heathen's conversation, and save that
you say, ye believe in the true God, and he denies him, there is no
difference. Your transgressions speak louder than your professions, "that
there is no fear of God before your eyes", Psal. xxxvi. 1. Your practice
belies your profession, you "profess that you know God, but in works you
deny him," saith Paul, Tit. i. 16 _Ore quod dicitis, opere negatis_.

In the words read in your audience, you have a strange question, and a
strange answer: a question of Moses and an answer of God. The occasion of
it was the Lord's giving to Moses a strange and uncouth message. He was
giving him commission to go and speak to a king to dismiss and let go six
hundred thousand of his subjects, and to speak to a numerous nation to
depart from their own dwellings and come out whither the lord should lead
them. Might not Moses then say within himself, " 'Who am I, to speak such
a thing to a King? Who am I, to lead out such a mighty people? Who will
believe that thou hast sent me? Will not all men call me a deceiver, an
enthusiastical fellow, that take upon me such a thing?' Well then, saith
Moses to the Lord,--'Lord, when I shall say, that the God of their fathers
sent me unto them, they will not believe me, they have now forgotten thy
majesty, and think that thou art but even like the vanities of the
nations, they cannot know their own portion from other nations vain idols
which they have given the same name unto, and call gods as well as thou
art called. Now therefore,' says he, 'when they ask me what thy proper
name is by which thou art distinguished from all idols, and all the works
of thine own hands, and of men's hands, what shall I say unto them? Here
is the question.' But why askest thou my name? saith the Lord to Jacob,"
Gen. xxxii. 29. Importing, that it is high presumption and bold curiosity
to search such wonder. Ask not my name, saith the angel to Manoah, for "it
is secret or wonderful." Judges xiii. 18. It is a mystery, a hidden
mystery, not for want of light, but for too much light. It is a secret, it
is wonderful, out of the reach of all created capacity. Thou shalt call
his name "Wonderful," Isa. ix. 6. What name can express that
incomprehensible Majesty? The mind is more comprehensive than words, but
the mind and soul is too narrow to conceive him. O then! how short a
garment must all words, the most significant and comprehensive and
superlative words be? Solomon's soul and heart was enla