ked power. It awakens awe and fear, but apart from intelligence and love it cannot inspire confidence or kindle affection. The flood, the cataract, the abyss, the thunder, the terrible arch of crystal, the power that has here put forth its arm for ages without weariness and without rest, all this has in it a sublimity that subdues my soul to awe; but none of these attract my soul to love; none of these meet the aspirations of a nature all swelling with affections and hopes, and reaching for some higher Being in whom it may trust. This material force, this eternal fate, is not the God my being craves.

III. Yet another conception of the Deity is that of strict Monotheism, which makes God an absolute unit, isolated both in his personality and in his sovereignty. A great superiority of this view above those now considered is that it invests God with personality. It regards him neither as an abstraction of thought, a diffused essence, a physical law, a mechanical will; but as a Being having both will and affections, and with whom power and omnipresence are attributes under his own control. In the conception of such a being the mind at once perceives an object equal to its utmost capacities of thought, and adapted to its every desire and want as an intellectual creature. But can its moral necessities be equally satisfied in such a God?

First of all, how can it approach him? Mere thought, conception, is not communion-the felt intercourse of mind with mind. What can I do more than to admire and adore such a God, as I look upon the mountain of eternal ice gleaming in awful purity, which I can never approach unto? Can I drink of no stream of blessedness from his bosom? Can I gather no riches from his side? Can I love also, and feel that my love is reciprocated? Does this Being of infinite power and majesty care for me any more than I care for the worm at my feet?

They who advocate this view of God, tell me of his benignity and his paternity. But what evidence of this have I in Nature? I see in many things that God is good. I receive unnumbered mercies at his hand. But withal how much there is of evil and of suffering. God has clothed these banks with verdure, and has scattered the beauty of flowers along the brink of the cataract. But still the cataract is there as a perpetual destroyer of this life and beauty; wearing down the banks, swallowing up the trees and flowers; crushing all bright and beautiful things with its terrible power. And as with these lesser forms of life, so with the race of man. "Thou carriest them away as with a flood." Even as the myriad drops from passing clouds and hidden springs, here gathered in one mighty stream, plunge into this remorseless chasm and roll outward to the sea, so through all the ages gone, the myriad units of human life gathered into the stream of time, have plunged into the abyss of death and rolled onward to eter

nity. The drops of water in the grand cycle of Nature's laws, re-ascend to the clouds, and come back to their old fountains; but is there any re-ascent for man, any new cycle of existence beyond the abyss? I know that God is good; but he is great and powerful, and is he always good, and does he care for me? Am I any more to him than a drop in the ever-rolling flood? How can I reach to him? How call Him my father and my God?

Moreover, I am guilty. I know this in the measure that I know myself. My thoughts accuse each other. Conscience reproves; memory unrolls her painful scroll; reason condemns. Is he then gracious and forgiving? Where shall I learn this? How shall I know it? Not in the flood, the abyss, the thunder, the pillar of smoke, the drear and silent heaven. Alas this dread unit of Deity, so remote from my feeble nature, so isolated in his personality and his sovereignty, is not the God to whom I, as a sinner, dare to come. I see his awful majesty where he sitteth above the flood; the splendor of that emerald throne, and the sapphire pavement on which he treads; I hear the voice of many waters and the voice of many thunderings, saying, “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters; " every emotion of wonder, of reverence, of awe, of fear, of sublimity, is stirred with such a conception of the Deity; but my spirit craves that perfect love which casteth out fear.

MAN.

Till God in human flesh I see
My thoughts no comfort find.

IV. For such a view of God I must turn away from nature to Revelation. And now with this heavenly glass I look again upward to the throne. The flood still rolls; the cataract is there, and the abyss with its mighty thunderings, and the terrible crystal, and the living wheel, and the sounding of the host like many waters; but above the throne I see the likeness as the appearance of a Ah! this revives my timid, sinking heart! Above all this majesty, else so dread and insupportable, I behold glorified humanity upon the throne. The majesty of heaven and earth is not a solitary unit. My nature is represented there. My sympathies are met, my wants are known, my fears are cancelled, my affections are inspired, my joys revived, my hopes filled with immortality. Yet not the vision of a man alone brings me relief from the fear of power, of law, of will, of sovereign unity. For were he only a greater man than I, then would I have so much the greater fear. Were he czar, emperor, or sultan, I should be utterly consumed with terrors at the sight of him upon the throne. An Alexander or Napoleon, clothed with infinite power, were an object too terrible to contemplate. Nay, it is because he who sits upon the throne is such a man; the son of man; the man,

Christ Jesus; the same upon whose loving bosom John leaned at the supper, and whom he afterwards beheld upon the throne; the appearance of a man; the reality of a man; a partaker of my nature in all just sympathies and affections, yet without sin; the God incarnate in the man; the Word made flesh; wisdom, and power, and love, united in him who bare our griefs and carried our sorrows; the Redeemer! clothed with our nature, yet sharing now the glory he had with the Father before the world

was.

And round about him is the symbol of his gracious administration. The bow in the cloud, which by contrast is the most beautiful symbol in nature of the mercy of God, and which by covenant is made the pledge to the seed of Noah that there shall be no more destruction by the flood; this appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, is the likeness of the glory of the Lord that shines in heaven. And there it rises from the depth of the abyss. The calm, clear shining of the moon portrays its emerald arch; and above the rolling of the flood, above the thunder of the waters, above the dense volume of wrath that rises from the angry chasm, from the lowest depths of the fall, from the agony and ruin it has wrought; from the foaming, surging billows of sin and death, up even to the terrible crystal, this arch of mercy, this covenant of grace, paves my exultant way to that sapphire vault where sits Redeeming Mercy, serene and resplendent, upon the throne of Infinite Majesty. "Upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it; and an appearance of brightness was round about, as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain."

Here then let us bow and worship. In heaven they worship that Man upon the throne-the Word made flesh-far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named. As we daily remember him who died upon the cross, let us also worship him which was dead but is alive forevermore; which was, and is, and is to come. For from the cross that marks the abyss of our fall, the guilt and degradation of a ruined world, and around whose bleeding victim gathers the blackness of darkness from human wo assumed and from divine retribution symbolized in the sacrifice of the well-beloved Son; from that cross, before which the sky is veiled and nature draped in sackcloth, and from which heaven averts its face; from that cross there springs up to the highest heaven and to the central throne, the bow of mercy pledged for our redemption. Nearest the cross nearest the throne. Nay, it is only by way of the cross that we may approach the throne. For here only is the awful purity of Jehovah, the splendor of his majesty and his justice, attempered to our vision through the glory reflected in the low upon the cloud.

What thanks do we owe for this revelation of God in Christ! First, for the revelation itself; since never would nature have given to man such a conception of the Deity. Nature teaches us God: proves his being; demonstrates his eternal power and godhead; makes proof also of his benevolence. Nature paints for us the bow upon the cloud; but revelation alone makes that bow the pledge of a covenant, the appointed symbol of mercy. Nature would never bring us to the rainbow overarching the throne. It is only by the glass of the prophet passing through the open door of heaven, that we gain this celestial vision. One word of the Bible revealing God in Christ, is worth more than all the voices of nature telling of his glory and his power.

Let us give thanks too, for the incarnation of the Deity; the Word made flesh, Immanuel, God with us; but for this we had known God only as a power, a law, a sovereign, a judge. Now we know him as a God of sympathy, of compassion, of mercy; a God who has linked his being with ours, that he may link our eternity with his in fruits and blessedness. Take away the incarnation and you make heaven dreadful to a fallen creature; you blot out the man upon the throne; the bow upon the cloud; and leave only the consuming fire.

Above all let us give thanks for the redemption thus revealed. The bow is painted on the cloud. The mercy is set over against the judgment. Wisdom, power, holiness, justice, truth, every attribute of majesty is there-all terrible to look upon-but the bow is round about-redeeming mercy surrounds them all. Thus from the throne do we come back to the cross; and in Christ crucified, find our redemption from sin and our peace with God.

The grand circle of redeeming love is thus made complete. Had Christ vanished from among men after he had made known his Gospel, without the lively symbol of atonement in the cross, how inadequate had been his mission, and how limited its fruits? Had his body remained in the grave, how imperfect had been our view of his divine errand to our world. Had he returned to heaven on the morning of his resurrection, without the personal observation of his disciples-the empty sepulchre alone witnessing for his departure-how vague had been our sense of his glorified humanity. But the incarnate Word ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the throne. We behold the God descending, the Man ascending, the incarnation and the exaltation completing the work of our redemption, and assuring to them that love him the glory of his presence and the triumph of his grace.

SERMON DCLXV.

BY REV. GEO. F. WIS WELL,

PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PEEKSKILL, N. Y.

THE CREDULITY OF INFIDELITY.

"They know not, neither will they understand: they walk in darkness, all the foundations of the earth are out of course."-Ps. lxxxii. 5.

"Professing themselves to be wise; they became fools."-ROMANS i. 22.

"I had rather," says Lord Bacon, "believe all the fables of the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." This sentence, from the pen of the great philosopher, is a very good practical commentary upon my text, as it also forms a very good introduction to the subject which I have announced for my discourse this evening.

"The Credulity of Infidelity." I have no need to spend time about the entrance of my subject, but shall proceed at once within. My object is to show that infidelity is far more credulous than christianity-that the man who rejects revealed religion must believe far more than the christian-the difficulties of infidelity are far more difficult, and the fables of infidelity are far more fabulous, than anything within the compass of christian doctrine. I know that this idea will be very likely to shock the opinions of many, perhaps some of my hearers, and for this reason it is usually taken for granted, that he who swings clear of the christian creed, at the same time frees himself from all the perplexities of revealed religion and all supposable difficulties that may arise in his new condition, that he is not only rid of all the vexed questions of religion, but of all that may beset his irreligious state. But, my hearers, I think you must agree with me that such is far from being true-I am quite sure that the man who hopes, by abjuring the christian faith, to go free from doubts and difficulties, will find that, so far is he from such coveted condition, he is only surrounded with darkness more impenetrable, and problems more insolvable-that the way he has chosen, leading far from the cross, at last brings him into pitfalls and quagmires, and oblivious wildernesses.

I. Let us look a little at the case of one who has taken the highest form of unbelief and rejected the divine existence. This man, I affirm, must stretch his credulity farther than if he were to admit the whole circle of divine doctrine and teachings. He, alike with the humblest believer, must account for the existence and control of all the physical phenomena of the universe. He