1. are confined or abfurd, the homage we pay SERM. Him will be unworthy of the Divine Majefty; and that zeal, which should guide us in the path of truth, will involve us ftill further in the mazes of error. That part of man which is invifible and immortal, is called the foul or fpirit: Those beings who are fuperior to us, and who are supposed to be the more immediate inftruments in performing the will of the Creator, are distinguished by the fame appellation ;-" He maketh his angels spirits *”. and the Evangelift affures us, that God is a Spirit. While we are confined to this globe, and our mental perceptions are limited by the connection of the mind with the body, we conceive but very faint and indistinct ideas of the unembodied spirit: We can discover nothing with certainty of the immaterial inhabitants of happier regions; we trace but imperfectly the fa*Pfal. civ. 4. and Heb. i. 7. SERM. culties even of our own fouls; and can we 1. then hope to fathom Him who fills all space? Who is effentially prefent every where, yet visible no where? Whofe ways are not as our ways, and whofe thoughts are not as our thoughts? Yet, because we can discover little, shall we discover nothing? Shall we fit down in criminal ignorance, and make the weakness of human understanding an excuse for fhameful and deftructive indolence? Shall we, like the Samaritans, worship we know not whom?-Let us rather call upon every power that is within us to aflift our refearches, having this affurance to ftimulate our diligence, Ye fhall find me, when ye fearch for me with all your heart *. The first thing which occurs to us, in confidering the nature of a spirit, is, its oppofition to corporeal fubftance: The body Jer. xxix. 13. I. is, of itself, a dull, uninformed mafs, com- SERM. pofed of perishable matter, fubject to perpetual changes, and to fpeedy diffolution :The spirit is an active, penetrating, and enlivening principle, which being immaterial, can never decay, and which is fubject only to fuch changes, as arise from its immediate connection with the body. Our earthly tabernacle, raised from the duft, hath a conftant tendency to every thing that is grofs and fenfual; while the never-dying spirit would burft from its confinement, elevated by greater attractions, and thirsting after fuperior pleasures; but the paffions and prejudices acquired in its mortal habitation, are as chains, which bind it down to earth, and prevent it from reaching thofe heights, to which its aspiring nature feems capable of foaring. We will not here join with those who lament the faint degrees of knowledge and excellence, which the foul, in its present state, 9 1 SERM. ftate, can attain. This perhaps were, in I. fome degree, to arraign the wisdom and goodness of that Being, to whom we are indebted for all our capacities and advantages, for every thing that we know, for every thing that we enjoy.-Men, indeed, by dwelling on the imbecility of our intellect, may find an ample theme for declamation; but while they are exaggerating our weakness, and expofing every latent spot and blemish of corrupted man, they forget, or purposely overlook, the many and great attainments of the human mind, even in its present limited and degenerate state. What variety of knowledge is within the reach of perfevering induftry! Hath not man removed almost every obftacle which lay in the path of fcience? Hath he not rifen fuperior to numberless difficulties, and made fuch difcoveries as ftrike us with aftonishment in the review? Can he not trace caufes by their effects, and demonstrate effects from their caufes, with the niceft precifion? ΙΟ precision ? explain their various properties, and con- Yet how fuperior to us must those aërial Spirits be, who furround the throne of Omnipotence, and are thought worthy to approach HIM, from whofe face the earth and the heaven fled away! They are not con * Rev. xx. II. I. |