will and purpose are sometimes represented as changing, they only seem to do so. When God is said to repent, it is speaking after the manner of men, to describe his grief of mind towards sinners, and the change of his outward conduct towards them. And when he threatens a city or nation, but does not fulfil that threatening, the threat is always to be understood as conditional; i. e. he would destroy them if they did not reform. There is nothing more certain respecting God, than that he is, in all his attributes, unchangeable. We destroy his very nature, if we rob him of this. 7. God is omniscient; he knows all things. All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Heb. iv. 13.) Known unto God are all his works, from the foundation of the world. (Acts xv. 18.) And that this knowledge is particular as well as universal, he is said to know all the stars; he calleth them all by their names;" yea, the hairs of our head are all numbered. (Luke xii. 7.) It would be a profitable illustration of this attribute, perhaps, to consider how wise a man must be, who should know all things by a discernment of their causes. There have been men, it is said, who could look through all the possible changes in a game of chess, and by tracing beforehand, the relative operation of the whole complicated and extended movements, be, in every point, prepared to meet them. This is an astonishing effort; but how much more astonishing would it be, to suppose a man, who could look, in the same way, through all the possible changes of nature and events, from creation down to eternity! But this does, by no means, come up to God's knowledge, in as much as that he knows before hand, not only all the natural and moral changes in time, but all to the durations of eternity; and this not by investigating them, but intuitively, as if they were all before him! 8. God is omnipotent. All things which he wills, he can do; or he has all possible power. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. (Isai. xlvi. 10.) Is any thing too hard for the Lord? (Gen. xviii. 14.) Behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing; and Lebanon is not sufficient for him to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a burnt offering, Do we ask here, whether this implies that God can work contradictions? whether he can deny himself, for instance, or be guilty of a lie? The scripture has told us plainly that he cannot do these things; but this does not take away from his omnipotence, since the object of divine power is only to do those things which God wills to do. He cannot, surely, will to contradict his own perfections; but it would be a contradiction and an abatement of those perfections to suppose that God could lie. There can be no more perfect power than this, for a Being to do whatso ever he wills to do, and to have that will in favour of every perfection. And how great is this power! Divine benevolence, mercy and justice, are all infinite, and power to execute these, instantly follows the desire. "He bids the sun forbear to rise, "Mountains by his almighty wrath, "From their old seats are torn; "He shakes the earth from south to north, "And all her pillars, mourn." 9. Nearly allied to God's power, is his dominion. It only means that his rightful power is extended to all creatures; that obedience to Him throughout the universe, is not only a duty, considering the eminence of His nature and the multitude of his benefits, but that this obedience is, in some sense, render ed; that God exercises a perfect controul over all events, and will, sooner or later, bring them to subserve and promote his infinite glory and excellence. So extensive is this dominion, as to reach every event, from the falling of a leaf, to the fall of Angels from Heaven; so perfectly unfailing in every step of its progress, that at the great day of consummation, every step will appear to have been a cause, and every cause a successful one, in the grand work of setting up the everlasting and august kingdom of Jehovah. For proof that God exercises such a dominion as this, consult Job ix. 12-Daniel iv. 25 and 34. 10. In order to exercising such a dominion, another attribute seems necessary, and that is furnished: God is omnipresent. We cannot see how God could govern all things without being every where present. We think we see evidences that he is present in all things, and the heathen thought so before us. But the scriptures come in to our aid, and settle the question. They represent all things as full of God. When they extend the works of creation to vast and almost immeasurable bounds, they always place God's presence beyond them; and they represent him as searching every deep in which his enemies hide themselves, and ready to meet and confront the most distant wanderer from his throne. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there: If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. (Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8, 9, 10.) 11. We add for the last of these attributes, that God is perfectly free, or absolute. By this, it is not meant that God has no reason for his acts and counsels, or that these reasons are tyrannical and arbitrary; but that he does not seek these reasons principally out of himself: that he did not wait, as his creatures do, for contingent events to transpire, before he fixed his plan; that he had a previous plan, grounded on eternal and immutable reasons within himself; and that he has never, for a moment, been disappointed in all the steps, by which it is coming to pass. He doeth, says one, according to his will in the armies of heaven above, and among the inhabitants of this lower world. Dan. iv. 35. My counsel shall stand, saith Jehovah, and I will do all my pleasure. It is a truth, made certain from the constitution of things, that there |