(Preached in America.) What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. John, xiii. 7. One of the earliest principles in the soul of man is a desire of knowledge. This often ac quires considerable strength before reason has shaken off its infant weakness. Indeed it is this which insensibly leads us on to improve and perfect our reason, which by the present satisfaction it affords encourages us to seek, and renders us capable of receiving instruction. So long as this is restricted within proper bounds, and directed to proper objects, there is not in the mind of man a more delightful or more useful inclination ; the pleasures it yields are without number ; the field of know ledge hath no end ; and in almost every part of it springs up some plant not only gratifying to the eye and cheering to the heart, but use ful to the life. The desire of knowledge is a means of attaining to the true wisdom, a means to enlighten the conscience and enlarge the capacity, to lead us to see the all-wise, the all-merciful God in each even of these his lower works. It is true that this source of lasting pleasure may by accident give us much pain, if our desires fix on improper objects on any of those parts of knowledge which, as they were not designed for man in this lower station, cannot be obtained by him till his removal into another ; or if his desire even of know ing his Creator extend beyond the limits of his capability. He who employs his search even on the ways of the Almighty, and will not be contented till he has found them out to perfection, will not be satisfied on this side of the grave. For what human soul, clogged with this tabernacle of clay, can find out the Eternal to perfection ? No, we must believe

what God himself affirms of his own dispen sations, " What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." This declaration, though uttered by our blessed Lord upon a particular occasion to one of his disciples, may, if rightly understood and duly remembered, be of great benefit to all Christians. Should a perplexing thought arise in any of our hearts respecting any of the ways of God, or the reasons of them, should our minds be troubled because unable to com prehend them, we may immediately silence them with the reflection this is an unavoidable evil ; what God doeth, thou knowest not now ;" or rather it is no evil at all, for " thou shalt know hereafter." Man cannot understand, First, how the infinite God operates in num berless cases ; Secondly, why things are done by him which he is fully sensible are done. After illustrating a few instances of our ig norance, I intend, thirdly, to offer some reasons why we may suppose this ignorance to be our portion, and wherefore the Almighty has been pleased to ordain that, respecting most of his ways, we cannot know them till hereafter. First, we cannot know how it is that the Supreme Governor holds the world in its pre sent state ; " how he spreadeth the north over the empty space, and suspendeth the earth upon nothing ;" " how he teacheth the sun his cer tain seasons, and maketh the moon still to know her going down ;" how he sustaineth those other great lights which continually float in the firmament of heaven ; how he balanceth them, so that no force can shake them, and so arranges their innumerable armies that every one keeps his appointed station, and constantly runs the appointed race ; that though each of them has moved so many thousands of years, with such inconceivable swiftness, yet each preserves its due rank and equal dis tance from all others ; that amidst the variety of their motions there is the utmost regularity no injury, no confusion, but all is order, har mony, and peace. It is certain that those who are too wise to

own they know nothing about it will affirm that all this is done by a power unknown to the old philosophers ; that this power connects the universe together, and all the hosts of heaven keep their courses because they conti nually gravitate with such a determinate force towards each other. How clearly do these people explain the ways of God ! how satis factorily do they declare the thing as it is ! We allow that all things gravitate with a force proportioned to their quantity of matter. That this is done we know, but we ask how' it is done? We inquire what this gravity is? what is this secret chain by which all parts of the universe are so firmly and durably con nected ? what is the universal spring to which all earth and heaven submit ? this attraction, this tendency in every natural body to ap proach to every other ? We know it is the law of nature, we discern it is the hand of Omnipotence, and here our knowledge ends. Secondly, not that we need ascend to heaven or down to the deep, for instances of the ignorance of man in the ways of God. They are nigh thee even in thy heart, nay, in

the most inconsiderable, the most obvious parts of thy own frame. Who knoweth how thy soul is retained in life ( how the Most High God encloseth spirit in matter ? how he has so intimately united two substances of natures so totally different? how He who established it at first, still preserves that exact dependence of one on the other ? Who knows how the thought of his inmost soul immediately strikes the outward part of this earthly body, and how a consciousness in the mind of having done any thing amiss instantly spreads a blush over the cheek, and a prick of a needle on the hand immediately occasions a painful sensation .in the soul ? Man is a mystery to himself. That God does work wonderfully within him he knows, but the manner of the operation he cannot know ; it is too wonderful for his pre sent capacity. Whether he surveys his hand or heart or head, he sees innumerable footsteps of the Almighty ; but vainly does he attempt to trace them to their spring : " clouds and dark" ness are round about it." As unsuccessfully may man attempt to search out how this -infinite Being operates in the

10i works of grace. The springs whence we de rive spiritual life are at least as unsearchable as those of the natural. That it is the Divine Spirit " who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure," experience and reason and Scripture convince every sincere inquirer ; but how he worketh this in us, who shall explain ? who can point out the particular methods of divine operation ? This indeed we know, that when the pas. sions are calm, and our souls are tranquil, then chiefly the Spirit of God loves to move upon the face of the waters ; yet are we not able to understand how it moves. Darkness is upon the face of the deep ; " the wind bloweth," as our blessed Lord has said, " where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth." If there be any particular work of the Holy Spirit which we can less comprehend than the rest, it seems to be his influencing one person in answer to the prayers of another: that he does pour a large measure of his blessed influ ence upon us at the request of those in whom he is well pleased, he hath afforded us sufficient ground to believe in several places of Holy Scripture. It was at the intercession of Moses that the Almighty spared the Israelites when they had made the golden calf, withheld the pesti lence which he threatened to inflict when they brought up an evil report of the promised land, and restored Miriam when punished with leprosy. When the arm of king Jeroboam (which was stretched out to seize ' a prophet for de claring the judgments of God) was dried up, it was at the prayer of the same prophet he was healed. When the son of the widow of Sarepta died, Elijah cried unto the Lord, and said, " O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again," and the petition was granted. The son of the Shunamite was also restored to hfe at the entreaty of the prophet Elisha ; and it was the intercession of Job which ob

tained pardon from God for his misjudging friends. The New Testament is also full of instances of the efficacy of prayer, and we are encouraged further by the express declaration of St. James, P The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much;" but how it avails we cannot explain. How the most wise God acts upon us in consequence of the prayers of our friends, the manner of his returning the inter cession of the one into the bosom of the other, we cannot know. Nor yet is the manner whereby God acts in any of these particulars more perfectly un known to the wisest of men than are the rea sons whereon he acts upon others. To produce a few instances of this truth was the second thing proposed, to mention some things of which we cannot say why, though we know they are done. And first, we cannot say why the Omni potent God suffered evil to have a place in his creation. Why, he who is so infinitely good himself, who made all things " very good," and who rejoices in the good of all his crea tures, permitted what is so entirely contrary to his own nature, and so destructive of his own works. is sin, and its attendant pain, permitted to exist in the world i has beena question ever since the world begun ; and the world will probably end before human understandings have answered it with any certainty. It has indeed been well observed, that all evil' is either natural, moral, or penal ; that natural evil or pain is no evil at all if it be overbalanced with subsequent pleasure ; that moral evil, or sin, cannot possibly befall any one unless those who make it their choice ; and that penal evil, or punishment, can only de volve upon such as secure it for their portion, by voluntarily committing sin. This entirely removes all imputation on the justice and goodness of God, since it never can be proved that it is contrary to either of these attributes to bestow upon his crea tures the liberty of embracing either good or evil, to place happiness or misery in their own power, and to give them the choice of life or death.

But still this does not solve the question an omniscient and merciful God gave them this choice? It is incontrovertible in so doing he did not act contrary to any of his divine attributes ; but can we venture to affirm that it would have been contrary to them to have acted otherwise ? to have prede termined man to obedience? to have con strained him to be happy, and given him no choice of misery ? Perfectly consistent it was with his goodness and justice to set life and death before his creatures ; but would it have been inconsistent with either to have permitted them to know only life ? Why the supreme Disposer of all things chose one of these me thods rather than the other, can blind and feeble man presume to judge ? The All Wise could not act without infinite wisdom, however it be hidden from finite comprehension. Man cannot attain to such knowledge, or fathom the councils of the Most High ; but doubtless in another state they will be unfolded, and fully justify the ways of God to man. Nor can we here understand why, among those who choose happiness, the Almighty makes the difference which we see he does make. Why he appointeth to one ten talents, to another five, to another one ; and that these, if improved, shall bring a proportioned reward. Not that he hath 'so limited any of his ra tional creatures, but that each may attain an inconceivable degree of happiness ; and more or less of it every one will attain according to the improvement of talents entrusted to him 5 but yet some appear chosen to such honour (as the prophets, apostles, and mar tyrs) as no others attain ; to such excellence, as even the opportunity of achieving belongeth not. Thirdly, why the eternal God is pleased to bestow on these persons such a measure of honour, happiness, and virtue, (distributing the ten talents with the grace to improve them,) we can no more resolve, than why he is pleased to inflict such a measure of suffering on others: in the latter case indeed we may sometimes trace the immediate reason, and observe that the particular affliction either is pointed at the particular vice to which such a man naturally inclines, or is conducive to that virtue which

he eminently needs ; but if we move one step beyond this, we are lost again. We cannot explain wherefore it was that such a man was suffered to be naturally inclined to that evil or averse to that good. Or if it should occur, as it sometimes does, that we can assign a reason for any notorious fault in our natural temper, yet we only put off our ignorance one remove, and return to our doubt. Thus, if we perceive our nature is peculiarly prone to some hateful sin, because there is no other method of bringing us to humility, with out which all our actions are displeasing to the God who seeks the humble and contrite spirit, yet the difficulty recurs Why did the good God permit me to be so prone to pride ? And here at least we must stop ; we have only to rest on his good pleasure, and own " that his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out!" Innumerable are the other instances wherein it is obvious that man knoweth not the ways of God, that he never designed us to be of his council, or privy to the secret springs of hi conduct ; why he gives to this man one en

dowment, to that another ; why he distributes the several blessings, and his Holy Spirit, in such a measure and at such a time ; why but it is vain to attempt to enumerate all the in stances of this one branch of human ignorance, unless we could declare all the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Attempt we rather to search after that part of his ways which is not past finding out, and to inquire, as we proposed to do in the third place, why this ignorance is our portion. And one great cause why (as we may reason ably suppose) our Heavenly Father permits this cloud to rest upon us, prohibits our knowledge, and displays so small a part of his ways is, that our profound ignorance may teach us the most useful knowledge humility ; that, conscious how little we can know of the Most High, we may be the more intent upon knowing ourselves ; that, from a due sense of our utter inability to understand either the manner or reasons of the divine operations, we may seriously apply to what we are able to understand the manner and reasons of our own actions. Nor is any thing more suited to give us a just, that is, a mean opinion of our selves, than to have so many proofs daily be fore us of the imperfection of our noblest en dowments ; if reason, boasted reason, be so imperfect, what must be the meaner parts of our frame. If thy understanding, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! By pride, saith the prophet, didst thou, O Lucifer, son of the morning! fall from heaven. Lest his next race of creatures should also fall from it, the Almighty God particularly guarded them against it. He made them lower than his angels, that, not having the same temptation, too high an opinion of their own perfections, they might continue capable of that glory and honour wherewith he designed to crown them ; that he permitted man so strangely to debase all his powers, corrupt his will, and obscure his understanding, that he might withdraw pride from man. Here then is one wise and merciful reason for the present.blindness of our understanding.

that God, by hiding himself from man, might teach him humility, and so conduct him to his Maker. Another cause is, to fulfil his eternal purpose, that man, as long as he continues upon earth, should walk by faith not by sight. The design of our Heavenly Father was not that we should see and know, whether we would or not, that all his ways are wise and good and gracious ; but that we should be lieve this, give such an assent as he has given us power to give or to withhold (for the power of choice is his gift) ; and this intention of our Creator is admirably served by the measure of understanding which we now enjoy ; it suffices for faith, but not for knowledge ; we can be lieve in God we cannot see him. Another reason why we are so little ac quainted with his ways, why what the Omni potent doeth, man cannot know, seems to be alluded to in the text, " but thou shalt know hereafter." This knowledge, therefore, is de nied us on earth, because it is a felicity for heaven. And what a felicity ! to have the veil withdrawn at once, and to enjoy the full blaze of Deity! the wisdom, the goodness, the love