salutary, nay, most necessary to these our times: we have looked on Nature and become familiar with her, till our hearts have ceased to thrill, and bow before her grandeur; and the voice with which Jehovah is proclaimed throughout his works is now too little heeded. That which has formed the theme of every man of God in scripture, even to reiteration! that which humbled into awe even the untutored heathen, and made them "seek if they might haply find" the God thus dimly yet majestically manifested! that which prepares the heart to feel its littleness, its deep dependance, its responsibility, its danger, its need of the good news of Christ, a Saviour, shall this be forgotten by us, nay, passed over, nay, the enlarging on its glories, and upon the lesson that it reads, discouraged as mere natural religion ?" God forbid! “O rather let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker."

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But what is all this?-what is the voice of all inanimate creation, to that which animated being teaches us? to that which lives and moves upon the earth and stirs within ourselves? If there be one thing above another which bids us pause, and confess our ignorance; which tells us of a something far beyond our scanning, or even our

idea; which reminds us of our utterly dependant state, and of a God, an ever-working, ruling, and sustaining God; it is Life. Regard the movements of the animated world, from its lowest to its highest energies: come nearer home and look into yourselves: ask whence it is you execute volition, or achieve a single gesture recollect the ceaseless current flowing through your veins-or the still more wondrous stream of thought as ceaselessly eddying up into the mind; and say, whence comes all this, and how? Is it ours? our own production, and our own to deal with and command? or does it claim a derivation down from Him, who not only "created the heavens and stretched them out; and spread forth the earth and that which cometh forth of it; but who giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein?" Yes!" In HIM we live, and move, and have our being." "He is the Father of our spirits." "In his hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind." "The Spirit of God hath made us, and the breath of the Almighty hath given us life." O the mysterious intimacy of our dependance upon God! By his power we have been formed; on his arm we hang suspended; by his life we are nourished; on the constant emanation of his

breath we exist; and let Him but withdraw it for a moment, we come to nothing and perish! "O Lord, we will praise Thee, for we are fearfully and wonderfully made! Marvellous are thy works, and that our souls know right well."

-Brethren, I appeal to your inmost soul;-Can you contemplate these things? can you even hear them-casually and languidly, perhaps, hear them and not be moved within you to adore the power and authority of God? Do all things come of him? Are his the heavens, and the earth, and all that are therein? Is man, proud man, the creature of his will and the dependant on his bounty; and do you not join, involuntarily join, the deep-voiced hymn of adoration, that ascends, even "as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings," from "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne!" "Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great." "Alleluia! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"

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Or, will it be said, You are appealing to that

which has long been silent in the dull and lifeless mind of man and you are speaking of a voice which has been sounding indeed from the creation of the world, but yet which is listened to by few; and where then is the manifestation of which you speak, the clear declaration which you vindicate to Nature of her God and of his power?-then I answer, and I pray you earnestly to ponder the reply:-The failure of which you complain, is not in the sufficiency of the manifestation, for I assert again with Paul, that "by the things that are made, the invisible things of God, even his eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen;"-but the failure is in those to whom this manifestation is made; in man, to whom the voice comes forth, not in that voice itself; in the receiver of the Revelation, not in the Revelation itself. And I pray you to mark attentively the words of our text, and you will see the cause of that failure, which, with you, I allow with you I deplore: with you I confess as criminal, seeing that we are without excuse. "The invisible things of God," says St. Paul, "from the creation of the world are clearly seen," how? what is the case in which the manifestation becomes thus clear? what is the condition of its efficacy subjectively in us?— being understood by the things that are made"

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-the mind of man being applied* to these signs and exponents of divine power; the attention, the thought, the manifold workings of humble, yet solicitous inquiry, being directed to these visible familiar things, to ask from them their tale of wonder, to bid them lead us on beyond themselves to Him, the Sacred and Invisible, who sits retired in silent majesty behind them and above them. It is to thought in man, to the inquiring mind, whose presence stamps his peculiar and superior nature, that all the revelations of God are addressed; and by this are they cognizable; and to this they speak a language and a science, which to the heedless and imbruted spirit is dark and voiceless as the riddle on Egyptian tombs. "Being considered they are understood"—having that applied to them which is man's prerogative and glory, they yield to man that truth which is the foundation of all his moral dignity, his hopes and fears beyond the present and the visible, his spiritual existence, and his spiritual growth. And here we learn a lesson, Brethren, which I would remind you of continually: that All which is addressed to man, is addressed to that which is peculiar in man,-his mind, his thinking, searching, meditative power: and therefore,

* Νοουμενα καθοραται.