that of resembling the Deity in conferring bene. fits and blessings on great numbers of the human species; a happiness peculiarly competent to those who are possessed of supreme power. The tyrant is a stranger to all the finer feelings of the human heart; to the consciousness of exalted beneficence; to the generous glow that warms the breast on the recollection of multiplied deeds of humanity and sublime sympathy; of merit rewarded and encouraged; of poverty supplied; of distress soothed and relieved; of the bright image of the divine wisdom and goodness exhibited in a mortal frame; of all that true nobility of sentiment, so energetically expressed by Job: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me; because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." Instead of all this, the tyrant prefers to become the object of secret abhorrence and execration, or of open complaint and hostility, and, affecting to be a god, degrades himself by the most disgusting perversion of feeling and taste, below the condition of the vilest reptile. Such, however, is the melancholy corruption of human na

a Job xxix. 11-13.

ture, that this degradation is more frequently exemplified in history than the true character of supreme power. Few are the Trajans, the Tituses, and the Antonines, in comparison of the Caligulas, the Neros, the Domitians, the Heliogabaluses, whose abominable deeds have stained the historic page, and rendered it putrid to the reader. Or, if these last be, in all their extreme turpitude, as rare as the former, at least it may be asserted that sovereigns eminently wise and virtuous appear in history, like flowering shrubs which occasionally spring in the sandy desert. Such frequent instances of perverted and poisoned power, God seems to have permitted in order to convince the world, that absolute power was not made for man, nor despotic sway for them that are born of a woman."

But, to return from this digression suggested by the subject, the true and transcendent glory of God consists in the manifestation of his infinite perfections; and, by the very constitution of human nature and analogy leads to suppose, by that of every other moral agent of superior rank to humanity-this manifestation of his attributes is that only which excites admiration, and prompts to ascribe praise and glory to the eternal and ever-blessed Deity. Whenever the glory of God is mentioned in scripture, it will be found

a Ecclesiasticus x. 18.

that this is the proper sense to be annexed to the terms. They never can signify the manifestation of mere power separated from wisdom and goodness, attributes as inherent in the very conception and definition of deity as omnipotence. "The heavens declare the glory of God," solely by exhibiting the most striking displays of his transcendent skill, benignity, and power, in their structure and harmonious motions. "Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; bring an offering, and come before him; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever." In the first of these passages, the giving due glory to God is accompanied by worshipping in the beauty of holiness; and, in the second, the cause of giving thanks to him is the perpetual duration of his mercy. The prophet Isaiah, having briefly enumerated the manifold blessings of the gospel dispensation, adds that, when these shall take place, men shall see "the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God ;" and that "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." Sometimes these expressions are employed to signify the radiant sign of the more immediate presence of Jehovah. Thus,

a Psalm xix. i..

C

b 1 Chron. xvi. 29, 34. Ps. cyii. 1; cxviii. 1; cxxxvi. Į. c Isaiah xxxv. 2; xl. 5.

66

Behold, the Lord our God hath showed us his glory, and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire." When the heavenly host that celebrated our Saviour's nativity, proclaimed "glory to God in the highest," they connected this with, " on earth peace, good will towards men." Jesus, hearing that Lazarus, whom he loved, was sick, said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby :"—that is, that the power and mercy of God might be displayed by Lazarus' resurrection, and the divine mission of Christ be thereby confirmed and acknowledged. But why multiply quotations to this purpose? If scripture could ascribe glory to God, merely on account of his omnipotence, to the exclusion of his other infinite perfections, a strong argument would thence be furnished against its inspira

tion.

I fear, however, that this handle is often given to the enemies of Christianity by the over-zealous defenders of some of its doctrines. With a view to maintain, as they imagine, the sovereignty of God, they seem to remove from view those moral attributes on which this sovereignty is founded. By ascribing to an omnipotent decree the eternal happiness or misery of every

a Deut. v. 24.

b Luke ii. 14.

c John xi. 4.

individual of the human race, they lose sight of that infinite wisdom, goodness, justice, and mercy, which are the most glorious attributes of deity. They consider not what is implied in the terms eternal happiness and misery, which are of a very complex signification; the former expressing, as has been shown, the highest enjoyment of which regenerated man is susceptible, insured to him through an eternal existence; and the latter, that aggravated and interminable anguish which he must incur by the obdurate perversion of his intellectual and moral powers. Now, it is evident that neither of these results, in the nature of things, proceeds solely from any determination entirely extrinsic to the agent himself, but must, in the case of a free and moral agent, be, in a great measure, the consequences of a voluntary choice, which renders him an object either of favour or of punishment. A decree, abstracted from all considerations of wisdom and justice in the Supreme Being, and proceeding from absolute will undirected by these attributes, and contemplating no result which they pursue, amounts to absolute fatalism, and represents the Deity as acting from no motive which the mind can conceive to prompt the counsels of the supreme governor of the universe. Besides the natural consequences of virtue or of vice, the Deity has an