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commands the heavens, and they rain not; who speaks to the elements, and they obey him; who bids the universe fulfil its destination; and who will hereafter roll together the heavens as a scroll, and make the earth retire from his presence! "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding."

If we turn our observation to the mind of man, and to some of the leading principles implanted in it, we shall be furnished with numerous additional proofs of the being, wisdom, and goodness of God. It is no doubt easier for the majority of mankind to examine and perceive the inductions of design in the formation of a machine; or, to behold in the external world the power and intelligence of the Creator,---but the demonstrations of his being and perfections are not less numerous and complete in the operations of the human mind. Out of a variety of cases, we may select, as an example, the parental, filial, and relative affections, which are the source and the tie of all our endearing connexions, and which are productive to man individually, and to society in general, of the most valuable blessings. These are the principles which give rise to all the lovely scenes of domestic life, and to all the duties of that sacred seclusion from the busy occupations of the world. In no case have we more touchingly displayed the goodness of God, and the happiness and high destination of man, than in the influence of that affection by which the members of the family are united, the pleasure which is felt in meeting, and the pain in separating, the fondness and tender solicitude of the parents, and the love and gratitude of the children. If this class of affections be so necessary to our happiness, and even to our existence, -so necessary that without them the human race must soon have perished, -is it not the obvious conclusion, that as they have been conferred for wise and salutary purposes, their divine Author must himself be wise and good?

In a word, and to bring the illustration of this arguin all his perfections. From the powers which he has communicated, we infer the spirituality of his nature and essence. Every attribute negative of imperfection of which he is the author in his creatures, necessarily belongs to himself. The Almighty Creator not only displays his wisdom and understanding in the phenomena of nature, but because he is the Creator, has produced a substance which is susceptible of perception, of comprehension, and of judgment. The mere act of bestowing properties such as these, implies that he himself possesses them, and his possession of them again implies the spirituality of his nature. He that planned the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?

Assuming that God is one, is infinite, unchangeable, omnipresent, and all perfect, we might easily prove that He who is possessed of these attributes is a spirit. We can say little of what a spirit is. We know that angels and the souls of men are in their nature and essence spiritual. We know this not only from revelation, but from a variety of other sources to which we cannot now allude. But it is in a far higher sense that we say of the self-existing and eternal God that he is a spirit. The highest order of beings, whatever be their essence, have been created by him, are depending upon him, and are, therefore, finite in their power and faculties. But his nature is necessarily spiritual, uncreated, independent, and infinite in all his perfections. He is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only living and true God.

It is true, bodily parts are ascribed to him in scripture. He is spoken of as having eyes, and ears

the boundaries of human knowledge by extending his inquiries into nature, becomes unconsciously a fellowworker with Newton and Boyle in accumulating the evidence for his own refutation. Even he is thus instrumental in pouring into our minds the light of heaven, and of truth; and while he continues in darkness himself, he contributes to unfold to our view the glories and perfections of the Omnipresent and Almighty Being whose existence he denies.

In persisting in this denial how great is the absurdity, contradiction, and misery in which the Atheist is involved! His is a resistance to reason, to conscience, to the voice that proclaims the glories of the Creator from earth and heaven. That universe of matter and of mind on every part of which the selfexistent, ever-present God has fixed the impression of design-the legible signatures of his own perfections-owes its being in his view to fate or chance, and is carried along in the dark and cheerless career of necessity. He and the other beings by whom he is surrounded, according to his view, can have nothing to console them in looking forward to the future, and are now without a father and a guide. He is surrounded by the operations of the Almighty; he possesses proofs of his power and wisdom in the mechanism of his own frame, and in all that he beholds, and yet he passes on to eternity without recognising his existence, or doing homage to his perfections. Scripture and experience warrant us in affirming that the reason is to be found in the state of his heart-in the wish that there may be no God-in the effort to convince himself that to believe that he exists is an error,

our weakness, speaks as if he performed his visible acts by similar instruments. And it is to be remarked, that those faculties only that are expressive of the dignity of human nature, and are the instruments of the noblest actions, are fixed on to convey a notion of the acts and attributes of God to our mind, as the eyes, the heart, and the hands.

This being figurative language, it is obvious that we are to understand it according to its design; just as when Christ is called a sun, a vine, a rock, we are at once led by the metaphor to the thing which it signifies. If we keep our view fixed on the design of the metaphor when used in regard to God, we shall be aided in forming our conceptions of the attribute and the ways of him who is a spirit. Nor shall we see any reason for supposing, that because figurative language is employed on a subject on which no other could consistently with our weakness be employed, he to whom it relates is not, and in a sense far different from that in which it can be declared of any creature, in his essence and nature spiritual.

It has been a question, whether this describing of God by the members of a human body, were so much figuratively to be understood as with respect to the incarnation of our Saviour, who was to assume the human nature, and all the members of a human body. That the second person of the glorious Trinity did appear to the patriarchs in a bodily form,-that every economy since the fall of man has been conducted by his ministry, and that in the fulness of time he was born of a woman, and made in the likeness of men, are things most surely believed by us, But if it was