NOTE. Note (H) page 246. I HAVE known a very intelligent man, and well-read in Scripture, object to (after having at first admitted it) this view of the exclusively relative and practical character of Revelation, from not liking some consequences to which it leads. He accordingly set himself to find in Scripture some purely speculative revelation respecting the Deity; and the passage he fixed on was in Psalm cxlvii. 5., where it is said that the Lord's "understanding is infinite." Now we have no ground, as he ingeniously remarked, for concluding that infinite wisdom (only, very great wisdom) is necessary for the government of the world; or, consequently, that the revelation of this infinity is needful for a practical purpose: and here therefore is an instance of something revealed concerning God, which is not of a relative and practical cha racter. Now let it be remembered, in the first place, that it evidently is practically needful to impress strongly on men's minds a full conviction that God's wisdom is amply sufficient for all that concerns us; that in all his dispensations to man, whether natural or supernatural, nothing can have escaped his notice,-no means can have been ill adapted to their ends: and in the second place, that if the divine wisdom be, in fact infinite, it would not have been allowable to say that it is not so. Ought then the sacred writer, after having expatiated fully on the greatness and on the complete sufficiency as far as regards Man, of the divine wisdom, to have added that whether this wisdom is absolutely infinite or not, he is not commissioned to reveal? Surely it would have savoured of cumbrous and frivolous minuteness, thus to have gone out of his way, to conceal what there was no reason for concealing. The object, and a most important practical object, was to assure men of the sufficiency of the divine wisdom; and much the shortest, simplest, and most effectual way of doing this, in the passage in question, was, by declaring its infinity. And yet it is very remarkable, that numerous as are the occasions on which the sacred writers set forth the greatness and admirable perfection of God's wisdom, in reference to us, no other passage I believe can be found in which its infinity is distinctly asserted, except this one; which occurs in a Hymn of praise, whose distinct object is to magnify the Supreme Being in our eyes, and to raise in us the highest veneration possible ("for we can never go far enough") of every thing that is glorious in Him. So that in respect of this purpose, the declaration, after all, has a practical object. I have mentioned this instance, to show how difficult (not to say impossible) it is, for the utmost ingenuity and diligence combined, to find any one passage of Scripture even seemingly at variance with the principle I have been maintaining. ESSAY V. ON THE EXAMPLE OF CHILDREN AS PROPOSED § 1. THE allusion to the state of childhood, as illustrative of the condition and of the duties of Christians, occurs repeatedly in the sacred writings, and is dwelt on with an earnestness which may be regarded as one of the characteristic marks of the Gospel system of instruction. Accordingly, many of our divines have occasionally alluded to the subject, and suggested it from time to time to the attention of their readers; but the idea is not perhaps in general sufficiently expanded and dwelt on in detail, to engage Christians to make it an habitual study, and resort continually for instruction to the example which is thus held out to them. And yet unless this be done-unless we dwell very fully and frequently on the case of children with a view to the better understanding ness. of our own condition, and our own duties-we lose what is in fact one principal advantage of the example proposed to us, viz. its commonInstead of selecting examples of rare and extraordinary virtue, or seeking to contemplate human nature under any peculiar and uncommon circumstances, we have only to look back to what we were ourselves when children, and to look around us to observe what children are. Neither learning nor genius are required for the study; and though the ablest man may derive from it such instruction as nothing else can supply, the plainest Christian may do the same, if he be but a sincere and candid and attentive inquirer. The analogy now under consideration may be regarded as twofold: first, as children are in regard to their parents, so, in some respects, are we in relation to God: and, secondly, as children are in comparison of what they will be hereafter, so, in some respects, is the Christian in this present life, compared with what he hopes to be in the world to come. I say, in some respects, because it is not to be expected that whatever analogy may be presented to |