which it does not embrace; and all determined by Him shall most assuredly be brought about, and that precisely at the time, and in the manner, He has been pleased to appoint. "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." (Isa. xlvi. 9—11.) "And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" (Dan. iv. 35.) After predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, and His second coming, Jesus spake thus: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Luke xxi. 33.) "God, that made the world, and all things therein, and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." (Acts xvii. 24, 26.)

God has been pleased, with infinite condescension, to reveal in His word the holy and gracious principles by which He hath seen meet, for His own glory, to regulate the exercise of His Sovereignty. This earth and its inhabitants are under the care and government of a Being, the excellency of whose goodness passeth all knowledge; whose purpose is one of infinite mercy and love; all whose ways proclaim His glory, while they promote the true happiness and best interests of all under

"And the Lord de

His widely extended dominion. scended in the cloud, and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And 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, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Exod. xxxiv. 5-7.)

Implicit confidence in the revelation God has given of Himself in His word is indispensable, if we would endeavour to trace the hand of God in history; and without such a knowledge of Him, His dealings in Providence will not come before the mind clothed with that grandeur and majesty, which are traceable in all His ways to the children of men; but the prayerful, believing, and diligent student of them, with such knowledge, will not be a stranger to the ecstatic wonder and amazement of the great apostle of the Gentiles, who, in winding up such a meditation, exclaimed, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath given first to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." (Rom. xi. 33-36.)

There are also created intelligences concerned in, and connected with, the events transacting on this earth. So far as known to us, there are two orders of themangels and men. There are holy angels and fallen angels.

The holy angels, remaining steadfast in their allegiance to their God, stand in His presence, and are swift to do His will. The fallen angels, cast from their high estate because of sin, are in a state of open rebellion against their Creator and their God, and acknowledge as their leader and commander, Satan, the arch-enemy of God and man. There are renewed men and wicked men. Those renewed by the Spirit of God being in course of preparation for the high and holy service of the Lord in another world, while they are occupied on earth fighting the good fight of faith, contending with the remaining corruption in their own nature, the wickedness of the world, and the wiles of the devil. Wicked men, under the control of Satan and his angels; regarding not God either in their thoughts or ways; and, under the influence of evil passions, practising all manner of wickedness, to their own utter ruin and misery. These, as two hostile armies, stand opposed the one to the other. Light and darkness, truth and error, oppression and freedom, sin and holiness, are perpetually waging war; and to these influences, in operation upon the theatre of this earth, must be traced, under the overruling power of God, all those occurrences which make up the sum of our world's history for nearly six thousand years. Satan's success in seducing our first parents, introduced sin and its consequent miseries. God's determination to rescue our world and redeem mankind, re-introduced the elements of holiness and truth-light and freedomamong our fallen race; and these, through the agency of God's Holy Spirit upon converted men, have occasioned a perpetual moral conflict with Satan, the world, and the flesh, which shall not cease, until Satan's usurped power is wrested from him by the stronger than he, even the

Lord Jesus; and the nations of earth, emancipated from his cruel and degrading thraldom, be made to acknowledge that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

Man's relation to all that is happening is that of a free and responsible agent, accountable to God for every part of his conduct, and yet to be judged according to his works. Here again, men are sometimes inclined to interpose needless difficulties. What could not be known of God except by express revelation, man may know concerning himself by experience. Where is the man, whether converted or unconverted, that can point to a single act of his life, which, in so far as the Supreme Being was concerned, he was not left free to choose what he would, or would not do? Yea, even in conversion and sanctification, in both of which God alone can effectually work in and by man: yet so great is the mystery of godliness, that no saint on earth or in heaven can single out an instance in which, God, by compulsion, extorted from him an act of obedience and duty opposed to his present will. On the contrary, the very essence of all true religion, in the sight of God, is the cheerfulness and willingness with which all enjoined duty is performed. Even with the wicked and froward, God deals as with moral and responsible agents. He does not so proceed as to terrify the ungodly into an unwilling conformity but He persuades, entreats, remonstrates, and warns. "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John iv. 24.) Would that men would endeavour to follow God's own perfect example, and in their dealings with each other, whether as rulers or ruled, leave that free, which God has seen meet in His manifold wisdom to leave free. Man has unwisely dared, in matters of reli

gion, to attempt that which God has decreed can never be accomplished. Let those who strive by secular means to bind men's consciences with the cords of external uniformity in the concern of religion, consider, that they are trenching upon that in man which God wills to be free and while penal laws in former times, and the fear of contemptuous treatment in present times, may make many hypocritical conformists; it never has been, and never will be, in the power of men, be they popes, or kings, or parliaments, by any such procedure, to make even one true convert to the Christian faith. "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth for I am God, and there is none else." (Isa. xlv. 22.)

If men are to attain a more perfect knowledge of the great mystery, in process of development through their instrumentality upon this earth, they must humbly, but with fear and trembling, ascend somewhat higher towards the inaccessible heights of the Divine purpose; and they must dip somewhat deeper, the accessible depths of the workings of the human mind. The ascent upwards to God must be made, neither with the boldness of the critic, nor the speculativeness of the theorist. They who enter upon such an inquiry, must remember that they tread upon holy ground; that they travel by a way which when seraphs enter, they pause to worship at the threshold: and, as the brightening glory of the scene in their march forward, fans into a greater flame the fervour of their devotion, their pure spirits becoming enraptured, and unable longer to gaze upon those wonders which "eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive," they veil their faces with their wings, and crying one to