XIII. This self-confident Assyrian rationalism is finely spoken to, in Ezekiel: "Behold the Assyrian, a cedar in Lebanon, his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, because of the multitude of waters. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations." (Only as it were a "little flock," quite a "peculiar people," and "not reckoned among the nations," could withstand the ensnaring attraction.) "Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches for his root was by great waters." (Every thing about him was real, and from faith, or superstition, he derived no aid. His roots were firm in the actual earth, and nature's actual rivers, actual air and sunshine, made him what he was. And when all the powers of nature bring themselves forth in their noblest stature and proportions, the form is very bewitching.) "The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in beauty. So that all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God envied him." Eze. xxxi. The trees in the

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garden of God are small bushes, compared with the Assyrian tree. Nature's rivers and sunshine are less friendly to their growth. Nature contains not the elements essential to the development of their majesty and glory. To the natural mind, the chief of all the trees in the garden of God, by the side of the magnificent growths of nature, is perfectly contemptible. "He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground." There is nothing here to attract "the great nations." That the power of God is revealed in such a form, rather than in the mighty forms of nature, is a report which they can in nowise believe. But the time cometh, in which they will see, that nature's flourishing growths, (although facts, and sustained by facts,) cannot sustain themselves; but that those, which have neither size nor show, according to nature, nevertheless carry within them, the very principle of eternal growth and glory. "All the trees of the field shall know, that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken and have done it.” Eze. xvii. 24.

XIV.-How the Bible confounds mere naturalism! Spiritual and eternal things are the

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proper sphere of the Bible, and yet it will not let natural things alone. It meddles with the natural order of things. It will not let things be as nature has made them. It interferes with, and suspends natural laws. This is very annoying to the natural philosopher, who likes to think that God will and must work according to his ideas of order. The poor slave of his philosophy thinks in his heart that God is the slave of it too. And for this reason he cannot subscribe to the Divine authority of the Bible, as a whole. The God of the Bible does not always work in submission to natural laws. Sometimes a furious fire will not touch those who are cast into the very midst of it, but instead thereof, will perversely consume those who throw them in. Sometimes, rivers do not flow in their proper course, they stop short and stand upright in a heap. Sometimes, iron swims, At another time, a single pot of oil, in the possession of a widow, becomes, in the act of pouring out, not only enough to fill all the vessels which she has, but all that she can borrow. Sometimes, men at midnight are brought out of prison, and through iron gates, and yet the gates are found securely locked in the morning. At another time, the wind and sea, instead of obeying their own course, obey a Man. At another time, "two small fishes" are

divided into fish enough for some thousands of hungry people. Sometimes, even a dead man, instead of remaining a dead man, has been known, at the word of command, to quit his grave and live again. Now are not these things enough to bring the Bible into discredit, with any really scientific mind? Every one knows that nature is uniform in her operations: what then must be the fate of a book, which introduces a disturbing hand? And farther, many of the things which it affirms, are physical impossibilities. Is it likely that a student of the laws of nature, can receive that book as the Word of God, which gravely records such contradictions of the known order of things? Yes, my dear questioner, a student of nature's laws can and does receive, as the Word of God, the Book, which contains these, and many more such things. A slave of the laws of nature cannot, for he is an Egyptian, he is under nature and her laws, instead of being above, and looking down upon nature and her laws. Nature and all her laws are subject to the God of the Bible; but the slave of nature can only believe in a God that is subject to nature. Myriads of such facts, as the Bible relates, would be no stumbling-block to the reason that is of Faith. Sense enslaves the understanding. Faith liberates it, brings it into a large place, into God's

own sphere. The physical universe, or nature, is, to the poor slave of sense, supreme master. Faith looks upon all things as spiritual in their origin, and therefore as still under spiritual laws, and completely subject to the Will of God. To the perception of faith, "the whole earth is full of His Glory:" to sense, and also to the reason which is under tribute to sense, the whole earth is in chains to physical necessity.

their senses.

XV.-Confounded are all whose reason is of Blessed are they whose reason is of faith. Vast is the difference, between the understanding being subject to nature's appearances, and nature's appearances being subject to the understanding. Such is the distinction between nature-philosophy, which is founded on appearance, and absolute Philosophy, which is "the Wisdom of God in a Mystery." O ye nature-kings, who are yet no kings before God, but slaves rather, be instructed now, before you perish from the way. For there is verily a rod of iron, which will dash in pieces, your potter's vessel. The whole structure of your reason, which you think so strong and sound, is but a potter's vessel. To wit, it is a thing of man's device, the whole substance of which is derived from nature. It is of the earth, earthy.