the tender solicitudes of which he can thus prove himself the subject. If he gather any feeling from the spreadings of the landscape, beyond that highwrought emotion which is wakened by the noble combinations of rock, and lake, and cloud, and forest-just as though all the poetry of the soul were responding to some melodious and magnificent summons-it is only the feeling that God is immeasurably benevolent; and that, having been so careful of man's happiness in time, he will not abandon him to wretchedness through eternity.

But we should like to bring this romantic and Arcadian theology to the test of consideration. We believe, that, if we could make the man consider, he would not be encouraged by the tokens of loving-kindness with which all nature is charactered, to continue the life of indifference or dissoluteness. There are two ideas which seem to us furnished by the works of creation, when duly considered. The first is, that nothing can withstand God; the second, that nothing can escape him. When I muse on the stupendousness of creation; when I think of countless worlds built out of nothing by the sim ple word of Jehovah; my conviction is that God must be irresistible, so that the opposing him is the opposing Omnipotence. But if I cannot withstand God, I may possibly escape him. Insignificant as I am, an inconsiderable unit on an inconsiderable globe, may I not be overlooked by this irresistible Being, and thus, as it were, be sheltered by my littleness? If I would answer this question, let me consider creation in its minutest departments. Let me examine the least insect, the animated thing of a day and an atom. How it glows with deity! How busy has God been with polishing the joints, and feathering the wings, of this almost imperceptible recipient of life! How carefully has he attended to its every want, supplying profusely whatever can gladden its ephemeral existence! Dare I think this tiny insect overlooked by God? Wonderful in its structure, beautiful in its raiment of the purple and the gold and the crimson, surrounded abundantly by all that is adapted to the cravings of its nature, can I fail to regard it as fashioned by the skill, and

watched by the providence, of him who "meted out heaven with a span, and measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?" It were as easy to persuade me, when considering, that the archangel, moving in majesty and burning with beauty, is overlooked by God, as that this insect, liveried as it is in splendor and throned in plenty, is unobserved by Him who alone could have formed it.

And if the least of animated things be thus subject to the inspections of God, who or what shall escape those inspections, and be screened by its insignificance? Till I consider, I may fancy, that, occupied with the affairs of an unbounded empire, our Maker can give nothing more than a general attention to the inhabitants of a solitary planet; and that consequently an individual like myself may well hope to escape the severity of his scrutiny. But when I consider, I go from the planet to the atom. I pass from the population of this globe, in the infancy of their immortality, to the breathing particles which must perish in the hour of their birth. And I cannot find that the atom is overlooked. I cannot find that one of its fleeting tenantry is unobserved and uncared for. I consider then; but consideration scatters the idea, that, because I am but the insignificant unit of an insignificant race, "God will not see, neither will the Holy One of Israel regard." And thus, by considering the works of creation, I reach the persuasion that nothing can escape God, just as before that nothing can withstand him. What then will be the feeling which consideration generates in reference to God? I consider God as revealed by creation; and he appears before me with a might which can crush every offender, and with a scrutiny which can detect every offence. Oh then, if it be alike impossible to resist God, and to conceal from God, is he not a being of whom to stand in awe; and shall I not again confess, that "when I consider, I am afraid of him?"

We would just observe, in order to the completeness of this portion of our argument, that it must be want of consideration which makes us read only God's love in the works of creation. We say of the man who infers nothing

but the benevolence of Deity from the firmament and the landscape, just as though no other attribute were graven on the encompassing scenery, that he contents himself with a superficial glance, or blinds himself to the traces of wrath and devastation. That we live in a disorganized section of the universe; that our globe has been the scene and subject of mighty convulsions; we hold these facts to be as legible in the lineaments of nature, as that "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." There is a vast deal in the appearances of the earth, and in the phenomena of the elements, to assure us that evil has been introduced amongst us, and has already provoked the vengeance of God. So that a considering man, if he make the visible creation the object of his reflection, will reach the conclusion, that, whatever may be the compassions of his Maker, he can interfere for the punishment of iniquity-a conclusion which at once dissipates the hope, that the love of God will mitigate, if not remove, deserved penalties, and which therefore strengthens our proof that, when we consider, we shall be afraid of God.

But we have yet, in the last place, to speak briefly on the noblest of God's works, the work of redemption. Is it possible that, if I consider this work, I shall be afraid of God? We premise that, throughout our discourse, we have endeavored to deal with popular delusions, and to show you how consideration, superadded to knowledge, would rouse the careless and indifferent. We have maintained, all along, that the mere knowledge of truths may lie inertly in the mind, or furnish ground-work for some false and flattering hypothesis. But this is saying nothing against the worth or tendency of these truths; it is wholly directed against the not considering what we know. Thus the question with respect to redemption is simply, whether this scheme, as known by the mass of men, may not lull those fears of God which ought to be stirring in their breasts; and whether this scheme, as considered, would not make them afraid of God? We learn from the Epistles, that there may be such a thing as continuing in sin that grace may abound—a fact

which sufficiently shows that redemption may be abused; and if abused, it is, we argue, through not being considered. It is our duty, as a minister of the Gospel of Christ, to dwell largely on the love which God feels towards sinners, and to point continually to the demonstration of that love in the gift of his only and well-beloved Son. We cannot speak in over-wrought terms of the readiness of the Almighty to forgive, and of the amplitude of the atonement effected by the Meditator. We are charged with the offer of pardon to the whole mass of human kind: enough that a being is man, and we are instructed to beseech him to be reconciled to God. And a glorious truth it is, that no limitations are placed on the proffered forgiveness; but that, Christ having died for the world, the world, in all its departments and generations, may take salvation "without money and without price." We call it a glorious truth, because there is thus every thing to encourage the meanest and unworthiest, if they will close with the offer, and accept deliverance in the one appointed way. But then it is quite possible that the gospel offers, thus cheering to the humble and contrite, may be wrested into an encouragement to the obdurate and indifferent. Men may know that God has so loved them as to give his Son to die for them; and then, through not considering, may imagine that a love thus stupendously displayed, can never permit the final wretchedness of its objects. The scheme of redemption, though itself the most thrilling homily against sin, may be viewed by those who would fain build on the uncovenanted mercies of God, as proving a vast improbability that creatures, so beloved as ourselves, and purchased at so inconceivable a price, will ever be consigned to the ministry of vengeance. Hence, because they know the fact of this redemption, the careless amongst you have hope in God; but, if they considered this fact, they would be afraid of him.

There is nothing which, when deeply pondered, is more calculated to excite fears of God, than that marvellous interposition on our behalf which is the alone basis of legitimate hope. When I consider redemption, what a picture of God's hatred of sin rises before me;

Our Savior had such knowledge of the human heart, and such power of expressing that knowledge, that he frequently gives us, in one or two bold outlines, descriptions of great classes into which the world, or the church, may be divided. There is no more remarkable instance of this than the parable of the sower, with which we may suppose you all well acquainted. In that parable Christ furnishes descriptions of four classes of the hearers of the Gospel, each description being brief, and fetched from the character of the soil on which the sower cast his seed. But the singularity is, that these four classes include the whole mass of hearers, so that, when combined, they make up either the world or the church. You cannot imagine any fifth class. For in every man who is brought with in sound of the Gospel, the seed must be as that by the wayside, which is quickly carried away, or as that on shallow soil where the roots cannot strike, or as that among thorns which choke all the produce, or finally, as that which, falling on a well-prepared place, yields fruit abundantly. You may try to find hearers who come not under any one of these descriptions, but you will not succeed; whilst, on the other hand, the world has never yet presented an assemblage of mixed hearers, which might not be resolved into these four divisions. And we regard it

as an extraordinary evidence of the sagacity, if the expression be lawful, of our Lord, of his superhuman penetration, and of his marvellous facility in condensing volumes into sentences, that he has thus furnished, in few words, a sketch of the whole world in its every age, and given us, within the compass of a dozen lines, the moral history of our race, as acted on by the preaching of the Gospel.

We make this reference to the parable of the sower, because we consider it rivalled in its comprehensiveness, and the unvarying accuracy of its descriptions, by the portion of Holy Writ on which we now purpose to discourse. We do not mean that the two sons can represent the whole world, or the whole church, in the same manner or degree as the four classes of hearers. There would manifestly be a contradiction in this; for if there be four parts into which the whole may be divided, it were absurd to contend for the equal propriety of a division into two. But we nevertheless believe that two very large classes of persons, subsisting in every age of the church, are represented by the two sons, and that, therefore, in delivering the parable before us, as well as that of the sower, Christ displayed his more than human acquaintance with mankind, and his power of delineating, by the simplest