66 diligent course of meditation on his works, and ways, and character, rather than to reveal it alike to all. It was wise to afford only such confirmation of it in scripture, as may give a reserved and cautious assent to the truth so discovered, amounting rather to a look of approbation, than to a positive proof. "God is love," -- his predominant character is regard for the order and happiness of his creation. "The Lord shall rejoice in his works," but how can this be, if from a part of his works for ever and ever ascend the groans of the damned, the wailings of unutterable woe? Can God rejoice in these? No: never. "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord." Does he, then, overlook their sufferings amid the general happiness of the universe? "But the very hairs of your head are numbered." "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without his notice." And what shall we say to that singular passage of St. Paul, "For it hath pleased the Father that in him (Christ) should all fulness dwell, and by him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven?"* What is here meant by the 'all things in earth or in heaven?' Are they not the "visible or invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, * Col. i. 19. which were all created by him and for him," as spoken of two verses before? Or can any limitation be applied to the one case, without being extended to the other also? No: the eternal law must be maintained: the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever; the memorial of those eternal sanctions shall not cease to remain : — but, being born again, and created anew, and no longer the same, but washed and sanctified by God's free goodness, all, as we have reason to believe, shall be delivered from sin and sorrow, and hell left empty of its victims; that so no irremediable imperfection may be left, no ravage of sin the destroyer, no breach in the fair universe of God. But after what ages, what ETERNITIES! -who can tell? With God one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Almighty God, my heavenly Father! Who hast compassion upon all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made. I know that all thy ways are justice and truth. Give me grace to turn from vain speculations as to thy ultimate counsels with other men; that, leaving these to Thy infinite wisdom and sovereign disposal, I may apply my own heart to consider thy gracious message as concerns myself, and may be led in humility to receive, and in sincerity to obey, thy Gospel: knowing that with Thee are hid the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, and that thou hast revealed unto men all that is necessary for salvation. Amen. CHAPTER XXVII. SUBJECT OF THE MYSTERIES OF INTELLIGENCES. RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY.-SEN RETURNING from our digression, we proceed, as proposed, to consider the deeper mysteries of Christianity; preparatory to which the reader will find some useful observations in the chapters on the Being and Providence of God. We there argued on the alternative of the existence or nonexistence of a certain geometrical series of intelligences, and showed the advantage of an astronomical scale for exalting our ideas of the Godhead, as leading to a true result, even should the intermediate steps have no real existence. We now, however, take higher ground, and affirm that it is probable, even from reason, that such a series does exist. For which opinion the following grounds may be assigned. First, we see how weak and fallible a creature man is: we have reason also to believe that not only this planet, but innumerable myriads of other worlds, are full of creatures of a grade not superior to ours, equally weak, and in themselves equally liable to err. Throughout this vast universe, and amid such interminable multitudes of individuals, it seems worthy of Divine wisdom to introduce such a principle of union, and such a law of subordination. A wise commander places captains over thousands, and over hundreds, and over fifties: but if he had power to place in each rank and division of his army a pervading and actuating mind, which, in subordination to his superior, should unite and determine to one object the whole energies of his own department, how much more perfect would be the system. Man cannot do this, but God can. We have found also that there is visible in this world the commencement of such a series, so that the matter is not mere hypothesis, but only the extension of a law already proved to exist. And the laws of nature possess in other respects this beautiful unity, that they do not stop with a narrow and confined operation, but are extended from the least to the greatest of the Creator's works. When, therefore, we find the commencement of a law, we have no ground whatever to suppose, that its highest exemplification is that special in |