comprehension of this system, together with all the moral conduct, and all the circumstances, of the innumerable beings, who will be judged. The display of this knowledge, it is evident, will be the greatest display announced by the Scriptures, and infinitely greater than any other, conceivable by the human mind. This display will be, also, far more affecting than any other for on it will depend all the immortal concerns of the innumerable children of Adam. Yet such a display will certainly be made, to such an extent, as to exhibit God in the character of an upright judge, an impartial dispenser of good and evil to his creatures; as to stop every mouth, and force every heart to confess, that he is just when he judgeth, and clear when he condemneth.

What manifestations of the human character will then be made! How different will be the appearance, which pride, ambition, and avarice, sloth, lust, and intemperance, will wear in the sight of God, in the sight of the assembled universe, and in the sight of those, who have yielded themselves up to these evil passions, from that, which they have customarily worn in the present world. How low will the haughty man be bowed down! How will the splendour of power and conquest set in darkness! How will the golden mountains of opulence melt away, and leave the dreaming possessor poor, and naked, and miserable, and in want of all things. How will the sensualist awake out of his momentary vision of pleasure, and find it all changed to vanity and vexation of spirit! How little, in innumerable instances, will the worldly great then appear! How contemptible the renowned! How weak the powerful! How foolish the wise men, and disputers, of this world! On the contrary, with what confidence and joy will the poor, despised, humble Christian lift up his head, and take his proper place in the great scale of being, because he beholds his redemption arrived! Here, first, his character will be openly acknowledged, and his worth confessed. Last in the present world, he will be numbered among the first in the world to come. A feeble, faded, half extinguished lamp on this side of the grave, he will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of his Father.

How differently will our own characters appear from what we imagine them to be, during our present life. Here most of our sins are forgotten; there they are all recorded in the book of God's remembrance. Here vast multitudes of them are concealed; there they will all be displayed in the open day. Here they are often mistaken by self-flattery for virtues; there they will be irresistibly seen in all their native deformity. How delightful will it then be to find, that they have been blotted out by the divine mercy as a thick cloud; that they have been expiated by the blood of the Redeemer! What a consolation, what transport, will it be to find, that, numerous and great as our iniquities have been, yet our whole character was such in the eye of the heart-searching God, as to entitle us, through the merits of Christ, to a reward of endless life and glory!

SERMON VII.

OMNIPOTENCE AND INDEPENDENCE OF GOD.

GENESIS XVii. 1.—I am the Almighty God.

IN my last discourse, I considered the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God. The next subject in the natural order of discussion is his Almighty Power.

In the text, this attribute is asserted directly by God himself to Abraham, when he renewed with him the covenant of grace, and instituted the sacrament of circumcision. In a manner equally explicit, are similar declarations made throughout every part of the Scriptures.

The Omnipotence of God is, also, easily demonstrated by Reason; so easily, that no divine attribute has, perhaps, been so strongly realized, or generally acknowledged. So general is this acknowledgment, that a sober attempt to persuade a Christian audience of the truth of this doctrine, would be scarcely considered as serious, or as compatible with the dictates of good sense. An attempt to impress this doctrine on the mind is not, however, liable to the same objections, nor indeed to any objection. It cannot but be a profitable employment to examine, briefly, several things, in which we find the most striking displays of this perfection. To such an examination I shall, therefore, proceed; and observe,

1. That the power of God is gloriously manifested in the work of Creation.

Creation may be defined, the production of existence where nothing was before. The power, displayed in the act of creating, not only exceeds all finite comprehension, but is plainly so great, as to exclude every rational limitation. It is impossible to believe, that the power, which originally gives existence, cannot do any thing, and every thing, which in its own nature is capable of being done; or, in other words, every thing, the doing of which involves not a contradiction. When we contemplate creative power; we neither attempt, nor pretend, to form any estimate of its extent; but are lost in wonder and amazement at the character of him, who gives being wherever he pleases.

On the simple act of creating, however, it is not easy for such minds, as ours, to dwell. A single glance of the mind makes us possessed of all, which we know concerning this effort of Omnipotence, as it is in itself. But there are several things, relative to the effects which it produces, capable of mightily enhancing our ideas concerning this astonishing exertion of power. Of this nature is, in the

1st. place, The vastness and multitude of the things which were created.

The world, which we inhabit, is itself a vast and amazing work. The great divisions of Land and Water; the Continents and Oceans, into which it is distributed; nay, the Mountains and Plains, the Lakes and Rivers, with which it is magnificently adorned; are, severally, sufficiently wonderful and affecting to fill our minds, and to engross all the power of Contemplation. Nor are our thoughts less deeply interested by the vast multitude of plants, trees, and animals, with which every part of the Globe is stored at every period of time. All these, also, rise and fall in an uninterrupted succession. When one perishes, another immediately succeeds. No blank is permitted, and no vacuity found: but creating energy, always operating, produces a continual renovation of that which is lost.

When we lift up our eyes to the Heavens, we are still more amazed at the sight of many such worlds, composing the planetary system. The Comets, which surround our Sun, greatly increase our amazement by their numbers, the velocity of their motions, and the inconceivable extent of their circuits. It is still more enhanced by the union of these numerous worlds in one vast system, connected by a common centre, and revolving round that centre with a harmony, and splendour, worthy of a God.

But this system, great and wonderful as it is, is a mere speck, compared with the real extent of the Creation. Satisfactory evidence exists, that every star, which twinkles in the firmament, is no other than a Sun, a world of light, surrounded by its own attendant planets, formed into a system similar to ours. Forty-five thousand such stars have been counted, by the aid of the Herschellian Telescope, in so small a part of the Heavens, that, supposing this part to be sown no thicker than the rest, the same Telescope would reach at least seventy-five millions in the whole sphere. By means of new improvements in the same optical instrument, they have been found to be numerous to a degree still more astonishing. Every one of these is, in my view, rationally concluded to be the Sun, and Centre, of a system of planetary and cometary worlds. Beyond this, I think it not at all improbable, that, were we transported to the most distant of the visible stars, we should find there a firmament expanding over our heads, studded in the same manner with stars innumerable. Nay, were we to repeat the same flight, and be again wafted through the same distance, it is not improbable, that we should behold a new repetition of the same sublimity and glory. In this manner immensity appears, in a sense, to be peopled with worlds innumerable, constituting the boundless empire of Jehovah. How amazing, then, must be the power and greatness of Him, who not only telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names, but with a word spoke them all into being.

2dly. The peculiar nature and splendour of many of these works strongly impress on our minds the greatness of creating power.

Of this nature are all those vast works in the Heavens, which I have mentioned under the last head. To single out one of them; how glorious a work is the Sun! Of what astonishing dimensions! Of what wonderful attraction! Possessed of what supreme, unchangeable, and apparently immortal glory! Of what perpetual, and incomprehensible influence on the world, which we inhabit: not only causing it to move around its orbit with inconceivable rapidity, but producing, over its extensive surface, warmth and beauty, life and activity, comfort and joy, in all the millions of beings, by which it is inhabited!

Magnificent, however, as this object is, one mind is a more wonderful, more important, more illustrious display of creating power, than the whole inanimate universe. Suns with all their greatness and glory are still without life, without consciousness, without enjoyment; incapable, in themselves, of action, knowledge, virtue, or voluntary usefulness. A mind, on the contrary, is possessed of all these exalted powers, and is capable of possessing all these sublime attributes. A mind can know, love, and glorify, its Creator; can be instamped with his image, and adorned with his beauty and loveliness; and can appear desirable and delightful to his eye. It can reflect, as a mirror, the glory of the Lord, (for so ought the passage* to be translated) and be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. It can love, and bless, its fellow-minds; be loved, and blessed, by them; and become an useful and honourable instrument of advancing endlessly the universal good of the intelligent kingdom. In all these glorious attainments it can advance with an unceasing progress throughout Eternity. In this progress, it can rise to the heights, where angels now dwell; and, passing those heights, can ascend higher, and higher, till, in the distant ages of endless being, it shall look down on the most exalted created excellence, which now exists, as the mere dawnings of infantine intelligence. Worlds and Suns were created for the use of minds; but minds were created for the use of God.

3dly. The same impressions are strongly made, when we regard God as the Author of life.

The communication of life is a creative act, entirely, and illustriously, superior to the mere communication of existence. In the wonderful power, manifested in this communication, the glory of God, in the character of the Creator, is pre-eminently displayed. Accordingly the living God, and the living Father; that is, the God, who has life, originally, and independently, in himself, and is the source of it to all living beings; are titles, chosen to unfold especially the glory of the Divine nature. In the same manner, also, our Saviour challenges this wonderful attribute to himself, as a direct and unquestionable proof of his divinity. As the Father, saith he, hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth; even

2 Cor. iii. 18.

so the Son quickeneth whom he will. In the same manner, it is elsewhere said, It is the Spirit, that quickeneth.

The possession of life confers on every thing, which is the sub. ject of it, a distinction, by which it is raised at once above all inanimate matter. Even Vegetables, of which life is predicated in a figurative sense only, derive from it a total superiority to all those beings, which are found in the mineral Kingdom. Animal life, which is life in its humblest degree, raises the being, in whom it exists, totally above all those things, which are not animated, by making them, at once, objects on which the emotions of the soul may be employed, and subjects of pleasure or pain, happiness or misery. Of these great distinctions, every one knows, no part of the mineral or vegetable world is susceptible.

Then

Rational life is an attribute, of importance and distinction far higher still; and is the most wonderful display of the divine energy, which the Universe contains. Indeed, it is in a sense the end, for which all things else were created, and without which there is no probability, that they would ever have been. In exact accordance with the views, which I have expressed on this subject, we find a peculiar attention rendered to it by God, in the creation of Man. Other things had been called into being, antecedently to this event; and Man, as the most important of all terrestrial beings, and the end, for which they were made, was reserved to be the closing work. The World, his magnificent habitation, was finished, before the Tenant was formed, by whom it was to be occupied. God held a solemn consultation on this new and interesting work, and said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness. This consultation, holden by the Persons of the Godhead on the subject of communicating rational life, plainly and affectingly declares it to be a higher and more noble object of divine power, than all those which had preceded. From this pre-eminent importance it arises, that the termination of it, usually denominated annihilation, is in the view of the mind, invested with intense gloom, and the deepest horror; and that immortality, or the endless continuance of rational life, is an object always encircled with radiance, and regarded with exultation and rapture.

4thly. The manner, in which the Scriptures exhibit the work of Creation as being performed, most forcibly impresses on our minds the greatness of Creating power.

The greatness of power is discerned not only in the magnitude of the effects which it produces; but in the ease, also, with which they are produced. In this we are led rationally and indeed irresistibly, to discern, that the whole of the power possessed is not exerted; and that other and greater effects would, of course, spring from superior efforts, of which the same power is obviously capable. When God created the Heavens and the Earth, he said, Let there be light: Let there be a Firmament: Let the waters be gathered into one place; and Let the dry land appear. All these and other