original tongues, the same as that which denotes wind. And beautifully apposite to this is the fact, that the Great Teacher explained to a Jewish ruler the doctrine of Spiritual regeneration by images taken from the wind. Literally he says, "The Spirit breathes where he pleases, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes. So is every one born of the Spirit." The entrance of air into the human lungs communicates animal life, or puts the animal machinery into motion. The entrance of the word—the breath of the Almighty into the human heart-imparts spiritual life, and creates us anew, or puts into motion, Godward, the moral feelings of our nature. The Spirit of God, by his breath or word, is thus to the kingdom of grace, what the air is to the kingdom of nature.

Thus stand we upon one of the lines of the spiritual universe, which, in its earthly and temporal province, lays along the coasts of human speech; and though invisible, as the air to the eye, is, nevertheless, as real and as well defined to the eye of faith, as was the promised land, Horeb or Zion, to the eye of sense. Elihu has said, "The hand of the Lord has made me— the breath of the Almighty has given me life;" and as truly he has said, “The Spirit of God is in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." If the Roman adage be true, and all Christendom admits it and re-enacts it-facit per alterum per se-he does himself what he does by his agent; or if a man does what the sword in his hand does, the Spirit of God does in us, with us, and by us, whatever his word does. There is, in this department of the Spiritual Universe, no separation of these two. If the Holy Spirit, and the Spiritual Universe, cannot be seen by the natural eye, they can be realized and enjoyed by the ear or the eye of faith, which perceives and trembles at the voice or word of the Lord. They are as much realities as the sun, moon, and stars-as the everlasting hills and mountains of earth. They are as palpable to the spiritual sense as matter, in its grossest forms, is to the eye or to the hand. Who ever saw heat in a sunbeam, or cold in an iceberg? Who ever heard sweetness in honey, or bitter in wormwood? Who ever tasted light by day, or darkness by night? But do they not exist? Is there no light, no darkness, no bitter, no sweet, no heat, no cold, because they are unrecognized by those destitute of these senses? So, without revelation and without the Word and Spirit of God, there is neither faith nor hope, there is neither peace nor joy in God, any more than if the aphorism of the fool was true-" There is no God."

Faith, like a telescope, reveals worlds above-suns and moons unseen, unknown without it. It sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. It also sees Dives in the flaming abyss, and hears him call on Abraham for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue.

The Indian in the far off wilderness, not enlightened by our science and our experience, could as soon, of himself, unaided and untaught by our science and learning, discover and reveal to his fellows the mysteries of a telegraphic dispatch, or the wonders of boiling water in a steam-ship on the Atlantic, as many of our well bred and finely polished Parisian or Bostonian cits could realize the objects of Christian faith and hope-the ineffable grandeur of eternal life-or the appaling horror of "an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power."

Leviathan, huge monster as he is, at the bottom of the ocean, could as soon discover a new comet in the milky way, or a burning mountain in one of the moons of Sirius, as many of our fellow-citizens could discover that there is a resurrection to eternal life-the portion of them that fear God and keep his command

ments, through the mediation and sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth. Nor could all the thunders of Sinai, or the seven thunders of John in Patmos, awaken millions of our contemporaries to the awful, fearful, glorious facts of Christ's gospel. But still, all this and much more being conceded, it no more disproves the fearful and glorious realities of a spiritual universe, or the faith and hope of the Christian, than does the blindness of a bat at noon prove that there is no sun, or the deafness of a mute, that there is no thunder in heaven nor melody in the human voice.

It is in beautiful harmony with these awful utterances, that all the great powers of nature and of the universe, discernible either to sense or reason, are as simple, as recondite, and yet as appreciable, as those of the Christian faith and of the spiritual universe. What order, beauty, and happiness result from the antagonism of the two great tendencies of the worlds around us, called centrifugal and centripetal. Day and Night, Spring and Autumn, Summer and Winter, with their countless influences and tendencies, flow as naturally, as simply, as the circulation of the blood through the contractions and dilations of the heart-the unavoidable consequences of this great, radical, original organic law of God, impressed and engraven on all the atoms of all the worlds above, below, and around us, which he has launched into space, and poised upon nothing but his own awful, fearful, glorious FIAT!

Standing here on this holy mount, we see Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, communing on the deep counsels of Jehovah. Here the mysteries of nature, of providence, and of redemption, stand in awful grandeur, and yet in beautiful symmetry and simplicity, before our minds. I never saw the questions of the schools about liberty and necesssity, free agency and accountability, praise and blame, reward and punishment, so beautifully simplified and adjusted, as at this stand-point on the holy mount of heaven-illumined vision.

In one great enunciation God has made the freedom of the whole universe, material and spiritual, spring from an insuperable necessity. The spheres cannot but move, and yet they move freely-day and night, seed time and harvest, cannot but succeed, and yet they succeed without a jar, a discord, or an insubordinate tendency. Animated nature springs into life necessarily and cheerfully. It cannot but breathe and move, and yet it breathes and moves with pleasure, with choice, not as if by mere necessity.

But in mind and in spiritual ranks of intelligence, there is an intrinsic as well as an extrinsic motive power. Man has a will of his own, as angels have. This will is his great motive power. And it is the basis of all his moral beauty, grandeur, and happiness. It is, however, during his minority, under the tutelage of his understanding. The eye cannot see without light, nor the will act but under the dictates of the understanding, be they true or false. But that dictate must have the semblance of good, of happiness, of truth, else it is not addressed to the reason or understanding of man, and the will or the man must, of necessity, repudiate it. Deceiving the understanding, therefore, on the part of an adversary, is the only means of seducing a man to will or act against himself. And such is the history of the first temptation reported in the annals of man.

But as God constituted the universe that order, regularity, and happiness must follow-must be the result of its continuance under, or within the province and dominion of, that law-so has he constituted man. He, therefore, most benevolently placed man under a moral and religious law, combined in one precept. This was essential to the idea of moral dignity, and of moral or spiritual happiness. Where there is no law, there can be no transgression; but there

can be no obedience. And where there can be no obedience, there can be no proper sense of dignity, no rational self-respect, and no true human happiness. Human happiness is not breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, waking. This is animal happiness. Human happiness is communion with God. But communion is necessarily reciprocal. It cannot be on one side. There must be a law of intercourse with God, as of intercourse with man. That law is essential to the mutual enjoyment of the parties. The word mutual has much of heaven in it. All parties, in the relations of the universe, must, in order to dignity, honor, happiness, act in harmony with these relations. The terms of correspondence, intercommunication, fellowship, must be stipulated, understood, assented to, and kept sacred, in order to that high, holy, and blissful intercourse and reciprocity. Hence originated law, or a rule of free, familiar, eternal intercourse and mutual enjoyment of all the parties. Hence, the first law was moral positive, and not merely moral natural. In the latter case, it could have been no condition, test, or pledge of loyalty. It was morally natural to love, fear, revere, and adore God in all spiritual and moral intercourse. But a positive precept, based merely on sovereigntyy—a token of dependence--a guarantee of continued life and happiness-of free, full, and uninterrupted enjoyment of God, was necessary; not merely expedient, but essential alike to the glory of God and the glory of man. The reservation of one tree in Paradise was the most simple, beautiful, and appropriate test of homage, gratitude, and devotion, that could, in infinite wisdom and goodness, have been devised. This reservation, regarded as not the octillionth part of å barley corn in intrinsic worth, was the only rent our Father Adam had to pay for the dominion of the whole earth and sea, with all their live stock and appurtenances, on a lease renewable to himself and heirs for ever and ever. And yet, it was made equivalent, in the benignity of God, to a rental commensurate with the real value of the world. He was to give nothing -absolutely nothing. He was merely to withhold his hand from one tree.

Few of our most profound sectaries, as it seems to me, view this original Adamic constitution in its true simplicity, amplitude, and grandeur. It was amply large, and sufficient for the continued intercommunion and honorable standing of humanity and divinity for ever. It was most honorable to Adam, most philanthropic and condescending on the part of our Heavenly Father, and gave to the parties every means of perfect and complete intimacy and

communion.

But we are contemplating moral liberty as rising from physical necessity, as the physical harmony, regularity, and beauty of the universe arise from a physical necessity. Man, as God constituted him, cannot will his own destruction or his own misery. It is, in the necessity of his nature, impossible. And from this necessity spring all his voluntary movements towards happiness, in which course, according to his light and knowledge, he cannot but pursue that which his understanding realizes and approves. God has, in the fundamental elements of the human constitution, made the desire of happiness perfect, complete, and paramount. Man as necessarily desires happiness as the seas ebb and flow, or as moons wax and wane. Hence this love of life, this desire of happiness, being innate and supreme, obliges him to move in that direction, according to the best lights he has upon the whole subject. Liberty or freedom to pursue this object in his own way, according to his own convictions, is true liberty, springing from the necessities of his constitution.

Fallen and degraded as he is, he may, and often does, mistake both the means and the end. Under the guise and semblance of good he may chose evil. But

this is simply a mistake of the understanding, which may have been perverted by the obliquity of his life or the tyranny of his passions. Good, real or imaginary, must, of necessity, be the goal of all his volitions, aspirations, and actions. A necessity to pursue that in the most direct path which his reason or imagination suggests, is our best conception of free agency. And this arises from a divine necessity or obligation, inwrought or implanted in the human constitution, as God has, in physical nature, based all the movements of all the spheres on the principle of gravity or attraction. God himself is the spiritual sun and centre of the spiritual and moral universe, and we are spiritual planets, of different magnitudes and at different distances, moving round him and in harmony with one another. From him we receive our life, our light, our beauty, and our bliss. In this course angels, "the morning stars, sing together," and men, "the sons of God, shout for joy." A. C.

LECTURES ON EXODUS.-No. IX.

The passage of Israel through the sea.

THE dreadful judgment of God upon the first-born of Egypt, which induced the Egyptians almost to thrust Israel out of the land, served to deliver them from the fear of their enemies. In their march they would soon be beyond pursuit, and in the land of Canaan, "flowing with milk and honey," would realize all the fond expectations they had based upon the promises made to their fathers. But the trials of an imperfect people never end, for as they are advancing on their way, a counter order comes from heaven, that they turn their backs upon Canaan, and change their route towards the Red Sea and the wilderness of Edom. Instead of proceeding directly to Canaan around the head of this sea and along its Eastern shore, the Lord orders them to turn and follow a Southern direction along the Western shore. They take their way, and entering the pass of the mountains called Pi-hahiroth, they are forced to encamp where they are shut up by the wilderness in the rear, and hemmed in by the mountains on their flanks, having a wide and impassable portion of the sea before them. This is done that God may deliver by his own hand, and that Pharaoh may have another opportunity of displaying the perverseness and obstinacy of his heart. The heart of the monarch had been sorely galled, but it had not been humbled. He had been baffled, and frightened, and forced to yield his kingdom had been desolated, and depopulated of its most promising inhabitants; and had Israel have taken the direct route to Canaan, he doubtless would have despaired of successful pursuit. Yet would his heart have been the same; for no sooner does he learn the enclosed and dangerous course of the fugitives, than he says, "they are entangled in the land," and, shut up by rocks, mountains, and seas, he believes he can overtake and destroy them. Infatuated by worldly policy, and hardened in obstinate rebellion, he forgets the terrors of Jehovah, and at the head of his chariots of war, starts upon the pursuit. Meanwhile the advancing hosts of Israel approach the sea. Pharaoh pursues, and comes upon them where huge mountains hem them in front of the sea. Pharaoh forgets the judgments of God-do Israel remember his mercy and salvation? Servile people! as Pharaoh draws near they are struck with a panic. Deserted alike by their faith and their courage, they deplore their rash adventure, and look back with envy and regret to that degraded condition under which they had so recently groaned. Foolish people! The wonders of Egypt are forgotten the bright cloud, betokening the divine presence, is lost sight of, and they cry

to God, and inveigh against Moses, as the cause of their distresses. But are they not in a straight? Would not we be alarmed under such circumstances? Certainly if, like them, we forgot God and the shining heavens above us, which every day betoken His goodness; but certainly not if, like Moses, we remembered the proofs he had given of his interest in our cause. Their fears are groundless, and their complaints inexcusable-as much so as ours when Providence apparently frowns, and, after all our experience of the goodness of God under our troubles and dangers, we say "we shall perish." Israel chide their deliverer with unjust suspicions and complaints, and look abandoned upon despair and perdition. But Moses, calm as a Summer's morn, reproves them not, but comforts them by the assurance that God will, by his almighty power, so end the fearful crisis, that all the proud army of Egyptians that now hang upon them in such dreadful threatenings, should not live to molest them more. He waves his hand at the command of God towards the sea, as he says to Israel, "Be still, and see the God-salvation." In silent majesty the flaming pillar moves through the air, and from their front takes up its place in the rear. The rod of Moses raises a wind which blows all night, and lifts the water in mountain heaps, which, divided as it were by walls, opened up a passage for Israel. Behold now the immense congregation who had stood in mute expectation, with countless eyes fastened upon the wonders of the heavens and of the sea, take up the march, preceded by their venerated leaders, upon the untrodden path of the great deep.

"O God! the waters saw thee,

The waters saw thee,

They were afraid.

The depths also were troubled,

For thy way was in the sea,

And thy path in the great waters.

Thy footsteps are not known.

Thou leddest thy people like a flock,

By the hand of Moses and Aaron !” (Ps. lxxvii.)

But the light of Israel is darkness to the Egyptians. Not knowing whither they go, they follow on. They, too, entered upon the bare bed of the divided waters-they heard the noise of the flying host before them, but were unable to distinguish the localities of the place around them, until the light of the morning made to them the fearful discovery of their true condition. Then Jehovah, by his angels, took off their chariot wheels, so that they could not fly. Then they saw that the Lord fought for Israel, and they were rushing against the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler. Their horses were frightened, and they rushed confusedly together, dashing their chariots furiously against each other, and floundering in quicksands, they could not escape. Israel ascends the opposite shore. Then, O my soul,

"The clouds pour out water,

The skies send out a sound

The arrows of Jehovah flew abroad

The voice of his thunder was in the heavens

His lightnings lightened the world

The earth trembled and shook."

The waves returned, and

"Pharaoh's chariots and hosts he threw into the sea,

In the sea he whelmed them,

They sank to the bottom like a stone."

An invisible power fixed them to the spot-the waves with irresistible fury passed over them—in vain they pierce the air with the shrieks of hopeless anguish, for the roaring deep, like a ravenous wolf over his prey, buried all their proud multitudes: there remained not so much as one. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and his servant Moses."-Upon this wonderful history we have time only to remark: