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I. The importance of entertaining just views of God, is plain alike from the testimony of the Scriptures and our own observation. In the Bible, idolatry is condemned as one of the greatest sins; indeed as being in some sense the parent of them all; and idolatry consists in giving to any other being that homage and worship due to God alone, whether this be an idol of wood or stene, or an imaginary being whom our own fancy has created, dif ferent from that God who is revealed in the Scriptures. "I am the Lord; that is my name; and I will not give my glory to another, neither my praise to graven images."-Isaiah xlvii. 9. "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."-Exodus xx. 3-6. "Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin.". 2 Kings xvii. 21.

Nor will the importance with which this subject is invested seem strange to us, when it is considered how great is the influence of just views of God, in forming the character and governing the life. Godliness has never been found, except in connexion with just apprehensions of God. The moral condition of the heathen world is an affecting proof of the practical influence of idolatry. It debases the mind and demoralizes the life, and to it the apostle Paul justly attributes all the abominations by which the heathen are distinguished.-Rom. i. 21—27. "As they did not like. to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things," &c.-Rom. i. 28-32. These are the natural fruits of idolatry.

How strange, then, is it to find that, even by some who call themselves Christians, idolatry should be considered not a very great evil! They speak lightly of the worship of images, and seem to think there is no essential difference between that and the worship of the Christian. The infidel sentiment of a great poet has been the delight of a considerable portion of the Christian world.

"Father of all, by every age, in every clime ador'd,

By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.”

A sentiment which nullifies all the denunciations of the Scriptures against idolatry, which places the heathen's conception of God in the same rank with the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and sets the abominable deities of the heathen on a level with the One, Living, and True God.

Among Christians, too, in our own times, it is common for any one to imagine, that he is quite competent to form just apprehensions of God, and that he is at liberty to worship him agreeably to his own views, whatever these may be. Instead of coming to the Scriptures, and with laborious diligence investigating what they teach respecting God, each seems to think he has abundance of light in his own mind, and that his own reason is sufficient for his direction. Thus many may be heard pronouncing of the great God, what he is and what he is not or cannot be, what he must and what he must not do, what must and what cannot be his perfections; and in all this they have no other guide than their own ideas of what God ought to be. "They think he is altogether such an one as themselves." Their sin is the height of profanity. Their God is a mere idol of their own creating. That which they worship is not God. The only difference be tween their God and that of the heathen is, that the former is commonly a piece of wood or stone, whereas theirs is a fancy of their own imagination. Men know not God, unless they are taught by his word and Spirit. They ought to know him from the works of creation, but they do not. Their minds are blinded by sin, and hence God has seen it to be right and necessary to favour the world with a new revelation of himself, and this is given to us in the Scriptures. We shall therefore proceed and con. sider

II. The revelation of the divine character made to us in the Scriptures. Of God, in his nature and essence, we may be said to know nothing. What we do know, is by means of his names, titles, attributes, and works. In the language of an old divine, he "thus spells out himself to us," since otherwise we could not attain to any right conceptions of him. And it may be said there are three ways in which he makes himself known, by his works of creation, by his providence, and by his word. Of these David writes in the 19th psalm; but it is to the last our attention is at present to be confined. Nor indeed is there much wisdom in occupying our time with an inquiry, how

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much we may learn of God by means of the dim taper of our own reason, when we may as well conduct the investigation amid the full blaze of the light of revelation. There are, many things, essential to be known by sinners, respecting God, which nothing but revelation can teach. Will he pardon sin? In what manner will he do so? These are questions to which the voice of nature renders no reply. It was reserved for the Bible alone to reveal the character of God, as it respects sinners. And how blessed its revelation! "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."-John i. 18. God hath given the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. In Christ, as in a glass, we behold the character of God. And the great and blessed peculiarity of that revelation is, that it announces him to be "God our Saviour." Under this character he is revealed in the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments. And we cannot better illustrate the subject than by select ing a few passages from each, accompanying them with some explanatory remarks.

The first which we shall select is in Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7. "The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty." The eircumstances under which this revelation of God was made, ṛender it peculiarly valuable and interesting. Moses had set up the tabernacle for worship, (Exodus xxxiii. 7); he was deeply solicitous to entertain right apprehensions of God, the object of worship, (v. 18); God was pleased graciously to regard the desire of his soul, (xix. 23); the greatest preparation was made to hear the announcement God would make of his name, (xxxiy 1-3); and then was the proclamation which we have quoted pronounced in his hearing. What we are particularly to notice in it is, the overwhelming manifestation which it makes of the divine mercy and goodness, joined with the most marked decla. ration of his holiness and justice. It accords with the description of Jehovah, given by Isaiah, (xlv. 21). "There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me." God, in his mercy, would save sinners; yet would he do so in a way agreeable to his justice.

The next passage which we shall notice is Exodus xxv. 21, 22. "Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark, and there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." Here we have an outward manifestation of the divine character exactly in accordance with the proclamation of the name of God to Moses. In the ark was the law; over it was the mercy-seat; on the mercy-seat the outward symbol of the divine presence: and thus was the worshipper taught, that mercy might be dispensed in a mannner consistent with the demands of the law. And what that manner is we learn from Rom. iii. 25, 26, where Christ is called the propitiation, (the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, in allusion to that mentioned in Exodus); where God is represented to dwell in him; and so to dispense salvation to his people, while justice is maintain. ed inviolate. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbear ance of God;-that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

We shall quote only one other passage from the Old Testament. It is the 103d Psalm 2-5. God is here made known by his works of mercy towards sinners; and these are represented to be forgiving their sins, healing their spiritual diseases, redeeming their souls from the power of sin and the dominion of Satan, and blessing them with all temporal and spiritual blessings needful to them in time and eternity. In the passage just quoted, God is made known by the proclamation of his character in plain and intelligible language; in the second passage there is an account of an external and visible manifestation of his name; and in the last he is made known by his works. The design of thus discovering to us the cha racter of God, in so many different ways, is obviously to make it the more distinct and intelligible. And they all unite to proclaim him to men under the delightful and blessed character of "God our Saviour."

When we examine the New Testament Scriptures on this subject, we find their testimony to be similar to that which, we have seen, is borne by those of the Old. Their great peculiarity is, that they make us acquainted

with the character of God, by exhibiting it to us in the person and conduct of Jesus Christ. To know what God is, we have only to know the life of Christ. Especially are we thus enlightened in the knowledge of God, in his dealing with sinners. And here may we see the meaning of our Lord's own words, "if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also; and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him"-" he that hath seen me hath seen the Father"-and "believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." We shall quote only two passages from the New Testament, illustrative of the character of God.

The first is 2 Cor. v. 19. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." The apostle declares it to be the object of the Christian ministry to announce to men, that God now dwelt in Christ, as of old time he dwelt on the mercy-seat, and that he dwelt there to do for them, in his mercy, all that they needed as sinners. He is there “reconciling sinners to himself." The phrase implies, that he has proclaimed his willingness to save them-has devised a method to save them-carried that plan into execution-is daily applying it personally and practically to sinners-carrying forward its influence in the characterand taking his people home to glory.

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The second passage is 2 Cor. iv. 6. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The declaration here is, that as, in the beginning, God made himself known by creation, so now he has been pleased to make himself known by redemption. His glory means the manifestation of his perfections. These are exhibited to us in Christ, like as the features of the human person are reflected in a mirror. And as we may become acquainted with the personal appearance of a man by beholding it reflected in a glass, so may we know God by contemplating his perfections, as they are reflected in Jesus Christ. Looking upon them as they are manifested there, we are forcibly reminded of the admirable description of God in the Shorter Catechism: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being,

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