But they are

one another, possibly even in name. certain to meet, and in co-operation perform the appointed service to him that God intends it for. And often both he and they may hereafter wonder at that strange management of Providence which so brought it to pass. In short, in ways beyond number, that declaration is continually in the process of being verified, "All things are yours, the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours," and this is because they "are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

And, finally, this is but the introductory state of privilege, to result in that greater state, in which it is promised to the faithful and victorious, that they "shall inherit all things." And thus how true it is, that "godliness," the love of God, "is profitable for all things," "having the promise," in the highest sense, of "the life that now is, and of that which is to come!"

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LECTURE XXII.

PRACTICAL ATHEISM.

EPHESIANS ii. 12.

"Without God in the world."

WE have often occasion to wonder that brief expressions, descriptive of actual conditions of men, do not strike us far more forcibly, do not convey more to thought, and awake more emotion. For example, suppose it to be said, "At this very time, this hour, even this minute, a great number of human beings are dying." A positive fact; but what is it to die? what would it appear if I were with the dying? what, if I were in the act of dying? But a great number are in this very situation!-think! Following their flight from the world, suppose it said, "A multitude of human beings are now in heaven!" But suppose it said (another solemn fact), "A vast number are now in hell." But revert to things on earth; let it be said-" Enemies to God-there is a prodigious army of such ;"-or our text, "Without God in the world." Think what a description, and applicable to individuals without number! If it had been, "without friends without food-without

shelter"-that would have had a gloomy sound; but-" without God!" Without Him! that is, in no happy relation to him who is the very origin, support, and life of all things;-without him, who can make good flow to his creatures from an infinity of sources ;—without him, whose favour possessed, is the best, the sublimest of all delights, all triumphs, all glories ;-without him, who can confer an eternal felicity; without him! but, how is he lost, withdrawn? What do those, who are under so sad a destitution, value and seek instead? But what will anything or all things be worth in his absence? Without him, too, in a world where the human creature knows there is a mighty and continual conspiracy against his welfare. We fall unspeakably below the true and dreadful emphasis of the expression, after we have given our utmost aggravation to its significance. And still it is but the description of an actual condition. And should not each one be intent on having good assurance that it is not his condition?

It may be instructive to consider, a little, to what states of mind the description is applicable, and what a wrong and calamitous thing the condition is in all of them. We need not dwell on that condition of humanity in which there is no notion of Deity at all, the condition of some outcast savage tribes. Think of souls destitute of the very idea! not one idea exalted and resplendent above the rest,-casting a glory sometimes across the little intellectual field; (as if, in the outward world of nature, they had no visible heaven),-the spirit nothing to go out to, beyond its clay walls, but the immediately surrounding

elements, and other creatures of the same order. But think of a rational, intelligent nature, debased, in these remote sections, to so melancholy an extreme!

The adorers of false gods may just be named as coming under the description. There is, almost throughout the race, a feeling in men's souls that belongs to the Divinity. But think how all manner of objects, real and imaginary, have been supplicated to accept and absorb this feeling, that the true God may not take it. Men have been willing to fill the world, the universe, with gods, and do homage to them all, rather than acknowledge, and adore, and love, "the blessed and only Potentate." And a confirmed negation of him, to the mind and the heart of man, is the curse inflicted in return, by all these infernal fallacies.

It is too obvious, almost, to be worth noting, how plainly the description applies itself to those who persuade themselves that there is no God. We may believe some of them, on their own testimony, that they have attained to this deliberate opinion. To them there is no Supreme Intelligence in the universe. Mind, spirit, would evidently be the glory of all existence, a superlatively precious and noble kind of being; and then one Supreme Spirit, selfexistent, and the author of all other existence, would be the transcendent object for every admiring, adoring and devoted sentiment. To the Atheist there is nothing in place of that which is the supremacy of all existence and glory. The Divine Spirit and all spirits being abolished, he is left amidst masses and

systems of matter, without a First Cause, ruled by chance, or by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; and, as a little composition of atoms, he is himself to take his chance; for a few moments of conscious being, and then to be no more for ever. And yet, in this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an elation of intellectual pride!

My

But we have to consider the text in an application much more important to us, and to men in general; with a most settled belief of the Divine Existence, they may be "without God in the world." This is too truly and sadly the applicable description, when this belief and its object do not maintain, habitually, the ascendant influence over us; over the whole system of our thoughts, feelings, purposes, and actions. That there is such a Being, is a principle that evidently claims to interfere in everything. very existence is from him, and depends on him; all it contains, and all it acts, must therefore be in a solemn relation to him. And everything in my spirit and conduct, should acknowledge that relation. That relation is to be maintained in such a manner that I may be in harmony and conformity with him. That relation constitutes the law of good and evil, and fixes an awful sanction on the difference. In an endless series of things,-that there is such a Being, and that I belong to him, is a reason for one thing, and against another. The thought of him is to be associated with all these things, and its influence to be preponderant. "Thus-and thus-I think-and wish- and will-and act-because-there is a God." Now, for me to forget or disregard all this, is