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he may be found. And are you willing to offend such a benefactor; to spurn from you all his offers of mercy? You say, No.

But when will you seek the Lord? To-morrow? Next year? In a dying hour? And do you think this a good resolution? What! a good resolution, not to repent now, as God commands? A good resolution, not to seek the Lord now, while he may be found? A good resolution, to persevere in sin as long as you can with impunity?

Behold, now is the accepted time; now the Lord is graciously near; and if you delay to seek his favor this day, this hour, both heaven and earth, and your own conscience also, must confess the justice of God, should he call you no more, but leave you to perish in your iniquity. Is it your resolution to seek him now with all your heart? May the Spirit of grace strengthen that resolution, and help you to seek the Lord with right views of his character, deeply sensible of your misery, and anxiously desiring to embrace him in his entire character, and on his own terms, as your Savior, your God, and everlasting portion. Think not that the Spirit will always strive with you; that God will always be entreating you; or that you can, either now or at any other time, deceive him with heartless services. In a matter of such infinite moment, there must be no misgiving, no hypocrisy, no delay; "for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."

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THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN AND THE GOD OF THE INFIDEL.

PSALM lxxxvi. 8.—Among the gods, there is none like unto thee, O Lord.

THE existence of a God is a fundamental principle of all religion. The mind, whenever this doctrine is presented to it, instantly perceives that it is grasping an idea of immense importance; and that, before it has paused to survey its momentous and infinitely extended bearings. But when considered in its relations to the material and the immaterial world, to every object in the wide range of thought, it gathers an interest which the mind, in its loftiest aspirings, is inadequate to comprehend; being a sort of dividing line between the territories of light and the territories of darkness; between a region illumined by the acknowledgment of the active presence of a God, and a region over which hang the clouds, and shadows, and curses of Atheism.

But it must be acknowledged that, while the existence of a God lies at the foundation of all religion, this momentous truth derives much of its importance from the character which is attributed to him. Laying out of view the gods of the heathen, to which our text may be supposed to have had especial reference, we all know that the Supreme Being has been invested with a variety of character by those who have professed their belief in the spirituality of his nature. I purpose in this discourse to bring before you the God of the infidel, and the God of the Christian; and to inquire which is most likely to exalt the character of man; which best adapted to meet his necessities.

I. Let us compare the God of the infidel and the God of the Christian. 1. The infidel's God is a being of uncertain attributes: the character of the Christian's God is fixed and certain.

If you cast an eye through the records of deism, you can hardly fail to be struck with the fact that there are scarcely two individuals who acknowledge the same God. Some of them have conceived of the divine Being in a manner imperfect indeed, but in some degree just; have uttered sublime sentiVOL. VII.-No. 7

ments both in respect to his attributes and his works, and have even seemed to feel some lofty aspirations in contemplating his character. There are others whose conceptions on this subject are more inadequate and gross, and who, while they profess to acknowledge the spirituality of God, invest him with properties or attribute to him actions which are scarcely consistent with it. And there are others still, who, though they will admit in the general the divine existence, yet seem scarcely to recognise the difference between nature and nature's God; leaving it doubtful on which side they stand of the line that divides deism from atheism. And not only is there a sad disagreement on this subject between different individuals, but the views of the same individual are often, in a high degree, inconsistent and contradictory. I say then that the infidel's God is a being to whom no fixed character belongs. Some things indeed on this subject all infidels hold in common; but there are so many particulars in which they disagree, and withal so much self-contradiction, that if we should attempt to describe minutely the object of the infidel's professed homage, we should seem to describe not one God but " gods many."

Not so with the being whom the Christian worships. Whether we look at each of the various attributes of which his character is composed, or at the whole in glorious combination, we see the indubitable impress of certainty. There is much indeed in this character, which the human mind is, and for ever will be, too limited to grasp; nevertheless, so far as its knowledge extends, it is accurate and certain. Hence we find that in every clime, in every age, the God whom Christians adore is the same;--"the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

Nor is this difference between the God of the infidel and the God of the Christian difficult to be accounted for. For the infidel depends for his knowledge solely upon the deductions of his own reason; a guide which is often bewildered or bribed through the influence of passion; and which in its best state sheds but an imperfect light on the character of the Highest. The Christian, on the other hand, has the object of his supreme homage faithfully described ;-described by the very hand of Almighty God: and the description is so plain that an honest mind can never mistake it. Is it strange that the infidel's God should have no fixed character, when it is left to human reason to decide what his character is? Or is it strange that the Christian's God should be everywhere and at all times the same, when it is remembered that his character is matter of infallible record?

2. The God of the infidel is little more than a mere distant spectator of events: the God of the Christian is everywhere, in the exercise of a sustain. ing, enrolling and a gracious energy.

The being whom the infidel calls God, if we can believe the infidel's own representations, reposes in a kind of indolent majesty, exercising but little regard towards the works of his hands. He is indeed supposed to have established some general laws for the government of his creation; but these laws are commonly spoken of in a manner which scarcely seems to imply a lawgiver, and as if they were left to execute themselves. It may be admitted that he takes some cognizance, and exercises some interest in respect to the grander events which occur both in the physical and moral world; that he keeps the planets in their orbits, and guides the revolutions of empires; but with the lesser and every-day concerns of life it is supposed that he has little

to do. His providence, instead of implying a divine energy diffused everywhere, and operating in every thing, is, at best, a sort of indefinite superintendence of his works, which may leave even man himself to become the sport of accident. And the reason of this is, that the infidel in this respect forms his idea of God from looking into his own bosom: he finds there a spirit of abominable arrogance, which disdains every thing in which he cannot fancy something of greatness or majesty; and he attributes the same character to the object of his professed homage.

The Christian's God, on the other hand, not only fills all space, but fills it with an active and controlling energy. Like the God of the infidel, he has established general laws for the regulation of his empire; but this does not supersede his unremitting vigilance, and care, and activity. He is present in all worlds to control the events of each; and while the whole system of things moves on exactly in accordance with the dictates of his will and of his wisdom, his regards are as intensely fixed upon the destiny of the obscurest individual, or even upon the unfolding of a flower or the motion of an atom, as if it were the only object to engross his infinite mind. True it is his energy that wheels around the planets; that thunders in the storm; that empties the volcano; that blazes in the lightning; that breathes in the wind; but it is alike his energy that sustains the beating pulse of the humblest child of want, that keeps you in existence from hour to hour and moment to moment; that operates in every thing that presents itself to you either as an object of sense or of thought. As nothing is too grand, so nothing is too insignificant for his eye and his providence to reach. The worm that creeps

upon his footstool, and the angel that burns before his throne, are alike within the range of his vision, within the control of his arm, wit in the circle of his regard. He is arrayed not only in the majesty of infinite wisdom and infinite power, but also in the majesty of infinite condescension.

3. The God of the infidel we can contemplate only in his abstract perfections: the attributes of the Christian's God are imbodied in the person of Jesus Christ.

There are two ways in which the infidel may form his conclusions in respect to the character of God. He may carefully inspect the elements of his own intellectual and moral nature, and may find in them some faint resemblance to some of the divine perfections. For instance, his idea of power or of knowledge is originally obtained by reflecting upon the operations of his own mind; and by indefinitely magnifying these qualities as they exist in himself, he attains to a conception of the omniscience and the omnipotence of God. Or else he looks abroad upon the divine works, and surveys their harmony, their grandeur, their adaptation to their various ends, and hence forms his opinion of the character of him who built and who preserves this stupendous fabric. Now I admit that all this is fair and legitimate argumentation; and I do not deny that in either of these ways it is possible to arrive at just conclusions in respect to some of the divine perfections. But I maintain that the attributes of God, viewed merely in this light, are clothed with a sort of abstraction, which is fitted rather to make the mind pause and reflect upon its own littleness, than to bring its powers into exercise in acts of intense and grateful homage.

But Christianity entirely relieves this difficulty. The Christian's God comes out as it were from behind the veil of his abstract perfections, and

brings himself directly in contact with our thoughts and feelings, I had almost said with our very senses, in the person of Jesus Christ. Here God is manifest in the flesh: the divine glory, as it shines in the face of his Son, is so softened, that we can gaze upon it without being overpowered by the vision. The actions of a God we can here view; the attributes of a God we can here contemplate; the authoritative declarations of a God we can here listen to, through the medium of a nature like our own. Oh, what condescension is here! Without diminishing aught from the majesty of the eternal and uncreated Spirit, Christianity brings that majesty, if I may be allowed the expression, within the immediate range of human vision; for "in Him," that is, in Jesus Christ, says the apostle, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

4. The God of the infidel is at best only the God of nature and providence : the God of the Christian is also the God of redemption.

To the former let as much of perfection be attributed as reason can possibly conceive: be it that the infidel's God has made the heavens and the earth; that all that is beautiful, and grand, and useful in creation is the work of his hand. Be it that He rules the worlds which he has made by a providence, no matter how particular; that by his immediate agency he circulates the vital fluid in your veins, and arranges the most minute circumstances of your condition, and takes cognizance of every thing that passes within his dominions—though this is attributing more to the infidel's God than the infidel would himself attribute to him-but surely this is all. It is not even claimed for Him that He is a redeeming God. If the fact that man is a sinner is contemplated at all in the plan of his government, it is contemplated only as a sort of accidental matter which requires no distinct provision.

The Christian's God possesses every perfection and performs every work which the infidel attributes to his God. He is the creator of the ends of the earth, and he fainteth not, neither is weary, in upholding all things by the word of his power; and there is not a sparrow that falls to the ground, nor a leaf that trembles in the breeze, but his providence extends to it. But in addition to all this, and beyond all this, he is the God of redemption. In this character he exhibits himself in the mysterious threefold relation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In this character there is a new and more magnificent display of his attributes; a softening of those which appeared stern, a blending of those which seemed opposite, justice and holiness and faithfulness and mercy, all beaming forth in man's salvation. Here, after all, is the grand distinction between the God of the infidel and the God of the Christian. The one is, and the other is not, encircled with the glory of a Redeemer. The one is, and the other is not, reconciling the world to himself by Jesus Christ.

II. Keeping this contrast of character in 'view, let us proceed to inquire whether the infidel's or the Christian's God is best adapted to exalt the character of man; and to meet his necessities.

1. Which is best adapted to exalt the human character ?

That we may come to a satisfactory conclusion on this point, let us see whether a belief in the one or the other is fitted to exert the greatest amount of influence.

That a belief in the Christian's God is the more influential is evident from the fact that He is a Being with whom man is brought into more immediate

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