The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1842-01-12

i maniy-a although he Rad leaned ON the hosop, If
Jesus, reposing his soul on the soul Of immortal
love that throbbed in he masters bosom-althoug Oh
he the glories Of the transit guration when hes-
ven was let down with its strange bewilderius
i splendor, ON the mountains top-althoHgh he lin
sered with wonder around the cross-and although
| vens, and gazed in spiri' upen the Lamb ON Mount
| Sion, and saw the vast New Jerusalem lighted by
no earthly sun, or moon walking in borrowed
brightness-yet when he would dc scribe or define
the eternal and incomprehensible God, in the IAN
guage Of men, he used attribute only as the best
| description of an essence-God is lore. He could
no more The attempt to bring in6nity down to
mortal comprehension is vain, and always ends
fruitlessly. except in the lessons thus learn OF
our own ignorance, impotence, and folly. The mys-
ferrous power In whom We live and move and have
our being, can only be known through his attri-
| butes, aud the Communications of his spirit with
ours. Yet If we take any single attribute and look
at 1t with the design of its properties
or comprehending its nature, we may task our in
telectual powers to their keenest action and carry
them out to their utmost limit; the result will ever
be the same-it will end, the one hand in LAYING
our life low in the dust, aud the other. in inf
nifty. Contemplate his wisdom, and we shall find
il infinite His goodness, his pswer, or his ho-
Illness, or his justice, and 10, infnty 10 their nea-
sure.
NatureteIl' of God-but points no weary wander
er to the bosom Of eternalove Nature is ele quent
In praise OF the wisdom and power of her creator
yet none OF her vOices have spoken of his es-
sence. The loud organ of the winds of heaven--the
or the babbliug brooks, leaping in white and play.
full rpples over the shining pebbles have never ar
ticulated one word to indicate their knowledge of
His nature, orkto initiate us into the mvsteres eff
His unrivalled projections. The extent Of our in.
tellectsal power second only to those bright
spirits who bask forever in his smiles-is too Ii1i
ted to comprehend the exhaustless, because
unappreachable, subject of uncreated--un.
defined Deity. He goes by me, says Job, and +
see Him not. behold go torcard and he Is NOT
there and backward, ,Lh cannot perceive Him, The
poverty of human language as well as of Thought
and conception should abase us in the dust The
words we use to express the actions Of the Divine
mind toward us, are but the pulling expressings Of
our limited nature. They all point to our igno-
rance, and are utterly Inadequate to express the
action Of the unfathomed fountain Of intellect in its
mighty radiations over the empire Of mind. II we
we, say that the Lord is "grieved," "ansry,"
impending jadgmen.--turns again and calls after
the moral wanderers who are scattered like
sheep over the mountains Of sin and delu-
s,on-can we for moment felicitate ourselves
t,at our express ons have done jus CO to our Godl
No. No The condescensiOn of that God is the
only reason why the red thunder bolts are not out
ON the wings of the storm to avenge the moral
the motions or the neffabs mind, as we clothc the
action of our finite misunderstanding to wrap
eternity in the drapery of time. The great scrip
tural lesson which we would learn on this part Of
teaches this lesson. Abraham, I-aac, Jacob, Gil
deon, Mansah, and other ancient saints whenever
they saw the covenant God, clothed in his angel
vestments,ss he walked the patriarchal eartf were
either overwhelmed with fear, or abased in tho
deepest humilition of SOUL Mansah, after he had
seen the countenance Of God very terrible, cried
out-We shal surely die because zee hare seen
God. The Prophet Isaiah, exclaimed, after hav-
ing seen the Lord sitting upon throne high and
lifted up -W0 is me for am undone, because am
man Of unciean lips, and Id'ce in the miDsi of PEG
The Lord Of Hoss ' And 1 the sDl pro s DANIEL
during his exalted spiritual cOmmunng with his
Maker there remained no strength; for, says he,
my oonalimess ,cas turned INTO corruption and
tanned no sfrength-d hand touched II se00d her-
bling. We learn q lesson from God himself in the
dispensstion OF the law from the Mount-one of the
widest, grandest scenes Of terror aud majesty
that ever astonished nature, opened Sinai. An
awful crown of cloud surrounded the mountain,
rolling billow above billow, toward the heavens
while, like mighty brand in the centre, the moun-
tain was altogether in flame The hoarse and
deepening thunder, like \ trumpet. long and ex-
ceedingly terrible, blew the peal of terror, and
startled Israel gathered around Its base. Did
the King Of Eternity then disclose to man his.
mained in his pavilion of thick darkness
His Will blazed forth ewfuly, palpsble, and dis
tnct IN the perfect law, anu in the cleaning
fires that shet their unearthly glare upon the sur
rounding hiils-but Deity lay concealed. The
dreadful mandate was-Go ye not up into The mount
or touch the border of III lei not the priest and the pco
PIE break through TO come up unto the Lord, lest he
break forth upon them. Even the inhabitants of
Heaven, whose spiritual nature has never been
tainted by sin OF companionsh with earth, and
unable to climb the heights or fathom the depths Of
the great INFINITE, whose nature and essence,
must s ever tsman, as in the beginning. incompre-
a being but Of yesterday, fallen star, aspire to
that which the bright spirits Of Paradise cannot
reach! How can the jewellers upon earth look upon
God and live, when angel and arch angel veil
their faces under their wings in his presence,
whelmed by the nefiable efulsence And if all
the harps and voices OF Heaven peal out the mag
nifcent responsibility, Holy, Holy, is the Lord
God Of Hosts; Heare and Earth are full of His
glO,y-what should be the language Of fallen man!
What the response OF mortality and sin? To us
the Great Eternal seems to say, as Jesus said to
Mary at the Sepuchre- Touch me not But be of
good cheer. God hath withholden nothing that 10
necessary for us to know Although we are not
in our tcrrene darkness feel after Him and love Him
toe; and he is not far from every one OF US By
faith, he may be known to the believer. By the
path of repentance which leads directly to Christ,
and to the exercise Of living faith upon Him, and
by prayer ardent" which "opens Heaven" we
may approach so near The terrible, yet gracious
God, who spoke Sinai that with Thomas, we
may he constrained to exclaim in rapturous GER
tainty, Ny Lord and my God.
II-Secondly, His works We who stand in the
midst Of the workmanship of God, are also the
works of His hands. The very power which
have to analyze nature explore her heights, and
depths, and distances-for all that is wonderful,
spirit-strring, and sublime, we derive directly
from Ged. We should first, then, regard ourselves
as creatures Standing IN the front rank Of his works.
at the head If unnumbered tribes Of animate life.
We know and feel that we have reasoning, i'm
mortal sou.-a blast OF the Divine breath-the Di-
vinty that stirs within rs" Yet this cpitcme Of
the great first cause" understands not so much
itself. We know not what our spirit is. We
sometimes almost question is origin-whether
from heaven, earth or men. We know but little Of
its substance, powers and faculties. Where is this
strange busy principle. that actuates and informs
this wonderful piece of werk manship, so that il can
freely move ofitsef, and be sensible OF pleasure
and pain, honor and disgracel Who can discover
the source OF his own ideas or how, by reflection,
they are brought up by the mind into the result of
reasonl Where begins II to compare, distinguish,
and concluded Who knows by what secret me-
chanism the passions and atfe ctions moved, or
how all the notices of things past-the images OF
sight hcaring-are traced upon the memory,
or take up their bodiment in the brani Well
!