race who shall live, when the Divine kingdom is complete upon the earth, and Christianity the religion of all, may be as much in advance of the clouded attainments of our day, as the Christian is in advance of the Jew. It is also perfectly conceivable, that this process will terminate neither with our existence here, nor with human nature. The general action of Providence, the moral glory, the instruments and energies of mercy, and that wondrous part of the universal plan, which consists in transmuting evil into good, and controuling, without force, the free agency of created minds, may offer to the successive orders of spirits a perpetual and ascending scale of knowledge, filling their understandings with the delight of perpetual discovery, and raising their hearts to new heights of adoration.

Even of the physical attributes of the Deity, constantly as they are in operation before our eyes, we know only enough to know that they are immeasurable. We give names to four or five; but those are names not for faculties, but for vast classes of faculties; for mental and physical instrumentality, which may, and must be, boundless. What is the attribute of Omnipotence, but a general expression for distinct powers of action applicable to all purposes; and which may amount to thousands or millions? What is Omniscience? How many distinct faculties are necessary even to the limited knowledge of man;

what memory, forecast, judgment, invention; what ardour of imagination, what severe, counteracting controul of reason? But of the faculties of the Deity we can have no comprehension, without reference to the faculties of man1; and since such is the disposal of HIм by whom all things have been made in wisdom, such must be the right ground of comprehension. What then must be the variety, force, and infinitude of the faculties essential to the purposes of the Creator, Sustainer and Ruler of an universe, implying a knowledge of all the properties of things, of all the operations of mind, of all the past and the future; the moral springs and government of all those ranks of spiritual intelligence which do his bidding, through the extent of an empire infinite to all eyes but His own; the coming capabilities of existence in those unknown systems which are yet to give down His glory with perpetual illustration to ages unborn!

The existing frame of nature itself seems to imply that He has attributes of which we can

1

Hobbes, on the principles of the sceptical theory, denies this obvious truth in a curious passage. "Since knowledge and understanding within us are nothing but a tumult in the mind, raised by external things that press the organic parts of man's body; there is no such thing in God, nor can they be attributed to him." De Cive. To this the answer is, that knowledge exists not in the power of the external thing, but of the mind which comprehends it. The contrary establishes Atheism.

form no conception. Creation may be one of those. This faculty, or act, can scarcely be included under the head of omnipotence; for omnipotence is but power in its fullest extent; and the only idea of power conceivable by the human mind, is of action on existent things. Creation, the calling of existence out of nothing, has no reference to any idea of man: but, of all the attributes known, it is the one which most directly draws the distinction between the Divine and human nature; and this may be among the principal purposes for which it is developed with such boundless and astonishing magnificence in the frame of present things. It instantly raises the mind to the contemplation of a Being whose

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thoughts are not as our thoughts." All the other known physical attributes, and all the moral, exhibit the Deity only as a more perfect man; the only view under which his excellences can be the object of human example. Creation establishes the impassable line; all thenceforth is separate, mysterious, supreme.

The next question is, for what purpose was the universe formed? Our chief authorities on those high subjects have severally held, that it was -for the Divine glory ;-or for the delight of exerting the Divine energies in production ;-or for the display of the Divine power. Some have subordinately united with those objects benevolence; but the theory most compatible with the Divine

nature is that which pronounces the great leading purpose to be benevolence. Glory, or power, as primary motives, cannot be divested in the human mind of a tinge of selfishness, a passion inconceivable in the Deity. But to the fullest activity of beneficence in the Divine nature, no limit is to be thus assigned. The mere delight of calling intelligence into being, of communicating happiness, of filling the void of space with ardent existence, of raising millions of millions of bright and rejoicing creatures into consciousness, would be a motive worthy of the supreme Source of virtue. That other motives, born of this impulse, might join in the recompense of this great act of heaven; that the Author of an universe, pausing from his work, and pronouncing it to be the full realization of his own holy and beneficent idea, might additionally feel the joy of a parent, the power of a sovereign, and the still loftier and more incommunicable glory of a creator, is perfectly consistent with supreme perfection. But such feelings must be the result, not the origin of action. The only word in which God ever defined his nature was "Love."

One chief purpose of the material universe is evidently the instruction of spirits embodied in flesh and blood, perhaps the lowest rank of immortals. Our imperfect acquaintance with things beyond the range of matter compels us to include all intelligences under the name of spirit; yet nothing is more probable than that, under this name,

we unconsciously include vast classes of existence fully as distinct from each other as spirit from matter, and as numerous as the grades of intellect between man and Deity. We have certain knowledge of at least three orders of intelligence, widely distinct from each other-man, angel, and God; spirit, incapable of intercourse with external things but by bodily organs; spirit, holding that intercourse without the aid of body; and spirit, itself the supreme Source of both body and mind.

Nor are we entitled to conceive this process of instruction limited by the existence of the material universe. It is of the nature of intellect to be in a constant condition for the increase of its ideas. Scripture distinctly predicts, at least, one universe to come, totally differing from the present in its moral features-an universe, "in which dwelleth righteousness;" sin, or the capacity of sin, existing no more. Even this simple expression may indicate an immeasurable change in the whole fabric and constitution of that universe; for the capability of falling into guilt is so deeply mingled with all the moral qualities of the present state, that we can scarcely disengage it from our idea of moral existence; and it practically forms so large and influential a principle in the government of the universe, that its disuse seems to imply an entire alteration in the guidance and means of the system. But why shall not the physical change