fears, his joys and his sorrows, with those of another. His duties and his,responsibilities, multiply upon him. The circle is widened. He finds others dependent upon him, while he is not himself independent. And all his difficulties and sufferings are lightened by being divided.

Behold him stretched upon the bed of death, having reached the extremity of this transient existence, still a poor, dependent, needy creature! To that heart he looks for sympathy: that bosom must support his languishing head: that hand must adjust the pillow, and administer the cordial, and wipe away the dew of death, and close the extinguished eye. Into the bosom of his companion through life, or of his child, or of his friend, he breathes the last sigh!

Revelation meets man on the terms of his nature, addresses him, and suffers him to address God, as a needy dependent creature. It proves its divine origin by its adaptation to the wants and the wishes of humanity. It is directed to every man, as the son of Adam, and the child of sorrow, and the slave of ignorance. But vain man will be wise: will not be instructed: will believe nothing which he cannot comprehend; and rejecting the truth, will not come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

When we speak of magnitude and diminutiveness, of beauty and homeliness, of wisdom and folly, it is by comparison; and each of these terms are exchanged, the former for the latter, when the objects to which they were applied, are placed by the side of something more magnificent, more lovely, more sapient. The productions of human skill are grand; and we pronounce the "solemn temple" magnificent, when contrasted with surrounding and inferior buildings: but when set in comparison with the temple of the sky, it

I

is magnificent no longer it shrinks into nothing. I see a picture of the evening: I admire the painters art in so judiciously blending his light and his shade; a soft and sober tint overspreads the whole piece, and I pronounce it beautiful;-but when I compare it with the sunset of nature, when I see the west inflamed with ethereal fire, blushing with ten thousand vivid and various splendors, while the distant mist slowly creeps along the line of the horizon, and forms a contrast to the brilliancy above it the effort of art is swallowed up in the sublimity of nature-and it is beautiful no longer. admire the genius and the understanding of the philosopher; I reverence the superior intelligence of a Solomon; I look up humbled to a Newton, exploring the immensity of yonder firmanent, reducing the apparent confusion of its orbs to order, laying the planetary system under laws, tracing their orbits, and scrutinizing their nature and I pronouce these, wise men: but I raise my eyes and behold an higher order of creatures around the throne of God, before whom even Newton is a child; and presuming into "the heaven of heavens," I am lost in HIM, who charges even these superior beings with folly."

The powers of the human mind are said to be large and capacious: they are so when compared with those of every other terrestrial being in the creation of God. Man walks abroad, the monarch of this world. Of all the diversified tribes which the hand of Deity formed, into man alone was "breathed the breath of life, and he became a living soul." The animal soon reaches his narrow standard, and never passes it. The pow ers of man are in'a constant state of progression; and probably in the world of spirits they will be found to be illimitable. But whatever they may be in their nature, they are at present contracted in their operations.

To what do they amount when called into action? To speak a few languages: to decypher a few more in a various character: to ascertain here and there a cause by tracing it upwards from its effects: to number seven planets revolving round the sun: to send imagination into infinite space in search of other systems, till she is bewildered and tired in her progress: to float on the bosom of the air suspended from a globe of silk; or to sail over the surface of the ocean in a vessel of his own construction: to ascend the hoary summit of the loftiest mountain, or to penetrate a fathom or two the surface of the earth: these are the boundaries of human effort. And in searching out the little he is capable of learning, what difficulties he must meet! what embarrassments he must surmount! what labors he must undergo! what time he must expend! And after all, how little has he gained! how much remains unexplored! how uncertain, and probably how erroneous, are his best grounded conclusions! And if we elevate our thoughts to those spirits, whose powers in our limited apprehension are unbounded, we shall find upon There inquiry that they also are limited creatures.

are subjects present to the divine mind which the angels do not know: mysteries, which the capacity, of Gabriel cannot fathom, and,which the intelligence of a How much less "man who seraph cannot unravel. is a worm, and the son of man who is but a worm?" The subject for discussion this night, is thus proposed THE UNSEARCHABLE GOD: OR, AN ATTEMPT TO PROVE AN ANALOGY BETWEEN THE RELIGION OF NATURE AND THAT OF THE BIBLE, BY SHEWING THAT THE SAME OBSCURITY WHICH OVERSHADOWS REVELATION, EQUALLY OVERSPREADS NATURE AND PROVIDENCE.

Of this unsearchable Being, this infinite Mind, Job writes; and we are now to contemplate rather what we do not know of him, than that which we are able to comprehend: since upon the closest investigation of the whole which he has submitted to our researches, we are compelled to conclade, "Lo, these are parts of his ways, and how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?" We shall apply these words, in order to the developement of our subject,

I. TO THE WORKS OF CREATION.

II. TO THE MYSTERIES OF PROVIDENCE.

III. TO THE INVISIBLE WORLDS:

IV. TO THE WORD OF REVELATION;-and this arrangement is justified by the whole connexion of the text. We apply them,

I. TO THE WORKS OF CREATION.

"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing."

To the first gaze of man newly-created, the temple of the sky presented itself, filled with glorious objects, which furnished food for his curiosity, and employment for the new-born powers of his mind. He saw the whole expansion covered with stars twinkling through the blue ether. He beheld the sun rise in the east, and disappear behind the western hills. The moon occupied his vacated seat in the heavens, and every night changed her hour of rising. As yet the

laws by which these "greater lights" are governed were unknown; and whether the lesser sparks were mere ornaments of the curtain stretched out on every side, or worlds and suns diminished by distance, the man doubted: for in the infancy of time, philosophy had

not kindled her torch, and every thing was to be learned. He regarded it, however, as a scene of magnificence; and considered the whole as the work of him, "parts of whose ways" only, are after all submitted to our investigation.

As years rolled on, a multitude of researches into nature were instituted. Art lent her auxiliary powers: a few instruments were invented to aid the eye, or to help the imagination; and a regular inquiry into the secret laws of this great universe, was formed and prosecuted. Time gradually matured the crude and undigested hypotheses of the enlightened mind. Each man took his department. One applied the telescope to the organ of vision, and ascertained the nature, and read the laws, of yonder shining orbs. Another bent his attention to the productions of the globe, and to the animals that move upon its surface. A third investigated the properties of water and of air, and the several uses to which they are applicable. A fourth studied the structure of the human frame, and applied his knowledge to the purpose of relieving the springs of life. These all were still acquainted only with "parts of his ways."

When the astronomer has spent his whole life in reading the splendid volume which the night unfurls, what has he at length learned? He has proved that the globe on which we live is spherical: that it turns upon its axis once in twenty-four hours, and revolves round the sun in twelve months: that yonder glorious orb, the centre of our system, is a body of fire:* that the planets are probably worlds like our own: that the moon appears to have seas and continents, islands and

See the note at the end of the volume.