day. and yet God has borne with me to this opens his heart to his friend, and communicates to him his most secret thoughts, dividing with him all his pleasures and all his pains? God will have this relation with thee: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," Ps. xxv. 14. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Gen. xviii. 17. "I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you," John xv. 15. Art thou touched with the tenderness of a mother, whose highest earthly happiness is to suckle the son of her womb? God will have this relation with thee: "can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee," Isa. xlix. 15. Why has he borne with me? It is not a connivance at sin, for he hates and detests it. It is not ignorance, for he penetrates the inmost recesses of my soul, nor has a single act, no, not a single act of my rebellion, eluded the search of his all-piercing eye. It is not a want of power to punish a criminal, for he holds the Hast thou some good reasons for disgust with thunders in his mighty hands, at his command human connexions? Are thy views so liberal hell opens, and the fallen angels wait only for and delicate as to afford thee a conviction that his permission to seize their prey. Why then there is no such thing as real friendship among do I yet subsist? Why do I see the light of this men? And that what are called connexions, day? Why are the doors of this church once friendships, affections, unions, tendernesses, are more open to me? It is because he commise- generally no other than interchanges of deceit rates poor sinners. It is because he pities me disguised under agreeable names? Are thy 'as a father pitieth his children." feelings so refined that thou sighest after con1. 3. Let us remark the crimes which God par- nexions formed on a nobler plan? God will have dons. There is no sin excepted, no, not one, such connexion with thee. Yes, there is, in in the list of those which God has promised to the plan of religion, a union formed between forgive to true penitents. He pardons not only God and us, on the plan of that which subsists the sins of those whom he has not called into between the three persons in the godhead, the his visible church, who, not having been in- object of our worship: that is, as far as a similar dulged with this kind of benefits, have not had union between God and us can subsist without it in their power to carry ingratitude to its contradiction. God grants this to the intercesheight: but he pardons also crimes committed sion of his Son, in virtue of that perfect obediunder suck dispensations as seem to render sin ence which he rendered to his Father on the least pardonable. He pardons sins committed cross. This Jesus Christ requested for us, on under the dispensation of the law, as he for- the eve of that day, in which, by his ever megives those which are committed under the morable sacrifice, he reconciled heaven and dispensation of nature; and those that are com-earth: "I pray not for the world, but for them mitted under the dispensation of the gospel, as those which are committed under the law. He forgives, not only such sins as have been committed through ignorance, infirmity, and inadvertency, but such also as have been committed deliberately and obstinately. He not only forgives the sins of a day, a week, or a month, but he forgives also the sins of a great number of years, those which have been formed into an inveterate habit, and have grown old with the sinner. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," Isa. i. 18. But what am I saying? It is not enough to say that God forgives sins, he unites himself to those who have committed them by the most tender and affectionate ties. 4. Our next article therefore regards the familiar friendship to which God invites us. What intimate, close, and affectionate relation canst thou imagine, which God is not willing to form with thee in religion? Art thou affect ed with the vigilance of a shepherd, who watches over, and sacrifices all his care, and even his life for his flock? This relation God will have with thee: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters," Psal. xxiii. 1, 2. Art thou affected with the confidence of a friend, who which thou hast given me, for they are thine," John xvii. 9. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word: that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us," ver. 20, 21. Do not inquire the possibility of this union, how we can be one with God and with Jesus Christ, as Jesus Christ and God are one. Our hearts, as defective in the power of feeling as our minds in that of reasoning, have no faculties, at present, for the knowledge of such things as can be known only by feeling. But the time will come when both sense and intelligence will be expanded, and then we shall know, by a happy experience, what it is to be one with God and with Jesus Christ. This leads us to our fifth and last article, That is, the felicity that God reserves for his children in another world. A reunion of all the felicities of this present world would not be sufficient to express the love of God to us. Nature is too indigent: our faculties are too indigent: society is too indigent: religion itself is too indigent. Nature is too indigent: it might indeed afford us a temperate air, an earth enamelled with flowers, trees laden with fruits, and climates rich with delights; but all its present beauties are inadequate to the love of God, and there must be another world, another economy, 66 new heavens and a new earth," Isa. lxv. 17. Our faculties are too indigent; they might indeed admit abundant pleasures, for we are capable of knowing, and God could gratify our desire of knowledge. We are capable of agreeable sensations, and God is able to give us objects proportional to our sensations; and so of the rest. But all these gratifications would be too little to express the love of God to us. Our faculties must be renewed, and in some sense, new cast; for "this corruptible body must put on incorruption; this natural body must become a spiritual body," 1 Cor. xv. 44. 53; so that by means of more delicate organs, we may enjoy more exquisite pleasures. Our souls must be united to glorified bodies, by laws different from those which now unite us to matter, in order to capacitate us for more extensive knowledge. h cords us, Psal. xxxi. 19. "I drew them of a man, with bands of love," Hos. xi. 4. Let us meditate on the love of God, who, being supremely happy himself, communicates perfect happiness to us. Supreme happiness does not make God forget us; shall the miserable comforts of this life make us forget him? Our attachments to this life are so strong, the acquaintances that we have contracted in this world so many, and the relations that we bear so tender; we are, in a word, so habituated to live, that we need not wonder if it cost us a good deal to be willing to die. But this attachment to life, which, when it proceeds only to a certain degree, is a sinless infirmity, becomes one of the most criminal dispositions when it exceeds its just limits. It is not right that the objects of divine love should lose sight of their chief good, in a world where, after their best endeavours, there will be too many obstacles Society is too indigent, although society between them and God. It is not right that might become an ocean of pleasure to us. rational creatures, who have heard of the pure, There are men whose friendships are full of extensive, and munificent love of God to them, charms; their conversations are edifying, and should be destitute of the most ardent desires their acquaintance delightful; and God is able of a closer union to him than any that can be to place us among such amiable characters in attained in this life. One single moment's dethis world: but society has nothing great lay should give us pain, and if we wish to live, enough to express the love of God to us. We it should be only to prepare to die. We ought must be introduced to the society of glorified to desire life only to mortify sin, to practise and saints, and to thousands of angels and happy to perfect virtue, to avail ourselves of opportuspirits, who are capable of more magnanimity nities of knowing ourselves better, and of oband delicacy than all that we can imagine here.taining stronger assurances of our salvation. Religion itself is too indigent, although it No, I can never persuade myself that a man, might open to us a source of delight. What plea- who is wise in the truths of which we have sure has religion afforded us on those happy days been discoursing, a man, in whom the love of of our lives, in which, having fled from the God has been "shed abroad by the Holy Ghost crowd, and suspended our love to the world, given unto him," Rom. v. 5; a man, who we meditated on the grand truths which God thinks himself an object of the love of the has revealed to us in his word; when we as- Great Supreme, and who knows that the cended to God by fervent prayer; or renewed Great Supreme will not render him perfectly at the Lord's table our communion with him! happy in this life, but in the next, can afford How often have holy men been enraptured in much time for the amusements of this. I can these exercises! How often have they exclaim- never persuade myself that a man, who has ed during these foretastes, Our souls are "sa- such elevated notions, and such magnificent tisfied as with marrow and fatness," Psal. prospects, can make a very serious affair of Ixiii. 5. "O how great is thy goodness, which having a great name in this world, of lodging thou hast laid up for them that fear thee," xxxi. in a palace, or of descending from an illus We are "" abundantly satisfied with the trious ancestry. These little passions, if we fatness of thy house: we drink of the river of consider them in themselves, may seem almost thy pleasures," Psal. xxxvi. 8. Yet even reli- indifferent, and I grant if ye will, that they are gion can afford nothing here below that can not always attended with very bad consequen sufficiently express the love of God to us. We ces, that, in some cases, they injure nobody, must be admitted into that state in which there and in many, cause no trouble in society: but, is neither temple nor sun, because God supplies if we consider the principle from which they the place of both, Rev. xxi. 22, 23. We are proceed, they will appear very mortifying to to behold God, not surrounded with such a us. We shall find that the zeal and fervour, the handful of people as this, but with "thousand impatient breathing's of some, "to depart, and thousands, and ten thousand times ten thou- to be with Christ," Phil. i. 23; the aspiring of sand," Dan vii. 10, who stand continually be- a soul after the chief good; the prayer, "Come, fore him. We must see God, not in the dis- Lord Jesus, come quickly," Rev. xxii. 20; the plays of his grace in our churches, but in all eager wish, "When shall I come and appear the magnificence of his glory in heaven. We before God," Psal. xlii. 2. We shall find that are to prostrate ourselves before him, not at the these dispositions, which some of us treat as Lord's table, where he is made known to us in enthusiasm, and which others of us refer to the symbols of bread and wine: (august sym- saints of the first order, to whose perfections we bols indeed, but too gross to exhibit the gran- have not the presumption to aspire; we deurs of God) but we are to behold him upon find, I say, that these dispositions are more es the throne of glory, worshipped by all the sențial to Christianity than we may have hihappy host of heaven. What cause produces therto imagined. those noble effects? From what source do those "rivers of pleasure flow?" Psalm xxxiv. 8. It is love which "lays up all this goodness for 19. shall May God make us truly sensible of that noble and tender love which God has for us! May God kindle our love at the fire of his own! May God enable us to know religion by such | his ways, and how little a portion is heard of pleasures as they experience who make love him!"' E to God the foundation of all virtue! These are our petitions to God for you: to these may eh each of us say Amen! SERMON. VIII. This incomprehensibility of the goodness of God, (and what attention, what sensibility, what gratitude, have we not a right to expect of you?) this inconceivableness of the goodness of God we intend to discuss to-day. The prophet, or rather God himself, says to us by the prophet, "My thoughts are not your THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF THE thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. MERCY OF GOD. ISAIAH lv. 8, 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Lo, "these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him!" Job xxvi. 14. This is one of the most sententious sayings of Job, and it expresses, in a very lively and emphatical manner, the works of God. Such language would produce but very little effect indeed in the mouth of a careless, unthinking man: but Job, who uttered it, had a mind filled with the noblest ideas of the perfections of God. He had studied them in his prosperity, in order to enable him to render homage to God, from whom alone his prosperity came. His heart was conversant with them under his distressing adversities, and of them he had learnt to bow to the hand of Him who was no less the author of adversity than of prosperity, of darkness than of day. All this appears by the fine description which the holy man gives immediately before: "God," says he, "stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up his waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. He hath com# passed the waters with bounds. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens." But are these the only production of the Creator? Have these emanations wholly exhausted his power? No, replies Job, "These are only parts of his ways, and how little a portion is heard of him!" My brethren, what this holy man said of the wonders of nature, we, with much more reason, say to you of the wonders of grace. Collect all that pagan philosophers have taught of the goodness of the Supreme Being. To the opinions of philosophers join the declarations of the prophets. To the declarations of the prophets, and to the opinions of philosophers, add the discoveries of the evangelists and apostles. Compose one body of doctrine of all that various authors have written on this comfortable subject. To the whole join your own experience; your ideas to their ideas, your meditations to their meditations, and then believe that ye are only floating on the surface of the goodness of God, that his love has dia "breadth, and length, and depth, and height," Eph. iii. 18; which the human mind can never attain: and, upon the brink of ocean, say, "Lo, these are only parts of mensions, this For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Three things are necessary to explain the text. I. The meaning must be restrained. I. The words of my text must be restrained. Strictly speaking, it cannot be said, that "God's thoughts are not our thoughts," and that his Iways are not our ways:" on the contrary, it is certain, that in many respects, God's ways are our ways, and his thoughts are our thoughts." I mean, that there are many cases, in which we may assure ourselves that God thinks so and so, and will observe such or such a conduct. The doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God is one of those doctrines which we ought to defend with the greatest zeal, because it has a powerful influence in religion and morality: but it would become a subversion of both, were it to be carried beyond its just bounds. Libertines have made fewer proselytes by denying the existence of God than by abusing the doctrine of his inconceivableness. It makes but little impression on a rational man, to be told, that matter is eternal; that it arranged itself in its present order; that chance spread the firmament, formed the heavenly orbs, fixed the earth on its basis, and wrought all the wonders in the material world. makes but little impression on a rational man, to be informed that the intelligent world is to be attributed to the same cause to which libertines attribute the material world: that chance formed spirit as well as matter; gave it the power, not only of reflecting on its own essence, but also of going out of itself, of transporting itself into the past ages of eternity, of rising into the heavens by its meditation, of pervading the earth, and investigating its darkest recesses. All these extravagant propositions refute themselves, and hardly find one partisan in such an enlightened age as this, in which we have the happiness to live. It There are other means more likely to subvert the faith. To give grand ideas of the Supreme Being; to plunge, if I may be allowed to say so, the little mind of man into the ocean of the divine perfections; to contrast the supreme grandeur of the Creator with the insignificance of the creature; to persuade mankind that the Great Supreme is too lofty to concern himself with us, that our conduct is entirely indifferent to him; that it signifies nothing to him whether we be just or unjust, humane or cruel, happy or miserable: to say in these senses, that God's ways are not our ways, that his thoughts are not our thoughts, these are the arms that infidelity has sometimes employed with success, and I am necessarily engaged to be grateful for his favours, and entirely submissive to his will. If creature-perfections be only emanations from him, the source of all perfections, I ought to have nobler sentiments of his perfections, than of those of creatures, how elevated soever the latter may be. I ought to fear him more than I ought to fear the mightiest king, because the power of the mightiest king is only an ema nation of his. I ought to commit myself to his direction, and to trust more to his wisdom than to that of the wisest politician, because the prudence of the wisest politician is only an emanation of his: and so of the rest. Let it be granted, that God is, in many respects, quite incomprehensible, that we can attain only a small degree of knowledge of this infinite ob and against the attacks of which we would guard you. For these reasons, I said, that the meaning of the text must be restrained, or that it would totally subvert religion and morality. We have seldom met with a proposition more extravagant than that of a certain bishop,* who, having spent his life in defending the gospel, endeavoured at his death to subvert it. This man, in a book entitled, The imperfection of the Human Mind, and which is itself an example of the utmost degree of the extravagance of the human mind, maintains this proposition, and makes it the ground of all his skepticism: that before we affirm any thing of a subject we must perfectly understand it. From hence he concludes, that we can affirm nothing of any subject, because we do not perfectly understand any. And from hence it nat-ject, or, to use the words of our text, that "his urally follows, that of the Supreme Being we have the least pretence to affirm any thing, because we have a less perfect knowledge of him than of any other subject. What absurd reasoning! It is needless to refute it here, and it shall suffice at present to observe in general, the ignorance of one part of a subject does not hinder the knowing of other parts of it, nor ought it to hinder our affirmation of what we do know. I do not perfectly understand the nature of light; however I do know that it differs from darkness, and that it is the medium by which objects become visible to me. And the same may be affirmed of other subjects. In like manner, the exercise of my reasoning powers, produces in me some incontestable notions of God; and, from these notions, immediately follow some sure consequences, which become the immoveable basis of my faith in his word, of my submission to his will, and of my confidence in his promises. These notions, and these consequences, compose the body of natural religion. There is a self-existent Being. The existence of all creatures is derived from the self-existent Being, and he is the only source of all their perfections. That Being, who is the source of the perfections of all other beings, is more powerful than the most powerful monarchs, because the most powerful monarchs derive only a finite power from him. He is wiser than the most consummate politicians, because the most consummate politicians derive only a finite wisdom from him. His knowledge exceeds that of the most transcend ant geniuses, because the most transcendant geniuses and the most knowing philosophers derive only a finite knowledge from him. And the same may be said of others. There are then some incontestable notions, which reason gives us of God. From these notions follow some sure and necessary consequences. If all creatures derive their being and preservation from him, I owe to him all that I am, and all that I have, he is the sole object of my desires and hopes, * Peter Daniel Huet, bishop of Avranches, a countryman of our author's. He was a man of uncommon learning, and, in justice to Christianity, as well as to his lordship, it ought to be remembered, that he wrote his demonstratio evangelica, in the vigour of his life; but his traite philosophique de la foiblesse de l'esprit humaine, of which Mons. Saurin complains, was written more than forty years after, when he was ninety years of was superannuated. Father Castell, the Jesuit, denies that it was written by Huet at all. age, and thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways:" yet it will not follow, that the notions, which reason gives us of him, are less just, or, that the consequences, which immediately follow these notions, are less sure; or, that all the objections, which libertines and skeptics pretend to derive from the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God, against natural religion, do not evaporate and disappear. If reason affords some adequate notions of God, if some necessary consequences follow these notions, for a much stronger reason, we may derive some adequate notions of God and some sure consequences from revelation. It is a very extravagant and sophistical way of reasoning to allege the darkness of revelation upon this subject, in order to obscure the light that it does afford us. These words, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," do not mean, then, that we can know nothing of the divine essence; that we cannot certainly discover in what cases he will approve of our conduct, and in what cases he will condemn it: they only mean, that infinite minds cannot form complete ideas of God, know the whole sphere of his attributes, or certainly foresee all the effects that they can produce. Thus we have endeavoured to restrain the words of the text. II. We are to determine their object. The prophet's expressions would have been true, had they been applied to all the attributes of God: however, they are applied here only to one of them, that is, to his goodness. The connexion of the text with the preceding verses proves this. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon," ver. 6, 7. The text immediately follows: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." It is clear, I think, that the last words, 'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," directly relate to the preceding clause, "the Lord will have mercy upon him, and our God will abundantly pardon." Wherein do the thoughts of God differ from ours? In this sense they differ: in God there are treasures of mercy, the depth of which no finite mind can fathom. În him goodness is as inconceivable as all his other at 66 tributes. In God, a sinner, who seems to have carried his sin, to its utmost extravagance, and to have exhausted all the treasures of divine grace, shall still find, if he return unto the Lord, and cast himself at the foot of him, who abundantly pardoneth, a goodness, a compassion, a love, that he could not have imagined to find. U writers, they were fond of losing their capaci! ties in this lovely prospect. Sometimes they stood on the borders of the eternity of God, and viewing that boundless ocean, exclaimed, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world; even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. A thousand years in thy sight are but When we speak of the goodness of God, we as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in mean, not only that perfection which inclines the night," Ps. xc. 2. 4. Sometimes they mehim to communicate natural benefits to all crea- ditated on his power, and contemplating the tures, and which has occasioned the inspired number and variety of its works, exclaimed, writers to say, that "All creatures wait upon "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name him, that he may give them their meat in due in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above season," Ps. civ. 27; that he "left not himself the heavens. When we consider thy heavens, without witness in doing good," Acts xiv. 17. the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars But we mean, in a more especial manner, the which thou hast ordained; What is man, that grace of the gospel, of which the prophet thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, speaks in the beginning of the chapter; "Ho, that thou visitest him?” Ps. viii. 1.3, 4. Someevery one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, times their attention was fixed on the immenand he that hath no money come ye buy and sity of God, and contemplating it, they exeat; yea, come buy wine and milk without claimed, "Whither shall we go from thy spirit? money, and without price. Incline your ear, or whither shall we flee from thy presence? If and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall we ascend up into heaven, thou art there, if we live: and I will make an everlasting covenant make our bed in hell, behold thou art there; if with you, even the sure mercies of David. we take the wings of the morning, and dwell Behold I have given him for a witness to the in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there people, a leader and commander of the people." shall thy hand lead us, and thy right hand shall ver. 1-4. Who is this leader whom God gave hold us," Ps. cxxxix. 7-10. But, however to be a witness to the people, that is, to manifest agreeable these objects of meditation may be, his attributes to the Gentiles? What is this there is something mortifying and distressing everlasting covenant? What are these sure mer- in them. The more we discover the grandeur cies of David? Two sorts of authors deserve to of the Supreme Being, the greater distance we be heard on this article, though on different ac- perceive between ourselves and him. We percounts; the first for their ignorance and preju- ceive him indeed: but it is as an inhabitant of dice; the last for their knowledge and impar-"light which no man can approach unto," tiality. The first are the Jews, who in spite of 1 Tim. iv. 16; and from all our efforts to know their obstinate blindness, cannot help owing him we derive this reflection of the prophet, that these words promise the advent of the "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it Messiah. Rabbi David Kimchi gives this ex- is high; I cannot attain unto it," Ps. cxxxix. 6. position of the words: "The sure mercies of But the meditation of the goodness of God is David, that is the Messiah, whom Ezekial calls as full of consolation as it is of sublimity. This David. They shall dwell in the land that I ocean of the Deity is an ocean of love. These have given them, they, and their children, and dimensions that surpass your knowledge, are their children's children, for ever; and my serdimensions of love. These distances, a part vant David shall be their prince for ever," only of which are visible to you, are depths of Ezek. xxxvii. 25; I purposely pass by many mercy, and those words which God has addresssimilar passages of other Jewish Rabbins. The ed to you, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, other authors whom we ought to hear for their neither are your ways my ways," are equal to impartial knowledge, are the inspired writers, these: As far as heaven is above the earth; or and particularly St. Paul, whose comment on more fully, as far as ye finite creatures are inthis passage, which he gave at Antioch in Pisi- ferior to me the infinite God, so far are your dia, determines its meaning. There the apos- ideas of my compassion and love to you infetle having attested the truth of the resurrec- rior to my pity and esteem for you: Try: "Let tion of Jesus Christ, affirms that the prophets the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighte had foretold that event; and among other pas-ous man his thoughts;" let not the multitude or sages, which he alleged in proof of what he had advanced, quotes this, "I will give you the sure mercies of David," Acts xiii. 34. From all which it follows, that the object of our text is the goodness of God, and in an especial manner, the love that he has manifested unto us in the gospel: and this is what we un dertook to prove. Such views of the grandeurs of God are sublime and delightful. The divine perfections are the most sublime objects of meditation. It is glorious to surmount the little circle of objects to revolve in a contemplation of God, in whose infinite perfections intelligent beings will for ever find matter sufficient to employ all their intelligence. Behold the inspired that surround us, the enormity of his crimes terrify him into a despair of obtaining the pardon of them: "Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Having thus determined the object and restrained the meaning of the text, we shall proceed to adduce the proofs. III. The prophet addresses himself to two sorts of people; first, to the heathens, who knew no more of the goodness of God than what they had discovered by the glimmering |