SERMON I.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

COL. I. 10.

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful of every good work, and INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.—(Particularly the last clause.)

The knowledge of God lies at the foundation of all true religion. It is the want or indistinctness of this knowledge that occasions all the stupidity of sinners and all the false hopes of professing christians; that produces most of the religious errors which abound in the world; that causes so much superficial, proud, worldly religion even among the sincere, and so little religion even among judicious christians. Although this most precious of all knowledge is open to all, yet there is very little of it in the world,-very little of it in the church of Christ. There is so much unbelief and aversion to God, so much pride and worldliness, so much guilt that shrinks from clear views of God, so much slugVol. I.

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gishness which binds the soul to earth, that the mass even of christians pass to the grave with a very incompetent knowledge of God. Even their serious thoughts linger too much on earth. Their religious knowledge and conversation are too confined to subordinate subjects; and in their very prayers their eyes are apt to be more intensely fixed on the blessings they ask or the sins they deplore, than on the face of God himself. Now and then a christian arises who outstrips the piety of his contemporaries, and stands a luminary to enlighten and to be admired by remote generations. If you search for the cause of his pre-eminent piety, it is to be found in his superior knowledge of God. Desirous to see a greater number of eminent christians formed, and to witness the prevalence of that religion which is enlightened, judicious, and humble; I am anxious to press upon my hearers, to press upon my brethren in the church, to press upon my own soul, the study of God. The knowledge which I would recommend, though it includes the speculation of the understanding, is not confined to it. It consists in a clear discernment of God's spiritual glory and in a holy intimacy with him; which can be obtained neither by a speculative knowledge without right affections, nor yet by warm affections without deep and extensive knowledge.

In general it may be observed that the great end for which men were sent into the world was to learn the character of their Maker, by studying his glories in his works and word, that they might obey

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and enjoy him. The great end which God had in view in all his works was to make an illustrious display of his perfections, that creatures might know him and be united to him in sublime and everlasting communion. All things which are proposed as objects of our belief or knowledge, are but one complicated lesson of God which we were sent into the world to learn. The vast and interesting object on which his divine eye is immovably fixed, and which in the progress of time he will fully attain, is to fill the world, the universe, with the knowledge of his glory. truly as I live all the glory of the Lord." The harp of prophecy awoke to rapture on this delightful theme. Isaiah struck the note, and Habakkuk triumphantly resounded, "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." The object of the whole creation will not be lost; creatures shall know him. The end for which human beings were placed on this earth will be attained: it must be that men shall know their God,-know him in a far greater measure than they have done in past ages. The times are rolling on,-the light is bursting from a thousand sources, the world will be flocking to the great display,-all nations will be in motion. Arise ye and join them, and hasten to the knowledge of God. Come, for it is the end of all things, and it is the end of your creation.

He declared to Moses, "As earth shall be filled with the

Further, God is the being with whom we have the most intimate and interesting connexion; and

therefore we ought certainly, and it chiefly concerns us, to become acquainted with him. He is the being with whom we chiefly have to do in time and eternity. It is in him that we live and move and have our being, and he will be our final Judge. He is the author of all our comforts on earth; and he will be to eternity either the author and object of our whole enjoyment, or the executioner of his wrath upon us. Should it not be a chief desire to get acquainted with the benefactor who has sent all our comforts to us for so many years, and with the fearful Name on which all our future destinies depend? Shall a man be anxious to see the generous stranger who once relieved his wants, or the relation in a foreign country who is to make him his heir? and shall we be indifferent to an acquaintance with our God?

Further, there is room for far more enlarged knowledge of God than any of us have yet acquired. In the recesses of his nature are laid up treasures of knowledge which eternal research will not exhaust. None but he who from eternity lay in his bosom could with perfect propriety say, I know thee. In this world the best of christians see through a glass darkly, and know but in part what they were destined to know. Agur found reason in his humility to complain, "I neither learned wisdom nor have the knowledge of the Holy." The apostle Paul, after having spoken of the primitive christians as knowing God, thought proper to correct the expression as being too strong: "But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known

God." This distinction is made by the same apostle in another place: "If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know; but if any man love God, the same is known of him." The lowest degree of perfect knowledge is reserved for heaven: "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." Our knowledge of God will at best continue imperfect "till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." There is therefore abundant room for the most enlightened christians to increase in the knowledge of God, and to plunge deeper and still deeper into this ocean without a bottom or a shore. What a call then for christians of ordinary attainments to stir up their sluggish spirits, to clear away the mist from their eyes, that they may gaze with more intenseness upon God, that they may study him with deeper scrutiny and contemplate him with clearer discernment.

Several motives to this have already been presented. What remains is to show that a clear knowledge and discernment of God is of all things the most purifying, the most humbling, the most exalting, the most happy.

I. It is the most purifying. A sight of God is transforming. It is only when "with open face" we behold "as in a glass the glory of the Lord," that we "are changed into the same image from glory to glory." A view of God shining "in the