otherwise. There is a beautiful relation between mind and matter, between the works of God, and our capacity to contemplate them. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work." We need not go after fiction, for every page of the great volume of nature is full of living and instructive truth. Placed in the midst of a beautiful creation, we are invited to meditate on the workmanship of its Author, and such an exercise of the intellect is profitable to us, for it leads to humility, and while it makes manifest the feebleness of man, exalts our views of the wisdom, goodness, and power of the Creator, and shows us that order is "heaven's first law." The study of nature is not incompatible with true devotion to God. The right improvement of the spiritual and intellectual gifts bestowed upon us by the Giver of all good, will lead into the same train of reflections that called forth this acknowledgment from a Christian philosopher: "0 thou, who by the light of nature, dost kindle in us a desire after the light of grace, that by it we may reach the light of thy glory; I give thee thanks, O Lord and Creator, that thou hast gladdened me by thy Creation, when I was enraptured by the work of thy hands." It will enable us to adopt the sentiment of the Psalmist: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son-of-man that thou visitest him?" And when we are thus humbled by the contemplation of our comparative nothingness, amidst the immensity of creation, we shall learn what constitutes the 66 true greatness of man. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" Here is portrayed the final destiny of man. "Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour." Thus opening to his view the sublime doctrine of the soul's immortality, and the joys and prospects that stand connected with an eternal world. Oh, my friends, we are invited to lay hold of this crown of life, which is the reward of the perfect and the upright man. Let us keep this great object of our being in view, follow the example of Jesus, seek after inward and spiritual communion with the Infinite Mind, that we may be rightly instructed in the duties of life; and as we are obedient to all the revealings of Divine truth, we shall be governed by the same rule, and mind the same thing that has enabled the righteous of past ages to walk with God; and we also shall be numbered at last with the just of all generations, made perfect in the kingdom of heaven. "God, thus to thee our lowly thoughts shall soar, SERMON VIII. DELIVERED AT FRIENDS' MEETING, GREEN STREET, PHILADELPHIA, THIRD MONTH 10TH, 1850. If the records of the past may be taken in evidence, I think we have a right to infer that mankind have always been disposed to the reverence of a superior power; for it does not appear on the pages of history that there ever was a time, since the creation of man, when the acknowledgment of a belief in the existence of a Supreme Governor of the universe, and of man's accountability to him for his course of conduct, was not made: and so far as our knowledge of the present inhabitants of the globe has extended, this view is confirmed; for we have an evidence, even among those nations who are sunk to the greatest degree in ignorance and idolatry, that all traces of this belief have not waned into total extinction. It is no argument against the universality of such a conviction, that this simple belief has been embarrassed and encumbered by false notions and opinions concerning the Divine character-the relation that exists between man and his Maker-and the duties and obligations that the creature owes to the Creator. For, although in the darkness of the human understanding, it has been burdened with false notions of the adoration which is his due-with senseless forms and ceremonies which have been founded in superstition, and have led to all manner of idolatry and error, still there are evidences that from the human mind this conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being has not been wholly eradicated. It would seem to be impossible to account for the universality of this belief, unless we adopt a view which is abundantly illustrated in the Scriptures, confirmed and enforced by the testimony of human experience in all ages, that it is the "same God that worketh all in all," who giveth "a manifestation of the spirit to every man to profit withal." The same view is represented as a law written upon the heart, so effectual and sufficient of itself, to give man a knowledge of his Creator, that it is positively declared, "they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, nor every man his brother, saying, know the Lord; for all shall know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." There is abundant testimony of this kind, left upon record in the Scriptures and other writings, from which we draw the conclusion that Divine goodness has not left himself without a witness, but that he has communicated a knowledge of his own being and nature to all men of every kindred, nation, tongue and people, so effectually, as to make the declaration of the apostle true, where he says, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things;" "the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth and is no lie." This "manifestation of the spirit"-this "law written on the heart"-this "unction" and "anointing" which ye have received, is, to use another Scripture expression, the "true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," and is what we understand to be, immediate, Divine revelation. It is the Deity revealing himself to man, and it ever has been, and still continues to be, a universal illumination that embraces the whole of his rational, intelligent creation. I am aware there are many who call this in question, and who presume to deny the immediate intercourse between the soul and its author; there are those who assert that immediate, Divine revelation does not now exist-that the period has passed by when it was consistent with the Infinite Jehovah to unfold immediately to his accountable children the knowledge of himself, and his will concerning them, by opening before them the way in which they should go. Let us examine and consider in what this revelation consists. Let us open the great volume of our own experience, and read attentively the record made upon our own minds, and we shall find that so far as it relates to ourselves individually, there has been a Divine revelation to us, and that this has been repeated, day by day, and hour by hour. 66 It was the declaration of the apostle James, that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is neither variableness, neither shadow of turning." Every impression of Divine truth that man receives, proceeds from our Father in heaven, and it is as certainly a Divine revelation to him as any opening or manifestation of truth that was ever made to any Patriarch, Prophet, or Apostle that has gone before him; and he knows perfectly well, as |