habitants, with all their mixed and contradictory characters, none but blind and erroneous ideas of the Being who brought them into existence. What, he asks, mean the tempests and convulsions, the blights and mildews of nature; the raving madness of her animals and wild beasts; the poisonous venom of her reptiles; and the deceit, murder and vengeance of her people? Is this the work of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness ? It cannot be ! Thus he reasons. Indeed, the tendency of the whole scene would be to confound and darken his mind, upon the subject of an infinite Creator, and to lead it down to blind nature, as the self-existent and all in all thus he would rest in materialism; and suppose that this life would terminate his own existence.

Fallen man can never know himself without instructions from his God. Therefore God has always provided him with divine laws, for his guidance and improvement, suited to his state. But, in the doctrines of the Holy Word, as for many years popularly taught, there is universally acknowledged to be much mystery. With this want of light, the honest, independent, thinking minds of this reason-asking age, are not satisfied. Therefore they give the Bible up as incomprehensible, and consequently, of doubtful origin and authority. And having nowhere else to go they fall into an honest skepticism. For such minds I have a most profound respect and sympathy: for I know their solicitude and suspense. They would be glad of light; but it must be a light which answers the demands of their reason and judgment. They can receive nothing else.

That light God is now, in mercy, offering to them, in His Holy Word, through the law of analogy. There they will find, as far as they are able to see it, God's true and loving character; and also man's. All discords will be satisfactorily explained: the origin and nature of evil clearly pointed out; the infinite mercy and goodness of God strongly verified; and, as they progress, God will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight. These things will He do unto them, and will not forsake them.

In commencing with God, in this lecture, we have rightly regarded Him as one, the Infinite, the Centre, the Source. But in that oneness, there is nothing in all creation, that fully corresponds to Him. If man had never sinned and nothing had been perverted, and all things in nature were in true order, the whole universe, collectively, would correspond to God, so far as He had manifested His various qualities in the creation of angels, men and things. But even that vast whole would be but a very imperfect symbol of the Lord, because the creation is a continuous work, to go on for ever; and every step presents new principles of the divine nature.

Creeping things, then, are but correspondences of principles in God, or in man. And although the varieties, in God's principles, are infinite, yet they are divided into three distinct classes which relate to the three divine essentials in God-Love, Wisdom and Power. It is therefore to something in these principles that every created thing corresponds, either directly or indirectly. For the two great, primary elements, are

And as

Love and Wisdom. Their action is Power. they produce everything, all unperverted things must symbolize something of those elements. The number three, therefore, is a full, perfect, and peculiar number: it has relation to everything, either in the complex or in the particulars.

It will aid us much, in our general glance at the relation between God, man and nature, by correspondence, to understand the number Three.' The number One' denotes God. He is first. Here is the beginning. And as numbers, with the ancients, signified qualities, so number one necessarily denoted God. This correspondence has never been fully lost. We speak of the first man in town; or the first scholar in the class. But when we turn from individuals to principles, number one denotes Love. Love is the first principle in existence. It is the first principle in God; and the first principle in man. It is the vital spring of all thought and action; it is the very life element. The next principle in existence is Wisdom. Wisdom therefore is number Two;' or two denotes wisdom in its relation to God. But where now is the one? We readily see that it is involved in the two. As we cannot have two things without having one, so neither can we have true wisdom without having love. The next principle in existence, after love and wisdom, is power. Power, therefore, is number three; or three denotes power in its relation to God. But where now are the one and two? They are of course involved in the three. For we cannot have three without having two and one.

This love, wisdom and power then, are inseparable.

Love without wisdom could not think. Wisdom without love could not feel. And the two without power could not act. Thus a regenerated man is in the image of God. His truth or faith is from God's wisdom; his goodness or charity is from God's love; and his use or works, is from God's power. Thus the trine in man corresponds to the trine in God. And this trine extends through every created thing. For no single thing exists without having, within it, something from God's love, wisdom and power. For, as love, wisdom and power are inseparable, so the very life which constantly flows from God into every created thing, must contain all these elements, in some of their infinite varieties. And the love is manifested in the substance; the wisdom, in the form; and the power, in the use of the thing.

Thus, God, in His love, wisdom and power, is connected with every single thing in the vast universe. But how? Through man. The first and highest receptacle of God's love is the human will; of His wisdom, the human understanding; and of his power, human action. These divine elements, then, before they can become the life of the material universe, must pass through the minds of angels and men. God is the great centre of all being, sending forth the principles of life in every direction, as the sun sends forth his beams. Around Him, and nearest to Him, are the purest minds; and the farther a mind is from Him, the less pure it is. All are arranged in regular distances according to their qualities. Through these minds, in orderly succession, the stream of life flows, clothing itself, at every step, with the quality of the

mind it is traversing, which adapts it to the state of the next. Thus it comes from God, regularly down. through the various beings, celestial, spiritual and natural, till it enters men on earth; they clothe it with the quality of their own will and understanding. This gives to the lower orders of things, man's nature, which makes them correspond to him. Thus there is a regular chain of correspondences, or law of analogy, between higher things and lower; connecting them all together. Break this chain, and all would be lost.

But some men say they do not believe in this influx; that it is something new and visionary. Is it something new and visionary, that the Lord is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world? that His words are spirit and life? that He "giveth life unto the world"? Is this something new? What are this light and life which God giveth to the world? They are either substance or nothing. If they are not real, spiritual substance that can enter the will or understanding, and thus make us feel and think, they are nothing but vagaries of the imagination: mere empty phantoms. Indeed, a man must know that spiritual life and light are love and wisdom, or goodness and truth, before he can have a rational thought of what they are. And then, as he learns to elevate his thoughts, by correspondences, above gross matter, to spiritual things, he will soon be convinced that this Love and Wisdom are the real Source of all substances, and the very elements of Jehovah.

As this divine love flows into an evil man's will, it has, all the way, in its descent from God, through mediums, been clothed in lower and more impure substan