those to whom the most abundant measure of advantages for the attainment of that improvement has been granted; and there would be manifest absurdity in supposing that God will finally distinguish his creatures, not according to their improvement of their blessings, but according, simply, to the measure of privileges which he had granted to them, even though these privileges may have been neglected or abused.

In short, all tribes and nations hold their definite and necessary places in that one vast order of things, according to which the entire improvement of the Divine kingdom is conducted;-and that kingdom is thus to be viewed as extending, not merely to all the different departments into which the empire of God upon earth may be regarded as divided, but to all the differences of endowment and of privilege by which the varied tribes that constitute even its highest department can be considered as characterized.

3. And as the kingdom of God is thus not limited to any particular region or people, so neither has it been confined to any specific time in the lapse of ages. It is true, that different ages have been remarkable for very different measures of illumination

or of virtue ;—and as there are bright spots in the past history of mankind which have extended their radiance, in some measure, to all the ages that have succeeded them, there have also been long periods during which the attainments or progressive history of our species has advanced with a very tardy pace.

But, in the first place, there has been no period in the history of mankind during which all knowledge, and virtue, and good order have perished;— on the contrary, the measures of all these benefits granted to men, in different ages, have evidently been wisely arranged with a view to the purposes they were destined to serve either at the time of their own appearance, or with respect to those future ages on which they have ever been found to have had some influence. There has thus, in fact, been a progress which it is impossible to overlook in the attainments of the race, from the first dawn of their appearance to the era of illumination in which we now live; and we are in this manner led to the very beautiful and instructive conclusion, that as all the co-existing tribes of men form, at any one moment in which they can be viewed, but one grand assemblage of parts co-operating to the production

of one united, though, often to themselves, unobserved result,—so the successive generations of our race have also been bound together by an influence, extending, with varied measures of power, from one period of their existence to another;—and that thus no nation,—and no age,—are entitled to claim for themselves a more necessary part in the entire scheme of the Divine kingdom than another, but all ages and all nations are fellow-workers, under the superintendence of Providence, for the ultimate evolution of one connected plan.

It deserves, in confirmation of these views, to be farther remarked, that even those periods in the history of our race which have been least distinguished by their attainments, have sometimes had a most important influence on the course which succeeding generations were destined to run. Although, therefore, there have even been periods, and those of considerable duration, during which the human race has appeared to undergo a retrograde movement, -yet these have invariably been found, when traced to their results, to have involved the seeds of discoveries or improvements which have mightily advanced, in after times, the progress of mankind;and the varied retrogradations and progressions of

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human affairs have thus been justly likened to the successive ebbings and flowings of the waves of the sea, which are all ultimately subservient to the progressive movement of the great mass of waters.

The conclusion, then, from all these observations respecting the extent of the Divine kingdom is this, —that, as there is no part of material nature that is beyond the boundaries of the empire of God, so neither is there any portion of thinking and intelligent beings that is altogether excluded from his reign.

And farther, that as all the successive ages of time have been but a progressive development, under varied circumstances, of his constantly advancing, though, to our limited view, sometimes apparently stationary or retrograde dominion,—so things visible and invisible,-time and eternity,―are but the same grand scheme, under varied manifestations, suited to the peculiar powers and situations of the creatures to whom its arrangements are made apparent ;-and, thus, that the interests of all creatures throughout the lapse of endless ages will still be ⚫ under the watchful care of that infinite wisdom and boundless goodness, the pervading traces of which are everywhere apparent, even amidst those opening

arrangements of the Divine plan which alone we are

at present capable of contemplating.

MEANS EMPLOYED FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Considering the kingdom of God in its utmost extent, according to the principles explained in the preceding section, that is to say, viewing it as uniting all our more common arrangements of the various departments of the scheme of things,-it is plain, that the means established and made use of in the course of Providence, for the advancement of that kingdom, must be as various and manifold as the departments into which it is capable of being divided, or as are the capacities and natures of the subjects over which that kingdom is to be exercised.

1. Thus, in the lowest and most obvious view of that kingdom,—any improvement even of the face of material nature is to be regarded as, in some degree, an advancement of the Divine dominions ;and consequently all the means by which, in the various ages of the world, and under the different