sician may hug his theory, as it leads him from all conceivable and actual objects, even to the strange and unintelligible conclusion that man is nothing but a cluster of ideas. But is this the wholesome exercise of the mind? Are things like these to preside in the inmost seat of human intellect, and fill it with what can at once satisfy, exalt and enoble it? Is this the genuine essence of humanity? Must man go thus far, before he can comply with and rejoice in the divine injunction to have God ever before his eyes? Should the Fountain of light be thus made a region of darkness, by fixing man's highest and holiest gaze upon vacancy, instead of a conceivable form and shape which unwrought, untouched by man, is presented to his contemplation as he comes from the hands of his Creator?

Such could not have been the design of Him who made man in his own image and likeness, that he might the better know and worship him. Such could not be meant by him, when to the eye himself had hallowed with intellectual and spiritual sight, he presented himself above the throne in the likeness of a man. Such could not have been intended when man was forbidden to make unto himself any graven image or likeness, because it was for his good and his salvation to worship only the Lord his God, whose true image and likeness he should bear; that thus he might contemplate one uncreated and eternal.

But let us not be misunderstood. Nothing that strikes the material eye, nothing that impresses the bodily senses, is God. The Father of all dwells in the heavens, high above this material scene, these natural objects; yet not separated from them by space, not distanced by time; but distinguished by his eternal, all creating, and self-living essence. He is in these things, but not of them; where they are, but prior to them. His existence is not shadowy, but substantial; for he creates all, sustains all, and is present with all. He asks not leave for his existence or attributes from these things, and hence is not excluded from what they occupy, or limited to where they are. The clouds and darkness of man's fallen nature gather round and obscure his throne, yet is he ever ready to present himself in the works of his hands, and make himself felt and conceived in the pure and exalted qualities of humanity.

It is evident then that God is not delineated by materiality; neither is he measured by succession of time, or extent of space. This would be elevating the results of creation to a rank with the Creator, and degrading the cause to a level with the effect. It would be identifying time with eternity, and extent of space with the presence of Him who is paramount to all space. He who in his divine love and wisdom is the alone essentially human, in communicating himself to man, draws the first lineaments of

his being, impresses the first tokens of his presence upon the heart. When felt there, God is known to be every where. Time and space enter not into the composition of that feeling, that sentiment; for as it flows into the understanding, the eye is fixed on one who is seen to have time and space under his control. Error may obscure that impression, evil may bury it; but nothing which does not change the essential properties of humanity and degrade man from his spiritual form and stature, can utterly destroy it. It lives enshrined in the inmost recess of the mind, ready to come forth into form and expression, as the book of nature and revelation is spread before the eye, and man in his life submits himself to the salutary influence of the world within and above him.

But behold! the everlasting gates have been opened, and the God of nature has descended, clothing himself with a garment taken from it, to show that this also belongs to him; that he fashions it as he will. He has made his invisible humanity visible even through nature itself, which is but the hiding of his power, to teach and sanction that which nature, capable of receiving the spirit of him who created it, should have taught, that love and wisdom are qualities essentially human, and in himself essentially divine, whilst the words have proceeded from his mouth, "he that seeth me seeth the Father." Yet he breaks not the laws by which he created and governs nature, because they are his laws. He appears in natural form, speaks in natural language, and suffers natural treatment; for it belongs only to the attraction of heavenly love, the Father within him, the workings of that mighty power which in him made what was natural divine, he being the fountain of it, to draw all men after him. Thus he breaks not the bruised reed, nor quenches the. smoking flax.

Truth is but the form and expression of the spirit which fills it. It may be represented in types and letters, nature may be made up of objects and events where truth is in prominent relief; but not till the influence of that principle is felt, to which truth and nature ultimately owe their being and their power, and not till that stone is placed, which alone can become the headstone of the corner, can the temple of true wisdom and true science arise in all its symmetry and proportion in the human mind. Only the breathings of the spirit of truth, making the head sound, by first curing the heart, can unite correct thoughts with the Spring of all pure thought, and give symmetry to the whole, by the unity of the essence which joins them. All true knowledge, and all true religion, must have its basis in a pure heart; the love of truth, because it is truth in its own light, the light of heaven; the love of what is good, because it is absolute, living and imperishable good. Here must be abandoned, on this altar must be offered up, the

wayward propensities of the natural mind, the love of honour, reputation and gain. Here must be sacrificed the inveteracy of habit, the prepossessions of error, and the prejudices of evil. And who that has drunk in the spirit of truth, who that has felt the solace of a humble and contrite heart, would not here offer up all these, and much more, till his heart and life having prepared him for a higher world, shall make to him a heaven of this!

It is the spirit of truth which must operate all this, and which must be governed in this operation, by reference to both the essential freedom, and the deep and innate depravity of man; that the former may remain inviolate, whilst the latter is removed. As man co-operates with that spirit, he receives and acknowledges that love and that truth, which springs from the One Source, and lead to One, not broken by other objects, not obstructed by unlike tendencies; but feeling the light, the love and power of One, and gathering all that is light, and love and power, to a unity in the deep and purifying acknowledgment and worship of One, a conceivable, glorious and infinite One. It is that spirit, as it is suffered to influence, purify and enlighten man, which lays the corner stone of the spiritual temple, the living edifice of the Lord within him. And as this is to be immortal as He who creates and fills it, and that, only, by man's willing co-operation, it advances slow and surely. That which is only man's, must not enter into the fabric; for its foundation must be as broad as the superstructure, the cement which connects its base must join its walls, and no sound of the axe or hammer of human device, must be heard in its building.

We must not be understood to depreciate reason, in the search after and the reception of truth. It is the powerful instrument, but not the efficient cause of man's destiny, of his true exaltation or his debasement. Let reason take its proper stand, and confess its own nature; that it is a light which, if not continually fed with sacred oil, grows dim in its socket, or sparkles with false fire. It ever has been and ever will be subject to the love which governs it. True reason must owe both its birth and its development to revelation. It must not receive its spring of action from a principle, which that was given to subdue and eradicate; but be quickened and preserved pure by the healing influence of that Spirit, without which the letter of revelation has no power to ameliorate the condition of man. It must draw its light and its sustenance from a source above it, or the field of nature cannot become luminous with its rays. Reason, actuated by the pride of possessing it, overlooks that for which it was given, and exults only in the fancied master-strokes of its own prowess. visions of the brain take the place of the affections of the heart,

The

and God and truth will not be looked for where they are to be found.

It is to cast pride from its usurped pre-eminence in the human mind, that truth descends from heaven. It is to teach man, that governed by the arrogance and perverseness of his fallen nature, he cannot discover truth that divine truth is revealed. And just as revelation displays its own fulness, does it show man his insufficiency; just as it evinces its true origin, does it discover its extent. Because it is seen only in the light it is permitted to give, because it is known only in the effects it produces, till it has approved itself to be the Word of God, indeed, when it is known to be where and what he is, the good and the truth. That, which must fill the understanding to make it rational; that, which must pervade and change the heart, to make it pure.

Man's interior essence is spiritual and immortal. Hence he has latent within him a capacity of elevating the mental eye to and resting it on the one God, one sole and conceivable First Cause of all things, of Glorious Form and Almighty Power, operating through orderly means and regular gradations, through the spiritual creations nearer and more remote from his throne, till spirit wraps itself in the vesture of matter, and stands forth in that ultimate form to the bodily senses. When the mind would look above this world to that which is spiritual, the habitation of God and angels, such a view, only, can fill and satisfy the conception, without confounding it and annihilating all conception. This only can give to the world above a real existence in the thoughts and feelings, and bring the influence of heaven down to earth in the deep and prevailing sentiment of man that God and heaven are present with him. This only can do away the sensual and atheistical conviction, that this world is all and heaven nothing, by bringing near to man, and making palpable to his most rational thoughts, his pure and prevailing sense, the substantial, imperishable things of heaven. Yet this capacity with which man is endowed from his spiritual essence, can only be called into exercise and orderly developed, by a regenerate heart, by purity of thought and feeling, by purity of life and action. This is because its Source is pure, because the Being and the things it was given to feel and to contemplate, are pure.

But until man is thus raised from his sensual to his spiritual essence, and thus led to see and feel that there is not only existence but form and order in heaven, as there should be on earth, his conceptions are bounded by the material scene of this world. There can be no real upliftings of the heart and spirit to a higher and brighter region, which will equally enlighten the understanding and exalt the feelings. There can be no conception of

essences and objects above nature, and to which nature proximately owes her form and beauty. There can be no definite idea of Him who, high above and within all these, by one uniform exercise of power, his almighty love and infinite wisdom, by one uniform code of laws, varying only as their subjects vary, creates, sustains, fills and governs all, giving them their being, their life and action. Until man has the practical, operative sense that his essence, his interior nature is spiritual, discrete from matter; until the mind is raised, as it were, to a level with that essence, and can view things from its own proper horizon, there can be no abiding belief in spiritual things, for there can be no real conception of them. Imagination may expatiate over the face of nature and stretch her view far and wide, but still it is nature that she sees and nature that she worships. Her conceptions are material and her delights sensual, because nothing of orderly and substantial form and being, above matter and the senses, is acknowledged. There is no idea of the distinction between spirit and matter, no conception of any real subject in which the powers and qualities of the former can inhere and be embodied, but matter. the mind reposes only on material objects, in physical causes and effects, and refers to them whatever there is of power, of order and beauty. Philosophy may attempt to explore the hidden causes of things. It may make a remove or two from the surface of nature till it arrives at a vague and untangible something, belonging neither to this world or the other, and there it rests. Because thus entrenched in its own light, the light of nature, it cannot be its genius to acknowledge a spiritual world only as compelled to. When thus convinced, it admits that there is something behind the curtain, though it knows not what, or asserts it to be shapeless, vague and indefinite, like that which thus fixes its unsatisfying gaze. Thus suspended between heaven and earth, receding from the one and not acknowledging the other, such philosophy puts out the light of the senses without attaining the light of the mind.

Hence

Sensuality in this manner forecloses the avenue of spiritual light by arrogating to itself all which is called light. It excludes from the mind that without which spiritual things cannot be permanent and operative in the belief, by first denying their formal and conceivable existence. A heaven may be allowed, but nature is the god which is worshipped. That only has reality, because that only is suffered to enter the conceptions and be expressed in an image which can satisfy the mind. There only are seen the operations of uniform power according to regular laws; there only are the actual forms of order, harmony and beauty. Hence, that only commands the heart. Nature becomes invested with the attributes of deity, for it is supposed to have inherent within it the