EPH. IV. 9, 10.-Now THAT HE ASCENDED, WHAT IS IT BUT THAT HE ALSO DESCENDED FIRST INTO THE LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH? WAS OPENED, WHICH IS THE BOOK OF LIFE: AND THE DEAD WERE JUDGED OUT OF THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS, ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS. AND THE SEA GAVE UP THE DEAD WHICH WERE IN IT; AND DEATH AND HELL DE- 2 PET. III. 13. NEVERTHELESS WE, ACCORDING TO HIS PROMISE, HOSEA X. 12.-Sow TO YOURSELVES IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, REAP IN HEB. II. 10.-FOR IT BECAME HIM, FOR WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, AND BY WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, IN BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO ACTS XIII. 36.-FOR DAVID, AFTER HE HAD SERVED HIS OWN GENE- 606 : 663 SERMONS. SERMON I. THE REVEALED DEITY. 1 JOHN iv. 16. "GOD IS LOVE." THERE is a manner of Divinity in such a saying as this! It prepossesses the mind in favour of its supernal origin. Affirmations of this order belong not to earth. It is not thus that we speak and think. We boast, indeed, our aphorisms; and the invention of any important one entitles to the distinction of a preeminent wisdom. We can digest into them very useful knowledge they become principles of judgment and rules of life. But when we attempt to seize the conception of a God, we can only succeed, and then most imperfectly, by laborious dissertation. Our reasonings are long and abstruse. Refinement follows refinement, and explanation oppresses explanation. "The Lord" always might "answer us out of the whirlwind, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" Nothing, therefore, of this kind can we condense. The sentence, the word, cannot be found to characterise Him. Our ideas are feeble, and this is seen in their diffuseness. They have no fulness, no certitude, in them. We cannot pursue them steadily nor pronounce them confidently. And therefore "it is not in man" to explain his ideas in any sort like this. He cannot strike out the single thought and term of such a delineation. "He B |