the boundaries of human knowledge by extending his inquiries into nature, becomes unconsciously a fellowworker with Newton and Boyle in accumulating the evidence for his own refutation. Even he is thus instrumental in pouring into our minds the light of heaven, and of truth; and while he continues in darkness himself, he contributes to unfold to our view the glories and perfections of the Omnipresent and Almighty Being whose existence he denies.

In persisting in this denial how great is the absurdity, contradiction, and misery in which the Atheist is involved! His is a resistance to reason, to conscience, to the voice that proclaims the glories of the Creator from earth and heaven. That universe of matter and of mind on every part of which the selfexistent, ever-present God has fixed the impression of design-the legible signatures of his own perfections-owes its being in his view to fate or chance, and is carried along in the dark and cheerless career of necessity. He and the other beings by whom he is surrounded, according to his view, can have nothing to console them in looking forward to the future, and are now without a father and a guide. He is surrounded by the operations of the Almighty; he possesses proofs of his power and wisdom in the mechanism of his own frame, and in all that he beholds, and yet he passes on to eternity without recognising his existence, or doing homage to his perfections. Scripture and experience warrant us in affirming that the reason is to be found in the state of his heart-in the wish that there may be no God-in the effort to convince himself that to believe that he exists is an error,

and in the deliberate preference which, from his inclinations and habits, he gives to darkness rather than light.

Thus do we see that in no part of his vast empire does the great God leave himself without a witness; that his being and perfections are clearly seen in all the operations, in all the productions, in all the atoms of nature, and in all the events, agencies, and dispensations of Providence; that the structure and organization of our bodies, the laws, faculties, and affections of our minds manifestly reflect his power, wisdom, and beneficence; and that like the poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind, we also must recognise his vital presence in all that is around and above us. Even as far as the light of philosophy illuminates— in the movements of distant worlds, we discover that every thing is formed and arranged with the matchless skill, power, and benevolence of the only wise God. If, with the philosopher, we could examine the courses of the planets, and the order and harmony with which their motions are regulated; if we could examine the varied and numberless objects on the globe we inhabit, with their properties, uses, and admirable adaptation to the circumstances in which they are placed; if we could attentively survey the everrecurring proofs that are afforded us in the ordinary course of life, of the existence and established laws of a supreme moral government, to which we are accountable; if we could consider the nature and design of the powers and passions of the human mind, and their effects in all the ramifications and relations

of society; whatever or wherever we contemplated, throughout the works and dominions of the Eternal God, we should have cause to be astonished at the displays of his incomprehensible intelligence and wisdom, the grandeur of his mighty operations, the never-ceasing and unbounded effects of his goodness and love. For

He is ever present, ever felt

In the void waste as in the city full.

We cannot go

Where universal love not smiles around.

"These are thy works, parent of good. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy?"

How great and awful, and far surpassing our conception must be the perfections and the majesty of God. On him every thing in the animate and inanimate creation is depending every moment for its being, its properties, its continued existence; the sparrow, that cannot fall to the ground without his permission, not less than the bright assemblage of worlds that move in harmonious order throughout the range of illimitable space. He is present himself, in all the perfection of his being, with the atom, to give it its formation and direction, with the insect to preserve it, not less than with man to continue each pulsation of his heart, or with the archangel to pour lustre and beauty around him by the reflection of his own glories, How dark and inadequate must be all our thoughts of Him who does all this by his will and his word; who

commands the heavens, and they rain not; who speaks to the elements, and they obey him; who bids the universe fulfil its destination; and who will hereafter roll together the heavens as a scroll, and make the earth retire from his presence! " Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding."

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CHAPTER II.

ON THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

On the Spirituality and Unity of his Nature.

WHEN we look around us we perceive a substance whose qualities are extension, divisibility, and impenetrability. When we observe what takes place within us, we are conscious of the operations or acts of reflection and volition, of the states of mind in which we are affected with joy or sorrow, hope or fear; and because these latter qualities are different from the former, we justly conclude that the substances to which they respectively belong, are also essentially different. Of these substances we cannot know any thing but by their properties. The one we call matter, and the other immaterial, or not matter. As intelligence is the attribute of the immaterial substance, and as the Creator and Preserver of all things possesses this attribute in an infinite degree, we are led to infer that his nature cannot be material, but spiritual. The testimony of revelation confirms this conclusion; it tells us that God is a spirit.

To this conclusion we are led by a variety of considerations. The Deity, as possessed of self-existence, eternity, and infinity, must, in his nature, be simple and incorruptible. He cannot have the attributes either of figure, or parts, or motion, or divisibility, or any of the properties of matter, since these convey the notion of finiteness, and cannot belong to him who is infinite