late goes on to argue. Wisdom, intelligence, and power, are not God, though God is an infinitely wise being, and intelligent, and powerful. So that to contemplate the effects of wisdom must be an inferior thing to the contemplating wisdom in itself-for the cause must be always a higher object to the mind than the effect-and the contemplating wisdom in itself must be an inferior thing to the contemplating the divine nature; for wisdom is but an attribute of the nature, and not the nature itself. Thus, at present, we make little or no approach towards knowing God as he is, because God hath not yet made himself all in all to his creatures. But let there once come this universal diffusion of Deity, and we may find in God himself the objects which answer to our matured and spiritualized faculties. We profess not to be competent to the understanding the mysterious change which is thus indicated as passing on the universe. But we can perceive it to be a change which shall be full of glory, full of happiness. We shall be as sensible of the presence of God, as we now are of the presence of a friend, when he is standing by us, and conversing with us. And what will be the joy of heart which his presence will inspire good men with, when they shall have a sensation that he is the sustainer of their being, that they exist in him; when they shall feel his influence cheering, and enlivening, and supporting their frame, in a manner of which we have now no conception ?" He will be, in a literal sense, their strength and their portion for ever.

along do battle with sense, but in manifestations so immediate, so direct, so adapted to our faculties of perception, that we shall literally see God, and be in contact with God; and oh then, if thought recur to the days of probation, when all that concerns us was administered through a Mediator, we shall feel that whatever is most illustrious in dignity, whatever most rapturous in enjoyment, was promised in the prophetic announcement, that, when the Son shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father, God himself shall be all in all.

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We can only add that it becomes us to examine whether we are now subjects of the mediatorial kingdom, or whether we are of those who will not that Christ should reign over them. If God is hereafter to be all in all, it behoves us to inquire what he is to us now? Can we say with the Psalmist, whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee?" How vain must be our hope of entering into heaven, if we have no present delight in what are said to be its joys.. A christian finds his happiness in holiness. And therefore, when he looks forward to heaven, it is the holiness of the scene, and association, on which he fastens as affording the happiness. He is not in love with an Arcadian paradise, with the green pastures, and the flowing waters, and the minstrelsy of many harpers. He is not dreaming of a bright island, where he shall meet buried kinsfolk, and, renewing domestic charities, live human life again in all but its cares, and tears, and partThus we look forward to the termi- ings. "Be ye holy, for I am holy". nation of the mediatorial kingdom, as this is the precept, attempted conformithe event with which stands associated ty to which is the business of a chrisour reaching the summit of our felici- tian's life, perfect conformity to which ty. There is then to be a removal of shall be the blessedness of heaven. Let all that is now intermediate in our com- us therefore take heed that we deceive munications with Deity, and the sub- not ourselves. The apostle speaks of stitution of God himself for the objects "tasting the powers of the world to which he has now adapted to the giv- come," as though heaven were to being us delight. God himself will be an gin on this side the grave. We may object to our faculties; God himself be enamored of heaven, because we will be our happiness. And as we travel think that "there the wicked cease from one spot to another of the uni- from troubling, and the weary are at verse, and enter into companionship rest." We may be enchanted with the with different sections of its rejoicing poetry of its descriptions, and fascipopulation, every where we shall carry nated by the brilliancy of its colorDeity with us, and every where findings, as the Evangelist John relates his Deity-not as now, when faith must all visions, and sketches the scenery on

which he was privileged to gaze. But delight: for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meetness for a world in which God is to be all in all for ever and for ever?

SERMON III.

THE ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM THE POSSESSION

OF THE SCRIPTURES.*

"What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God."-Rom. 3: 1, 2.

even before such an audience as the present, we would enlarge on the advantages which result to a nation from possessing God's oracles.

We take at first the lowest ground; for many who acknowledge gratefully the worth of Holy Writ, when man is viewed relatively to an after state of being, seem little conscious of the blessings derived from it, when he is regarded merely in reference to this earth. It were no over-bold opinion, that, if the Bible were not the word of God, and could be proved to be not the word of God, it would nevertheless be the most precious of books, and do immeasurably more for a land than the finest productions of literature and philosophy. We always recur with great delight to the testimony of a deist, who, after publicly laboring to disprove christianity, and to bring Scripture into contempt as a forgery, was found instructing his child from the pages of the New Testament. When taxed with the flagrant inconsistency, his only reply was, that it was necessary to teach the child morality, and that nowhere was there to be found such morality as in the Bible. We thank the deist for the confession. Whatever our scorn of a man who could be guilty of so foul a dishonesty, seeking to sweep from the earth a volume to which, all the while, himself recurred for the principles of education, we thank him for his testimony, that the morality of Scripture is a morality not elsewhere to be found; so that, if there were no Bible, there would be comparatively no source of instruction in duties and virtues, whose neglect and decline would dislocate the happiness of human society. The deist was right. Deny or disprove the divine origin of Scripture, and nevertheless you must keep the volume as a kind of text-book of morality, if indeed you would not wish the banishment from our homes of all that is lovely and sacred, and the breaking up, through the lawlessness of ungovernable passions, of the quiet and the beauty which are yet round our families.

being of households. We admit indeed that this benefit could be but partially wrought, if the Bible were received as only a human composition. We do not exactly see how the deist was to enforce on his child the practice of what Scripture enjoined, if he denied to that Scripture the authority drawn from the being God's word. Yet it is not to be doubted, that, even where there is but little regard to the divine origin of the Bible, the book wields no inconsiderable sway; so that numbers, who care nothing for it as a revelation from God, are unconsciously influenced by it in every department of conduct. The deist, though he reject revelation, and treat it as a fable, is not what he would have been, had there been no revelation. As a member of society, he has been fashioned and cast into the mould of the Bible, however vehement in his wish to exterminate the Bible. It is because the Bible has gained footing in the land where he dwells, and drawn a new boundary-line between what is base and what honorable, what unworthy of rational beings and what excellent and of good report, that he has learned to prize virtues and shun vices which respectively promote and impede the happiness of families and the greatness of communities. He is therefore the ungracious spectacle of a being elevated by that which he derides, ennobled by that on which he throws ridicule, and indebted for all on which he prides himself to that which he pronounces unworthy his regard.

And if it be thus certain-certain on the confession of its enemies—that a pure and high morality is to be gathered only from the pages of the Bible, what an advantage is there in the possession of the Scriptures, even if death were the termination of human existence. Take away the Bible from a nation, so that there should no longer be the exhibition and inculcation of its precepts, and there would be a gradual, yea, and a rapid, introduction of false principles and spurious theories, which would pave the way for a total degeneracy of manners. You It is a mighty benefit, invariably pro- would quickly find that honesty and duced where the Bible makes way-the integrity were not held in their former heightened tone of morals, and the in- repute, but had given place to fraud troduction of principles essential to the and extortion; that there was an unistability of government, and the well-versal setting up of an idol of selfish

ness, before which all that is generous, a people, is tantamount to the producand disinterested, and philanthropic, ing a thorough revolution-a revolu would be forced to do homage; that tion including equally the palace and there was attached little or none of the cottage-so that every rank in sothat sacredness to domestic relation- ciety, as though there had been waved ships which had heretofore been the over it the wand of the magician, is chief charm of families; and that there mysteriously elevated, and furnished was departing from our institutions all with new elements of dignity and that is glorious in liberty, and from our comfort. Who then will refuse to firesides all that gives them their at- confess, that, even if regard were had tractiveness. Whatever had been intro- to nothing beyond the present narrow duced and matured by the operations scene, there is no gift comparable to of christianity, would, in process of that of the Bible; and that consequenttime, decay and disappear, were those ly, though a nation might throw away, operations suspended; and since we as did the Jewish, the greatest of their can confidently trace to the influences privileges, and fail to grasp the imof true religion, our advancement in all mortality set before them in the rethat concerns the public security, and velation intrusted to their keeping, the private tranquillity; we can with there would yet be proof enough of equal confidence affirm our speedy re- their having possessed a vast advanlapse, if these influences were suddenly tage over others, in the fact adduced withdrawn. And therefore do we feel by St. Paul in our text, that unto that we give an exaggerated statement, them had been committed the oracles when we describe the possession of of God?" the Bible as the possession of a talisman, by which the worst forms of evil are averted from a land, and the best and purest blessings shrined in its households.

We are never afraid to ascribe to the prevalence of true religion, that unmeasured superiority in all the dignities and decencies of life, which distinguish a christian nation as compared with a heathen. We ascribe it to nothing but acquaintance with the revealed will of God, that those kingdoms of the earth, which bow at the name of Jesus, have vastly outstripped in civilization every other, whether ancient or modern, which may be designated pagan and idolatrous. If you search for the full developement of the principles of civil liberty, for the security of property, for an evenhanded justice, for the rebuke of gross vices, for the cultivation of social virtues, and for the diffusion of a generous care of the suffering, you must turn to lands where the cross has been erected as though christianity were identified with what is fine in policy, lofty in morals, and permanent in greatness. Yea, as though the Bible were a mighty volume, containing whatever is requisite for correcting the disorders of states and cementing the happiness of families, you find that, the causing it to be received and read by

We would further observe that we stand indebted to the Bible for much of intellectual as well as moral advantage. Indeed the two go together. Where there is great moral, there will commonly be great mental degradation; and the intellect has no fair play, whilst the man is under the dominion of vice. It is certainly to be observed, that, in becoming a religious man, an individual seems to gain a wider comprehension, and a sounder judgment; as though, in turning to God, he had sprung to a higher grade in intelligence. It would mark a weak, or at least an uninformed mind, to look with contempt on the Bible, as though beneath the notice of a man of high power and pursuit. He who is not spiritually, will be intellectually benefited by the study of Scripture; and we would match the sacred volume against every other, when the object proposed in the perusal is the strengthening the understanding by contact with lofty truth, or refining the taste by acquaintance with exquisite beauty. And of course the intellectual benefit is greatly heightened, if accompanied by a spiritual. Man becomes in the largest sense "a new creature," when you once waken the dormant immortality. It is not, of course, that there is communicated any fresh set of mental powers; but there is removed all