or readiness in remitting it on repentance, gradually communicate the abstract ideas of justice, compassion, and mercy. Our first low notions of holiness are formed by putting together all the best qualities we have observed in the persons around us, and supposing them to be unimpaired by the faults we are conscious of in ourselves. All these attributes are ascribed to one Being; and the conception, already more exalted than any we have formed of any other individual being, is further improved by the richer elements of a more extended experience. The imagination becoming stronger as the materials supplied to its activity become more abundant, the conception of Deity perpetually grows in grandeur and beauty, till it absorbs the intellect of a Newton and engrosses the affections of a Fenelon. Still, this notion of a Being whom we know and feel to be infinite, is formed from the results of our finite experience; and the conception, however improved in degree, is unchanged in kind. Let it be magnified to the utmost extent, it is still only magnified, not metamorphosed. As there is a strict analogy between the moral attributes of God and of men, there is also a strict analogy between their natural modes of being. Justice in God is the same quality as justice in men, however perfected and enlarged; and Unity in God is the same as individuality in men, though ascribed to an almighty and omnipresent Being. A perpetual and perfect concentration of attributes is essential to our notion of one God. We can conceive of his manifesting one attribute in an especial manner on one occasion, and another on another; we can imagine him conferring power analogous to his own on an inferior being; but we cannot conceive of his laying aside, of his depriving himself of any of the attributes of his nature, or of delegating his power,--if by such delegation be implied any diminution or inactivity of it in Himself. It is conceivable that he might employ some superior intelligence in creating the material world (though we have no authority to suppose that he did so;) but it is not conceivable that the work was not, at the same time, wholly his own. It is conceivable that he might send--it is certain that he did send--a being divinely furnished for the work, to institute a dispensation of grace, and to offer pardon and peace to sinful men. But it is not conceivable that the divine attribute of mercy could previously, or subsequently, or ever, be laid aside, or transferred, or suspended; that his unalterable purposes could be changed, his compassion roused, his sympathies moved by any act of any being, human or angelic. To suppose so, is supposing his purposes mutable, and his compassion dormant; that is, divesting him of Deity. We can, in accordance with our conception of Deity, understand how the dispensation of grace may be committed, as it was committed, to a finite being. But to suppose it the indefeasible prerogative of any eternal