is a clear and most solemn appeal to the Saviour, as knowing the secret of all hearts and as looking far beyond all outward appearances. This language was mockery to Jesus, and would by him have been reproved as such, unless considered as a plain and direct recognition of his absolute and proper Omniscience.

Objectors tell us that the saints are said to know all things: see, say they, 1 John ii. 20, "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." But to this we reply, that the Apostle means only those things of which he had been writing, all of which the apostates he describes did not experimentally know; but, he declares that believers know these things-that the truth abideth in them, and is no lie," &c. &c.

The connection of such passages will always shew whether the word "all" is to be understood in a qualified sense. Thus we have no difficulty in the following.

John xvi. 13. "Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth." Here our Saviour means all Divine truth necessary to be known by us either for God's glory or our own good. Thus in another place it is said, "The Gospel is gone out into all the world," where the word "all" is to be understood in a qualified sense, and it is intended only that the Gospel is no longer confined to

Judea; unless we take the term as prophetical, and denoting that it shall literally and actually in the end be preached among all nations. When our Saviour says "Preach the Gospel to every creature," we are in no danger of misunderstanding the term, and of supposing that he means to brute animals, because they also are creatures the very nature of the subject demonstrates that he means to rational creatures, and to them only. Apply the same principles to the texts I have advanced, and we are satisfied: they are such as admit of no explanation but on the principle that Jesus is the Omniscient God. They depend not on the local meaning of any one word, either all, every, or any other; but their propositions are varied in every form; and that is said of Jesus in the very terms, and to the same extent, in one Testament, which is declared of Jehovah in the other.

Peter said to Christ, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." If you take the word "all" here in a qualified sense, you make the Apostle to speak absolute nonsense, for then all things would signify only some things; and the consequence which Peter deduces would not follow. A child might see the fallacy of this. It would be making the Apostle argue thus: Lord, thou knowest some things; and therefore thou knowest that I love

thee. Now it might happen, if Christ only knew some things, the sincerity of Peter's attachment might not be among these some things. He who only knows some things, must needs meet with many other things which he does not know; and on the Socinian plan, Peter is arguing from a minor to a major proposition, as though I should say, You know the English, therefore you know all other languages: he understands the incipient rules of arithmetic, therefore he is a complete mathematician: this man can light a candle, and therefore we are sure that he can calculate an eclipse, or tell us the distances and movements of the heavenly bodies. Lord, thou knowest some things, and therefore thou knowest every thing.-Can this mode of reasoning be tolerated? But take the correct view of the passage, and all is clear. He who knows the whole must know the parts: the major includes the minor. Lord, thou knowest all things: if so, thou knowest all hearts, and mine among the rest, and thou knowest that I love thee.

This circumstance accounts for the following passage, in which Christ is said, among other things, to possess the perfection of knowledge. Rev. v. 6. "And I beheld, and lo in the midst. of the throne and of the four animals, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which

are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." It is to the latter part of this passage I would now allude; here the seven-fold energy of the Divine mind is ascribed to Jesus in terms which remind us of another passage, wherein the written and the essential word of God are happily associated: Heb. iv. 12. "The word of God is quick and powerful, &c. &c. neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." This agrees with the following description of Jesus, the faithful and true witness: Rev. xxx. 12. "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns." And with his message

to the Church at Thyatira:

And with his

Rev. ii. 18. "These

things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like a flame of fire." And in a subsequent part of the same message his language is, if possible, still more striking, see verse 23: "And all the Churches shall know that I am he who searcheth the reins and hearts"-not merely I search, but I am he who searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give every one of you according to his works. The whole is a quotation from the Old Testament, in which our Lord said the same things to the early Church by the voice of his servant Jeremiah, see xviii. 10. "I Jehovah search the heart, and try the reins, to give every man according to his ways." Now says

66

Christ in the Apocalypse, "All the Churches shall know that I am he who doeth this." What is said then of Jehovah in one Testament is clearly and without diminution asserted of Christ in the other. Thus we see in Jesus complete and unqualified Omniscience.

An amazing attribute: it represents the Deity more especially as an intellectual Being. We connect something physical with his Omnipresence and Omnipotence; but here we are merged in an ocean of pure intellect.

The Omniscience of God will appear still more grand, if we pause for a moment to contrast it with the mental powers of man.

It is reason which elevates man above the brutes, and its superiority raises one man above another all the lasting and truly valuable distinctions of civil society arise and continue in mental advantage. Every man will sooner or later come to his level; and a fool who has greatness thrust upon him will not retain it long; or, if he hold the name, others who make a splendid tool of him will exercise the reality: it must be, as it always has been, that mind will govern matter, and superior minds will in the same proportion govern those which are less powerful.

Hence our veneration for the wise and learned. The man of vast intellect and acquirements has a pre-eminent advantage: the energies of mind