should overflow with thankfulness, that God, in his mercy, hath not left us ignorant respecting so essential a point as the condition of our souls; though he hath not thought fit to reveal the mode, by which they come into the world. Blessed be his name, his infallible word amply assures us of the absolute immateriality and immortality of our spirits; and we may be sure, that no system can be true, which is irreconcileable with the maintenance of these. They originated, from God, in our first parent at least; and to God, as to their rest and perfection, they ultimately tend.

The very limited extent of human knowledge, and the small capacity of the human intellect, ought to hum ble our pride, and to send us rather to prayer for under standing, than to the indulgence of the least conceit in boasting of it. We know not ourselves. We are igno rant of the mode of our existence. We can, indeed, distinguish a little between matter and spirit, between body and mind; but we cannot explain, nor indeed conceive, the real origin of either, and the reciprocal action of the one upon the other; though the fact be obvious, and the effect indisputable. The radical causes of things are inscrutable by us; and our best wisdom is, in the humble acknowledgement of our own ignorance, to refer the secret wonders, which fill the world and which surpass our comprehension, to the primary wisdom and power of that, infinite Being, who is above all, and in all, and through all, his creation.

There are doubtless exalted spirits, who, from their being entirely refined, or unclogged by matter, do super

latively

latively understand more than is possible by men, who gather ideas chiefly from sensation, and who dwell in houses of clay. To these inhabitants of the spiritual and intellectual world, how weak and confined must the understandings of our fallen race appear; perhaps more dull and gross than the comprehension of a snail, or of an oyster, to one of us! If we cannot trace out the spring and vivid operations, which actuate the matter lying open to our senses; how much less are we able to investigate the sublime and penetrating agencies and influences of those pure spirits, which every where surround us, and especially of that Supreme and Holy Spirit, who is the first cause and last end of his whole creation! We see effects, and these often with much imperfection; but we are soon lost, when we try to examine their origin, or the first principle which produced them. Yet man, vain man, would fain be wise, and aims to be thought so; though, with respect to these subjects and the comparative reach of his mind, he is born like the wild ass's colt, who looks with a giddy or stupid amazement upon the wilderness about him, feels a base or greedy appetite, but understands nothing.

Blessed be God, however, the things which concern our real welfare, are so constituted, as to be generally obvious to our senses and understandings, or within the reach of their industrious application. Even the deep things of God, which relate to our eternal happiness, are laid open, gradually or as we are able to bear them, to our thoughts and apprehensions by his Word and Spirit. And if, at any time, we are puzzled, through our in

firmities,

firmities, respecting the knowledge of his truth, or feel our need of farther light and experience; we have, for our comfort and encouragement, an ample promise with direction, that, if any man luck wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and will not upbraid. By humble prayer and use of appointed means, the Chris tian will find his light increased, his faith strengthened, his hope animated, and, with its principle, the genuine effect of every grace more and more to abound.

And here one cannot but admire the wisdom and goodness of God, in the plain revelation of all things essential to the knowledge of redemption; for that redemption is in itself of so sublime a nature, so connected with all the divine attributes, and so important and everlasting in all its consequences to sinful creatures, that no artifice or ability of man could possibly have drawn out the bare scheme of its transcendent arrange ment. Yet the great truths of salvation are laid down in the clearest language, and illustrated by natural or symbolical resemblances, which reach our eyes, our ears, and our hearts, at once. They seem almost too familiar to be misunderstood. But, at the same time, both to humble the pride of man, and to evince the exalted nature of this glorious redemption, it is a truth, justified by every day's experience, that the natural wisdom of the human mind, be it improved with all the outward advantages which education and science can afford, cannot really comprehend this surprising manifestation of the divine benignity, plainly as it is delineated, without a power superior to its own. It is an unerring testimony,

Ff

testimony, which shall stand at least as long as this present world, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the SPIRIT of God; neither can he know them, BECAUSE they are spiritually discerned. And it is equally a truth upon fact, that many an unlettered clown, who can scarcely return a why or a wherefore upon the subject in which men are always ready to boast of their knowledge, shall apprehend this magnificent system of the eternal Majesty, in both its exalted light and power, shall contemplate with admiration the vastness of his bounty, shall meet the storms of a rugged life with invincible faith and patience, and shall finally enter the valley of the shadow of death, declaring that he neither fears nor finds any evil. To this common level, God brings all his redeemed. The wise and learned believers must confess, in this glorious business, that of themselves they know nothing; and that they were made sensible, through the grace which enabled them to trust in Christ, how expedient it was for them to become fools, that they might be wise indeed. The ignorant and unlearned also find with rapture, that God exalteth them of low degree; and that those invaluable instructions, which he hideth from the wise and the prudent, he is pleased to reveal unto babes, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

With these reflections I dismiss a subject, which, ifit convey no other light, but the conviction of human darkness in all things not revealed, may serve to send us upon our knees to the throne of grace, that nothing which is revealed, or which is necessary to be known, may be hidden from us; but that, if we are wise in nothing

beside, we may at least be sufficiently wise unto salvation. And, in that eternal rest which remains to be enjoyed, where we shall know even as we also are known, our doubts and difficulties concerning this, and a thousand other intricate subjects, shall vanish in a moment, and we shall see, beyond all present conceptions of our souls, how we exist and have existed, how we have been led by the unseen hand of God through all the labyrinths of time, and (what is better than all) how we are and shall be united in an indissoluble union to Jesus Christ, and, through him, to the DIVINE NATURE, for evermore.