SERMON 1.

IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

PART THE FIRST.

1 COR. xiii. 9.

For we know in part.

THE imperfection of human knowledge has been admitted and lamented in every age, and by those most, who have been acknowledged as the wisest and best of mankind. The most celebrated of the ancient sages professed that he knew nothing. And the greatest of modern philosophers, speaking of a friend, a man of very superior talents, who was cut off in the prime of life, was accustomed to say, "had Cotes lived, we might have known something:"* thus un

* Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have said this of his friend Roger Cotes, who died, A. D. 1716, æt. 33. -See Biograph. Brit.

dervaluing his own great discoveries, which were the astonishment of his own age and of posterity. The apostle Paul, enlightened from above with a supereminent knowledge of the grace of God to mankind in the gospel revelation, a mystery which had been hidden from former ages and generations, and which none of the princes, or, of the sages of this world knew, with deep humility acknowledges the imperfection of his own knowledge of divine things. saith he, in the present state of dim twilight, I know in part. And the confession thus frankly and openly avowed, by the great, the wise, and the good, we may all, without any impeachment of individual wisdom, adopt for ourselves, We know in part: We see as in a glass darkly. And this acknowledged limitation of human comprehension will supply ample materials for useful meditation.

Now,

Human knowledge is limited, both in its extent and in its degree.

First. The objects of knowledge to mankind are comparatively few.

This is owing either to the limitation of the faculties, or to the absence and remoteness of the objects of knowledge.

By the senses only, we acquire a knowledge of the external world; and the organs of sense are very limited in their number. No reasonable doubt can exist that more might have been added had it seemed expedient to the wise Author of human nature, which would have suggested conceptions of objects to which we are now as perfect strangers, as a man born blind is to light and colours.

And it would be arrogant to assert that the capacity of the human mind might not have been increased, and other faculties communicated, by which we might have been made capable of perceiving and contemplating a variety of intellectual objects which are now utterly unknown.

But the faculties which we actually possess might impart unspeakably more information than we in fact acquire by them, did not the brevity of human life, the slowness of apprehension, the limitation of our

presence, and of the sphere of our observation, and many other circumstances, prevent the objects of which the mind is сараble of forming some conception, from falling under its cognizance.

Secondly. Human knowledge is limited in its degree.

We know but little of the objects which actually occur to our notice, and to which we give the closest attention. There is, in fact, nothing, of which it can be truly said, that human knowledge is complete.

1. Our knowledge of the nature and attributes of God is very imperfect.

God is incomprehensible. Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out. The existence of a wise, a benevolent, and a powerful Cause, we learn from the works of nature, from our own existence, from the marks of contrivance in the universe, from the exquisite adaptation of means to ends, from the obvious preponderance of good over evil, and from the powerful, irresistible tendencies of things to a better and a happier state.

But here our knowledge stops. When we attempt to form an adequate idea of an original, self-existent Being, imagination fails, and the faculties are absorbed and lost in the amazing contemplation. The nature of self-existence baffles the strongest intellect; nor can we form the least conception how the Divine Being exists, either in space or duration; what could prompt him to action; or in what manner he exerts his omnipotent energies. The best of the poor and feeble modes in which we can frame our conceptions of Deity is, by ascribing to God whatever is excellent in the human mind; whatever does not participate of weakness, of dependence, and of imperfection; and by ascribing those attributes to him in the highest degree. Thus we attribute to the Divine Being knowledge and power, wisdom, justice, and benevolence. But this, it is obvious, must be a very imperfect mode of conception; and God may possess attributes without number, of which man can form no idea, having nothing analogous to them in his own