search of human ingenuity, that He restores us to our lost estate, and raises us to a glory and virtue incomparably surpassing that from which we fell. For "this," saith our blessed Saviour, "is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent 1." But still, although it is by means of knowledge our recovery is effected, it is by a degree of knowledge very far from being, or professing to be, complete.

The design of Revelation is plainly this: to communicate to us our fallen and ruined condition, to disclose to us the means which our Creator has devised and adopted for our restoration, and to let us know beforehand our destiny in a future life. These are the main topics, to which all other parts of revelation are subsidiary and incidental. Yet, even upon these, our information is so far from being complete, that, upon each and all of them, numberless inquiries will force themselves upon a reflecting mind, which Holy Scripture, so far from answering,

1 John xvii. 3.

passes by, and that, in such a manner, as to render it incontrovertible, that its silence, and our consequent ignorance are the result of a settled contrivance and design. This is the more remarkable, because many of these inquiries are not only natural, and, as far as we can discover, allowable, but, for any thing we can perceive, there is no reason to think that the points of which we are left ignorant would be less easy to our comprehension, or less influential on our practice, than many which God has seen fit to reveal to us.

Without pretending fully to account for this fact, there is much reason to believe, that, in our present weak and depraved condition, knowledge, of itself, is far from conducing to our recovery, and that we can receive only a certain quantity, imparted in certain forms and modifications, without endangering our salvation. What God has thought proper to reveal, it is our bounden duty to inquire after and study, with the utmost diligence and docility. Revelation is just that part and portion of eternal truth, which he has set out and appropriated to

our use. To close our eyes, where he has given us light, is as wicked and foolish, as to intrude into those recesses, which He has concealed. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God," saith Moses, “but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." What is revealed is professedly revealed for a moral purpose; namely, to direct us to our duty here, and our salvation hereafter. And we may be equally assured, that what is concealed, is concealed with a moral purpose also. In both cases, doubtless, the design is no less wise than benevolent. It is a profound maxim of the Apostle, "Knowledge puffeth up." We are too weak and unsteady, too ready to look with admiration on our childish acquisitions, to be entrusted, in this stage of being, with all that we are even now capable of comprehending upon any subject, far less with all that we shall be capable of attaining, when we shall perfectly love truth in our "inward

'Deut. xxix. 29.

21 Cor. viii. 1.

parts," and value knowledge for no other reason, but because it comes from Him, whom we shall love above all things. When once we have arrived at perfect charity, then, and not till then, can the veil be safely lifted up for ever: then, and not till then, can we safely be permitted to know even as we are known 1.

2. But, secondly, besides the danger which, in our present state of childhood, would inevitably result, from a premature and precocious universality of knowledge; it seems evident, likewise, that such a revelation as would leave no inquiry unsatisfied, even on the particular topics which it already embraces, would be inconsistent with the whole system, by which we are governed in this stage of our existence. It plainly appears to be the design of our heavenly Father, so to regulate our progress in the school of Christ, as to secure the acquisition of the largest possible quantity of humility and of submission to the divine will. The first duty, which a creature owes

1 1 Cor. xiii. 8-12.

to its creator, is, to feel and acknowledge its dependance and inferiority. Those blessed and immortal potentates who shall reign with Christ in His eternal kingdom, were yet seen by the Apostle, in the Revelation, to fall down before the Almighty, and cast their crowns before his throne1. For all their immortality is but the breath of his mouth, and all their glory but derived and reflected from His eternal and uncreated brightness. How much more then is humility required in worms like us, who have so much to remind them, at every moment, of a frail and fallen condition. Our highest virtue is, to resign our wills implicitly to the will of our heavenly Father: to receive with gratitude what He is pleased to give; to acquiesce without a murmur where He is pleased to withhold or take away. This is the love of God.For what is it to love God, unless it be to have no other will but His, and to be pleased with whatever pleases Him.-Now we plainly perceive, that the communications

1 Rev. iv. 10.