the perpetual hills did bow." These are sublime images, conveying the most elevated ideas of that supremacy which has constructed and governs a universe. Mountains, that appear to raise their summits to the very skies and to prop the firmament, and which at the same time present the aptest emblems of eternity, are represented to bow, as if in terror, at the awful manifestations of Almighty power. What images can be conceived more lofty, and yet how insufficient to express the reality. They are in truth but dim shadows of a power which no language can pourtray for what can realize to the mind of man the ineffable attributes of God?

"His ways are everlasting." In these words. the prophet maintains the eternity of the divine purposes and the certainty of their accomplishment. God neither promises nor threatens in vain!

It is in truth a strange infatuation to imagine that a Being to whom past and future are ever present, and whose judgment therefore cannot err, should make provisions for futurity which he will alter, according to the supposed necessities or wishes of those who prefer gliding down the easy current of time in a bark freighted with all that is carnally delightful but spiritually pernicious, to toiling along the narrow road which leads to the goal of everlasting rest, provided with the homely but

salutary viaticum of the true wayfaring Christian. Notwithstanding however that "the Almighty changeth not," the great promise upon which the Christian's best hopes are founded, he condescended to confirm by an oath, “that two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." What condescension in such a Creator towards such creatures!-A Creator unchangeable, eternal and infinitely good; creatures mutable, finite and unceasingly sinful! Alas! that we should ever forget the immutability of God's word, when we make his other attributes the subjects of our contemplation.

In directing our thoughts to the Deity, whether we contemplate him in his visible works or in those manifold dispensations of which we are perpetually sensible, the irresistible conclusion to which we come is that he is Omnipotent. This quality then must pervade all his attributes, else it could not exist in him; for if one attribute were circumscribed, the supremacy, of his power could not be complete: but in the assurance of his Omnipotence, we combine the assurance of every perfection. "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting God fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding." "There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity

may hide themselves." Of His power we all acknowledge ourselves sensible; how should it be otherwise, when we see it almost every moment developed in the minutest operations of Providence. Nevertheless, to judge of our actions, our general notions of the Deity would appear very vague and unworthy of him. We are too much accustomed to act as if we had nothing to dread from his power, but looked upon him as a weak, incapable being, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin," under every hue of their enormity. It must however be manifest to the least reflection that a supreme nature, combining within itself all that is just and wise and perfect, can only desire and approve of what is good. Upon what ground therefore can any one suppose he will pass by provocation; that he will overlook what he neither desires nor approves, especially when he has solemnly declared that he will not. As the Omnipotence of God is our security against peril, since "he is both able and willing to do more than we ask or think," so is it likewise a pledge that upon the wicked he will, as he has most awfully threatened, “rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup." And no one can for a moment imagine that he is unable to do what he has threatened, or that he will be unwilling,

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when not to do it would be to act contrary to the perfection of his nature.

Three great attributes of the Deity are his wisdom, his mercy and his truth. He is Omnipotent in each and all. They are therefore at once the objects of our love and of our fear, since they will bring us either everlasting weal or woe. From the ineffable wisdom of God we derive our security in him as our "ruler and guide." He cannot direct us wrong. ever he suggests must be for good; whatever he commands we are consequently bound to obey. "He is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who has hardened himself against him and has prospered?"

What

If we are assured of God's infallible wisdom, do we not depreciate it, in a way that merits the heavest visitation of his anger, by following the suggestions of our own fallible wills in preference to those which must direct us to benefit? And yet how seldom do we regulate our actions according to those blessed rules which the God of all wisdom has "written for our learning" and recorded for our observance? In him we have a merciful ruler, an unerring director; nevertheless how generally do we prefer bowing down under the perilous dominion of our own unruly desires, following the dictates of our impure affections; thus braving the chances of everlasting expulsion from the divine presence in the

life immortal, which will certainly be the doom of such as pursue the broad and beaten path that leadeth to destruction, unless they repent in time, and "turn from the ways of Satan unto God."

As the Deity is supreme in wisdom, he must be at once the source and sum of it: not only therefore is our knowledge, in whatever measure it may be dealt out to us, derived from him, but we are likewise assured, upon authority admiting of no question, that our foresight will be improved, and this knowledge directed to holy purposes, so long as we look upon him as the fountain whence it flowed down upon us; so long as we trust to him to actuate the intents of our hearts and to arrest within them the progress of natural corruption, uniting at the same time our own feeble efforts in the spiritual struggle; so long as we rely upon him for the direction of that knowledge which he has vouchsafed to implant in our minds, for "O Lord, we know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Thus, it is the consciousness we have of God's infinite wisdom, and that our own is derived from his inexhaustible stores, which ought to induce in us a humble estimate of our own and a complete reliance upon his. Were he not allwise, we should not be secure a moment. We should have no ruler and guide upon whom we could depend. Our own rash and unruly impulses