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rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? Ye are our glory and joy," 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20. To God be honour and praise for ever and ever.

Amen.

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SERMON XI.

The Deep Things of God.

ROMANS xi. 33.

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!

ONE of the principal causes of the depravity of mankind is, that they form mean ideas of God. The idea of the God we adore, and the notion of the morality we ought to practise, are two things closely connected together. If we consider God as a being elevated, great and sublime, our morality will be great, sublime, and elevated too. If, on the contrary, we consider God as a being whose designs are narrow, whose power is limited, and whose plans are partial, we shall practise a morality adapted to such an imaginary God.

My brethren, there are two very different ways of forming this sublime idea, which hath such an influence over religion and morality. The magnificence of God may be understood by what is known of God by the things that are made, by the brilliancy of the sun, by the extent of the firmament, and by all the various creatures which we behold; and judging of the workman by the work, we shall exclaim in sight

of so many wonderful works, "O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Thou hast set thy glory above the heavens. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him?" Rom. i. 19, 20. Psal. lviii. 1, &c.

But there is another way to know the magnificence of God, a way less accessible indeed, but more noble and even more plain to the man, the eyes of whose understanding are enlightened, Eph. i. 18. that is, to judge of God, not by the things that are seen, but by the things that are not seen, not by what we know, but by what we do not know. In this sublime way the soul loseth itself in a depth of divine magnificence, like the seraphims, covers its face before the majesty of God, and exclaims with the prophet, "verily thou art a God that hidest thyself," Isa. xlv. 15. "The

secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us, and to our children for ever," Deut. xxix. 29. It is on this obscure side, that we propose to shew you the Deity to-day.

Darkness will serve us for light, and the impenetrable depth of his decrees will fill our minds with sound and practical knowledge. 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!

In order to enter into the mind of the apostle, it is necessary to observe the subject to which he applies the text, and never to lose sight of the design of this

whole epistle. The apostle chiefly proposes to counteract a scandalous schism in the church of Rome. This church was composed of two sorts of Christians, some converts from judaism, others from paganism. The Jews considered the Gentiles with contempt, as they always had been accustomed to consider foreigners. For their parts, they thought they had a natural right to all the benefits of the Messiah, because, being born Jews, they were the legitimate heirs of Abraham, to whom the promise was made, whereas the Gentiles partook of these benefits only by mere favour. St. Paul attacks this prejudice, proves that Jews and Gentiles, being all alike under sin, had all an equal need of a covenant of grace; that both derived their calling from the mercy of God; that no one was rejected as a Gentile, or admitted as a Jew: but that they only should share the salvation published by the Messiah who had been elected in the eternal decrees of God.

The Jews could not relish such humbling ideas, nor accommodate this doctrine to the prerogatives of their nation, and much less could they admit the system of the apostle on predestination. St. Paul employs the chapter from which we have taken our text, and the two chapters before to remove their difficulties. He turns himself, so to speak, on every side to elucidate the subject. He reasons, proves, argues: but after he hath heaped proofs upon proofs, reasonings upon reasonings, and solutions upon solutions, he acknowledgeth, in the words of the text, that he glories in falling beneath his subject. In some sense he classes himself with the most ignorant of his readers, allows

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that he hath not received a sufficient measure of the Spirit of God to enable him to fathom such depths, and he exclaims on the brink of this great profound, 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! The apostle therefore wrote these words of the deep things of God chiefly with a view to the conduct of God with regard to such as he appoints to glory, and such as he leaves in perdition. I grant, were this text to be accurately discussed, it ought to be considered in regard to these events, and these doctrines: but nothing hinders our examining it in a more extensive view. The apostle lays down a general maxim, and takes occasion from a particular subject to establish an universal truth, that is, that such is the magnificence of God that it absorbs all our thought, and that to attempt to reduce the conduct of God to a level with our frail reason is to be guilty of extreme rashness.

This is what we will endeavour to prove. Come, Christians, follow us, and learn to know yourselves, and to feel your insignificance. We are going, by shewing you the Deity in four different views to open to you four great deeps, and to give you four reasons for exclaiming with the apostle, O the depth!

The four ways in which God reveals himself to man, are four manners to display his perfections, and at the same time they are four abysses in which our imperfect reason is lost. These ways are-first, an idea of the Deity-secondly, of nature-thirdly, of providence and fourthly, of revelation: four ways,

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