At the same time, when we are comparing the several parts of this great scheme together, in order to determine how far their union gives stability to the whole, we ought never to forget that we see but parts. All criticism upon an unfinished building, by persons who are acquainted with the design of the architect only by so much of it as the work of his hand has rendered apparent, must be deemed defective and premature. All that can be decided is the agreement or disagreement of those parts, which are already visible, with each other; and even in this hasty conclusion there is danger of rashness and injustice; since that which strikes the eye as out of proportion, perhaps wants only some corresponding part of the plan, not yet developed, to restore and to impress upon our senses the unity of the whole. So we ought to regard the designs of Providence. It is a magnificent, but as yet an unfinished plan. Every day demonstrates something of its beauty and consistence; but, alas! a very few strokes are added during our continuance here-so soon do we die out of the world! Such also is our situation in respect of the great and benevolent scheme of human redemption. We are struck and amazed at the portion of it which we are able to comprehend; but the half has not been told us; and we are unable to grasp that which is already revealed. Neither is the design as yet completed. All that is submitted to 11s, we see as through a glass darkly," and how much is yet behind! There are "heights and

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depths, breadths and lengths" which surpass our knowledge, to be unfolded in a future world. We are justified in advancing the same plea relative to the facts of Revelation. Time has destroyed some of their local evidences. The historical records of the Bible are transmitted to us with a conciseness which was perfectly intelligible to contemporaries, but which overshadows them with a partial obscurity to us, who stand so remote from the scene of action, and from the ages in which they transpired. In the mean while, they exhibit the simple, firm, and eternal characters of truth.

It becomes those who examine pages which profess to be inspired, to do it with caution, with diligence, and with reverence. Then, when the claims of the Bible are disproved, let it be treated with levity but until its pretensions are demonstrated to be false, until its long contested and unshaken evidences are destroyed, until the professed spirit of truth pervading it is proved to be a delusion and a fable, ridicule is not the weapon which candour would raise against such a cause, nor is mockery and insult consistent with common decency, when advanced against a system which has commanded the veneration of ages. If modern sceptics were capable of feeling shame, they would blush at the levity with which they treat the most solemn of all subjects; and at the disgusting flippancy with which they assail a cause, dignified in itself, gracious in its effects, and at whose foot the greatest of men, in every period of time, in ev

ery department of literature, and in every country, have been content to lay their most distinguished honours.

OBSCURITY NO ARGUMENT AGAINST

REVELATION.

It is singular that men should seize a circumstance, as an argument against Revelation, which constitutes an irresistible evidence in its favour, whether we consider it as a necessary result of the nature of things, or as a striking analogy with the works of creation, and the dispensations of Providence. The circumstance to which we allude is that obscurity which sometimes rests upon its pages, not arising from inaccuracy of expression, but from the very character of the subjects produced. It is not that the doctrine escaping our researches is uncertainly stated as a fact, but that the modes of its existence are altogether undefined. It is not that the testimony to the fact, whatever it be, is incomplete as evidence; but that it is an evidence peculiar to the subject, resting simply upon the authority of inspiration, the doctrine itself being exclusively a doctrine of revelation; and consequently possessing, in human estimation, a force and weight of authority corresponding with the admission of the claims of the Bible, on the part of the individual.

It is absurd to object against the scriptures that they contain many things incomprehensible to us,

when it cannot be denied that the plans and the operations of an infinite mind are necessarily beyond the grasp of one that is finite. Whatever human wisdom has been able of itself to discover, or to establish, has been intelligible to many, if not to all men; because finite powers are able to apprehend things that are finite. In limited faculties there may be still unbounded variety. All men have not equal minds. A Newton was capable of comprehending subjects utterly unintelligible to men of inferior capacities; and it is probable that angels are able to understand much more of the operations of God, both in nature, in providence, and in redemption, than the most exalted and the wisest of human beings. But no man ever wrote upon so abstruse a subject, if he did himself apprehend it, but another man was found capable of understanding and appreciating his reasoning. And no man ever invented a system, but another was found able, not merely to grasp it, but to improve upon it. But in reference to the plans of God, there is a certain point to which we can ascend, and no man has been able to go beyond it. Whatever is here explained, is intelligible to the "wayfaring man ;" and whatever is left unrevealed, is inscrutable to the philosopher. The obscurity of revelation arises from the grandeur of its subjects, from the sublimity of its system: not from any deficiency of evidence to its facts, nor from anything indefinite in its language. It is the same difficulty pressing upon the inquirer after its subjects, which

the astronomer feels in tracing the operation's of the same God in nature. Notwithstanding all the efforts of science, it is still disputed whether the orb which forms the centre of our system, be a body of fire, or an habitable world. No wonder that the comet's eccentric orbit should be undefined; and that the visits of these beautiful strangers should fill us with admiration, without adding much to the stores of our knowledge, relative to the laws by which they are governed, and the purposes for which they are sent into our system. All that we learn certainly is, that there is a sun— that we depend upon him for light and heat-that we are supplied according to our necessities-and that "the hand which made him is divine." So of the doctrines of revelation-they are clearly stated as facts-the modes of their existence are concealed-and for this plain reason-they could not be made known to us, unless it were possible for a finite mind to grasp infinity. That the volume professedly inspired should, in its subjects, transcend our knowledge, is an evidence in favour of its claims; since that which originated with man might have been easily apprehended; but that which emanates from God, must, for the reasons just assigned, be necessarily unsearchable.