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CHRISTIAN THEISM. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE ORIGIN 
 OF CHRISTIANITY." 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMALLFIELD AND SON, 69, NEWGATE STREET. 
 
 1839. 
 
GKORGE SMALLFIELU, I'KINTEU, 69, NEWGATE STHEET. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following are some reflections on the direction 
 which the religious sentiments of men may be expected 
 to take after the relinquishment of their belief in mira- 
 culous revelations. 
 
 On some occasions old truths have an interest and 
 fitness of application which give them a freshness equal 
 to that of novelty. This must be the excuse for repeat- 
 ing here some things which may have often been said 
 before. To those who have felt compelled to acquiesce 
 in the conclusion referred to with respect to the Christian 
 religion, the truths which can be gathered from Nature 
 come to have a force and a reality which were never 
 before perceived. When we are called upon to decide 
 between Nature's religion and none, it seems to us as 
 if we had not yet sufficiently weighed the import of the 
 lessons conveyed in Creation, and we find in them the 
 interest and value belonging to new discoveries. 
 
 These pages may, perhaps, express some of the thoughts 
 to which such a position gives rise ; and also tend to shew 
 in what sense Theism and Christianity may unite in name 
 as well as in sympathies. 
 
 September 1839. 
 
ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 2, line 1, for " other causes than those" read " those causes alone." 
 
CHRISTIAN THEISM. 
 
 Miracle and prophecy are losing their influence over 
 the minds of men ; they are no longer put forward as the 
 impregnable bulwarks of religion, but are withdrawn to a 
 more secure place in the background. Their strength 
 as armour is mistrusted; and they are preserved with 
 the jealous care due to venerated but fragile relics. 
 The tone of confident appeal to the supposed unimpeach- 
 able evidence on their behalf, is succeeded by an implor- 
 ing deprecation of the rashness which should root up a 
 belief on the whole beneficial, or by a discreet silence. 
 The imagination may still linger over the ancient and 
 pleasing fictions, so long intertwined with the religious 
 feelings of all the nations who have drawn their creeds 
 from Palestine ; but calm reason is unable to acknow- 
 ledge them longer as facts. A dispassionate examina- 
 tion persuades us that there is no sufficient ground for 
 believing that that land, more than others, has witnessed 
 interruptions or suspensions of the laws of nature : the 
 closest investigation fails to support the wondrous tales, 
 the power of which over the imagination and heart was 
 enhanced by the solemnity of rehgious sanction : we re- 
 cognize with some disappointment, that although men in 
 every land have been liable to mistake, exaggerate, or 
 deceive, the sun and moon have, in all probability, ever 
 pursued their regular course over the valleys of Judea ; 
 that attraction of gravitation has probably never ceased to 
 operate on the sea of Galilee ; nor the human frame, in the 
 region from Idumea to Tyre and Sidon, to be affected by 
 
 B 
 
other causes than those which fall within the Imiits of the 
 physical and organic laws of nature. 
 
 Yet, after having arrived at this result, the inquirer 
 presently sees the horizon begin to clear, and many diffi- 
 culties which had hitherto enveloped rehgion break up 
 and disperse. Subjects most interesting to mankind no 
 longer appear clogged with absurdities, which the utmost 
 ingenuity of scholarship could not reduce into a shape 
 admissible before reason ; the progress of moral science 
 is no longer impeded by the necessity of accommodating 
 conclusions to a collection of wi'itten precepts ; nor the 
 supply of mental strength made dependent on the recep- 
 tion of tales of the most difficult verification. At the same 
 time, whatever of real moral value was contained in Christ- 
 ianity and its records may be retained ; nor does the im- 
 portant modification of opinions alluded to, appear even 
 to bring with it the necessity of running counter to the 
 feelings of this age and country by a renunciation of the 
 Christian name. It must rejoice the lover of peace as 
 well as of truth, to feel convinced that there is no incon- 
 sistency in retaining a name in favour of which there are 
 such strong, and on many accounts deserved, preposses- 
 sions, amongst the mass of his countrymen and benevo- 
 lent men of every clime ; and that this minor point need 
 not contribute to a separation in feeling and action, which 
 the difference of opinion alone would not have occasioned. 
 
 Even those more liberal Christians, who have been 
 willing to admit that many different opinions might co- 
 exist within the pale of Christianity, have generally taken 
 it for gi'anted that a behef in its miraculous origin at least 
 was essential. But a close attention to the history of 
 Jesus Christ will shew that this distinction is perfectly 
 arbitrary ; and that a total disbelief of miracles and pro- 
 phecy no more disqualifies a man for bearing with pro- 
 priety and consistency the Christian name, than any 
 other deduction from the exuberant belief which places 
 
him in the Triune Godhead. The most striking points 
 in Christ's career and preaching shew, that contribution 
 to human improvement constitutes the most prominent 
 title to the name of Christian, regarded merely in an ety- 
 mological and historical sense ; and that, if the benevolent 
 Deist feels inclined to honour the Jewish reformer by 
 perpetuating his name in this honourable connexion with 
 philanthropy, he may do so without even historical inac- 
 curacy. 
 
 By some the essence of Christianity has been supposed 
 to consist m the acknowledgment of Jesus as God, or the 
 Son of God ; by others, in looking to his death as an 
 atonement for the sins of the world; by others, in the 
 belief that he was raised from the dead, or that he was a 
 man approved of God by miracles, wonders, and signs ; — 
 in all which views, men appear to have been more regardful 
 of what was said by the followers of Christ, immediate or 
 subsequent, than of that which formed his own main 
 purpose dming his life. 
 
 The earliest and original doctrine of Christianity, the 
 feature which characterized the infant religion at its birth, 
 that which John the Baptist preached even before Jesus 
 came, which Jesus himself made the chief topic of almost 
 every discourse, and which he bade his followers proclaim 
 in every town from Galilee to Jerusalem, accords with 
 the views of every benevolent man. Prepare for the 
 kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven approaches. 
 Pray that the reign of God may come on earth as it is in 
 heaven. 
 
 Amidst the many evils which disfigure the present 
 aspect of mankind, men find a satisfaction in turning to 
 the beautiful imaginary picture of a state of human inno- 
 cence and perfection. To the frequent manifestations of 
 the lower feelings which must occur during an imperfect 
 state of human nature, a pleasing contrast is presented 
 by the contemplation of a period, when all the noxious 
 
 b2 
 
features of the human character shall have disappeared, 
 and the face of society shall present a rich moral land- 
 scape of virtue and happiness. This contemplation is 
 the more natural, inasmuch as the moral world seems 
 hitherto evidently behind the natural in point of perfection. 
 The one seems to be nearer than the other to the perfec- 
 tion of which its nature admits. All the different \dews 
 of nature contain something to please us ; the corn field, 
 the meadow, or the deep blue sea, may have more of tran- 
 quil beauty ; yet even the wild heath, the barren desert, 
 the storm, and the volcano, gratify our sense of the vast 
 and sublime. But in much of the moral world, in the in- 
 sincerity, meanness, and hard unscrupulous selfishness, 
 which prevail to a gi-eat extent, there is nothing to 
 gi'atify any perceptions within us ; and we are tempted to 
 inquire if both proceeded fi'om the same creator, or if he 
 was here less able to repel the encroachments of Arimanes 
 than in physical nature. Nevertheless, amidst all the 
 deformity of which we complain, enough of beauty is seen 
 to persuade us that both kinds of creation proceed from 
 a source in which benevolence at least was preponderant ; 
 and we recognize the impress of the same God in the 
 star and hill, and in the bodv and mind of man. Hence 
 the disproportion which strikes us, in the apparent amount 
 of evil in the two creations, suggests, that the moral world 
 does not at present exhibit the entire plan which the 
 Creator had in view in its formation ; that it has either 
 fallen fi'om the perfect state in which it issued fi'om his 
 hand, or not yet arrived at that full grov^^h which he 
 contemplated as its ultimate destination. 
 
 The moral sentiments having existed in some degree 
 in all ages and countries, whilst unfortunately there has 
 never been wanting a sufficient quantity of violence and 
 fraud to shock them, these thoughts have appeared in 
 different forms amongst many nations, but generally 
 imder one or other of those referred to, viz. a state of 
 
5 
 
 perfection already past, or one which is yet to come ; a 
 golden age at the beginning, or one at the end of the 
 world. 
 
 The idea appears in some parts of the poetical writings 
 of the Jews, called the Prophets, who represent the 
 imagined state of happiness as still to come, and to be 
 revealed in the times of the end, or in the day of the 
 Lord. The representations of it in these writings are 
 more interesting to us than any others, because from 
 them are derived principally those ideas and doctrines 
 which, although now owing to a long series of modifica- 
 tions their identity is hardly to be recognized, have ex- 
 ercised under the name of Christianity such an important 
 influence over mankind. Let us, then, recall the views 
 on this subject of those whom Christ and the apostles 
 quoted as high authorities, the Jewish prophets. 
 
 The book of Isaiah frequently represents that it will 
 be the peculiar distinction of Jacob, to spread the know- 
 ledge of his God and peace throughout the earth. 
 
 Ch. ii. 2 — ^i " And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the 
 mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the 
 mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall 
 flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us 
 go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; 
 and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out 
 of Zion shalr go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jeru- 
 salem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many 
 people ; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshai'es, and their 
 spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more." 
 
 Speaking of the future king of the stem of Jesse, who 
 is to restore the peace and glory of Israel, he says, that 
 in his days, 
 
 " The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down 
 with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together ; 
 and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; 
 their young ones shall lie down together ; and the lion shall eat straw 
 like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,. 
 
6 
 
 and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They 
 shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: f or the_earth_shall 
 
 , be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." — 
 
 ^ Chap. xi. 6— 9. ~ 
 
 In the magnificent description of Israel's future glory, 
 chap. Ix. all the other nations of the earth are to derive 
 enlightenment from the favoured nation. 
 
 Isaiah Ix. 1 — 3 : " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, for behold the 
 darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people : but the 
 Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And 
 the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising." 
 
 Chap. Ixi. 11: " For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the 
 garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth ; so the 
 Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all 
 the nations." 
 
 In the vision of Daniel, the last kingdom of the saints 
 of the Most High is to extend over the whole earth. 
 
 Dan. vii. 13, 14: "I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like 
 the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the An- 
 cient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was 
 ; given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, 
 ) and languages, should serve him) his dominion is an everlasting domi- 
 nion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not 
 be destroyed." 
 
 Micah, after lamenting the vices and sufferings of 
 Israel in his own time, repeats the splendid anticipation 
 of Isaiah concerning the last days. 
 
 Mic. iv. 3, 4 : " nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, 
 
 neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man 
 under his vine and his fig-tree ; and none shall make them afraid : for 
 the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." 
 
 The sentiments in the other prophets, and even in 
 some parts of those here quoted, are much inferior to 
 the above; and in general it must be allowed that the 
 most exalted Jewish ideas, respecting the earth's expected 
 improvement, were mingled with a large mass of mere 
 
national prejudice and vanity. The kingdom of God 
 was hardly contemplated with so much satisfaction as 
 being the universal reign of righteousness, as for the 
 sake of that triumphant empire which Jacob should then 
 assert over the nations that had oppressed him, and 
 that glorious sceptre which David's great successor should 
 sway over the whole earth. If the nations were to be 
 brought to righteousness, it was to be by means of the 
 law proceeding from Zion. If in the day of the Lord 
 the Gentiles were to rejoice in the light of the Holy One 
 of Israel, the same day was to behold the confusion of 
 his adversaries, and to be a day of the Lord's vengeance 
 on behalf of Israel. Nevertheless, the sublimity of the 
 views to which these writings occasionally reach, may 
 lead us to overlook the Jewish prejudices with which 
 they abound, and in some degree, to join in the estima- 
 tion in which they have so long been held. 
 
 Jesus Christ learned from the prophets the idea of a 
 future state of perfection on earth, called the Kingdom 
 of heaven, improved it from the resources of his own 
 higher moral nature, and brought all the powers of a 
 fertile eastern imagination to illustrate it so as to awaken 
 the enthusiasm of his hearers. He dehghted to portray 
 the kingdom in a variety of forms, and wdth the imagery 
 naturally proceeding from Jewish habits of thought. 
 The multitudes listened with delight to discourses which 
 for a moment raised their minds to ideas above their usual 
 level, and to views of which the grandeur was probably 
 augmented by not being clearly defined. Many of every 
 class, from the Galilean fisherman to the member of the 
 Sanhedrim, loved to hear the prophet of Nazareth ex- 
 patiate on his favourite theme, and looked for the ap- 
 proach of that Kingdom in which the will of God should 
 be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
 
 The following is a recapitulation of the principal texts 
 ill the four Gospels referring to the Kingdom of heaven : — 
 
8 
 
 Matt. iii. 2 : John the Baptist preaches repentance, as a preparation 
 for the kingdom, iv. 17 : " From that time Jesus began to preach, 
 and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." v. 3 — 12: 
 Humility, mercifulness, and patience in suffering, necessary in order 
 to attain the kingdom. Ver. 19, 20: Doing and teaching his com- 
 mandments confer greatness in the kingdom. Greater righteousness 
 than_that of t he Scribes and Pharisees necessary, vi. 10 : " Thy king- 
 dom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." vi. 33 : " Seek 
 first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things 
 shall be added unto you." vii. 21 : " Not every one that saith unto me. 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth 
 the will of my Father which is in heaven." viii. 11, 12: " Many shall 
 come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom 
 shall be cast out into outer darkness." ix. 35 : Jesus preaches the 
 gospel of the kingdom, and heals diseases, in many cities and villages. 
 X. 7 : Appoints twelve apostles to preach the kingdom through the 
 cities of Israel, xi. 11: " The least in the kingdom of heaven is 
 greater than John the Baptist." Ver. 12: " From the days of John the 
 Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the 
 violent take it by force." xii. 28 : " But if I cast out devils by the Spi- 
 rit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." xiii. : Para- 
 ble of the sower. Perseverance in the midst of temptations necessary 
 to attain the kingdom. The multitude does not understand its mys- 
 teries. The kingdom of heaven likened to the field of good seed and 
 tares ; in the end of the world the wicked shall be cast into a furnace of 
 fire, and the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
 their Father. Like to a grain of mustard-seed ; — to leaven ; — to a 
 treasure hid in a field ; — to a pearl of great price ; — to a net gathering 
 of every kind ; at the end of the world the wicked shall be separated 
 from the just. xvi. 19: The keys of the kingdom promised to Peter. 
 Ver. 28 : " Some here shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man 
 coming in his kingdom." xviii. 2 — 4- : To be humble as httle children 
 qualifies for the kingdom. Ver. 23 — 35 : In the kingdom of heaven 
 there will be a reckoning, and those who have shewn mercy will obtain 
 it. xix. 12: " Some eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He 
 that is able to receive the sa}dng, let him receive it." Ver. 23: "A rich 
 man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven." Ver. 28 : Promise of 
 twelve thrones to the apostles, in the regeneration, xx. 1 — 16: Para- 
 ble of the vineyard ; the last labourers made equal to the first. 20 — 
 28 : Jesus rebukes Zebedee's childi'en, who sought places of distinction 
 in his kingdom, xxi. 1 — 11 : Rides into Jerusalem, as the predicted 
 lowly King of Zion. Ver. 31 : " The publicans and harlots go into the 
 
9 
 
 kingdom before" the chief priests and elders. Ver. 43 : Those who re- 
 ject the Messiah, threatened that the kingdom shall be given to others, 
 xxii. 1 — I'l': The kingdom like a marriage feast ; the guests refusing 
 to come, and murdering the king's servants, he destroys them, and in- 
 vites others, xxiii. 13: " The Scribes and Pharisees shut up the king- 
 dom against men." xxiv. 14 : " The gospel of the kingdom to be preached 
 in all the world, and then the end shall come." xxv. : Parable of the 
 ten virgins. The kingdom will be revealed unexpectedly. The Lord 
 will require increase for his talents. The Son of man, sitting on the 
 throne of his glory, will divide men into the two classes of righteous and 
 wicked, xxvi. 29 : Jesus will not drink wine again until he drinks it 
 new in his Father's kingdom. Ver. 64 : Jesi s tells the high priest, " the 
 Son of man will be seen hereafter sitting on the right hand of power, 
 and coming in the clouds of heaven." 
 
 The texts in Mark and Luke, merely corresponding with those in 
 Matthew, are omitted. 
 
 Mark i. 15: " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at 
 hand." 26 — 29 : The kingdom like seed growing secretly to a full 
 harvest. xii. 34: The Scribe who loved God and his neighbour, 
 not far from the kingdom of God. xv. 43: Joseph of Arimathea, 
 one of those who " waited for the kingdom of God." 
 
 Luke i. 33: The child Jesus "shall reign over the house of Jacob 
 for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." iv. 43 : Jesus 
 says, " I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also ; for there- 
 fore am I sent." ix. 62 : " No man having put his hand to the plough, 
 and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." xii. 32 : It is the 
 Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom to the little flock of disci- 
 ples, xiv. 15: A guest exclaims, " Blessed is he that shall eat bread 
 in the kingdom of God." Jesus answers by the parable of the supper, 
 of which the poor and blind and lame were brought to partake, instead 
 cl those first invited, xvii. 20, 21 : " And when he was demanded of 
 the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them 
 and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither 
 shall they say, Lo here, or lo there ; for behold the kingdom of God is 
 within (among) you." xix. 1 1 : On arriving at Jerusalem, the disci- 
 ples thought the kingdom of God should immediately appear. Parable 
 of the nobleman who was rejected by his citizens, obtains a kingdom 
 elsewhere, and returns to reckon with his servants, and take vengeance 
 on his enemies, xxi. 31 : When Jerusalem is trodden down, and signs 
 appear in the heavens, the kingdom of God will be nigh, xxiii. 42: 
 The malefactor says to Jesus, " Lord, remember me, when thou comest 
 into thy kingdom." 
 
 John i. 49: " Nathanael saith, Kabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou 
 
10 
 
 art the King- of Israel." iii. 3 : Jesus says, " Except a man be boru 
 again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Ver. 5 : " Except a man / 
 7 be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of > 
 4 God." xviii. 36 : " My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom/ 
 were of this world, then would my servants %ht, that I should not be 
 delivered to the Jews : but now is my kingdom not from hence."* 
 
 Jesus made virtue the chief qualification for partaking 
 of the kingdom of heaven. To love God and one's 
 neighhour, was to be not far from the kingdom of 
 God. And he laid particular stress on virtues of the 
 meek and benevolent kind. Blessed are the meek, for 
 they shall inherit the earth Blessed are the peace- 
 makers, for they shall be called the children of God 
 
 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those who 
 in spirit are like little children, rather than the con- 
 tenders for greatness, are fit for the kingdom of God. 
 " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if 
 ye have love to one another." " Love your enemies." 
 In all this, Jesus accords strikingly with the most ad- 
 vanced morality of the present age, which admits that 
 the prevalence of these dispositions is the most essential 
 requisite to the improvement of the world. 
 
 Moreover, although Jesus seems to have held the 
 common Jewish notion of the exaltation of Israel, there 
 are indications that, in his view, the righteous throughout 
 the world would be partakers of the kingdom. In the 
 parable of the tares, the field is the world, and the good 
 seed are the children of the kingdom. — Mat. xiii. 38. The 
 kingdom is like a net cast into the sea, which gathered 
 fish of every kind. Ver. 47.f 
 
 * The probability of some interpolations of later views, acquired 
 by the church after the fall of Jerusalem, with the sayings of 
 Jesus himself, especially in the last Gospel, is considered, ch. vi. 
 and xvi., of " An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity." 
 
 t There is much difficulty in distinguishing accurately the 
 
11 
 
 These excellent and enlightened views are enough to 
 secure to Jesus the permanent respect of moralists, 
 although it be admitted that he added to them some 
 notions peculiarly Jewish, or of inferior merit. 
 
 Jesus Christ, after a very short career, was put to 
 death, a victim to the political suspicions which he had 
 excited ; and the state of things, which he had announced, 
 was found not to be near at hand. His followers con- 
 tinued for a time to expect a kingdom of heaven, to be 
 revealed in some extraordinary manner. Experience 
 and reason have long set aside this expectation as chime- 
 rical ; but at the same time they convince us, that the 
 tendency of the world is actually towards the reahzation 
 of the conception described, a state of happiness and per- 
 fection on earth ; and that the proper means of bringing 
 it to pass, are human efforts in the cause of charity and 
 knowledge. Thus the labourers in this cause are the 
 only real fulfillers of the intention of Jesus. They are in 
 effect bringing about that which Jewish imagination 
 called Messiah's reign ; they are obeying in the most 
 efficient manner Christ's most urgent command; and 
 may therefore with peculiar propriety be called after that 
 name, which, in reference to the future kingdom, was 
 assumed by him. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the views of Jesus were in some respects 
 very different from those of the modern moralist. The 
 expectation of a miraculous introduction of the kingdom,* 
 and of his own exaltation as Messiah, naturally gave to 
 
 views of Jesas himself on this point, both from a probable modifi- 
 cation in his own teaching, after the arrival at Jerusalem and the 
 non-acknowledgment of his Messiahship by the Jews ; and from 
 the probable introduction of the more enlarged views of the church 
 after the admission of the Gentiles. See some reflections on this 
 subject, 16th chap, of " An Inquiry," &c. 
 
 * This subject is considered, ch. xvi. of " An Inquiry," &c. 
 
12 
 
 his teaching a general tendency to excitement and to a 
 disregard of the common engagements of hfe.* With 
 every allowance too for eastern style, it may be ques- 
 tioned if the virtues of humility and reliance upon pro- 
 videncef are not enforced to an extent inconsistent with 
 self-respect, prudence, and energy of character. There 
 is a general depreciation of the common enjoyments of 
 earth ; poverty and suffering seem to be held up as actu- 
 ally desirable, in preference to a happy earthly life, for 
 the sake of obtaining a better title to a future reward.^ 
 This future reward, w^hether in the kingdom about to be 
 revealed, or in an unseen state in heaven, is urged as the 
 proper object of men's constant thought and desire. § 
 The duty of self-denial seems to be inculcated to an 
 extent 1 1 more consistent with the spirit of monachism, 
 
 * His hearers are repeatedly commanded to forsake their kin- 
 dred and occupations in order to follow him. He sa.js to the 
 multitudes, "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all he 
 hath, he cannot be my disciple :" Luke xiv. 25 — 33. The young 
 man, who had kept the commandments, and was apparently making 
 good use of his riches, is commanded, " if he will be perfect, to sell 
 what he has and give to the poor, and to follow him:" Matt. xix. 
 18 — 22. Marriage is not prohibited, but it is desirable for those who. 
 seek the kingdom of heaven to abstain from it. Matt. xix. 10 — 12. 
 
 t Matt, V. 38 — 41 ; vi. 25 — 34. By comparing these precepts 
 with some similar rabbinical proverbs in use among the Jews 
 about the time of Christ, it appears unhkely that he intended them 
 to be understood in that merely figurative sense which modern 
 commentators usually affix to them. See Inquiry, ch. xvii. 
 pp. 341—348. 
 
 X Luke vi. 20 — 26. Blessed be ye that hunger now, for ye 
 shall be filled, &c — But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have 
 received your consolation, &c. In the parable of Lazarus, Abraham 
 appears to represent to the rich man, that he is tormented because 
 he had received good things in his life-time, not because he had 
 misused those good things : Luke xvi. 25. 
 
 ^ Matt. vi. 19—21. 
 
 il Matt. xvi. 24—26 ; Luke ix. 23—25. 
 
13 
 
 than with that cheerful morality which would enlarge, 
 rather than restrict, the bounds of innocent enjoyment. 
 It seems not unlikely that Jesus, notwithstanding his 
 general intellectual superiority and more liberal nature, 
 had not entirely lost that estimation of monastic austerity 
 and excessive heavenly-mindedness, which characterized 
 the whole body of the Essenes. Hence those individuals 
 or sects, in the Christian world, who have striven to attain 
 a close conformity to the zvhole of the precepts of Jesus, 
 have usually found themselves in a singular or isolated 
 position with respect to the society around them, whose 
 less stringent faith impeded but slightly the operation of 
 natural reason and feeling. For these reasons, it is pos- 
 sible that the precepts of the Gospels may not appear a 
 complete and safe code of morality to the philanthropist 
 or legislator who deems, that the appointed chief object 
 of human effort is the increase of happiness and improve- 
 ment upon this earth. 
 
 It is true also, that the doctrine to which we have re- 
 ferred, soon ceased to be the most conspicuous feature in 
 the early church. The followers of Jesus, after some 
 time, thought it of more consequence to assert the resur- 
 rection and apotheosis of their lost master, and the eternal 
 reward prepared for his disciples, than to adhere to his 
 own most prominent doctrine. The expectation held by 
 Jesus of an approaching speedy fulfilment of his anticipa- 
 tions, would not lead him to enjoin the proclamation of 
 these anticipations as the permanent distinguishing 
 doctrine of his followers ; and they were naturally led to 
 adopt as their leading tenets those which the progress of 
 events and opinions rendered most interesting. 
 
 It may be asked why, on this hypothesis of imperfect 
 views and mixed motives on the part of the Founder of 
 Christianity, this age should be inclined to render him 
 any allegiance whatever, and to connect his name more 
 than those of many other reformers, possibly more wise 
 
14 
 
 and enlightened, with tlie cause of human improvement ? 
 If he were not God, nor the Son of God, nor a prophet, 
 not even the wisest philosopher, or most perfect moral 
 being that we can conceive of; if he were, in fact, only a 
 Jewish peasant of intellect, imagination, and moral feeling, 
 much, although not immeasurably, above the standard of 
 his age and country ; why should his name be enshrined 
 in this costly manner more than those of many other 
 philanthropists, wdiich would now be scarcely recognized 
 by any but the students of biogi'aphical dictionaries ? 
 
 Because the Christian system, in addition to such in- 
 trinsic excellence as it possesses, has been long interwoven 
 with some of the best affections of mankind, and has 
 been forced upon their notice by a striking series of 
 events. There may be writers who have drawn up 
 theories of morals more complete, and more invariably 
 correct, than that which can be collected from the New 
 Testament. But human nature is so constructed, that 
 other things besides correctness give a man's opinions 
 a title to perpetual remembrance. Action in the world, 
 even more than thought in the closet, contributes to an 
 enduring memorial. If Jesus had merely written in a 
 formal treatise what he could say concerning morals, his 
 name might never perhaps have reached us : certainly it 
 would have attracted less notice than that of the move 
 copious and systematic Jewish morahst, Jesus the son of 
 Sirach. But he also stood forth as a public reformer, 
 opposed his o\mi more liberal spirit to the bigotry of his 
 time, arrested men's attention by assuming the remark- 
 able character of Messiah, and died a martyr. In 
 his own personal career, he illustrated much of his pre- 
 cepts, and especially faith in heaven as the philosophy 
 of suffering. The romance and pathos thus attached to 
 his history, have given him a hold upon faculties of men 
 more powerful than mere reason, and stamped all that 
 proceeds from him with a weight and interest which the 
 
15 
 
 mass of mankind would be slow to feel in mere philoso- 
 phical merit. The hero of tales like those of the fom- 
 Gospels, must ever be listened to with more attention than 
 one who issues the most luminous disquisitions from the 
 closet. So also the followers of Jesus were not merely 
 writers, but by means of their organization, missions;, and 
 purity of life, revolutionized the human mind throughout 
 the Roman empire, and reared the reformed Judaism 
 amidst the ruins of polytheism and heathen philosophy. 
 A long train of events of great historical importance is 
 traced back to the lives of the Nazarene and his friends. 
 From them has proceeded a succession of remarkable 
 developments of the human mind. The early churches, 
 with their affectionate spirit of brotherhood, and the 
 pompous hierarchies which afterwards trod on the necks 
 of princes ; the desert cell of the solitary Egyptian, and 
 the gorgeous cathedral with its solemn music and slow- 
 moving trains of priests and virgins ; the councils of 
 mitred and imperial metaphysicians, as well as associations 
 of practical philanthropists ; the bigotry of inquisitions and 
 crusades, as well as the calm resignation which in clois- 
 tered walls fixes its last hope on heaven ; all these are 
 amongst the indices pointing to the immense influence, 
 political and moral, which has been exercised upon the 
 world for eighteen centuries by the Cross. 
 
 It is not easy to decide the question, whether Christi- 
 anity has hitherto produced more good or evil in the 
 world. The varying systems of doctrines, which have 
 passed under the name, may be considered as so many 
 exciting causes, which, according to the prevailing dispo- 
 sitions of men, have promoted the growth of good or evil 
 actions. The savage warrior of feudal times felt the 
 name of Jesus chiefly as an incentive to exterminate the 
 enemies of the Cross; the humane philanthropist has 
 endeavoured to honour the same name by traversing lands 
 and seas to relieve the oppressed. The spirit of enter- 
 
16 
 
 prise, war, and cruelty, would be impelled by its Christ- 
 ianity to a crusade, and choose for its favourite texts, 
 " I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword ;" 
 and '' He that hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, 
 and children, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my 
 disciple." Benevolence would be quickened by the Gospel 
 to a more active cultivation of the charities of life, and, 
 throwing a veil over its harsher features, would select for 
 its mottoes, " Do good unto all men," " Love your 
 enemies." In the same manner, the desire of eternal 
 salvation has added vehemence to the spirit of persecution 
 on the one hand, and given consistency and perseverance 
 to charitable effort on the other. The close connexion 
 which Christianity establishes between mind and its invi- 
 sible source, has tended to withdraw the unsocial spirit 
 still deeper into morose solitude; whilst, in the more 
 kindly disposed, it has added to the character the charm 
 arising from the capacity for the devotional sentiment. 
 Thus may we find aTorquemada and a Las Casas appeal- 
 ing to the same Gospel ; nor is it easy even for the most 
 impartial to ascertain the balance of good or evil which 
 it has been the means of drawing forth, during the few 
 stages of man's history, which have yet witnessed its 
 operation. Yet, if it be admitted that stagnation is the 
 worst evil which can befal the human mind, a system, 
 which has called forth so many powerful energies, has at 
 least a claim to prior consideration, even though these 
 energies may have been hitherto in great part mis- 
 directed. 
 
 It is impossible to estimate Christianity fairly by re- 
 viewing the conduct of its professed votaries in past 
 ages ; since history evidently does not supply the means 
 of separating accurately that part of their conduct which 
 was produced by their Christianity, from that which ori- 
 ginated in their own inherent dispositions or other cir- 
 cumstances. We must appeal to the judgment of the 
 
17 
 
 enlightened modern moralist on the tendency of the New 
 Testament, consisting of the story of Jesus and his dis- 
 ciples, and their precepts. Does he find the prevailing 
 sentiments arising from the study of these records, upon 
 the whole greatly favourable to his views ? Does he find 
 in them so much that is accordant with truth and virtue, 
 that it is desirable to retain the name of Christ and the 
 Scriptures as useful and powerful allies, in all those 
 schemes for human improvement which the increased 
 knowledge of modern times sanctions ? 
 
 Now, it will scarcely be denied by the attentive reader 
 of the New Testament, that even though there be some 
 things which he may regard with doubt or disapprobation, 
 there is much which awakens the best feelings more 
 powerfully than could be effected by the most coiTect 
 formal treatise on morals. Here, in the pleasing style 
 of eastern apophthegm and parable, we find pictures of 
 the final triumph of righteousness ; the principle of bene- 
 volence enforced in a manner which allows of its appli- 
 cation to the most extended views of the promoter of 
 social improvement; and a general inculcation of the 
 milder virtues which humanize mankind. The contem- 
 plation of the Deity is recommended under an aspect 
 agreeable to reason, and congenial to the wants of the 
 mind. Adversity meets with sympathy, and is directed 
 to doctrines most calculated to give strength and patience, 
 submission to the Divine will, and the hope of a future 
 state. All this appeal's here with the weight due to 
 things spoken by men who have acted an important part 
 in the world; here, both romance and reality combine 
 to impart interest to the precept. Where shall we find 
 the dissertation on moral sentiments which speaks like 
 the Gospels ; where the professor of ethics who appeals 
 to us with the same force as the inimitable Galilean, who 
 teaches from the mount and the sea-side ; is comforted 
 by angels, the spirits which minister heaven's secret aid 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 to the soul ; and — tlic inevital)le anticipation of human 
 nature on behalf of dying merit — rises from the dead, 
 and ascends to the right hand of God ? 
 
 With no hostility, then, towards Christ and Christianity 
 7 may the Theist renounce his faith in miracles and pro- 
 1 phecy ; and without inconsistency may he be willing that 
 the long train of associations which Christianity possesses 
 with the history, the literature, the poetry, the moral 
 and religious feelings of mankind, should long contribute 
 their powerful influences in behalf of the cause of human 
 improvement. Let all benefactors of mankind continue 
 to look to Jesus as their forerunner in this great cause, 
 and recognize a kindred mind in the Galilean who 
 preached lessons of wisdom and benevolence in an early 
 , age of the world, and fell a sacrifice to the noble idea 
 ^1 of introducing a kingdom of heaven upon earth. Let 
 / the good Samaritan still be cited as the example of hu- 
 manity ; the passover-supper be remembered as the fare- 
 well of Jesus to his friends ; and God be worshiped 
 under the character which he attributed to him, — the 
 Father in heaven. Let painting and music still find 
 solemn themes in the realities and fables relating to Jesus ; 
 let feasts and holidays still take their names from the 
 events of his life, our time be dated from his birth, and 
 our temples be surmounted by his cross. 
 
 Christianity, then, has been neither evil nor useless ; 
 but out of it will proceed a further mental growth. The 
 religion of Egypt, Judaism, Christianity, and the more 
 advanced system, which at a future time may, by the 
 appearance of some remarkable individual, or combination 
 of events, come to be designated by another name, — are 
 all so many successive developments of the religious 
 principle, which, with the progi*ess of mankind, will as- 
 sume a form continually approaching nearer to perfect 
 . truth. And in proportion as other religions make the 
 ] same approximation, it will be gradually recognized that 
 
19 
 God hath made all iKitions of one mmd, as well as of one 
 blood, to dwell upon all the face of the earth. 
 
 In this early age of the world, it is impossible to 
 foresee the whole of the creed at which miimpeded rea- 
 son will ultimately arrive on the subject of religion. On 
 this, more than on any other subject, the love of pure 
 truth has been checked by interest, prejudice, and fear. 
 The pressing wants of the human mind in this respect, 
 co-existing with ignorance, have enabled the artful and 
 ambitious to make religion pecuharly an instrument for 
 their purposes ; whilst the love of ease has led the mass 
 of mankind to acquiesce readily in an usurpation, which, 
 whatever were its inconveniences, pretended to satisfy 
 fully their spiritual wants. To submit to authority, with 
 all its burdensome terms, has been found by the world 
 in general an easier bargain than to incur the labour of 
 thought ; and those who preferred the latter could only 
 expect to be regarded, even amidst the loudest pro- 
 clamations of liberty of conscience, with the dishke na- 
 turally felt towards those whose conduct tends to render 
 men dissatisfied with a favourite purchase. And the 
 more so, since this purchase was felt by the many to be 
 the only means in their pov>^er of satisfying their want. 
 Whilst nature was imperfectly understood, and the intel- 
 lectual powers were but little cultivated, the many felt 
 themselves incapable, by means of their own native pow- 
 ers, of drawing clearly from the universe around them 
 the conclusions which occasionally seemed to break in- 
 distinctly upon them, but which their minds required in 
 full ^assurance. Earth and skies continually suggested 
 the idea of a First Cause, the knowledge of which seemed 
 to be a natural vv^ant of the mind, and must influence 
 materially the conduct. But was this instinctive feeling 
 to be taken as full evidence of the existence of that 
 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 towards which it was directed ? — and if not, how should 
 minds oppressed with worldly cares, uneducated, or having 
 but imperfect help from science, work out such a vast 
 conclusion from their own resources ? A word from Hea- 
 ven would aid their weakness, solve their doubts, and 
 afford them the delight of faith, without the ti'ouble of 
 acquiring it. What wonder, then, that men professing to 
 have received this message from heaven, or to be its 
 interpreters, should find a ready submission to their 
 claims, succeed in having them admitted without a very 
 rigid scrutiny, and continue to find docile recipients even 
 iong after they had begun, instead of bread, to give 
 stones? During the ages of mankind's moral and intel- 
 lectual minority, it seems indeed natural that authority, 
 derived from the ascendancy of some few superior indi- 
 viduals, should exercise guardianship over the human 
 mind, and provide its necessary food until full-grown 
 reason should be able both to guide and nourish itself. 
 Hence the philanthropist regards with complacency the 
 various Revelations which have afforded to men spiritual 
 supplies, although not of unmixed purity ; and hears, in 
 the supposed direct voices from heaven, prelude-sounds 
 of the voice which speaks through nature and reason in a 
 tone rising slowly into clearness in the lapse of ages. 
 
 But in time the human mind feels disposed to claim 
 its birthright of free judgment, and takes pleasure in the 
 task of providing for its own wants. It finds a necessity 
 not only to live, but to think. It looks upon the forest, 
 the hill, and the star, not only as a panorama intended 
 to give a momentary gratification to the eye, but as 
 volumes calling to deep thought. It sees that the uni- 
 verse gradually unrolls a succession of lessons which speak 
 both to the intellect and to the heart, and conjectures 
 that there may still lie some of surpassing importance, at 
 present unsuspected, beneath the material surface of 
 thinii;s. These, the sustained labour of the human mind 
 
21 
 
 for many centuries will have to bring to light ; nor does 
 it appear a strange dispensation that moral wealth, any 
 more than physical, should be the result of the accu- ( 
 mulated earnings of many generations, by means of la- ) 
 bour in itself pleasing and beneficial. 
 
 It would be unreasonable to expect that the ultimate 
 conclusions of the mind on religious subjects, should accord 
 fully with any one of those early substitutes for developed 
 reason, called Revelations. But as these could not have / 
 obtained prevalence unless they were, to a great extent, ) 
 in accordance with some natural human sentiments, it ^ 
 may be conjectured that, in some important features at j 
 least, they will be found to agree with the conclusions 
 referred to. 
 
 The first question which occurs, after renouncing reve- 
 lation, is, whether it be in reality necessary or natural 
 to the mind to have any religion at all. Why should we 
 seek the unseen, when there is so much actually before 
 the eye ? Does not the world, cognizable by our senses, 
 afford enough to interest, occupy, and direct us, during 
 our threescore years and ten ? Does not nature supply 
 ample materials to delight the senses, science to employ 
 the intellect, and the results of conduct enough to engage 
 us on the side of virtue ? Can any thing more than this 
 be of any practical value ? May it not be a delusion to 
 suppose that there is any real Existence beyond what : 
 appears ; or, at least, that such Existence is any concern 
 of ours ? If there be a God, and if it were intended that 
 we should know him and think of him, would he not 
 have published himself in such clear characters as none 
 could overlook ? Cease, then, to fatigue thyself with ab- 
 stractions : thyself and the things around thee are real, 
 but the unseen is a visionary speculation. Cease thy 
 restless and unsatisfying researches into the cause of 
 things, and be content with the study of things them- 
 selves : release thy mind from its painfol efforts to reach 
 
22 
 
 what either is not, or is not by thee attainable ; use and 
 enjoy all the good within thy reach ; view thyself as one 
 small pivot in a machine of which it is no business of 
 thine to discover the origin or the object ; find in man- 
 kind and nature the only proper spheres of action and 
 thought ; and dare to confess to thyself, if not to a pre- 
 judiced and insincere world, " to me there is no God." 
 
 Yet the mind cannot rest here. It feels that such rea- 
 soning calls upon it to restrict some of its highest powers 
 from their due exercise. To rest contented with what 
 we see, is not in man. No dogma ever imposed by the 
 most wanton church authority ever met with so much 
 opposition, as would be encountered in the attempt to 
 restrict men from inquiring into and forming theories 
 concerning the Cause of the immense effects around 
 them. In proportion as the mind awakes into hfe, it de- 
 mands some kind of answer to the questions. What is 
 the cause of all being? — and. Have we any thing to do with 
 this cause ? The indolent will fly to the nearest or most 
 familiar authority for satisfaction ; but few, who have 
 once discovered the want, can be content to leave the 
 vacancy entirely unfilled. Every view of nature revives 
 the questions ; the beautiful and sublime in the earth and 
 heavens are felt to be something beneath the powers of 
 man, if regarded only as affording gratification to the 
 senses and fancy ; deeper chords lie in him waiting to be 
 struck ; and what he sees must ere long suggest to him 
 the knowledge and love of the unseen. 
 
 It cannot be denied that this train of thought is not 
 entered into readily at all times, or by all. A large pro- 
 portion of mankind, including many of the moral and 
 talented, are too much occupied with active pursuits to 
 bestow more than a slight passing attention on such ab- 
 stract subjects as the cause of things, the nature of the 
 Deity, and the hke. These subjects they leave to the 
 clergy. Their importance even makes men unwilling to 
 
23 
 
 touch them with that insufficient degree of thought 
 which they have been able to bestow upon them. Hence 
 some questions of the deepest interest lose the benefit of 
 that fi'ee unrestrained discussion which is the surest 
 method of evolving tnith. The reverence which keeps 
 men at a distance makes tlicrn also lose sight of an 
 object; to keep up an interest, they must be allowed 
 to approach and inspect. Neutrality, however, arising 
 from these causes, is not indifference. Although disin- 
 clined to dwell frequently upon religious subjects, most 
 of the practical men referred to, the promoters of the 
 business of the world, admit their importance in regard 
 to individual and social happiness. The legislator or 
 citizen may have seldom thought upon the proofs of the 
 existence of an Intelligent first cause ; he has neither had 
 time to study the arguments of natural theology, nor the 
 evidences of revelation : but he is able to appreciate some 
 of the effects which the recognition of a God produces 
 upon the moral condition of men ; he feels that such a 
 belief is satisfactory to the mind, and comes in aid of 
 every plan for improving society. He judges of the tree 
 by its fruits. Unable himself to discover the root, he 
 yet concludes that the source fi'om which proceed so 
 many ramifications bearing palpable and useful effects, 
 cannot itself be a mere visionary abstraction, existing 
 only in the brains of theologians and metaphysicians. 
 His short reasoning is, — I see that it is well for men to 
 believe that God is ; therefore he is. Yet, conscious of 
 some deficiency in this reasoning, he gladly receives the 
 assistance which any well-reputed authority offers; and 
 especially welcomes that, which, from antiquity, vested 
 interests, and the countenance of large influential bodies 
 of men, appears to him to have had hitherto the greatest 
 weight, — the revealed Word of God. 
 
 The conduct, then, of the majority of enhghtened and 
 benevolent pracHral men, who devote but little attention 
 
24 
 
 to religious subjects, is not a proof of latent Atheism, but 
 proceeds rather from a persuasion either that such subjects 
 are out of their sphere, or have been already determined 
 upon by higher authority. Truths of this kind, they 
 admit, are of gi-eat practical importance ; but it is their 
 part to act quickly, rather than to think deeply : the 
 divine presence is not felt in the crowd, nor the divine voice 
 distinguished amidst the hum of men. Let him who has 
 leisure seek for truth in the groves, endeavour to catch 
 
 I those whispers of Nature which are only heard in her most 
 lonely recesses, and impart the precious oracles to the world. 
 Solitude is indispensable to deep thought, and conse- 
 quently to the discovery of truth. The laws of gravita- 
 tion were discovered by much patient calculation and 
 reflection, apart fi'om the multitude. Hence it v,:ould be 
 
 \ no objection to the doctrine of an Intelligent first cause, 
 if it were admitted that it is not obvious at first sight ; 
 that by men of the world it is held chiefly in deference 
 to authority, or for the sake of expediency ; and that a 
 real conviction of its truth is attained only by the few 
 who are able to retire into themselves to think. The 
 tendency of abstract truths to fade away from the mind, 
 when engaged in active pursuits, is no argument against 
 their reality. The laws of Kepler, which appeared so 
 clear and striking to the student in his observatory, may 
 be remembered as uninteresting and even doubtful 
 visions, after he has been for a long time immersed in 
 things nearer to the senses, and forgotten the demonstra- 
 tion on which they rested ; but let him retire again into 
 the stiflness of nature, and endeavour to descry again the 
 lost planetary characters ; — by degi'ees they come out into 
 brightness and magnitude, and display again the asto- 
 nishing declaration in full distinctness. So may it be with 
 a greater revelation than these, — the existence of God. 
 Nature bears it inscribed in all parts; but man is not 
 able immediately to read it. By degrees only he learii^s 
 
25 
 
 the characters which convey the deep sense, and what he 
 has learned by intent meditation occasionally seems to 
 fade away : nevertheless Natm'e still remains ; and what- 
 ever truths she really bears inscribed, must continually 
 re-appear to him who seeks her, and, in the end, be 
 brought out in clearness to the whole world. The hiero- .. 
 glyphics are ineffaceable ; the tablet is continually within J 
 view ; time, then, must ever bring men nearer to Nature's i 
 great revelation, the full knowledge of God.* 
 
 Atheism asserts that we have no right to infer the ex- ' 
 istence of any thing more than wliat appears to our 
 senses. The Universe exists, and may be called God, if 
 we will ; but where and what is God, distinct from the 
 universe? This great Whole exists; — why, we can no 
 more tell than we can why there should always have 
 been an universal Nothing : but how is the difficulty re- 
 moved by supposing an imaginary being distinct from the 
 universe, whom we call its Creator ? The problem is 
 merely shifted, for we can no more account for this 
 being's existence, than we could for that of the universe. 
 What caused God, is as hard to answer as, what caused 
 the universe. We may as well acquiesce in ignorance at 
 the first step. Unless we invent another cause which 
 caused God, and continue to suppose preceding causes ad 
 infinitum, it is evident that we must somewhere be content 
 to admit a first uncaused cause ; and why not admit it at 
 once in that which appears before us as a palpable fact, 
 this material universe itself, of which we and all things 
 are parts ? What necessity for imagining an intelligent 
 creator ? Often million possible forms of matter, we see 
 
 * The religion of the universe consists in knowing God ; and 
 that knowledge is not a simultaneous burst of light, or lights, upon 
 the niind, but an accumulation of particulars perpetually increasing; 
 and hence it is in conformity with the slow but certain intellectual 
 advancement of man. — Dr. Fellowes' Religion of the Universe, 
 p. 121. 
 
26 
 
 the one wliich is. The universe exists ; every thing that 
 exists must have certain properties ; the universe pos- 
 sesses the property of unfolding in succession various 
 forms of matter, organization, and life. All around us is 
 the result of the inherent powers of nature, or, in other 
 words, the necessary properties of the universal matter. 
 To admit that matter exists with these properties, is no 
 more difficult than to admit that it exists at all. If 
 matter exist uncaused, having extension and solidity, it 
 may also exist uncaused, having the property of develop- 
 ing life. Where we can trace the causes of any effects 
 which we see, let us admit them, but not invent fanciful 
 ones. That this wondrous harmonious whole exists, is a 
 fact; that Intelligence caused it, and sits an invisible po- 
 tentate guiding and directing it, — is a dream. 
 
 This is Atheism. It bids us sink into incurious 
 repose respecting unseen causes, as being neither our 
 concern, nor within our reach. And if man could indeed 
 extend his thoughts no farther than to what he saw and 
 touched, he must acquiesce in this barren negation of 
 inquiry. But a prominent part of his nature, the reflective 
 and moral, asserts its right and capacity to penetrate 
 beyond what is seen, and presses Atheism with the 
 further question, — Is it more reasouahle to suppose that 
 this universe has been produced by Intelligence or 
 not? 
 
 If we can imagine ourselves placed in a situation where 
 there was no analogy to guide us, i. e., where we had no 
 experience of the kind of effects which Intelligence is capa- 
 ble of producing, the question might be very difficult to 
 answer. Yet here we should only be compelled to confess 
 ignorance: we should say, we cannot tell whether this 
 universe exists without any cause beyond what we see ; 
 it does not appear clearly absm'd, although diiiicult to 
 conceive, that matter should have, of its o\vn nature, a 
 non-intelligent i)ower of developing the Narious forms 
 
27 
 
 which make up the universe. This power miglit be 
 either the necessary result of the known properties of 
 matter, extension, sohdity, attraction, mobihty, and the 
 hke, in certain combinations ; or it might be some additi- 
 onal property, distinct from all these, but, like them, non- 
 intelligent. This does not at once appear impossible. 
 But neither, on the other hand, does it appear absurd that 
 there should be some further cause for the development 
 of nature, viz., either some property of matter of a dif- 
 ferent kind from those mentioned, or something alto- 
 gether independent of matter. If Intelligence be pro- 
 posed as this further cause, we ought to have an example 
 of what it is, and a specimen of the effects which it is 
 known to produce. Then only can we judge whether 
 Intelligence be a proper and probable cause of the effects 
 which we see in the universe. 
 
 Now, we have an instance both of what intelligence 
 is, and of the effects which it is capable of producing, 
 viz. in ourselves, and in the results of mankind's invent- 
 ive powers. The question supposed is answered by an 
 analogy between the effects which human intelligence is 
 known to produce, and those which we see in nature. 
 The progi'ess both of art and science continually strength- 
 ens the analogy ; that of the former by affording a more 
 complete instance of the known effects of intelligence, that 
 of the latter by extending our knowledge of nature. 
 
 Let us imagine ourselves placed before a varied land- 
 scape, of which one feature is a noble mansion. The 
 question occurs to us. What caused that mansion ? 
 Unless we call in that extreme scepticism which appears 
 sometimes in our disputations, but never in our practice, 
 we reply at once, the intelligence or mind* of the builder, 
 
 * Intelligence, or the reasoning power, is one of the manifesta- 
 tions of Mind ; but IMind may include much more, sentiments and 
 affections for instance. I prefnr to fall into the use of the more 
 general term, because tin" same kinil of reasoning \\hich leads u;? 
 
28 
 
 and feel perfectly satisfied with the answer. Although we 
 had not seen that particular mansion built, we had seen 
 other similar artificial structures in the process of building, 
 or we had had opportunities of knowing what means 
 were employed in raising such structures; and in aU 
 cases we had invariably found that the mind of a 
 builder was necessary to produce the building. In the 
 particular instance before us, we could not refuse to re- 
 cognize a similar cause, although unseen to us, without 
 doing violence to that principle of our mental constitution 
 which leads us to infer the connexion of similar causes 
 with similar effects ; a principle which is practically ad- 
 mitted as a sure and sufficient basis for the whole reason- 
 ing and conduct of life. To the suggestion, that although 
 other mansions were produced by the mind of a builder, 
 yet that paiticular one might have e:sisted for ever, or 
 come into being without any cause beyond the inherent 
 properties of the materials themselves — we should answer, 
 that hitherto we had had no expeiience of an instance of 
 this kind, nor any reason to believe that there had ever 
 been such an instance ; that consequently we must rest 
 in the conviction which common sense, or reasoning 
 flowing from the natural healthy use of the faculties, 
 forced upon us; viz. a conviction derived from an ac- 
 cessible and abundant analogy. 
 
 The mansion, then, was caused by mind ; — what caused 
 the other parts of the landscape, the trees, the gi'ass, 
 the water, the sun, and the animals ? Analogy forces 
 upon us here, also, the answer, — Mind. 
 
 For those appearances in the mansion which indicate 
 
 to infer intelligence in the creating principle, may lead us to infer 
 more. There is no incorrectness in adopting the wider term, 
 because wherever there is intelligence there must be mind ; and 
 there is a convenience in giving to the principle referred to a 
 iiaijie, which without necessarily implying, allows room for, the 
 further qualities which may appear attributable to it. 
 
29 
 
 to us so irresistibly the agency of mind, the adaptation 
 of materials to each other in such a manner as to produce 
 a beautifLil or useful result, are found in greater force and 
 variety in the scenery around. A single leaf, blade of 
 grass, or limb of an animal, when we come to examine 
 it, displays joints, vessels, tubes, and other apparatus, 
 more varied and highly finished than any in the artificial 
 structure and its contents. Yet, in many parts, there 
 is sufficient resemblance to impress us with the convic- 
 tion of the same kind of mental agency. 
 
 This common argument from design does not always 
 strike us with much force when viewing objects in nature, 
 because we forget or overlook the fact, that these objects 
 are each of them the result of an arrangement of very 
 complicated parts. From ignorance or indolence, we are 
 apt to fall into the habit of looking upon a plant, an 
 animal, a planet, or even the universe, as one simple 
 whole or unit, and dispose of all nature with as much 
 ease as if it were one ultimate globule. But science puts 
 before us, in all directions, microscopes, telescopes, and 
 analyzing instruments, and accustoms us to see in all the 
 wholes which present themselves skilful adaptations of 
 numerous parts. In proportion, then, as scientific attain- 
 ments become familiar and common, men will be able to 
 recognize, without effort, the traces of mind in the various 
 material forms which surround them. At first, the lesson 
 was spelled out with difficulty; but, by long acquaintance 
 with the characters, a meaning is inevitably perceived 
 whenever we glance on a page. Nature, in every part, 
 will at length present to us an easily understood as w^ell 
 as deeply interesting meaning, the evidence of a benefi- 
 cent mental Energy, manifested in moulding matter into 
 innumerable forms of the beautiful and useful. 
 
 Nature, in its most obvious aspects, does not at once 
 impress us with the idea of design. The rocks, the 
 woods, the sea, and the stars, seem thrown together with 
 a wildness and irregularity, which rather lea\'e the idea 
 
30 
 
 of cliance. Some degree of science is necessary to tlie 
 first conceptions of design. The motions of the heavenly 
 bodies, the watering of the earth by means of rain, and 
 the adaptation of the productions of the earth to the 
 wants of animals, present, however, appearances of ar- 
 rangement open to the slightest observation, and seem 
 to have first led men to the idea of an Intelligent cause. 
 As the observation of nature, or science, proceeds, in- 
 stances of arrangement multiply on all sides, till the 
 moss on the rudest fragment in the wilderness, or the 
 wave which washes the wildest beach, are found to con- 
 tain specimens of minute mechanism. Nature is not 
 loquacious, although filled with inexhaustible stores ; she 
 presents enough at first sight to attract the thoughtful ; 
 but mankind must interrogate and study her for many 
 ages, in order to come at all, perhaps to a thousandth 
 part, of that which she has to communicate. The briUiant 
 appearance of the heavens, and a few of the planetary 
 motions, were enough to reward the gaze of the first 
 Chaldean shepherds ; but the persevering assiduity of 
 mankind, from Hipparchus to Herschel, was necessary 
 to procure them an insight into the depths of the universe. 
 In the present age, science is sufficiently advanced to 
 present abundant instances of harmonious arrangement, 
 whether in earth, seas, or skies. But the conviction of 
 an Intelligent cause does not appear invariably to accom- 
 pany scientific progress. This may proceed from two 
 causes ; first, from a disinclination to exercise the reflecting 
 powers on unseen causes, whilst visible effects present 
 such ample and ready themes of contemplation. Acqui- 
 escence in this disposition of mind appears to be the 
 chief argument of Atheism, which does not so much deny 
 the existence of unseen causes, as refuse to enter into 
 the search for them. But it seems improbable that a 
 progressive knowledge of the mental constitution will 
 sanction as true philosophy, that which appears to be a 
 mere restriction of the reflective faculties. 
 
31 
 
 Or, the non-acknov/ledgment of an Intelligent cause, 
 even after an extensive acquaintance with science, may 
 proceed from that over-scrupulousness, or indecision of 
 mind, which refrises to admit any principle on the gi'ound 
 of high probability, or to receive any proposition whilst 
 the contrary is barely possible. This is extreme scep- 
 ticism, condemned as unreasonable by the general prac- 
 tice of mankind. The evidences of design in nature, 
 similar to those which appear in art, crowd in upon us 
 from every side. If in the latter case the agency of mind 
 be admitted, why should men demur at admitting it in 
 the former ? Perhaps, from a suspicion that the analogy 
 may not be sufficiently close. 
 
 In some steam-engines, we find that the steam, after 
 having performed its office in raising and depressing the 
 piston, passes into the condenser, and becomes cold 
 water, being in this state no longer fit for the purposes 
 of the engine. But we find also an apparatus of pipes 
 for conveying this cold water again to the boiler, that 
 very part where there is a provision for converting it 
 again into steam. That this apparatus is the effect of 
 design or mind, we feel convinced of by the sight of it, 
 and should acquire little or no addition to our certainty, 
 if the maker were to stand visibly before us and declare 
 himself as such. Even though we had never seen a 
 steam-engine before, yet our certainty on this point would 
 not be less, if we had been in the habit of witnessing me- 
 chanical contrivances. 
 
 In the human body, we find that the arterial blood, 
 after having supplied nourishment to various glands, be- 
 comes unfit for further use; and we find a system of 
 veins for carrying it back to the heart, that very part 
 which, by a connexion with the lungs, contains a provi- 
 sion for re-converting it into arterial. 
 
 Now, the circumstance which compels us to infer 
 mental agency in the former case, the adaptation of parts 
 to produce a certain end, exists c(|ual]y, at least, in the 
 
32 
 
 latter. We must infer mental agency here also by the 
 lawof om* nature, which compels us to infer similar causes 
 from similar effects. 
 
 As in the various works of human art we recognize 
 the same kind of mental agency, which we call intelli- 
 gence, although in different degrees, according as the 
 works are better or worse contrived, and, for aught we 
 know, combined with different accompanying qualities 
 in each artificer ; so do we recognize the same kind of 
 agency, intelligence, in nature, although here it may be 
 of a different degree, and possibly combined in the arti- 
 ficer with other qualities different from those belonging 
 to human inventors. 
 
 In examining the columnce carnece, the semilunar valves, 
 or other contrivances of nature, the thought frequently 
 occurs, either that this is similar to what some ingenious 
 mechanist has contrived, or what he might have invented 
 by bestowing sufficient consideration upon it. So strong 
 is the conviction of similarity of effect between nature 
 and art, that many of the contrivances in the former do 
 not appear to us, even in degree, absolutely beyond the 
 scope of human ingenuity, if but time and means enough 
 had been granted. 
 
 So long, then, as the constitution of our minds compels 
 us to reason from analogy, the proposition that the works 
 of nature proceed from the development of the inherent 
 powers of matter, can no more satisfy us than if the 
 same were proposed as the cause of the works of art. 
 
 It has been argued, that we cannot apply analogy to 
 find the cause of the universe, because this is an unique, 
 and we have no other caused universe to compare it with.* 
 But we can compare it with parts of itself, viz. ourselves 
 and our works ; and it does not appear why analogies arising 
 
 * See Hume's Inquiry cmicpvning the Human Understanding, 
 Section xi. near tlie end. 
 
33 
 
 thence should not have as much weight as if we could 
 compare one universe with another. We have a right to 
 reason from what we know ; we are so placed as to see 
 causes in some small parts of the universe, and thence, by 
 analogy, to infer something of the nature of the cause of 
 the whole. 
 
 Imagine the inhabitant of a distant country, in some 
 degree acquainted with mechanical contrivances, inspect- 
 ing an European steam-engine or watch. By long study 
 he comes to perceive the object of the machine, and the 
 adaptation of parts so as to effect that object. Knowing 
 his own power of putting together matter with some de- 
 gree of success, so as to produce certain effects, he con- 
 cludes, rationally, that the machine before him must have 
 proceeded from a being resembling himself in the pos- 
 session of such a power. He may be ignorant of the 
 form, colour, habits, and language of the unknown artist, 
 but he reads his mind with as much certainty as if he 
 stood before him ; for the machine speaks in a language 
 which needs no translation. If neither time, nor space, 
 could hinder the intelligent Japanese from recognizing 
 the kindred mind of the European by means of its works ; 
 why should time, space, or any other mode of separation, 
 prevent any thinking man from recognizing the kindred 
 mind of the First Cause by means of its works ? Whether 
 the unseen existence be separated from us by land, seas, 
 and years, or by a different mode of being, matters not, 
 if the work speaks clearly. The distance of the pole-star 
 could not prevent the electric recognition ; neither can 
 the more impassable chasm between us and an existence 
 shrouded from our senses. 
 
 It might be objected that this mode of analogical rea- 
 soning would prove too much, and lead us to conclude 
 that the First Cause has material organs like our own, 
 since we infer the existence of these, as well as of mind, 
 from all specimens of human art. But this objection 
 
34 
 
 supposes an abuse of analogy. We certainly do infer 
 that, with respect to pieces of workmanship, apparently 
 of human origin, the originators had, in all probability, 
 hands and feet like our own ; because we believe that 
 there are no beings on the earth possessing the requisite 
 mental endowments, except such as have likemse these 
 organs as their means of acting on matter. But we could 
 not infer justly that other beings, having mind, might 
 not have different organs wherewith to operate on matter. 
 A piece of mechanism, known to be brought from some 
 part of the earth, leads us to infer, without much hesita- 
 tion, that the maker had hands or feet. But if another 
 piece of mechanism were brought to us, known to come 
 from another planet, we should only dare to infer that 
 the maker had some kind of prehensile power, by means 
 of which he had put together the material parts. The 
 intricacy and perfection of the work, if apparently sur- 
 passing human art, might lead us to conclude that the 
 unknown maker had means of penetrating into and guid- 
 ing matter, more subtle and more effective than any 
 human organ or instniment. They might be, in these 
 respects, so different fi'om human organs, that a compa- 
 rison between the two could only be admitted as figTira- 
 tive. The mind, by means of the human hand alone, 
 affects matter slowly and clumsily ; it learns to employ, 
 in some degree, instruments provided by nature, fi'om the 
 wooden staff to the electric fluid and chemical solvent. 
 But other minds might be gifted with the means of grasp- 
 ing more directly the forces of nature, and of employing 
 them with a facihty, and to an extent, by us unattainable. 
 They might cleave with the lightning, and communicate 
 by the thunder. Where, from the effects, we should judge 
 that this greater prehensility of the forces of nature had 
 existed, we should conclude that the operating mind had 
 been endowed with means of influencing matter more 
 efficacious than oiu' organs. 
 
35 
 
 In the universe the mental agency appeiirs to have 
 operated upon matter, with a range and a subtilty, which 
 are expressed in the description, — an Almighty pervading 
 soul. The arm reaches beyond the farthest star, yet dis- 
 criminates the breadth of a hair; it projects the heavy 
 planet, and moulds the minutest particle. It is impossible 
 to imagine that mind, acting through human organs, or any 
 resembling them, could, after ages of essay and improve- 
 ment, ever approach the operation of that agency either in 
 magnitude or exquisiteness. To form a work, not only 
 perfect in itself, but also containing a provision for pro- 
 ducing its like in endless succession, would probably for 
 ever baffle human ingenuity. But this is one of the most 
 common properties of the works of nature. It is so diffi- 
 cult to imagine any kind of organs, by which such an uni- 
 versal efficient sway over matter could have been exerted, 
 that we naturally acquire the notion that the first Causing 
 Mind must have operated upon matter direct, without 
 the intervention of any organs, and that every atom must 
 have obeyed its influence with the same promptness as 
 the nerve obeys human volition. 
 
 Analogy, then, leads us to infer that the works of nature 
 were caused by some kind of mind, as well as the works 
 of art. But so far from proving that that mind operated 
 by means of organs resembling ours, it rather brings us 
 to the conclusion, that it must have had means of influx 
 cncing matter very different from ours. The man moves 
 bodies by impulses of his limbs ; we can imagine a being 
 gifted with the power of doing so by directing towards 
 the bodies at will the requisite degree of attraction or 
 repulsion. More subtle agencies than these may be 
 supposed to be subject to volition ; and thus may we 
 refine from man's clumsy mode of operation, to a being 
 in whom Mind acts directly and universally upon Matter. 
 Even in the case of man, we know but little of the 
 mode in which his mind acts upon matter. Our total 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 ignorance of the mode of action of a divine mind does, 
 tlierefore, by no means disprove such action. Neither is 
 it a disproof of this, that we are ignorant of the mode of 
 the divine existence, whether it pervades the whole mate- 
 rial creation, as a soul the body ; or sits an independent 
 invisible potentate amidst its creatures. Ask also whether 
 the Divine Mind threw off the creation at once, perfect, 
 and holding its own resources of progression and develop- 
 ment, or whether his energy is perpetually required to 
 uphold his work; and the doubtfidness of the answer 
 will perhaps be in proportion to the time of reflection. 
 But where is the truth, the clearest ever acknowledged 
 by men, which busy thought has not soon surrounded 
 and clogged with embarrassing or unanswerable questions 1 
 Man knows nothing but what lies close to something 
 unknown or unknowable. 
 
 How can God exist ? Answer first, how does man 
 exist? Man is not the hand, nor the foot, nor the 
 stomach, nor the brain, nor even the eye; but in the 
 combined action of all his material parts do we recognize 
 the man. And what is this action ? Continue to question 
 thus ; and the ^visest deed, and the most expressive 
 glance, are resolved into the motion of sundry clusters of 
 oxygen, carbon, and the like, hi different directions. 
 Man himself shrinks into an abstraction, which soon 
 becomes so hazy, that if, his existence depended on our 
 power to define him, we should begin to doubt if we really 
 had any fellow-creatures.* 
 
 * Sic mentem liominis, quamvis earn non videas, ut Deum non 
 vides, tamen ut Deum agnoscis ex operibus ej us ; sic ex memoria 
 rerum at inventione, et celeritate motus, omnique pulcliritudine 
 virtutis vim divinam mentis agnoscito .... Illud modo videto, ut 
 Deum noris, etsi ejus ignores et locum et faciem, sic animum tibi 
 tuum notum esse oportere, etiam si ignores et locumet formam, — 
 Cicero, Tvsc. Disp. lib. 1. cap. 29. 
 
37 
 
 Nevertheless, man's existence is sufficiently palpable, 
 although we cannot explain it. O that the First Cause 
 had made his at least equally so ; that the awful Poten- ^ 
 tate had once unveiled himself to our eyes, or that his 
 voice had once broken through the obstinate silence of 
 nature ! Then we must have believed, without, or in 
 spite of, any reasoning. Why ? because hejwould hav^ y 
 appealed to our senses. Reflect ; — and thou wilt find A^ ^^*-*^ 
 that he has appealed to some of man's highest senses, his 
 moral and intellectual powers. He compliments man, 
 by addressing the highest part of his nature. 
 
 In what manner do we know a man best and most 
 thoroughly? — By his appearance? No. — By his conver- 
 sation? Better; but not so vs^ell as by experiencing his 
 conduct in a long series of deeds. These speak in the 
 surest manner ; they speak to our moral and intellectual 
 senses : and thus may we know thoroughly him whom 
 we have never seen or heard. 
 
 And thus does God choose to speak to man — by deeds. 
 A more subtle mode of communication than the brightest 
 vision or the softest whisper ; but, to the thinking, more 
 refined, more pleasing, more inteUigible. Let children . 
 look for cheiiibim, and rhapsodists for voices from 
 heaven; mature reason and feeling appreciate more , 
 highly Works of beauty and beneficence. In what / 
 language should God have spoken to men from heaven, \ 
 or written his message in the sky ? In Hebrew I in Greek ! ) , 
 in Sanscrit ! He has chosen his own language ; and has i^jS^^Myi 
 he not well chosen ? Does not the rose or the hyacinth (^.ar/i*i^ 
 speak as plainly as could any noun or participle, the 
 verdure running before the breeze exceed the sense of 
 any aorist, and the star rising above the wood convey 
 more than any Hebrew point ? God can do without 
 hiphil and hophal, without pluperfect and paulo-post 
 future : he is perfect in the language of signs, and the 
 
3S 
 
 whole material creation is his symbol-picture to all ranks 
 of intelligence. 
 
 Yet God's magnificent language fails at times to con- 
 vince us ; and restless scepticism suggests that, if the First 
 Cause were really intelligent and beneficent mind, he 
 might have made his existence more irresistibly clear to 
 us. By what means ? Rack thy utmost ingenuity, scepti- 
 cism, and say what God should have done to convince 
 thee. He might have planted an angel showman on each 
 work of nature, to inform every visitant, in clear tones, 
 that it was produced by intelligence and benevolence ; 
 he might have fixed Uriel for ever in the sun, to trumpet 
 forth to the planets that the fountain of their hght and 
 heat was derived from a first cause provident and good : — 
 would any deeper conviction really spring fi:om the 
 presence of these officious informants ? and would not Uriel 
 himself soon come to be considered the most superfluous 
 piece of work in the system ? Or, more solemn than this, 
 the Divine Mind itself might make itself perceptible to 
 man's senses by some periodical Shechinah, and above 
 the sapphire pavement of the firmament, or in the amber- 
 coloured vision surmounting the wheels, or fi'om the pillar 
 of fire, or in the still whisper, startle man at times with the 
 presence of his God. But what would avail the visitation 
 of the awful Presence ? If it proclaimed each time that 
 itself was the first cause of nature, intelligent and bene- 
 volent, man would turn to nature for verification, and 
 believe just so much of the proclamation as he found 
 there confinned. When accustomed to the visitation, 
 he would gain little or no more certainty above that re- 
 sulting fi'om his inquiries into nature. He would give 
 greater credence to the language to which God has, in fact,, 
 confined himself, — the language of deeds. 
 
 There is a composure and dignity in God's manner of 
 proceeding which impresses more forcibly than could be 
 
39 
 
 done by the ostentation of actual speech and appearance. 
 He is seen and heard in his works. The universe is the 
 splendid but quiet language in which he utters his stu- 
 pendous "^ I am." What is it all for ? occurs to every 
 one who looks on nature and thinks. The First Intelli- 
 gence intended to make himself known to all emanating 
 intelligences, and this is the way in which he has chosen 
 to effect it ; it being as easy to him to throw off all this 
 array of worlds and mechanism, as to set the t}^es of two 
 short words. 
 
 Nature thus seen as the language of mind, assumes a 
 brighter hue and more vigorous life, than when viewed 
 under a mere material aspect. What is this lovely pros- 
 pect of variegated fields and sunny sky, if nothing in it 
 can feel like thyself, nor aught in it indicate the existence 
 of perception kindred to thy own ? Acknowledge that it 
 pleases the eye, invigorates health, and supplies forms to 
 the fancy ; — this is much : but is not the profuse beauty 
 of nature worthy to do more, and to speak to all that is 
 highest in man, his admiration, love, and reverence ? It 
 does so, as soon as we see in Nature the offspring and 
 index of Mind. What is all this prodigious array of 
 shining globes, if they tell of nothing more than them- 
 selves, insentient moving masses, fit to employ arithmetic 
 and geometry with counting their numbers and laws ? 
 Even when the deepest and most magnificent apartments 
 of nature are thrown open, the soul remains solitary and 
 chill at the sight of them alone, and asks if all this costly 
 pile be intended to gratify only a small part of the man, 
 leaving his more god-like faculties uninvited strangers? 
 Does Nature indeed, in her softest recesses or most gor- 
 geous displays, aim merely at inciting man to see, hear, 
 smell, and calculate ? Yet what more than this can he do 
 amidst mere matter, however large or small, or swift or 
 slow ? But admit Mind as the cause of all, the pervader 
 and beholder of all, and the chasm is filled; man 
 
40 
 
 also admires, loves, and venerates. A vivifying spirit is 
 infiised into creation, and gives the response which his 
 sonl demanded. The desert is not solitnde, nor the sea 
 dreariness. The thoughts of the unseen mental causes, 
 which become associated with all the objects of nature, 
 leave no want of Dryads in the woods. Naiads in the 
 brooks, or Genii in the air. The Sun proclaims more vital- 
 ity than light and heat, as he mounts above the hill; the 
 Moon's crescent bends before the pervading Spirit; 
 Arcturus follows his wain round the pole, and Andromeda 
 rises from the wave, in unwearied obedience to the Invi- 
 sible; the Pleiads shake adoration as well as radiance 
 from their glittering cluster ; and all the mystic forms of 
 the sky seem to look on the earth with awfril silent life, — 
 for each and all are the work, the voice, and the token, 
 of Living Mind. 
 
 But, the laws of nature ! inflexible, insensible, but all 
 moving; do they not reduce the universe to a regular 
 perpetually going piece of clockwork, and exclude mind 
 by filling all with lifeless iron mechanism? All this 
 beauty and harmony is merely the consequence of each 
 atom's obedience to its own laws. What causes the 
 I course of the planet ? Not God, but attraction of gra- 
 
 ( vitation. What causes attraction ? Some preceding ne- 
 cessary property of matter, which science will by and by 
 
 ; discover. For each of the enormous collection of effects 
 constituting the whole which we see, we find, on exami- 
 nation, a material cause, with another material cause 
 behind it ; and when we have discovered causes which 
 appear invariably to precede certain effects, we call the 
 sequence a law of nature. Admit the laws of nature to 
 be, and what necessity for God ? Explore the chains of 
 causes and effects ; — as far as we can trace them, no 
 mind appears ; the links join on perfectly, although only 
 material, in the portion before us ; and so may they also 
 in the length stretching out of our reach. The more 
 
41 
 
 closely we examine any part of creation, the more do 
 Cause and Effect rise up, and claim as their work what 
 our glowing imagination had superficially attributed to 
 the operation of Mind. Trace causes and effects then, 
 O philosopher ; examine minutely each part of what you 
 see, and say if the phantasm of a Causing Mind will not 
 be gradually pushed out of the universe. 
 
 Yes, by resting in a minute examination of parts only, 
 and overlooking the result of each whole. Thus might 
 mind be excluded from man and his works. What work 
 of art is there, in which the aim and intent, i. e. the 
 mind, of the artist may not be missed, if we confine our 
 attention to groping amongst the details ? The examina- 
 tion of these may let us into the secret of the means 
 which he has employed to bring about his purpose ; but 
 to seize this purpose, and read his meaning, we must look 
 at the whole working and effect. Is it a sufficient ex- 
 planation of the steam-engine to give, in correct detail, the 
 connexion and dependence of each of its parts ; to shew 
 how the working of one part must necessarily follow the 
 action of the preceding ; to state that the water must be 
 raised from the well, because the upward motion of the 
 bucket is the necessary sequence of the motion of the 
 wheel, as this is caused inevitably by the motion of the 
 beam, which follows of necessity the stroke of the piston, 
 which could not but result from the pressure of the steam, 
 which must proceed from the action of heat upon the 
 water in the boiler ? And here might an indefinite further 
 chain of mechanical causes be supposed ; but this tracing 
 of the chain of sequences leaves all the while unexplained 
 the cause of the whole work. Each successive link sug- 
 gests more forcibly the idea of something more, which 
 arranged the train of material causes and effects, so as to 
 end in an apparently contemplated result. 
 
 But the mind of man, to which our pipes and boiler 
 lead us, is itself a continuation of the mechanism, although 
 
42 
 
 of more subtle construction and properties ! Grant this ; 
 the mind is mechanism, inasmuch as it is moved by springs, 
 of a pecuhar make, — reason, desires, and affections. Let 
 us but trace nature back to this kind of mental me- 
 chanism, and it is enough ; man has found a cause re- 
 sembhng himself. Call mind mechanism; define it as 
 subject to its own fixed laws, or otherwise ; it is sufficient 
 to trace nature back to Mind. 
 
 The explanation of the sequence of action in the suc- 
 cessive parts would seem an absurdity, if offered as the 
 sufficient cause of any piece of human art. Why, then,, 
 should it satisfy us any more in the works of nature ? 
 The chains of cause and effect in these are longer, and 
 reach back farther than we can follow ; in few of them, if 
 any, can we arrive at the link where the causing mind 
 itself operated upon matter.* Nevertheless, here matter 
 seems no more gifted with the power of arranging itself,, 
 than in brass wheels and iron bars ; nor of contemplating, 
 any more than they, the beautiful and useful result in which 
 this long chain of adaptation ends. Do the sun, the rain, 
 the soil, the roots, and the sap-vessels, take counsel to- 
 gether to form the flower ? If they do not, something else 
 must; or the flower appears before us as a fortunate 
 accident. What a vast assemblage of fortunate accidents 
 make up the universe ! For here, millions of chains of 
 causes and effects end in results beneficial to sentient 
 beings ; and all these separate results harmonize together 
 in a beautiful whole.f 
 
 * The introduction of new species into the universe, not expli- 
 cable by a transmutation of preceding ones, as in the case of the 
 recent origin of man, seems an instance of this kind. And the 
 same might be said, perhaps, of the introduction of the first sen- 
 tient creature upon this planet. 
 
 t After making the largest alloAvance for the results apparently 
 evil or useless, such as pestilential vapours, burning deserts, 
 noxious insects and reptiles, and the like, there remains a large 
 
43 
 
 The more science advances, the more does it appear 
 that all parts of nature are connected. Not only is the 
 air about us adapted to the organs of plants and animals ; 
 but the light from the farthest star finds itself at home on 
 the retina of man. And the influence of bodies in re- 
 motest space is reverberated through the firmament as 
 far as our system by means of attraction. Probably, no 
 part of the universe could be annihilated without detri- 
 ment to the rest. On the supposition of separate inde- 
 pendent chains of causes and effects, uncaused by mind, 
 the Universal Harmony is a startling conclusion. We 
 should not be prepared to expect this. Some few of the 
 results might have formed harmonious combinations; 
 but, in general, we should have expected to find the 
 universe a miscellaneous assemblage of effects, having 
 no apparent harmony, adaptation, or subserviency, — a 
 heap of confused incongruous productions, which no art 
 could piece together into a serviceable whole. The har- 
 monious combination of the results of the chains is, 
 indeed, a striking feature, which forces itself on the at- 
 tention, and demands imperatively some solution. It 
 could not be an accident ; for the chains are numerous. 
 
 majority of beneficial productions in nature. The catalogue of 
 apparent exceptions is continually decreasing as science advances, 
 and contributes its items to the opposite list. For instance, insects 
 and reptiles have enjoyed their own lives, and contributed to main- 
 tain the earth in the state fit for animal life. When man comes 
 into contact with them, the noxious qualities of some species indi- 
 cate that man and they are not intended to dwell together ; and the 
 very courses which are for his interest in other respects, clean- 
 liness, improvement of soils, and draining of marshes, tend to ex- 
 tirpate them. The large majority of acknowledged instances of 
 good, and the probability that the remaining ones of apparent 
 evil will come, in time, to be classed with them, allow of the general 
 unqualified assertion,, that the arrangements of nature end in bene- 
 ficial results. 
 
44 
 
 find the harmony complete ; there must have been some- 
 Hung influencing them all; some bond of union which 
 has given a common character and tendency to all the 
 chains, and estabhshed a relationship between the most 
 distant and dissimilar parts of nature. What is this Some*- 
 thing, w^hich has tied all nature together in a mysterious 
 and beautiful connexion ? What answer can satisfy us as 
 to this deep-working and all-pervading somewhat ? — Cause 
 and effect ? — an inherent property of Order in matter ? — 
 a Law of nature ? None of these ; but a causing Mind. 
 
 The harmony of the creation, the adaptation of innu- 
 merable parts into a whole which our minds recognize as 
 skilfully arranged, beautiful, and useful, impresses us irre- 
 sistibly with the agency of mind. And this impression 
 cannot be weakened by finding that the forming Mind 
 has operated through a greater or less train of secondary 
 causes. Grant that the planet has resulted from a frag- 
 ment thrown off from the svm, and that the sun itself 
 has resulted from the condensation of a whirling nebulous 
 mass, and that this nebula proceeded from something 
 else unknown, but all according to the fixed laws of 
 matter ; still the Solar System, which is now before us, 
 is not less admirable, nor less obviously suitable to the 
 wants of plants and animals, for appearing thus as the 
 result of a long train of secondary causes, than if it had 
 sprung forth at once in maturity from the Creator's fiat. 
 Trace back also the vegetable and animal forms w^hich 
 cover the earth, through a long series of developments, 
 to the period when its surface seemed only to present a 
 rude collection of unmoulded materials ; the riches of the 
 Seasons, which we now experience, are not the less ra- 
 vishing to men's minds and senses. Nature presents us 
 with a magnificent and harmonious pattern. Who will 
 say, that it is less obviously the result of a skilful mind^ 
 because the threads which compose it appear to have 
 proceeded from the original design, through much ma- 
 
45 
 
 chinery of cause and effect ? The pattern makes its own 
 declaration of a designing mind, whatever })e the means 
 by which it was woven ; whether, at once, from the fin- 
 gers of the artist, or through a long series of intermediate 
 machinery. Secondary causes exhibit the machinery 
 whichGod has made use of; the laws of nature shew his 
 system of working with matter ; they are the loom of his 
 own construction, through which he throws off from 
 eternity a succession of splendid works.* 
 
 Matter, in the same circumstances, appears always to 
 act, or to be acted upon, in the same manner; and these 
 fixed rules of action or passion we call laws of nature. 
 It is true that, supposing the different materials which 
 compose the Creation to have been in existence, and 
 these laws to have been in force, we can imagine that 
 the present scene of things might have resulted, of neces- 
 sity, fi'om the progressive action and re-action of the 
 materials. Place on the stage of infinite space, heat with 
 its expansive power, water with its pressure in proportion 
 to depth, the array of chemical elements with their 
 respective degrees of affinity, and all matter with attrac- 
 tion in inverse proportion to the square of the distance, — 
 and we can imagine that these actors must necessarily 
 have played together a drama, of which the different acts 
 appear successively throughout eternity in the varying 
 phases of the universe. But what kind of a scene results 
 
 * In Being's floods, in Action's storm, 
 I walk and work, above, beneath, 
 Work and weave in endless motion ! 
 Birth and Death, 
 An infinite Ocean ; 
 A seizing and giving 
 The fire of the Living : 
 'Tis thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply, 
 And weave for God the Garment thou see'st Him by. 
 
 Song of the Earth-Spirit, in Faust. 
 
46 
 
 from the actions of all these various performers ? One 
 of confusion, an assemblage of incoherent results, inde- 
 pendent of each other, or warring with and destroying 
 each other ? No ; but one in which our minds recognize, 
 the more we study it, an harmonious and mutually sup- 
 porting action. Then heat, water, and their brethren, 
 have acted together with a concord which it would be 
 impossible to inspire, in the same degree, into creatures 
 even gifted with reason. Had they all some glimmering 
 perception of the orderly and the beautiful, which made 
 each one of the company fall readily into that mode of 
 action, which, in combination with the rest, should tend 
 best to such a result? The harmonious action of the 
 drama proves it to be a regular and well-planned piece, 
 and not a wild unconcerted pantomime ; if, then, we find 
 nothing in the actors themselves indicating that they had 
 powers sufficient to contrive it, we must conclude that 
 the piece had an author of greater powers than they, who 
 does not, himself, appear on the scenes, but under whose 
 direction each of these subordinate agents is playing the 
 part which he has written for it. And this Great Unseen, 
 who has written the drama of the Universe, to be played 
 by the different forms of matter, in the parts called laws 
 of nature, for the instruction of all ranks of inteUigence, 
 — is Mind. 
 
 But suppose, that what appear to us different laws of 
 nature are only modifications of one and the same prin- 
 ciple ; and that the researches of science will tend conti- 
 nually to simplify all into the action of One great law of 
 nature, seen by us under various aspects. This one law 
 then was such, that, being applied to matter, it had the 
 power of producing an harmonious and progressive cre- 
 ation. What could be this law, having, in itself, the germ 
 of endless variety, order, and beauty? How fortunate 
 that matter happened to be subject to this, rather than 
 some other, which should have produced quite different 
 
4f 
 
 effects ! A law, principle, or somewhat, which is capable 
 of producing in such abundance things which appear so 
 much like the results of skill and intelligence! It rises 
 itself into a Deity ; but then the words law or principle 
 imply incogitation, and mere mode of action or being in 
 something else. If we will not change the ideas which 
 the sight of creation urges us to apply to this somewhat, 
 we must change the words. Law or Principle is insufficient. 
 And why embarrass ourselves in inventing new names 
 and definitions for this hidden but powerful somewhat, 
 which has caused creation, when we are so fortunate as 
 to have close to us many specimens of something known 
 to produce, on a smaller scale, similar effects ? And that 
 is Mind, creating Mind. 
 
 Imagine ourselves excluded for a moment from the 
 view of surrounding creation ; what w^ould be our reflec- 
 tions on considering the existence of mind in ourselves ? 
 — that the human mind was probably the only instance 
 of this kind of existence ! Impossible. Man feels his own 
 mind to be but a small portion of a power which awakens 
 matter into the highest kind of life : he delights to feel 
 this power in himself, and to exercise it ; but the attempt 
 convinces him that he has it in only a small degree. The 
 dominion over matter, which he finds his mental faculties 
 bestow, gives him the desire to enlarge these faculties. 
 Since, with his petty actual endowment, he is able to 
 mould a few materials within his immediate reach, what 
 dominion might he not attain, if he could indefinitely 
 enlarge this power ? And may there not be beings gifted 
 v\dth a higher degree of that which he feels himself to 
 possess on so limited a scale ? Can man be the moral and 
 intellectual unique in creation ? How surprising, that, in 
 a world so redundant with matter, this higher creation, 
 mind, should be so scarce, that the narrow little por- 
 tion of it found in man should be the highest degree of 
 it existing ! But issue forth into the open view of nature ; 
 
48 
 
 look from the earth to the firmament, at the stupendous 
 mechanism of Natm*e, and hear her confirm thy hesitating 
 thoughts. See here the infinite of that which in thee is 
 finite: — mind is not in thee alone; ahove, below, and 
 around, see the effects of it when free, unbomided, im- 
 mense : here it is in its most extended operation, in 
 universal sway over matter. Rightly didst thou conjec- 
 ture that thy small portion was not the only nor the 
 highest degree of mind : as thy body is less than a point, 
 when compared to the whole material creation, so, in 
 proportion, is thy mind to the Spirit of the universe. 
 
 Whence came the human mind ? — Not out of granite, 
 nor ferns, nor ichthyosauri. History and observation, 
 and even imagination, utterly fail to evolve man out of 
 the polypus, whether through the dog, the elephant, or 
 the ape.* Yet man and his mind do exist, and no effect 
 is without a cause. Had Adam ancestors without a be- 
 ginning ? Geology answers. No. Was there ever a time, 
 hidden in bygone ages, when the human mind began 
 to be ? Then something caused it, and this cause must 
 have contained something corresponding to the powers 
 in the effect. For mind could not spring out of imper- 
 ceptive matter ; nor could imperceptive matter, of its 
 own accord, ever begin to think. At whatever date we 
 find the commencement of the human mind, some kind 
 of mind must have existed before it ; this in its turn, if 
 not itself eternal, must have been preceded also by mind ; 
 and thus must mind, in some form, have been eternal. 
 Let thinking beings trace back their pedigree, and they 
 will find it always run in the family of thought. The 
 ancestral research confirms the discovery which just now 
 thou hast made in nature ; there, were the indications of 
 a mind in some manner resembling and related to thine 
 o\n\. Stretch thy sight over the line of thy progenitors 
 
 * See Lyeil's Geology, book iii. chap, i., ii. 
 
49 
 
 into past eternity, and there thou seest in dirrr remoteness 
 a Father of Spirits. 
 
 But, again, where and what is this causing Mind, which 
 reason forces us to acknowledge, but which ghdes away 
 when we seek to personify it ? The angeHc form riding 
 on the whirlwind, — the Spirit moving on the face of the 
 waters, — the invisible Potentate sitting amidst the stars, — 
 are merely more refined creations of poor human fancy, 
 endeavouring to bring the ideal before our senses. The 
 Causing Mind will not be embodied, nor be known to us 
 otherwise than as an abstraction. It communicates itself 
 to us by its works ; but the works are not itself. Is it 
 therefore less a reality ? Consider if we have no other 
 and familiar instance of an abstraction which we count 
 as a reality; something which cannot be seen, heard, 
 smelt, tasted, nor felt, but which we yet recognize as an 
 indubitable existence ? Yes, the mind of man ; we know 
 it only by seeing the movement of various parcels of 
 matter, and receiving certain vibrations of the air. 
 These movements and these vibrations are not the mind ; 
 yet we are so well satisfied with the perception which 
 from them we obtain of another's mind, that we regard 
 it as a real existence, and address to it our thoughts, af- 
 fections, and sympathies. See the movements and vibra- 
 tions pervading all nature, and thence be equally satisfied 
 of the existence of the Divine Mind. 
 
 What if we were obliged to admit, O Materialist, that 
 the human mind is only a mode of action of certain par- 
 cels of matter called the brain ! The human mind is not 
 a whit the less, on that account, a delightful reality, nor 
 all the sensations called mental, — thought, feeling, and 
 imagination, springing within ourselves, or awakened by 
 the approach of similar natures, the less real. Grant, then, 
 for a moment, that the Divine Mind is some principle in- 
 dissolubly connected with, and not manifesting itself 
 apart from, matter. It is no less a reality, and, like our 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 own, no less the object of thought and feelmg, than if it 
 were an immaterial essence sitting alone in an universe 
 which contained no material atom. 
 
 God is not seen, and therefore is not! Grovelling 
 logic, contradicted by every thought of man which rises 
 but a few degrees above his mere sensual nature ! Have 
 we not faculties wherewith to contemplate the unseen ; 
 by which this becomes to us, in numberless forms, a reality 
 the highest and dearest ? Honour is not the note which 
 discharges a debt, nor fame the applauding crowd, nor 
 love the outstretched hand and welcoming smile. But 
 out of the most refined visible manifestation arises 
 something more refined and subtile still, the abstraction 
 which our senses cannot grasp, but which the mind 
 welcomes as the reality towards which it was uncon- 
 sciously working its ascent fi:om the things of mere sense. 
 The five senses are but a small part of man; mere 
 channels to supply the material out of which his incom- 
 prehensible mechanism elaborates abstractions to feed 
 his higher nature. Hardly equal to the brutes, if he 
 could merely see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, — he 
 becomes a god when he is able to understand, admire, 
 love, and venerate. Poor is the noblest material form, if 
 it reach only to the senses ; but out of those material 
 particles, in themselves so dull and ^dle, arises the ideal 
 essence of the sublime, the love-worthy, or the beautiful, 
 which touches the mind into higher life, and which is the 
 only reality it cares to bear away. The human form 
 itself, in highest perfection, soon ceases to interest, unless 
 it give rise to those abstractions which form our most 
 subtile delight; but where these are, we can love and 
 admire, although the unseen form be to us the same as 
 not existing. Who does not make to himself a reality, 
 and an object of affections, of the unseen agent of gene- 
 rous and benevolent deeds, even though the few cubic feet 
 of substance which compose his form, and any visible 
 
51 
 
 manifestation connected with them, should never reach 
 him? So accustomed are we to treat abstractions as 
 realities, that it seldom occurs to us that the existence of 
 the historical personage is the more doubtful, because the 
 historian has not supplied us with the means of defining 
 his visible form. To which of the two is Caesar more a 
 reality; to the Roman slave who saw a human form, 
 resembling many others, in the triumphal car and toga ; 
 or to the reader of to-day, who has followed the accom- 
 phshed, vain, and ambitious conqueror from the plains 
 of Gaul to the foot of Pompey's statue ? Nor need we 
 appeal so far as to history. Are not those unseen ones, 
 whose thoughts alone, reaching to us, stir up in us a high 
 and intense life ; — are they not to us realities a thousand 
 times more interesting than the mere visible forms, the 
 acquaintances of eye and ear, which cross our every-day 
 path? 
 
 What, though our minds be not always tuned to this 
 high pitch, and often sink down from abstractions to the 
 basis of things material and sensible out of which they 
 arise, — they cannot remain there long, but feel gradually 
 borne up by their nature into higher action. Not alone 
 does the poet or the philosopher seek for the ideal as a 
 part of his mind's needful aliment. The peasant and 
 the artisan also seek more than the things which they 
 see and handle; and catch gladly at those words and 
 sounds which give them the glimmering of another kind 
 of life, the life of the fantasy. Hence has superstition 
 been able to maintain her sway so stoutly in defiance of 
 common sense, by allying herself with powers to which 
 man by nature ovmed a grateful and willing allegiance. 
 The religious fable or absurdity has been suffered to pass 
 unquestioned, for the sake of the grace, faith, or spiritual 
 influence by which it has invited men to the action of 
 their higher faculties. And possibly this action, even 
 when somewhat diseased and in excess, was less injurious 
 
 e2 
 
52 
 
 than the total death of man's ideal and spiritual nature. 
 But cannot reason also form an alliance with this; or 
 must we acknowledge that in proportion to the dominion 
 of reason, man must restrict himself to the exercise of 
 his senses, and admit as fact and reality their acquaint- 
 ances alone ? This cannot be ; Nature bids us refuse to 
 lower our standard to the capabilities of those whom she 
 intended to be mere door-keepers to the mind, and urges 
 us to receive all that higher world of ideas which follow 
 the impressions of sense, welcoming them as the conge- 
 nial companions and best friends of reason. 
 
 Are abstractions, then, dehghtful realities of the mind 
 in its highest exercise ? Then God speaks to us by means 
 of our highest faculties; and who would wish that he 
 had spoken otherwise ? The being who has senses alone 
 goes into nature, and finds only herbs, waters, sky, and 
 planets. The being who has also intellect, imagination, 
 and affections, cannot see these without finding also the 
 Mind of the Universe. 
 
 Doubly pleasing does nature become when reason has 
 once satisfied us that she is authorized to respond to the 
 heart. The mind of the First Cause speaks to us through 
 his works. Matter, inorganic and organic ! How poor 
 and mean nature seemed when this was all we could see 
 in her ! but now we begin to penetrate farther, and find 
 that these forms were but the outward expression of 
 something higher than themselves. The loneliness felt 
 amidst heaps of insentiency, however splendidly arrayed, 
 disappears as soon as we begin to distinguish the voice 
 of Intelligence which speaks through them. Mind caused 
 them, exists amidst them, and speaks by them. Each 
 object becomes more than a spectacle ; it is the medium 
 of communication from a mind. The wild flower which 
 we scarcely notice, the satellite which we disregard 
 amidst the brilliancy of the sky, would tell us volumes, 
 if they were all in the external world to which we had 
 
.53 
 
 access. But from the stores of the Parent Cause these 
 would be but penurious epistles ; and he conveys his 
 meaning in a richly variegated earth, and a boundless 
 firmament. 
 
 With this Scripture we may be well content ; and know- 
 ing that here it is appointed for us to learn all we can 
 and ought to know of God, his nature, and his will, 
 cease to regret the loss of that strange existence which 
 made a capricious covenant with Abraham, or of the 
 voice which delivered to Moses moral precepts, inter- 
 mingled with directions concerning the fringe of the 
 tabernacle and knobs of the candlestick, or of the Being 
 who declared himself at one time long suffering and gra- 
 cious, and at another denounced heavy punishments for 
 sparing the wives and children of the vanquished. A 
 more refined conception followed these, in so far as man's 
 expanding mind began to catch the tone and spirit of 
 nature. But nature is more durable than man's words, 
 whether conveyed through other men's memories, or by 
 paper and parchment. We can appeal to her direct, 
 without help from any translator or expounder, besides 
 our own head and heart. The God whom she proclaims 
 is a certainty in a far higher degree than any God revealed 
 to us through distant records, for the pledges of his ex- 
 istence are the things around us and within us every 
 moment, free from all suspicion of forgery, delusion, or 
 imposture. 
 
 And what does this elder, but ever fresh, Scriptiu-e 
 teach concerning the character of the Creating Mind ? Is 
 there aught in it, besides intelhgence, which betokens 
 kindred to our own ? How does the intelligence employ 
 itself, and towards what objects does it tend ? That of 
 man is combined with other faculties and tastes, and 
 exercises itself in the directions to which these point. 
 He loves to explore the properties of figure and number, 
 and to make these properties subservient to his purposes 
 
54 
 
 in combining material things ; he delights in sweet sounds 
 and graceful forms, and deems it no small part of reason's 
 task to promote the gratification of the eye and the ear; 
 and above all, his intelligence finds a necessity of being 
 in action of some kind amongst the material things which 
 surround it. Does the Divine Intelligence resemble the 
 human in any of these respects? or does it operate to- 
 wards objects altogether incomprehensible to man, foreign 
 to his tastes, bearing no parallel to his aims, and no rela- 
 tion to his faculties ? A range through nature soon leads 
 to the pleasing discovery, that the Creative InteUigence 
 is combined also with something coiTCsponding to the 
 senses, tastes, and imagination of man. He finds not a 
 strange and repulsive creation which jars harshly upon 
 his own nature, but one which accords wonderfiilly with 
 it. To whatever side he turns, nature presents something 
 to harmonize with his faculties, and he feels himself in a 
 father-land. Earth and skies reveal a conceptive Painter, 
 a skilful Musician, a deep Geometrician, a sure Archi- 
 tect, and, whether in these or other forms, an ever-active 
 mind.* 
 
 In some things mankind cannot approach the perfec- 
 tion displayed in nature. The problem of the three bo- 
 
 * Man appears to have certain determinate faculties, which may 
 be modified by the action of external things, but can neither be 
 entirely created nor destroyed by it. Therefore the pleasure which 
 he takes in nature indicates an agreement or harmony between his 
 appetencies and external things, and not the necessary derivation 
 of the former from the latter. Persons who have been excluded 
 from their birth from natural scenery, experience a lively pleasure 
 when at last introduced to it. It is quite conceivable that man 
 and external nature should have been constituted so that the latter 
 might produce an unpleasing effect upon the whole or the greater 
 part of the faculties of the former ; therefore the agreement or 
 harmony alluded to, unless wc call it a coincidence, demands some 
 explanation. 
 
55 
 
 dies occupied the ablest mathematicians of Em'ope for 
 many years, and Clairaut was only able to solve it ap- 
 proximately. Yet how much more complicated must be 
 the problems to be solved in order to balance milhons 
 of systems !* With respect to sounds and colours also, 
 the artificial seldom equal the natural in sweetness or 
 vividness. But in some cases, as in the collocation of 
 the parts of a landscape, or in the combination of sounds 
 into a concert, art seems able to improve upon nature. 
 Remembering that man himself is a part of the latter, 
 we should hence conclude, that, in some cases, God ex- 
 hibits a higher degree of skill out of us, and in other 
 cases through us. 
 
 Whether it be true or not, that in some particular 
 cases man is able to do better than what he finds already 
 done in nature, the general fact, that the material crea- 
 tion is such as to delight his faculties, remains indisput- 
 able ; and, looking at the whole, few would admit that 
 any human mind could ever produce such a magnificent 
 and beautifiil conception. There is a boldness or free- 
 dom of style in the Divine works which strikes the 
 imagination, independently of size and extent. God is 
 not a formahst who draws only in parallel lines, perfect 
 curves, and similar figures. This he can do where it 
 conduces to utility, as in the cellular tissues, the spider's 
 
 * The hypothesis, that the matter scattered throughout the hea- 
 vens must, during eternity, have time to fall into all possible com- 
 binations, and therefore must at last hit upon one of the feAV which 
 would balance the universe, although not absolutely impossible, 
 is too violent to be admitted, without strong support from facts. 
 No record, either through intelligent beings or material things, has 
 reached us of that enormous period when Nature was making her 
 unsuccessful experiments. The earliest geological epochs appear 
 to be parts of a regular plan of progression. The hypothesis re- 
 ferred to is totally unsupported by that which forms the basis of 
 the argument for an Intelligent Cause, viz. fact and analogy. 
 
56 
 
 web, tlie cells of bees, and in the members of the body 
 which exist in pairs. He can be most minute in regu- 
 larity, for the earth never varies a minute in the time of 
 its rotation, nor does the radius vector of any planet 
 describe an inch more or less of area in equal times. 
 Yet, where no purpose of utility appears to be promoted 
 by regularity, he prefers the variety of seeming chance. 
 The stars are scattered throughout the firmament, so 
 that no area in space can be matched with its dupli- 
 cate ; yet who does not confess that the confusion which 
 allows the imagination to form the wild gi'oup of Orion, 
 the Centaur, the Lion, and all their fellow mystic forms, 
 emblems of scientific facts, or representations of the fa- 
 bles which sprung from the fancy of the young human 
 race, — that this wild collocation exceeds in sublime effect 
 the most regular corniced temple-ceiling into which the 
 Divine Artificer might have marked out the sky ? And 
 who that sees fr'om some eminence the beautiful confu- 
 sion of rocks, sea, meadows, and woods, assembled in no 
 definable proportion or plan, would wish that the De- 
 signer had preferred to arrange the components of his 
 landscapes with the regularity of tesselated pavements ? 
 
 But this is mere trifling, compared with the deeper 
 query which the heart longs to put to nature. Is the 
 universal mind Ormusd or Ahriman ? For, with all that 
 she has yet said, he might still be an all-powerful refined 
 tormentor. The wise and skilful we may admire ; but 
 the benevolent we confide in and love. There has 
 been, and is, much that seems evil ; when she is clearly 
 understood, what will be the final translation of her 
 sentence — that good, evil, a compromise, or a neutra- 
 lity, is the rule of the universe ? If the Persian had 
 been told so much of the future, as that the progress 
 of knowledge would prove it impossible for two prin- 
 ciples to reign jointly in the universe, since each suc- 
 cessive investigation of nature shewed more and more 
 
57 
 
 the unity of design, from the lowest gulf of the Caspian 
 to the star which hardly twinkles beside Aldebaran, how 
 would he desire to ask the further question, which of the 
 two principles would advancing knowledge recognize as 
 the predominant, and whether Ormusd or Ahriman 
 would be dissipated by science into a non-entity ! He 
 might, perhaps, have anticipated the answer, but with 
 some trembling. Three thousand years enable us to 
 anticipate the final decision of nature with tranquillity. 
 The study of matter and mind has proved, that so much 
 of what was called evil is the necessary means of pre- 
 venting the destruction of our physical frame, or of pro- 
 moting the life of our moral natiu'e, that we look securely 
 for the further results of science as to what remains of 
 evil unexplained.* Since the more intently men have 
 looked at nature, the more of evil has appeared to change 
 into goodness of a different hue, we must anticipate that 
 a perfect revelation will shew the seeming blots which 
 remain, to be in reality harmonizing features in a scene of 
 beneficence. Thus relieved with respect to these darker 
 passages of nature, we are at liberty to rejoice in her 
 general clear and easy language of joyous suns, smiling 
 earth, bodies replete with agreeable sensations, and sights 
 and tones innumerable which breathe peace or delight. 
 Thus in abundant eloquence she declares that neither ma- 
 levolence nor indifference has presided over the creation 
 of all things, but that benevolence was, in some unac- 
 countable way, the predominant attribute of the Causing 
 Mind. 
 
 Might it not have been otherwise? Is there any 
 latent self-contradiction in the supposition that the order of 
 things might have been such as to give as much pain, or as 
 little pleasure, as was consistent with continuation ? — that 
 life and reproduction should have been enforced by pain, 
 
 * See Combe's Constitution of Man. 
 
58 
 
 rather than persuaded by pleasure ; and that a miserable 
 world, or a dull world, should have been compelled to 
 drag on for millions of ages, in order to supply a neces- 
 sary link of the gi-eat whole ? It is conceivable : why 
 was it not so ? We cannot tell ; but we can rejoice in 
 the actual reality. A common-place phrase is it, — the 
 beneficent order of things. But to Adam, just created, 
 it would have been a thriUing discovery. Pause some- 
 times, all sons of Adam, and rejoice to think upon the 
 good luck, or fortunate necessity, or whatever other name 
 seems best to suit the incomprehensible fate which made 
 goodness predominant in the universe which holds you. 
 
 The creating Intelligence, which all nature had re- 
 vealed, is also beneficent. Delightful discovery! Then 
 can man repose securely and trust implicitly. For the rest, 
 his weak understanding need not perplex itself more than 
 for diversion and exercise. When, strong and active, his 
 mind is restless for employment, let it seek farther into 
 the nature of God and the destiny of man ; but when, 
 weaiy and troubled, it needs repose, let it sink contented 
 upon faith — the clear and easy faith which a beautiful 
 universe has revealed, a benevolent God. What is there 
 further which will not readily grow out of this ? From 
 this one article, reason \vill easily deduce as many as the 
 varying circumstances of each individual may reqmre, and 
 more than thirty-nine of good comfort will be found, con- 
 firmed by nature to be of sound orthodoxy. 
 
 Benevolence is one of the characteristics which most 
 please us in the human mind. By examining the works 
 of nature, it appears to have been a principle inherent in 
 the First Cause. May we not, then, hope that some of 
 the other sentiments of the human mind have in the 
 First Cause something responding to them? Whether 
 the sentiment be a primitive faculty of the mind, or 
 whether it grows out of its constitution acted upon by 
 other things, it nmst have had in the original Source of 
 
59 
 
 mind a cause answering to it. If mind could have pro- 
 ceeded from nothing but mind, then the qualities of mind 
 must have proceeded from a cause having some kindred 
 or resembling qualities. Benevolence could not have 
 been made a component of human nature by a cause es- 
 sentially malevolent. Then also justice, sense of duty, 
 honour, affection, have something responding to them in 
 the cause of man's mind.* 
 
 Thus do our mental powers, ranging through nature, 
 discover an existence which rises in sublimity and interest 
 the more they look upon it. By steady contemplation 
 the wondrous abstraction assumes form. The great idea is 
 filled up ; whilst the reality of external nature perpetually 
 reminds us that we behold, not our own reflection, but 
 an independent existence.f One by one, qualities throng 
 upon it, until it becomes an entity readily appreciable by 
 thought. It becomes a personality so real, that imagina- 
 tion is almost tempted to add more. The Creative Intel- 
 ligence, the mighty Geometrician, and conceptive Artist, 
 is also Benevolent ; and if so much as all this, he can surely 
 understand and appreciate whatever else enters into the 
 composition of humanity. Then may virtue, endeavour- 
 ing to imitate him, hope that there is in the universe a 
 
 * It might be objected, that this kind of argument would also 
 prove that there are counterparts of man's bad qualities in the 
 Divine Mind. But modern philosophy tends to prove, that the \ 
 mind has no original bad qualities. Vices are the results of quali- } 
 ties in themselves good, and in harmony with nature, but mis- '^i 
 directed, or in excess, owing to defective knowledge. It seems, ) 
 indeed, not at all improbable, that all primitive faculties in the i 
 human mind have some counterpart in the First Cause, although ' 
 the manifestation of them should be different, owing to its different 
 mode of existence. 
 
 t Dante relates, in the Paradise, that the Deity appeared to 
 him under the figure of three circles, forming an iris, whose lively 
 colours generated each other ; but that, looking steadily upon the 
 dazzling light, he saw only his own figure. 
 
60 
 
 secret response of approbation, more sure and discerning 
 than that of men ; then may humble unseen worth, per- 
 severing from a sense of duty in painful struggles, which 
 the ordination of progress has rendered inevitable to many 
 children of earth, retire frequently to seek refi'eshment 
 from sympathies in nature, compassion, exhortation, and 
 encouragement, expressed in tones which the ear is now 
 attuned to perceive ; and if sometimes, stimulated into 
 more keen perception by sorrow, the soul realizes the 
 awfiil consoling Presence so nearly, that it more than me- 
 ditates, — can reason condemn? 
 
 Honoured be the spirits which have anticipated such 
 religion of nature, and depicted the Cause of the uni- 
 verse in this attractive form. The lower feelings found 
 in the godhead a mere Jupiter Tonans, a vindictive and 
 jealous tyrant of heaven, the partial protector of a family 
 or chosen nation. But more enlarged thought and higher 
 feeHng described him as the King and Father of men, Ju- 
 piter greatest and best. Especially honoured be he who 
 loved to contemplate, and to address, the unseen Mind 
 as the Father in heaven, hearing and having compassion 
 on all men ; and who taught men to avail themselves of 
 this refuge for sorrow. Whatever else he were, he was 
 one of those who have helped to raise and refine, as well 
 as to strengthen, human nature. Philosophy sitting 
 calmly in the schools, or walking at ease in the groves, 
 could not do all that men require ; the despised Galilean, 
 with his religion of sorrow, gave strength where philosophy 
 left them weak, and completed the armour of the mind. 
 It was reserved for a persecuted man of a persecuted 
 nation to open the divine depths of sorrow, and to direct 
 men towards the hidden riches of their nature in abysses 
 where, at the first entrance, all appeared barren gloom. 
 
 The various systems of religion, or schools of philoso- 
 phy, which have pre-eminently attracted men's attention, 
 have all contributed something to a complete moral 
 
()1 
 
 creed. Each has brought into view some great principle 
 which, although not unknown, had never before been 
 placed in so striking a light. Jesus Christ has added to 
 philosophy the principle of regarding the Supreme Mind 
 as an object of the affections. In suffering and adversity 
 chiefly, this principle comes to be felt as a valuable part 
 of philosophy. In these conditions, it may be questioned 
 if any system, without this, can produce perfect tran- 
 quillity, free from apathy. Acquiescence in the decrees 
 of fate or necessity is not enough for a being com- 
 pounded of imaginations and affections, as well as intel- 
 lect ; the principle suits his whole nature, when raised 
 into submission to the will of a beneficent paternal mind. 
 In this, Jesus wants not the attestation of supernatural 
 voices and signs; he has held up to men a doctrine 
 which nature, when earnestly appealed to, fully sanctions. 
 Does the adorer still sometimes sigh for a contempla- 
 tion of the Deity, requiring less strain upon his intel- 
 lectual nature, and exclaim, O that the Invisible would 
 become flesh, and dwell among us, so that we might see 
 his form and hear his voice, full of grace and truth ! or 
 that, at least, he would condescend so far to the weakness 
 of beings in whom sense forms a large part, as to send 
 amongst them some emanating intelligence, his likeness 
 and representative, in a human form ! Reflect, thou art 
 asking only what he has already done. Man's mind 
 came out of the all-comprehending cause. Some exam- 
 ples of it exhibit, in no low degi-ee, the attributes which 
 are revealed in creation. In the good and the wise of 
 earth, behold many Incarnations of deity. Be thyself 
 one of them. Wherever thou findest the pure, the ener- 
 getic, and the love-worthy, fall down in thy own mind 
 and adore the god-like. In this accessible form thou 
 wilt frequently find the godhead walking in the garden, 
 joining at the social board, talking with thee face to face. 
 Avail thyself freely of this familiar channel of recognition 
 
62 
 
 and adoration ; by love and reverence for the moral, pay 
 to the Source of Good an easy daily praise ; nor fear, by 
 worship of the God on earth, to disparage the God in 
 heaven. 
 
 The history of six thousand years exhibits continual 
 stretchings of man after the invisible ; and according to 
 the state of mind and manners, these have manifested 
 themselves in superstition, fanaticism, religion, or philoso- 
 phy. Away with the cant that the idea of a God is only 
 the work of priestcraft ; the priests might have availed 
 themselves of what was already in the mind of man, but 
 no priests could have artifice enough to plant there, and 
 cause to grow for ages, what was totally uncongenial to it. 
 Men would have risen sooner against each priestly annoy- 
 ance, but that they felt the power of unseen realities 
 speaking to them in a voice more forcible than that of bulls 
 and ordinances, — the voice of their reason and of their 
 inmost wants, hopes, and affections. And it has been 
 the art of priests to appear as the allies and visible repre- 
 sentatives of these potent influences, and to pretend to 
 minister to those wants of men, which by slow degrees 
 they learn to satisfy direct from nature's fountain. Yet 
 do the strange shapes which the rehgious sentiment has 
 so frequently assumed, all contain a truth which compels 
 lamentation or laughter to end in some kind of reve- 
 rence. He may be wanting in perceptions, who can refi-ain 
 from a smile at some of the abrupt passages which the 
 mixture called human nature has often made in rehgion 
 as well as other things, from the sublime to the ridiculous ; 
 and especially at the impotent conclusion, of the highest 
 aspirations of man being reduced to the poor common- 
 place of subserving the necessity which some appear to 
 be under of imposing, and others of being imposed upon. 
 But he is equally or more wanting in perceptions, who 
 can see only these in the history of religion, nor discern, 
 amidst various absurd disguises invented by human folly. 
 
G3 
 
 an identical fair form of truth, of which the reahty and 
 character are spoken to by the constitution of man's 
 mind and of nature. The conceptions of Deity in rude 
 ages must necessarily be lower than in periods of mental 
 refinement ; yet, in many of them, we may find the alloy 
 to consist of sentiments which, though not the highest, 
 are neither unworthy nor unnatural. The most philoso- 
 phic religionist may feel at times the necessity of bring- 
 ing the Universal Mind, as it were, into that compara- 
 tively narrow circle wherein the most active feelings 
 generally find their play, and contemplating it in re- 
 ference to family, friends, or country. By him the ap- 
 pellations the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 
 God who hath led our fathers through the wilderness, 
 will be regarded as happy modes of bringing the Mighty 
 Incorporeal wdthin the compass of a rude nation's affec- 
 tions and comprehension. Nor will he refiise to lend 
 himself to the associations which the history of Israel, 
 their poetry and music, and also that of Christendom, 
 have connected with the name of the God of Judah, and 
 King of Zion. In all the forms not absolutely revolting 
 or ludicrous, in which the domestic or patriotic feelings 
 of tribes and nations have allied themselves with the reli- 
 gious, will the benignant philosopher find matter for 
 sympathy and approval, rather than of derision ; he will 
 enter into the associations of time and place which have 
 rendered such forms interesting and powerful, relax his 
 abstract truths into these poetical and familiar represen- 
 tations, and regard the propensity to fall into them as an 
 amiable, rather than absurd, trait in imperfect human 
 natiu-e. 
 
 But, although poetical, historical, and antiquarian in- 
 terest may preserve, in different nations, partial repre- 
 sentations of the Deity for a long time after the belief in 
 the Divine sanction of such representations has ceased, — 
 the tendency of advancing knowledge must be gradually 
 
64 
 
 to abandon these imperfect conceptions, and to prefer 
 that infinitely more enlarged one which progressive 
 thought opens. As the name of Israel is to us now, so 
 will Christendom and Christianity be to our descendants 
 of future generations. As to us the God of Abraham, 
 and the God of Israel, appear too limited designations 
 for the Divine Existence, so to them will appear the 
 names of the Father of Christ, and the God of the Christ- 
 ians. All representations of the Deity depending upon 
 the preservation of human records will be felt to be com- 
 paratively unsatisfactory and unsubstantial. But Nature 
 will always be a present grand reality, and the InteUigence 
 which presides throughout nature must be an ever-present 
 reality also. The God of Nature, revealed in greater 
 clearness by each step of physical and mental science, is 
 He whom the Jew, the Christian, the Mahometan, and 
 the Hindoo will at last unite to worship. In the pleni- 
 tude of philosophic charity, which future centuries are to 
 develope, these may all, in turn, join each other in the 
 peculiar ancient worship of each. Where painting, po- 
 etry, or music, may have consecrated the old, imperfect, 
 and partial conceptions of each nation, the enlightened 
 religionist of after-times will find no impediment to his 
 fi*ee sympathy in the reminiscences of his neighbours. 
 The Hindoo scholar may repeat with pleasure the praises 
 of the God of Israel, preserved in the relics of Hebrew 
 poetry ; the Mahometan musician will not be offended at 
 finding the Deity continually represented as the Father 
 of Jesus Christ in the finest devotional compositions of 
 Christendom ; whilst the Jewish or Christian poet will 
 treat with equal candour the strains in honour of Brama. 
 The secondary feelings connected with the rehgious pe- 
 culiarities of each clime will be treated, on all sides, with 
 that respectful consideration which true philosophy in- 
 spires ; whilst all will rejoice together in their respective 
 emancipations from the more galling fetters of their sup- 
 
65 
 
 posed Special Revelations, and meet in full and free 
 communion of thought on the common ground of Na- 
 ture's Revelation. Religion will at last, like Science, 
 become a point of union, instead of a bar of separation, 
 to the minds of different nations. When it is found that 
 the real Bible, or book in which God reveals himself, has 
 been given equally to all, and that he has already taken 
 care to place it in clear print before every nation, there 
 can be no room for the overweening assumption of ex- 
 clusive possession of divine truth ; and that generous zeal 
 for others' spiritual welfare, which, in a great measure, 
 wastes itself in misdirected missionary exertions, will find 
 an aim more rational and more practicable, in interna- 
 tional efforts to promote moral, intellectual, and social 
 improvement. 
 
 The distinction between God's works and God's word 
 no longer exists. They are the same. His works are 
 his word. No longer need the mind which seeks its 
 Creator be cramped within the limits of a written volume. 
 O thou, whose earliest conceptions of a creative intelli- 
 gence awakened by the sight of a wonderful world, and, 
 seeking for further expansion, have been directed to the 
 so-called word of God as the proper fountain of this high 
 knowledge, where this sublimest ardour was to be satis- 
 fied, and the great idea fully developed, — hast thou never 
 experienced something like disappointment, when, turning 
 wearily over many pages of the boasted revelation, thou 
 hast found but little to respond to thy nascent desires of 
 truth, and timidly, half self-accusing, asked thyself. Can 
 this really be that loudly extolled book of Revelation, 
 which is to instruct men fully concerning God and his 
 ways ? Is it indeed so superior to the instruction of nature, 
 that it deserves to be called pre-eminently the Word of 
 God ? I find here and there high thoughts and beautifiil 
 conceptions, which shew that betv/een the Nile and the 
 
 F 
 
Euphrates, as well as elsewhere, men possessed a nature 
 capable of being moved occasionally to the contemplation 
 of the mighty Cause of heaven and earth ; but do these 
 ancient writers really impart knowledge concerning him 
 beyond the reach of all other sages, and speak in strains 
 unequalled by any other muse ?* Alas ! they seldom sus- 
 tain my mind long in that high region which it was seek- 
 ing; but drag it down into an earthly atmosphere of 
 low trifling thoughts, petty local interests, and indi\idual 
 or national resentments. This, the book to which stupen- 
 dous Nature itself was only the preface ! — which the Cre- 
 ator of sun and skies has thought it worth while to attest 
 by special messages and inspirations ! Neither its genea- 
 logies, histories, nor poems, satisfy my want. The spirit 
 of adoration seems to be, by long perusal of this volume, 
 excluded fi'om the great temple of the universe, and com- 
 pressed into the holy ark of Israel, or into an upper cham- 
 ber at Jerusalem. Can this book really be the highest 
 field of human study and thought? There must be some 
 mistake. 
 
 ♦ Compare Psalms xix. and Isaiah xl. with Young's Night 
 Thoughts, chap. ix. : — 
 
 " Where ends this mighty building 1 Where begin 
 
 The suburbs of creation ] Where the wall 
 
 Whose battlements look o'er into the vale 
 
 Of non-existence ? Nothing's strange abode ! 
 
 Say, at what point of space Jehovah dropp'd 
 
 His slackened line, and laid his halance by ; 
 
 Weighed ivorlds, and measured infinile, no more ! 
 
 Where rears his terminating pillar high 
 
 Its extra-mundane head? and says to gods, 
 
 In characters illustrious as the sun, 
 
 'I stand, the plan's proud period ; I pronounce 
 
 The work accomplished ; the creation closed : 
 
 Shout, all ye gods ! nor shout, ye gods, alone ; 
 
 Of all that lives, or, if devoid of life, 
 
 Tliat rests, or rolls, ye heights and depths, resound !' " 
 
67 
 
 Rejoice, and set thy mind free ; there has l)een a great 
 mistake. The book, as well as thyself, was injured by 
 the false pretensions set up on its behalf; and the work- 
 ings of the Human mind in remote ages, in themselves 
 deeply interesting, rendered ridiculous by being extolled 
 into oracles of the Divine, Cease to weary thyself in 
 following Israel through the desert, and in pondering 
 each supposed weighty sentence of prophets and apostles. 
 Neither Moses nor Samuel, Isaiah nor Zechariah, not 
 Jesus, nor Paul, nor John, can speak more of God than 
 they themselves have learned from the sources which he 
 has placed within the reach of all, nature and man's own 
 mind. But look up and around, and say if man may not 
 be well satisfied with these; and if in Orion and the 
 Pleiades, in the green earth and its copious productions, 
 and especially in the Godlike Human Mind itself, mani- 
 fested in art, science, poetry, and action, God has not 
 provided eloquent and intelligible evangelists. 
 
 True, they tell me that he is ; but his Will ! where 
 shall I find this, if the book of revelation be renounced ; 
 where find rules of conduct of sufficient sanction to 
 render the mind free and trustful in its course through 
 life ? Reflecting man cannot live a mere animal, catching 
 whatever good fate or chance throws to him from day 
 to day ; he must ask himself sometimes, what is the End 
 of his being, and is he living for that End ? Different 
 lines of conduct seem to lie open before him ; which shall 
 he choose, — virtue or vice, benevolent or selfish gratifica- 
 tion? The omnipotent Designer must have intended 
 man to fulfil some part in his great plan : if man could 
 penetrate into the divine designs, and learn what this plan 
 was, or at least obtain a word of guidance fi'om the Cre- 
 ator's hps, he might proceed surely. Conformity to the 
 will of an arranger so wise as he who made the world, 
 must be for the best interests of man and of all things. 
 Nor will this question be asked of Nature in vain. 
 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 Througli her God speaks his will, as well as his existence, 
 in language of inimitable force and clearness. Here also 
 it is the language of facts. He speaks his commands to 
 man in a manner so impressive, that they cannot be neg- 
 lected, whether they be recognized as his or not. This 
 emphatic language is Plea&iire and Pain. By the former 
 he persuades, by the latter he deters. " Do this" is 
 spoken so that none can refuse; "thus far shalt thou 
 go," and "thou shalt not," are enforced in sentences 
 which the deaf must hear, viz., in Nature's sharp penalties 
 for disobedience. 
 
 Here then is the true Table of God's Commandments ; 
 the natural consequences of actions ; the happiness or 
 misery which result respectively from different lines of 
 conduct, according to the constitution of ourselves and 
 of things around : a table written, indeed, with the finger 
 of God, but which no Moses can throw down and break ; 
 for it is interwoven with the universe itself, and shares its 
 stability. Let him who desires to know the will of God 
 study well this great table, and in no particular will he 
 find it deficient or ambiguous. 
 
 It is true that this Table is so constructed as to teach 
 by experience rather than by warning. Each forbidden 
 fruit does not prevent our tasting it by sharp pains to the 
 palate ; but by after-pain it declares itself to be within 
 the prohibited list. Man seems thus to be designedly 
 exposed to some evil. Unlike an over-fond parent, who 
 fears lest her charge should receive the slightest hurt. 
 Nature gives mankind a rough education, and allows them 
 unscrupulously to receive many hurts before they attain 
 their majority. Man's infancy of six thousand years has 
 abounded with disasters ; yet Nature has looked on un- 
 moved, tranquilly confident in the ultimate success of 
 her plan ; in evidence of which we see she now points to 
 her charge, upon the whole healthy and vigorous, not- 
 withstanding his past troubles, rendered partially wise 
 
69 
 
 and reflective in consequence of them, and shewing a 
 strength of constitution in body and mind which allows 
 the hope of a manhood of perfection. 
 
 Is Nature really unkind in preferring this rigorous 
 system of teaching by experience ? and do we wish that 
 God had rather made her the minutely sohcitous nurse, 
 always warning in time, to prevent our incurring the least 
 physical or moral hurt ? Then we might have been en- 
 tirely unscathed by evil, and for ever safe in leading- 
 strings. But whence should we obtain all those things 
 which seem to be the necessary results of hard experi- 
 ence alone ; — patience, fortitude, circumspection, activity 
 of thought, and the full appreciation of pleasure ? All these 
 truly are worth something, and help much to make man 
 the being whom we love and respect. Perhaps they are 
 equal in value to that secure invulnerability which we 
 might have had in the total absence of evil, — perhaps 
 more. Should we dare to risk the loss of this moral 
 grandeur, and all that results from it, by accepting, in 
 exchange for this world, one in which evil had never 
 been permitted to appear, — a world already cleared of evil 
 for man, instead of one which he is to clear for himself? 
 The choice would be too hazardous ; we might lose more 
 than we should gain : possibly it was neither oversight 
 nor want of benevolence in the Creator, that he allowed 
 the trees both of Good and of Evil to grow within the 
 reach of unrestrained man. 
 
 Wonderful and ingenious is the method devised for 
 guiding man into the course which he was intended to 
 fulfil, and at the same time allowing him that range of 
 faculties and action, which contributes to the interest and 
 greatness of his being ! Not an enchaining automaton-pro- 
 ducing instinct ; but Pleasure or Happiness attached to 
 some actions. Pain or Misery to others. How simple the 
 contrivance! yet what a vast machinery of sensations 
 in man and adaptations to external nature did it require ! 
 
70 
 
 The Natural Consequences of actions become, then, the 
 Scriptures of God's \vill concerning the conduct of man. 
 Deeply interesting is the study of this volume, for we 
 read it in every action of our lives, and in all that men 
 and nations enjoy or suffer. Even he who will not 
 himself attend to the meaning, becomes an illustration of 
 it to others. But with the happiness and misery of life 
 the sense must glide more or less into every mind. 
 
 Why have mankind profited so little by this volume, 
 that from generation to generation they continue to read 
 again and again the same dark pages of immoderate in- 
 dulgence, unrestrained passions, and their attendant evils, 
 without going on to those abundant pages of pleasurable 
 experiences to which these difficult passages were to be 
 merely the preparation? Whence this strange inatten- 
 tion ? From men's inadvertence to the deep and solemn 
 object of all the Pains and Pleasures to which their minds 
 and bodies are subject ; viz., that these are to make known 
 to them God's will, and guide them into the course 
 designed for them. But they have supposed pains and 
 pleasures to be accidents, or mere arbitrary distributions, 
 and have looked every where else for the declaration of 
 God's will ; in dreams, or visions, or special messengers 
 fi'om heaven, or supernatural inspirations, or volumes of 
 human compilation pretending to contain the precious 
 oracles. Man's attention has been so engrossed with these 
 loud boasting, counterfeit revelations, that he has neg- 
 lected Nature, although ever speaking with her own cpiet 
 impressiveness through his own feelings and the order of 
 things. 
 
 But now lift up thine eyes, free from those illusions which 
 have been so long confusing the sight of mankind, and 
 devote thy hitherto misdirected energies to discover 
 God's will in his own revelation of it. Here also he 
 adopts a magnificent mode of teaching, the feelings of 
 man and the order of events. Thou wilt soon learn his 
 
71 
 
 style in this matter, as well as in the revelation of his 
 existence. 'Tis easier, after all, than the study of Koran, 
 Shasters, Zendavesta, or Bible. Thou wilt sooner dis- 
 cover the tendency of thine actions, and the pleasurable- 
 ness or painfulness of thy own feehngs, than the genuine- 
 ness and meaning of Hebrew, Greek, or Persic texts. 
 Hast thou ever felt delight in the exercise of thy senses, 
 in the fragrance of the rose and violet, in autumn's fruits, 
 in the freshness of the winding stream beneath over- 
 hanging trees, or in the inviting depths of the wood ? 
 God commands thee to enjoy all this. Hast thou ever 
 felt the bodily prostration or mental death following 
 upon too long-continued luxurious ease ? Then God 
 prohibits this. Hast thou ever found enjoyment in the 
 kindly intercourse with men, in the interchange of good 
 offices, or in the mutual communication of thought and 
 experience, gaiety and wisdom ? God commands this. 
 Hast thou ever felt misery from yielding to suspicion, 
 reserve, distrust, and uncharitableness ? The prohibition 
 is clear. Hast thou ever found delight in knowledge, in 
 evolving the surprising properties of numbers and quantity, 
 in exploring the history of earth and its productions, in 
 penetrating the firmament and gaining a bird's-eye view 
 of the universe, or in roving through the luxuriance of 
 books? All this God sanctions. Or hast thou some- 
 times had a sense of a purer delight, and felt the awakening 
 of a new and higher life in the love of moral beauty, the 
 admiration of noble actions, the feeling of disinterested 
 benevolence, the desire to direct all other tastes and powers 
 towards the service of mankind, and to imitate the per- 
 fection in heaven by doing good to all sentient creatures ? 
 If ever thou hast been convinced that from such feelings 
 proceed a real and substantial delight, then be sure that 
 God approves of these. 
 
 But the sufferers for conscience' sake ! O plausible 
 semi-epicurean, what shall we say of these ? This ; — that 
 
72 
 
 they prefer the higher pleasure to the lower, and would 
 not exchange the consciousness of moral worth, of fellow- 
 ship with the good, and of closer connexion with more 
 than earth, for things, to them, of inferior value. If the 
 bargain seem to any too hard, 'tis nature's indication that 
 they may rest contented with the secondary grade of 
 admiring what they cannot imitate. Yet history shews 
 that, whenever occasion has called for it, numbers have 
 not been found wanting to rush into the foremost rank 
 of Virtue, testifying by their alacrity that some minds are 
 so constituted as to find her rewards a reality.* 
 
 With the increasing general improvement of mankind, 
 occasions of this kind will be less and less frequent. 
 Virtue will not be called upon for those high efforts, in 
 which the exaltation of noble feelings must compensate 
 for inconvenience, neglect, and suffering. The general 
 constitution of human nature indicates that virtue is in- 
 tended to co-exist with the enjoyment of the common 
 blessings of life. The martyr's reward must be con- 
 sidered as an extraordinary provision to meet an extraordi- 
 nary case ; but the more tranquil satisfactions of virtue 
 will be the more permanent. Those generous spirits 
 
 * The possibility, at least, of a future state, cannot be disproved. 
 It is one of the rewards of virtue to reflect, that, in the disposition 
 to create and diff"use good, the mind has acquired a high degree of 
 resemblance to the Divine nature, and that the likeness may in- 
 clude the partaking of its immortality. Thus, although the doc- 
 trine of the immortality of the soul be not held as a dogma, the 
 contemplation of it may diffuse a high additional interest to man's 
 existence; and this contemplation becomes most earnest and 
 pleasing to the virtuous sufferer. 
 
 Every thing which tends to shew that this contemplation is 
 natural and necessary to the mind, especially amongst the good, 
 tends to prove also the reality of a future state; because the 
 healthy working of human feelings is not found, in other cases, to 
 lead to delusions. 
 
73 
 
 were made for their age ; but the last times will behold 
 a world, not of martyrs, but of happiness-enjoying and 
 happiness-giving brethren. 
 
 To study the means of leading a happij life has been 
 supposed to be the province of philosophy ; to ascertain 
 the zoill of God, that of religion. They unite. Too long 
 has the minister of sacred things stood aloof from the 
 moralist, the philosopher, the political economist, as from 
 labourers in a different sphere from his own. Too long 
 has he considered himself as standing apart, and omitted 
 to see that the investigator of Nature in all its provinces 
 is really employed in evolving and translating those texts 
 of God's mighty book, from which he himself is to draw 
 for men ennobling and consoling thoughts. Especially 
 is the philosopher, who investigates the means of indi- 
 vidual and national happiness, a fellow-labourer with the 
 religionist; for he is engaged in exploring the will of 
 God where alone it can be found. Behold, then, religion 
 and philosophy unite ; they blend into one serene form, 
 delightful to both the intellect and the heart. Christian- 
 ity, throwing off the contracted look of superstition and 
 exclusive saintship, issues from cathedrals and conventi- 
 cles, and learns to walk in academic groves and gardens, 
 with free unbending air, and in courteous equality with 
 all mankind. 
 
 Shades of Athenian Sages! receive at length with 
 friendly arms your Ally of Nazareth : Reason, after 
 eighteen centuries of labour, has prepared you all to meet 
 each other. Go forth with him into nature's vast lyceum 
 in friendly communion, instructing, correcting, ennobling 
 each other. Let his devotional nature shed upon your 
 researches that high and holy hue which was wanting to 
 render philosophy omnipotent over men's affections, as 
 well as their understanding ; — the recognition of the Soul 
 of the World as a principle bearing close relationship to 
 man's heart, and })eaming forth through all material things 
 
74 
 
 to the intellectual eye. Let his benign spirit dissolve your 
 proud contempt for the crowd, and dispose you to throw 
 open your philosophic stores to all your brethren of 
 mankind. And he, in his turn, will hear all that you can 
 tell, gathered by deep thought and patient industry from 
 the history of nature and of man, nor refuse to search 
 further with you into the elder universal scripture for all 
 that may reveal God and benefit man. 
 
 These latter ages realize the vision. Plato, Epicurus, 
 Cicero, Aristotle, live again in the profound thinkers and 
 patient explorers of modern ages. And whatever was 
 most admirable in the Galilean lives again in the frank 
 benevolence, warm imagination, and unassuming devotion 
 of many a generous, as well as religious, spirit. No 
 longer need they be practically divided by seeking their 
 respective materials of thought in different directions. 
 The works and word of God are the same. They will 
 find themselves inevitably at each other's side, and, 
 exploring in the same field, will soon discover that their 
 objects are alike, and that their spirits may therefore join. 
 
 Not altogether fruitless have been the researches 
 already made. The morahst has gathered this result 
 from the experience of mankind, that moderation in all 
 the gratifications of sense, the pursuit of some approved 
 object, the cultivation of the mind's higher powers, and 
 the employment of those powers in such a manner as to 
 bring forth the kindly affections and encourage the love 
 of truth and justice, — that conduct framed according to 
 these rules is the surest means of procuring a happy life to 
 the individual^ and, at the same time, of promoting the 
 welfare of the race. Let but individual man earnestly seek 
 the happiness of his whole nature, and he must of neces- ^ 
 sity be working towards the happiness of the race. The / 
 Creator was not such an inconsistent or unskilful artist 
 as to aim at producing general happiness by a system of \ 
 individual miserv- The character of the means harmo- 
 
7'5 
 
 nizes with that of the end. The orbit of the smallest 
 satelhte obeys the same laws as the widest circle in which 
 systems gravitate. 
 
 The self-love which is interwoven with man's constitu- 
 tion will continually impel him to seek happiness of some 
 kind, and advancing knowledge will render more and 
 more necessary the gratification of his moral and intellec- 
 tual powers. The gratification of his whole nature must, 
 in the constituted order of things, tend to the perfection 
 of the race. We begin then to discover a mighty / 
 object, worthy of the Framer of nature, in his wonderful ) 
 apparatus of pleasure and pain, hitherto the most puzzling ) 
 part of his vast machinery. From amidst the chaos of ( 
 human error and suffering, we begin to discern glimmer- J 
 ings which announce an Empyrean of beneficent light. 
 
 Not yet are we out of the darkness; not yet are 
 self-love and social universally the same. But the general 
 profession, at least, of estimation for the moral sentiments 
 and the pleasures derivable from them, allows us to con- 
 template the universal verification of the maxim as no 
 impossibility. And when men shall all come to recog- 
 nize their highest pleasure in diffusing happiness, and shall 
 seek the good of all with as much earnestness as their 
 own ; when sincerity shall be as common as profession ; ' 
 and the advanced intellect of mankind be subservient 
 to equally advanced morality ; — what a luxuriant scene 
 of happiness may not be anticipated on this earth! 
 General knowledge, united with general benevolence, 
 must banish all relics of crime and misery, and mankind 
 live a happy brotherhood harmoniously occupied in 
 drawing from the earth its copious treasures, exploring 
 further into the secrets of creation, and increasing the 
 stores of mental enjoyment. What may not man 
 become in that happy age ? — a being, perhaps, as superior 
 to him of to-day, as the latter is to the preceding occu- 
 pants of the planet ; and then may be further developed 
 
76 
 
 the plan of creation, constituting things so that the hap- 
 piness of man should be linked with his moral and 
 intellectual progress. Then, whatever joys have been 
 imagined of heaven will be realized upon earth, and a 
 golden age be found to be the result of knowledge, and 
 not of ignorance.* 
 
 * The present now is past, 
 And those events that desolate the earth 
 Have faded from the memory of time. 
 
 Futurity 
 
 Exposes now its treasure : let the sight 
 Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope. 
 
 O happy Earth ! reality of Heaven ! 
 To which those restless souls, that ceaselessly 
 Throng through the human universe, aspire ; 
 Thou consummation of all mortal hope ! 
 Thou glorious prize of blindly working will ! 
 Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time, 
 Verge to one point, and blend for ever there : 
 Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place ! 
 Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, 
 Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come : 
 O happy Earth, reality of heaven ! 
 
 Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams, 
 And dim forebodings of thy loveliness, 
 Haunting the human heart, have there entwined 
 Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss 
 Where friends and lovers meet to part no more. 
 Thou art the end of all desire and will. 
 The product of all action ; and the souls 
 That by the paths of an aspiring change 
 Have reached thy haven of perpetual peace, 
 There rest from the eternity of toil 
 That framed the fabric of thy pcrfectness. 
 
 Shelley s Queen Mob. 
 
77 
 
 If it be acknowledged that any progress has hitherto 
 been made in social happiness, it must also be admitted 
 that such a state may be indefinitely approached. Thus 
 all who labour in any department with a purpose to 
 promote the improvement of man, are co-operating in the 
 grand scheme of providence, of preparing for the kingdom 
 of Heaven upon Earth. Thus in a wider sense, perhaps, 
 than he himself imagined, and by the sure means of 
 human effort availing itself of nature's resources, are they 
 gradually realizing the conception of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 and promoting the growth of the mustard-seed, till it 
 become a tree in whose branches the birds shall lodge, 
 when the earth shall be possessed by the children of God, 
 and the Son of Man, perfected human nature, descend to 
 reign upon it as from the clouds of heaven. 
 
 Well and nobly, then, do the generous benefactors of 
 mankind, of every sect and nation, perform the most 
 urgent command of the Prophet of Nazareth, to go forth 
 and prepare for the Kingdom of heaven. If he could now 
 return to earth, and add to his own generous spirit all 
 that reason and science have accumulated since his day, 
 would he not be proud to be allowed to call these his dis- 
 ciples, and exclaim, — I call you not servants ; ye are my 
 friends. That which, in my day, I thought was to be 
 brought about by miracles, wonders, and signs, ye are 
 accomplishing by the surer means which my Father hath 
 provided in his works. More truly are ye thus my dis- 
 ciples, than if ye were to proclaim me most loudly Lord, 
 and vociferate in my behalf a thousand Heathen or Jewish 
 fictions. He that speaketh even against me, it is forgiven 
 him ; but he that doeth the will of my Father is my dis- 
 ciple and friend. 
 
 And thou, poor child of mortality, who sufferest thy 
 full share of the afflictions which form part of the educa- 
 tion of the race until they attain this happy majority, — 
 canst thou not find part of thy consolation in this glorious 
 
78 
 
 prospect of thy species t From thy corner in the dark 
 vale of the present, let thy sympathetic affections catch 
 a ghmpse of the boundless beauty of the future, and 
 rejoice in the telescopic view of millions of thyself, with thy 
 own thoughts and feelings renewed, basking in happi- 
 ness, and fi-ee from all that which clouds thy being. Thou 
 art one small necessary part of the great train of things 
 which is slowly conducting to this consummation ; and 
 wouldst thou rather not have been this ? Count thy dis- 
 appointments and pains ever so minutely ; is not thy life 
 worth something, if it were only for the sake of looking for 
 a short time upon the glorious spectacle of the universe, 
 and of man's future prospects, with the consciousness 
 that thou bearest a part in the great whole ? Thy small 
 atom of experience and action contributes to build up that 
 immense bank, on which will be based the fertile island 
 of man's future perfection. For thy individual self, trust 
 that the wisdom and benevolence which appears in the 
 general arrangements of creation include all that is 
 really wise and benevolent on behalf of individuals. 
 The Creating Mind hath seemed to be not devoid of 
 what is best in the human; trust, then, that there is 
 something in him which looks with pecuhar interest 
 on patient suffering worth, and that he hath not neglected 
 to provide for that which would be the first care of a 
 benevolent mortal. Trust in him, and disdain to ask a 
 reward. Feelest thou nothing in thee which prompts 
 thee both to do and suffer in the cause of mankind, with- 
 out any other reward than what thy own breast affords ? 
 Importune not God with mercenary requests to add 
 another mite to thy treasure in heaven ; but do good, 
 hoping for nothing again. Let God be witness that thou 
 canst be generous, and do good, without even casting a 
 beggar's look to himself for recompence. Nevertheless, 
 rejoice that all nature proclaims the Creator of sympa- 
 thizing nature with every generous spirit ; and thus learn 
 
79 
 
 to see in all that is serene and lovely in earth and skies 
 the approving smile of heaven. 
 
 Fear not, then, to regard this earth as the appointed 
 sphere of man's chief thoughts, exertions, and interests. 
 To enjoy and promote happiness on this planet is the 
 simple and pleasing obligation laid upon him by the 
 Creator through the irresistible voice of his own consti- 
 tution. If he obey nature, and frame his whole conduct 
 according to her easy command, developed in details as 
 enlightened intellect may suggest, he is sure to be pro- 
 moting the end of his being. Man is no exception to the 
 rule of animated existence ; the work for which he was 
 created, he is also impelled to perform by nature's pleasing 
 enforcements. Away with the glooms of false religion, 
 austerities, seclusions, useless self-denials, and voluntary 
 martyrdoms : God, through nature, commands man to 
 lead a happy life. Obey God thyself, and assist others 
 to obey him. In alternate study, action, business, sport, 
 or repose, regulated according to the index of under- 
 standing placed in thyself for the purpose, let the consci- 
 ousness of thy pleasing obedience diffuse a perpetual 
 sunshine over the path of life. Indulge thyself especially, 
 as far as it is given thee, in the enjoyment which God 
 himself seems to delight in, of creating happiness. And 
 when the foreseen signal of departure arrives, give a 
 glance of contented retrospection on a well-spent and 
 well-enjoyed life, welcome the new comers into thy 
 place, and sink peacefully into nature's arms. 
 
 More is there than this? Nature is silent. Enough 
 has she given man to occupy him on earth ; she with- 
 draws not yet the veil from what lies beyond, but bids 
 him wait in calm implicit faith. Or if, pressed urgent- 
 ly by the affections which she herself has implanted in 
 him, man seems to acquire a right to some answer, and 
 demands if the friend of many years is now really no 
 more than a remembrance, — she points with quiet signi- 
 
80 
 
 ficance to man's own heart, and to her own continual 
 lesson, that the creator of that heart is good. Man takes 
 consolation from the hint : amongst the white memorials 
 of mortality he finds thought still pleasing, though so- 
 lemn and severe, and, amidst yew and cypress shades, 
 catches animating ghmpses of the remote blight stars 
 and serene heaven. Spirits of the wise and good! no- 
 blest work of all creation ! are ye not worth preserving 
 in the sight of God ? The wisdom and benevolence which 
 shine forth in all that we can already see of the universe, 
 suggest, that for you there is still some place to occupy, 
 and some work to be done, in the immense regions of the 
 unseen. 
 
 Nature thus can never fail to speak philosophy and 
 rehgion to those who intently seek her ; and to her great 
 revelation must all mankind ultimately recur. 
 
 The various existing rehgions, in so far as they are 
 based upon fictitious revelations, lose authority by every 
 addition made to man's knowledge and powers of thought ; 
 numbers must, therefore, fall off from every sect into 
 the increasing multitude of those who seek for truth in 
 Nature, and admit the authority of her volume alone. 
 
 If names be necessary, let THEISM compendiously 
 express the opinions of those who seek God in his works 
 alone. 
 
 Of these, many, from attachment to the faith of their 
 forefathers, from respect for the man who, in an early 
 
81 
 
 age, breathed forth so much of tlie pure sphit of religion 
 and benevolence, and from reverence for that faith which, 
 when viewed apart from the vices of its professors, has 
 done much to humanize mankind, — may wish to retain 
 the name of Christian. There is no incongruity in the 
 junction. Christ was a Theist, inasmuch as he drew 
 much of his doctrine from his own observation of God's 
 works. And the Theist who imbibes the love of God 
 and of man from the same source, often finds himself 
 almost unconsciously adopting the words of Christ. Let 
 CHRISTIAN THEISM then express the feelings of him, 
 who, whilst he admits no authority above that of man's 
 reason, and no revelation besides that of nature, yet 
 listens- to and honours one of the best expounders of God 
 and Nature in the Man of Nazareth. 
 
 Theists of every nation. Christian, Jew, Mahometan, 
 or Chinese, can meet upon common ground. Whatever 
 minor predilection each may entertain for his own most 
 eminent teacher or prophet, whether Christ, Mahomet, 
 Moses, or Confucius, their great principle is the same, — 
 to seek the knowledge of the Universal Mind, and niles for 
 the guidance of man, in the great volume stretched out 
 before all men. And when men come generally to dis- 
 cover that all have been thus set on a level for the ac- 
 quisition of this knowledge, religion, instead of being 
 allied with ignorance, exclusiveness, and dogmatism, will 
 be found in closest union with modesty, benevolence, 
 and science. No longer will it be supposed to consist in 
 absurd tales and incomprehensible mysteries, but it will 
 be the expression of Nature's highest truths, and the 
 hymn ascending from a grateful Earth to a beneficent 
 Heaven. 
 
 Xi 
 
82 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Page 11. — The name which, in reference to the future kingdom, was 
 assumed hy him. 
 
 It is generally agreed by Christian commentators that the word Christ, 
 Xpto-To?, signifies anointed, and is sjmonymous with the Hebrew or Syriac 
 Messias, derived from maschach, to anoint. 
 
 Martinii Lexicon Philologicmii : — " Xptrrojis the pai'ticiple from Xptu, 
 in the same way as iinctus, from ungo. Irenseus, 1. 3, cap. 20: 'In 
 Christi nomine subauditur qui unxit, et ipse unctus est, et ipsa unctio,' S:c. 
 Messias is a Syriac word with a Greek termination." 
 
 Stephani Thesaurus on the word XfiTo^'. — "Our Saviour is pre-eminently 
 designated by this name in the sense known to the Jews, since he was, in 
 tnith, Priest, Prophet, and King. For, amongst them, those three classes 
 of men alone used to be anointed with sacred oil, as appears from Levi- 
 ticus xvi. 10, which treats of the anointing of the High Priest; 1st 
 Kings, xix., the anointing of Elisha as prophet in the room of Elijah; 
 and 1 Samuel, x., the anointing of Saul as King of the Israelites. See 
 also the anointing of David as King, 1 Sam. xvi., 2 Sam. ii. & v. ; and 
 of Solomon, 1 Kings, i.* The Latin writers preferred to retain the 
 Greek appellation Christtis rather than to substitute the Latin unctus or 
 delihutus. Lactantius says, lib. iv. cap. 7, " But the meaning of the name 
 must be explained on account of the error of those ignorant persons, 
 who, by changing a letter, call it Chrestus. The Jews were commanded 
 to make a sacred ointment wherewith to anoint those who were called to 
 the priesthood or the kingdom : and as, now, the purple is the ensign of 
 royalty amongst the Romans, so, amongst them, the anointing with the 
 sacred ointment conferred the royal name and authority. But since 
 the ancient Greeks used the verb XpiE<76at for to he anointed, instead of 
 the present one ccXn<pia^xh, we call him Christus, i. e. anointed, which, 
 in Hebrew, is Messiah. Whence it is, that in some Greek scriptures, 
 
 * XpiiTTe? ap{)lic'(l to ('yrus, Tsaiali xlv. 1. 
 
 g2 
 
APPENDIX. 83 
 
 translated badly from the Hebrew, we find written ij^ej/mei'oj, i. e. ungendo 
 curatus, from a^eKp£o•9«^. However, either word signifies a King ; not, 
 indeed, that he obtained an earthly kingdom, the tjme for which is not 
 yet come, but a heavenly and eternal one.' In the Mew Testament, the 
 word X^to-To; occurs frequently, both by itself and in conjunction with 
 Jesus, as I»)o-a; o X^io-to?. In Daniel ix. it stands alone, sui X^nrra myafAivu, 
 unto Christ the Prince : where also it is said, ra a(p^ocyiaca o^aaiv x«« 
 w^oipriTnaf xcci Ta %f«<7«» uyiov dyiuv, to seal up the vision and prophecy, 
 and anoint the holy of holies." 
 
 Stephanus gives abundant instances of the use of the verb %f jw, and 
 of its derivatives, %§to-To?, ^^KT(ji.a,, &c., in the sense of anointing or smear- 
 ing, ungo, lino, seu jJ^t'ungo, inungo, ohlino, illino, amongst Greek 
 authors, viz. : Homer, Xenophon, Euripides, Theocritus, Dioscorides, 
 Philoxenus, &c. 
 
 The Jews applied the term Messiah, or anointed, to their expected 
 deliverer long before Jesus appeared. The Septuagint, made about 
 three centuries before his time, gives x^io-to; as the translation of this 
 word, and the verb %f tw, with its derivations used in a similar sense, was 
 very common amongst Greek authors from the earliest times. The 
 origin of the application of the name Christ to Jesus seems, therefore, to 
 be very satisfactorily established, in conformity with the unanimous 
 testimony of the Christian church. 
 
 But Volney, Dupuis, and others, neglect this derivation of the name, 
 and suppose it to be a corruption of some ancient appellation of the Sun. 
 Volney says, ch. xxii. sect. 13, " The mythological traditions maintain 
 that he (the Sun) was called sometimes Chris, or Conservator ; and 
 hence the Hindoo God, Chris-en or Christna ; and the Christian 
 Chris-tos, the Son of Mary ;" which is supported thus in a note, " Chris, 
 or Conservator. The Greeks used to express by X, the aspirated hd of 
 the Orientals, who said hdris. In Hebrew, heres signifies the sun ; but, 
 in Arabic, the meaning of the radical word is, to guard, to preserve, and 
 of hdris, guardian, preserver." 
 
 This is far from satisfactory, and cannot set aside the clear explanation 
 quoted above ; even though we should admit that some of the traditions 
 respecting the Divinities representing the Sun came to be applied to 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Of the Hindoo God Crishna, Sir W. Jones gives the following 
 account (Works, 4to, vol. i. p. 278) : " That the name of Crishna, and 
 the general outline of his story, were long anterior to the birth of our 
 Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly.* 
 
 * In Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 426, lie gives some reasons for fixing the date of 
 Crishna's appearance, real or imagined, about 1200 years before Christ. 
 
84 APPENDIX. 
 
 Yet the celebrated poem entitled Bhagavat,* which contains a prolix 
 account of his life, is filled with naiTatives of a most extraordinary kind, 
 but strangely variegated and intermixed with poetical decorations. The 
 incarnate deity of the Sanscrit romance was cradled among herdsmen ; 
 he was educated among them, and passed his youth in playing with milk- 
 maids. A tyrant, at the time of his birth, ordered all new-born male 
 infants to be slain ; yet this wonderful babe was preserved in an extraor- 
 dinary manner from a nurse commissioned to kill him. He performed 
 amazing but ridiculous miracles in his infancy, and, at the age of seven 
 years, held up a mountain on the tip of his little finger : he saved multi- 
 tudes, partly by his arms and partly by his mii-aculous powers ; he raised 
 the dead by descending for that purpose to the lowest regions ; he was 
 the meekest and best-tempered of beings, washed the feet of the Brah- 
 mans, and preached very nobly indeed, and sublimely, but always in their 
 favour ; he was pure in reality, but exhibited an appearance of Ubertinism ; 
 lastly, he was benevolent and tender, yet fomented and conducted a ter- 
 rible war. This motley story must induce an opinion that the spurious 
 gospels which abounded in the first age of Christianity had been brought 
 to India, and the wildest parts of them repeated to the Hindoos, who 
 engrafted them on the old fable of Cesava, the Apollo of Greece." He 
 says, in another place, that the meaning of the word Crishna is dark-blue, 
 approaching to black, which is supposed to have been his complexion ; 
 and hence the lajrge bee of that colour is consecrated to him. 
 
 Captain Wilford adds to the foregoing account, " The Yadus, his own 
 ti'ibe and nation, were doomed to destruction for their sins ;" and " the 
 real name of Crishna was Caneya, and he was sui'named Crishna, or 
 the black, on account of his complexion." 
 
 From all this there appears no reason to suppose that the name Christ 
 was borrowed from Crishna, or that the two had a common origin. 
 Christos, in Greek, signified onotn^ec?,* and Crishna, with the Hindoos, 
 black. The many rude resemblances between the story of the Hindoo 
 God, and the Gospel accounts of Jesus, especially that of Matthew, may 
 be explained by supposing that the similarity of the names, of itself a mere 
 coincidence, led both the Hindoos and the Christians to borrow from each 
 other, parts of the stories relating to the two objects of worship. It 
 seems probable, however, that in the greater part of these resemblances 
 the Hindoos were the plagiarists. 
 
 * The Bhigavat is the last of the eighteen Puranas, of wliich Captain Wilford 
 says (Essay on the Origin and Decline of the Christian Religion in India, Asiatic 
 Researches, vol. x.), " Every one of the Puranas is much later than our sera; though 
 many legends, and the materials in general, certainly existed before, in some otJier 
 shape. 
 
APPENDIX. 85 
 
 Page 37. — In tvhat language should God have written his message ? 
 
 " Au lieu de suspendre un soleil dans la voute du firmament ; au lieu 
 de repandre sans ordre les etoiles et les constellations qui remplissent 
 I'espace, n' eut-il pas ete plus conforme aux vues d'un Dieu si jaloux de 
 sa gloire, et si bien intentionne pour I'homme, d'ecrire d'une fajon non 
 sujette ^ dispute, son nom, ses attributs, ses volontes permanentes, en 
 caracteres ineifajables, et lisibles egalement pour tous les habitans de la 
 terre ?" — Systeme de la Nature^ 
 
 Page 49. — Some priyiciple not manifesting itself apart from matter. 
 The objections of reputed Atheists apply chiefly to the idea of a 
 Demi-urgus or creating God, distinct from the universe itself. Shelley 
 says that his negation of a God must be understood solely to affect a 
 creative Deity, and that the hypothesis of a pervading Spirit, coeternal 
 with the universe, remains unshaken. 
 
 Theism is not limited to the belief in an artificer who, at a certain 
 time, created the material world from nothing. It recognizes an intelli- 
 gent principle, which causes material things to be in the form which we 
 see ; but whether this principle operates by successive acts of creation, or 
 by a perpetually influencing presence, or both, is a separate and more 
 difficult consideration. The Soul or Spirit of the Universe, considered 
 as a mind animating and regulating it, as the human mind does the 
 body, is an idea which gives rise to the religious sentiments, in as great 
 a degree, probably, as that of a strictly creative agent. 
 
 Page 59. — Dante relates, ^c. 
 
 On referring to the passage, Paradiso, Canto 33, after this note was 
 gone to press, I have found that the meaning of Dante was, probably, 
 to shadow forth the second person of the Trinity. He would, doubtless, 
 excuse an inaccuracy which makes his splendid imagery serve a further 
 purpose than it was at first intended for. 
 
 Page 65. — The zeal ivhich wastes itself in mis-directed missionary 
 exertion. 
 
 Sir W, Jones says (Works, vol. i. p. 279), " As to the general extension 
 of our pure faith in Hindostan, there are at present many sad obstacles to 
 it. The Mussulmen are akeady a sort of heterodox Christians : they are 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 Christians, if Locke reasons justly, because they believe finnly the imma- 
 culate conception, divine character, and miracles of the Messiah ; but 
 they are heterodox in denying vehemently his character of Son, and his 
 equality as God with the Father, of whose unity and attributes they 
 entertain and express the most awful ideas ; while they consider our 
 doctrine as perfect blasphemy, and insist that our copies of the Scrip- 
 tures have been corrupted both by Jews and Christians. It will be 
 inexpressibly difficult to undeceive them, and scarcely possible to dimi- 
 nish their veneration for Mohammed and Ali, who were both very extra- 
 ordinary men, and the second a man of unexceptionable morals. The 
 Koran shines, indeed, with a borrowed light, since most of its beauties 
 are taken from our Scriptures ; but it has great beauties, and the Mus- 
 sulmen will not be convinced that they were borrowed. The Hindoos, 
 on the other hand, would readily admit the truth of the Gospel ; but 
 they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Sastras : the Deity, 
 they say, has appeared innumerable times, in many parts of this world, 
 and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures ; and though we 
 adore him in one appearance, and they in another, yet we adore, they 
 say, the same God, to whom our several worships, though different in 
 form, are equally acceptable, if they be sincere in substance. We may 
 assure ourselves, that neither Mussulmen nor Hindoos will ever be con- 
 verted by any mission from the church of Rome, or any church ; and 
 the only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution, will 
 be to translate into Sanscrit and Persian such chapters of the Prophets, 
 particularly of Isaiah, as are indisputably evangelical, together with one 
 of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence 
 of the very distant ages in which the predictions themselves, and the 
 history of the divine person predicted, were made public ; and then quietly 
 to disperse the work among the well-educated natives, with whom, if in 
 due time it failed of producing very salutary fruit by its natural influence, 
 we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the 
 weakness of unassisted reason." 
 
 G. SMM.LKIELl), PRlNTUn, <)i), SliWG ATE-STKEET. 
 
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