fact that matter tends to matter, although you know nothing of the principle on which it does so? Do you not employ the powers of your bodies and the faculties of your minds; and do they not subserve to you all the purposes of rational, immortal and accountable creatures; although you know almost nothing of yourselves? If the former objection leads to universal skepticism, this would sink us in universal slothfulness. We should attempt nothingliterally nothing, if we refused to avail us of the knowledge of facts, unless we could thoroughly sift and comprehend them.-Let the bible speak! Let my text speak! "Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain" the Most High: He is here: He is every where. You cannot comprehend this. The idea of omnipresence confounds you. But is it therefore a useless idea? Does the revelation of it from on high subserve no valuable purpose? What binds the.conscience to the eternal throne, but the thought that God is every where? What leads the oppressed or the afflicted to his mercy seat, but the belief that he is near, "a very present help in trouble?" What rescues defenceless millions from the grasp of the powerful, the unjust or the unmerciful, but the awe-inspiring thought that God would be the witness, and very possibly the avenger of their multiplied enormities?

Let our text, then, fellow mortals, teach you a very plain but very important lesson, în relation to your reception of this book of God. As you do not reject the doctrine of the omnipresence of the Deity, because you cannot comprehend it. And as you admit that the knowledge of the doctrine is of incalculable importance, both for the promotion of piety and for the restraint of vice; learn to reflect that there may be many other things about the Dei

ty, and about the modes of his procedure which lie cqually beyond the grasp of your feeble understandings, but which nevertheless it may be proper and even indispensably necessary that you should know. Remember too that

you are not the proper.judges of the utility or inutility of the truths of revelation. They may have ten thousand uses of which you are not now apprized, and which will unfold themselves one by one, as your knowledge of God and of his Christ and of his bible increases. They may have other bearings too which you inconsiderately overlook, while you are in the very act of profiting by them. But above all things remember, that you are not judges about questions of credibility and incredibility, when God himself, his counsels and his ways are the subjects of revelation. If God be incomprehensible, if his understanding is infinite, and if all things live in him, so that his energies uphold and control and direct them, it is great folly in you to pronounce judgment on his word and ways, as if his thoughts were as your thoughts and his ways as your ways, and he himself a being altogether like yourselves. You cannot be judges of what is credible concerying him, unless you know him perfectly. You cannot determine what it is proper for him to do or not to do, or pronounce concerning the utility of his intervention, unless you thoroughly comprehend his plans, and discern the bearing of his interposition. You must learn to take his own word for these things. The evidence that it is his word lies in quite different channels. The bible is, at least principally, a record of facts. The testimony which establishes the authenticity of the record is ample and unexceptionable. If you can object on this score, do so. But never think of objecting to the authenticity of scripture, because

it gives you views of God and of his ways which do not comport with the views that you would yourself have given. You know nothing of him, the world knows nothing of him, but by revelation. It is the grand object, not only of the bible, but of the plan of redemption made known through the bible, to reveal him as he is-to unfold and illustrate his character and his ways to the whole intelligent universe. Is it not therefore very absurd, not to say impious, to sever these various displays which he has made of himself;-to adopt a part of revelation; to admit that he is Almighty, all-wise, merciful and just; and then to sit in judgment on other exhibitions, or on other features of his character, and to deny that they are worthy of God? You object, for example, to portions of bible history: you object to one or another intervention of his providence; and you do so upon the ground that you are a judge of propriety where God himself is the actor! Miserable reptile! do you know of whom you speak? Are you in possession of all the circumstances which shaped his conduct in the case? Do you know the actual state of those on whom he poured his judgments? or the objects to be accomplished by the instrumentality of those in whom he shewed his mercy? You object too to the plan of redemption, as being unworthy of God, and needless in itself. Rather learn from that plan the amazing depths of the Divine condescension: the awful severity of eternal justice: the unbending character of undivided sovereignty: the immutability of God's law: the glory of his faithfulness: the resources of his wisdom: the power of his arm. See if mercy shewn to mortals, and at such a cost, may not teach you something of the character of God, which otherwise you had never known. Or, if you are unable to read any

of these lessons, ask yourself if you are fully in possession of the case. Inquire whether other lessons may not be taught to other beings by the mystery of "God made manifest in the flesh." And remember while you do so that God whose plan it purports to be is not limited like you are in objects and in views. Immensity is the space over which his line is stretched, and the light of long eter nity is to shew the bearings of his works.

And you object too that there should be mystery in the mode of the Divine existence: that Father, Son and Spirit should be the one Jehovah, appears unreasonable, for you cannot comprehend it. Then object to the doctrine of my text! discard God's omnipresence! for you cannot comprehend it. Disbelieve your own existence! disbelieve every thing! for there is nothing which you can comprehend. But suppose the thing true; as there are doubtless many things true which you can never fathom. Could you comprehend it, if it were true? Certainly not. Then your inability to comprehend it is no proof that it is not true. Your inability to comprehend it is no proof of its inutility as a part of revelation: for remember it is the foundation of the plan of grace; the sole foundation of your hope for immortality. If that be not true, you are deceived when you think of an omnipresent Saviour, or of the omnipresent Spirit of his grace; and the redemption of the one, and the sanctification of the other, notwithstanding all the importance which you are taught in scripture to attach to them, are but idle dreams.

In one word: beware of the seductions of those selfstyled rational, but certainly most irrational and unphilosophical theologians, who profess to meet with nothing unfathomable in scripture; and decry the notion of mysteries

as the cant of fools and bigots. They are learned, they are rational, they are liberal! they will neither themselves admit, nor require others to believe any thing which their minds cannot fully comprehend. And thus by dexterous and glozing appeals to the vanity and self-sufficiency of the little glow-worms around them, they affect many mighty objects. What those objects are-it matters not-"A companion of fools shall be destroyed." But how do they establish their claim to rationality? and what is the foundation of these obtrusive pretensions to liberality? The rationality stands confessed in that singular success with which they have aspired to comprehend the Deity, while ordinary mortals cannot comprehend themselves, nor the meanest of God's works. But of course much must be rejected, which no creature can comprehend. There is no trinity of persons in the essence of the Deity; for they cannot comprehend it. There is no incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Messiah; for they cannot comprehend it. There is no such thing as the operation of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of sinful men; for they cannot comprehend it. And a thousand other things of which the scriptures speak familiarly are rejected by these rational and independent thinkers, for they cannot comprehend them. Behold then a broad foundation for the liberality of which we spoke! Divest the scriptures of all mystery, and you divest christianity of its distinguishing attributes. The bible teaches nothing but what creation teaches, what all creation learns. "The stars in their courses" speak the same thoughts as the prophets in their writings: and of course say the same things to devils and But the stars have never told us of God manifest in the flesh; for they spoke as they now speak, before our

to men.