when, at the same time, they are so obviously intermixed with the fragments of a violated law. Nature, indeed, is still an oracle on one point; and when consulted on that point, which relates to the great remedy for sin, her spontaneous response is it is not in me: it is not until man has examined her by torture, that he extorts some doubtful reply, which-his vanity being made the interpreter-is found to coincide with his wishes, and to flatter his pride. On the fact of the divine existence, indeed, the protestations of nature are positive, loud and unceasing; this is a truth of which she is never making less than solemn affirmation and oath, with all her myriad voices; the unintermitting response of the living creatures heard by John, is only the echo of her voice in the sanctuary above, proclaiming to the universe his eternal power and Godhead. But, however able and ready to enlighten the inquiring mind on the fact of his existence, she could do nothing to dissipate the clouds of doubt and gloom which had gathered and settled into thick darkness round about his throne: on the anxious subject of his character, and his possible conduct towards the guilty, she has received no instructions and is silent. By the introduction of sin, our condition has become preternatural and the wisdom that prescribes for us, therefore must be supernatural, or it will prove supernatural, or it will prove a physician of no value.

I. Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, came to be the light of the world; and one of the topics on which he most delighted to expatiate and dwell, was the paternal character and universal benevolence of God. This, in the form in which it came from his hands, was an original subject a new gift to the world.

Hear his own emphatic representations; 'O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.' No man know

eth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.' 'I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world.' Such are the unequivocal terms in which he declares, that, at the time he spoke, the world was destitute of the knowledge of God; that this inestimable knowledge was his own peculiar gift, the chief treasure which he had brought into the world; that the impartation of it was in his high prerogative alone; and that, in the sove reign exercise of that prerogative, he had given it to his disciples, by them to be communicated to the world at large.

Nor does this statement require any qualification, from the fact that God had before spoken to man, 'at sundry times, and in divers manners.' Without any unjust depreciation of the Jewish institute, it may be boldly affirmed, that it gave but a faint and partial representation of the divine character. What must have been the views of God entertained by Solomon, who, though he had been employed to build the temple of Jehovah, could forsake that very temple for an idol's grove? What must have been the god of the prophet Jonah, when he attempted to flee from his presence, and pettishly charged him with fickleness of purpose for not involving Nineveh in destruction? It is, indeed, impossible to state the precise amount of the knowledge of God which is essential to salvation; but there is reason to conclude that, considering the peculiar advantages of the Mosaic economy, that knowledge was generally at its minimum in Judea. It is more than probable, that when those prophetic intimations were first uttered, which contain most hope for man, and which we are acustomed to admire as splendid anticipations of the gospel, and worthy the meridian of the christian church, they were either dismissed by their hearers as unintelligible, or understood with so great a reserve in favor of Judea, as virtually to annul the

prophecy. Besides, between such enlarged representations, and the restrictive spirit of their economy, a conflict must necessarily have ensued, which could not fail to end in favor of the latter. And, when in addition to this, it is remembered, that the whole of their law had become rabbinzed and overlaid with traditions; that, notwithstanding their sacrificial types, the doctrine of pardon procured by a vicarious expiation, was 'to the Jews a stumbling block;' that all that was supernatural in their temple worship had been long since recalled to heaven, and all that was spiritual suffered to depart; that any of their moral duties were compounded for a pecuniary consideration; that the only heaven they knew, was suspended, in their imagination, over the land of Judea; and that they were actually jealous of the Divine being, lest he should take within the pale of salvation, any part of the Gentile world,—it will be admitted that, of such a people, it would be difficult to underrate their acquaintance with the divine character.

As to the state of the heathen world, it is only necessary to quote the declaration of the apostle-that it knew not God. In Greece, where the dialectic philosophy saw its proudest days; at Athens, where it was enthroned, its last effort was to rear an altar to the unknown God. At Rome, the asylum of deposed and fugitive gods, the pantheon of the world, the genius of Cicero, though it towered above his age, could add nothing to the religious knowledge of that age; could only speak vaguely of a numen aliquod præstantissimæ mentis. From the moment that philosophy touched its meridian in the hands of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, it began to decline. Reason, as if blinded by excess of light, submitted to be led by any who assumed the office of a guide: revenged herself for the prodigious effort to which she had been tasked, by abandoning herself to the sorcery of the senses. Truth was pronounced un

attainable; virtue, impracticable; the temples of religion were ceded to vice, who found herself consecrated and enshrined in their inmost recesses; while the phantom of happiness, (for the reality had departed with its sister fugitives, virtue and truth,) was chased under a thousand forms and names; till the world, having applied its fevered lips to the poisoned chalice of Epicurus, concluded, in their intoxication, that they had found it in the sensual form of unbridled pleasure.

By one class, the idea of a Deity was discarded as a baseless figment of the fancy; by another, he was multiplied into 'lords many, and gods many,' the patrons of as many vices; and, by a third, his throne was removed to a distance, which relieved the world of his presence, and eased him of the cares of active government. This was unquestionably the creed of the majority; for it had this irresistible recommendation, that, by admitting his existence, it preserved the mask of religion, while, by transferring his seat to some unknown region in the outskirts of the creation, it saved them the practical inconvenience of regarding his character or consulting his will. They persuaded themselves, not only that his habitation was so immeasurably remote, but also that his dignity and felicity were so essentially dependent on undisturbed repose, that the character and condition of human beings never shared for a moment his divine regards. This was courteously deposing, and complimentally dismissing the god of their creed beyond the circle of their society. This was 'atheism with a god.' This was attaining the completion of their misery and guilt. For, by this virtual annihilation of the Divine Being, they destroyed every adequate restraint on vice, every encouragement to virtue, and every ground of substantial consolation to distress. The vicious might sin on, without dreading his frown; the virtuous

might sacrifice life itself in the pursuit of improvement, without hoping to obtain his smile; and had all the sufferers which the world contained sent up one united groan, one concentrated cry for relief, they would only have been giving their breath to the winds. They had reduced themselves to the blank and cheerless state of being 'without hope and without God in the world.'

II. How different the view of his character and conduct, presented to us by the hand of Christ! Drawing aside the veil which concealed his glory from our eyes, it shows him in his high and holy place, not in a state of silence and solitude, but surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of holy, happy beings, and every one of them waiting to do his bidding; not in a state of inactivity and moral indifference, but in active communication with every part of his vast dominions, through a numberless variety of channels; not in a state of apathy, regardless of the world, and all its multiplied concerns, but as actually stooping from his throne and bending towards it, listening to every sound it utters, observing the movements of every being it contains, and approving or condemning every action it exhibits; it even shows him to us in the astonishing act of raising up the fallen and prostrate children of earth, and putting them in the way of reaching his own abode.

To exalt our conceptions of the greatness of the Deity, our divine Instructor describes him as reigning sole over all the universe of matter and mind; asserts the pure spirituality of his nature, which no material images can represent; ascribes to him a power, to which easy and difficult are terms alike unknown, for to him all things are possible; and, raising him to an infinite height above the loftiest created intelligence, declares that he stands alone in