SERMON XII.

WHEN YE PRAY, SAY, OUR FATHER.-LUKE 11: 2.

THE feelings with which men approach God are apt to partake of their own character. They either portray him, in imagination, according to their own selfish, sinful desires; or else, perhaps more commonly, transfer to him the disposition that characterizes themselves. If there had been no sin in the world, they never would have conceived of him as a being of weak and tame indulgence; nor would they, for a moment, have regarded him as one clothed in terrors. If there were no unkindness in the human heart, men would not think of unkindness in God. If there were no tyranny on earth, they would not fear oppression from Heaven. While Adam retained his innocence, he seems not to have suffered a passing doubt of the goodness of the Being that made him. It was only when he became conscious of guilt, that he heard the voice of the Lord God, and was afraid.

The Bible not only reveals to us truths undiscoverable by human reason, but corrects the various and opposing errors into which our sinfulness is continually misleading us. It exhibits the most clear, consistent and satisfying views of the character of God. It presents him to us as neither foolishly capricious nor coldly indifferent, neither contemptibly yielding nor terrifically rigid and austere. The God of the patriarchs

and prophets and apostles is not the easy and excessively indulgent God of the presumptuous, nor the abstract principle of the philosophic infidel, nor the haughty and unfeeling tyrant of the superstitious. He is a Being at once to be loved and admired. He has all that is sublime, with all that is tender and beautiful and affecting. Without the appetites and passions of the flesh, which bind us in our proper sphere on earth, he has all the original affections of our higher nature in the fullest perfection. He feels love and aversion, joy and grief as really as we, without partaking of our weakness or suffering our degradation. He has all the natural emotions of a pure and supremely exalted spirit. He is truly and affectionately interested in every work of his hands. In the language of approximation, he is sometimes called King and Judge; but the term which seems most fully expressive of his character, and which the Saviour most commonly applied to him is Father. When the divine Teacher gathered his chosen disciples around him, and taught them to pray, he instructed them to say, "Our Father."

It may, perhaps, in some measure, enforce this injunction, and win our confidence and love, to contemplate a few moments the paternal character of God, as variously manifested to us in his works and word and providence.

It is displayed in the creation of the world. There was a time when the Eternal Mind dwelt alone. He looked abroad through illimitable space, and there was none but himself. His own nature prompted him to give existence to other objects, fashioned by his wisdom, and wrought by his skill;—and to create living beings, capable of thought and feeling and voluntary action, capable of enjoying happiness, and of grate

fully acknowledging him as the author of that happiness. He made the angels, who never felt a pang, and who encircle his throne with ceaseless rejoicings. He made this world. He produced the materials of it from nothing, and gave them form. He established the sun in his station, to illumine and bind together a family of orbs. He set the stars in their places. He launched the earth into motion, and gathered its waters into seas, and clothed the dry land with verdure, and shaded it with foliage, and enriched it with fruits. He filled the waters with their appropriate inhabitants, and enlivened the air with insects of every hue, and birds of cheerful note and gay plumage, and covered the hills and plains with flocks and herds and numberless animals after their kind, that sported and rejoiced in their strength, and as the work advanced, we are told, he looked upon it from time to time, and saw that it was good. Last of all, and chief of all, the great object for which all the rest of this beautiful machinery was formed, he made man, in his own image, and after his own likeness,—a miniature of himself, a rational, moral and immortal soul, and constituted him lord of the world he had made, and "gave him dominion. over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and the beast of the field,-over all the earth, and over every living thing that moved upon the earth. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, and out of the ground he caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; and there he put the man whom he had formed." He created a social pair, and blessed them, and they were happy,-happy in themselves, happy in their dwelling-place,―happy in their dominion,-happy in each other's society,—and happy in him whose image they bore as the proof of their filial relationship.

Surely it must have been with the feelings of a father's fondness and delight, that the Creator looked down upon what he had done, as it stood complete before his eye, and saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good.

The same paternal character is also seen in the government which he instituted over the world. The brute animals were made to perform their necessary functions by instinctive passions and appetites, that allured by pleasure, rather than compelled by pain. But man, with all these propensities, needed for his nobler nature, more rational principles and a higher government. Conscience was made his law; and was designed to teach what has since been inculcated by a special revelation, the great principles of supreme love to God, and impartial benevolence to men. It is a law equally worthy of a father, and adapted to the relations of children. It constantly reminds them, that they are all alike his offspring, and dear to his heart. It requires them to love one another as members of the same family, having equal rights and equal duties, and calls for their united and supreme affection to be given to him who gave them life and sustains them in being. It exacts not the obedience of a slave, but the obedience of children,-the obedience of the heart. This is all that the Creator demands of man; and it proves that he feels towards him like a father. Such obedience involves no dread, it implies no constraint, it admits no reluctance. The law, if obeyed at all, is obeyed willingly, cheerfully; for it is a law of love. It is a law, which, if universally obeyed, would soothe every troubled breast, smooth every furrowed brow, send peace into every dwelling-place of man, and transform this earth into a heaven. It would banish every fear, dispel every doubt, and constrain

us all to say with one united voice, and to feel with sympathetic love, that God is our Father.

The sanctions, too, which were given to this law, correspond with its character, and speak only of the goodness of him who enacted it. They are urgent as its importance; but they do not bind man as with cords and chains, which are always hateful, though the cords be silken and the chains of gold. The sanctions of the law do not destroy his freedom, or degrade the proper dignity of his nature. I say nothing here of what constitutes that freedom. Let those talk of this, who are anxious to make out for him a freedom greater or less than he is conscious of. It is enough that he is not made to feel himself enslaved. It is enough that we may know God has not claimed obedience arbitrarily. He created man a free, responsible, moral being, foretold to him the necessary consequences of obeying or disobeying, and left him to act, without compulsion, according to his choice. He only added to the motives of obligation, glorious, unmerited rewards of obedience, and lifted up a flaming sword in the pathway of sin. He dealt with him as with a child. He seems to have said to him, My son, it is right that you obey; but I wish to encourage your virtue, and put you on your guard against any thing that may tempt you to transgress;—if you maintain your integrity, I give you riches and honor; if you disobey, you know you wrong your own soul; but I wish you to act for yourself. Life and death are placed before you-choose-and abide by your choice.

Then the character of the father comes out perhaps more fully, when man had chosen, and committed the first act of disobedience. It may be impossible for us to conceive of the