the subjects of our present meditations. But whilst we consider these things as highly interesting, we ought to remember that they are also highly important, and that upon the due improvement of these momentous lessons, depends the eternal welfare of our immortal souls. We may admire the wisdom that has selected from the riches of the scripture treasure, these inestimable pearls of great price, and has placed them so continually within our reach; but, though we admire, have we sufficiently profited by their display? It is not by repetition alone that these truths have their due effect. The utility of their recurrence begins when they are acknowledged and valued; when the invitations of Christianity are accepted; when its doctrines are made the standard of religious principles; when its promises allure, and its threatenings alarm us; and when our affections are so influenced, and our wills so regulated, that we "hold fast the form of sound words, in faith and love that is in Christ Jesus," and "show out of a good conversation our works with meekness of wisdom."

The words of the text form the final prayer, or the farewell benediction, of the apostle Paul, when writing to his Corinthian converts. If we consider this passage as a prayer, it is evidently addressed equally to the Three Persons of the sacred Trinity, as forming one united object of faith and adoration. If it be considered as a so

lemn benediction, it includes three separate and distinct blessings, derived from three distinct sources, yet contributing to one grand object, the salvation of the soul, the eternal happiness of man. It acknowledges therefore the existence of three Divine Persons in one Godhead, and may consequently be considered as supporting this doctrine; it also teaches us the true practical use which we ought to make of this great mystery of godliness. Under these two divisions we shall comprehend the observations which we have to make, praying at the same time that we may not speak in "the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth."

The doctrine of the text appears to the apostle a never-failing source of joy and comfort. To the truth of our Saviour's divinity he continually refers, as the confirmation of all his hopes. This will abundantly appear, if we remark, that in the commencement of all his epistles (excepting only the one to the Hebrews,) he implores for his converts, as the greatest blessings that could be granted to them, " grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ," pointing out each to the divine and infinite source of blessings to the Christian. He does not attribute to either of them alone, the sole gift of these blessings; but he speaks as if, from the union of their Godhead, their offices also in the great work of redemption must be

inseparable, though distinct. His continual reference to this doctrine shows most evidently, that he did not esteem it as a mere badge or sign of admission into the Christian covenant; but as a vital principle, which ought to dwell in our remembrance, and influence our prayers; which ought to be a source of faith and of hope, of praise and adoration, of gratitude and love. This oft-repeated benediction is an imperishable record of the sincerity of that Christian feeling which animated the soul of the apostle. It appears to burst forth with such warmth, from a heart occupied with the highest and dearest interests of the human race, that the importance of the blessings invoked cannot for one moment be doubted, nor the importance of the doctrine expressed for one moment be denied. It includes so fully all the richest treasures of spiritual comfort; it expresses so concisely the grand truths and the consoling tendency of the gospel, that our church has wisely introduced it, as the parallel to that benediction which the priest in the Jewish church was commanded to pronounce, and as conveying to the hearts of sincere and pious worshippers "the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace."

Now, with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, we would not attempt to explain that which is propounded to us in the sacred Scriptures, as a matter of faith, rather than of knowledge: we

would not endeavour to measure the mind of the Almighty by the standard of human reason; we presume not to attain to the knowledge of God, or to account for the mode of his existence, upon principles which must be drawn from the surrounding objects of matter and of sense. "God is a Spirit," and the comprehension of man is far too weak and too limited to understand fully his divine perfections. We may read his power in the characters which his hand has impressed on all around us; we may discover his love in the provision which his bounty has made for all our wants; we may range all the length and breadth, and depth and height of nature and of knowledge, and yet we must be compelled to confess, that we cannot by searching find out the Almighty to perfection; we must exclaim with the prophet, "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." Can it then excite our surprise, that in the revelation which God has vouchsafed to give us, referring as it does to spiritual objects, there should be some things hard to be understood? Can we think it strange, that, in the great and wonderful pursuit after this divine knowledge, reason should find some point beyond which her boasted powers cannot reach, some vast height to which faith alone can soar? In relation to our own spiritual nature, many things are far above our limited comprehension, yet we are bound to acknow

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ledge them as matters of experience, or we pant after them as the realities of hope. Who can account for the natural stains of man's corruption? Who can explain by what secret connexion between the parent and the offspring, the lamentable effects of Adam's transgression have descended to his latest posterity? Yet still, though we know not how it is, that "in Adam all die, because all have sinned," the very fact of our own mortality is the awful confirmation of this humiliating truth. What is it that bears our drooping spirits, when we stand amid the graves of the dead, and ask in the spirit of anxious inquiry, or of sorrowing emotion, "Our Fathers, where are they?" Is it not the assurance that because "Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him?" But where is he that can inform us by what mysterious union the soul again returns into its mouldered tenement; and how the dust which had been scattered to the four winds of heaven, shall again compound the body, in the consciousness of whose identity the soul shall experience either the joy of everlasting happiness, or the misery of endless despair? Yet because we understand not the manner nor the circumstances of this mystery, are we therefore to disbelieve the fact? Show me the man who would sacrifice on the shrine of weak and uncandid reason, the dearest hopes of the soul, the most