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"to principalities and powers might be known," through humble man, some wonderful things. Another thought is, that even on the assumption of our conception of magnitudes being correct-we have as much evidence to believe that God is as truly at work with the small as with the great. The countless myriads of existence revealed by the microscope indicate as much of God as the telescopic universe unfolds. Again: there is good reason to believe that human souls, though in suffering, are greater than the stars in all their splendor. These stars know nothing of their own natures; we know something of ours; they cannot think of us; we can think of them ;they are unconscious of the splendor that surrounds them; we are awed by it;-they know nothing of the hand that made them, and rolls them in their spheres; we know something of the feelings of his very heart;-they have no power to alter their course, or to pause a moment, in their career. We can say what the great sun cannot say-No-to the Eternal. They are made for us, not we for them. shine to light our path, and point our souls to God." then, broken and wounded though it be, is greater than these stars. Still another thought may be noticed, namely, that there is higher evidence to believe that God restores souls than that he takes care of stars. The highest proof is consciousness. I infer, from my understanding, that God governs the heavenly bodies, but I feel that "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." This thought gives to its objection a contemptible insignificance.

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A soul,

III. Those who profess faith in God's active relation to both, but who are destitute of the suitable spiritual feeling. Antecedently, we should infer that, wherever there could be found a thinking moral nature like man's fully believing in this twofold relation of God-his connexion with the heavenly bodies, and with all pertaining to the history of itself—there would be developed in that nature, as the necessary consequence of that faith—life—humility, and devotion.

There would be life, for how could such a mind really

believe that God was everywhere in the universe, and always with him, and be dull and dormant? This faith, wherever it exist, must break the slumbers of the spirit, and put every faculty astir. A sleepy soul has no faith. There would be humility. David, when he lifted up his eyes to the nocturnal heavens, and saw the moon walking in her brightness, and the stars circling away in their luminous spheres, was overwhelmed with a sense of his own littleness, and exclaimed, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" A proud soul has no faith. There would also be devotion. It is said that " an undevout astronomer is mad;" but an undevout believer in God's connexion with the universe and man is impossible, Wherever, then, we find apathetic, proud, undevout men professing this belief, we find HYPOCRITES.

To what class, my friend, in relation to this subject, dost thou belong? Thou wouldst probably revolt at the idea of belonging to either of the former two; but the latter, for many reasons, is worse than either: it is to play the hypocrite, and disgrace religion. Get, then, the true faith in the subject -the faith that will produce this true quickening, humbling, devotionalizing effect-and thou shalt catch the true meaning of life; feel the world to be a temple radiating with the glory, and vocal with the praise, of God, and then thou shalt step on the true line of human progress, and feel the proper impulse to advance, for it is only as thou advances that thou canst either live spiritually or be happy.

“There is a fire-fly in the southern clime
Which shineth only when upon the wing;
So is it with the mind: when once we rest,
We darken. On! said God unto the soul,
As to the earth, for ever. On it goes,
A rejoicing native of the infinite-
As is a bird of air-an orb of heaven."

Analysis of Homily the Forty-sixth.

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."Heb. xi. 8-10.

SUBJECT:-The Spiritual Production and Practical
Development of True Religion.

ABRAHAM is an extraordinary character. His position in the world's history is of sublime singularity. He is the head of a race whose annals are full of supernatural revelations, miracles, and God. His name floats in the traditions of heathens, is a household word to all civilized people, and is written in the heart of the church. Ages swell the volume of his influence, and circulate the suggestive memories of his life. I have chosen this fragment of his history in order to illustrate a subject of paramount interest to us all-the spiritual production and practical development of true religion.

I. THE SPIRITUAL PRODUCTION OF TRUE RELIGION. Knowing the idolatry of his country and age, it is natural to suppose that, up to the period referred to in the text, Abraham had been spiritually ignorant of the true religion; that the Voice which summoned him from his home, summoned him, at the same time, from his sins, and that his departure from his own country was but the outward effect and sign of his inward renunciation of his old spiritual errors and ways. Now, there are three things which effected this change in the patriarch's life, and which seem to us ever indispensable to the production of religion in the soul-Divine sovereignty, special revelation, earnest faith.

1. Here is divine sovereignty. By sovereignty we neither mean supremacy nor arbitrariness, but the free acting of one's

nature, VOLITION. The natural and genuine volition of a being is ever the expression of his heart: it is the moral soul going out in a definite purpose. If the heart be malevolent, the sovereignty, or volition, will be to curse; if kind, to bless. God is love, and hence his sovereignty-"his good pleasure" -is ever to bless. God's sovereignty is uncontrolled love. It is "the fountain of life;" from it all beings and blessedness flow. It is the ultimate fact in the constitution of the universe; it is the source of mediation; it is the efficient cause of every conversion. Abraham's change began here, and here all true religion begins in the soul. "Of his own will begat he us." Sin and misery come without a Divine volition, but virtue and happiness never.

2. Here is special revelation.

God revealed himself to
Without an intel-

We

Abraham in a special way, Acts vii. 2. ligible communication from God, constituted as the mind is, we see not how his sovereign purpose could possibly influence us. His volition acts directly on dead matter and brute mind, but never on moral soul but through an intelligible communication. Had the patriarch not received such a communication, he would have died a pagan in the land of his pagan fathers. It is ever so. Religion cannot be generated in any human heart apart from this special revelation. disparage not nature as a revelation from God; we believe that every portion abounds with glorious truths, and that the human intellect, weak though it be, is capable of learning more from its pages than the greatest philosopher has ever conceived. But all history shows that the Divine communications of nature will never of themselves produce religion in the depraved heart. Under the light of nature the piety of Adam went out the ante-diluvians grew ripe for the judgments that burst in the deluge-Egypt worshipped creeping things -Persia the orbs of heaven-Athens the unknown God. The Gentile world has ever been enveloped in the thick darkness of idolatry and superstition.

3. Here is earnest faith. Had the patriarch not believed the word of God, both the purpose and the revelation would

have produced on his mind no effect. No revelation can possibly influence us unless we believe it. A being may make to us the most momentous and thrilling communications; if they are not believed, they are perfectly powerless. Hence it is that the scriptures lay such emphasis on faith. "He that believeth shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." In the nature of the case, there can be no salvation without faith. Now, as these three are essential to the production of true religion, the absence of one or more of them will always account for its want. Why are men not religious? It must be either for the want of Divine sovereignty, or a special revelation, or an earnest faith. It is not the first. It is his will that all should be saved; he gave his Son for the purpose. It must be, therefore, either because there is no special revelation, or because there is no earnest faith. The former may account for the absence of true religion in pagans, but the latter is the only intelligible reason for its absence in the land of bibles.

RELIGION.

II. THE PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF REAL He "obeyed." A change of mind always produces a change of conduct. True faith is the spring of true works-the exclusive germ of a holy life. His conduct develops the power of his faith in two things

"He went

1. The renunciation of an old mode of life. out" from the old for ever. There was no little energy of mind required for this. The scene he forsook was fraught with many enthralling associations. There lived the friends of his early days, and there slumbered the dust of his ancestors; there he spent the innocence of childhood, the poetry of youth, and the ripened energies of his manly life.

memories, dear friendships, and secular interests, would co-operate in strengthening the spell of that country on his heart. Nor was his age favorable to the emancipation of himself from all those mystic ties. Young life is adventurous and nomadic; its romantic impulses yearn after foreign scenes ; but the seventy-five winters that had passed over our

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