of the all-sufficient God; and the highest adoration is selfimprovement, or a nearer approach to the Divine image. And every part of the Divine method points to this sublime conclusion.

31. It is just conceivable that the question may be inconsiderately asked, why, since every limitation of man's power exposes him to innumerable liabilities, a Being of infinite benevolence should have subjected him to any limits? Limitation itself is not an evil; it can become so only on the supposition either that man's probationary liabilities exceed his powers, or else that man voluntarily abuses his adequate power. The proper and sufficient reply, however, is, that the creation of a being without limits of some kind is simply inconceivable and impossible, creation itself being an act within limits. The only question, therefore, which remains relates to the particular limits assigned to human nature - why, when it was competent to the Divine Creator to constitute a being of a higher order, did he select the precise order which man actually exhibits? If this question be asked in the spirit of complaint, it proceeds on the erroneous supposition that the higher order of power which it desiderates might have been bestowed without any corresponding increase of liability. Whereas, the balance between the two must still have been maintained; freedom cannot be separated from its consequences; so that a change of power, whether greater or less, would have involved a corresponding change of liability. Besides, the same question might continue to be asked at every supposed increase of human excellence. And if proposed respecting man, why not, also, respecting every sentient existence, from the microscopic insect upwards? Each might alike complain that it was not all the sole recipient of all that infinite goodness was to impart. It is to be remembered, however, in respect to man, that, as a being capable of indefinite progression, it matters little from what point of the scale of existence he commences his course; inasmuch as he may be constantly approaching and overtaking every onward measure of perfection. While in proportion to the lowness of the point from which he started, will be the advantage attending his subsequent progress, for the excellence acquired will be his own in a sense which will proportionally increase his satisfaction, and reflect glory on the Being who gave him the necessary capabilities. But the question, Why man's actual constitution was assigned to him? may be asked in the mere spirit of inquiry. In which case, looking at the vast and awful circle of mystery which surrounds us, as

a motive to humility, we state our conviction, the grounds of which will presently appear, that one of the innumerable reasons is, in order that man might subserve a plan of such diversified creations as shall demonstate the Divine all-sufficiency.

SECT. II.

That part of the reason which relates to the Divine all-sufficiency, and so includes man's destiny.

1. The sentence with which the last section concludes may possibly suggest to some minds the idea, that if, as we believe, the exhibition of the Divine all-sufficiency be the ultimate end of creation, the only adequate plan must be one which includes a graduated scale of being filling up the wide interval between the extremes of non-existence and the highest relative perfection. For all-sufficiency, it might be said, must be sufficiency for so much as that, and can be proved only by it. But such a supposition overlooks two very important considerations: first, that the exhibition is to be made to a being capable of inferring beyond the extent of his evidence, of reasoning from the actual to the possible of perceiving that his own mind is not the measure of the universe, and that the actual creation is not the measure of the Creative power-of concluding from the finite to the infinite. Now, for such a being, the physical demonstration of the Divine all-sufficiency, by literally calling into being all possible orders of creations, would appear to be eminently unsuitable, for it would compel his belief on the subject, and leave no room whatever for the voluntary exercise of his powers. Whereas, one of the highest ends of creation is his probationary self-development, which requires that his powers shall neither be superseded nor overborne, but be so conditioned as to be kept in harmonious and ever-strengthening activity.

2. And, secondly, the supposition overlooks this progressive power, according to which, the same race of beings have so much capability lodged in them from the first, that, without ever losing their identity, they can pass through successive stages of knowledge and holy excellence without intermission and without end. "Why (it might have been said at man's creation), why is he not gifted with organs of sense which shall supersede laborious analysis and slow experiment? Why, for example, are not his eyes microscopic ?" Because he himself is capable of inventing a microscope, and of strengthening his

66

mental vision by the invention. Why is not the earth itself nearer to our ideas of perfection?" Because he himself is capable of making it realize those ideas, and of perfecting his own nature by the process. Accordingly, the man of to-day is a very different being from the man of six thousand years ago, and the world he inhabits a very different world. The human constitution, indeed, is essentially the same, and the laws of Nature are unaltered; but he is reading an advanced chapter of the great volume of Providence, and his nature responds to the change; while generation after generation has actually passed off into other worlds, and has there attained unknown stages of development, only to prepare for others equally unknown. Now, by this arrangement, the same race of beings may be regarded as rendering unnecessary the creation of as many separate races as are the stages through which it is destined to pass.

3. But if the progress and identity of the individual from the beginning of his life to its close, presuppose the unchanged continuance of the laws of his own constitution and of the world to which he belongs, so the progress and unity of the human race presuppose the immutability of everything characteristic in man and in Nature. The repeal of an original and essential law of either would render all the accumulated knowledge and experience of the past inapplicable and useless. Practically, there would be no past. Such a change would be a commencement of everything de novo a new revelation to a new race. The reason, then, both for the method of the Divine procedure, and for its continuance, gains strength with every successive age. Discoveries link on to each other. Great men, without designing it, find themselves standing in a series. The lamp passes onward from hand to hand. "The hour-glass of one man's life" loses its insignificance by mingling its sands with those of the life of the species. The great plan evolves from. age to age.

4. In proportion to the magnitude of this plan-to the num ber of the elements which it includes, the multiplied complications of which they are susceptible, and the high and diversified interests ultimately harmonized by the process, is the amount of the manifestation which it affords of the Divine perfection, and of the advantage which it places within the reach of man. Now, we have seen that in the instance of the individual man

of the first man-his liabilities were indefinitely increased with the addition of every organ, and member, and faculty;

that they amounted to the number of all his powers, their possible combinations, and the laws and objects on which they could operate. But how would our conceptions of this subject have been enlarged, could we have foreseen that even the natural scenery and productions of the earth 'would, in a sense, be conveyed into the mind of man, and be taken up into his character; that every object and event in creation would, in a variety of ways, be wrought into the texture of man's moral history; and that every law expressed, and every truth symbolized, would sooner or later become a test of character? Separated into families, dwelling in distinct localities, and with distinct interests to maintain, his probationary field would have been seen still widening. National peculiarities would further complicate the great experiment. The variety of character and experience made possible by limiting human life, and by distributing mankind into ages and generations, would have been justly deemed incalculable and inexhaustible. But a diversity of language and of religion!—if we could have known that such a possibility would be realized, and have caught only a glimpse of the new combinations of character and experience which such distinctions would make possible, we might well have felt overwhelmed at the magnitude of the process through which man might be destined to pass; a process to be limited only, perhaps, by its falling into the stream of similar processes in other worlds, all at length flowing together into the same boundless ocean.

5. Now, if the system to which man belongs be thus all-related and progressive, it follows, that however vast and prolonged it may be, no two human beings can ever stand in precisely the same relation to it. Each, independently of his original difference of mind, occupies his own point of time and place, from which he reaches the external, and is reached by it, through media, peculiar, in some respects, to himself. As every man begins each period and each day of his own life under new circumstances, so each member of the race begins and prosecutes life itself under circumstances distinguishable from those of every other. For the same reason, each separate community has a character of its own. Much as it may have in common with other communities, there are particulars in which its moral, like its natural scenery, is peculiar. The very fact that it has certain advantages and disadvantages, implies that it has certain liabilities to evil, against which it has especially to guard, and certain talents entrusted to it, which it is under peculiar obligation to cultivate.

6. Every form of association and government has its distinctive peculiarities. In one of the noblest passages of his writings, Bacon tells us, "That there is no composition of estate or society, nor order of quality or persons, which have not some point of contrariety towards true knowledge; that monarchies incline wits to profits and pleasure, commonwealths to glory and vanity, universities to sophistries and affectation, cloisters to fables and unprofitable subtlety, study at large to variety, and that it is hard to say whether mixture of contemplations with an active life, or retiring wholly to contemplations, do disable or hinder the mind more."

7. In the stream of human generations, every age has its own portion of knowledge, its own facilities for action, its own problems for solution, and its own appointed work. Every advance in civilization draws after it an increase of laws and relations, and each new relation multiplies the occasions of transgression, even though the intensity of crime may be diminished. Every age has its own kind and amount of evidence of Truth. Reid speaks of an eminent mathematician, who "attempted to ascertain by calculation the ratio in which the evidence of facts must decrease in the course of time, and fixed the period when the evidence of the facts on which Christianity is founded shall become evanescent, and when, in consequence, no faith shall be found on the earth." Such an attempt shows, indeed, that every profession and department of knowledge, if followed exclusively, has a tendency to narrow the mind, and to incapacitate it for general activity. But however ridiculous the attempt to measure moral evidence by a mathematical calculus, it is quite true that the evidence of Christianity chiefly relied on by the believers of one age, differs from that chiefly relied on by those of another. The miraculous evidence has, in this respect (though still retaining an indestructible value and a fixed argumentative position), gradually and comparatively given place in popular use to the moral, the objective to the subjective. The Book speaks more for itself.

8. Diversity of speech may be said to place and keep a peo ple in a world of their own, insulated from the rest of the species. There is more than fancy in the idea "that Divine Providence, in distributing to different human families this holy gift of speech, had a further purpose than the material dispersion of the human race, or the bestowing on them varied forms of utterance; there was doubtless therein a deeper and more important end the sharing out among them of the intellectual