visions are thus made for humility, faith, and gratitude, and these cannot but terminate in Christian obedience, for they constitute the foundation of Christian virtue.

One further remark is induced by the narrative before us, and it connects itself with the history of Christianity and the world. We look on the progress of truth with an interest arising from a knowledge of its importance. We, behold with concern the obstacles from without, and the weakness within, that appear in its progress and extension on earth-and to a certain degree we do well. We are not warranted so to detach events from the ordinary and settled course of things, as would tend to weaken the inducements to our own exertion, and involve the notion of contradiction in the divine economy-for the general laws of cause and effect are no less the ordinations of Deity than those occasional deviations which we denominate miraculous. But, whatever be the multifarious appearances which present themselves, the issue of all is under one controul; and, through the cloudy medium that divides eternity from eternity, the designs of an omnipotent God are rolling on to their consummation. Sometimes the agency of human power is employed in effecting their mysterious purpose; sometimes the very weakness of mortal infirmity

is made to display the energies of an immortal Supreme. Sometimes the opposition of inveterate malice is permitted to exhaust itself against them, in order to expose its own insignificance or unintentionally to administer to their inevitable accomplishment. When the Saviour of the world is to die for its redemption, the representative of Roman power bears witness to his innocence but cannot interpose to prevent his death.' When the warfare is ended, and the victory atchieved, neither the strictness of Roman discipline, nor the precautions of Jewish art can impede his resurrection, or conceal his triumph. And when the tidings of his Salvation are to be proclaimed abroad, it is in vain that," the kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers take counsel together." The subterfuges of the Priests confirm his ascension-the wisdom of Gamaliel procures an opportunity for its assertion-the martyrdom of Stephen disperses its harbingers. And, when the co-operation of its two most laborious advocates is no longer necessary to its establishment, their very dispute is made the occasion of extending more widely the inestimable blessings of its promulgation and influence: so that in the revolutions of a few

1 Matt. xxvii. 24. 4 Acts v. 34.

2 Ibid. 65-66.

5

Acts xi. 19.

3 Matt. xxviii. 13.

short years, "the foolishness of preaching" is seen to prevail; and the pride of philosophy, and the might of eloquence, and the pomp of superstition, and the majesty of imperial Rome, crumble away before the mystery of the cross, or bow, and kiss the yoke of the crucified Nazarene.

This view of the subordination of human means to the omnipotence of celestial grace, associating itself with the efforts of voluntary agents, and performing it own decrees through the unconscious instrumentality of their volitions, seems like a beam falling on that awful gulf, which stretches between the sovreignty of God, and the freedom of his responsible creatures; as if to quiet four restless apprehensions, and partially illumine "the palpable obscure" as if to shew us that the various portions of sacred truth, however irreconcileable they may seem to human intelligence, are all united in the boundlessness of the divine nature; that between these landmarks of Revelation, separated by a distance immeasurable to mortal eye, rolls the vast ocean of God's eternal mercy, pouring along its silent but resistless tide, and embracing the extremities of either shore with its dark, mysterious, and unfathomable wave.