that to the production of every impression on his heart, from any one revelation of God, two elements are necessary; two energies must operate together and interpenetrate, or all is vainnot only that which is objective must be given,—the sign of the Divine presence, or the voice of the Divine will; but that which is subjective must receive ;-the man himself, the self-acting spirit of humanity, must interpret the sign, must listen to the voice, must follow out the intimation. All conception, not produced by merely animal sensation, can be received only by the co-operation of the receiver: to the impressions from material nature by the senses we are passive: let the eye be open and we must see, let the ear be sound and we must hear; but to the instruction which nature would read to us, and to all the glorious truths which pass the bounds of sense, and the forms of time and space, we must be individually active: we must put forth the soul to grasp them and embrace them. Thought and wisdom cannot be poured into us, as into a vessel; they must be struck out from us as the electric spark, whose coming forth is the sign and the effect of the energy within. O, therefore, for that element of all wisdom and of all religion (for religion too is wisdom)—the thoughtful medi tative mind! to see things which are not by others seen to hear things which are not by others heard to interpret the mystic characters of God, and find Himself announced and manifested by his Works! Then will the secrets of the world be indeed unveiled to us, and we shall gain a wisdom which the indevout inquisitors of Nature know not, neither seek; we shall find, not what things are, or why they are, but what they mean to us, and what they teach us: we shall not proudly summon them before us to do our bidding, and value them only as subservient to our schemes of power and advantage; but we shall stand before them as the docile child before the awful sage, whose words, though dark and guessed at only, yet enkindle in his bosom thoughts and yearnings all unknown before-we shall listen to the whisperings which issue from their deep recesses, and we shall thus discover and adore the God in whom they centre, and whose being they so softly yet so certainly declare "Till they, still present to our outward sense, Shall vanish from our thought; and lost in prayer, We worship the Invisible alone!" SERMON III. GOD MANIFESTED BY HIS SON. JOHN 1. 18. No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. ALL mere production can indicate only the powers of the producer: it is not the representative of any moral quality. To the manifestation of character, therefore, something more is necessary. Moral action is the only adequate interpreter of moral qualities. The skill and power of a man may be sufficiently inferred from examining the work which he has made; but this conveys to us no information as to his disposition and character. These require a specific and more declarative manifestation; a disclosure from and by the man himself. While, therefore, to declare the Being, and the Power of the great Creator, it is enough for mute unintellectual Nature to awaken our inquiry and reflection to reveal his Moral Character, his mind and heart, there needs a far more glorious Manifester, an Agent not material and voiceless, but akin to Him who is to be revealed, an effluence from Himself.* And accordingly, while the being, the authority, and power of God are manifested by the things which He has made, it is only by a spiritual emanation that He can disclose his mind and will and this spiritual disclosure He has made in Him who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person who came forth from the inscrutable recesses of Deity, the outward Representative of the inward Mind: God of God, Light of light, *"If any man shall think, by view and inquiry into sensible and material things, to attain to any light for the revealing of the nature or will of God, he shall dangerously abuse himself. It is true, that the contemplation of the creatures of God hath for end, as to the nature of the creatures themselves, knowledge; but as to the nature of God, no knowledge, but wonder: which is nothing else but contemplation broken off, or losing itself. . . . Therefore attend his will as himself openeth it, and give unto faith that which unto faith belongeth; for more worthy it is to believe than to think or know." -BACON. - very God of very God; the Son of the Father: the Word: the intelligible declaration of the otherwise unintelligible Will. "No one," says our text, no created being-" hath seen God at any time; but the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father," He who was God, and with God, "He hath declared Him;" has become his Manifester; acted as his Interpreter ;* come forth from the inaccessible throne of the mysterious Godhead, the Priest and Mediator of his will. That which is not Himself, that which is created only-mute material Nature, may proclaim his Power; but Himself alone, that which is generated from Him, his co-equal, co-eternal Son, can declare his Mind and heart. And hence, therefore, I believe, that every manifestation of the Divine will, before the foundation of the world, as well as in the world, has been by and through his Word: -his only begotten Son. HE was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; and by Him has all direct communication, through every age, to Adam, and Abraham, and the Patriarchs, and to Moses, and David, and the Prophets, been conveyed. He is the Image of the invisible God; the representative of Him whom no one hath seen, nor * Εκεινος εξηγησατο. |