creatures and his own essential character, there described as the vision of God, or the intuitive knowledge of him as a Spirit, will form the principal ingredient of future happiness. Our Saviour represents him. self as the source of this happiness: "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory."* The apostle Paul, also, speaking of the perfec tion of the happiness of heaven, describes it as resulting from the immediate sight of the Divine glory. "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then shall we see face to face; now I know in part, then shall I know even as also I am known."

Even while they continue on earth, it is the privilege of the faithful to enjoy that union and alliance with the Father of spirits, through his Son, by virtue of which they become one spirit. They are, at some favoured seasons, so filled, even to overflowing, with a sense of his love, that the wilderness appears more beautiful than the peopled city. At such seasons, though all the evils that afflict the flesh may attempt to assail the immortal mind, he can be so present to the heart, and impart to the soul such ecstasies of enjoyment, as will more than overpower the violence of pain, and even prevail over the agonies of death. We now proceed to a brief practical improvement of the subject before us :

Let us, in contemplating the Divine Being, endeavour to raise our selves above the association of our minds with what is sensible, visible, and corporeal, and retire within our own nature; not for the purpose of seeking happiness there, but that we may feel our necessity of God, and perceive the demand which the highest powers of our nature make for such a being, and the impossibility of their finding rest but in his knowledge, obedience, and love. The natural effect of communion with ourselves is to convince us of our own emptiness and nothingness, at the same time that it indicates our native grandeur, inasmuch as there is nothing that can constitute our rational portion but God. In your calmest moments, my brethren, you will find that you possess an understanding capable of contemplating God, and that He only can be an adequate object to engage and employ that understanding, because he is the only being capable of affording to you light, happiness, and life, through a boundless eternity. You possess a conscience, which gives a moral character to all your actions, tinctures with an evil of its own peculiar kind (the evil of guilt) whatever it condemns, and invests with an attribute of moral beauty and rectitude whatever it approves : whence you will perceive that you never can be happy till conscience is on your side, till the character of your actions and thoughts is such as will bear the review of that inward monitor. To produce this effect is to harmonize a man with his own conscience, to bring him to be at peace with himself, because at peace with God-to place him on a moral centre, where he can rest self-poised amid all the fluctuations of the external world. You will find within you susceptibility which recoils from pain, and thirsts for pleasures; not merely those that are

corporeal in their nature, but also mental and intellectual, such as those which we taste in friendship, and in the contemplation of virtue and truth. Hence you will perceive that you never can be truly and eternally happy till these affections have an adequate object; and that never will be found except in the supreme, eternal, original Spirit. He alone can so communicate himself to you, and give you such a knowledge of his character, and such a sense of his friendship, as will render you in a great measure independent of all earthly objects. You will perceive that he is fitted to be himself the sole and exclusive object of all these powers; you will see the propriety and beauty of that exclamation" Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire in comparison of thee."

Since God is a Spirit, and we are principally distinguished by possessing a rational and immortal nature, there must be an everlasting connexion established between him and us,—either favourable or injurious, of reward or punishment, of mercy or justice, on which will depend our destiny for ever. There must be a meeting of all finite spirits in the presence of the infinite original Spirit, when an account must be given to God of "the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil." Your happiness must eternally consist in the favour of that Being to whom you are perpetually responsible for all the sentiments of your heart, and all the actions of your life. If you die in a state of disobedience, impenitence, and alienation from God, you will incur the doom denounced against those whom our Saviour threatened, that if they believed not in him, but rejected his mission and authority, they should die in their sins. A more awful denunciation who can conceive?" If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins; and whither I go ye cannot come."

The consequence will be, that the Being whom you have neglected and forgotten will be the constant and eternal source of your misery. You will sink under his frown; separation from him will be the great cause of your anguish; you will be vessels of his wrath; you will have fitted yourselves, by contempt of the supreme authority, and alienation from the supreme good, to be for ever in a state of wretchedness, because of separation from Him who is "the fountain of living water."

Since God is a Spirit, and we are unable of ourselves to rise so high as to attain the favour and friendship of such a Being, whose entirely spiritual nature is so subtile that it eludes our unassisted conception; in order that the worship of the true God may be adapted to become the universal religion, Jesus Christ has come down to earth. has assumed human nature, imbodied the attributes of God in an incarnate form, and thus taught us the character of the Deity in his own actions. We know the principles of the Divine conduct in the government of the world, by the conduct and character of our blessed Saviour in his life. He is "the image of the invisible God," the only representation of Deity: "He that hath seen me," said he, "hath seen the Father." The design of his coming into this world was to bring back apostate creatures to his Father; "to make reconciliation for iniquity"

by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross; and thus to remove all those impediments which spring from the character of God to acceptance in his sight, and to restore them to the enjoyment of his eternal favour. He gave himself a sacrifice on the altar of justice, that a free passage might be opened to the favour of his heavenly Father without any impeachment of the Divine character: "that he might be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus."

What movements are in your minds, my brethren, with respect to this great object at this time? Are they stationary, or are they moving in a right or a wrong direction? Are you under the guidance of Christ, seeking increased acquaintance with him, aspiring after higher degrees of resemblance to him, fixing your hopes more firmly upon his promises? Then all things will be favourable to you; "the world, or life, or death, things present, or things to come, all are yours." You have obeyed from the heart the call of the gospel; you have forsaken the world; have become dead to it before you are called to leave it; and have laid up treasure in heaven, having trusted your souls for safety to the Divine Redeemer; "you know whom you have believed, and are persuaded that he is able to keep that which you have committed unto him until that day." But if your minds are engaged in a contrary direction; if you are seeking happiness in the things of this world, living in the neglect of God, never raising your thoughts to the contemplation of the Supreme Good,-if, having rejected the great salvation, you are content to lie under the weight of unacknowledged, and therefore unpardoned guilt,—yet, bear with me while I remind you that you must have a meeting with God; you must see the face of that Divine Being whose authority you have spurned, and feel the anger of that Divine Redeemer whom you have rejected. You will, if you persist in this course, hear him pronounce the fearful sentence, "Those mine enemies that would not have me to reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me:" "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Blessed be God, there are those now present who are placing their affections habitually on the great Supreme, and uniting themselves, more and more closely, to him by faith in the Son of God. Let such persons rejoice in the prospects before them. The interruptions which arise from your corporeal state will speedily terminate; the flesh shall then no longer lust against the spirit, nor the spirit against the flesh; but you will "do the things that you would." You have preferred the interests of the mind to those of the body; the service of Jesus Christ, and the prospects of eternity, to all sublunary good. You are approaching nearer and nearer to the Chief Good; you are hungering and thirsting after righteousness; and you shall certainly be satisfied. God approves your choice, and will assist your infirmities; "he will strengthen you with all might by his Spirit in your inner man;" will "work in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure;" and enable you to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

"They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;

they that sow to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Let us make continual progress in Christian virtue. Every act of sin has a tendency to misery. Every effort to subdue corruption, and to live to the will of God, is a seed which, by God's grace, will bring forth fruit to everlasting life. By patient continuance in well-doing, let us seek for glory, honour, and immortality; for to such God will assuredly recompense eternal life: but to those that are disobedient, and do not obey the truth, "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish." "On the wicked he will rain fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup."*

II.

THE GLORY OF GOD IN CONCEALING.

PROVERBS XXV. 2.—It is the glory of God to conceal a thing.†

[PREACHED AT Cambridge, september, 1826.]

IT is difficult to say whether the glory of God appears more in what he displays, or in what he conceals, of his operations and designs. Were he to conceal every thing from our view, it would be impossible that any glory could result to him from the sentiments and actions of his creatures. From entire ignorance nothing could arise, no medium of intercourse could be established between the creature and the Creator. In the total absence of the knowledge of God, religion must be totally excluded and unknown. But it is by a partial communication of himself, which the Divine Being might, if he pleased, in various degrees extend and increase beyond the present measure, that he has in the highest degree consulted his honour and manifested his wisdom. If there were no light, we should sink into a state of irreligious doubt and despair; if there were no darkness, we should be in danger of losing that reverential sense of his infinite majesty so essential to religion, and of impiously supposing that the Almighty is such a one as ourselves. But a temperature of mingled light and obscurity, a combination of discovery and concealment, is calculated to produce the most suitable impressions of the Divine excellence on the minds of fallen creatures. When God was pleased to favour his ancient people with a supernatural display of his presence, by a visible symbol, during their journey through the wilderness, it wore this twofold aspect it was a pillar of cloud and of fire, dark in the daytime and luminous in the night; and when he conducted them through the Red Sea, he turned the bright side of the cloud towards the camp of

* Rom. ii. 7-9; Ps. xi. 6

↑ From the notes of Joshua Wilson, Esq.

Israel, and the gloomy side towards the Egyptians, by whom they were pursued.*

When he descended on Mount Sinai, the token of his presence was a mass of thick and dark clouds, penetrated at intervals by flashes of lightning. On the third day, in the morning, we are informed, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount: and, it is added, "the mount was altogether in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace." When Solomon had finished his temple, the manifestation which the Deity made of himself, in taking possession of it and consecrating it to his service, was of the same character. No sooner had the priest gone out of the holy place, than the cloud filled the house of the Lord; and “the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord." The first indication of the Divine presence was the overspreading of thick darkness, which afterward subsided, and unfolded itself gradually, till it terminated in an insufferable splendour. Upon observing this, Solomon, at the commencement of his celebrated prayer, used these words: "The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." If God dwells in light inaccessible, he equally makes darkness his dwelling-place," his pavilion dark waters and thick clouds of the sky." "Clouds and darkness," says David, “are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." In this view of the character and dispensations of the Almighty, the Psalmist probably alludes to those sensible appearances of his presence which are recorded in his ancient oracles.

At our Saviour's transfiguration, the three disciples retained their composure until the cloud appeared; for they knew that to be the symbol of the immediate presence of the Deity. "They feared," we are told, “when they entered into the cloud;" and it was thence the voice proceeded, saying, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." These representations are in perfect harmony with the doctrine of the passage under our present consideration, in which the wisest of men, speaking by inspiration, informs us that "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing." He does it with a design to promote his glory, being by necessity his own ultimate and final end.

There are two observations naturally suggested by these words:I. The Divine Being is accustomed to conceal much.

II. In this he acts in a manner worthy of himself, and suited to display his glory.

I. We shall specify some of the instances in which God conceals things.

1. In relation to his own nature and manner of existence.

His essence is altogether hidden from the most profound investigation, the most laborious research, the most subtile penetration of his creatures. With respect to this, it may be said, "Who by searching can find out God; who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" We know that he possesses certain attributes, (which we distinguish by † 1 Kings viii. 12.

*Exod. xiv. 19, 20.