LECTURE XLII.

ACCESS TO GOD.

HEBREWS xi. 6.

"He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

No saying is more common among us, or perhaps leaves a more transient impression, than that to approach to God, while enjoined as a duty, is also an eminent privilege. As no one thinks of questioning it, we easily let it pass, as if there needed no more but to assent to it.

That it can thus be an unmeaning sentence, a lifeless notion, indistinctly presented to the apprehension, and holding no communication with the affections, betrays that the soul is taking little account of its best resources for happiness. But such it will be, unless we can be serious enough for an exercise of thought, to apprehend as a great and interesting reality what we have so often allowed ourselves to hear, or to utter, as little more than an insignificant common-place of religious discourse. Can we be content it should be so? When it is understood that, among the things possible to man, is the very extraordinary one of " coming to God," shall we not make a faithful, earnest effort, that the thing so affirmed and believed may have to us all the effect of a reality, in being brought with clearness to our apprehension, and with power over our feelings?

It is a wonderful idea, even as apprehended at once, in a

single act of thought, without intermediate process of advancing from less to greater, in ascent towards the greatest -the idea of the infinite, almighty, eternal Being, as to be approached, and spoken to, and communicated with, by man. But a gradation of thought, a progressive rising toward the transcendent and supreme, might contribute to magnify the wonderfulness of the fact, of man daring and permitted to enter into a direct communication with God. -But by what order and train of ideas might we seek to advance towards the magnificence of the contemplation ?

If we might allow ourselves in such an imagination, as that the selected portion of all humanity, the very best and wisest persons on earth, were brought and combined into a permanent assembly, and invested with a sovereign authority-the highest wisdom, virtue, science, and power thus united—would not a perfectly free access for the humblest, poorest, most distressed, and otherwise friendless, to such an assemblage, with a certainty of their most kind and sedulous attention being given-of their constant will to render aid—of their wisdom and power being promptly exercised-would not this be deemed an inestimable privilege to all within the compass of such an empire? Indeed, if such a thing might be (an extravagantly wild imagination, we confess), it would take the place of Providence in the minds of the multitude, and be idolized.

But take a higher position, and suppose that there were such an economy that the most illustrious of the departed saints held the office of being practically, though unseen, patrons, protectors, assistants, guides, to men on earth; that the spirits of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, could be drawn, by those who desired it, to a direct personal attention, and to an exercise of their benignity and interference-would not this appear a resource of incalculable value? It is because it naturally would be so, that the

Romish church was so successful in imposing on the people the fiction of such an economy as an undoubted reality, (and, indeed, paganism had before done something of a similar kind.) So gratifying, so consoling, so animating, has this imaginary privilege been felt by millions of that church, that their devotion has seemed actually to stop at this level of invisible existence; the Almighty Father, and the Redeemer, comparatively forgotten.

But there is another far loftier ascension. We are informed of a glorious order of intelligences that have never dwelt in flesh; many of whom may have enjoyed their existence from a remoteness of time surpassing what we can conceive of eternity; with an immense expansion of being and powers; with a perpetual augmentation of the goodness inspired by their Creator; and exercising their virtues and unknown powers in appointed offices of beneficence throughout the system of unnumbered worlds. Would it not seem a pre-eminent privilege, if the children of the dust might obtain a direct communication with them; might invoke them, accost them, draw them to a fixed attention, and with a sensible evidence of their indulgent patience and celestial benignity? Would not this seem an exaltation of felicity, throwing into shade everything that could be imagined to be derived to us from the benevolence and power of mortal or glorified humanity?

Now, here we are at the summit of created existence; and up to this sublime elevation we have none of these supposed privileges. No! there is no such conjunction of the greatest virtue, wisdom, and power on earth. Departed saints have no appointment to hear our petitions; and when we perceive, as it were, the distant radiance of an inconceivably nobler order of beings, it is with the consciousness that we cannot come into their sensible presence and recognition, cannot invoke their express attention, cannot lay

hold on their power, cannot commit to them the momentous charge of our interests.

Thus we have ascended by degrees to the most illustrious of created beings, for the transient luxury of imagining what it would be to engage in our favour the intelligence, goodness, and power of those glorious spirits; but to find ourselves hopelessly far off from such access. In the capacity of receiving our petitions, they exist not for us; as to that object, these mighty agents are strangers to us.

What, then, to do next? Next, our spirits have to raise their thoughts to an awful elevation above all subordinate existence in earth and heaven, in order to approach a presence where they may implore a beneficent attention, and enter into a communication with Him who is uncreated and infinite; a transition compared to which the distance from the inferior to the nobler, and then to the noblest of created beings, is reduced to nothing; as one lofty eminence on an elevated mountain-and a higher,—and the highestbut thence to the starry heavens !

But think, who is it that is thus to come to God?" Man! little, feeble, mortal, fallen, sinful man! He is, if we may speak in such language, to venture an act expressly to arrest the attention of that stupendous Being; to signify, in the most direct manner, that he is by choice and design in that presence intentionally to draw on himself the notice, the aspect of the Almighty. The purpose is, to speak to, Him in a personal manner; to detain Him in communication. The approaching petitioner is to utter thoughts, for God to admit them into His thoughts! He would cause himself to be distinctly and individually listened to by a Being who is receiving the adoration of the most exalted spirits, and of all the holy intelligences in the universe; by Him whose power is sustaining and governing all its regions and inhabitants. He seeks to cause his words to be listened

to by Him whose own words may be, at the very time, commanding new creations into existence.

But reflect, also, that it is an act to call the special attention of Him whose purity has a perfect perception of all that is evil, that is unholy, in the creature that approaches Him; of Him whom the applicant is conscious he has not, to the utmost of his faculties, adored or loved: alas! the very contrary'

What a striking, what an amazing view is thus presented of the situation the unworthy mortal is placed in, the position which he presumes to take, in "coming to God." How surprising then it is, how alarming it well may be, to reflect on the manner in which, too often, we use this privilege! What a miserably faint conception of the Sovereign Majesty! A reverence so defective in solemnity, that it admits the intrusion of every trivial suggestion. Thoughts easily diverted away by the slightest casual association. An inanimate state of feeling, indifference almost, in petitioning the greatest blessings, and deprecating the most fearful evils. So that, on serious reflection, the consciousness would be forced upon us, of its being too much to hope that such devotions can be accepted, such petitions granted.

To rebuke this irreligion, infesting and spoiling the very acts of religion, think again of the situation of such a creature as man coming into the immediate presence of the Divine Majesty. The very extremes of spiritual existencethe infinitely Most Glorious, and the lowest, meanest of all, brought into communication; the absolutely holy, and the miserably depraved-the guilty. We may conceive that a creature of even such humble rank as man, if he were but perfectly innocent, might approach to a communication with the Eternal and Infinite Essence, though not without inexpressible awe, yet without terror; but since he is impure and guilty, the idea of his "coming to God" would be no