their Saviour; who have laid down the burden of their sins before the cross; and received from their Redeemer," into an honest and good heart," the Spirit of sanctification. But "leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ" (which, though, like other rudiments, the foundation of all knowledge, we ought not to be for ever employed in laying afresh), let us employ a few moments in contemplating more nearly the duty which I have inscribed as a title to this paper-the duty of trusting in God. Consider who it is that calls upon us to put our trust in him: " "God, that made the earth, and all things that are therein." In what language shall I presume to speak of him! The most extraordinary genius of modern times never pronounced the awful name of God, without a pause. It is an idea which fills the mind at once, and which the highest natures will always contemplate with the profoundest reverence. As the most perfect optical instruments, enabling us to extend on every side the range of our vision, only discover new worlds and celestial wonders bursting upon our view in every direction through the illimitable regions of space; so when we contemplate the Deity, the most daring flight of imagination, the utmost comprehension of thought, instead of fathoming that mysterious and ineffable idea, are themselves lost in the survey of the unexhausted and inexhaustible riches that spread and multiply around them. To the dignity of such a subject no created being can possibly do justice. He is first, and last, and midst; "that is, and that

was, and that is to come."

He formed all things

by his word; he sustains and permeates the whole creation. Nothing is too vast for the control of his dominion; nothing too little for the vigilance of his inspection. Let us endeavour to conceive whatever is supreme in power, comprehensive in wisdom, perfect in purity, and enchanting in goodness, and we shall present to ourselves, not indeed a living picture of the Deity, (for how could we support its lustre!) but a faint and shaded image of him, such

our mortal vision may bear to contemplate. "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him ; or the son of man, that thou visitest him!"

It is worthy of remark, and perhaps no mean argument of the truth of revelation, that of all the varied systems of religion which have prevailed in the world, the Jewish and Christian is that which has alone presented the one supreme God, as the proper and direct object of worship, with any distinctness to the minds of its votaries. Paganism peopled every vale and mountain, every stream and forest, the air, the earth, and the ocean, with tutelary intelligences; but the great First Cause was unknown to the creeds of popular superstition, and was sought only in the schools of the philosophers. In the Indian mythology (which indeed was the same in its origin), a like peculiarity is observable. The Supreme Being is never presented to the vulgar eye. Some more thoughtful disciple of Vyasa, in the shades of Benares, may inquire into his nature, and adore him in secret; but the poor Hindoo is

content to pay his homage to Surya, or Ganga, or Mariataly, or some other of the numberless spiritual agents who preside over the objects of nature and classes of society, with limited powers and local jurisdictions. The like tendency of human nature to retire from the contemplation of a Being too great to be understood by the careless, and too excellent to be loved by the sinful, has been manifest during many periods of the popish superstition, and remains still visible in some dark corners of its dominions. The whole host of canonized saints and martyrs owe their idolatrous pre-eminence to the same principle which planted Minerva at Syracuse, Diana at Ephesus, and Jupiter in the Capitol. Their jurisdiction too, like the deities of old, extends only over a limited class of worshippers. Santa Rosalia is in high honour at Palermo; but Santa Maria would be justly jealous, if she claimed any authority at Trapani. The patron saint of Catania has often arrested the fiery streams which burst from the sides of Ætna, but she works no miracles at Syracuse.

I cannot help observing also, that those bolder geniuses, who of late years have rejected Christianity as a dispensation unworthy of the wisdom and equity of God, have by no means done credit to their own more rational and simple scheme of religion, by sublimer delineations of the character of the Almighty, or the expression of a profounder reverence towards him. Mr. Hume's language, in those parts of his Essays where he touches on the attributes of God, is very highly presumptuous; and his private

correspondence was profane. Voltaire, a sincere Theist,
in one of his lighter works, speaks of the moral go-
vernment of the Deity in terms of the most insolent
and offensive levity; and so little tendency had his
speculations to produce an increased veneration
towards the Author of all things, that neither his
reproaches nor his authority were sufficient to pre-
vent some of the most illustrious of his pupils from
pushing his principles to the direct disavowal of a
First Cause. Both Diderot and Condorcet were
atheists. The former, in one of his letters, says,
"Ce pauvre Voltaire radote un peu. Il avouait
l'autre jour qu'il croyait a l'être de Dieu." D'Alem-
bert laboured pretty generally under the same im-
putation; but La Harpe says in his letters, that he
had frequently heard him (D'Alembert) say,
66 que
la probabilité était pour le Théisme." La proba-
bilité!-and is this all that a man possessed of so
fine and profound a genius could discover of that
August Being to whose bounty he owed the enjoy-
ment of all his distinguished faculties?

Oh, star-eyed Science! has thou wandered there,
To waft us home the lesson of despair?

It is impossible not to be struck at the vast superiority which the simplest among the faithful followers of Christ possesses, upon these subjects, over the greatest masters of modern wisdom. The utmost that D'Alembert could discover, or would consent to believe, was, that the presumption is in favour of the existence of a Deity. The true

Christian, however little enlightened by secular science, has learned not only to clothe the idea of God with every attribute of intellectual and moral greatness, but he even presumes, without fear, to draw down and appropriate, as it were, to himself, the blessed object of his homage; to believe, that He, who fills the universe with his majesty, disdains not to visit the abode of the meanest of his servants, to watch over him with paternal affection and solicitude, to listen to all his prayers, to regard his humblest wishes, to be present to the most secret sorrows and anxieties of his bosom: "He is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways." I will not say whether the creed of the disciple of Christ, or the disciple of Voltaire, be the most philosophical; but I know which is the most sublime and most consoling.

God invites us to put our trust in him. And is he not trustworthy? The ordinary blessings of life are apt to escape our notice; but our heavenly Father undoubtedly intended them as assurances of his unfailing providence. We can imagine, indeed, a state of existence, of such a nature, that the whole series of circumstances and events should appear to be the mechanical results of some one original impulse. Or we may suppose a world so constituted, that every thing should be manifestly directed by man, as the efficient agent; in which his activity and foresight would be the final causes of all visible things. Under such economies, it might perhaps be pardonable for us to think of the Deity (like the