First Things, Volume 1

There are several questions of grave import which naturally present themselves for consideration, in a work bearing the title of these volumes. The facts and principles early revealed to the world, were designed to exert a permanent influence. They form the base of the spiritual edifice in which God himself dwells, and in which his people, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy temple unto the Lord. They are principles, some of which have given rise to no small diversity of views, and on which the author is not unwilling to leave the testimony of his own thoughts, however humble they may be.

If he has allowed himself to introduce topics and matter of a somewhat varied kind, and portions of it in no elaborate and somewhat discursive form; it is because these topics could not well be overlooked, and a less elaborate view of them would, in his own judgment, be the more useful. If he has omitted some which might naturally have been looked for, it is because they would have exposed him to a still more redundant expression of the same thoughts, and because they have been so frequently and ably presented by other pens.

In dedicating the work to those who compose his own pastorate, he would fain be allowed to include in that number, not only those who now constitute the flock of

IV INTRODUCTION”.

which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer, but those who no longer attend upon his ministrations, and are dispersed through the metropolis, and still more widely throughout the land. They are delightful memories to his own mind which are thus associated with the past. They bring to his recollection so much that is venerable in the character of those long since gathered into the garner of the great husbandman, and so much that is lovely in youthful piety that lives still, but no longer among men, that he loves to dwell upon them. Nor are they less delightful, because, through much infirmity and more imperfection on his part, he has been so uniformly sustained by the kindness of his people; and more than all, because they so richly savor of the “years of the right-hand of the Most High.”

Those who once heard, and now hear the gospel from his lips, will not, he hopes, be displeased, that some of his last thoughts upon First Things are most respectfully dedicated to them, by their affectionate pastor.

The Authob.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

CHAPTER II.

33
god’s first work,

CHAPTER III.

.... 69
CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

.. .170
CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

TABU

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN GOD AND OUR FIRST PARENTS,

CHAPTER XIII.

It is not the object of the writer to address himself to the popular taste, at the sacrifice of truth. So far from this, the following pages will, he trusts, be found to contain God’s truth, presented in the plainest dress.

He has assumed the title, First Things, because his topics are among the first lessons narrated in the Sacred Writings, the first great realities revealed to men.

Of these the adorable and ever-blessed God has the first place. In every view he has the pre-eminence.

By the great word God, the Scriptures mean that intelligent, eternal First Cause, who created, upholds, and governs all things. We open the sacred pages, and the first words we read are these: “In the beginning, God.”

Most of the ancient schools and systems of Pagan philosophy, if not atheistical, were atheistic in their tendency, and in their results showed themselves most successful abettors of atheism. Theoretical atheists are few; yet men still live without God in the world. They speculate coldly on the existence of Him who has existed forever; they I’eason without emotion of him who is himself the source of all they enjoy and all they admire; they speak with marvellous indifference of him, in whose hand their breath is, and whose are all their ways. They have no affecting impression of his glorious and amiable nature; every thrilling view of God they banish; they feel as if there were no God, and conduct themselves as though He, under whose inspection all their conduct and all their thoughts are naked and open, and who himself has an interest in all they do and are, had no concern with them, nor they with him.

The weighty truth can never be stricken out of existence, that there is a God; that he exists uidependently of every being in the universe, and that he is infinitely above the reach of creatures. The denial of this truth is so palpable an absurdity, that it is no marvel that it has the consent of all nations, and that the belief of it is so universally prevalent. Human consciousness does not more certainly attest the existence of a world within us, nor the human senses more certainly the existence of the world without iis, than human reason I’eceives it as an ultimate fact, that these internal and external worlds could not exist without an adequate cause. God’s eternal existence is a necessary truth; if other things exist, it is inconceivable, impossible, that he should not exist.

Yet, obvious as it is, this is a most exalted idea of God. When he revealed himself to Moses, he made the disclosure in the memorable words, I am THAT I AM. This is “his name;” this is the impression which he himself has of his own Being. It is without beginning and without end; it has no distinction of parts; what it now is, it always was; what it now is, it always will be. We cannot convey any true idea of what it is; “who by searching can find out God?“* It belongs to creatures to begin to live; to the uncreated One, to live always. And this is the first thought by which we would illustrate the truth that God himself is before all things.” Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.”” Thou art the same, and of

* In the beautiful language of the great Newton, when speaking of God, “Eternus est et infiuitus, omnipotens, et omnisciens; id est durat ab eterno in eternum, et adest ab infinite in infinitum. Non est eternitas et infinitas, sed eternus et infinitus; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper, et adest ubique; et existendo semper et ubique duratiouem et spatium constituit.” — Newton’s Principia.

1* thy years there is no end.” “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come.”

In the next place, God is before all things in the excellencies of Ms nature These can no more be comprehended by creatures than the eternity of his existence. “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out.” “It is high as heaven, what canst thou do: deeper than hell, what canst thou know: the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” After the clearest and most extended view of his greatness and majesty, — his spirituality and unchangeableness, — his immensity and infinity, — his omnipotence and omniscience, — his blessedness and his goodness, — his compassion and faithfulness, — his holiness and justice, — his impartiality and sovereignty, — his truth and mercy, — his love and anger; we are constrained to say, “Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him.” Our largest and holiest contemplations of his nature leave us insensible of what he is, and almost senseless to his unutterable glory. Our thoughts of him are like shadows; they are the emptiness, the vacancy of thought, as it would fain travel over that shoreless ocean, and as it loses itself in thinking of him who is all and in all, and above all, and over all, God blessed forever. Angels and men have been

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