If there is, let it be done. I ask you not to lay aside your Homer, your Cowper, your Dryden, your Milton. I ask you not to burn your Addison, your Johnson, or your Burke. I ask you not to throw away your Galen, or your Davy—your Coke, or your Hale; but I ask you to give THE SUPREME PLACE in your life to that ONE BOOK which the greatest of all writers of fiction gave on the approach of death-to THE BIBLE.

SERMON II.

THE OBSCURITIES OF DIVINE REVELATION.

PSALM xliii. 3.-"O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles."

PSALM xxxvi. 9.-"For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light."

PERHAPS no one ever studied the Bible as a professed revelation from God who has not had such questions cross his mind as the following:-Why is there so much in this book that is obscure and unintelligible? Why is not more information given on great and important questions about which the human mind has always been perplexed? Why is no more light thrown on the subject of moral government; on the question why sin and misery were allowed to enter the world; on the nature of the happiness of heaven; on the reasons why the wicked are to suffer for ever? Why are so many subjects left in total darkness in a professed revelation, and others left with only such a feeble glimmering of light as almost to make us wish that there had been none?

These questions produce increased perplexity and embarrassment when such thoughts as the following occur, as they will be very likely to do, in connexion with them :-First, it seems that it would have been so easy for God to have removed all difficulty on many or all of these subjects. There can be no darkness or obscurity with Him in relation to them, and he could readily have taken away all our perplexity by a simple explanation, almost by a single "stroke of the pen." Secondly, such an explanation seems to have been demanded in order to clear up his own character and dealings. There are many dark things about his government; many things which give occasion to hard thoughts, to aspersions, and to reflections on his character, which his friends cannot meet, and to difficulties which they cannot solve; and, instead of removing all these, he has so left the matter as to perplex the good, and to give occasion for the unanswered reproaches of the evil, when a simple explanation

might have saved the whole difficulty. Thirdly, such an explanation seemed to be demanded as an act of benevolence on his part, in order to remove perplexity and distress from the human mind, even if he was willing that his own character and the principles of his government should rest under a cloud. Man by nature is in darkness. He is perplexed and embarrassed with his condition and prospects. He struggles in vain to obtain relief by the unassisted efforts of his own mind. A revelation is proposed; but on the most important and perplexing of his difficulties it seems only to tantalize him, and to leave him as much in the dark as he was before. And, fourthly, all this difficulty is increased when he reflects how much of this same book is occupied with histories which have lost their interest; with names and genealogical tables now of little or no value; with laws pertaining to rites and ceremonies long since obsolete, and always apparently pertaining to trifling subjects; and with narratives often of apparently little dignity, and of slight importance. The thought will cross the mind, Why were not those portions of the book occupied with statements which would have been of permanent value to man? Why, instead of these, did not God cause to be inserted there important explanations respecting his own character and government; the condition of the heavenly world; the reasons why sin and woe came into the system; and why the wicked must be punished for ever? Disappointed, and troubled, and half feeling that he is trifled with, many an inquirer after truth is tempted to throw the book aside, and never to open it again with the hope of finding an answer to the questions which most deeply agitate his soul.

These are bold questions which man asks, but they will come into the mind, and it is important to meet them, and to calm down the spirit which would ask them, if we can. To obtain

a rational view of this matter, there are two inquiries :I. What is the measure of light actually imparted in the Bible? and,

II. Why is there no more?

In the answer which may be given to these two inquiries, we may find something, perhaps, to soothe the feelings and calm the mind, in reference to the perplexities referred to.

I. The first inquiry is, What is the measure of light actually imparted in the Bible? I do not, of course, intend to go into detail here for this would involve an enumeration of all the points embraced in the system of Christian theology,-but I purpose only to suggest the principles, if I may be allowed the

expression, which guided the Divine Mind in giving a revelation to man. It is evident that in giving such a revelation, the question must have occurred, whether light should be imparted on these points referred to; whether all should be communicated that could be; whether care should be taken to explain every question that might ever arise in the human mind; whether the whole subject of moral government should be unfolded, or whether some other rule should be adopted, and some other object should be aimed at. Now, the principles which seem to have guided the Divine Mind, admitting for the time that the Bible is a revelation from God, so far as we can judge from the manner in which the revelation was actually given, are the following:

(1.) First, to leave many subjects, and among them some of those on which the mind is most inquisitive, perfectly in the dark. It was intended that not a ray of light should be shed on them; that there should be nothing which could constitute a basis of even a plausible conjecture. It was clearly the design of God to fix an outer limit to human knowledge so far as this world is concerned, in reference to those points, and to leave the race totally and designedly in the dark. This principle is involved in the declaration, "Secret things belong to the Lord your God, but things that are revealed to you and your children."

A few remarks in relation to this outer limit, or this boundary, will apply equally to reason and revelation; and while they may do something as an explanation of the general principles of the Divine proceedings, they may, at the same time, do something to reconcile us to the fact that it is found in a book of professed revelation.

(a) There is a limit to the human faculties-a point beyond which man, in this world, cannot go in inquiring into the various questions which may occur. That point may not yet have been reached on any one subject; but clearly there is such a point, beyond which all is dark. Occasionally a bright genius arises some one endowed with almost superhuman powers--who seems to secure, almost by intuition, all that man had before discovered, and who is prepared, at the beginning of his own career, to start where others left off, and to penetrate the deep profound where mortals never before have trod-to open the eyes on new regions of thought, and new worlds of matter; but even he soon comes to the outer limit of the human powers, and will always feel, as Newton did at the close of his life, that the great ocean of truth is still unex

plored. "I do not know," said he, "what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."* Whatever may be the attainments which man may make in the general progress of society, and whatever light may be shed on objects before obscure by the few men of transcendant genius whom God raises up from age to age, there is an outer limit to all such progress-a point beyond which all is involved in Cimmerian darkness. The ancients, in their ignorance of the true structure of the world, supposed that the earth was surrounded by interminable seas, and that whosoever should venture out in a right line from the land would soon enter regions deepening in darkness, till not a ray of light should be visible; and they feigned one such voyage, in which the mariner stood boldly for the west, until, terrified and affrighted by the increasing darkness, he turned the prow of his vessel, and sought again his native shores. What to them pertaining to the structure of the earth was fable, is true on the point before us in regard to higher subjects. There is an outer limit beyond which there is no light. We cannot penetrate it. We have no faculties, as men ordinarily are made, to penetrate it; and no genius arises so superior to the ordinary human endowments as to be able to carry the torch of discovery into those unexplored regions.

(b) In like manner, as in regard to our natural faculties, so it was clearly the design of God that there should be many subjects on which not a ray of light should be thrown by revelation. There are many points on which no statement is made; on which no hint is given that would relieve the anxiety of a troubled mind. Far on the hither side of what we would like to know, the line is drawn, and the whole book is closed at what may, without irreverence, be called-or which, whether irreverent or not, expresses our natural feelings-a provoking point, just at the point where we would be glad to ask questions, and where we by no means feel our minds satisfied with what we possess.

(c) As a matter of fact, therefore, whatever conclusions may be drawn from it, there is a great variety of subjects, many of them of great interest to the human mind, which are left totally in the dark, and on which the utmost efforts of ingenuity,

*Brewster's Life of Newton, pp. 300, 301.