SERMON IV.

ISAIAH lix. 2.

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that He will not hear.

WHAT is here asserted by Isaiah of the Israelites in particular, is true of the whole race of mankind; the cause of that separation which took place between God and his creatures was in each case the same; and wherever it continues, it continues for no other reason. To this the whole context of Revelation bears witness. When the frame of this world was finished, and all its inhabitants placed in their respective situations, the eye of its Creator rested on it with satisfaction, and his voice pronounced it good; for as his benevolence had first moved Him to give his creatures being, so the same benevolence prompted Him to make that being a source of happiness and

enjoyment. This was proof sufficient of his good-will towards them; and as there could be in him " no variableness, neither "shadow of turning," as "his gifts have "ever been without repentance" on his part, the cause, for which his favour was withdrawn, must be sought, not in Him, but in the creatures themselves. whom our Liturgy represents as

66

66

God,

hating

nothing that He has made "," and of whom an infallible authority assures us, that He has no pleasure in the death d" or misery of any individual of our species, neither restrained the current of his bounty, nor poured upon man the vial of his wrath, from any indisposition to his welfare. Far otherwise: He made him to be happy, and He wished him to be happy. That garden, called emphatically the garden of delight, in which He placed him, and which He had condescendingly planted for his use, was designed by his Almighty

a James i. 17. Bishop Bull has explained this text with great felicity and elegance. See Harmon. Apost. p. 501, &c.

b Rom. xi. 29.

c Collect in Commination Service.

d Ezek. xviii. 23-32.

.עדו e See Parkhurst in

Father to afford him every comfort which his soul could desire, and left in fact no reasonable desire unsatisfied. But, notwithstanding this clear manifestation of the Divine Will, notwithstanding all the capacity of happiness with which man was endowed, and all the provision which was made for supplying that capacity with proper materials to work upon in the amplest manner, a change, we know, did take place, and man was condemned to misery by the same Almighty Creator, who formed him at first, and formed him for happiness. The cause of this change is assigned by Revelation in the plainest and most intelligible terms; and in assigning that cause, it is consistent with itself from beginning to end. And well would it be for the peace and the virtue of man, if he could rest contented with this plain declaration of the truth; and, instead of employing himself in forming schemes and systems of subtle but perverse ingenuity, consider, with the attention it deserves, the important moral lesson which that truth is calculated to teach him. But the cu

riosity which was so fatal to our first parents, still operates with unabated violence in many of their descendants, and it is unhappily aided in its efforts by an audacity and a presumption, which could have place only in minds that have lost in a great degree a proper sense of the Divine Majesty. Thus men, in searching for the reason which induced the Almighty to change his measures towards their race, have dared to scrutinize the councils of the Most High, and to trace out those awful footsteps, which He himself has declared to be inscrutable. But human pride cannot bear that there should be any thing above its reach, and, what is worse, it cannot bear that the blame of its unhappiness should be laid upon itself. It must not only undertake to elucidate the whole counsel of God, and bring all his designs and actions to the level of its own capacity, but in doing so, it has not scrupled to make assertions which bring into question the consistency of his attributes. Assuming the Omniscience and Omnipotence of God as

g Psalm lxxvii. 19.

the basis of their reasoning, they have dared to limit his proceedings within such narrow bounds as their own minds could reach. All his designs must coincide with their plan; and whatever their arguments may have appeared to evince, that the Almighty must necessarily have decreed. But it requires surely no great measure of humility to acknowledge, that what we know only in part, we should be careful not to decide upon with presumption. "Known "unto God," certainly," are all his works " from the beginning"," and all his intentions are ever present to his mind, with all the means necessary for carrying them into effect; nor can there ever be any incompatibility between one part of the Divine economy and another. But though all

God's works and intentions are thus known to Himself, it does not follow that they are known to man; nor can they be known any further than it has pleased God to reveal them. All the reasonings of man respecting them therefore must be continually liable to error, because he is only

h Acts xv. 18.

K