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they that sow to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Let us make continual progress in Christian virtue. Every act of sin has a tendency to misery. Every effort to subdue corruption, and to live to the will of God, is a seed which, by God's grace, will bring forth fruit to everlasting life. By patient continuance in well-doing, let us seek for glory, honour, and immortality; for to such God will assuredly recompense eternal life: but to those that are disobedient, and do not obey the truth, "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish." "On the wicked he will rain fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup."*

II.

THE GLORY OF GOD IN CONCEALING.

PROVERBS XXV. 2.—It is the glory of God to conceal a thing.†

[PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER, 1826.]

It is difficult to say whether the glory of God appears more in what he displays, or in what he conceals, of his operations and designs. Were he to conceal every thing from our view, it would be impossible that any glory could result to him from the sentiments and actions of his creatures. From entire ignorance nothing could arise, no medium of intercourse could be established between the creature and the Creator. In the total absence of the knowledge of God, religion must be totally excluded and unknown. But it is by a partial communication of himself, which the Divine Being might, if he pleased, in various degrees extend and increase beyond the present measure, that he has in the highest degree consulted his honour and manifested his wisdom. If there were no light, we should sink into a state of irreligious doubt and despair; if there were no darkness, we should be in danger of losing that reverential sense of his infinite majesty so essential to religion, and of impiously supposing that the Almighty is such a one as ourselves. But a temperature of mingled light and obscurity, a combination of discovery and concealment, is calculated to produce the most suitable impressions of the Divine excellence on the minds of fallen creatures. When God was pleased to favour his ancient people with a supernatural display of his presence, by a visible symbol, during their journey through the wilderness, it wore this twofold aspect it was a pillar of cloud and of fire, dark in the daytime and luminous in the night; and when he conducted them through the Red Sea, he turned the bright side of the cloud towards the camp of

* Rom. ii. 7-9; Ps. xi. 6.

† From the notes of Joshua Wilson, Esq.

Israel, and the gloomy side towards the Egyptians, by whom they were pursued.*

When he descended on Mount Sinai, the token of his presence was a mass of thick and dark clouds, penetrated at intervals by flashes of lightning. On the third day, in the morning, we are informed, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount: and, it is added, "the mount was altogether in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace." When Solomon had finished his temple, the manifestation which the Deity made of himself, in taking possession of it and consecrating it to his service, was of the same character. No sooner had the priest gone out of the holy place, than the cloud filled the house of the Lord; and "the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord." The first indication of the Divine presence was the overspreading of thick darkness, which afterward subsided, and unfolded itself gradually, till it terminated in an insufferable splendour. Upon observing this, Solomon, at the commencement of his celebrated prayer, used these words: "The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." If God dwells in light inaccessible, he equally makes darkness his dwelling-place,-"his pavilion dark waters and thick clouds of the sky." "Clouds and darkness," says David, "are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." In this view of the character and dispensations of the Almighty, the Psalmist probably alludes to those sensible appearances of his presence which are recorded in his ancient oracles.

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At our Saviour's transfiguration, the three disciples retained their composure until the cloud appeared; for they knew that to be the symbol of the immediate presence of the Deity. They feared," we are told, "when they entered into the cloud ;" and it was thence the voice proceeded, saying, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." These representations are in perfect harmony with the doctrine of the passage under our present consideration, in which the wisest of men, speaking by inspiration, informs us that "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing." He does it with a design to promote his glory, being by necessity his own ultimate and final end.

There are two observations naturally suggested by these words:I. The Divine Being is accustomed to conceal much.

II. In this he acts in a manner worthy of himself, and suited to display his glory.

I. We shall specify some of the instances in which God conceals things.

1. In relation to his own nature and manner of existence.

His essence is altogether hidden from the most profound investigation, the most laborious research, the most subtile penetration of his creatures. With respect to this, it may be said, "Who by searching can find out God; who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" We know that he possesses certain attributes, (which we distinguish by

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different names drawn from analogous excellences among men), exclusive of all limit or imperfection found in human nature. We ascribe to him every idea of virtue and spiritual beauty, exalted to infinite perfection. But how the Divine Being himself exists in an essential and eternal nature of his own, without beginning as well as without end, how he can be present at the same moment in every point of illimitable space, without excluding any one of his creatures from the room it occupies,-how, unseen, unfelt by all, he can maintain a pervading and intimate acquaintance and contact with all parts and portions of the universe,-how he can be at once all eye, all ear, all presence, all energy, yet interfere with none of the perceptions and actions of his creatures,-this is what equally baffles the mightiest and the meanest intellect; this is the great mystery of the universe, which is at once the most certain and the most incomprehensible of all things; -a truth at once enveloped in a flood of light and an abyss of darkness! Inexplicable itself, it explains all besides: it casts a clearness on every question, accounts for every phenomenon, solves every problem, illuminates every depth, and renders the whole mystery of existence as perfectly simple as it is otherwise perfectly unintelligible, while itself alone remains in impenetrable obscurity! After displacing every other difficulty, it remains the greatest of all, in solitary, unsurmountable, unapproachable grandeur! So truly "clouds and darkness are round about him." "He maketh darkness his secret habitation; his pavilion to cover him, thick clouds."

His perfections are impressed on the works of nature, but in such a manner that we learn them only by inference. We ascend from effects to causes; from the marks of contrivance and design, to the necessary existence of an Almighty Contriver. But what sort of being he is, and what is the nature of his contact with his creatures, must, in the present state at least, remain an unfathomable mystery. We are utterly at a loss in all such speculations; yet this affords no diminution of the motives of piety. Our belief in the being of a God is the belief of a profound mystery. The very idea of such a Being would appear incredible were it not that it is necessary, because the greatest absurdities would flow from supposing the contrary. Nothing can be accounted for unless we admit the existence of a causeless Cause a presiding Governor of the universe. We are compelled therefore to choose the less difficulty of the two; or rather to choose difficulty instead of impossibility, mystery instead of absurdity and hence we repose on this grand truth.

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2. The Divine Being observes the same method of concealment in a great variety of respects, with regard to the structure and constitution of his works. The scenes of nature lie open to our view; they solicit our senses, and are adapted to impress themselves in a most lively manner upon our minds. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." We cannot look around us without beholding, not only the works themselves, but evident traces of that matchless wisdom, power, and goodness whence they sprang. Still, the mysteries of nature, with regard to the

essences of things, and indeed to a multitude of subtile operations, are kept in a kind of sacred reserve, and elude the utmost efforts of philosophy to surprise them in their concealments and bring them to light. While Philosophy goes on from step to step in the march of her discoveries, it seems as if her grandest result was the conviction how much remains undiscovered; and while nations in a ruder state of science have been ready to repose on their ignorance and error, or to confound familiarity with knowledge, the most enlightened of men have always been the first to perceive and acknowledge the remaining obscurity which hung around them; just as, in the night, the farther a light extends, the wider the surrounding sphere of darkness appears. Hence it has always been observed, that the most profound inquirers into nature have been the most modest and humble. So convinced was Socrates, the chief luminary of the ancient world, of the great obscurity attending all such inquiries, that he abandoned the search of nature, and confined his disquisitions to moral questions, and rules for the conduct of life. The same illustrious man declared, that he knew no reason why the oracle of Delphos pronounced him to be the wisest of men, except it was that, being conscious of his ignorance, he was willing to confess that he knew nothing. Newton, the greatest philosopher whom the modern world has known, declared, speaking of a distinguished contemporary from whose genius he augured vast discoveries, but who died in early life, (the celebrated Cotes), "If that young man had lived, we should have known something." In so modest a manner did he advert to his own imperfect knowledge of that science with which he had attained such prodigious acquaintance as to have become the pride and wonder of the world! Those that have devoted themselves to an investigation of the laws of nature find, in a great variety of the most common productions, sufficient to engage their inquiries and employ their faculties: they perceive that the meanest work of God is inexhaustible,-contains secrets which the wisdom of man will never be able to penetrate. They are only some of the superficial appearances and sensible properties with which we are familiar. Substances and essences we cannot reach. The secret laws which regulate the operations of nature we cannot unveil. Indeed, we have reason to believe that the most enlarged understanding must, in a very short time, resolve, its inquiries into the will of God as the ultimate reason. Thus, one of the best effects of intellectual cultivation and the acquisition of knowledge, is to restore the mind to that state of natural simplicity and surprise in which every thing above, beneath, and around us appears replete with mystery, and excites those emotions of freshness and astonishment with which the scenes of nature are contemplated during the season of childhood.

3. God is accustomed to conceal much in the dispensations of his providence. The dispensations of the Divine providence are that series of actions which the Divine Being is continually carrying on in the government of the world which he has made. This, though it presents many evident marks of wisdom and design, is also eminently

endowed with the property of obscurity. "God is known by the judgments which he executeth." The established order of providence in this world makes manifest to every serious and reflecting mind, that “there is verily a God that judgeth in the earth." There exists such a decided connexion between well-doing and happiness on the one hand, and between wickedness and misery on the other, as sufficiently to show, even independently of revelation, that the Divine Being is the patron of rectitude and the enemy of vice. Yet, while there is a prevailing tendency in virtue to promote happiness, this tendency is not always carried into actual effect. The natural course of things is frequently interrupted and suspended by incidental causes particular exceptions are continually occurring to the ordinary rule.

There are two respects in which the Divine Being perpetually conceals the ways of his providence.

(1.) The design for which many events are permitted to take place.

There are many important circumstances and events, the reason of which will probably remain to the end of time altogether inscrutable : such, for instance, as the depression of the righteous; the success of fraud and violence; the frustration of the purposes of benevolence and virtue; the prevalence of persecution; the sufferings of martyrs; the limited diffusion of Christianity; the extent to which idolatry has been suffered to desolate the moral world; and the mystery of iniquity to overspread a large portion of Christendom. The best and wisest of men have confessed themselves at a loss to interpret the design of the Divine dispensations with respect to themselves and their contemporaries. Even prophets have acknowledged that their minds were for a time perplexed by the anomalies of providence: "Righteous art thou, O Lord," says Jeremiah, "yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore do the wicked prosper?". And David, when he reflected on the prosperity of the wicked, the unequal distribution of good and evil, and the afflictions to which the righteous were exposed, was tempted to exclaim, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain;" nor did he find any satisfaction until he went into the sanctuary of God, and there understood their latter end.

(2.) The Divine Being is accustomed to throw much obscurity over the future. He makes the present the scene of our duty, while he has, in a great degree, hidden futurity from our view. "We know not what shall be on the morrow;" we are ignorant of the next event that shall arise, and cannot, with all the light we can gather round us, determine what shall befall us on the next moment: we are impelled forward on the stream of time, but know not what is immediately before us. This ignorance of the future is complete with respect to the period of our own lives. Our existence this moment is no security for its continuance the next: "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." It is always a matter of awful uncertainty when we enter on the business of the day, whether we shall close it in time or eternity; when we compose

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