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wilt.' His particular request was rejected; but his eternal, and ineffable glory and exaltation are the consequence of its rejection.

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THE OBSCURITIES AND SEEMING IMPERFECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY-HOW SHOULD we regaRD THEM?

One cannot but sometimes feel perplexed and discouraged by a view of the doubtful disputations that are carried on without end or mitigation, about the doctrines of religion. When will they be settled? When will the truth be found out? When will all Christians know the truth, and unite in it, and rejoice together in the light of it? And in the mean time what shall we do? What shall they do who cannot themselves decide upon the merits of the questions? Shall we wait with indifference till religious truth is brought out of this heat and din of contention, and is set forth clear, definite and undoubted, uniting all hearts, and commanding universal conviction? And then comes the deeper question-Why, if religion be the best and most glorious gift of God, given to enlighten, to govern, and to save-why comes it to us veiled in doubtfulness, and inviting dispute? Why is not the saving light a clear one? Why should not a religion of peace be itself above and beyond contention and discord? Itself, in all its developments and uses, the model and the inspirer of peace?

These are questions that must sometimes occur to the thoughtful, and demand an answer. They are se

rious questions, and the serious mind must wish them settled satisfactorily. We will examine some of them a little more particularly. Let us see how far we ought to be concerned on account of theological doubts and disputes, and on account of that supposed imperfection in Christianity which makes it a subject of doubt and dispute.

How then, in the first place, shall we reconcile it with the wise and benevolent purpose of the Deity in giving us a religion, that he should give it shaded by any obscurity? Why, rather, should not the sun of righteousness beam as clear and direct upon all minds, as the light of day upon all eyes? Why should such a cause be suffered to be thus weakened and abused by divisions. among those who embrace it? Why, we are ready to ask, were not the truths of so important a revelation, stamped upon the heart, or written in letters of light upon the vault of heaven, so that all from the least to the greatest might know and understand them? Why these imperfections in the scheme of salvation? Why are these slow and contested advances towards truth, made necessary? These and similar questions are certainly reasonable to be asked, and I believe that answers as reasonable to be received may be given to them.

If Christianity be the revelation of God, given and directed by him, we should expect, beforehand, that as a system, as a mode of divine agency in our behalf, it would correspond to other systems established by the same immutable Being, to other operations carried on by him. It was not to be expected that he would depart from that use of means to bring about ends, which he

observes in other cases. Now how does our Maker operate in other cases? How does he operate with regard to other gifts bestowed upon us, and other arrangements which concern us? Is every thing given at once, and brought to pass at once, in completeness and perfection? No, far from it. Every thing respecting us is effected by the use of means, by the gradual operation of a train, a system of means. We do not, for instance, enter upon this life with the full strength of our bodies, or the development of our minds, but at first the body is helpless, and the soul is a blank. We attain to the vigor and maturity of our faculties, not at once, but by a slow and gradual process, by the tedious operation of appointed means. In attaining to that maturity we have constant difficulties to encounter. For a long time we are entirely dependent upon others; and when we at length begin to emerge from this dependence, temptations to indolence, to excess, and to all waywardness and folly, are striving to draw us down and keep us back. Every attainment is made through hardship and danger, and subject to numberless checks and failures. The body grows up in exposure to, and conflict with, numberless wants and diseases and disasters, and the mind must pass up through regions of tares and thorns, through errors and prejudices, before it can fix down a throne for the reason, 'and gather clear truth from the action of its ripe, developed capacities.

How are our daily wants supplied? How are those fruits of the earth produced, which are essential to our subsistence? Not by any summary process. They are not brought to us, and put into our hands by a sudden, complete exercise of a moment's power. It

is not thus with Providence. It is bountiful, but not direct and unconditional. The seed must be planted. The earth in general must be tilled and enriched, and the weeds extirpated. The sun must shine day after day, and shower after shower must fall upon it. The seasons must roll over it, and then the harvest must be gathered and stored and watched. And the same slow process must be repeated without end, and year after year we must watch and wait for the imperceptible putting forth and progress of first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.' And so it is with the wants and the attainments of the mind, the education and civilization of the race. These are not produced in the earth by one sudden and all pervading ray from the divine intelligence. They do not rise with the sun, they do not grow from the earth, they do not rain down from the skies. They pass over the world with slow and uncertain steps, and many clouds cross their path. Barbarism gives way by slow degrees. The simplest and plainest truths yet sound strange to millions of ears, and higher truths are yet contesting with error every where. Few and feeble are the steps that a generation can take in science, and narrow and slowly enlarging is the circle of mankind through which it can send the light it evolves. But still the means of human improvement are operating. It is a system, established and going on in the customary ways of Providence. And it always has been going on. Knowledge and refinement are steadily, however slowly, wending their way to the borders of all lands, to the islands of the sea and the inmost wilds of continents, even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Such then is the mode of God's operation both in nature and providence. Every thing is brought about by the intervention of a series of means. Nothing is finished and brought to perfection at once, and almost every process thus instituted by the Deity, or by man under his control, has numberless obstacles and checks in its way, and parts of it must often be retraced and repeated. All designs, however good or grand, advance by slow degrees; and all the systems in the world of matter and the world of mind are illustrations of these remarks. All we can say, is, that the designs are good and are manifest, and that the tendency and the general progress is onward to their accomplishment. I have spoken of this as a matter of fact. I am not accounting for it. I am not showing why the Deity operates thus, rather than in a more direct and summary way. That is another subject. I speak of it simply as a fact, obvious and unquestionable, showing the actual method of God's dealings with his children; showing the laws which he follows, and which we are so constituted and situated that we must follow.

Now let us carry this consideration into our examination of the questions before us. We know the way in which the Deity institutes and carries forward his designs in other things; should we not expect to find a similar method pursued in a religion that should come from him? Should we expect, after what we know of his manner of imparting and propagating other blessings, and carrying on other good purposes,should we expect a departure from this manner in the bestowment and propagation of religion? Should we

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