that with this principle of uncertainty in such full operation, ministers should feel for you; or angels should feel for you; or all the sensibilities of heaven should be awake upon the symptoms of your grace and reformation; or the eyes of those who stand upon the high eminences of the celestial world, should be so earnestly fixed on the every footstep and new evolution of your moral history. Such a consideration as this should do something more than silence the infidel objection. It should give a practical effect to the calls of repentance.

How will it go to aggravate the whole guilt of our impenitency, should we stand out against the power and the tenderness of these manifold applications--the voice of a beseeching God upon us-the word of salvation at our very door-the free offer of strength and of acceptance sounded in our hearing-the spirit in readiness with his agency to meet our every désire and our every inquiry-angels beckoning us to their company-and the very first movements of our awakened conscience drawing upon us all their regard, and all their earnestness!

DISCOURSE VI.

On the Contest for an Ascendency over Man, among the Higher Orders of

Intelligence.

"And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."-Colossians ii. 15.

THOUGH these astronomical Discourses | when the soundness and the consistency of be now drawing to a close, it is not because her principles are brought faithfully to bear I feel that much more might not be said on upon it. Were the characters of modern the subject of them, both in the way of ar- science rightly understood, it would be seen, gument and of illustration. The whole of that the very thing which gave such strength the infidel difficulty proceeds upon the as- and sureness to all her conclusions, was sumption, that the exclusive bearing of that humility of spirit which belonged to Christianity is upon the people of our earth; her. She promulgates all that is positively that this solitary planet is in no way impli-known; but she maintains the strictest cated with the concerns of a wider dispen- silence and modesty about all that is unsation; that the revelation we have of the dealings of God, in this district of his empire, does not suit and subordinate itself to a system of moral administration, as extended as in the whole of his monarchy. Or, in other words, because infidels have not access to the whole truth, will they refuse a part of it however well attested or well accredited it may be; because a mantle of deep obscurity rests on the government of God, when taken in all its eternity and all its entireness, will they shut their eyes against that allowance of light which has been made to pass downwards upon our world from time to time, through so many partial unfoldings; and till they are made to know the share which other planets have in these communications of mercy, will they turn them away from the actual message which has come to their own door, and will neither examine its credentials, nor be alarmed by its warnings, nor be won by the tenderness of its invitations.

On that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, there will be found such a wilful duplicity and darkening of the mind in the whole of this proceeding, as shall bring down upon it the burden of a righteous condemnation. But, even now, does it lie open to the rebuke of philosophy,

known. She thankfully accepts of evidence wherever it can be found; nor does she spurn away from her the very humblest contribution of such doctrine as can be witnessed by human observation, or can be attested by human veracity. But with all this she can hold out most sternly against that power of eloquence and fancy, which often throws so bewitching a charm over the plausibilities of ingenious speculation. Truth is the alone idol of her reverence; and did she at all times keep by her attachments, nor throw them away when theology submitted to her cognizance its demonstrations and its claims, we should not despair of witnessing as great a revolution in those prevailing habitudes of thought which obtain throughout our literary establishments, on the subject of Christianity, as that which has actually taken place in the philosophy of external nature. This is the first field on which have been successfully practised the experimental lessons of Bacon; and they who are conversant with these matters, know how great and how general a uniformity of doctrine now prevails in the sciences of astronomy, and mechanics, and chemistry, and almost all the other departments in the history and philosophy of matter. But this uniformity

stands strikingly contrasted with the diver- paltry and provincial a system as infidelity sity of our moral systems, with the restless presumes it to be. And as I said before, fluctuations both of language and of senti- I have not exhausted all that may legitiment which are taking place in the philoso- mately be derived upon this subject from phy of mind, with the palpable fact that the informations of Scripture. I have adevery new course of instruction upon this verted, it is true, to the knowledge of our subject, has some new articles, or some moral history, which obtains throughout new explanations to peculiarize it: and all other provinces of the intelligent creation. this is to be attributed, not to the progress I have asserted the universal importance of the science, not to a growing, but to an which this may confer on the transactions alternating movement; not to its perpetual even of one planet, in as much as it may additions, but to its perpetual vibrations. spread an honourable display of the GodI mean not to assert the futility of moral head among all the mansions of infinity. I science, or to deny her importance, or to have attempted to expatiate on the arguinsist on the utter hopelessness of her ad-ment, that an event little in itself, may be vancement. The Baconian method will not so pregnant with character, as to furnish all probably push forward her discoveries with the worshippers of heaven with a theme such a rapidity, or to such an extent, as of praise for eternity. I have stated that many of her sanguine disciples have anti-nothing is of magnitude in their eyes, but cipated. But if the spirit and the maxims that which serves to endear to them the of this philosophy were at all times pro- Father of their spirits, or to shed a lustre ceeded upon, it would certainly check that over the glory of his incomprehensible atrashness and variety of excogitation, in tributes-and that thus, from the redempvirtue of which it may almost be said, that tion even of our solitary species, there may every new course presents us with a new go forth such an exhibition of the Deity, system, and that every new teacher has as shall bear the triumphs of his name to some singularity or other to characterize the very outskirts of the universe. him. She may be able to make out an exact I have further adverted to another distranscript of the phenomena of mind, and tinct scriptural intimation, that the state of in so doing, she yields a most important fallen man was not only matter of knowcontribution to the stock of human acquire-ledge to other orders of creation, but was ments. But when she attempts to grope also matter of deep regret and affectionate her darkling way through the counsels of sympathy; that, agreeably to such laws the Deity, and the futurities of his admin- of sympathy as are most familiar even istration; when, without one passing ac- to human observation, the very wretchedknowledgment to the embassy which pro-ness of our condition was fitted to concenfesses to have come from Him, or to the trate upon us the feelings, and the attentions, facts and to the testimonies by which it has and the services, of the celestial-to single so illustriously been vindicated, she launches us out for a time to the gaze of their most forth her own speculations on the character earnest and unceasing contemplation-to of God, and the destiny of man; when, draw forth all that was kind and all that though this be a subject on which neither was tender within them--and just in prothe recollections of history, nor the ephe- portion to the need and to the helplessness meral experience of any single life, can fur- of us miserable exiles from the family of nish one observation to enlighten her, she God, to multiply upon us the regards, and will nevertheless utter her own plausibili- call out in our behalf the fond and eager ties, not merely with a contemptuous ne-exertions of those who had never wandered glect of the Bible, but in direct opposition away from Him. This appears from the to it; then it is high time to remind her of Bible to be the style of that benevolence the difference between the reverie of him which glows and which circulates around who has not seen God, and the well-accre- the throne of heaven. It is the very benevodited declaration of Him who was in the lence which emanates from the throne itself, beginning with God, and was God; and to and the attentions of which have for so tell her that this so far from being the ar- many thousand years signalized the inhagument of an ignoble fanaticism, is in har-bitants of our world. This may look a long mony with the very argument upon which the science of experiment has been reared, and by which it has been at length deliver ed from the influence of theory, and purified of all its vain and visionary splendours. In my last Discourses, I have attempted to collect from the records of God's actual communication to the world, such traces of relationship between other orders of being and the great family of mankind, as serve to prove that Christianity is not so

period for so paltry a world. But how have infidels come to their conception that our world is so paltry? By looking abroad over the countless systems of immensity But why then have they missed the con ception, that the time of those peculiar visitations, which they look upon as so disproportionate to the magnitude of this earth, is just as evanescent as the earth itself is insignificant? Why look they not abroad on the countless generations of eternity;

and thus come back to the conclusion, that after all, the redemption of our species is but an ephemeral doing in the history of intelligent nature; that it leaves the Author of it room for all the accomplishments of a wise and equal administration; and not to mention, that even during the progress of it, it withdraws not a single thought or a single energy of his from other fields of creation; that there remains time enough to him for carrying round the visitations of as striking and as peculiar a tenderness, over the whole extent of his great and universal monarchy?

the Eternal, and to arrest the hand, and to defeat the purposes of Omniptence; then let the material prize of victory be insignificant as it may, it is the victory in itself, which upholds the impulse of this keen and stimulated rivalry. If, by the sagacity of one infernal mind, a single planet has been seduced from its allegiance, and been brought under the ascendency of him, who is called in Scripture, "the god of this world," and if the errand on which our Redeemer came, was to destroy the works of the devil-then let this planet have all the littleness which astronomy has assigned It might serve still further to incorporate to it-call it what it is, one of the smaller the concerns of our planet with the general islets which float on the ocean of vacancy; history of moral and intelligent beings, to it has become the theatre of such a compestate, not merely the knowledge which tition, as may have all the desires and all they take of us, and not merely the com- the energies of a divided universe embarked passionate anxiety which they feel for us; upon it. It involves in it other objects than but to state the importance derived to our the single recovery of our species. It decides world from its being the actual theatre of a higher questions. It stands linked with the keen and ambitious contest among the up supremacy of God, and will at length demonper orders of creation. You know that strate the way in which he inflicts chastisehow, for the possession of a very small and ment and overthrow upon all his enemies. insulated territory, the mightiest empires I know not if our rebellious world be the of the world would have put forth all their only strong-hold which Satan is possessed resources; and on some field of mustering of, or if it be but the single post of an excompetition have monarchs met, and em- tended warfare, that is now going on bebarked for victory, all the pride of a coun-tween the powers of light and of darkness. try's talent, and all the flower and strength But be it the one or the other, the parties of a country's population. The solitary island, around which so many fleets are hovering, and on the shores of which so many armed men are descending, as to an arena of hostility, may well wonder at its own unlooked for estimation. But other principles are animating the battle, and the glory of nations is at stake; and a much higher result is in the contemplation of each party, than the gain of so humble an acquirement as the primary object of the war; and honour, dearer to many a bosom than existence, is now the interest on which so much blood and so much treasure is expended; and the stirring spirit of emulation has now got hold of the combatants; and thus, amid all the insignificancy, which attaches to the material origin of the contest, do both the eagerness and the extent of it, receive from the constitution of our nature, their most full and adequate explanation.

are in array, and the spirit of the contest is in full energy, and the honour of mighty combatants is at stake; and let us therefore cease to wonder that our humble residence has been made the theatre of so busy an operation, or that the ambition of loftier natures has here put forth all its desire and all its strenuousness.

This unfolds to us another of those high and extensive bearings, which the moral history of our globe may have on the system of God's universal administration. Were an enemy to touch the shore of this high-minded country, and to occupy so much as one of the humblest villages, and there to seduce the natives from their loyalty, and to sit down along with them in entrenched defiance to all the threats, and to all the preparations of an insulted empire-oh! how would the cry of wounded pride resound throughout all the ranks and Now, if this be also the principle of high-varieties of our mighty population; and er natures, if, on the one hand God be jealous of his honour, and on the other, there be proud and exalted spirits, who scowl defiance at him and at his monarchy;-if, on the side of heaven, there be an angelic host rallying around the standard of loyalty, who flee with alacrity at the bidding of the Almighty, who are devoted to his glory, and feel a rejoicing interest in the evolution of his counsels; and if, on the side of hell, there be a sullen front of resistance, a hate and malice inextinguishable, an unequalled daring of revenge to baffle the wisdom of

this very movement of indignancy would reach the king upon his throne; and circulate among those who stood in all the grandeur of chieftainship around him; and be heard to thrill in the eloquence of Parliament; and spread so resistless an appeal to a nation's honour, or a nation's patriotism, that the trumpet of war would summon to its call all the spirit and all the willing energies of our kingdom; and rather than sit down in patient endurance under the burning disgrace of such a violation, would the whole of its strength and resources be em

barked upon the contest; and never, never [ment of earth, there are certain principles would we let down our exertions and our which cannot be compromised; and certain sacrifices, till either our deluded country-maxims of administration which must men were reclaimed, or till the whole of never be departed from; and a certain chathis offence were by one righteous act of racter of majesty and of truth, on which vengeance, swept away altogether from the the taint even of the slightest violation can face of the territory it deformed. never be permitted; and a certain authority The Bible is always most full and most which must be upheld by the immutability explanatory on those points of revelation in of all its sanctions, and the unerring fulfilwhich men are personally interested. But ment of all its wise and righteous proclait does at times offer a dim transparency,mations. All this was in the mind of the through which may be caught a partial archangel, and a gleam of malignant joy view of such designs and of such enter-shot athwart him as be conceived his proprises as are now afloat among the upper orders of intelligence. It tells us of a mighty struggle that is now going on for a moral ascendency over the hearts of this world's population. It tells us that our race were seduced from their allegiance to God, by the plotting sagacity of one who stands pre-eminent against him, among the hosts of a very wide and extended rebellion. It tells us of the Captain of Salvation, who undertook to spoil him of this triumph, and throughout the whole of that magnificent train of prophecy which points to him, does it describe the work he had to do as a con-matched him. It is true, that he reared, in flict, in which strength was to be put forth, the guilt to which he seduced us, a mighty and painful suffering to be endured, and obstacle in the way of this lofty undertaking. fury to be poured upon enemies, and prin- But when the grand expedient was ancipalities to be dethroned, and all those nounced, and the blood of that atonement, toils, and dangers, and difficulties to be by which sinners are brought nigh, was borne, which strewed the path of perse- willingly offered to be shed for us, and the verance that was to carry him to vietory. eternal Son, to carry this mystery into acBut it is a contest of skill, as well as of complishment, assumed our nature-then strength and of influence. There is the was the prince of that mighty rebellion, in earnest competition of angelic faculties em- which the fate and the history of our world barked on this struggle for ascendency. are so deeply implicated, in visible alarm And while in the Bible there is recorded, for the safety of all his acquisitions:-nor (faintly and partially, we admit,) the deep can the record of this wondrous history and insidious policy that is practised on carry forward its narrative, without furthe one side; we are also told, that on the nishing some transient glimpses of a subplan of our world's restoration, there are lime and a superior warfare, in which, for lavished all the riches of an unsearchable the prize of a spiritual dominion over our wisdom upon the other. It would appear, species, we may dimly perceive the conthat for the accomplishment of his purpose, test of loftiest talent, and all the designs the great enemy of God and of man plied of heaven in behalf of man, met at every his every calculation; and brought all the point of their evolution, by the counterdevices of his deep and settled malignity to workings of a rival strength and a rival sabear upon our species; and thought that gacity. could he involve us in sin, every attribute We there read of a struggle which the of the Divinity stood staked to the banish- Captain of our salvation had to sustain, ment of our race from beyond the limits of when the lustre of the Godhead lay obscuthe empire of righteousness; and thus did red, and the strength of its omnipotence he practise his invasions on the moral ter- was mysteriously weighed down under the ritory of the unfallen; and glorying in his infirmities of our nature-how Satan singled success, did he fancy and feel that he had him out, and dared him to the combat of achieved a permanent separation between the wilderness-how all his wiles and all the God who sitteth in heaven, and one at his influences were resisted-how he left least of the planetary mansions which he our Saviour in all the triumphs of unsubhad reared. dued loyalty-how the progress of this The errand of the Saviour was to restore mighty achievement is marked by the every this sinful world, and have its people re-character of a conflict-how many of the admitted within the circle of heaven's pure Gospel miracles were so many direct inand righteous family. But in the govern-fringements on the power and empire of ment of heaven, as well as in the govern- a great spiritual rebellion-how in one

ject for hemming our unfortunate species within the bound of an irrecoverable dilemma; and as surely as sin and holiness could not enter into fellowship, so surely did he think, that if man were seduced to disobedience, would the truth, and the justice, and the immutability of God, lay their insurmountable barriers on the path of his future acceptance.

It was only in that plan of recovery of which Jesus Christ was the author and the finisher, that the great adversary of our species met with a wisdom which over

ing us to explain, why on the salvation of our solitary species so much attention appears to have been concentred, and so much energy appears to have been expended.

But it would appear from the records of inspiration, that the contest is not yet ended; that on the one hand the Spirit of God is employed in making for the truths of Christianity, a way into the human heart, with all the power of an effectual demonstration; that on the other there is a spirit now abroad, which worketh in the children of disobedience; that on the one hand, the Holy Ghost is calling men out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel; and that on the other hand, he who is styled the god of this world, is blinding their hearts, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should enter into them; that they who are under the dominion of the one, are said to have overcome, because greater

precious season of gladness among the few which brightened the dark career of our Saviour's humiliation, he rejoiced in spirit, and gave as the cause of it to his disciples, that "he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven"-how the momentary advantages that were gotten over him, are ascribed to the agency of this infernal being, who entered the heart of Judas, and tempted the disciple to betray his Master and his Friend. I know that I am treading on the confines of mystery. I cannot tell what the battle that he fought. I cannot compute the terror or the strength of his enemies. I cannot say, for I have not been told, how it was that they stood in marshalled and hideous array against him:-nor can I measure how great the firm daring of his soul, when he tasted that cup in all its bitterness, which he prayed might pass away from him; when with the feeling that he was forsaken by his God, he trod the wine-is he that is in them than he that is in the press alone; when he entered single-handed world; and that they who are under the upon that dreary period of agony, and in- dominion of the other, are said to be the sult, and death, in which from the garden children of the devil, and to be under his to the cross, he had to bear the burden of snare, and to be taken captive by him at a world's atonement. I cannot speak in his will. How these respective powers do my own language, but I can say in the lan- operate, is one question. The fact of their guage of the Bible, of the days and the nights operation, is another. We abstain from the of this great enterprise, that it was the sea- former. We attach ourselves to the latter, son of the travail of his soul; that it was and gather from it, that the prince of darkthe hour and the power of darkness; that ness still walketh abroad among us; that the work of redemption was a work accom- he is still working his insidious policy, if panied by the effort, and the violence, and not with the vigorous inspiration of hope, the fury of a combat; by all the arduous- at least with the frantic energies of despair; ness of a battle in its progress, and all the that while the overtures of reconciliation glories of a victory in its termination; and are made to circulate through the world, after he called out that it was finished, after he is plying all his devices to deafen and he was loosed from the prison-house of the to extinguish the impression of them; or, grave, after he had ascended up on high, in other words, while a process of invitation he is said to have made captivity captive: and of argument has emanated from heaand to have spoiled principalities and pow-ven, for reclaiming men to their loyaltyers; and to have seen his pleasure upon his enemies; and to have made a show of them openly..

the process is resisted at all its points, by one who is putting forth his every expedient, and wielding a mysterious ascendency, to seduce and to enthral them.

I will not affect a wisdom above that which is written, by fancying such details To an infidel ear, all this carries the of this warfare as the Bible has not laid be- sound of something wild and visionary fore me. But surely it is no more than along with it; but though only known being wise up to that which is written, to through the medium of revelation, after it assert, that in achieving the redemption of is known, who can fail to recognize its harour world, a warfare had to be accomplish-mony with the great lineaments of human ed; that upon this subject there was among experience? Who has not felt the workthe higher provinces of creation, the keen ings of a rivalry within him, between the and the animated conflict of opposing in- power of conscience and the power of terests; that the result of it involved some- temptation? Who does not remember thing grander and more affecting, than even those seasons of retirement, when the calthe fate of this world's population; that it culations of eternity had gotten a momentdecided a question of rivalship between the ary command over the heart; and time, righteous and everlasting Monarch of uni- with all its interests and all its vexations, versal being, and the prince of a great and had dwindled into insignificancy before widely extended rebellion, of which I nei- them? And who does not remember, how ther know how vast is the magnitude, nor upon his actual engagement with the obhow important and diversified are the bear-jects of time, they resumed a control, as ings; and thus do we gather from this con- great and as omnipotent, as if all the imsideration, another distinct argument, help-portance of eternity adhered to them-how