1. General Remarks.-2. Where the knowledge of God may be gained.-3. What God is not.-4. What God is.-5. The names of God.-6. The display of God's perfections in Christ Jesus.-7. The harmony of God's perfections in Christ.-8. God our salvation.-9. The way of access unto God.-10. Communion with God.-Passages of Scripture on the Attributes.

1. GENERAL REMARKS.

THE most important discovery of the Bible is to show to us God, our Maker. With this the sacred volume opens. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.-So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he man, male and female created he them.

Our Creator must have a nearer interest in his creatures and we in him, than any of our fellowcreated beings can possibly have in us, or we can have in them. To know him, therefore, to gain his favour, and to be blessed by him, is the greatest glory, interest, and happiness for time and for eter

nity, of each human being. This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

God only can describe himself. In considering every thing relating to the great God, our principal light must be derived from the discoveries which he has made of himself in his word. This chapter of the Family Guide will, therefore, necessarily, chiefly be gathered from the Holy Scriptures.

The object now before us, then, is to give you some knowledge of the great God who made you; but as our Lord has told us no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him, let us all look up to our divine Redeemer to teach us.

Prayer.

O Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who art in the bosom of the Father, that glorious Being, whom no man hath seen at any time, nor can see, we earnestly beseech thee to reveal to us thy divine Father; manifest his name to us and shew us his glory. Let the light of the knowledge of the lory of God shine in our hearts, in thy face, O Jesus! whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all our and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

ERE THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD MAY BE GAINED.

creation around us declares God in his works. Ching within us, and about us, speaks of him. h men are by nature alienated from him, and ith, Where is God, my Maker? yet is the whole full of him.

The very frame of each man, every member of his body, every sense and faculty, every power of his mind, and every feeling of his heart, plainly declares to man, I am fearfully and wonderfully made by the great God. The innumerable creatures that people the air and the earth, the sea and the waters, declare that the Lord is; that he is good to all, and that his tender mercies are over all his works.

All the beauties of the natural world, the ten thousand productions of the earth, the light which we enjoy, the air which we breathe, the earth beneath, as well as the heavens above, declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament sheweth his handy work.—That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. While " coarseness and clumsiness mar all the works of man," the least of God's works are full of wonder, and manifest infinite wisdom, power, and benevolence.

The PROVIDENCE of God tells also continually of his being and goodness. He gives all their MEAT in due season. He sends forth his Spirit, and they are created; he takes away their breath, they die and return to the earth. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him; he also will hear their cry, and save them. The same providence is seen in the punishing of the wicked. The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth.

The wicked is snared

in the work of his own hands. These things leave men

without excuse who live as without God in the world. But such is our blindness and corruption through sin, that this is our universal natural character.

God has therefore, in the riches of his love, given another discovery of himself in his INSPIRED word, or the Bible written by men under the teaching of the Holy Ghost. A peculiar nation was set apart to be the keepers of that word. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. Their great advantage was, that unto them were committed the oracles of God. The language of Creation and Providence, though continually manifested and intelligible to all, is still only a silent shewing forth of knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words; their voice is not heard. But the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Here we have a clearer, fuller, and more glorious sight of God; in the display of his loving-kindness and truth, and all his glory, he has magnified his word.

In his INCARNATE WORD, that is, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God, made flesh and dwelling among us, we have the brightest of all displays of God to man. His glory is the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; a Son is the representative of his Father. Jesus Christ is the brightness of his Father's glory, the express image of his person. In answer to the request, Lord, shew us the Father, he replies, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He is the image of the invisible God. And by him light shines upon us out of the darkness with which the being and glory of God are otherwise shrouded. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the

knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The HOLY GHOST again is the great Teacher who makes all these clear to us. The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; but the Holy Ghost, who is one with the Father and the Son, reveals these things to us. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God; now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. It is his inward teaching that guides us into all truth. He gives the riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Our Lord says of the Holy Ghost, He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. Ask for this Spirit, and you shall receive it.

O let us seek to walk in this glorious light and liberty of the children of God; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; and we all with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Meditation.

My God and my Father! in how many ways hast thou revealed thyself unto me! but O how dark has been my mind, that though in thee 1 live and move and have my being, and thou walkest upon the wings of the wind, and hast thy path in the sea, and the heavens declare thy glory, and all thy creatures speak of thee, I have yet disregarded this all-sur