understand?" One thing we know, “He can create and he destroy;" yea, he can dash whole worlds to death and make them when he please. Literally, he can do all his pleasure, in heaven and on earth, throughout all space, and throughout all time! If all men, if all angels, if all worlds were to conspire against him, it would be only as an atom magnifying itself against a mountain, or a feather attempting to resist a whirlwind! And, observe, this omnipotent power is seated in his will; he willed that innumerable angels should exist, and innumerable did exist; he willed that unnumbered worlds should be formed, and unnumbered worlds were formed. Yes, by his almighty fiat, by the mysterious energy of his will, the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, yea, all creation rose from the womb of unessential night, and in beauty, in order, and grandeur, rolled around his eternal throne; and should he now only will it, the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, yea, all creation, would immediately roll back into their original nothing, and give place for a new display of the all-creating and omnipotent energy of his will. O, this mighty, MIGHTY GOD! who, by the omnipotent power of his will, can bring into existence men and angels, and worlds and systems, and then blot them out for ever; what can we say but utter the language of the text, "O Lord my God, thou art very great!" But the greatness of God appears,

4. In the mighty work of creation. We have spoken of his omnipotence as an attribute; here we have its sublime demonstration. How vast is this creation, and how wonderful in all its parts! How many suns, how many worlds, how many systems! How great their magnitude, and how immense the space in which they move! Light, we are told, moves at the rate of one hundred and eighty thousand miles in a second of time, and yet it will take five years for a ray of light to pass from our sun to the nearest star. But such facts immediately confound and overwhelm us. Let us take another view. The globe which we inhabit is really a great globe, being nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, and twenty-five thousand in circumference. What towering mountains does it contain, what broad rivers, what vast oceans, what numerous islands, what extended continents, and what a vast population! If this world of ours is deemed large, what shall we say of yonder sun, which is nearly thirteen hundred thousand times larger still? If a globe of fire, as some suppose, what an immense fiery globe, which, if hollow, could with ease receive into its bosom more than a million of such worlds as ours is!—and if habitable, like our earth, as others think, then what mountains, what rivers, what oceans, what islands, and continents, and what a population! And after all, what is this earth, and yonder sun, and all its planets, to all

the other suns, and worlds, and systems, which telescopic glass have spread out before the eye of man? Only as the fringe upon the garment of creation, or as a small village in some vast empire; for astronomers tell us that there are eighty millions of suns discovered, around which roll, by estimation, two billions four hundred millions of worlds; and all these may be only as the outskirts of some still mightier creation; and God made them all! Not only so, he made them without materials, and with infinite ease; he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. Another idea is this: This immense, immense universe is all in motion! each sun, and world, and system, rolling in its appointed orbit with a velocity most astonishing, swifter than the whirlwind passing over the bosom of the deep, or the meteor streaming along the archway of heaven, or the ball thrown from the mouth of the thundering cannon. And God bears up all, as in the hollow of his hand! A giant would stagger under the weight of a small rock, and an army of giants could not roll one mountain, or heave one ocean; but God Almighty with infinite ease bears up all worlds, and with infinite ease can heave and roll swiftly the whole creation. O Lord, my God, thou art very great! But once more the greatness of God appears,

5. In the work of redemption. This presents a new view of the greatness of God, exhibiting

his moral grandeur; and it is this which makes him emphatically and supremely great indeed. Infinitely great in goodness as he is infinitely great in power; infinitely great in all his moral as in all his natural perfections; so that, in the sublimest sense, it may be said of him that "He is a God, all o'er consummate, absolute, full orbed, in his whole round of rays complete." In the work of redemption, what did God do? He reconciled the claims of conflicting attributes, and in the plan of saving sinful man from a deserved and everlasting hell, he caused each and all of his divine attributes to shine out with peerless and dazzling splendour. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God could have made a greater universe than he has made, but we cannot see how it is possible for God, infinite as he is, to have made a greater gift than he has done, so that the poet has well said,

God, in the person of his Son,

Hath all his mightiest works outdone.

"If in creation we see the hand of God, in redemption we see his heart." If in the work of creation there be a display of God's natural perfections which has a height and depth we cannot fathom, in the work of redemption, we have, in the exhibition of his moral perfections,

an ocean without bottom and without shore. Indeed, according to the Scriptures, the work of redemption is presented to us as that which is to the Lord for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty; the master-piece and chief work of the Great God: that, indeed, for which all things else were brought into being; as it is written, God hath created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent (that is, for this specific purpose) that now unto the principalities and powers, in heavenly places, might be known by the church, (Eph. iii. 9, 10, 11), the manifold wisdom of God. If, then, creation be a casket, redemption is the richest jewel in that casket; and if creation be to the Lord as we have said, a crown of glory, redemption is the most resplendent gem which glitters in that crown of glory. In the sacred volume we find it written, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty;" in the same volume we also find this exclamation, "How great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty!" Zech. ix. 16. A being then, who is infinitely good, as well as infinitely powerful; who is, in short, infinite in every thing that is great and glorious, how great, how exceedingly great must such a Being be! This is the God whom we worship and adore; our God for ever and ever. "O Lord, my God, thou art very, very great!"

A few inferences, and I have done.

1. How reasonable it is that we should wor