reject them, by which the great majority of them determined to abide. And if they, by their carnal minds, were thus misled into an error, in deciding upon a question brought home to their own doors; modern unbelievers are liable, in similar circumstances, to a great many more causes of misapprehension, removed to a greater distance from those evidences which others "heard, and saw, and handled of the word of life," and moreover, obstinately removing themselves from all pos sibility of conviction.

Jesus Christ himself was a sufferer of persecution which he had not deserved, "a man of sorrows and (familiarly) acquainted with grief," and his bitter enemies at last prevailed against his sacred life. But all this was foretold in prophecy, and was permitted of the Father, even against the earnest supplication which he thrice repeated in the most agonizing distress of mind, that "if it were possible, that cup might pass from him." It must therefore be deemed to have been entirely consistent with the care the Father had for his beloved

Son, “in whom alone he was well pleased,” and willing to be reconciled to a sinful world for his sake. It was our Lord's own obser vation, "if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?"—If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, they will give still worse treatment to them of his household. The apostle also declared, "the time is come that judgment

even at the house of

must begin, and that God." (1 Pet. iv. 17.) What God hath foreknown and ordained, of necessity must take place, and the holy and the just must occasionally fall, by calamities they have neither deserved nor brought upon themselves. The afflictions which the believers in Jesus had to combat, with long and severely exercised tience,* were therefore no proof of a dereliction of their cause, either from a want of power, or a coldness of affection on the part of their Lord. "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the creation, bis ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts."-The secret and inscrutable

* See 1 Cor. iv. 9.

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laws by which Christ governs his kingdom, cannot be judged by the ordinary and inadequate rules of human prudence, neither ought the pride of philosophy to dictate to the wis dom of God, what are the measures best adapted to carry his secret purpose into the fullest effect," to the bringing of many son's unto glory," and that praise and gratitude may

redound unto God.

But besides these general acknowledgements, drawn from that little which God has been pleased to communicate to us of his ways, compared with our own observation of his wisdom and providence, in the seasonable protection and good government of his church and kingdom, that such a final result is confi dently to be expected: the believer draws different conclusions from most, or all, of those things which the infidel considers as objectionable in the christian system. Those difficulties which he displays in so formidable a light, are many of them only such when viewed through the misty atmosphere which a strong prejudice has thrown around them,

and which permits not any objects to be seen in either their true magnitude, or proper figure. Whatever there is of insuperable mystery in religion divinely revealed, exists pretty nearly the same in the boasted religion of nature, and the origin of all things, and the philosophy of man's own body and mind, of which he knows almost as little as he does of the nature of God, offer far more and greater difficulties upon the best systems that infidelity has ever yet brought forward, than in that of divine revelation, which they were to have set aside as untenable. The darker parts of revelation, like the spots in the sun, are placed there for reasons upon which the counsel of man has not been asked, yet undoubtedly they are good ones. These maculæ, in both instances, may be as necessary appendages to the sun of nature and the sun of the spiritual heavens, as rugged mountains and fiery volcanos are upon the earth, which yet the atheist has found fault with as blunders in the workmanship of a world, supposed to have been created by infinite wisdom and power. But sound philosophy, and a deeper

research into the works of God, his works of nature and works of grace, and the wisdom and goodness discoverable in them both, will teach us a better lesson. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor ?" (Rom. xi. 33.) "The secret things which belong unto God," are doubtless communicated to us in divine revelation so far, as is requisite to prepare us for a future state, and an enlargement of our knowledge, and the perfecting of our salvation, as it depends upon those divine mysteries, And again, they are so far kept secret either as we are incapable, in our present circumstances, of a further communication, or it would be prejudicial to us, and be made use of by the enemy of God and man as an engine for our destruction.*

* There appears to be sufficient reason for the latter supposition, from the endless and useless discussions which have arisen in all times upon more than one of these points, to the destruction of souls, and not to edification.