The faculty of feeling is as circumscribed as that of thinking. One sensation absorbs or diminishes another A wound received in the heat of battle; in the tumult, or in the sight of the general whose approbation we seek, is less acute than it would be on a different occasion. For the like reason the same pain we have borne during the day, is insupportable in the night. Violent anguish renders us insensible of a diminutive pain. Whatever diverts from a pleasing sensation diminishes the pleasure, and blunts enjoyment; and this is done by the reason already assigned; that while the faculty is attentive to one object, it is incapable of application to

another.

It is the same with regard to the faculty of loving. It rarely happens that a man can indulge two or three leading passions at once: No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. So is the assertion of Jesus Christ, who knew the human heart better than all the philosophers put together. The passion of avarice, for the most part, diminishes the passion of glory; and the passion of glory, diminishes that of avarice. It is the same with the other passions.

Besides, not only an object engrossing a faculty, obstructs its profound attention to any other object related to that faculty; but when a faculty is deeply engrossed by an ob ject, all others, if I may so speak, remain in solitude and slumber; the capacity of the soul being wholly absorbed. A man who concentrates himself in research, in the illustration of a difficulty, in the solution of a problem, in the contemplation of a combined truth; he loses for the moment, the faculty of feeling, and becomes insensible of sound, of noise, of light. A man, on the contrary, who freely abandons himself to a violent sensation, or whom God afflicts acutely, loses for the time, the faculty of thinking. Speak, reason, and examine, draw consequences; and all that is foreign to this point: he is no longer a thinking being; he is a feeling being, and wholly so. Thus the principle we establish is an indisputable axiom in the study of man, that the human mind is circumscribed, and inclosed in very narrow limits.

The relation of this principle to the subject we discuss, obtrudes itself on our regard. A slight reflection on the limits of the human mind will convince us, that men who make so slow a progress in abstruse science, can never fathom the deep mysteries of religion. And it is the more evident, as these limited faculties can never be wholly applied to the study of trut. There is no moment of life, in which they are not divided; there is no moment in which they are not engaged in the care of the body, in the recollection of soine fugitive ideas, and on subjects which have no connexion with those to which we would direct our study.

A second reason of the limits of our knowledge arises from those very mysteries which excite ob purity, astonishment, and awe. What are those mysteries? Of what do they treat? They treat of what is the most elevated and sublime: they concern the essence

of the Creator: they concern the attributes of the Supreme Being: they concern whatever has been thought the most immense in the mind of eternal wisdom: they concern the traces of that impetuous wind, which blows where it listeth, and which moves in one moment to every part of the universe. And we, insignificant beings; we altogether obstructed, confounded, and absorbed, we affect an air of surprise because we cannot fa thom the depths of those mysteries! It is not merely while on earth that we cannot comprehend those immensities; but we can ne ver comprehend them in the other world; because God is always unlimited, always infinite, and always above the reach of circumscribed intelligences; and because we shall be always finite, always limited, always creatures circumscribed. Perfect knowledge belongs to God alone. Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know Job xi. 7, 8. Where wast thou when he laid the foundations of the earth? When he shut up the sea with doors? When he made the clouds the garments thereof, and thick darkness a swad. dling band for it. When he subjected it to his laws, and prescribed its barriers, and said, hitherto shalt thou come, and here shall thy prond waves be stayed? xxxviii. 4. 9-11.

Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' Rom xi. 33– 35. Let us adore a Being so immense; and let his incomprehensibility serve to give us the more exalted ideas of his grandeur; and seeing we can never know him to perfection, let us, at the least, form the noble desire of knowing him as far as it is allowable to finite intelligences. And as Manoah, who, after receiving the mysterious vision recorded Judges xiii. prayed the angel of the Lord. saying, 'Tell me, I pray thee, thy name' and received the answer, 'It is wonderful;' so should we say with this holy man, I pray thee, tell me thy name,' give me to know this wonderful name' Let us say with Moses, Lord, let me see thy glory, Exod. xxxiii. 18. And with the prophet, Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold the marvels of thy law,' Ps. cxix. 18.

The third cause of the obscurity of our knowledge is, that truths the most simple, and objects the least combined, have howev er certain depths and abysses beyond the reach of thought; because truths the most simple, and objects the least combined, have a certain tie with infinity, that they cannot be comprehended without comprehending this infinity. Nothing is more simple, noth ing is less combined, in regard to me, than this proposition; there are certain exterior objects which actually strike my eyes, which excite certain emotions in my brain, and certain perceptions in my mind. Meanwhile, this proposition so simple, and so little combined, has certain depths and obscurities

exalted truths. They are bnt as the types, which God employed in the ancient law to instruct the Jews, while in a state of infancy. How imperfect were those types! What relation had a sheep to the Victim of the new covenant? What proportion had a priest to the Sovereign Pontiff of the church! Such is the state of man while here placed on the earth. But a happier period must follow this of humiliation. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Charming thought, my brethren, of the change that death shall produce in us; it shall supersede the puerilities of infancy; it shall draw the curtain which conceals the objects of expectation. How ravished must the soul be when this curtain is uplifted! Instead of worshipping in these assemblies, it finds itself instantly elevated to the choirs of angels, the ten thousand times ten thousand before the Lord.' Instead of hearing the hymns we sing to his glory, it instantly hears the hallelujahs of celestial spirits, and the dread shouts of Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of thy glory.' Instead of listening to this frail preacher, who endeavours to develop the imperfect notions he has imbibed in a confined understanding, it instantly hears the great head of the church, who is the author, and finisher of our faith. Instead of perceiving some traces of God's perfections in the beauties of nature, it finds itself in the midst of his sublimest works; in the midst of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose gates are of pearl, whose foundations are of precious stones, and whose walls are of jasper.'-Do we then still fear death! And have we still need of comforters when we approach that

happy period? And have we still need to resume all our constancy, and all our fortitude to support the idea of dying! And is it still necessary to pluck us from the earth, and to tear us by force to the celestial abode, which shall consummate our felicity? Ah! how the prophet Elisha, who saw his master ascend in the chariot of fire, ploughing the air on his brilliant throne, and crossing the vast expanse which separates heaven from earth; how Elsha regretted the absence of so worthy a master, whom he now saw no more, and whom he must never see in life; how he cried in that moment, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.' These emotions are strikingly congenial to the sentiments of self love, so dear to us. But Elijah himself-Elijah, did he fear to soar in so sublime a course! Elijah already ascended to the middle regions of the air, in whose eyes the earth appeared but as an atom retiring out of sight; Elijah, whose head already reached to heaven; did Elijah regret the transition he was about to complete! Did he regret the world, and its inhabitants!-O soul of man ;regenerate soul-daily called to break the fetters which unite thee to a mortal body, take thy flight towards heaven. Ascend this fiery chariot, which God has sent to transport thee above the earth where thou dwellest. See the heavens which open for thy reception; admire the beauties, and estimate the charms already realized by thy hope. Taste those ineffable delights Anticipate the perfect felicity, with which death is about to invest thee. Thou necdest no more than this last moment of my ministry. Death himself is about to do all the rest, to dissipate all thy darkness, to justify religion, and to crown thy hopes.

THE cause of our assembling to-day, my brethren, is one of the most evident marks of God's powerful protection, extended to a multitude of exiles whom these provinces have encircled with a protecting arm. It is a fact, that since we abandoned our native land, we have been loaded with divine favours. Some of us have lived in affluence; others in the enjoyments of mediocrity, often preferable to affluence; and all have seen this confidence crowned, which has enabled them to say, while living even without resource, In the mountain of the Lord, it shall be seen; in the mountain of the Lord, he will there provide.'

But how consoling soever the idea may be in our dispersion of that gracious Providence, which has never ceased to watch for our welfare, it is not the principal subject of our gratitude. God has corresponded more directly with the object with which we were animated when we were enabled to bid adieu, perhaps an eternal adieu, to our country: what prompted us to exile was not the hope of finding more engaging company, a happier climate and more permanent establishments. Votives altogether of another kind animated our hearts. We had seen the edifices reduced to the dust, which we had been accustomed to make resound with the

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praises of God: we had heard the children of Edom,' with hatchets in their hand, shout against those sacred mansions, 'down with them; down with them, even to the ground.'-May you, ye natives of these provinces, among whom it has pleased the Lord to lead us, ever be ignorant of the like calamities. May you indeed never know them, but by the experience of those to whom you have so amply afforded the means of subsistence. We could not survive the liberty of our conscience, we have wandered to seek it, though it should be in dens and deserts. Zeal gave animation to the aged, whose limbs were benumbed with years. Fathers and mothers took their children in their arms, who were too young to know the danger from which they were plucked: each was content with his soul for a prey,' and required nothing but the precious liberty he had lost. We have found it among you, our generous benefactors; you have received us as your brethren, as your children; and have admitted us into your churches. We haye communicated with you at the same table; and now you have permitted us, a handful of exiles, to build a church to that God whom we mutually adore. You wish also to partake with us in our gratitude, and to join your homages with those we have just rendered to him in this new edifice.

But alas! those of our fellow-countrymen, whose minds are still impressed with the recollection of those former churches, whose destruction occasioned them much grief, cannot taste a joy wholly pure. The ceremonies of this day will associate themselves, with those celebrated on laying the foundationstone of the second temple. The priests of ficiated indeed in their pontifical robes; the Levites, sons of Asaph, caused their cymbals to resound afar; one choir admirably concerted its response to another; all the people raised a shout of joy, because the foundation of the Lord's house was laid. But the chiefs of the fathers, and the aged men, who had seen the superior glory of the former temple, wept aloud, and in such sort that one could not distinguish the voice of joy from the voice of weeping.

Come, notwithstanding, my dear brethren, and let us mutually praise the God, who in the midst of wrath remembers mercy.' Hab. iii. 2. Let us gratefully meditate on this tresh accomplishment of the prophecy I have just read in your presence; Though I have cast them far off among the heathen, and among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.' These are God's words to Ezekiel: to understand them, and with that view I attempt the discussion, we must trace the events to their source, and go back to the twenty-ninth year of king Josiah, to form correct ideas of the end of our prophet's ministry. It was in this year, that Nabopolassar king of Babylon, and Astyages king of Media, being allied by the marriage of Neb chadson of Nabopolassar, with Amytis daughter of Astyages, united their forces against the Assyrians, then the most ancient

nezzar

and formidahle power, took Nineveh their capital, and thus by a peculiar dispensation of Providence, they accomplished, and without thinking so to do, the prophecies of Jonah, Nahum, and Zephaniah, against that celebrated empire.

From that period the empire of Nineveh and of Babylon formed [again] but one, the terror of all their neighbours, who had just grounds of apprehension soon to experience a lot like that of Nineveh.

This induced Pharaoh Nechoh, king of Egypt, who, of all the potentates of the east, was the best qualified to resist those conquerors, to march at the head of a great army, and make war with a prince, who for the futurc, to use the expression of a prophet, was regarded as the hammer of all the earth,' Jer. 1. 32. Pharaoh took his route through Judea, and sent ambassadors to king Josiah, to solicit a passage through his kingdom. Josia'h reply to this embassy even to this day astonishes every interpreter; he took the field, he opposed the designs of Nechoh, which seemed to have no object but to emancipate the nations Nebuchadnezzar had subjugated, and to confirm those that desponded through fear of being loaded with the same chain.

Josiah, unable to frustrate the objects of Nechoh, was slain in the battle, and with him seemed to expire whatever remained of piety and prosperity in the kingdom of Judah.

Pharach Nechoh defeated the Babylonians near the Euphrates, took Carchemish,the capital of Mesopotamia, and, augmenting the pleasure of victory by that of revenge, he led his victorious army through Judea, deposed Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, and placed Eliakim his brother on the throne, whom he surnamed Je hoiakim, 2 Kings xxiii.

From that period Jehoiakim regarded the king of Egypt as his benefactor, to whom he was indebted for his throne and his crown. He believed that Pharaoh Nechoh, whose sole authority had conferred the crown, was the only prince that could preserve it. The Jews at once followed the example of their king; they espoused the hatred which subsisted in Egypt against the king of Babylon, and renewed with Nechoh an alliance the most firm which had ever subsisted between the two powers.

Were it requisite to support here what the sacred history says on this subject, I would illustrate at large a passage of Herodotus, who, when speaking of the triumph of Pharaoh Nechoh, affirms, that after this prince had obtained a glorious victory in the fields of Meggiddo, he took a great city of Palestine, surrounded with hills, which is called Cadytis: there is not the smallest doubt but this city was Jerusalem, which in the Scriptures is often called holy by way of excellence; and it was anciently designated by this glorious title. Now, the word holy in Hebrew is Keduscha, and in Syriac Kedutha. To this name Herodotus affixed a Greek termination, and called Kadytis the city that the Syrians or th Arabs call Kedutha, which, correspon