of one of these planetary mansions to light upon our world, and all we should require, would be, to be satisfied of his credentials, that we may tack our faith to every point of information he had to offer us. With the solitary exception of what we have been enabled to gather by the instruments of astronomy, there is not one of his communications about the place he came from, on which we possess any means at all of confronting him; and, therefore, could he only appear before us invested with the characters of truth, we should never think of any thing else than taking up the whole matter of his testimony just as he brought it to us. It were well had a sound philosophy schooled its professing disciples to the same kind of acquiescence in another message, which has actually come to the world; and has told us of matters still more remote from every power of unaided observation; and has been sent from a more sublime and mysterious distance, even from that God of whom it is said, that "clouds and darkness are the habitation of his throne;" and treating of a theme so lofty and so inaccessible, as the counsels of that Eternal Spirit, "whose goings forth are of old, even from everlasting," challenges of man that he should submit his every thought to the authority of this high communication. O! had the philosophers of the day known as well as their great Master, how to draw the vigorous land-mark which verges the field of legitimate discovery, they should have seen when it is that philosophy becomes vain, and science is falsely so called; and how it is, that when philosophy is true to her principles, she shuts up her faithful votary to the Bible, and makes him willing to count all but loss, for the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of him crucified.

and it is with this precise feeling of ambiguity that we open the record of that embassy which has been sent us from heaven, to see if we can gather any thing there, about other places of the creation, to meet the objections of the infidel astronomer. But, while we pursue this object, let us have a care not to push the speculation beyond the limits of the written testimony; let us keep a just and a steady eye on the actual boundary of our knowledge, that, throughout every distinct step of our argument, we might preserve that chaste and unambitious spirit, which characterizes the philosophy of him who explored these distant heavens, and, by the force of his genius, unravelled the secret of that wondrous mechanism which upholds them.

The informations of the Bible upon this subject, are of two sorts-that from which we confidently gather the fact, that the history of the redemption of our species is known in other and distant places of the creation-and that, from which we indistinctly guess at the fact, that the redemption itself may stretch beyond the limits of the world we occupy.

And, here it may shortly be adverted to, that, though we know little or nothing of the moral and theological economy of the other planets, we are not to infer, that the beings who occupy these widely extended regions, even though not higher than we in the scale of understanding, know little of ours. Our first parents, ere they committed that act by which they brought themselves and their posterity into the need of redemption, had frequent and familiar intercourse with God. He walked with them in the garden of paradise; and there did angels hold their habitual converse; and, should the same unblotted innocence which But let it be well observed, that the object charmed and attracted these superior beings of this message is not to convey information to the haunts of Eden, be perpetuated in to us about the state of these planetary re- every planet but our own, then might each gions. This is not the matter with which of them be the scene of high and heavenly it is fraught. It is a message from the throne communications, an open way for the mesof God to this rebellious province of his do- sengers of God be kept up with them all, minions; and the purpose of it is, to reveal and their inhabitants be admitted to a share the fearful extent of our guilt and of our dan- in the themes and contemplations of angels, ger, and to lay before us the overtures of and have their spirit exercised on those reconciliation. Were a similar message things, of which we are told that the angels sent from the metropolis of a mighty em- desired to look into them; and thus, as we pire, to one of its remote and revolutionary talk of the public mind of a city, or the districts, we should not look to it for much public mind of an empire-by the well-fre information about the state or economy of quented avenues of a free and ready cirthe intermediate provinces. This were a culation, a public mind might be formed departure from the topic on hand-though throughout the whole extent of God's sinstill there may chance to be some incidental less and intelligent creation-and, just as allusions to the extent and resources of the we often read of the eyes of all Europe whole monarchy, to the existence of a simi- being turned to the one spot where some lar spirit of rebellion in other quarters of the affair of eventful importance is going on, land, or to the general principle of loyalty there might be the eyes of a whole universe by which it was pervaded. Some casual turned to the one world, where rebellion references of this kind may be inserted in against the Majesty of heaven had planted such a proclamation, or they may not-its standard; and for the re-admission of

which within the circle of his fellowship, | look at the might and majesty of the EterGod, whose justice was inflexible, but whose nal-that no field of clou ess transparency mercy he had, by some plan of mysterious so enchants them by the blissfulness of its wisdom, made to rejoice over it, was put-visions, as when at the shrine of infinite ting forth all the might, and travelling in all and unspotted holiness, they bend themthe greatness of the attributes which belong selves in raptured adoration-that no beauty to him. so fascinates and attracts them, as does that moral beauty which throws a softening lustre over the awfulness of the Godheadin a word, that the image of his character is ever present to their contemplations, and the unceasing joy of their sinless existence lies in the knowledge and the admiration of the Deity.

But, for the full understanding of this argument, it must be remarked, that, while in our exiled habitation, where all is darkness and rebellion, and enmity, the creature engrosses every heart, and our affections, when they shift at all, only wander from one fleeting vanity to another, it is not so in the habitations of the unfallen. There, Let us put forth an effort, and keep a every desire and every movement is subor- steady hold of this consideration; for the dinated to God. He is seen in all that form-deadness of our earthly imaginations makes ed, and in all that is spread around themand, amid the fulness of that delight with which they expatiate over the good and the fair of this wondrous universe, the animating charm which pervades their every contemplation, is that they behold, on each visible thing, the impress of the mind that conceived, and of the hand that made and that upholds it. Here, God is banished from the thoughts of every natural man, and by a firm and constantly maintained act of usurpation, do the things of sense and of time wield an entire ascendancy. There God is all in all. They walk in his light. They rejoice in the beatitudes of his presence. The veil is from off their eyes, and they see the character of a presiding Divinity in every scene, and in every event to which the Divinity has given birth. It is this which stamps a glory and an importance on the whole field of their contemplations; and when they see a new evolution in the history of created things, the reason they bend towards it so attentive an eye, is, that it speaks to their understanding some new evolution in the purposes of God; some new manifestation of his high attributes some new and interesting step in the history of his sublime administration.

an effort necessary; and we shall perceive, that though the world we live in were the alone theatre of redemption, there is a something in the redemption itself that is fitted to draw the eye of an arrested universe towards it. Surely, surely, where delight in God is the constant enjoyment, and the earnest intelligent contemplation of God is the constant exercise, there is nothing in the whole compass of nature or of history, that can so set his adoring myriads upon the gaze, as some new and wondrous evolution of the character of God. Now this is found in the plan of our redemption; nor, do I see how in any transaction between the great Father of existence, and the children who have sprung from him, the moral attributes of the Deity could, if I may so express myself, be put to so severe and so delicate a test. It is true, that the great matters of sin and of salvation fall without impression, on the heavy ears of a listless and alienated world. But they who, to use the language of the Bible, are light in the Lord, look otherwise at these things. They see sin in all its malignity, and salvation in all its mysterious greatness. Aye, and it would put them on the stretch of all their faculties, when they saw rebellion lifting up its standard against the Majesty of heaven, and the truth and the justice of God embarked on the threatenings he had uttered against all the doers of iniquity, and the honours of that august throne, which has the firm pillars of immutability to rest upon, linked with the fulfilment of the law that had come out from it; and when nothing else was looked for, but that God, by putting forth the power of his wrath, should accomplish his every denunciation, and vinBut however little we may enter into it, dicate the inflexibility of his government, the Bible tells us by many intimations, that and by one sweeping deed of vengeance, among those creatures who have not fallen assert in the sight of all his creatures, the from their allegiance, nor departed from the sovereignty which belongeth to him-Oh! living God, God is their all-that love to with what desire must they have pondered him sits enthroned in their hearts, and fills on his ways, when amid the urgency of all them with all the ecstacy of an overwhelm- these demands which looked so high and ing affection-that a sense of grandeur so indispensable, they saw the unfoldings never so elevates their souls, as when they of the attribute of mercy-and how the

Now, we ought to be aware how it takes off, not from the intrinsic weight, but from the actual impression of our argument, that this devotedness to God which reigns in other places of the creation, this interest in him as the constant and essential principle of all enjoyment; this concern in the untaintedness of his glory; this delight in the survey of his perfections and his doings, are what the men of our corrupt and darkened world cannot sympathize with.

mystery was revealed for the very intent, | the fountain opened in the house of Judah, that unto the principalities and powers in for sin and for uncleanness, send forth its heavenly places, might be made known by healing streams to other worlds than our the church, the manifold wisdom of God. own. He does not tell us the extent of the And while we, whose prospect reaches not atonement. But he tells us that the atonebeyond the narrow limits of the corner we ment itself, known as it is among the myoccupy, look on the dealings of God in the riads of the celestial, forms the high song world, as carrying in them all the insignifi- of eternity; that the Lamb who was slain, cancy of a provincial transaction; God him- is surrounded by the acclamations of one self, whose eye reaches to places which our wide and universal empire; that the might eye hath not seen, nor our ear heard of, of his wondrous achievements, spreads a neither hath it entered into the imagination tide of gratulation over the multitudes who of our heart to conceive, stamps a univer- are about his throne; and that there never sality on the whole matter of the Christian ceases to ascend from the worshippers of salvation, by such revelations as the fol him who washed us from our sins in his lowing: That he is to gather together in blood, a voice loud as from numbers withone all things in Christ, both which are in out number, sweet as from blessed voices heaven, and which are in earth, even in uttering joy, when heaven rings jubilee, and him-and that at the name of Jesus every loud hosannas fill the eternal regions. knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earthand that by him God reconciled all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

We will not say in how far some of these passages extend the proper effect of that redemption which is by Christ Jesus, to other quarters of the universe of God; but they at least go to establish a widely disseminated knowledge of this transaction among the other orders of created intelligence. And they give us a distant glimpse of something more extended. They present a faint opening, through which may be seen some few traces of a wider and a nobler dispensation. They bring before us a dim transparency, on the other side of which the images of an obscure magnificence dazzle indistinctly upon the eye; and tell us that in the economy of redemption, there is a grandeur commensurate to all that is known of the other works and purposes of the Eternal. They offer us no details; and man, who ought not to attempt a wisdom above that which is written, should never put forth his hand to the drapery of that impenetrable curtain which God in his mysterious wisdom has spread over those ways, of which it is but a very small portion that we know of them. But certain it is, that we know as much of them from the Bible; and the infidel, with all the pride of his boasted astronomy, knows so little of them, from any power of observation, that the baseless argument of his, on which we have dwelt so long, is overborne in the light of all that positive evidence which God has poured around the record of his own testimony, and even in the light of its more obscure and casual intimations.

The minute and variegated details of the way in which this wondrous economy is extended, God has chosen to withhold from but he has oftener than once made to us a broad and a general announcement of its dignity. He does not tell us whether

us;

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and glory, and honour, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever."

A king might have the whole of his reign crowded with the enterprises of glory: and by the might of his arms, and the wisdom of his counsels might win the first reputation among the potentates of the world; and be idolized throughout all his provinces, for the wealth and the security that he had spread around them--and still it is conceivable, that by the act of a single day in behalf of a single family; by some soothing visitation of tenderness to a poor and solitary cottage; by some deed of compassion, which conferred enlargement and relief on one despairing sufferer; by some graceful movement of sensibility at a tale of wretchedness; by some noble effort of self-denial, in virtue of which he subdued his every purpose of revenge, and spread the mantle of a generous oblivion over the fault of the man who has insulted and aggrieved him; above all, by an exercise of pardon so skilfully administered, as that instead of bringing him down to a state of defencelessness against the provocation of future injuries, it threw a deeper sacredness over him, and stamped a more inviolable dignity than ever on his person and character:-why, my brethren, on the strength of one such performance, done in a single hour, and reaching no further in its immediate effects than to one house, or to one individual, it is a most possible thing, that the highest monarch upon earth

might draw such a lustre around him as would eclipse the renown of all his public achievements and that such a display of magnanimity, or of worth, beaming from the secrecy of his familiar moments, might waken a more cordial veneration in every bosom, than all the splendour of his conspicuous history-aye, and that it might pass down to posterity, as a more enduring monument of greatness, and raise him further by its moral elevation above the level of ordinary praise; and when he passes in review before the men of distant ages, may this deed of modest, gentle, unobtrusive virtue, be at all times appealed to, as the most sublime and touching memorial of his

name.

blends itself with the fame of his public achievements. But still you think that there would not have been room enough for these achievements of his, had much of his time been spent, either among the habitations of the poor, or in the retirement of his own family; and you conceive, that it is because a single day bears so small a proportion to the time of his whole history, that he has been able to combine an interesting display of private worth, with all that brilliancy of exhibition, which has brought him down to posterity in the character of an august and a mighty sovereign.

And here it may be remarked, that as the earthly king who throws a moral aggrandizement around him, by the act of a single day, finds, that after its performance, he may have the space of many years for gathering to himself the triumphs of an extended reign-so the king who sits on high, and with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, will find, that after the period of that special administration is ended, by which this strayed world is again brought back within the limits of his favoured creation, there is room enough along the mighty track of eternity, for accumulating upon himself a glory as wide and as universal as is the extent of his dominions. You will In like manner did the King eternal, allow the most illustrious of this world's immortal, and invisible, surrounded as he is potentates, to give some hour of his private with the splendours of a wide and everlast- history to a deed of cottage or domestic ing monarchy, turn him to our humble tenderness; and every time you think of the habitation; and the foot-steps of God mani- interesting story, you will feel how sweetly fest in the flesh, have been on the narrow and how gracefully the remembrance of it spot of ground we occupy; and small though our mansion be, amid the orbs and the systems of immensity, hither hath the King of glory bent his mysterious way, and entered the tabernacle of men, and in the disguise of a servant did he sojourn for years under the roof which canopies our obscure and solitary world. Yes, it is but a twinkling atom in the peopled infinity of worlds that are around it but look to the moral grandeur of the transaction, and not to the material extent of the field upon which it was executed-and from the retirement of our dwelling-place, there may issue forth such a display of the Godhead, as will circulate the glories of his name among all his worshippers. Here sin entered. Here was the kind and universal beneficence of a Father, repaid by the ingratitude of a whole family. Here the law of God was dishonoured, and that too in the face of its proclaimed and unalterable sanctions. Here the mighty contest of the attributes was ended-and when justice put forth its demands, and truth called for the fulfilment of its warnings, and the immutability of God would not recede by a single iota, from any one of its positions, and all the severities he had ever uttered against the children of iniquity, seemed to gather into one cloud of threatening vengeance on the tenement that held us-did the visit of the only-begotten Son chase away all these obstacles to the triumph of mercyand humble as the tenement may be, deeply shaded in the obscurity of insignificance as it is, among the statelier mansions which are on every side of it-yet will the recal of its exiled family never be forgotten-and the illustration that has been given here of the mingled grace and majesty of God, will never lose its place among the themes and the acclamations of eternity.

Now apply this to the matter before us. Had the history of our redemption been confined within the limits of a single day, the argument that infidelity has drawn from the multitude of other worlds, would never have been offered. It is true, that ours is but an insignificant portion of the territory of God-but if the attentions by which he has signalized it, had only taken up a single day, this would never have occurred to us as forming any sensible withdrawment of the mind of the Deity from the concerns of his vast and universal government. It is the time which the plan of our salvation requires, that startles all those on whom this argument has any impression. It is the time taken up about this paltry world, which they feel to be out of proportion to the number of other worlds, and to the immensity of the surrounding creation. Now, to meet this impression, I do not insist at present on what I have already brought forward, that God, whose ways are not as our ways, can have his eye at the same instant on every place, and can divide and diversify his attention into any number of distinct exercises. What I have now to remark, is, that the infidel who