through eternity be only the minister of a holiness, before which angels shall bow and veil their faces. There is a Temple standing eternally in Heaven; and "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts," will be ever the song of the Seraphim therein. There are harps strung upon the sea of glass, and from them shall be poured forever the same triumphant anthem: "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints." We lift ourselves into a realm of thought, from which the eye flies out into the limitless expanses of the eternal Future; and still we see therein only the beauty of God's Goodness, the glory of his Truth, streaming across, and spreading up, and filling with their light the infinite Concave. Taking our stand upon that jutting crag which Inspiration shows, lifting its head in the Hereafter, around which are dissolving elements, stars falling from their places, and these our heavens all vanishing in the flame; -still, as we look before us, we see goodness and holiness, serenely beautiful, sublimely radiant; and to our listening ear, from out the furthest recesses of the interminable Future, the echo that comes up is one of PRAISE.

Here, then, we see the Permanence of the Law! Not only are its principles immutable in themselves, but as a distinct enactment, ordained by our Sovereign as our rightful Rule, its authority is unchangeable, and its dominion everlasting. It was given in the holiness of Jehovah; and while that holiness abides, it will remain. It is sustained and enforced by his boundless goodness; and till that goodness becomes malevolence, its dominion cannot fail. Through all eternity, therefore, it will be still GOD'S LAW! amended by no addition, superseded by no revocation. The heavens and the earth may pass away. In the progress of ages, they must depart; for in themselves they have no life, and when God's purpose in them has been accomplished, they vanish of necessity. The whole material System shall roll together as a scroll; for it is all constructed for a specific end, and when that end is realized its mission is fulfilled. Vast, therefore, as are the periods of its duration, they are not INFINITE. Laboriously as we must struggle up, to comprehend the almost measureless expanses through which they shall endure, still do these sink into the utterest insignificance, into the littleness of a day, beside that absolute ETERNITY through which God's Moral Law shall still abide-cöeval in its principles with the existence of Deity, oöeval in its enactment with the Immortality of the Soul. Oh! in the light of this, we scarcely need the declarations of the Scripture; we know, almost beforehand, from the nature of the Law and from the character of Jehovah," that the word of our God shall stand forever:" that "though the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, the Salvation of God shall be forever, and his Righteousness shall not be abolished." 'It is easier-verily, it is EASLER-for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the Law to fail."

And now, there are two or three thoughts suggested by the sub

ject. It shows us, first, WHAT IS THE HIGHEST DEPARTMENT IN THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT.

It is the MORAL. It is that in which this perfect and immutable Law is perfectly applied, by a holy Sovereign, to spiritual beings. In this, the ends proposed are in themselves the highest; the interests involved, of greatest magnitude; the means employed, most diverse and most noble; and the manifestations made, of power and knowledge as well as of wisdom and goodness, most various and sublime. Creation, rightly considered, necessarily implies only the putting forth of adequate force. Connected with it there may be, as there have been in our material system, most signal displays of skill and goodness; and yet the objects affected, if we may so express it, are gross and passive; the means employed are absolutely simple; the ends attained are for a time. But in the Moral government of Jehovah-that government whose Law the Saviour was describing the subjects affected are spiritual beings, free and immortal; the agencies employed, are agencies of motive, and means of grace and spiritual influence; the requisitions made, on every moral attribute, are far more large; and the ends to be attainedthe maintenance of the Right, the bringing of all beings to its joyful obedience, and thus the highest well-being of the moral Creation, and the sublimest manifestation throughout its limits of the glory of Him who made and who upholds it-these ends are in their nature transcendent, and in duration endless. Here, then, we find the highest department in God's Administration. To this, creation and providence are both subordinate. He has created the universe. he now controls it, that through his moral government-in its administration of perfect law-its interests may be secured, the Right maintained, his Glory shown. On this, as the prime end, God's view is fixed. To this all other things are incidental. And in connection with this, will be most fully developed the whole stupendous resources of the Godhead.

What light, my friends, does this fact shed upon the Miracles of the Scripture! The Infidel has said, they are not credible; and has striven to prove it. But when we remember that all the laws of nature are but the expressions of God's free will, and all are but subordinate conditions to his Moral administration,-how credible it is, how almost even to have been anticipated, that at particular points the usual laws should have been suspended, the usual modes of action have been departed from, for the more perfect attainment of higher ends! He who thus thoughtfully considers the method of God's system, will find no difficulty in the belief of Miracles. It is the steadfast base, on which the historical argument should rest its column.

What a view is presented, too, by our present thought, of the nature and value of the Material System! It is not in itself an end, but merely the means to the attainment of an end higher than it-a necessary incident in the Divine administration. It is the

scaffolding to an invisible Temple, rising within. It is the body, important only from its relation to the Soul. As a means, it is most admirably fitted to the accomplishment of its purpose. In its construction and arrangement, have been most signally displayed the wisdom of God, and his boundless benevolence. Yet it is only a means. Filled as it is with the trophies of God's omnipotence, -crowded at every point with evidences of the skill conjoined with love, that not alone hold every system to its appointed path, but that line the sea-shell with its pearly enamel, that shed upon the insect's wing its Tyrian dyes, that rear in beauty the tiniest flower that feels the light and drinks the dew,-noble and beautiful as is the entire System, with all the mighty forces that work unceasingly within it, the laws of harmony that build and mould its fair proportions, the almost infinitude of space across which it extends, the vastness of the periods through which it shall endure, it is still only as the home of moral beings, the theatre of moral action, the scene and realm of Moral Law, that it becomes of worth! Its laws, its forces, its whole adjustment and constitution, are but the means to this. For this, through the long reach of ages, the mighty agencies of flood and fire have fitted it for man. For this, the granite bars sustain its surface. For this, the power of God sweeps it unerringly around the sun. The light rests on it sweetly, that Man may act beneath its beams. The atmosphere enwraps it, the heavens spread over it their vast expanse, the showers descend upon it in their season, the singing birds find homes among its branches, that Moral Beings, made in God's image, and subject to his law, may here act freely, developing their character, choosing their course. And when the end is gained, the power that holds it on its poise will be withdrawn. When all the moral beings for whom God fitted it have lived upon it, and freely acted, and passed away, his hand will simply sink from beneath it, and all its wondrous mechanism, like the baseless fabric of a dream,' will melt into forgetfulness.

Oh, then, how vain to love the Earth, as if its worth inhered within it! as if it were of its own nature permanent! as if it were not all an outward stage for the development of character—a needful INCIDENT to God's great plans!

Again, and secondly, our subject shows us WHAT IS THE RULING PURPOSE AND AIM OF GOD IN HIS MORAL ADMINISTRATION. It is, the maintenance of the Law; the subjugation or the destruction of all opposing forces; and the establishment of its principles, throughout the creation, as the supreme and constant rule of moral action. To this, as we have seen, the goodness and holiness of God both pledge him; his regard for the highest well-being of his Creation, and his love for the Right, which shines out in the Law. It is not more certain, therefore, that all the other departments of his government will be subordinate to the Moral, than it is that in the Moral, this purpose will be supreme: to establish the Law, and give

it supremacy; and that not only the agencies of creation and providence, but all the means specifically appropriate in Moral government, will be subordinate to this.

And looking from this point, we see, my friends, the reason and the need of the tremendous PENALTIES denounced in Scripture against transgression. There is nothing vindictive or arbitrary in them. They do not show excited passion upon the part of God, or any, the slightest, disregard of the happiness of his subjects. But they show clearly, with unmistakable distinctness, and with unspeakable impressiveness, his love for the Law. They show how certainly he is bent upon maintaining that, as not alone commanding and sublime in its inherent rightness, but as essential, and absolutely, to the well-being of the Creation. They show, too, his knowledge of the power of sin; and of the fearful tendencies to its commission which lie, dormant but living, in every human breast, and which are ready, at any touch of temptation, to spring at once into development and dominion. It is a mark, therefore, of God's benevolence, not less than of his holiness, that he has fixed these penalties as the reward of the transgressor; that by their mighty pressure, he may hold back the bursts of human guilt. It is his infinite wisdom-oh! let us all remember this-it is the wisdom and love of God, that not alone give power to obey to every moral being, and furnish motive for that obedience, and entreat to its exercise, and show the beauty of its spirit as manifest in Christ, and the glory of its Recompense, as dimly shadowed forth in the Apocalyptic imagery, but that also, to all this, still superadds the warning of the doom of the rebellious; still shows an anguish as endless as the glory; still matches the palaces of Heaven with prisons of Despair; and brings to view, not only the sea of pure gold as of transparent glass, but also the sea of blackness, inwrought with fire, from which are borne upon the ear the sounds of wailing! Truly, my friends, laying aside all low and narrow views, which merely embrace the relations of punishment to individual transgressors, and raising ourselves in thought in some degree to the majesty and the reach of the Divine Administration,-how perfectly in harmony with all its course are these denunciations perceived to be! and how imperfect, without them, would have been the manifestation of God's benevolence!

And in the light of this same thought,-that God's great purpose in moral government must be the maintenance of the law, and the securing of its supremacy,-what views are opened of the ATONEMENT, by Christ? He died, to reconcile the maintenance of the Law with the forgiveness of the sinner; not to destroy the law, but to establish and fulfil it; not to condemn the world, but that the world, condemned already, through Him might live. For aught that we can say, it might have been possible for God, in the nature of things, to save the sinner without redemption; but he could not have done it consistently with the great purpose and end of his

administration; with that establishment of the Law for moral beings in which his goodness and holiness alike are involved. The work of Christ was therefore needful; to manifest the excellency of the law, and its claims upon our obedience,-and thus to establish and ratify its authority, and to display the righteousness of its Divine Executive, before transgression could be forgiven. He did this by his life of holiness. He did it by his obedience unto Death; by his sacrifice of Himself, upon the cross of Calvary.

And is it too mysterious, that God should have thus become incarnate? Is it incredible, inconceivable, that Christ has died to make Redemption? If it were by itself, an isolated fact, a fragment in the universe, without relations to God's System, grant that it would be. Yet when we see how indispensable it was, both as a basis of pardon for sinners, and as a means of influence over them; how absolutely it was needful, for the attainment of every highest end in Moral Government, -the vindication of the law, the rescue of the sinner, and the full exhibition of God's essential glory, of holiness and of love; and then, when we remember how absolutely supreme is this department in His whole empire, how everything else is subordinate to his moral administration;-what wonder is there even in this Unspeakable Transaction! What marvel, that such stupendous agencies were then invoked! If God's creative power were put forth freely, to furnish merely the scene of moral action, to raise the arena on which there might go forward the processes of his government-if even in this initiatory step the whole magnificent array of worlds and systems were summoned from nothing, and marshalled upon chaos till all the sons of God, catching their harmonies, shouted for joy ;what wonder, that in the CRISIS of that government, and its high exigency, when all its ends seemed liable to be lost, the law be unobeyed, the happiness of the race remedilessly destroyed, that then the wisdom and power of God were all evolved, in this stupendous act, the grandest it may be in even Celestial history, to save and carry forward the mighty System!

Oh, if we think rightly of God, as not alone Creator and Preserver, but also Moral Governor; as sitting upon his throne of holiness, and judging the earth in equity and in love-if we think rightly of this his moral government, as having for its end the maintenance of his law and its complete establishment, the welfare of his creatures, and his own glory; to which creation and providence are both subordinate, to forward which, when they are needful, the most mysterious agencies will be combined :-then, my friends, we have found the Key that opens to us the mystery, not of the material universe alone, but also of revelation; that shows the deep significance and solemnity of human life; that gives its meaning and its moral to every star that glitters as a jewel upon the brow of night; that shows the Punishment of the future most wise and good; and makes that Roman cross on which Christ hung, the Centre and the Pillar of God's whole system.