I wonder how human capacities, contracted as they are within limits so narrow, dare be so bold as to prescribe bounds to their Creator, and to restrain his intelligence within their own sphere. If it were allowable to advance any thing upon the most abstract subject that can be proposed, I would venture to say that it is highly probable, that the same depth of divine intelligence, which conceived the ideas of body and spirit, conceives other ideas without end: it is highly probable, that possibility (if I may be allowed to say so); has no other bounds than the infinite knowledge of the Supreme Being. What an unfathomable depth of meditation, my brethren! to glance at it is to confound one's self. What would our perplexity be if we should attempt to enter it? The knowledge of all possible beings, diversified without end by the same intelligence that imagines them: what designs, or, as our prophet expresses himself, what greatness of counsel' does it afford the Supreme Being!

But let us not lose ourselves in the world of possible beings; let us confine our attention to real existences: I am willing even to reduce them to the two classes, which are just now mentioned. Let each of you imagine, my brethren, as far as his ability can reach, how great the counsel of an intelligence must be, who perfectly knows all that can result from the various arrangements of matter, and from the different modifications of mind.

What greatness of counsels must there be in an intelligence, who perfectly knows all that can result from the various arrangements of matter? What is matter? What is body? It is a being divisible into parts, which parts may be variously arranged without end, and from which as many different bodies may arise, as there can be diversities in the arrangement of their parts. Let us proceed from small things to great. Put a grain of wheat to a little earth, warm that earth with the rays of the sun, and the grain of wheat will become an ear laden with a great many grains like that which produces them. Give the parts of these grains an arrangement different from that which they had in the ear, separate the finer from the coarser parts, mix a few drops of water with the former, and ye will procure a paste: produce a small alteration of the parts of this paste, and it will become bread: let the bread be bruised with the teeth, and it will become flesh, bone, blood, and so on. The same reasoning, that we have applied to a grain of wheat, may be applied to a piece of gold, or a bit of clay, and we know what a multitude of arts in society have been produced by the knowledge which mankind have obtained of the different arrangements of which matter is capable.

But mankind can perceive only one point of matter; a point placed between two infinites; an infinitely great, and an infinitely small. Two sorts of bodies exist besides those that are the objects of our senses, one sort is infinitely great, the other infinitely small. Those enormous masses of matter, of which we have only a glimpse, are bodies infinitely great, such as the sun, the stars, and an endless number of worlds in the immensity of space, to us indeed imperceptible, but the existence of which, however, we are obliged to allow.

Bodies infinitely small are those minute particles of matter, which are too fine and subtle to be subject to our experiments, and seem to us to have no solidity, only because our senses are too gross to discover them, but which lodge an infinite number of organized beings

Having laid down these indisputable data, let us see what may be argued from them. If the knowledge that men have obtained of one portion of matter, and a few different arrangements of which it is capable, has produced a great number of arts that make society flourish, and without the help of which life itself would be a burden; what would follow if they could discover all matter? What would follow their knowledge of those other bodies, which now absorb their capacities by their greatness, and escape their experiments by their littleness? What would follow if they could obtain adequate ideas of the various arrangements of which the parts of bodies infinitely great, and those of bodies infinitely small, are capable? What secrets! what arts! what an infinite source of supplies would that knowledge become?

Now this, my brethren, is the knowledge of the Supreme Being. The Supreme Being knows as perfectly all bodies infinitely great, and all bodies infinitely small, as he knows those bodies between both, which are the objects of human knowledge. The Supreme Being perfectly knows what must result from every different arrangement of the parts of bodies infinitely small; and he perfectly knows what must result from every different arrangement of the parts of bodies infinitely great. What treasures of plans! what myriads of designs! or, to use the language of my text, what greatness of counsel must this knowledge supply!

But God knows spirits also as perfectly as he knows bodies. If he knows all that must result from the various arrangements of matter, he also knows all that must result from the different modifications of mind. Let us pursue the same method in this article that we have pursued in the former; let us proceed from small things to great ones. One of the greatest advantages that a man can acquire over other men with whom he is con nected, is a knowledge of their different capacities, the various passions that govern them, and the multiform projects that run in their minds. This kind of knowledge forms profound politicians, and elevates them above the rest of mankind. The same observation, that we have made of the superiority of one politician over another politician, we may apply to one citizen compared with another citizen. The interest which we have in discovering the designs of our neighbours in a city, a house, or a family, is in the little what policy among princes and potentates is in the great world.

But as I just now said of the material world, that we knew only one point, which was placed between two undiscoverable infinites, an infinitely great, and infinitely small; so I say of the world of spirits: an infinite number of spirits exist, which, in regard to us, are some of them infinitely minute, and others infinitely grand. We are ignorant of the manner of their existence; we hardly know whether

they do exist. We are incapable of determining whether they have any influence over our happiness, or, if they have, in what their influence consists: so that in this respect we are absolutely incapable of counsel.

But God the Supreme Being knows the intelligent world as perfectly as he knows the material world. Human spirits, of which we have but an imperfect knowledge, are thoroughly known to him. He knows the conceptions of our minds, the passions of our hearts, all our purposes, and all our powers. The conceptions of our minds are occasioned by the agitation of our brains; God knows when the brain will be agitated, and when it will be at rest, and before it is agitated he knows what determinations will be produced by its motion: consequently he knows all the conceptions of our minds. Our passions are excited by the presence of certain objects; God knows when those objects will be present, and consequently he knows whether we shall be moved with desire or aversion, hatred or love. When our passions are excited we form certain purposes to gratify them, and these purposes will either be effected or defeated according that degree of natural or civil power which God has given us. God, who gave us our degree of power, knows how far it can go; and consequently he knows not only what purposes we form, but what power we have to execute them.

But what is this object of the divine knowledge? What is this handful of mankind, in comparison of all the other spirits that compose the whole intelligent world, of which we are only an inconsiderable part? God knows them as he knows us; and he diversifies the counsels of his own wisdom according to the different thoughts, deliberations, and wishes, of these different spirits. What a depth of knowledge, my brethren! What greatness of counsel! Ah, Lord God, behold thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. The great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is thy name, thou art great in counsel.'

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We have proved then, by considering the divine perfections, that God is great in counsel, and we shall endeavour to prove by the same method, that he is mighty in work.

These two, wisdom and power, are not always united; yet it is on their union that the happiness of intelligent beings depends. It would be often better to be quite destitute of both, than to possess one in a very great, and the other in a very small degree. Wisdom very often serves only to render him miserable, who is destitute of power; as power often becomes a source of misery to him who is destitute of wisdom.

Have ye never observed, my brethren, that people of the finest and most enlarged geniuses, have often the least success of any people in the world? This may appear at first sight very unaccountable, but a little attention will explain the mystery. A narrow contracted mind usually concentres itself in one single object: it wholly employs itself in forming projects of happiness proportional to its own capacity, and as its capacity is extremely

shallow, it easily meets with the means of executing them. But this is not the case with a man of superior genius, whose fruitful fancy forms notions of happiness grand and sublime. He invents noble plans, involuntarily gives himself up to his own chimeras, and derives a pleasure from these ingenious shadows, which for a few mo ments, compensate for their want of substance: but when his reverie is over, he finds real beings inferior to ideal ones, and thus his genius serves to make him miserable. A man is much to be pitied in my opinion, when the pe netration of his mind, and the fruitfulness of his invention, furnish him with ideas of a delightful society cemented by a faithful, solid, and delicate friendship. Recall him to this world, above which his imagination had just now raised him; consider him among men, who know nothing of friendship but its name, or who have at best only a superficial knowledge of it, and ye will be convinced that the art of inventing is often the art of self-tormenting, or, as I said before, that greatness of counsels destitute of abundance of power is a source of infelicity.

It is just the same with abundance of power without greatness of counsels. What does it avail to possess great riches, to reign over a great people, to command formidable fleets and armies, when this power is not accompa nied with wisdom?

In God, the Supreme Being, there is a perfect harmony of wisdom and power: the efficiency of his will, and the extent of his knowledge are equal. But I own I am afraid, were I to pursue my meditation, and to attempt to establish this proposition by proofs taken from the divine nature, that I should lose, if not myself, at least one part of my hearers, by aiming to conduct them into a world, with which they are entirely unacquainted. However, I must say, that with reluctance I make this sacrifice, for I suppress speculations, which would afford no small degree of pleasure to those who could pursue them. It is delightful to elevate our souls in meditating on the grandeur of God; and although God 'dwelleth in a light which no man can approach unto,' 1 Tim. vi. 16. although it is impossible for feeble mortals to have a free access to him; yet it is pleasing to endeavour to diminish the distance that separates them. I cannot but think, that without presuming too much upon natural reason, any one who habituates himself to consult it, may assure himself of finding sufficient evidence of this truth, that the efficiency of God's will is equal to the extensiveness of his ideas, and by close and necessary consequence, that he is as mighty in work as he is great in counsel.

plars, or models, or the attributes of creatures, caused their existence. The Supreme Being therefore, who is great in counsel,' is 'mighty in work.'

This being granted, consider now the ocean of God's power, as ye have already considered the greatness of his counsel. God not only knows what motion of your brain will excite such or such an idea in your mind, but he excites or prevents that idea as he pleases, because he produces or prevents that motion of your brain as he pleases. God not only knows what objects will excite certain passions within you, but he excites or diverts those passions as he pleases. God not only knows what projects your passions will produce, when they have gained an ascendancy over you, but he inclines you to form, or not to form, such projects, because as it seems best to him, he excites those passions, or he curbs them.

What we affirm of men, we affirm also of all other intelligent beings: they are no less the objects of the knowledge of God than men, and like them, are equally subject to his efficient will: and hence it is that God knows how to make all fulfil his designs. It is by this that he makes every thing subservient to his glory; Herod and Pilate, our hatred and our love, our aversions and our desires; the ten thousand times ten thousand intelligences, some of which are superior to us, and others inferior, all that they are, all that they have, the praises of the blessed and the blasphemies of the damned, all by this mean are instrumental in the execution of his designs, because the determinations of his will are efficient, because to will and to do, to form a plan and to have the power of executing it, is the same thing with the Supreme Being, with him whose ideas were the only models of the attributes of all creatures, as his will was the only cause of their existence.

But perhaps I am falling into what I meant to avoid; perhaps I am bewildering my hearers and myself in speculative labyrinths too intricate for us all. Let us reason then no longer on the nature of God; this object is too high for us: let us take another method, (and here I allege the second proof of the truth of my text, that is, the history of the world, or as I said before, the history of the church) let us take, I say, another method of proving that God who is great in counsel, is also mighty in work. What counsel can ye imagine too great for God to execute, or which he hath not really executed? Let the most fruitful imagination exert its fertility to the utmost; let it make every possible effort to form plans worthy of an infinite intelligence, it can invent nothing so difficult that God has not realized.

It should seem, according to our manner of reasoning, that greatness of wisdom and sufficiency of power never appear in greater harmony in an intelligent being, than when that intelligence produces effects by means, in all appearance, more likely to produce contrary effects. This, we are sure, God has effected, and does effect every day. And, that we may proportion this discourse, not to the extent of my subject, but to the length of these exercises, we will briefly remark, that God has

the power of making, 1. The deepest afflictions of his children produce their highest happiness. 2. The contrivances of tyrants to oppress the church procure its establishment. 3. The triumphs of Satan turn to the destruction of his empire.

1. God has the power of making the deepest of his children's afflictions produce their highest happiness.

The felicity of the children of God, and, in general, the felicity of all intelligent beings, is founded upon order. All happiness that is not founded upon order is a violent state, and must needs be of a short duration. But the essence of order, among intelligent beings, is the assigning of that place in their affections to every relative being which is fit for it. Now there is a fitness in having a higher es teem for a being of great excellencies, than for one of small. There is a fitness in my having a higher degree of affection for one from whom I have received more benefits, and from whom I still expect to receive more, than for one from whom I have received, and still hope to receive, fewer. But God is a being of the highest excellence; to God, therefore, I owe the highest degree of esteem. God is the being from whom I have received the most benefits, and from whom I expect to receive the most; consequently to God I owe the highest degree of affectionate gratitude.

Yet, how often do the children of God lose sight of this grand principle? I do not speak only of a few absent moments, in which the power of thought and reflection is, in a manner, gone; nor do I mean only those violent passions which criminal objects excite: I speak of a poison much less sensible, and therefore perhaps much more dangerous. We will give you one example out of many.

Two pious persons enter into the honourable state of marriage on principles of virtue, and compose a family that reveres the Creator by considering him as the only source of all the blessings which they enjoy. Their happiness consists in celebrating the beneficence and perfections of the adorable God, and all their possessions they devote to his glory. He blesses their union by multiplying those who compose it, and their children imbibe knowledge and virtue from the womb. The parents taste the most delicious pleasure in the world, in cultivating the promising geniuses of their children, and in seeing the good grain, which they sow in a field favour. ed of Heaven, produce in one thirty, in another sixty, in another a hundred fold;' and they delight themselves with the hopes of giving one child to the state, and another to the church; this to an art, and that to a science, and thus of enriching society with the most valuable of all treasures, virtuous and capable citizens. All on a sudden this delicious union is impoisoned and dissolved; this amiable fondness is interrupted; those likely projects are disconcerted: an unexpected catastrophe sweeps away that fortune, by which alone their designs for their family could have been accomplished; the child of their greatest hopes is cut down in the beginning of his race; the head of the family expires at a time in which his life is most necessary to it. A disconsolate widow, a helpless family, ex

posed to every danger, are the sad remains of à house just now a model of the highest human happiness, and, in all appearance, of the purest piety. Is not this the depth of misery?

From this depth of misery, however, arises the highest felicity. The prosperity, of which we have been speaking, was so much the more dangerous by how much the more innocent it appeared; for if the persons in question had founded it in vice; they would have quickly forsaken it, as wholly incompatible with their pious principles; but, as they had founded it in piety, there is great reason to fear they had placed too much of their happiness in earthly prosperity, and that it had almost entirely engaged the attention of their minds, and set bounds to the desires of their hearts. But what is it to engage the mind too much in temporal prosperity? It is to lose sight of God, our chief good, in a world where at best we can obtain but an imperfect knowledge of him. What is it to confine the desires of our hearts to earthly happiness? It is to forget our best interest in a world, where, when we have carried that love which God so abundantly merits, to the highest pitch, we can offer him but a very imperfect service. Every object that produces such an effect, occupies a place in the heart which is due to none but God. And while any other fills the seat of God in the heart, we may indeed have a kind of happiness, but it must be a happiness contrary to order; it is violent and must be short. I am aware that the loss will be bitter in the same degree as the enjoyments had been sweet; but the bitterness will produce ineffable pleasures, infinitely preferable to all those that have been taken away. It will reclaim us again to God, the only object worthy of our love, the alone fountain of all our felicity. This may be inferred from many declarations of Scripture, and from the lives of many exemplary saints, as well as from your own experience, if, indeed, my dear hearers, when God has torn away the objects of your tenderest affection, ye have been so wise as to make this use of your losses, to re-establish order in your hearts, and to give that place to God in your souls which the object held of which ye have been deprived.

2. God establishes his church by the very means that tyrants use to destroy it. But the reflections which naturally belong to this article, ye heard a few weeks ago, when we explained these words in the Revelation,

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Here is the patience of the saints,* Rev. xiii. 10. We endeavoured then to prevent the gloomy fears that might be occasioned in your minds by those new edicts, which Rome, always intent upon making the kings of the earth drunk with her fornication,' Rev. xvii. 2. had extorted against your brethren. We exhorted you, in the greatest tribulations of the church, never to lose sight of that Divine Providence which watches to preserve it.

We reminded you of some great truths which proceeded from the mouth of God himself; such as, that the Assyrian was only the

This is the seventh sermon of the twelfth vol. and is entitled, Le Nouveaux Malheurs de l'Eglise.

rod of his anger,' Isa. x. 5. that Herod and Pilate did only what his hand and his counsel determined before to be done,' Acts iv. 27, 28. These truths should be always in our minds; for there never was a time when we had more need to meditate on them. The distresses of our brethren seem to be past remedy. To incorporate our felicity with that of a church, a considerable part of which has been so long bathed in tears, seems as irrational as the conduct of Jeremiah, who, just before the dissolution of Judea, purchased an estate in that devoted country with the money which he wanted to alleviate his captivity in Babylon. Yet, 'O Lord God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, is there any thing too hard for thee? Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power, and by thy stretched-out arm. Thou art the great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is thy name; great in counsel, and mighty in work,* Numb. xvi. 22.

3. Finally, God turns the victories of Satan to the ruin of his empire. Here fix your attention upon the work of redemption, for the perfections of God, which we celebrate to-day, are more illustriously displayed in it than in any other of the Creator's wonders. It is, if I may be allowed to express myself so, the utmost effort of the concurrence of the greatness of his counsels with the abundance of his power. I resume this subject, not for the sake of filling up my plan, but because my text cannot be well explained without it. Those inspired writers, who lived under the Old Testament dispensation, always mixed something of the gospel redemption with the temporal deliverances which they foretold. One of the strongest reasons that they urged to convince the Jewish exiles that God would restore their country to them, was that their return was essential to the accomplishment of the promises relating to the Messiah. Jeremiah particularly uses this method in the verses which are connected with the text. Why does he exalt the greatness of God's counsel, and the abundance of his power? Is it only because, as he expresses it, God would gather the Jews out of all countries whither he had driven them in his fury,' Jer. xxxii. 37. so that men should buy fields in the places about Jerusalem? No, but it is because he would make an everlasting covenant with them,' Jer. xxxii. 40. It is because at that time he would cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David,' Jer. xxxiii. 15. Who is this branch? It is he of whom our prophet had before spoken in the twenty-third chapter of his prophecy, ver. 5.

Behold the days come that I will raise unto David a righteous branch.' It is he of whom Isaiah said, 'The branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious,' Isa. iv. 2. It is he whom God promised by Zechariah, after the captivity, in order to convince the Jews that the promises concerning the branch had not been accomplished by their release: 'Behold the man whose name is The Branch, he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord,' Zech. vi. 12. It is he whom the Jews themselves have acknowledged for the Messiah. It is the holy seed who was promised to man after the fall, and

who has been the object of the church's hope in all ages. It is eminently in behalf of this branch that God has displayed, as I said before, in all their grandeur, the abundance of his power, and the greatness of his counsel. I do not speak here of that counsel, which has been from all eternity, in the intelligence of God, touching the redemption of mankind. My capacity is absorbed, I own, in contemplating so grand an object, and to admire and to exclaim seem more suitable to our finite minds than to attempt to fathom such a prodigious depth; for where is the genius that can form adequate ideas of a subject so profound A God, who, from all eternity, formed the plan of this universe: a God, who, from all eternity, foresaw whatever would result from its arrangement: a God, who, from all eternity, resolved to create mankind, although he knew from all eternity that they would fall into sin, and plunge themselves into everlasting miseries: but a God, who, foreseeing from all eternity the malady, from all eternity provided the remedy: a God, who, from everlasting determined to clothe his Son in mortal flesh, and to send him into the world: a God, who, according to the language of Scripture, slew, in his design from all eternity, the lamb Rev. xiii. 8. But, I repeat it again, my brethren, it better becomes such feeble minds as ours to admire and to exclaim, than to attempt to fathom. Let us content ourselves with beholding in the execution of this divine plan, how the victories of Satanhave subverted his empire.

What a victory for Satan, when that Redeemer, that king Messiah, whose advent had been announced with so much pomp and magnificence, appeared in a form so mean, and so inferior to the expectations which the prophecies had occasioned, and to the extraordinary work for which he came into the world, when he lodged in a stable, and lay in a manger!

What a triumph for Satan, when Jesus had no attendants but a few forlorn fishermen, and a few publicans, as contemptible as their master!

What a victory for Satan, when Jesus was apprehended as a malefactor, dragged from one tribunal to another, and, in fine, condemned by his judges to die!

What a victory had Satan obtained, when the object of Israel's hopes was nailed to an accursed tree, and there ended a life, upon which seemed to depend the salvation of mankind!

What a triumphant victory for Satan, when he had inspired the nation of the risen Redeemer to treat the report of his resurrection as an imposture, and to declare an everlasting war against him in the persons of all who durst declare in his favour!

But, however, the more impracticable the redemption of mankind seemed, the more did God display the greatness of his counsel, and the abundance of his power, in effecting it; for he turned all the triumphs of Satan to the destruction of his dominion.

The Branch was lodged in a stable, the king of the universe did lie in a manger; but a star in the heavens announced his birth, angels conducted worshippers to him from the

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most distant eastern countries, and joined their own adorations to those of the wise men, who offered to him their gold, their frankincense, and their myrrh.

His attendants were only a few fishermen and publicans; but this served the more effectually to secure his doctrine from the most odious objections that could be opposed against it. The meaner the vessel appears, the more excellent seems the treasure contained in it: the weaker the instruments employed in building the church appear, the more evident will the ability of the builder be. These fishermen confounded philosophers; these publicans struck the Rabbins dumb; the winds and the waves were subject to their authority; and to their commands all the powers of nature were seen to bow.

He was apprehended like a malefactor, and crucified; but upon the cross he bruised the serpent's head, while Satan vaunted of bruising his heel, Gen. iii. 15. Upon the cross 'he spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,' Col. ii. 15.

He was wrapped in burying clothes, laid on a bier, and, with all the mournful furniture of death, deposited in a tomb; but by this he conquered death, and disarmed him of his sting, 1 Cor. xv. 56. By this he furnished thee, Christian, with armour of proof against the attacks of the tyrant, who would enslave thee, and whose formidable approaches have caused thee so many fears.

He was rejected by his own countrymen, even after he had risen victorious from the tomb, laden with the spoils of the king of terrors,' Job xviii. 15; but their rejection of him animated his apostles to shake off the dust from their feet against those execrable men, who, after they had murdered the Master, endeavoured to destroy the disciples, and put them upon lifting up the standard of the cross in every other part of the universe, and thus the heathen world was bound to his triumphal chariot, and the whole earth saw the accomplishment of those prophecies which had foretold that he should reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.' great the counsel! my dear brethren, how mighty the work! Ah, Lord God, there is nothing too hard for thee.' Thou art, the great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is thy name, great in counsel and mighty in

work.'

How

Here we may pause, and very properly come to a conclusion of this discourse; for, though we proposed at first to consider the greatness of God's counsel and the omnipotence of his working,' in a practical light, after having examined them speculatively, yet, I think the examination of the subject in one point of light, is the explication of it in both. When we have proved that God is great in counsel, and mighty in work,' in my opinion, we have sufficiently shown, on the one hand, the extravagance of those madmen, who, in the language of the Wise Man, pretend to exercise wisdom and understanding, and counsel, against the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 20. and on the other, the wisdom of those, who, taking his laws for the only rules of their conversation, commit their peace, their lives, and