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authority of which he, even in the full vigor 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 valid proof to uphold it, as could be gathered from the field of human experience; and we see the same firm resistance of every one argument, that had nothing to recommend it, but such plausibilities as could easily be devised by the genius of man, when he expatiated abroad on those fields of creation, which

which I am now combating. It is he who props his unchristian argument, by presumptions 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 transgresses the limits which Newton forbore to enter; because, with a justness which reigns throughout all his inquiries, 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 the eye never witnessed, and from which far beyond the boundary of its prescribed no messenger ever came to us with any and allowable enterprises. It is he who credible information. Now, it was on the has mustered against the truths of the Gos- former of these two principles that Newton pel, resting, as it does, on the evidence clung so determinedly to his Bible, as the within the reach of his faculties, an objec- record of an actual annunciation from God tion, for the truth of which he has no evi- to the inhabitants of this world. When he dence whatever. It is he who puts away turned his attention to this book, he came from him a doctrine, for which he has the to it with a mind tutored to the philosophy substantial and the familiar proof of human of facts-and, when he looked at its cretestimony; and substitutes in its place a dentials, he saw the stamp and the impress doctrine for which he can get no other sup- of this philosophy on every one of them. port than from a reverie of his own imagi- He saw the fact of Christ being a messennation. It is he who turns aside from all ger from heaven, in the audible language that safe and certain argument, that is sup- by which it was conveyed from heaven's plied by the history of this world, of which canopy to human ears. He saw the fact he knows something; and who loses him- of his being an approved ambassador of self in the work of theorising about other God, in those miracles which carried their worlds, of the moral and theological history | own resistless evidence along with them to of which he positively knows nothing. human eyes. He saw the truth of this Upon him, and not upon us, lies the folly whole history brought home to his own of launching his impetuous way beyond conviction, by a sound and substantial vethe province of observation-of letting his hicle of human testimony. He saw the fancy afloat among the unknown of distant reality of that supernatural light, which inand mysterious regions; and by an act of spired the prophecies he himself illustrated, daring, as impious as it is unphilosophical, by such an agreement with the events of a of trying to unwrap that shroud, which, till various and distant futurity as could be drawn aside by the hand of a messenger taken cognizance of by human observation. from heaven, will ever veil, from human He saw the wisdom of God pervading the eye, the purposes of the Eternal. whole substance of the written message, in If you have gone along with me in the such manifold adaptations to the circumpreceding observations, you will perceive stances of man, and to the whole secrecy how they are calculated to disarm of all its of his thoughts, and his affections, and his point and all its energy, that flippancy of spiritual wants, and his moral sensibilities, Voltaire; when, in the examples he gives as even in the mind of an ordinary and unof the dotage of the human understanding, lettered peasant, can be attested by human he tells us of Bacon having believed in consciousness. These formed the solid mawitchcraft, and Sir Isaac Newton having terials of the basis on which our experiwritten a Commentary on the Book of Re- mental philosopher stood; and there was velation. The former instance we shall nothing in the whole compass of his own not undertake to vindicate; but in the lat- astronomy to dazzle him away from it; and ter instance, we perceive what this brilliant he was too well aware of the limit between and spacious, but withal superficial, apostle what he knew and what he did not know, of infidelity, either did not see, or refused to be seduced from the ground he had to acknowledge. We see in this intellec- taken, by any of those brilliancies which tual labour of our great philosopher, the have since led so many of his humbler sucworking of the very same principles which cessors into the track of infidelity. He had carried him through the profoundest and measured the distances of these planets. the most successful of his investigations; He had calculated their periods. He had and how he kept most sacredly and most estimated their figures, and their bulk, and consistently by those very maxims, the their densities, and he had subordinated the

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whole intricacy of their movements to the on the forehead of the resolute and hardy simple and sublime agency of one com- artificer, who can lift his menacing voice manding principle. But he had too much against the priesthood, and, looking on the of the ballast of a substantial understanding Bible as a jugglery of theirs, can bid stout about him, to be thrown afloat by all this defiance to all its denunciations. Now, success among the plausibilities of wanton under all these varieties, we think that and unauthorized speculation. He knew there might be detected the one and unithe boundary which hemmed him. He knew versal principle which we have attempted that he had not thrown one particle of light to expose. The something, whatever it is, on the moral or religious history of these which has dispossessed all these people of planetary regions. He had not ascertained their Christianity, exists in their minds, in what visits of communication they received the shape of a position, which they hold to from the God who upholds them. But he be true, but which, by no legitimate evi knew that the fact of a real visit made to dence, they have ever realized-and a pothis planet, had such evidence to rest upon, sition which lodges within them as a wilthat it was not to be disposted by any aerial ful fancy or presumption of their own, imagination. And when I look at the steady but which could not stand the touchand unmoved Christianity of this wonder- stone of that wise and solid principle, in ful man; so far from seeing any symptom virtue of which, the followers of Newton of dotage and imbecility, or any forgetful- give to observation the precedence over ness of those principles on which the fabric of his philosophy is reared; do I see that in sitting down to the work of a Bible Commentator, he hath given 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 familiarised 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 infidelity of astronomers, but to serve as an antidote against all infidelity. We are well 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 artifices 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 established 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 gathered as many of the lighter petulances of the infidel 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 religious observation, and to give him the disdain of an elevated complacency over all the follies of what he counts a vulgar superstition.

And, lastly, for infidelity has now got down among us to the humblest walks of life; may it occasionally be seen lowering

theory. It is a principle altogether worthy of being laboured-as, if carried round in faithful and consistent application. among these numerous varieties, it is able to break up all the existing infidelity of the world.

But there is one other most important conclusion 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 authentic messenger from heaven, I know nothing of heaven's counsels. I never heard of any moral telescope that can bring to my observation the 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 goings forth of Him who is from everlasting unto everlasting; can tell me of the march and the movements of that great administration which embraces all worlds, and takes into its wide and comprehensive survey the mighty roll of innumerable ages. It is true that my fancy may break its impetuous 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 counsel of the Lord, it shall stand. And I repeat it, that if true to the leading principle of that philosophy, 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 before the doctrine, and all the piety of the Bible, me, and that it has all the solidity of the away from it; and has infused the spirit of experimental evidence on its side, and Antichrist into many of the literary estanothing but the reveries of a daring specu- blishments of the age; but it is not the solid, lation to oppose it, what is the consistent, the profound, the cautious spirit of that what is the rational, what is the philoso-philosophy, which has done so much to phical use that should be made of this doc- ennoble the modern period of our world; ument, but to set me down like a school- for the more that this spirit is cultivated boy, to the work of turning its pages, and and understood, the more will it be found conning its lessons, and submitting the in alliance with that spirit, in virtue of every exercise of my judgment to its infor- which all that exalteth itself against the mation and its testimony? We know that knowledge of God, is humbled, and all lofty there is a superficial philosophy, which imaginations are cast down, and every casts the glare of a most seducing brilliancy thought of the heart is brought into the around it; and spurns the Bible, with all captivity of the obedience of Christ.

DISCOURSE III.

On the Extent of the Divine Condescension.

"Who 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 ex-| who could take in the whole, but the disappose the total want of evidence for the as-pearance of a little speck from that field of sertion of the infidel astronomer-and this created things, which the hand of his omreduces the whole of our remaining contro- nipotence had thrown around him. versy with him to the business of arguing But to press home the sentiment of the against a mere possibility. Still, however, text, it is not necessary to stretch the imthe answer is not so complete as it might agination beyond the limit of our actual disbe, till the soundness of the argument be at-coveries. It is enough to strike our minds tended to, as well as the credibility of the with the insignificance of this world, and of assertion-or, in other words, let us admit all who inhabit it, to bring it into measurethe assertion, and take a view of the reason-ment with that mighty assemblage of worlds, ing which has been constructed upon it. which lie open to the eye of man, aided as We have already attempted to lay before it has been by the inventions of his genius. you the wonderful extent of that space, When we told you of the eighty millions teeming with unnumbered worlds, which of suns, each occupying his own independmodern science has brought within the cir-ent territory in space, and dispensing his own cle of its discoveries. We even ventured to influences over a cluster of tributary worlds; expatiate on those tracts of infinity, which this world could not fail to sink into littlelie on the other side of all that eye or that ness in the eye of him who looked to all the telescope hath made known to us-to shoot magnitude and variety which are around afar into those ulterior regions which are it. We gave you but a feeble image of our beyond the limits of our astronomy-to im- comparative insignificance, when we said press you with the rashness of the imagina- that the glories of an extended forest would tion, that the creative energy of God had suffer no more from the fall of a single leaf, sunk exhausted by the magnitude of its ef- than the glories of this extended universe forts, at that very line, through which the would suffer, though the globe we tread, art of man, lavished as it has been on the "and all that it inherits, should dissolve." work of perfecting the instruments of vision, And when we lift our conceptions to Him has not yet been able to penetrate: and who has peopled immensity with all these upon all this we hazarded the assertion, wonders-who sits enthroned on the magthat though all these visible heavens were nificence of his own works, and by one subto rush into annihilation, and the besom of lime idea can embrace the whole extent of the Almighty's wrath were to sweep from that boundless amplitude, which he has the face of the universe, those millions, and filled with the trophies of his divinity: we millions more of suns and of systems, which cannot but resign our whole heart to the lie within the grasp of our actual observation Psalmist's exclamation of "What is man, -that this event, which, to our eye, would that thou art mindful of him, or the son of leave so wide, and so dismal a solitude be- man, that thou shouldest deign to visit hind it, might be nothing in the eye of Him him!"

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EXTENT OF DIVINE CONDESCENSION.

Now mark the use to which all this has be the right answer to this objection, let us been turned by the genius of infidelity. previously observe, that it goes to strip the Such a humble portion of the universe as Deity of an attribute which forms a wonderours, could never have been the object of ful addition to the glories of his incompresuch high and distinguishing attentions as hensible character. It is indeed a mighty Christianity has assigned to it. God would evidence of the strength of his arm, that so not have manifested himself in the flesh for many millions of worlds are suspended on The it; but it would surely make the high attrithe salvation of so paltry a world. monarch of a whole continent, would never bute of his power more illustrious, if while move from his capital, and lay aside the it expatiated at large among the suns and splendour of royalty, and subject himself the systems of astronomy, it could, at the for months, or for years, to perils, and very same instant, be impressing a movepoverty, and persecution; and take up his ment and a direction on all the minuter It forms a noabode in some small islet of his dominions, wheels of that machinery, which is workwhich, though swallowed by an earthquake, ing incessantly around us. could not be missed amid the glories of so ble demonstration of his wisdom, that he wide an empire; and all this to regain the gives unremitting operation to those laws lost affections of a few families upon its which uphold the stability of this great unisurface. And neither would the eternal Son verse; but it would go to heighten that of God-he who is revealed to us as having wisdom inconceivably, if while equal to the made all worlds, and as holding an empire, magnificent task of maintaining the order amid the splendours of which the globe that and harmony of the spheres, it was lavishwe inherit, is shaded insignificance; neither ing its inexhaustible resources on the beauwould he strip himself of the glory he had ties, and varieties, and arrangements, of with the Father before the world was, and every one scene, however humble, of every light on this lower scene, for the purpose one field, however narrow, of the creation he imputed to him in the New Testament. Im- had formed. It is a cheering evidence of possible, that the concerns of this puny ball, the delight he takes in communicating hapwhich floats its little round among an in- piness, that the whole of immensity should finity of larger worlds, should be of such be so strewed with the habitations of life mighty account in the plans of the Eternal, and of intelligence; but it would surely or should have given birth in heaven to so bring home the evidence, with a nearer and wonderful a movement, as the Son of God more affecting impression, to every bosom, putting on the form of our degraded did we know, that at the very time his bespecies, and sojourning among us, and nignant regard took in the mighty circle of sharing in all our infirmities, and crown- created beings, there was not a single famiing the whole scene of humiliation by the ly overlooked by him, and that every indidisgrace and the agonies of a cruel martyr-vidual in every corner of his dominions, dom.

This has been started as a difficulty in the way of the Christian Revelation; and it is the boast of many of our philosophical infidels, that by the light of modern discovery, the light of the New Testament 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 acquirements: 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 light 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 whose only notice of the Bible, is to depreciate, and to deride, and to disown it.

Before entering into what we conceive to

was as effectually seen to, as if the object
It is
of an exclusive and undivided care.
our imperfection, 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 perfec-
tions of God, did we know, that while his
comprehensive mind could grasp the whole
amplitude of nature, to the very outer-
most of its boundaries, he had an attentive
eye fastened on the very humblest of its ob-
jects, and pondered every thought of my
heart, and noticed every footstep of my
goings, and treasured up in his remem-
brance 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

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other worlds from which the ear of the Al-discovery, which should hasten our every mighty was regaled with the songs of conception of God, and humble us into the praise, and the incense of a pure adoration sentiment, that a Being of such mysterious ascended to his throne, he should leave the elevation is to us unfathomable, is to sit in strayed and solitary world to perish in the judgment over him, aye, and to pronounce guilt of its rebellion. But, tell me, oh! tell such a judgment as degrades him, and keeps me, would it not throw the softening of a him down to the standard of our own paltry most exquisite tenderness over the charac- imagination! We are introduced by modern ter of God, should we see him putting forth science to a multitude of other suns and of his every expedient to reclaim to himself other systems; and the perverse interpretathose children who had wandered away tion we put upon the fact, that God can from him-and, few as they were when diffuse the benefits of his power and of his compared with the host of his obedient goodness over such a variety of worlds, is, worshippers, would it not just impart to his that he cannot, or will not, bestow so much attribute of compassion the infinity of the goodness on one of those worlds, as a Godhead, that, rather than lose the single professed revelation from Heaven has anworld which had turned to its own way, nounced to us. While we enlarge the prohe should send the messengers of peace vinces of his empire, we tarnish all the glory to woo and to welcome it back again; and, of this enlargement, by saying, he has so if justice demanded so mighty a sacrifice, much to care for, that the care of every one and the law behoved to be so magnified province must be less complete, and less and made honourable, tell me whether it vigilant, and less effectual, than it would would not throw a moral sublime over the otherwise have been. By the discoveries goodness of the Deity, should he lay upon of modern science, we multiply the places his own Son the burden of its atonement, of the creation; but along with this, we that he might again smile upon the world, would impair the attribute of his eye being and hold out the sceptre of invitation to all in every place to behold the evil and the its families? 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, 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.

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 variety 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 animal 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 and care for as vigilantly, as if it formed the one and exclusive object of his attention.

The objection we are discussing, I shall state again in a single sentence. Since astronomy has unfolded to us 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 dwelling 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, The thing is inconceivable to us, whose and no place whatever in his government minds are so easily distracted by a number or in his thoughts. For the evidence of this of objects; and this is the secret principle position, we appeal, in the first place, to the of the whole infidelity I am now alluding personal history of each individual among to. To bring God to the level of our own you. Only grant us, that God never loses comprehension, we would clothe him in the sight of any one thing he has created, and impotency of a man. We would transfer to that no created thing can continue either to his wonderful mind all the imperfection of be or to act independently of him; and then, our own faculties. When we are taught even upon the face of this world, humble by astronomy, that he has millions of worlds as it is on the great scale of astronomy, how to look after, and thus add in one direction widely diversified and how multiplied into to the glories of his character; we take many thousand distinct exercises, is the ataway from them in another, by saying, that tention of God! His eye is upon every each of these worlds must be looked after hour of my existence. His spirit is intiimperfectly. The use that we make of a mately present with every thought of my

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