to Alp, in our researches, the vaulted heaven of the Divine Idea is still above us.

Human science reaches no point where the divine wisdom has not anticipated its march. There is not a discovery in optics, though the fruit of ages of inquiry, concerning which we do not feel authorized to assert, that the long-latent principle was known before creation, and that God has adapted the lenses of the eye to light, and light to the lenses of the eye. The remark may be generalized in its application to every law of physical and moral nature. So that a knowledge of God would really be the knowledge of all things.

I need not go about to show by argument why the being of God is a cause of rejoicing to the universe. Other things are drops, but this is the fountain. Other things are transient, insulated favours; fragments and atoms of beneficence; single flowers of mercy; single draughts of bliss; single odours, wafted from fields of fragrance: but God (let me speak reverently) is the very atmosphere, all-comprehending and all-pervading, in which we live, and move, and have our being. Therefore, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord! He that would be joyful, let him be joyful in the Lord! The book of Psalms is a chamber of holy voices, echo answering echo, deep calling unto deep, with the enthusiasm and rapture of adoring ecstasy and fearful love. We do but rehearse here what we shall utter above, when we call upon all things, silent or vocal, to praise the name of the Lord. "My meditation of

him shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord. Sing unto him; sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels; praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Zion!

These are happy exercises, and he has never begun the course of true felicity, who is still a stranger to God. These afford the ultimate basis of all con

solation.

II. The idea of goodness, in that particular mode of it which is entitled mercy. In Scripture usage, the term is not always employed with the nice discrimination of the schools, but is applied to all the modifications of divine favour to creatures. Yet the word undoubtedly carries with it some tinge of compassion; it speaks of pity; it points to tears which tremble in the eye of infinite love; it is God looking upon meanness, and wretchedness, and sin. It is a great idea, and fit to be coupled with divinity. Heathen mythology did not contain it. The Scriptures are full of it, and we see the temple praises were full of it. It is the essential property of God, whereby he regards the miserable. It is more specially the same perfection, viewed as flowing through its sole channel in the Mediator. The fall, which rendered mediation necessary, rendered Jesus Christ the sole depositary of infinite mercy. Not more truly is the sun the organ and centre of all the

light of the universe, than Jesus Christ is the organ and centre of all mercy for men. He is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe. A merciful God is moreover their God in Jesus Christ. A world of sinners can look in only one direction to see God, to wit, in the direction of the ark and mercy-seat, which gives a propriety to the repeated use of this ascription in such temple-services as are connected with the ark of the covenant. God dwelt there, between the cherubim, that is, over the propitiatory. Hence the cry, O thou that dwellest between the cherubim! It was an inhabitation of mercy. There he received incense; there he presided over the sprinkling of blood; there he shone forth in a glory which any where else would have been consuming. The other instances of mercy contained in this psalm are favours and deliverances towards a sinful but accepted people, which are all founded on the covenant of which this ark was the symbol. It is part of his royal name and title, the Lord God, merciful and gracious-keeping mercy for thousands; long-suffering and of great mercy; he delighteth in mercy. Such are some of the phrases of the Old Testament, while in the New, this is the great topic, and every page seems to exhale the fragrance of the benediction, Grace, Mercy, and Peace.

The Goodness, the Love, the Grace, and the Mercy of God, are only so many phases of the same orb; all the outshining of one and the same benignant Jehovah; and all entitled to our praise.

The goodness of God is his infinite disposition to do good to the creature. The love of God is the same goodness in its more distinct propension toward the person of the creature, whereby God tends to bless the creature, by the communication of himself, and this in various degrees the love of the creature, the love of man, and the love of his people. The GRACE of God is his infinite disposition to communicate himself to the creature, in divine gratuity, irrespective of all merit in the object. And the Mercy of God, regarding man as fallen and sinful, is God's disposition to pardon sin and succour misery. It stands related to goodness, as kindness to pity, in the human soul; it flows from the spring-head of mere goodness; it contemplates misery, and misery which might be left unrelieved, as being justly inflicted. It is, therefore, pre-eminently a sovereign perfection. This mercy of God may be received as general and special. God's general mercy flies to the succour of mankind in general, in their various deserved troubles; his special mercy contemplates them as united in covenant to the Lord Jesus Christ. To have any proper view of the divine mercy, we should consider who and what He is, of whom it is predicated; how high, how great, how all-sufficient, how independent and infinite in perpetual bliss. We should consider who and what its objects are; men, fallen men, undeserving, condemned enemies of God. The whole dealing of God with men, as revealed in the Scriptures, proceeds on this basis. We mistake fatally, if we as

sume any other. Thus viewed, the mercy of God is amazing, in its mode of action, its means and instruments, its sublime and tender events, its stupendous sacrifices, its elaborate, complicated, yet simple arrangements, and its extraordinary and immeasurable results. There was a dawn of this benignity in the Old Testament; but it is a clear shining under the New. Its very nature is embodied in the name of Jesus. When, after long journeyings through a land of wilderness, abounding in convictions, fears, legal restraints, and unavailing endeavours, the weary pilgrim-soul first obtains a glimpse of this attribute, thus revealed, it is as when the remnant of the ten thousand Greeks, under Xenophon, after long battling and travel, caught a sight of the Euxine, and cried in a shout of rapture, the sea! the sea! Old Testament saints had glimpses, as when one sees the ocean from a favoured hill-top, in a distant view; New Testament believers are allowed to come and stand by the side of the mighty, interminable main.

It is our unspeakable privilege, brethren, to live under this dispensation of divine mercy. And we can rehearse displays of it far more wonderful than those which are recounted in any psalm. When we praise "him who alone doeth great wonders," we can include the wonders of redemption. When we ascribe glory "to him that made great lights," we can rejoice in that true Light which now shineth. He that "smote Egypt in their first-born" is indeed the God of mercy; but still more, he who delivered