Astronomical and Commercial Discourses (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...altogether from the circle of his habitual contemplations. It is, that man taketh his way in life as much at random, as if there was no presiding Divinity at all; and that, whether he at one time grovel in the depths of sensuality, or at another kindle with some generous movement of sympathy or of patriotism, he is at both times alike unmindful of Him to whom he owes his continuance and his birth. It is, that he move- his every footstep at his own will; and has utterly discarded, from its supremacy over him, the will of that invisible Master who compasses all his goings, and never ceases to pursue him by the claims of a resistless and legitimate authority. It is this which is the essential or the constitutmg principle of rebellion against God. This it is which has exiled the planet we live in beyond the limits of His favoured creation--and whether it be shrouded in the turpitude of licentiousness of cruelty, or occasionally brightened with the gleam of the kindly and the honourable virtues, it ia thus that it is seen as afar off, by Him who sitteth on the throne, and looketh on our strayed world, as athwart a wide and a dreary gulf of separation. And when prompted by love towards His alienated children, He devised a way of recalling them--when willing to pass over all the ingratitude He had gotten from their hands, He reared a pathway of return, and proclaimed a pardon and a welcome to all who should walk upon it--when through the offered Mediator, who magnified His broken law, and upheld, by His mysterious sacrifice, the dignity of that government which the children of Adam had disowned, He invited all to come to Him and be saved--should this message be brought to the door of the most honourable man upon earth, and he turn in...