KNOWLEDGE OF GOD FROM NATURE.

WHEN We withdraw our thoughts from the objects of sense by which we are surrounded, and raise them to those truths which claim our attention as immortal beings, the first and the most important are those which refer to the perfections of God, and our relation to him as the creatures of his hand and the subjects of his moral government. These perfections of his character he has clearly revealed to us in his works and in his word. In regard to his works, he has endowed us with powers qualified to deduce from them such a knowledge of himself as leaves every man without excuse, who allows his mind to go astray from the impressions he may there receive of the divine character, and to fail of those emotions of the heart which these impressions ought to produce.

Let us, then, consider in what manner ought to contemplate the works of God, and we what feelings or emotions of the heart towards him should arise from such contemplation. We cannot survey the structure of our own bodies without perceiving manifold evidence of the power and wisdom of him who made us. When we descend in the scale of being, and trace the same principles of life, sensation, and motion, and the complex apparatus with which they are connected, in the insect that flutters in the sunbeam, or the animalcule whose existence we learn only from powerful microscopes, we perceive, even in these parts of creation, new and wondrous evidence of that wisdom and that power.

But let us leave such objects as these, and rise to the contemplation of those mighty orbs which put even our arithmetic to the test when we endeavour to trace their dimensions and their movements. The earth which we inhabit is a body 8,000 miles in diameter; and its motion round the sun is at the rate of 68,000 miles in an hour, or 19 miles in a second. The planet Jupiter is equal to the magnitude of 1,400 earths, and pursues its way with a velocity of nearly 30,000 miles in an hour; and the velocity of the planet Mercury is estimated at upwards of 109,000. The motion of some comets has been estimated so

high as 900,000 miles in an hour, or 200 miles during one beat of the pulse; and, pursuing their way with this inconceivable speed, these remarkable bodies may dart off into regions remote and unknown, and not return for a century, yet reFrom "Elements of Sacred Truth for the Young." By John Abercrombie, M.D., fellow of the Royal College of

Physicians of Edinburgh, &c. Part I. Edinburgh: William Whyte and Co. London: Longmans. 12mo, 1844. Pp 97. This, as may be supposed, is a very valuable small volume, to which we would direct our readers' attention. "It is meant to be the first of a series intended for the young. The desire of the author, in entering upon this undertaking, is to bring together, in a simple and connected form, the leading truths of natural and revealed religion, with an outline of Christian evi

dence, taken in connexion with the leading doctrines of the Christian faith."

"Since these lines were sent to the press, the much and justly respected author suddenly died at Edinburgh, on the 14th of November. He stood in the very highest rank of his pro

fession; but he was not more distinguished as a physician than as a devoted and a decided Christian. Besides his professional works, he published, in 1830 and 1833, treatises On the Intellectual Powers, and the Investigation of Truth,' and 'On the Philosophy of Moral Feeling.' He was the author of the Moral Condition of the Lower Orders in Edinburgh,' and also of some minor works designed for the religious instruction of the young. He was at one period elected iord rector of Ma

rischal college and university of Aberdeen. The university of Oxford conferred on him, in 1834, the honorary degree of doctor of medicine."

turn at their appointed and expected periods with ments defy every power of the mind in the atthe utmost regularity and precision. Such movetempt to conceive them; and we cannot forget that with such velocity have these bodies been pursuing their wondrous way since the command of the Eternal One first called them into being.

"The

Of such dis

The distance of the earth from the sun you know to be 96,000,000 miles. That of the planet Uranus is estimated at nearly twenty times this distance, or upwards of 1,800,000,000 of miles. But this is within the system of worlds that revolve around our own sun; and such distances come to be absolute trifles when we extend our view into that wondrous field in which thousands and thousands of other systems revolve around thousands and thousands of other suns. The fixed stars we have every reason to consider as suns, each having its system of worlds revolving extensive than ours. The bright star in the conaround it, many of them, probably, much more stellation Lyra has been believed to be the nearthat of the earth's orbit, and its distance is estiest to us its diameter is supposed to be equal to mated at twenty millions of millions of miles. And this is the nearest; but the nearest of what? Of the thousands upon thousands which even the naked eye discovers, removed from each other by drous course with undeviating precision. similar distances, yet all performing their wondistance of the stars," says sir John Herschel, earth, or 19,200,000,000,000 miles: how much "cannot be so small as 4,800,000,000 radii of the larger it may be we know not." tances we can form no conception, except in a tion:-Light is known to travel at the rate of very slight degree, by the following computa192,000 miles in a second. Now light, to reach us from the nearest of the fixed stars, would require three years, at the lowest computation: some say, six. And it is supposed that, among the countless multitudes discovered by the telescope, there are many whose light would not reach the earth in less than a thousand years; "so that, when we observe their places, and note their changes, we are, in fact, reading only their history of a thousand years' date, thus wonderfully recorded*." In regard to the number of these bodies, again, we are equally lost. It is supposed that from fifteen to twenty thousand may be seen by the naked eye; but the numbers discovered by good telescopes are beyond all calculation. In particular, there are appearances called clusters of stars, many of which must contain from ten to twenty thousand in a round space whose diameter does not exceed eight or nine minutes; that is, an area not greater than a tenth part of the space covered by the moon. Sir William Herschel calculated that fifty thousand have passed under his view, during one hour's observation, in a zone two degrees in breadth; and it has been computed that the number to be seen by the telescope, were they explored, might amount to 100,000,000.

We have thus advanced only so far as our actual assisted vision conducts us; but have we any reason to believe that this carries us to the confines of creation? Far from it. Were we conveyed to the utmost limit of the inconceivable space which is thus spread before us, we cannot doubt that there would open before us new fields

Sir John Herschel.

of suns and of system; these succeeded by other suns and other systems still, till the mind shrinks from every attempt to follow them; all proclaiming, in sublime, stupendous silence, the perfections of him of whom they witness. And is it possible that a mind, in any degree disciplined to reflection, can contemplate such a scene of wonders without deriving from it some devout impressions of the all-wise and all-powerful Creator. Upon every principle of the philosophy of the mind, it is impossible; and, when this result does not follow, there is a radical error in the mind itself. It has been well and most truly said, "The undevout astronomer is mad;" that is, he who can contemplate the facts which astronomy displays to him, without corresponding sentiments of devotion towards God, can be likened only to a man who has lost entirely his powers of reasoning and of judging.

providence of God. The purchasers and consumers eat the food, put on the raiment, and enjoy a thousand other benefits every day of their lives, with only an occasional and a mere transient thought on the never-ceasing care and kindness of divine Providence. Great are the evils arising from this thoughtless conduct; for there are but few steps between habitual insensibility to the divine benevolence and practical infidelity. Multitudes there are who devote their whole lives to the acquisition of wealth, which, when obtained, becomes the undivided object of their adoration. This was the accusation against Israel in Hosea ii. 8-" For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." It was this worship of the creature instead of the Creator, from which

"THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND THE Job sought to be preserved, when he said,

FULNESS THEREOF;"

A Sermon,

BY THE REV. HENRY CLISSOLD, M.A.,
Minister of Stockwell, Lambeth.
PSALM Xxiv. 1.

"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

IN considering these words of the psalmist we would observe

"If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge; for I should have denied the God that is above' (Job xxxi. 24-28).

In contrast with the thoughtlessness and infidelity of worldly minds, let us consider

II. That all the children of God have, in successive ages, proclaimed and deeply felt the truth of the providence of God.

I. That, although the truth of God's providence is generally acknowledged in principle, it is generally departed from in practice. The tradesman sells his various commodities, and makes his profit upon them, without much thought of him who is the Author and The most ancient of historians begins his Giver of all good things. The manufacturer work by attributing all to him: "In the beexercises his ingenuity on the materials of ginning God created the heaven and the gold and silver, iron and brass, silk, cotton, earth." Light and darkness, day and night, and wool, with scarcely a reflection on the the firmament on high, the ocean and dry divine benevolence by which they were pro- land, the grasses, herbs, and trees, the sun, vided. The merchant sends the stately bark the moon and stars, all living creaturesladen with the produce of his country, to re- whether the cattle on a thousand hills, the ceive in exchange from distant climes what- birds that wheel aloft their flight, the tiniest ever varied productions may conduce to the insect, and the monster whale, or, last of all, enrichment of himself and the comfort of man himself, in God's own image-are all set others, and in that act seldom regards him who forth as springing from God's all-powerful is the Creator and Disposer of all things. word and his all-bountiful goodness. The The professional man engages in the science most ancient of historians, in the first chapter of his profession, labours in its practice, and of the bible, thus virtually pronounces the receives the emolument of his services, with- truth, that "the earth is the Lord's, and the out looking up so much as he ought to him fulness thereof." As they were created by who has endowed him with faculties to be his all-powerful word, they are his by right useful, and furnishes those things which are of creation. But they are his; because he the sole means of his usefulness. The la-alone sustains them. He not only created bouring man engages in his toil from morn to setting sun, without directing his eyes upward to him who giveth to him his daily bread. Nor are the tradesman, the manufacturer, the merchant, the professional man, and the labourer, the only persons who overlook the

the heaven and the earth, but he upholdeth all things by the power of his word. He can either continue them in their present order and usefulness, or he can suspend their powers so as to bring on a guilty people desolation and woe. What does God say by

Moses to proud Pharaoh? "I will send all | my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth" (Exod. ix. 14). And again, we read that "Moses spread out his hands towards heaven, and the thunder and hail ceased, that Pharaoh might know that the earth is the Lord's" (Exod. ix. 29). God's power and providence, his right of possession and disposal, were used as an argument for obedience, when it was said by God himself, "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for the earth is mine" (Exod. xix. 5).

They all felt as with one heart and perceived as with one mind, that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

Seeing, therefore, how great is the practical neglect of this leading truth by worldly men, whether among our tradesmen, merchants, manufacturers, professional men, and labourers, or among our people in general, as contrasted with the deep sense of God's providence, right of possession and disposal of all created things, which ever dwelt in the minds of the saints of old, the religious world hailed with approbation those words of scripture engraven on the lofty entablature of a great public building, recently raised and devoted to trade and commerce: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

Here we are led to considerIII. What are the practical reflections which these words suggest.

I might adduce many instances from the lives and declarations of the patriarchs to prove that, whether in prosperity or adversity, the sense of God's providence was ever present, and his right of possession and disposal I. These words of scripture were inscribed on ever uppermost in their minds. But I pass a public building, to remind the multitude of on to select more especially the noble declara- every nation, kindred, people, and tongue, who tion of David, respecting this important doc- therein would assemble from every clime, of an trine. Not only does he affirm it generally, important truth, which they especially would in the simple and sublime words of the text, otherwise be too apt to forget. The business but more particularly, when collecting the of commercial life, its hopes and fears, with varied and costly materials with which the its engrossing interests, tend very much to temple might be built by his son and suc- corrupt the mind and affections, to withdraw cessor. Lest those engaged in it should be them from the Creator, and to concentrate puffed up by pride and vanity, he ascribes the them on the creature. While the senses are formation of and property in those materials being employed in investigating the nature to God alone, and, for the same purpose, and qualities of the various productions, the mournfully contrasts his majesty with man's mind itself becomes so absorbed in them, and frailty. David says: "Thine, O Lord, is the heart so devoted to them, as to forget God, the greatness, and the power, and the glory, the Maker of them. And even the same unand the victory, and the majesty; for all that failing supplies which roll in constant succesis in the heaven and in the earth is thine: sion on the sons of men from plentiful harthine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art vests, teeming mines, and the thousand other exalted as head above all. Both riches and sources of production, are at last looked upon honour come of thee, and thou reignest over as the spontaneous offerings of nature, rather all; and in thine hand is power and might; than as the bounteous provision of nature's and in thine hand it is to make great, and to Lord and Master. This practical infidelity give strength unto all. Now therefore, our takes away the feeling of dependence on God, God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious stifles the voice of prayer and praise, and extinname. But who am I, and what is my peo-guishes all love to him in whom we live and ple, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." And then, from the frailty of man, he returns to his former subject: "O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own" (1 Chron. xxix. 11-16). Time would fail me were I to adduce more scripture proofs of the deep impression made on the saints of old by evidences of God's power and providence, and his right of property in all created things.

move and have our being. And, as there is nothing more deadening than this practical infidelity, so there is nothing which throws a more healthy life into all our pursuits than an abiding sense of God's presence and providence. Read Psalm civ. David's interest in all that he observed was heightened when, standing amid the numerous evidences of God's providential goodness, he saw, acknowledged, and felt God in every thing around. Read the entire of Psalm civ.; but especially study the 24th and following verses: "Ŏ Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable,