of a first or uncaused cause; much less, at the apprehension of those perfections, natural and moral, in him, with which the true idea of the Deity could be alone identified, and without any of which, God (I speak it with reverence) would be no God? Even were it possible for a human mind, in these forlorn circumstances, to conceive an idea of the Deity which should want only one of his essential attributes: for instance, that of immutability, this deficiency alone would occasion a monstrous caricature, instead of a divine resemblance. revolution of the heavenly bodies, and to the formation of matter, to which all these admirable effects, of being, life, and motion, are to be attributed nevertheless, he will strive in vain to inform himself by any thing he can see or know, whether this prior cause were not itself caused; and whether that causing cause were not again caused by a third, and so on, ad infinitum; for, where will the mind, having no information on the subject, stop, there being as much reason to conclude that the maker of the world was made, and he by another, as that the world itself was made. In this In short, man is a receptive and latter case, the greatest possible not an inventive being. Until advantage of which I can con- supplied with ideas by sensation, ceive for ascertaining the exist- his mind is mere capacity, devoid ence of the Deity, without the of every thing but its natural subaid of revelation, is conceded to stance and properties: and if so, the efforts of human reason, and then that a mind so constituted no notice is taken of the errors of should be able, by aid of its own polytheism, into which a self- resources, to discover truths which directed mind would be likely to are not either intuitively known, be betrayed-and there lost-by or certainly deducible from selfwitnessing the numerous contrasts evident data, is an opinion as unof beauty with deformity, of good supported and untenable as the with evil, and of virtue with vice, doctrine of innate ideas. Man which nature and society present; can know nothing with certainty it being an inference naturally of objects which are inaccessible drawn by one unacquainted with to his senses, without positive inthe scriptural doctrine of divine formation; and if he have, at providence, from a variety of ef- any time, suggested a proposition, fects differing from, and opposing whose proof being beyond the each other, in their qualities and reach of his faculties, he could tendencies, that they have as many, not adduce which shall have been and as various, and as contrary afterwards verified by its argeecauses. And thus the Heathens ment with revealed truth, yet canof Greece and Rome, although not that proposition be considered accounted to have been, at the in itself, otherwise than as merely same time, the most wise and conjectural, since the demonstraenlightened people in the world, tion of it was unknown to the had amongst them a deity for al-proposer. most every thing; and gods and goddesses of all sorts and sizes, dispositions and abilities, were nearly as numerous as men and women. According to Varro, they exceeded thirty thousand. An essential difference must ever be acknowledged between opinion and truth. A philosopher who should state that the moon is inhabited, would not demonstrate that man had powers sufficient to ascertain the truth of Yet, after all, does it not appear his statement, although it might that a natural theologian will never be subsequently disclosed that the be able to arrive at the knowledge | hypothesis was correct. But I am doing more than I proposed in answering my own enquiries. I will, therefore, leave the second with your readers; and conclude with an inference or two from what has been advanced on the first. their altogether unassisted cotemporaries. Let then the insufficiency of reason and nature to teach divine things be candidly admitted. Let the evidences of revealed truth be fully stated; its claims properly enforced, and its sanctions seri1. If these principles be true, ously explained and decidedly then is it dangerous, if not fatal, declared. So far as reason and to commit the issue of the question nature can be rendered subserbetween those who believe and vient to these purposes (for by those who deny the existence of evidence and analogy they illusthe Deity, to arguments, however trate and corroborate much, and popular, obtained from reason or contradict nothing of what is dinature. To say the least of con- vinely revealed), let their arguclusions derived from such pre- ments be adduced, and legitimises, they are disputable. If it mately applied. If, after all, a be objected that Pythagoras, So- mortal man will persist in refusing crates, Plato, and other heathen the assent of his understanding, philosophers, asserted the exist- and the concurrence of his heart, ence of a First Cause, it can be because there are some things in shewn, that some of them had the Bible which he cannot comaccess to the scriptures of the prehend, and more which he does Old and New Testament, and to not like, he asserts for his reason information derived originally from a supremacy over the authority of revelation by the Jews; and that God; rejects revelation at his others were acquainted with the known peril, and risks the despetenets of the Christians, and had rate alternative of a fabulous most probably seen part of the Christianity, or the second death. writings of the Evangelists. Also, A man who waits to be reasoned that this doctrine of these cele-into revealed religion on natural brated men was borrowed from principles, will die without that the Scriptures or tradition, may faith which God hath made essenbe further made to appear by tial to a sinner's salvation. considering, that the great mass of their countrymen lived in entire ignorance of it, which it can scarcely be supposed would have been the case, equally furnished with reason and nature as they were, if the former had not en-instructors so miserably inefficient. joyed advantages of a different kind from those which were possessed by the latter. It is still less wonderful that Mr. Wollaston and Dr. Paley, and other authors and supporters of systems of natural religion and theology, of our own age and nation, should have far surpassed, in proofs and illustrations, their less favoured predecessors of Greece and Rome, than that these should have left, at a hopeless distance behind them, VOL. I 2. If reason and nature can teach nothing of God, or nothing to any good purpose, then how much are they to be pitied, who either voluntarily commit themselves, or are unhappily left, to For the former class, let us do what we can, and for the latter, what we ought, that neither infidel nor heathen may have cause to upbraid us in the day of judgment. Let us consider our responsibility and obligations, as Christians, to live as the disciples of a divine religion, and as those who are indeed "taught of God," and to exert ourselves to the utmost to send forth the light and truth of the glorious gospel to all G the benighted and untaught in- | stricken me, and I was not sick; habitants of the wide world. NOTHING is more expressive of the moral state of the world, than the dark and drowsy slumbers of the night; and to this figure the sacred writers frequently allude, in their addresses to the carnally secure. "What meanest thou, O sleeper," said the heathen shipmaster to Jonah; "arise, call upon thy God, that we perish not." "It is high time to awake out of sleep," said the watchman that guarded the city of the living God. "Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober." they have beaten me, and I felt it not." In this state, death often finds them, like the drowsy mariner in a storm, who awakes just before the ship goes down, or sinks insensible of his danger. During this night-time of the world, even religious people are in danger of falling into a drowsy state, like the ten virgins who slumbered and slept while waiting for the coming of the bridegroom. Do we not slumber over our duties, rather than perform them with alacrity and delight: and sleep, rather than watch, in the hour of temptation? Like the three disciples in the garden, whose eyes were heavy when the hour of danger was approaching, we too often find that when the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, so that we cannot do the things that we would. If the Saviour visits us, as he did them, we awake for a time; but when he withdraws, we slumber and sleep again. By some alarming providence we are quickened to greater diligence in holy duties, or melted into tenderness and love by some affecting instance of unexpected mercy; but how soon do we lose that holy sensibility which should warn us of distant danger, discover to us the superior excellence Mankind in general, as to their of heavenly things, and inspire us spiritual concerns, are fast asleep; with unabating ardour in pursuing lulled in carnal security, and lying after them. How easily do we in the arms of the wicked one. relax from the activities of reliNothing awakens them to reflec- gion, and the intenseness of detion, or warns them of their danger. sire, into carnal ease and indifferAfflictive providences and deliver-ence, and derive from the world ing mercies alternate call; the aw-a contagion which paralyses all the ful threatenings of the law are energies of vital piety, and leaves thundered in their ears, and the us nothing but the unsatifying great trumpet of the gospel is form, or the empty name. sounded; but they sleep on, and take their rest. They are as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast: they have 66 In this manner, alas, have we slumbered over the great interests of immortality, and slept on the confines of an eternal world. What has life been but a series "Waken, O Lord, our drowsy sense, ILLUSTRATION of inaction, a torpid scene of the lead in matters of religion and half-awakened thought, indigested worship; and the government even plans, and futile purposes; with of the christian church of Jerusanow and then a momentary glimpse lem remained but for a very short of glory, and so much of religious time after this in the hands of a feeling as may suffice us that we minister of the circumcision. This are not absolutely dead and buried. is the same event which is preBut it is high time to awake out of dicted in many other prophecies, sleep: the hours and the years are as the expulsion of the incontinent fled, to return no more. wife from the husband's house. Her expulsion however was to be but temporary, though of long duration. It was a separation, as we should say in modern language, from bed and board,-not an absolute divorce, such as, by the principles of the Mosaic iaw, set the woman at liberty to unite herself to another man, and in that event, prohibited her return to her first husband. On the contrary, the same prophecies that threatIN the prophecies of the Oldened the expulsion, maintain the Testament which set forth the continuance of the husband's prounion between the Redeemer and perty in the separated woman, and his church, under the figure of promise a reconciliation and final the state of wedlock, we read of reinstatement of her husband's fatwo celebrations of that mystical vour. "Where is the bill of your wedding, at very different and mother's divorcement," saith the distant seasons; or more properly, prophet Isaiah. The question imwe read of a marriage-a separa-plies a denial that any such intion, on account of the woman's strument existed. And in a subincontinence, that is, on account of her idolatry-and in the end, of a remarriage with the woman reclaimed and pardoned. REV. xix. 7. OF The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. sequent part of his prophecies, he expressly announces the reconciliation. "Blush not," saith the Redeemer to the pardoned wife: The original marriage was con"for thou shalt not be brought tracted with the Hebrew church, to reproach; for thou shalt forget by the institution of the Mosaic the shame of thy youth, and the covenant, at the time of the Ex-reproach of thy deserted state thou odus; as we are taught expressly by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The separation was the dispersion of the Jewish nation by the Romans, when they were reduced to that miserable state in which they remain to this day; their city in ruins, their temple demolished and burnt, and the forms of the Mosaic worship abolished. Then it was that the sceptre departed from Judah. The Jews were no longer the depositaries of the laws and oracles of God; they were no longer to take shalt no longer remember. For thy Maker is thy husband; Jehovah of hosts is his name; and he who claims thee is the Holy One of Israel. As a woman forsaken and deeply afflicted, Jehovah hath recalled thee; and as a wife wedded in youth, but afterwards rejected, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I receive thee again." Isa. liv. 4-8. The reconciliation is to be made publicly, by a repetition of the FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. nuptial ceremonies. After Christ's bestowing on him most extravafinal victory over the apostate fac-gant praise. The king said to tions, proclamation is made, by a him, Sir, if your discourse is voice issuing from the throne, true, I render thanks to God; if The marriage of the Lamb is it is not so, I pray with all my come, and his wife hath made heart that he may give me the herself ready. That is, she hath good qualities which you have so prepared herself, by penitence and plenteously ascribed to me." reformation, to be reunited to him. And one of the seven angels calls to the apostle John, "Come hither, and I will shew thee the Lamb's wife." Then he shows him "the holy Jerusalem;" i. e. the church of the converted Jews. These nuptials therefore of the Lamb are not, as some have imagined, a marriage with a second wife, a Gentile church, taken into the place of the Jewish, irrecoverably discarded: no such idea of an absolute divorce is to be found in prophecy. But it is a public reconciliation with the original wife, the Hebrew church, become the mother of Christendom, notified by the ceremony of a remarriage. The season of this renewed marriage is the second advent, or the period of the latter-day glory, when the new covenant will be established with the natural seed of Israel. See Bishop Horsley's Sermons, vol. i. p. 100. ANECDOTES. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Some courtiers of Philip the Good excited him to punish a prelate who had used him ill. "I know," said he, "that I can revenge myself; but it is a fine thing to have vengeance in one's power, and not to use it." VALUE OF A LIVING. said a bishop. "As much as "What is your curacy worth?" your bishopric," replied the curate, "hell or heaven." GOOD PREACHER. It was said of Father Peraplin, that libertines dared not go to hear him preach for fear of being converted. A BISHOP'S LIBERALITY! The Bishop of Chester, in his Charge lately published, states, that the average of the "salaries of the stipendiary curates," throughout his diocese, is £71 per ann.` and adds, that "this sum must be allowed to be as large as could with propriety be demanded or Stephen, King of Poland, said viewer (No. for December, p. 589.) wished for!!! The Eclectic Reto those who persuaded him to observes upon this, "When such constrain some of his subjects who were of a different religion, faring sumptuously every day) a man (clothed in purple, and to embrace his, "I am king of talks to those whom he thus inmen, and not of consciences. The dominion of the conscience heaven! and exhorts them to sults, about a recompence in belongs exclusively to God." HUMILITY. A very eloquent physician delivered before Alphonso a speech contentment! We feel that our forbearance and patience are about to forsake us; we pause, and can only wonder at the mysteries of Providence." |