of Israel were thus restrained in regard to the murder of the Son of God; so that they, who were continually breaking out into factions and imbruing their hands in blood, insist upon the execution of Christ by the Roman governor, with the plea, that it was not lawful for them to put any man to death. But this came to pass that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, that thus it should be. His body must be lifted up from the earth as a curse; and his blood must flow as a sacrifice;-two circumstances which did not meet in any Jewish mode of execution. The feature of the divine administration here pointed out, solves the difficulty that is sometimes apprehended, in such places as that of Peter:-"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."-Acts ii. 23. God neither gave nor stimulated wrong dispositions in the actors in that atrocious scene, nor did he give a bare permission; "but such as had joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends, yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceeded only from the creature and not from God."* 4. A controlling influence of a somewhat different kind is illustrated in the sixth chapter of the book of Esther. Sleep is withheld from the king, and his wakeful thoughts are led to the records of his reign, the reading of which gives occasion to the honouring of Mordecai, and the defeat of all the plans of Haman. Essentially similar in its nature was the influence exerted in the minds of Pharaoh and of Nebuchadnezzar, inducing their prophetic dreams, which were interpreted by Joseph and Daniel. Thus it is evident that God can and does exert a direct influence over the minds of men, even the ungodly, inducing thoughts suited to the accomplishing of his purposes. "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”—Prov. xxi. 1. 5. On the other hand, in all holy exercises and right actions, the immediate power of the Holy Spirit is active, creating right * Westminster Confession, ch. v. 4. affections, and leading and impelling his people to do such things as are in accordance with God's holy will; so that whilst the liberty of the agent is not taken away, but he is freed from his previous bondage to corruption and sin, and, by the exercise of his natural faculties, "worketh out his own salvation with fear and trembling," on the other hand, as to the real efficiency and power, "it is God which worketh in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure."-Phil. ii. 12, 13. It is to this, especially, that the apostle James refers, when, denying that we are tempted of God, but of our own corruptions, he, on the contrary, adds that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."-James i. 17. 6. Beside these modes of operation in the ordinary providence of God, who shall forbid, that in many ways, untraceable by us, but adoringly witnessed by blessed spirits, the immediate power of God should interpose in human affairs? We are persuaded that the whole analogy of his government, and the tone of the entire Scriptures, lead directly to this conclusion. We are confident that we express but the common experience and the common sentiment of his people,—of those with whom is "the secret of the Lord,"-in declaring our conviction that in multitudes of instances they are indebted to the fatherly care of an almighty hand, which, concealed from carnal observation, but recognised by faith, dispenses blessings which the natural action of second causes would never have conveyed. The government of God, thus variously administered, is universal in its dominion, and constant in its exercise; it has re¿ 11. Conclusion. spect to the most minute, as well as the greatest results; and is absolute in its sway. It is not a mere influence, but a power. Omnipotent to arrest the sun in its course, to loose the fountains of waters, or to command the sea back to its appointed place,—it with equal sovereignty rules the wills of men, angels and devils. To assert the will to be of such a nature as to be necessarily independent of God, is to say that he, in making it for his own purposes, placed it beyond his own power. To say that it cannot be subject to an effectual control, without destroying its moral agency, is to pretend to have fathomed all its depths, and measured the whole extent and nature of its relations to the creative hand. It is to assume that there cannot be in the soul any susceptibilities, accessible even to the power of its Maker, outside the sphere of its selfconscious activity;—which is most absurd. To deny that God can rule the creature he has made, as it is, endowed with attributes bestowed by him, is to imagine the delegated power of God which resides in the creature to be superior to that which is in the Creator himself; which is a contradiction in terms. It is to limit God; which is atheism. In short, the universe was framed specifically to reveal the very truth concerning the nature of that God who is everywhere and ever present, the sovereign of all, essentially active, and infinitely wise and good. This it does, not by presenting him, once active in creation, and then forever quiescent,—once sovereign, in decreeing the order of creation, and the events of providence; and then forever an inactive spectator; once present with his creatures, in giving them existence and attributes; and then forever withdrawn within himself;-once, in the beginning, exhausting the stores of his beneficence; and then forever ceasing to bestow. Such is not the God of the Bible,-the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,-the glorious worker whom nature proclaims. The creatures, as we have already seen, were formed with two designs;-to be objects in whom the glory of the perfections of God should have exercise and display;—and to be made happy in apprehending that glory. As finite, they could not apprehend the glory of God, or perceive his activity, except as displayed upon finite things. Hence, in this aspect of it, the creation itself;-presenting, on the one hand, an expanse vast enough, alike in physical and moral dimensions, to exhaust the loftiest created powers; and on the other, in its details, stooping to the reach of the meanest capacity. Again, in but two ways could our infirmity trace the working, and in it, the glory, of God,-in the universe thus created; as he works through the creatures; that is, by the mediation of second causes; and as he acts upon them, by his own immediate power. The uniformity and mediate action of the one mode of operation is requisite alike to the free agency and happiness of the creatures and the revelation of the wisdom and unchangeableness of the Creator. The speciality of the other, is as necessary and important, alike to the creatures, and to the revelation of the living God. By this means is it made known that it is God, and not nature, that ruleth; and that everywhere and in all things he is, the ever present, ever active, ever sovereign and gracious God. Said the Saviour, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."-John v. 17. The . attempt to ignore his immediate agency in the orderings of special providences, out of respect to the orderly working of the laws of nature, is as unphilosophical and unscriptural as is the denial of second causes, and the reference of all things to God as not only the first, but the only, cause. "God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means; yet is free to work without, above and against them, at his pleasure."* In all the modes of dispensation it is the same God. In all he works with equal and absolute sovereignty. In all he is most holy and good. In all there is the most perfect harmony, and concurrence to the wise and holy designs. In the interpositions of his own hand he does no violence to the laws and order of nature, which he himself ordained. In the procession of second causes and ordinary providence he does not preclude, but anticipates and provides for, the immediate exertions of his power. In each alike are unfolded the harmonious elements of the perfect plan, which, formed in the beginning, and infallibly accomplished in all its details, shall be displayed in the amazing glory of the whole result, at the consummation of all things; to the unspeakable blessedness of his saints, and the infinite honour of their wonderful God. *Westminster Confession, ch. v. 3. CHAPTER IV. ADAM THE LIKENESS OF GOD. "Now heaven in all her glory shone, and rolled Her motions, as the first great Mover's hand By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swam, was walked And worship God supreme, who made him, chief Ir is the morning of creation. The world has been, by the almighty Word of God, made of nothing. Light has been shed likeness. 1. Adam upon the formless mass; the waters gathered tothe image and gether; the dry land exposed and planted with grass, herbs and trees; the heavenly hosts have been marshalled to their stations and services; the waters peopled with fish; the forests and plains with the inferior animals, and the air with the feathered tribes. Thus far the narrative of Moses flows without interruption, and the scenes of the creation pass continuously before us. But here occurs a pause in the story. A council of the Triune Creator sits; and from it issues a decree for the creation of man:-"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the |