objects of God's care and pity; that we may obtain eternal life by faith in the Redeemer; and thousands of other truths that intimately concern our duty and our destiny. Nor is the fact that we can have but a partial cognizance of our fellow men, any obstacle to our having a true and large knowledge of them. We know that they are human beings like ourselves; that they are the work of the same creator; that they owe him the same allegiance; that they are fallen; that they are mortal; that they are summoned to repentance and faith; and thousands of other essential facts and truths that come within the sphere of our discernment. The facts and truths respecting them which we do not, and cannot know, are facts and truths that, from the limitations of our nature, are not manifested to us, or from negligence have not attracted our attention. Yet our knowledge, as far as it extends, of the facts and truths that respect their being and nature, is as real and reliable, as a knowledge of all the facts and truths that relate to them would be, if it embraced them all. We cannot be more certain than we are that we and they exist; that we and they are human beings; that we all are creatures; that we are intelligent and moral; that we are capable of happiness and misery; that we are offenders against God; that we need redemption from sin and its penalty, and many other facts. Although we do not know all, we most indubitably know this.

And in like manner, that we have but an imperfect cognizance of God, is no hindrance to our having a real and indubitable knowledge of him. We have as absolute a certainty of his existence as we have of the existence of the universe of worlds and creatures. We have as abso

lute a knowledge that he is an infinite, selfexisting, almighty, allcreating Intelligence, as we have that the material worlds and finite creatures are derived and dependent existences. And the present limitation of our knowledge, does not arise from an incapacity in us of a higher cognizance of him; but partly from the limits within which he restricts the manifestation of himself to us, and partly from our failure to derive the information we might from the revelations he has made of himself.

Were the assumption on which our author reasons

legitimate, that we can have no true knowledge of a being or thing of which we have only a partial knowledge, we should be precluded from a knowledge of ourselves, our fellow-beings, and the material world, as absolutely as we should from a knowledge of God; for our knowledge of these is as truly and necessarily partial as our knowledge is of him.

God accordingly, in the revelation of himself to man, proceeds on the fact that though he is selfexistent, infinite, almighty, allknowing, allcreating, allupholding, alldirecting, he yet can make himself known to us as such an Intelligence, and raise us, and with the utmost ease and certainty, to such a discernment and comprehension of his being, perfections, and relations to us, as to make it practicable to us, and place us under the most clear and imperative obligations to recognise, reverence, adore, love, and obey him, as the selfexistent and infinite, the creator and ruler of all. For he not only demands it as due from us to him, but makes the refusal of it an everlasting forfeiture of all good, and subjection to evil. The very announcement of himself as Jehovah, God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness, and the enactment of laws, proceeds on the fact that he can be known, acknowledged, and loved, and obeyed as such. If such a knowledge is impossible, the proclamation and law are a solecism. The displays made of his Deity in the fires and thunders of Sinai, and the voice in which he proclaimed the law, proceeded on the fact that the Israelites might be constrained to see that they were supernatural, and were wrought by a being who had dominion over the material world. The working of miracles in attestation of the revelations made through Moses, proceeded on the fact that the Israelites could discern that they were the product of infinite intelligence and power, and could thence be constrained to see that they were the work of the creator and ruler of all. In like manner the miracles of Christ were founded on the fact that the Hebrew nation held it as an indisputable truth that such wonders were the work of the Almighty, and were direct and decisive attestations of the divine mission of those in connexion with whose teachings they were wrought, and they produced the conviction,

accordingly, that he was a messenger of the Most High. Nicodemus represented it as the acknowledged belief of the people generally, that Christ was a teacher come from God, because no one could work the miracles which he wrought except God were with him; and that conviction was irresistible. Those who witnessed the healing of the sick, the expulsion of demons, the gift of sight to the blind, and speech to the dumb, and the resurrection of the dead, had as absolute demonstration that it was the power of the Almighty that wrought them, as they would have had that he was the worker, had they witnessed the formation of the earth or the creation of the first pair. How unlike are God's thoughts and God's ways to the representations of transcendental philosophy! On that theory of the impossibility of a knowledge of God, Christ's miracles could no more have produced such effects on men than on unintelligent natures. They would have been as incapable of comprehending their import, and feeling their just impression, as the brutes that perish.

In like manner God proceeds in the imposition of laws, on the fact that men are capable of a knowledge of his being, character, relations, and will; and in such a degree as to act habitually with a supreme reference to him. In order to recognise Jehovah as their God and lawgiver, and reverence, love, and obey him, a knowledge of him as such is indispensable. If incapable of it, they are as unsuitable to be subjects of such legislation, as unintelligent objects. To offer him homage and invoke blessings from him, implies that he is everywhere present, allseeing, of universal dominion, allpowerful, and gracious; since if not allseeing, it were absurd to suppose that he could hear; and if not of universal dominion, almighty and benign, it would be absurd to expect, if he heard, that he would bestow the gifts asked of him. The offering the Lord's prayer accordingly implies a knowledge of all the great facts and truths of God's universal government: Of his being; that he is our Father; that he reigns in heaven; that he is entitled to the veneration and love of all his creatures; that he has subjects in the heavenly worlds as well as on the earth; that the inhabitants of the heavenly realms obey him perfectly; that men ought also to render him a similar obedience; that he gives

all the gifts by which our life is sustained from day to day; that he can forgive our sins; that it is our duty to forgive those who trespass against us; that he exerts a providence over all things, and can, if he please, shield us from temptation, and deliver us from the evil one; and that he is to reign in power and glory for ever and ever. Without a cognizance of these great realities and implicit faith in them,. the offering of that prayer were worse than senseless; it were an open mockery, an impious affront; for it were an ascription to God of attributes and rights that cannot be known nor believed to belong to him; and an invocation of gifts from him, which the offerer can have no evidence or belief he can bestow. So also an acceptance of Christ as a Saviour, reliance on him for pardon and justification, and rest on him for deliverance from the dominion and curse of sin, and the gift of an immortal life of holiness, blessedness, and glory, implies a knowledge of all the great facts and truths of our fall, of Christ's redemptive work, and of his purposes to deliver those who believe on him, from the power of sin and death, and exalt them to a spotless, glorious, and immortal life in his kingdom. How can there be an acceptance of Christ as a Saviour, without a consciousness of sin against God? How can there be a consciousness of sin against him, without a knowledge of his being, relations, rights, and will? How can there be faith in salvation through Christ, except it be by confidence in the divine rectitude, wisdom, goodness, truth, and power? How can there be hope of an immortal and glorious existence in Christ's kingdom, except by faith in his infinite intelligence, power and grace, in his absolute sway over his works, the perpetuity of his being and reign, and the unchangeableness of his purposes? Those acts of acceptance, trust, and hope, proceed on the positive knowledge and assurance of these great realities. Without a direct intelligence and certainty that places them altogether out of the sphere of doubt, those acts were but mere delusions and mockeries. And thus in every step of his government God proceeds on it as a fact, that men are capable of a true knowledge of his being, character, relations, and will. To deny them that capacity is therefore to impeach him of infinite injustice in the whole structure of his rule. And all

the obedience they render to his laws, every act of homage they perform, all the love they feel, all the submission they cherish, all the trust and hope they exercise, require as conditions of their possibility a true knowledge of him as the selfexistent, infinite, almighty Intelligence who gave them and all other creatures their being, and upholds them and reigns over them. On no other ground can an obedience be rendered, or a moral government be exercised.

And this knowledge is to be equally essential to our holiness and happiness in the future life; and the higher measures we are there to reach are to be received through the same media, the senses and revelation; though the latter may be in far greater proportion relatively than here. There our powers are to be perfected. There probably the boundless empire of the Most High is to be brought within our cognizance, and the infinite manifestations it presents of his power, wisdom, and love. And there he that sitteth on the throne and the Lamb are to reveal themselves directly to us, and raise our intelligence immeasurably above the glimmer and twilight of this life. "Now we see through a glass darkly; then face to face. Now we know in part; then we shall know even as we are known." It is one of the most indubitable but most wondrous characters of our nature, that we are capable of a knowledge of all God's works and ways, and such a comprehension of them as to see and feel the ineffable grandeur of the perfections he displays in forming and reigning over them. It is one of the most wondrous of his great acts, that his Spirit should condescend to impart to us that knowledge by his immediate influence, and make us temples in which he is to dwell for ever, and light up with his own ineffable glory.

Sir William Hamilton's theory on this subject is thus at the greatest possible distance from truth. It is irreconcilable with our nature. It is in contradiction to all the great measures of God's procedure with us in his moral administration. It in effect denies the possibility of his revealing himself to us, and exercising a government over us, and represents religion itself as a solecism and impossible. We are astonished at this feature of his system. He appears to have been betrayed into it by the German idealists, whom, while opposing in others, he follows in this