CHAPTER EIGHTH. ON THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD. SECTION FIRST. WE can neither understand the nature of man, nor the nature of God. Into these mysteries it were alike idle and presumptuous to inquire. But there are certain facts revealed in Scripture respecting the Creator, and respecting man, his creature. Man, we are told, subsists on earth, in soul, body, and spirit. When called upon to pass through death into another region, he does not become "unclothed, but clothed upon," with a material frame, as exemplified in the case of Moses, when he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, so as to be recognised as a man. Still further our attention is directed to an ulterior change, when the redemption of the body shall be accomplished. Under these varied appearances is man exhi bited in the Word of God: and in all of them his unity as an intelligent agent is connected with complexity in the mode of his existence. His soul we cannot contemplate in the light of Scrip ture, apart from the material frame with which it is clothed; and his personal oneness, in what ever it may consist, is inseparable, in as far we know, from plurality in the mode of his being Of this mode we cannot form a distinct, and fr less an adequate idea. The mind of man, as we believe, is an indiv sible essence, distinct from matter, and the su ject of various phenomena, to which we ascribe complexity, dissimilar to that which is produce in the union of substances to form a physic body. The difficulty of comprehending how this states of mind are produced, is increased not little by the connexion of mind with the maters frame, in constituting an individual human bein He is fearfully and wonderfully made. T nerves that supply the organs by which he move are distinct, in their origin, from those which car municate sensation. This is a remarkable d covery; and scientific men were astonished whe it was pointed out by Sir Charles Bell, and oth physiologists, that the anterior and posterior nal nerves, notwithstanding their origin from organ that appears entirely homogeneous, pë form functions so opposite as those of motion and sensation. We learn further from the records of medicine, that certain states, or in other words, certain powers of the mind, are more intimately connected with particular portions of the brain han others. We find that an injury done to a particular part of the brain, whether by disease or otherwise, prevents the manifestation of one tate of the mind, or the display of one of its powers, whilst all the rest are exhibited as in orlinary cases. All this is very wonderful, and bsolutely confounding. We believe in the unity f a human being as an individual intelligence ; ut, in what personal identity consists we do not The determination of this question trancends human ability. Although we have no Fine of sufficient length to go to the depth of this ubject, we do not prostrate our understanding in naking this acknowledgment. We simply make becoming admission, that the definition of han's identity is not within the province of hu now. han reason. Even if we were able to determine the mode f man's subsistence, we should not be entitled, rom our knowledge in this respect, to infer the hode of the Divine subsistence. Any inference f this kind would be equally daring and false : nd from presumption of this kind we keep at |