itself brought him the opportunity to restore the desolations over which he sorrowed. Even the salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. All our experience in life goes to shew that the better understanding we have of God's dealings, the more satisfactory they appear. Things which seemed dark or inexplicable, or even impossible for God to suffer without wrong in Himself, are really bright with goodness in the end. What, then, shall we conclude, but that on the other side of the cloud, there is always a bright and glorious light, however dark it is underneath. Hence it is that the Scriptures make so much of God's character as a light-giving Power, and turn the figure about into so many forms. "In God," they say, "is light, and no darkness at all." According to John's vision of the Lord, "His countenance was as the sun that shineth in his strength." The image of Him given by another apostle is even more sublime, "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light that no man can approach unto;" language, possibly, in which he had some reference to his own conversion; when a light, above the brightness of the sun, bursting upon him and shining round about him, seared his eye-balls; so that afterward there fell off from them, as it had been scales of cinder. God, therefore, he conceives to be light inapproachable, as figured in that experience. And probably enough he would say, that as the astronomers in looking at the sun arm their sight with a smoky or coloured medium, so the very clouds we complain of are mercifully interposed, in part, and rather assist than hinder our vision. It is little therefore to say, and should never be a fact incredible, that however dark our lot may be, there is light enough on the other side of the cloud, in that pure empyrean where God dwells, to irradiate every darkness of the world; light enough to clear every difficult question, remove every ground of obscurity, conquer every atheistic suspicion, silence every hard judgment; light enough to satisfy, nay, to ravish the mind. for ever. Even the darkest things God has explanations for; and it is only necessary to be let into His views and designs, as when we are made capable of being we certainly shall, to see a transcendent wisdom and beauty in them all. At present, we have no capacity broad enough to comprehend such a revelation. We see through a glass darkly, but we see what we can. When we can see more, there is more to be seen. On the other This brings me III. That the cloud we are under will finally break way and be cleared. On this point we have many distinct indications. Thus it coincides with the general analogy of God's works, to look for obscurity first, and light afterward. According to the Scripture account of the creation, there was, first a period of complete darkness; then a period of mist and cloud, where the daylight is visible, but not the sun; then the sun beams out in a clear open sky, which is called, in a way of external description, the creation of the sun. How many of the animals begin their life at birth with their eyes closed, which are afterward opened to behold the world into which they have come. How many myriads of insects begin their existence underground, emerging afterward from their dark abode, to take wings and glitter in the golden light of day. If we observe the manner, too, of our own intellectual discoveries, we shall generally see the inquirer groping long and painfully under a cloud, trying and experimenting in a thousand guesses to no purpose, till finally a thought takes him and behold the difficulty is solved! At a single flash, so to speak, the light breaks in, and what before was dark is clear and simple as the day. Darkness first and light afterward, this is the law of science universally. By so many and various analogies, we are led to expect that the cloud, under which we live in things spiritual, will finally be lifted, and the splendour of eternal glory poured around us. Our desire for knowledge, and the manner in which God manages to inflame that desire, indicate the same thing. This desire He has planted naturally in us, as hunger is natural in our bodies, or the want of light in our eyes. And the eye is not a more certain indication that light is to be given. than our desire to know divine things is that we shall be permitted to know them. And the evidence is yet further increased, in the fact that the good have a stronger desire for this knowledge than mere nature kindles. And if we say, with the Scripture, that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," doubtless the body of it is to come after. It is the glory of God, indeed, to conceal a thing, but not absolutely, or for the sake of concealment. He does it only till a mind and appetite for the truth is prepared, to make His revelation to. He gives us a dim light, and sets us prying at the walls of mystery, that He may create an appetite and relish in us for true knowledge. Then it shall be a joyful and glorious gift-" drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, light to the prisoner's cell." And He will pour it in from the whole firmament of His glory. He will open his secret things, open the boundaries of universal order, open His own glorious mind and His eternal purposes. The Scriptures also notify us of a grand assize, or judgment, when the merit of all His doings with us, as of our doings toward Him, will be revised; and it appears to be a demand of natural reason, that some grand exposition of the kind should be made, that we may be let into the manner of His government far enough to do it honour. This will require Him to take away the cloud in regard to all that is darkest in our earthly state. Every perplexity must now be cleared, and the whole moral administration of God, as related to the soul, must be sufficiently explained. Sin, the fall, the pains and penalties and disabilities consequent, redemption, grace, the discipline of the righteous, the abandonment of the incorrigibly wicked-all these must now be understood. God has light enough to shed on all these things, and He will not conceal it. He will shine forth in glorious and transcendent brightness, unmasked by cloud, and all created minds, but the incorrigible outcasts and enemies of His government, will respond"Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, be unto the Lord our God; for just and true are his judgments.” Precisely what is to be the manner and measure of our knowledge, in this fuller and more glorious revelation of the future, is not clear to us now; for that is one of the dark things or mysteries of our present state. But the language of Scripture is remarkable. It even declares that we shall see God as He is; and the intensity of the expression is augmented, if possible, by the effects attributed to the sight: "We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." We shall be so irradiated and penetrated, in other words, by His glory, as to be transformed into a spiritual resemblance, partaking His purity, reflecting His beauty, ennobled by His divinity. It is even declared that our knowledge of Him shall be complete. Now we know in part; then shall we know even as also we are known. To say that we shall know God as He knows us is certainly the strongest declaration possible, and it is probably hyperbolical; for it would seem to be incredible that a finite mind should at once, or even at any time in its eternity, comprehend the Infinite, as it is comprehended by the Infinite. It is also more agreeable to suppose that there will be an everlasting growth in knowledge, and that the blessed minds will be for ever penetrating new depths of discovery, clearing up wider fields of obscurity, attaining to a higher converse with God and a deeper insight of His works; and that this breaking forth of light and beauty in them by degrees and upon search, will both occupy their powers and feed their joy. Still, that there will be a great and sudden clearing of God's way, as we enter that world, and a real dispersion of all the clouds that darken us here, is doubtless to be expected; for when our sin is completely taken away (as we know it then will be), all our guilty blindness will go with it, and that of itself will prepare a glorious unveiling of God, and a vision of His beauty as it is. In what manner we shall become acquainted with God's mind, or the secrets of His interior life, whether through some manifestation by the Eternal Word, like the incarnate appearing of Jesus, or partly in some way more direct, we cannot tell. But the Divine nature and plan will be open, doubtless, in some way most appropriate, for our everlasting study, and our everlasting progress in discovery. The whole system of His moral purposes and providential decrees, His penal distributions and redeeming works, will be accessible to us, and all the creatures and creations of His power offered to our acquaintance and free inspection. Our present difficulties and hard questions will soon be solved and passed by. Even the world itself, so difficult to penetrate, so clouded with mystery, will become a transparency to us, through which God's light will pour as the sun through the open sky. John knew no better way of describing the perfectly luminous state of the blessed minds than to say, "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light." They dwell thus in the eternal daylight of love and reason; for they are so let into the mind of God, and the glorious mysteries of His nature, that everything is lighted up as they come to it, even as the earth and its objects by the sun: "The Lord God giveth them light." In closing the review of such a subject as this, let us first of all receive a lesson of modesty, and particularly such as are most wont to complain of God, and boldest in their judgments against Him. Which way soever we turn in our search after knowledge, we run against mystery at the second or third step. And a a great part of our misery, a still greater of our unbelief, and all the lunatic rage of our scepticism, arises in the fact that we either do not, or will not see it to be so. Ignorance trying to comprehend what is inscrutable, and out of patience that it cannot make the high things of God come down to its own petty measures, is the definition of all atheism. There is no true comfort in life, no dignity in reason, apart from modesty. We wrangle with Providence and call it reason, we rush upon God's mysteries, and tear ourselves against the appointments of His throne, and then, because we bleed, complain that He cruelly mocks our understanding. All our disputings and hard speeches are the frothing of our ignorance maddened by our pride. Oh, if we could see our own limitations, and how little it is possible for us to know of matters infinite, how much less, clouded by the necessary blindness of a mind disordered by evil, we should then be in a way to learn; and the lessons God will teach would put us in a way to know what now is hidden from us. Knowledge puffeth up, charity buildeth up. One makes a balloon of us, the other a temple. And as one, lighter than the wind, is driven loose in its aerial voyage, to be frozen in the airy heights of speculation, or drifted into the sea to be drowned in the waters of ignorance, which it risked without ability to swim, so the other, grounded on a rock, rises into solid majesty, proportionate, enduring, and strong. After all his laboured disputings and lofty reasons with his friends, Job turns himself to God, and says: "I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, that I knew not." H |