entire demonstration of her own help- 
 lessness ; and perhaps at the very first footstep of 
 the investigation, or on the question of the proxi- 
 mate cause, the controversy is loudest of all. But 
 however justly of the proximate cause discovery 
 may be made, or however remotely among the 
 anterior causes the investigation might be carried, 
 never will proud philosophy be able to annul the 
 intervention of a God, or purchase to herself the 
 privilege of mocking at the poor man's prayer. 
 Indeed, amid the exuberance and variety of spe- 
 culation on this unsettled and unknown subject, 
 there was one remote cause assigned for this 
 pestilent visitation, which, so far from shutting 
 out, rather suggests and that most forcibly the 
 intervention of a God immediately before it. " And 
 it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord 
 shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part 
 of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in 
 the land of Assyria: and they shall come, and 
 shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in 
 the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon 
 all bushes."* We hope to have made it plain to 
 you, let this or any other cause be found the true 
 one, that, however high the path of discovery 
 may have been traced, yet higher still there is 
 place for the finger of a God above to regulate all 
 ♦ Isaiali viL 1», 19, 
 
254 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 the designs of a special providence, and to move 
 in conformity with all the accepted prayers of 
 His family below. But among the scoffers of our 
 latter day, even in the absence or the want of all 
 discovery, the finger of a God is disowned ; and it 
 seems to mark how resolute and at the same time 
 how hopeless is the infidelity of modern times, that, 
 just in proportion to our ignorance of all the 
 secondary or the sensible causes, is our haughty 
 refusal of any homage to the first cause. It is 
 passing strange of this disease, that, after having 
 baffled every attempt to find out its dependence on 
 aught that is on earth, the idea of its dependence on 
 the will of Heaven should of all others have been 
 laughed most impiously to scorn. The voice of de- 
 rision and defiance was first heard in our high places; 
 and thence it passed, as if by infection, into general 
 society. And so, many have disowned the power 
 and the will of the Deity in this visitation. They 
 most unphilosophically, we think, as well as im- 
 piously have spurned at prayer. 
 
 But we cannot pass away from this part of our 
 subject, without adverting to a recent event, the 
 thought of which is at present irresistibly obtruded 
 on us, and by which this parish and congregation 
 but a few weeks ago have been deprived of one of 
 the most conspicuous of our office-bearers — one 
 who constitutionally the kindest and most indul- 
 gent of men, was the most alive of all I ever knew 
 to the wants and the miseries of our common 
 nature ; and who finely alive to all the impulses 
 and soft touches of humanity, laboured night and 
 day in the vocation of doing good continually. 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURF. 255 
 
 But, instead of saying that he laboured, I should 
 say that he luxuriated in well doing ; for never 
 was a heart more attuned to ready and responsive 
 agreement with the calls of benevolence than his, 
 and sooner would 1 believe of nature that she had 
 receded from her constancy, than of him that e'er 
 
 " He looked unmoved on misery's languid eye, 
 Or lieard her sinking voice without a sigh." 
 
 Of all the recollections which the friends either 
 of my youth or of my manhood have left behind 
 them in this land of dying men, there is none more 
 beautifully irradiated — whether I look back on the 
 mildness of his christian worth, or on those sensibili- 
 ties of an open and generous and finely attempered 
 spirit, which gives such a charm to human compa- 
 nionship. And as the second great law is like unto 
 the first ; so that love of his which went forth so 
 diflPusively amongst his fellows upon earth, w.e 
 humbly hope, was at once the indication and the 
 consequent of a love tliat ascended with high and 
 habitual aspiration to God in heaven. It was 
 through a brief and tremendous agony that he was 
 carried from the world of sense to the world of 
 spirits ; and yet it is a happiness to be told that the 
 faith and hope of the Gospel liglited up a halo over 
 his expiring moments, and that, ere death had 
 closed his eyes, he through nearly an hour of 
 audible prayer gave his last testimony to the truth 
 as it is in Jesus.* 
 
 * This notice refers to John Wilson, Esq., Silk merchant ia 
 Glasgow, who was Kirk Treasurer of St. John's, and to the 
 deep regret of all who knew him, was carried off by cholera in 
 the neighbourhood of Glasgow. 
 
256 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 But to recal ourselves from this theme of sadness, 
 we trust you will now understand of every event in 
 nature or history, that each in the order of causa- 
 tion is preceded by a train which went before it, 
 and that man's observations can extend more or 
 less a certain way along this train, till they are 
 lost in the undiscovered and at length undis- 
 coverable recesses which are placed beyond the 
 cognizance of the- human faculties. Now it is 
 because of the higher and unknown part which 
 belongs to every such series that we bid you respect 
 the lessons of piety, for God hath not so con- 
 structed the universe as to remove it from the 
 hold of His own special management and super- 
 intendence ; and therefore, not in one thing the 
 Bible tells us, but in every thing we should make 
 our requests known unto God. But again, it is 
 because of the lower and the known or ascertained 
 and strictly uniform part which belongs to every 
 series, that we bid you respect the lessons of 
 experience ; for God did not so conduct the affairs 
 of His universe, as to thrust forth His invisible 
 hand among its visible successions ; but while He 
 keeps a perpetual and ascendant hold among the 
 springs of that machinery which is behind the 
 curtain, He leaves untouched all those wonted 
 regularities, which, on the stage of observation, are 
 patent to human eyes. Now these are the 
 respective domains of philosophy and faith, and 
 this is the use to be made of them. Looking to 
 the one, we learn the subordination of all nature. 
 Looking to the other, we learn the constancy of 
 visible nature. These great truths harmonize; 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 257 
 
 and between the lessons which they give, there is 
 the fullest harmony. He who is enlightened and 
 acts upon both is at one and the same time a man 
 of prudence and a man of prayer ; who never loses 
 his confidence in God, yet, as awake to the mani- 
 festations of experience as if they were the mani- 
 festations of the divine will, never counts upon a 
 miracle. He holds perpetual converse with heaven ; 
 yet shapes his earthly conduct by his earthly 
 circumstances. In his habits of diligence he 
 proceeds on the uniformity of visible nature, and 
 he does accordingly. In his habits of devotion he 
 knows that there is a visible power above which 
 subordinates all nature, and he prays accordingly. 
 He is neither the mystic who will not act, nor is 
 he the infidel who will not pray. He knows how 
 to combine both, or how to combine wisdom with 
 piety — that rare and beauteous combination 
 unknown to the world at large, yet realized by 
 many a cottage patriarch, who, without attempting, 
 without being capable in fact of any prolbund or 
 philosophical adjustment between them, but on his 
 simple understanding alone of Scripture lessons 
 and Scripture examples, unites the most strenuous 
 diligence in the use of means, with the strictest 
 dependence upon God. Without the combination 
 of these two, there has been nothing great, nothing 
 effective in the history of the church ; and, on the 
 other hand, we find that all the most iUustrious, 
 whether in philanthropy or in christian patriotism, 
 from the apostle Paul to the highest names in the 
 descending history of the world, as Augustine and 
 Luther and Knox and Howard, that, superadding 
 
258 EFFICACY OF PRAYEll 
 
 the wisdom of experience to a sense of deepest 
 piety, they were at once men of performance and 
 men of prayer. 
 
 But let us look for a moment to the highest 
 example of all, even that of our Saviour when on 
 earth ; for in the history of His temptation, will 
 the eye of the diligent observer recognize an 
 application and a moral, which serve, we think very 
 finely, to illustrate our whole argument. 
 
 The first proposal of the adversary was, that, 
 because an hungered by the abstinence of forty 
 days and forty nights in the wilderness, he should 
 turn stones into bread; and the reply of our 
 Saviour that " man liveth not by bread alone but 
 by every word which cometh out of the mouth of 
 God" bespoke His confidence in that Supreme 
 Power which overrules all nature. Now observe 
 how this is followed up by the tempter — since such 
 His confidence I may perhaps prevail upon Him 
 to cast Himself from tiie pinnacle of the temple, 
 employing the very argument He just has used, 
 even the overruling power of that God who can 
 bear Him up by the intervention of angels lest He 
 dash his foot against a stone. The reply '* thou 
 shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" tells us, that 
 the same Being who overrules all nature, never 
 interferes, but for some worthy and great purpose 
 to thwart the established successions of visible 
 nature ; and that it is wrong, it is wanton, in any 
 of His creatures so to act, as if he counted upon 
 such an interference. It is a noble lesson for us 
 never to traverse or neglect the means which expe- 
 rience hath told us arc effectual for good ; and never 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 259 
 
 to brave, but at the call of imperious duty, the 
 exposures which the same experience has told us, 
 on our knowledge or recollection of Nature's 
 estabhshed processes, are followed up by evil. Our 
 Saviour would not, in defiance to the law of 
 gravitation, cast Himself off from that place of 
 security which upheld Him against its power. 
 And neither should we ever, though in defiance 
 but to the probable law of contagion, or by what (to 
 borrow a usual phrase) might well be termed a 
 tempting of Providence, refuse those places or cast 
 away those measures of security, that are found to 
 protect us against the virulence of this destroyer. 
 In a word, between the wisdom of piety and the 
 wisdom of experience there is most profound 
 harmony — unknown to the infidel, and so he hath 
 cast off prayer ; unknown to the fanatic, and so he 
 hath cast prudence away from him. 
 
 And we appeal to you, my brethren, if there be 
 not much in the state and recent history of our 
 nation to confirm these views. We rejoiced in the 
 appointment several months ago of a national fast, 
 and that notwithstanding the contempt and annoy- 
 ance of the many infidel manifestations to which 
 the appointment had been exposed — hoping, as 
 we then did, that it would meet with a duteous 
 and a general response from the people of the land ; 
 and perceiving afterwards, in our limited sphere, 
 the obvious solemnity, and we trust in a goodly 
 number of instances, the deep and heart-felt 
 sacredness of its observation among our families. 
 It is well that there should be a public and a prayer- 
 ful recognition of God in the midst of us ; and we 
 
260 EFFICACY OF PRAYER 
 
 have failed in our argument, we have failed, 
 whether from the obscurity of its illustrations or 
 the obscurity of its terms, in obtaining for it the 
 sympathy of your understandings — if you perceive 
 not, that, in the distinct relation of cause and effect, 
 there is a real substantive connection between the 
 supplications which ascend for health and safety 
 from the midst of a land, and the actual warding 
 off of disease and death from its habitations. But 
 in fullest harmony with this it is also well, I would 
 go farther and say there is no infringement upon 
 deepest piety in pronouncing it indispensable — that 
 while we invoke the Heavenly iVgent who sitteth 
 above for every effectual blessing, all the earthly 
 means and earthly instruments should be in com- 
 plete and orderly preparation. We are aware that 
 in many places and on many occasions these have 
 been rebelled against.* And it but enhances the les- 
 son, beside carrying amost impressive rebuke, both 
 to the fanaticism of an ill-understood Christianity; 
 and to the ignorant frenzy of an ill-educated and, 
 in respect to the woeful deficiency both of churches 
 and schools, we would say a neglected population 
 — that just in those places where the offered help 
 of the physician was most strenuously and most 
 
 * In Edinburgh the metropolis of medical science, a vigorous 
 system of expedients was instituted ; and nothing conld exceed the 
 promptitude and the watchfulness and the activity, at a moment's 
 call, wherewitli the disease was met and repressed at every point 
 of its outbreakings. And we cannot imagine a more striking 
 demonstration for the importance of human agency, diligently 
 operating on all the resources which Nature and experience have 
 placed within our reach, than is furnished by a comparison between 
 the perfection of our city arrangements, and the fewness of our 
 city deaths. 
 
AND UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 261 
 
 ungratefully resisted, and at times indeed by 
 violence overborne, that there it was where the 
 disease reasserted its power, and as if with the 
 hand of an avenger shook menace and terror among 
 the famihes. As if the same God who bids us in 
 His word make request unto Him in all things, 
 would furthermore tell us by His Providence, that, 
 in no one thing will He permit a heedless invasion 
 on the regularities of that course which He Himself 
 has established ; that with His own hand He 
 ordained the footsteps of Nature, and He will 
 chastise the presumption of those who shall think 
 to contravene the ordinance ; that experience is 
 the school-master authorized by Him for the 
 government and guidance of His family on earth, 
 and that He will resent the outrage done to her 
 authority whenever her lessons or her laws are 
 wantonly violated. 
 
 In conclusion let us observe, that, on theone hand, 
 we shall be glad if aught that has been said will 
 help to conciliate our mere religionists to the lessons 
 of experience and of sound philosophy ; and, in 
 opposition to those senseless prejudices, by which 
 they have often brought the most unmerited deri- 
 sion and discredit on their own cause, we would 
 remind them that it is not all philosophy which 
 Scripture denounces, but only vain philosophy — it 
 is not all science which it deprecates, but only the 
 science falsely so called. On the other hand we 
 should rejoice in witnessing the mere philosopher, 
 or man of secular and experimental wisdom, more 
 concihated than he is to the lessons of Religion, 
 and to that humble faith which is the great and 
 
262 EFFICACY OF PRAYER, &C. 
 
 actuating spirit of its observations and its pieties 
 and its prayers. We have heard that the study of 
 Natural Science disposes to InfideUty. But we 
 feel persuaded that this is a danger only associated 
 with a slight and partial, never with a degp and 
 adequate and comprehensive view of its principles. 
 It is very possible that the conjunction between 
 science and scepticism may at present be more 
 frequently realised than in former days ; but this is 
 only because, in spite of all that is alleged about this 
 our more enlightened day and more enlightened 
 public, our science is neither so deeply founded nor 
 of such firm and thorough staple as it wont to be. 
 We have lost in depth what we have gained in 
 diffusion — having neither the massive erudition, nor 
 the gigantic scholarship, nor the profound and 
 well-laid philosophy of a period that has now gone 
 by ; and it is to this that infidelity stands indebted 
 for her triumphs among the scoffers and the super 
 ficialists of a half-learned generation. 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 263 
 
 DISCOURSE HI. 
 
 THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF VISIBLE 
 THINGS. 
 
 *• The things which are seen are temporal." — 2 Coa. iv. 18. 
 
 The assertion that the things which are seen are 
 temporal, holds true in the absolute and universal 
 sense of it. They had a beginning, and they will 
 have an end. Should we go upward through the 
 stream of ages that are past, we come to a time 
 when they were not. Should we go onward through 
 the stream of ages that are before us, we come to 
 a time when they will be no more. It is indeed a 
 most mysterious flight which the imagination ven- 
 tures upon, when it goes back to the eternity that 
 is behind us — when it mounts its ascending way 
 through the millions and the miUions of years that 
 are already gone through, and stop where it may, 
 it finds the line of its march always lengthening 
 beyond it, and losing itself in the obscurity of as 
 far removed a distance as ever. It soon reaches 
 the commencement of visible things, or that point 
 in its progress when God made the heavens and 
 the earth. They had a beginning, but God had 
 none ; and what a wonderful field for the fancy to 
 expatiate on, when we get above the era of created 
 worlds, and think of that period when, in respect 
 of all that is visible, the immensity around us was 
 
264 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS, 
 
 one vast and unpeoplod solitude. But God was 
 there in his dweUing place, for it is said of Him, 
 that He inhabits eternity ; and the Son of God was 
 there, for we read of the glory which He had with 
 the Father before the world was. The mind cannot 
 sustain itself under the burden of these lofty contem- 
 plations. It cannot lift the curtain which shrouds 
 the past eternity of God. But it is good for the 
 soul to be humbled under a, sense of its incapacity. 
 It is good to realize the impression which too often 
 abandons us, that He made us, and not we ourselves. 
 It is good to feel how all ttiat is temporal lies in 
 passive and prostrate subordination before the will 
 of the uncreated God. It is good to knov/ how 
 little a portion it is that we see of Him and of His 
 mysterious ways. It is good to lie at the feet of 
 His awful and unknown majesty — and while secret 
 things belong to Him, it is good to bring with us 
 all the helplessness and docility of children to those 
 revealed lessons which belong to us and to our 
 children. 
 
 But this is not the sense in which the temporal 
 nature of visible things is taken up by the Apostle. 
 It is not that there is a time past in which they did 
 not exist — but that there is a time to come in which 
 they will exist no more. He calls them temporal, 
 because the time and the duration of their existence 
 will have an end. His eye is full upon futurity. 
 It is the passing away of visible things in the time 
 that is to come, and the ever during nature of invisi- 
 ble things through the eternity that is to come, 
 which the Apostle is contemplating. Now, on this 
 one point we say nothing about the positive anni- 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 265 
 
 hilation of the matter of visible things. There is 
 reason for believing, that some of the matter of our 
 present bodies may exist in those more glorified and 
 transformed bodies which we are afterwards to 
 occupy* And for any thing we know, the matter 
 of the present world, and of the present system 
 may exist in those new heavens and that new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. There may be a 
 transfiguration of matter without a destruction of it 
 — and, therefore it is, that when we assert with the 
 Apostle in the text, how things seen are temporal, 
 we shall not say more than that the substance of 
 these things, if not consigned back again to the 
 nothing from which they had emerged, will be 
 employed in the formation of other things totally 
 different — that the change will be so great, as that 
 all old things may be said to have passed away, and 
 all things to become new — that after the wreck of 
 the last conflagration, the desolated scene will be 
 repeopled with other objects ; the righteous will live 
 in another world, and the eye of the glorified body 
 will open on another field of contemplation from 
 that which is now visible around us. 
 
 Now, in this sense of the word temporal, the 
 assertion of my text may be carried round to all 
 that is visible. Even those objects which men are 
 most apt to count upon as unperishable, because, 
 without any sensible decay, they have stood the 
 lapse of many ages, will not weather the lapse of 
 eternity. This earth will be burnt up. The light 
 of yonder sun will be extinguished. These stars 
 will cease from their twinkling. The heavens will 
 pass away as a scroll — and as to those solid and 
 
 voL.vn. if 
 
266 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 enormous masses which, Uke the firm world we tread 
 upon, roll in mighty circuit through the immensity 
 around us, it seems the solemn language of revela- 
 tion of one and all of them, that from the face of 
 Him who sitteth on the throne, the earth and the 
 heavens will fly away, and there will be found no 
 place for them. 
 
 Even apart from the Bible, the eye of observation 
 can witness, in some of the hardest and firmest 
 materials of the present system, the evidence of its 
 approaching dissolution. What more striking, for 
 example, than the natural changes which take place 
 on the surface of the world, and which prove that 
 the strongest of Nature's elements must, at last, 
 yield to the operation of time and of decay — that 
 yonder towering mountain, though propped by the 
 rocky battlements which surround it, must at last 
 sink under the power of corruption — that every 
 year brings it nearer to its end — that at this moment, 
 it is wasting silently away, and letting itself down 
 from the lofty eminence which it now occupies — 
 that the torrent which falls from its side never ceases 
 to consume its substance, and to carry it off" in the 
 form of sediment to the ocean — that the frost which 
 assails it in winter loosens the solid rock, detaches 
 it in pieces from the main precipice, and makes it 
 fall in fragments to its base — that the power of the 
 weather scales off the most flinty materials, and that 
 the wind of heaven scatters them in dust over the 
 surrounding country — that even though not antici- 
 pated by ihe sudden and awful convulsions of the 
 day of God's wrath, nature contains within itself 
 the rudiments of decay — that every hill must be 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 267 
 
 levelled with the plains, and every plain be swept 
 away by the constant operation of the rivers which 
 run through it — and that, unless renewed by the 
 hand of the Almighty, the earth on which we are 
 now treading naust disappear in the mighty roll of 
 ages and of centuries. We cannot take our flight 
 to other worlds, or have a near view of the changes 
 to which they are liable. But surely if this world, 
 which, with its mighty apparatus of continents and 
 islands, looks so healthful and so firm after the 
 wear of many centuries, is posting visibly to its end, 
 we may be prepared to believe that the principles 
 of destruction are also at work in other provinces 
 of the visible creation — and that though of old God 
 laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens 
 are the work of his hands, yet they shall perish ; 
 yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, and 
 as a vesture shall He change them? and they shall 
 be changed. 
 
 We should be out of place in all this style of 
 observation, did we not follow it up with the senti- 
 ment of the Psalmist, *' These shall perish, but 
 thou shalt endure ; for thou art the same, and thy 
 years have no end." What a lofty conception does 
 it give us of the majesty of God, when we think 
 how He sits above, and presides in high authority 
 over this mighty series of changes — when after 
 sinking under our attempts to trace him through 
 the eternity that is behind, we look on the present 
 system of things, and are taught to believe that 
 it is but a single step in the march of His grand 
 administrations through the eternity that is before 
 us — when we think of this goodly universe, sum- 
 
268 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 moned into being to serve some temporary evolution 
 of His great and mysterious plan — when we think 
 of the time when it shall be broken up, and out of 
 its disordered fragments other scenes and other 
 systems shall emerge — surely, when fatigued with 
 the vastness of these contemplations, it well becomes 
 us to do the homage of our reverence and wonder 
 to the one Spirit which conceives and animates the 
 whole, and to the one noble design which runs 
 through all its fluctuations. 
 
 But there is another way in which the objects 
 that are seen are temporal. The object may not 
 merely be removed from us, but we may be removed 
 from the object. The disappearance of this earth, 
 and of these heavens from us, we look upon through 
 the dimness of a far-placed futurity. It is an event, 
 therefore, which may regale our imagination ; which 
 may lift our mind by its sublimity ; which may 
 disengage us in the calm hour of meditation from 
 the littleness of life, and of its cares ; and which 
 may even throw a clearness and a solemnity over 
 our intercourse with God. But such an event as 
 this does not come home upon our hearts with the 
 urgency of a personal interest. It does not carry 
 along with it the excitement which lies in the near- 
 ness of an immediate concern. It does not fall 
 with such vivacity upon our conceptions, as prac- 
 tically to tell on our pursuits, or any of our purposes. 
 It may elevate and solemnize us, but this effect is 
 perfectly consistent with its having as little influence 
 on the walk of the living, and the moving, and the 
 acting man, as a dream of poetry. The Preacher 
 may think that he has done great things with his 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 269 
 
 eloquence — and the hearers may think that great 
 thmgs have been done upon them — for they felt a 
 fine glow of emotion, when they heard of God 
 sitting in the majesty of His high counsels, over 
 the progress and the destiny of created things. 
 But the truth is, that all this kindling of devotion 
 which is felt upon the contemplation of His great- 
 ness, may exist in the same bosom, with an utter 
 distaste for the holiness of His character ; with an 
 entire alienation of the heart and of the habits from 
 the obedience of His law; and above all, with a 
 most nauseous and invincible contempt for the 
 spiritualities of that revelation, in which He has 
 actually made known His will and His ways to us. 
 The devotion of mere taste is one thing — the devo- 
 tion of principle is another. And as surely as a 
 man may weep over the elegant sufferings of poetry, 
 yet add to the real sufferings of life by peevishness 
 in his family, and insolence among his neighbours 
 — so, surely may a man be wakened to rapture by 
 the magnificence of God, while his life is deformed 
 by its rebellions, and his heart rankles with all the 
 foulness of idolatry against Him. 
 
 Well, then, let us try the other way of bringing 
 the temporal nature of visible things to bear upon 
 your interests. It is true, that this earth, and 
 these heavens, will at length disappear ; but they 
 may outlive our posterity for many generations. 
 However, if they disappear not from us, we most 
 certainly shall disappear from them. They will 
 soon cease to be any thing to you — and though the 
 splendour and variety of all that is visible around 
 us, should last for thousands of centuries, your eyes 
 
270 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 will.soon be closed upon them. The time is coming 
 when this goodly scene shall reach its positive con- 
 summation. But, in all likelihood, the time is 
 coming much sooner, when you shall resign the 
 breath of your nostrils, and bid a final adieu to 
 every thing around you. Let this earth, and these 
 heavens be as enduring as they may, to you they 
 are fugitive as vanity. Time, with its mighty 
 strides, will soon reach a future generation, and 
 leave the present in death and in forgetfulness behind 
 it. The grave will close upon every one of you, 
 and that is the dark and the silent cavern where 
 no voice is heard, and the light of the sun never 
 enters. 
 
 But more than this. Though we live too short 
 a time to see the great changes which are carrying 
 on in the universe, we live long enough to see many 
 of its changes — and such changes too as are best 
 fitted to warn and to teach us ; even the changes 
 which take place in society, made up of human 
 beings as frail and as fugitive as ourselves. Death 
 moves us away from many of those objects which 
 are seen and temporal — but we live long enough 
 to see many of these objects moved away from us 
 — to see acquaintances falling every year — to see 
 families broken up by the rough and unsparing 
 hand of death — to see houses and neighbourhoods 
 shifting their inhabitants — to see a new race, and 
 a new generation — and, whether in church or in 
 market, to see unceasing changes in the faces of the 
 people who repair to them. We know well, that 
 there is a poetic melancholy inspired by such a 
 picture ajs this, which is altogether unfruitful — and 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 271 
 
 that totally apart from religion, a man may give 
 way to the luxury of tears, when he thinks how 
 friends drop away from him — how every year brings 
 along with it some sad addition to the registers of 
 death — how the kind and hospitable mansion is left 
 without a tenant — and how, when you knock at a 
 neighbour's door, you find that he who welcomed 
 you, and made you happy, is no longer there. O 
 that we could impress by all this, a salutary direc- 
 tion on the fears and on the consciences of individuals 
 — that we could give them a living impression of 
 that coming day, when they shall severally share in 
 the general wreck of the species — when each of 
 you shall be one of the many whom the men of the 
 next generation may remember to have lived in 
 yonder street, or laboured in yonder manufactory 
 — when they shall speak of you, just as you speak 
 of the men of the former generation — who, when 
 they died, had a few tears dropped over their 
 memory, and for a few years will still continue to 
 be talked of. O could we succeed in giving you 
 a real and living impression of all this ; and then 
 may we hope to carry the lesson of John the Baptist 
 with energy to your fears, " Flee from the coming 
 wrath." But there is something so very deceiving 
 in the progress of time. Its progress is so gradual. 
 To-day is so like yesterday that we are not sensible 
 of its departure. We should make head against 
 this delusion. We should turn to personal ac- 
 count every example of change or of mortality. 
 When the clock strikes, it should remind you of 
 the dying hour. When you hear the sound of the 
 funeral bell, you should think, that in a little time 
 
272 TRANSITQRINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 it will perform for you the same oftice^ When you 
 wake m the morning, you should think that there 
 has been the addition of another day to the life that 
 is past, and the subtraction of another day from 
 the remainder of your journey. When the shades 
 of the evening fall around you, you should think of 
 the steady and invariable progress of time — how the 
 sun moves and moves till it will see you out — and 
 how it will continue to move after you die, and see 
 out your children's children to the latest generations. 
 Every thing around us should impress the mutability 
 of human affairs. An acquaintance dies — you will 
 soon follow him. A family moves from the neigh- 
 bourhood — learn that the works of man are given 
 to change. New families succeed — sit loose to the 
 world, and withdraw your affections from its unstable 
 and fluctuating interests. Time is rapid, though 
 we observe not its rapidity. The days that are 
 past appear like the twinkling of a vision. The 
 days that are to come will soon have a period, and 
 will appear to have performed their course with 
 equal rapidity. We talk of our fathers and our 
 grandfathers, who figured their day in the theatre 
 of the world. In a little time, we will be the 
 ancestors of a future age. Posterity will talk of 
 us as of the men that are gone — and our remem- 
 brance will soon depart from the face of the country. 
 When we attend the burial of an acquaintance, we 
 see the bones of the men of other times — in a few 
 years, our bodies will be mangled by the power of 
 corruption, and be thrown up in loose and scattered 
 fragments among the earth of the new made grave. 
 When we wander among the tombstones of the 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 273 
 
 clmrch-yard we can scarcely follow the mutilated 
 letters that compose the simple story of the inhabi- 
 tant below. In a little time, and the tomb that 
 covers us will moulder by the power of the seasons 
 — and the letters will be eaten away — and the story 
 that was to perpetuate our remembrance, will elude 
 the gaze of some future inquirer. 
 
 We know that time is short, but none of us know 
 how short. We know that it will not go beyond 
 a certain limit of years ; but none of us know how 
 small the number of years, or months, or days may 
 be. For death is at work upon all ages. The 
 fever of a few days may hurry the likehest of us all 
 from this land of mortahty. The cold of a few 
 weeks may settle into some lingering but irrecover- 
 able disease. In one instant the blood of him who 
 has the promise of many years, may cease its 
 circulation. Accident may assail us. A slight 
 fall may precipitate us into eternity. An exposure 
 to rain may lay us on the bed of our last sickness, 
 from which we are never more to rise. A little 
 spark may kindle the midnight conflagration, which 
 lays a house and its inhabitants in ashes. A stroke 
 of lightning may arrest the current of life in a 
 twinkling. A gust of wind may overturn the vessel, 
 and lay the unwary passenger in a watery grave. 
 A thousa- d dangers beset us on the slippery path 
 of this world ; and no age is exempted from them 
 — and from the infant that hangs on its mother's 
 bosom, to the old man who sinks under the decre- 
 pitude of years, we see death in all its woeful and 
 affecting varieties. 
 
 You may think it strange — but even still we fear^ 
 M 2 
 
274 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 we may have done little in the way of sending a 
 fruitful impression into your consciences. We are 
 too well aware of the distinction between serious- 
 ness of feeling, and seriousness of principle, to think 
 that upon the strength of any such moving represen- 
 tation as we are now indulging in, we shall be able 
 to dissipate that confounded spell which chains you 
 to the world, to reclaim your wandering affections, 
 or to send you back to your week-day business 
 more pure, and more heavenly. But sure we are 
 you ought to be convinced, that all which binds 
 you so cleavingly to the dust is infatuation and 
 vanity; that there is something most lamentably 
 wrong in your being carried away by the delusions 
 of time — and this is a conviction which should make 
 you feel restless and dissatisfied. We are well 
 aware, that it is not human eloquence, or human 
 illustration, that can accomplish a victory over the 
 obstinate principles of human corruption — and there- 
 fore it is that we feel as if we did not advance aright 
 through a single step of a sermon, unless we look 
 for the influences of that mighty Spirit, who alone 
 is able to enlighten and arrest you — and may 
 employ even so humble an instrument as the voice 
 of a fellow mortal, to send into your heart the 
 inspiration of understanding. 
 
 We now shortly insist on the truth, that the 
 things which are not seen are eternal. No man 
 hath seen God at any time, and He is eternal. It 
 is said of Christ, " whom having not seen, we love, 
 and he is the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever." 
 It is said of the Spirit, that, like the wind of 
 heaven, He eludes tne observation, and no man 
 
TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 275 
 
 can tell of him whence He cometh, or whither He 
 goeth — and He is called the Eternal Spirit, through 
 whom the Son offered Himself up without spot 
 unto God. We are quite aware, that the idea 
 suggested hy the eternal things which are spoken 
 of in our text, is heaven, with all its circumstances 
 of splendour and enjoyment. This is an object 
 which, even on the principles of taste, we take a 
 delight in contemplating : and it is also an object 
 set before us in the Scriptures, though with a very 
 sparing and reserved hand. All the descriptions 
 we have of heaven there, are general, very general. 
 We read of the beauty of the heavenly crown, of 
 the unfading nature of the heavenly inheritance, of 
 the splendour of the heavenly city — and these have 
 been seized upon by men of imagination, who, in 
 the construction of their fancied paradise, have 
 embellished it with every image of peace, and bliss, 
 and loveliness ; and, at all events, have thrown over 
 it that most kindling of all conceptions, the mag- 
 nificence of eternity. Now, such a picture as this 
 has the certain effect of ministering dehght to every 
 glowing and susceptible imagination. And here 
 lies the deep-laid delusion, which we have occasion- 
 ally hinted at. A man listens, in the first instance, 
 to a pathetic and high wrought narrative on the 
 vanities of time — and it touches him even to the 
 tenderness of tears. He looks, in the second 
 instance, to the fascinating perspective of another 
 scene, rising in all the glories of immortality from 
 the dark ruins of the tomb, and he feels within him 
 all those ravishments of fancy, which any vision of 
 united grandeur and loveUness would inspire. Take 
 
276 TRANSITORINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 
 
 these tv^'o together, and you have a man weeping 
 over the transient vanities of an ever-shifting world, 
 and mixing with all this softness, an elevation of 
 thought and of prospect, as he looks through the 
 vista of a futurity, losing itself in the mighty range 
 of thousands and thousands of centuries. And at 
 this point the delusion comes in, that here is a man 
 who is all that religion would have him to be — a 
 man weaned from the littleness of the paltry scene 
 that is around him — soaring high above all the 
 evanescence of things present, and things sensible 
 — and transferring every affection of his soul to the 
 durabilities of a pure and immortal region. It 
 were better if this high state of occasional impression 
 on the matters of time and of eternity, had only the 
 effect of imposing the falsehood on others, that the 
 man who was so touched and so transported, had 
 on that single account the temper of a candidate 
 for heaven. But the falsehood takes possession 
 of his own heart. The man is pleased with his 
 emotions and his tears — and the interpretation he 
 puts upon them is, that they come out of the ful- 
 ness of a heart all alive to religion, and sensibly 
 affected with its charms, and its seriousness, and 
 its principle. Now, we venture to say, that there 
 may be much of all this kind of enthusiasm, with the 
 very man who is not moving a single step towards 
 that blessed eternity, over which his fancy delights 
 to expatiate. The moving representation of the 
 preacher may be listened to as a pleasant song — 
 and the entertained hearer return to all the invet- 
 erate habits of one of the children of this world. 
 
TRANSITOIUNESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 277 
 
 It is thi«, which makes us fear that a power of 
 deceitfuhiess may accompany the eloquence of the 
 pulpit — that the wisdom of words may defeat the 
 great object of a practical work upon the conscience 
 — that a something short of a real business change 
 in the heart, and in the principles of acting, may 
 satisfy the man who listens, and admires, and resigns 
 his every feeling to the magic of an impressive 
 description — that, strangely compounded beings as 
 we are, broken loose from God, and proving it by 
 the habitual voidness of our hearts to a sense of 
 His authority, and of His will ; that blind to the 
 realities of another world, and slaves to the wretched 
 infatuation which makes us cleave with the full bent 
 of our affections to the one by which we are visibly 
 and immediately surrounded ; that utterly unable, 
 by nature, to live above the present scene, while 
 its cares, and its interests are plying us every hour 
 with their urgency ; that the prey of evil passions 
 which darken and distract the inner man, and throw 
 us at a wider distance from the holy Being who for- 
 bids the indulgence of them ; and yet with all this 
 weight of corruption about us, having minds that 
 can seize the vastness of some great conception, 
 and can therefore rejoice in the expanding loftiness 
 of its own thoughts, as it dwells on the wonders of 
 eternity ; and having hearts that can move to the 
 impulse of a tender consideration, and can, therefore, 
 sadden into melancholy at the dark picture of death, 
 and its unrelenting cruelties; and having fancies 
 that can brighten to the cheerful colouring of some 
 pleasing and hopeful representation, and can, there- 
 
278 TRANSITOIHNESS OF VISIBLE THINGS, 
 
 fore, be soothed and animated when some sketch 
 is laid before it of a pious family emerging from a 
 common sepulchre, and on the morning of their 
 joyful resurrection, forgetting all the sorrows and 
 separations of the dark world that has now rolled 
 over them — O my brethren, we fear it, we greatly 
 fear it, that while busied with topics such as these, 
 many a hearer may weep, or be elevated, or take 
 pleasure in the touching imagery that is made to 
 play around him, while the dust of this perishable 
 earth is all that his soul cleaves to — and its cheating 
 vanities are all that his heart cares for, or his foot- 
 steps follow after. 
 
 The thing is not merely possible — but we see in 
 it a stamp of likelihood to all that experience tells 
 us of the nature or the habitudes of man. Is there 
 no such thing as his having a taste for the beauties 
 of landscape, and, at the same time, turning with 
 disgust from what he calls the methodism of peculiar 
 Christianity? Might not he be an admirer of 
 poetry, and, at the same time, nauseate with his 
 whole heart, the doctrine and the language of the 
 New Testament? Might not he have a fancy that 
 can be regaled by some fair and well-formed vision 
 of immortality — and, at the same time, have no 
 practical hardihood whatever for the exercise of 
 labouring in the prescribed way after the meat that 
 endureth ? Surely, surely, this is all very possible 
 — and it is just as possible, and many we believe 
 to be the instances we have of it in real life, when 
 an eloquent description of heaven is exquisitely felt^ 
 and wakens in the bosom the raptures of the sin- 
 
TRATTBITOHINESS OF VISIBLE THINGS. 279 
 
 cerest admiration, among those who feel an utter 
 repugnancy to the heaven of the Bible — and are 
 not moving a single inch through the narrowness 
 of the path which leads to it. 
 
280 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH, 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW 
 EARTH. 
 
 ** Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens 
 and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." — 2 Peter 
 iii. 13. 
 
 There is a limit to the revelations of the Bible 
 about futurity, and it were a mental or spiritual 
 trespass to go beyond it. The reserve which it 
 maintains in its informations, we also ought to main- 
 tain in our inquiries — satisfied to know little on every 
 subject, where it has communicated little, and feeling 
 our way into regions which are at present unseen, 
 no further than the light of Scripture will carry us. 
 But while we attempt not to be " wise above 
 that which is written," we should attempt, and that 
 most studiously, to be wise up to that which is 
 written. The disclosures are very few and very 
 partial, which are given to us of that bright and 
 beautiful economy, which is to survive the ruins of 
 our present one. But, still there are such disclos- 
 ures — and on the principle of the things that are 
 revealed belonging unto us, we have a right to walk 
 up and down, for the purpose of observation, over 
 the whole actual extent of them. What is made 
 known of the details of immortality, is but small in 
 the amount, nor are we furnished with the materials 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 281 
 
 of any thing like a graphscal or picturesque exhi- 
 bition of its abodes of blessedness. But still 
 somewhat is made known, and which, too, may be 
 addressed to a higher principle than curiosity, 
 being like every other Scripture, " profitable both 
 for doctrine and for instruction in righteousness." 
 
 In the text before us, there are two leading points 
 of information, which we should like successively 
 to remark upon. The first is, that in the new 
 economy which is to be reared for the accommoda- 
 tion of the blessed, there will be materialism, not 
 merely new heavens, but also a new earth. The 
 second is, that as distinguished from the present, 
 which is an abode of rebellion, it will be an abode 
 of righteousness. 
 
 I. We know historically that earth, that a solid 
 material earth, may form the dwelling of sinless 
 creatures, in full converse and friendship with the 
 Being who made them — that, instead of a place of 
 exile for outcasts, it may have a broad avenue 
 of communication with the spiritual world, for the 
 descent of ethereal beings from on high — that, like 
 the member of an extended family, it may share in 
 the regard and attention of the other members, and 
 along with them be gladdened by the presence of 
 Him who is the Father of them all. To inquire how 
 this can be, were to attempt a wisdom beyond Scrip- 
 ture : but to assert that this has been, and therefore 
 may be, is to keep most strictly and modestly with- 
 in the limits of the record. For, we there read, that 
 God framed an apparatus of materialism, which, 
 on His own surveying, He pronounced to be all 
 very good, and the leading features of which may 
 
282 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 Still be recognized among the things and the sub- 
 stances that are around us — and that He created 
 man with the bodily organs and senses which we now 
 wear — and placed Him under the very canopy that 
 is over our heads — and spread around Him a scen- 
 ery, perhaps lovelier in its tints, and more smiling 
 and serene in the whole aspect of it, but certainly 
 made up, in the main, of the same objects that still 
 compose the prospect of our visible contemplations 
 — and there, working with his hands in a garden, and 
 with trees on every side of him, and even with animals 
 sporting at his feet, w^as this inhabitant of earth, in 
 the midst of all those earthly and familiar accom- 
 paniments, in full possession of the best immunities 
 of a citizen of heaven — sharing in the delight of 
 angels, and while he gazed on the very beauties 
 which we ourselves gaze upon, rejoicing in them 
 most as the tokens of a present and presiding Deity, 
 It were venturing on the region of conjecture to 
 affirm, whether, if Adam had not fallen, the earth 
 that we now tread upon, would have been the ever- 
 lasting abode of him and his posterity. But certain 
 it is, that man, at the first, had for his place this 
 world, and, at the same time, for his privilege, 
 an unclouded fellowship with. God, and, for his pro- 
 spect, an immortality, which death w^as neither to 
 intercept nor put an end to. He was terrestrial 
 in respect of condition, and yet celestial in respect 
 both of character and enjoyment. His eye looked 
 outwardly on a landscape of earth, while his heart 
 breathed upwardly in the love of heaven. And 
 though he trode the solid platform of our worlds 
 and was compassed about with its horizon — still 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 283 
 
 was he within the circle of God's favoured creation, 
 and took His place among the freemen and the 
 denizens of the great spiritual commonwealth. 
 
 This may serve to rectify an imagination, of 
 which we think that all must be conscious — as if 
 the grossness of materialism was only for those who 
 had degenerated into the grossness of sin ; and that, 
 when a spiritualizing process had purged away all 
 our corruption, then, by the stepping stones of a 
 death and a resurrection, we should be borne away 
 to some ethereal region, where sense, and body, 
 and all in the shape either of audible sound, or of 
 tangible substance, were unknown. And hence that 
 strangeness of impression which is felt by you, 
 should the supposition be offered, that in the place 
 of eternal blessedness, there will be ground to walk 
 upon; or scenes of luxuriance to delight the 
 corporeal senses ; or the kindly intercourse of 
 friends talking familiarly, and by articulate converse 
 together ; or, in short, any thing that has the least 
 resemblance to a local territory, filled with various 
 accommodations, and peopled over its whole extent 
 by creatures formed like ourselves — having bodies 
 such as we now wear, and faculties of perception, 
 and thought, and mutual communication, such as 
 we now exercise. The common imagination that we 
 have of paradise on the other side of death, is, that 
 of a lofty aerial region, where the inmates float in 
 ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon nothing 
 — where all the warm and sensible accompaniments 
 which give such an expression of strength, and 
 life, and colouring, to our present habitation, are 
 attenuated into a sort of spiritual element, that is 
 
284 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 meagre, and imperceptible, and utterly uninviting 
 to the eye of mortals here below — where every 
 vestige of materialism is done away, and nothing left 
 but certain unearthly scenes that have no power of 
 allurement, and certain unearthly ecstasies, with 
 which it is felt impossible to sympathise. The 
 holders of this imagination forget all the while, that 
 really there is no essential connexion between 
 materialism and sin — that the world which we now 
 inhabit, had all the amplitude and solidity of its 
 present materialism, before sin entered into it — 
 that God so far, on that account, from looking 
 slightly upon it, after it had received the last touch 
 of His creating hand, reviewed the earth, and the 
 waters, and the firmament, and all the green 
 herbage, with the living creatures, and the man 
 whom He had raised in dominion over them, and 
 He saw every thing that He had made, and behold 
 it was all very good. They forget that on the 
 birth of materialism, when it stood out in the 
 freshness of those glories which the great Architect 
 of Nature had impressed upon it, that then " the 
 morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
 God shouted for joy." They forget the appeals 
 that are made everywhere in the Bible to this 
 material workmanship — and how, from the face of 
 these visible heavens, and the garniture of this earth 
 that we tread upon, the greatness and the goodness 
 of God are reflected on the view of His worshippers. 
 No, my brethren, the object of the administration 
 we sit under, is to extirpate sin, but it is not to 
 sweep away materiahsm. By the convulsions of 
 the last day, it may be shaken, and broken down 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 285 
 
 from its present arrangements ; and thrown into 
 such fitful agitations, as that the whole of its 
 existing framework shall fall to pieces ; and with a 
 heat so fervent as to melt its most solid elements, 
 may it he utterly dissolved. And thus may the 
 earth again become without form, and void, but 
 without one particle of its substance going into 
 annihilation. Out of the ruins of this second chaos, 
 may another heaven and another earth be made to 
 arise ; and a new materialism, with other aspects 
 of magnificence and beauty, emerge from the wreck 
 of this mighty transformation ; and the world be 
 peopled as before, with the varieties of material 
 loveliness, and space be again lighted up into a 
 firmament of material splendour. 
 
 Were our place of everlasting blessedness so 
 purely spiritual as it is commonly imagined, then 
 the soul of man, after, at death, having quitted his 
 body, would quit it conclusively. That mass of 
 materiahsm with which it is associated upon earth, 
 and which many regard as a load and an incum- 
 brance, would have leave to putrefy in the grave, 
 without being revisited by supernatural power, or 
 raised again out of the inanimate dust into which 
 it had resolved. If the body be indeed a clog and 
 a confinement to the spirit, instead of its commo- 
 dious tenement, then would the spirit feel lightened 
 by the departure it had made, and expatiate in all 
 the buoyancy of its emancipated powers, over a 
 scene of enlargement. And this is, doubtless, the 
 prevailing imagination. But why then, after hav- 
 ing made its escape from such a thraldom, should 
 it ever recur to the prison-house of its old materialism, 
 
286 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 if a prison house it really be. Why should the 
 disengaged sphit again be fastened to the drag of 
 that grosser and heavier substance, which many 
 think has only the effect of weighing down its 
 activity, and infusing into the pure element of mind 
 an ingredient which serves to cloud and to enfeeble 
 it. In other words, what is the use of a day of 
 resurrection, if the union which then takes place is 
 to deaden, or to. reduce all those energies that are 
 commonly ascribed to the living principle, in a state 
 of separation? But, as a proof of some metaphy- 
 sical delusion upon this subject, the product, 
 perhaps, of a wrong though fashionable philosophy, 
 it would appear, that to embody the spirit is not 
 the stepping-stone to its degradation, but to its 
 preferment. 1 he last day will be a day of triumph 
 to the righteous — because the day of the re-entrance 
 of the spirit to its much -loved abode, where its 
 faculties, so far from being shut up into captivity, 
 will find their free and kindred development in such 
 material organs as are suited to them. The fact 
 of the resurrection proves, that, with man at least, 
 the state of a disembodied spirit, is a state of 
 unnatural violence — and that the resurrection of his 
 body is an essential step to the highest perfection 
 of which he is susceptible. And it is indeed an 
 homage to that materialism, which many are for 
 expunging from the future state of the universe 
 altogether — that ere the immaterial soul of man has 
 reached the ultimate glory and blessedness which are 
 designed for it, it must return and knock at that 
 very grave where lie the mouldered remains of the 
 body which it wore— and there inquisition must be 
 
NEW HBAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 287 
 
 made for the flesh, and the sinews, and the bones, 
 which the power of corruption has perhaps for 
 centuries before, assimilated to the earth that is 
 around them — and there, the minute atoms must be 
 re-assembled into a structure that bears upon it the 
 form and the lineaments, and the general aspect of 
 a man — and the soul passes into this material 
 framework, which is hereafter to be its lodging- 
 place for ever — and that, not as its prison, but as 
 its pleasant and befitting habitation — not to be 
 trammelled, as some would have it, in a hold of 
 materialism, but to be therein equipped for the 
 services of eternity — to walk embodied among the 
 bovvers of our second paradise — to stand embodied 
 in the presence of our God. 
 
 There will, it is true, be a change of personal 
 constitution between a good man before his death, 
 and a good man after his resurrection — not, how- 
 ever, that he will be set free from his body, but 
 that he will be set free from the corrupt principle 
 which is in his body — not that the materialism by 
 which he is now surrounded will be done away, but 
 that the taint of evil by which this materialism is 
 now pervaded, will be done away. Could this be 
 effected without dying, then death would be no 
 longer an essential stepping-stone to paradise. But 
 it would appear of the moral virus which has been 
 transmitted downwards from Adam, and is now 
 spread abroad over the whole human family — it 
 would appear, that to get rid of this, the old fabric 
 must be taken down, and reared anew ; and that, 
 not of other materials, but of its own materials, 
 only delivered of all impurity, as if by a refining 
 
288 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 process in the sepulchre. It is thus, that what is 
 '* sown in weakness, is raised in power" — and for 
 this purpose, it is not necessary to get quit of 
 materiahsm, but to get quit of sin, and so to purge 
 materialism of its malady. It is thus that the dead 
 shall come forth incorruptible — and those, we are 
 told, who are alive at this great catastrophe; shall 
 suddenly and mysteriously be changed. While we 
 are compassed about with these vile bodies, as the 
 apostle emphatically terms them, evil is present, 
 and it is well, if through the working of the Spirit 
 of grace, evil does not prevail. To keep this 
 besetting enemy in check, is the task and the trial 
 of our Christianity on earth — and it is the detaching 
 of this poisonous ingredient which constitutes that 
 for which the believer is represented as groaning 
 earnestly, even the redemption of the body that he 
 now wears, and which will then be transformed into 
 the likeness of Christ's glorified body. And this 
 will be his heaven, that he will serve God without 
 a struggle, and in a full gale of spiritual delight — 
 because with the full concurrence of all the feelings 
 and all the faculties of his regenerated nature. 
 Before death, sin is only repressed — after the 
 resurrection, sin will be exterminated. Here he 
 has to maintain the combat, w ith a tendency to evil 
 still lodging in his heart, and working a perverse 
 movement among his inclinations ; but after his war- 
 fare in this world is accomplished, he will no longer be 
 so thwarted — and he will set him down in another 
 world, with the repose and the triumph of victory 
 for his everlasting reward. The great constitutional 
 plague of his nature will no longer trouble him ; and 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 289 
 
 there will be the charm of a general affinity between 
 the purity of his heart, and the purity of the element 
 he breathes in. Still it will not be the purity of 
 spirit escaped from materialism, but of spirit trans- 
 lated into a materialism that has been clarified of 
 evil. It will not be the purity of souls unclothed 
 as at death, but the purity of souls that have again 
 been clothed upon at the resurrection. 
 
 But the highest homage that we know of to 
 materiahsm, is that which God, manifest in the flesh, 
 has rendered to it. That He, the Divinity, should 
 have wrapt His unfathomable essence in one of its 
 coverings, and expatiated amongst us in the palpable 
 form and structure of a man ; and that He should 
 have chosen such a tenement, not as a temporary 
 abode, but should have borne it with Him to the 
 place which He now occupies, and where He is now 
 employed in preparing the mansions of His followers 
 — that He should have entered within the vail, and 
 be now seated at the right hand of the Father, with 
 the very body which was marked by the nails upon 
 His cross, and wherewith He ate and drank after 
 His resurrection — that He who repelled the imagi- 
 nation of His disciples, as if they had seen a spirit, 
 by bidding them handle Him and see, and subjecting 
 to their familiar touch, the flesh and the bones that 
 encompassed Him ; that He should now be throned 
 in universal supremacy, and wielding the whole 
 power of heaven and earth, have every knee to bow 
 at His name, and every tongue to confess, and yet 
 all to the glory of God the Father— that humanity, 
 that substantial and embodied humanity, should 
 thus be exalted, and a voice of adoration from every 
 
 VOL. VII. H 
 
290 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH, 
 
 creature, be lifted up to the Lamb for ever and ever 
 
 — does this look like the abolition of materialism, 
 after the present system of it is destroyed ; or does 
 it not rather prove, that transplanted into another 
 system, it will be preferred to celestial honours, and 
 prolonged in immortality throughout all ages ? 
 
 It has been our careful endeavour, in all that we 
 have said, to keep within the limits of the record, 
 and to offer no other remarks than those which may 
 fitly be suggested by the circumstance, that a new 
 earth is to be created, as well as a new heavens, for 
 the future accommodation of the righteous. We 
 have no desire to push the speculation beyond what 
 is written — but it were, at the same time, well, that 
 in all our representations of the immortal state, 
 there was just the same force of colouring, and the 
 same vivacity of scenic exhibition, that there is in 
 the New Testament. The imagination of a total 
 and diametric opposition between the region of sense 
 and the region of spirituality, certainly tends to 
 abate the interest with which we might otherwise 
 look to the perspective that is on the other side 
 of the grave; and to deaden all those sympathies that 
 we else might have with the joys and the exercises 
 of the blest in paradise. To rectify this, it is not 
 necessary to enter on the particularities of heaven 
 —a topic on which the Bible is certainly most 
 sparing and reserved in its communications. But 
 a great step is gained, simply by dissolving the 
 alliance that exists in the minds of many between 
 the two ideas of sin and materialism ; or proving, 
 that when once sin is done away, it consists with all 
 we know of God's administration, that materialism 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH, 291 
 
 Bhall be perpetuated in the full bloom and vigour of 
 immortality. It altogether holds out a warmer and 
 more alluring picture of the elysium that awaits us, 
 when told, that there, will be beauty to delight the 
 eye ; and music to regale the ear ; and the comfort 
 that springs from all the charities of intercourse 
 between man and man, holding converse as they do 
 on earth, and gladdening each other with the 
 benignant smiles that play on the human countenance, 
 or the accents of kindness that fall in soft and 
 soothing melody from the human voice. There is 
 much of the innocent, and much of the inspiring, 
 and much to affect and elevate the heart, in the 
 scenes and the contemplations of materialism — and 
 we do hail the information of our text, that after the 
 dissolution of its present frame- work, it will again 
 be varied and decked out anew in all the graces of 
 its unfading verdure, and of its unbounded variety 
 — that in addition to our direct and personal view 
 of the Deity, when He comes down to tabernacle 
 with men, we shall also have the reflection of Him 
 in a lovely mirror of His own workmanship — and 
 that instead of being transported to some abode of 
 dimness and of mystery, so remote from human 
 experience, as to be beyond all comprehension, we 
 shall walk for ever in a land replenished with those 
 sensible delights, and those sensible glories, which, 
 we doubt not, will lie most profusely scattered over 
 the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 II. But though a paradise of sense, it Avill not 
 be a paradise of sensuality. Though not so unlike 
 the pre&ent world as many apprehend it, there will 
 
292 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 be one point of total dissimilarity betwixt them. It 
 is not the entire substitution of spirit for matter, 
 that will distinguish the future economy from the 
 present. But it will be the entire substitution of 
 ris^hteousness for sin. It is this which simializes 
 the Christian from the Mahometan paradise — not 
 tliat sense, and substance, and splendid imagery, 
 and the glories of a visible creation seen with bodily 
 eyes, are excluded from it, — but that all which is 
 vile in principle, or voluptuous in impurity, will be 
 utterly excluded from it. There will be a firm 
 earth, as we have at present, and a heaven stretched 
 over it, as we have at present; and it is not by the 
 absence of these, but by the absence of sin, that the 
 abodes of immortality will be characterized. There 
 will both be heavens and earth, it would appear, in 
 the next great administration — and with this 
 specialty to mark it from the present one, that it 
 will be a heavens and an earth, " wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." 
 
 Now, though the first topic of information that 
 we educed from the text, may be regarded as not 
 very practical, yet the second topic on which we 
 now insist, is most eminently so. Were it the great 
 characteristic of that spirituality which is to .obtain 
 in a future heaven, that it was a spirituality of es- 
 sence, then occupying and pervading the place from 
 which materialism had been swept away, we could 
 not, by any possible method, approximate the con- 
 dition we are in at present, to the condition we are 
 to hold everlastingly. We cannot etherealize the 
 matter that is around us — neither can we attenuate 
 our own bodies, nor bring down the slightest degree 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 293 
 
 of such a heaven to the earth that we now inhabit. 
 But when we are told that materiahsm is to be kept 
 up, and that the spirituaUty of our future state hes 
 not in the kind of substance which is to compose 
 its framework, but in the character of those who 
 people it — this puts, if not the fulness of heaven, 
 at least a foretaste of heaven, within our reach. 
 We have not to strain at a thing so impracticable, 
 as that of diluting the material economy which 
 is without us — we have only to reform the moral 
 economy that is within us. V, ■ are now walking 
 on a terrestrial surface, not more compact, perhaps, 
 than the one we shall hereafter walk upon, and are 
 now wearing terrestrial bodies, not firmer and more 
 solid, perhaps, than those we shall hereafter wear. 
 It is not by working any change upon them, that 
 we could realize, to any extent, our future heaven. 
 And this is simply done by opening the door of our 
 heart for the influx of heaven's affections — by bring- 
 ing the whole man, as made up of soul, and spirit, 
 and body, under the presiding authority of heaven's 
 principles. 
 
 This will make plain to you how it is, that it 
 could be said in the New Testament, that the 
 *' kingdom of heaven was at hand" — and how, in 
 that book, its place is marked out, not by locally 
 pointing to any quarter, and saying, Lo, here, or lo 
 there, but by the simple affirmation that the king- 
 dom of heaven is w ithin you — and how, in defining 
 what it was that constituted the kingdom of heaven, 
 there is an enumeration, not of such circumstances 
 as make up an outward condition, but of such feel- 
 ings and qualities as make up a character, even 
 
294 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTK. 
 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost — and how the ushering in of the new dis- 
 pensation is held equivalent to the introduction of 
 this kingdom into the world — all making it evident, 
 that if the purity and the principles of heaven be- 
 gin to take effect upon our heart, what is essentially 
 heaven begins with us, even in this world ; that in- 
 stead of ascending to some upper region, for the pur- 
 pose of entering it, it may descend upon us, and 
 make an actual entrance of itself into our bosoms ; 
 and that so far, therefore, from that remote and 
 inaccessible thing which many do regard it, it may, 
 through the influence of the word which is nigh 
 unto you, and of the Spirit that is given to prayer, 
 be lighted up in the inner man of an individual 
 upon earth, whose person may even here, exemplify 
 its graces, and whose soul may even here realize a 
 measure of its enjoyments. 
 
 And hence one great purpose of the incarnation 
 of our Saviour. He came down amongst us in the 
 full perfection of heaven's character, and has made 
 us see, that it is a character which may be em- 
 bodied. All its virtues were, in his case, infused 
 into a corporeal frame-work, and the substance of 
 these lower regions was taken into intimate and 
 abiding association with the spirit of the higher. 
 The ingredient which is heavenly, admits of being 
 united with the ingredient which is earthly — so 
 that we, who, by nature, are of the earth, and 
 earthly, could we catch of that pure and celes- 
 tial element which made the man Christ Jesus 
 to differ from all other men, then might we too be 
 formed into that character, by which it is that the 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 295 
 
 members of the family above differ from those of 
 the outcast family beneath. Now, it is expressly 
 said of Him, that He is set before us as an exam- 
 ple ; and we are required to look to that living ex- 
 hibition of Him, where all the graces of the upper 
 sanctuary are beheld as in a picture ; and instead 
 of an abstract, we have in His history a familiar 
 representation of such worth, and piety, and ex- 
 cellence, as could they only be stamped upon our 
 own persons, and borne along with us to the place 
 where He now dwelleth — instead of being shunned 
 as aliens, we should be welcomed and recognized 
 as seemly companions for the inmates of that place 
 of holiness. And, in truth, the great work of Christ's 
 disciples upon earth, is a constant and busy process 
 of assimilation to their Master who is in heaven. 
 And we live under a special economy, that has been 
 set up for the express purpose of helping it forward. 
 It is for this, in particular, that the Spirit is pro- 
 vided. We are changed into the image of the 
 Lord, even by the Spirit of the Lord. Nursed 
 out of this fulness, we grow up unto the stature of 
 perfect men in Christ Jesus — and instead of heaven 
 being a remote and mysterious unknown, heaven 
 is brought near to us by the simple expedient of 
 inspiring us where we now stand, with its love, and 
 its purity, and its sacredness. We learn from 
 Christ, that the heavenly graces are all of them com- 
 patible with the wear of an earthly body, and the 
 circumstances of an earthly habitation. It is not 
 said in how many of its features the new earth will 
 ditfer from, or be like unto the present one — but 
 we, by turning from our iniquities unto Christ, 
 
296 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 push forward the resemblance of the one to the 
 other, in the only feature that is specified, even that 
 *' therein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 And had we only the character of heaven, we 
 should not be long of feeling what that is which 
 essentially makes the comfort of heaven, " Thou 
 lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity ; therefore, 
 God thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of 
 gladness, above thy fellows." Let us but love the 
 righteousness which He loves, and hate the iniquity 
 which He bateth ; and this, of itself, would so soften 
 and attune the mechanism of our moral nature, that 
 in all the movements of it, there should be joy. It is 
 not sufficiently adverted to, that the happiness of 
 heaven lies simply and essentially in the well-going 
 machinery of a well-conditioned soul — and that ac- 
 cording to its measure, it is the same in kind with 
 the happiness of God, who liveth for ever in bliss 
 ineffable, because He is unchangeable in being 
 good, and upright, and holy. There may be audi- 
 ble music in heaven, but its chief delight will be in 
 the music of well-poised affections, and of principles 
 in full and consenting harmony with the laws of 
 eternal rectitude. There may be visions of loveli- 
 ness there ; but it will be the lovehness of virtue, 
 as seen directly in God, and as reflected back 
 again in family likeness from all His children — it 
 will be this that shall give its purest and sweetest 
 transports to the soul. In a word, the main re- 
 ward of paradise, is spiritual joy — and that, spring- 
 ing at once from the love and the possession of 
 spiritual excellence. It is such a joy as sin extin- 
 guishes on the moment of its entering the soul ; and 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 297 
 
 such a joy as is again restored to the soul, and that 
 immediately on its being restored to righteousness. 
 It is thus that heaven may be established upon 
 earth, and the petition of our Lord's prayer be 
 fulfilled, " Thy kingdom come." This petition 
 receives its best explanation from the one which 
 follows : " Thy will be done on earth as it is done 
 in heaven." It just requires a similarity of habit 
 and character in the two places, to make out a 
 similarity of enjoyment. Let us attend, then, to 
 the way in which the services of the upper sanctuary 
 are rendered — not in the spirit of legality, for this 
 gendereth to bondage ; but in the spirit of love, 
 which gendereth to the beatitude of the affections 
 rejoicing in their best and most favourite indulgence. 
 They do not work there, for the purpose of making 
 out the conditions of a bargain. They do not act 
 agreeably to the pleasure of God, in order to obtain 
 the gratification of any distinct will or distinct 
 pleasure of their own, in return for it. Their will 
 is, in fact, identical with the will of God. There 
 is a perfect unison of taste and of inclination, be- 
 tween the creature and the Creator. They are in 
 their element, when they are feeling righteously, 
 and doing righteously. Obedience is not drudgery, 
 but delight to them ; and as much as there is of the 
 congenial between animal nature, and the food that 
 is suitable to it, so much is there of the congenial 
 between the moral nature of heaven, and its sacred 
 employments and services. Let the will of God, 
 then, be done here, as it is done there, and not only 
 will character and conduct be the same here as 
 there, but they will also resemble each other in the 
 
298 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 Style, tliough not in the degree of their blessedness- 
 The happiness of heaven will be exemplified upon 
 earth, along with the virtue of heaven — for, in truth, 
 the main ingredient of that happiness is not given 
 them in payment for work ; but it lies in the love 
 they bear to the work itself. A man is never 
 happier than when employed in that which he likes 
 best. This is all a question of taste : but should 
 such a taste be given as to make it a man's meat 
 and drink to do tlie will of his Father, then is he 
 in perfect readiness for being carried upwards to 
 heaven, and placed beside the pure river of water 
 of life, that proceedeth out of the throne of God 
 and of the Lamb. This is the way in which you 
 may make a heaven upon earth, not by heaping 
 your reluctant offers at the shrine of legality, 
 but by serving God because you love him; and 
 doing his will, because you delight to do him hon- 
 our. 
 
 And here we may remark, that the only possible 
 conveyance for this new principle into the heart, 
 is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, — that in no other 
 way than through the acceptance of its free pardon, 
 sealed by the blood of an atonement, which exalts 
 the Lawgiver, can the soul of man be both eman- 
 cipated from the fear of terror, and solemnized into 
 the fear of humble and holy reverence — that it is 
 only in conjunction with the faith that justifies^ tnat 
 the love of grathude, and the love of moral esteem, 
 are made to arise in the bosom of regenerated man ; 
 and, therefore, to bring down the virtues of heaven, 
 3LS well as the peace of heaven, into this lower world, 
 we know not what ehe can be done, than to urge 
 
NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 299 
 
 upon you the great propitiation of the New Testa- 
 ment — nor are we aware of any expedient by which 
 all the cold and freezing sensations of legality can 
 be done away, but by your thankful and uncondi- 
 tional acceptance of Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied. 
 
300 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 •• For the kingdom of God is not in word^ but in power. ""^^ 
 1 Corinthians iv. 20. 
 
 There is a most important lesson to be derived 
 from the variety of senses in which the phrases 
 " kingdom of God," and " kingdom of heaven," 
 are evidently made use of in the New Testament. 
 If it, at one time, carry our thoughts to that place 
 where God sits in visible glory, and where, sur- 
 rounded by the family of the blessed, he presides 
 in full and spiritual authority — it, at another time, 
 turns our thoughts inwardly upon ourselves, and 
 instead of leading us to say, Lo, here, or lo, 
 there, as if to some local habitation at a distance, 
 it leads us, by the declaration, that the " kingdom 
 of God is within us," to look for it into our own 
 breast, and to examine whether heavenly affections 
 have been substituted there in the place of earthly 
 ones. Such is the tendency of our imagination upon 
 this subject, that the kingdom of heaven is never 
 mentioned, without our minds being impelled there- 
 by to take an upward direction — to go aloft to that 
 place of spaciousness, and of splendour, and of 
 psalmody, which forms the residence of angels ; and 
 where the praises both of redeemed and unfallen 
 creatures, rise in one anthem of gratulation to the 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 301 
 
 Father, who rejoices over them all. Now, it is 
 evident, that in dwelling upon such an elysium as 
 this, the mind can picture to itself a thousand deli- 
 cious accompaniments, which, apart from moral 
 and spiritual character altogether, are fitted to regale 
 animal, and sensitive, and unrenewed man. There 
 may be sights of beauty and brilliancy for the eye. 
 There may be sounds of sweetest melody for the ear. 
 There may be innumerable sensations of delight, 
 from the adaptation which obtains between the 
 materialism of surrounding heaven, and the mate- 
 rialism of our own transformed and glorified bodies. 
 T'here may even be poured upon us, in richest 
 abundance, a higher and a nobler class of enjoyments 
 — and separate still from the possession of holiness, 
 of that peculiar quality, by the accession of which 
 a sinner is turned into a saint, and the man who, 
 before, had an entire aspect of secularity and of 
 the world, looks as if he had been cast over again 
 in another mould, and come out breathing godly 
 desires, and aspiring, with a newly created fervour, 
 after godly enjoyments. And so, without any such 
 conversion as this, heaven may still be conceived 
 to minister a set of very refined and intellectual 
 gratifications. One may figure it so formed, as to 
 adapt itself to the senses of man, though he should 
 possess not one single virtue of the temple, or of 
 the sanctuary — and one may figure it to be so 
 formed, as, though alike destitute of these virtues, 
 •to adapt itself even to the Spirit of man, and to 
 many of the loftier principles and capacities of his 
 nature. His taste may find an ever-recurring 
 delight in the panorama of its sensible glories j and 
 
30^ NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 bis fancy wander untired among all the realities and 
 all the possibilities of created excellence ; and his 
 understanding be feasted to ecstasy among those 
 endless varieties of truth, which are ever pouring 
 in a rich flood of discovery, upon his mind; and 
 even his heart be kept in a glow of warm and kindly 
 affection among the cordialities of that benevolence, 
 by which he is surrounded. All this is possible to 
 be conceived of heaven — and when we add its secure 
 and everlasting exemption from the agonies of hell, 
 let us not wonder, that such a heaven should be 
 vehemently desired by those who have not advanced 
 by the very humblest degree of spiritual preparation, 
 for the real heaven of the New Testament — who 
 have not the least congeniality of feeling with that 
 which forms its essential and characteristic blessed- 
 ness — who cannot sustain on earth for a very short 
 interval of retirement, the labour and the weariness 
 of communion with God — who, though they could 
 relish to the uttermost, all the sensible and all the 
 intellectual joys of heaven, yet hold no taste of 
 sympathy whatever, with its hallelujahs, and its 
 songs of raptured adoration — and who, therefore, 
 if transported at this moment, or if transported 
 after death, with the frame and character of soul 
 that they have at this moment, to the New Jerusa- 
 lem, and the city of the living God, would positively 
 find themselves aliens, and out of their kindred and 
 rejoicing element, however much they may sigh 
 after a paradise of pleasure, or a paradise of poetry. 
 It may go to dissipate this sentimental illusion. 
 It we ponder well the meaning which is often 
 assigned to the kingdom of heaven in the Bible — if 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 303 
 
 we reflect, that it is often made to attach personally 
 to a human creature upon earth — as well as to be 
 situated locally in some distant and mysterious 
 region away from us — that to be the subjects of 
 such a kingdom, it is not indispensable that our 
 residence be within the limits of an assigned 
 territory, any more, in fact, than that the subject of 
 an earthly sovereign should not remain so, though 
 travelling, for a time, beyond the confines of his 
 master's jurisdiction. He may, though away from 
 his country in person, carry about with him in mind 
 a full principle of allegiance to his country's 
 sovereign — and may both, in respect of legal duty, 
 and of his own most wiUing and affectionate com- 
 pliance with it, remain associated with him both 
 in heart and in political relationship. He is still a 
 member of that kingdom, in the domains of which 
 he was born — and in the very same way, may a man 
 be travelling the journey of life in this world, and 
 be all the while a member of the kingdom of 
 heaven. The Being who reigns in supreme authority 
 there, may, even in this land of exile and alienation, 
 have some one devoted subject, who renders to the 
 same authority the deference of his heart, and the 
 subordination of his whole practice. The will of 
 God may possess such a moral ascendancy over his 
 will, as that when the one commands, the other 
 promptly and cheerfully obeys. The character of 
 God may stand revealed in such charms of perfec- 
 tion and gracefulness to the eye of his mind, that 
 oy ever looking to Him, he both loves and is made 
 like unto Him. A sense of God may pervade his 
 every hour, and every employment, even as it is 
 
304 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 the hand of God which preserves him continaaiiy, 
 and through the actual power of God, that he lives 
 and moves, as well as has his being. Such a man, 
 if such a man there be on the face of our world, 
 has the kingdom of God set up in his heart. He 
 is already one of the children of the kingdom. He 
 is not locally in heaven, and yet his heaven is begun. 
 He has in his eye the glories of heaven ; though, as 
 yet, he sees them through a glass darkly. He feels 
 in his bosom the principles of heaven ; tliougb still 
 at war with the propensities of nature, they do not 
 yet reign in all the freeness of an undisputed ascen- 
 dancy. He carries in his heart the peace, and the 
 joy," and the love, and the elevation of heaven ; 
 though, under the incumbrance of a vile body, the 
 spiritual repast which is thus provided, is not with- 
 out its mixtures, and without its mitigation. In a 
 word, the essential elements of heaven's reward, 
 and of heaven's felicity, are all in his possession. 
 He tastes the happiness of heaven in kind, though 
 not in its full and finished degree. When he gets 
 to heaven above, he will not meet there with a 
 happiness differing in character from that which he 
 now feels ; but only higher in gradation. There 
 may be crowns of material splendour. There may 
 be trees of unfading loveliness. There may be 
 pavements of emerald — and canopies of brightest 
 radiance — and gardens of deep and tranquil security 
 — and palaces of proud and stately decoration — 
 and a city of lofty pinnacles, through which there 
 unceasing flows a river of gladness, and where 
 jubilee is ever rung with the concord of seraphic 
 voices. But these are oniy the accessaries of 
 

 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 305 
 
 heaven. They form not the materials of its 
 substantial blessedness. Of this the man who toils 
 in humble drudgery, an utter stranger to the delights 
 of sensible pleasure, or the fascinations of sensible 
 glory, has got already a foretaste in his heart. It 
 consists not in the enjoyment of created good, nor 
 in the survey of created magnificence. It is drawn 
 in a direct stream, through the channels of love 
 and of contemplation, from the fulness of the Crea- 
 tor. It emanates from the countenance of God, 
 manifesting the spiritual glories of His holy and 
 perfect character, on those whose characters are 
 kindred to His own. And if on earth there is no 
 tendency towards such a character — no process of 
 restoration to the lost image of the Godhead — no 
 delight in prayer — no relish for the sweets of inter- 
 course with our Father, now unseen, but then to be 
 revealed to the view of His immediate worshippers 
 — then, let our imaginations kindle as they may, 
 with the beatitudes of our fictitious heaven, the true 
 heaven of the Bible is what we shall never reach, 
 because it is a heaven that we are not fitted to 
 enjoy. 
 
 But such a view of the matter seems not merely 
 to dissipate a sentimental illusion which obtains 
 upon this subject. It also serves to dissipate a 
 theological illusion. Ere we can enter heaven, 
 there must be granted to us a legal capacity of 
 admission — and Christ by His atoning death, and 
 perfect righteousness, has purchased this capacity 
 for those who believe — and they, by the very act of 
 believing, are held to be in possession of it, just as 
 a man by stretching out his hand to a deed or a 
 
306 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 passport, becomes vested with all the privileges 
 which are thereby conveyed to the holder. Now, 
 in the zeal of controversialists, (and it is a point 
 most assuredly about which they cannot be too 
 zealous) — in their zeal to clear up and to demon- 
 strate the ground on which the sinner's legal 
 capacity must rest — there has, with many, been a 
 sad overlooking of what is no less indispensable, 
 even his personal capacity. And yet even on the 
 lowest and grossest conceptions of what that is 
 which constitutes the felicity of heaven, it would be 
 no heaven, and no place of enjoyment at all, 
 without a personal adaptation on the part of its 
 occupiers, to the kind of happiness which is current 
 there. If that happiness consisted entirely in sights 
 of magnificence, of what use would it be to confer 
 a title-deed of entry on a man who was blind ? To 
 make it heaven to him, his eyes must be opened. 
 Or, if that happiness consisted in sounds of melody, 
 of what use would a passport be to the man who was 
 deaf ? To make out a heaven for him, a change 
 must be made on the person which he wears, as well 
 as in the place which he occupies — and his ears 
 must be unstopped. Or, if that happiness consisted 
 in fresh and perpetual accessions of new and 
 delightful truth to the understanding, what would 
 rights and legal privileges avail to him who was 
 sunk in helpless idiotism ? To provide him with 
 a heaven, it is not enough that he be transported 
 to a place among the mansions of the celestial : he 
 must be provided with anew faculty — and, as before, 
 a change behoved to be made upon the senses ; so 
 now, ere heaven can be heaven to its occupier, a 
 
y.lTURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 307 
 
 change must be made upon his mind. And, in like 
 manner, my brethren, if that happiness shall consist 
 in the love of God for His goodness, and in the love 
 of God for the moral and spiritual excellence which 
 belongs to Him — if it shall consist in the play and 
 exercise of affections directed to such objects as are 
 alone worthy of their most exalted regard — if it shall 
 consist in the movements of a heart now attracted 
 in reverence and admiration towards all that is 
 noble, and righteous, and holy — it is not enough to 
 constitute a heaven for the sinner, that God is there 
 in visible manifestation, or that heaven is lighted up 
 to him in a blaze of spiritual glory. His heart 
 must be made a fit recipient for the impression of 
 that glory. Of what possible enjoyment to him is 
 heaven, as his purchased inheritance, if heaven be 
 not also his precious and his much-loved home ? 
 To create enjoyment for a man, there must be a 
 suitableness between the taste that is in him, and 
 the objects that are around him. To make a* 
 natural man happy upon earth, we may let his taste 
 alone, and surround him with favourable circum- 
 stances — with smiling abundance, and merry 
 companionship, and bright anticipations of fortune 
 or of fame, and the salutations of pubUc respect, 
 and the gaieties of fashionable amusement, and 
 the countless other pleasures of a world, which 
 yields so much to delight and to diversify the short- 
 ^ved period of its fleeting generations. To make 
 ihe same man happy in heaven, it would suffice 
 nmply to transmit him there with the same taste, 
 \nd to surround him with the same circumstances. 
 But God has not so ordered heaven. He will not 
 
308 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 suit the circumstance of heaven to the character of 
 
 man and therefore to make it, that man can be 
 
 happy there, nothing remains but to suit the 
 character of man to the circumstances of heaven — 
 and, therefore it is, that to bring about heaven to a 
 sinner, it is not enough that there be the preparation 
 of a place for him, there must be a preparation of 
 him for the place— it is not enough that he be meet 
 in law, he must be meet in person — it is not enough 
 that there be a change in his forensic relation 
 towards God, there must be a change in the actual 
 disposition of his heart towards Him ; and unless 
 deUvered from his earth-born propensities— unless 
 a clean heart be created, and a right spirit be 
 renewed — unless transformed into a holy and a 
 godlike character, it is quite in vain to have put a 
 deed of entry into his hands— heaven will have no 
 charm for him — all its notes of rapture will fall with 
 tasteless insipidity upon his ear— and justification 
 itself will cease to be a privilege. 
 
 Let us cease to wonder, then, at the frequent 
 application, in Scripture, of this phrase to a state 
 of personal feeling and character upon earth — and 
 rather let us press upon our remembrance the im- 
 portant lessons which are to be gathered from such 
 an application. In that passage where it is said, 
 that the " kingdom of God is not meat and drinil» 
 but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost," there can be no doubt that the reference 
 is altogether personal, for the apostle is here con- 
 trasting the man who, in these things, serveth 
 Christ, with the man who eateth unto the Lord, or 
 who eateth not unto the Lord> And in the pas- 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 309 
 
 sage now before us, there can be as little doubt, that 
 the reference is to the kingdom of God, as fixed 
 and substantiated upon the character of the human 
 soul. He was just before alluding to those who 
 could talk of the things of Christ, while it remained 
 questionable whether there was any change or any 
 effect that could at all attest the power of these 
 things upon their person and character. This is 
 the point which he proposed to ascertain on his 
 next visit to them. " I will come to you shortly, 
 if the Lord will, and will know not the speech of 
 them which are puffed up, but the power. For 
 the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." 
 It is not enough to mark you as the children of this 
 kingdom ; or as those over whose hearts the reign 
 of God is established ; or as those in whom a pre- 
 paration is going on here for a place of glory and 
 blessedness hereafter — that you know the terms of 
 orthodoxy, or that you can speak its language. 
 If even an actual belief in its doctrine could reside 
 in your mind, without fruit and without influence, 
 this would as little avail you. But it is well to 
 know, both from experience and from the information 
 of Him who knew what was in man, that an actual 
 belief of the Gospel, is at all times an effectual 
 belief — that upon the entrance of such a belief, 
 the kingdom of God comes to us with power, being 
 that which availeth, even faith working by love, 
 and purifying the heart, and overcoming the world. 
 One of the simplest cases of the kingdom of God 
 in word, and not in power, is that of a child, with 
 Its memory stored in passages of Scripture, and in 
 all the answers to all the questions of a substantial 
 
310 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 and well-digested catechism. In such an mstance, 
 the tongue may be able to rehearse the whole ex- 
 pression of evangelical truth, while neither the 
 meaning of the truth is perceived by the understand- 
 ing, nor ofconsequence, can the moral influence of the 
 truth be felt in the heart. The learner has got 
 words, but nothing more. This is the whole fruit 
 of his acquisition — nor would it make any difference, 
 in as far as the effect at the time is concerned, 
 though, instead of words adapted to the expression 
 of Christian doctrine, they had been the words of 
 a song, or a fable, or any secular narrative and 
 performance whatever. This is all undeniable 
 enough — if we could only prevail on many men, 
 and many women, not to deny its application to 
 themselves — if we could only convince our grown-up 
 children of the absolute futility of many of their 
 exercises — if we could only arouse from their dor- 
 mancy, our listless readers of the Bible — our men, 
 who make a mere piece-work of their Christianity; 
 who, in making way through the Scriptures, do it 
 by the page, and, in addressing prayers to their 
 Maker, do it by the sentence ; with whom the per- 
 usal of the sacred volume, is absolutely little better 
 than a mere exercise of the lip, or of the eye, and a 
 preference for orthodoxy is little better than a pre- 
 ference for certain familiar and well-known sounds; 
 where the thinking principle is almost never in con- 
 tact with the matter of theological truth, however 
 conversant both their mouths and their memories 
 may be with the language of it — so that in fact the 
 doctrine by the knowledge of which, and the power 
 of which it is, that we are saved, lies as effectually 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 311 
 
 hidden from their minds, as if it lay wrapt in hiero* 
 glyphical obscurity ; or, as if their intellectual organ 
 was shut against all communication with any thing 
 without them — and thus it is, that what is not per- 
 ceived by the mental eye, having no possible oper- 
 ation upon the mental feelings, or mental purposes, 
 the kingdom of God cometh to them in word only, 
 while not in power. 
 
 But again, what is translated word in this verse, 
 is also capable of being rendered by the term 
 reason. It may not only denote that which consti- 
 tutes the material vehicle by which the argument 
 conceived in the mind of one man is translated into 
 the mind of another — it may also denote the argu- 
 ment itself ; and when rendered in this way, it offers 
 to our notice a very interesting case, of which there 
 are not wanting many exemplifications. In the 
 case just now adverted to, the mere word is in the 
 mouth, without its corresponding idea being in the 
 mind ; but in the case immediately before us, ideas 
 are present as well as words, and every intellectual 
 faculty is at its post, for the purpose of entertaining 
 them — the attention most thoroughly awake — and 
 the curiosity on the stretch of its utmost eagerness 
 — and the judgment most busily employed in the 
 work of comparing one doctrine, and one declara- 
 tion with another — and the reason conducting its 
 long or its intricate processes — and, in a word, the 
 whole machinery of the mind as powerfully stimu- 
 lated by a theological, as it ever can be, by a 
 natural or scientific speculation — and yet, with this 
 seeming advancement that it makes from the lan- 
 guage of Christianity to the substance of Christianity, 
 
312 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 what shall we think of it, if there be no advancement 
 wkatever in the power of Christianity — no accession 
 to the soul of any one of those three ingredients, 
 which, taken together, make up the apostle's defini- 
 tion of tlie kingdom of God — no augmentation 
 either of its righteousness, or its peace, or its joy 
 in the Holy Ghost — the man, no doubt, very much 
 engrossed and exercised with the subject of divinity, 
 but with as little of the real spirit and character of 
 divinity, thereby transferred into his own spirit, 
 and his own character, as if he were equally en- 
 grossed and equally exercised with the subject of 
 mathematics — remaining in short, after all his doc- 
 trinal acquisitions of the truth, an utter stranger to 
 the moral influence of the truth — and proving, in 
 the fact of his being practically and personally the 
 very same man as before, that if the kingdor-. of 
 God is not in word, it is as little in argument, but 
 in power. 
 
 If it be of importance to know, that a man may 
 lay hold, by his memory, of all the language of 
 Christianity, and yet not be a Christian — it is also 
 of importance to know, that a man may lay hold, by 
 his understanding, of all the doctrine of Christianity, 
 and yet not be a Christian. It is our opinion, that 
 in this case the man has only an apparent belief, 
 without having an actual belief — that all the doctrine 
 is conceived by him, without being credited by him 
 — that it is the object of his fancy, without being 
 the object of his faith — and that, as on the one hand, 
 'f the conviction be real, the consequence of another 
 heart, and another character, will be sure — so, on 
 the other hand, and on the principle of *' by their 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 313 
 
 fruits shall ye know them," if he want the fruit, it 
 
 is just because he is in want of the foundation if 
 
 there be no produce, it is because there is no prin- 
 ciple — having experienced no salvation from sin 
 here, he shall experience no salvation from the 
 Abode of sinners hereafter. If faith were present 
 with him, he would be kept by the power of it unto 
 salvation, from both — but destitute as he proves 
 himself to be now of the faith which sanctifies, he 
 will be found then, in the midst of all his semblances 
 and all his delusions, to have been equally destitute 
 of the faith which justifies. 
 
 And it is, perhaps, not so difficult to stir up, in 
 the mind of the learned controversialist, and the 
 deeply-exercised scholar, the suspicion, that with 
 all his acquirements in the lore of theology, he is, 
 in respect of its personal influence upon himself, 
 still in a state of moral and spiritual unsoundness 
 — it is not so difficult to raise this feeling of self- 
 condemnation in his mind, as it is to do it in the 
 mind of him who has selected his one favourite 
 article, and there, resolved, if die he must, to die 
 hard, has taken up his obstinate and immoveable 
 position — and retiring within the intrenchment of 
 a few verses of the Bible, will defy all the truth 
 and all the thunder of its remaining declarations ; 
 and with an orthodoxy which carries on all its play 
 in his head, without one moving or one softening 
 touch upon his heart, will stand out to the eye of 
 the world, both in avowed principle, and in its 
 corresponding practice, a secure, sturdy, firm, im- 
 pregnable Antinomian. He thinks that he will 
 hftve heaven, because he has faith. But if his faith 
 
 VOL. VII. o 
 
314 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, 
 
 do not bring the virtues of heaven into his heart, 
 it will never spread either the glory or the security 
 of heaven around his person. The region to which 
 he vainly thinks of looking forward, is a region of 
 spirituality — and he himself must be spiritualized, 
 ere it can prove to him a region of enjoyment. If 
 he count on a different paradise from this, he is as 
 widely mistaken as they who dream of the luxury 
 that awaits them in the paradise of Mahomet. He 
 misinterprets the whole undertaking of Jesus Christ. 
 He degrades the salvation which he hath achieved, 
 into a salvation from animal pain. He transforms 
 the heaven which He has opened, into a heaven of 
 animal gratifications. He forgets, that on the great 
 errand of man's restoration, it is not more necessary 
 to recall our departed species to the heaven from 
 which they had wandered, than it is to recall to the 
 bosom of man its departed worth, and its departed 
 excellence. The one is what faith will do on the 
 other side of death. But the other just as certainly 
 faith must do on this side of death. It is here that 
 heaven begins. It is here that eternal life is entered 
 upon. It is here that man first breathes the air 
 of immortality. It is upon earth that he learns the 
 rudiments of a celestial character, and first tastes 
 of celestial enjoyments. It is here, that the well 
 of water is struck out in the heart of renovated 
 man, and that fruit is made to grow unto holiness, 
 and then, in the end, there is life everlasting. The 
 man whose threadbare orthodoxy is made up of 
 meagre and unfruitful positions, may think that he 
 walks in clearness, while he is only walking in the 
 cold light of speculation. He walks in the feeble 
 
NATURE OF THE KIUGDOM OF GOD. 315 
 
 sparks of his own kindling. Were it fire from the 
 sanctuary, it would impart to his unregenerated 
 bosom, of the heat, and spirit, and love of the 
 sanctuary. This is the sure result of the faith that 
 is unfeigned — and all that a feigned faith can pos- 
 sibly make out, will be a fictitious title-deed, which 
 will not stand before the light of the great day of 
 final examination. And thus will it be found, I 
 fear, in many cases of marked and ostentatious 
 professorship, how possible a thing it is to have an 
 appearance of the kingdom of God in word, and 
 the kingdom of God in letter, and the kingdom of 
 God in controversy — while the kingdom of God is 
 not in power. 
 
 But once more — instead of laying a false security 
 upon one article, it is possible to have a mind 
 familiarized to all the articles — to admit the need 
 of holiness, and to demonstrate the channel of 
 influence by which it is brought down from heaven 
 upon the hearts of believers — to cast an eye of 
 intelligence over the whole symphony and extent of 
 Christian doctrine — to lay bare those ligaments of 
 connexion by which a true faith in the mind is ever 
 sure to bring a new spirit and a new practice along 
 with it — and to hold up the lights both of Scripture 
 and of experience, over the whole process of man's 
 regeneration. It is possible for one to do all tliis 
 — and yet to have no part in that regeneration — 
 to declare with ability and eff*ect the Gospel to 
 others, and yet himself be a castaway — to unravel 
 the whole of that spiritual mechanism, by which a 
 sinner is transformed into a saint, while he does not 
 exemplify the working of that mechanism in his own 
 
316 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 person — to explain what must be done, and what 
 must be undergone m the process of becoming one 
 of the children of the kingdom, while he himself 
 remains one of the children of this world. To him 
 the kingdom of God hath come in word, and it 
 hath come in letter, and it hath come in natural 
 discernment ; but it hath not come in power. He 
 may have profoundly studied the whole doctrine of 
 the kingdom — and have conceived the various ideas 
 of which it is composed — and have embodied them 
 in words — and have poured them forth in utter- 
 ance — and yet be as little spiritualized by these 
 manifold operations, as the air is spiritualized by 
 its being the avenue for the sounds of his voice 
 to the ears of his listening auditory. The living 
 man may, with all the force of his active intelli- 
 gence, be a mere vehicle of transmission. The 
 Holy Ghost may leave the message to take its 
 own way through his mind — and may refuse the 
 accession of His influence, till it make its escape 
 from the lips of the preacher — and may trust 
 for its conveyance to those aerial undulations by 
 which the report is carried forward to an assembled 
 multitude — and may only, after the entrance of 
 hearing has been effected for the terms of the 
 message, may only, after the unaided powers of 
 moral and physical nature have brought the 
 matter thus far, may then, and not till then, add 
 His own influence to the truths of the message, 
 and send them with this impregnation from the 
 ear to the conscience of any whom He listeth. 
 And thus from the workings of a cold and desolate 
 bosom in the human expounder, may there pro- 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, 317 
 
 ceed a voice, which on its way to some of those 
 who are assembled around him, shall turn out to 
 be a voice of urgency and power. He may be 
 the instrument of blessings to others, which have 
 never come with kindly or effective influence upon 
 his own heart. He may inspire an energy, which 
 he does not feel, and pour a comfort into the 
 wounded spirit, the taste of which, and the enjoy- 
 ment of which is not permitted to his own — and 
 nothing can serve more effectually than this expe- 
 rimental fact to humble him, and to demonstrate 
 the existence of a power which cannot be wielded 
 by all the energies of Nature — a power often 
 refused to eloquence, often refused to the might 
 and the glory of human wisdom — often refused to 
 the most strenuous exertions of human might and 
 human talent, and generally met with in richest 
 abundance among the ministrations of the men of 
 simplicity and prayer. 
 
 Some of you have heard of the individual who, 
 under an oppression of the severest melancholy, 
 implored relief and counsel from his physician. 
 The unhappy patient was advised to attend the 
 performances of a comedian, who had put all the 
 world into ecstasies. But it turned out, that the 
 patient was the comedian himself — and that while 
 his smile was the signal of merriment to all, his 
 heart stood uncheered and motionless, amid the 
 gratulations of an applauding theatre — and evening 
 after evening, did he kindle around him a rapture 
 in which he could not participate — a poor, help- 
 less, dejected moui'ner, among the tumults of 
 
318 NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 that high-sounding gaiety, which he himself had 
 created. 
 
 Let all this touch our breasts with the persuasion, 
 of the nothingness of man. Let it lead us to 
 withdraw our confidence from the mere instrument, 
 and to carry it upwards to Him who alone worketh 
 all in all. Let it reconcile us to the arrangements 
 of His providence, and assure our minds, that He 
 can do with one arrangement, what we fondly 
 anticipated from another. Let us cease to be 
 violently affected by the mutabiUties of a fleeting 
 and a shifting world — and let nothing be suffered 
 to have the power of dissolving for an instant, that 
 connection of trust which should ever subsist 
 between our minds and the will of the all-working 
 Deity. Above all, let us carefully separate between 
 our liking for certain accompaniments of the word, 
 and our liking for the word itself. Let us be 
 jealous of those human preferences, which may 
 bespeak some human and adventitious influence 
 upon our hearts, and be altogether different from 
 the influence of Christian truth upon Christianized 
 and sanctified affections. Let us be tenacious 
 only of one thing — not of holding by particular 
 ministers — not of saying, that *' I am of Paul, or 
 Cephas, or ApoUos" — not of idolizing the servant, 
 while the Master is forgotten, — but let us hold by 
 the Head, even Christ. He is the source of all 
 spiritual influence — and while the agents whom he 
 employs, can do no more than bring the kingdom 
 of God to you in word — it lies with him either to 
 exalt one agency, or to humble and depress another 
 
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 319 
 
 and either with or without such an agency, by 
 
 the demonstration of that Spirit, which is given 
 unto faith, to make the kingdom of God come into 
 your hearts with power. 
 
 k..-...,- 
 
320 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 HEAVEN A CHARACTER AND NOT A LOCALITY. 
 
 ** He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, 
 let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be 
 righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy stilL'* 
 —Rev. xxii. 11. 
 
 Our first remark on this passage of Scripture, is, 
 how very palpably and nearly it connects time 
 with eternity. The character wherewith we 
 sink into the grave at death, is the very character 
 wherewith we shall re-appear on the day of resur- 
 rection. The character which habit has fixed and 
 strengthened through life, adheres, it would seem, 
 to the disembodied spirit, through the mysterious in- 
 terval which separates the day of our dissolution from 
 the day of our account — when it will again stand 
 forth, the very image and substance of what it was, 
 to the inspection of the Judge and the awards of the 
 judgment-seat. The moral lineaments which be 
 graven on the tablet of the inner man, and which 
 every day of an unconverted life makes deeper 
 and more indelible than before, will retain the very 
 impress they have gotten — unaltered apd unefFaced, 
 by the transition from our present to our future 
 state of existence. There will be a dissolution, 
 and then a reconstruction of the body, from the 
 sepulchral dust into which it had mouldered. But 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 321 
 
 there will be neither a dissolution nor a renovation 
 of the spirit, which, indestructible both in character 
 and essence, will weather and retain its identity, 
 on the mid-way passage between this world and the 
 next — so that at the time of quitting its earthly 
 tenement we may say, that, if unjust now it will be 
 unjust still, if filthy now it will be filthy still, if 
 righteous now it will be righteous still, and if holy 
 now it will be holy still. 
 
 Our second remark, suggested by the scripture 
 now under consideration, is that there be many 
 analogies of nature and experience, which even 
 death itself does not interrupt. There is nought 
 more familiar to our daily observation than 
 the power and inveteracy of habit — insomuch that 
 any vicious propensity is strengthened by every 
 new act of indulgence ; any virtuous principle is 
 more firmly established than before, by every new 
 act of resolute obedience to its dictates. The law 
 which connects the actings of boyhood or of youth 
 with the character of manhood, is the identical, the 
 unrepealed law which connects our actings in time 
 with our character through eternity. The way in 
 which the moral discipline of youth prepares for the 
 honours and the enjoyments of a virtuous manhood, 
 is the very way in which the moral and spiritual 
 discipline of a whole life prepares for a virtuous 
 and happy immortality. And, on the other hand, 
 the succession, as of cause and effect, from a 
 profligate youth or a dishonest manhood, to a dis- 
 graced and worthless old age — is just the succession, 
 also of cause and effect, between the misdeeds and 
 the depravities of our history on earth, and an 
 o2 
 
322 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 inheritance of worthlessness and wretchedness for 
 ever. The law of moral contmultv between the 
 different stages of human life, is also the law of 
 continuity between the two worlds — which even 
 the death that intervenes does not violate. Be he 
 a saint or a sinner, each shall be filled with the 
 fruit of his own ways — so that when translated 
 into their respective places of fixed and everlasting 
 destination, the one shall rejoice through eternity 
 in that pure eleme^nt of goodness, which here he 
 loved and aspired after ; the other, a helpless, a 
 degraded victim of those passions which lorded 
 over him through life, shall be irrevocably doomed 
 to that worst of torments and that worst of tyranny 
 — Ihe torment of his own accursed nature, the 
 inexorable tyranny of evil. 
 
 Our third remark suggested by this scripture is, 
 that it affords no very dubious perspective of the 
 future heaven and the future hell of the New 
 Testament. We are aware of the material images 
 employed in scripture, and by which it bodies forth 
 its representation of both — of the fire, and the 
 brimstone, and the lake of living agony, and the 
 gnashing of teeth, and the wailings, the ceaseless 
 wailings of distress and despair unutterable, by 
 which the one is set before us in characters of terror 
 and most revolting hideousness — of the splendour, 
 the spaciousness, the music, the floods of melody 
 and sights of surpassing loveliness, by which the 
 other is set before us in characters of bliss and 
 brightness unperishable ; with all that can regale 
 the glorified senses of creatures, rejoicing for ever in 
 tne presence and before ihe throne of God. We 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 322 
 
 stop not to inquire, and far less to dispute, whether 
 these descriptions, in the plain meaning and very 
 letter of them, are to be realized. But we hold 
 that it would purge theology from many of its 
 errors, and that it would guide and enlighten the 
 practical Christianity of many honest inquirers — if 
 the moral character both of heaven and hell were 
 more distinctly recognized, and held a more pro- 
 minent place in the regards and contemplations of 
 men. If it indeed be true that the moral, rather 
 than the material, is the main ingredient, whether 
 of the coming torment or the coming ecstasy — then 
 the hell of the wicked may be said to have already 
 begun, and the heaven of the virtuous may be said 
 to have already begun. The one, in the bitterness 
 of an unhinged and dissatisfied spirit, has a foretaste 
 of the wretchedness before him ; the other, in 
 the peace and triumphant complacency of an 
 approving conscience, has a foretaste of the happi- 
 ness before him. Each is ripening for his own ever- 
 lasting destiny ; and whether in the depravities that 
 deepen and accumulate on the character of the one, 
 or in the graces that brighten and multiply upon the 
 other — we see materials enough, either for the 
 worm that dieth not, or for the pleasures that are 
 for evermore. 
 
 But again, it may be asked, will spiritual 
 elements alone suffice to make up, either the 
 intense and intolerable wretchedness of a hell, or 
 the intense beatitude of a heaven? For an answer 
 to this question, let us first turn your attention to 
 the former of these receptacles. And we ask you 
 to thuik of the sute of that heart in respect to 
 
324 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 sensation, which is the seat of a concentrated 
 and all-absorbing selfishness, which feels for no 
 other interest than its own, and holds no fellowship 
 of truth or honesty or confidence with the fellow- 
 beings around it. The owner of such a heart may 
 live in society ; but, cut off as he is by his own 
 sordid nature from the reciprocities of honourable 
 feeling and good faith, he may be said to live an 
 exile in the midst of k. He is a stranger to the 
 day-light of the moral world ; and, instead of 
 walking abroad on an open platform of free and 
 fearless communion with his fellows, he spends a 
 cold and heartless existence in the hiding-place of 
 his own thoughts. You mistake it, if you think 
 of this creeping and ignoble creature, that he knows 
 aught of the real truth or substance of enjoyment ; 
 or however successful he may have been in the 
 wiles of his paltry selfishness, that a sincere or a 
 solid satisfaction has been the result o^ it. On the 
 contrary, if you enter his heart, you will there find 
 a distaste and disquietude in the lurking sense of 
 its own worthlessness ; and that dissevered from 
 the respect of society without, it finds no refuge 
 within where he is abandoned by the respect of his 
 own conscience. It does not consist with moral 
 nature, that there should be internal happiness or 
 internal harmony, when the moral sense is made to 
 suffer perpetual violence. A man of cunning 
 and concealment, however dexterous, however 
 triumphant in his worthless policy, is not at ease. 
 The stoop, the downcast regards, the dark and 
 sinister expression, of him who cannot lift up his 
 head among his fellow men, or look his companions 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 325 
 
 in the face, are the sensible proofs, that he who 
 knows himself to be dishonest feels himself to be 
 degraded ; and the inward sense of dishonour which 
 haunts and humbles him here, is but the commence- 
 ment of that shame and everlasting contempt to 
 which he shall awaken hereafter. This, you will 
 observe, is a purely moral chastisement ; and, apart 
 altogether from the infliction of violence or pain on 
 the sentient economy, is enough to overwhelm the 
 spirit that is exercised thereby. Let him then that 
 is unjust now be unjust still ; and, in stepping from 
 time to eternity, he bears, in his own distempered 
 bosom, the materials of his coming vengeance along 
 with him. The character itself will be the execu- 
 tioner of its own condemnation ; and when, instead 
 of each suffering apart, the unrighteous are con- 
 gregated together — as in the parable of the tares, 
 where, instead of each plant being severally 
 destroyed, the order is given to bind them up in 
 bundles and burn them — we may be well assurpd, 
 that, where the turbulence and disorder of an 
 unrighteous society are superadded to those 
 sufferings which prey in secrecy and solitude 
 within the heart of each individual member, a 
 ten-fold fiercer and more intolerable agony will 
 ensue from it. The anarchy of a state, when the 
 authority of its government is for a time suspended, 
 forms but a feeble representation of that everlasting 
 anarchy, when the unrighteous of all ages are let 
 loose to act and react with unmitigated violence on 
 each other. In this conflict of assembled myriads ; 
 this fierce and fell collision between the outrages of 
 injustice on the one side, and the outcries of 
 
326 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 resentment on the other; and, though no pam 
 were inflicted, in this war of passions and of pur- 
 poses, the passion and purpose of violence in one 
 quarter calUng forth the passion and the purpose 
 of keenest vengeance back again — though no 
 material or sentient agony were felt — though a war 
 of disembodied spirits — yet in the wild tempest of 
 emotions alone — the hatred, the fury, the burning 
 recollection of injured rights, and the brooding 
 thoughts of yet unfulfilled retaliation — in these, 
 and these alone, do we behold the materials enough 
 of a dire and dreadful pandemonium ; and, apart 
 from corporeal suffering altogether, may we behold, 
 in the full and final developments of character 
 alone, enough for imparting all its corrosion to the 
 worm that dieth not, enough for sustaining in all 
 its fierceness the fire that is not quenched. 
 
 But there is another moral ingredient in the 
 future sufferings of the wicked, beside the one of 
 which we have now spoken — suggested to us by 
 the second clause of our text ; and from which we 
 learn that, not only will the unjust man carry his 
 falsehoods and his frauds along with him to the 
 place of condemnation, but that also the voluptuary 
 will carry his unsanctified habits and unhallowed 
 passions thitherward. " Let him that is filthy be 
 filthy still." We would here take the opportunity 
 of exposing, what we fear is a frequent delusion in 
 society — who give their respect to the man of 
 honour and integrity — and he does not forfeit that 
 respect, though known at the same time to be a 
 man of dissipation. Not that we think any one of 
 the virtues, which enter into the composition of a 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 327 
 
 perfect character, can suffer, without all the other 
 virtues suffering along with it. We believe that a 
 conjunction, between a habit of unlawful pleasure 
 and the maintenance of a strict resolute exalted 
 equity and truth, is very seldom, we could almost 
 say, is never realised. The man of forbidden in- 
 dulgence, in the prosecution of his objects, has a 
 thousand degrading fears to encounter ; and many 
 concealments to practise ; perhaps low and un- 
 worthy artifices to which he must descend; and 
 how can either his honour or his humanity be said 
 to survive, if at length, in his heedless and impetu- 
 ous career, he shall trample on the dearest rights 
 and the most sacred interests of families ? With 
 us it has all the authority of a moral aphorism, 
 that the sobrieties of human virtue can never be 
 invaded, without the equities of human virtue also 
 beins: invaded. The moralities of human life are 
 too closely linked and interwoven with each other, 
 as that though one should be detached, the others 
 might be left uninjured and entire ; and so no one 
 can cast his purity away from him, without a vio- 
 lence being done to the general moral structure 
 and consistency of his whole character. But, be 
 this as it may ; we have the authority of the text 
 and the oft reiterated affirmations of the New 
 Testament, for saying of the voluptuary, that, if 
 the countenance of the world be not withdrawn 
 from him, the gate of heaven is at least shut against 
 him ; that nothing unclean or unholy can enter 
 there ; and that, cai'ryiiig his uncrucified affec- 
 tions into the place of condemnation, he will find 
 tnem too to be the ministers ot wrath, the executioners 
 
328 HEAVEN A CHARACTEB 
 
 of a still sorer vengeance. The loathing, the re- 
 morse, the felt and conscious degradation, the 
 dreariness of heart that follow in the train of guilty 
 indulgence here — these form but the beginning of 
 his sorrows ; and are but the presages and the pre- 
 cursors of that deeper wretchedness, which, by the 
 imrepealed laws of moral nature, the same character 
 will entail on its possessors in another state of 
 existence. They are but the penalties of vice in 
 embryo, and they may give at least the conception 
 of what are these penalties in full. It will add — it 
 will add inconceivably, to the darkness and disorder 
 of that moral chaos, in which the impenitent shall 
 spend their eternity — when the uproar of the bac- 
 chanalian and the licentious emotions is thus super- 
 added, to the selfish and malignant passions of our 
 nature; and when the frenzy of unsated desire, 
 followed up by the languor and the compunction of 
 its worthless indulgence, shall make up the sad 
 history of many an unhappy spirit. We need not 
 to dwell on the picture, though it brings out into 
 bolder relief the all-important truth, that there is 
 an inherent bitterness in sin; that, by the very 
 constitution of our nature, moral evil is its own 
 curse and its own worst punishment ; that the 
 wicked on the other side of death, but reap what 
 they sow on this side of it ; and that, whether we 
 look to the tortures of a distempered spirit or to 
 the countless ills of ^ distempered society, we may 
 be very sure that to the character of its inmates — a 
 character which they have fostered upon earth, and 
 which now remains fixed on them through eternity 
 — the main wretchedness of hell is owing. 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 329 
 
 Before quitting this part of the subject, we have 
 but one remark more to offer. It may be felt as 
 if we had overstated the power of mere character 
 to beget a wretchedness at all approaching to the 
 wretchedness of hell — seeing that the character is 
 often realised in this world, without bringing along 
 with it a distress or a discomfort which is at all 
 intolerable. Neither the unjust man of our text, 
 nor the licentious man of our text, is seen to be so 
 unhappy here, in virtue of the moral characteristics 
 which respectively belong to them, as to justify the 
 imagination, that there, these characteristics will 
 be of power, to effectuarte such anguish and dis- 
 order of spirit as we have now been representing. 
 But it is forgotten, first, that the world presents 
 in its bijsiness, its amusements, and its various 
 gratifications, a refuge from the mental agonies of 
 reflection and remorse — and, secondly, that the 
 governments of the world offer a restraint against 
 the outbreakings of violence, which would keep up 
 a perpetual anarchy in the species. Let us simply 
 conceive of these two securities against our having 
 even now a hell upon earth, that they are both 
 taken down ; that there is no longer such a world 
 as ours, affording to each individual spirit innu- 
 merable diversions from the burden of its own 
 thoughts ; and no longer such a human govern- 
 ment as ours, affording to general society a power- 
 ful defence against the countless variety of ills, that 
 would otherwise rage and tumultuate -within its 
 borders— then, as sure as that a solitary prison is 
 felt by every criminal to be the most dreadful of all 
 punishments ; and as sure as that, on the authority 
 
330 HEAVEN A CHARACTEB 
 
 of law being suspended, the reign of terror would 
 commence, and the unchained passions of humanity 
 would go forth over the face of the land to raven 
 and to destroy — so surely, out of moral elements and 
 influences alone, might an eternity of utter wretched- 
 ness and despair be entailed on the rebellious: 
 And, only let all the unjust and all the licentious 
 of our text be formed into a community by them- 
 selves, and the Christianity which now acts as a 
 purifying and preserving salt upon the earth be 
 wholly removed from them ; and then it will be 
 seen that the picture has not been overcharged ; 
 but that the wretchedness is intense and universal, 
 just because the wickedness reigns uncontrolled, 
 without mixture and without mitigation. 
 
 But we now exchange this appalling for a delight- 
 ful contemplation. The next clause of our text 
 suggests to us the moral character of heaven. We 
 learn from it that, on the universal principle " as a 
 tree falleth so it lies," the righteous now will be 
 righteous still. We no more dispute the material 
 accompaniments of heaven, than we dispute the 
 material accompaniments in the place of condem- 
 nation. But still we must affirm of the happiness 
 that reigns, and holds unceasing jubilee there — that, 
 mainly and pre-eminently, it is the happiness of 
 virtue ; that the joy of the eternal state is not so 
 much a sensible or a tasteful or even an intellectual 
 as it is a moral and spiritual joy ; that it is a thing 
 of mental, kiiinitely more than it is a thing of cor- 
 poreal gratification ; and, to convince us how much 
 the former has the power and predominance over 
 the latter, we bid you reflect, that, even in this 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 331 
 
 world, with all the defect and disorder of its ma- 
 terialism, the curse upon its ground inflicting the 
 necessity of sore labour, and the angry tempest 
 from its sky after destroying or sweeping off the 
 fruits of it, the infirmity of their feeble and dis- 
 tempered frames, after the pining sickness and at 
 times the sore agony — yet, in spite of these, we 
 ask whether it would not hold nearly if not uni- 
 versally true, that if all men were righteous then 
 all men would be happy. Just imagine for a mo- 
 ment, that honour and integrity and benevolence 
 were perfect and universal in the world ; that each 
 held the property and right and reputation of his 
 neighbour to be dear to him as his own ; that the 
 suspicions and the jealousies and the heart-burnings, 
 whether of hostile violence or envious competition, 
 were altogether banished from human society; 
 that the emotions, at all times delightful, of good- 
 will on the one side, were ever and anon calling 
 the emotions no less delightful of gratitude back 
 again ; that truth and tenderness hold their secure 
 abode in every family; and, on stepping forth 
 among the wider companionships of life, that each 
 could confidently rejoice in every one he met with 
 as a brother and a friend — we ask if on this simple 
 change, a change you will observe in the morale 
 of humanity, though winter should repeat its storms 
 as heretofore, and every element of nature were to 
 abide unaltered — yet, in virtue of a process and a 
 revolution altogether mental, would not our mil- 
 lennium have begun, and a heaven on earth be 
 realized ? Now let this contemplation be borne 
 aloft, as it were, to the upper sanctuary, where we 
 
332 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 are told there are the spirits of just men made per- 
 fect, or where those who were once the righteous 
 on earth are righteous still. Let it be remembered, 
 that nothing is admitted there, which worketh 
 wickedness or maketh a lie; and that therefore, 
 with every feculence of evil detached and dissevered 
 from the mass, there is nought in heaven but the 
 pure the transparent element of goodness — its un- 
 bounded love, its tried and unalterable faithfulness, 
 its confiding sincerity. Think of the exprt^.33ive 
 designation given to it in the Bible, the 'anvi of 
 uprightness. Above all think, that, rp-^- po in 
 visible glory, the righteous God, whc Av»veth 
 righteousness, there sitteth upon His tnrone, in 
 the midst of a rejoicing family — Himself rejoicing 
 over them, because, formed in His own likeness, 
 they love what He loves, they rejoice in what He 
 rejoices. There may be palms of triumph ; there 
 may be crowns of unfading lustre ; there may be 
 pavements of emerald, and rivers of pleasure, and 
 groves of surpassing loveliness, and palaces of 
 delight, and high arches in heaven which ring with 
 sweetest melody — but, mainly and essentially, it is 
 a moral glory which is lighted up there ; it is vir- 
 tue which blooms and is immortal there ; it is the 
 goodness by which the spirits of the holy are re- 
 gulated here, it is this which forms the beatit'ade 
 of eternity. The righteous now, who, when they 
 die and rise again, shall be righteous still, have 
 heaven already in their bosoms ; and when they 
 enter within its portals, they carry the very being 
 and substance of its blessedness along with them — 
 the character which is itself the whole of heaven's 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 333 
 
 worth, the character which is the very essence of 
 heaven's enjoyments. 
 
 " Let him that is holy, be holy still." The two 
 clauses descriptive of the character in the place of 
 celestial blessedness, are counterparts to the clauses 
 descriptive of the character in the place of infernal 
 woe. He that is righteous in the one stands con- 
 trasted with him that is unjust in the other. He 
 that is holy in the one stands contrasted with him 
 that is licentious in the other. But we would have 
 you attend to the full extent and significance of 
 the term " holy." It is not abstinence from the 
 outward deeds of profligacy alone. It is not a mere 
 recoil from impurity in action. It is a recoil from 
 impurity in thought. It is that quick and sensitive 
 delicacy to which even the very conception of evil 
 is offensive — a virtue which has its residence within; 
 which takes guardianship of the heart, as of a 
 citadel or unviolated sanctuary in which no wrong 
 or worthless imagination is permitted to dwell. It 
 is not purity of action that is all which we contend 
 for. It is exalted purity of sentiment — the ethereal 
 purity of the third heavens, which, if once settled 
 in the heart, brings the peace and the triumph and 
 the unutterable serenity of heaven along with it. 
 In the maintenance of this, there is a curious ele- 
 vation ; there is the complacency, we had almost 
 said the pride, of a great moral victory over the 
 infirmities of an earthly and accursed nature ; there 
 is a health and harmony to the soul ; a beauty of 
 holiness, which, though it effloresces on the coun- 
 tenance and the manner and the outward path, is 
 itself so thoroughly internal, as to make purity of 
 
334 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 heart the most distinctive evidence of a work of 
 grace in time, the most distinct and decisive evi- 
 dence of a character that is ripening and expanding 
 for the glories of eternity. " Blessed are the pure 
 in heart, for they shall see God." " Without 
 hoHness no man shall see God." " Into the holy 
 city nothing which defileth or worketh an abomi- 
 nation shall enter." These are distinct and de- 
 cisive passages, and point to that consecrated way, 
 through which alone, the gate of heaven can be 
 opened to us. On this subject, there is a remark- 
 able harmony, between the didactic sayings of 
 various books in the New Testament, and the de- 
 scriptive scenes which are laid before us in the 
 book of Revelations. However partial and im- 
 perfect the glimpses there aiForded of heaven may 
 be, one thing is palpable as day, that holiness is 
 its very atmosphere. It is the only element which 
 il!s inmates breathe, and which it is their supreme 
 and ineffable delight to breathe in. They luxuriate 
 therein, as in their best-loved and most congenial 
 element. Holiness is their oil of gladness — the 
 elixu-, if we may use the expression, the moral 
 elixir of glorified spirits. And in their joyful 
 hosannas, whether of " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord 
 God Almighty," or of "Just and true are thy ways 
 thou King of Saints," we may read, that, as virtue 
 in the Godhead is the theme of their adoration, 
 so virtue in themselves is the very treasure they 
 have laid up in heaven— the wealth, as well as the 
 ornament, of their now celestial natures. 
 
 We would once more advert to a prevalent de- 
 lusion that obtains in society. We are aware of 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 335 
 
 nothing more ruinous, than the acquiescence of 
 whole multitudes in a low standard of qualifications 
 for Heaven. The distinct aim is to be righteous 
 now, that, after the death and the resurrection, 
 you may be righteous still — to be holy now, that 
 you may be holy still. But hold it not enough, 
 that you are free from the dishonesties which would 
 forfeit the mere respect and confidence of the 
 world, or from the profligacies which even the 
 world itself would hold to be disgraceful. There 
 is a certain amount of morality, which is in demand 
 upon earth, but which is miserably short of the 
 requisite preparation for Heaven — the holiness in- 
 dispensable there, is a universal an unspotted and 
 withal a mental and spiritual holiness. It is this 
 which distinguishes the morality of a regenerated 
 and aspiring saint, from the morality of a respect- 
 able citizen, who still is but a citizen of the world, 
 with his conversation not in heaven, with neither 
 his heart nor his treasure there. The righteous 
 of our text would recoil from the least act of un- 
 faithfulness, from being unfaithful in the least as 
 from being unfaithful in much. The holy of our 
 text would shrink in sensitive aversion and alarm 
 from the first approaches of evil, from the incipient 
 contaminations of thought and fancy and feeling, 
 as from the foul and final contaminations of the 
 outward history. Both are diligent to be found of 
 Christ without spot and blameless, in the great day 
 of account — glorifying the Lord with their soul and 
 spirit, as well as with their bodies — aspiring after 
 those graces, which, unseen by every earthly eye, 
 belong to the hidden man of the heart, and in the 
 
336 HEAVEN A CHARACTER 
 
 sight of heaven are of great price — and so proceed- 
 ing onward from strength to strength on this lofty- 
 path uf obedience, till they appear perfect before 
 God in Zion. 
 
 We feel that we have not nearly exhausted 
 the subject of our text, by these brief and almost 
 miscellaneous observations. The truth is, it is 
 a great deal too unwieldy for any single address, 
 and we shall therefore conclude with the notice 
 of one specimen, that might be alleged for the 
 importance of the view that we have just given, 
 in purging theology from error. If the moral 
 character then of these future states of existence, 
 were distinctly understood and consistently ap- 
 plied, it would serve directly and decisively to ex- 
 tinguish antinomianism. It would in fact reduce 
 that heresy to a contradiction in terms. There is 
 no sound and scriptural Christian, who ever thinks 
 of virtue as the price of heaven. It is something 
 a great deal higher, it is heaven itself — the very 
 essence, as we have already said, of heaven's 
 blessedness. It occupies therefore a much higher 
 place than the secondary and the subordinate one, 
 ascribed to it even by many of the writers termed 
 evangelical — who view it mainly as a token or an 
 evidence that heaven will be ours. Instead <rf 
 which it is the very substance of heaven — a sample 
 on hand of the identical good, which, in larger 
 measure and purer quality, is afterwards awaiting 
 us — an entrance on the path which leads to heaven ; 
 or rather an actual lodgement of ourselves within 
 that line of demarcation, which separates the hea- 
 ven of the New Testament from the hell of the 
 
AND NOT A LOCALITY. 337 
 
 New Testament. For heaven is not so much a 
 locality as a character ; and we, by a moral transi- 
 tion from the old to the new character, have in fact 
 crossed the threshold, and are now rejoicing within 
 the confines of God's spiritual family. By the 
 doctrine of justification through faith, we under- 
 stand that Christ purchased our right of admittance 
 into heaven — or opened its door for us. Is there 
 aught antinomian in this ? The obstacle, the 
 legal obstacle, between us and a life of prosperous 
 and never-ending virtue, is now broken down; and 
 is it upon that event, that we are to relinquish the 
 path which has just been opened to welcome and 
 invite our advancing footsteps ? The doctrine of 
 justification by faith is not an obstacle to virtue — 
 it is but an introduction to it. It is in truth the 
 removal of an obstacle — the unfastening of that 
 drag which before held us in apathy and despair ; 
 and restrained us from breaking forth on that 
 career of obedience, in which, with the hope of 
 glory before us, we purify ourselves even as Christ 
 is pure. The purpose of His death was not to 
 supersede, but to stimulate our obedience. " He 
 gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity 
 and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of 
 good works." The object of His promises is not 
 to lull our indolence, but rouse us to activit^^ 
 *' Having received these promises therefore, dearly 
 beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness 
 of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the 
 fear of God." 
 
 We expatiate no further; but shall be happy, 
 if, as the fruit of these imperfect observations, you 
 
 VOL. VII. P 
 
338 HEAVEN A CHARACTER, &C. 
 
 can be made to recognise how distinctly practical 
 a business the work of Christianity is. It is simply 
 to destroy one character, and to build up another 
 in its room ; to resist the temptations which vitiate 
 and debase, and make all the graces and moraUties 
 which enter into the composition of perfect virtue 
 the objects of our most strenuous cultivation. In 
 the expediting of this mighty transformation, on 
 the completion of which there hinges our eternity, 
 we have need of believing prayer ; a thorough re- 
 nunciation of all dependence on our own strength; 
 a thorough reliance on the proffered strength and 
 aid of the upper sanctuary ; a deep sense of our 
 infirmities, and constant appUcation for that Spirit 
 who has promised to help them — that, in the 
 language of the Apostle we may strive mightily, 
 according to the grace which worketh in us 
 mightily. 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 339 
 
 DISCOURSE VIL 
 
 ON THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 ** But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up 
 \lDto the ''aith which should afterwards be revealed." — Gala- 
 tiANS iii. 23. 
 
 " Shut up unto the faith." This is the expression 
 vhich we fix upon as the subject of our present 
 discourse — and to let you more effectually into the 
 meaning of it, it may be right to state, that in 
 the preceding clause " kept under the law," the 
 term kept^ is, in the original Greek, derived from 
 a word which signifies a sentinel. The mftde of 
 conception is altogether military. The law is made 
 to act the part of a sentry, guarding every avenue 
 but one — and that one leads those who are compelled 
 to take it to the faith of the Gospel. They are 
 shut up to this faith as their only alternative — like 
 an enemy driven by the superior tactics of an op- 
 posing general, to take up the only position in which 
 they can maintain themselves, or fly to the only 
 town in which they can find a refuge or a security. 
 This seems to have been a favourite style of argu- 
 ment with Paul, and the way in which he often 
 carried on an intellectual warfare with the enemies 
 of his Master's cause. It forms the basis of that 
 masterly and decisive train of reasoning, which we 
 have in his epistle to the Romans. By the opera- 
 
340 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 tion of a skilful tactics, he, (if we may be allowed 
 the expression) manoeuvered them, and shut them 
 up to the faith of the gospel. It gave prodigious 
 effect to his argument, when he reasoned with them, 
 as he often does, upon their own principles, and 
 turned them into instruments of conviction against 
 themselves. With the Jews he reasoned as a Jew. 
 He made a full concession to them of the leading 
 principles of Judaism — and this gave him possession 
 of the vantage ground upon which these principles 
 stood. He made use of the Jewish law as a sen- 
 tinel to shut them out of every other refuge, and 
 to shut them up to the refuge ^aid before them in 
 the Gospel. He led them to Christ by a school- 
 master which they could not refuse — and the lesson 
 of this schoolmaster, though a very decisive, was 
 a very short one. " Cursed be he that continueth 
 not inrall the words of this law to do them." But, 
 in point of fact, they had not done them. To them 
 then belonged the curse of the violated law. The 
 awful severity of its sanctions was upon them. 
 They found the faith and the free offer of the Gospel 
 to be the only avenue open to receive them. They 
 were shut up unto this avenue ; and the law, by 
 concluding them all to be under sin, left them no 
 other outlet but the free act of grace and of mercy 
 laid before us in the New Testament. 
 
 But this is not the only example of that peculiar 
 way in which St. Paul has managed his discussions 
 with the enemies of the faith. He carried the 
 principle of being all things to all men into his very 
 reasonings. He had Gentiles as well as Jews to 
 contend with — and he often made some sentiment 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 341 
 
 or conviction of their own, the starting point of his 
 argument. In this same epistle to the Romans, 
 he pleaded with the Gentiles the acknowledged law 
 of nature and of conscience. In his speech to the 
 men of Athens, he dated his argument from a point 
 in their own superstition. In this way he drew 
 converts both from the ranks of Judaism, and the 
 ranks of idolatry — and whether it was the school 
 of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, or the school of poetry 
 and philosophy in countries of refinement, that he 
 had to contend with, his accomplished mind was 
 never at a loss for principles by which he bore down 
 the hostility of his adversaries, and shut them up 
 unto the faith. 
 
 But there is a fashion in philosophy as well as in 
 other things. In the course of centuries, new 
 schools are formed ; and the old, with all their doc- 
 trines, and all their plausibilities, sink into oblivion. 
 The restless appetite of the human mind for specu- 
 lation, must have novelties to feed upon — and after 
 the countless fluctuations of two thousand years, 
 the age in which we live has its own taste, and its 
 own style of sentiment to characterize it. If Paul, 
 vested with a new apostolical commission, were to 
 make his appearance amongst us, we should hke to 
 know how he would shape his argument to the reign- 
 ing taste and philosophy of the times. We sliould 
 like to confront him with the literati of the day, 
 and hear him lift his intrepid voice in our halls and 
 colleges. In his speech to the men of Athens, he 
 refers to certain of their own poets. We should like 
 to hear his references to the poetry and the publi- 
 cations of modern Europe — and while the science 
 
342 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 of this cultivated age stood to listen in all the pride 
 of academic dignity, we should like to know the 
 arguments of him who was determined to know 
 nothing save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 
 
 But all this is little better than the indulgence 
 of a dream. St. Paul has already fought the good 
 fight, and his course is finished. The battles of 
 the faith are now in other hands — and though the 
 wisdom, and the eloquence, and the inspiration of 
 Paul have departed from among us, yet he has left 
 behind him the record of his principles. With this 
 for our guide, we may attempt to do what he him- 
 self calls upon us to do. We may attempt to be 
 followers of him. We may imitate him in the in- 
 trepid avowal of his principles — and we may try, 
 however humbly and imperfectly, to imitate his style 
 of defending them. We may accommodate our 
 argument to the reigning principles of the day. We 
 may be all things to all men — and out of the leading 
 varieties of taste and of sentiment which obtain in 
 the present age, and in the present country, we 
 may try if we can collect something, which may be 
 turned into an instrument of conviction for reclaim- 
 ing men from their delusions, and shutting them up 
 unto the faith. 
 
 There is first, then, the school of Natural Reli- 
 gion — a school founded on the competency of the 
 human mind to know God by the exercise of its 
 own faculties — to clothe Him in the attributes of its 
 own demonstration — to serve Him by a worship 
 and a law of its own discovery — and to assign to 
 Him a mode of procedure in the administration of 
 this vast universe, upon the strength and the plausi- 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 343 
 
 bility of its own theories. We have not time at 
 present for exposing the rash and unphilosophical 
 audacity of all these presumptions. We lay hold 
 of one of them ; and we maintain, that if steadily 
 adhered to, and consistently carried into its con- 
 sequences, it would empty the school of natural 
 religion of all its disciples — it would shut them up 
 unto the faith, and impress one rapid and universal 
 movement into the school of Christ. The princi- 
 ple which we allude to makes a capital figure in 
 their self-formed speculations; and it is neither 
 more nor less than the judicial government of God 
 over moral and accountable creatures. They hold 
 that there is a law. They hold the human race to 
 be bound to obedience. They hold the authority of 
 the law to be supported by sanctions; and that the 
 truth, and justice, and dignity of the supreme Being 
 are involved in these sanctions being enforced and 
 executed. One step more, and they are fairly shut 
 up unto the faith. That law which they hold to be 
 in full authority and operation over us, has been 
 most unquestionably violated. We appeal, as Paul 
 did before us, to the actual state of the human heart, 
 and of human performances. We ask them to open 
 their eyes to the world around them — to respect, 
 like true philosophers, the evidence- of observation, 
 and not to flinch from the decisive undeniable fact 
 which this evidence lays before them. Men are 
 under the law, and that law they have violated. 
 *' There is not a just man on earth, that sinneth 
 not." It is not to open shameless and abandoned 
 profligacy, that we are pointing your attention. 
 We make our confident appeal to the purest and 
 
344 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 loveliest of the species. We rest our cause with 
 the most virtuous individual of our nature. We 
 enter his heart, and from what passes there, we can 
 gather enough, and more than enough, to overthrow 
 this tottering and unsupported fabric. We take a 
 survey of its desires, its wishes, its affections — 
 and we put the question to the consciousness of its 
 possessor, if all these move in obedient harmony 
 even to the law of natural religion. The external 
 conduct viewed separately and in itself, is, in the 
 eye of every enlightened moralist, nothing. It is 
 mere visible display. Virtue consists in the motive 
 which lies behind it; and the soul is the place of 
 its essential residence. Bring the soul then into 
 immediate comparison with the law of God. Think 
 of the pure and spiritual service which it exacts 
 from you. Amid all the busy and complicated 
 movements of the inner man, is there no estrange- 
 ment from God ? Are there no tumultuous wan- 
 denngs from that purity, and goodness, and truth, 
 which even philosophers ascribe to Him? Is there 
 no shortcoming from the holiness of His law, and 
 the magnificence of His eternity ? Is there no 
 slavish devotion to the paltry things of sense and 
 of the world ? Is there no dreary interval of hours 
 together, when God is unfelt and unthought of? 
 Is there no one time when the mind delivers itself 
 up to the guidance of its own feelings, and its own 
 vanities — when it moves at a distance from heaven 
 — and, whether in solitude or among acquaintances, 
 carries along, without any reference to that Being 
 ■whose arm is perpetually upon me ; who, at this 
 moment, is at my right hand, and measures out to 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 345 
 
 me every hairbreadth of my existence — who upholds 
 P^e through every point of that time which runs from 
 the first cry of my infancy, to that dark hour when 
 the weight of my dying agonies is upon me — whose 
 love and whose kindness are ever present, to give 
 me every breath which I draw, and every comfort 
 which I enjoy ? We grant the disciples of natural 
 religion the truth of their own principle, that we 
 are under the moral government of the Almighty 
 — and by the simple addition of one undeniable 
 fact to their speculation, we bluit them up unto the 
 faith. The simple fact is, that we are rebels to 
 that government ; and the punishment of these rebels 
 is due to the vindication of its insulted authority. 
 To say, that God will perpetually interpose with 
 an act of oblivion, would be vastly convenient for 
 us — but what then becomes of that moral govern- 
 ment which figures away in the demonstrations of 
 moralists? Does it turn out after all, to be no- 
 thing more than an idle and unmeaning declamation, 
 on which they love to expatiate — without any thing 
 like real attention or belief on the part of the 
 thinking principle ? If they are not true to their 
 own professed convictions, we can undertake to 
 shut them up to nothing. This is slipping from 
 under us — but it is by an actual desertion of their 
 own principle. If you cannot get them to stand 
 to the argument, the argument is discharged upon 
 them in vain. If this be the result, we do not 
 promise ourselves that all we can say shall have 
 any weight upon their convictions — not, however, 
 oecause they have gained a victory, but because 
 they have betaken themselves to flight. At the 
 r2 
 
346 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 very moment that we thought of shutting them up, 
 and binding them in captivity to the obedience of 
 the truth, they have turned about and got away 
 from us — but how ? By an open renunciation of 
 their own principle. Look at the great majority 
 of infidel and demi-infidel authors, and they concur 
 in representing man as an accountable subject, and 
 God as a judge and a lawgiver. Examine then 
 the account which this subject has to render — and 
 you will see, in characters too glaring to be resisted, 
 that with the purest and most perfect individual 
 amongst us, it is a wretched account of guilt and 
 deficiency. What make you of this ? Is the 
 subject to rebel and disobey every hour, and the 
 King, by a perpetual act of indulgence, to efface 
 every character of truth and dignity from His 
 government? Do this, and you depose the legis- 
 lator from His throne. You reduce the sanctions 
 of His law to a name and a mockery. You give 
 the lie to your own speculation. You pull the 
 fabric of His moral government to pieces — and you 
 give a spectacle to angels which makes them weep 
 compassion on your vanity — poor, pigmy, perishable 
 man, prescribing a way to the Eternal, and bring- 
 ing down the high economy of Heaven to the 
 standard of his convenience, and his wishes. This 
 will never do. If there be any truth in the law 
 of God over the creatures whom He has formed, 
 and if that law we have trampled upon, we are 
 amenable to its sentence. Ours is the dark and 
 unsheltered state of condemnation — and if there be 
 a single outlet or way of escaping, it cannot be 
 such a way as will abolish the law, and degrade 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH- 347 
 
 the Lawgiver — but it must be such a way as 
 will vindicate and exalt the Deity — as will 
 pour a tide of splendour over the majesty of 
 His high attributes — and as in the sublime lan- 
 guage of the prophet, who saw it from afar, will 
 magnify His law, and make it honourable. To 
 this way we are fairly shut up. It is our only 
 alternative. It is offered to us in the Gospel of 
 t.he New Testament. I am the way, says the 
 Author of that Gospel, and by me, if any man 
 enter in, he shall be saved. In the appointment 
 of \h\s Mediator — in His death, to make propitia- 
 tion for the sins of the world — in His triumph over 
 the powers of darkness — in the voice heard from 
 the clouds of heaven, and issuing from the mouth 
 of God himself, " Tiiis is my beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased" — in the resistless argu- 
 ment of the Apostle, who declares God to be just, 
 
 and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus 
 
 in the undoubted miracles which accompanied the 
 preaching of this illustrious personage, and His 
 immediate followers — in the noble train of prophecy, 
 of which He was the object and the termination 
 — in the choir of angels from heaven, who sung 
 His entrance into the world — and in the sublime 
 ascension from the grave, which carried him away 
 from it — in all this we see a warrant and a security 
 given to the work of our redemption in the New 
 Testament, before which philosophy and all her 
 speculations vanish into nothing. Let us betake 
 ourselves to this way. Let us rejoice in being 
 shut up unto it. It is passing, in fact, from death 
 unto life — or, from our being under the law, which 
 
348 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 speaks tribulation and wrath to every soul of man 
 that doeth evil, to being under the grace which 
 speaks quietness and assurance for ever to all that 
 repair to it. The scripture hath concluded all to 
 be under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus 
 Christ might be given to them that believe. 
 
 We now pass on from the school of natural reli- 
 gion to another school, possessing distinct features 
 — and of which we conceive the most expressive 
 designation to be, the school of Classical Morality, 
 The lessons of this school are given to the public 
 in the form of periodical essays, elaborate disser- 
 tations on the principles of virtue, eloquent and 
 often highly interesting pictures of its loveliness and 
 dignity, the charm that it imparts to domestic 
 retirement, and its happy subservience to the peace, 
 and order, and well-being of society. It differs 
 from the former school in one leading particular. 
 It does not carry in its speculations so distinct and 
 positive a reference to the Supreme Being. It is 
 true, that our duties to Him are found to occupy 
 a place in the catalogue of its virtues ; but then the 
 principle on which they are made to rest, is not the 
 will of God, or obedience to His law. They are 
 rather viewed as a species of moral accomplishment 
 —the eiFect of which is to exalt and embellish the 
 individual. They form a component part of what 
 they call virtue — but if virtue be looked upon in 
 no other light than as the dress of the mind, we 
 maintain, that in the act of admiring this dress, and 
 of even attempting to put it on, you may stand at 
 as great a distance from God, and He be as little 
 in your thoughts, as in the tasteful choice of your 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 349 
 
 apparel, for the dress and ornament of the body. 
 The object of these writers is not to bring their 
 readers under a sense of the dominion and authority 
 of God. The main principle of their morality, is 
 not to please God, but to adorn man — to throw the 
 splendour of virtue and accomplishment around 
 him — to bring him up to what they call the end 
 and the dignity of his being — to raise him to the 
 perfection of his nature — and to rear a spectacle 
 for the admiration of men and of angels, whom they 
 figure to look down with rapture, from their high 
 eminence, on the perseverance of a mortal in the 
 career of worth, and integrity, and honour. This 
 is all very fine. It makes a good picture- — but 
 what we insist upon is, that it is a fancy picture ; 
 that, without the limits of Christianity and its 
 influence, you will not meet with a single family, or 
 a single individual, to realize it — that the whole range 
 of human experience furnishes no resemblance to it 
 — and that it is as unlike to what we find among the 
 men of the world, or in the familiar w^alks of society, 
 as the garden of Eden is unlike the desolation 
 of a pestilence. The representation is beautiful 
 — but more flattering than it is fair. It is a gaudy 
 deception, and stands at as great a distance from 
 the truth of observation, as it does from the truth 
 of the New Testament. There is positively nothing 
 like it in the whole round of human experience. 
 It is the mere glitter of imagination. It may serve 
 to throw a tinsel colouring over the pages of an 
 a^nbitious eloquence — but with business and reality 
 for our objects, we may describe tiic •«^".r of many 
 thousand families, or take our station for years in 
 
350 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 the market-place, and in our attempts to realize 
 the picture which has been laid before us, we will 
 be sure to meet with nothing but vanity, fatigue, 
 and disappointment. Now, the question we have 
 to put to the disciples of this school is, are they 
 reallv sincere in this admiration of virtue ? Is it a 
 true process of sentiment within them ? We are 
 willing to share in their admiration, and to ascend 
 the highest summit of moral excellence along with 
 them. We join issue with them on their own 
 principle, and coupling it with the obvious and 
 undeniable fact of man's depravity, we shut them up 
 unto the faith. Virtue is the idol which they profess 
 to venerate — and this virtue, as it exists in their 
 own conceptions, and figures in their own disserta- 
 tions, they cannot find. In proportion to their 
 regard for virtue, must be their disappointment at 
 missing her — and when we witness the ardour of 
 their sentiments, and survey the elegance of their 
 high-wrought pictures, what must be the humiliation 
 of these men, we think, when they look on the world 
 around them, and contrast the purity of their own 
 sketches, with the vices and the degradation of the 
 species. Grosser beings may be satisfied with the 
 average morality of mankind — but if there be any 
 truth in their high standard of perfection, or any 
 sincerity in their aspirations after it, it is impossible 
 that they can be satisfied. By one single step do 
 we lead them from the high tone of academic senti- 
 ment, to the sober humility of the Gospel. Give 
 them their time to expatiate on virtue, and they 
 cannot be too loud or eloquent in her praises. We 
 have only a single sentence to add to their descrip- 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 351 
 
 tion : The picture is beautiful, but on the whole 
 surface of the world we defy them to fasten upon 
 one exemplification — and by every grace which 
 they have thrown around their idol, and every 
 addition they have made to her loveliness, they 
 have only thrown mankind at a distance more 
 helpless and more irrecoverable from their high 
 standard of duty and of excellence. 
 
 The tasteful admirer of eloquent description and 
 
 beautiful morality, turns with disgust from chose 
 
 mortifying pictures of man, which abound ixi the 
 
 New Testament. We only ask them to combine, 
 
 with all this finery and eloquence, what has been 
 
 esteemed as the best attribute of a philosopher, 
 
 respect for the evidence of observation. We ask 
 
 them to look at man as he is, and compare him 
 
 with man as they would have him to be. If they 
 
 find that he falls miserably short of their ideal 
 
 standard of excellence, what is this but making a 
 
 principle of their own the instrument of shutting 
 
 them up unto the faith of the Gospel, or, at least, 
 
 shutting them up unto one of the most peculiar of 
 
 its doctrines, the depravity of our nature, or the 
 
 dismal ravage which the power of sin has made 
 
 upon the moral constitution of the species ? The 
 
 doctrine of the academic moralist, so far from 
 
 reaching a wound to the doctrine of the Apostle, 
 
 gives an additional energy to all his sentiments. 
 
 " My mind approves the things which are more 
 
 excellent, but how to perform that which is good, 
 
 I find not." " I delight in the law of God after 
 
 the inward man." " But the good tliat 1 would 
 
 I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do.** 
 
352 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 But the faith of the Gospel does not stop here. 
 It does not rest satisfied with shutting us up unto 
 a beUef of the fact of human depravity. That 
 depravity it proposes to do away. It professes 
 itself equal to the mighty achievement of rooting 
 out the deeply seated corruption of our nature — of 
 making us new creatures in Christ Jesus — of de- 
 stroying the old man and his deeds, and bringing 
 every rebellious movement within us under the 
 dominion of a new and a better principle. If sin- 
 cere in your admiration of virtue, you are shut up 
 unto the only expedient for the re-establishment of 
 virtue in the world. That expedient is the Spirit 
 of God working in the heart of behevers — quickening 
 those who were dead in trespasses and sins, and 
 bringing into action the same mighty power which 
 raised Jesus from the grave, for raising us who 
 believe in Jesus to newness of life and of obedience. 
 This is the process of sanctification laid before us 
 in the New Testament. A wonderful process it 
 undoubtedly is — but are we who walk in a world 
 of mystery, w ho have had only a few little years to 
 look about us, and are bewildered at every step 
 amid the variety of God's works and of His counsels, 
 are we to reject a process because it is wonderful ? 
 Must no step, no operation of the mighty God be 
 admitted, till it is brought under the dominion of 
 our faculties? — and shall we who strut our little hour 
 in the humblest of His mansions, prescribe a law 
 to Him whose arm is abroad upon all worlds, and 
 whose eye can take in, at a single glance, the un- 
 measurable fields of creation and providence ? Be 
 it as wonderful as it may — enough for us that it is 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 353 
 
 made sure by the distinct and authentic testimony 
 of heaven — and if, from the mouth of Jesus, who 
 is heaven's messenger, we are told, that " unless a 
 man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
 the kingdom," it is our part submissively to ac- 
 quiesce, and humbly to pray for it. Whatever 
 repugnance others may feel to this part of the 
 revealed counsels of God, those who look to a 
 sublime standard of moral excellence, and sigh tor 
 the establishment of its authority in the world, 
 ought to rejoice in it. It is the only remaining 
 expedient for giving effect and reality to their own 
 declamations, and they are fairly shut up unto it. 
 Long have they tried to repair the disorders of a 
 ruined world. Many an expedient has been fallen 
 upon. Temples have been reared to science and 
 to virtue — and from the lofty academic chair, the 
 wisdom of this world has lifted its voice amid a 
 crowd of listening admirers. For thousands of 
 years, the unaided powers and principles of huma- 
 nity, have done their uttermost — and tell us, ye 
 advocates for the dignity of the species, the amount 
 of their operation. If you refuse to answer, we 
 difill answer for you — and do not hesitate to say, 
 that mighty in promise, and wretched in accom- 
 plishment, you have positively done nothing — that 
 all the wisdom of the schools, and all its vapouring 
 demoustralions, have not had the least perceptible 
 weight, when brought to bear upon the mass of 
 human character, and human performance — that 
 the corruption of the inner man has not yielded at 
 all to your reasoning, and remains as unsubdued 
 and as obstinate a principle as ever — that the power 
 
354 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 of depravity in the soul of man is beyond you — and 
 that setting aside the real operation of Christianity 
 in the hearts of individuals, and the surface dressing 
 which the hand of legislation has thrown over the 
 face of society, the human soul, if seen in its naked- 
 ness, would still be seen in all its original deformity 
 — as strong in selfishness, as lawless in propensity, 
 as devoted to sense and to time, as estranged from 
 God, as unmindful of the obedience, and as indif- 
 ferent to the reward and the inheritance of His 
 children. 
 
 The machine has gone into disorder — and there 
 is not a single power within the compass of the 
 machinery itself that is able to repair it. You 
 must do as you do in other cases — you must have 
 recourse to some external application. The in- 
 efficacy of every tried expedient shuts you up unto 
 the only remaining one. Every human principle 
 has been brought to bear upon it in vain ; and we 
 are shut up unto the necessity of some other prin- 
 ciple that is beyond humanity, and above it. The 
 Spirit of God is that mighty principle. That Spirit 
 which moved on the face of the waters, and made 
 light, and peace, and beauty to emerge out of the 
 wild war of nature and her elements, is the revealed 
 agent of Heaven, for repairing the disorders of sin, 
 and restoring the moral creation of God to health 
 and to loveliness. It will create us anew unto good 
 works. It will make us again after that image in 
 which we were originally formed. It will sanctify 
 us by the faith that is in Jesus. And by that 
 mighty power whereby it is able to subdue all things 
 unto itself, it will obtain the victory over that spirit 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 355 
 
 which now worketh in the children of disobedience. 
 The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the first 
 fruit of its operation — and to him who beheves it is 
 the satisfying pledge of its future triumphs. That 
 body, which, left to itself, would have mouldered 
 into fragments, is now in all the bloom of immor- 
 tality, at the right hand of the everlasting throne. 
 We have tried the operation of a thousand principles 
 in vain. Let us repair to this, so great in promise, 
 and so mighty in performance. It has already 
 achieved its wonders. It has wrought those mir- 
 acles of faith and fortitude which, in the first ages 
 of Christianity, threw a gleam of triumph over the 
 horrors of martyrdom. It has given us displays of 
 the great and the noble which are without example 
 in history — and from the first moment of its oper- 
 ation in the world, it has been working in those 
 unseen retirements of the cottage and the family, 
 where the eye of the historian never penetrates. 
 The admirers of virtue are fairly shut up unto the 
 faith — for faith is the only avenue that leads to it. 
 " To your faith add virtue," says the Apostle — 
 and that you may be able to make the addition, 
 the promise of the Spirit is given to them that 
 believe. 
 
 We should now pass on to another school, the 
 school of fine feeling and poetical sentiment. It 
 differs from the former in this — that while the one, 
 in its dissertations on virtue, carries us up to the 
 principles of duty, the other paints and admires it 
 as a tasteful exhibition of what is fair and lovely in 
 human character. The one makes virtue its idol 
 because of its rectitude ; the other makes virtue its 
 
356 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 idol because of its beauty — and the process of 
 reasoning by which they are shut up unto the faith, 
 is the same in both. Look at the actual state of 
 the world, and we find that both the rectitude and 
 the beauty are a-wanting. If you admire the one, 
 and love the other, you are shut up unto the only 
 expedient that is able to restore them — and that 
 expedient is sanctioned by the truth of heaven, and 
 has all the power of omnipotence employed in 
 giving effect to the operation — the Spirit of God 
 subduing all things unto itself— putting the law 
 in our hearts, and writing it in our minds — and by 
 brinffiner the soul of man under the influence of 
 " whatsoever things are pure, or honest, or lovely, 
 or of good report," creating a finer spectacle, and 
 rearing a fairer and more unfading flower, than ever 
 grew in the gardens of poetry. 
 
 The processes are so entirely similar, that we 
 would not have made it the distinct object of your 
 attention, had it not been for the sake of an argu- 
 ment in behalf of the faith, which may be addressed 
 with great advantage to the literary and cultivated 
 orders of society. There are few people of 
 literary cultivation, who have not read a novel. In 
 this fictitious composition, there are often one or two 
 perfect characters that figure in the history^ and 
 delight the imagination of the reader — and you are 
 at last landed in some fairy scene of happiness and 
 virtue, which it is quite charming to contemplate, 
 and which you would like to aspire after — perhaps 
 some interesting family in the bosom of which love, 
 and innocence, and tranquillity, have fixed them- 
 selves — where the dark and angry passions never 
 
THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 357 
 
 enter — where suspicion is unknown, and every eye 
 meets another in the full glance of cordiality and 
 aifection — where charity reigns triumphant, and 
 smilesbeneficence and joy upon the humble cottages 
 which surround it. Now this is very soothing, and 
 very delightful. It makes one glad to think of it. 
 The fancy swells with rapture, and the moral 
 principle of our nature lends its full approbation 
 to a scene so virtuous and so exemplary. So much 
 for the dream of fancy. Let us compare it with 
 the waking images of truth. Walk from Dan 
 to Beersheba ; and tell us, if, without and beyond 
 the operation of Gospel motives and Gospel 
 principles, the reality of life ever furnished a 
 picture that is at all like the elegance and perfec- 
 tion of this fictitious history. Go to the finest 
 specimen of such a family. Take your secret 
 stand, and observe them in their more retired and 
 invisible moments. It is not enough to pay them 
 a ceremonious visit, and observe them in the put 
 on manners and holiday dress of general company. 
 Look at them when all this disguise and finery are 
 thrown aside. Yes, we have no doubt, that you 
 will perceive some love, some tenderness, some 
 virtue — but the rough and untutored honesty of 
 truth compels us to say, that along with all this, 
 there are at times mingled the bitterness of invec- 
 tive, the growlings of discontent, the harpings of 
 peevishness and animosity, and all that train of 
 angry, suspicious, and discordant feelings, which 
 embitter the heart of man, and make the reality of 
 human life a very sober affair indeed, when com- 
 
358 THE REASONABLENESS OF FAITH. 
 
 pared with the high colouring of romance, and the 
 sentimental extravagance of poetry. 
 
 Now, what do we make of all this ? We infer, 
 that however much we may love perfection, and 
 aspire after it, yet there is some want, some disease 
 in the constitution of man, which prevents his 
 attainment of it— that there is a feebleness of prin- 
 ciple about him— that the energy of his practice 
 does not correspond to the fair promises of hi. 
 
 fancy and however much he may delight in ar 
 
 ideal scene of virtue and moral excellence, there is 
 some lurking malignity in his constitution, which, 
 without the operation of that mighty power revealed 
 to us in the Gospel, makes it vain to wish, and 
 hopeless to aspire after it. 
 
 END OF VOLUME SEVENTH. 
 
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 And its Neighbourhood. By Old Humphrey. Third Edition. 
 
 HOMELY HINTS 
 
 To Sabhath School Teachers. By Old Humphrey. Second Edition. 
 
 "This volume contains internal evidence of its paternity. It is the genuine off- 
 spring of Old Humphrey. It is replete with excellent thoughts, with hints more va- 
 luable tlian homely, for Sunday School Teachers, and for Parents. We commend it 
 to their favour as a work richly entitled to au attentive perusal." 
 
 STROLLS IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 By Old Humphrey. 
 
 THE OLD SEA CAPTAIN. 
 
 By Old Humphrey. 
 "There is no author of his class whom we greet more cordially than Old Hum- 
 phrey. He always comes to us with a smile upon his countenance, and we love to 
 yield ourselves to his intelligent and benignant guidance." — Albany Advertiser. 
 
 MEDITATIONS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 On the Subject of Prayer. By the Rev. Hugh White, A. M. Fourth 
 American, from the tenth Dublin I^dition. 
 
 THE BELIEVER; 
 
 A Series of Discourses. By the Rev. Hugh White, A.M. Second Ame- 
 rican, from the seventh Dublin Edition. 
 
 " There is a peculiar charm about all the writings of this excellent man. His piety 
 is of a glowing temper, and his vivid imagination, chastened by deep devotion, clothes 
 his pages with attractive interest. We read with emotion, as if the author were talk- 
 ing to us from the fulness of a warm heart." — N. T. Observer.. 
 
 L U C I L L A J 
 
 Or, the Reading of the Bible. By Adolphe Monod. Second Edition. 
 
 "We venture to say that it contains one of the most acute, philosophical, and con- 
 clusive argununts ia favour of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and of the import- 
 ance of their iniversal circulation, to be found ni any language." — Daily Adver. 
 5 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE FAMILY OF BETHANY. 
 
 By L. Bonnet. With an Introductory Essay, by Rev. Hugh White. 
 Fourth American, from the eighth London Edition. 
 
 " This book leads us, as with an angel's hand, through some of the most interesting 
 scenes in the life of the Saviour of the world. It is full of evangelical truth, of 
 glowing imagery, of living, breathing devotion. We recommend it tor its intellectual 
 as welfas its^moral and spiritual qualities."— ^Z&«ny Argus. 
 
 THE RETROSPECT J 
 
 Or, Review of Providencial Mercies. With Anecdotes of Various Char- 
 acters. By Ahquis, formerly a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and now 
 a Minister of the English Church. Third American from the eighteenth 
 London edition. 
 
 " The great popularity of this volume appears from the large number of editions 
 through which it has passed in Great Britain in a short number of years, having now 
 reached the 17th edition, and proofs of its usefulness have not been wantuig. Wc 
 can assure our readers that there are few works of the kind so deeply interesting, or 
 so well adapted to religious edification. We cordially recommend iV'— Chris, hit. 
 
 THE MARTYR LAMBj 
 
 Or, Christ the Representative of his People in all Ages. By F. W. 
 
 Krummacher, D. D., author of '' Elijah the Tishbite," &c. Fourth 
 
 Edition. 
 
 ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. 
 By F. W. Krummacher. 
 
 "Our author is characterized by a glowing and imaginative style, which seems to 
 be the expression of a heart warmed by piety, and susceptible of the teuderest emo- 
 tions. He displays a happy tact, in developing, in the most pleasing manner, the cir- 
 cumstances of a scriptural incident or character, and of deriving from it practical 
 \es&ons."— Presbyterian. 
 
 MCCRIE ON ESTHER. 
 
 Lectures on the Book of Esther. By the Rev. Thomas McCrie, D.D., 
 author of " Life of John Knox," &c. 
 
 A TREATISE ON PRAYER; 
 
 Designed to assist in the devout discharge of that duty. By the Rev! 
 
 Edward Bickersteth. 
 
 MICHAEL KEMP, 
 The Happy Farmer's Lad. A Tale of Rustic Life, illustrative of the 
 
 Scriptural Blessings and Temporal Advantages of Early Piety. By 
 
 Anne Woodrooffe. Second Edition. 
 
 "Thoroughly and intensely have we read this book, 'because,' as Talbot said of 
 Boswell's Life' of Johnson, ' we couldn't help it.' We were struck with the ingenu- 
 ous disposition and firm principles of Michael, and we wished to see how they would 
 bear him through trying scenes. So much for the interest which the story excites; 
 the other merits of the book are not inferior."— Bfli?tist Advocate. 
 
 COMFORT IN AFFLICTION. 
 
 A Series of Meditations. By the Rev. James Buchanan, one of the Min- 
 isters of ihe High Church, Edinbiu-gh. From the ninth Edinb. Edition. 
 "The blessed results of affliction are treated with peculiar force of argument, and 
 felicity of expression— strong in scriptural statements of divine truth, and rich in 
 scriptural sources of divine consolation— in a most valuable work, entitled ' Comfort 
 in Affliction; by the Rev. James Buchanan,— which I would affectionately recom- 
 mend to every Christian mourner who desires to drink freely of the refreshing 
 streams which the Fountain of all Comfort— the Word of God, supplies; for it is 
 from this sacred source the pious and talented author of this excellent work derives 
 ♦Comfort in Affliction,' which his pages eo eloquently and attractively set forth. — 
 Rev. Hvgk White of Dublin. 
 6 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PERSUASIVES TO EARLY PIETY. 
 
 By the Rev. J. G. Pike. 
 
 DODDRIDGE'S RISE AND PROGRESS. 
 
 Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Illustrated in a Course of Se- 
 rious and Practical Addresses, suited to persons of every character and 
 circumstance, with a Devout Meditation or Prayer subjoined to each 
 chainer. By Philip Doddridge, D.D. 
 
 THE COTTAGE FIRESIDE^ 
 
 Or, the Parish Schoolmaster. By the Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D. 
 
 "This is a reprint of a Scotch work, by a clergyman of high standing, who does 
 not now for the first time appear as an author. The narrative is constructed with 
 great beauty, and is designed at once to iUustrate and remedy some of the principal 
 evils connected with domestic education. The work may very properly occupy the 
 attention both of parents and children ; and it will be read witli pleasure by all who 
 can relish the simple and beautiful in thouglit and expression." — Argus. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATED, 
 
 In a Course of Lectures delivered in the Argyle Chapel, Bath. By Rev. 
 William Jay. New Edition. 
 
 "It has all the peculiar marks of Jay's mind ; perspicuity of arrangement, simpli- 
 city and occasional elegance of diction, deep-toned piety and copiousness of senti- 
 ment. In recommending such a book we are conscious of doing a service to the 
 cause of piety, b^' promoting the spiritual-mindednoss, nnd consistent, symmetrical 
 conduct of every Christian who prayerfully peruses iu" — Baptist Advocate. 
 
 WORKS OF REV. HENRY SCOUGAL. 
 
 Containing- the" Life of God in the Soul, &c. 
 
 DENA^ OF ISRAEL, 
 
 And the Lily of God; or, a GHmpse of the Kingdom of Grace. By F. 
 W. Knmimacher, D.D. Second American, from the second London 
 Edition. 
 
 CHRISTIAN FRAGMENTS; 
 
 Or, Remarks on the Nature, Precepts, and Comforts of Religion. By 
 John Burns, M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Surgery in the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow, &c. &c. 
 
 *' The different pieces constitute so many distinct, though sometimes brief, disquisi- 
 tions upon scriptural topics, and are designed to promote the spiritual-mindedness of 
 the reader. They were written under the pressure of deep affliction, and in view of 
 an approaching judgment. They display sound thought, evangelical sentiment, cor- 
 rect doctrine, and an elevated tone of Christian feeling." — Advocate. 
 
 CHRISTIAN FATHER AT HOME; 
 
 Or, a Manual of Parental Instruction. By W. C. Brownlee, D.D. 
 
 A GLIMPSE INTO 
 THE NA/ORLD TO COME, 
 
 In a Waking Dream. By the late George B. Phillip-*. With Exti-acts, 
 illustrative of his Spiritual Progress ; and a Brief Memoir, by Mrs. 
 Duncan, author of " Memoir of Mrs. Mary Lundie Duncan," &c. 
 "This is altogether an extraordinary production. The small portion of it which 
 gives it its title, is a strain of fervent pious imaginings, based however upon the ora- 
 cles of God. One cannot easily read it without gaining a more deep and solid im- 
 preesion of the cither world." 
 7 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 INFANT PIEXY. 
 
 A Book for Little Children. By Baptist W. Noel, M.A. 
 
 " In this volume one of the finest spirits in the established church of England gives 
 us a simple record of the pious lives and happj' deaths of several little children on 
 both sides of the Atlantic. The work is well adapted to accomplish the benevolent 
 design of its author, by leading little children to remember their Creator." — Albany 
 Evening Journal. 
 
 A MEMOIR OF JOHN HUSS. 
 
 Translated from the German. 
 
 "To many who are familiar witli the life of Martin Luther, that of JohnHuss, who 
 preceded him, and prepared the German mind for his more extended labours, is com- 
 paratively little known. The true character of Romanism is displayed in the treat- 
 ment of each, but some of the darkest shades are seen in the case of Huss." — Baptist 
 Advocate. 
 
 HELEN OF THE GLEN. 
 
 A Tale of the Scottish Covenanters. By Robert Pollok, A.M. 
 
 THE PERSECUTED FAMILY. 
 
 By Pollok. 
 
 RALPH GEMMELL. 
 
 By Pollok. 
 
 JESSY ALLAN, 
 
 The Lame Girl. By Grace Kennedy, author of " Anna Ross," &c. 
 
 "It is an affecting talc, and strikingly illustrates the power of religion, and its full 
 adequacy to human wants in every emergencj'." — Christian Mirror. 
 
 SINNER'S FRIEND. 
 
 From the eighty-seventh London Edition, completing upwards of half a 
 
 million. 
 
 I^^" TJiis little Work has been translated into sixteen different languages. 
 
 "It is designed by its direct appeals, to arrest the attention of the most careless 
 
 reader, and to pour into his ear some word of truth before he can become fatigued 
 
 with reading." — Presbyterian. 
 
 "It is fitted to be an admirable auxiliai-y to ministers in the discharge of their 
 dutj'." — Albany Daily Advertiser. 
 
 DEOAPOLIS; 
 
 Or, the Individual Obligations of Cliristians to save Souls from Death. An 
 Essay. By David Everard Ford. Fifth American, from the sixth 
 London Edition. 
 
 " This book is an exhortation to Christians, and Christian ministers, to exercise 
 greater faithfulness in saving souls from eternal death. We have read it with much 
 pleasure, and we hope with some profit. The book is most beautifully got up ; and 
 we could wish that it might tic read and pondered by every one who indulges a hope 
 that he is a Christian." — N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 SHORTER CATECHISM. 
 
 Anecdotes Illustrative of the Shorter Catechism. By John Whitecross. 
 New Edition. 
 
 "This will relieve the catechism of a difliculty which many have felt in respect to it 
 — that it is too abstract to be compreliended by the mind of a child ; here every truth 
 is seen in its practical relations, and l)ecomoa associated in the mind with some inter- 
 esting fact whicii is fitted at once to make it plain to the understanding, to lodge it in 
 the memory, and to impress it upon the heart." — Daily Advertiser. 
 8 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 MEMOIR OF HANNAH SINCLAIR. 
 
 By the late Rev. Legh Richmond. From the nineteenth London Ed. 
 
 TRUE HAPPINESS; 
 
 Or, the Excellence and Tower of Early Religion. By J. G. Pike, author 
 of " Persuasives to Early Piety," &c. Second Edition. 
 "We shall sufficiently describe the character of this book by representing it as a 
 collection of brief memoirs of eniiuuutly pious persons, whicii illustrate the power of 
 relifjion in imparting true hujjpiuess. We can recor.nneud it to our young readers, 
 who will lind it adapted to engage their attention and amend their hearts." — Presbyt. 
 
 CHARLIE SEYMOURj 
 
 Or, the Good Aunt and the Bad Aunt. By Miss Catherine Sinclair, au- 
 thor of *' Modern Accomplishments," &c. Third Edition. 
 "A charming book for youth, in which some interesting lessons are taught, and so 
 
 taught that they will be read with delight, and remembered after they are read." — N. 
 
 Y. Observer. 
 
 LIVE NA^HILE YOU LIVE. 
 
 By the Rev. Thomas Griffith, A.M., Minister of Ram's Episcopal Church, 
 Homerton. 
 
 " We never heard before of the author of this little book, but we expect to hear of 
 him again, as we cannot believe that such a pen as he holds will be suttered to remain 
 unemployed. Not only is the general conception of the work exceedingly happy, be- 
 ing somewhat of that pithy aud striking character for which Jay's writings are so 
 remarkable, but the whole train of thought is in beautiful harmony with the plan ; the 
 style is highly polished, the spirit deeply evangelical, and tlie tendency quickening, 
 elevating, comforting." — Albany Daily Advertiser. 
 
 CROOK IN THE LOT; 
 
 Or, a Display of ths Sovereignty and Wisdom of God in the Afflictions of 
 Men, and the Christian's deportment under them. By the Rev. Thomas 
 Boston. 
 
 "Boston is well known as one of the strongest Calvinistic writers, and the volume 
 before us bears the marks of his vigorous mind, and the fruits of his deep and evan- 
 gelical piety. It is accompanied by a warm recommendation from the Rev. Dr. 
 Alexander, Princeton." — New- York Observe?: 
 
 A TRIBUTE OF PARENTAL AFFECTION 
 
 To the Memory of my beloved and only Daughter, Hannah Jerram, with 
 a Short Account of the last Illness and Death of her elder Brother, 
 Charles Stranger Jerram, By the Rev. Charles Jerram, A.M., 
 Vicar of Chatham, Surrey. From the fifth London Edition. 
 "We regard this little book with much favour. The dying scene is most feelingly 
 pourtrayed ; and the reader, if the better sensibilities be not blunted, will be con- 
 strained to weep with those tliat weep." — Presbyterian. 
 
 JUBILEE MEMORIAL. 
 
 Being the Sermons, Meetings, Presentations, and full Account of the Ju- 
 bilee commemorating the Rev. William Jay's Fifty Years' Ministry at 
 Argyle Chapel, Bath. 
 
 "The name of tlie Rev. William Jay is very precious to thousands in this country 
 as well as in England. Some of his children and grand-children are here. And he 
 has, doubtless, not a few spiritual children among us. We trust tiiat many will read 
 and understand, and derive abundant profit from the example thus furnished, of min- 
 isterial fidelity and its earthly rewards." — Boston Recorder. 
 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
 
 Bickersteth's Treatise on the Lord's Supper. With an Introduction, 
 Notes, and an Essay. By G. T. Bedell, D.D. Fifth Edition. 
 "This work is characterized by sound and scriptural views of the ordinance of the 
 
 Supper, which are adapted to strengthen the Christian's faith, to increase his value of 
 
 this divine institution, and to gecure to hiui the legitimate benefits of an attendance 
 
 upon it." — Argus. 
 
 COMMUNICANT'S COMPANION. 
 
 By the Rev. Matthew Henry. With an Introductory Essay, by the Rev. 
 
 John Brown of Edinburgh. 
 
 " This volume comes to us as an old familiar acquaintance and friend, from which 
 we derived essential benefit in the early part of our Christian career. It is lucid, in- 
 structive, and devotional ; and an intimate acquaintance with its contents, devoutly 
 improved, will render the Christian's approach to the sacrament happy to himself and 
 greatly subsidiary to his growth in grace." — Christian Mirroi: 
 
 BAXTER'S CALL, 
 
 Now or Never, and Fifty Reasons. With an Introductory Essay, by Dr. 
 Chalmers. 
 
 RELIGION AND ETERNAL LIFE; 
 
 Or, Irreligion and Eternal Death. By J. G. Pike, author of " Persuasives 
 to Early Piety," &c. 
 
 THE FARMER^S DAUGHTER, 
 
 A Tale. By Mrs. Cameron. 
 "This is a well-told tale, replete with incident, and full of instruction and good 
 counsel to young ladies. The heroine relates her own history, and that of her pa- 
 rents, in simple and affecting language. Her mother was the daughter of a pious 
 Welsh curate, married a Lincolnshire farmer, who took her from among the lovely 
 hills and vales of Cambria, to the low levels of the fen country on the eastern coast 
 of England, where she sickened and died, leaving an only daughter, who was brought 
 up by her grandmother, a widow of considerable estate, but little refinement, and less 
 religion. The mother, however, was a religious woman, and carried a good influence 
 into the farmer's family ; and the tale ends well, as all tales should do, without a 
 word about elopement," murder, or suicide."— CAristion Advocate and Journal. 
 
 LIFE OF REV. JOHN NEXA/TON, 
 
 Written by himself to A.D. 1763 ; and continued to his Death in 1807, 
 
 by the Rev. Richard Cecil. 
 
 " It is very instructing, and of absorbing interest, and illustrates the grace of God 
 in a most remarkable manner, showing the power of that grace to change the hardest 
 heart, to restore the lost prodigal. A stubborn, rebellious youth, a roving sailor, an 
 outcast on the barbarous coasts of Africa, assimilated to the natives by his vices and 
 degradation, a slaver, and commander of a slave ship, becomes the meek and humble 
 follower of Christ, and an exemplary and successful minister of the Gospel."— Pori- 
 land Mirror. 
 
 THE HARP ON THE NA/ILLONA^S, 
 
 Remembering Zion, Farewell to Egypt, The Church in the House, The 
 Dew of Hermon, and the Destination of the Jews. By the Rev. Jas. 
 Hamilton, of London. From the forty-fifth London Edition. 
 "The first throe Essays have especial reference to the recent movements of the 
 Church of Scotland ; and they not only exhibit a faithful historical outline of the 
 separation, but connect with it many appropriate reflections, characterized by exqui- 
 fcite beauty, fervent piety, and melting pathos. The subjects treated in the remain- 
 ing parts of the work are of a diff'erent character; but there is not a paragraph in 
 the book which does not indicate the union of genius and piety."— Jr^w*. 
 10 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 WORKS BY THE IlEY. JOHN A. CLARK, D. D. 
 
 Late Rector of St. Andrew's Church, PhiladeJphia. 
 
 His works are all characterized by good thoughts expressed in a graceful and ap- 
 propriate manner, by great seriousness and unction, and an earnest desire to promote 
 the spiritual interests of his fellow-men." — Daily Advertiser. 
 
 A NA^ALK ABOUT ZION. 
 
 Revised and Enlarged. Fifth Edition. 12mo. Two steel Engravings. 
 
 THE PASTOR'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 Revised and Corrected. Fifth Edition. 12nio. Two steel Engravings. 
 
 THE YOUNG DISCIPLE; 
 
 Or, a Memoir of Anzonetta R. Peters. Fourth Edition. 12mo. 
 
 GATHERED FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 12mo. Two steel Engraving?. 
 
 Containing.— The M'Elleu Family.— The Paralytic— The Withered Branch Re- 
 vived.— The Baptism.— Little Ann. — Tiie 3Ieeting of the Travellers.— Mary May- 
 wood. — A Family in Eternity. — One whose Record is on High, «fec. &c. 
 
 GLEANINGS BY THE WAY. 
 
 Or, Travels in the Country. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 ANA/'AKE, THOU SLEEPER! 
 
 A Scries of Awakening Discourses. 12mo. 
 "Few American clergymen have contributed more by their efforts from the pulpit 
 and through the press, to promote the cause of evangelical truth and piety, than the la- 
 mented author of this volume. Happil}-, though dead, he yet speaks in a tone of im- 
 pressive and earnest admonition ; and the present volume particularly, is a witness 
 to the fidelity and zeal with which he discharged his ministerial duties. The subjects 
 of which it treats are of the deepest moment ; and the manner in which he treats 
 them is worthy of the tenderness and fidelity of an ambassador of Christ. The work 
 is admirably adapted to promote a revival of religion." 
 
 COMPLETE NA^ORKS OF BISHOP BUTLER. 
 
 Containing Analogy of Natural and Revealod Religion, Dissertations, Ser- 
 mons, Correspondence with Dr. Clarke, &c. &c. To which is prefixed 
 an Account of the Character and Writings of the Author. By Dr. Ha- 
 lifax, Bishop of Gloucester. 1 vol. 8vo. Splendid Eldition, on pica 
 type and fine paper. 
 
 BUTLER'S ANALOGY. Large type. 8vo. 
 
 BUTLER'S SERMONS. 8vo. 
 
 BAXTER'S SAINTS' REST. Large type. 
 
 DICK ON ACTS. 
 
 Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. By the late John Dick, D.D., 
 Professor of Theology of the United Secession Church, Glasgow, author 
 of " Lectures on Theology," &c. From second Glasgow Edition. 8vo. 
 
 "The style of the author is peculiarly adapted to a work of this description. It 
 is uncommonly perspicuous, terse, nervous and calm. His ideas are the production 
 of a highly-cultivated mind, originally endowed witli strong common sense. In 
 many respects lie has tiie characteristics of Andrew Fuller, with more of the poliah of 
 the school." — Baptist Advocate. 
 
 MEMOIR OF MRS. ISABELLA GRAHAM. 
 
 n 
 
R. CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 JAY'S MORNING EXERCISES 
 
 For the Closet, for Eveiy Day in the Year. New Edition. 12mo. 
 
 JAY'S EVENING EXERCISES 
 
 For the Closet, for Every Day in the Year. New Edition. 12mo. Uni- 
 form with the Morning Exercises. 
 
 DAVID'S PSALMS. 48mo. gilt. 
 
 Do. do. With Brown's Notes. 18mo. 
 
 THE INQUIRER DIRECTED 
 
 To an Experimental and Practical View of the Work of the Holy Spirit. 
 By Rev. Octavius Winslow. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 CHRIST OUR LAW. 
 
 By Miss Caroline Fry. Author of " The Listener," " Christ our Exam- 
 ple," &c. 1 vol. 12mo. Second Edition. 
 
 LIFE, WALK AND TRIUMPH OF FAITH. 
 
 By the Rev. W. Romaine, A.M. 12mo. New Edition. Muslin. 
 
 KEY TO THE SHORTER CATECHISM, 
 
 Containing Catechetical Exercises, a Paraphrase, and a new Series of 
 Proofs on each Question. New Edition. ISmo. 
 
 SORROWING YET REJOICING. 32mo. gilt edge. 
 
 CONTEST AND ARMOUR. 
 
 By Dr. Abercrombie. 32mo. extra cloth, gilt edge. 
 
 GIFT FOR MOURNERS. 
 
 By Fiavel and Cecil. 32mo. extra cloth, gilt edge. 
 CECIL'S REMAINS. 
 Remains of the Rev. Richard Cecil, M.A. To which is prefixed a View 
 of his Character. By Joseph Pratt, B.D., F.A.S. From the eleventh 
 London Edition. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 ALLEINE'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 12mo. 
 
 HERVEY'S MEDITATIONS. 2 vols. 18mo. 
 
 MEMOIR OF DR. NISBET. 
 
 By Dr. Miller, of Princeton. 12mo. 
 
 HILL AND VALLEY. By Miss Sinclair. 12mo. 
 
 LIGHTS 8c SHADOV/S OF SCOTTISH LIFE. 
 
 By Professor Wilson. IBmo. 
 
 MEMOIR OF MARY LUNDIE DUNCAN. 
 
 Second American Edition. 18mo. 
 PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 On the Second Advent. By the Rev. Hugh White, A.M. 18mo, 
 12 
 
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