one manifestation or one movement of a presiding God. For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature; but to deny Him, he must be a God himself. He must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead." So also Foster in one of his Essays; “What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment, (to know there is no God.) This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not absolutely know every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be God. If he does not know every thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist.” DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE, UPON THE REMOVAL OF A DIVINE VISITATION : BEING A CHRISTIAN PASTOR'S ADDRESS TO HIS FLOCK, UPON REDEEMING THEIR VOWS. 66 VOW AND PAY TO THE LORD YOUR GOD." BY THE REV. NEWTON SMART, MA, MASTER OF FARLEY HOSPITAL, WILTS; AUTHOR OF THE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN PEople, under DIVINE VISITATIONS. 1 SALISBURY: PRINTED AND SOLD BY W. B. BRODIE AND CO.: SOLD ALSO BY RIVINGTONS, LONDON, M.DCCC.XXXIII. AN ADDRESS. "I WILL SACRIFICE UNTO THEE WITH THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING: I WILL PAY THAT THAT I HAVE VOWED." Jonah ii. 9. MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS AND BRETHREN, IT has pleased Almighty God, of his great goodness, to remove from our land that grievous disease, with which many places have been visited. A day of National Thanksgiving has therefore been appointed by the King, in council. May God incline the hearts of the people to its due observance! When suffering under the scourge, as a Christian people, we referred the chastisement to the Divine displeasure. And on the solemn day of National Fasting and Humiliation there arose, throughout the land, to the Throne of Mercy, an earnest cry for pardon and deliverance. Let now the song of thanksgiving be raised, swelled by the united voices of a grateful people: "O go your ways into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise be thankful unto Him, and speak good of His name." *Psalm c. 3. Prayer-Book vers |