CIRCULATING LIBRARY, 
 
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 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 Ou Sri <rs\o % uvaifa,vtft$, 
 ya.% svsxn <r% 
 
 H1NGHAM: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY C. & E. B. GILL. 
 
 SOLD BY PERKINS & MARVIN, AND CROCKER & BREWSTER, BOSTON : 
 D. F. ROBINSON & CO., HARTFORD : DCRRIE & PECK, NEW'HAVEN 
 COLLINS & HANNAY, AND J. LEAVITT, NEW-YORK : TOWAR & HOGAN, 
 AND GRIGG & ELLIOT, PHILADELPHIA: AND ARMSTRONG & FLAS- 
 KET, BALTIMORE. 
 
 
 
 1833.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the Author dedicates his pen to the service of Religion, 
 he would not seem (laymen as he is) to trench, either upon the 
 season, or the office of public instruction. But there remains open 
 to him the SATURDAY EVENING, which devout persons, whose 
 leisure permits them to do so, are accustomed to devote to prepara- 
 tory meditation. 
 
 The subject and spirit of some of the following pages may 
 perhaps convey the idea that the title of the volume has a double 
 significance, and is intended to refer to the expectation, now so 
 generally entertained among Christians, that our own times are 
 precursive of the era of REST which has been promised to the 
 Church and to the world. The Author does not deny that an 
 allusion of this sort has been present to his mind ; and he will grant, 
 moreover, that his belief on this head has at once furnished no 
 small part of the motive owhis undertaking, and given direction, 
 often, to his thoughts.

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I. THE HOUR OF HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 
 " That day was the Preparation" . 1 
 
 II. THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. 
 " And the Sabbath drew on" ^ . . ? * J 10 
 
 III. THE COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 
 " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ" . .22 
 
 IV.-LAXITY AND DECISION. 
 
 " That I may make manifest the mystery of Christ, 
 
 as I ought to speak" '". . . f . .35 
 
 V. THE MEANS OF MERCY. 
 " The Gospel the Power of God to Salvation" x - . * 45 
 
 VI. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 
 " The world knoweth us not" , . 59
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 VII. THE STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 
 " Thy Testimonies are my Meditation" . 77 
 
 VIII. THE HIDDEN WORLD. 
 " The things that are unseen are eternal" . .101 
 
 IX. THE STATE OF SECLUSION. 
 " The things that are seen are temporal" . .107 
 
 X. THE LIMITS OF REVELATION. 
 " And we prophesy in part" . . . 119 
 
 XL VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNlVERSE.j 
 " When I consider the heavens What is man !' ; . 131 
 
 XU. PIETY AND ENERGY. 
 
 " Add to your faith virtue" . . . . 155 
 
 XIII. THE LAST CONFLICT OF GREAT PRINCIPLES. 
 
 " The son of man, when he cometh, shall he find faith 
 
 on the earth' 1 . . . . 171 
 
 XIV. LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM. 
 
 " Add to virtue knowledge, and to knoweldge temper- 
 ance" 181
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PACK. 
 
 XV. TEiE POWER OF REBUKE. 
 
 ' If thou take forth the precious from, the vile, thou 
 shalt be as my mouth ; and I will make thee unto 
 the people a defenced brazen wall" . . 190 
 
 XVI. STRENGTH OF THE POWER OF REBUKE. 
 "Howbeit, in understanding, be men" . . 200 
 
 XVII.- THE RECLUSE. 
 
 ' Add to Godliness, brotherly kindness" . .,' 210 
 
 XVIll. THE MODERN ANCHORET. 
 
 " Add to brotherly kindness charity" . . . 222 
 
 XIX. FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 - P 
 
 " Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly 
 
 love" 230 
 
 XX. CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 
 " For meat destroy not the work of God" . '"% ' . 244 
 
 -. ,'!*; ., 
 
 XXI. THE FEW NOBLE. 
 f 1 Not many noble" . . . . . r 265 
 
 XXII. RUDIMENT OF CHRISTAN 31AGNANIM1TY. 
 
 Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord" '. , 279
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE. 
 
 XXIII. THE DISSOLUTION OP HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 " It is appointed to all men once to die" . . 296 
 
 XXIV. THE STATE OF SOULS. 
 
 11 They all live unto God" .... 307 
 
 XKV. THE THIRD HEAVENS. 
 
 " In thy presence is fulness of joy : at thy right hand 
 
 are pleasures for evermore" . . . .319 
 
 XXVI. THE PRECURSOR. 
 '' Thou wilt shew me the path of life" . 336 
 
 XXVII. ENDLESS LIFE. 
 " Neither can they die any more" . . . 345 
 
 XXVIII. THE PERPETUITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 " This mortal must put on immortality . . 357 
 
 XXIX. UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 
 " Christ the head of all principality and power." 368
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 i. 
 
 THE HOUR OF HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 
 
 " That day icaa the Preparation.' 11 
 
 No position of the human mi ad is more peculiar than 
 the one it occupies when, at the same moment, the reasons 
 of hope are irrefragable, and the motives for despondency 
 are overwhelming. It is indeed a circumstance of common 
 occurrence for a fond but ill-grounded wish to be contend- 
 ing against the authority of facts and truth, and striving to 
 maintain its place in contempt of all probability. So frequent 
 are those contests between our desires and our sober sense, 
 that a habit is generated, in all but the most frigid minds, 
 of thinking that a natural antipathy exists between hope 
 and reason. A strange emotion belongs therefore to those 
 rare occasions when, although hope and reason are seen 
 to be consorted, neither can well be listened to. 
 
 Religious hopes, more often perhaps than any other kind, 
 have been liable to this sort of conflict ; and it has so hap- 
 pened because, while religion presents the brightest and the 
 most extensive prospects, and possesses too the firmest 
 proofs the general and visible current of human affairs 
 sets in an opposite line, and seems continually to be mock- 
 ing every valid and consolatory expectation. 
 
 2
 
 '.} SAIVKUAY I ' 
 
 More than n low signal instances might be gathered In.-m 
 the pri^i-s of sacred history (ancient and modern) in which 
 a belief that could not be surrendered, because it rested on 
 the most solid ground, has been almost forcibly expelled 
 from the minds of the pious by the contrary evidence of 
 actual facts. And it has usually happened that the si 
 of this controversy between hope and fear, has fallen upon 
 the moment which immediately preceded the triumph of 
 the former. But again, this triumph has very often been 
 abated by the small resemblance which the happy reality, 
 when it made its appearance, bore to the expectation that 
 had been indulged concerning it. 
 
 The crisis of religious advancement the very hour 
 when a fading order of things has become obsolete, and 
 has given way to a better the silent juncture of eras 
 (rfuv-rs'XEKx <rv ai'wvwv) has usually, or perhaps in every in- 
 stance, combined these peculiar characteristics, and has 
 brought into collision hope and dejection ; both to be suc- 
 ceeded by that which hope could hardly recognize as its 
 archetype. 
 
 To name at once the most pertinent and complete of all 
 instances, we must fix upon those dim hours of dismay to 
 the scattered followers of Christ, which immediately pre- 
 ceded the bringing in of light and immortality for mankind. 
 The companions of the ministry of Jesus knew far too 
 much of his divine power and majesty, to throw up their 
 profession of his Messiahship, even when it seemed utterly 
 irrational any longer to maintain it ; for their Master, in- 
 stead of scattering with a word the mad hostility of his 
 foes, had yielded had been overcome had actually ex- 
 pired upon the tree of ignominy. And yet these simple 
 minds " slow of heart," and unmindful of the plain fore- 
 warnings they had received, and fraught with egregious
 
 THE HOUR OF HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 3 
 
 suppositions, knew far too little of the economy of that 
 kingdom of heaven of which they were to be the ministers, 
 to put a true interpretation upon the sad events they had 
 witnessed. Hope was overthrown ; and yet could not be 
 abandoned. The men of Galilee had ' trusted that this 
 Jesus was he who should have redeemed Israel." But 
 how indulge this belief, while he lay a mangled corpse in 
 the sepulchre? or how resign it, when his mighty mira- 
 cles and doctrine were fresh in their recollection ? 
 
 That Sabbath was indeed a signal day ; although all 
 things shewed the same face as heretofore in the thronged 
 streets of the Holy City, and in the courts of the Temple. 
 But among the worshippers upon the hill of Zion there 
 were not a few troubled heads. Can we imagine that the 
 Rulers and the Rabbis were content with their success, 
 and quite at ease ? Or did the Prie?t gaze without dismay 
 upon the torn veil, and upon the desecrated mysteries of 
 the Holiest ? This may not be thought : the infatuation 
 of crime diseolves, at the moment when crime is perpetrated : 
 and it is not improbable that, in the mind of some, at least, 
 a ghastly fear had already succeeded to the joy of gratified 
 revenge. And were there not multitudes of the people 
 who, though in favour and affection more unstable than 
 (he sea, now regretted that they had drawn upon them- 
 selves the blood of one whom so lately they hailed as the 
 won of David ? 
 
 But in what spirit did John, and Peter, and Mary, the 
 mother of Jesus, and the other devout companions of the 
 Lord, attend the Temple worship on that Sabbath ? They 
 joined in prayer and praise like others ; but it was as with 
 a sword in the heart. And was it not a day of doubt and 
 alarm, or suspense, and of dread expectation, or of pallid, 
 misgiving triumph, in the unseen world, and among con-
 
 4 SATURDAY EVF.XI.Vfi. 
 
 dieting orders of the pirilunl economy ? On this ground 
 we may not. admit surmises. Hut it was the day upon 
 which should hinge all former and all future events in the 
 history of man. It was the day in which the Redemption of 
 the world awaited its consummation, and its proof. The 
 sun of that day went down in clouds ; but before it again 
 appeared, a Brighter Light than that of the sun had arisen 
 upon the nations ! 
 
 Instances less signal indeed, but bearing the same char- 
 acter, might be chosen at several points in the subsequent 
 history of Christianity. As when the rage of persecutors, 
 Pagan, Mahometan, or Popish, had so nearly effected the 
 extinction of the Gospel, that nothing seemed more likely. 
 on the ground of natural probability, than that the religion 
 of which it was said that it was to endure for ever, should 
 almost immediately cease to be spoken of among men. And 
 yet, in several of these hours of darkness, a new expansion 
 of the Divine efficacy of the Gospel was near at hand. If, 
 from the small number of instances which the religious 
 history of mankind presents, we might at all gather a 
 general rule, it would be of this sort That the hour of 
 Preparation for a better order of things is not a time of 
 favourable appearances ; but the reverse ; and that never- 
 theless, at such a time, human affairs are actually tending 
 towards the approaching change. But shall it ever come 
 within the reach of the sagacity of man to discern, beneath 
 the surface of events, the undeveloped initiatives of good 
 things to come ? Probably not. And yet, if we look back 
 to almost any of the instances to which allusion has been 
 made, we are rather tempted to wonder that the men of 
 those times should not have anticipated the then bursting 
 revolution, than are disposed to think the obscurity ~of their 
 viewa inevitable.
 
 THE HOUR OP HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 5 
 
 We have, in fact, the highest authority for attributing 
 to a strange infatuation, the slackness of the first disciples 
 of Christ in discerning the signs of that time of renovation. 
 It is indeed amazing that, after having received, in the 
 most explicit terms, from their Master, a forewarning of 
 his ignominious death, and a distinct promise of his speedy 
 resurrection, they should at all have admitted (as it is plain 
 they did) despondency in regard to his Messiahship, when 
 by the exact accomplishment, in all its preliminary circum- 
 stances, of his prediction, they received a new and con- 
 vincing proof of his divine prescience ! It could not have 
 been deemed a blameworthy presumption, had they (in- 
 structed as they were) exulted, though with tears, in anti- 
 cipation of his triumph over death and hell ; and had even 
 made the rocky garden of the sepulchre to resound with 
 songs. It was because they did not, in some such manner, 
 wisely meet the occasion, that they were upbraided by their 
 Lord, when again he appeared among them. 
 
 Or does it seem immensely to exceed the compass of the 
 human mind, if we imagine that some at least of the be- 
 lievers of the first, second, and third centuries, even at the 
 times of the extremest depression of the Christian name, 
 had marked the evident symptoms of decrepitude in the 
 false worship of the Roman world had calculated on the 
 natural consequence of the universal scepticism of the 
 higher classes, and of the forced and hardly-sustained 
 fanaticism of the mass of the people ; and had seen that 
 the struggle of polytheism was an expiring struggle ; and 
 must ere long fail before the Divine excellence and vigour 
 of the doctrine of Christ 1 Because the immediate power 
 of God was engaged in the spread and triumph of the Gos- 
 pel, it is not less true that the efficacy from on high took 
 its course in the channel of ordinary causes ; nor that, 
 
 2*
 
 6 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 when the idols of the empire were " cast to the moles and 
 to the bats," the event was, in an intelligible sense, the con- 
 sequence of the precursive movements of the social system. 
 And in these movements there might have been discern- 
 ed notwithstanding all contrary appearances, the dawn 
 of the coming day. 
 
 The same, as every one must allow, is to be said of the 
 restoration of Christianity, in modern times. An act of 
 grace was it from above ! But not less the consequence 
 of the anterior condition of Christendom. The closing 
 years of the sixteenth century were, in all senses " a day 
 of preparation," from end to end of Europe ; as well in the 
 states that actually received the least as in those that re- 
 ceived the greatest benefits from the Reformation. And 
 there are, in fact, indications that the great revolution was 
 dimly anticipated by some who lived not to see it achieved. 
 
 But in this, and other instances, it is to be observed that 
 the actual preparatives were not so much to be found on 
 the side or within the circle of truth and piety ; as abroad ; 
 and on the surface, %nd beneath it, of that wide field of 
 ruin that was to be the scene of renovation. And at this 
 point it is that human sagacity goes astray. Our natural 
 impulsion is, when happy changes are comtemplated, to 
 look for some promise of it to the quarters of light. Not 
 there are the true indications to be (seen ; but rather amid 
 the thick gloom that is spread on all sides. It is a stirring 
 upon the face of the dark waters that gives a prognostic of 
 the breaking forth of light, and life, and order. Does not 
 the Divine agent, as well in his acts of moral, as of material 
 creation, though he may take up some inconsiderable ex- 
 isting element as the germ of what is to come, yet produce 
 that which none can deem an expansion only of things 
 that already were in being ?
 
 THE HOUR OF HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 7 
 
 If partial or local improvements or reforms are in ques- 
 tion, we may safely refer to the probable efficiency of ex- 
 isting and visible means. For in the detail, God works 
 by proximate causes. Is it asked whether this or that par- 
 ticular circle is to be renovated ? we look to the piety, and 
 energy, and devout fervour of any who may be attempting 
 to restore it. But on a larger scale of things, human 
 agency disappears. The work, even though still effected 
 by human instruments, belongs to another hand. The 
 scheme is here too immense, and too intricate, to be devised 
 and arranged by the understanding of man-; and of such 
 full-proportioned revolutions it shall always be said " This 
 is the Lord's doing ;" to man belongs only devout amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 Is the conversion of all nations in question ? We have 
 then before us, first a practical, and then a theoretic subject 
 of inquiry. And in reference to the former, no difficulty 
 can be started. The duty of every Christian to promote 
 piety within his family and his neighbourhood, is un- 
 questioned ; and the most distant missionary enterprise (if 
 prudently undertaken and conducted) is nothing else than 
 an extension of that charity which we severally owe to our 
 neighbour. A village of England, and a village of India, 
 are the same in the sight of Christian zeal ; if it comes 
 within our power to convey to the inhabitants of either 
 the knowledge of God and his Gospel. 
 
 It is manifest that no opinions we may entertain relative 
 to the second, or theoretic question, concerning the con- 
 version of the world, can (properly) interfere, in the 
 smallest degree, with what we are called to do, personally, 
 for the conversion of those (far or near) who may come 
 within our circle of influence. Truly it is a pitiable imbe- 
 cility of mind that leads some to withdraw from the field
 
 8 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of evangelical labour, because they surmise that the vast 
 designs of Heaven are soon to be accomplished in a man- 
 ner of its own choice. Shall not our children be taught 
 to read, to praise, to pray until we know what is to be the 
 fate of China and of India ? But it is plain we might quite 
 as reasonably put to a stop the routine of domestic in- 
 struction, on some such fantastic plea, as delay or cease to 
 send Bibles and teachers to the children of China or of In- 
 dia, on the same ground. To do so is indeed most misera- 
 bly to confound the pratical with the theroretic the cer- 
 tain with the doubtful. 
 
 A consideration of the theoretic qtiestion, concerning 
 the conversion of mankind, if rightly interpreted, and 
 wisely used instead of tending to enhance or give colour to 
 the indolent delusions that are now abroad, would at once 
 greatly stimulate our zeal, and (which perhaps is still 
 more to be desired) would simplify every motive ; free the 
 heart from a too onerous solicitude ; renders us more tran- 
 quil amid seeming reverses ; and especially lead us, with 
 more reverence, to wait upon God for the fulfilment of his 
 promises. In the preparation, and arrangement, and 
 government of our evangelical istitutions, we have indeed 
 too slenderly admitted the principles of human prudence ; 
 while in our expectations and surmisses of what is to be 
 the issue of our endeaveur, we have too much gone on the 
 ground of those secular principles which in word we re- 
 nounce. This species of inconsistency besets the human 
 mind at every turn. 
 
 It may be who shall deny it ? that the zeal which 
 now animates a thousand bosoms, and shall ere long ani- 
 mate the bosoms of a million ; that for evey ten, who 
 now devote themselves to the service of the nations, there 
 shall stand forth a hundred ; that printing, and trnnsla-
 
 THE HOUR OP HOPE AND DIFFIDENCE. 9 
 
 lion, and teaching 1 , shall fill, year after year, with rapid in- 
 crease, a wider circle. It may be that the Christian of this 
 age, or the sons of the present movers of missions, may be- 
 come so devoted, and so wise, and so receive power from 
 above, as that obstacles and opposition shall give w r ay, 
 and the field the field of the world, be vanquished by 
 their hands. Such may perhaps be the order of the Divine 
 compassion to mankind. And assuredly w r e should act 
 and pray in hope of it. This is our circle ; here is our 
 part ; and what ever may be the issue, faithful service, 
 rendered on this ground, shall not lose its reward. 
 
 But it is not in this direction we should look, when we 
 venture to inquire whether the present era may be thought 
 " a day of preparation," precursive of the promised Sabbath 
 of mankind. A theme like this is far greater than that it 
 should connect itself with a catalogue of our societies, or 
 Avith the sum total of subscriptions, or with the extent of 
 our foreign labours : or, in a word, with any circum- 
 stances that belong to the present condition, or efforts, of 
 the Christian church. We are to look beyond the w r alls 
 of the sanctuary. 
 

 
 II. 
 
 TUN KM'KOTATJON OF CHRISTIANS. 
 
 " And the Sabbath drcir on." 
 
 SHALL we then look for a moment to the present reli- 
 gious condition of mankind ? If it were lawful so far to 
 extend an apostolic axiom as to apply it (beyond its prop- 
 er scope) to the actual state of polytheistic, mahometan, 
 and popisli superstitions, in all quarters of the world, the 
 brightest hopes which Christians of late have indulged, 
 would be at once authenticated. " That," says the writer 
 of the epistle to the Hebrews, '' that which* has become 
 antiquated and decrepit with age, is nigh to its final disap- 
 pearance." 
 
 Nothing more remarkably distinguishes the religion.-* 
 state of mankind in our own times, as compared with any 
 other eras, concerning which history enables us at all to 
 form an opinion, than the air of DOTAGE which belongs, 
 icithout exception, to every one of the leading eurpersti- 
 tions of the nations. There have been times when, if 
 some were on their wane, others were in full vigour, or 
 just starting forth from their cradle with a giant strength. 
 If we track the course of time during the lapse of four-and- 
 twenty centuries, we shall find this to have been the case 
 in each period. In each there was, in some quarter within 
 the circle of historic light, or its penumbra, one or more 
 
 * To <5 ffaXex.iouju.Evov xni XrjPaO'xov, iyj-v$ dya.vuffj.ov.
 
 THK EXPECTATION OP CHRISTIANS. 1 1 
 
 forms of religious error which very firmly grasped the 
 minds of the nations that were its victims. 
 
 Although our knowledge of the human race is now in- 
 comparably more extensive,, and accurate, than ever has 
 been heretofore possessed, we can descry, in no direction, 
 a young and hale and mantling religious delusion, such 
 as threatens to become invasive ; or \yhich attracts the eyes 
 of mankind by the signal proofs it is giving of its sway of 
 the imagination and the turbulent passions of our nature. 
 The contrary is the fact, and it is so in every zone. It is 
 conspicuous that the demons are holding the reins of their 
 power with a tremulous hand. The spirit of counsel and 
 might has left them : the spirit of adventure and bold im- 
 posture has also departed. It seems as if there were neither 
 courage nor concert in the halls of aerial government. 
 Not only is every extant form of error ancient most of 
 them immemorially so ; but every form is imbecile, as 
 well as old. Or if we would seek a phrase that should at 
 once describe the present condition of false religion, uni- 
 versally, we find it in the expression already quote'd The 
 errors of mankind are now " antiquated, and in their 
 dotage." Dare we so far penetrate futurity as to add 
 " They are ready to vanish away ?" 
 
 A theme so copious as this, and one in connexion with 
 which a powerful impression on the mind may readily and 
 unconsciously operate to mould facts to its own form, 
 should perhaps hardly find a place at all, where a page 
 only can be given to the subject. Nevertheless, its high 
 significance at the present moment must excuse its intro- 
 duction ; and if the writer exaggerates, every reader, al- 
 most, has at hand the means of reducing his statement to 
 the dimensions of truth. 
 
 But in taking this glance at the religion of the nations,
 
 \2 SATURDAY KVKN1NG. 
 
 our special purpose must uot be lost sight of. We are aol 
 labouring to prove that the human race, generally, id in a 
 condition which shall render our evangelic enterprises: easy 
 and rapidly successful. This i.s a matter we do not touch. 
 Nor are we about to say that some extraordinary revolu- 
 tion of the human mind, in matters of religion, is now clear- 
 ly prognosticated by certain visible, *ymptoms of change. 
 This might perhaps be affirmed, and made to appear pro- 
 bable ; but it is not our purpose to affirm it. Our theme 
 is simply That if there be independent reasons for sur- 
 mising that a great and happy change, to be brought about, 
 by unusual means, is not very distant then, the actual 
 and unparalleled condition of mankind, in matters of reli- 
 gion, is worthy of profound attention ; and may well be 
 assumed as singularly corroborative of such an expectation. 
 In a word ; if it be conjectured that now, at length, the 
 Sabbath made for man draws on, then does the aspect of 
 the time we live in, well suit the description of " a day of 
 preparation." 
 
 To the lowest stage of moral and civil existence in which 
 man is any where found that, for example, of the tribes 
 of southern and central Africa of the aborigines of Aus- 
 tralia, and of the rude occupants of the coasts of the Fro- 
 zen Sea ; to the naked and wandering Troglodyte, and 
 the Ichthyophagus, find him where w-e may, nothing prop- 
 erly historical belongs. Not only have such races no 
 records, and no tradition (or none worthy of the name), 
 but the whole of their condition is the product of immediate 
 physical causes ; not of moral and political causes, which, 
 to be understood, must be followed up through the ascent 
 of time. An inheritance in history is a rudiment of great- 
 ness, and of improvement too, of which such objects are 
 destitute ; and if \ve must speak of the religion of such
 
 THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. 13 
 
 tribes, nothing is to be named but the mere germs of that 
 instinct of Invisible Power which neither misery nor vice 
 can wrench from the human breast. Nations of this lowest 
 class are always, and alike in every age, prepared for 
 any change of which their participation of moral faculties 
 may render them susceptible. And the glory of the Gos- 
 pel/ in our day, is to have conferred, even upon some such, 
 the dignity of virtue and immortal hope ! 
 
 The heroic savage who stalks through the wilderness 
 of America, and the pallid Mongul, and the feverish Tar- 
 tar, of central Asia, and the luxurious islander of the 
 Southern and Pacific Ocean, are men upon whose visage, 
 in whose customs, and in whose belief we read the char- 
 acters of a distant age : they all may boast an ancestry r , 
 and they possess a memorial. They are not the mere 
 progeny of the desert, born of oblivion, and destined to 
 oblivion ; but the descendants of MEN ; and the races they 
 belong to are the wrecks of primitive empires. A person 
 of princely birth and education has wandered far from his 
 patrimony, has fallen from his rank, has endured many 
 degradations, has forgotten his rights : nevertheless there 
 is an inalienable greatness about him ; and even the trump- 
 ery of the ornaments he wears contains proof of his noble 
 lineage. Like every thing else that distinguishes these 
 fallen and impoverished families, their religion is a RELIC. 
 And it is a relic, faded in colours, and decayed. If the 
 history of the subjugation of the empires of Mexico, and 
 Peru, and if that of the Tartar conquests of the middle 
 ages, and if the imperfect notices of the ancient Scythian 
 nations, preserved by the Greek writers, may be taken as 
 affording the means of a comparison between the present 
 and the past religious condition of those classes of the 
 human family of which we are speaking, it is quite mani- 
 
 3
 
 14 ^vri'RDAY KVfiMNG. 
 
 fe*t that the dimness, and the incertitude, and the terrori 
 of extreme age have come upon all their superstitions. The 
 force of the fanaticism they once engendered is spent. The 
 demon is le.^ the object of terror, is less often and less 
 largely propitiated with blood ; the priest is less a prince 
 than he was, and more a mercenary. Yes, and symptoms 
 have appeared, even in this class of incredulity and rea- 
 son. No phrase better describes these now fading errors, 
 than that already quoted they are " all superannuated 
 and decaying with age." 
 
 By civilization and industry, but not in matters of reli- 
 gion, the Chinese is eatitled to take rank above his nothern 
 neighbour, cousin, and conqueror the Mogul. In truth 
 it must hardly be said that there is any thing of religion 
 in China, if we deduct, on the one hand, what is purely 
 an instrument of civil polity a pomp of government ; 
 and on 'the other, what is mere domestic usage, or im- 
 memorial decoration of the home economy. Ages have 
 passed away since mind, or feeling, or passion, animated 
 the religion of China. The religion of China is now a 
 
 o o 
 
 thing, not only as absurdly gay, but as dead at heart, as 
 an Egyptian mummy : it is fit only to rest where it has 
 lain two thousand years : touch it shake it it crumbles 
 to dust. Let but the civil institutions of China be broken 
 up, and we might look about in vain for its religion. 
 
 But may not at least the dark and gorgeous superstitions 
 of India boast of undiminished strength, as well as of ven- 
 erable age ? Antiquated as they are, can we allirm that 
 they totter ? Less so, it may be granted, than any other 
 forms of false religion upon earth. They were born for 
 longevity ; they arc the very beings of the climate ; al- 
 most as proper to it as its prodigious and venomous reptiles. 
 But can it be said of these illusions, firm as they still seem,
 
 THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTALN'S. 15 
 
 that they have not been placed in jeopardy during the last 
 fifty years, and especially of late ? Is there not even now, 
 iu the fanaticism of India, more of usage than of passion ? 
 And we well know that the very crisis of a profound re- 
 ligion system, such as Hindooism such as Romanism, 
 comes on, when the enormities which once were cruel and 
 sincere, begin to be simply loathsome and farcical. Be- 
 sides ; docs not the strength of the religion of India con- 
 sist in the credit of the Braminical order? The beard of 
 the Bramin is the secret of its power ; but, like the locks 
 of Samson, may it not readily be lost ? The credit of the 
 Bramin rests upon the unnatural partition of the people by 
 caste : and this partition is hastening to decay. 
 
 If the question related to the probable facility with which 
 the Gospel, in our hands, would prevail over the delusions 
 of the Hindoo, it might seem one of very difficult solution. 
 But we ask no more than this Whether the superstitions 
 of India, and of the adjacent countries, do not (even admit- 
 ting their actual hold of the people) partake of that charac- 
 ter of SUPERANNUATION which now so remarkably belongs 
 to every other impiety and error in the world ? We scruple 
 not to assume the affirmative. 
 
 Those fanciful analogies which it has become the 
 fashion, abroad, to employ for the illustration of the history 
 of natiews (much to the hurt of all sound principles) are to 
 be carefully avoided. Or at least we should not build an 
 argument upon any such uncertain ground. This cau- 
 tion premised, it must be confessed that, in contemplating 
 as a whole the history of the two magnific superstitions 
 which now sway all tire nations of the middle stage of 
 civilization embracing the south of Europe, the south of 
 Asia, the nothern regions of Africa, and South America, 
 it is difficult (in regard to both of them alike) to exclude
 
 16 SATl RDAV KVEMNCi. 
 
 from the mind the resemblance which their History bears 
 to the course of human life, from the vigour of youth to 
 the decripitude of age. Is it not as if the many nations 
 \ve have mentioned, were now in tutelage, under the hand 
 of a venerable pair male and female, both equally stricken 
 in years ; and both equally petulant, jealous, rigid, and 
 effete ; and very likely to go to their sepulchres in com- 
 pany ? 
 
 The grave and masculine superstition of the Asiatic 
 nations, which employed the hot blood of its youth in con- 
 quering all the fairest regions of the earth, spent its long 
 and bright manhood in the calm and worthy occupations 
 of government and intelligence. During four centuries, the 
 successors of Mahomet were the only men the human race 
 could at all boast of. In the later season of its maturity, 
 and through n. long course of time, the steadiness, the 
 gravity, and their immoveable rigour, which often mark 
 the temper of man from the moment when his activity 
 declines, and until infirmity is confessed, belonged to Is- 
 lamism, both western and eastern. And now, is it neces- 
 snry to prove that every symptom characteristic of the last 
 stage of human life, attaches to it ') Mahometan empire 
 is decrepit ; Mahometan fa ith is decrepit : and both are so 
 by confession of the parties. In matter both civil and re- 
 ligious, those days are come upon this superstition in which 
 " The sun, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened ;" 
 nor do " the clouds (of refreshment) return after the rain. 
 And the keepers of the house tremble ; and the strong bow 
 themselves ; and the grinders (the powers of mechanic art 
 and trade) cease, because they are few. And they that 
 look out at the windows (the learned class) are darkened. 
 And the doors are shut in the streets (by jealousy and 
 depopulation) and the weakfulness of conscious danger is
 
 THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. 17 
 
 upon it ; and the daughters of music (revelry) are brought 
 low ; and fears are in the way ; and desire faileth." 
 
 Is it indeed a gratuitous assumption, advanced only to 
 give completeness to an argument, when we say That 
 the religion of the Prophet is now in its stage of extreme 
 decrepitude ? 
 
 But in what terms are we fairly to describe the present 
 health and powers of the haggard Superstition of the 
 West ? If the strength of immortality indeed be in her, 
 to what region has the vital energy retired ? is it kindling 
 about the heart ? Is it within and around the pestilential 
 levels of the Tiber, that we are to find the force, the con- 
 centration, the fervour, that should belong to the centre of 
 a living body ? Or may we choose among the extremi- 
 ties ? Is the Catholic faith otherwise than decrepit, as it 
 exists in the midst of the sceptical intelligence of the north 
 of Italy ; or by the side of the mystical unbelief of Ger- 
 many ? Or shall we prefer the mockery of France, to the 
 debauchery of Spain, and of Portugal, when we are thus 
 in search of the power and promise of popery ? But per- 
 haps Ireland is the asylum of the true and indestructible 
 religion ! Those who will console themselves with such 
 a supposition, shall not be disturbed in their dreams ; and 
 yet will we not hold our conclusion in suspense That 
 Popery, like Mahometan ism, and every other superstition 
 of mankind, is in its wane. Upon the Church of Rome, 
 most conspicuously, have come the many loathsome in- 
 firmities that usually attend the close of a dissolute life. 
 She who once lived deliciously, and courted kings to her 
 couch is now spurned, and mocked, and hated, in her wrink- 
 les. Every ear into which she would whisper an obsequious 
 petition, is averted from the steam of her corrupted breath ! 
 
 The Greek church should not be quite omitted ; but if
 
 18 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 we affirmed that second childhood had come upon it, we 
 should plainly err ; for childishness has been its character, 
 even from its youth up. The offspring of a decrepit power } 
 it has known nothing, in its long life of fourteen centuries 
 but inanity : has cared for nothing but toys ! 
 
 The Protestant communities of nothern Europe are not 
 to be spoken of summarily, or in mass. Let them stand 
 aside from our survey. The course of affairs may proba- 
 bly, at no distant time, decide upon their respective merits, 
 and shew which of them has lost, and which retains, the 
 Spirit of Life. 
 
 Three very distinct inferences might be drawn from the 
 remarkable fact (which will hardly be disputed) of the now 
 antiquated and infirm state of every existing superstition. 
 The first of these might be termed the Atheistic inference ; 
 the second, the Evangelic ; and the third, the Prophetic. 
 
 There are those who, in looking abroad upon mankind 
 at the present moment, and in gathering up the general 
 result of all the facts to which, hastily, we have alluded, 
 would indulge the belief that the instinct of religion in the 
 human mind is slowly wearing out ; that the habitude of 
 worship is being obliterated ; and that an age or more to 
 come shall see nation after nation renouncing both the 
 forms and the substance of its regard to invisible power. 
 Against such an inference there lies the unbroken evidence 
 of experience in all ages, and all places : not to say, the 
 invincible proof of Christianity. 
 
 The second, or evangelic inference, from the same facts, 
 must be granted to be valid by every Christian ; as well 
 as, in the highest degree, momentous. Although it will 
 by no means follow (facts prove the contrary) that because 
 the grasp of fanaticism is becoming less firm upon the hu- 
 man heart than heretofore, therefore men will now readily
 
 THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. 19 
 
 admit the better faith we offer them ; nevertheless it is un- 
 questionably an enterprise of more promise, to assail the 
 nations in their hour of faintness and solution, than at a 
 'time when magnificent and seductive systems of worship 
 were at their height of energy and splendour. If proba- 
 bilities drawn from the state of the human mind are at all 
 to be looked to, should we not rather, for example, carry 
 a mission into the heart of Persia or Turkey now, than in 
 the age of Almamon, or Almansor ? Or should we not 
 rather (personal peril not considered) disseminate the word 
 of life in the Spanish republics of America in our. own 
 times, than in the times of the zealous Torquemada ? 
 
 In this sense, the present era may justly be deemed the 
 day of hope for the Gospel. No such singular conjuncture 
 of symptoms, throughout the world, has ever before invited 
 the activity and zeal of Christians. And if the pressure of 
 responsibility is at all times great upon them, in this behalf* 
 it has acquired now a treble weight : inasmuch as it seems 
 as if the antagonist powers were fast drawing off from the 
 field. Looking out to the long and many-coloured array 
 of ghostly domination, as it stretches its lines across plains 
 and hills, we discern movement ; but it is the stir of re- 
 treat. Encampments are breaking up ; barriers are tram- 
 pled upon ; standards are furled ; the clarion of dismay is 
 sounded. This this then is the hour for the hosts of the 
 Lord to snatch their weapons, and be up ! 
 
 Ours then is a " day of preparation" in the sense of mis- 
 sionary enterprise ; and on this ground, notwithstanding 
 all discouragements, it may be hoped, not feebly, that " the 
 Sabbath draweth on." 
 
 But there is yet an inference distinct from the one we 
 have named, which fairly may be drawn from the present 
 religious condition of mankind. We term it a prophetic 
 inference ; because its validity rests altogether upon the
 
 20 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ground of those predictions scattered through the Inspired 
 Volume, which declare that true religion shall at length 
 be universal. This only being assumed, we may attribute 
 ns much, or as little value, as we think fit, to those special 
 interpretations which bring the lines of prophecy to con- 
 verge upon the present age. All such disputable interpre- 
 tations apart, it is impossible to compare the general sense 
 of prophetic Scripture, with the movement the taxation 
 of the human mind, in all countries, without admitting a 
 sentiment of awe and expectation. And this sentiment i 
 rendered the more intense by the fact, that the decrepitude 
 of superstition has been rapidly accelerated of late ; the 
 powers of its life have sunk apace ; and mortal symptoms 
 have appeared in quick succession. 
 
 No sound mind would draw, from views like these, 
 definite surmises, which must almost certainly prove falla- 
 cious. But it does not follow that we should not contem- 
 plate at large, that which we may not scrutinize in detail. 
 The point of wisdom is to advance as far as it may ; and 
 there to stop. 
 
 And when sober conjecture has reached its limit, let us 
 turn the eye upon the Christian body, and, with a much 
 enhanced solicitude, examine the soundness of its principles, 
 its temper, tendency, knowledge : in a word, its state of 
 preparation for that better day a day of WORSHIP and of 
 REST, which many reasons, and many appearances, con- 
 cur to indicate as at hand. 
 
 Least of all should any (calling themselves Christians) 
 now feel, and speak, and act, as if they abhorred advance- 
 ment ; or as if decay and slumber were far less dreaded 
 by them, than change, even of the happy sort.* 
 
 * Oorw xou 7j 
 
 Ai} xcu vauayiwv aX^o^Tai iroXXwv.
 
 THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. 21 
 
 It were as rational to suppose that the sun, and every 
 planet of our system, might undergo a vast change of form 
 and constitution, yet leaving the earth unaffected and un- 
 altered ; as it is to believe that a general and simultaneous 
 revolution in the religious state of all nations could take 
 place, which should produce no reflected and sympathetic 
 influence upon existing Christian communities. 
 
 Let the fond admirer of his own Church, whatever may 
 be its pretensions, assure himself, that the conversion of 
 Asia, and Africa, and Europe and America, will so raise 
 the temperature spiritual and moral, of the world's at- 
 mosphere, as must dissolve, to its very elements, every 
 community now calling itself a Church. All principles 
 shall then invest themselves in new power, all notions of 
 good and evil be recast, all forms and constitutions be new 
 modelled. We shall indeed believe the same thing as 
 now ; but in another manner : we shall practise the same 
 virtues, but at a different rate, with firmer motives, and 
 under the guidance of an extended exposition of every pre- 
 cept. 
 
 Instead therefore of cherishing a blind attachment to 
 phrases, modes, usages, opinions, which are separable from 
 the substance of religion, wise and docile spirits, though 
 they may not hope fully to anticipate, in imagination, the 
 changes that are to be effected, will at least preserve with 
 care a state of feeling, r such as shall prove the best prepar- 
 ative for joining in with whatever may attend the expected 
 " times of refreshment." 
 
 - 

 
 III. 
 
 THE COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND 
 PLACES. 
 
 "lam not ashamed qfthe Gosjiel of Christ." 
 
 BY the believers of the first age it was understood that 
 the Gospel should, in the end, prevail over all opposition ; 
 and that all nations should at length come and do homage 
 to Christ. And yet there were moments when the indul- 
 gence of such a hope must have been difficult ; and when 
 any thing must have seemed probable rather than the 
 occurrence of those events which were actually at the door. 
 Justin Martyr, perhaps, would have been scarcely less as- 
 tounded than Antoninus, if both had together been told that 
 two centuries only would see the religion of Galilee the 
 religion of Roman Emperors, and of the Roman World ! 
 
 And let it be imagined that Justin, and the faithful of 
 his time, could have seen in vision (and in its fair colours} 
 the present firm establishment of the faith of Christ ; and 
 could have known that it should become the profession of 
 all highly-civilized nations, and be most honoured in that 
 country which was to take the lead in the world, by extent 
 of power, by wealth, by energy, liberty, and intelligence- 
 In the midst of such a revelation of the bright futurity, 
 must not the martyr have deemed it a whisper from the 
 False Spirit, had it been added, that, even in the age and 
 in the country of the greatest triumph of the Gospel, there 
 should be as much room as at first, for the constancy of its
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 23 
 
 champions, in maintaining their profession ; and that they, 
 like Paul, when he thought of opening his ministry at 
 Rome, should often have need to animate their confidence 
 by the declaration " We are not ashamed of the religion 
 of Christ?" Christianity has very much ground to pass 
 over, and to conquer, before Christians may lay aside their 
 courage. And if what is most important in their belief 
 is to be spoken of, there is little less necessity for such 
 firmness of purpose now, than in any age that can be 
 named. 
 
 The false shame or timidity which may embarrass 
 Christians when called upon to profess the prime parts of 
 their belief, will, it is evident, attach in very different de- 
 grees to different persons ; or to the same persona under 
 different circumstances, and in different places. It was so 
 among the apostles. If those passages of the canonical 
 epistles are compared, wherein the writers profess the con- 
 fidence they felt in the goodness of their cause, no inequal- 
 ity whatever can be detected in the degree of their persua- 
 sion, severally, of the divine mission of their Master. This 
 is only what might be expected from those who witnessed 
 indubitable proof daily of his power and glory. Neverthe- 
 less, though the tone of confidence be equable and undis- 
 tinguishable (proceed whence it may) it has a specific value 
 in some instances, which does not belong to it in others. 
 And the reason of the difference is obvious : 
 
 As for example. The disciple whom " Jesus loved" 
 (and we cannot doubt on account of a kindred simplicity, 
 purity, and elevation of temper) occupied a sphere of med- 
 itative abstraction which raised him above that level where 
 faith is most assaulted : in an emphatic sense, he lived on 
 high, and looked upon the things of earth, as angels may 
 look upon them. It is altogether in harmony with this
 
 24 SATURDAY K 
 
 order of feeling that we hear him calmly (and justly) and 
 like a messenger from heaven, challenging all truth for 
 the church ; and assigning all error to the world. " A\ e 
 know that we arc of God." 
 
 The confidence of Peter is as entire as that of John ; 
 but yet of a somewhat different character. His native 
 irresolution had merged in stronger motives : yet his sym- 
 pathy with doubt or diffidence remained ; and his closer 
 contact with the common world led him to adapt himself 
 more to the modes of thinking of mankind at large. To 
 the Jewish people, and to their Rulers, he addresses reasons 
 specifically proper to the persons with whom he had to do ; 
 and the stripes he received from the Sanhedrim were the 
 award of the pointed and unanswerable argument he had 
 left to rankle in the consciences of his judges. This sort 
 of conviction, founded on the common and intelligible 
 ground of external evidence, shews itself even when he 
 writes to the faithful : " We have not followed cunningly 
 devised fables." And yet there is a peculiar species of 
 constancy of mind, for which we must look to another of 
 the apostles. 
 
 Who shall detect, either in the public speeches, or private 
 correspondence, of Paul, any indication of secret misgiving? 
 Nothing more distinguishes his manner, whether in courts 
 of justice, or among his friends, than the highest degree 
 of confidence and courage. It is one and the same tone 
 of decision, however modified by the specific occasion, 
 which we hear from him at the tribunal of Roman gov- 
 ernors in the circle of Jewish Rabbis in the heart of a 
 frantic rabble, or among Stoics and Epicureans. It is one 
 and the same style of absolute conviction, which belongs to 
 all the epistles, whether addressed to churches that fondly 
 bowed to his authority ; or to those that factiously opposed
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES, 25 
 
 it ; to his most intimate associates, or to the Christian 
 body at large. He is the same man, in this respect, whether 
 at large or in bonds ; whether at the commencement of his 
 apostolic course, or expecting every day to seal it with his 
 blood. " Would to God that all who hear me this day 
 were altogether such as I am !" " I speak the words of 
 truth and soberness." " I know in whom I have believed." 
 " I ai ready, not only to be bound, but to die for the Lord 
 Jesus." "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
 life." " We are always confident, and willing to be absent 
 from the body, that we may be present with the Lord." 
 
 And if always fully assured of the certainty of the mes- 
 sage which he carried to the nations, no peculiarity of cir- 
 cumstances could make him diffident in proclaiming the 
 most obnoxious parts of it. To some such circumstances 
 Paul was alive far more sensibly than Peter, James, or John 
 could be. The Jewish prejudice against a humiliated and 
 suffering Saviour, and a spiritual kingdom, having been at 
 length dispelled from the minds of the first companions of 
 Christ, nothing remained iri their native modes of thinking, 
 which could give peculiar force to the incredulity either of 
 their compatriots, or of the Gentile world. When engaged 
 in controversy with the former, the argument was a serious 
 one, on both sides ; and it was an argument on the ground 
 of principles common to both parties namely, the divine 
 authority of the existing Scriptures. They urged the tes- 
 timony of the prophets, upon those who reverenced the 
 prophets. The Jew, how corrupt soever in life or doctrine, 
 Was still a religionist ; he understood the terms of the 
 Christian argument, was familiar with its modes of reason- 
 ing, and especially he held no philosophical notion which 
 repudiated the supposition of a miraculous attestation of 
 religious doctrines. This is a sort of contest which does 
 
 4
 
 26 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 not in the moat severe degree try the. constancy of the mind. 
 Let but our antagonist be serious as ourselves, and we 
 need not care, though lie be infuriate. 
 
 And in another manner, even by their simplicity and 
 their want of erudition, the men of Galilee wore well-armed 
 to encounter whatever they might meet with abroad, in 
 the polytheistic woild. Beside their miraculous powers, 
 and the Divine teaching they enjoyed, they carried ft>rlh 
 the great truths of the Natural and Moral attributes of God, 
 and the hope of immortality, and the maxims of virtue, 
 among nations whose capital errors on all these points 
 placed all learned or barbarous, on one and the same level 
 in their view. To them the Athenian was as the Scyth- 
 ian a worshipper " of stocks." Was the difference be- 
 tween one idol and another, in its fashion, a matter of any 
 moment ? Not now to speak specifically of the Christian 
 teachers the Jew of that age, by his conscious possession 
 of the most important truths, and by his want of refine- 
 ment, and taste, and philosophic sophistication, stood in the 
 most favourable position for lobking down with just and 
 undistinguishing contempt upon all forms of idolatry. It 
 is well sometimes to be insensible of diversities which, if 
 discerned, are more likely to confuse our perceptions of 
 some essential difference, than to aid our decision. To the 
 devout Jew, one sculptured folly was like another neither 
 more nor less offensive, on account of its workmanship. 
 What was. the chisel of Phidias, what the pencil of Apelles, 
 to the men who had been taught to adore the Living and 
 True God? Apollo was as Dagon ; the temples of Greece, 
 89 the pagodas of India. 
 
 We must not deny that the w r ant of knowledge is a dis- 
 paragement, lest we seem to take part with the despotic ad- 
 vocates of ignorance. Nevertheless it must be admitted
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 2T 
 
 that on special occasions, when the most momentous 
 truths have to be manfully asserted in opposition to splen- 
 did and erudite errors, there may be an advantage in that 
 sort of rude or blunt force which deprives specious sophistry 
 of all its power over the imagination. Plain and insensi- 
 tive vigour of mind may perhaps trample heedlessly on 
 some things which deserved a measure of respect ; but it 
 takes the right course reaches an impregnable position, 
 and leaves a host of frivolous sophisms in the rear pow- 
 erless, though un refuted. Thus it was, in a still stronger 
 sense, with the men of Galilee ; for beside their national 
 advantage, as Jews, and the unblemished simplicity of their 
 understanding, they knew and felt, far better than did the 
 doctors of the Sanhedrim, the infinite disparity of true and 
 false religion. On the banks of the Tiber, or of the Tigris, 
 of the Indus, or the Nile the Gospel of Christ was always 
 their glory ; and they saw nothing in the world which, by 
 comparison, could for a moment make them ashamed of it. 
 There was somewhat more implied when Paul, medi- 
 tating a journey to Piomo, declared that " he was not 
 ashamed" of the same doctrine. His possession of miracu- 
 lous powers did not nullify the natural influence of his ori- 
 ginal habits of thinking, or of his education. The human 
 mind is so constituted as to admit freely the play of inde- 
 pendent and conflicting motives, even if it obeys always 
 the one motive that is paramount. And high culture much 
 increases the susceptibility of the mind towards diverse or 
 contradictory impulses ; so that w r hile the uninstructed, 
 when borne onward by a ruling principle, forget all secon- 
 dary considerations ; the more intelligent, though not less 
 steady and consistent in action (perhaps more so,) yet con- 
 tinue to hold converse with reasons they have repudiated ; 
 and to traverse again and again the ground of their firmest
 
 28 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 convictions. the more mind the more compass of motive. 
 
 And can we read the speeches recorded by Luke, or the 
 fourteen epistles of our canon, and doubt whether Paul 
 were open to the influence of a world of things of which 
 his colleagues were quite insensible ? His general ac- 
 quaintance with human affairs, his familiarity with Greek 
 literature and philosophy, his military habits, his know- 
 ledge of the arts of sculpture and painting ; beside his native 
 sensibility, and prompt discernment of the nicer proprieties 
 of time, and place, and occasion, would altogether leave 
 him unconscious of hardly any of the emotions that distin- 
 guish highly cultivated minds probably of none. 
 
 A point of comparison, on this ground, between Paul 
 and some of his countrymen, deserves to be noted. It is 
 well known that not a few of the Hebrew nation, from the 
 age of the Macedonian conquests, and during the course of 
 the four following centuries, ambitiously addicted them- 
 selves to Grecian literature ; and in this ambiguous course 
 advanced as far towards a treasonable admiration of poly- 
 theistic philosophy, poetry, and art, as could well consist 
 with their professed attachment to the national faith. 
 Some went further than this limit. Scattered indications 
 of the incongruous mixtures of opinions which thence re- 
 sulted, are to be found in some allusions of the New Tes- 
 tament in the apocryphal books, and in the Rabbinical 
 commentaries. But evidence to the same purport, and 
 more at large, is presented in the writings of the Jewish 
 philosopher of Alexandria, and of the Jewish courtier of 
 Jerusalem. Philo and Josephus show us, in their several 
 modes, what a Jew became when he would be more than 
 a Jew ; or in a word, what was the axo/3uavia of the Hel- 
 lenists. 
 
 But it is observable in all these instances, whether full
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 29 
 
 or scanty, that the superinduction of Grecian modes of 
 thinking upon the Hebrew mind was, to the whole extent 
 of it, a corruption of faith an abandonment, or an abate- 
 ment of the proper Jewish spirit ; Moses was dishonoured, 
 so far as Plato was admired. Philosophy held a place 
 furtively in the mind of the Rabbi, and did him no service. 
 In fact, no schooling could make the Jew a Greek, either 
 as sage, rhetorician, or man of taste ; or only so far as it 
 made him, a secret unbeliever, or an apostate. Philo ig 
 but an Alexandrian Rabbi, and a barbarian philosopher. 
 Josephus, little better than a renegade. 
 
 Paul of Tarsus affords an instance of another sort. He 
 was as well read as Philo ; almost as much conversant 
 with active life as Josephus ; he was a reader of the Greek 
 drama, and a great master of that mental management 
 which then was to be learned only within the circle of Gre- 
 cian dialectics and rhetoric. Nevertheless he remains most 
 completely national in his mode of thinking, and his phra- 
 seology : it was at the feet of Gamaliel that he sat, though 
 he learned lessons elsewhere. There is no alien spirit 
 no shrinking from Moses, no blending of things incompa- 
 tible, no affectation of doctrines more enlarged and liberal, 
 or more refined, than were taught by the prophets, in the 
 writings of Paul. He is not now the Jew, now the Chris- 
 tian, now the sophist ; but always both Jew and Chris- 
 tian ; and as fully so as Peter, or as James. 
 
 Besides possessing more native ingenuousness and vigour 
 of mind than those of his countrymen to whom we have 
 just referred, so that he was free from the affectation and 
 obsequiousness that belong to them, St. Paul grasped, in 
 a much firmer manner than they, the vital principles which 
 were the glory of the Jewish people. Even as a Jew, and 
 still more as a Christian, he was better qualified than they 
 
 4* 

 
 30 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 to estimate justly the intrinsic value of Grecian philosophy 
 and refinement. He knew how to strike the balance of 
 merit between Plato, or Pindar, or Memander, and David 
 or Isaiah. He neither repudiated the Grecian literature 
 with a rude fanatical arrogance, because it >vaa at fault in 
 matters of religion ; nor laboured to deck himself in its 
 flowers, at the cost of consistency : but while he adhered, 
 in spirit and letter in form and substance, to that fashion 
 of thought and language which the divine oracles had set, 
 did not scruple to avail himself of whatever aid might fairly 
 be drawn from a foreign source. 
 
 Paul had seen nothing among the Greeks which com- 
 pelled him to be ashamed of the prophets : and it may 
 even be imagined that, had he not embraced Christianity, 
 his zeal and intelligence, and his singular power of adap- 
 ting himself to the notions and tastes of men of all classes, 
 might have led him to plead the cause of his national lit- 
 erature with the Greeks. His eloquence, his ingenuity, 
 and the intrinsic soundness of his argument, might (it ia 
 not improbable) have secured to him some signal success 
 in such an attempt ; or at least a blaze of reputation. 
 
 And the attempt would have been a noble one ; but the 
 Lord had " set him apart" to a task far more noble, far 
 more perilous, and far more mortifying. To preach " re- 
 pentance and forgiveness of sin" through faith in the pro- 
 pitiatory death of Jesus ; and to preach this doctrine in the 
 Grecian cities, and among the schools of learning, this was 
 the part assigned to Paul. And in discharging it, he must 
 have felt, in all its force, the contempt that covered him as 
 a promulgator of such a dogma ; he felt this obloquy as 
 his colleagues could not. Not only in the single instance 
 recorded by his biographer, but no doubt often in his circuit 
 through Greece, and its colonies, he stood surrounded by
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 31 
 
 the sarcastic curiosity of Stoics, Epicureans, and Acade- 
 micians. He knew, on such occasions, in what spirit he 
 was listened to, as a busy and babbling zealot of the Jewish 
 superstition. He could penetrate nay, he could feel a 
 sympathy with the erudite scorn of his auditors : he un- 
 derstood the sentiment with which men of high culture 
 give ear, for a moment, to a tale of wonder which they 
 have condemned as absurd, before it is commenced. In 
 the oblique glance of the half-closed eye, in the sneer that 
 played on the lip, he read the rnind and the malice of every 
 sophist. He could mentally change positions with his au- 
 ditors, and at the moment white uttering the " strange 
 things" of the Gospel, could feel as they felt the harsh 
 and abhorrent character, both of the principles, and of the 
 facts, which he had to announce Jesus, the Galilean 
 teacher crucified raised to life constituted Lord and 
 Judge .of men, and now giving repentance for remission of 
 sins. This was his burden, at Antioch, at Ephesus, at 
 Nicopolis, at Corinth, and at Athens ! 
 
 And yet there awaited him, what perhaps must be 
 deemed even a still more severe trial of his constancy : 
 for he bore a commission to preach the Gospel at " Rome- 
 also." A man of cultured mind, whatever special disad- 
 vantage he may happen to labour under, nevertheless feels 
 that, among men of his own order, he can occupy a com- 
 mon ground, on which to gain the respect, if not the as- 
 sent, of his hearers. On that ground he may be sure to 
 put flippant scorn to the blush. There is a sympathy 
 among men addicted to intellectual pursuits, of which any 
 one who is truly entitled to do so, may powerfully avail 
 himself. But no such advantage can be looked for within 
 the circle where wealth and sumptuous splendour are in 
 far higher esteem than learning or philosophy ; and where
 
 32 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 the arrogance of military and civil rule crush every preten- 
 sion that might dispute honour with their own. The proud 
 and luxurious metropolis of universal empire was the place 
 where, most of all, a man of intelligence would feel his 
 immense disadvantage, in having to broach a doctrine 
 such as Christianity must have seemed at Rome in the 
 age of Nero. 
 
 And yet not at Rome, any more than at Athens, was 
 Paul ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. On the contrary, 
 he " spoke the word with all boldness," even " in the 
 palace :" and the fruits of his constancy were shown to the 
 world in that black night, when the imperial gardens blazed 
 with the torments of a crowd of the adherents of the Gos- 
 pel : the first-fruits of martyrdom, offered to the gods by 
 a fit minister of such divinities ; and an earnest of the un- 
 sparing oblations with which Rome pagan and popish, 
 should, through a long course of ages, propitiate infernal 
 powers ! 
 
 But what relation does this. comparison between the con- 
 stancy of Paul and that of his colleagues bear to the posi- 
 tion, or the conduct of Christians in our own age and 
 country? We think one that is significant, and in some 
 sense exact. 
 
 At certain eras the purity and lustre of the evangelic 
 doctrine the glorious truth of remission of sins through 
 faith in Christ, has been in the hands, almost exclusively, 
 of men of the simplest order ; of men who, in mental qual- 
 ities, and in want of culture, and in rude ingenuousness 
 of Spirit, might not improperly be deemed the very succes- 
 sors and representatives of the Galilean teachers. To such 
 the world was the WORLD whether erudite or barbarous ; 
 and the full confidence they felt in the goodness and divine 
 reality of their cause, was never troubled by a misgiving
 
 COURAGE PECULIAR TO TIMES AND PLACES. 33 
 
 recollection, that all the intelligence, and refinement, and 
 knowledge of mankind, stood in array against them. 
 Such men, though they reached their conclusion as if by 
 a leap over the ground, nevertheless came to a. just con- 
 clusion, That, the wisdom of the world, when opposed to 
 the doctrine of Christ, is essential folly. They were not 
 ashamed of this doctrine therefore, even when philosophy, 
 and elegance, and titles and honours, were combined 
 against it. 
 
 Although there may be found among us now (in corners) 
 persons of this same class (ingenuous, illiterate, and fervent) 
 whose courage in matters of religion costs them no extra- 
 ordinary effort ; the great body of Christians, in our age 
 and country, would be very improperly described in any such 
 terms ; for they have neither the same merits, nor the 
 same defects. The religious classes have admitted and 
 imbibed just that degree of general intelligence, which, by 
 laying them open to all influeuces, puts to the severest 
 proof the integrity and simplicity of their spirit, as messen- 
 gers of the mercy of God to mankind. We say just that 
 degree of intelligence. For it must not be affirmed (after 
 a very few instances are excepted) that the accomplish- 
 ments and mental power of the religious hody, or of its 
 leaders, are so fairly on a par with the learning and science 
 of the times, as to leave no room for the consciousness of 
 inferiority. 
 
 It is not with us now, as it was in the age of the Re- 
 formation, when the champions of the Gospel were men of 
 gigantic understanding, and of unrivalled attainments ; 
 men who had no competitors or rivals to fear, in any walk 
 of learning ; men who ruled the philosophy, as well as the 
 religion, of their times. Nor is it as it was in the age of 
 Jerom, and Augustine, and Ambrose, and Gregory, and
 
 34 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Chrygostom, when the Church moved foremost on all 
 grounds of honour and merit ; and when pagan philoso- 
 phy had scarcely a laurel left on its brow. 
 
 We stand midway between the advantageous post of 
 rude ingenuous fervour, and that of zeal or unrivalled 
 eminence in matters of science and learning. But a mid- 
 dle position is one of jeopardy, incertitude, timidity. By 
 all the amount of our actual intelligence, \vefeel the offence 
 of the Cross ; and yet our intelligence reaches not the point 
 which should set us free from anxiety in maintaining our 
 profession. 

 
 IV. 
 LAXITY AND DECISION. 
 
 That 1 may make manifest the Ministry of Christ, as lougtit to speak." 
 
 NOTHING would be more calumnious than to say that 
 the principal articles of Christian belief are not now (and 
 ia very many quarters) clearly, ably, and faithfully an- 
 nounced. There is no room for any such allegation or com- 
 plaint. On the contrary, in a multitude of instances, how 
 much soever we may be perplexed by the paucity of the 
 fruits, we should be quite unable to assign any considerable 
 defect as the probable cause of the want of greater success. 
 
 This being fully granted, there should be noted (and 
 the juniors of a clerical order should especially observe it) 
 a cause of abatement which, in a greater or less degree, 
 very sensibly produces its effect within the circle of what is 
 termed evangelical ministrations. It is the reflected in- 
 fluence of that middle rate of intelligence to which allusion 
 has already been made. The Preacher of our day has 
 advanced several steps beyond the position of his predeces- 
 sor ; and his hearers have advanced also. They laudably 
 wish for diversified instructions ; and he naturally desires 
 to meet and satisfy this wish. While therefore he adheres 
 with care to the accredited system of Christian truth ; and 
 always speaks of the chief points of divinity as c/tze/and 
 of the subordinate as subordinate, and is u in doctrine 
 uncorrupt ; while all this may be said, and every ground 
 of just exception seems to be excluded, the actual result
 
 to SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 shall we say the gross amount of his public labours, ^ 
 ilu> proportion of not more than one to ten, to the prime 
 truth of the Scriptures. The glory of Christ, a- Saviour 
 of men, which should be always as the sun in the heavens, 
 shines only with an astral lustre ; or as one light among 
 others. This is a natural, though indirect, consequence 
 of the intellectual progress which the religious community 
 has made. 
 
 The mode of preaching that has been affectedly termed 
 the intellectual, will hardly be made to consist with a 
 bold, simple, and cordial proclamation of the message of 
 mercy. Its intention is not the same ; its means are not 
 the- same : and the fruit of it will be obtuse. indifference 
 in relation to the most affecting objects of Christian faith. 
 The tendency, at the present moment, towards intelligent 
 frigidity is a grave matter, and one especially which should 
 lead to a consideration of our several systems of clerical 
 initiation. The cause of so great a practical error should 
 be known, if it be true; that numbers of those who come 
 forth upon the church as candidates for the Christian min- 
 istry, are fraught with all qualifications, and all acquire- 
 ments rather than fervour and simplicity in proclaiming 
 the glad tidings of life. 
 
 There should here be memtioned an unhappy conse- 
 quence that has flowed from the natural but very ill-judged 
 ambition of young and aspiring preachers to follow the 
 train of thought, and to imitate the style, of certain 
 eminent religious writers. Now besides that imitation is 
 a disparagement, and a degradation, in a Christian minister, 
 especially if it springs from a motive of vanity : is it not 
 evident that the pulpit and the press ought to fill different 
 spheres ? The writer forfeits his proper advantage if he 
 does nothing more than preach in print : and the preacher
 
 LAXITY AND DECISION. 37 
 
 forgets all tHat is serious and momentous in his office, 
 when he utters from the pulpit, that which, to produce its 
 due effect, must be spread before the eye, and which there- 
 fore, when listened to, will not move the conscience. A 
 religious writer may very properly (nay he ought to do so) 
 select subjects, and pursue a line of thought, and employ 
 a style, all of which are unsuited to the ears of a promis- 
 cuous assembly. Well would it be if, on the one hand, 
 our writers ^would always set themselves a task more 
 specific, and more difficult too, than that of printing pulpit 
 exercises ; and on the other, if our preachers would cherish 
 an ambition far more becoming to them, and more truly 
 noble, than that of being esteemed masters of an elaborate 
 style. 
 
 Do we then make void the utility of mental acquire- 
 ments and intellectual power in the preacher of the 
 Gospel ? Nay rather, we establish the necessity of both'. 
 The advancement of the people generally, in knowledge, 
 demands that their teachers should move on at least at an 
 equal rate. But danger danger to the simplicity of the 
 spirit, springs from that meagerness of attainment, and 
 that slenderness in the mode of thinking, which lead the 
 mind to employ itself on secondary matters, and which 
 especially compel it to spread out scanty materials over as 
 broad a surface as possible. There is a natural process in 
 the world of mind of which men, whose engagements are 
 intellectual, should always be aware. The initial part of 
 this process consists in the expansion we might say, the 
 scattering of the faculties over a wide field, while new ideas 
 from a thousand sources are daily coming in. The 
 after-part, which is properly the maturing of the mind is, 
 in its method, the reverse of the first : it is the process of 
 concentration, of condensation : it is the bringing of all 
 
 5
 
 38 SATURDAY" EVENING. 
 
 materials, and of all faculties, to a point, upon that one 
 principal matter which has been already chosen as the 
 worthy object of the man's most energetic devotion. In 
 this finishing of a man for his work, it may seem as if the 
 mental dimensions he had just reached were contracting ; 
 as if he were drawing back from the ground he had occu- 
 pied ; as if he were resigning what yesterday he eagerly 
 grasped. But it is not so. The spirit is only gathering 
 itself up to act. 
 
 Now if this process be arrested just at the juncture of the 
 initial and the conclusive part, the consequence is a loss of 
 the special advantage of rude and simple fervour, and na- 
 tive force, without the compensation which more progress 
 would have secured. If the young preacher steps into 
 the pulpit at the very moment when all the blooming 
 petals of the mind have spread themselves out to the 
 utmost, to greet light and air, and if the scorching beams 
 of public life wither the blossom, the germ falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 No man of mature understanding, who has seriously 
 fixed himself in the great purpose of devoting all the force 
 he possesses to the work of the Gospel, will think that any 
 kind of knowledge he may have acquired, or any species of 
 mental labour to which he may have become familiar, is 
 solutely unavailable for promoting his design. There is 
 nothing extrinsic or foreign in literature, or science, there 
 is nothing difficult or profound in the region of abstruse 
 philosophy, there is no habit of meditation or of abstraction, 
 which he will look upon as worthless, in relation to the 
 arduous and all-comprehensive work of leading the spirits 
 of men into the path of truth. But then there are none 
 of these acquirements, none of these practised faculties, 
 that he will for a moment regard in any other light,
 
 LAXITY AND DECISION. 39 
 
 than as a means to the end which his soul has embraced. 
 To give honour to the Saviour of the world, and to lead 
 to the*arms of Mercy the lost, is the work he has put his 
 hand to ; and he can please himself in nothing, but suc- 
 cess in this great endeavour. 
 
 We are not then afraid lest the Gospel should be spoiled 
 by learning and intelligence ; but we desire that both 
 should be concentrated upon, and devoted to the one wor- 
 thy enterprise which the Christian Ministry has in veiw. 
 
 It may seem to some persons that, if a question is enter- 
 tained relative to the supposed abatement, at the present 
 moment, of the evangelic function, a prominent place 
 ought to be given to the influence open or concealed, of 
 the heresy which directly oppugns the doctrines of the Gos- 
 pel. This would have been proper forty years ago : but 
 not now. There was indeed a time (not yet forgotten) of 
 faintness in the evangelical bodies : there was a time 
 when a heavy mist, charged with death, hung over many 
 quarters of the Christian world ; when not a few whose 
 lips still uttered " right things," were shaken in soul ; or 
 had quite lost all inward sense and feeling of the truth. 
 
 But this season has passed away : the victims of the 
 infection have either fallen from their places, or been re- 
 stored to life. And if it were asked how far the Socinian 
 error now checks the promulgation and progress of the 
 Gospel, it would be impossible to make so small a matter 
 palpable in our reply. To affirm that the great principles 
 of Religion are at present endangered by the feeble and 
 expiring remains of Socinianism, were much the same 
 as to say that the throne and constitution of Britian are 
 in jeopardy by the lurking attachment of the people to the 
 house of Stuart ! Socinianism no more makes us afraid 
 for our religion, than Jacobinism does for our liberties.
 
 40 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 The contrary is the fact. we are strengthened by the 
 puny heresy that yet gasps, here and there, about us. 
 The modern history the fate, and the present f actual 
 condition of the doctrine, absurdly called Unitarianism, is 
 quite enough to convince any man of sense that the scep- 
 tical argument is a mere sophism, even if he knew nothing 
 of the merits of the question. And this edifying history, 
 and spectacle, does in fact produce a proper effect upon the 
 minds of men, and does actually seal the theological argu- 
 ment, as it ought. Is Unitarianism Christianity ? Read 
 the story of its rise in modern times, of its progress, and 
 decay, and look at the meager phantom as now it haunts 
 the dry places it has retired to ! is this pitiful shadow 
 Christianity ? 
 
 It might be well if certain valiant persons among us 
 could find more profitable employment than that of hunt- 
 ing a spectre ! 
 
 Our dangers are of another sort. The long-continued 
 tranquility which notwithstanding the rage of war and 
 anarchy around us, the British Islands have enjoyed ; and 
 the exemption of all parties from the fact or the fear of 
 persecution, and the peculiar temper also, which belongs to 
 highly-stimulated commercial habits, have together pro- 
 duced upon our Christian character a settled indisposition 
 to give way to deep or powerful emotions of any kind. 
 We are indeed fond of excitement ; but in the same degree 
 are afraid of agitation. The strong workings of the prime 
 emotions of the soul we greatly dread. If we feel more 
 than may just serve to give animation to a public assembly, 
 we know not whither we shall be carried. If we were to 
 allow ourselves to fall back upon serious convictions, we 
 might be led so to act and speak as would break in upon 
 the conventional serenity of the circle in which we move.
 
 LAXITY AND DECISION. 41 
 
 The surface of the waters may be rippled ; but it must 
 not be tossed with winds and waves ! 
 
 A different order of things around us would presently 
 bring into play the powerful and irresistible elements of 
 the moral life. Events may be imagined which would 
 mar our levity disturb our complacency, and break up 
 the polished surface which reflects our ease. Events may 
 easily be thought of which would lead us home to the first 
 principles of the Gospel, and quite sicken our taste of 
 every thing but those principles. Private troubles and 
 common griefs, how heavy soever, by no means affect us 
 in the same way, or to the same extent, as public calam- 
 ities. The imagination is much concerned in the effect 
 which the idea of danger or suffering produces on the mind ; 
 and so it is that, although the cloud that rests over our 
 single habitation may actually be more dense than the 
 gloom which covers all the skies (hiding hope and peace 
 from nations) yet it is this general gloom, more than the 
 partial storm, that avails to dispel the frivolity of the hu- 
 man spirit, and teaches a solemn fear of the Divine dis- 
 pleasure. And it is under such an impression that the 
 Gospel will assume its just dimensions in our sight. How 
 soon may the glad tidings of mercy be listened to with a 
 new and genuine joy, amid the loud peals of some wide- 
 spreading judgment ! 
 
 For the possible occurrence of such a season of profound 
 and powerful emotions, all Christians should prepare them- 
 selves. Apart from any actual indications of its approach 
 (and which the forbearance of God may yet turn aside) it 
 would not seem highly improbable, if we look to what 
 has been the ordinary series of events in the history of 
 Christian nations, that the inert elements of piety among 
 us are ere long to be set at work in a more powerful man- 
 
 5*
 
 42 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ner than heretofore, not merely by an extraordinary effusion 
 of the Spirit of Grace, but by the operation of unusual ex- 
 ternal causes. If there be a disposition in some minds to 
 catch at every portentous circumstance, and to make it the 
 ground of an appalling prediction, there is also a disposi- 
 tion in others to clpse the ear against those precursive 
 murmurs of the anger of Heaven which ordinarily give no- 
 tice of the approach of its judgments. A caution should 
 be entertained, as well against the levity of the one party, 
 as against the superstition of the other. Meanwhile it is a 
 plain and simple matter that, whatever measures we 
 should deem imperatively necessary if certainly forewarned 
 of impending calamities, are not the less proper, because 
 our actual forewarning amounts only to the appearance of 
 an ominous concurrence of events. 
 
 Who will deny that, at this moment, there is signally 
 needed some extraordinary .effort on behalf of the outcast 
 thousands of the people, whom we have culpably suffered 
 to grow up in the heart of our Christian land, more profli- 
 gate and more perverted than Hindoos ? The exigency of 
 the time calls for a disregard of every puny scruple, of 
 every jealousy, of all ecclesiastical reluctances, and of all 
 sinister views. The dense masses of our atheistic and 
 much-degraded, as well as miserable population, should be 
 assailed and courageously entered, by men thinking of 
 nothing but how they may turn the impenitent from the 
 error of his way. If ever it be wise and manly to sacrifice 
 the less to the greater, would it not now be wise and 
 christian-like to break through ordinary and petty obsta- 
 cles, and to contemn frigid calculations ; rather than that 
 two, or more, millions of the people should longer be left 
 as they are utterly destitute of religious knowledge, and
 
 UX1TV AND DECISION. 43 
 
 of every hope ? If certain personages ave reluctant to as- 
 sign this work of popular evangelization to the alledged 
 indiscreet zeal of sectarists the path is open to them- 
 selves; the crowded streets of our great towns are not barred : 
 and how noble a spectacle would it be, to see men of the 
 highest order, the SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLES, support- 
 ed by their colleagues of all ranks, mingling kindly with 
 the people, and inviting the wretched to accept the con- 
 solations of the Gospel ! Are precedents wanted to jus- 
 tify so extraordinary a course 1 Let then our protestant 
 church look to the church of Rome ; and single instancess 
 at least, will be found of episcopal zeal not less magnan- 
 imously^ irregular. Alas ! the church of Rome may boast 
 examples of apostolic greatness and intrepidity, which 
 protestant churches have failed to imitate. 
 
 If there seem to be irony in such a proposition whence 
 does that irony draw its force ? Assuredly no derision 
 would have been suspected if, in some hour of public fear, 
 it had been asked of Cyprian, of Gregory, of Athanasius, 
 of Hilary of Ambrose, of Augustine, to set a necessary ex- 
 ample of evangelic charity, in publishing abroad the hope 
 of salvation, when to multitudes, that hope must instantly 
 be received, or not at all. Is it true then, that it sounds 
 like the most preposterous of all possible suppositions to 
 imagine a mode of proceeding in our times, such as 
 Cyprian, and Gregory, and Athanasius, and Hilary, and 
 Ambrose, and Agustine, would certainly have adopted, 
 under similar circumstances? Sad inference, if this be 
 the fact ! 
 
 But it is not warrantable absolutely to conclude that the 
 line of conduct demanded by extraordinary events, will not 
 be adopted when a vivid conviction shall be felt that such
 
 44 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 a season is actually approaching. Nay, there is reason to 
 believe, that although much inertness may have fallen 
 upon all religious bodies, as the consequence of long-contin- 
 ued repose, it will be shaken off when that repose is 
 effectively disturbed ; and that whatever is worthy of 
 Christians, and of men high in rank, shall indeed be 
 attempted and performed in the hour of trial.
 
 y. 
 
 THE MEANS OF MERCY. 
 
 " The Gospel the Power of God to Salvation." 
 
 To what extent the sacrifice once offered for the sins of 
 mankind has actually taken effect, we neither know, nor 
 have the means, in any degree, of surmising. The world 
 of spirits is veiled. The inspired writers are silent ; and 
 theological rigidity, together with bold conjecture, should 
 be checked, on such a theme. Meanwhile it is certain 
 as certain as the Gospel, that the mercy of God has had 
 no other channel ; and that to each of us, severally, there 
 is a hope in Christ ; and no other hope. 
 
 Nothing is more desirable than that each one should 
 bring this most important of all truths very distinctly 
 before the mind. This may actually be done by a process 
 that is not elaborate, or difficult. Is there a human 
 memory that bears inscribed upon it no one act of 
 deliberate transgression of the plain and unquestioned 
 maxims of virtue ? If there be, we will exclude the im- 
 maculate instance from our present consideration ; and 
 will turn'to those whose consciences forbid them to advance 
 any such pretension ; and ask them to single out, from the 
 entire course of their personal history, that one occasion of 
 flagrant misconduct which (by right of its enormity) first 
 starts to view, when an inquiry of this sort is made. We 
 speak of a signal offence ; riot because the most trivial 
 sin would not really, as well as the most grave, bear the
 
 46 SATURDAY' EVENING. 
 
 stress of our argument ; but because the mind, from the 
 indistinctness of its perceptions, does not act decisively, or 
 promptly, unless it is handling an object of some magni- 
 tude. And now, having before us this one definite affair 
 this unpropitious transaction, in which we were the 
 chief party, or principal this matter of history, which no 
 power of oblivion can erase from the page where it stands 
 which no agony of remorse can alter or alleviate, even 
 in the most minute particular, let us look to it, as some- 
 thing (no matter how large a space of time intervenes 
 between it and our present self) which has become insep- 
 arably linked to our identity ; so inseparably, as that it is, 
 and shall remain ours for ever and ours, even if we 
 could take wing and escape beyond the bounds of crea- 
 tion. No power, no decree, human or divine, no amnes- 
 ty, can actually alienate from a man his property in a 
 crime he has perpetrated. 
 
 Let us then contemplate this companion of our existence 
 and let us extenuate, conceal, adorn, the unpleasing 
 reality. How peculiar were the inducements ; how much 
 did circumstances, in which we were not to blame, concur, 
 almost to necessitate the act ! Virtue, at the moment, was 
 not on the alert. And then the actual injury that resulted 
 was not nearly so great as it might have been ; ourselves 
 were the chief sufferers : amends have been made : the 
 victim even, has forgotten the wrong : the world has 
 pronounced a full pardon : nothing nothing remains ; 
 but memory and conscience : it is as if it were not. 
 No ; we cannot ourselves fall in with this illusion. There 
 have been cases in which a man, disordered in mind, has 
 thought himself incessantly followed by some ghastly 
 phantom : he has mixed in the crowd ; he has hurried 
 from place to place ; he has plunged into the heart of
 
 THE MEANS OF MERCY. 47 
 
 revelry, and has fondly for a moment believed, that he 
 had actually eluded his pursuer : no ; at his side the 
 cruel persecutor still stands up, and mocks his endeavours 
 to escape. But the crime with which conscience holds so 
 much familiarity, is a far more real and terrible companion. 
 In the one case, if the mind could not be disabused, and 
 restored to soundness, the shadowy form would melt away, 
 and be forgotten ; but in this, the more the mind is sane, 
 and vigorous, and calm, the more palpably and vividly 
 does our grim attendant stand forth in our path. 
 
 Or in order to feel, the more sensibly, the reality of our 
 guilt, let it be placed by the side of a very possible suppo- 
 sition ; namely that the temptation had been repelled 
 the force of evil passions withstood the voice of con- 
 science, which we well remember to have heard listened 
 to, and a victory actually obtained over the trying seduction. 
 Is then the difference between compliance and resistance 
 of no account ? is it a circumstance not worthy of re- 
 membrance, whether a man stands or falls before his 
 enemy ? Victory, we should have thought much of : is 
 not defeat as notable an event as conquest? But if it 
 may not be obliterated, in what light are we to regard this 
 deep stain of sin, which has sunk into the soul ? 
 
 Can we not bring ourselves to believe that the common 
 notions of mankind, and the affirmations of religion, con- 
 cerning invisible government, and retribution, and the 
 difference butween good and evil, are a dream and a 
 nullity ? This, if it could be done, would rid us at once 
 of every uneasiness. True our crime stands on record ; 
 but we have no more to do with it than with the forgotten 
 deeds of antediluvians. Alas ! no pains will avail to 
 realize such a persuasion ! Even if the positive and irre- 
 fragable proofs of the truth of religion could be subverted,
 
 48 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 an unquenchable instinct of the soul remains to retain 
 hold of the notion of a moral system, and of law and jus- 
 tice. This sense of the fitness of RETRIBUTION flashes 
 upon us, in some form, every hour. We cannot read a 
 page of history, we cannot listen to the news of the day, 
 we cannot walk the streets, without forcibly admitting the 
 idea, that there must be a vindication of right : nay, we 
 often court the expectation of it ; sometimes as witnesses, 
 and sometimes as victims of oppression, or of cruelty, or 
 rapacity, we fly to the relief of ultimate justice ; and, even 
 apart from any vindictive feeling, are agonized if vre ima- 
 gine that the controversy between the oppressor and the 
 oppressed shall never never, be adjusted. If, at any 
 time, the films of false philosophy have deceived us into 
 the opinion that vice and virtue are one and the same 
 this sophistry shares the fate of many other sophistries, in 
 practical matters ; that is to say, it is instantly and irre- 
 coverably scattered by our first brunt with some real affair 
 of common life, that appeals to the ordinary sentiments of 
 humanity : the illusion fades truth and nature stand 
 out, and speak aloud, and we dare not refuse to hear them. 
 But if there is to be retribution at all, if any crime or 
 cruelty, the most atrocious which history records, or which 
 history has forgotten, is to be brought to account in an 
 after-life, and is to receive its due award of chastisement ; 
 if the authority of God, as Governor of men, is to be in 
 any manner asserted, and maintained, then is it possible 
 to believe that such retribution shall be otherwise than 
 ABSOLUTELY IMPARTIAL? and when we say impartial, 
 we must mean that it shall be in the strictest sense UNI- 
 VERSAL. It must bear alike, and equally, upon every re- 
 sponsible agent, and must come close home to the entire 
 merit and demerit of each. Shall small offences escape
 
 THE MEANS OP MERCY. 49 
 
 inquiry, while egregious sins only are brought into court ? 
 This could not be ; for the perpetrator of enormous crimes 
 might justly turn round upon his exculpated companionsj 
 and affirm that, if all circumstances of temptation and 
 original disposition were fairly weighed, the actual balance 
 of guilt would be in his favour ; inasmuch as some who 
 had seemed to sin less, had actually sinned more, by sin- 
 ning with fewer inducements, or with more advantage for 
 virtue. Or shall Supreme Justice take notice only of those 
 offences that have in fact been peculiarly pernicious in 
 their consequences, and the occasions of misery to others 1 
 This mode of proceeding would be liable to an objection 
 equally conclusive. For the offender, so singled out on 
 account of the actual mischief he had caused, v/ould be 
 entitled to complain that his fate was ruled, not by law or 
 intrinsic demerit ; but by accidents, over which he had 
 no control ; and it would be easy to find instances of 
 much worse intention than his own, which, on this sys- 
 tem, would altogether escape unpunished. There is in 
 fact no justice, that is not universal justice. Justice alto- 
 gether is nullified, and disgraced, by even a single, and 
 the smallest instance of oblivion, or inequality, or perver- 
 sion of facts. Who would come forward and profess to 
 wish that the law, which is taking effect upon his neigh- 
 bour, should turn aside from himself. 
 
 If we here reason upon this subject on the common and 
 intelligible principles of human nature j it is precisely be- 
 cause HUMAN NATURE is in question ; and because God's 
 proceedings towards man will (more exactly than we often 
 suppose) justify themselves to all minds, on these same in- 
 telligible principles. If then, on one hand, we exhort the 
 theologian not to assume more than is' contained in such 
 simple rules, we adjure the culprit not to assume less. 
 
 6
 
 50 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 But now, may it not seem as if the offences of men 
 themselves insignificant as they are were utterly un- 
 worthy of becoming the subject of judicial proceeding in 
 the court of Heaven ? Un worth)' of judicial proceedings ! 
 Is any such rule acted upon, or admitted on earth? 
 Let us look to the mightiest empire that ever has existed, 
 the sovereign and the chiefs of which have taken to them- 
 selves so vast an importance, that the welfare of whole 
 provinces might not be weighed against their most trivial 
 convenience or pleasure. And then let us seek for the 
 very meanest of the degraded beings that tie obscure in the 
 quarters of want. Is the wretch ambitious of distinction ? 
 would he fain draw upon himself the eyes of the mighty ? 
 does he covet to stand among princes ? Then let him 
 insult the majesty of government : let him but commit 
 a crime, and his wish is accomplished. Though nothing 
 else could possibly have given him importance Treason 
 shall do it. And it shall presently be seen, that the highest 
 personages of state are busy with his interests : No affair 
 of the realm is deemed so urgent as that the hearing of the 
 cause should be finally neglected, or the accused be suffer- 
 ed to make a jest of royal power. Whether he is to be 
 condemned or absolved, punished or pardoned, he must at 
 all events be made amenable to law, and be dealt wilh in 
 some manner which shall leave no stain either upon the 
 principles, or the administration of the empire. And this 
 rule of procedure is valid and constant, just in proportion 
 to the excellencies, the equity, and the firmness or vigour 
 of a government ; and of the very best government this is 
 the praise, that justice is carried home to all persons alike, 
 great or mean. In a state the most free and wise that can 
 be imagined, the sovereign himself would never be thought 
 to forfeit his dignity, though he were seen to be assiduously
 
 THE MEANS OF MERCY. 51 
 
 employed (if needful) day after day, in ascertaining the 
 guilt or innocence of the very lowest of his subjects. Do 
 we approve this principle ? Unquestionably then it shall 
 be found to belong to that Government which is absolutely 
 good and just. 
 
 Yes, if nothing else can confer importance upon man 
 his crimes shall give him consequence. If there were no 
 other argument for a future life, SIN would furnish one, 
 never to be refuted. We need descend into no depths of 
 abstruse reasoning here : the simplest notions are con- 
 clusive enough. There is a cause standing over between 
 the Impartial Judge, and ourselves ; and a time for the 
 hearing and decision of it must certainly come. If indef- 
 initely delayed, and forgotten, all loyal orders must har- 
 bour dissatisfaction and fear ; while all who have actually 
 been called to account and punished, will protest against 
 the partiality. If conscience be but awake, the transgressor, 
 as he stands at the verge of the present life, may thus prop- 
 erly decide upon his own fate. " I have sinned and per- 
 verted that which was right. Let me hide myself in the 
 darkness of the grave ! No ; for God's ministers, and all 
 beings good and evil, shall demand me at the hands of 
 Death, and forbid I should be forgotten. The dust may 
 not screen me the clods may not cover me. Corruption 
 may not say I am lost and gone. The highest tribunal 
 is waiting my appearance ; and unless I am made there 
 to stand, the honour of all government is blasted the per- 
 fections of God impugned. True, I am insignificant ; but 
 yet am party in a cause in which the wisdom, and purity, 
 and power, of the Eternal God are in question." 
 
 It is quite another matter to ask how the crime and the 
 culprit are to be treated. What we have now to do with 
 is only this That every crime, and every culprit, must
 
 52 iATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 eventually corne under legal and retributive notice ; and 
 must, in some way, consistent with good government, be 
 finally disposed of. We must grant this, or else throw out 
 of our scheme of human nature every notion, and impulse, 
 and mode of acting, that implies law and justice good 
 and evil. If we can actually do so, then let us plunge at 
 ease upon the unknown world, with a thousand crimes 
 upon our heads. 
 
 . If not, the question comes How is the transgressor to 
 be dealt with ? And now, if we will but adhere to those 
 intelligible ideas which tacitly regulate human affairs, we 
 shall see that, if ever any authority or tribunal winks at 
 offence, or allows the offender to elude its jurisdiction, or 
 if it remits all inquiry, such an evasion takes place on one 
 of these two grounds either first, That the administrative 
 power is felt to be too feeble to go through with the cause, 
 in the instance of so formidable a culprit ; and that there- 
 fore it is better to put up with the first disgrace, of not 
 making inquiry, rather than endure the dishonour of 
 declaring guilt, which it has no sword to punish : or 
 secondly, That the offence passes up to a higher tribunal. 
 This is a sound and creditable reason for the remission of 
 inquiry, or for the non-exertion of judicial powers. 
 
 But when the cause has so been passed up, through 
 court after court, and comes at length to the last and 
 Supreme tribunal, shall it there be set aside ? It may, even 
 there, if the Supreme Power is infirm ; or if it be corrupt : 
 in other words, if the forms of law and justice are mere 
 pomps, of which all men make their mirth. We do not 
 indeed deny that the First Magistrate, in a vigorous and 
 equitable government, may, if he so please, pardon the 
 culprit ; far from it. But we absolutely deny that he 
 can (unless feeble or corrupt) fail to take cognizance in
 
 THE MEANS OP MERCV. 53 
 
 some manner, of each, and of every cause, which, after 
 having been remitted in turn by inferior courts, is formally 
 assigned to himself as supreme. To pardon an offender 
 upon his submission and confession, is not to \vink at 
 crime, or to lay oblivion upon law ; unless indeed pardon 
 has so become the standing 1 rule of administration > that 
 men are fain to doubt whether there exists at all thepower 
 or the will to punish. In such a case penitence and pardon 
 would both be mockeries ; and neither to be respected more 
 than the motions of wooden figures, the one of which 
 always lifts the arm, when the other lets it fall. 
 
 Can we actually bring together, or hold in union, any 
 such incongruous ideas, as those of a system of law and 
 retribution on the one hand ; and the practice of Univer- 
 sal Pardon, dealt out to offenders by the ultimate and 
 Supreme Power? If all are punished, and punished 
 equitably ; none indeed can complain ; and no confusion 
 is brought in. But if all are pardoned ; and pardoned as 
 a mere act of clemency, the very substance of government 
 is made nugatory. If pardon is the rule punishment 
 the exception, then law is blamed ; or administration 
 proved imbecile. In good and firm governments, punish- 
 ment will be the rule, and pardon the exception : and 
 yet even this exceptive pardon sullies the- brilliancy of 
 power and wisdom, unless clearly it is seen to spring from 
 some law higher or more comprehensive than the law 
 which has been violated. To PARDON WITHOUT REASON 
 is an error, on the part of a sovereign, of which the same 
 may be said as is said of other errors that though a single 
 instance will not destroy a man's reputation, the frequent 
 repetition of it infallibly will do so. A man may be weak 
 once, or thrice ; and retrieve his character ; but if he be 
 weak daily, what is thought of him ?
 
 54 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Yet what is it to pardon with reason, but to act ac- 
 cording- to a rule ; only applying, in each instance, the 
 rule that is in fact most applicable to it. On this principle, 
 the idea of blind or indiscriminate forgiveness will be quite 
 excluded from our conception of the Divine Conduct. 
 
 And now, whoever can persuade himself that it is safe 
 to do so let him go on to the point where death is to meet 
 him (that point is fixed) with his sins, and take the chance 
 of either not meeting Justice in the next world, or of being 
 able to clear himself from its demands. And let him go 
 (would it not be wise ?) well schooled in all those abstruse 
 and conclusive arguments by which it has been shown 
 that there can be nothing formidable in the Divine 
 Character ; nothing inflexible, or firm in the Divine Ad- 
 ministration ; or that the Most High must needs give 
 way to the urgency of the case, when the culprits are found 
 to be millions of millions in number ! Or that he will 
 certainly be moved to relent by a candid acknowledgment 
 of error. The tribunal of Almighty God will be a fit place 
 for discussing metaphysical principles of government ! 
 And the spirit, just shivering in surprise as it has gasped 
 from the body, will doubtless be in mode to make the best 
 of its own cause, and to plead extenuations ! 
 
 But we should not accumulate terrors, or endeavour to 
 carry our point unfairly, by kindling the imagination. 
 No ; let nothing stupendous or appalling, nothing ghastly 
 or horrific, be supposed. Let nothing be thought of but 
 what cool reason, backed by every probability, must antici- 
 pate. Reduce the idea or expectation of the ultimate 
 tribunal to the smallest possible dimensions: let it be 
 thought of as frigidly as we can. The ministers of justice 
 are calm, dispassionate kind even, and mindful only of 
 their duty. Yet assuredly they will do their duty. If the
 
 THE MEANS OF MERCY". 55 
 
 methods of proof are to differ from those which, of necessity, 
 are resorted to on. earth, the substance of the proceedings 
 will be the same. By what means soever made known 
 it is the truth that will come out. None shall be wearied 
 by the tediousness of the trial ; leisure enough shall be 
 granted to carry it through. A man's deeds, in due suc- 
 cession, shall be recounted : and the most succinct and 
 satisfactory method, perhaps, will be for himself to recount 
 them. He may well be trusted to do so ; for he feels at 
 every pore, that the atmosphere of truth is about him. 
 Nay, a blaze of light penetrates his very nature, and the 
 table of memory, like the face of an obelisk, thickly in- 
 scribed, and fronting the sun, may be read by all. 
 
 We need do nothing to fill up our idea of law and jus- 
 tice in the future world, but take as our pattern, the law 
 and justice of earth ; freed only from the imperfections 
 that attend them. These imperfections are that liability 
 to error which sometimes throws the punishment of the 
 guilty upon the head of the innocent and the inapplica- 
 bility of law to any but certain overt acts of sin ; so that it 
 is not more than a sample of the wrongs actually com- 
 mitted by men upon their fellows, that is cognizable to 
 statutes, or liable to punishment. How often does it hap- 
 pen there are found, among the grave assessors of judg- 
 ment, men far more odious in heart, and incomparably 
 more pernicious to society, than the haggard and misguided 
 wretch, who stands trembling at the bar ! And how often, 
 in the crowd that presses around the scaffold, might hun- 
 dreds, be singled out, who deserve to die five times, for the 
 one death inflicted upon him whom the sword of Justice 
 (blind Justice) is to pierce ! These disparagements of 
 human law, though great, are irremediable. But the ine- 
 qualities and the errors that thence arise, shall be rectified 
 
 6*
 
 56 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 in the world of truth. Every offender shall there take hia 
 turn at the bar ; and every offence shall pass under inquiry ; 
 and the verdict in each instance shall be a true one. Who 
 can complain of such a course of things ? 
 
 Those then may be very bold who have no sin : 
 assuredly the tribunal of Almighty God shall do them no 
 harm ! . "Alas ! multitudes have gone to that tribunal with 
 the preposterous confidence of innocence, who, in the eye 
 of God's impartial law, shall be found more guilty than 
 many an abhorred victim of human justice ! 
 
 But what say we of the penalty ? Shall we amuse our 
 leisure by showing the inconclusiveness of certain terrific 
 and probable arguments on this subject ? Shall we spend 
 the hours of life that remain, in gathering reasons which 
 may seem to make it less than absolutely certain, that the 
 very worst that has been affirmed or thought of shall 
 prove to be true ? Shall we court those dreams concern- 
 ing the lenity of the Divine government, which the miseries 
 even of the present life are enough to dissipate? Nay 
 rather, let us admit at once the belief, confirmed as it is by 
 sound reason, and established by religion, that there are 
 purposes, far more extensive and profound than ordinarily 
 we think of, to be carried through upon the human race, 
 by the vigour of Almighty Power. Rather than any 
 longer debilitate the moral forces of the mind, by giving 
 ear to flatteries that breathe the very nausea of sin, let us 
 take up, as the first axiom of our religious notions, the 
 truth That " it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the 
 hands of the Living God !" 
 
 But there is mercy for man. " The Gospel is the power 
 of God for saving all who believe !" Whoever will, let 
 him convince himself, if he can, that the Divine Mercy 
 might flow in other channels than through the Mediation
 
 THE MEANS OF MERCY. 67 
 
 of His Son ; or that it might, without any restriction or 
 condition, spread over the world of sin, as the ocean covers 
 its bed. Such an argument, and the idler who pursues it, 
 must be left in the rear. The infatuations of the sensual 
 and frivolous part of mankind are amazing ; but the infa- 
 tuations of the learned and sophistical are incomparably 
 more so. Or the difference between the two, is as the 
 difference between folly and madness. 
 
 Every proof that could be made to consist with the rules 
 of evidence, establishes the truth of the Christian Religion. 
 The subject of the Christian Religion is the controversy to 
 which sin has given birth, between God and man ; the 
 matter of the Revelation it contains, is the announcement 
 of absolute forgiveness, through the Mediation of Christ. 
 And what is the complexion or character of this Gospel 
 remission ? It is not the consequence of the abrogation of 
 law. It is not a repeal of penalties. It is not a disparage- 
 ment of Supreme Wisdom. It is not a deduction from the 
 supposed power of inflicting punishment and especially, 
 it is not such a mere act of grace as, in the nature of 
 the case, must not stretch very far, lest the punishment of 
 any should seem a captious severity and pardon an un- 
 avoidable compromise. 
 
 The pardon of the Gospel is PARDON FOR A REASON : 
 that is to say, it is pardon granted in compliance with a 
 rule, higher, or more comprehensive, than the law which 
 was broken. The pardon of the Gospel, therefore may 
 be extended without reserve ; because the reason whence 
 it flows is greater than all other reasons. Even if it were 
 to appear at the last, that the myriad has received pardon, 
 and the thousand has been left to endure punishment, the 
 principles of administration would not be sullied ; because, 
 while the demands of Justice are definite, the provision 
 of Grace is unbounded. Grace encompasses Justice.
 
 58 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 And yet, if in any manner we surrender the Divine 
 dignity of the Mediator, the REASON OF PARDON at once 
 disappears ; and the government of God is clouded. Or, 
 (and it is a certain indication that the harmony of truth 
 is spoiled,) the conscience of man receives no lasting 
 peace. Conscience may indeed remain in its native slum- 
 ber, or it may embrace flatteries; but when once it is 
 quickened ; when once the purity of law, and the impar- 
 tiality and vigour of the Divine government have been ad- 
 mitted and the thought of standing at the tribunal of 
 God has firmly lodged itself ia the mind, the well-founded 
 fear of condemnation is in no way to be allayed, until the 
 SUBSTITUTE of the sinner, is known to be THE VERY 
 PARTY, whom the sinner has insulted !
 
 VI. 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " 'Llic world knoweth us not." 
 
 THAT peculiar species of arrogance termed Spiritual 
 Pride, may probably still be found here and there within 
 the precincts of religion ; for we must not suppose that 
 any evil incident to human nature is absolutely extinct. 
 Let it be confessed then, that there are persons, calling 
 themselves Christians, who, confident that they are the 
 special objects of divine favour, look abroad upon the im- 
 piety of mankind, and exult to see they have so few com- 
 petitors for the honours they pretend to ! 
 
 But as it is usual for the most obtrusive or singular prop- 
 erty of any aggregate body to be imputed to the whole, 
 by those who care not to inform themselves correctly of 
 that of which they speak, it happens that irreligious men 
 assume this same spiritual pride to be, not merely a fault 
 to which religionists are liable ; but the universal charao- 
 teristic of all such persons ; and if called upon to explain 
 the fact of the segragation of a portion of the community, 
 on the ground of purer principles than others profess, they 
 deem themselves to have reached the depth of the mystery 
 when they tell you, that (incidental causes admitted) 
 ghostly arrogance is the secret of all extraordinary profes- 
 sions in matters of religion ; a theory this, which, to say 
 nothing of it on the ground of charity, will be found as 
 consonant with truth as those theories visually are, which a
 
 60 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 man frames in impatience and vexation, merely to obtain 
 riddance of a perplexity that gives him frequent annoyance 
 and some alarm. 
 
 But those who know human nature better, and religion 
 better, and the peculiar temper of the age better, do not 
 need to be told that, if spiritual arrogance has prevailed 
 among Christians (by profession) in certain eras, it has, in 
 our own times, very generally given place to a feeling al- 
 most of an opposite kind. The same melancholy facts 
 which, a while ago inflated, perhaps, the pride of some self- 
 styled favourites of Heaven, are now contemplated by be- 
 lievers in the Gospel with a painful emotion, not only of 
 pity and sorrow, but of timidity and discouragement. A 
 mode of thinking at once humane and comprehensive, has 
 in greater or less degree, spread through the church ; a 
 new habit of reflection on the condition of mankind has 
 grown into use : and in the very proportion that Christians 
 have desired more ardently, than heretofore, the propaga- 
 tion of their faith, and have done more to effect it, they 
 have the more become liable to an emotion of sad amaze- 
 ment, or misgiving when they think of the millions afar 
 off, that know not the Revelation of God, or of the 
 thousands at hand, that hold it in contempt. 
 
 This sedative and uneasy feeling (ineffably abhorrent as it 
 is of spiritual conceit or elation) very naturally attaches most 
 strongly to those who have most general intelligence, and 
 modesty (the attendant of intelligence) and are most con- 
 versant with the world ; and who are moreover accustomed 
 fairly to weigh peculiar claims and professions. Such per- 
 sons, and not a few such are to be found, could as soon 
 draw a sinister and malign gratification from the disobe- 
 dience of a son the ; treachery of a friend, or the false 
 . imputation to themselves of a crime, as from the sad truth
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 61 
 
 that multitudes of their countrymen and the great mass of 
 mankind, are destitute of piety. 
 
 The deep and genuine uneasiness that accrues from this 
 source is enhanced, or at least is rendered more oppressive, 
 by the considerations that arise from an exact and impar- 
 tial estimate of the ostensible comparative merits of the 
 religious and the irreligious classes : and while, in survey- 
 ing the latter, a feeling of scrupulous or punctilious candour, 
 and an anxiety to adhere to philosophic justice, dispose 
 them to reckon, at its fullest value, whatever seems good 
 and praiseworthy, and to listen to every extenuation of 
 what is evil ; in reviewing the former class, a sensitive 
 regard to the honour of Christianity (in the abstract) a 
 high conception of the standard of piety and virtue, and 
 a keen jealousy of imposition, lead them into an excessive 
 or faulty caution, in the scrutiny of religious profession ; 
 and generate an over-wrought fear lest they should attri- 
 bute a particle of excellence too much to the side for which 
 the praise of true wisdom and goodness is exclusively 
 challenged. 
 
 Under the iufluence of feelings like these, Christians 
 are tempted to conceal, if it were possible, from themselves, 
 or to maintain silence on that inference which their own 
 hope in Christ obliges them to draw, concerning the peril 
 of those who refuse the great and only salvation which 
 man can know. It is not arrogance, but timidity, of which 
 the Christian body should now be arraigned by the world. 
 But as the world is in error in the capital principle so 
 always in the special points of its quarrel with the church ; 
 it blames that which is praiseworthy, and if, at any time 
 it applauds, makes choice of some blemish, or laxity, as 
 the subject of its commendation. 
 
 A hearty recognition of that obnoxious truth which the 
 7
 
 62 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Scriptures often affirm, and everywhere suppose the par- 
 tition of mankind, in the sight of God, as his friends, or 
 his enemies, is more or less difficult, according to the 
 circumstances of the times we live in ; and will be so in 
 the highest degree precisely at those moments when, in a 
 peculiar manner, it is important ; namely, when the diffu- 
 sive influence of Christianity is so great as to lessen much 
 the apparent difference between Christians and others; by 
 which means obscurity is thrown upon the first principles 
 of the Gospel.' It is plain that, in an age when the purify- 
 ing doctrines of the Scriptures have as yet had no opera- 
 tion beyond the walls of the church, and when, moreover, 
 within those limits, the Gospel is exerting its fullest influ- 
 ence, Christians, conscious as they are both of hopes and 
 of virtues to which none but themselves can pretend, are 
 liable to no embarrassment (whatever grief) in taking up 
 the apostolic profession " We know that we are of God, 
 and that the whole world lieth in wickedness." While 
 the church and the world are in any such relative position, 
 each exhibits its proper internal quality, in the most con- 
 spicuous manner. Purity belongs to the one : shameless 
 corruption to the other. 
 
 The case is reversed when, even if the primary and 
 efficacious power of religion be not much abated, its secon- 
 dary and diffusive influence has become slowly matured, 
 and is very widely extended. At the very season in which 
 Christianity is conferring the greatest benefits upon man- 
 kind at large, by cleansing the atmosphere of the social 
 system, by shedding abroad a general light, and by reprov- 
 ing and repressing flagrant evils, its genuine adherents are 
 the most strongly tempted to suppose that the difference 
 between themselves and others is not vital, or not of infinite 
 consequence. So fatal a surrender of the peculiarity of
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 63 
 
 the Gospel is little likely to take place while all the skies 
 are darkened by the smoke of idolatrous worship, and the 
 church is bcleagured by open war. 
 
 But nothing less than a very distinct and forcible con- 
 ception of things spiritual will avail, in times like our own 
 to keep alive on the mind a truth equally certain and 
 momentous in one age as in another that whoever is riot, 
 in a definite sense,, a Christian, is " yet in his sins," and 
 in peril of the future judgment. The last surviving Apostle 
 when, in the age of Trajan, he looked abroad upon the 
 Roman world, might (inspiration apart) boldly decide as 
 he did in the controversy between the friends and foes of 
 his Master : but to do so now (unless we assume the rule 
 of the sectarist, who judges men by a name) demands, not 
 only all the firmness and courage of true charity ; but an 
 intimate knowledge of the REASON of such a decision. 
 
 And if the inducement silently to compromise what 
 is most peculiar, and most obnoxious, in their profession, 
 is, to all Christians at the present moment, strong ; it is so 
 in an especial manner, to religious writers ; or we should 
 say to those religious writers who, renouncing the favour 
 and patronage of any single body of Christians (a bold 
 measure) are tempted, as a resource, to court the good-will 
 of the world. Besides ; writers of this order, in taking 
 position above the level of petty eminences on which others 
 stand and in adhering to the maxims of absolute indepen- 
 dence, and impartiality, and in .shewing their abhorrence 
 of all sinister practices in matters of religion, bring them- 
 selves into correspondence or contact, with men whose 
 philosophic candour, and largeness of mind, might afford 
 the ground of a firm coalition if it were not that, on the 
 one side principles are professed which the other looks upon 
 as matter of offence, or of scorn. Now in this peculiar
 
 64 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 exigency, the advocate of the great principles of the Gospel 
 is fain to seek for any means of conciliation, that may 
 seem lawful and available. How gladly would he come 
 to agreement with those whose intellectual simplicity might 
 lead him to choose them as his friends ; or to look to them 
 for the only praise he covets ! With this view more 
 expedients than one may be resorted to. 
 
 The first, perhaps, is to employ his pen on subjects 
 indirectly connected with religion, or of secondary impor- 
 tance ; cautiously abstaining from every explicit allusion 
 to those great matters which the world " will not receive," 
 nor the church favourably listen to, unless pronounced in 
 accredited terms. Or if he attempts the higher themes of 
 Christianity, he may endeavour so to approach them 
 through the circuitous and subterraneous passage of 
 abstruse reasoning, that, while his meaning escapes the 
 notice of simple folk, the wise and knowing shall be taken 
 by surprise, and made suddenly to emerge, to their amaze- 
 ment, in the open court of the Temple or at the foot of 
 Mount Calvary ! Or such a writer may fondly think 
 that he shall succeed in so shedding around the principal 
 matters of faith the splendour of secular eloquence, as shall 
 charm classic ears, and enable him to beguile and detain 
 those whom he could not simply convince. 
 
 Much that is plausible might be said in behalf of these, 
 and similar methods of conciliation. But even if they had 
 not, in experiment, proved of small or doubtful utility, a 
 special objection would ret against them, drawn from the 
 peculiar character of the times. The movements and 
 workings of a social system have become too deep and 
 potent, to leave room for operations of a slender, ambigu- 
 ous, or insinuating kind. We are come to no easy and 
 gentle mood of the world's history. This is no hour of
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 65 
 
 leisure and facility, and soft, persuasion. Whoever dares 
 not speak explicitly, and boldly, had belter not speak at all. 
 Nothing can now avail the cause of truth but the courage 
 which truth ought to inspire. 
 
 The middle region, or neutral ground, on which a mild 
 haze rests, and where men of adverse parties might amuse 
 each other with indistinct and interminable parleys, that 
 having no serious intention, could have no determinable 
 result, has been of late almost entirely deserted. Strag- 
 glers, and the idle remain there ; the frivolous and the 
 infirm. But men of vigour (of all parties) have gone off, 
 and taken another position ; have severally moved forward, 
 at quick pace, on the course toward which they had been 
 looking, at leisure. The adherents of the Gospel must 
 then either forfeit all chance of a hearing, or act with a 
 correspondent energy and promptitude. If in any time, 
 during the course of ages, there has been need, on the part 
 of Christians, of that boldness which walks abreast with 
 truth and wisdom, this is such a time. And it is now that 
 whatever is capital and essential in Christianity should be 
 clearly and strenuously affirmed. And now it is (how 
 unutterably desirable !) that whatever overloads, encum- 
 bers, defaces, our faith, should be thrown aside. The day 
 we have to pass through will assuredly prove that private 
 loyalty to Christ is not enough for the champions of the 
 Gospel. Whoever is loaded with the stuff of this world 
 whether interests or prejudices, will be chased from the 
 field, or fall there ingloriously. 
 
 Those must have allowed themselves to think confus- 
 edly ; or have scarcely thought at all ; or have been 
 dealing upon dreams, who have not learned what is the 
 moral condition and tendency of a vast mass of our coun- 
 trymen, perhaps the majority of almost every rank, at the 
 
 7*
 
 66 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 present moment. And if indeed any are thus ignorant of 
 what it behoves all to understand, the next evolution of 
 the social body the natural and (unless prevented) in- 
 evitable expansion of existing causes, will amaze them, as 
 if it were the most unheard prodigy. It is thus, usually, 
 that those sudden changes which the historian (benefited as 
 he is by his knowledge of after facts) sagely speaks of as 
 the simple consequence of precursive events, astound the 
 men of the age in which they happen. 
 
 A certain order of intelligence (not founded on principles, 
 and open to impulse on any side) has, as every one knows, 
 gpread rapidly through all orders. And while none but 
 the lowest or most degraded class has failed to take a share 
 in this advancement, the classes next in elevation to the 
 lowest have participated therein in a degree which bears 
 no proportion to any improvement that has had place in 
 the highest class. Those who, within a brief period, have 
 stepped forward far in advance of their late position, see 
 well that the interval between them and their superiors 
 has been lessened, almost to the whole extent of their own 
 progress. The upper rank has not become wise, in the 
 proportion that the inferior has become knowing. We 
 need be no great proficients in human nature to divine the 
 sentiments, unconfessed and latent perhaps, which such a 
 perception will engender ; and yet it is not precisely with 
 these sentiments, or with the consequences they are likely 
 to involve, that we are here concerned. 
 
 The statement of the general fact of the intellectual 
 advancement of the people is now trite ; nor can it well 
 be called in question. But what is the bearing of this 
 state of things upon Christaiiity ? verily we believe it to be 
 favourable ; if those causes are taken into account which 
 lie quite beyond the range of secular calculation. But far
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 67 
 
 otherwise if secular and visible causes only are to be looked 
 to ; and it is with these alone that human agency is con- 
 nected. The sad truth is most conspicuous, that though 
 the diffusion of knowledge has not alienated from Christ- 
 ianity those who were already effectively acquainted with 
 it (far otherwise) and though multitudes, to whom the 
 recent light has scarcely reached, remain nearly where 
 they were, in matters of religion that is to say, as igno- 
 rant of it as Caffres ; there is a great body of the people, 
 of every class, whom it has served to detach or to disaffect, 
 or to prepare for any sort of impiety. And yet men do 
 not very readily shake off even the prejudices they hold in 
 least esteem ; but retain them as habits, and look to them 
 wistfully, after the substantial surrender has been made. 
 And so it is that Christianity its formalities at least, stands 
 now on the threshold of thousands and tens of thousands 
 of our English homes melancholy sight like an offend- 
 ed or slighted inmate ready to depart for ever ; and yet 
 not quite resolved to go ! 
 
 Untaught, unguided, and in suspense on all momentous 
 subjects, myriads of the English people, who have learned 
 to think, but who receive no sound instruction, listlessly 
 contemplate the speckled Christianity of our times uncer- 
 tain what part to choose ; and therefore actually choosing 
 the part of impiety, or of fatal indifference. Whither 
 should they resort ? Not (or it is only the debauched who 
 will do so) not to the teachers of atheism : impudent and 
 frantic men, who have given the best refutation to their 
 folly, by their enormities ! The English character must 
 fall many many degrees below its present level, before it 
 can happen that large masses of the community, or any 
 thing but its scums and dregs, shall be seen to circulate 
 around these vortices of impurity and blasphemy.
 
 68 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 What then are the alternatives? Shall this detached 
 mass, rife as it is with conceit, as much as with intelligence, 
 quietly yield itself to be moored back to the haven of 
 established fornis, to which it has already become strange ? 
 Shall those whose prime lesson, in all that has been taught 
 them of late, is, that whatever is ancient is therefore faulty, 
 accept anew, as good and right, a system which the lapse 
 of centuries has not benefited by a single amendment 7 It 
 were well if it could be so. Would to God that the erring 
 of dubious thousands of the people might, even now, and 
 under almost any condition, fall back upon the Great 
 Truths which the Reformation gave us, and which the 
 National Church preserves ! But alas ! can we seriously 
 anticipate such a movement ? In a sense we grant it to 
 be probable : those who hope well for what they term 
 " The Church," are thinking only of the most meagre 
 and insincere conformity. This is all they care for all 
 they understand. Now nothing absolutely forbids it to be 
 supposed that the classes of which we have spoken may 
 continue to yield an external and occasional compliance 
 with certain national religious usages which, when so 
 complied icith, are of as much value as beads and holy 
 water, or as the praying windmills of the Tartars. This 
 sort of Church of Englandism may perhaps endure a 
 while longer : Who shall sny how long ? But are we 
 so dull in understanding as to wish that it should 1 Do 
 we not know that matters of ritual which may have some 
 real value and wholesome influence (though not of the 
 highest kind) while a people are in a simple or primitive 
 state, that is to say, while they are ruled by sentiment 
 by venerable prejudice, and by association, cease to possess 
 any utility after sentiment has been dispelled by the spirit 
 of incredulity and mockery ? We have learned nothing
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD, j 69 
 
 of what has been taking place of late, if we imagine that, 
 either the 'squire, or the citizen, or the artisan, who now 
 comes up to the altar, or attends his offspring to the font, 
 is a being of the same order as was his father or his grand- 
 father. Are we then satisfied, and do we think that all ia 
 well and safe, merely because the 'squire, and the citizen, 
 and the artisan, still bring their bodily presence to church, 
 even though we know, or might know, that instead of the 
 heartiness and the reverence of the past generation, the 
 bosoms of these men are harbouring contempt, repugnance 
 or a fixed infidelity ? 
 
 Amazing inobservance ! if we can suppose that, to the 
 people such as they have actually become, it can avail any 
 thing the way of moral or religious influence to frequent 
 church five times in the year to be christened, confirmed, 
 married, in due form ; to receive the sacrament at the 
 last exigency, and to be buried as believers. The nation 
 has gone beyond the power of these forms. The Parish 
 Church stands where it did ; but the mind of the country- 
 has escaped from between the sacred walls. Not uni- 
 versally indeed ; far otherwise : we are speaking, not 
 of the passive and sluggish portion of the the community ; 
 but of the active, and sensitive, and intelligent or the 
 half intelligent. And ought the welfare of such to be a 
 matter of no solicitude ? 
 
 But even if the slenderest sort of conformity were all 
 that we cared for, the course we pursue is very little adapt- 
 ed to secure it. What are the simple facts? In the 
 hearing of the people, the original defects of the national 
 forms, and the abuses that have grown upon the establish- 
 ment, have lately been talked of with the utmost freedom. 
 The people have listened, while men, the best informed, 
 and the most moderate (not the enemies of the Church but
 
 70 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 its friends) have confessed the necessity of revision have 
 implored attention to the great question from those who 
 should first take in hand. But all this discussion, all these 
 entreaties come to nothing ! Nothing may be hoped for. 
 Pertinacity is to have its triumph perilous triumph ! It 
 is a point of honour to spurn amendment. To change an 
 iota would be to acknowledge that the Fathers of the En- 
 glish Church were not inspired were somewhat inferior 
 to the Apostles. That which indeed is venerable and good 
 in the national forms and modes (and it is much) must be 
 put in peril for the sake of enforcing from the people an 
 irrationable homage to certain excrescences, which all men 
 inwardly abhor ! 
 
 Such are the infatuations that controul human affairs ! 
 Ruin thus wilfully produced, is no new thing ; it is the 
 common order of events. So much wisdom as might 
 conserve, rescue, restore, re-edify, belongs not to mankind ; 
 and for want of it, when the hour of peril comes, nations 
 are thrown upon revolution and anarchy. And yet every 
 thing seems to invite and to facilitate that line of proceeding 
 which the times call for. In the English character there 
 is not only sobriety and moderation, but a singular readi- 
 ness to greet with applauses any proof of good intention, 
 and honesty, and intelligence, in persons of high station. 
 True faction is always awake among us ; but there ia 
 also (and in the great mass of the people) a prompt and 
 cordial approbation of whatever is manifestly well meant 
 by governing powers. The nation that is, the thousand 
 to the one, would bear aloft upon- its shields whoever 
 would now act for it the part of courage, and prudence, 
 and conciliation, in matters of religion. The nation would 
 put the violent and the captious to shame yes, and it 
 would return with joy to the walls of a wisely re-estabish- 
 ed Church.
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 71 
 
 But the hope of any such restoration is fond and vain ! 
 While the people are daily falling off from Christianity, 
 because their highest welfare is not thought of because 
 their actual state is not considered because the salvation 
 of millions of souls is a trivial matter, if it implies the 
 giving up of this or that childish prejudice while these 
 things are happening, our creeds and forms shall be pre- 
 served to a tittle : and to secure so high and worthy an 
 end to secure it in the actual state of the country, all 
 the corrupt motives of acquiescence must be doubly stim- 
 ulated : the people, in the many modes which state policy 
 is skilled in, must be bribed to quietness and silence. And 
 especially, they must be taught that, in matters of Religion, 
 if man be but pleased God is always easy. All this 
 must be done : yes, and it shall prosper if the Almighty 
 has consigned us to desolation ! And is it so then, that our 
 sons, and theirs again, are to be driven down the steeps of 
 unbelief ; because, for sooth, the jealousies of the imbecile, 
 and the emoluments of the. corrupt, must not be touched ! 
 
 But it is loudly asked in another quarter Whether the 
 intelligent thousands of the English people might not do 
 better, or have not an alternative, besides that of bowing 
 to infidelity, or of cringing to an establishment which will 
 listen to no reproofs ? Difficult question ! or difficult un- 
 less we are willing, and able, fairly to place ourselves for a 
 moment in the position of the persons of whom we are 
 speaking the intelligent, yet imperfectly informed, and 
 irreligious, of all ranks. If from that position we look 
 Abroad upon the many-coloured array of our religious 
 parties, we shall instantly cease to wonder that Christianity 
 in England has as little reason to boast of extensive 
 triumphs under its simplest, as in its most elaborate forms. 
 The grand mischief whenever we are endeavouring to as-
 
 72 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 sail the prejudices of others is this that we do not, or will 
 not, consider the light in which ourselves, and our attempts, 
 appear to them. It is too much, to expect that our unin- 
 formed neighbours, or our countrymen at large, should 
 make themselves conversant with that prodigious mass of 
 theological lore which must be known before any one can 
 fully and fairly appreciate the justificatory argument of 
 each of our sects. To exculpate each to respect each, a 
 man must be familiar with the circumstances of the times 
 wherein it originated ; he must be master of the merits of 
 many entangled controversies, and must fairly and calmly 
 estimate the mutual influence of sect upon sect. Not a whit 
 less labour and diligence is necessary for correctly measur- 
 ing the respective claims of religious parties, than would 
 make a man erudite in the most multifarious of the 
 sciences. Nothing of this sort can reasonably be looked for. 
 
 Meanwhile the intelligent, and the half intelligent the 
 few who are thoroughly well informed on all subjects 
 except religion ; and the myriads who now know some- 
 thing; of many sciences, but nothing of this, can hardly be 
 blamed if they take up a notion which, though substan- 
 tially false, is apparently rational. Such persons (lamen- 
 table case !) are impelled to suppose, either that Christianity 
 is so indeterminate a system that its most careful and seri- 
 ous adherents are unable to fix its meaning, and therefore 
 that it is well to keep clear altogether of the anxious per- 
 plexities it involves ; or that, by some fatality, it breeds 
 a spirit of trivial scrupulosity, productive of interminable 
 discords. It will be, for the most part, utterly in vain to 
 assure such misjudging spectators that their idea of the 
 religious parties is incorrect and distorted. The ostensible 
 fact will outweigh all explanations. 
 
 Thus it is that the souls of men are sported with on all
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 73 
 
 sides ! How little do we consider the infinite mischiefs 
 we occasion when we give indulgence to SMALL MOTIVES 
 in matters of religion ! Would to God that, at length, 
 good men might learn to calculate all the consequences 
 remote and distant perhaps, but immensely important, of 
 that theological and ecclesiastical inflexibility, by which 
 they think to prove their loyalty to Christ ! Alas, those 
 for whom Christ died are fixed in unbelief by the spectacle 
 of this same immoveable purity !* 
 
 Let it be granted, and it is unquestionably true, that the 
 entrance of the Gospel into the human heart is vehemently 
 opposed by that hostility which is the product of the defec- 
 tion of the race ; and that this hostility is independent and 
 irrespective of any exterior disadvantage under which 
 Christianity may labour. Yes ; but obstacles of this in- 
 trinsic sort, which have always to be encountered, great as 
 they may be, are not found to prevent the triumphs of re- 
 ligion, where its spread is not prevented by other causes. 
 The Lord vanquishes his own foes ; and he does so with 
 omnipotent grace and ease. To break and subdue the 
 
 * Our sects (the principal of them) are the product of the same era 
 that gave us our Establishment : and the one form of Christianity 
 is just the antithesis of the other. If the advancement ol society in 
 the course of three centuries renders a revision of the one indispen- 
 sable ; so does it of the other. Rocked by the. winds of discord in 
 the same cradle; though always at variance, Dissent and Conform- 
 ity are alike antique; and while both happily comprise the great 
 and unchanging verities of the Gospel ; both are what times and 
 men have made them. The dissident loudly speaks of this obsolete 
 character of the Church. But impartial men will be apt to think 
 that, if we ought now to see something better, or more mature, 
 than was thought of, or could be effected, by Cranmer, Jewel, Hook- 
 er ; a like revision should take place of the notions and institutions 
 of Brown, Prynne, and Owen. 
 
 8
 
 74 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 human heart, with all its obduracy, and to cleanse it, not' 
 withstanding all its impurity, is his proper work. And he 
 glories to perform it. But when the Gospel comes to a 
 stand, or sleeps within its limits, from age to age ; or only 
 slowly spreads along with the increase of population, the 
 cause of the stagnation is to be found, either in the slug- 
 gishness, the feuds, or the follies of the Church ; not in 
 the universal enmity of the heart to God. The Lord does 
 not interpose to overcome that hostility or contempt which 
 the misconduct of his people calls forth. It is the second- 
 ary or incidental, far more than the primary prejudices, 
 that hold mankind at a distance from truth. We refuse 
 to see and believe this ; and therefore marvel at the impiety 
 and obduracy of mankind ; when nothing is more con- 
 spicuous than its proximate cause. 
 
 A candid review of the entire course of Church history 
 must convince any one, that very high degrees of personal 
 piety and virtue piety and virtue even of the most exalted 
 order, often consists with a participation of egregious errors, 
 of that sort which attaches more to a body or community 
 at large, than to individuals. This truth has been lost 
 sight of in every age ; and in our own times. For ex- 
 ample ; while we know by personal consciousness, and by 
 happy fellowship with others, that Christianity exists 
 among us in much vigour and purity, and is bringing forth 
 its fruits in all quarters of the land, we repel indignantly 
 the supposition that the entire Christian body may be 
 capitally in fault. And yet, were not the Jansenists, and 
 the men of Port Royal Christians ? Were not Pascal and 
 Fenelon men of God ? Well were it, if we could now 
 match them in elevation, devotedness, spirituality. Never- 
 theless, did they not stand forth as the zealous (not the 
 passive) adherents of their Meretricious and Idolatrous
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 75 
 
 Church ? and in every age that same Church collectively 
 abominable in the sight of Heaven, has embraced on her 
 false and foul bosom, worthies, in whom the apostolic age 
 might have gloried. 
 
 Is it not then a culpable delusion which would impel 
 any party to resent suppositions of the kind now in hand 
 merely because piety, fervent, pure, and zealous, is seen to 
 be flourishing among us ? How much of that piety does 
 the world know any thing of? The world enters not our 
 closets : knows nothing of our hearts ; and knows but little, 
 even of the exterior behaviour of the obscure thousands 
 who must adorn their profession. But it sees, and knows, 
 and ruminates upon, our visible disagreements : it meas- 
 ures our alienations ; listens to the din when angry spirits 
 wake the winds of strife ; and, in a word, discerns what- 
 ever is discreditable ; is uniformed of, or incompetent to 
 appreciate, whatever is true and good. 
 
 Who can say what might now have been the religious 
 condition of England if our several dissident communities 
 had, a century ago, calmly and wisely returned to the path 
 which their freedom from political control left open to them 
 which the plain rule of the New Testament points out ; 
 and which common sense so distinctly approves ? Almost 
 confidently it may be affirmed, that an unbroken harmony 
 among its opponents, must have compelled, or would have 
 induced, the Established Church, both to revise its forms 
 and constitutions ; and to rescind its ill-omened demand of 
 an unconditional and universal approval of the same, as 
 the term of communion. And then, on the other side, how 
 much such a proof of the vigor and glory of the Gospel has 
 affected the minds of the mass of the people ! Our faith 
 in Christianity altogether is put in jeopardy, if we hesitate 
 to believe that a Harmonious Church freed from all
 
 76 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 secular hostility, or restraint, would fail to spread itself 
 rapidly, and to prevail. 
 
 " The world knoweth us not :" sad truth ; for it means 
 nothing less than this, that the bulk of mankind still 
 remains far from God and hope ! Sad, even when the 
 blame of this ignorance rests altogether upon its victims ; 
 but how ineffably afflictive, when the fault is shared, in 
 equal portions, between the world and the Church ! If 
 this age of dimness is soon to pass away, it will ere long 
 be seen that the Head of the Church, either by the stu- 
 pendous movements of his providence, or by conferring in 
 a signal manner grace and wisdom on his people, removes 
 from it that reproach of culpable folly which extenuates 
 the impiety of the world.
 
 VII. 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 
 
 " TViy testimonies are my meditation." 
 
 An obvious distinction leads us to distribute the study of 
 Holy Scripture under three heads ; namely 1st, The 
 devout and practical ; 2nd, The critical, or verbal ; and 
 3rd, The scientific, or theological. If the first of these be 
 wanting, there is no piety at all, and no- virtue in the 
 church : if the second, no certitude ; no good sense ; no 
 barrier against extravagance, heresy, or infidelity : if the 
 third be at a low ebb, there is no intelligence ; no advance- 
 ment, and therefore, by necessity, a retrogression and decay 
 in that kind of knowledge which should furnish guidance 
 and motive, both to devout and critical studies ; and which 
 especially should gather in the fruit of the latter. 
 
 Of the first of these branches of biblical study, it may 
 be said, that 'if it does not at present signally flourisIT, 
 neither is it remarkably deficient. The second is the spe- 
 cific praise of our times : and waits only for the aid it 
 should receive from the third, to reach perhaps its acme. 
 Of the last, nothing can be affirmed that is very encour- 
 aging ; unless it be the negative advantage (and this is a 
 real one) that the room it should occupy stands vacant. 
 
 It is a law of the intellectual world That the mental 
 connexion between words or customary phrase?, and the 
 ideas or notions they represent, tends incessantty to disso- 
 lution ; and that the rate of this dissolution is accelerated, 
 or retarded, in proportion to the frequency with which 
 
 ' 8*
 
 78 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Biich words and phrases ^ass over the lips of mankind. 
 This gravitation, which bring the heavier substance 
 (knowledge) down, as a residuum, and leaves the lighter 
 (language) to float as a frothy crust on the surface, is to be 
 counteracted only by continual agitation of the mass. 
 Illustrations of this law are abundant in every department 
 of philosophy. Let it, for instance, be supposed, that at a 
 certain period, metaphysical studies are eagerly pursued ; 
 that the energies of many vigorous minds are intently 
 concentrated upon them ; that multitudes of the educated 
 class make themselves familiar with the rival systems that 
 are promulgated ; anfl that, as a consequence (whether or 
 not truth be ascertained) the entire vocabulary of abstract 
 science passes under deliberate review, receives new modi- 
 fications, and is issued afresh, like a coinage, in full weight, 
 duly assayed, and with a sharp image, and resplendent 
 surface. 
 
 Now if it should happen that this study, so revived and 
 invigorated as to tighten anew the bonds that connect 
 words with ideas, does, after being consigned to books, dis- 
 appear in the very next age ; or is cherished and trans- 
 mitted only by a small number of the learned class in 
 that case the men of an afier-age may find it, as it was 
 left, and where it was left: and may bring abroad the long 
 latent science in all its beauty and precision. 
 
 But let us imagine, on the contrary, that this same met- 
 aphysical philosophy had gone down to the next age, and 
 then to the next, in all its popularity ; and had continued, 
 as at first, to constitute the ordinary topic of converse 
 among well-informed persons ; and yet had not, in all that 
 time, drawn to itself any renewed energy, from powerful 
 minds? ; but that each generation, transmitting what it had 
 received, imparted to it no reanimation. The inevitable 

 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 79 
 
 consequence would be that the principles, axioms, deduc- 
 tions, distinctions, and modes of proof which we should 
 find on all men's tongues, would be on their tongues, only. 
 And not only would it appear that distinct ideas and no- 
 tions had, to a great extent, subsided from the popular 
 mind ; but that such as were retained, bore extremely 
 little resemblance to those that belonged to the original 
 science. For though men had ceased to work upon the 
 philosophy, Nature and Time had been busy with it, and 
 had imposed upon it many strange modifications. 
 
 The history of Science has many times verified the 
 operation of these laws ; and indeed the revolution only of 
 a few years is often enough to exhibit their influence. Let 
 but some hotly agitated question of policy, or political 
 economy, cease to be vigorously treated, and yet continue 
 to be matter of common conversation ; and we shall find, 
 in ten years, or seven ; perhaps in three, that words, 
 phrases, and wonted forms of expression, on such subjects, 
 have slipped their meaning ; and being disburdened of the 
 weight which once they carried, have taken the wing, and 
 float, vague, and idle, in upper air. 
 
 Scriptural knowledge is open to the same influence ; but 
 happily not to the same extent ; or rather, not without 
 powerful correctives. For although religious principles 
 undergo, a far more extended pervulgation than those of 
 any secular science, they arise fresh from the spring-head 
 more readily and copiously, than any other truths. Nor 
 should we omit to include, or fail to take great account of, 
 that perpetual and invisible agency from above, which 
 maintains always the connexion (more or less complete) 
 between piety and truth ; so that, even when sacred 
 knowledge is at the lowest ebb, as a science, or is almost 
 wholly neglected by men of intelligence, it lives essentially 
 wherever faith, humility, and prayer, are found.
 
 80 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 That portion of Heavenly Wisdom which, under such 
 circumstances, survives and is cherished, will be just the 
 first articles of belief the SAVING RUDIMENTS* of spirit- 
 ual life. Of these, the Head of the Church himself takes 
 care lest faith should utterly disappear from the earth. But 
 beside the inestimable jewel of elementary knowledge the 
 price of which can never be told ; does there not rest 
 within the folds of the Inspired Book an inexhaustible 
 store, which the industry of man (piously directed) ought 
 to elicit ; but which, if men neglect it, the Lord will not 
 force upon their notice ? It is this hidden treasure which 
 should animate the ambition of vigorous and devout minds. 
 From such, at second-hand, the -body of the faithful are to 
 receive it, if at all : and if not so obtained for them, and 
 dealt out by their teachers, nothing will be more meagre, 
 unfixed, almost infantile, than the faith of Christians. 
 
 A consideration of many circumstances (some secular, 
 some ecclesiastical) and of circumstances independent one 
 of another, is involved in a question relative to the present 
 state of the scientific, or theological knowledge of the Scrip- 
 tures. Without pretending to treat, at large, so great a mat- 
 ter, we shall casually mention some points that first present 
 themselves. 
 
 At a time when the Christian community is not in any 
 sense secluded : is not defended in purity, or compacted 
 by the overt hostility of the world, it is natural that the 
 spirit of the Church should be nearly one and the same 
 with the common spirit of the age. And if we ask, Why 
 do not the higher and more recondite themes of sacred 
 knowledge receive the profound attention of distinguished 
 men, and from them descend to the mass of Christians ? 
 
 * Heb. v. 12.
 
 STATE OP SACRED SCIENCE. 81 
 
 it is both just and natural to reply Because nothing that 
 is profound, recondite, or great and arduous, in any line, 
 commands much respect, or absorbs the energies of eminent 
 minds. 
 
 It has now become trite to announce the fact that ours 
 is the age of diffusion, abatement, mediocrity : and while 
 the philanthropist, as he justly may (to some extent) tri- 
 umphs in the course which the human mind is taking, few 
 stop to calculate the remote consequences of the course ; 
 or ask what may be its immediate but less obvious results. 
 
 If a complete analogy subsisted between the worlds of 
 matter and mind, there would be a palpable reason always 
 for exulting in the levelling of eminences ; an operation 
 which (mathematicians tell us) elevates the general surface 
 whereon lately they stood : but the inference from the one 
 system to the other is fallacious ; or at least imperfect. The 
 fact is certain, that this age of warfare upon whatever is 
 exclusive, or select, this day of " scattering," not of 
 " gathering," is singularly wanting, as might have been 
 anticipated, in those higher qualities and manifestations of 
 the human mind which refuse to be doted out and shared 
 among the many. The INDIVIDNAL POAVER which his- 
 tory fondly looks to disappears. The history of our times, 
 when it shall come to be compiled, will be that of masses, 
 not of persons ; of communities, not of leaders. 
 
 Now after all has been granted that can be said in re- 
 commendation of this order of things, it remains to ask, 
 whether an unbounded expansion of the energies of the 
 intellectual world does not bring with it a probable decay 
 and decline of each power ? There are those who will 
 affirm the contrary ; and will tell us that, in matters of 
 mind, diffusion is accumulation : and participation en- 
 hancement. Our sons will be able to pronounce upon
 
 82 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 this problem more certainly than ourselves": meanwhile it 
 must be admitted that those productions or discoveries 
 which most ennoble humanity, or enlarge our sphere of 
 thought, sentiment, or action, are not germinated on the 
 surface ; are not concocted abroad ; rise not from the fer- 
 mentation of rude masses ; but come from the secrecy of 
 individual bosoms ; and do not bless the world until after 
 they have reached some maturity in their womb and 
 cradle. 
 
 Nature, it is probable, bestows upon mankind, from age 
 to age, a nearly equal measure of intellectual power. But 
 the splendid instances of original endowment make their 
 appearance or not ; rise to the surface, or remain buried 
 in the soil, according to the temperament of the times. 
 And if prevailing barbarism, and civil anarchy, and a taste 
 for war, repress or destroy the germs of mind ; it is also 
 true that, in eras of boasted advancement, and universal or 
 general refinement, they may fail to be evolved, from the 
 want of shelter, of peculiarity, of privilege, and of the con- 
 centration of exciting causes. Genius, as it has often been 
 said (and we may include every species of high mental 
 power) flourishes most midway between the two extreme 
 points of social advancement ; or just in that stage of its 
 progress where the few possess the greatest possible advan- 
 tage over the many, consistently with that degree of intel- 
 lectual life in the many, which opens a field, and affords 
 motive to the ambition of the few. Europe, as it seems, 
 has already gone through that bright middle season ; 
 has given birth to her complement of illustrious men ; has 
 done with the admiration of CHIEFS ; and will hence- 
 forth move forward, in mass, by the force, and under the 
 guidance of the COMMON MIND. 
 
 The true character of the age is not incorrectly indicated
 
 STATE OP SACRED SCIENCE. 83 
 
 (indeed is very fairly represented) by the style of our 
 literature: and the style of our literature, and the influencea 
 to which it is subjected, are so intimately connected with 
 the state of theological studies, that they demand special 
 consideration. 
 
 The extension of knowledge, and the incalculable multi- 
 plication of readers, has effected, in an indirect manner, a 
 revolution in literature as complete as that produced by the 
 invention of printing, though less conspicuous. The sim- 
 ple circumstance that books have become one of the most 
 considerable articles of commerce, has reversed the direction 
 of the influence of which the press is the medium. Our 
 literature is commanded, or controlled, by the people ; and 
 only in a secondary sense commands them. The READER 
 has grown into an importance that makes him lord of the 
 WRITER. Authors furnish (how should they do other- 
 wise) that which readers ask for ; or will receive. Until 
 of late, and in all informed communities, men of high en- 
 dowments exercised, in their several departments, a sort of 
 domination perhaps more exempt than any other from the 
 reaction of the governed upon the governing power. Not 
 absolutely, but yet in a great degree, mind has wrought 
 alone ; has produced its fruits spontaneously ; and has 
 confided those fruits, without fear and without care, to the 
 admiration and conservation of mankind. For the better 
 or the worse, writers have, in all ages but our own, been 
 the leaders of the intelligence of the world. 
 
 We speak of this new order of things at large, and in 
 its essential character, without denying the many excep- 
 tions and mitigations to which it is open. But if a plain 
 iact is to be spoken of in plain terms it is this, that Books 
 have at last thoroughly come under the laws that regulate 
 the quantity, quality, fashion, form and colour, of silks,
 
 84 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 potteries, furniture, jewels, and other articles of artificial 
 life. Now who does not know that the purchaser of any 
 such commodity must (whatever special circumstances may 
 seem to disguise the fact) stand in the relation of Master to 
 the manufacturer, the artist, the workman? The excep- 
 tions to the rule are when the production is of so rare or 
 peculiar a kind that a monopoly is enjoyed by the few who 
 can appear as venders : or when the demand is so limit- 
 ed that the traffic escapes the notice of the spirit of Trade : 
 and so enjoys a sort of snug liberty, under shelter of its 
 mere insignificance. Both these circumstances have, in 
 former times, protected literature from the interference of 
 commercial motives. Neither of them is now in operation. 
 
 Whatever is important enough to attract to itself a large 
 and fair proportion of the capital of a country must, spite 
 of the sensitiveness or high sentiments of any of the parties 
 concerned, yield obedience to the paramount principles of 
 commerce. It is an illusion to suppose that any very ex- 
 tensive or permanent exemptions from the laws of trade, 
 can have place in matters of trade. Mind struggles much 
 against these mighty powers ; and writhes under their tyr- 
 anny : but its resistance is successful only in single in- 
 stances ; or for an hour. Our modern literature has ONE 
 REASON, and of this reason the buyer is the sovereign ; 
 and the vender the interpreter ; and the writer the slave. 
 
 When therefore a boast is made (and it is a well-founded 
 boast) of the incalculable increase of general intelligence, 
 and of the spread of taste and knowledge, two conditions 
 of this improved state of things should be kept in mind ; 
 namely, the present or immediate effect of it upon the pro- 
 ductive class ; and its probable, we might say certain 
 effect upon the next age. As it would be an absurd pet- 
 ulance to repine at that course of things which none can
 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 85 
 
 tugi, and which confers benefits upon myriads ; so would 
 it be absurd to suppose that a literature thus overruled by 
 the myriad, should continue to be the same in quality as 
 it was in classic eras, when it led the taste of the smallest 
 and most select portion of the community. Can we indeed 
 believe that a revolution effected under influences such as 
 we have named, will be altogether favourable in its results? 
 
 The change that has occurred not only affects the style 
 of writing, and the choice of subjects ; but the ultimate 
 motives and purposes of authors : controuls their princi- 
 ples, or destroys them ; and even more, it determines, in 
 a great degree, what individuals shall exercise the function 
 of authorship ; and what be restrained from doing so. 
 Those who, under the ancient order of things, would have 
 written from spontaneous impulses, and at the call of direct 
 motives, and who would have occupied the arena almost 
 alone, stand now in a position essentially unlike that of 
 their more fortunate predecessors. For not only have they 
 to sustain a dubious comparison with competitors, more 
 likely than themselves to win immediate applause ; but 
 the utmost degree of success which they are likely to obtain, 
 consisting in the admiration of a small class in their own 
 and other countries, now appears so mean a thing by the 
 side of vulgar celebrity, that it takes to itself the shame of 
 positive failure. The peril of this sort of disgrace outweighs 
 (it is probable) in some highly gifted minds, the ambition 
 of distinction, and retains them in obscurity. 
 
 While we are rejoicing in the numerous band of accom- 
 plished men who so ably occupy the press ; we should 
 pause and ask, whether some of its legitimate masters are 
 not holding back, and refusing to exercise their function. 
 It may moreover fairly be questioned whether the order of 
 nature is followed, or abandoned, when the contact of 
 
 9
 
 86 SATURDAY 
 
 writers, in the highest departments, with the imperfectly 
 educated classes, is immediate* Heretofore it has been, 
 that the slowly matured products of great and tranquil 
 spirits, afier passing through minds of the next rate, have 
 been disseminated over the wider surface of society by 
 their means. Now it is plain that what is written and 
 intended for the class of instnicters, will be very unlike 
 that which is prepared directly for the instructed. It is 
 indeed always well that writers should labour to attain per- 
 spicuity, and simplicity, and vivacity ; but it is well when 
 they feel themselves compelled (as in terror) to avoid what- 
 ever supposes in the reader high culture and intelligence ? 
 It would however be a culpable inadvertency not to 
 mention the reaction, or rather interaction, which at 
 present is going on between readers and writers. If 
 writers have, too much become the obsequious servants of 
 a slenderly-informed multitude, it is also true that while- 
 they are anxiously mindful of their master's wishes, and 
 careful not to offend, and especially not to perplex him, 
 they reconcile themselves to the degradation the)' undergo 
 by striving to dignify their labours with as much abstract 
 excellence as may consist with popularity. By this lauda- 
 ble ambition the taste of the public is improved ; and, as a 
 natural consequence, a still better commodity than at first 
 is asked for, and favourably received. This amended taste 
 stimulates again the endeavours of writers ; and it is hard 
 to say where the continual approximation to what is good, 
 will find its limit. 
 
 Nevertheless the highest fruits of mind are of a consti- 
 tution far too delicate to be thus produced. Under the 
 present mercantile regimen the diffusion of knowledge may 
 spread much wider than it yet has; and at a quicker rate; 
 and a certain amount of intelligence may become the
 
 STATE OP SACAED SCIENCE. 87 
 
 common property of the people :~ but is there not reason 
 to predict the non-appearance of works that might descend 
 to distant ages ? Arid as the experiment is new, it remains 
 to be seen whether, even general intelligence can be long 
 upheld while decay is taking place in the higher depart- 
 ments of literature ; whether the mind of a people can be 
 kept alive at all, on the democratic principle ; whether, 
 in a word, the course we are running on, though crowded 
 with gaiety and stir, is not leading to the depression of 
 learning, taste, and philosophy. 
 
 Whatever may be the anticipations we form on this 
 subject, they would but imperfectly hold good in matters 
 of Religion ; for the rise and fall of religious feeling and 
 knowledge are determined by powers (divine and human) 
 that lie quite beyond the sphere of the causes we have 
 adverted to. In reference therefore to this class of litera- 
 ture, we are safe only while looking to actual facts ; and 
 must leave futurity untouched. And even in reference to 
 what is under our immediate observation, great exceptions 
 must be reserved in favour of what does not shew itself on 
 the surface of the religious world : we well know that all 
 that is purest and best lies in the deepest obscurity. If it 
 were not so, it would be disheartening indeed to remember 
 that religious literature, far from being exempt from the 
 law of trade, is, in some respects, more directly subject to 
 that infelicitous despotism than any other branch. But 
 counteractive causes are powerful, and always at work ; 
 and it is happily by no means true that religious books are 
 nothing better than what the commercial influence would 
 make them. 
 
 The actual operation of the existing economy of the 
 literary world upon religious books, is to be discerned more 
 in its negative than in its postive effects. That is to say,
 
 88 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 though our theological and devotional publications are not 
 so much vitiated by the interference of commercial motives 
 as might have been anticipated, these causes act directly 
 (in combination with others) to discourage and repress that 
 higher order of composition which the Church now most 
 stands in need of, and which the venders of books, with a 
 sure foreknowledge of their small success, are wont to 
 frown upon. Works which would slowly and surely 
 benefit the mass of Christians through the intervention, 
 and by the means of a few hundred readers, are not pror 
 duced, because, on the existing system, they cannot be 
 published ; or if published would be lost sight of in the 
 crowd of more specious candidates for public favour. 
 
 The higher class of religious composition is moreover 
 sensibly acted upon by another influence, of which it is 
 hard to say whether it be, on the whole, most sanatory or 
 injurious invigorating or enfeebling ; namely, the publi- 
 city, we should say exposure which now attends the 
 expression of religious sentiments through the press. A 
 book is of course, at all times accessible alike to all pur- 
 chasers is open to all eyes. But there have been but few 
 eras in the Church (probably none) in which religious 
 writings were actually so much placed under the eye of 
 the irreligious as now they are. The mode and organs of 
 this exhibition are not necessary here to be specified. But 
 the influence of so much exposure, though not always 
 obvious, is not unimportant. Whatever in the circle of 
 religious publications may, by the aid of ingenious perver- 
 sion, be employed to fortify unbelief* to gratify spleen, or 
 to tickle the levity of irreligion, seldom escapes the quick 
 sight of those whose bread is earned from week to week, 
 from month to month, by catering for the malign passions 
 of mankind, or its prurient frivolity,
 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 89 
 
 * *rf A.V ' * 
 
 Upon whom does this liability to exposure press with 
 the heaviest disadvantage ? Not upon those to whom 
 (rightly understood) it might be most serviceable. There 
 are religious writers who, far from being daunted by this 
 sort of publicity, seem rather enheartened by it to give 
 the reign to their taste for the enormous whims, or viru- 
 lent excesses ; and who claim the praise of pious valour 
 in setting all contempt at defiance. There are too, some, 
 whose happy insensibility, or whose sheer forgetfulness of 
 things around them, enables them to speak and write be- 
 fore all the world, as if the walls of a monastery were 
 between them and mankind. "***> 
 
 But it is not so with others ; and not so with some who 
 best might reanimate the church by lofty strains of sacred 
 eloquence. Feebleness and over-caution a latent thought 
 of the profane world, check our course heavenward ; 
 nothing is so rare in religious literature as the boldness, the 
 freshness, the manly force, the profundity, the elevation, 
 which give a charm to our older writers. It seems as if 
 we had forgotten that as the hope of the Gospel must, by 
 the necessity of the case, be an object of mockery to those 
 whose mad devotion to the present life, and rejection of the 
 future, imply contempt of whatever is true and great, it 
 is as well to meet this mockery on higher, as on lower 
 ground. 
 
 While the modesty and" meekness of the Christian tem- 
 per are preserved, what is so becoming to the public advo- 
 cate of religion as the highest tone of confidence and fer- 
 vour '{ If other men are entangled in endless surmises, 
 or deluded by futile theories, he .mows on what ground 
 his faith rests. He knows whom he serves : his calcu- 
 lations are all formed on a clear foresight of futurity. On 
 the present scene of things its eager frivolities its childish
 
 90 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 impetuosities, and its turbulence and its virulence, he looks 
 with a feeling hard to designate ; for it is not contempt ; 
 not petulence ; not indifference ; not misanthropic scorn ; 
 but yet gathers something from each of these emotions ; 
 and has the force of all, without the poison of any. Of 
 whom should the public and well instructed advocate of 
 the Gospel be afraid? He has the highest truths in his 
 possession ; and is hastening on (with all around him, 
 coadjutors and opponents) to the hour which shall well 
 vindicate the part he has chosen, and well conclude the 
 course he has run ! 
 
 It is the want of a fearless and aggressive energy which 
 at the- present moment, emboldens infidelity, staggers the 
 wavering, and leaves the ground open to the watonness 
 and the impudence of visionaries. How great a revolution 
 in favour of Christianity might, under the conduct of the 
 Divine Spirit, be now effected by the intrepidity of a single 
 champion, whose courage, firm as that of the apostles, 
 should be sustained by piety and wisdom like theirs ! 
 
 Partly in obedience to the law of mediocrity, which rules 
 -the age, and partly in uneasiness from the publicity lhat 
 attaches to religious literature, those who might be com- 
 petent to treat the loftiest themes, betake themselves to 
 lower ground, where, while their talents and accomplish- 
 ments insure them distinction, little is hazarded. Matters 
 of fact and erudition ; all things minute, definite, and 
 immediately applicable ; the fields of history technical 
 criticism, and ingenious elucidation, are safe and facile. 
 The ephemeral controversies that spring from collission of 
 our religious factions, are also free from the peculiar peril 
 which weighs upon us. And happily, too, the very hum- 
 blest style of devout or practical exposition is exempt from 
 the eye and interference of the giant criticism we tremble
 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 91 
 
 at. These and similar topics employ therefore superior 
 minds. 
 
 But who ventures to rise toward the upper region of 
 celestial meditation ! Who forgets the world its madness, 
 and its scorn, while he enters the gates of immortal hope ? 
 Who is it that, as if the contenmers of Heaven were not 
 in hearing, converses with, and concerning, the glories of 
 the Supreme ? Who, with a reverent yet uncurbed elo- 
 quence, fitting the occasion, speaks of the mysteries of Re- 
 demption ? Or who, regardless of the powers of calumny 
 that keep their state as ministers of vengeance around the 
 throne of ancient Prejudice, explores anew the half-hidden, 
 half-revealed wonders, that yet couch beneath the words 
 of the Scripture ? Labours like these, and enterprises so 
 great, demand, in times such as our own, an intrepidity 
 equal almost to that needed to profess the Gospel at the 
 stake ! 
 
 While the rudiments of truth are happily preserved 
 among us, there never has been an age, perhaps, wherein 
 less of the intensity of the meditative faculty was concen- 
 trated upon sacred themes, than at present. Our biblical 
 industry is all devoted to the letter : and it must be con- 
 fessed that exegetical erudition abounds in a very fair 
 degree. These lower studies (indispensable indeed) fall 
 in marvellously well with the frigid timidity of the times, 
 and with its love of palpable utility : they run glibly 
 by the side of those practical and applicatory sciences which 
 are receiving universal homage. Professors and students 
 of theology feel to be quite in harmony with the spirit of 
 the age, while they thus confine their attention to matters 
 of fact to things small and tangible, and ^j'bich may in- 
 stantly and visibly be carried home to some specific point 
 of interpretation.
 
 92 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Shall we then, because we wish, for what may seem 
 more great and substantial than we see, invite the return 
 of some one of the obsolete forms of theology ? Better 
 lie meagre as we are, than be so enlarged. And yet it 
 must be admitted that those ponderous schemes of sacred 
 philosophy, though they spoiled, in their turns the simplici- 
 ty of the Gospel, did call into exercise a force of mind a 
 sustained power of comprehension, and discussion, which 
 have long ceased to appear within the precincts of the 
 Church. The Platonic, or profound and meditative theol- 
 ogy, after a long reign, fell before the activity and the 
 tactics of the Aristotlean, or logical and disputatious. 
 This again, having lived to its dotaget received a deadly 
 wound from the hand of the Reformers ; who erected in 
 its place its IMAGE, the Dogmatic theology ; and to this all 
 men did obeisance : and still in measure do so ; for it has 
 neither given place to a successor, nor been formally con- 
 . signed to oblivion. Nevertheless it exists rather in skeleton, 
 to fill an unclaimed chair of state, than exercises any 
 positive domination. Nothing rises in the room of the 
 ancient systems. There is silence in the halls of Sacred 
 Science, as if all men were waiting, in anxious expectation 
 of the descent upon earth of the bright and fair form of 
 Celestial Wisdom. 
 
 And yel this meagerness of our theology has its pallia- 
 tion, and even its praise. Who would exchange the 
 laborious benevolence of our times for the intellectual 
 power of past ages ? It is the just commendation of the 
 (spiritual) Church of the present day, that it prefers the 
 propagation of the Gospel, and the service of humanity, to 
 every other pursuit. So long as the sad reality is before 
 us, of the ignorance and irreligion of the large majority 
 of mankind, nothing (it is felt) should be much thought
 
 STATE OP SACRED SCIENCE, 93 
 
 of, nothing much employ our energy, but the great and 
 exigent work of evangelizing the nations. While our 
 brethren of mankind are untaught, unblessed, desolate, 
 and without hope, our private tastes must be foregone, and 
 our personal advantage delayed, or even abandoned. 
 Charity demands that, leaving untouched the hidden trea- 
 ures of the sacred volume, we hasten to carry the necessary 
 bread of life to all that are famishing. There is a true 
 magnanimity in this determination, and a just praise, that 
 ought to shield from rebuke many deficiencies. Provided 
 always, that such deficiencies are properly and truly attri- 
 butable to the perpetual assiduity of our zeal. 
 
 Even if the labours of Christian beneficence do not fill 
 all hours, and all days, they scarcely allow of the formation 
 of those opposite habits which are demanded by arduous 
 studies, and without which advancement will scarcely be 
 made beyond the rudiments of evangelical knowledge. 
 The temper and the senpmVy of meditation are disturbed. 
 Amid engagements differing not very much in their spirit 
 from those of common business, the soul is thrown from 
 its centre, and finds it hard to regain its equipoise. Mean- 
 while (and it is to be noted) the public and sedulous spirit 
 of the religion" of the day, although it barely admits of 
 the growth of celestial wisdom, does not, in the same de- 
 gree, forbid the acquirement of matter-of fact erudition. 
 This sort of learning may well enongh be accumulated 
 in any temper of mind, or amid any distractions ; nor can 
 the utter want of it be well excused by any circumstances. 
 There is therefore an intelligible connexion between the 
 increase of Biblical or textural science, and the decay of 
 the higher kinds of sacred knowledge ; as both stand re- 
 lated to the distracting quality of our public engagements. 
 
 The decline of Theology is favoured, moreover, by in-
 
 94 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 cidenlal causes, which, as they are inseparable from human 
 nature, and not directly blameworthy, may be adverted to 
 without offence. Men of sense, and of fair information, 
 well know that there are, within the range of religious 
 meditation, subjects which cannot with much hope of 
 advantage, or even with propriety, be made matter of open 
 converse until after much patient and private consideration 
 has been bestowed upon them. They ask for days, or 
 months, of devout attention. Too ingenuous to stand 
 forward as moderator of serious discussions, upon matters 
 of this sort, without the prerequisite competency, he who 
 is centre of his circle, and who feels himself responsible for 
 its movements, deems it a point of discretion to hush, or 
 prorogue conversation. In this manner religious inter- 
 course, even in the best circles, takes its range lower than 
 well it might. On the one part, it becomes tacitly a rule 
 (and especially while so much extravagance is abroad) to 
 hold all great or exciting themes under interdiction ; and 
 on the other part, a point of good-breeding and deference, 
 not to moot any such questions. There is left open what- 
 ever is most trite, vapid, and unimportant. 
 
 But that kind of Discretion which seeks safety in 
 ignorance and silence, is always short-sighted, and fraught 
 with peril : or if there have been times when it might be 
 put in practice, this is not such a time. The remarkable 
 tendency to extravagance and exaggeration which distin- 
 guishes the present era, we may confidently say is to be 
 encountered, and held in check, only by free, candid, intel- 
 ligent, Biblical learning. Cautions interdictions com- 
 miuation s, will not serve us ; such modes of treatment 
 may retain within (he bounds of sobriety those who are 
 in little danger of being seduced from it, namely the 
 timid and the sluggish ; but will only hasten the departure
 
 STATE Of SACRED SCIENCE. 95 
 
 of those whom we shall most grieve to see led away. It 
 is not perhaps unfair to regard the heresies, and the follies, 
 and the rancorous conceits that are now preying upon the 
 intestines of the church, as the natural consequence of the 
 unthoughtful} and unstudious .habits, that have ;grown 
 upon us. During now a long course of years we have 
 been running hither and thither spending our days in 
 crowds ; have lost all relish for mental labour ; have 
 abhorred the toil of private meditation have applauded 
 only that which tends to maintain and promote an artifi- 
 cial agitation of the spirit. We deny a hearing to writers 
 who ask to converse with the Reader in his closet. We 
 have become thoroughly superficial, not to say frivolous, 
 in matters of religion ; or, in a word, have reduced oursel- 
 ves to a condition in which we have no alternative, but to 
 follow every egregious phantasy that shews itself, or to 
 wrap ourselves in the thick mantle of ignorance and 
 apathy. Poor preparation this, for arduous times ! 
 
 We do not look to all the consequences of that move- 
 ment which is rapidly going on. Whenever the Christian 
 community comes to be pretty evenly divided between the 
 adherents of a servile " SOBRIETY," on the one side, and 
 the eager votaries of novelty on the other ; it must soon 
 happen that all high belief and credulity will belong to the 
 latter ; while a disposition hard to name but not alto- 
 gether unlike Scepticism, will characterize (or secretly in- 
 fluence) the former. Visionaries and fanatics, of all classes, 
 feel, as if by instinct, that to admit any sort of check in 
 their course to listen at all to mere reason or to grant 
 that any dogma is less than infallibly certain, is to lose 
 hold of their prop : the tumid expansion of the mind 
 dwindles ; a mortal chill enters the heart ; and all is lost ! 
 Reckless belief, more and more voracious every day,
 
 96 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 19 the necessary mode of this order of feeling. And it must 
 be granted to find a palliation or apology, in what is now 
 happening around us, when a bold Atheism in one quarter, 
 and the spread of an insidious theological infidelity in 
 another, seem to make unblenching faith the capital virtue 
 of a Christian. 
 
 Yet who does not know that exorbitant credulity, which 
 overlays Christianity with absurdities, can never make 
 head against unbelief? Much rather does it promote the 
 mischief it oppugns. This at least is clearly seen by the 
 " discreet" party among us ; and the inward disgust given 
 them by the vehemence and intemperance of many, dis- 
 poses them to entertain, too favourably, the modern scepti- 
 cal theory of interpretation. It is not that this theory is 
 accepted or accredited ; but it lodges itself in our closets ; 
 is spoken with in secret ; advice is asked of it under 
 difficulties. Yes, we are dealing with the German Infideli- 
 ty, much as an honourable man who has fallen into em- 
 barrassments, holds a whispering parley at a private door 
 with a usurer, whom he knows to be plotting his ruin. 
 
 The truth must be confessed, that the foreign Biblical 
 criticism severely tries our English orthodoxy. It tries us 
 not because it is strong and sound ; but because we have 
 not in readiness either that exercised power of mind, or 
 that erudition, with which it should be encountered. 
 There is indeed a bluff pertinacity which is a proper 
 defence in a moment of surprise : but it must be used 
 only for a moment ; that is, only until we can assume 
 our weapons. In adopting a permanent mode of repelling 
 those who assail our convictions, we must neither take a 
 lesson from the stupid and obstinate animal that rolls him- 
 self up, and presents his globe of bristles to his foe, nor 
 from the timid one that runs to his burrow at any alarm.
 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 97 
 
 If indeed we cannot rebut German infidelity by reason and 
 learning, our prospects are deplorable. 
 
 Against the licentious impiety of France, which blown 
 high by the winds of political agitation, broke upon our 
 shores forty years ago, and threatened to shatter the entire 
 structure of our Christianity, we were (as the event proved) 
 pretty well provided. We understood the grounds of our 
 faith, as then assailed ; and adhered, not blindly, but 
 intelligently, to our principles. France, rife with profligate 
 sophistry, and bold by ignorance, challenged us tauntingly 
 to throw off, as she has done, the " obsolete belief;" and 
 to become, like her young sons " gods, knowing good 
 and evil." But we understood, far better than herself, the 
 merits of the question : we looked to that question 
 manfully ; gained new convictions ; and under the aid of 
 the Divine Favour held (in the main) our glory, as " a 
 nation keeping the Truth." 
 
 And we still hold it ; but are now put in peril by a 
 far more insidious attack upon the first principles of faith. 
 The strength of the French infidelity consisted altogether 
 (ribaldry apart) in an endeavour to supersede the proper 
 question of historical evidence, by mooting abstract contro- 
 versies which, if determined in the atheistic sense, would 
 at once sweep the world of the notion of immortality, in 
 whatsoever manner attested. This endeavour failed, part- 
 ly because of its intrinsic absurdities ; but chiefly in con- 
 sequence of the insur per able force of the direct proof of 
 the Gospel history, which men, unless infatuated, could 
 not be induced to forget. But we are now deterred from 
 having prompt recourse to the same rational and efficacious 
 means of defending our faith in miraculous intervention, 
 by our solicitude to listen to what recommends itself by 
 erudition which we wistfully admire, and dare not call in 
 10
 
 98 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 question. Every particle of the German infidelity must 
 be scattered to the winds-, when it is proved, that Jesus 
 rose from the dead. We fail, or delay to convince ourselves 
 on this capital point ; because the men who will neither 
 ingenuously deny it, nor candidly admit it, are able to en- 
 tertain us with a thousand felicitous elucidations of the 
 evangelical records, such as we had not dreamed of. 
 
 To refuse a hearing to these men would be to forego 
 an immense benefit : to expose their error in the manner 
 it demands, would seem ungrateful : or it would ask for 
 more energy and promptitude than is found among us. 
 Or let it be said, that we are disheartened by the conscious 
 want of that original erudition in which the foreign pro- 
 fessors excel. Alas ! we have to import learning from 
 Germany, before we can say any thing to its sophistry ! 
 
 In this exigence some betake themselves to a rude per- 
 sistency in whatever they have heretofore thought to be 
 true ; whether so or not ; some to virulent declamation 
 against, they know not what Demon called Neology ; 
 and some to a timid, respectful, inconclusive armistice with 
 the adversary ; the result of which must be advantage to 
 the assailant, and loss and damage to the weaker side. 
 Meanwhile the main problem of German Infidelity is not 
 dealt with ; and there is reason to fear that the full effect 
 upon English Christianity of that idle theory, has not yet 
 displayed itself. 
 
 But it is not altogether improbable that the course of 
 affairs in the north and centre of Europe may so set at 
 large the German infidelity as shall disabuse our English 
 deference towards it : Set it at large that is to say, 
 release the learned stipendiaries of the foreign universities
 
 STATE OF SACRED SCIENCE. 99 
 
 from the embarrassment they labour under of holding their 
 appointments as teachers of Christianity. Here and 
 there a fond dreamer excepted. men will not go on toiling, 
 year after year, in the bootless task of reconciling things 
 which they well know to be incompatible except from 
 an imperative motive. Provide for these professors liber- 
 ally in another manner, and we should soon cease to be 
 either instructed or annoyed by their biblical speculations. 
 Give them posts and emoluments, on some other con- 
 dition, and they would for ever leave prophets and apostles 
 alone. Many of them, no doubt, are honourable men, and 
 loathe the part they are acting. It is pity that their ser- 
 vices were not at once discharged from religion, of which, 
 with all their learning, they know nothing, and concen- 
 trated upon general literature, which they might promote 
 and adorn. 
 
 Should such a revolution occur, and the German 
 Biblists become honest unbelievers ; what is the course our 
 English divines are to take? Shall they, to hide more 
 speedily the shame of their late deference to men who 
 made a jest of such homage, banish from their shelves and 
 their memories for ever the entire mass of sceptical criti- 
 cism? This would be pusillanimous. Rather let them, 
 with a manly energy and industry, and in firm reliance 
 upon the aid of the Divine Instructor, move on, and oc- 
 cupy the vacant and desolate ground of theology. Let 
 them so become MASTERS of whatever relates (remotely 
 or immediately) to religion, that they may avail themselves 
 of the ill directed learning of the modern foreign scholars, 
 and feel as secure from the mischief it contains, as we do 
 when we turn to the admirable literary labours of the 
 Benedictines, or the Jesuits.
 
 100 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 We must learn, by the aid of an invigorated and well- 
 informed industry, FITTING THE URGENCY OF THE 
 TIMES, to combine the public labours of Christian Charity, 
 with arduous studies ; and especially with the habit of 
 profound meditation upon the higher matters of Divine 
 Testimony. 

 
 Till. 
 THE HIDDEN WORLD. 
 
 " The things thaVare Unseen arc Eternal." 
 
 THE main prerogative of the human mind is its power 
 of gathering general principles from a multitude of diver- 
 sified forms or appearances. This faculty, to a greater or 
 less extent, developes itself in all men ; but in some is so 
 vigorous that it predominates, and gives law to the disposi- 
 tions and pursuits : in such instances its exercise is attend- 
 ed with a pleasurable emotion of the most vivid sort. The 
 pre-eminence of the faculty of generalization constitutes 
 what is termed the philosophic character. 
 
 The delight wherewith minds of this class contemplate 
 universal truths, or abstract laws, does not so much spring 
 from perceiving that some general principle holds good and 
 re-appears in a great number of instances that very nearly, 
 or perfectly resemble, one the other ; as from discovering 
 the occult presence or efficacy of some such principle in a 
 multiplicity of cases which have few points, or perhaps, no 
 other point of alliance beside this one of their obedience 
 to the same general law. 
 
 The more there is of external diversity, or unlikeness, 
 or of apparent contrariety among the particular instances 
 that are thus allied by their subjection to a common rule, 
 so much the more of keen satisfaction or delight will be 
 afforded to the mind when it detects the hidden principle 
 of union. And not merely does diversity of form enhance 
 the pleasure of generalization, but it is augmented, also 
 
 10* 

 
 102 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 by mere remoteness of time or place. Thus, if we could 
 glance for a moment at the surface of some world im- 
 mensely distant from our own, and there recognize the op- 
 eration of the same principles of life and organization with 
 which here we are familiar, this perception of analogy 
 would generate a pleasurable surprise, made the more in- 
 tense by the recollection of the vast stretch, or wide empire, 
 of such common laws. 
 
 These elements of intellectual enjoyment are richly 
 furnished by the studies of the naturalist. Now, it may be 
 he compares family with family of the vegetable and 
 animal world ; and, after marking the ostensible peculiari- 
 ties of each, descends beneath the surface of their external 
 differences, and lays open those great and uniform princi- 
 ples of mechanical or chemical structure, to which all are 
 conformed ; and (if the figure may be used) he listens, 
 and hears all beings uttering, in their several dialects, one 
 and the same code of physical existence. Or, turning 
 from the present system of things, the lover of nature ex- 
 plores the deep strata of the earth, gathers thence the 
 fossil remains of long extinct tribes, and, with more 
 pleasure than the vulgar can conceive of, or he express, 
 brings to light the unvarying laws of animal organization, 
 as they held their sway ages ago, among orders the most 
 strangely unlike to the species of the recent world. 
 Whether he looks to the extreme distances of space, or of 
 time, the naturalist, after giving a moment to the obvious 
 or common gratification that springs from novelty and 
 diversity, seeks and soon finds the more lasting and sub- 
 stantial pleasures of reason, while marking the oneness 
 and harmony of nature, even where her clothing and her 
 colours, and her proportions have the least of uniformity. 
 
 If we might so speak, it is by her diversities, her gay
 
 THE HIDDEN WORLD. 103 
 
 adornments, her copious fund of forms, her sportive freaks 
 of shape and colour, that Nature allures the eye of man, 
 while she draws him on to the more arduous, but more 
 noble pursuit of her hidden analogies. Unlikeness 
 awakens his attention ; uniformity, or simplicity, fixes 
 and enchains it ; and, by the pleasure it confers, ensures, 
 on his part, the laborious investigation of abstruse princi- 
 ples. 
 
 While the human mind is thus employed, an insensible 
 process goes on, the effect of which is gradually to invest 
 general truths with a sort of majesty, as well as beauty ; 
 so that, at length, this new charm rivals and prevails over 
 the graces and attractions of exterior diversity, and im- 
 parts more and more force and advantage to that which 
 is occult, until it quite overpowers that which is visible. 
 
 Thus it is, that, in the course of philosophical pursuits, 
 abstract principles come forth more into the light stand 
 out with more distinctness before the mind, and, ere long, 
 the laws which at first were apprehended with some degree 
 of painful effort, occupy it as pleasant and facile matters 
 in the hour of relaxation, as well as engage it in the sea- 
 son of strenuous exertion. At last, whatever is universal 
 prevails altogether over whatever is individual, and the 
 rational faculty, getting released from the disturbance and 
 fascination of things external accidental trivial, contem- 
 plates with open eye all that is great and permanent. 
 
 The whole evidence of our modern physical science 
 serves to establish the belief (a belief in itself highly rea- 
 sonable) that the mechanical and chemical laws which 
 prevail in our planet, are common to other planets, and to 
 other systems even the most remote of them ; so that, 
 in this sense, the inhabitant of any one world would find 
 himself at home in any other : just as the traveller, how
 
 104 . SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 much soever he may be, for a moment, perplexed by diver- 
 sity of climate, or strangeness of foreign manners, soon 
 confesses that nature and man are essentially the same 
 in the country he has reached, and the country he has left. 
 
 But, on the other hand, it cannot well be doubted, that 
 the same principle of inexhaustible variety which, as we 
 see, in our world, throws out so many thousand forms t>f 
 beauty, has also its full play in other worlds, and takes it3 
 range as freely in one district of the universe as in another. 
 If so, it follows that, could we visit and explore other re- 
 gions, or were permitted to tread the fields of space, and to 
 S2t foot, as pilgrims, upon distant spheres, each newly dis- 
 covered world must amaze the eye, by its singular fashion, 
 or peculiar aspect, or particular mould of beauty : each 
 would present its proper and distinguishing style of sym- 
 metry and colour. Nevertheless, beneath all these diver- 
 sities, and amid the confusion of these special graces, there 
 would still be couched (as the supposition implies) the few 
 great canons of organic combination ; so that each planet 
 of all the skies would at once challenge to itself an indivi- 
 duality, and confess its relationship, or bond of alliance, 
 with all the rest. 
 
 And who shall duly conceive of that emotion of won- 
 der and pleasure, with which the forms and contrivances 
 of so many dissimilar worlds mu=t present to a rational 
 mind what may well be called the majesty or awful force 
 and sanction of those few canons to which we find sub- 
 mission is made in all regions of the material system ? In 
 returning to our abode from an excursion such as we have 
 imagined, the familiar objects that adorn it, ceasing to at- 
 tract the eye by their individuality, would henceforward 
 stand before us as the mere symbols of the abstract trutlis 
 that had now gained possession of the mind.
 
 THE HIDDEN WORLD. 105 
 
 We may safely employ the analogy which we have thus 
 drawn from the material world, and transfer it, with its 
 inferences, .to the intellectual and spiritual system. And 
 \ve institute our parallel as follows : it is not to be ques- 
 tioned that the laws of the Divine Government (not less 
 than the first principles of the material world) are one and 
 the same in all places of the universe ; for these laws are 
 nothing else than expressions of the Eternal Excellence 
 its goodness, and wisdom, and purity. As in the Su- 
 preme Being there is no variableness, so neither can there 
 be contrariety or opposition of purposes within the circle of 
 his administration. Nevertheless, though the laws and 
 ultimate issue of the moral system must be one and un- 
 changing, and must challenge application to all possible 
 causes, yet is it reasonable to believe that the modes under 
 which this one purpose or rule of the divine goverment 
 reaches its accomplishment are as various as the worlds 
 wherein it is taking its course are many. In other words, 
 we are compelled to suppose, on the one hand, thatthe in- 
 telligent universe presents an absolute unity of principle; 
 and on the other, that it offers infinite dissimilarities of 
 means and events. If each sphere or planet has its own 
 physical character its peculiar fashion and form ; so, 
 doubtless, has each family of intelligent beings its special 
 destiny its single and peculiar history, and its individual 
 round of fortunes. The ways of Him who sits on the 
 throne of universal domination are " a great deep," and of 
 his judgments or dispensations "there is no end." 
 
 Now in the very same way that extensive generalization 
 in matters of physical science imparts gradually to univer- 
 sal laws a predominance in the mind over visible appear- 
 ances and single instances ; so, by an analogy of principle, 
 would an extensive knowledge of the intellectual and
 
 106 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 moral system, as it now exists, or has heretofore developed 
 itself, in other worlds, produce a similar prevalence of ab- 
 stract truths over the impression of particular facts. If a 
 moral instead of a physical process of generalization could 
 be pursued by the human mind in its passage from system 
 to system ; and if it could listen to the history, witness the 
 condition, and learn the destiny, of thousands and thou- 
 sands again of immortal tribes, whatever was uniform or 
 fixed in the maxims of the divine government, and which 
 presented itself ever and anew in every world, at length, 
 assume to itself a paramount importance, and fill the 
 faculty of rational contemplation almost to the exclusion of 
 lesser objects. 
 
 Let it be granted that, for a while perhaps long the 
 spirit of the traveller through the universe would be over- 
 powered by its emotions of amazement and curiosity, in 
 contemplating so many diversities of social constitution 
 so much strange magnificence, so many new forms of 
 greatness or splendour ; the energies revolutions ad- 
 ventures of innumerable families. This must be : but it 
 is certain that a mind constituted like that of man, would, 
 at length (if we may so speak) collapse, or fall in upon its 
 centre ; it must return, and take up its proper nature its 
 innate usage of generalization ; it must court the calm- 
 ness of reason, as a relief from the turmoil, and perplexity, 
 and fatigue of looking so much abroad. Then would 
 commence that process of the understanding, which 
 digests and simplifies multifarious objects, and by which 
 the burden and distress of too much variety is relieved. 
 Or perhaps, suddenly, in the full course of eager contem- 
 plation, the spirit would be arrested by the thought of the 
 universal law, which (amid these changing scenes) 
 was displaying its unchanging force ; and, as with an in-
 
 THE HIDDEN WORLD. 107 
 
 slantaneous revulsion, it would at once pass over from 
 things individual and visible, to things invisible and per- 
 manent. 
 
 In like manner, as from physical generalization, the 
 beautiful (might we say, awful) simplicity of the material 
 world fills the mind with a calm and elevated pleasure ; 
 so, and with much more power, would a similar process 
 carried on while the moral world at large was passing un- 
 der the eye, bring in upon the heart those universal prin- 
 ciples of the divine government which are the expression 
 of the Divine Nature. These principles would gradually 
 come forth from amid the innumerable instances of their 
 efficiency ; they would slowly and silently present them- 
 selves in a clearer and still clearer light ; they would more 
 and more be disengaged from anomalies or exceptions. 
 The unchanging and unsullied glories of absolute purity, 
 wisdom, and benevolence, would, with an accelerating 
 augmentation, prevail over the glare and show of individual 
 objects. Whatever is limited, partial, temporary, contin- 
 gent, accidental, must fade and become dim, or take its 
 proper place of comparative insignificance. Meanwhile 
 though the SUPREME, who dwelleth in light inaccessible, 
 were not visibly revealed, nevertheless his actual presence, 
 as Ruler of all beings, would be declared in the brightness 
 of his attributes ; so that the issue of so large a knowledge 
 of the moral and intellectual system must cause, to the 
 rational spirit a vanishing of the creation, with its diver- 
 sities, and a manifestation of the Creator in his unchangea- 
 ble perfections. Or otherwise to express the same thing, 
 that which is " seen and temporal" would be lost in that 
 which is " unseen and eternal,"
 
 
 THE STATE OF SECi 
 
 " The things that are seen arc Temporal." 
 
 A GLIMPSE of the immensity of the material system is 
 granted to the eye of man ; and the industry of science at 
 once rcrtiiies and greatly extends our knowledge of the 
 vastness of the creation. But it is not so with the moral 
 system, of which absolutely nothing is seen beyond the 
 homestead of the human family. And even of that small 
 circle so small a segment comes under the eye of any 
 individual, and there is in what is seen (itself a little por- 
 tion) so much apparent anomaly, so much confusion, dis- 
 order, and variation, that GENERAL I-RIM IFLKS are almost 
 entirely hidden, or lost among ambiguous instances, and 
 exceptions. 
 
 This is so much (he fact, that it is not without painful 
 and dubious eilbrts of abstruse reasoning, that the invaria- 
 ble laws of the moral world, or what may be called the 
 axioms of virtue, are to be gathered, in the way of induc- 
 tion, from the course of human affairs. Thus it is that 
 divine philosophy, though her cause is good, and her 
 argument valid, is driven to plead anxiously for her rights 
 iu the world, against the obstreperous voice of passion and 
 interest. Virtue, though reason be at her side, speaks in 
 the tone of the feeble and oppressed, when surrounded by 
 the powerful and the unjust. It is true, that a testimony 
 from heaven has come to sustain the cause of virtue ; and 
 yet, even this testimony, this voice from God himself, is
 
 THE STATE OP SECLUSION. 109 
 
 uttered among men, not in peals of thunder, which all 
 must hearken to, but as a whisper in the ears of those 
 who will listen. So it is that those canons, or first princi- 
 ples of the moral system, by which eventually the destinies 
 of all worlds are to be determined, here float about, as 
 matters of speculation and controversy, which now for a 
 moment triumph and prevail ; and now again are over- 
 borne and discarded. 
 
 Were it otherwise, that is to say, were the entire moral 
 system, or a considerable portion of it, always exposed to 
 our inspection, so that universal principles should constant- 
 ly have that advantage over partial instances, which natur- 
 ally belongs to them, in that case the dullest mind must 
 admit the inference which would thence accrue in favour 
 of wisdom. The heaviest ear would then be awakened 
 by those sounds, as of thunder, which would assert the 
 unalterable obligations of virtue. A penetrating conviction 
 of the folly and damage of vice must possess itself of every 
 spirit. Our difficult methods of reasoning on question* of 
 right and wrong would be rejected and forgotten ; the dim 
 knowledge of duty which now guides us, must fade ; the 
 faultering motives of our unstable virtue must be super- 
 seded ; the slumber of the soul, with all the dreams and 
 fantasies of that slumber, must be broken, and henceforth 
 an incalculable enhancement of the emotions of the moral 
 life (whether for the better or the worse) must take place. 
 
 A purpose wholly incompatible with any such enhance- 
 ment or intensity of those emotions, is manifestly to be 
 accomplished in the present state ; and this plainly is the 
 reason why no acquaintance with the great world of intel- 
 ligent and accountable beings can be accorded to man, so 
 long as that purpose remains in suspense. The constant 
 rule of the existing system, the common character of all 
 11
 
 110 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 its arrangements is this That an equipoise of motives, a 
 doubtful conflict between antagonist principles shall be 
 maintained. None of the elements of the moral life shall 
 become so far paramount, as absolutely to exclude their 
 opposites. Dispositions are to be formed, tried, and fixed, 
 under circumstances which shall allow no overwhelming 
 force to any one class of inducements ; and which shall 
 throw much obscurity over abstract rules, when applied to 
 specific occasions. In a word, a course of probation is to 
 take place, of which it is a necessary condition that Evil 
 shall often present itself under a semblance of Good ; and 
 Good, as often, be shrouded under a disguise of Evil ; so 
 that an ill choice may become possible to a rational agent, 
 and a right choice be rendered difficult. It is evident that 
 the specific intention of the system under which we are 
 acting would be defeated, or surrendered, if Generalization 
 in matters of morality, could advance so far as to prevail 
 over the immediate impression of particular inducements ; 
 or, in other words, if universal principles eternal truth, 
 stood always in the mental perception more prominent 
 than the reasons of each single occasion. 
 
 Even if we were ignorant of the actual construction of 
 the material world, we might anticipate that a moral 
 system such as our being supposed the scene or theatre 
 of exercise must be a PLACE OF SECLUSION ; a narrow 
 and limited area, shut out from the great world and gen- 
 eral assembly of intelligent beings. The probationers, 
 must not see or know that, the knowledge of which would 
 at once dissipate the obscurity that invests questions of 
 right and wrong. They may indeed receive a rule of 
 conduct, and they may be coldly informed of the distant 
 consequences of their present course of action ; but this 
 information must itself take its place quietly among those 
 reasons that are much more valid than imperative. Fur-
 
 THE STATE OP SECLUSION. Ill 
 
 thermose, all free communication must be interdicted be- 
 tween the piobationers and those other orders of accountable 
 beings who, from a larger or longer experience, and from, 
 a more extended knowledge of the divine government, 
 might be inclined to use vehement dissuasions, or might 
 even attempt to compel submission to the unalterable laws 
 of that government. 
 
 Brief intimations may reach the probationers ; hints, 
 and warnings, and encouragements may be afforded to 
 them ; but no open correspondence must be allowed to be 
 held with the upper world : for such correspondence would 
 at once nullify the conditions of the probationary system. 
 
 And are not such, in fact the circumstances of that abode 
 to which the human family is confined 1 The place of 
 our trial is as effectively a prison, as if our sky were a 
 hemisphere of brass. We may indeed look out freely on 
 every side upon the populous regions of illimitable space ; 
 but with the inhabitants of those regions we can hold no 
 parley. Or if we look within the walls, it is still, and it 
 is always true, that " the things eternal," that is to say, 
 the permanent and universal principles of the moral 
 system the constant tendencies and ultimate issues of 
 good and evil, are hidden and unseen ; while those things 
 that are for a season " the things temporal," do, by their 
 irregularities, their complexity, their very insignificance, as 
 well as their obtrusive glare, serve more to conceal than to 
 display more to confound than to illustrate, the great 
 axioms of eternal virtue. The attractions, the dangers, 
 the urgent interests of the present state, form (may we 
 say) a screen which, with its gaudy and various colours, 
 its painted pomps and trickeries, hangs on every side before 
 the eye of man, encircling his theatre of exercise, and fenc- 
 ing out from his knowledge the great world of intellectual 
 life.
 
 112 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 That the rule of seclusion is the law of the divine 
 government might be inferred, with som degree of 
 certainty, from what we behold of the ac^al construction 
 of the material universe. Why is it <nat the solid frame- 
 work of nature (the purpose and intention of which can be 
 nothing else than to sustain conscious beings) instead of 
 presenting a continuous surface, that might be traversed 
 from side to side, is actually broken up into innumerable 
 globes : and these globes suspended in the same space at 
 incalculable distances one from another ? Why is it that, 
 to obtain standing-room for his intelligent family, the Crea- 
 tor has taken a latitude, a height, a depth, which to created 
 minds is equivalent to absolute infinitude 1 Why, unless 
 it be to give effect to this necessary law of seclusion and 
 separation ? We say that there is seen, legibly inscribed 
 upon the breadth-of the midnight skies, a truth succinctly 
 expressed in the words, " The things eternal (universal) 
 are unseen." And that special arrangement of the mate- 
 rial system is peculiarly worthy of notice, which, while all 
 intercourse between neighbouring worlds is effectively pre- 
 vented, allows the vastness of the creation to be a spectacle 
 to each portion of it. In truth, nothing in physical 
 philosophy is so amazing as the means by which objects, 
 much more remote one from the other than the utmost 
 range of calculation can extend to, are made perceptible 
 one to the other. If the mere greatness of creation is 
 wonderful, there is even a higher, or more superlative 
 wonder, in the fact that this greatness should be cogniza- 
 ble from every point ; or that, at any point where a per- 
 cipient being may have his station, thither, as to a centre, 
 the lines of knowledge should converge, so that the mind 
 of that being should gather to itself true and distinct notices 
 of whatever floats within the immeasurable sphere of stel- 
 lar light !
 
 THE STATE OF SECLUSION. 113 
 
 And if so amazing an apparatus has been had recourse 
 to for the purpose of conveying to us a knowledge of the 
 greatness of the creation if God, after extending his pro- 
 ductive power incalculably, has superadded to the whole a 
 lustre which exhibits all to all; so likewise he has enabled 
 us, by fair methods of inference and analogy, to attain the 
 belief that all worlds are (like our own) the homes of life 
 and intelligence : and we are ,then, by the same rules of 
 analogy, led to suppose that the occupants of each of these 
 widely separated spheres are, like ourselves, confined to 
 their several birth-places are, like ourselves, interdicted 
 corVespondence with the universal realm, and denied (as 
 we) the benefit. if indeed, it were a benefit, that might 
 accrue from a more extensive experience than that which 
 belongs to their home history. 
 
 This same law of seclusion which we see legibly written 
 upon the material universe, is also carried out through all 
 the arrangements of our own world, and in many modes 
 takes effect, until each individual of mankind is straitened 
 in his sphere, and shut up within a circle exceedingly 
 small ; so that if his particular experience be compared 
 with the entire experience, not indeed of the universe, but 
 only of the human race or even of one generation of the 
 race, the disproportion is incalculable ; and so it is certainly 
 true to him, that " the things eternal (universal) are un- 
 seen ;" while the things which he actually beholds are those 
 only that are partial, and " for a season." 
 
 To effectuate the purposes of the moral system, and to 
 secure the necessary conditions of the exercise of principles, 
 it is not enough that man should be confined to one 
 world ; he must, within that world, be again and yet 
 again secluded : and this is done by various means ; as 
 first The entire human family is parcelled out through 
 
 11*
 
 114 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 time, by the succession of generations : and as the terra 
 of life barely measures two of the periods wherein the race 
 is renovated, each generation knows only its immediate 
 predecessors ; and, except so far as tradition and history 
 convey to it (like fragments from a wreck) some loose 
 particulars of the knowledge of the more ancient races of 
 men, each generation, each successive rank, comes forward 
 as a novice upon the stage of life, knowing absolutely 
 nothing of all that is to follow it, and almost nothing of 
 what preceded it. The rolling and swelling flood of hu- 
 man life moves on in billows so brief and proud, that, in 
 rising to the brow of each watery ridge, nothing of the 
 general expanse is beheld ; nothing seen, but the surge 
 and fall of the precursive wave. 
 
 Those peculiar physical sentiments that distinguish the 
 several stages of life, or that naturally spring from the 
 circumstances attending each stage greatly intercept the 
 transmission, or natural descent of experience, from one 
 generation to another. The pride and heat of youthful 
 hope render the youth, conscious as he is of vigour, impa- 
 tient of paternal admonition ; and then the pride and 
 shame of the father, whose experience is in fact the history 
 of his owrt follies, or crimes, again forbid, on his part, a 
 true and candid delivery of the wisdom he has so hardly 
 gained. That knowledge of life which the son receives 
 from his father, is indeed valuable ; but it is scarcely more 
 than a grain or two in quantity. 
 
 Again, the human race of each generation is divided, 
 and effectively sequestered by remoteness of geographical 
 position ; by antipathy of races ; by discordancy of tastes } 
 and modes of life ; and, most of all, by diversity of speech. 
 Spsech, the prerogative and glory of man, the instrument 
 both of knowledge and virtue, and the principal organ of
 
 THE STATE OP SECLUSION. 115 
 
 advancement in eveiy line, has become jarred by so many 
 discords, that, though it subserves its purposes within par- 
 ticular circles, it utterly refuses to favour universal inter- 
 course ; and on the contrary, enhances and perpetuates all 
 those other alienations that spring from remoteness of place, 
 or dissimilarity of habits. It is by language (the very 
 means of communion) that mankind is severed and es- 
 tranged, and almost as much repelled, one from another, 
 as if they were of different species, or had come together 
 from different worlds. Who would have thought that 
 men the offspring of one womb, and parted perhaps only 
 by a river or chain of mountains, should ever be reduced 
 to the meagerness of mute signs and gestures ! 
 
 But the law of seclusion does not here cease to operate. 
 By the perils, necessities, and straits of ordinary life, by 
 the pressure of every day's burden, by the opposition of 
 private interests, and the contracted motives of selfishness, 
 every man (more or less) has his attention so concentrated 
 upon the small surface of his particular advantages, his hopes 
 and his fears, that he is very far from being a free spectator 
 of that circle or theatre of life which actually comes with- 
 in his range of observation. As his purposes are partial, 
 so are his habits of contemplation : he walks in one path, 
 and gathers all the wisdom that he does at all gather, on 
 the narrow line of that one path. Not one man in ten 
 thousand is as wise as the facts he knows, or might know, 
 would make him. Then moreover it is implied in the 
 very supposition of a system wherein many independent 
 impulses are incessantly traversing each other, that each 
 single train of events shall present as much of intricacy, of 
 confusion, and of apparent anomaly, as of order, or abstract 
 principle : every man, in his private sphere, has to do, not 
 with the average result of general rules ; but with the
 
 116 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 special chances of single throws : the incidents and occa- 
 sions that come athawrt him, for the trial of his motives, 
 are fortuitous combinations, more than instances that might 
 exemplify any given rule. Every man meets with at 
 least as many exceptions, or seeming exceptions, as cases 
 in point. Much ambiguity attaches to the course of affairs, 
 and ordinarily, that which is most obtrusive, or most im- 
 portunate, and clamorous, in urging its pretensions, is pre- 
 cisely what ought to be disregarded, and put out of the 
 question of right and wrong. Comparatively few of the 
 matters that come under the hand of man, range them- 
 selves clearly beneath general principles. Scarcely does 
 he catch a glimpse, amid every day's hurry and care, of 
 the working of abstract moral laws ; but rather is tempt- 
 ed, every hour, to believe that exceptions, if not more fre- 
 quent, are at least more valid than general rules. 
 
 The faculty of generalization is indeed given to man ; 
 and he has also the propensity to employ it ; and there are 
 individuals who, in the exercise of this power, gain 
 acquaintance with whatever is true and permanent : but 
 in looking to the mass of mankind, moral generalization 
 does scarcely more than bud, or give some inert indications 
 of its existence, just as the chrysalis does, of the posses- 
 sion of the instincts of its future activity. Every circum- 
 stance of vulgar life opposes the disposition of the soul to 
 spring upward, or stretch the wing of meditation towards 
 a higher sphere: the smallness of common affairs, as 
 well as their urgency; their uniformity, or sameness of re- 
 currence ; and their multiplicity ; the contaminations of 
 life, and its ridicule also ; the absurdity and the folly that 
 infest all parts of human conduct, as well as the abjectness 
 of the miseries that afflict mankind, are all so many cau- 
 ses of depression, or of limitation, that confine man to a
 
 THE STATE OF SECLUSION. 117 
 
 spot on the surface of earth, and hedge about his prospect. 
 
 It is true that, in every age, the more intelligent and 
 sagacious portion of mankind has, amid the confusion and 
 ambiguity of the moral system, rightly inferred universal 
 principles : and, with more or less admixture of error, has 
 reached or denned the unalterable canons of virtue. But 
 (revelation apart) the process through which this wisdom 
 was gained has been too abstruse, or difficult, to recom- 
 mend itself to vulgar minds ; and such, conversant always 
 with instances that seem to contradict the rule, have been 
 prone to believe that, to pay homage to ABSTRACT TRUTH, 
 is to worship a powerless or sleeping divinity. 
 
 It may perplex us to contemplate the condition of man, 
 as thus conversant as much with the anomalies as with 
 the rules of the moral system : nevertheless the fact of his 
 being so, whatever purpose it may be destined to fulfil, is 
 manifestly only a part of the universal constitution under 
 the conditions of which, as it seems, the innumerable fami- 
 lies of the creation, as well as ourselves, are placed : if 
 men, individually, are confined to a narrow line of things, 
 and if nations are debarred much intercourse, one with 
 another, and if generations come and pass away with lit- 
 tle knowledge of their precursors, and transmitting little 
 of themselves to their successors, all this separation and 
 seclusion is only the ramification of that great principle, 
 which, as we see, has broken up the solid material of 
 the universe into innumerable globules, and has swung 
 each little sphere in the centre of an impassable solitude 
 of space. 
 
 But how much soever of ambiguity or confusion may 
 attend universal moral principles, so far as they are to be 
 gathered by each individual from his particular experience, 
 neither those principles, nor the method of establishing
 
 118 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 them, are really invalid, or vague. The true description 
 of them is, that they are at once demonstrable, or certain ; 
 but not obtrusive. This is the uniform character of 
 every kind of practical or theoretic wisdom in the present 
 state ; it is valid and ascertainable ; but not loud or im- 
 portunate in its mode of challenging attention. Whoever 
 will, may acquaint himself with truth and virtue : but 
 neither truth nor virtue stands on the highway, or forces 
 herself upon the notice of passengers. All this is only 
 in harmony wilh the apparent intention of the visible 
 world, considered as a frame work for the support of a 
 moral sytem. The very same law which divides the fami- 
 ly of God into so many separate communities, imposes 
 (within the circle of each community) a reserve, a silence, 
 upon wisdom and virtue. 
 
 Wisdom and virtue calmly utter their maxims : but 
 compel no attention no obedience : they are not trumpet- 
 tongued ; neither do they adduce, as they might, in sup- 
 port of their doctrine, the evidence of that great book of 
 facts wherein is written the complete history of man. 
 Let it only be imagined that, in every controversy between 
 the inducements of evil, and the reasons of virtue, there 
 were exhibited to the wavering spirit all the cases in point, 
 and all the issues of those cases, that stand upon the faith- 
 ful records of the human family of all ages. What im- 
 petuosity of passion, what audacity, could resist the infer- 
 ence in favour of virtue ; or rush upon its guilty pleasures 
 through the crowd of a million of victims ? No such 
 force is granted, in the present state, to the reasons of vir- 
 tue ; and, turn which way we will, it is always true, 
 that " The things eternal are unseen the things that 
 ore seen are temporal."
 
 X. 
 
 THE LIMITS OP REVELATION. 
 
 " And we prophesy in pari.' 1 
 
 Does then Christianity fall in with the law of reserve 
 and seclusion which, as we see, is inscribed upon the front 
 of the heavens, and which we find to belong to all the ar- 
 rangements of the present state ; or does it stand in con- 
 trariety to this great rule : is it in harmony, or out of har- 
 mony with the actual constitution of the moral world ? 
 Does it come to us (as the maxims of virtue come) unob- 
 trusively, yet validly ? Like them, does it speak to those 
 who will listen, and convince those who give it attention ; 
 or does it peal as thunder over the heads of men, and com- 
 pel all to confess its authority ? 
 
 The question is answered at once by looking to the ac- 
 tual position of Christianity in the world : it convinces 
 and satisfies all who give heed to its evidence : but it leaves 
 at their full liberty all contemners. Nothing is more facile 
 than to remain in ignorance of God's revelation, and 
 under that ignorance to scorn it. This is as easy as to 
 quench the light of natural virtue by a course of profliga- 
 cy ; and to acquire contempt of all goodness, by familiari- 
 ty with vice. 
 
 And if Christianity, like natural morality, may readily 
 be set at nought, so also does it. maintain its consistency 
 with the apparent intention of the construction of the 
 material universe, by the parsimony of its revelations ; 
 by abstaining from* the conveyance of any particle of
 
 120 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 knowledge which is not strictly connected with the inte- 
 rests and motives of human virtue. Had it been the 
 contrivance of man, it would assuredly have overstepped 
 this modesty, and have challenged the wonder of mankind 
 by many amazing discoveries of things unseen. Or had 
 it been an accidental lifting of the veil of the hidden world 
 by the wantonness of some supernal hand, it would have 
 indulged human curiosity with flashes or glimpses of things 
 beyond our sphere. But Christianity is a well-digested 
 and premeditated ACT of the Divine government; and 
 therefore maintains strictly the seciecy that sits awful mis- 
 tress of creation, nor utters a syllable of loose or gratui- 
 tous knowledge. 
 
 The veil of the Temple of the universal kingdom is 
 not rent is not raised, by the coming of the Gospel. A 
 voice from behind that veil delivers to men the brief sen- 
 tences of the Divine will ; but neither does the speaker in- 
 vite interlocution, nor are the things spoken of exhibi- 
 ted : the messenger from heaven does not abide with us ; 
 does not spend his leisure in our company ; is not to be 
 surprised by questions of curiosity in moments of compla- 
 cency : he has imparted that which was to be given and 
 is gone ! 
 
 We may, if we please, quarrel with this rigour in the 
 communication of knowledge. How easy would it have 
 been, and how confirmatory too of virtue, to have given 
 us the history of other races, and to have shown, in the 
 story of their destiny, the force and sanction of the unal- 
 terable rules of goodness ! Yes ; but first, let us reprobate 
 that mechanism of the universe which has converted the 
 abodes of intelligent beings into prisons, and encircled each 
 family, as with a rampart of iron and of brass. In the 
 pride of speculation we repudiate Christianity, because,
 
 THE LIMITS OP REVELATION- 121 
 
 while professing to come from the Creator of all worlds, it 
 brings us not at all into converse or contact with any world 
 but our own : the Gospel is as contractedly mundane, as 
 if its Author had been ignorant of any other sphere than 
 this. Christianity allies itself not at all with the disco- 
 veries, and breathes not the spirit of ASTRONOMY. No. 
 But does not the first and chief inference we derive from 
 the discoveries of this same astronomy impel us to believe 
 that God is now actually dealing with the various tribes 
 of his intelligent, family (as well as with ourselves) apart 
 one from the other? This very secrecy which so much 
 offends us in the Scriptures, do we not read it in the 
 skies ? 
 
 Whether we speak of the Evidence of the divine ori- 
 ginal of the Scriptures ; or of the moral principles they 
 contain, the same rule holds good, which we have noticed 
 to prevail in reference to the maxims of natural virtue. 
 Those maxims may be ascertained and established on the 
 most satisfactory grounds : but they never obtrude them- 
 selves upon our attention ; and it is always practicable to 
 pass them by, and go on in contempt of their voice. If it 
 were otherwise ; that is to say, if the principles of integri- 
 ty, of honour, of temperance, of benevolence, were loud 
 and imperious, and were wont to vindicate their authority 
 by instantaneous retributions, falling on the head of every 
 transgressor, there could be no room for the sort of trial 
 human nature is actually undergoing ; and no place for 
 such virtue, as human virtue is required to be. Space, 
 necessarily, is given to the debauched to make mockery of 
 all goodness, and to call virtue hypocrisy, if the virtuous 
 are to be trained to constancy in adhering to their princi- 
 ples, amid obloquy and contempt. 
 
 The same rule demands that, if the calmness and 
 12
 
 122 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 energy of faith are to be proved, scepticism should have 
 its play, and should be permitted to run its round of scorn 
 without rebuke. This scope given to disbelief, in regard 
 to the truth of revealed religion, is precisely parallel to the 
 scope afforded to profligacy and fraud, in relation to the 
 principles of natural virtue. It is not that these princi- 
 ples are in themselves ambiguous, or unfixed, for the con- 
 trary is true : but the proof of them, with their sanctions, 
 does not flame out before our eyes, does not ring in our 
 ears ; in a word, is not obtrusive, and therefore may 
 readily be neglected and forgotten. And so, as to the 
 proof and authority of religion ; it is complete ; it is irre- 
 fragable ; it is super-abundant in quantity ; it is perfect in 
 quality: but it no more forces itself upon the notice of 
 men, than the magnificence of the midnight skies con- 
 strains the vulgar mass of mankind to adore the power 
 and majesty of the Creator. Of the myriads that, at night, 
 are thronging the streets of a populous city, perhaps not 
 more than one in ten thousand ever pauses on his path to 
 read the great lessons of theology that are inscribed upon 
 the skies; nevertheless it is always true, whether lhat 
 truth be heeded or not, that "the heavens declare the 
 glory of God." And it is thus that the brighter glories of 
 the Divine Nature are spread forth upon the page of Scrip- 
 ture but they attract only the eye that freely fixes itself 
 upon them ; and whoever turns away in listlessness, may 
 do so at his pleasure. 
 
 The imperative and overwhelming force that might be 
 brought in upon the side of virtue from an unreserved dis- 
 covery of things universal and " eternal" is as we see, 
 rigidly denied to man. Nature denies it, by confining him 
 to the acre of earth on which he is born ; and Revelation 
 denies it, by the stern reserve, the paucity, and the incom-
 
 THE LIMITS OP REVELATION. . 123 
 
 pleteness- of its communications. This being our actual 
 position (at which it would be at once a folly and an impi- 
 ety to murmur) there are two courses for our choice ; and 
 not only must every man eventually choose between the 
 two ; but every man's present state, moral and religious, 
 is practically a choice of the one or the other. Before every 
 man, and on his right hand and on his left, thronging, 
 clamorous, and importunate, are the things " seen and tem- 
 poral ;" those single and insulated facts, those special 
 and individual occasions, which urge themselves upon his 
 regard ; but always with a false argument, because it is a 
 partial argument. But (here are also, within the know- 
 ledge of every man, more or less distinctly, the things 
 " unseen and eternal ;" or those universal and unalterable 
 truths which must, in the end, rule his destiny, for the 
 better or the worse. To follow and to comply with the 
 solicitations of the things " seen and temporal," is, in all 
 cases, and with an infallible certainty, to go on towards 
 damage, overthrow, misery. Nothing can avert the ruin, 
 nothing dissolve the connexion between the course and its 
 issue ; if that course be persisted in. 
 
 But on the contrary, to draw our motives from those 
 principles that are universal, " unseen and eternal," is to 
 follow a road which, by a like infallible necessity, leads to 
 perfection and felicity. The line of truth and virtue is 
 always (find it where we may) a line drawn from the cir- 
 cumference to the centre ; and to no other centre than 
 that of the Divine Purity and Blessedness. Now the 
 office of Christianity is to supersede the innumera- 
 ble questions and perplexities that arise (even to the 
 most upright and perspicacious minds) iri ascertain- 
 ing the path of eternal truth. The Scriptures, by a 
 multitude of categorical and intelligible decisions, adapted 
 to all occasionsj distinguish between the things seen
 
 124 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 and temporal, and those that are unseen and eternal. 
 And to take them always as our directory, is to walk upon 
 a path which, whether rugged or smooth, overshadowed 
 or illuminated, shall bring us at length to immortality and 
 
 joy- 
 Holy Scriptures, we say, is an infallible guide towards 
 that which is unseen and eternal. But it would be in no 
 consistency with what we see of the construction of the 
 universe in none with the actual position of man, such 
 as we feel and know it to be, if it afforded either sensible? 
 or demonstrative proof ; or if, in its discoveries, it went nt 
 all beyond the line of its immediate purpose. The inspired 
 writers avow the limitation under which they acted " We 
 know in part," say they, "and we prophesy in part." 
 Noble profession ! how well beseeming the true and modest 
 messengers of heaven ! How unlike the vain style of im- 
 posters ! 
 
 But it behoves us distinctly to apprehend the import of 
 this apostolic profession : and in doing so, we gain some 
 real aid by turning to contemplate the vastness of the ma- 
 terial universe, whence may be drawn an inference highly 
 significant to our purpose. Our modern philosophy estab- 
 lishes incontestably the doctrine, that the material system, 
 whatever may be its extent, or even though it should be 
 deemed to stretch through the infinitude of space, is related 
 in all its parts to the whole ; or in other words, that an 
 efficient dependency or correspondence links every globe to 
 its system ; and also that every system, or cluster of spheres) 
 is, by the same laws, connected with the great commu- 
 nity of worlds, among which it moves, or is suspended. 
 The all-pervading principle of gravitation, the transmission 
 of light, and the traject of comets, are manifest alliance, 
 which give oneness, continuity, and relation, to the count-
 
 THE LIMITS OF REVELATION. 125 
 
 less assemblage of worlds around us. It is also more than 
 barely probable that there are other, perhaps many other, 
 influences or principles of interaction, which, though abso- 
 lutely imperceptible to the senses of man, and far remote 
 from the reach of his philosophy, do, as well as gravitation 
 and light, bind together all the solid masses of the universe, 
 and impart to each sphere an agency that extends itself to 
 all others. 
 
 Now it follows directly and inevitably from this doctrine 
 of the unity of the material system, and of the relation 
 of every part to the whole, that, though the mechanism 
 or constitution of each world or system may be, to a cer- 
 tain extent, understood and explained ; that is to say, just 
 so far as its constitution is private ; there must, in each 
 world, be some elements or some energies, or contrivances, 
 which have relation to the universal system. Besides 
 what might be termed the local mechanism of every 
 planet, there must be, in each, the mechanism whereby it 
 is linked to its system, and to the universe. The very 
 statement of this complicated constitution precludes the 
 supposition that the whole of the mechanism of any world 
 can be understood by those, how sagacious soever they 
 may be, who are conversant only with that one world. 
 Let philosophy extend itself as widely and as firmly as it 
 may, it can never profess to have divined the entire secrets 
 of the universe. For so much of the visible creation as is 
 within the circle of our observation, may be but a small 
 part of the whole ", and therefore must offer to our calcu- 
 lations nothing more than partial principles. 
 
 The unity of the visible creation a unity that is demon- 
 strable, carries with it, a fortiori, the unity of the intel- 
 lectual and moral system to which it gives support. In- 
 deed, as the intellectual and moral system is, by congruity 
 
 12*
 
 126 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of nature more directly related to the Divine Being, than 
 the material world can be, that very relation to the FIRST 
 CAUSE of life, and the Centre of government, implies 
 some sort of dependence or correspondence among all the 
 parts : or even if the supposition of an absolute insulation 
 of the several tribes of rational agents could be entertained, 
 our inference would not be destroyed : for the relation of 
 each tribe to the Divine Infinitude in itself implies more of 
 what is incomprehensible and unattainable, than even its 
 relation to the universe of created beings could do. 
 
 By the same rule then that, in the physiology of each 
 planet and sun, there must be something local or private, 
 and something also that serves as the link of connexion 
 with the rest of the universe ; so, in the constitution and 
 history of every family of intelligent beings, there must be 
 found, not merely what belongs to that family singly or 
 individually ; but what cements it to the great community 
 of moral agents ; and moreover to the Supreme Disposer 
 of all. 
 
 Now if there is to be conveyed to some one of these 
 families any portion of those eternal principles that embrace 
 the universe of moral agents, and that take their reason 
 from the constancy and infinitude of the Divine attributes, 
 it is incontestably certain that such revelations can be 
 nothing more than disjoined fragments, or insulated appli- 
 cations of. those celestial canons to particular cases. By 
 the very statement, these notices of things eternal are por- 
 tions of infinity, and therefore are never to be compre- 
 hended and digested, or reduced to system, until infinity 
 itself has been traversed and described. 
 
 And the very same reason which compels us to believe 
 that our own moral system (and every other) has some 
 bond of relationship to the vast whole of the now-existing
 
 THE LIMITS OF REVELATION. 127 
 
 universe ; demands also our belief that each successive 
 era of the creation has a connexion, of effect and of cause, 
 with the past and the future. 'Thus, while there may be 
 certain circumstances in the condition of an intelligent and 
 moral community which find their reason in the present 
 relation of that race or family to the universal family, there 
 may be other circumstances, affecting it, which are not to 
 be explained without having reference to the most remote 
 transactions (past or future). The infinitude of space, and 
 the infinitude of duration boundless exjent, and unlimited 
 eternity, must both have their share in determining the 
 actual condition of whatever exists in space and time. 
 
 What created mind then shall undertake to calculate 
 these two intersecting orbits, or give us the position of our 
 own system upon both 7 Powers immeasurably greater 
 than those of man must fail here. Created minds the 
 very highest in excellence and power, must confess them- 
 selves always to be mastered by problems like these, that 
 embrace the relations of infinity. This is a knowledge 
 which can belong only to the Infinite Mind. 
 
 Yet it is true that some particular bearings of things 
 eternal and infinite, upon things finite, may be expressed, 
 and conveyed by the Supreme Mind, even to inferior orders 
 of intelligent beings. And it is these special relations of 
 the infinite to the finite that will form the principle topic 
 of a Divine Revelation. But need it be said, that such 
 communications must come in the form of categorical 
 affirmations, and can, by no possibility, be given to us in 
 their native magnitude and proportions, as universal truths? 
 The precise sense of the apostolic confession " we proph- 
 esy in part," meets us here : and we must admit, not 
 merely the fact that the Scriptures convey a partial or very 
 limited knowledge of things eternal, or (to vary the phrase)
 
 128 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of the universal government of God ; but also acknow- 
 ledge, that this paucity and limitation is matter of inevita- 
 ble necessity, arising from the very nature of the case. 
 
 If this be the fact, two opposite and very common faults 
 in the treatment given to the Scriptures make themselves 
 apparent. The first is that of the SCEPTICAL EXPOSITOR ; 
 the second is that of the SYSTEMATIC, or dogmatical. 
 The practice of the sceptical expositor is precisely parallel 
 to that of a physiologist, who, having made himself well 
 acquainted with the mechanism and laws of his native 
 planet ; its geology, its chemical constitution, and its 
 vegetable and animal organizations, should repudiate or 
 neglect all those more mysterious and inexplicable pheno- 
 mena which indicate the relation of that planet to the 
 great system of the universe. Or if he did not treat such 
 phenomena with contempt, should persist in the endeavour 
 to explain them in connexion with the private or home 
 economy of earth. On the contrary, he ought always to 
 keep in mind, that this single world is an inconsiderable 
 member only of a system far more extensive than human 
 philosophy can embrace : and that therefore it is probable 
 nay cerain, that the relation of the part to the whole, 
 overrules the private mechanism of each planet through- 
 out. 
 
 Tt is thus that the sceptical expositor of Scripture, having 
 gathered to himself (very incorrectly it is probable) a sys- 
 tem of divine and moral philosophy, from the homestead 
 of the human family, resolves to receive from God's Rev- 
 elation not a jot or tittle that does not naturally find a 
 place in some compartment of his mundane science. 
 Whatever, in the Scriptures, seems to pass on elliptically 
 beyond the orbit of our world whatever stretches itself out 
 to greater dimensions than the human mind can readily
 
 THE LIMITS OP REVELATION. 129 
 
 compass whatever dimly declares the relation of the hu- 
 man system to the universe of moral agents, or to the in- 
 finitude of the divine Nature all such things, because no 
 place or nook can be found for them in the previously- 
 manufactured philosophy, of this terrene theologian be- 
 cause they can be but imperfectly understood, or must be 
 received (if at all) as bare affirmations, all these things, 
 we say, he discards and contemns ; and in high scorn 
 casts them out for the acceptance of the superstitious vul- 
 gar. This is the wisdom of scepticism ; and who must 
 not admire it ! 
 
 The dogmatist, or framer of systematic theology, vehe- 
 mently denounces the impiety of the sceptic ; and seems 
 to take a position at the farthest possible remove from such 
 presumption. His presumption is in fact of another sort ; 
 but the hypothesis the false supposition, on which he 
 proceeds is essentially the same as that of the sceptic. 
 Both the dogmatist and the sceptic commence their exposi- 
 tion of Scripture with the assumed principle ' That there 
 ought to be nothing in Revelation which may not be ex- 
 hibited in all the proportions and relations it bears to other 
 parts of our theology.' They are both equally impatient 
 of whatever refuses to go to its destined place in their phi- 
 losophy : neither the one nor the other can tolerate those 
 seeming anomalies which of necessity present themselves 
 when the bearing of the infinite upon the finite is to be 
 set forth. But the two (though animated by the same 
 spirit of folly) have recourse to opposite means for ridding 
 themselves of the annoyance of what is intractable in 
 Scripture. The sceptic takes the easy course of simply 
 discarding all such materials. The dogmatist, with more 
 reverence indeed, but not more modesty, retains the entire 
 mass of Scripture ; but puts in movement the irresistible
 
 130 SATURDAY" EVENING. 
 
 engine of his logical apparatus ; and nothing can resist 
 the stress and power of this machinery. In fact, absolute- 
 ly nothing retains its native form after it has passed under 
 the tooth and lever of metaphysical compression. Forth 
 comes orthodox Divinity ! not indeed the sublime end 
 mysterious Divinity of the Scriptures; but that of the 
 Chair. 
 
 Meantime, with the modest majesty of Truth, with the 
 awful grandeur that belongs to what is universal and 
 eternal, the Scriptures hold forth their insulated revelations 
 of things necessary to be known, or partly known, by 
 mankind. Silently, yet intelligibly, by their style and 
 method, the inspired writers everywhere profess that they 
 are conveying only some separate elements of Divine 
 Science ; and each, in his manner, makes the acknowledg- 
 ment "We know in part, and we prophesy in part."
 
 XI, 
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE, 
 
 " When I consider the Heavens what is Man f 
 
 AN inference, either for the better or the worse, urges 
 itself irresistably upon the mind of man when he contem- 
 plates the noctural heavens ; and if mere contemplation 
 gives place to the extended knowledge and to the accuracy 
 of conception which are the fruit of science, that inference T 
 whether true or false, is incalculably strengthened in its 
 power over the mind. With an emphasis of meaning it 
 may be said that Night has three daughters Religion, 
 Superstition, and Atheism. 
 
 It much imports us, who adhere to those just and na- 
 tural impressions which lead the mind from the contem- 
 plation of the visible creation to adore the Creator, that we 
 draw our devout inferences in a manner that shall be liable 
 to no reasonable objection ; and the more so in the present 
 age, when Atheism is hastening to occupy the ground 
 which Superstition long ago vacated, as if in fear lest Re- 
 ligion should at length come in, and fill the space that 
 rightfully belongs to her. 
 
 There can be no doubt that if the understanding of 
 man (as well as his other faculties) were in the state of 
 unimpaired simplicity, the spectacle of the universe would 
 teach him piety, even if he had not learned it in some 
 more direct way. First the exterior magnificence of the 
 skies, so brightly symbolizing as it does the wealth and 
 splendour of Almighty Regal Power, and then those severer 
 calculations and rational conjectures, wherein the mind
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 penetrates beyond the mere beauty and grandeur of the 
 scene, and eagerly makes its path athwart the unmeasur- 
 ed spaces, and subjoins to what is visible, its own vigorous 
 conceptions of magnitude, number, distance ; from both 
 these sources, a mind retaining its integrity, would infer 
 the great truth of the Divine Existence ; and its power, 
 and wisdom, and beneficence. 
 
 But in the actual state of human nature, wherein the 
 rational faculties are often uncertainly balanced between 
 the most obvious truths, and the most enormous errors, not 
 knowing which to choose, piety must always be first im- 
 parted by other'means, and the emotions be fixed upon 
 their proper objects, before man is qualified to admit the 
 lesson written upon the skies, and to adore the Creator in 
 the sensible manifestations of his glory. 
 
 Piety, we say, being first imparted, the spectacle of 
 the material universe must be considered as the principal 
 means available for aiding both the reasoning powers and 
 the imagination, in their painful efforts to conceive worthily 
 of the Divine Nature. Though it be well understood that 
 matter, divisible as it is, and separable into elements, and 
 measurable, can bear no true proportion to that nature 
 which is spiritual, uncaused, and infinite, nevertheless the 
 actual extension of matter through a space whereto no 
 methods of human calculation can give expression, does 
 very sufficiently serve as an exemplification, or intelligible 
 display of real infinitude. Effectively, though not strictly, 
 the visible heavens are of infinite magnitude ; and they 
 convey therefore to the mind an impression, if not a dis- 
 tinct idea, of absolute infinity, such as otherwise it could 
 never have received. Moreover, the visible infinitude of 
 the heavens is not a vacuum not a bare abstraction ; but 
 on the contrary, is so richly fraught with existences, that
 
 VASTNESS OP THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 133 
 
 we receive thence at once, and in the closest combination, 
 the ideas of power, and of intelligence, along with the 
 notion of unbounded extension. In this manner, more 
 than one or two of the elements of theology are made 
 ostensible to us ; and while we are becoming familiar with 
 them, are learning to pass on with some facility to other, 
 and more abstruse principles of Divine science. It is in 
 this process that " the invisible things of God" are made 
 manifest by " the things that do appear." The nocturnal 
 heavens at once symbolize and demonstrate the conceal- 
 ed existence and attributes of God, just as the presence 
 and symmetry of a man are made known to a distant spec- 
 tator, when the shadow of his person, in sharp outline, falls 
 upon a brightly illuminated surface : we see not indeed 
 the man, nor in strictness of argument is it more than his 
 exterior form of which we have direct evidence : neverthe- 
 less we do not scruple to fill up in idea what is wanting in 
 formal proof ; and we think almost as distinctly of the per- 
 son as if he stood, without a screen, fronting us in the blaze 
 of light. Thus is it that, both in the vastuess and in the 
 richness of the visible universe, the Invisible God is 
 adumbrated. If the eye be but clear, we can never gaze 
 upon the expanse of stars without descrying, as it were 
 filling all the bright abyss of worlds, the great lines, or 
 contour, of the Supreme Majesty. 
 
 This must always be the doctrine derived by sound 
 reason from the spectacle of the universe. But if reason 
 be corrupted and depraved, it brings thence some absurdity, 
 proportioned in folly to the. greatness and excellence of the 
 truth it rejects. The ancient prostitution of astronomy to 
 purposes of superstition and of sacerdotal despotism, is a 
 trite subject, nob necessary here to be enlarged upon. 
 Nevertheless, it may just be observed, that the Tsabian 
 
 13
 
 134 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 worship of the Asiatic nations was far more in harmony 
 with the proper impulses of the human mind, and did 
 much less violence to the moral constitution of man, than 
 the atheism which, in modern times, has taken its place. 
 And if, in remote ages, the worshippers of the true God 
 were in great peril from the bewitching error which then 
 led captive the mass of mankind, and laid them prostrate 
 at the feet of idols ; there is not now a less danger (a dan- 
 ger suited to the spirit of our times) resulting from the 
 impiety of our astronomical and physical sciences. 
 
 This impiety assumes two distinct forms ; the one bold, 
 the other modest ; to both of which a moment's atten- 
 tion is due. Bacon, who originated our modern philosophy, 
 and Newton, who established its authenticity the two 
 minds that, more than any others, have ruled the world 
 of mind, and ruled it by a just title, both of them believed 
 that they saw the proof of Supreme Intelligence in the 
 construction of the material universe. But it is otherwise 
 with their successors, who have learned to look upon these 
 masters of knowledge with contempt, as having, in child- 
 ish docility, espoused the vulgar belief of the existence of 
 a Creator. Posterity will give its verdict in this disagree- 
 ment between our earlier and later philosophers ; and will 
 decide on which part the folly actually lies. Meanwhile 
 we have to make an observation (pertinent to our immedi- 
 ate subject) upon this fact of the very -prevalent atheism 
 of our modern professors of natural philosophy. 
 
 It has been thought by some persons, and acknowledged 
 with uneasiness, (we think a groundless uneasiness,) that 
 the mere fact, that atheism is avowed by men of high in- 
 telligence, virtually nullifies, or at least brings under a 
 cloud, the alleged demonstrative force of the two lines of 
 argument a priori and a posteriori) in proof of the being
 
 VASTNESS OP THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 1 35 
 
 of a God. For (as it is said) if these lines of reasoning 
 were indeed conclusive, and if in the rejection of them there 
 were contained a conspicuous absurdity, they must of ne- 
 cessity preclude dissent ; at least among well-informed and 
 intelligent men. But this difficulty will not prove to be 
 substantial. To remove it, we need not insist upon the 
 very fair answer which might be given to it, by saying, 
 that no process of reasoning of which language is the 
 medium (in fact none but that which is mathematical) 
 can exert this peremptory power of excluding controversy ; 
 because the signs employed, being ambiguous, may always 
 be evaded by sophistry. Instead of urging this reply to 
 the objection, though valid and sufficient, we shall look 
 somewhat more closely to the nature of the case, and in 
 doing so, shall find that the facts resolve themselves into 
 an instance that is not uncommon of mental illusion ; and 
 that no real enfeebling of the foundations of religion is im- 
 plied in the atheism of scientific men. 
 
 Those will most readily follow our elucidation of this 
 matter, who themselves are conversant with mathematical 
 or physical studies. We have just above (though for a 
 different purpose) adverted to that, insensible process which 
 takes place during the course of philosophical generaliza- 
 tions, and in consequence of which universal laws gain 
 ascendency in the mind, and at length stand out conspi- 
 cuously in front of the mass or particular instances whence 
 they have sprung ; so that, ultimately they assume to 
 themselves a sort of POSITIVE EXISTENCE, almost a per- 
 sonal reality, and come to be thought of as something dis- 
 tinct from the individuality and passiveness of matter. 
 Especially in the regions of the higher mathematics, cer- 
 tain abstruse principles and relations, by the simplifications 
 that result from them, by the facilities which, when once
 
 136 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 mastered, they afford ; and especially, by the revelations 
 they dimly make of boundless fields investigation worlds 
 of unexplored mystery, quicken the imagination which, 
 without asking leave of reason, invests them in shadowy 
 majesty, and by a prosopopoeia, grants to them something 
 like the graces and dignity of so many divinities. 
 
 The now well-ascertained correspondence between the 
 laws of motion and gravitation, and the abstract truths of 
 mathematical science, seems to impart to the latter (espe- 
 cially after they have possessed themselves of the under- 
 standing) a sort of domination, or active efficiency. And 
 from this prejudice, or illusion, the mind unconsciously 
 slides into the farther error (which it never distinctly ex- 
 amines) of attributing to these universal and eternal truths 
 the prerogatives of Intelligence. The two notions of in- 
 telligence and power became so closely associated with cer- 
 tain abstruse mathematical principles, and these principle?, 
 in presenting themselves again and again as the RULING 
 CAUSES of all that is taking place in the universe, supplant 
 the higher truth of a FIRST CAUSE, and reconcile the 
 mind (from other motives easily persuaded) to the most 
 enormous of all absurdities the denial of that truth. 
 
 But it is most especially to be noted that this perversion 
 of right reason, how great soever it may be, does not im- 
 ply that there is no irresistible and invariable impulse in 
 the human mind, obliging it always to look up from effects 
 to causes, and leading it from the contemplation of the 
 universe, to the belief, yes, the persuasion of a First Cause 
 and Intelligent Creator. On the contrary, this primary 
 instinct of reason is as truly at work in the bosom of the 
 the philosophical atheist, as in that of the theologian. But, 
 like every other instinct, it is liable to misdirection, or per- 
 verted action. The atheist, let him boast as he may,
 
 VASTSESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 137 
 
 though an impious, is not a godless man (for no one can 
 be such) ; but the deity the invisible and potent intelli- 
 gence that floats before him, and which he unnaturally 
 worships, is the system of abstract truth he seems to see 
 sitting mistress of all worlds. Meanwhile the various and 
 highly embellished superstructure of the material world 
 its multiform provisions speaking as much of moral in- 
 tention, as of wisdom, and which can be traced to no other 
 cause than Intelligent Beneficence, do not occupy the at- 
 tention of this mathematical reasoner ; they are in his 
 apprehension only trivial and vulgar adjuncts of the great 
 system of things : they belong not to his department ; 
 and he finds no difficulty in rebutting the evidence they 
 afford of a truth to which his own studies do not compel 
 him to assent. 
 
 But there is, we have said, a mild and modest form, 
 as well as this bolder one, of that impiety which takes its 
 rise from the circle of our modern astronomy : and it may 
 be thus described. It admits freely the Divine Existence, 
 and the attributes of wisdom, power, and benevolence : but 
 in musing upon the vastness of the material system in 
 calculating the incalculable numbers of visible worlds, in 
 adding to those the higher numbers which probably lie 
 quite beyond our prospect ; in thus conversing with infi- 
 nity, and in surcharging the mind with the greatness of 
 nature, man and his destinies disappear, or seem to hide 
 themselves under a veil of utter insignificance. " If, when 
 our eyes are confined to earth, and if, when the pomp 
 of human power and the pride of human knowledge are 
 full in our view, man shows himself to be great, and as- 
 serts an immeasurable superiority over the inferior tribes, 
 this exaggerated impression is utterly dispelled when we 
 turn our gaze upward, and bring (as we ought) into our 
 
 13*
 
 138 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 estimate, the real magnitude of the system in which we 
 are moving. It is then that, we are taught to think sober- 
 ly of ourselves : It is then that the apparent distance be- 
 tween man insect as he is, aud the insects he proudly 
 tramples on, sinks into nothing ; and we are compelled to 
 confess that no folly can be so enormous as that which 
 attaches any substantial importance to a being that might, 
 with all his millions, be blotted from creation without more 
 loss or notice than is occasioned by the crushing of a moth. 
 If things be so, how preposterous are those religious dogmas 
 which place man in immediate correspondence with the 
 Creator, and imply that the Sovereign Power actually oc- 
 cupies himself with the individual welfare of men ; or that 
 they are destined to act a part that shall make them con- 
 spicuous among high and intelligent orders ! What is 
 man," says a reasoner of this class, " what is man, when 
 viewed in his just proportions on the scale of the universe ?" 
 
 This mode of thinking is natural, and the pejudice 
 whence it springs is hard to be entirely dislodged from the 
 mind : but it is a prejudice ; and it peculiarly infests spirits 
 that are at once meditative, modest, and feeble. Neverthe- 
 less its influence is of the most pernicious kind ; nor will 
 religion of any sort (Christianity especially) adhere at all to 
 the heart until the illusion be dissipated. 
 
 On which side soever we turn, we may find a direct 
 confutation of this false modesty. It is quite evident that 
 the whole (great as it may be) must at length be annihi- 
 lated or made unimportant, when we annihilate or reduce 
 to insignificance, one by one, its several constituent parts. 
 And the reason which would lead us thus to scorn one 
 part, ought to have the same effect in relation to another 
 and another, until the whole is disposed of. The material 
 universe consists throughout of portions, apparently simi-
 
 VASTNESS OP THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 139 
 
 lar to that on which ourselves are placed : nor is this our 
 world, however diminutive in comparison with the universe 
 immensely diminutive in comparison with other worlds. 
 It is not as if, from our remote and petty globe or islet, we 
 looked up to some central and immeasurable continent of 
 matter, wherewith we could place ourselves in no sort of 
 comparison, and which we might suppose the abode of 
 beings as much more excellent and important than our- 
 selves, as that continent was more vast than this world on 
 which we tread. On the contrary, the greatness of the 
 universe is nothing else than the greatness of accumula- 
 tion. The visible system is indeed immeasurably wide 
 and deep ; and it is stocked with innumerable worlds. 
 But (so far as science gives its evidence) the stupendous 
 structure is reared throughout of the same material, and 
 consists of parts which bear a relation of symmetry, one 
 to the other. 
 
 If, in imagination, we stretch the wing to distant quar- 
 ters of the realm of nature, and if we take with us the 
 sober expectations which philosophy authenticates, what 
 shall we find east or west, above or below, but suns and 
 planets, much diversified, no doubt, in figure and constitu- 
 tion ; yet nothing more than solid spheres, of measurable 
 diameter, and fraught, like our own, with organization and 
 intelligence. Let us indulge as freely as we choose, in 
 prodigious conceptions of magnitude and splendour ; still 
 we must (unless we discard all probability, and all actual 
 appearances) keep within certain bo inds. Suns are 
 but suns ; planets only planets. This vastness of 
 the universe, therefore, which when thought of collec- 
 tively, overpowers the mind, reduces itself, when rationally 
 analyzed, to what we have already stated namely, the 
 greatness of accumulation. Who shall count the stars, or 
 who number the worlds that are revolving around those
 
 140 SATURDAY EVEHIWS. 
 
 centres of light? No one attempts this arithmetic; any 
 more than he sets about to reckon the sands of the shore: 
 but the infinitude of grains makes not each grain either 
 more or less important than it would be, if the number of 
 the whole were much fewer that it is. 
 
 And certainly, if our. earth may retain its individual 
 importance, notwithstanding the countless infinity of the 
 worlds among which it moves ; it may do so notwithstand- 
 ing its comparative diminutiveness. True, its disk is 
 barely preceptible from planets which, by the breadth of 
 their own, dazzle our sight. But no such rule of valua- 
 tion can ever be assented to : for it is favoured by no 
 analogy. If the earth is to be deemed insignificant, merely 
 because it is vastly less than Jupiter or Saturn, we ought 
 to judge that Greece, Italy, and England, merit no atten- 
 tion, in comparison with Africa and Asia : and yet in fact 
 it is these petty regions, not the continents adjoining them 
 that have concentrated, successively, the intelligence of the 
 world. 
 
 But in looking more narrowly to this prejudice, and in 
 tracing it to its elements, it resolves itself altogether into a 
 natural infirmity of our limited faculties. What then is 
 this conception of vastness, and what is the emotion of 
 sublimity that attends it, and with which we so much 
 please ourselves ? It is nothing more, and it is nothing 
 better, than the struggle or agony of the mind under the 
 consciousness of its ignorance, and of its inability to grasp 
 the object of its contemplation. Whatever far surpasses 
 the reach of the intellectual powers, whatever can be con- 
 ceived of only imperfectly, and vaguely, is thought of as 
 stupendous, sublime, infinite ; and while we entertain the 
 ever-swelling, but never perfected idea, an emotion that is 
 partly pleasurable, and partly painful, inflates the bosom.
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 141 
 
 Now the notion of insignificance, or diminutivenss, though 
 it may seem to be independent of any other, is in fact a 
 correlative of the notion of magnitude. And a mind that 
 had no idea of greatness or sublimity, would never form 
 one of meanness. But as the notion of vastness is directly 
 the offspring of the limitation and feebleness of the human 
 mind, its opposite the notion of insignificance, has 
 nothing in it of reality : it is an idolum tribus, or preju- 
 dice which, though common to mankind, is so in conse- 
 quence of the poverty of the human faculties. 
 
 Bnt can we for a moment suppose that the Supreme 
 Intelligence looks abroad upon his works in this manner, 
 as vast in the ivhole, and petty in the parts 1. Does HE 
 know them as we do a portion perfectly, and the rest 
 vaguely ? does HE think of them, in part with ease and 
 familiarity ; and in part with labour and difficulty 1 Does 
 HE see the universe in perspective, as from a central sta- 
 tion ? Is HE moved as we are, by the conception of the 
 sublime ; or does HE, as we, look down at single atoms 
 of the material system, and call them minute, remote, or 
 inconsiderable ? Any such supposition as this were most 
 egregious : on the contrary, we may boldly affirm thati 
 as the Divine Knowledge is absolute, and extends itself 
 equally and invariably, over the entire surface, and 
 through all masses of the universe, so it utterly excludes 
 the notion (proper to finite minds) of any part being insig- 
 nificant and unimportant, in consequence of its dispropor- 
 tion to the immensity of the whole. There is perhaps no 
 instance more striking of the influence of those imbecile 
 conceptions which attach to the human mind, than this 
 notion of the comparative insignificance of the earth, and 
 its inhabitants, because it is a mere point in the vastness 
 of the heavens. The man of frigid and infirm tempera-
 
 142 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 meat, who, with an affected or a puling modesty, after 
 gazing upon the sky, turns and contemns his planet, and 
 his species, and says " What is man, that he should 
 think himself worthy to be noticed, or specially cared for 
 by the Creator?" may on the soundest principles, be charg- 
 ed with making God altogether such a one as himself; the 
 deity he conceives of as finite, not infinite. 
 
 If we wanted sensible proof that this prejudice concern- 
 ing comparative vastness and insignificance, is not at all 
 recognized on high, and enters not into the operative 
 principles of the Creator, we should only have to look be- 
 neath us, adown the scale of magnitude. Does it appear 
 then, as if the Divine power and intelligence could please 
 itself only, or deign to be occupied with stupendous mas- 
 ses ; and that it holds in contempt the minute ? Is it true, 
 or does the microscope give this evidence, that there is 
 ontya rude or hurried finishing bestowed upon diminutive 
 beings ? Is there found, when we pass from the greater 
 to the less, among organized bodies, a regular decrease of 
 ingenuity, and nicety of workmanship? Every one 
 knows that the contrary is the fact ; and every one must 
 confess that this puny supposition of the comparative in- 
 significance of the parts of the material system, is abun- 
 dantly refuted by the tints and texture of every petal that 
 drinks the dew, and by the wings and antennae of every 
 gnat that hums in the evening air. 
 
 Those who think they discern in the vastness of the 
 material universe a reason which weighs against all reli- 
 gion, and which especialy excludes the belief of the facts 
 aflfirmed in the Bible, surrender themselves, as we have 
 seen, to one of the most unsubstantial of all the illusions 
 that infest human nature : and as they neglect to observe 
 what is the manifest law of the divine operations in the
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 143 
 
 organized system namely, an equable regard to parts, 
 and to beings, whether small or great ; so do they over- 
 look one of the first principles of the sentient and intellec- 
 tual orders, which is, that no faculties, either of knowledge, 
 or emotion, or action, are bestowed upon any animal but 
 such as have some direct bearing- upon its own well-being; 
 or upon its destiny in relation to other species of the ani- 
 mated world. When the objector has produced one 
 unquestionable exception to this rule, he will be fairly 
 entitled to maintain his enormous dogma That the power 
 and propensity of the human mind to contemplate the ex- 
 tent of the universe, and its habitude of referring all things 
 to an Intelligent First Cause, and its constitutional dread 
 of Invisible Power, and its inextinguishable sense of right 
 and wrong, and its inherent forethought of an after life, 
 are all so many vague and inane instincts, which have no 
 more intention, no more ulterior significance, than the 
 chance forms and gigantic figures that are often assumed 
 by the clouds, or seen upon a stained wall. Man, accord- 
 ing to these philosophers, is no better than a monster, 
 combining all sorts of powers and means of action ; but 
 without any scope for their employment. He has wings, 
 and all the muscular apparatus proper for flight ; but his 
 invincible destiny is to crawl upon the ground : he has the 
 interior structure which might enable him to exist in two 
 elements ; but he is actually confined to one. To look at 
 his limbs you would say he might outstrip the winds ; 
 but watch him, and you find that he is passive and motion- 
 less as the oyster. This is, in substance, that natural 
 history of man which the persons we speak of embrace, 
 and which they deem philosophical. Just because the 
 stature of the human species bears an incalculably small 
 proportion to the distance between one star and another,
 
 144 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 they conclude that human nature is far too insignificant 
 to allow of its assuming the importance which Christianity 
 assigns to it ! To these philosophers it is as nothing that 
 man has mind enough to conceive of God, and is actually 
 alive to powerful emotions of which the Supreme Being is 
 the object : all this weighs not with them, and is entitled 
 to no consideration ; or, at any rate, cannot compensate 
 in their view, the capital disadvantage of the diminutive- 
 ness of the human form. If they could visit other regions 
 of the universe, and discover some world, a thousand or ten 
 thousand times more bulky than this, and find upon it 
 intelligent animals, proportionately gigantic, they would 
 then at once grant you that creatures so TALL, might prop- 
 erly challenge for themsleves the right to be immortal and 
 religious ; but not so the insect man ! This is the real 
 meaning of the sentiment that so powerfully represses the 
 piety of certain persons, who, while with the aid of modern 
 astronomy they contemplate the vast magnitudes and 
 distances of the heavenly bodies, exclaim ( What is man 
 that he should presume to think of God, or hope to be re- 
 garded by Him ?' 
 
 If we reject with scorn all such false and preposterous 
 inferences from the vastness of the stellar system, we are 
 left to seek an inference which reason can assent to as con- 
 sonant with the known principles of the Divine operations. 
 We have to ask What is that sentiment which the 
 human mind should imbibe when it stands upon its turret 
 of observation, and looks this way and that, over the res- 
 plendent and illimitable fields of space ? 
 
 Boldly we affirm that earth is not too small a globe to 
 be thought worthy of giving birth to.the heirs of immortal- 
 ity. Nor is man too diminutive to hold converse with his 
 Creator, or to be amenable to the Divine government. He
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 145 
 
 does not therefore arrogate to himself too much importance 
 when he speaks and acts as one who stands in immediate 
 relationship to God. Nevertheless there are principles 
 which should impose upon him a modesty arid restraint in 
 the range of his religious speculations. These are plainly 
 such truths as That the destines of man have some 
 bearing upon the welfare of the universe ; or are related 
 to its general laws ; and that the universe (being so vast 
 as it is) and governed unquestionably by rules which draw 
 their reason not from a part of the system, but from the 
 whole of it, they must always, and especially in the pre- 
 sent state, surpass the comprehension of man. In other 
 words, it must be believed, that, in the fate and fortunes of 
 the human race, scope is given to the operation of laws 
 which man must always fail to discern the reason of, since 
 it embraces, or has respect to the immeasurable realm of 
 the Universal King. He alone whose thought grasps all 
 worlds, and all orders of being, and all duration, can digest 
 or comprehend the canons by which all must be governed. 
 
 It may be well to pursue in meditation these truths : 
 and to rest upon them awhile, and at leisure ; and it must 
 be remembered that the inference we have in view will be 
 equally valid, whether it be assumed as certain that the 
 destinies of mankind are related to the universe ; or 
 whether it be only granted as possible, or in some degree 
 probable, that such a dependence exists. For it is one and 
 the same thing to say Such and such inexplicable facts 
 have a relation to certain unknown principles ; or merely 
 that they may, for aught we know, have some such rela- 
 tion. In either case the inference stands firm that we 
 should suspend our judgment of matters which, perhaps, 
 are only to a small extent exposed to our view. 
 
 On these premises let the immeasurable extent of the 
 14
 
 146 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 material system be, for a moment, steadily contemplated J 
 and though vague conceptions may generate emotions of 
 sublimity, the solid fruits of thought will always best spring 
 from the most distinct ideas : but these, on a field so 
 arduous, are not to be obtained without some labour. 
 
 That degree of power and facility in conceiving of dis- 
 tance which the mind acquires by its acquaintance with 
 the surface of the earth, may, without any very extreme 
 effort, or at least such an effort as tortures and paralyses 
 the mental faculty, be extended to the distances of the 
 planets of our own system. Not indeed as if even the 
 shortest of these distances could be held before the mind, 
 in its component parts, or correctly reckoned ; for if com- 
 pelled to divide a hundred millions of miles into such 
 portions as we can distinctly think of separately ; and then 
 to add part to part, until all were numbered ; still retain- 
 ing hold of our starting point, we should find ourselves 
 utterly exhausted, and breathless, long before one of those 
 millions had been completed. Nevertheless a mental 
 traject from world to world, may, in some sort, be accom- 
 plished. The glass brings, for example, the disk of Jupi- 
 ter before us ; so that we may fix the eye on this side, or 
 on the other, of his cloud-belted surface ; we clearly dis- 
 tinguish the forms of these wreaths of lurid vapour ; or we 
 catch the transit of one of his moons follow the speck of 
 shadow in its hasty course along the equator of the stu- 
 pendous planet, very much in the same way in which 
 we catch the shadow of a cloud, as it moves across the 
 bosom of a distant sunny hill. Although the road thither 
 baffles us in the attempt to mete it out into portions, we 
 can just imagine ourselves to have achieved the passage, 
 and to set foot upon that vast rotund; and can faintly 
 conceive of the scene that would there present itself, where,
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 147 
 
 athwart prodigious valleys (each capacious enough to re- 
 ceive an Atlantic, or through which the waves of all our 
 oceans might quietly flow, as the Ganges glides in its bed) 
 the deep shadows of the overhanging mountains are flitting 
 with giddy haste, from side to side ; while the sun rushes 
 through the ample skies to accomplish his five hours of day. 
 Or we remain at our post of observation through the brief 
 moments of night ; and are dizzy while we gaze upon the 
 shining multitude of moons and stars, that bursting up 
 from the horizon, chase each other with visible celerity 
 from east to west, like a routed host, hotly followed by the 
 foe. 
 
 Thus, and with these aids which the telescope affords 
 us, or which the imagination (authentically informed by 
 facts) supplies, may we make a stage outward through the 
 skies : nor are such efforts of the mind to be accounted vain 
 and fantastic, like those waking dreams wherein we com- 
 bine extravagant images of things nowhere existing, and 
 in themselves preposterous : for we are now endeavouring 
 to fix the faculty of conception upon objects that are palpa- 
 ble, and real, and which (remote as they may be) are as 
 truly cognizable by the sight as are the cliffs of an adja- 
 cent continent. There is no extravagance in this attempt ; 
 but a real utility, inasmuch as an important lesson is ob- 
 tained from the vivid impression of the extent of God's 
 visible dominion. The same force of conception which has 
 carried the mind to the orbit of Jupiter, will transport it to 
 that of Saturn, where is seen a sombre splendour, suffused 
 on all sides, less apparently, from the distant and diminished 
 sun, than from the broad surfaces of the adjacent rings, 
 which almost blend night and day, by overshadowing the 
 one, and illuminating the other. Or taking once again an 
 adventurous flight, further than before, we reach the outer-
 
 148 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 most limit of our system, and stand upon that vast and 
 solitary planet which, as if guardian of the whole, slowly 
 walks the rounds of the solar skies, while it fulfils its term 
 of fourscore years and more. The sun has now shrunk 
 almost to a comparison with the stars ; or looks like the 
 chiefest and most resplendent of them : so that the mild 
 twilight of that noon does not quite exclude their rival 
 radiance. 
 
 Here indeed the power of distant conception of space 
 and distance falters. But if we remain awhile at the re- 
 mote stage we have reached, and pass along the circuit of 
 that farthest planet of the solar system, we may gain, ob- 
 scurely, an idea of the solitariness of our system, in the 
 starry heavens. It is possible that the diameter of that 
 orbit, which is scarcely traversed within the longest term 
 of human life, affords just a sensible parallax, for the meas- 
 urement of the distances of the nearest stars, so that an in- 
 telligible means is afforded for computing the breadth of that 
 fearful gulf which divides the sun and his planets from the 
 coasts of other systems. Thus, instead of the ignorance 
 or uncertain conjectures which here on earth oblige us to 
 rest satisfied (or dissatisfied) with a vague conception of 
 the distance of system from system, there, in that Georgian 
 planet, perhaps the astounding reality is reduced to figures ; 
 and it is authentically shown that this outer circle of our 
 system, vast as it is, circumscribes a space that would not 
 be discernible otherwise than as a point, from even the 
 nearest of the neighbouring stars : so that though our sun 
 would be seen thence, as those stars are seen by us, the 
 apparent disk of its little sparkling light would include sun 
 and planets together, as one blended radiance. It is thus, 
 where facts are greater far than imagination, that in pro- 
 portion as we ascertain those facts, or exchange imagina-
 
 VASTNESS OP THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 149 
 
 lion for knowledge, the mind is so much the more filled 
 with amazement or awe. 
 
 From the extreme boundary of the solar system, 
 could we gain that outpost of observation, we should 
 look with more distinctness of perception into the abyss, 
 in the centre of which the sun, with his planets, is .sus- 
 pended. And there, it is probable, a much brighter lustre 
 may shed itself from the starry heavens, and perhaps, (yes 
 it must be believed,) innumerable stars, which from earth 
 are not at all perceptible, or discerned only by the highest 
 powers of art, are individually seen : and those luminous 
 streams too, and many nebulous splendours, which hang 
 as wreaths or folded curtains of light, across our skies, 
 show themselves to be what they are crowded hosts of 
 worlds, thick and numberless as the sparks that rush up 
 from a fiercely blown furnace. Perhaps, at the verge of 
 our system, the hours of day may seem dull and sombre ; 
 while the night flames out with a radiance that darts from 
 every span and interstice of the sky, like the fretted roof 
 of a palace which the ostentation of the artist has overload- 
 ed with sparkling ornaments of gold. Nay, sober truth 
 and calculation oblige us to believe that, if we could reach 
 a spot nearer to the confines of the more densely occupied 
 fields of space, and be exempted from all atmospheric ob- 
 scurations, the entire surface of heaven would seem to be 
 evenly and thickly studded with the stellar glory, in its 
 many gradations of magnitude ; for though the nearer 
 suns would appear distant, one from the other, the spaces 
 between would be filled up by those more remote ; and 
 these again by the still more distant, until nothing were 
 discerned but luminous ether ; and yet this ether is 
 luminous only by its innumerable suns ! 
 
 After the mind has lost itself, and become fatigued by 
 14*
 
 150 SATURDAY" EVENING. 
 
 the labour of attempting to traverse the distances of the 
 visible universe, it may return (not for rest but for change) 
 to the still more astounding conception of the numbers of 
 the heavenly bodies. The telescope has put these num- 
 bers quite beyond calculations : and then it fails to give 
 any account of the many luminous lustres that bedeck the 
 sky ; much less of the spaces that may be not less replete 
 with creation, on all sides beyond the passage of light. 
 And these numbers, could they be actually expressed, must 
 be multiplied who shall say how often, to include the 
 bodies, not natively luminous, that are circulating around 
 each sun. Our own system, it is conjectured, may com- 
 prise many planets, either too diminutive, or too obscure 
 (from the quality of their elements) to be discerned at all 
 from the earth. The invisible material creation, therefore, 
 it is probable, vastly outnumbers the visible ; and it may 
 justly be thought that the worlds made known to us by 
 their inherent splendour, are, to the unseen, only in the 
 proportion of the chiefs of an army to the thousands that 
 fill rank and file : it is as if from the summit of a tower 
 we were looking, by night, upon a boundless plain, filled 
 with the array of war ; and could discern nothing but the 
 gemmed crests of the captains, gleaming, amid the count- 
 less and unseen multitudes they arc leading on. 
 
 A metaphysical necessity compels us to deny absolute 
 infinity to matter : and for the saving of the first princi- 
 ples of theology, we affirm that creation has its limits. 
 But who shall say when, and where, this abstract neces- 
 ity begins to take effect ? A problem like this we must 
 leave untouched ; meanwhile the whole evidence of sight, 
 and of science, tends to render it a probable supposition, 
 that that sphere of the universe which the velocity of light 
 brings within our knowledge is a small portion of the
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 151 
 
 whole ; and that the verge of this visible sphere is the 
 verge of another beyond it, or embracing it ; and that 
 again of another. Nothing in such suppositions, let them 
 be extended as they may, can be deemed incredible or ex- 
 travagant, while the inconceivable truth stands always 
 before us of the distances and numbers of the worlds that 
 are actually visible. The demonstrated wonders of astron- 
 omy deprive us of the right to affirm that any supposition 
 concerning the greatness of the works of God is too vast 
 to be admitted. 
 
 What then is the just and unexceptionable sentiment 
 which should come home to the heart after a contempla- 
 tion of the inconceivable extent of the Creation ? Not, as 
 we have said, this That man and his welfare are unim- 
 portant. The very multiplicity of worlds, instead of 
 favouring such a conclusion, refutes it, by showing that the 
 Creator prefers, as the field of his cares and beneficence, 
 limited and separate portions of matter, rather than 
 immense masses : it is manifest that the omnipotent 
 Wisdom and POWER loves to divide itself upon the indi- 
 viduality of its works. 
 
 But if we must not indulge this feeling, the tendency 
 of which is to quash every aspiring thought, and to reduce 
 us from the rank we hold to the level of the brute ; our 
 alternative is another, which, without checking any noble 
 emotion, at once imposes a restraint upon presumption, and 
 leads us to estimate more highly the consequences of our 
 present course. Whether then it be positively affirmed 
 that man, in virtue of his moral constitution, stands rela- 
 ted to all other parts of the moral system ; or it be only 
 admitted as possible, that he is so related, it must equally 
 be felt That to exist at all as a member of so vast an 
 assemblage of beings, to occupy a fooling in the universe,
 
 152 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 such as it is, involves incalculable probabilities of future 
 good or ill. And then our argument is briefly this ; The 
 material system, so far as it is open to our knowledge, 
 surpasses all power of conception. Yet this immensity is 
 but the immensity of matter ; and we know by conscious- 
 ness of an order of existence incomparably more excellent 
 than matter, even in its most admirable combinations. Is 
 it not probable therefore, not only that this higher order 
 of existence actually spreads itself over the entire surface 
 of the material system ; but that it is developing itself in 
 some manner proportionate to its intrinsic superiority and 
 dignity ? Is it not probable that events in the universe of 
 mind are moving on that fortunes are rising and falling 
 that destinies are bursting forth, blossoming and bear- 
 ing fruit, which, when known, shall make the material 
 frame-work of nature to appear (great as it is) nothing 
 more than a stage for their accomplishment and display ? 
 
 Sober reason, in looking abroad upon space and matter, 
 will surely believe that this universe of solid and lumi- 
 nous globes does not stand merely for itself; but rather 
 that it is the inert means of a higher end ; and moreover, 
 that this end, or ultimate purpose, must transcend im- 
 mensely the means. Although therefore we have ocular 
 demonstration only of that which is material, we have 
 rational demonstration of far more than that ; and we 
 may well conjecture that, if the immaterial or intellectual 
 universe, with its destinies, were laid open, the material 
 would shrink and fade, and scarcely again claim our no- 
 tice. 
 
 We have only to add to this reasonable supposition the 
 belief of immortality ; or of ENDLESS EXISTENCE, in the 
 most absolute sense of the words ; and having placed in 
 combination ideas so vast, it may be inquired whether the
 
 VASTNESS OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE! 153 
 
 rules or principles upon which a machine so stupendous 
 as the material and intellectual universe, can be supposed 
 to fall within our knowledge ; or to lie in the compass of 
 our minds ? In other words, whether our actual qualifi- 
 cations for judging of the destinies of our own species, or 
 of the procedures of the Divine government, are in any 
 degree commensurate with the magnitude of the subject? 
 
 Every reflecting mind entertains at times difficulties, 
 concerning the condition and destinies of man, which all 
 the ingenuity of philosophy fails to solve. To avoid the 
 stress of such perplexities, on the one side, we are fain to 
 shift our ground ; but find that, though we have changed 
 the position of our burden, we have not at all lessened its 
 weight. We run for relief, perhaps, to scepticism, and 
 some run to atheism. But greater and more formidable 
 doubts meet us there ; and forbid our progress. Revela- 
 tion grapples not with any such antagonists ; but it speaks 
 in a tone firm and calm, which implies that they are, or 
 that they may be, readily disposed of. Now we need 
 wish, if rightly minded, for nothing more (when once 
 convinced that the Bible is from God) than to rest quietly 
 upon its implicit disregard of the doubts which so much 
 disturb our peace. For we may very safely infer from 
 the manifest ease and tranquillity of the messengers of 
 heaven that all is well, if looked upon from a point suffi- 
 ciently high. Just as when a father, stationed on an 
 eminence, is watching the progress of his sons through a 
 labyrinth, they may confidently presume that their course 
 is the right one, so long as they see that a cheerful smile 
 is on his face. 
 
 This kind of humble acquiescence is, we say both safe 
 and reasonable. But let it be granted that it is lawful 
 to seek some independent confirmations of our passive
 
 154 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 faith. Then surely we may find what we need, as 
 often as we look to the starry heavens. And is there 
 indeed no motive of modesty is there no reason for sus- 
 pension of judgment is there no awe justly to be derived 
 from the spectacle of the universe ? Must not even the 
 most audacious mind confess a reverence while standing 
 thus in the open presence of all worlds? Or let the 
 scenery be somewhat changed, and instead of seeing, at 
 a distance, these innumerable habitations, let us imagine 
 that all the rational orders that fill them (not a race 
 excepted) were, by a sovereign summons, gathered from 
 their several homes, and brought down to fill our nearer 
 skies, and to come (were that conceivable) within a circle 
 to which articulate sounds might reach. Who is there 
 then that, in the presence and hearing of such an assembly, 
 would choose to utter aloud the petulance and the impiety 
 of his secret meditations 1 Who would not be conscious 
 that those complaints against the principles of universal 
 government which he harbours while actually acquainted 
 with only some few of its acts, must, if uttered, bring upon 
 himself the just resentment and scorn of all ? But what- 
 ever it is that we should not have courage to utter in 
 presence of the assembled rational universe, we ought to 
 expel from the concealed recesses of our hearts. For it is 
 an absurd presumption even to think that, which we 
 ourselves feel it to be both presumptous and absurd to utter 
 aloud. The reason of the modesty demanded of us re- 
 mains always the same ; and it is this That we are 
 members of a government which extends over a surface 
 inconceivably greater than any finite mind can measure, 
 and of which we are acquainted only with a single spot.
 
 XII. 
 PIETY AND ENERGY, 
 
 " Add to -your Faith virtue.' 1 
 
 ALMOST every excellence in the science of morals hag 
 been attained by sages except completeness and consis- 
 tency : the completeness and consistency of its morality is 
 the peculiar praise of the ethics which the Bible has taught. 
 Often, if we might so speak, the strength and the materials 
 of six parts of morality have been brought together, where- 
 with to construct a seventh part ; so much of magnificence 
 and elevation has, by this means, been obtained for the 
 single virtue, whether it were fortitude, courage, patriotism, 
 or beneficence, that mankind, in their admiration, have 
 forgotten the cost at which it has been produced. 
 
 The morality of the Bible excepted, there has never 
 appeared an ethical system oriental or western, which 
 might not fairly be described as a splendid enormity or 
 a glittering fragment, which owed all its value to the 
 spoilation of some spurned and forgotten qualities. What- 
 ever energy has been gained on the one part, will be found to 
 have been deducted from another : or if the man formed 
 on these models is examined, the eminence he displays in 
 a single line of action, impoverishes or enfeebles other of 
 his moral powers. 
 
 Every one who is conversant with history will readily 
 call to mind abundant illustrations of our meaning. The 
 ancient world often enough displayed (and in some ins- 
 tances which justly demand admiration) a stern subjugation
 
 166 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of the animal appetites : or an arrogant fortitude ; or a 
 proud public virtue ; or an ambitious patriotism ; or a 
 bland and gay, but dissolute humanity, and a voluptuous 
 elegance. Or after that Christianity had exploded the 
 philosophic and polytheistic virtues, and had imparted the 
 power and solemnity of the future life to ethics, mankind 
 were called upon to admire a new order of extravagance 
 in morals, while saints and anchorets, instead of heroes, 
 sages, and statesmen, ran the course of glory. Meanwhile 
 the completeness and consistency of true virtue, as taught 
 by the Apostles, was wholly lost sight of. 
 
 Our own times, though it be after a new model, have 
 shown us notable examples of the brilliancy and vigour 
 that may belong to partial systems of piety and morals ; 
 and we have now as great need as ever, to revert to the 
 source the only source of a consistent morality. The 
 absolute symmetry, the exact counterpoise of parts, in the 
 apostolic ethics, is sometimes conspicuous, and sometimes 
 occult. In one passage it must insure the notice of the 
 least observant reader : in others it may demand, for its 
 full exhibition, a reference to the deep-seated principles of 
 human nature. But there are no instances more remark- 
 able than those in which the admonitions or dehortations 
 of Scripture are not to be understood in their specific pro- 
 priety, until we have looked through the page of chinch 
 history, and have found occasions which seem to have 
 been vividly in the prospect of the inspired writers when 
 selecting their emphatic phrases. There are, we say, cer- 
 tain ethical portions of the Scripture, which must be grant- 
 ed to have in them much of the prophetical quality ; and 
 to which we have not done critical justice until we have 
 shown, by the aid of history, their signal adaptation to the 
 evils that, at different eras, have prevailed in the church.
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 157 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the Gospel, while by its 
 direct agency it has elevated and purified the morality 'of 
 mankind, has also, as an oblique cause, generated, or 
 brought into activity some peculiar forms of evil. This 
 could not but happen. Christianity (corrupted and debas- 
 ed) has had its specific vices, as well as produced unexam- 
 pled virtues. But what human sagacity, could be sufficient, 
 while the system was yet in its infancy, and long before it 
 had collapsed upon itself, or had come into contact with 
 foreign influences, to forecast these distant and accidental 
 novelties of sentiment and behaviour ? Truly the pene- 
 tration of men reaches not nearly so far ; arid when, on 
 the pages of writers so inartificial, so devoid of the keen- 
 ness and comprehension of the philosophical spirit, as 
 were PETER, JAMES, and JOHN, we find special provi- 
 sions against abuses that were not at all developed till 
 later ages, we must, in all candour, confess, that, though 
 the phrases and the style are those of men, the latent in- 
 tention, and the foreknowledge, must have been from 
 God. 
 
 The epistles of Peter eminently exhibit that sort of 
 ostensible consistency of moral precepts, which even the 
 most ordinary understanding perceives, and admires. 
 Moreover this writer shows himself to be master of that 
 practical harmony of principles which, on difficult occa- 
 sions, and under peculiar excitements, adheres to the nice 
 line of moderation, humility, and firmness. Of this kind 
 are those passages wherein he guides the conduct and 
 feelings of Christians when suffering under persecution. 
 Nothing more admirable than these precepts of meekness 
 and constancy is any where to be found : nothing so 
 great had been seen in the world before Christ imparted to 
 his disciples the elements of true magnanimity. 
 15
 
 158 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 But this is not all : these epistles contain in their ethical 
 portions some extraordinary instances of the kind just 
 above alluded to, wherein a knowledge of the workings 
 of human nature, much more profound than the writer 
 would seem natively to be master of, is conjoined with 
 what one is fain to think a prospective caution, directed 
 against the corruptions of after Christianity. The exordi- 
 al paragraph of the second epistle affords a signal example 
 of this, more than human skill and foresight. We ven- 
 ture to affirm that this passage is fraught, at once, with 
 philosophical justness of classification, and with prophetic 
 truth. 
 
 It were surely a rude style of exposition to regard the 
 catalogue of virtues, now before us, as merely a vague 
 and fortuitous series of moral qualities, each of which, 
 though singly important, is not specifically linked to its 
 neighbour, and does not derive any definite significance 
 from its location in the list. So clumsy a supposition 
 may perhaps be favoured by the looseness of our English 
 translation ; but in turning to the language of the Apostle, 
 far more of meaning is clearly conveyed, than such a 
 supposition takes account of. 
 
 In order to dismiss the frigid interpretation to which our 
 ears have been accustomed, and to convey the full sense 
 of the apostolic language, it is necessary to resort to a 
 paraphrase of the passage. " Divinely endowed," says 
 the Apostle, " with whatever is important to (spiritual) life 
 and piety ; enriched also with those inestimable promises 
 which insure to us a participation in the Divine Nature 
 a participation we derive from our acquaintance with Him 
 who has challenged us to so high a glory ; and having, 
 by the same means, gained freedom from the defilement 
 of mundane passions, my brethren, take heed (that you
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 159 
 
 beseem yourselves worthily of your vocation) using the 
 utmost assiduity (in the pursuit of Christian excellence) 
 see that your faith (in these promises) is always associated 
 with manly energy or (vigour) (that your faith be not 
 pusillanimous) and then, that your courage (virtue) be 
 duly informed by evangelical principles (knowledge). 
 Again, take heed that your knowledge (of the Gospel) be 
 not abused to licentiousness : but rather be united with 
 self-command and temperance. Nor must this control of 
 the appetites spring from a haughty and fanatical temper, 
 but must consist with humility and submission. Yet let 
 your humility be religious (not stoical). Then remember 
 that your piety is not to be unsocial (or anchoretic) but 
 fraught with brotherly affection ; and lastly, that your 
 affection towards your fellow-christians is not to be 
 sectarian, but expansive, and that it is to spring from the 
 principle of universal love."* 
 
 * The precise value of the principal terms employed in this re- 
 markable passage it is important to understand : our English ver- 
 sion is here less happy and exact than usual. Sirou^v iraaav vapeiatv 
 iynavTts, /ffi^op^yij<rar .... these compounds fully carry the sense of 
 bringing together, or into combination and correspondence, the 
 several virtues enumerated. It is not merely an adding one to the 
 other, as unconnected items ; commixture of one ingredient with 
 some other that is specifically necessary lor the production of the 
 desired result. The phraseology would be proper if the articles to 
 be brought together were remedies, the effect of which depended 
 upon their due combination. 'E Tfj rfom Ipuv rty Aptrriv .... with 
 this faith of yours, admix the constancy and courage of manly 
 vigour: dpErij has this specific sense. 'H yi/5o-ij is neither human 
 erudition, nor general intelligence ; but that specific knowledge of 
 which the Gospel is the subject. 'Ey<rp<fra is not moderation in 
 eating and drinking merely ; but sell- command, or command over the 
 appetites. 'Yiro^oi/^, as used by the writers of the New Testament, 
 might be rendered by the word submissiveness ; or is the patience
 
 160 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 This passage then, if not unfairly paraphrased, and if 
 its ellipses are truly supplied, resolves itself into an ethical 
 canon, in three parts, of which the first enjoins the due 
 connexion of a religious reliance upon the Divine prom- 
 ises, with energy of character ; an energy that is not to 
 be secular, but evangelical. The second describes genuine 
 personal virtue, or continence, as related, on the one hand, 
 to the principles whence it should spring ; and on the 
 other, to the temper that should attend it. The third 
 lays down the twofold rule of social piety. 
 
 Or we might well seek our illustration of the apostolic 
 injunction by taking a view, at large, of church history ; 
 and then we shall find, beneath the significant phraseology 
 of the passage, a condensed but comprehensive caution 
 against each of those prominent corruptions that have 
 developed themselves in the course of eighteen centuries. 
 They are readily enumerated, and may be thus designat- 
 ed : 1st, pusillanimous or inert faith : 2d, the licentious 
 abuse of the Gospel ; 3d, a fanatical or haughty subjuga- 
 tion of animal desires ; 4th, anchoretic pietism ; and 5th, 
 sectarian or factious sociality. Thus our apostolic canon 
 is seen to hold up, as in a mirror, the history of the de- 
 generate Christianity of all ages. 
 
 We may take the numbers of this canon in their 
 order ; and at present consider that which relates to the 
 due combination of faith and manly energy. 
 
 There is manifestly something which requires to be 
 
 of humility. EW/3a, piety. QtiaSAfta is the species ; Aydmi the 
 genus This is the principle ; that, the special exercise of it: and 
 the caution of the Apostle is directed against such an affection for 
 the brotherhood as does not spring from a genuine and universal 
 love. For the sense of the verb itrixopvytu, see verse 1 1.
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 161 
 
 balanced or adjusted, and kept in equipoise, between the 
 principle of faith, and the principle of action. The one 
 has a tendency to exclude the other ; or to overpower it. 
 But Christian excellence consists in the preservation of 
 this balance ; and the preservation of it, we must add, 
 greatly depends upon the circumstances of the times. 
 Now perhaps, for a season, faith and energy are both 
 strongly stimulated ; and the highest style of Christian 
 heroism is reached. Again, the inducements of action 
 being slackened, faith is deprived of the invigoration it 
 had received from the contest with its antagonist principle ; 
 it triumphs, or rather seems to triumph, for a moment ; 
 but presently becomes extravagant ; than imbecile ; and 
 at length utterly inert. We need not be surprised to find 
 that Faith, though heaven-born, can neither live nor be 
 productive alone. Excellence of all kinds, physical, intel- 
 lectual, and spiritual, is the product, not of the single 
 operation of some one principle ; but of the oppugnant 
 forces of two or more powers, which have a natural Jit- 
 ness to counteract each other. And the higher we look 
 in the scale of being and action, so much the more shall 
 we find this principle holding good ; and shall perceive 
 that exalted and resplendent qualities have always become 
 what they are, by the vehement interaction of conflicting 
 elements. 
 
 The faith of the primitive age owed its vigour, not mere- 
 ly to the miraculous attestations that then abounded; nor 
 to the personal teaching of apostles the men who had 
 themselves " seen the Lord ;" nor merely to the plenitude 
 of that heavenly influence which then so largely descend- 
 ed upon the church ; but in an equal degree to the perils 
 and pains of the time to the agitations, and heavy storms. 
 of trouble, which beat upon the infant religion. That 
 
 15*
 
 162 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 vivid conviction of the reality of things unseen which the 
 first Christians enjoyed, might naturally have abstracted 
 them altogether from mundane interests, and have led 
 them forth, heavenward, in holy contempt of whatever 
 belonged to the insignificance of their mortal course. But 
 this supremacy of the powers of immortality, if unbalanc- 
 ed, must soon (calculating on the constant principles of 
 human nature) have wrought its own decay and corrup- 
 tion ; and Christianity would quickly have seemed no- 
 thing better than a madness or a folly. The persecutions 
 of the first age constituted the counteractive power, which 
 gave consistency and reason to so lively a faith. Chris- 
 tians were daily brought upon a path of danger which 
 made them as much men of action of promptitude, and 
 of courage, as they were men of meditation. While more 
 than any others they lived in correspondence with things 
 ' unseen and eternal," more than any others also, they 
 wrestled with things earthly ; being embarrassed amid 
 common cares, exhausted by hunger, thirst, and toil ; dis- 
 tracted by fears ; and often actually engaged in encoun- 
 tering the anguish of cruel deaths. Thus were they 
 compelled, by the position they occupied, to mingle with 
 " their faith, virtue." 
 
 It might be matter of question whether the laws of the 
 human mind at all admit of a high degree of force being 
 imparted to the principle of faith (consistently with the 
 soundness and vigour of the character) in any manner 
 essentially different from that of a strenuous conflict, such 
 as the first Christians were exposed to. We may per- 
 haps hereafter entertain a conjecture on this subject: 
 meanwhile it must be confessed, that the history of the 
 church exhibits frequent examples of the natural process 
 which takes place when Faith, being released from the
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 163 
 
 grasp of its antagonist, becomes, first preposterous ; then 
 childish ; and ere long expires in the arms, either of su- 
 perstition or of sensuality. 
 
 Secular men can scarcely at all conceive of the great 
 power of those motives that are drawn from the objects of 
 religious belief. As the most amazing of all infatuations 
 is that which blinds man to his own immortality ; so the 
 greatest of all revulsions is that which takes place when 
 this infatuation is dispelled. Can it be called any thing 
 less than " a new birth" when the being who yesterday 
 was the creature of momentary interests, becomes to-day 
 the claimant of an endless existence the inheritor of ab- 
 solute happiness, and an associate of the Infinite Majesty ? 
 The power of meditation, apart from piety may indeed, on 
 the boundless field of these hopes, take its course at large. 
 But the faith of Christianity is something far more viva- 
 cious than any mere ravishment of the imagination can ever 
 be. It is not so much the idea of eternity that constitutes 
 the difference between the secular and the spiritual man 
 but rather the consciousness and the sensitiveness that are 
 proper to the moral life. It is not a vivid conception of the 
 awful greatness of God that makes the Christian what he 
 is; but the apprehension (an apprehension that has no 
 alliance with the imagination) of the absolute purity, jus- 
 tice, and goodness of the Divine Being. It is the entrance 
 of these notions that quickens the soul ; it is in their vivid- 
 ness that the life of the soul consists ; and the faith of 
 Christianity, far from revelling in gorgeous conceptions of 
 the heavenly splendour and immortal pleasure, is a sense 
 (attended with weeping and joy) of GOOD and EVIL, and 
 of personal implication in the one, and participation of the 
 other. 
 
 Nor does this faith want its definite excitements : it is
 
 164 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 neither a mere phantasy of future glory, nor a vague 
 ebullition of feeling. The mysteries of the redemption 
 effected by the Son of God concentrate the emotions of fear 
 and hope, of compunction and gratitude, of joy and sor- 
 row, upon distinct objects. The " Mediator between God 
 and man" his personal qualities, his acts, his purposes, 
 his affection to his people, and the future exertion of his 
 power and grace on their behalf, are so many special 
 sources of emotion, and combine to render Faith in the 
 Gospel, a congeries of various sentiments, that may well 
 occupy every faculty of the intellectual and moral nature. 
 
 Yet this is not all : for the elementary principle of Faith 
 receives an enrichment, a diversity of colour, and an in- 
 dividual form, from its combination with the peculiarities 
 of the mind wherein it lodges. Shall \ve say, that as, 
 when the pure splendour of the sun falls upon the unequal 
 prism of crystal, it undergoes decomposition, and while 
 losing a portion of its intensity, yet throws off its severed 
 elements of beauty its seven colours, that diversify all the 
 face of nature ; so, when the brightness of the Divine 
 glory, and the unsullied beams of eternal life, come in upon 
 the soul, and are there imbibed, the finite substance, with 
 its limitations of faculty, its personal figure, its individual 
 constitution, imparts diversity to the celestial element, and 
 gives birth to new and special forms of emotion. It i^ at 
 least certain that the faith of each Christian is a faith 
 which is specifically his own, and takes up, as adjunctive 
 qualities, whatever is peculiar to the personal character, 
 and whatever has sprung from its particular history. 
 Thus at once from its objects, and its subject, does Faith 
 derive a copiousness that serves to occupy and animate 
 the soul. 
 
 Nevertheless it is a truth which all experience confirms,
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 165 
 
 that the human mind cannot with impunity surrender it- 
 self to the constant domination of any one class of emo- 
 tions, even of the calmest and the purest kind. The 
 perpeti ity of a single emotion is insanity ; whether mild 
 or turbulent, melancholic or impetuous ; and it may safely 
 be affirmed that human nature must be dissolved to its 
 elements, and reconstructed on a different model, before it 
 can either suffer the wretchedness of incessant passion, or 
 inherit the bliss of perpetual love and joy. The Divine 
 providence speaks this truth aloud by the ordinary course 
 of its dispensations ; and indeed by the entire construction 
 of the social system ; an hour only is indulged to con- 
 templation ; the day is demanded by care and toil. 
 
 There are two notable and ordinary results of that state 
 of things which prevails in tranquil times, when Faith, 
 deprived of the invigorating influence of a strenuous con- 
 flict with antagonist forces, takes its residence indolently 
 in the heart of the Christian. The first, is its transmuta- 
 tion into pusillanimous sentiment. The second, is its 
 gradual expulsion by principles of secular action. A period 
 like that in which we live, naturally abounds with in- 
 stances of both kinds ; and a brief consideration of both 
 may well occupy a few moments of our attention. 
 
 The unsearchable the incomprehensible skill of the 
 Divine administration of human affairs is shown in the 
 perfect adaptation of causes belonging entirely to the 
 permanent constitution of nature (nature, material and 
 intellectual] to the accomplishment of the purposes of the 
 moral and spiritual system ; so that the movements of the 
 higher economy of God's government coincide most pre- 
 cisely with those of the lower economy of the natural 
 world. ]t is not that there are systems of movement
 
 166 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 physical, intellectual, and moral, which are perpetually 
 jostling each other, or which clash whenever they come 
 in contact, and which" move on by the one vanquishing 
 the other. But, on the contrary, each of these economies 
 takes its uninterrupted course, as if there were no other 
 moving within the same space ; and each finds the means 
 of attaining its ends, without offering the smallest distur- 
 bance to the other. All things are physical (using the 
 term in its most extensive meaning) and all things are 
 spiritual, in a not less absolute sense. 
 
 A due understanding of this exact coincidence of the 
 several circles of the Divine agency is of no small impor- 
 tance ; and to a misunderstanding of it we may trace 
 many of the errors and perplexities that infest the region 
 of religious sentiment. Now in times of action and of 
 peril, the daily experience of the Christian effectively 
 teaches him (far more effectively than can be done by ab- 
 stract explanations) that the Divine providence, and the 
 spiritual economy, which are the objects of his faith, do 
 not in any wise interfere with the ordinary or physical 
 course of events : in other words, that the latter is not 
 broken in upon, or disturbed (miraculous instances excep- 
 ted) by the former. With this evidence of experience con- 
 stantly pressed upon him, his faith ascends into its proper 
 sphere : while he confidently reposes upon the Divine de- 
 claration " That all things shall work together for good 
 to those who love God." 
 
 It is possible and probable, that many perplexities may 
 harass the Christian in moments of reflection, while he 
 vainly endeavors to reconcile the combined movements of 
 the natural and spiritual system between which he feels 
 himself to be placed. But though these difficulties may
 
 PIETY/ AND ENERGY. 167 
 
 not be solved by meditation, they are ere long dispelled by 
 the presence of danger, or by the pressure of suffering : 
 he is brought back to the energy and consistency of com- 
 mon sense, and manly courage, by perils that must be 
 warded off; or by pains that must be endured. Mean- 
 while, the powers of prayer and faith, and all the emotions 
 that belong to a healthy piety, are brought into action ; 
 and abstruse difficulties are forgotten. 
 
 But it is otherwise in the case of one who, from the 
 commencement to the close of his course, steers his bark 
 upon the bosom of a tranquil sea. No sea indeed, plough- 
 ed by the keel of mortality, is exempt from winds and 
 billows. Yet it is a truth that the ordinary cares and 
 sorrows of life, though they may oppress the heart, and 
 fill the eyes with tears, do not, in many instances, so 
 quicken the energies of the soul as, to break up its illu- 
 sions. Just as one who slumbers, may be annoyed by 
 sounds and movements near him, and may turn uneasily 
 from side to side ; and often seem as if about to start from 
 his couch ; and yet may not be actually awakened. The 
 human mind is prone to rest within the circle of a single 
 order of sentiments : the soul loves its home of familiar 
 emotions ; and will endure a thousand inconveniences 
 rather than consent to be dislodged and driven to seek new 
 quarters. It is thus that, when religious feelings have 
 gained supremacy in the mind, and have come to hold the 
 first place in the heart, the circumstances of an ordinary 
 lot fail to exert any effective antagonist influence, such as 
 shall impart to religious emotions a necessary degree of 
 vigour. The man of faith sincere and devout as he is, 
 has become exclusively conversant with the movements 
 and principles of that spiritual economy within which all
 
 168 SATURDAV EVENING. 
 
 his hopes circulate. This one order of ideas rules hi 
 mind. Meantime he is but confusedly conscious of the 
 vulgar realities of the physical ecomomy, in the midst of 
 which he stands. He can think of its movements only as 
 anomalies, that perplex the spiritual world : its just de- 
 mands he resents as importunities : the irresistible opera- 
 tion of its laws amazes him, as often as he finds himself 
 borne onwards by their power : he thinks of the world as 
 his enemy, not so much by its corruptions, as by its very 
 constitution : and in imbecile alarm, he betakes himself 
 to the Divine succour, on occasions when nothing is 
 actually to be feared but some just consequence of his own 
 cowardice or indolence. 
 
 It is manifest that one who in any degree believes, or 
 who darkly surmises that the laws of nature the very 
 constitutions of the Creator, are so many instances of sedi- 
 tion and anarchy, is altogether unfitted for acting his part in 
 conformity with these laws : every occasion of life (where- 
 in mere habit and the force of custom and example does 
 not bear him passively onward in the track of common 
 sense) must find him embarrassed, inconstant, pusillani- 
 mous ; and he fails, and forfeits reputation, from mere in- 
 certitude or irresolution ; though his principles are as firm 
 as those of a martyr. Meanwhile he is looked upon in 
 contempt by the men of the world, who, understanding 
 nothing of the natural history of the case before them, 
 draw an inference which confirms them immoveably in 
 their irreligion. 
 
 The transmutation of religious faith into pusillanimous 
 sentiment, supposes always some degree of natural feeble- 
 ness of understanding ; and we have next to consider 
 that other transmutation which takes place (especially in
 
 PIETY AND ENERGY. 169 
 
 tranquil times) in the case of men whose intellectual fac- 
 ulties are vigorous. 
 
 Men of energy and intelligence, sincere in their religi- 
 ous convictions (at least at the commencement of their 
 course) who are pressing forward on the busy and gainful 
 paths of public life, soon become far too well acquainted 
 with the principles and machinery of the natural world, 
 and (by their success in adapting themselves to its laws) 
 are too well content with its constitutions to entertain the 
 mystical belief of the religionist, as above described, who 
 can reconcile himself to nothing but what is spiritual ; 
 and who thinks nature an invasion upon the economy of 
 grace. These, on the contrary, fully persuaded as they are 
 of the reality, the permanence, and the invariable regularity 
 of the natural world, and yet retaining the dogmas of their 
 religious belief, look upon whatever seems peculiarly to 
 belong to the Divine and spiritual system, as an anomaly, 
 or special interposition, brought in on rare occasions, just 
 for the purpose of maintaining piety in the world. Mean- 
 while, from their own conduct and motives they rigidly 
 exclude whatever is not purely secular. 
 
 But when religion has once yielded the supremacy 
 which is its right, it quickly fades into a thin shadow, and 
 a name. These men therefore, of secular habits, and 
 meagre religious belief, insensibly surrender, point after 
 point of their first convictions, until they become in all 
 respects like others : except the disadvantage of a pro- 
 fession which serves only to overcloud their hours of 
 reflection, and to sully their public conduct. Yet it is 
 such, in an age like our own, that, by tens of thousands, 
 extend the front, and give splendour to the array of visible 
 Christianity. May it not be conjectured that, at the 
 
 16
 
 170 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 present moment, where we shall find one man who ia 
 both sound-minded and truly spiritual, we shall meet 
 with three pusillanimous religionists, and twenty secular 
 believers? 
 
 It may now be curious, and perhaps profitable, to im- 
 agine such a course of events as might restore energy to 
 faith : this % subject we shall next pursue.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE LAST CONFLICT OF GREAT 
 
 PRINCIPLES. 
 
 \ 
 
 "The Son of Man, when he cometh, shall he find Faith on the Earth ?" 
 
 THE general expectation of Christians at the present 
 moment, supported by considerable evidence, is, that a 
 wide diffusion and visible triumph of the Gospel draws 
 on apace ; and that now, without any new or remarkable 
 pause, truth and piety shall advance shall receive the 
 homage of larger and larger portions of mankind, until 
 " all the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord." 
 
 This, we say, is the common belief of the church and 
 many reasons may be adduced that give strength to so 
 cheering a hope. Nevertheless a contrary opinion may 
 assuredly be entertained ; at any rate some advantage 
 may be -drawn from following, for a moment (as matter of 
 hypothesis and meditation) such a supposition. We do 
 so therefore, without giving suffrage to the opinion, as if 
 it were more probable than its opposite. But in fact it is 
 only by calm attention to both sides of a doubtful alternative 
 that we can be prepared to rest securely in the one we 
 after all prefer. 
 
 A rise and fall, or alteration, of antagonist forces takes 
 its course in all human affairs. History is the narrative of 
 the prevalence, by turns, of the counteractive powers that 
 sway the world ; and ordinarily it happens that, at the 
 moment when a certain power reaches the acme of its 
 supremacy /and when, as with a flourish of trumpets, it
 
 172 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 proclaims its undisputed triumph, it does, in that very 
 blast of pride, announce the re-appearance of its rival. 
 Despotism, civil and religious, and all the foul forms of 
 political and ecclesiastical corruption, have, on many sig- 
 nal occasions, thus boasted and fallen in one and the 
 same day. And thus too (holding other considerations for 
 awhile in abeyance) it must be granted as possible That 
 the contest which is now actually taking place on the 
 stage of European affairs, between the principle of religi- 
 ous belief (a belief which, owing to the circumstances of 
 the times is too little energetic) and the secular or atheis- 
 tical spirit a spirit of vigour, intelligence, contumacy, and 
 levity ; may go on to the advantage of the latter, until 
 its languishing opponent lies in the dust, or is driven into 
 the wilderness. If a better issue may reasonably be 
 hoped for, this, sad as it is, seems to accord naturally 
 enough with the course of recent events. 
 
 It is not the argumentative, or documentary proof, 
 which reposes on the shelves of our libraries (how good 
 soever it may be) that will ever effectively maintain the 
 ground of Religion against its adversaries. The Author 
 of Christianity has indeed consigned his doctrine to pa- 
 per ; but the defence and propagation of it is committed, 
 age after age, to living depositaries. Celestial truth is a 
 jewel in a pix ; but which, unless it be worn by its posses- 
 sor, might as well have resied in its quarry. There is a 
 written, and there is a Living Testimony, addressed by 
 Heaven to men. But the former only becomes a passive 
 organ of transmission, whenever the latter fails in energy 
 and purity. Meanwhile, if the power of religion decays, 
 the power of irreligion does not at the same moment 
 decline ; but, on the contrary, starts up then into tenfold 
 activity.
 
 LAST CONFLICT OP GREAT PRINCIPLES. 173 
 
 If therefore, at any time, the question be asked ' Is 
 Christianity about to advance, or to recede ?' the answer 
 must turn (so far as human probabilities are implied) up- 
 on the relative vigour, at the moment, the Living Testi- 
 mony, and of the spirit of impiety and atheism. If, for 
 example, at any season, while unbelief and irreligion are 
 inert, after a long period of undisturbed empire, the spirit 
 of Religion be gathering to itself inward strength, be ris- 
 ing and mantling in dignity and purity of sentiment, be 
 more sincere and fervent, and more deeply moved, and 
 seem to be mustering force for achievement greater than 
 itself distinctly foresees ; then may an expansion of truth 
 be looked for, and an overthrow of the powers of evil. 
 Such was the relative position of the antagonists in the 
 first age of Christianity ; and such again at the bursting 
 forth of the Reformation. 
 
 On the contrary, if at any period, the secular spirit be 
 peculiarly rife with intelligence and power; and at the 
 same time the Living Testimony seem to have spent its 
 force ; -if, with the faith of Christians, there be combined 
 little of virtue, or manly vigour and constancy ; and if, 
 moreover, the Witnesses for God be factiously divided, 
 brother againt brother, then nothing less than some extra- 
 ordinary interposition from on High will prevent the 
 stronger power from trampling on the weaker. This 
 stands certain without argument. 
 
 We do not here either affirm or deny this to be now the 
 relative position of Christianity in Europe : but we go on 
 with our hypothetical meditation, and imagine a triumph 
 of impiety ; a triumph which, even should it actually be 
 in the womb of time, shall endure only for an hour ; and 
 it shall be the " LAST HOUR" of darkness. 
 
 The covert scepticism of the eighteenth century, has be- 
 16*
 
 174 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 come open atheism in the nineteenth. It may be hard to 
 determine whether this is a desirable ripening of Evil or 
 not ; but on the supposition of the contemporaneous de- 
 cline of religion, it is peculiarly significant ; for we can be 
 at no loss in imagining the scene, when this bolder im- 
 piety shall believe itself, at length, free from all constraint 
 and fear. The spread of unbelief, after so signal a restora- 
 tion of Christianity as we have seen take place in our day, 
 may indeed appear highly improbable. But in truth, if 
 the matter be looked at attentively, we shall be compelled 
 to grant, that the future increase of infidelity to any ex- 
 tent, is not a whit more difficult to suppose than its exis- 
 tence at all is hard to account for, in an age like our own, 
 when, as matter of argument, it has been beaten from all 
 its positions ; and when, after the severest possible contest, 
 Christianity has remained in possession of the whole of its 
 evidence, and has received the benefit of having that evi- 
 dense purged of dross, and freed from suspicion. On 
 hypothetical grounds it might well have been supposed 
 that the controversies of the last forty years, and the uni- 
 form triumphs of Christianity in every contest, must, by 
 this time, have rendered infidelity the object of contempt 
 among all well-informed men. If reason held sway in the 
 world, nothing else could have taken place. But it is 
 otherwise ; and if so, then the spread of that which, under 
 such circumstances, dares at all to exist, must not be 
 deemed incredible, or indeed improbable : if it can live, it 
 may grow. 
 
 It is true that, for some time past, atheism has held its 
 place in this, and other European countries, by its sinuosity, 
 its mobility ; by its affected modesty, and its graceful 
 evasion of open warfare; and by the malicious courteous- 
 ness of the obeisance it offers to religion, as if she wished
 
 LAST CONFLICT OF GREAT PRINCIPLES. 175 
 
 that her claims should be reverenced, but not examined. 
 Meanwhile it industriously pursues speculations which, 
 though in their apparent tendency they have no bearing 
 upon the question of Christianity, are always brought to a 
 conclusion that silently implies its nullity. By a similar 
 craftiness, an invading or a rebel force, which has again 
 and again been beaten on the fair and broad field of war, 
 holds its existence, year after year, in the bosom of a dis- 
 tracted country. Well knowing its weakness in arms ; and 
 yet relying upon the aid of a disaffected and disloyal faction 
 in the land, it disperses itself through every district ; is 
 nowhere to be seen in array ; is nowhere to be encounter- 
 ed ; and is not to be destroyed, because not to be met with 
 in the field : yet does it keep alive treason and anarchy 
 through the realm. 
 
 Shall we place our reliance upon those bulworks of re- 
 ligion which the vigilance and munificence of our ances- 
 tors reared for its defence, and which we venerate as con- 
 servative of all that is most precious ? Alas ! such artifi- 
 cial barriers may disappear more suddenly than the morn- 
 ing mist. Nothing is permanent belonging to man, but 
 his inconstancy. The weeks of one summer .the brief 
 interval between the springing of the blade, and the putting 
 in of the sickle on our fields, may see pass away, as a for- 
 gotten dream, what we had believed to stand firm as a 
 mountain. Nor are the means to which recent religious 
 zeal has given existence much more to be trusted, than 
 the venerable institutions of other times. Two powers 
 only are entitled to be considered as grounds of confident 
 calculation, in forecasting future events : these are, on the 
 one hand, the bad passions of man his sensuality, his 
 levity, his virulence, his ferocity ; which infallibly, and 
 alike in every age, and in every hour of every age, are in
 
 176 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 movement, and actually ready to break forth, and to rage, 
 just so far as they are not repressed. And on the other 
 hand, that strong arm of Divine and conservative Provi- 
 dence, which (governed by reasons inscrutable) now with- 
 draws itself almost from the theatre of human affairs ; 
 and now again, with irresistible force, interposes to rescue 
 the ark of Religion, and to renovate the corrupting mass 
 of the human system. These two permanent antagonist 
 powers excepted, nothing that belongs to man is invaria- 
 ble ; and at all times, whatever of evil the first of them 
 can produce, may justly be feared short of that utter de- 
 solation which the second will assuredly prevent: 
 
 It may most confidently be prognosticated that the 
 atheism which is now bland, submissive, respectful, crafty 
 will become a creature altogether of another temper, should 
 it ever reach the point of supremacy and visible triumph. 
 To all powers it belongs to change their external charac- 
 ter, as well as their rate of movement, when they spring 
 up, or burst away from the grasp of an antagonist. So 
 would it be with Christianity ; so shall it be, when it 
 gains the ascendant. Nor would the spread of atheism 
 be slow, if a decided advantage were once obtained over 
 religion ; nor would its deportment be moderate. If there 
 be an imprudence greater than that of placing reliance 
 upon any existing institutions for the preservation of reli- 
 gion, it is to believe that the suavity, the tolerance, the 
 bland indifference, and the enlightened liberality, which 
 now are the garb of the infidel spirit, bfdong to it by na- 
 ture, or would be retained a day after it had nothing to 
 fear from its rival. 
 
 The whole history of man makes it certain, that sen- 
 suality, frivolity, and cupidity (which are the close com- 
 panions always of atheism) connect themselves with
 
 LAST CONFLICT OP GREAT PRINCIPLES. 177 
 
 ferocity, as surely as superstition and fanaticism do so. 
 If false religion has always been sanguinary ; so likewise 
 has lust ; so has voluptuous levity : so has covetousness : 
 the alliance is deep seated among the very roots of passion 
 in the human heart. 
 
 Shall we affirm that none but the priest is by nature 
 persecutor ; and that the atheist has no fang ? Yain con- 
 ceit ! The priest indeed curses this or that rival sect ; 
 and would fain exterminate his foe : but the atheist holds 
 mankind at large in contempt ; and would be ready, with 
 a jest, to blot out all life from the world. Besides ; as 
 the atheist cannot expunge from human nature its latent 
 instincts of religious fear and hope, these principles will 
 be always at work to trouble his security ; and therefore 
 to provoke his resentment. Let but the day come when 
 it shall be fearlessly and commonly professed that " Death 
 is annihilation," and that therefore the pleasures of appe- 
 tite, graced by intelligence, are the whole portion of man, 
 and this horrible opinion shall quickly become parent to 
 a Giant Cruelty, loftier in stature, and more malign than 
 any the earth has hitherto beheld. Even the most san- 
 guinary superstitions have had some profession of sanctity 
 to maintain ; a reserve, a saving hypocrisy, a balance of 
 sentiments, which has set bounds to their demand of 
 blood. But atheism is a simple element : it has no res- 
 training motive ; and must act like itself \ with a dread- 
 ful ingenuousness.' And with what vehemence of spite 
 shall this monster, should he ever win the sceptre of the 
 world, turn, and search on all sides for the residue of 
 those who, by their testimony in favour of the future life, 
 sicken his gust of pleasure, and make pallid his joyous 
 and florid health. 
 
 It were not well (as it is not needful) to imagine in
 
 178 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 particulars the ingenuities of brutal rage which, in such an 
 era of triumphant impiety as we are supposing, shall be 
 brought into play by the chiefs of sensuality and atheism, 
 for the purpose of breaking the constancy of the few who 
 shall maintain the faith of religion. With what zeal 
 shall it be attempted to purge the world, once and for 
 ever, of the fear of God, and belief of immortality ! The 
 ruling spirit of delusion, the invisible, but inveterate enemy 
 of man far better taught in the mysteries of the spiritual 
 world than are his agents and ministers on earth, and not 
 free from an appalling forescent of his own near approach- 
 ing discomfiture, shall nevertheless be so flushed with 
 success (though racked by inward despair) that he shall 
 put in movement the entire force of his kingdom, to bear 
 upon this last hour of conflict. If, when the obsolete and 
 childish fables of the Greek and Roman worship were 
 approaching their fates, the father of error breathed so 
 much of infernal rage into the bosoms of Diocletian and 
 Galerius ; and if again, when the decayed follies of 
 Popery were shaking to their fall, he inspired, with a still 
 more intense ferocity, the hearts, of Austrian Charles, and 
 of Philip, and of Henry, and his daughter, and of her 
 bishops, how much more shall he be furious, when it is 
 not some single form of impiety that is in peril ; but when 
 the great and comprehensive controversy the question of 
 all ages, between SENSE and FAITH, shall draw to a 
 crisis ; and when it shall seem as if now a single convul- 
 sive effort might overthrow for ever the belief of immor- 
 tality. No : that is a triumph which shall never be 
 boasted. Let atheism prevail as it may, some shall re- 
 main firm to the hope of life, and loyal to the honour of 
 God. These shall indeed have been long forsaken by 
 multitudes that once made common cause with them*
 
 LA9T CONFLICT OP GREAT PRINCIPLES. 179 
 
 The congregation of Christ shall have thinned daily. 
 The visionary religionist shall have gone out, hand in 
 hand with the wrangler, and the leader of faction. The 
 cloaked hypocrite, the plausible, conformist, the sanctimo- 
 nious, and. the rigid, together with the licentious, shall 
 have walked away. Nor must we fail to mention the 
 fattened depredator on the goods of the church, who, at the 
 first alarm at the first approach of affliction, shall effect 
 his escape, and very quickly will be seen to have taken his 
 place and a sop, as pensioner at the royal table of impiety. 
 Yes, all shall have gone off but the few learned or igno- 
 rant great or mean, who heretofore had truly held 
 converse with Heaven, and whom Heaven will not for- 
 sake. Such shall be strengthened to maintain a good 
 profession. In the day of trouble there shall be added, 
 " to their faith virtue." Faith itself shall reach assurance 
 of things unseen : every misgiving thought shall be scat- 
 tered; and while it shall seem as if God had indeed 
 withdrawn himself from the earth, the persuasion of his 
 presence shall be the most vivid. 
 
 As it is true that, in a time of laxity and ease the dis- 
 ruption of Faith and Virtue is the principal occasion of 
 leading men into infidelity, by teaching them to call in 
 question, first their own religion, and -then that of their 
 neighbours ; so is it found that in, a time of affliction, the 
 invigoration of Faith by Virtue directly operates to aug- 
 ment the number of believers. Thus may we suppose it 
 to be again. Even when the victims are bound, and the 
 fires are kindling, some perhaps not a few, of those who 
 had thoughtlessly followed in the train of impiety, shall be 
 smitten to the heart, and shall loudly, though at the peril 
 of life profess themselves one with the faithful. The 
 LIVING TESTIMONY shall suddenly revive, and spread
 
 180 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 itself, and shall daunt the adversary. The Atheist Power 
 shall quail, and confess his fears or his incertitude : 
 and perhaps, at that very moment, when the hostile parties 
 are confronting each other in suspense yes, in the depth 
 of that " hour of darkness" at midnight, a cry shall be 
 heard--" Behold the Bridegroom cometh !"
 
 XIT, 
 LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM, 
 
 " Add to virtus Knowledge, and to knowledge Temperance," 
 
 To renounce all energy and consistency of conduct on 
 the plea of Faith, is easy : and so is it easy to profess 
 and practise secular virtue, in contempt of Faith. These 
 two extremes have in all ages been of common occurrence. 
 But Christianity requires (as it is condensely expressed in 
 the second member of our apostolic canon) that Virtue, or 
 energy of character, should spring from evangelical prin- 
 ciples ; and that these principles, moreover, should insure 
 personal purity, and the government of animal appetites. 
 
 The extremes we have mentioned, between which the 
 well instructed Christian holds the mean, are correlatives, 
 directly influencing each other. It is what they see of the 
 laxity, the imbecility, the instability of many religionists, 
 which indurates secular men in their impiety, and leads 
 them with an avowed contempt of religious principles, to 
 rest the motives of their conduct upon the lower ground of 
 expediency, utility, honour, and a regard to reputation. 
 On the other hand (as there is too much reason too fear) 
 the lax religionist, seeing, as he does, that secular princi- 
 ples often produce a sort of consistency and virtue of which 
 he knows himself to be entirely destitute, and finding 
 that his doctrine of faith has no efficiency of a similar 
 kind, arrives tacitly at the conclusion that the honour, 
 truth, integrity, candour, ingenuousness, and self com- 
 mand, in which some worldly men excel, are nothing bet- 
 17
 
 182 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ter than " worldly virtues," or false semblances of goodness, 
 with which " a spiritual man" should have little or nothing 
 to do. Thus the secular man is made the more profane 
 by his neighbourhood to the religionist ; and the religionist 
 more relaxed, by his contact with the worldling. 
 
 The virtue taught by the Apostles, and exemplified also 
 in every age by a good number of ingenuous followers of 
 Christ, is incomparably more complete, and more sound, 
 and more animate, than that of the worldling ; because 
 it reaches to the deepest motives flows out equally from 
 the very centre of the soul, and derives its force always 
 from reasons that are big with the powers of infinity. 
 And then the consistent Christian, when compared, on the 
 other side, with the mere religionist, has a great advantage, 
 inasmuch as (\\efirst element of his spiritual existence is 
 an unsophisticated perception of the evil of sin, and a 
 sincere belief of the peril that thence accrues to himself ; 
 and because its second element is an equally unsophisticat- 
 ed and affectionate gratitude to Him to whom he owes 
 deliverance. His nice sense of honour, therefore, draws 
 its acuteness and its vivacity from a perpetual conscious- 
 ness of the presence of One, whose eye penetrates the 
 spirit, and whose displeasure is the greatest of all evils. 
 
 t Add to knowledge temperance :" or, in other words, 
 let evangelical principles operate to produce self-command, 
 and the due government of animal appetites. The ad- 
 monition, then, bears directly against that licentious abuse 
 of the Gospel which, to some extent has always accom- 
 panied the proclamation of Divine mercy, and which it 
 must be confessed has, in a peculiar degree abounded in 
 modern times. 
 
 Those enormities of conduct which, from time to time, 
 connect themselves with religious profession, are not of
 
 LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM. 183 
 
 any very extensive ill consequence to Christianity, unless 
 they spring, by some mode of theological sophistry, from 
 its capital doctrines. The flagrant vices and gross scan- 
 dals that may break forth for a moment, and disappear, 
 being rebuked, as by the acclamation of all men, inflict 
 only a transient injury upon the cause of truth. It is 
 otherwise when debauched principles and flagitous prac- 
 tices link themselves, by means of bad logic, with the 
 abstruse points of religion, and gravely demand for them- 
 selves the respect that should be paid to well-digested and 
 well-defended systems. In such cases a disease, fatally 
 virulent, touches the vital powers of Christianity, and be- 
 speaks a general corruption, without which the malady 
 could not have advanced so far. 
 
 It is characteristic of evils of this order, that they are 
 found to exist, first, in a state of sublimation, or apparent 
 purity; and afterwards, by a very quick transition, in a 
 state of gross deformity and putrescence. We say the 
 one precedes the other : but when produced they continue 
 to be coeval ; and are always nearly associated. The 
 false glory of the o.ie, hovers over the foul corruption of 
 the other ; just as the decay of animal matter is indicated, 
 during the blackness of night, by a phosphoric corruscation, 
 than which nothing is seemingly more etherial or unsul- 
 lied. But in the order of generation, we must say (revers- 
 ing the apostolic phrase), " That which is first is spiritual ; 
 afterwards that which is natural." 
 
 All the laws of the intellectual world must be subvert- 
 ed before it could ever happen that things gross and 
 corrupt should bring into existence things elevated and 
 refined. The reverse is, as we have said, -the order of 
 nature. Principles that are recondite, subtile, unearthly, 
 become the germinating causes of flagrant evils, that
 
 184 SATURDAY EVENING, 
 
 appal mankind, and that especially excite wonder on 
 account of their parentage or origin. It follows, if gross 
 corruptions be the product of spiritual errors, that when 
 the process of cure is in question, little good will be effect- 
 ed if, while we attack the offspring, we observe tenderness- 
 and reverence toward the parent. This method of pro- 
 cedure must always prove itself nugatory. 
 
 To corne to the instance before us, of the licentious 
 abuse of evangelical principles. If the vulgar who, with 
 so greedy a relish of whatever is rank and fleshly, drink 
 in corrupt doctrine, and actually avail themselves of the 
 indulgence that flows from their creed r could be entirely 
 deprived of all the countenance and aid they receive from 
 those of their leaders whose error is altogether of an intel- 
 lectual kind, and whose conduct is better than their doe- 
 trine, they must almost instantly fall back from their 
 standing within the pale of Christianity, and must very 
 quickly merge, without distinction, in the general mass 
 of irreligion. It is to the wily and perverse intelligence, 
 the ingenuity, and chicane, the false sublimity and pathos,, 
 of a few divine sophists, that the licentious vulgar of the 
 Christian polity owe their very existence^ as professors of 
 the Gospel Could we but withdraw these leaders, we 
 should at once dissolve the body, at the head of which 
 they stand. 
 
 Those thunders of commination which, not unfrequent- 
 ly, roll from orthodox pulpks over the quarters of licentious 
 religionism, die away (for the most part) in fruitless echoes. 
 The spiritual or intellectual heretic scorns such rebukes, 
 as calumnious (at least in his own case) while, if listened 
 to at all by the sensual crowd, they are either jeered at,, 
 as a proof of ignorance in the mysteries of the Gospel ;. or 
 they operate directly to cherish and to flatter the capital
 
 LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM. 185 
 
 delusion of which these persons are the victims. The 
 vindicator of morality 1ms already receded from his van- 
 tage ground, and has virtually surrendered the matter in 
 dispute, when he opens the controversy with flagrant offen- 
 ders against virtue in a specific style, which confesses 
 their right to be treated as religionists. By so doing he 
 transfers what belongs immediately to common sense and 
 good feeling, to the hazy ground of polemics. Now the 
 very core and secret of the delusion which envelopes the 
 licentious religionist, is this same habit of escaping from 
 the ground of common sense and conscience, into the 
 mysticism of abstruse and absurd theology. Theology, 
 with its abstractions, does but inflame evils of this order. 
 What have the covetous, or the impure, or the unjust, or 
 the cruel, to do with questions of theoretical religion 
 questions which divines themselves neither comprehend, 
 nor are able to adjust ? 
 
 Nevertheless the immoral, to whatever class they may 
 belong, are not to be abandoned to their error ; but must, 
 by all means, if possible, be entreated and reclaimed. Some 
 kind of illusion attends always the indulgence of vicious 
 desires ; and whatever may be the peculiarity of that illu- 
 sion, or its strength, it ought never to be deemed indissolu- 
 ble. The debauched religionist, how deeply soever in- 
 fatuated, has not, we may be assured, severed himself from 
 the conditions of his moral nature. The heir of a future 
 life, and the subject of Divine government, might as easily 
 lay down, at the last, his immortality, or evade the search 
 of the ministers of Divine justice, as now quench that light 
 of conscience which is the " candle of the Lord" in the 
 bosom of man. Man may indeed render himself brutish ; 
 but it is in vain that he would seek to take the rank and 
 destiny of the brute. 
 
 17*
 
 186 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 We have said that the spiritual or intellectual form of 
 religious corruptions should be first assailed ; inasmuch as 
 it is the parent of the gross or flagrant form. This being 
 remembered, we remit, to another occasion, that primary 
 subject, and turn to the secondary ; or the considerations 
 of the means to be employed for awakening and reclaim- 
 ing those of the lower sort, who abuse the Gospel. 
 
 It is evident that if a peculiar strength or tenacity be- 
 longs to any vicious infatuation, there must be found a 
 proportionate force in the power that assails it. Now it 
 will be granted that, if there be at all such an infatuation, 
 which, more trran any other, is firm, even as the thick 
 folds of leviathan, it is the one we have now to do with. 
 Here are men conversant with the purity of the Scriptures, 
 who can persuade themselves that they may draw thence 
 a license for every enormity of the fleshly and malignant 
 passions ! Amazing perversity ! Who shall deem him- 
 self qualified to contend with an error so prodigious ? 
 This is not the place for bringing into calculation the irre- 
 sistible efficacy of the Divine Spirit ; an efficacy equally 
 indispensable in all cases ; and to which all difficulties 
 are the same : but we are estimating the proportion be- 
 tween the strength of the evil to be assailed, and the power 
 of the human means, that are applied to effect its removal. 
 No argument is needed to prove that, so far as human 
 agency is at all implied, and so far as the wished-for result 
 is dependent upon that agency, a disorder so grievous as 
 the one in question, is not to be subdued by ordinary means. 
 Certainly it will not yield to the efforts of those who 
 themselves are lax end enfeebled in spirit whose own 
 moral perceptions are obscure whose hearts are not in- 
 genuous whose purposes are sinister, and whose conduct 
 is frivolous. Such may indeed vent their spite, or may
 
 LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM. 187 
 
 display their mastery of language in copious streams of 
 indignant rhetoric ; but not a breeze will be stirred by all 
 this eloquence upon the surface of the stagnant pool which 
 we desire to see cleansed. The evil is a substantial one, 
 as well as inveterate ; and must be contended with by a 
 power that has in it a proportionate degree of fervour and 
 energy. 
 
 The degree of audacity that belongs, at any era, to 
 flagrant abuses within the pale of Christianity, may be 
 assumed as a datum, whence to calculate the vigour, in- 
 tegrity, and fervour of the Christian ministry, at the same 
 time. The Christian ministry may fairly be considered 
 as constituting, in every age, the LIVING POWER OP RE- 
 PROOF, by which the constant tendency of human nature 
 to licentiousness and corruption is to be held in check. 
 This tendency to disorder, and this Power of repression, 
 are antagonist forces, of which the one will rise, as the 
 other falls ; or the one recede, as the other advances ; and 
 which, therefore, may, in their relative state of exaltation 
 or depression, be taken as means of measurement, the one 
 for the other. For example ; do we find an age in which 
 pride, luxuriousness, impurity, rapacity, are suffered to 
 come near to the altar of God, and to receive thence, either 
 by the connivance or timidity of the ministers of that altar, 
 the sacred symbols of the faith ? We have then, unques- 
 tionably, found a time in which, though there may be 
 much eloquence in pulpits, much learning, much suavity, 
 and some fair quantity of the higher excellencies of Chris- 
 tian morals, there is little or no energy, or integrity, or 
 simplicity, in the body that wields the Living power of 
 Rebuke. 
 
 Whoever then loudly and petulantly complains of the 
 impudent front which religious licentiousness is showing
 
 188 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 within his circle, should first be prepared satisfactorily to 
 prove that these disorders (which so much annoy him) do 
 not at all indicate the inefficiency, or the unsoundness of 
 his own mode of contending with them. It is the more 
 necessary to admit impartial examination on such an 
 occasion, because the actual fault in every such case is 
 very likely to attach, not specially to the individual ; but 
 rather to the general spirit of the body to which he belongs ; 
 or to the prevailing style of public instruction in the age ; 
 or to the false assumptions, or fanatical dogmas, or meta- 
 physical crudities, of the theological system to which the 
 individual has bowed. Now we may, at any time, find 
 ten men who have discernment and ingenuousness enough 
 to discover and to acknowledge their personal faults ; soon- 
 er than one man who has the greatness of mind requisite 
 to perceive and confess the faults of the system under 
 whicft he has been reared, and which he stands pledged to 
 support. This is a point reached only by a high order of 
 intelligence ; and therefore attained (spontaneously) only 
 by an exceedingly small number of mankind. 
 
 So powerful is the influence of long-existing mental 
 usages, and habits of thought, and forms of expression, 
 that almost any degree of aberration from reason and truth 
 may take place (so that it does but advance upon us grad- 
 ually) without exciting the attention, even of intelligent 
 minds. Let but a numerous body descend, with a well- 
 timed step, upon an easy declivity, and the lowest depths 
 may be reached before any one pauses to ask "whither 
 are we tending ?" Hence it is that, when at distant inter- 
 vals, men are sent forth by Heaven to reinstate I he church, 
 or to reclaim mankind from general corruptions, they find 
 that the labour of half their allotted term of years hardly 
 suffices to convince their contemporaries (even the reasona-
 
 LICENTIOUS RELIGIONISM. 189 
 
 ble portion of them) that all things are not sound and 
 right. 
 
 It appears then, that when we come to ask by what 
 means that corruption and licentiousness which is always 
 apt to prevail within the church may be checked, we are 
 led directly to an inquiry concerning the vigour and effi- 
 ciency of that Living Power of Rebuke, whence it is to 
 receive its counteraction.
 
 XV. 
 THE POWER OF REBUKE. 
 
 " ffthou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shall lie as my mouth . 
 and J vrill make thee unto the people a defenced brazen vail" 
 
 IT is by the gracious words of Divine Mercy that the 
 hearts of men are to be subdued : these must always 
 be the prime means of affecting and vanquishing the 
 impenitent. The human mind is framed to be influenced 
 far more by hope and tenderness, than by terror and 
 rebuke. This great truth may be assumed as one that is 
 fully established, and universally confessed. 
 
 But the Christian ministry includes also an office of 
 commination ; and if the messengers of Heaven, when 
 they go forth among outcasts and strangers, who, in utter 
 ignorance of God, have gone far astray from virtue, are 
 to speak much more of mercy than of wrath; it is also 
 true that, when they stand up among those who, being 
 well informed in matters of religion, use the grace of the 
 Gospel to palliate their vices, it is especially the message 
 of wrath, which they are called upon to proclaim. The 
 abusers of the Gospel are not to be treated as men theo- 
 logically wrong ; but in the ostensible and common 
 character, of Evil Doers, and open contemners of the aw- 
 ful authority of Heaven. 
 
 In what spirit then, and from what inward force shall 
 this difficult duty be discharged we proceed to inquire. 
 The tendency of the Christian ministry is always to move 
 down from the high and arduous place which belongs to
 
 THE POWER OP REBUKE. 191 
 
 it, of a Remedial Function, to the lower and more grate- 
 ful position of an office of delectation ; either intellectual, 
 or spiritual, Wherever much refinement and good taste 
 prevail, the preacher is likely to become the organ of that 
 species of grave and graceful entertainment which beseems 
 " the Sunday ;" arid so long as he keeps in view the rule 
 which, by a tacit compact, he is bound to observe that of 
 furnishing an hour of pleasurable, meditative excitement; 
 he may take a wide range, as to style and subject : he 
 may be argumentative or imaginative ; epigrammatic and 
 familiar, or lofty and ornate : he may assume a low 
 position, or a high one, in theology : he may be emble- 
 matical, or literal ; mystical and profound, or neological 
 and perspicuous : the wide world is all before him, so that 
 he is but skilful in gathering blooming flowers always 
 from the surface over which he passes. But how shall 
 any such honeyed lips utter (except as matters of gorgeous 
 eloquence) the appalling verities of Divine Justice ? Na- 
 ture forbids the incongruity : and more The Renovating 
 Spirit refuses to yield the energy of His power to the sway 
 of a mere minister of public recreation. 
 
 If, as is a far more frequent case, intelligence and taste 
 be wanting in the preacher's circle, he must learn to 
 furnish spiritual, instead ' of intellectual entertainment; 
 such as may be drawn from the conceits and ingenuities 
 of mystic exposition from the enigmas and tropes of the 
 Rabbinical school ; or from the soothing adulation which, 
 after painting in the brightest colours the honours and 
 privileges of the believer, allows professors of all sorts to 
 appropriate the fulsome description. There may, it is true, 
 be heard frcm the pulpits of this class of preachers, much 
 louder and more frequent thunders than roll from those of 
 the intellectual class. But the peals of wrath, though
 
 192 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 often hoarse, are directed always at some distant adversa- 
 ry ; at opponents of the sect ; or at mankind at large ; 
 or at the occupiers of the high seats of secular greatness : 
 but never, or very rarely, at the impure, the unjust, the 
 rapacious, the malicious, who may be filling the pews 
 around. A vigorous and impartial application of the law 
 of God, backed by its tremendous sanctions, to the conduct 
 and temper of the preacher's audience, would break up his 
 method ; violate his tacit compact, and turn at once the 
 whole tide of his popularity. 
 
 The preacher whom we designate the spiritual (in the 
 want of a term which might better distinguish him from 
 the intellectual) surrenders his last means of arousing the 
 drowsy, inebriate conscience of the dissolute religionist, 
 when (as often happens) he takes his standing within the 
 line of the old metaphysical theology. Upon that circle 
 of crude and audacious logic, where hoary sophistry sets 
 at defiance Scripture, reason, and charity, even the most 
 ingenious minds quickly lose all their simplicity, and the 
 most sensative all their compunction. To enter this school, 
 where nature is trampled on, and torn, is to lay down 
 humanity ; and to take up the most amazing sort of MEN- 
 TAL INDURATION of which the world has ever seen ex- 
 amples. The assertion may be hazarded, that a long 
 course of profane and reckless sensuality, does not more 
 effectually obliterate from the heart its native awe of the 
 Divine Authority, or its reverence for the justice, sanctity, 
 and power of God, than does a. thorough initiation in the 
 brazen abstractions of the antique logical theology. Men 
 and their systems are always to be thought of apart. A 
 man, when on the ground of his system, is commonly 
 found altogether a different being from what he is on the 
 walks of common life. To-day, and at home, he is per-
 
 THE POWER OP REBUKE. 193 
 
 haps sensative and kind-hearted : to-morrow, and in his 
 officials, he speaks of the awful justice of the Supreme, and 
 of its consequences, with the grave indifference, the mon- 
 otony, and levity, of one who, though he has the human 
 form and tongue, possesses neither conception of what he 
 utters, nor the feelings of our nature. 
 
 How strange is the power of accustomed phrases to 
 conceal from the mind the ideas they are intended to con- 
 vey ! This narcotic reaction of language upon the under- 
 standing is, in truth, a disadvantage common to the race, 
 and for which allowance should be made on many partic- 
 ular occasions : the inward sentiments of men are neither 
 to be condemned, nor approved, in strict accordance with 
 the obvious import of the conventional phrases they em- 
 ploy. Yet does it behove public men to be aware of the 
 indurating effect of words, when digested into constant 
 forms, and when sanctioned by immemorial usage ; and 
 they should continually endeavour to break up, what may 
 be called, the mental incrustations which are always 
 spreading themselves over the sensative surface of the soul. 
 This is most especially necessary in reference to those 
 matters wherein the drowsy formalities of language tend 
 directly to augment that stupifying influence that belongs 
 to all vicious indulgences. A mind already rendered cal- 
 lous by sensuality, receives, every week, a new, and again 
 a new insensibility, from the heavy monotonies of the 
 pulpit. How would both speaker and hearer be startled, 
 if the former were, on a sudden, compelled to pause, and 
 to translate into plain and colloquial terms, the appalling 
 affirmations which have just been gliding unnoticed from 
 his lips ! 
 
 Nothing (it need hardly be said) is gained on the side 
 18
 
 194 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of good morals, when the theological stupor of which we 
 have now spoken, is exchanged for the vehemence of a 
 bad ambition to stimulate, by terrors, the dull ear of the 
 multitude. Nor can we hope any better effect from the 
 rancour of the sincere fanatic malign spirit ! -that finds its 
 home, and seems to revel in the awful scenes of future 
 punishment; and coolly drives its car curious and at 
 ease, through the regions of perdition ! Though the in- 
 stances are rare, there have actually been minds by which 
 the place of retribution has been looked upon as a field of 
 triumph ! the lost regarded as fallen foes, who might be 
 trampled on and mocked, and to which the sinner, much 
 rather than sin, is the object of hatred ! 
 
 It is beneath the roar of some such fanatical rancour, 
 or in sound of the boltless thunders of the mere man of 
 rhetoric, or it is upon the bewitched circle of scholastic 
 theology, that the licentious religionist enjoys his profound- 
 est sleep. All men feel instinctively, that there is nothing 
 of substance, nothing of sincerity, nothing, in a word, 
 which need cause serious alarm, in either the virulence of 
 the one declaimer, or the profundities and sublimities of 
 the other. 
 
 Every part of the duty of the minister of religion is 
 more easy than to maintain, in vigour and purity, the 
 spirit he needs as The Reprover of Sin, and guardian of 
 virtue. It is easy to teach the articles of belief, and easy 
 to illustrate the branches of Christian ethics ; it is easy to 
 proclaim the Divine mercy : and easy to meet and assuage 
 the fear and sorrows of the feeble and afflicted. But to 
 keep in full activity the POWER OF REBUKE, demands 
 moral qualities of the rarest sort. It is utterly fruitless to 
 turn from side to side in search of substitutes for these quali-
 
 THE POWER OF REBUKE. 
 
 ties. The preacher may, for example, avail himself of 
 abstract demonstrations, by which to vindicate the unalter- 
 able rigour of the Divine government ; and he may prove 
 irrefragably, that the Supreme Ruler of the moral system 
 can never pass over transgression ; but must needs exact 
 the appointed penalty, either from the transgressor or from 
 his Substitute. The erudite argument, for any substantial 
 effect it will produce, might as well have related to the mo- 
 tions of the planets. Or feeling the incongruity of abstruse 
 reasoning, when addressed to the commonalty of man- 
 kind, he musters the means, and brings together all the 
 resources of eloquence. He is, in turns, descriptive, pathet- 
 ic, indignant ; he flames ; he weeps ; he astounds the 
 hearer, by the prodigious accumulation of his terms and 
 figures of terror. Idle labour ! Even while the walls are 
 ringing with these sounds of alarm, the covetous man, in 
 his corner, is mentally counting his gold : the eye of the 
 vain and prurient is darting from object to object of illicit 
 attraction : the envious and malign is brooding on new 
 calumnies, to be propagated at the church door : the am- 
 bitious is plotting the destruction of his rival ; and the 
 fraudulent and rapacious are, in cogitation, stretching the 
 net for the feet of the unwary. And yet every rule of the 
 most approved systems of rhetoric has been observed ; yes, 
 and every intelligent hearer goes away ama-zed at the skill 
 and power of the preacher : and this preacher toOj was 
 sincere in his endeavours ! 
 
 Ah ! but to speak efficaciously of the holiness and jus- 
 tice of Almighty God, and of its future consequences ; 
 to speak in modesty, tenderness, and power, of the ap- 
 proaching doom of the impenitent, is altogether another 
 matter ; and one that must be left to those whose spirits
 
 196 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 have had much communion with the dread Majesty on 
 high. As the punishment of sin springs, by an ineffable 
 harmony, from the first principles of Divine Nature, and 
 infringes not at all upon Benevolence, so must he who 
 would rightly speak of that punishment, have attained to 
 a far more intimate perception of the coincidence of holi- 
 ness and love, than language can convey, or than can be 
 made the subject of communication between man and 
 man. This knowledge belongs entirely to the inner 
 circle of the soul, the centre which the rational faculty 
 does but imperfectly penetrate ; it is a sense or emotion 
 of the immortal essence : it is conveyed to the spirit by 
 the Father of Spirits ; and only conveyed, in any consi- 
 derable degree, where much meditation, and prayer, and 
 abstraction from earthly passions, opens the way to its re- 
 ception and entertainment. All other elements of devo- 
 tional sentiment may lodge in the heart sooner than this. 
 Hence it is that, on this point, more conspicuously than on 
 any other, ordinary teachers are in fault ; and not a few, 
 honest to themselves, and abhorrent of pretention or arti- 
 fice, avoid, almost entirely, a subject on which they feel 
 themselves to be unprepared to speak with feeling and 
 energy. 
 
 An indispensable qualification for the vigorous exercise 
 of the Power of Rebuke, by the Christian minister, is such 
 a conviction of the truth of Christianity, as shall render 
 him proof against all assaults from within, and from 
 without. And is there not reason to fear that, in this 
 qualification multitudes of Christian teachers are wanting ? 
 Every one who has reflected maturely upon the workings 
 of the human mind, perceives that, whether the fact be 
 confessed or concealed the stress of the controversy
 
 THE POWER OF REBUKE. 197 
 
 Concerning the divine mission of Christ depends upon the 
 doctrine of future punishment. The affirmations of our 
 Lord and his Apostles on this subject, though they fall in 
 with the smothered forebodings of conscience, in every 
 man's bosom, give a distinct form to apprehensions from 
 which the mind strives, by all means, if possible, to escape; 
 and which it will never cordially admit until the moral 
 faculties be rectified. The quarrel of the world with 
 Christianity comes to its issue upon this doctrine of future 
 retribution. And as often as any mind recedes from the 
 spirituality of its perceptions, it falls back upon this disa- 
 greement ; and at such times, if the argumentative 
 conviction of the truth of Christianity be imperfect, the 
 darkness and perplexity of scepticism will come in upon 
 the soul like a flood. 
 
 While they are meditating, at ease, upon those illumi- 
 nated scenes of future joy which the Gospel spreads before 
 us, and while we admit, in simplicity of heart, the conso- 
 lations it affords us amid our present sorrows, we demand 
 with little solicitude the reasons of our faith. Joy and hope 
 are emotions indigenous to the human mind ; they are 
 so because they belong to its original destiny, which was 
 to happiness ; and when they enter the soul they bring 
 with them a noble disdain of suspicions. But the very 
 same law of our nature which makes joy and hope spon- 
 taneous and unsuspecting, impels us to doubt, when the 
 dark and appalling presentiments of conscience are authen- 
 ticated. As often as we set foot upon the region which sin 
 has replenished with terrors, we have need of all the 
 strength we can derive from the very firmest convictions. 
 
 Fatal to his influence as Reprover of Sin, must be a 
 lurking scepticism in the breast of the public teacher. No 
 care will avail to conceal the inward misgiving of the 
 18*
 
 198 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 mind : the tongue of the speaker will falter ; and the 
 reserve the indecision the vagueness of his manner ; 
 or, still more, his artificial vehemence, will betray the secret 
 of his doubts ; and the infection of these doubts will pass 
 into the heart of the hearer, and will serve to harden each 
 transgressor in his impenitence. 
 
 But supposing his preliminary convictions to be firm 
 there is then another feeling of which the minister of Re- 
 ligion will find the need, when he labours to affect the 
 hearts of the licentious with fear. It is what may be 
 termed a resolute LOYALTY to the Divine administration. 
 This sentiment is in some measure distinguishable and 
 separable from those intimate perceptions of which just 
 above we have spoken. It rests upon the rectitude and 
 perspicacity of the understanding ; takes its force from 
 genuine piety, and affection to truth ; and is, if we might 
 so speak, a robust emotion, less liable to fluctuation than 
 some that are of a more exalted kind. It was in the 
 spirit of this loyalty that the father of the faithful said 
 " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ?" and in 
 his question assumed the conspicuous certainty of the af- 
 firmative. It was in the same spirit that the royal poet 
 uttered his worthy persuasion " I know, O Lord, that all 
 thy judgments are right." And it was with a similar force 
 of healthy piety that Paul exclaimed " Yea, let God be 
 true, but every man a liar." 
 
 This loyalty will break through the mazes of much 
 sophistry ; will support the servant of God in his position, 
 when assailed by more fallacies than he is able at the mo- 
 ment to refute ; and will strengthen him to cleave, even 
 under all obloquies and embarrassments, to what he in- 
 wardly and firmly knows must, in the end, prove itself 
 the better cause.
 
 THE POWER OF REBUKE. 199 
 
 Not less necessary to the minister of truth, is an unaf- 
 fected sensitive compassion towards his fellow-men a 
 compassion of that efficient kind which nothing has ever 
 produced in the world but the Gospel. The servant of 
 heaven can execute his commission only so far as he gains 
 access to the human heart ; and there is no other path of 
 access, no other law of affinity, no sympathy, but that 
 of love. The rugged, the severe, the petulant, will in vain 
 arm himself with thunder, or fill his mouth with impreca- 
 tions ; truth, if indeed he has it on his side, retains neither 
 edge nor temper in his hand. By such stern vindicators 
 of Divine Justice it seems to be forgotten that the special 
 reason why men not angels, are sent to preach repentance, 
 is, that the proclamation of mercy may always be heard in 
 that tone of tenderness and humiliation which it naturally 
 receives when it issues from the lips of one who himself 
 has sinned, and received pardon. The benevolence of 
 angels, is, no doubt, perfect in its kind ; but the compas- 
 sions of man have a special property, which imparts pathos 
 and persuasion to the awful announcement of God's dis- 
 pleasure against sin. The end of all Reproof is Mercy. 
 If there were no redemption at hand, it were idle, or cruel, 
 to talk of Judgment. But the Reprover is the very same 
 as the herald of peace ; and must draw his arguments 
 whether of terror or entreaty, from his own blended con- 
 viction of the certainty of the future punishment, and the 
 reality of the means of escape. 
 
 But the expulsion of licentiousness from the Sanctuary 
 of religion, includes other considerations, to which attention 
 may well be given.
 
 
 XVI. 
 STRENGTH OF THE POWER OF REBUKE. 
 
 11 HowbeU, in Understanding, be Men." 
 
 CONTEMPT of common sense has been the special char- 
 acteristic of debauched pietism in every age : hence, of 
 course, an indispensable quality in the Reprover of sucli 
 evils, is much of that prompt and vigorous intelligence to 
 which the epithet Good Sense is applied. 
 
 The mystic sophisms wherein religious profligacy wraps 
 itself are better cut through at once, than removed as if 
 they were entitled to respect. Our Lord, with a vigour 
 and warmth of manner that were unlike his ordinary 
 style, set the pattern of this mode of dealing with dissolute 
 hypocrisy, when he assailed the Jewish doctors and their 
 vicious casuistry. < Fools and blind ! how can ye escape 
 the damnation of hell ?" The whole strain of the Apos- 
 tolic writings bespeaks the same manly force, in scattering, 
 as at a blow, the pretences of sanctimonious knavery. 
 The method of rabbinical exposition, which consists for 
 the most part in the constructions of evasions whereby the 
 law of God might be made of none effect, and by means 
 of which a corner might be saved for every sin, within 
 the meaning of every prohibition, has been repeated, age 
 after age, with variations. But the masters of the syna- 
 gogue held their bad honours unrivalled, until, at length, 
 the Jesuit bore away the palm of wicked ingenuity. Yet, 
 even under the hand of the Jesuit, the refinements of 
 hypocrisy did not reach their perfection ; and it remained
 
 STRENGTH OF THE POWER OF REBUKE. 201 
 
 to be shown that the Spaniard and the Italian might, in 
 this work, be outdone. Both have actually been surpas- 
 sed by the mystic and debauched antinomian of our day, 
 who has given incomparably more depth and force of 
 colour to the doctrine of pious impurity, than either the 
 Rabbi or the Jesuit had dreamed of. 
 
 The strength of the Reformers was precisely the 
 strength of good sense, as opposed to wiles, and doating 
 inanities, and ingenious knavery. In every dispute 
 between them and the Romish doctors, (if we subtract its 
 peculiar terms, and nominal subject,) the real point at 
 issue was the preservation of common sense in the world, 
 or its destruction : the controversy was between corrupt 
 refinements in the theory and practice of religion, on the 
 one hand ; and on the other, the perspicuous demands of 
 right reason. The Reformation was a return of mankind 
 to integrity, and simplicity of understanding, and a rejec- 
 tion of intellectual subtlety, imbecility and fraud. 
 
 But the manly vigour of the Reformation spent itself in 
 a century ; and there sprung up on all sides, within its 
 circle, various repetitions or revivals of the sacred follies of 
 earlier ages. Some other of these follies may have pro- 
 duced as great, or a greater amount of evil ; but not one 
 of them has so much scandalized the Reformation itself, 
 or so much vilified Christianity, or has indicated nearly so 
 fearful an audacity, as that which, by learned argumenta- 
 tion, has taught men that the commands and prohibitions 
 of Scripture are nothing more than mythic revelations of 
 Gospel mysteries, which it would be a childish symplicity 
 to understand in their grammatical sense ; and still more 
 absurd practically to regard in that sense. 
 
 The angry controversies, with their jargon and empty 
 profundity, which raged in protestant countries at the
 
 202 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 time of the Reformation, and downward, though they 
 called upon the stage of the church much intellectual 
 power, transmitted to the next century not that power 
 (which seemed to have been all spent in the conflict) but 
 what may be termed a preparative of theological perversity 
 which opened the way, or made smooth the path, for the 
 advance of the antinomian heresy. The understandings 
 of the sons, it might be imagined, inherited the exhaustion 
 and the debility which naturally succeeded to the excite- 
 ment that had maddened the fathers. 
 
 Perhaps no occurrence recorded in the history of human 
 nature none of the ancient whims or enormities of 
 superstition, is more truly amazing than what we have 
 seen take place, during the last seventy years, among our- 
 selves. The case deserves to be distinctly stated in its 
 peculiar circumstances. The English people, compared 
 with their neighbours, may fairly claim the praise of sound- 
 ness and vigour of understanding, and of much practical 
 deference to truth. The course of events, moreover, has 
 tended in a remarkable degree, both to excite the mental 
 faculties to strenuous exercise, and to bring idle and absurd 
 speculations, of all kinds, into contempt. It is by such a 
 people that the Scriptures are received, and diligently 
 studied. And what is the prominent character of these 
 Sacred Writings ? Even if it were granted that, in their 
 mode of revealing certain articles of faith, or in their allusion 
 to subjects of polity and ceremony, such a degree of 
 obscurity attaches to them as calls for industry and learn- 
 ing in the interpreter ; it is not less true that, in whatever 
 relates, either to the great principles whence virtue should 
 emanate, or to the detail of virtues and the vices to the 
 application of general rules to particular relations, or occa- 
 sions, the inspired writers leave nothing to be desired, oc
 
 STRENGTH OP THE POWER OF REBUKE. 203 
 
 even imagined, in. the way of perspicuity, definitiveness 
 iteration, or diversified expression, and exemplification. 
 Considered merely as . a book of morality, the Bible is 
 incomparably a more complete, intelligible, and popular 
 Manual, than any other composition. In this respect, 
 though the teacher may find room for the enforcement of 
 rules, he is scarcely at all called upon to exercise his skill 
 as expositor. The Bible, in the plain matters of duty, of 
 temper, and of social behaviour, comes home at once to 
 the understanding of the rudest part of mankind ; and is 
 very nearly the same book to the peasant,. as to the doctor 
 of divinity. And yet this is the volume which a portion 
 of the most sober people in Europe has actually transmut- 
 ed into a collection of sacred riddles ; and has robbed, in 
 the most absolute manner, of the whole of its force or 
 application, as a divine directory of the conscience and 
 conduct of men ! ' The Bible,' said they, ' affirms no- 
 thing or nothing which is significant to Christians, on 
 points of justice, temperance, purity, charity, meekness. 
 Whatever it seems to say on these subjects, is in truth 
 (under the guise of a divine trope or apologue) addressed 
 to those who have become spiritually wise to discern the 
 mystery beneath the letter of the written word.' 
 
 This, with the variations, and palliations, and fraud- 
 ulent subterfuges, is the substance of that delusion which 
 has spread through the religious body in all directions, and 
 has to boast among its adherents, not merely crowds of 
 simple and vulgar, but more than a few of the rich and 
 the educated ; and has been defended by erudition and elo- 
 quence ! -Such is the human mind, even when enjoying 
 the most signal advantages, if once it severs itself from 
 common sense, and falls under the influence, either of some 
 dream of intellectual bliss, or of the soft and yet impetuous 
 force of voluptuous desires !
 
 204 SATURDAY .EVENING. 
 
 Shall we then labour to dissipate delusions such as 
 these by the method of scholastic argumentation ? Shall 
 we be learned and acute in our refutations of them? 
 The man who would proceed in such a manner is simple 
 as a child ; or has himself already inhaled a debilitating 
 influence from a poisoned atmosphere. On the ground 
 of theory and speculation, the victims of such errors will 
 be found to have lost irrecoverably the power of distin- 
 guishing truth from falsehood : the faculties of the under- 
 standing are all in solution, and no longer affect one the 
 other, according to the laws of the rational constitution : 
 the mind does not float on the surface of intelligible notions, 
 where it might be detained, or steered towards the hemis- 
 phere of light ; but it plunges vaguely hither and thither, 
 in the profoundest depths of night, to reason and to 
 knowledge it is lost. 
 
 Yet, as we have said, Conscience is not extinguished ; 
 and a hope of recovery remains with the possibility of 
 suddenly arousing this conservative power by the direct 
 means of applying to each particular instance of immoral- 
 ity the Divine denouncements of future retribution, with 
 all the appalling descriptions which the Scriptures furnish. 
 Experience has abundantly proved that such awakening 
 declarations, when addressed to the untaught profligacy 
 of the mass of mankind, and when accompanied with the 
 exhibition of mercy, have, in innumerable instances, prov- 
 ed eflicacious. It is indeed granted that the moral and 
 intellectual condition of the licentious religionist is far more 
 complicated and desperate than that of the ordinary trans- 
 gressor ; yet it must not be deemed absolutely hopeless. 
 
 Nevertheless it is manifest that so peculiar an infatua- 
 tion demands an extraordinary vigour in the instrument 
 employed to effect its removal ; and having already advert-
 
 STRENGTH OP THE POWER OP REBUKE. 205 
 
 ed to some general causes which tend, either to corobo- 
 rate or to enfeeble this instrument, we have now to consid- 
 er some of a more specific kind. Whoever would over- 
 throw subtle casuistry, must be clear from the charge of 
 ever having recourse to it himself. We must know no 
 style but that of intrepid honesty, if we would at all use 
 it with advantage ; and we shall fail in the attempt (with- 
 out suspecting the cause of our own defeat) to speak with 
 firmness and authority, as men, and as the servants of 
 God, to one class of opponents, if, when called upon to 
 address some other class, we find it necessary to descend 
 from that lofty position, and to subtilize, to avail ourselves 
 of the tricks of controversy, to be adroit, disingenuous, in- 
 genious ; to evade conclusive arguments by wit, or vio- 
 lence ; and to conceal, beneath a many-coloured cloak of 
 idle declamation, that which, if exposed to view, we should 
 be ashamed to call our own. 
 
 The highly difficult work of reclaiming the infatuated 
 religionist demands a simplicity of mind, which must un- 
 fit a man for the delicate task of recommending and palli- 
 ating the dogmas and practices (entire) of a party let that 
 party be as pure as it may. When, in obedience to certain 
 maxims of policy or discretion (which, however learnedly 
 excused, fall immeasurably short of true wisdom) we step 
 forward as the apologists of things that all right-minded 
 men feel (whether they say so or not) to be utterly inde- 
 fensible, we sever the nerve of our moral and intellectual 
 strength, by the very act. No expectation can be more 
 egregious than that of finding ourselves men to-morrow, 
 if we must be sophists to-day. There is a law of contin- 
 uity, of homogeneity, in the human mind ; there is an 
 equalizing of powers, which makes it take its permanent 
 character from the humiliations to which at any time it 
 
 19
 
 206 SATURDAY EVEiNLVO. 
 
 submits, and which demands that it shall go to its place 
 on the scale of dignity and power, not according to the 
 highest elevation it ever reaches, or may aspire to, nor 
 even midway between the highest and the lowest point ; 
 but near to lowest. Spontaneously and consciously to 
 submit to degradation, even for an hour, is for ever to be 
 degraded. 
 
 We need not then be much amazed if, in looking abroad 
 over the Christian community, we see, in some quarters, 
 the authority of God and the dictates of common sense set 
 at defiance, notwithstanding the faithful, and laborious, 
 and perhaps intelligent endeavours of worthy and able men 
 to put the contumacious to silence. The truth, probably, 
 is that these good and sincere men have surrendered, in 
 some manner, the fulness of their integrity and energy. 
 The evil they are contending with is too ponderous to be 
 moved by the shoulders that are set to it. To-day, you 
 find them zealously protesting against the sophistries of 
 sin ; but yesterday, perhaps, they were performing some 
 needful service for the interests of the party they stand 
 connected with ; and there is no religious party that has 
 not work to perform in which no man can engage and 
 come forth as he went into it. 
 
 * It is asked (vauntingly by some persons) u What is the 
 great evil of our religious diversities, seeing that the mat- 
 ters in debate are comparatively unimportant?'' Alas ! it 
 is this very non-importance of the controversies that di- 
 vide the church, which imparts to them their debilitating 
 influence on the minds of Christians. So long as men 
 disagree on questions of great moment, they will continue 
 to be men ; though they may be injuriously inflamed. 
 But allow them to divide and to wrangle on trifles, and 
 all infallibly will become frivolous. Nothing can arrest
 
 STRENGTH OF THE POWER OP REBUKE. 207 
 
 this consequence. A century of foolish discord will be 
 found enough to dissipate all the force of mind which the 
 bounty of nature may, in that period, have afforded to the 
 service of the Church. 
 
 Let it then be impartially asked, whether the existing 
 divisions which keep asunder the body of true Christians, 
 have not a direct influence in withdrawing from that body 
 the internal vigour which should enable it to throw off 
 the enormous evils that infest it. 
 
 Bnt there are milder forms of religious laxity, the growth 
 of which demands some notice. 
 
 In every religious circle there exists and grows (it is to 
 be feared) a sad amount of immorality in conduct, or tem- 
 per, under favour of that indefinite, and drowsy mode of 
 enforcing the preceptive part of religion, which is too com- 
 mon. The Law and the Gospel, divinely wedded pair, 
 have been lamentably divorced among us. Under one 
 sacred roof the Commandments are spoken of as if they 
 comprised the whole of God's message to man ; while, 
 under another, the Gospel imposes silence upon the Com- 
 mandments. The result, though different in appearance, 
 is substantially the same : the hearers in the one case 
 continue in their sins, because they are furnished with 
 none of the motives of spiritual life ; and in the other, be- 
 cause they are left to expound the code of Christian duty 
 in their own way ; or are allowed to forget it altogether. 
 
 It is true, that both these preachers make occasional 
 allusion to the class of truths which each ordinarily neg- 
 lects. The first speaks of the free provisions of the Gospel 
 very much in the manner of the debtor, who mentions 
 his obligation in the presence of his creditor ; or as the 
 culprit speaks of the evidence which convicts him ; or as 
 the proud man confesses his dishonour, or the ambitious
 
 208 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 man his overthrow. But never does he utter himself 
 cordially on subjects of this kind ; and never to the 
 smallest discernible good purpose. 
 
 And it is much in the same manner that the preacher 
 of grace (too often) while he grants that personal virtue is 
 a proper and -indeed necessary accompaniment of faith ; 
 and while once and again he declares, that ' holiness 
 should be the fruit of pardon,' makes this declaration the 
 beginning and the ending of his exposition of the ethical 
 portions of the Scriptures. What this ' holiness' implies 
 or contains, none can tell you : or if they can tell, they 
 have not been taught that the parts of it are indispensable 
 to the constitution of the whole ; or that it can exist only 
 by the presence of every one of its parts. Even if an in- 
 direct inference from the preacher's doctrine does not belie 
 its bald affirmations in favour of virtue, they pass upon the 
 drowsy ear of the sensual, the malignant, or the fraudulent 
 as a mere pulpit usage an Amen, or a Gloria, which is 
 to come in at. a pause ; but which no one heeds. 
 
 Truly it is not by the use of certain abstract phrases, 
 just where the symmetry of the discourse may seem to call 
 for them, that the mass of mankind inert, corrupted, and 
 solicited by bad passions, and bad customs, is to be taught 
 the particulars of morality, of self-command, truth, and 
 justice ; or restrained from illicit indulgences. It is not in 
 any such vague and listless style that flagrant offenders 
 are to be put to open shame : it is not thus that secret 
 transgressors are to be brought out from their conceal- 
 ments ; nor thus that the wavering purpose of the young 
 is to be determined to the better side, or fortified by the 
 recollection of judgment against the hour of temptation. 
 Nor is it thus, in a word, that a vivid and abiding sense of 
 the awful majesty of God, and of the exact rectitude of
 
 STRENGTH OF THE POWER OF REBUKE. 209 
 
 bis government, is to be maintained in the minds of the 
 people. There are, it is true, in every congregation, a few 
 individuals two or three, perhaps, in a hundred, whose 
 private meditations, and whose serious study of the Scrip- 
 tures, may, in great measure, supply to themselves the 
 deficiencies of public instruction. But it is certain that the 
 morals of the mass of the people will correspond very 
 nearly with what is done by their teachers to inform them 
 in the principles of virtue. 
 
 One who is well acquainted with human nature who 
 knows its infirmity, its inconsistency, its laxity of purpose, 
 its proneness to admit the illusions of passion and self-love, 
 must shudder when he finds in what way certain congre- 
 gations are entertained, year after year, with topics that 
 scarcely at all affect the conscience : they are made theo- 
 logians, perhaps ; or they are moved to emotion ; or they 
 are impelled to take their part in ostensible works of mercy : 
 but " the great matters of the law" are hidden from their 
 eyes ; and multitudes, without any deliberate purpose of 
 abusing the grace of God to licentiousness, without any 
 extraordinary impulsion towards vicious practices, slide 
 unconsciously into whatever evil most solicits them ; 
 because their minds are fortified by no explicit warning 
 and are unfurnished with any definite principles of 
 conduct. 
 
 We say, a wise and considerate man will be fain to 
 make his escape from such a scene of things, sorrowfully 
 exclaming --" Surely, THE FEAR OF GOD is not in this 
 place !" 
 
 19*
 
 XVII. 
 THE RECLUSE. 
 
 -" Add to Godliness, Brotherly Kindness." 
 
 THE principle of the Apostolic injunction may be thug 
 expressed ' Genuine piety is social ; and this social 
 piety is not affection to a party ; but universal love !' 
 
 There is, perhaps, no order of sentiments which reason 
 cannot approve, and which Christianity condemns, that 
 more strongly recommends itself as innocent and excellent, 
 than that of a secluded meditative piety. We speak not, 
 of course, of the morose and misanthropic spirit of the 
 ascetic ; but of that milder sort of anchoretic religion 
 which, Vvithout admitting any particle of ill-will towards 
 mankind, leads the subject of it to withdraw himself from 
 society, that he may drink, without interruption, of the 
 still stream of delight that springs from holy contemplation. 
 
 The man who tastes, in a high degree, the pleasures of 
 abstracted thought, may perhaps owe to circ/u/i^fances 
 something of the perfection of enjoyment he attains : but 
 he must have received his primary qualifications from na- 
 ture. There is a serenity might we say a Icntitude of 
 the physical temperament ; there is a native translucency 
 of mind ; there is a correct keeping of time a rhythm 
 and melody in the movements of the passions ; there is 
 a steady, tranquil flight of the fancy : and there is a habit 
 of abstraction (not philosophical but imaginative) which, 
 altogether, supply to the mind that combines them a far 
 higher and more constant happiness than is ever, even
 
 THE RECLUSE. 21 1 
 
 under the most favourable circumstances, to be drawn 
 from the ordinary external sources of pleasure. The man 
 of meditation is happy, not for an hour, or a day, but quite 
 round the circle of his years. 
 
 As there are powers in human nature faculties, ration- 
 al and imaginative, which lie dormant while man contin- 
 ues in a savage state ; so is there much in the circle of 
 the tranquil emotions which does not come at all into 
 play, and is absolutely latent, in the bosoms of the mass of 
 mankind. The turbulent and turbid possions, and the 
 urgent solicitudes of the multitude, allow nothing that is 
 not vivid and importunate to gain their attention. And it 
 is so, that the hidden treasures of the soul the secret 
 delights of the heart, become the unenvied portion of a 
 few meditative spirits. In these, the intellectual life is 
 quick in all its parts. It is as when the waters of a lake 
 are suffered to deposit their feculence, and to become as 
 pure as the ether itself; so that they not only reflect from 
 their surface the splendour of heaven, but allow the curi- 
 ous eye to gaze delighted upon the decorated grottoes and 
 sparkling caverns of the depth beneath. 
 
 Or might we say, that the ground of the human heart 
 is thickly fraught with seeds which never germinate under 
 either a wintry, or a too fervent sky : but let the dew 
 come gently on the ground, and let mild suns warm it, 
 and let it be guarded against external rudeness, and we 
 shall see spring up a garden of gaiety and fragrance. 
 The Eden of human nature has indeed long ago been 
 trampled down, and desolated : storms waste it continual- 
 ly : nevertheless the soil is rich with the germs of its 
 pristine beauty ; all the colours of Paradise are sleeping 
 in the clods : And a little favour, a little protection, a little 
 culture, show what once was there. Or if \ve look at the
 
 212 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 human spirit in its relation to futurity, we shall acknow- 
 ledge that, as an immortality of joy is its proper destiny, 
 so is it moved by instincts which are the prognostics of 
 eternal life. But earthly passions quench these forcscents 
 of happiness : meditation fosters them ; and the life of 
 the religious recluse is a delicious anticipation of those 
 pleasures that shall have no end. 
 
 Yet may the course of life adopted by the solitary reli- 
 gionist be partially excused on more solid ground. Self- 
 knowledge is the chief or initial part of true wisdom. 
 But self-knowledge is the result of an analysis that never 
 absolutely reaches simple elements. Let human motives 
 be examined with as much precision as may be, it is na- 
 tural to them to coalesce, and form new combinations ; 
 and this without end : the work of analysis has always 
 to be renewed, and is never achieved. Moreover there is 
 a high sensibility of conscience attending the diligent 
 inspection of the heart, which becomes continually more 
 and more exquisite, the more it is exercised : the percep- 
 tion of good and evil acquires a fineness of apprehension 
 a power of discrimination, such as incites it always to 
 advance and to apply itself anew to every circumstance of 
 the moral life. This vivid and ever-growing sensitiveness 
 therefore, and this power of scrutiny, find full occupation 
 for the meditative spirit, and seem to deny it time or liberty 
 to be engaged with the interest of the common world. 
 
 We may advance a step farther. Religion, or the 
 devotional part of it, is nothing else but the communion 
 of the soul with God ; and therefore by its necessary con- 
 dition is seclusive. There is no piety of a multitude. 
 The worship of a congregation is the worship of so many 
 hearts, each rendered a degree more fervent than other- 
 wise by the power of sympathy. But if the elements of
 
 THE RECLUSE. 213 
 
 worship have not heen brought together from the depth of 
 individual spirits, they exist not at all. In all true wor- 
 ship, whether the scene be the place of publick convoca- 
 tion, or the closet, the soul brings its immortal substance, 
 and its personal destiny, and its particular interest ; its 
 recollections its hope, and its fears ; yes, itself, as if it 
 were the only created existence, or in oblivion of all others, 
 before the throne of God. How vivid soever may be the 
 emotions, that spring in each heart from its sympathy 
 with others, they can never come into comparison \\ ilh 
 those that belong to its own ultimate welfare. In the 
 solitude of true worship the human spirit avails itself of, 
 and confesses, two most momentous truths ; first its orig- 
 inal homogeneity with the Divine Nature ; without which 
 there could be no communion ; since none but like things 
 can blend : and secondly, the assumption of the human 
 nature by the Divine, in the person of the Son of God ; 
 which is the only means and medium of communion 
 between Heaven and earth. Both these ineffable doc- 
 trines imply that the soul may approach so near to the 
 Majesty on high as to forget all things but God and itself. 
 The habit of meditative intercourse with Heaven being 
 once formed, and its expansion also favoured, as we have 
 supposed, by the sensibility of the imagination, there is 
 opened an unbounded field of delicious contemplation, in 
 the natural world. The power and wisdom of the Crea- 
 tor are indeed vaguely discerned, and formally confessed, 
 by ordinary rninds, as often. as particular specimens of 
 both are produced ; but the man addicted to devout 
 meditation, is not only alive to such indications of the 
 Divinity, at all times, and in all places ; he sees in them 
 much more than the bare attribute of which the instance 
 before him yields a proof: he sees there (if so we might
 
 214 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 speak) the entire personality of the Divine Being, with all 
 the glories of his moral attributes; for the habit of his 
 soul forbids that he should think of God at all otherwise 
 than personally. It is not power, and wisdom, and bene- 
 ficience, abstractedly, that are displayed to him in the 
 visible Creation ; but rather God himself his Friend and, 
 Father. Each work of the divine hand is a symbol, 
 indicative of much more than can be rigidly demonstrated 
 by its means. The tones of a voice a voice familiar 
 in a perpetual melody, fall upon his ear, as he walks 
 among the creatures ; and whatever emotion may be then 
 stirring in the depth of his soul, is ready to be called up 
 by these celestial notes. 
 
 And here ought to be noted a peculiarity belonging to 
 the habit of devout meditation upon the scenes of nature ; 
 a peculiarity which in part explains the fondness of 
 religious recluses for wild and desolate regions. There is 
 a purity, or abstinence, in the tastes of the man of medi- 
 tation. He by no means desires to be placed in the midst 
 of the gaudy magnificence of nature, before he can fill his 
 soul with the pious ravishment he delights in. He would 
 not even if he might choose, walk through groves of 
 luscious and spicy pleasure, where every colour and every 
 fragrance satiates the sense. He does not covet, as his 
 home, a valley of the east, where the sun seems to linger 
 and shed all his favours. On the contrary, he would 
 much rather draw his devout inferences from the slenderest 
 or most modest examples : he choses to dwell upon 
 instances wherein the parsimony of nature gives the larger 
 space to the diligence of rflection ; and where the premi- 
 ses are always less obtrusive than the conclusion. Yes, 
 it is most true, that the pious contemplatist finds, in the 
 sear herbage of the wilderness, and finds, on the rugged
 
 THE RECLUSE. 215 
 
 and scorched surface of granite rocks, symbols enough of 
 God ; and he thinks himself richly furnished with book, 
 and lesson, and teacher, when he descries on his solitary 
 way, only a blade of grass ! 
 
 Or even if the prospect on earth be absolutely void of 
 life ; the skies are still open to the gaze of the recluse ; 
 and are they not laid open for his peculiar benefit ? who 
 but himself draws thence the principles of divine philoso- 
 phy 1 who else renders back, as he does, the tribute of 
 praise due to the Infinite Architect ? The crowd of men 
 see not God in the stars ; and hold back the revenue of 
 deserved adoration which the heavens challenge for their 
 Maker. But the meditative man separates himself from 
 the world that he may discharge this duty, and perform, 
 on the behalf of others, the office they neglect. The mass 
 of men could hardly be more sordid than they are, hardly 
 more reluctant to admit ideas of greatness and power, 
 hardly more dull and gross, if a perpetual screen of 
 vapours concealed entirely from our knowledge the splen- 
 dour of the universe. 
 
 The transition is easy from the brightness and extent 
 of the visible heavens, to the magnificence and stately 
 array of the invisible world the intelligent progeny of the 
 Universal Father. The conceits of a puerile fancy ex- 
 cluded, and nothing assumed which the severest reason 
 ought to condemn, or which Scripture does not authenti- 
 cate, the meditative mind readily finds a range of thought 
 in this region, such as may at least compensate for the 
 absence of all the earthly pomps which empires might 
 bring together. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that there are circumstances of 
 a humiliating kind in the actual condition of man, which 
 tend greatly to enhance the pleasures of the solitary life, 

 
 216 SATURDAY EVENING?. 
 
 or to corroborate the purpose of the recluse in his separation 
 from the world. By the very constitution of human 
 nature a contrariety exists between the principles of the 
 higher and lower life the intellectual and the animal, 
 which, though it may be gracefully concealed by elegance 
 of manners, aud the artificial modes of civilized life, is 
 never absolutely reconciled, and presses always as an an- 
 noyance and a burden upon the high-wrought sensibilities 
 of serious meditative minds. The susceptibility of such 
 minds and their want of active energy, expose them pain- 
 fully to this uneasiness. Nor can they avail themselves 
 of the aid which, in the gay and busy world, is supplied 
 by levity and joyousness and the velocity of affairs. It is 
 not so much the pains, and wants, and heavier w r oes of 
 our corporeal nature, as its humiliations, which afflict the 
 sensitive recluse. On his principles and with his habits 
 of feeling, he can be far happier amidst sufferings and ne- 
 cessities, than when solicited and disturbed by trivial cares, 
 or ignoble occupations. For the former impel and aid him 
 to abstract himself, more and more, from the body : the 
 latter, against all his tastes, implicate him in its meanness. 
 To hide himself from the world, is not, it is true, to 
 escape from the humiliations of the body : nevertheless it 
 is to be exempt from all but those of his own : it is to be 
 free from the annoyance and the disgusts of that vulgarity 
 which, in the world, obtrudes whatever is fleshly upon 
 observation. The recluse, if at any time he be exposed 
 to the grossness, the frivolity, or the petulant selfishness of 
 common life, recoils with impatience ; and, with an eager 
 preference, embraces anew the immunities and calm 
 delights of his cell. There, almost forgetting that he is a 
 tenant of mortality, he converses with perfection and in- 
 finitude. Safe safe, with the pleasures of meditation all
 
 THE RECLUSE. 
 
 his own pleasures of which none can deprive him ; he 
 is indifferent to all things else ; a dungeon, or a desert, 
 is to him a paradise. 
 
 A sensibility too highly excited, and which has become 
 too much the habit of the mind, distinguishes the recluse ; 
 and this again impels him, with an inconsistency he can- 
 not justify, to hide himself from the crowd of men, and 
 even to get absolution from the ties of private affection : 
 for it is thus only that he can be exempt from the pains 
 of excessive sympathy. Hence it happens that the very 
 man whose firm persuasion of things invisible might well 
 give him serenity amid the vicissitudes of the present life, 
 exhibits far less composure than those often do who, when 
 they lose wealth, and friends, and reputation, lose abso- 
 lutely all which they have ever thought of, or desired. 
 
 But perhaps there is nothing which so much determines 
 the man of meditation in his purpose of hiding himself 
 in solitude, as that spirit of rude intrusiveness, of intoler- 
 ance, and of dogmatism, which prevails in the world, and 
 which, moreover, seems often to draw around the inoffen- 
 sive and modest, and to make such their sport and victim. 
 It is the peculiar delight of vulgar arrogance, not merely 
 to violate the substantial rights of those who are feeble and 
 unarmed 5 but to carry their practice of invasion if it be 
 possible, into the very souls of men. To rule in the 
 visible and tangible world is not enough : the despot 
 must sway the private sentiments, and disturb the medita- 
 tions of all who dare not repel his usurpations. The 
 most innocent tastes are regarded as matters of personal 
 quarrel, by the obstreperous tyrant " While you cloak 
 your thoughts, I assume that you are harbouring the pur- 
 pose of resistance to my will. When you express them, 
 you openly defy my power." This is the real meaning 
 
 20
 
 218 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of the language of arrogant and overbearing tempera* 
 What wonder is it if the meek and modest should escape, 
 when they can, from the circle of such tyranny ; or that 
 when so escaped, their hearts should passionately cleave 
 to the freedom of the monastic life ? 
 
 A feeling very similar to this is common even to men 
 of far more intellectual vigor than we attribute to the Re- 
 cluse ; and actually exerts a great influence over the 
 manners and habits of some of the most superior minds. 
 Such are compelled to confess that it is only within the 
 sanctuary of their own bosoms they can enjoy free con- 
 verse with Truth and Reason. The open world is too 
 impatient, too wilful, too capricious, and too intolerant, to 
 give place to the liberty in which Truth and Reason 
 delight. In the very choicest society there is not enough of 
 simplicity not enough of integrity, not candour, not know- 
 ledge, nor perspicuity enough, to allow scope for an unanx- 
 ious expression and copious interchange of thought. 
 There are truths, or we should say there are indications 
 of truth, which are not to be entertained without much 
 delicacy of handling. Bring them into dispute haul 
 them forth upon the arena of controversy, and they vanish 
 from the sight. It is far from being an axiom that, 
 whatever is true or important, or in a degree intelligible, 
 may be brought out and submitted to the judgment of 
 any sort of minds. The very reverse is often the fact. 
 Beyond the bounded circle of things which may be meas- 
 ured on all sides, and categorically spoken of, and which 
 from the homestead of minds of little leisure or compre 
 hension ; there is a wide and uncircumscribed sphere 
 wherein spirits excursive, and philosophically modest, taki 
 their range ; and whence they bring home, if not certain 
 and irrefragable conclusions, at least scattered particles of
 
 THE RECLUSE. 2 19 
 
 wisdom, which they more highly esteem than all the 
 stamped coinage whereof dogmatism makes its boast. 
 It is precisely to save these elements of imperfect know- 
 ledge, that the man of comprehensive mind often hides 
 himself in silence, or withdraws altogether from society. 
 If the characteristic difference between strong and feeble 
 minds were asked for, it might be replied it is found in 
 the habit (in the former case) of adhering firmly to truths 
 which have once been settled on satisfactory evidence; and 
 (in the other) in that of calling such principles into ques- 
 tion, ever and again. But if it were required to distinguish 
 great minds from strong ones, we must say, that the 
 latter so hold their system of established truths, as to shut 
 out their prospect of what may lie beyond it ; while the 
 former without quitting the ground of demonstration, with- 
 out confounding the known with the hypothetical, never 
 lose sight of that more distant range of things, which the 
 human eye is permitted dimly to discern, though not dis- 
 tinctly to explore. 
 
 To return from this momentary digression, it may be 
 affirmed that a man much addicted to religious meditation, 
 comes into the possession of a rich and hidden treasure of 
 undefined sentiments, and indistinct conceptions, which 
 he is by no means prepared to explain and defend before 
 all ; and which he feels to be safe from spoliation, only 
 when he himself is far removed from this impertinence 
 and the insolence of the open world. 
 
 If the Recluse be thus strongly confirmed in his choice 
 of a life of retirement ; he is also, if single-hearted and 
 sincere, freed, by his higher principles, from those motives 
 which, in secular minds, counteract the desire of seclusion. 
 It has not been a rare occurrence to see men of extraordi- 
 nary intellectual stature, who yesterday were pressing
 
 220 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 through the crowd, and challenging to themselves all eyes 
 and ears, to-day betaking themselves, in high disgust, to 
 some valley of silence : and yet to-morrow they will be 
 found again in the very midst of the uproar of the world. 
 A similar inconsistency has often marked the course of the 
 self-admiring anchoret, who, after he has actually acquired 
 the power of enduring the most intolerable of evils abso- 
 lute solitude, at length reverts to natural motives strolls 
 back towards the borders of his wilderness towards the 
 skirts of the profane world ; and there gives it to be un- 
 derstood that he consents to be gazed at ! 
 
 But the genuine recluse, by his converse with absolute 
 excellence, and by the firmness and distinctness of his 
 hope of immortality, has gained a real mastery over the 
 desire of human applause ; and is truly content to live 
 and die unknown of men : the motives therefore which 
 retain him in solitude are not counterpoised by any other 
 sentiments. 
 
 Yes ; but there remains a difficulty an insuperable 
 difficulty, in the way of the Recluse. This very Chris, 
 tianity, whence he has derived the various elements of his 
 solitary bliss this very book, which opens to him an in- 
 exhaustible treasure of ineffable, meditation, itself peremp- 
 torily refuses to give its sanction to his purpose of seclusion : 
 it follows him to his cell with the most imperative com- 
 mands ; and requires him, instead of thus seeking to 
 please himself to return into the very heart of every social 
 relation, and to encumber himself with every office of 
 common life ! 
 
 Among the many unobtrusive, yet convincing evi- 
 dences of the divine original of the Scriptures, the one 
 now presented to us must not be overlooked, or deemed 
 of small value. Christianity, which very far excels any
 
 THE RECLUSE. 221 
 
 other system of religion the world has seen, in furnishing 
 the means, and in presenting the objects, and in enhanc- 
 ing the motives, of solitary meditation, nevertheless takes 
 the better course of good sense and benevolence, and en- 
 joins (whatever may be the impulse of personal tastes) 
 that ''Godliness" should add to itself "brotherly kind- 
 ness." In other words, declares, that no piety is authen- 
 tic, which is not social. 
 
 20*
 
 XVIII. 
 THE MODERN ANCHORET. 
 
 "And to Brotherly Kindness, Charily. 1 ' 
 
 Too much fondness for meditative retirement is not the 
 crying sin of our modern Christianity. The mildness 
 and modesty of monasticism is little likely to gain admirers 
 among those whose activity, and whose frivolity ; whose 
 disputatious spirit, and whose tendency to scepticism ; 
 whose mercantile habits, and whose preference of physical 
 science ; lead them to hold in contempt Avhatever has no 
 exchangeable value in society. 
 
 But it does not follow because we do not tolerate mo- 
 nasticism, and do not hold contemplative modesty in 
 honour, that we should find no room at all for unsocial, 
 malign, and selfish pietism. Facts prove the contrary. 
 Nevertheless it is true, as might well be supposed, that 
 the modern seclusive style of religion, adapts itself to the 
 spirit of the age ; and is altogether unlike the trembling, 
 solitary taste of early ages. If there is to be in England, 
 and in the nineteenth century, an abhorrent or repulsive 
 system of religion, it must be abstruse, ratiocinative, stern, 
 and in some sense philosophical. It must assume the 
 form of erudite and metaphysical theology ; and will be 
 found no lover of shade, and silence, and peace as inof- 
 fensive as imbecile ; but bold, arrogant, full of defiance, 
 rancour, contradiction ; it will be loud, intolerant severe, 
 exclusive, and aggressive : it will be inexorable, and fac- 
 tious. Such must be the style of anti-social godliness in 
 our times, and for our country.
 
 THE MODERN ANCHORET. 223 
 
 Is then this description altogether hypothetical ; or may 
 we actually trace it in the features of some existing party 1 
 This is to be inquired ; and having already adverted to 
 the principal perversion of Christianity, in our times, as 
 exhibiting the twofold form of a higher, and a lower an 
 intellectual, and a vulgar corruption ; we now name this 
 higher and intellectual heresy, as identical with the mod- 
 ern anchoretic style of pietism. 
 
 The laborious task of nicely weighing and adjusting 
 abstruse distinctions may very properly be renounced, 
 when the common and intelligible principles of good 
 feeling and sympathy between man and man, are in ques- 
 tion. We shall therefore pay no regard whatever to those 
 metaphysical propositions by which the ultra-calvinist may 
 endeavour to repel the charge of being a fatalist : but 
 assuming as fair, the obvious sense of the phrases he is 
 accustomed to employ, shall describe and treat him as 
 such. Now we affirm that although the amiable dispo- 
 sitions of an individual ; or the happy inveteracy of the 
 better instincts of our nature ; or a prudent deference to 
 common notions, and common modes of speaking, may 
 greatly modify or disguise the fact ; it is always true, that 
 the fatalist, M'hether he be a philosophical or religious one 
 (if he understands and truly believes his dogma) is a 
 being insulated from the communion of the active and 
 sympathetic world. He may, if he pleases, borrow the 
 wings of Night, and pass beyond the bounds of the visible 
 universe; or he may abide still in the precincts of the living; 
 it is equally certain that his fatalism encompasses him with 
 solitude : he is always alone, though in the midst of the 
 busiest crowd. That man must assuredly be so, who has 
 no faith in the reality of the principles and motives upon 
 which the mass of mankind are acting who holds the en-
 
 324 SATURDAY EVENING, 
 
 tire machinery of the moral world to be an illusion, and who 
 though he may ia courtesy smile and weep when others 
 do so, inwardly jeers that complicated farce of hopes and 
 fears of which, as he thinks, mankind is the dupe. 
 
 The atheistical fatalist, and the theological fatalist the 
 man of abstract demonstrations, and the man of texts and 
 polemics he who makes mockery of his fellow-men pro- 
 fanely, and he who does the same thing in perverted phra- 
 ses of Scripture, alike are UNIVERSAL SCOFFERS. Or if 
 there be any thing excepted from the range of their con- 
 tempt, it is just the little circle of their private welfare (for 
 no philosopher of this class pretends to think his own pains 
 and pleasures a jest). In the view of the fatalist, though 
 there be a thousand petty absurdities on earth, nothing is 
 half so absurd as the entire constitution of the moral sys- 
 tem ; nothing so preposterous as man, and his desti- 
 nies ! Or if the religious fatalist, when compared with the 
 atheistical, seem to possess the merit of respecting the lan- 
 guage and decencies of piety ; it is only that he may com- 
 mit a worse outrage upon the first principles of religious 
 fear and love, by horridly distorting every attribute of the 
 Divine Nature. Better were it at once to say " there is no 
 God," than admit a Deity such as the fatalist supposes. 
 The atheist saves a thousand impieties, by the one impiety 
 of denying boldly the greatest and most certain of all truth. 
 The religious fatalist can never speak honestly and con" 
 sistently of either God or man, without uttering a blasphe- 
 my ; or a calumny. 
 
 And when he goes about to digest his notions of the 
 moral attributes of the Supreme Being, he is compelled to 
 impose a sense altogether novel and peculiar upon the 
 terms Benevolence, Mercy, Justice, Holiness ; so that 
 they no longer retain any analogy with the sense they
 
 THE MODERN ANCHORET. 225 
 
 bear when applied to human sentiments and actions. In 
 other words, he excludes the notion of the Divine charac- 
 ter entirely from the circle of human ideas ; and this is 
 one and the same thing as to deprive the mind of man of 
 the only conceptions it can form of God ; it is atheism 
 all but a name. When therefore a theologue of this 
 school reverts to the precincts of human affections, he 
 finds that the notions commonly entertained of kind- 
 ness, beneficence, rectitude, and so forth have nothing in 
 them that is divine or spiritual (on his principles), and he 
 looks upon such emotions, or modes of conduct, with suspi- 
 cion, or with contempt as merely natural and therefore 
 proper objects of reprobation. A poor preparation, truly, 
 for the faithful, and generous, and upright discharge of 
 social duties ! To think injuriously of God, is always to 
 deprive or to nullify morality. 
 
 We are granting that our man of abstruse theology 
 intellectualist as he is, does not stand chargeable with vio- 
 lating the common rules of justice, or temperance : we 
 consider him only as necessarily anti-social in his reli- 
 gious sentiments ; and he is so (if indeed his principles take 
 hold of his mind) because his theological ideas of moral 
 qualities are altogether inapplicable to the human system ; 
 and can never be brought to work in with ordinary feel- 
 ings of good-will, and charity. He is taught to shun, as 
 false, if not pernicious, the entire body of these mundane 
 emotions, and natural virtues. His religion is not an 
 amendment, a purification, a restoration of things that 
 have fallen into decay and corruption : it does not mingle 
 itself therewith, as a congenial leaven ; but it is altogether 
 a foreign element, abhorrent of all other principles, and 
 exclusive of all others. The theologue feels that, in con- 
 versing at all with his fellow-men on the ground of their
 
 226 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 notions or feelings, he is holding his own in abeyance, or 
 forfeiting consistency ; such communion is a concession 
 to folly and error, like that of a man, who for an hour, 
 makes himself a party in the sports and prattle of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 But though our religious sophist is thus shut out from 
 free and ingenious converse with mankind at large, and 
 is condemned to look in disdain upon the movements and 
 sympathies of the wide world ; may he not, at least, find 
 scope for his benevolence within the pale of the church ? 
 If the bulk of mankind are to him estranged ; what for- 
 bids him to " love the brotherhood ?" Alas ! he is as 
 much beset with difficulties in this narrower circle, as he 
 was in the wider one. The cause of these new embar- 
 rassments may readily be found. There is an important 
 difference between a perfect science, which admits 
 nothing but what is demonstrable ; and that sort of gen- 
 eral, or loosely compacted knowledge, of the same subject, 
 which may float at large among men. For while the 
 latter allows of much variety and diversity of opinion, 
 and admits many degrees of proficiency or advancement, 
 the former is absolute and peremptory : it must be received 
 entire, or rejected : it can no more grant indulgence to 
 difference of opinions, than the elliptic arch can allow of 
 a broken irregularity of line. 
 
 Now while the generality of Christians, as they mod- 
 estly pursue their different paths of Scriptural inquiry, are 
 conscious, and are ready to confess, that it is but a portion 
 of divine kowledge which they severally attain ; and that 
 therefore it is most reasonable to exercise toward each other 
 the indulge nee of which each has a need in his turn the 
 professor of abstract or philosophical theology, challenges for 
 his system the prerogatives of a finished science. In truth
 
 THE MODERN ANCHORET. 227 
 
 it were preposterous, on his part, to take any lower ground. 
 If fatalism of any kind is to be admitted, it must be yield- 
 ed to because it is impossible to resist it. Seeing that the 
 entire evidence of common experience, and the irresistible 
 consciousness of men turns directly against any such doc- 
 trine, it can, of course, maintain its ground only by force 
 of logic. Fatalism must needs be dogmatic and intole- 
 rant ; if it would exist at all. 
 
 In perfect consistency with his claim of inflliability, 
 the theologue professes to have come into possesion of his 
 scheme of religion, not in the slow, painful, and uncertain 
 method of an induction of principles from Scripture ; but 
 by climbing the height of the Eternal throne by looking 
 into the records of universal government and by having 
 gained the climax, or apex, of divine science whence he 
 can look down on all sides, and contemplate, at leizure, 
 the great movements of the sentient system. In fact, soph- 
 ists of this class are perpetually ascending to universals ; 
 are always reaching the infinite : are taking position at 
 the centre of truth. Their method is that of synthesis 
 and comprehension ; not of analysis and induction. 
 Hence results, by a natural consequence, the paucity and 
 uniformity of their themes, and the monotony of their dis- 
 courses. The highest circle of abstraction can never admit 
 of copiousness or variety. 
 
 But the special consequencse we have now to do with 
 is that intolerance which, by an unavoidable necessity, 
 attends hyper-theology. In the reason of things it can 
 admit of no freedom, no internal play of parts ; it is iron- 
 bound on every side. You must receive it as it is ; or re- 
 ject it : there can be no middle course. It were folly to 
 talk of diversities of opinion, or shades of difference, in
 
 228 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 relation to that which, if it be absolutely true, is utterly 
 false. 
 
 And then, because no two human minds can be brought 
 into perfect unison ; and because language, which is the 
 vehicle of metaphysical dogmas, is a very faulty organ of 
 conveyance ; and moreover, because there will arise a 
 thousand discordancies of opinion when a system of ab- 
 stract theology comes to be adjusted to the various and 
 unanxious language of the inspired writers, therefore it 
 happens, that the metaphysical theologue never finds one 
 whom he can deem to have reached the very line of truth 
 that trembles on perfection. There can be no space 
 for brotherhood, in this region of points that have no ex- 
 tension. 
 
 An appearance of exaggeration unavoidably attaches to 
 every attempt to define and describe an abstract error like 
 the one in question ; because, in fixing and exposing the 
 secret principle of such errors, and in marking them so 
 distinctly as not to be afterwards confounded, we must 
 affirm somewhat more than is perhaps actually to be found 
 in any single example of the sort. But the fair question 
 returns Have we, or not, detained and held in our grasp 
 a real existence? have we so gone about it as to fix its 
 relative position, and to give it truly a name, and place in 
 our circle of ideas ? And is it true, or not, that there is 
 found among us a religious system, that is characteristical- 
 ly sullen, arrogant, intolerant, exclusive ; a system that 
 impels its adherents to frown upon mankind at large, to 
 refuse aid and fellowship in all labours of evangelical be- 
 nevolence, and to denounce, as heretical every form of 
 doctrine, that does not reach a certain point of abstract 
 perfection ? Is there, we ask, among us, a doctrine which,
 
 THE MODERN ANCHORET. 229 
 
 beyond any other, is anti-social and uncharitable ? If 
 not, we have been beating the air : or if hyper-calvinism 
 be not that doctrine, we are chargeable with calumny. 
 
 It need not be proved that Christianity is the religion of 
 brotherhood, and of good-will to mankind at large. The 
 inference only remains to be noted that the doctrine we 
 have spoken of is not Christianity. 
 
 21
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE FAMILY AFFECTION OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 " Be kindly AJfcctioned one to another, wtik Brotlierly Lore." 
 
 THE Christian sentiment of affection towards those 
 whom we believe to be sharers with us in the hope of eter- 
 nal life, and fellow-pilgrims through an unfriendly land to 
 the same region of peace and joy, is of a peculiar kind ; 
 nor to be entirely resembled to any feeling common to 
 mankind. Nevertheless it has a near analogy to the love 
 that cements the domestic relations ; and in comparing 
 the one emotion part by part with the other, we shall 
 gain a distinct idea, both of the approximation of the two, 
 and of their difference. 
 
 There meets us then, at the outset, that difference be- 
 tween family affection and Christian love, which springs 
 from the primary constituent of the latter namely the 
 high immeasurable importance with which Christianity 
 invests every human being, and by which it incalculably 
 enhances whatever affects his wealth, or his moral condi- 
 tion. The affections of earth, how vehement soever, are 
 transitory, as itself: but the love which has become com- 
 bined with the idea of immortality, is firm, profound, and 
 indestructible. Atheism, in all its forms, desiccates the 
 affections. To believe that man perishes in death, as the 
 grass of the field, is to rob the benign emotions of all that 
 essentially distinguish them from the grossest animal in-
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY". 231 
 
 stincts. But on the contrary, when we extend our con- 
 ceptions of human nature so as to embrace an unlimited 
 futurity, we give, in the same proportion, force and en- 
 largement to every feeling of which human beings are 
 the objects. It is only in religion that we can find the 
 the true philosophy of love ; for love, a part from the belief 
 of an after state, he has neither substance, nor purity. It 
 will befound, as a matter of fact, that the faith of immor- 
 tality, and the feeling of Christian love, are always in 
 direct relation, one to the other, as to their intensity : if the 
 one be in great force, the other is so : if the first languishes, 
 in any age, the second disappears. And, at any moment, 
 if the belief of eternal life could be suddenly invigorated, 
 the spirit of faction and jealousy would instantly be ex- 
 halted from the church ; and of Christians it would once 
 more be said " See how they love one another." 
 
 In this primary element of Christian affection, we 
 readily find a reason sufficient to explain its comprehen- 
 siveness, and its universality, and its power of rising above 
 those checks that might spring from the imperfection of 
 individual character. The greater motive overpowers the 
 less, in all the exercise of true love ; and in Christian love, 
 when simple and sincere, it is much more so. The 
 brightness of immortality obliterates fainter impressions ; 
 and, when any one is indeed belived to be a Christian, the 
 idea of dignity that connects itself with that persuasion, 
 outweighs every other feeling. In each heir of heaven we 
 see heaven itself, more than the qualities or merits of 
 him who is on the road thither : much in the same way 
 as when some extraordinary occasion kindles the enthusi- 
 asm of an assembled nation, and the multitude, with joy- 
 ous shouts in moving on, in procession ; the high-wrought 
 patriotism that floats in the air, binds heart to heart } even
 
 232 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 among those who are personally strangers : every man, 
 without question or scrutiny, grasps the hand of his neigh- 
 bour, in frank and cordial good-will. 
 
 No other principle can generate an emotion comparable 
 to Christian love, for the plain reason that no other princi- 
 ple has at command so vast an idea as that of endless ex- 
 istence. It is by the means of this great idea that the 
 brotherly kindness taught by the Gospel arms itself against 
 the disgusts and disappointments that will belong to 
 whatever is human. Be it so, that the objects of our 
 regard are ignorant (like ourselves) of much which it 
 would well befit them to know : and be it also that the 
 better and purer motives that work within them are (as 
 with ourselves) much disturbed and thwarted by the un- 
 extinguished propensities of an evil nature. All this, or 
 more, may be granted ; and though human virtue, in its 
 best specimens, is infirm, and much sullied, it is never- 
 theless true that every Christian, because he is such, and 
 whatever may be his relative excellence, is treading the 
 ascent of wisdom and goodness ; and shall at length, 
 notwithstanding many delays and repulses, reach an ele- 
 vation on that upward path where he shall fairly challenge 
 all our esteem. Yes, and it is true that an era in his 
 course shall arrive when supernal beings themselves an- 
 cient proficients in virtue, shall count him their worthy 
 companion, and delight in his converse. If it were only 
 on the strength of such anticipations, he might well now 
 command our regard, who are subject to precisely the same 
 conditions, and have need of the same indulgence. 
 
 Christian love has its most obvious analogy with the 
 domestic affections in its sense of relationship, as brethren, 
 through one who is related equally to all, as Head. But 
 the emotion we are treating of draws a peculiarity from
 
 FAMILY Af- SECTION OP CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 the absence and invisibility of the Head of the family. 
 There is a sense in which the members so represent the 
 head, that He whom the mortal eye cannot discern, is 
 brought, by their means, under the cognizance of the eye. 
 So far as Christies truly exhibit the characteristics of 
 their Lord, in spirit and conduct, a vivid emotion is en- 
 kindled in other Christian bosoms, as if the bright Origin- 
 al of all perfection stood dimly revealed. This emotion, 
 perhaps, would hardly be generated by a single instance, 
 or by a very few instances of the temper and behaviour 
 that become the Gospel : for the divine image, in any 
 single example, is too faint, or too much blemished, to 
 bring with it forcibly the idea of Supreme Excellence to 
 which is related. But in the multitude of instances there 
 may clearly be seen a concurrence a harmony a con- 
 vergence of evidence, such as leaves no doubt of the truth, 
 that all are copies after the same pattern. The conclusion 
 comes upon the mind with accumulated power, that we 
 are not entertaining an illusion, while we believe that this 
 family resemblance, this homogeneity of character, 
 springs from a common centre ; and that there exists, as 
 its archetype, an invisible Personage, of whose glory all 
 have in a measure partaken. The Christian brotherhood 
 is therefore to each individual of the community a sensi- 
 ble proof of the reality of his faith ; and each embraces 
 all, not merely with affection ; but with that peculiar 
 solicitude and satisfaction wherewith the soul, at all times, 
 grasps an assurance of the substantiality of its dearest 
 hopes. 
 
 Christian love and the domestic affections may very 
 appropriately be compared on the ground of that enhance- 
 ment which both receive from the assured and familiar 
 knowledge that prevails within their respective circles, of 
 21*
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 the character and dispositions of each. It is not perhaps 
 commonly considered how much the strength, permanence, 
 and vivacity of love depend upon the simple circumstance 
 of an intimate acquaintance with the spirit of its object 
 its habits, purposes, infirmities, burdtgis, sorrows. The 
 very reverse of this might have been imagined, as more 
 probable ; for it would have becn?natural to suppose that 
 mankind being such as they are, mutual esteem and affec- 
 tion would have borne proportion directly to our ignorance 
 one of another. But it is not so ; on the contrary, igno- 
 rance of each other's character, more than any other 
 cause, represses the social sentiments, and checks every 
 benign emotion. It does so, first, by giving room to sus- 
 picion, and to the chilling fear (a fear which pride 
 enhances) of becoming the dupes of hypocrisy ; and next, 
 by depriving the imagination of its means of vividly con- 
 ceiving of the actual feelings or sorrows of those around 
 us ; and this lively impression is, by the laws of the human 
 mind, indispensable to the vigorous movements of sympa- 
 thy. That which the imagination does not realize, the 
 heart does not heed. It is this principle that explains 
 much of the apparent insensibility and indifference to the 
 sufferings of others, which is shown by the mass of man- 
 kind. 
 
 But the intensity and tranquil permanence of love most 
 of all depend upon the exclusion of all lurking doubts 
 concerning the secret dipositions or real sentiments of the 
 objects of our regards. Now human nature is so mystical 
 a thing, its external characteristics are so variable, or at 
 least so intricate in their combinations, and the outward 
 and ordinary symbols of inward emotion are so fine, or so 
 fallacious, that nothing can give us the certain assurance 
 we need, except the close and intimate familiarity of
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 235 
 
 domestic life : and it is an admirable provision of the divine 
 wisdom which affords us the opportunity of knowing best 
 those whom we ought most to love and succour. The 
 unlocked for incidents of family history, and its sudden 
 excitements, and its arduous occasions, bring the individ- 
 uals of the home circle within the sanctuary of each 
 other's bosoms. And then, there is always going on in 
 each mind an unobserved process of induction, wherein 
 the listless actions, and trivial expressions of every hour, 
 go to form an estimate, in the mind of each, of the worth 
 and quality of the others ; until each feels that he has 
 almost as perfect a knowledge of the heart of brother, sis- 
 ter, parent, child, husband, wife, as of his own. It is on 
 the solid ground of this familiar knowledge that the 
 domestic affections take their tranquil standing ; and 
 unless the companions of our lives are absolutely unwor- 
 thy of our love, or ourselves are incapable of pure and 
 generous emotions, we shall love themwith more vivaci- 
 ty, and with more steadiness, when the depth of their 
 faults has been sounded, than we could while ignorance 
 (mother of jealousy and fear) stood in the way between 
 heart and heart. To harbour the thought that there is 
 yet at all in the soul of one near to us a concealment we 
 have not explored is the same thing as to hold the whole 
 of our affection in abeyance. 
 
 It is this home familiarity this domestic perfection of 
 knowledge, that opens the sluices of sensibility, that vivifies 
 every sympathy, that makes the sentient principle of each 
 common to all ; so as in a manner to blend identities, and 
 to diffuse consciousness through the social body. The 
 many become one, by the mutuality of power of enjoy- 
 ment, and of suffering. There is, even in the most 
 benevolent minds, an instinctive revulsion from the sight
 
 236 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of pain, which compels it to escape from the scene of woe, 
 and which has to be overcome by higher motives But 
 in relation to those who are within the immediate circle of 
 our affections, this instinct is not in operation ; or gives 
 way to an opposite impulse, which irresistibly detains us 
 by the side of the object of our passionate fondness, in the 
 hour of distress. This sympathy is little less than a per- 
 fect image, or counterpart of the sorrow or anguish that is 
 its cause. Just as when the clear and glowing sunbeams 
 of a sultry day fall upon the bosom of a reeking cloud, 
 there is seen a second bow, embracing the first, and it is 
 hard to say whether the tender colours of the reflection arc 
 not as distinct as those of the primary arch ; at least 
 the one faithfully corresponds to the other. 
 
 And now must we indeed run back to the first era of 
 Christianity in search of illustrations of our parallel be- 
 between Christian love and family affection ? Let it be 
 granted that the Diffusion of a lax or false profession of 
 religion has, to a great degree, slackened the fervour of that 
 brotherly kindness which the Gospel generates and enjoins; 
 for no one well knows who is indeed his ' brother in 
 Christ." Nevertheless it is still true that this fruit of the 
 Spirit is produced, is ripened, is gathered, within the 
 church. It is now, as always true, that the Gospel so 
 opens the heart of man to man, that the benign affections 
 take their start at once from the vantage ground of inti- 
 mate acquaintance. It is true that Christians know each 
 other in a sense which is altogether peculiar to Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 This affirmation may readily be made good. 3Ian, 
 while he continues unregeneratc, does not know his bro- 
 ther, for this conclusive reason that he does not know 
 himself. The inbred infatuation which prevents his seeing
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 237 
 
 his relation to God, and his destination to another life, 
 spreads itself as a spirit of blindness through his soul ; 
 and brings with it endless confusions and mistakes. 
 Nothing of the inner world is simply and correctly under- 
 stood : the heart is a maze of preposterous suppositions, the 
 varnished motives, and idle conceits of self-love. The 
 world reflects ilself on the mirror of the mind in distorted 
 proportions ; or appears in phantasm ; and the imagination, 
 erroneously moved by these images of things unreal, or 
 exaggerated, breeds an abundance of vanities. Moreover 
 the conscience, turbid with hidden evils, and not appeased 
 by the flattery itself prepares, refuses to have the abyss of 
 the soul exposed and explored ; and the mind betakes 
 itself to any diversion that may interrupt the dreaded in- 
 quiry. There is indeed a knowledge of the profundities 
 of corruption which is called " knowledge of human na- 
 ture ;" but falsely so called ; for it is both incomplete, and 
 extravagant : it is satire ; not truth : it is palliation ; not 
 charity : and while it imputes more evil intentions than 
 actually exist ; it puts a glowing of fair colours upon what 
 is really odious. How should any one know and confide 
 in another, who neither knows, nor ever heartily confides 
 in himself ? 
 
 But the light that attends the entrance of the divine 
 word diffuses itself through all concealments of the heart. 
 The motives of secresy being destroyed, nothing can long 
 remain hidden ; and that new ingenuousness which has 
 been imparted, and which has issued in an unfeigned con- 
 fession of guilt, becomes, more or less, the habit of the 
 mind. Pride, heretofore faithful guardian of the evil 
 arcana of the soul, is expelled from his trust, and made 
 to leave all things open to scrutiny. The time is the 
 time of inquiry, and of judgment ; and the result is that
 
 238 SATURDAV EVENING. 
 
 peace and confidence that stillness of the spirit, which 
 is never to be enjoyed until the heart of man has dealt 
 plainly with itself. 
 
 Now it is manifest that whoever has in this manner 
 come into familiarity with himself, has, by the same 
 means, obtained a way of access to the heart of those 
 whom he believes to have reached the same point of self- 
 knowledge. The hidden world has been explored by 
 both parties ; and many thick clouds of doubt and suspi- 
 cion are rolled away from between two spirits, each of 
 which has become permeable to the same beams of light. 
 The Christian, in meeting his fellow Christian, tacitly 
 says " This is one who knows himself has made frank 
 confession of his hidden, faults who has renounced the 
 pride of concealment, and who sincerely invites the eye of 
 God, and of his brethren. We may differ much in tem- 
 perament ; and may have run through a different course ; 
 but the conclusion we have reached is substantially the 
 same : nor does his heart contain any capital or ruling 
 motive with which mine can have no sympathy." Thus 
 are the tedious and uncertain preliminaries of worldly 
 friendship abridged, or superseded ; and the path at once 
 laid open to the kindliness and familiarity of affection. 
 
 Moreover, on this same principle of the efficacy of know- 
 ledge to enehance mutual love, the affection of Christians, 
 one for the other, derives freedom and force from that 
 simplification of motives which genuine piety produces. 
 The love of God is a paramount affection, that forcibly car- 
 ries in its train other inclinations, and leads captive a host 
 of petty wishes and ephemeral desires. This is the mean- 
 ing of that axiom " Ye must, to enter the kingdom of 
 heaven, become as little children." Simplicity of spirit, 
 ingleness of intention, harmony and unison of all emo-
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 239 
 
 tions, is the law of the heavenly world, and must belong 
 in measure, to all who claim part therein. There can be 
 allowed no anarchy of the passions in the bosom that is to 
 lodge the Divine Spirit ; and it is always true that where 
 Omnipotent Grace takes possession of a human heart, it 
 expels in its very entrance the legion of lawless desire. 
 The Christian, therefore, conscious as he is in himself of 
 this new simplification of his own motives, imputes it 
 without fear to every one whom he believes also to be a 
 Christian. Thus again the familiarity of mutual know- 
 ledge is attained by the riddance that is made of the crowd 
 of inferior principles. The dark surmises and threatening 
 storms of ordinary friendship are scattered, as the gales of 
 spring drive away the vapours aijd congelations of win- 
 ter. 
 
 But this is not all : for the love which is founded on 
 knowledge must have its delicacy, and its peculiarity, a- 
 rising from the individual sentiments and personal in- 
 terest of the parties. And it is so in Christian love ; for 
 while the great motives of the Gospel reduce the multiplicity 
 and confusion of the passions by their commanding force 
 they do, by the very same energy, expand all sensibilities ; 
 or (if we might so speak) send the pulse of life with vi- 
 gour through the finer vessels of the moral system : there 
 is far less apathy, and a far more equable consciousness 
 in the mind after it has admitted Christianity, than be- 
 fore ; and, by necessary consequence, there is more indi- 
 viduality, because more life. Christians, therefore, while 
 they understand each other more readily than other men 
 do, have far more of sentiment to make the subject of con- 
 verse than others. The comparison of heart with heart . 
 knits heart to heart, and communicates to friendship very 
 much that is sweet and intense.
 
 240 SATURDAY" EVENING. 
 
 The domestic affections derive a good part of their 
 power, as well as constancy, from the recollection that the 
 ties of nature are indissoluble : and again, from this feel- 
 ing, there springs another, which, when love is genuine, 
 acquires an intensity of force, and] the property of which 
 is to reject, with agony, the supposition of final separation, 
 even at the most distant period. We have already ob- 
 served, and it is a most important truth, that the immortal 
 instincts of the human spirit its destination to a future 
 life, are brought out into activity by the social sentiments : 
 and no one will question this who has in truth known 
 the tenderness and vivacity of love. The beneficent in- 
 tentions of the Author of our nature are eminently seen in 
 this part of our moral constitution. The social affections 
 have a precarious season of growth, during which they 
 are exposed to much injury ; or sometimes to absolute 
 extinction, from the disgusts, indiscretions, and caprices, 
 that, even in the most favourable instances, infest the 
 family circle : and if it were not for the appointment of 
 God, and the usuages of society, which cement the 
 domestic body, nothing would be more frequent than 
 those eruptions of passion which would in a moment 
 scatter and desolate families. To the strength of the ties 
 of nature, society at large owes its order and repose, even 
 where love scarcely exists, or has little influence. But on 
 those sunny spots where the tender emotions bloom and 
 reach their perfection, the indissoluble bond, which is not 
 at all felt as a yoke, is regarded with delight ; and the 
 sentiment connected with it is fondly cherished, as it 
 afforded security both against the chances of fortune, and 
 the power of the grave. " We are one for ever one ! 
 neither the storms of life, nor the hand of death, shall part 
 us !" This is always the foud emphatic language of true 
 love.
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 241. 
 
 The analogy holds good in Christian affection ; al- 
 though the comprehensiveness of this emotion, or its 
 partition among many objects, abates proportionabiy, at 
 present, its intensity. But future ciicumstances may 
 perhaps raise it to the highest imaginable degree of force. 
 
 The relative condition of the Christian body, as hitherto 
 it has existed in the world, gives it always much of the 
 feeling that belongs to a family, or a small and distinct 
 community, barely tolerated, and unkindly received, in a 
 foreign land. Everywhere a small minority, and every- 
 where, if not outraged, scorned, and holding in common 
 a bright hope which the mass of mankind treats with 
 contempt, Christians (in proportion to the vivacity of their 
 faith) cannot but cling together as partners in obloquy 
 and danger. This feeling is distinctly seen in operation, 
 even where external circumstances most tend to repress 
 it ; nor is there any sphere within which spiritually-mind- 
 ed persons do not feel that they need each other's aid and 
 affection, as a support against the hostility that surrounds 
 them. It is no misanthropic sentiment which compels 
 them to close their ranks, and present a front of defence 
 against the malignant crowd that hems them in. " Be- 
 hold," said their Lord, " I send you forth as sheep among 
 wolves ;" nor has any age yet passed over the church, 
 which afforded no exemplification of the truth thus em- 
 ically conveyed. 
 
 And moreover Christians, when vividly impressed with 
 the momentous facts on which their faith is fixed, are 
 conscious of their partnership in the awful transactions of 
 the invisible world. The men whose thoughts are bound- 
 ed by the present life, hurry along upon the broad way of 
 pleasure and business exchanging, as they go, the trivial 
 courtesies of the moment ; but mutually indifferent, as 
 22
 
 242 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 those must needs be, who soon are to part, by plunging, 
 severally and alone, into the shoreless oblivion of death. 
 Not so with the followers of Christ. They stand in close 
 order, as a phalanx that has yet a foe to meet a victory 
 to achieve, and a triumph to enjoy. A common solitude, 
 and a common hope, bind their hearts together. Death 
 divides them, but it is only as the successive ranks of a 
 host are divided, when summoned, in turn, to advance and 
 pass singly a perilous defile. Beyond that strait of mo- 
 mentary gloom and danger, all are again to be marshal- 
 led ; and every one to join his commander. Christian 
 affection, therefore, has the permanency it derives from an 
 indissoluble bond ; the vigour given it by a participation 
 in sufferings and reproaches ; and the depth it receives 
 from the prospect of an unbounded futurity. 
 
 And may we not (adhering still to sound principles of 
 calculation) look even into that futurity, and imagine 
 faintly the enhancement which shall be given to the prin- 
 ciples that are now in their stage of germination. Let it 
 then be remembered, that to remove from any energy its 
 antagonist, is the same thing as to impart to it a new force. 
 Only remove from the affections of earth all dregs of 
 malignity, all chills of apathy, all suspicions, all discretions, 
 all errors in matters of fact, and all opposition of interest 
 and how brightly would they burn ! Heaven shall effect 
 this liberation of love from its thraldoms. Nor is this all ; 
 for if love is to get purity and elevation from its expansion 
 or enlargement, it must owe its intensity to its direction 
 toward specific objects : and it may well be conceived that 
 when the ransomed myriads of mankind shall corne to 
 take their station in the great circle of a far larger and 
 more ancient community, and shall, in degree, be blended 
 in the universal family of Heaven, a fresh sanction shall
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 be given to the relationship that originated on earth ; 
 that the progeny of Adam, yes, and much more, the 
 brethren of the Second Adam the " Lord from heaven," 
 shall be bound together anew, in office, neighbourhood, 
 and destiny ; so that the fondness of a tie strictly indisso- 
 luble shall be communicated to the affection that originat- 
 ed in their primeval abode. 
 
 Not improbably (if we regard the great laws of the 
 world of Mind) the speciality as well as the universality 
 of love shall have place in the future economy. And the 
 personal tenderness of immemorial attachment shall go 
 along with all spirits, through interminable eras. The 
 redeemed of the earth, known perhaps on all the plains 
 of joy, and at once distinguishable, by the specific contour 
 of their celestial forms, shall be companions of eternity. 
 May we not then, while forgetting the imperfections, and 
 the obscurity, and the feebleness, that attach to this pre- 
 sent wintry season of the heart, fairly impute to our 
 Christian friendships a value drawn from the treasures of 
 futurity ? This at least is certain how much soever we 
 may err in matters of particular conjecture that while 
 earth and its ephemeral interests are hastening to oblivion 
 whatever is divine, whatever partakes of the nature of 
 the immutable attributes of God, must be indestructible ; 
 and must grow until it attains perfection. Every article 
 of human knowledge may be deemed untrue, sooner 
 than this " That Love is of God," and u shall never 
 fail."
 
 XX. 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 
 
 " For Meat destroy not the Work of God." 
 
 WHILE we are looking on the side of human nature, 
 we are too often impelled to believe that the principle of 
 conscience is, of all the powers that have any influence 
 over the conduct of men, the most lax, nugatory, and 
 inefficacious : but then if we turn to another side> it as 
 often appears peremptory, intractable and stubborn. In 
 those matters of morality which are comprehended under 
 the heads of justice, temperance, moderation, and mercy ; 
 it seems as if human ingenuity were never to be baffled 
 in its attempts to reconcile the impulses of appetite, or the 
 suggestions of interest, with the dictates of conscience ; 
 or, in other words, as if conscience were the most bland, 
 patient, and compliant of all authorities. Yet how can 
 we grant it this praise when we see with what rigour, 
 with what precision, with what sternness, this same dicta- 
 tor gives sentence in questions relating to the doctrine, or 
 the ritual ; to the substance, or the forms ; the theory, 
 or the polity, of religion ? It is as if the word Conscience 
 were the appellative of two unconnected personages, of 
 whom the one is as austere as the other is indulgent. 
 
 But it is not so. Man, with all his inconsistencies, has 
 but one faculty, or sense of right and wrong. Nor is the 
 supposition of sarcastic and irreligious men well founded, 
 who, in contemplation of such facts, draw the caustic 
 conclusion That the severity of conscience, in matters of 
 religion, is proved to be hypocrisy, by its laxity in matters
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 245 
 
 of morality : or that there can be nothing sincere in the 
 zeal and scrupulosity of those who show themselves to be 
 far from punctilious in the simple and intelligible instances 
 of common life in fair dealing, truth, or purity. But 
 there is as much of rude inaccuracy, as of malice, in de- 
 cisions of this sort; and if those who thus give judgment 
 upon their fellow-men, and who ordinarily pride themselves 
 not a little upon their penetration, could only see some- 
 what deeper beneath ihe surface of human motives, they 
 would stand convicted of ignorance, as well as harshness. 
 The human mind, even in the best samples, is far from 
 being equally quick, or sensitive, in all its faculties ; or 
 equally sentient towards all the objects that are presented 
 to it: ond if we might adopt any general rule by means 
 of which to foreknow when, or on what occasions, the 
 intellectual and moral powers will be alive, and when 
 inert, or topid, it might perhaps be this That they are 
 stimulated most certainly, and most instantaneously, by 
 what is definite ; and less so by whatever is vague, or in- 
 distinct. Now, if we exclude from our account, instances 
 of absolute knavery, and conscious hypocrisy, it will be 
 found that religious persons are in fault (a hundred in- 
 stances to one) in those multifarious matters of imperfect 
 obligation (as they have been termed) to which the rules 
 of right and wrong are not readily applicable, and which 
 come under the jurisdiction only of pure and elevated 
 habits of feeling. But the religious man is not justly to 
 be condemned as a knave, or hypocrite, because he has 
 made small advances in the higher morality of the spirit- 
 ual life. Yet it is precisely the obtuseness, shall we say 
 the vulgarity, of his soul, that leaves him liable to commit 
 hourly offences against the maxims of honour, kindness, 
 candour, or personal virtue. And if the interior of his 
 
 22*
 
 246 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 heart, could be exposed, it would probably not exhibit any 
 vivid sense of culpability on such occasions ; nothing, in 
 fact, but a confused consciousness of having' been rather 
 too little on his guard, against his besetting sins. Nay, 
 such persons will often be found (from the want of effi- 
 cient instruction in matters of morality] altogether un- 
 conscious of the evil of certain habits and practices, which 
 expose them to the most grave imputations. 
 
 Meanwhile the case is quite otherwise in reference to 
 points of theology, or to questions of ritual, or polity. And 
 on this ground, beside that the matters in debate have all 
 the distinctness which the anxiety of sacred logic, or which 
 the synodical wisdom of statutes and canons can secure to 
 them, they are imagined (by a most strange perversion of 
 right reason) to stand much more closely related to the 
 Divine authority, than do the articles of vulgar morality : 
 as if God, notwithstanding his solemn affirmation of the 
 contrary, were far more intent upon the accuracy of creeds, 
 and the legality of rites, than upon the observance of the 
 rules of virtue. Belief and icorshijt are things of Religion ; 
 and therefore more sacred than justice, truth, and tem- 
 perance. This has been, in all ages, the current delusion 
 of religionists. 
 
 Every man's style, or rate of morality, at any given 
 period of his life, is the slowly ripened product of his en- 
 tire course up to that moment, influenced, as it has been, 
 by personal temperament, by secular engagement.-, l.y 
 social alliances, and, especially, by the salubrity, or the 
 infected condition, of the moral atmosphere he has breath- 
 ed. Now it is notof a product so gradually formed, so in- 
 timately related to the habits of the soul, and so familiar 
 to it, that ordinary minds are qualified to form an impar- 
 tial estimate. In fact very few men judge themselves,
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 247 
 
 on the several points of morality, with any high degree of 
 precision, or fairness. And then, if we are speaking of 
 the religious the eager discussion that are always rife in 
 the Church on articles of belief, or ceremony, engross all 
 the attention that is at command ; so that little or no lei- 
 sure is found for entertaining the comparatively vapid 
 questions of right and wrong, in the things of common life, 
 No energy of mind, no zeal is directed towards subjects 
 of this class ; they are therefore but too indistinctly discern- 
 ed by the generality of good folks. 
 
 But this want of vigour in the moral life is not hypoc- 
 risy ; is not knavery ; and is perfectly consistent, not only 
 with general sincerity in religion, but with a vivid and 
 honest zeal for what is deemed " divine truth," and 
 " divine authority," in the creed, and the ritual. 
 
 The minds of men are alive, to the extent of the par- 
 ticular excitements that are acting upon them : and when 
 the principles of conscience, and fear, and the sentiments 
 of public consistency, or party obligation, are called into 
 activity on some special question, all the religious emo- 
 tion of which the individual is susceptible, draws towards 
 it, as a centre ; and the man's piety, entire, just goes to 
 fill out that circle of controversy. It is when the mind is 
 in this state, that there takes place a perilous opposition 
 between the two principles which ought always to harmo- 
 nize namely, those of love toward the brotherhood, and 
 of zeal and fidelity towards God and his truth. In too 
 many instances the latter motive prevails over the former ; 
 the definite over the indefinite obligation, and, as an inev- 
 itable consequence, rancour, maledictions, and schisms, 
 burst out, and devastate the precincts of celestial peace. 
 
 It is very true, and must never be forgotten, that the 
 factions which have divided the Christian body, have owed
 
 248 SATUKJ;.\r KVEIVING'. 
 
 their vivacity, and asperity, to the ill tempers, or the ainb; 
 tion of a fc\v individuals those demagogues and fan; 
 whom (lie, Scripture designates as <: grievous wolves.' 
 J3ut it is not less true, though less regarded, that Religious 
 discords have always rested upon the broader foundation 
 of a mistaken, or ill-informed conscientiousness, on tin; 
 part of the people at large. Without this firm bottom, 
 factions quickly become mere personal feuds, and die away, 
 and are forgotten in a summer. The heresiarch well un- 
 derstands this principle, and acts upon it advisedly. To 
 make /tiffi-wlf simply, or his personal interests, or credit, 
 the object of popular zeal, were an enterprise that must 
 soon fall to the ground. So must the attempt to keep 
 malign passions in a state of irritation without a specious 
 occasion. Conscience -conscience is the word, that is to 
 he employed The " truth of God" is to he asserted and 
 defended at all risks; and " the enemies of Heaven," the 
 contumacious impugners of " Divine authority," are to be 
 cursed, avoided, extirpated ! 
 
 We do little if we just depict and inveigh against the 
 temper and proceedings of the few fanatical agitators. 
 Such men would have no inlluence at all, it' they did not 
 find the means, of pending upon certain powerful moi 
 that are common to human nature, and that are peculiarly 
 vigorous when animated by religious ideas. We ought 
 therefore to endeavour to follow home the principle, upon 
 the working of which the spiritual demagogue calm! 
 and upon which the stress of his power rests. He breeds 
 animosity among brethren, and brings the worst of all 
 scandals upon Chritianity ; but he docs so only by putting 
 into activity a motive which all must confess to be, in it- 
 self, not only lawful, but an indispensable element of piety ; 
 namely, zeal for the purity of faith, and for the authority
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 249 
 
 of Christ. Here then one sound principle is seen to over- 
 pass and trample upon another. The two are waging war, 
 and the one triumphs by the destruction of the other. But 
 so deplorable a contrariety can never have taken place 
 without the previous admission of some capital error. Our 
 question then is where does it lie ; and what is its defini- 
 tion ? 
 
 Nothing in Christianity is more conspicuous (nay, it is 
 one conspicuous article from which the whole system de- 
 rives its character) than that Christians are to love each 
 other unfeignedly, as brethren ; and moreover to live in 
 the constant interchange of all the outward and visible to- 
 kens of affection. This being an absolute and primary 
 rule, there must exist a capital fault, on one side, or both 
 as often as it is violated. But then it is also true that, of 
 every Christian it is demanded, as the test of his allegiance 
 to Christ, that he should always be ready, without fear or 
 favour, or calculation of personal "consequences, to profess 
 and defend what he believes to be the Divine Will in mat- 
 ters of belief and practice : in other words, that, in the 
 things of religion, he should maintain fealty to God, at 
 whatever cost or risk of things temporal. Now in the ac- 
 tual state of the world, and of religious profession it must 
 often happen that the Christian's fidelity to his Lord will 
 place him in opposition (not to say hostility) to the great 
 body of those who call themselves by the same sacred 
 name. Such occasions seem to bring into contrariety the 
 two great principles of Love and Fidelity ; at least they 
 demand a special exercise of discretion in order to prevent 
 the clashing of the two. 
 
 Or a case of another sort may easily arise, namely 
 that of individuals, or of small bodies, who in much 
 seriousness, and with entire sincerity, having unfortu- 
 nately adopted an initial erroneous position, from which
 
 250 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 they correctly derive inferences that would be quite valid 
 if their first principle were sound, are drawn on to think 
 themselves obliged both to denounce the body of Christians 
 as grievously corrupted in doctrine, and to separate them- 
 selves from their fellowship. Such individuals, or parties, 
 may fully persuade themselves that, any longer t to asso- 
 ciate with the Church at large, would be to violate their 
 consciences. In instances of this kind we have the double 
 mischief of schism, and of schism without occasion ; a 
 feud is generated, with all its inseparable virulence ; but 
 a feud is devoid of reason : it is therefore an evil not com- 
 pensated by any beneficial result ; it is not remedial ; not 
 conservative. And yet has it sprung from a sound prin- 
 ciple ; and moreover the authors of it are men sincere and 
 devout. Where then is the false assumption, or false 
 inference, by means of which a pure evil has derived 
 itself from good 1 It would be well indeed if this could 
 be ascertained. 
 
 No shadow of ambiguity can rest upon the course to be 
 pursued by one who receives religious principles at large, 
 or particular instructions, immediately from Heaven, in 
 the way of unquestionable miraculous interposition ; and 
 who is commanded to promulgate what he has so learned. 
 Whoever bears a commission of this sort, may calmly 
 discharge his duty, and may leave all consequences to the 
 disposal of Him who has foreseen every contingence. 
 This being obvious, it seems not less so, that the absence 
 of miraculous attestations ought to make some differ- 
 ence in the conduct, or at least in the style, of those who, 
 within the pale of the church, go about to announce new 
 truths, to enforce novel practices, or to condemn that 
 which exists. If the man who derives his peculiar 
 religious opinions simply (and by his own confession) 
 from his personal study of the Scriptures, and who has
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 251 
 
 enjoyed none but ordinary aids, and who can advance no 
 pretension which other men may not also challenge, is 
 entitled to speak in the tone, and to exercise the authority 
 of a prophet or apostle, then what was the necessity for 
 the extroardinary powers where with prophets and apos- 
 tles were endowed ? Or to view the matter on another 
 side ; it is evident that there can be no right of speaking 
 and acting, in the name of Heaven, which does not imply 
 a correlative dut} r , on the part of the people, to yield sub- 
 mission to such authority. But the church will then 
 often be placed in the dilemma of having its submission 
 demanded by hostile teachers a dilemma which has 
 never attended the ministry of men who indeed confirmed 
 their testimony by miracles. 
 
 We should not for a moment hold controversy with the 
 originator of a separate communion on the question 
 whether he ought or not to promulgate the will of Christ 
 when he knows it, and to challenge the obedience of all 
 men to that will. This duty is granted. But we may 
 surely ask him to exhibit his credentials. We shall be 
 the first to submit to his dictation the first to become 
 his sectarists, when we have actually seen the seal of heav- 
 en in his hand, and are satisfied on the capital point of his 
 divine legation. 
 
 Times of extroardinary fanatical excitement excepted, 
 the leaders of sects do not allow to themselves the use of 
 language which, by its arrogance, would supply its own 
 refutation. But the occult and fundamental principle of 
 all ecclesiastical despotism on the one side, and of all 
 factious separation on the other of all religious ran- 
 cour and hostility, whether it be avowed or not, is this 
 assumption of Divine authority on behalf of what is 
 simply an individual opinion. " I THINK so," is the
 
 252 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 whole residuum that can be found after evaporating tlu 
 prodigious pretensions of the zealot-demagogue. What is 
 this " will of the Lord" this " authority of Heaven" 
 this " sacred cause of truth and righteousness?" Nothing, 
 absolutely nothing more than " I think so." Stript the 
 schismatic's declamation of its finery and its sublimity ; of 
 its thunder and its fire ; and there remains just this 
 meagre, and scarcely visible particle, the intrinsic value of 
 which it would be impossible to express. 
 
 Yet no delusion is more natural, or more easily fallen 
 into, or more hard to be dissipated, than that of the sincere 
 and . devout, though arrogant dogmatist, who persuades 
 himself (and others) to feel, and to speak, and to act, with 
 more confidence and intolerance than those ever showed 
 who were intrusted with the power of raising the dead. 
 The enthusiasm and the spirit of exaggeration which 
 attend always a long-continued and exclusive attention to 
 a single subject, and which, so often, render the mathema- 
 tician, the physiologist, the artist, or the man of letters, 
 absurd, are incalculably enhanced by the more profound 
 emotions that belong to religion. Now though this feeling 
 of the infinite importance of religious truth is perfectly 
 reasonable when religious truth in the aggregate is its 
 object, and which can never become exorbitant when 
 any one of the great principles of faith is in question, 
 is ineffably preposterous when attached to the private ex- 
 positions of this or that individual. The dogmatist is not 
 wrong in believing and affirming, that the pure sense of 
 the Inspired Writings is of more price than much fine 
 gold ; nor wrong in bestowing his zealous labours upon 
 the worthy employment of seeking to obtain this pure 
 sense ; nor wrong in giving utterance to the results of his 
 studies, and his prayers : and whoever would interrupt him 

 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 253 
 
 in this work, or would dare to restrain him in the promul- 
 gation of his opinions, is guilty of the most atrocious of 
 all outrages. But alas ! it is neither the private and per- 
 sonal enjoyment of the true sense of Scripture, that 
 contents the dogmatist ; nor the full liberty to prosecute 
 his inquiries ; nor the unbounded tolerance of his public 
 labours. None of these things satisfy his zeal : nor is the 
 fervour of his spirit at all assuaged by what (one would 
 think) the pleasing spectacle of the general church (though 
 erroneous, as he thinks, in particulars) yet possessed of 
 the fundamental principles of piety. All this is as nothing 
 so long as submission is withheld to his exposition, which 
 is indeed li The sense of Scripture," 
 
 To allay in some measure the uneasiness which the 
 obstinacy and contumacy of the Christian world occasions 
 him, the dogmatist first enhances, by all means, his own 
 inward conviction of the truth of his doctrine : and for 
 this purpose he has recourse to the excitements of devotion, 
 as well as to the corroboration of argument. Then he 
 surrounds himself with coadjutors, flatterers (if he can) ; 
 and after kindling the lights of their zeal from his own 
 candle, comforts himself in the general warmth that is 
 thus produced. Furthermore he confirms both his faith and 
 his courage, by uttering aloud his contempt and condem- 
 nation of all gainsayers : and lastly, to prove ostensibly 
 the depth and sincerity of his convictions, he cuts himself 
 off from the corrupt body of the church ; and solemnly 
 turning to the train of his adherents, says, " Come out, 
 and touch not the unclean." 
 
 But it will be said ; and we would not wait to be re- 
 minded of the fact That there is a probability, perhaps 
 a high probability, that the man whom we have termed 
 a dogmatist, and spoken of with reprobation, is one whom 
 
 23
 
 254 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 the Lord has taught, and sent forth, to inveigh against 
 prevailing corruptions. Was not Wicliffe such ? Were 
 not Huss, and Luther, such ? Or if we were to pass by 
 the few signal instances, concerning which no dispute can 
 well arise let what may be called the average proba- 
 bility, in the case of the reformer, and the innovator, be 
 thus stated That he has got possession of some single 
 truths, more or less important, which the church has for- 
 gotten, or discarded, and which he asserts : but in doing 
 so, mingles with them a considerable proportion of mere 
 extravagance and folly. Even the illustrious Chiefs of 
 reformation must take their part in such an acknowledg- 
 ment : much more the host of less noble innovators. 
 
 Now if we are to speak of this ordinary case, as it stands 
 between the general body of Christians, and the man who 
 denounces particular errors ; it is quite plain that an ad- 
 herence, on his part, to the modest course of plainly declar- 
 ing his opinion, and quietly setting forth the reasons of it ; 
 and entreating the attention of his brethren, promises to 
 be productive of as much good as is likely to result from 
 his petulant separation. If indeed the general body will 
 not tolerate any such expression of private opinion if it 
 attempts to impose silence upon him, to crush him ; if, in 
 the true spirit of obdurate folly, it will " hear no reproofs," 
 and casts forth the troublesome member ; then the whole 
 blame of division rests with the body, not with the dissi- 
 dent individual The church is the Schismatic, when it 
 has no ear, and no indulgence, for diversities of sentiment. 
 
 But, in the great majority of the instances which church 
 history presents to us, the leader of factions has not asked 
 has not seemed to wish, for that sort of indulgence 
 which would imply, on his part, a corresponding modesty 
 and moderation, He demands unconditional submission
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 255 
 
 to the points he insists on, as if he could claim divine au- 
 thority for each article of his private creed. And indeed 
 this supposition runs through all his ideas inflates all his 
 language exaggerates the whole of his behaviour 
 stiffens his inflexibility, and animates his courage in 
 suffering. 
 
 Is it denied that the dogmatic sectarist ordinarily assumes 
 any such divine authority to attach to his peculiar opin- 
 ions ? He is, we grant, rarely guilty of so much presump- 
 tion in explicit words. Nevertheless he proceeds as far in 
 act as he could do if every syllable of his creed had been 
 authenticated by signs from heaven. First he scorns and 
 lays aside the modest phraseology of one who simply 
 declares a private opinion, and as modestly shows his 
 reason. Prophets and apostles have done no more than 
 thus use the absolute style of infallible knowledge. Then 
 he excommunicates all who do not submit to his peculiar 
 notions, and declares them unworthy of his fellowship. 
 What more than this could be done by him who said- 
 '' If I come, I will give a proof of Christ speaking in me" 1 
 Those numerous passages of Scripture which at once en- 
 join mutual forbearance, and forbid division on any points 
 not manifestly necessary to Christian belief, are so 
 thoroughly perspicuous, that, being confessedly of divine 
 authority, they must demand nothing less than an equally 
 clear announcement from the same source, to abrogate or 
 hold them in abeyance. Whoever therefore does so treat 
 them as a nullity, virtually pretends to an unquestionable 
 conveyance of the divine will to himself in that particular. 
 
 The will of Christ is That his followers, notwith- 
 standing many diversities of opinion, should remain in 
 love and communion. Whoever then, on pretence of 
 obedience to Christ, breaks up this communion, assumes
 
 256 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 to himself a direct commission from Heaven to that eflect. 
 The prohibition of church divisions is as explicit and in- 
 telligible as the prohibition of murder ; and if a miracu- 
 lous attestation must be demanded of the manslayer who 
 violates the one, so must it of the separatist who contemns 
 the other. This principle is in fact tacitly acknowledged, 
 and has always been assumed, on both sides of religious 
 discords : the despotic beholders of ecclesiastical power, 
 in their persecutions, and the separatists in their resistance 
 and remonstrance, have, in every ease, claimed for their 
 doctrine and practice the weight of DIVINE AUTHORITY. 
 The world (and the church) is incalculably indebted for 
 the degree of repose that is actually enjoyed, to the con- 
 servative inertness of the human mind, which holds it 
 always far short of the goal of extravagance to which 
 otherwise it would often run. And both are, to the same 
 effect, indebted to those motives of interest and fear, which 
 hush evil passions more effectually than reason or human- 
 ity ; and (once more) to that under-current of common 
 sense, which sets strongly athwart the course of agitators, 
 and gives a great degree of steadiness to the general 
 movements of the social system. What would man be if 
 it were not for his happy inconsistencies ? What, if he 
 fulfilled every hasty resolution, and acted in entire accor- 
 dance with every abstract principle ? The peace of the 
 church (it is to be feared) is attributable almost as much to 
 the sedative causes we have just named, as to the operation 
 of better principles. It is manifest that if every Christian 
 followed up, completely, the doctrine which is advanced to 
 justify separation on secondary points, every Christian 
 must be, a church to himself; at once the teacher, and 
 the taught. With a volume in his hand so large and 
 multifarious as the Bible ; an ancient book too, which is
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 257 
 
 known only by interpretation ; a book which contains, as 
 history, very much that is not rule or code with such a 
 book in his hand, and with his ignorance, his inclinations, 
 and his fancy, as his assessors in judgment, what would 
 be the consequence if every one actually attributed to the 
 whole of his sense of the meaning of Scripture, the 
 solemn authority and importance which, as a Sectarist, he 
 attributes to certain points of it 1 And yet he would be 
 much perplexed if required to show why certain private 
 interpretations, of which he says little or nothing, should 
 not have as much honour done them as those other points 
 that divide him from the communion of the general church. 
 He would probably reply " These are nothing more than 
 my private opinions, concerning which it becomes me to 
 be very diffident," And what more or better are those 
 matters of strife which distinguish his sect ? They are 
 precisely private opinions, concerning which it does 
 indeed behove him to be very diffident unless he is pre- 
 pared to claim for them the sanction of immediate revela- 
 tion. Let him but narrowly sift his ideas, and he will 
 certainly find that the opinions of which he speaks with 
 caution, and for the sake of which he would shudder to 
 break communion with his friends, differ absolutely in 
 nothing (but their subject) from those other articles which, 
 by some fatality, have come to be inscribed in crimson 
 letters upon the banners of faction. Nevertheless the awe 
 and power of the Divine sanction have been arbitrarily 
 attached to the one set of interpretations, and not to the 
 other. He may perhaps persuade himself that the opin- 
 ions that make him a sectarist have stronger evidence 
 than those which he holds in silence : but he will be com- 
 pelled, in many instances, at least, to confess that this is 
 not the fact. Or he may allege that the one are intrinsi- 
 
 23*
 
 258 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 cally more important than the other. But here again he 
 would find himself grievously embarrassed if urged to 
 establish the nice point of relative value in matters of 
 doctrine or practice. 
 
 The plain fact is, that the course of events, political and 
 ecclesiastical, the progress or depression of religious know- 
 ledge, at different eras ; and, not least, the intellectual 
 peculiarities and passions of some few prominent individ- 
 uals, have combined to bring under discussion (as it were 
 by chance) particular interpretations of Scripture ; leaving 
 in the shade innumerable other points which might as 
 well have been thrown upon the stage of strife j while to 
 the one, and not to the other, though all are alike precious 
 as portions of the same Revelation, there has been attri- 
 buted the authority of God, so that it became matter of 
 conscience to insist upon them, as conditions of fellowship. 
 
 But it is a truth which should never be lost sight of, that 
 sectarianism is always what ecclesiastical despotism makes 
 it. This has found its verification in our own country ; 
 nor is there any general principle, perhaps, that more ur- 
 gently demands, at the present moment, the attentive 
 consideration of enlightened and liberal minds. Let it be 
 granted that, both in the order of nature, and the order of 
 time (to use a scholastic distinction) the sectarist moves 
 before the despot ; or that the former is the originator of 
 church feuds. We will grant this, though instances 
 might be adduced which have quite a contrary aspect ; 
 just as the petulance and rigour of a father is often the first 
 cause of rebellion in his family. But let the concession be 
 assumed as true ; it may still safely be affirmed that the 
 lust of spiritual domination (foul passion enormous 
 crime !) has imparted almost all the mischievous force it 
 has actually exerted to religious factions. Thus the ex-
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 259 
 
 plosion of combustible matter is rendered fatal by confine- 
 ment and compression. 
 
 Among the many evil consequences (too ' many to be 
 soon enumerated) of that most flagitious of all outrages 
 the outrage that is committed by ecclesiastical power upon 
 the souls of men the one we have now to do with pe- 
 culiarly claims to be noticed, inasmuch as it especially 
 affects the spirit of religious parties in the British empire ; 
 nor only so ; but has needlessly transmitted its agency to 
 the new world, where it can have no pretence for exerting 
 any influence. 
 
 The despotism of the Romish Church a despotism 
 which, without any heat, or any improper extension of the 
 meaning of words, may be called DIABOLICAL, was indeed 
 successfully withstood ; and yet was not discerned, or for 
 its own sake abhorred, by the Reformers. They fought 
 the tyranny of Rome ; but they fought not with spiritual 
 tyranny in the abstract. That same church-usurpation, 
 headed up during the course of many silent ages, to a 
 prodigious height, within the Papal enclosure, broke as a 
 deluge over all the ground of the Reformed Church, and 
 filled, to the brim, every cavity of the foundations on 
 which the new structures were to be reared. The 
 arch-enemy of mankind consoled himself under the loss 
 of so many fair provinces and kingdoms of his visible 
 empire, by contemplating the extension, through every 
 one of those dissevered realms, of the first principle of the 
 ancient corruption : and less than satanic sagacity might 
 forsee that, church tyranny pure or impure in creed and 
 worship, would soon 'bring true religion again to its lowest 
 ebb. 
 
 The transferred spirit of despotism, which was allowed 
 to animate the whole of our new and reformed ecclesias-
 
 260 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 tical institutions, encountered at once, as was inevitable 
 among a people like the natives of the British soil (when 
 quickened by knowledge and piety) an unconquerable 
 resistance. Let every nation of the continent bow, one 
 after another, and kiss again that iron sceptre the iron 
 whereof *' entereth the soul." Let all Christendom beside, 
 in feigned humility, drink again the cup of the stench of 
 priestly debauchery and pride : the men of the British 
 islands or the Christians among them, would no more 
 become thus vile in the sight of Heaven, and in their own 
 estimation. Nay, this is but half the truth ; for God 
 would not permit that all the earth should be enslaved 
 anew ; and to prevent it, He gave courage to multitudes 
 of the Christians of Britian, that they might contend 
 (through the tedious years of two centuries) with the pallid, 
 mitred, inhuman, monsters of Church Power ; and with 
 a succession of ferocious or dotard queens and kings. 
 They did so contend, and at the last blood was stayed : 
 the priest was foiled ; and England was freed ! 
 
 England was freed ! what does it not owe to the men 
 (with all their faults) yes and to the women too, and the 
 babes (for the priest loves always the most delicate victims) 
 whose tears, and groans and patience; whose imprisonments 
 and desolate wanderings; whose torments and lamentable 
 deaths, were the price of its deliverance. This debt is 
 strictly incalculable ; not only because the benefits so 
 obtained are more than can be distinctly reckoned ; but 
 because the happy consequences are even now in full flow 
 over our own, and other countries ; and are promising to 
 run down with a swollen stream to all future times. 
 Fairly may it be questioned whether if in that long struggle 
 the Priest had vanquished the Puritan, England would 
 not at this moment have been as Spain ! Fairly, we
 
 CHARETY AND CONSCIENCE. 261 
 
 say, and on solid ground of philosophical calculation may 
 it be surmised, that if Church Power had then prevailed 
 over its victims, not a residue of English liberty would 
 have been saved. But the liberty of religion being once 
 rescued, that most potent of all the elements of freedom, 
 drawing with it, by an indissoluble alliance, all other ele- 
 ments, has preserved for our use and enjoyment whatever 
 ennobles us among the nations knowledge and philoso- 
 phy commerce and courage, with their attendant wealth 
 and power ; as well as that political framework which 
 has been the admiration and envy of the world. 
 
 England, we say, has, by the indulgent providence of 
 God, been delivered from the worst of all evils : the 
 worst, because big with every other. Yet has it not been 
 absolutely purged of the inveterate poison of spirtual arro- 
 gance. And how much soever the course of events, and 
 the temper of the age, may seem to secure us against the 
 return of the old usurpation, there is room to affirm that 
 vigilance in this behalf should not for a moment be inter- 
 mitted ; and that all men, irrespectively of their regard to 
 religion, should be awake and ready both to repel its insi- 
 dious advances, and to drive it continually on to narrower 
 and still narrower ground, until itself is fain to take a last 
 leap into the pit whence first it issued. 
 
 But we return to our position. That the well remem- 
 bered struggle between Conscience and Church Power, to 
 the issue of which we owe all our liberties ; and the still 
 extant murmurs and restless movements of the same van- 
 quished tyranny, operate very powerfully, and in a man- 
 ner much to be lamented, upon our religious parties. The 
 Dissident, habituated, and taught to think of his dissidence 
 as a laudable and necessary opposition to ecclesiastical 
 usurpation, and feeling, too, the close and constant connex-
 
 
 262 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ion between religious and civil liberty, loses sight, almost 
 entirely, of the religious mischiefs of division. A bold 
 assertion of the rights of Conscience is his praise, his pride, 
 and his nobilit} r ; for he deems it a bright nobility to stand 
 as successor to the men who, at the dearest price, bought 
 religious liberty for England. Separation, in his view, is 
 decked with a nimbus of glory. Nothing can dissolve in 
 his mind the association between the recollection of wor- 
 thies, more illustrious than dukedoms could have made 
 them, and this same separation, which it has now become 
 his turn to support. 
 
 Thus advantaged by its association with the most ani- 
 mating emotions, the idea of restricted and party com- 
 munion contains little or nothing which shocks the Chris- 
 tian sentiments of the pious dissident ; much less of the 
 irreligious one : and even in reference to other bodies, 
 where no plea remains for calling up the virtue of resist- 
 ance to tyranny, the same feeling extends itself. Division, 
 if indeed granted to be abstractedly an evil, is seen always 
 through the golden mist which exhales from many not- 
 forgotten fields of glorious triumph ! 
 
 A verv easy and -natural confusion of thought persuades 
 any one who holds the doctrine of the right of men to 
 think and act for themselves in matters of religion with the 
 most absolute freedom that this civil privilege contains 
 within itself, or conveys a religious right, or a right as 
 member of the Church of Christ, to act with the same dis- 
 regard of the opinions, or the welfare, or the prejudices, of 
 his brethren. On all occasions where forbearance might 
 be called for, the Briton kindles, and the Christian gives 
 way. " Is not," he will say, " the right of private judg- 
 ment surrendered, or made nugatory, when it is asked of 
 me to hold a private conviction in abeyance, or to remit its
 
 CHARITY AND CONSCIENCE. 263 
 
 agitation, for the mere preservation of external harmony ?" 
 The English feeling of absolute personal indepen- 
 dence, both in opinions and conduct, has so tjiorougly dis- 
 lodged from the minds and hearts of many the Christian 
 feeling of submission, for the sake of love and peace 
 much more of submission or deference to pastoral author- 
 ity, that the greatest imaginable revolution must take 
 place in the religious community, before it can be hoped 
 that the capital and simple principles of church commun- 
 ion will be generally recognised and bowed to. Nothing 
 seems at present to indicate the approach of ^any such fa- 
 vourable change among us. 
 
 Meanwhile it is natural to ask Why should not the 
 Christians of the new world avail themselves of the signal 
 advantages they enjoy for reconsidering those faulty princi- 
 ples of combination which their good ancestors carried with 
 them, when they fled from strife and cruelty to the wilder- 
 ness 1 Were those times such as ought to warrant the 
 belief that the principles of church order were well under- 
 stood? Would a man choose to take to himself any 
 opinion, unexamiried, from the age when church tyranny 
 made wise men mad ? But although the ecclesiastical 
 doctrines of the Puritans have received in modern times, 
 some practical corrections, this system parent of division, 
 has never yet been subjected to full and calm examina- 
 tion. What is the fact in America? not that all who 
 profess and love the main articles of the Gospel are one 
 and undistinguished, and are exercising vigorous and char- 
 itable discipline against evil doer?, and declared heretics : 
 but that they are still segregated Christians from Chris- 
 tians, under odious designations ! In England insuperable 
 difficulties, or difficulties too great for our measure of grace 
 and wisdom, stand in the way of any comprehensive
 
 264 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 movements : or our habits and notions are too inveterate 
 to be meddled with. We must move on, and dwindle in 
 petty companies. But what apology can be framed for 
 the perpetuation of schism in America ? none that is not 
 trivial. 
 
 We hear with joy (or hope) of certain rapid advances of 
 piety among the transatlantic churches. No misgiving 
 will haunt our joy, or damp our hope, when it shall be re- 
 ported, that the Christians of the United States have so 
 received the " unction from above," as to bring them to 
 concord visible as well as cordial.
 
 XXL 
 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 
 
 " Not many Noble." 
 
 THE most conspicuous or notable praise of Christianity 
 is its fitness to benefit the undistinguished mass of man- 
 kind. How, indeed, could we recognise that as a message 
 from the Supreme Beneficence which seemed to address 
 itself principally to those who already hold the advantages 
 of intelligence and refinement ? On the contrary, how 
 can we fail to admit that the Gospel is " from heaven," 
 when we see that it turns away from the illustrious to the 
 ignoble ; from the rich to the poor ; from the wise to the 
 ignorant ; in a word from the few to the many ? 
 
 Furthermore, the doctrine of Christ challenges a pecu- 
 liar commendation, inasmuch as it is seen to confer 
 the substantial benefits of virtue and wisdom upon the 
 vulgar multitude of mankind, (if indeed a phrase like this 
 ought to find a place at all when THE GOSPEL is men- 
 tioned,) without being solicitous to rid itself of the humilia- 
 tions and the contumelies we might almost say, the 
 contaminations, it meets with, while allaying itself to the 
 ignorance, the rudeness of manners, and the many ungra- 
 cious prejudices that ordinarily deform the lower conditions 
 of life. Christianity does not stand on high ground, and 
 aloof, and say to the abject, the illiterate, and the impure 
 " Put off your unseemly garb of misery, and learn 
 civility and courteousness, before I can approach your 
 company." But rather, with the courage of true goodness, 
 
 24
 
 266 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 it consents to sustain a thousand disgraces so that it may, 
 by any means, bring salvation to the homes of the wretch- 
 ed Nor is this all ; for the Gospel makes men good and 
 wise (effectively so) without removing always the unsight- 
 ly adjuncts of poverty and ignorance; and after it has 
 fixed its abode with the poor, continues to disregard the 
 mortifying circumstances that so much annoy fastidious 
 pride. 
 
 But is then this doctrine which consorts so common- 
 ly with the ignoble, as if by affinity of tastes, or incapacity 
 to occupy a higher sphere in itself ignoble, or destitute of 
 the elements of grandeur ? Who will say that the purity 
 of its ethics has no greatness or dignity ; or that its dis- 
 covery of eternal life has no sublimity ; or iis exhibition 
 of Mercy mercy purchased so as it was, no beauty ? 
 Or has the only faultless theology that mankind has 
 known, no glory ? All, even its enemies, confess, in these 
 several particulars, that the religion of the Scriptures dis- 
 plays a majesty unrivalled. The common and familiar 
 converse, therefore, which it holds with the lowest con- 
 ditions, instead of being justly alledged as a proof of a 
 kindred abjectness, should be used as an argument of that 
 genuine magnanimity that might be expected in what 
 descends from heaven, and is scarcely or never found in 
 what is born of earth. 
 
 And yet, while the Gospel, ordinarily, so much shrouds 
 its intrinsic dignity, and embraces many humiliations (as 
 its Author veiled his proper glory when he dwelt in flesh) 
 it does not fail,- in some few instances, to expand itself 
 more at large, and to develope, in full symmetry, its essen- 
 tial greatness. Not indeed that the doctrine of Christ can 
 owe any illustration to the native excellencies of human 
 nature, as if to an independent power ; or can derive ad^ 

 
 THE FEW JNOBLE. 267 
 
 vantage from a foreign source. But "every good and per- 
 fect gift" coming from above, and the original faculties and 
 the endowments of the mind being immediately from God, 
 when many gifts of various kinds original, adventitious, 
 and heavenly, meet in the same subject, those of each 
 kind receive from their combination with the others a new 
 and extraordinary splendour : natural intelligence, and 
 greatness or nobility of soul, advantaged by culture and 
 secular embellishments, shine, as with a divine light, 
 when made luminous by the indwelling of the Spirit ; and 
 this Spirit shows the more conspicuously His presence and 
 power, when the " living temple" is of spacious construc- 
 tion, and is adorned with costly materials and many offer- 
 ings. Here and there is found one who admits the religion 
 of heaven in its own manner, and imbibes its sublimity 
 and beauty without detriment, and glorifies God, the giver 
 of all, by displaying the triple nobility of Nature, Culture, 
 and Faith. 
 
 Might it be said the royal Image and Superscription 
 which, by the trituration and corrosion it undergoes in the 
 common world, becomes continually less and less distinct, 
 is from time to time issued afresh, and from a new die j 
 and all men, in the sharp impression and inimitable skill 
 of the work, recognise the fine gold of the realm ; and are 
 much emboldened in their reliance upon the vigilance 
 and good faith of the unseen Administrator of affairs ? 
 Certain it is that the style and tone of piety, in every age 
 (or in private circles) is in great degree dependent upon 
 the character and impulse that are imparted to the mass of 
 Christians by a few distinguished men ; or perhaps by 
 one such. How often have the deep and secret conflicts, 
 purposes, conquests, of an illustrious spirit, Avhen divulged 
 after it has quitted earth, spread like a leaven of new life
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 through the "entire commonwealth of Christianity; and, 
 as a means, or second cause, has enhanced (in various 
 degress) almost all the then existing piety of the church ! 
 Nor should we be safe in affirming that even the most 
 obscure or remote portions of the general body receive no 
 advantage in such instances ; for moral and religious in- 
 fluence, like a subtle ether, attenuates itself until it is no 
 longer noticeable by human observation. Much less can 
 we set bounds in lime to this influence ; for piety is, if we 
 might so speak, peculiarly traditive, and perpetuates and 
 repeats itself, through the longest lines of transmission, 
 from age to age. 
 
 Not one of the common prejudices that spring from the 
 depravity of the heart, is more notably absurd than that 
 which attributes to the individual, as ground of arrogance 
 and vanity, his natural endowments of mind or body. 
 The secret motives that dispose mankind to boast more of 
 those advantages which they have had no part in procur- 
 ing for themselves, than of those which have been the 
 fruits of industry, are indeed not hard to be analyzed, or 
 accounted for. Nevertheless, though the error be easily 
 fallen into, it is manifestly preposterous, for a man to 
 assume as a merit those distinctions, which he could no 
 more win for himself, than confer upon another. 
 
 The very proper jealousy which Christian minds enter- 
 tain of this error, which is at once a proud prejudice, and 
 a folly leads them somewhat too far, when, in order to 
 cut off effectually the occasion of vain-glorious self-love, they 
 almost refuse to give due praise and credit to God's own 
 bestowments. There is a peril and a difficulty, it is true 
 in this quarter ; nevertheless it must never be forgotten, 
 much less denied, that great mental capacity, and the pow- 
 er of accumulating knowledge, and nobleness of spirit as 

 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 269 
 
 well as the graces and embellishments of the exterior man 
 are gifts, and inestimable gifts of God. And if we all 
 saw things, whether spiritual or natural, with a clear eye 
 an eye purged of the films of earth, none would be in 
 danger of becoming vain on account of endowments or 
 powers the rudiments of which he brought with him into 
 the world. Shall indeed a reasonable being challenge to 
 himself, as author, any distinction or advantage which 
 was elaborated in the womb, and is older than his consci- 
 ousness ? The future life shall root out this prejudice, 
 effectually and for ever ; and then all spirits, with open eye 
 beholding the Fountain of good, shall glorify the Creator in 
 whatsoever he bestows upon the creature. 
 
 And besides : the largest capacity, and the most noble . 
 dispositions, are but an approximation to the proper stan- 
 dard and true symmetry of human nature ; and if they 
 seem to reach perfection in one or more points, never fail 
 to fall far short of it in others. It is true that, if men gen- 
 erally did only conceive of the grandeur of their destiny as 
 immortal, every human being would at once become noble 
 and magnanimous both in sentiment and conduct. A con- 
 ception so large as this in fact, enters few minds ; and very 
 few attain that greatness of mind which, even when carried 
 to the utmost, is still less than reason would well authenti- 
 cate. But it is not the want of that elevation of soul 
 which should naturally spring from a consciousness ef im- 
 mortality, and of relationship to God, to be accounted an 
 unspeakable defect ? Small praise then surely, just to pos- 
 sess that, which not to possess is a preposterous fault ! 
 This is in fact the rule whereby great minds are accustom- 
 ed to estimate their own superiority ; and while employing 
 their power of comprehension and abstraction in conver- 
 sing with ideas of absolute perfection, they acquire, from 
 24*
 
 270 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 the comparison thence arising, a modesty like that of child- 
 hood ; and are, notwithstanding any comparison with other 
 men, always alive to genuine sense of imperfection and 
 ignorance. 
 
 Although there are noble dispositions that do not imply 
 so much, yet the true ideal of magnanimity demands an 
 original predominance of the two faculties that are the pre- 
 rogative of man, and which, by their developements, distin- 
 guish one race of men from another, viz: the powers of Ab- 
 straction and Imagination ; and these, not single or dispro- 
 portioned, but duly balanced and blended. It is the first 
 which disengages the mind from those partial aspects of 
 things that fix the attention of inferior understandings. 
 It is the power and disposition to discern, in every fact or 
 event, not so much its single import, as its universal mean- 
 ing, and its relation to general principles, which fills the 
 mind always with the most comprehensive conceptions. 
 It is this power which leads on always from the less per- 
 fect, towards the more perfect ; from the accidental and 
 abjunctive, to the universal ; or from the exterior to the 
 interior ; from the specious to the real ; and in so doing, not 
 merely gives the reasoning faculty its proper and necessa- 
 ry advantage, but dispels and puts out of view a thousand 
 distracting motives. Calmness and intellectual courage, 
 not less than perspicacity, are the fruit of the power of ab- 
 straction. 
 
 And yet if alone, or if it be the paramount faculty of the 
 mind, this power makes a man nothing more than an 
 intellectwalist of a particular class ; a mathematician, 
 physiologist, or dialectician. And as such he may be 
 altogether wanting in greatness of mind. But the philo- 
 sophic faculty becomes, if we might so speak, luminous, 
 and expands itself too much over an incomparably larger
 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 271 
 
 surface, and moves with far more celerity, when it is 
 commingled, in a just proportion, with the powers of 
 imagination. It is the sense of BEAUTY (in the extended 
 meaning of the word) and of sublimity it is the perception 
 of harmony, of richness, of magnificence, and of symmetry, 
 which elevates the man of abstruse reasoning, to a range 
 whence he contemplates all circles of human knowledgCj 
 and avails himself of the fruits of all : he is then aborigen 
 of all spheres of thought ; and finds himself at home and 
 at ease in every region. On the other hand, destitute of 
 the power of abstraction, or the philosophic faculty, the 
 man of imagination is an artist only ; a caterer of tran- 
 sient delights ; or a mere sentimentalist, whose entire 
 existence is as unimportant as the pleasures of a summer's 
 evening. But the two faculties in combination as con- 
 genial, yet antagonist powers, exert, one upon the other, 
 an influence of enhancement, as well as of refinement. 
 That faculty of which the object is TRUTH, imparts to 
 that which the object is BEAUTY, severity of taste ; and 
 so renders every pleasure it approves at once intense and 
 permanent: while in return, the latter conveys to the 
 former all the elasticity, and force, and gust of enjoyment, 
 which are characteristic of ripe manhood, when compared 
 with withered age. It has been the men of one faculty 
 to whom mankind stands indebted for particular benefits 
 in art or science ; but it is those alone who have com- 
 bined the two, whom all mankind regards with grateful 
 reverence. 
 
 And yet these are mere rudiments of genuine magna- 
 nimity ; indispensable indeed, but insufficient if alone. For 
 human nature is not complete unless it be enamoured of 
 Goodness, as well as of Truth and Beauty ; but this can be 
 only when its own moral senses are sound : virtue, there-
 
 272 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 fore, is a proper element of greatness. Destitute of the 
 sense of rectitude and of the emotions belonging to that 
 sense, or deprived of them by actual pravity of soul Mind 
 could hardly be deemed more than a brute power ; a 
 mere mechanism of cogitation. Or if it be in active hos- 
 tility to those sentiments, it is monstrous ; and the more 
 there should be of intelligence in such a being, the more 
 also of horrid deformity. In fact, if we take as a whole 
 whatever may be known by the human mind, one half, 
 and the most important cannot be discerned without the 
 aid of the moral faculty. Love which is virtue in act 
 opens upon the mind the perception of truths as real and 
 valid as any of the principles of mathematical science. 
 Or Love may be termed the mode in which the highest and 
 most universal truths subsist in the soul ; how theu can 
 any spirit be great from which must be deducted that world 
 of things that is understood only by virtue and love ? 
 Selfishness is an incalculable error : malignity, or sensuali- 
 ty, is a thick darkness. We must then utterly deny the 
 praise of magnanimity to one, whatever his capacity, 
 whose whole existence lies within the compass of his per- 
 sonal desires; or whose ambition grasps nothing greater 
 than his single advantage. 
 
 There is a sort of energy, leading to enterprise and 
 achievement, and giving support also to fortitude, of which 
 it is hard to say whether it most belongs to the body or 
 the mind ; it has perhaps its roots in the former, and 
 thence draws its supplies, and there holds its grasp ; but 
 yet rises and spreads, and displays itself in the higher in- 
 tellectual element. Without this force (whether it is to be 
 accounted physical or mental) the soul may indeed con- 
 ceive of that which is great, and may sigh and yearn after 
 it ; but still will be left in the rear of action, to contemn 
 itself for its continual failures.
 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 273 
 
 The adventitious advantages of personal dignity, bodily 
 strength, and equable health, must not be spoken of in the 
 game absolute terms, as conditions of greatness of soul ; 
 any more than nobility of birth ; or the habits that belong 
 to high station and affluence. Nevertheless it were an 
 equal error to affirm of these advantages, on the one hand, 
 that they are indispensable to magnanimous sentiments j 
 or on the other, that they have no affinity therewith ; or 
 no influence in enhancing generous emotions. Nature 
 and history contradict both suppositions. In many signal 
 instances that might be named, MIND, as if purposely to 
 disparage, or put contempt upon its humble companion 
 MATTER, has burst through the restraints and humilia- 
 tions of a feeble, diseased, or distorted form, by force of a 
 plentitude of the highest qualities ; or again as if to make 
 mockery of exterior graces, it has withheld every virtue 
 and every gift from those whose symmetry and dignity of 
 person seemed to fit them for thrones. And yet the un- 
 easiness or painful sense of unfitness of which every one 
 is conscious while such instances are before the eye, is 
 itself a proof that nature teaches us to look for some cor- 
 respondence between the interior and the exterior man ; 
 or that it is her general rule to make the visible a true 
 symbol of the invisible. 
 
 Actual concernment with important affairs a real con- 
 flict with difficulties, as well as some achieved enterprises 
 of danger or labour, though not of course to be enumera- 
 ted among the elements of magnanimity, must be per- 
 emptorily affirmed as indispensable to its existence other- 
 wise than as a mere rudiment, or germ. The collision 
 of the mind with the perils and toils of real life, may fairly 
 be assumed as a test of true greatness ; because our defini- 
 tion of it includes both power, and the propensity to exert
 
 274 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 it; for without this ingredient we retain nothing that 
 might serve to distinguish between the idle con tern platist, 
 or the mere poet, or the retired man of abstraction, and 
 him .whom we deem magnanimous. Energy that achieves 
 nothing, is a febrile restlessness ; not the power of health. 
 Greatness tfiat can establish its pretensions by no ostensi- 
 ble and commensurate performances, is hardly to be 
 known from imbecile ambition. 
 
 Yet is there always a counterpoise in great minds between 
 the desire of action the vigorous passion for achievement) 
 on the one part, and that tendency, on the other, to repose 
 that taste for peace that calm residence of the soul 
 upon its centre, which impels it (with an apparent incon- 
 sistency) now to stand forth, and now to recede from the 
 noise and confusion of the world. We might find plenty 
 of great minds, if we could but relinquish, in our defini- 
 tion, this special characteristic a tranquil taste, and the 
 capability of repose. In every circle one may meet with 
 men of prodigious energy, and of indefatigable zeal ; 
 but they are such as can exist only exteriorly, or in action : 
 rest, when it must be taken, is with them an abrupt 
 cessation of their intellectual life ; it is not another and 
 a graceful mode of it. Will it seem romantic to affirm 
 that the characteristic serenity of minds truly great is an 
 instinct of the soul, indicating its destiny to a future and 
 endless life ? for even though that life were believed to 
 consist of a perpetuity of action ; nevertheless the antici- 
 pation of it, fraught as it is with the notion of infinity, 
 and of absolute perfection, must always be attended with 
 the idea of peace and stillness. 
 
 If it yet seems as if some one infallible characteristic of 
 genuine magnanimity were wanting, we should at once 
 name unalterable modesty, as that mark. That it is so
 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 275 
 
 might be argued not merely from the evidence of facts, 
 establishing the point that great men have always shone 
 with this grace, as assume it a priori, inasmuch as eleva- 
 tion and grandeur of soul consists in, or is derived form, an 
 habitual contemplation of universal principles. This 
 habit of the mind contains a tacit comparison which is of 
 the very essence of humility. The spirit that has no 
 modesty, manifestly has no sense of abstract excellence : 
 and therefore can have no greatness ; or, at least, is not 
 holding converse with things greater than itself ; hence 
 it grasps nothing that might aid it [to spring up, or rise 
 above its actual level. 
 
 The modesty of great minds, like their tendency to rest, 
 generates an apparent inconsistency at which vulgar ob- 
 servers are amazed : it is a dissonance, full of sweetness 
 and power ; but pleasing to well-taught ears. For just as 
 there is (as we have already said) an alternation between 
 the love of repose and the desire of action ; so is there 
 also in noble spirits a counterpoise between the conscious- 
 ness of superior power and native high quality, and this 
 characteristic humility or meekness. Such are the 
 changes of a spring day, when the sun, returning to our 
 hemisphere and about to put forth anew the generative 
 fervour of summer, is seen contending with the heavy ex- 
 halations of earth. For awhile these vapours gather over 
 the heavens and darken the landscape ; but at length they 
 divide, and even while tepid showers are falling, the source 
 of light is revealed in all his effulgence : and yet only to 
 be soon again veiled in the mists his own rays have drawn 
 into the sky. 
 
 False or affected greatness, which consists in the tumid 
 expansion of a meagre substance, may assume all appear- 
 ances of the true sooner than this of modesty ; which either
 
 276 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 it will not attempt, or attempting, will utterly fail to reach. 
 Or while acting the part of modesty, will so exhibit its rest- 
 lessness and impatience, as to forfeit the praise of serenity. 
 Thus the two inseparable characteristics of genuine mag- 
 nanimity are denied to all pretenders. 
 
 In nothing are great and inferior minds more certainly 
 distinguished, than in that peculiar composite sentiment 
 with which the former habitually contemplate mankind at 
 large: We say composite sentiments ; because it brings 
 together, with singular harmony, all the separate ingredi- 
 ents of magnanimity which we have just enumerated. In 
 the analogous feeling of pretenders to greatness, some one 
 or more of these ingredients is wanting. The man of 
 enormous ambition, splended as his qualities may seem, 
 can make out no valid claim to the affection of his fellow- 
 men, even if he may compel their admiration ; for he looks 
 upon them simply as the means or materials by which to 
 effect, or upon which to build the spacious edifice of his 
 pride. Or if beneficence takes its turn in his emotions, 
 it is taught to give way instantly when it might embar- 
 rass the dominant passion. The vague theorist too whose 
 schemes are as large as continents, and who, one would 
 say, has built his nests high as the clouds, so that he 
 looks down upon empires as a man does upon a colony of 
 ants ; he is great only in his closet : he legislates for 
 nations not a few ; schools senates ; rebukes kings ; 
 revises all that is faulty in the institutions of all lands ; 
 throws the blame of every human woe upon statues. Yes, 
 his pen is quite a paternal sceptre, wielded for the benefit 
 of the species ! Alas, all this sovereign philanthrophy is 
 bottled in his inkhorn ! look for it elsewhere ; in his con- 
 duct or his self denials : you find it not. This huge 
 goodwill to men is nothing better than the mode of unmeas-
 
 THE FEW NOBLE. 277 
 
 urable vanity ; and if you want a proof that it is so, see 
 how cunningly the sage avails himself of the slender know 
 ledge of the men of his country or age, so as to make him- 
 self appear the author and inventor of that which he has 
 just known how to steal from foreign quarters. 
 
 The philanthropy that is genuine and great yearns 
 to act, and must spend itself in some effort, effectual or 
 not, to diffuse benefits. The habit of abstraction, which 
 is the primary rudiment of his character, informed by the 
 bright conceptions, and animated by the emotions which 
 his imagination furnishes, leads him to meditate, as his 
 favourite theme, upon the welfare of communities ; or of his 
 species at large. . And he is enough of the philosopher to 
 look with indulgence upon the errors and faults of man ; 
 but not so a philosopher as to make these errors and faults 
 the subject of caustic merriment. He is poet enough to 
 feel a kindling sympathy with whatever is beautiful or 
 gracious in the social system ; but not so a poet as to turn 
 away his eye from the unpleasing realities of human de- 
 gradation. He is the man of action, energy, courage, for- 
 titude ; but his velocity is not that of a machine, which, is 
 serviceable or destructive blindly, for he has long pondered 
 whatever he attempts, and his motive is always so sound 
 and so admirable, that even his failures or defeats are 
 brighter than other men's successes : and when thwarted 
 in his endeavours, men see in his serenity that it was 
 good-will to his species, not ambition, that moved the 
 attempt. 
 
 Nothing can be less like arrogance or conceit than the 
 feeling with which a great mind inwardly confesses its 
 unquestioned superiority. Such is that respect for 
 humanity which the man of magnanimous sentiments 
 entertains, that it is with sincere pain he recognises at any 
 
 25
 
 278 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 time in other men those deficiencies, or that meanness, or 
 baseness, or frivolity, whence he might draw a comparison 
 in his own favour. As often as any such comparison ob- 
 trudes^ itself, gratulation gives way to shame, or compas- 
 sion for others. Jt % is to him a heavy grievance that men 
 should be blinded by prejudice, perverted by passion, cor- 
 rupted by interest ; that they should be ignorant ; infirm 
 in judgment ; sordid in conduct. The levity of mankind, 
 and their corruption, alike distress him, for they contro- 
 vert that feeling he would fain always cherish, of compla- 
 cency towards all things, and of esteem for all. Tell him 
 to think with pleasure of his own expansion of mind and 
 nobility of temper : this is but in another manner to 
 enumerate the dishonours of his fellow-men ! 
 
 Conceptions and emotions of this order are justly deem- 
 ed romantic when not found in combination with energy 
 and consistency of conduct : that is to say, when they 
 are mere conceptions, and mere emotions. But the man 
 who thinks them so, however recommended by the active 
 virtues ; the man who secretly contemns the humility 
 and humanity of great minds as if it were a weakness, 
 may be sure that there is a region of thought of which he 
 has no more knowledge than the mole lias of the vastness 
 and splendour of the upper skies, where the eagle soars.
 
 XXII. 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 
 
 "Let him that Glorteth, Glory in the Lord." 
 
 AND yet the greatness of man, at the best, is but great- 
 ness fallen and restored : and the utmost he can attain 
 to in the present state is so much of dignity as may be- 
 seem one who, rightfully challenging the honours of high 
 birth and illustrious destiny, is rescued from a degradation 
 he has sustained, and is* replaced in a condition of hope 
 and advancement. In such a case, every sentiment 
 should have respect to the history and to the true circum- 
 stances of the person. Genuine magnanimity will never 
 prompt a man to hush up his past misfortunes, or dis- 
 graces ; much less to deny the obligation he is under to 
 whoever has saved him from penury, obloquy, or danger. 
 On the contrary, true generosity m st shows itself in the 
 readiness with which such confessions are made, and the 
 debt of gratitude acknowledged. It is the part only of the 
 basest spirits to affect oblivion of humiliating facts which 
 all the world is acquainted with. 
 
 It must then be deemed a great disparagement when 
 the subject of any signal misfortune or benefit, is himself 
 unconscious of the fact ; or very imperfectly sensible of it ; 
 and such ignorance is always to be deplored in propor- 
 tion to the native generosity or nobleness of the individual 
 in question. When vulgar souls are unapprised of signal 
 services done them, we thing the less of it, inasmuch as, 
 if known, there would probably be little acknowledgment
 
 280 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of the favour ; nay, perhaps, some offensive expression 
 of ingratitude. But we long to inform the magnanimous 
 of their obligations, if it were only that the most generous 
 emotions of which human nature is susceptible, might be 
 set in flow. 
 
 Ignorance of the cause and extent of his misery is the 
 aggravation, universally, of the mischief that has happened 
 to man ; and, contrary to what might have been imagined, 
 this ignorance attaches to the most elevated spirits, not less 
 than to the most rude. Indeed those very qualities and 
 powers of mind which might lead such to feel and deplore 
 the deterioration of their moral state, and to accept frankly 
 and joyfully the succour offered from above, seem rather 
 to form a blind, intercepting the prospect of things greater 
 and more excellent, that might be attained. 
 
 If facts did not prove the contrary, how confidently 
 should we expect that all vigorous and generous minds 
 would, with an instantaneous conviction, or as if by the 
 instinct of a native sympathy, embrace the great principles 
 of religion ! how natural that such should rush toward 
 the hope of immortal happiness ; should be foremost to 
 accept the proffered friendship of the Most High ; should 
 yearn to get released from the defilements of sin ; and 
 especially that, from the impulse of a kindred generosity, 
 and with the ingenuousness that distinguishes noble tem- 
 pers, they should admire and receive the grace divinely 
 free that has been obtained for mankind by the vicarious 
 work of the Great Deliverer ! All this would naturally 
 happen if the moral mischief that infests us were less than 
 it is ; or did not include a derangement or obscuration of 
 every faculty, and a perversion of every sentiment. 
 
 This obscuration, both of the intellectual and moral 
 powers common to all men, and not less gross in the
 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 281 
 
 instance of highly-gifted individuals than in others ; but 
 often more so, is to be dispelled in one manner only : 
 that is to say, when Sovereign Power from on high re- 
 stores the soul to soundness of health, and brings it back 
 to the place and dignity whence it has declined. That 
 this restoration is properly attributable to a Divine Agency, 
 is confessed by every one who is the subject of it: nor is 
 the confession made merely in deference to the inspired 
 testimony ; but springs from the impulse of consciousness, 
 which dares not cannot attribute so great and happy a 
 change to any inferior cause. 
 
 Whatever therefore may, in any case, be the measure 
 of intelligence, how noble soever the pre-existing disposi- 
 tions, how entire soever the ingenuousness and simplicity 
 of the mind, when a cordial submission to the grace of 
 the Gospel is spoken of, there is included, without excep- 
 tion or distinction, the presence and agency of the Divine 
 Spirit. The explicit affirmations of Scripture demand as 
 much ; and the concurrence of all, who by experience 
 are qualified to speak on the subject, corroborates the same 
 truth. 
 
 But when once this renovation is effected, and when the 
 many prejudices, and the crude suppositions which the 
 pride of the heart, or its vicious propensities, have genera- 
 ted, are dispersed, the gifts of nature, whether intellectual 
 or moral, will make themselves apparent. And first of 
 all superior mental power shows itself in the preliminary 
 of a full conviction of the truth of Christianity. Alterna- 
 tions of doubt and confidence, where evidence is complete, 
 are characteristic of a feeble understanding ; and it belongs 
 too to a confused one, to rest, from year to year, in a sort 
 of equable haze of semi-persuasion ; as it were on the 
 very borders of light, when certainty is attainable. Mul- 
 
 25*
 
 282 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 titudes of Chrirtians, it may be feared, are Christians of 
 this degree ; occupants of the penumbra of faith ; and 
 believers or sceptics, according to the direction in which 
 they happen at the moment to be looking towards the 
 region of day or of night. A vigorous rnind is impa- 
 tient of any such states of incertitude : it acquiesces in- 
 deed calmly in the necessity of the case, when evidence 
 is imperfect or inconclusive ; and will then te as jealous of 
 dogmatism, as otherwise it would of indecision. But how 
 should it restrain its active force, or how repress that irres- 
 istible desire the desire of knowledge, when ample 
 materials are before it ; when every species of proof in 
 redundance offers itself to examination ; when circuitous 
 and coincident testimony is seen to run on in the same 
 general direction with that which is explicit ; so that to 
 remain in ignorance, or to be the victim of delusion is a 
 culpable weakness, preposterous as it is unhappy 1 
 
 On a subject like that of the Christian evidences, a man 
 of powerful and comprehensive mind, after he has once 
 made himself master of the argument, feels on all occa- 
 sions that the approach of doubt or hesitation is nothing 
 but a symptom of some momentary debility or torpor of 
 the reasoning faculty ; and in alarm, not for the question, 
 but for the integrity of his own powers, he rouses a 
 manly strength, and shakes off the drowsy impotency that 
 had crept upon him. That this sort of vigorous faith does 
 not more often show itself among Christians, is because 
 the two elements whence it should spring are but rarely 
 united : for on the one hand, those whose fervent piety gives 
 them an interior or experimental conviction of the truth of 
 the Scriptures, are not very often, in any good degree, 
 familiar with the documentary argument ; or perhaps 
 have not the intellectual power requsite for appreciating
 
 RUDIMENT OP CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 283 
 
 its force. And on the other hand, the few who do possess 
 these advantages, too often labour under a coldness of 
 heart, or a secularity of character, which makes Christian- 
 ity and its principal doctrines distasteful, or unintelligible ; 
 so that their rational conviction, how strong soever it may 
 be, never rests within them at ease ; but is always in con- 
 flict with this or that prejudice, or lurking suspicion. Or 
 it may be, that the irksome familiarity of professional 
 engagements in religion has checked every spirtual sense ; 
 or that an enfeebling of the judgment, produced by the ac- 
 cumulation of ponderous erudition, actually disables the 
 mind from grasping or retaining its hold of great and 
 serious truths. 
 
 And is there not room to say, that what may be termed 
 secular vigour of mind vigour trained and exercised 
 either on the theatre of public life, or within the precincts 
 of natural science, when animated by genuine piety, pro- 
 duces an unblenching faith which those might envy 
 whose duties in religion at once demand the most un- 
 shaken presuasion, and tend to impair it ? 
 
 The same intellectual energy, governed and enlivened 
 by the fervour and ingenuousness of a cordial faith, carries 
 the mind forward in full course, clear of all frivolous soph- 
 isms, to the great facts, whether more or less mysterious, 
 that are distinctly affirmed or implied in the Scriptures. 
 Convinced that these books bear with them the authority 
 that must attach to a miraculous communication of know- 
 ledge from God to man, a sound, philosophic, and upright 
 mind dares not for a moment hesitate to regard them as 
 altogether trustworthy in their mode and style of convey- 
 ing the principles they were actually intended to impart. 
 There is an alert sagacity there is a fine and mobile 
 penetration, which we naturally call into exercise when
 
 284 SATURDAY EVENING, 
 
 we have to do (as we suppose) with any who are endeav- 
 ouring either to perplex or to deceive us. But to open the 
 Bible in this spirit to take the Book as from the hand of 
 God, and then to look at it aloof, and with caution, as if 
 throughout it were illusory and enigmatical, is the worst 
 of all impieties, as well as the greatest possible inconsis- 
 tency. 
 
 The Creator, having already spoken intelligibly to man 
 by the display of His wisdom and power in the visible 
 world, which sets forth conspicuously the first truths of 
 theology, would seem Himself to inculpate or disparage 
 that existing mode of instruction if, when He condescends 
 to teach us mouth to mouth, He were to tell us of nothing 
 that had not already been imparted in the elder method. 
 The Scriptures, because attended with an operose economy 
 of supernatural attestations, are to be presumed to contain 
 high matters, and such, that no less an apparatus could 
 properly have conveyed them. Nor will an enlarged and 
 generous spirit, already awakened to discern the glory of 
 Him the Incomprehensible Being, with whom we have 
 to do, deem those things to be unworthy of Heaven which 
 the inspired writers, in the calm simplicity of truth, open 
 to our faith and gratitude. 
 
 In like manner as it may readily be conceived that^ 
 when the human spirit enters upon the untrodden fields 
 of a higher world, though the economy of that sphere, and 
 the stupendous objects or movements belonging to it, are 
 all as amazing as they are new ; nevertheless, not one of 
 those objects not one of those novel acts, fails to find 
 some principle of sympathy or alliance in the native ideas 
 or emotions of the new-born child of immortality ; and this 
 for the plain reason, that an absolute harmony or unity of 
 principle pervades, as well the intellectual, as the material
 
 RUDIMENT OP CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 285 
 
 Universe : so> for the same reason, whatever elements) 
 or whatever transactions of that upper world are now 
 brought within out knowledge by the Scriptures, though 
 invested, as we might well anticipate, with the majesty 
 and awful greatness of infinity, are yet found to have a 
 thorough analogy with our human nature ; and meet, in 
 its original principles, with corresponding rules of thinking, 
 or modes of feeling ; and (if the phrase might be permit- 
 ted) instantly make themselves at home in our bosoms. 
 
 Whoever has freely and gratefully admitted into his 
 heart the first truth of Christianity the atonement for sin, 
 accomplished by the Son of God, will grant that he finds 
 in it nothing that does not recommend itself to his reason ; 
 when reason is the most serene, and the most happily in 
 correspondence with pure and ingenuous emotions. If 
 ever he doubts the reality of this doctrine, or loses his per- 
 ception of its excellence, it is precisely when the vivacity 
 of every better sentiment has been hurt by the prevalence 
 of earthly passions, or the influence of secular engage- 
 ments. 
 
 The great principle of the vicarious sufferings of Christ, 
 and the correlative truth of his proper divinity, may either 
 be thus confessed as congruous with our most ennobling 
 emotions ; or may be acquiesced in, as the consequence of 
 an intimate perception of the unalterable rectitude of the 
 Divine nature ; and then this perception, though it deepens 
 the emotions of contrition and humiliation, is felt, in the 
 very same degree, to impart to it a qualification, and a 
 taste, fitting it to rise into a sphere of existence ineffably 
 higher than heretofore it had at all imagined ; much less 
 attained to. A true knowledge of God, as unchangeably 
 just, and absolutely holy, while, in a sense, it oppresses the 
 spirit, exalts it far more, But it can not any such in-
 
 286 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 fluence until the means are discerned by which Justice 
 and mercy may be reconciled. The very same spiritual 
 perceptions that cast the soul into the depth of contrition, 
 awaken it also to a consciousness of celestial excellence 
 and glory. The agonies of penitence are nothing else 
 than a bursting forth in the heart of those higher princi- 
 ples (originally planted there, but long subverted) which, 
 when fully expanded, shall place man in communion with 
 the most exalted natures ; and not only so, but open to 
 him free access to the Source of all Good. Destitute of 
 these genuine elements of greatness, the magnanimity of 
 man is false, or fustrate, or spends and exhales in momen- 
 tary efforts, and on unworthy occasions. 
 
 And yet how shall any such true and intimate percep- 
 tion of the Divine purity and inflexible rectitude, bringing 
 with it, as it must, a proportionate sense of personal guilt, 
 peril, and degradation, be at all entertained by the human 
 mind, much less be cherished, until the hope of pardon, 
 and of friendship with God, has been seen to rest upon 
 the most solid ground 1 That this harmony of spiritual 
 principles exists nowhere but in the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment, might be sufficiently argued from the fact, that the 
 rejection of the doctrine is always coincident with indis- 
 tinct and derogatory notions of the moral attributes of the 
 Deity. Nothing can sever these rudiments of the religi- 
 ous life a consistent and elevated conception of the Di- 
 vine character genuine compunction on account of guilt 
 and depravity.; and (if hope entertained at all) a grateful 
 acquiescence in the doctrine of substitution. 
 
 The affirmation of this necessary connexion may be 
 deemed gratuitous, and nugatory ; and will so be deemed 
 by those who themselves are destitute of the primary ele- 
 ment of piety. Nevertheless it would not be difficult to
 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 287 
 
 embarrass the oppugner (unless he took the ground of 
 Atheism) in a thousand contradictions ; much in the 
 same manner that a man who had been blind from his 
 birth might, especially if conversant with science, have it 
 demonstrated to him, that there is actually a faculy by 
 means of which knowledge is gained of remote objects ; 
 though for him in any degree to conceive of such a faculty 
 would be utterly impossible. In such a case the blind 
 man would be hedged in between abstract demonstration, 
 and the involuntary scepticism that belongs to ignorance. 
 
 The capital truth of the propitiatory sacrifice offered for 
 mankind by the Son of God, gives scope to the greatest 
 intellectual power, by a peculiarity that distinguishes the 
 higher themes of religious meditation. In the several 
 departments of secular philosophy, the objects of abstract 
 thought lie compactly within the range of the faculty they 
 are to exercise ; and this faculty, so far from being aided 
 in its efforts by the sensitive principles of the soul, demands 
 that these should be quiescent while it is in action. Hence 
 arises that common partition of minds into the two classes 
 of the ratiocinative, and the sensitive ; nor is any thing 
 more rare than a combination of the two, in any very 
 eminent degree. 
 
 But the peculiarity of the primary truth of the Chris- 
 tian system is this That though it be matter of abstrac- 
 tion, the materials of cogitation wait to be presented to 
 the reasoning powers by the moral sense ; and this sense 
 must first be spiritually quickened before it can perform 
 its office. It is only when an intimate perception is had 
 of the Divine rectitude and purity ; and only in proportion 
 to the vivacity of such perceptions, that the relations of 
 justice and goodness can be discerned, or be subjected to 
 reason. Apart from this spirtual discernment, the mental
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 process, although it may be carried on with a semblance 
 of logical consistency, has lost its substance (just as real 
 quantities are forgotten in the working of algebraic signs) 
 and the current of ideas quickly subsides into the lower 
 channel of mere speculation. Nothing less than the 
 highest sensibility of the soul its plentitude of feeling, its 
 participation of that Divine nature which is Love, can 
 give it fully the power to draw conclusions, on this high 
 theme, from premises, or to measure the true bearing of its 
 abstract notions. 
 
 There are certain trains of reasoning on abstruse mat- 
 ters, wherein either the subject is so ethereal, or the con- 
 nexion of principles so evanscent, or so recondite, that they 
 are not at all to be pursued except when the intellectual 
 powers are in a state of the very highest vigour. Hence 
 naturally, it happens, that the conclusions which have 
 been reached or assented to in the hour of mental strength 
 and perspicacity, come to be questioned, or very dimly ap- 
 prehended, in the season of languor that succeeds : there 
 is a vacillation or an alternation of knowledge and doubt ; 
 just because the mind cannot permanently keep its posi- 
 tion on the height which sometimes it attains. But in 
 these cases the rise and fall of conviction takes place exclu- 
 sively within the circle of the reasoning powers. 
 
 The mental variation, or parallax, of which now we 
 are speaking, is quite of a different sort. For it is not 
 that the objects in question are in themselves subtile, or 
 unsubstantial, or that the relations that connect them are 
 slender or flickering : yet they are not to be seen by the 
 native light of the human mind. The soul must, in this 
 case, be illuminated from above before reason can do its 
 work. It is as when the traveller who has reached an al- 
 pine height, at the breaking of day, looks around him
 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 289 
 
 upon a far extended sea of shapeless mists. Shall he be- 
 lieve that nothing is on the right hand and on the left but 
 vague obscurity and unimportant vapours ? No ; for the 
 sun soon scatters these exhalations ; and the stupendous 
 masses of the mountains stand out in all their proper 
 strength of colouring, and their breadth and solidity of form! 
 Now nothing is indistinct -or questionable; and although, 
 evert 'while he 'is gazing, the clouds should reassemble 
 upon the bosom of the hills, and leave him, as if insulated, 
 on his pinnacle of observation, he would not, any the more, 
 assent to one who should tell him that what lately he had 
 contemplated was an airy phantasm. 
 
 Uncultured and ingenuous minds happily escape cer- 
 tain perplexities which, groundless as they are, often ob- 
 struct the course of excursive, and even of powerful under- 
 standings ; nor is there any way of escape from such em- 
 barrassments except that which a radiance from heaven 
 makes known. If, for example, the mind falters at the 
 ineffable doctrine of the divine dignity of Him who was 
 " Son of man" and " Son of God ;" faith is reassured 
 when a perception is obtained of the unalterable glory of 
 the moral perfections of God : and while that perception 
 enkindles penitence and fear, it is most distinctly felt that, 
 if the fallen are indeed to be rescued and the guilty absolv- 
 ed, nothing of less magnitude than the Christian economy 
 can reconcile the demands of rectitude with the course of 
 mercy. Not one of the correlative notions on which the 
 Gospel turns can possibly be surrendered, or at all abated. 
 To give up the first of them, is nothing less than for the 
 soul to dismiss its high conception of purity and bliss ; 
 it is for itself to fall back into that abyss of darkness and 
 dismay whence lately it emerged. Most distinctly is it dis- 
 cerned that the only tenable hope of progressive happiness, 
 
 26
 
 290 SATURDAY" EVENING.' 
 
 and the only worthy idea of the future expansion and pet' 
 fection of the powers of human nature, coincide precisely 
 with an enlargement of this same spiritual knowledge of 
 the Divine purity, and with an increasing intensity of 
 the emotions that thence arise. Now without presuming 
 to ask whether the salvation of man might in any other 
 way than by the propitiatory work of Christ have been 
 reconciled with the Divine attributes ; it is enough that the 
 stupendous scheme of mercy opened in the Gospel a 
 scheme which human minds would never have devised, 
 manifestly brings every contrariety to unison, and may cor- 
 dially be embraced, as the true harmony of heaven. 
 
 Not indeed as if the field of divine science could so be 
 traversed and surveyed by the human faculties, or as if 
 the actual procedures of the Supreme Intelligence could so 
 be made matter of antecedent calculation, as that men 
 might be qualified to say " Thus, and thus only, could 
 Infinite Wisdom attain its purposes." All argumentation 
 that rests on any such grounds merits reprobation. But 
 as natural philosophy presents many arrangements in the 
 material system of which the use and excellence may be 
 distinctly seen although, a priori no such combinations 
 would ever have been thought of as possible ; or have 
 been deemed fit, even if 'possible; so, 'in divine science 
 may we very intelligently consent to the wisdom of known 
 rules and principles ; though the higher, or abstract reason 
 that determines them, and whence they might have been 
 foreknown, far surpasses our powers of thought. In these, 
 sacred themes distinct convictions may be attained which, 
 because they result from a spiritual sense of the perfec- 
 tions of God, are not at all to be conveyed from mind to 
 mind, or embodied in any forms of language. Neverthe- 
 less they are as valid as the best of those conclusions that 
 are drawn from the first elements of knowledge.
 
 RUDIMENT OP CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 291 
 
 But if extraordinary intellectual powers may find a 
 scope in the principal themes of religion, and if the exer- 
 cise of them to good advantage demands always the ac- 
 companiment of spiritual convictions ; there is also need 
 of that generous simplicity of sentiment which distin- 
 guishes a magnanimous spirit from the mere reasoner. 
 When the process of rigid analysis is applied to subjects 
 that stretch far beyond the range of human knowledge, 
 nothing but embarrassment can be the result ; and to 
 gain freedom we must return to those simple sentiments 
 that are, on many occasions, better guides than abstruse 
 reasoning. Thus it is that a frigid scrutiny of the ideas 
 brought together in the scheme of human redemption gen- 
 erates, often, a misgiving, as if there must be a want 
 of substance in the ingenuous expressions employed by 
 the Apostles, when they speak of the grace and love of the 
 Saviour in " giving himself a ransom for many ;" or as if, 
 after the'several shares of the Divine and human natures 
 are allotted, nothing remains which can distinctly be held as 
 adequate motive of affectionate gratitude. Any such idea 
 is the consequence of attempting to analyse that of which 
 none of the elements come within our grasp. A feeling 
 of this sort maybe surmised to lurk beneath a certain style 
 of pulpit exaggeration, employed perhaps sometimes, to 
 conceal the perplexities of the mind, or to hide that chasm 
 in the heart which should be filled by devout affections. 
 
 A cold scientific distribution of the parts of the satis- 
 faction once offered for sins by the Divine Mediator, and 
 which so much annoys ingenuous minds in books of 
 divinity, finds no precedent in the style of the Apostles. 
 They (better taught than logicians could teach them) spoke 
 on all occasions of their Lord, as the Saviour of the world 
 in a manner which has no reason if we forget his human-
 
 292 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ity ; and no piety if we deny his divinity ; and DO force, 
 if we attempt in any manner to sever the one from' the oth- 
 er. The polemic term 6sa.\6uvus, happy and comprehensive 
 as it may seem, was not used by them, because they felt 
 no need of it ; or had never thought of so distinguishing 
 their conception of the Person of Christ as is implied in 
 the construction of a phrase of this sort. Like some other 
 term now unhappily become almost indispensable, it 
 points to heresy ; and would fall out of usage if there 
 were no sophistry in the world, and no gainsayers. 
 
 The inspired writers never pause when they speak of 
 Christ, as if they must use caution in rightly assigning 
 the terms they employ. The characteristic of their man- 
 ner is unity, rather than abtruse precision. Unconscious 
 of embarrassment, they ascribe, in the fullest and clearest 
 terms, to the Saviour of men, emotions and modes of 
 action which metaphysical severity refuses to predicate of 
 the eternal and unchangeable Deity ; in the same breath, 
 and without a note of surprise, attribute to him perfections 
 which it were blasphemy to challenge for any but the 
 Possessor of omniscience, omnipotence, and eternity. 
 
 This harmony of style on a point where scepticism 
 always stumbles, and where superstition always runs into 
 extravagance, ought to be deemed a signal proof of the 
 presence of a wisdom more than human. A vigorous 
 understanding, and a temper that spurns the sinuosities of 
 unbelief, when guided by the same Spirit of Truth, confi- 
 dently follows on the path trodden by Apostles. No 
 unsound sentiment need be imputed, when it is said, that 
 a great mind informed from above,. will, in a peculiar 
 manner, catch by sympathy the greatness the magna- 
 nimity, which belongs to the character, and actions of the 
 Saviour of the world. In this character, and in these ac- 
 tions in these words of grace, and deeds of mercy, scope is
 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 293 
 
 found, and more than scope, for the profoundest emotions 
 which the spirit of man may at all sustain. The mind 
 reaches no limit on this ground : the objects of its medita- 
 tion, by a combination mysterious truly possess at once 
 all the distinctness and vivacity that belongs to what is 
 human, and all the depth and height that attach to what 
 is divine. Although indeed the attempt must always be 
 fruitless to penetrate the incomprehensible union of the 
 divine and human nature the actual harmony which 
 that union produced is forcibly and clearly perceived by 
 the moral sense; and eminently so by minds of extraordi- 
 nary power. Scarcely a sentence recorded by the evan- 
 gelists, and scarcely an action narrated, fails to present, 
 with more or less distinctness and in wondrous unison, 
 the divine and human attributes of him who spake " as 
 never man spake." Remove from the discources of Jesus, 
 and from his conduct, the mystery of his Person, and 
 every just idea of fitness is shocked ; nay, the entire 
 narrative becomes incredible ; or rather let us say, that, if 
 the mind be vigorous and sane, it is incomparably easier 
 to admit the divinity of Christ, than to reject it, and read 
 the Gospels without being confounded and perplexed. 
 
 Controversy (inevitable though it be) spoils whatever it 
 affects. The Controversy of the Church with the impug- 
 ners of the first truth of Christianity has, if we might use 
 the allusion, quite chaied the resplendent surface of 
 Revealed Religion, so that the impression we should other- 
 wise have received from the Gospel narrative is vastly 
 impaired. Our long continued litigation with sophists has 
 drawn us away from the native force, to the bare gram- 
 matical value of certain words and phrases. But the 
 native force of language is nothing more than its true 
 value, in all cases when, an ingenuous writer adapts 
 
 26*
 
 294 SATURDAY EVENING] 
 
 himself only to ingenuous readers : and the denuded 
 meaning which criticism evolves, bears much the same 
 relation to the genuine sense of the writer, which a sear 
 anatomical preparation, with its shrivelled fibres, and 
 blanched bones, bears to the living man. If the believer 
 suffers by this means, the heretic much more : and it will 
 seldom (perhaps never) be found that the naked gramma- 
 tical power of language will avail any thing with a mind 
 that has lost, or thrown aside, all its sensibility to natural 
 impressions. The language of legal instruments is indeed 
 constructed on the principle of insuring a definite sense, 
 against the utmost endeavours of chicanery : and yet, with 
 all its redundancies, it often fails to effect this object- 
 Knaves find a flaw and triumph over common sense and 
 justice. Truly it was jn another spirit that the Apostles 
 wrote and spoke ; and whoever will not listen to them in 
 their own spirit, must go away with his error as his pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 Has not a punitive debility invaded the mind that can 
 meditate upon the character of Him whom the evangelists 
 describe can muse upon his pregnant words, can imagine 
 the awful serenity and gentle mercy of* his tones can 
 stand by while he calls the dead from the bier, or the grave 
 can behold him stilling the winds can hear him remit 
 sins, or announce the judgment which himself is to ad- 
 minister or claim and accept the adoration of his follow- 
 ers ; can follow him at length to the mount of death ; 
 can listen when, about to ascend to his throne, he 
 challenges to himself universal dominion ; and after thus 
 walking side by side with one such as was Jesus, can pro- 
 fess to have seen nothing, to have heard nothing, but what 
 is on the level of mere humanity ? No blindness is like 
 the blindness of such a mind ! Infatuation, when it ex- 
 tends so far, is not simple error ; but disease.
 
 RUDIMENT OF CHRISTIAN MAGNANIMITY. 295 
 
 Once discerned, accepted, and devoutly entertained 
 the mediatorial character and vicarious work of Christ 
 becomes an exclusive object, and generates an exclusive 
 motive. All admiration, all gratitude, all affection, must 
 converge upon this one centre. And if he who so believes 
 is indeed susceptible of magnanimous sentiments, and 
 capable of magnanimous conduct, then will he, the more 
 gladly than others, forget every pretension, and deny every 
 ambition ; and though in the circle of his fellow-men, he 
 might glory, will " glory only in the Lord."
 
 
 XXIII. 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 " It is Appointed to all Men once to Die." 
 
 WE are free to assume that the separation of the 
 elements of human nature at death is a regular stage in 
 the economy of the moral world. This may be believed, 
 notwithstanding the fact of ils having supervened in con- 
 sequence of the offence of the first man. Death is indeed 
 penal, and therefore- must in one sense be deemed an 
 after-act in the order of the Divine procedures : neverthe- 
 less it was not merely foreseen, but no doubt predeter- 
 mined for the accomplishment of some specific purpose. 
 It is true that the breaking up of the animal machinery 
 under the appalling circumstances that attend it, does 
 more than dimly display its primary reason, and speaks 
 of transgression, and of the anger of Heaven. But many 
 analogies in nature, as well as what we know of the rules 
 of the Divine government, lead us to suppose that there is 
 a further purpose appended to the primary one of declar- 
 ing the displeasure of God against sin. 
 
 If death be punitive, so likewise is the necessity imposed 
 upon man of toiling for his subsistence : and so is that 
 constitution which secures the perpetuation of the species. 
 And yet the most signal of all the natural benefits which 
 he receives from his Maker are, directly or indirectly, con- 
 sequent upon both the law of labour, and the sexual 
 relationship. These appointments were a curse in form ; 
 but a blessing mfact. Or if it be still true that each of
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 297 
 
 the three preserves and displays its punitive character, it 
 is not less true of the second and the third (the entire 
 operation of which we can observe) that the penalty 
 crowns itself with praise, in the good it confers ; a direct 
 analogy would lead us then to presume as much concern- 
 ing the first. Or it would authorize the conclusion that, 
 as the necessity of labour, and the mutual dependence 
 of the sexes, are' found to be the occasion of advancement 
 and of delight, when man is wise and humane ; though 
 of misery, when he is ignorant and ferocious ; so death 
 secures some special advantage to the good ; though to 
 the bad it can show none but its primary vindictive in- 
 tention. 
 
 The many intimations we gather from the Scriptures 
 on this subject forbid it to be thought that death is a blank 
 pause in the course of the human system, or a fruitless ar- 
 rest and interruption of the process of that intellectual 
 and moral life which had so lately commenced. On the 
 contrary, the notices of the inspired volume imply that it is 
 rather the means of evolving certain higher principles of 
 that life, with a view to the ultimate advancement of our 
 nature. If we might speak, for a moment, of that state 
 of which death is the introduction, as a stage in the NA- 
 TURAL HISTORY OP MAN, we should presume it to be a 
 season of germination, during which preparatives are 
 going on for a new construction of the elements of life, to 
 more advantage, or on a more expanded model. If the 
 spiritual and the physical, pails of our nature are to be thus 
 severed, and to be held in disunion during an extended period, 
 and yet are afterwards to be recomposed ; it would seem 
 probable that the spiritual part (which survives) will then 
 be occupied in bringing to maturity some of those powers, 
 or in cherishing those habits that were the most obstruc-
 
 298 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ted by the movements of the physical machinery (which 
 falls to the dust) ; or in other words, that a new balance 
 of the powers of human nature is contemplated, for which 
 preparations must be made by allowing a long and unin- 
 terrupted play to certain faculties, as freed from others. 
 
 In attempting, for a moment, an inquiry on this sub- 
 ject, it will be neither necessary nor proper to advance 
 upon the arduous ground of abstruse or metaphysical 
 science ; since, except with a view to practical inferences, 
 a theme like this would not here be introduced. And as- 
 suredly practicable inferences in matters of religion must 
 be drawn from facts or principles known to all men ; or 
 at least familiarly intelligible to all, when clearly stated. 
 
 Every one then, how little soever he may be conver- 
 sant with Intellectual Philosophy, must be conscious of the 
 reality of the distinction commonly made between those 
 emotions that belong to the imagination, and those that 
 spring from what is termed the Moral Sense. Nothing 
 is much more trite or simple than this classification of our 
 feelings. As for example : at one moment we apply to the 
 objects which may be actually or mentally before us, the 
 terms beautiful, or deformed ; sublime, or mean ; graceful 
 magnificent, terrific, harmonious, discordant. And these 
 Avords connect themselves instantly with the sensations, 
 whether pleasurable or uneasy, which such objects awaken. 
 But it is on occasions altogether of another sort that the 
 terms good, or evil ; benign, or malignant ; generous, or 
 base , pure, or corrupt ; are employed : and our feelings 
 of complacency or repugnance, in these latter instances, 
 manifestly belong to a faculty quite distinct from the im- 
 agination. 
 
 The rudest understanding perceives the essential dis- 
 similarity of these two classes of our emotions. And even.
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 4 299 
 
 the illiterate aud the vulgar so far observe the difference 
 in their use of language, as to prove that it is broad and 
 real ; not nice or theoretic. 
 
 Now no one can need to have it proved to him, that 
 piety and virtue take their range altogether among the 
 emotions of the latter, not among those of the. former class. 
 No one imagines that the conceptions he may form (how 
 just soever they may be), of the Immensity, the Eternity, 
 or the Omnipotence of the Supreme Being, will of them- 
 selves make him a religious man : he may conceive all 
 that is sublime, or magnificent, or awful, quite independent- 
 ly of any affections 'that ought to be called virtuous. 
 We must think of God as absolutely Holy as Just, and 
 Goo'd, if we would worship, love and serve him : that is 
 to say, the emotions of the moral sense must be awake- 
 ned if we are to become religious. 
 
 The Imagination and the Moral Emotions are not 
 only very distinct ; -but they are very differently related to 
 the physical organization : and this difference few persons 
 can have failed to notice. Both alike are attended with 
 some correspondent movement in the animal frame, more or 
 less conspicuous. And both alike are liable to be enhanc- 
 ed or repressed by causes that belong to the animal struc- 
 ture : in both classes there is action and reactioh, be. 
 tween Mind and Matter. But the difference is this 
 That the emotions which strictly attach to the moral 
 sense, or to the notion of good and evil, of right and wrong, 
 and which have no connexion either with the imagination, 
 or the selfish passions, though they affect the physical 
 frame, when intense, and either quicken or retard the ordi- 
 nary movements of life, do so in a manner that is tranquil 
 and safe, both to the body and the mind ; excitements 
 of this sort are always limited ; nor are they liable to rapid
 
 300 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 augmentations, such as would endanger either health or 
 reason. Indeed in most cases the animal excitement or 
 agitation is greater in the first moments of moral emo- 
 tion, than afterwards ; and though, on a sudden occasion 
 of this sort, the pulse may be accelerated, and the spirits 
 hurried, this movement subsides, even while the inward 
 sentiment is becoming more and more acute. 
 
 It is otherwise with those emotions that quicken the 
 imagination ; especially with such of them as are very viv- 
 id and profound. These stand so much more intimately 
 connected with the laws of animal life, or in other words, 
 the affinity or sympathy between -mind and matter is in 
 this department, so immediate, that a dangerous correspon- 
 dence takes place between the mental emotion and the 
 bodily excitement. And not only so ; but as long as the 
 emotion continues, the excitement goes on to heighten 
 and if the former be at all enhanced, the latter mounts up 
 with fearful rapidity. Strong imaginative emotions at 
 once shake the structure of animal life, and [endanger the 
 integrity of reason ; and they do so it seems, because, in- 
 stead of spending their force outwardly (as the affections of 
 the moral sense do), they bear inwardly, more and more, 
 upon the centre of the soul : and so accumulate their force 
 every moment, and aggravate its physical effects. 
 
 All this is understood by persons of a highly sensitive 
 temperament ; who, if they are prudent, carefully abstain 
 from surrendering themselves to any feelings that include 
 impressions of wonder, terror, or sublimity ; or even of 
 admiration, or dramatic sympathy. That rapid progres- 
 sion which is characteristic of these feelings quickly bears 
 away the resistance of reason, and gains a mastery over 
 the will. Damage to the mind, or to the body, or to both, 
 ensues, unless the exciting cause be presently removed.
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OP HUMAN NATURE. 301 
 
 And while the milder and more agreeable imaginative 
 sentiments debilitate the intellectual and animal systems 
 if too frequently indulged, or indulged to excess ; the 
 stronger and more painful emotions rend and distract both. 
 Ideas of vastriess, infinity, and irresistible power, are to be 
 admitted only with caution* if the mind be highly sus- 
 ceptible of their influence. Such minds are conscious, 
 often, that they are approaching the brink of an abyss, 
 whence they must hastily retire or be lost. The eye, 
 the ear, the heart, must be diverted, and filled with what- 
 ever is common, familiar, or trivial. 
 
 These well-known facts are all we need now have to 
 do with ; nor are we obliged to descend beneath the 
 surface, as if to explore the occult conformation of human 
 nature. Instead of doing so, we must note another 
 remarkable difference between the Moral and Imaginative 
 emotions, resulting from their connexion severally with 
 the body. It is this that, when both are in activity 
 together, the latter, in consequence, as it seems, of their 
 stronger affinity with animal life, almost always, and 
 very quickly, prevail over the former, and expel them 
 from the soul ; the moral fades, and the imaginative 
 brightens. 
 
 Nothing is more frequent than such combinations : the 
 structure of the visible world, in all its parts, produces 
 them. Impressions of grandeur or beauty, of sublimity, 
 of power, of destructive force, or of malignant violence, 
 are conveyed often by the very same objects, or on the 
 same occasions, which excite either the gentler affections 
 of love, gratitude, or pity ; or the more stern sentiments 
 of rectitude, and truth. In such instances, ordinarily, the 
 first species of feeling intimately combines itself with the 
 second ; so that to sever the two is almost impracticable ; 
 
 27
 
 302 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 as a. giant closely grasps him whom he is about to throw 
 to the earth, and crush. But when in combination, the 
 better element is apt to merge or disappear. Hence 
 arises the fatal facility wherewith imaginative spirits pass 
 over from the solid ground of piety and virtue, to the 
 illusory region of enthusiastic excitement. It is not true 
 that the religious and virtuous affections have to make 
 head only against animal desires, or malignant passions ; 
 for they must also maintain their ground in opposition to 
 the more insidious encroachments of imaginative impres- 
 sions ; and these, intimately mingled as they are with all 
 our feelings (to subserve an important purpose) give no 
 warning of inimical intention, 
 
 If we duly appreciate the advantage or power, possessed 
 by imaginative emotions, in consequence of their close 
 alliance with the animal frame, we must reflect upon what 
 not seldom takes place in sleep, when the voluntary func- 
 tions being suspended, and the susceptibility of the nervous 
 system greatly diminished, images of sublimity or terror, 
 such as, while waking, the mind dares not dwell upon, 
 pass in still pomp before the mental vision. Through the 
 hushed palace of fancy a vast or threatening pageant 
 moves on powerless and innoxious. Or if some faint 
 excitement accompanies the dream, it is incomparably less 
 titan would be produced by the same spectacle, attended 
 by the same impression of reality, in a waking hour. 
 In presence of the most appalling ideal objects, the spirit 
 conscious, yet quiescent, and as if it knew itself to be a 
 secure spectator of the scene, looks on, or even takes its 
 sport in freakish mood, with fantastic or ludicrous concep- 
 tions ; and seems to enjoy a pastime now with laughable 
 absurdities, now with gigantic horrors ! 
 
 Thus it appears that the Imagination, though not a
 
 THE DISSOLUTION Of HUMAN NATURE. 303 
 
 whit less active during sleep than at other times (perhaps 
 more so) has lost then, by the quiescence of the animal 
 functions, its power of domineering over the system. IB 
 truth we ought here to admire the beneficent contrivance 
 which has so blended the human frame as that, when the 
 controlling faculty of reason is suspended, the liability to 
 perilous agitation from ideal objects is also in abeyance. 
 If it were otherwise, our dreams would be our masters ; 
 nay, the most cruel tyrants ; and we should be liable to 
 start from sleep to madness. 
 
 And now let it be supposed (we advance merely an 
 hypothesis) that it is an indispensable part of the education 
 of the spirit, with a view to its ultimate destiny, to bring 
 it, if we might so speak, within and among the stupendous 
 inner-movements of the universe ; or to afford it a full 
 view of objects, personages, and actions, the merest glimpse 
 of which, constituted as we are of matter and mind, would 
 dissever the frail structure of nature ; or would at least 
 so excite the imagination as to overpower entirely the 
 moral sense. But it is this very sense of good and evil 
 this moral perception, and the tranquil affections attaching 
 thereto, that are to be brought into activity, and to be 
 employed upon the amazing scenes of the INTERIOR 
 WORLD. 
 
 By our alliance with matter we are detained en the 
 surface of things ; and are conversant only with sem- 
 blances, and with effects. But it remains for us, perhaps> 
 to become conversant with substances^ and causes r we 
 must go and contemplate the deep secret of God's empire. 
 We must be led up and down among the works, and gaze 
 upon the reason of things. And yet this intuition is to 
 produce its whole effect, undisturbed and unmixed, upon 
 the faculties which constitute man a moral and responsi-.
 
 304 . SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ble being. These faculties, therefore, are to be set at 
 large from their affinity with all those intermediate senti- 
 ments which, in the present state form the amalgam of 
 mind and matter. 
 
 The separate spirit is then (on this supposition) to be 
 thrown upon the play of its AFFECTIONS, whether these 
 be benign or malign pure or depraved ; and it is more- 
 over to be thrown upon them in presence of objects of the 
 most stupendous magnitude. In place of the measured 
 and mingled emotions of the present life, there are to be 
 encountered, in the next stage of our existence, excite- 
 ments of overwhelming force ; and all of one quality. 
 And amid them, the soul quiescent in regard to what 
 might move it to wonder, or terror, is to be nakedly sensi- 
 tive to the MORAL QUALITY of what it beholds. The 
 notions of right and wrong of good and evil ; the emo- 
 tions of love or hatred of joy or sorrow of complacency 
 or compunction which here take turns for a moment, or for 
 an hour, with a thousand divers affections, and so are al- 
 ways abated, and very quickly diverted, shall there hold 
 undisputed empire shall be countervailed by no rival, no 
 antagonist power. Human nature, thus reduced to its 
 most simple element, shall exist in one mood only that 
 of an intense conciousness of its own moral condition ! 
 
 The whole economy of revealed religion hinges on the 
 doctrine that the commixture of good and evil we see 
 around us, belongs to the present state alone ; and shall 
 quite disappear in the next. That is to say, that the ab- 
 horrent principles which here, by a sort of violence, are 
 held in combination, shall when the temporary purpose of 
 their union is accomplished, divide, to right and left, and 
 with irresistible avulsion fly off to opposite quarters. If 
 so, it is only natural to suppose that each new comer upon
 
 THE DISSOLUTION Of HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 that region of separate elements shall pass, as if by a phys- 
 ical necessity, to the side he is allied to, whether for the 
 better or the worse. The sphere that encircles whatever 
 is holy, and that which embraces all evil, must draw to 
 themselves, severally, all particles of kindred quality. 
 Nothing can there float at large ; but must fall in upon 
 its proper centre and so abide. 
 
 But an absolute partition of human spirits, like this, 
 may seem not to bear analogy with the present order of 
 things, wherein no such conspicuous distinction offers 
 itself to our perceptions, as might be made the ground of 
 a classification so simple. What soul is so base as to re- 
 tain no particle of goodness ? or what so pure, as to be 
 free wholly from alloy ? The Scriptures solve this diffi- 
 culty ; and while they affirm, in the most positive manner, 
 the future division of the good and evil, indicate plainly 
 the rule on which it shall proceed. If merits and defects, 
 virtues and vices, were, in the instance of each human 
 spirit, to be summoned up and balanced, (the supposition 
 is absurd,) and the fate of each to be determined according 
 to the preponderance of good or evil, it must happen in 
 innumerable cases that a decision so momentous would 
 turn upon an incalculably minute excess of the preponder- 
 ating quality. 
 
 The scriptural doctrine of two states good and evil, 
 can never be conceived of as the issue of the human sys- 
 tem, without admitting some rule far more absolute and 
 simple than that of a balance of merit::. No controversy 
 can arise concerning this necessary rule. Of every human 
 spirit it may be said that it posseses, or not, that affection 
 to God which, when freed from the embarrassments that 
 here surround us, will spring up toward its object will 
 break away, exultant, from every defilement ; and con- 
 
 27*
 
 306 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 nect the created to the uncreated Spirit, between which a 
 real alliance had already taken place. Has then the soul 
 at the moment when its active powers are broken up, and 
 when it is launched upon the severed elements of good 
 and evil, been quickened toward the Moral Perfections of 
 the Supreme Being ? Has it yet entertained, or not, the 
 rudiment of love, of loyality, and of submission to the 
 divine government 1 Is it affiliated to God ; or is it 
 estranged and in rebellion ? Does it abhor the contamina- 
 tion of its present state ? Has it sympathy with the wor- 
 ship that encircles the throne of the Most High ; or is it 
 destitute both of the emotions, and of the habits, of grate- 
 ful and joyous adoration ? 
 
 What is the conception which, individually, we enter- 
 tain of future felicity 1 Is God the desired centre and 
 fountain of the happiness we think of ; or does the mind 
 draw its idea of heaven (if at all it thinks of heaven) with 
 atheistic perversity, from those elements of pleasure which 
 the present life affords ? Is the soul alive to God or not? 
 The answer to these questions must discriminate spirit 
 from spirit, when each, in its moral element only, enters the 
 world where moral elements are parted. 
 
 Every one might then readily imagine the state into 
 which the dissolution of the body must plunge him, by 
 conceiving of himself as stript of all faculties, and all 
 emotions, but those that belong to the moral sentiments ; 
 and as so confronted with the unsullied brightness of the 
 Divine Majesty. To die, is to come denuded of all but 
 conscience, into the open presence of the HOLY ONE.
 
 &; XXIV. 
 
 THE STATE OF SOULS. 
 
 " They all Live unto God." 
 
 The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body 
 implies far more than was ever contained in the conjec- 
 tures of sages, or of poets, who thought of nothing better, 
 in their conception of an after-life, than a dream-like 
 leisure dim and unproductive, which has no affinity 
 with the actual principles of human nature. 
 
 We must say almost the same of the common notion 
 of Chrstians on this subject, who, although they are right, 
 so far as they follow the suggestions of the devout senti- 
 ments, fall very far short of that idea of the ultimate state 
 of man which the Scriptures authorize, when they think 
 of immortality only as an elysium more pure and bright 
 than that of the Greeks. Piety seizes upon the principal 
 element of eternal life, and neglects all beside. But this 
 notion which contains one idea merely, though the prin- 
 ciple, is strictly applicable only to that preparatory state, 
 in which the rudiment of human nature alone survives : 
 it very imperfectly corresponds with the ultimate, or 
 restored and mature state, wherein the rudiments gather 
 around it again the various constituents of intellectual, 
 moral and physical existence. 
 
 The tendency to subtilize in whatever is future and un- 
 known, has carried the meditations of Christians wide of 
 the track upon which the intimations of Scripture, fairly 
 pursued, would lead us. The reorganization of the body
 
 308 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 implies the restoration of the mutual dependency of mind 
 and matter ; implies, that man shall again, as at first, 
 conform himself to the laws of an external world ; shall 
 blend in his own nature the diverse elements of the natural 
 and the spiritual system ) shall entertain, once more, 
 those mixed sentiments that result from such a union ; 
 shall, in a word, become again, and for ever, a creature of 
 action, desire, advancement ; of knowledge, enterprise, 
 and achievement. He shall move in a sphere that will 
 demand from him forethought, courage, and wisdom ; as 
 well as give play to his affections. 
 
 All this might be distinctly inferred from those passages 
 of the Inspired Volume which speak of the after life. But 
 nothing of the sort belongs to the state of dissolution, 
 which retains only the first rudiment of existence, and in 
 which active powers, as well as wants, are suspended. 
 The season of denudation must certainly possess a char- 
 acter altogether unlike that which precedes, or that which 
 follows it ; nor can it well be thought to include action, or 
 progression, or change ; which imply the working of the 
 parts or functions of human nature, one upon the other ; 
 and therefore demand complexity, and construction of 
 elements. 
 
 Something, clearly, must be assumed as constituting 
 the ultimate principle of our nature : or that towards 
 which all other faculties tend, and to which they stand re- 
 lated as means. It were most irrational to name as an 
 ultimate principle, any power which is subservient, and 
 which is exerted always with a reference to some ulterior 
 purpose. For example ; the senses, the appetites, and the 
 instincts of the animal frame, are plainly nothing more 
 than instruments, of which no explanation can be given 
 until something beyond themselves is taken into account.
 
 THE STATE OP SOULS. 309 
 
 The reasoning faculty, also, not less than the senses, or 
 the bodily instincts, is always subservient to some end. 
 Reason labours to achieve a particular purpose, or to re- 
 solve a given doubt, and is impelled by a motive derived 
 from that purpose. Reason then is not the rudiment of 
 human nature. With even less appearance of truth could 
 we assign any such honour to Memory, or Imagination. 
 As well affirm that a man exists and acts, only that he 
 may keep a diary of his movements ; or that the record 
 is the motive of the life. 
 
 We can come home to nothing in our survey of human 
 nature, but to the affections and moral emotions, which 
 are not subservient ; and are not governed by ulterior 
 purposes. It is upon these that the soul may repose. 
 We advance a step then. If the moral sentiments and 
 the affections are the prime principles of our nature, and 
 if their actual condition, or the habits that attach to them, 
 determine the character, they must, in a sovereign man- 
 ner, decide the fate of every one for the better or the 
 worse, in that moment when the spirit enters upon the 
 region where no susceptibilities are awake ; or, which is the 
 same thing, where no objects are found but such as affect 
 the moral powers. If, when the connexion with matter 
 is dissolved, an immediate consciousness is to be had of 
 the Divine Presence, there can be no more room left for 
 mixed or ambiguous moral sentiments. The spirit, quick, 
 throughout with the feeling of good and evil, is sur- 
 rounded on every side with the GREAT OBJECT of all 
 such feelings ; even as the mote that swims in the bright- 
 ness of the upper skies, is encompassed with the effulgence 
 of noon. To DIE, is to burst upon the blaze of Uncreated 
 
 Light, and to be sensitive to its beams ; and to nothing 
 i
 
 310 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 Among those numerous passages of the Sacred Volume 
 which bear upon the separate state, few, if any, will be 
 found, that do not directly convey, or indirectly authenti- 
 cate the belief, that the realm of the dead of the pious 
 dead, is in a special manner the scene of PERPETUAL 
 WORSHIP. It is there that the devout affections, undis- 
 turbed by other faculties, are incessantly in efflux. Adora- 
 tion and love, it is true, are found in all states or stages of 
 intelligent existence ; but in the place of souls, worship 
 is the one occupation ; shall we say that it is the unchang- 
 ing mode of that rudimental life ? Of the pious dead it 
 may, on this supposition, be affirmed, in a sense peculiar 
 or characteristic, that they " all live unto God." What- 
 ever may be the special ground of argument in our Lord's 
 reply to the Sadducees, the emphatic phrase he employs 
 when he speaks of the patriarchs, must be granted to 
 convey the idea, we now assume. " Abraham and his 
 faithful sons are not extinct, as your doctrine supposes ; 
 for, long after their disappearance from earth, Jehovah 
 affirms his actual relationship to them, and uses it as the 
 motive of his gracious procedures towards their descend- 
 ants : they all LIVE UNTO GOD. Shall God then, in 
 whose presence they exist, fail to fulfil the promise he had 
 made them T 
 
 The many dim phrases that are scattered over the. sur- 
 face of the Hebrew Scriptures, and of which the reader 
 of modern versions takes little or no account ; but which 
 make allusion to the Invisible World, are all in harmony 
 with the same notion. The fathers are " gone into Peace : 
 they abide ' ( under the shadow of the Almighty" who 
 is " the dwelling- place" of his people, " through all genera- 
 tions ;" they remain " in His secret chamber" (the holy 
 of holies) : they dwell '' in his Tabernacle j" or " stand
 
 THE STATE OP SOULS. 311 
 
 in his Pavilion ;" and are there " the expectants of Jeho- 
 vah/' continually watching the movements of his hand.'' 
 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews favours, by 
 obscure intimations, as well as by the purport of his argu- 
 ment, the Jewish opinion that the Tabernacle, and the 
 worship established by Moses in the Arabian desert, was a 
 symbolic model of the invisible economy of spirits. In 
 framing it, Moses was commanded to keep in mind every 
 particular of the pattern (model] " shewed him in the 
 Mount ;" and it is not improbable that a careful and erudite 
 consideration of the Mosaic Liturgical Institute might give 
 some distinctness to our conceptions of that state the state 
 into which the few brief days of mortal life are to bring 
 every " true worshipper." It is very easy to discern in the 
 Tabernacle service first, a proximate or external and 
 secular intention, which reached its end in its immediate 
 influence upon the people. But besides this, and compati- 
 bly therewith (as all expositors but the most sceptical 
 admit) the same worship held forth, from age to age, a 
 mute prophecy of " good things to come ;" that is to say, 
 of the mediatorial scheme, afterwards to be brought into 
 effect, and made known. Yet a third intention (as we 
 suppose) ran through every article of the " worldly sanc- 
 tuary" adumbrating the unearthly and spiritual system. 
 Thus in the farthest recess of that Sacred Pavilion of the 
 God and King of Israel, was displayed the visible splend- 
 our of the Divine Presence : high above it, without, and 
 in view of all, towered tire cloudy column, alternately dark 
 and resplendent. Before the Shechinah crouched the 
 Cherubic symbols of the incessant adoration of the 
 celestial orders. The tokens of the mediatorial covenant 
 the insignia of the spiritual kingdom, rested at the 
 foot of the throne. To this inner chamber the Mediator
 
 312 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 alone had access ; and there, by his intercession, main- 
 tained propitious intercourse between the Divine Majesty 
 and the remoter worshippers. Without the veil were seen 
 the seven lamps the cheering radiance of Spiritual Illum- 
 ination ; and thence also went up the perpetual incense 
 of prayer. Far spread around this " House not made 
 with hands" not raised by labour, or of solid materials, 
 were ranged the assembled thousands of Israel, in devout 
 expectation, while they took part in the loud and respon- 
 sive anthem of praise. " Thither the tribes went up 
 every one of them appeared before God in Zion." 
 
 To this invisible Tabernacle, and to this perpetual 
 liturgy, and to this expectation, St. Paul, as we believe, 
 made allusion when, before Agrippa, he spoke of the 
 '* twelve-tribe body (the complement of true Israelites) as 
 intently and incessantly worshipping God in hope of a 
 happy resurrection, promised to the Fathers"* a promise 
 never made, or never officially made to them on earth : 
 (it was reserved for the Messiah to promulgate authorita- 
 tively, in this world, the doctrine of the life to come :) 
 but conveyed to them, on their entrance upon the world 
 of souls ; and there they, " not having yet received the 
 promise," but waiting through the destined lapse of ages, 
 " keep their Sabbath," until He " whose memorial is with 
 them," shall arise suddenly from his Throne within the 
 veil, and come forth to accomplish the <c redemption of the 
 body." 
 
 * " And now I stand accused on account of a hope in the promise 
 given by God to the fathers : even the very same which is the ob- 
 ject of the expectation of the twelve tribes (our Church) now em- 
 ployed in perpetual and intent worship." lv rm/a
 
 THE STATE OF SOULS. 313 
 
 The worship of the world of spirits is declared to be 
 subjected to the conditions of the Mediatorial scheme. 
 Christ "lived, and died, and revived" that is to say, 
 passed in due course over all the ground of human exis- 
 tence, that he might, as an experienced Leader, " exer- 
 cise domination both over the dead and the living." He 
 too is emphatically styled " Shepherd and Bishop of 
 souls;" and the Lord of Paradise "-holding the keys of 
 Hades ;" and having overthrown the tyrant of the invisi- 
 ble world. In the apocalyptic visions He appears, once 
 and again, surrounded by the great company of expectant 
 spirits, to whom he administers consolations. Neverthe- 
 less, though the Divine Majesty is in that world to be ap- 
 proached through him who is the " way unto the Father," 
 it is reasonable to believe that the state after death will be 
 one of great advancement in* relation to the sensible, or 
 rather unambiguous perception of the Divine Being. 
 Let it be granted that the office of MEDIATOR implies, 
 necessarily, so long as it endures, a reserve and conceal- 
 ment on the part of God : so, while the priesthood of 
 Aaron came between Jehovah and the people, the She- 
 chinah abode within the veil ; yet do the worshippers 
 enjoy such evidence of the presence of God as sets them 
 free entirely from the discouragements of earthly worship. 
 The ancient Israel, though they might not gaze upon the 
 '' excellent glory" that blazed upon the mercy-seat and 
 the cherubim, beheld at all times the pillar of cloud and 
 fire, which declared that the King was with his people. 
 
 And it may well be believed that the human spirit, dis- 
 engaged from animal organization, becomes conscious of 
 God in a manner that leaves no room thenceforward either 
 for testimony in proof of the great truth, or for argument. 
 If these two theorems could be proposed to us antecedently 
 28
 
 314 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 to experience, and the question put " Whether is easier, 
 for an intelligent nature to become immediately conscious 
 of the Supreme Intelligence ; or for it to be consciously 
 conjoined with matter, and its properties ?" would not rea- 
 son determine in favour of the first ? And yet, if this 
 connexion with matter is actually to be effected, there 
 seems to be necessarily implied therein a loss, for the time, 
 of the immediate perception of God. That is to say in 
 descending to a close alliance with matter, so as to be af- 
 fected by its properties, and to affect them by its volitions, 
 MIND surrenders its native perceptions of Him who is a 
 Spirit. If it be so, then of course a physical impossibility 
 stands in the way of our truly conceiving of that immediate 
 perception of God which our present alliance with matter 
 intercepts. A spirit not yet embodied might as well con- 
 ceive of weight, hardness, colour, sound, as a spirit not 
 yet disembodied imagine the sense it is ere long to have 
 of the SPIRITUAL BEING. Yet analogy would lead us to 
 suppose that, if the conviction we now possess of the real- 
 ity of the external world be strong so strong that we 
 never seriously entertain a doubt of it, the future conscious- 
 ness of the Divine existence the knowledge of His pres- 
 ence, will be incomparably more vivid and more potent. 
 Yes that this consciousness shall encircle and absorb 
 the soul. If mind could so intimately converse with a 
 subsistence foreign to itself, how intimately shall it con- 
 verse with that subsistence with which it is natively ho- 
 mogeneous ! There shall we " know, even as we are 
 known." 
 
 And yet, though we must always fail in attempting to 
 conceive of the future mode of existence, there must be- 
 long to the present state certain connective rudiments of 
 the next. And we have assurance that when the devout
 
 ; THE STATE OP SOULS. 315 
 
 affections informed, enlivened, elevated, by the Spirit who 
 { helpeth our infirmities" are immediately concerned with 
 their proper objects the Moral Perfections of the Divine 
 Nature, a true approximation is taking place to that inti- 
 mate converse to which the dissolution of the body shall 
 give room. Christians, though they can offer no external 
 demonstration of the fact, or such as they might spread 
 before others, are entitled to say " Truly our fellowship 
 is with the Father and the Son :" and this genuine per- 
 suasion, more vivid than any argument, bears them 
 through the sorrows and fears of the present state. It is 
 by this consciousness that they '' endure as seeing Him 
 who is invisible." 
 
 We must here note, in passing, the essential folly of the 
 enthusiast, who contemning the true and purifying dis- 
 cernment of God in the brightness of his moral attributes, 
 seeks in its stead certain flashes of the animal spirits, 
 which he deems to be better proof of the presence of God 
 than "joy, and peace, and assurance in the Spirit." He 
 turns away from the divine converse of the heart with its 
 Regenerator ; and reverts, as a child or novice, to the 
 earthly elements of turbulent or passionate emotion. 
 Give him but a bauble, and he will at any time throw 
 away the jewel. He would be more delighted could you 
 promise him a dazzling vision, which should have nothing 
 in it but a blaze, than with that glory which shineth into 
 the hearts of the children of God, admitting them to 
 behold the true image of God, in the person of his Son. 
 And if you call in question the genuineness of this, his bad 
 preference, he says " You deny all that is divine and 
 peculiar in the Gospel, and oppugn the truth that Christ 
 manifests himself to his people as he does not to the 
 world,"
 
 316 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 The ordinary process of knowledge, or that natural 
 order whereby, in the present state (revelation apart) we 
 attain any conception of God, is an ascent from the 
 natural to the moral attributes. In following certain 
 abstract notions we infer his Eternity, and Infinitude ; 
 and then we read the displays of his power, and wisdom, 
 and bounty in the visible world ; and we go on to assign 
 to him Holiness and Goodness. This method regulates, 
 in great measure, all our theological notions and religious 
 sentiments. We dwell much upon that which in truth is 
 secondary, or mediate ; and see only at a distance that 
 which is primary and essential. By the ladder of reason 
 we have gone up to behold the Most High ; and so are we 
 apt to frequent the same artificial line of approach, even 
 when we draw near for worship. 
 
 The Spirit of Grace takes us by another path, and 
 shews us that the Moral Perfections are the end and 
 reason of the Natural. And who can doubt but that, when 
 matter and its dark symbols are done with that which is 
 principal shall seem so ? In bursting from the confinement 
 of the body, the spirit shall (with amazement perhaps) in 
 a moment reverse the order of its old conceptions ; and 
 almost cease to think of Omnipotence, Eternity, Infinitude, 
 while the more dominant notions of Purity, and Blessed- 
 ness, and Love, fill the soul. This revolution must (if we 
 might so say) immensely reduce the apparent distance 
 between the created and Uncreated Mind : for so long as 
 the first-named class of notions have principal possession 
 of our thoughts, the impression that prevails is that of im- 
 measurable disparity ; and of course, the more we meditate 
 on these themes, the more is such an impression enhanced. 
 But though the disparity between God and his intelligent 
 creatures is as absolute in the attributes of Goodness or
 
 holiness, as in those of power and wisdom, there belongs 
 to the former a homogeneity which affords ground of 
 communion between God and man. The conversion of 
 the heart to God is a bringing God nearer to us ; for this 
 reason, that we thenceforward think of Him more in His 
 moral than His natural attributes. We approach the 
 throne by a direct path, and in the stead of the mute awe 
 which heretofore had held us far from the Incomprehensi- 
 ble Being, we admit an intimate and personal affection, 
 not untruly symbolized by the relationship of children to 
 a father. 
 
 The dissolution of the body must consummate this same 
 approximation, if it has already had its commencement. 
 Love, casting out fear, will then reach its climax ; and all 
 reclaimed souls shall drink of the " river of pleasures that 
 makes glad the city of God." " All shall live unto God." 
 
 It were presumptuous and culpable to construct theories 
 concerning that which is unknown, upon the ground 
 merely of abstract analogies : nevertheless, so long as a 
 due modesty is observed in such attempts, and especially 
 while the dim imitations of Scripture are kept constantly 
 in sight, mischief will -hardly accrue from endeavouring to 
 follow our meditation a step farther. 
 
 What then, w 7 e may ask, shall be the rule of rank or 
 order in that invisible world ? What the law. of relative 
 position ? Shall an arbitrary or an accidental location be 
 admitted; or shall there be an invariable prevalence of 
 some principle, founded upon the reason of things, and the 
 qualities of the subject ? The latter, does it not seem the 
 preferable supposition ? At least it may be affirmed that 
 all apparent confusion or irregularity results, in the pres- 
 ent state (as might soon be proved) from the interaction 
 of several causes upon more than one element. On the 
 
 28*
 
 318 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 contrary, absolute uniformity takes place, or which is the 
 same thing the juxta- position of things unlike and 
 unequal is excluded, where one or two causes operate 
 upon a simple and single substance. Now if there be 
 truth in this maxim, (and corroboratioas might be drawn 
 from all parts of nature, and from all the sciences,) then 
 it would seem more than barely probable that, in the re- 
 gion to which souls are consigned, (those denuded rudi- 
 ments of life,) each spirit shall fall into its rank, as if in 
 obedience to the law of its actual affinity with the Divine 
 Nature. Or as if the concentric circles of worship that 
 embrace the Tabernacle of Glory should determine the 
 position of all spirits, according to the rule of love and 
 purity. How many those circles may be, or how vast the 
 space they enclose, we know not. Perhaps the disparity 
 in light and joy between the inner circles, and the remo- 
 test orbits, may be immense. These matters are all 
 beyond surmise. Meanwhile, and until truth and know- 
 ledge burst upon us, we may each revert to the secrecy of 
 the soul ; and each may ask how such a law of rank as 
 we have imagined, would affect his particular case ? Or 
 whether the habits of the mind, its ordinary and charac- 
 teristic emotions, would bring it near to the Majesty in the 
 heavens, or remove it to the very verge of the sphere of 
 joy and hope 
 
 Yes. and who shall not put to himself the previous 
 question, momentous as it is, whether the soul has yet at 
 all acquired fitness for that state, which has no alternative, 
 but to join in the perpetual worship, or to look to the 
 Father of Spirits as a Stranger, and to the Omnipotent as 
 an Adversary ?
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 
 
 " In thy Presence is Fulness of Joy : at thy Right Hand are 
 Pleasurei for Evermore.- 
 
 As without evangelical principles there can be no sound 
 morality ; so without the aid of heavenly meditation? 
 morality, even if it be staunch and consistent, must want 
 greatness, dignity, purity ; nor can recommend itself by 
 those shining graces that ought to adorn the religion of 
 Christ. Our ordinary conduct is determined much more 
 by the general tone of our feelings, than by the direct force 
 of precepts and prohibitions. The heart is in a perilous 
 state when the vulgar solicitations of appetite, interest, or 
 pride, are encountered and opposed only by the ultimate 
 or strongest motives that may be applicable to the occasion. 
 Virtue ought to be defended at a greater distance from its 
 centre than when it wrestles, hand to hand, with its oppo- 
 nent vices. 
 
 It is the frequent and intimate converse of the heart 
 with things heavenly, that must impart to the soul higher 
 tastes, and shed upon its stern principles the lustre of a 
 pure and generous elevation. And if meditation of the 
 future and invisible worlds be liable to any abuse, or may 
 be likely to degenerate into insipid or presumptous con- 
 ceits, it is only when the first principles of the Gospel are 
 lost sight of. The contemplatist goes astray when he 
 forgets hinself, and his Guide ; that is to say, when he 
 muses idly of heaven, as if there had been no transgres- 
 sion, and were no Redemption. And the difficulty also, 
 as well as the hazard of such attempts to rise above the
 
 320 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 present scene, or to penetrate the invisible world, is en- 
 hanced, or is indeed rendered insuperable, when our 
 actual position as those who have been restored is not 
 kept in mind ; but, on the contrary, is obviated while -we 
 look to Him who, as PRECURSOR, has trodden all the path 
 of existence, even from the low starting-point of humanity, 
 through death and Hades, to the upper region of perpetual 
 pleasure. 
 
 Even supposing faculties and powers to be the same, 
 far more may be achieved, iri any line, by the aid of a 
 capital invigorating motive, than without it : of this every 
 one is conscious : and the truism is signally exemplified 
 in the instance of the Christian, who, in proportion to his 
 personal assurance of salvation finds that he can soar 
 upwards, or bring home to his conceptions matters which 
 once seemed too high to be approached. Apart from the 
 hope of the Gospel, who is there that ruminates upon the 
 felicity of heaven ? Even if the human mind were better 
 qualified than it is to engage in meditations of this sort, 
 and were more disposed than it is to dwell upon such 
 themes the labour would want impulse, and would be 
 idle and fruitless in its issue, unless connected in some 
 distinct and satisfactory manner, with a personal expecta- 
 tion of becoming a sharer in the future happiness. Why 
 do not men at large think of heaven ? Why do not poets 
 make immortal joy their constant theme ? Alas, because 
 neither men at large, nor the most gifted minds, discern 
 the way thither, as open to themselves ! 
 
 Reason assures us that the Supreme Being is (in the 
 phrase of Scripture) " Blessed for evermore." He to whom 
 belongs all power, wisdom, and goodness, doubtless exists 
 in the unchangeable fruition of absolute felicity. And 
 reason may also, on the most probable grounds assume
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 321 
 
 that the Sovereign Beneficence sits surrounded by myriads 
 of beings, participating, so far as finite minds may do so 
 in that felicity. Or to use the language of the Hebrew 
 poet, it must be granted as a natural or necessary supposi- 
 tion " That in the presence of God there is fulness of joy, 
 and at his right hand perpetual pleasures." 
 
 Be it so : but what is this to man ? If in contempla- 
 tion we ascend at any time to the high orbit of light and 
 joy, how far must we lower the wing when we would re- 
 turn to earth ! The human race seems to stand almost 
 on the extreme confines of happiness ; nor is there to be 
 discerned any such general progression in the species to- 
 ward a higher and better stage, as might assure us that 
 we are drawing nearer (however slowly) to the centre of 
 good. The bright conjectures of reason and imagination 
 can only trouble us the more, when we bring them into 
 contrast with whatever we see and know around us. 
 Nothing relieves this gloom until HE appears, who, laying 
 aside uncreated glories, " was made flesh and dwelt among 
 us." It is the Christian Mystery, and nothing else, that 
 gives substance and reason to the meditation of things 
 purer and better than earth. 
 
 It may be conjected that the Royal Poet had in view 
 the entire circle of the universal realm, from its utmost 
 verge to its centre, when (as in the person of Messiah) 
 after surveying the long path of life, he looks to its termi- 
 nation on high, and thus concludes " in thy presence 
 is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand are pleasures 
 for evermore." The language is tropical, and perhaps 
 has more than one allusion. But the most obvious of 
 these (if indeed there be more than one) is to a kingdom 
 or polity, consisting of many gradations or ranks, spread 
 over an extensive surface, and in the metropolis of which 
 are held the incessant festivities of .Regal State. The
 
 322 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 condition of oriental monarchies better illustrates the figure 
 than any thing that is seen in modern and western coun- 
 tries. Let us look then to the widely-severed ranks of an 
 Asiatic empire. There is first its wretched and vilified 
 class, upon which the superincumbent structure of the 
 social system presses so heavily as almost to crash exis- 
 tence ; often actually to crush it ; and always to render 
 life undesirable. The urgent wants of nature, never pro- 
 vided for beyond the present moment the most abhorrent 
 sustenance, furtively snatched from the dust ; while con- 
 tempt, servitude, and pain, stand by to imbitter the insuffi- 
 cient meal! Shall these abjects these victims these 
 outcasts know any thing of pleasure ? Yes, even these 
 snatch a joy ; for human nature does not readily throw 
 off its instinct of happiness. But pleasure to such must 
 be intemperate and frantic ; because hurried and stolen : 
 the hour of enjoyment (if enjoyment it should be called) 
 is as murky as it must be hemmed in before and behind 
 by necessities and woes. Or we may turn aside to gaze 
 upon the hovel which serves. as the last retreat of wretch- 
 edness, and where indolent misery, bred by Vice upon 
 Despair, finds a home : to such (alas that in fact there are 
 such) to such the common air has no balm light of day 
 no brightness nature no boon. Spring, with its bright 
 mornings and its flowers, and summer with its noons of 
 fervour, and fruits, and pastimes, and autumn with its 
 golden abundance and luxuries, bring no smile, no 
 change : the round of the year is a winter. What is 
 that word Joy to such? they know it not even afar off, 
 by sight or hearing : or if ever they taste a reckless bowl, 
 it is one in which death has shed some new anguish for 
 to-morrow . 
 
 To these unfortunates the helots of mankind^ more
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 323 
 
 or less numerous in every community, according to the 
 viciousness or rectitude of its principles (absolutely want- 
 ing in none) succeeds the class that, as a broad foundation, 
 sustains the edifice of society. But of this higher class 
 all that can well be said is, that the most terrible evils 
 are just kept at bay by incessant efforts : Now for a 
 moment, perhaps, the Foe is driven to a little distance ; 
 and a breathing-time is secured, Hope alights at the 
 threshold in her hurried course to bless more favoured 
 homes. Comfort makes a longer stay. But we dare 
 hardly speak of happiness as belonging to this stage of 
 life ; for life is still a warfare that has no truce. 
 
 In the third stage of society, as we ascend, man is 
 found so far to have gained advantage upon want, as 
 that his home is no longer its residence. Woe and fear 
 do indeed visit his home ; but existence is not the prey 
 of either. Enjoyment is seen there, and courted daily. 
 Pleasure and comfort are entertained. Ease and Indul- 
 gence are not unknown ; arid take their turn with serious 
 cares. 
 
 But we must look higher for the climax of earthly 
 good ; and shall find it when we visit the palaces and halls 
 where reside beauty, honour, favour ; with art, splendour, 
 revelry ; where the elastic power which high privilege 
 draws from security and abundance gives grace to the 
 human form, and seems to animate every faculty. In 
 these mansions of delight, if Sorrow (treasonable intruder) 
 ever sets his foot, he is instantly disguised in pomps and 
 drapery, that his pallid visage and shrivelled form may 
 not offend the eye Even Death comes to palaces in an 
 obsequious livery of plumes, and velvet, and cloth of gold ! 
 
 In truth, PLEASURE is always the law of life, wherev- 
 er power to make it so is possessed : and though this
 
 324 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 order of things has justly become an object of reprobation 
 to the moralist, because the pravity of man ordinarily 
 brings pride, cruelty, and sensuality, to be the attendants 
 upon pleasure ; yet may there be read beneath this very 
 perversion, great as it is, the native tendency or original 
 purpose of our conformation. We learn to fear or to 
 frown upon pleasure as an enemy, and to entertain joy 
 with suspicion or caution ; and we deem self-denial a 
 prime part of wisdom. But this happens only because 
 the world (and our hearts with it) has gone astray from 
 the road of genuine felicity. It is not as if man was not 
 made for felicity ; but he was made for another sort than 
 he now actually chooses. The lawless or frivolous plea- 
 sures of mankind are only an ill sense, put upon the 
 language of nature. Let but the joy we seek be of celes- 
 tial quality, and our pleasures such as ennoble and invigo- 
 rate the soul, and then j.he true and ultimate purpose of 
 existence is attained. Fulness of joy, and perpetuity of 
 pleasure, were assuredly proposed as the end of that crea- 
 tion of which absolute Beneficence is the author. 
 
 Who can question that the several gradations of the 
 intelligent universe rise in degrees o/ enjoyment, as they 
 rise in degrees of power and virtue ; that at each ascent 
 there is Jess of what is subservient, and more of what is 
 primary ; less toil and danger ; and more tranquillity 
 and joy? And thus must the progression advance, even 
 to the mount of God the Royal abode of eternal and 
 unsullied Blessedness. 
 
 Or an allusion of a different kind may be supposed 
 to have been contemplated by the Hebrew monarch. 
 When he said, "In thy presence is fulness of joy," he 
 might be tacitly making comparison between the pure and 
 cheerful worship of Jehovah, perpetually celebrated on
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 325 
 
 Mount Zion ; and the worship horrid and foul, of the 
 surrounding nations. We very imperfectly imagine the 
 force of such a contrast, as it must have presented itself to 
 an Israelite of the early and brighter eras of Jewish histo- 
 ry. In modern times we have so much learned to look 
 upon idolatrous worship with mere contempt, or with 
 contempt and loathing, that we do not even deign to in- 
 stitute a comparison between those extremes of truth and 
 error, in matters of religion, that are still actually to be 
 found in the world. The doctrine of the unity of God is 
 the belief now of all civilized nations. Error on this capi- 
 tal point is the badge of degradation, of servitude, of im- 
 becility ] and the word polytheist may be taken as con- 
 vertible with the terms barbarian, or slave. But it was 
 not so with the ancient Israel : and the feelings of that 
 nation of true worshippers must have been very unlike our 
 own on this point. The great controversy of truth was 
 maintained, single-handed, by the pastoral and agricultural 
 tribes of the southern Syria, against all mankind beside. 
 It was the Hebrew family (never, if a very few ) T ears are 
 excepted, evenly matched with the surrounding empires) 
 against Egypt and Philistia, and Sidon, and the nations 
 of " the sea," and the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians. It 
 was a people simple in manners, and not distinguished, 
 either in art or science, against nations conspicuous in all 
 that could give lustre and strength to empire. Both ab- 
 stract and mechanical philosophy, and the arts of luxury, 
 and great experience in commerce, and much wisdom in 
 government ; together with the glories of conquest, contri- 
 buted to recommend and illustrate the gorgeous and seduc- 
 tive idolatries of the mighty countries by which the clans 
 of Judah and Ephraim and Benjamin were hemmed in. 
 Truly it was no easy task assigned to the race of Abra- 
 29
 
 326 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ham, to maintain, uncorrupt, the worship of Jehovah, 
 upon the narrow territory chartered to the patriarchs 
 The precipitous heights and rugged glens of Judea stood 
 amid the deserts of the world like a high-fenced fortress, 
 held from age to age by a band of men, loyal to their 
 Sovereign ; though beleagured by innumerable hosts of 
 his foes. And the feeling too, that belonged to men so plac- 
 ed alone at the post of danger, must have been greatly en- 
 hanced and' kept in agitation by the known existence of 
 treachery within the walls. Never was there a moment 
 when it might be said, that all Israel was true to the trust 
 involved in its theocracy. The splendid and licentious 
 worship of the neighbouring nations, with the dread influ- 
 ence of their superstitions over the natural fears of mankind, 
 proved but too powerful a seduction to the Hebrew tribes, 
 even in the best times ; and there is reason to believe that, 
 during long eras, the adherents of Jehovah were but a 
 minority scorned and oppressed, and in jeopardy of life. 
 This state of things must be gathered as we peruse Jew- 
 ish historians and prophets, from the age of Joshua, to that 
 of Ezra. 
 
 Nevertheless, though all visible recommendations were 
 possessed by those gods " of wood, and of stone, and of 
 gold" the Poet-king of Israel, after looking to the south, 
 the north, the east, could confidently revert to the heights, 
 of Zion, and say that the voice of joy and the acclama- 
 tions of genuine and holy pleasure, were heard in that 
 " Tabernacle of the righteous ;" and nowhere else. Who 
 that was not utterly depraved in heart, would have forsak- 
 en the modest and reverent solemnities of Jerusalem 
 not uncheered by song and music, for the wailings of the 
 Sidonian worship for the yells of the Tyrian for the 
 cruel service of the god whose ardent brazen arms receiv-
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 327 
 
 ed uupitied infants from the hands of ferocious or fren- 
 zied parents ? or who would choose, instead of the service 
 of Jehovah, the fanatic revelries tumultuous and obscene, 
 that so often ruffled the placid bosom of the Nile ; or the 
 monstrous pomps of the religion of Babylon, or of Ninevah, 
 or of Damascus ; where the glories of the sky (in which 
 the eternal power and supremacy of the true God are 
 manifested) were villified by alliance with the most hedi- 
 ous symbols ; and where the despotism of the priest was 
 like a venom shed upon the edge of steel, employed 
 only to aggravate the despotism of the sword ? 
 
 Could any one dare affirm that it was JOY that dwelt 
 in the temples of the demon-gods of Philistia, Phoenicia, 
 Syria, Assyria, Egypt ? or who would not have blushed to 
 have said that perpetual PLEASURES filled the courts of 
 Chemosh, of Ashtaroth, of Dagon, of Baal, of Mithra? 
 What did the grove conceal ? Lust Blood Imposture- 
 What sounds shook the Fane ? alternate screams of an- 
 guish, and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the 
 Priest ? the teacher of every vice of which his god \vas 
 patron and examplar. What were the worshippers ? the 
 victims of every woe which Superstition and Sensuality) 
 can gender, and which Cruelty can cherish. 
 
 It was not then a blind national prejudice, it was not 
 spiritual arrogancy, that made the prophet, poet, and king 
 of Israel exult in the distinction of his people. Rather it 
 was a righteous scorn which made him exclaim, when he 
 thought of the errors of the nations " their drink-offer- 
 ings of blood will I not offer ; neither take their names 
 into my lips." He turned toward the hill of God the 
 habitation of Jehovah, graced then perhaps with the sol- 
 emn joys of its annual feasts. " Thither the tribes had gone 
 up," from the glens of the vine and olive, from the valleys,
 
 398 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of corn of milk, and honey they had advanced " from 
 rest to rest" and every one every head of the thousands 
 of Israel, was then " appearing before God in Zkm." 
 The harp and the viol were heard there ; and the tabret 
 and cymbal ; " stringed instruments and organs : n the 
 responsive anthem also, which taught as much as it cheer- 
 ed the people. And in sight of all, the smoke of the pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice ascended direct to heaven innocent 
 sacrifice! The Priest made intercession for the people 
 " within the veil ;" but that veil concealed no shame no 
 cruelty no fraud : he came forth charged with a bles- 
 sing, in the pregnant terms of which were condensed more 
 of Sacred Science than all the rest of the world beside pos- 
 sessed. The congregation dispersed, and as they returned to 
 their inheritances, the Joy of the Lord was their strength." 
 Well then might Askelon, and Gaza, Tyre, and Sidon, 
 Nineveh, and Babylon, be challenged to do homage to the 
 " city of God" " to walk about Zion to number her tow- 
 ers, to mark her bulwarks, to consider her palaces," and 
 to confess, that '' the Lord that made the heaven and the 
 earth was in the midst of her." And such homage might 
 indeed have been at length secured, had the Jewish people 
 preserved their allegiance to Jehovah, and " kept his stat- 
 utes," through a course of ages. " The mountain of the 
 house of the Lord should have been established on the top 
 of the mountains ; and all nations should have flowed into 
 it." God would have " blessed his people, and all the 
 earth should have been his glory." A pure theology, a 
 pure morality, an equable polity, a righteous administra- 
 tion of justice, needed only to be sustained entire for a 
 lengthened period, and the eyes of mankind would have 
 been fixed upon such a centre of wisdom and felicity. 
 Sages would ha v resorted thither from all lands, and have
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 329 
 
 carried back, in greater or less purity, the elements of piety, 
 virtue, and liberty. " Jerusalem should have been a praise 
 in all the earth." We may believe this, as well on the 
 ground of natural probability, as on the faith of Divine 
 promises. 
 
 If it be true, even on earth, that the spot where God is 
 known and worshipped is the residence of joy, and the 
 home of pleasure, how emphatically true must it be when 
 we come to speak of the upper world ! Are there indeed 
 regions where the Creator is unknown, or where his will 
 is resisted ? amazing terrible truth ! over such re- 
 gions darkness and horror are spread. But are there 
 worlds or is there a continent of light, where His pre- 
 sence is visibly declared, and His favour always enjoyed, 
 and His will constantly obeyed? there abides ' ; the fulness 
 of joy." The distinct idea we insist on is this That as 
 Religion has its commencement in the knowledge of what 
 are termed the Natural attributes of God, which in fact 
 are subservient only to higher perfections ; and as it re- 
 ceives its next considerable enhancement from a knowledge 
 or spiritual perception of his attributes of Holiness and 
 Goodness ; so shall it reach its consummation in an im- 
 mediate perception, or open vision of His unchanging and 
 unsullied BLESSEDNESS. This absolute felicity of God 
 is the ultimate point of theology ; and the eras of eternity 
 shall be occupied in learning all that it comprises. 
 
 An important difference attaches to the mode in which 
 these three stages of knowledge are attained. For the 
 first is acquired chiefly by the deductions and inferences 
 of reason. The second, by the testimony of Scripture, 
 along with that inward communication, or " teaching of 
 the Spirit," by which the heart is quickened. The third 
 must wait for the immediate or real and direct knowledge 
 
 29*
 
 330 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of its object, in the future world. It may be added that 
 the first stage of this divine knowledge peculiarly belongs 
 to the present life. The second, after having had its 
 commencement on earth, reaches its highest degree (as 
 we presume) in the region of separate spirits. The third 
 is reserved for the state of perfection, when the ransomed 
 of the Lord ransomed from the grave, and from Hades, 
 shall " be presented before the throne of his glory, with 
 exceeding joy ;" and shall thenceforward and for ever 
 stand in his presence. 
 
 Our meditations may safely advance a step or two on 
 this high path : at least we may pursue to some little dis- 
 tance the conception of Avhat it must be to have immediate, 
 sensible, and perpetual consciousness of the Blessedness of 
 the Infinite Being. And we must first revert to the con- 
 stitution of our own nature, in which nothing is more 
 remarkable than the conflict that arises from the disposi- 
 tion to entertain ideas that far surpass our faculty of em- 
 bracing or comprehending them. The finite and the 
 infinite struggle together within us. This conflict, rightly 
 interpreted, must be deemed a true indication of our destiny 
 to endless life. And although by men much encumbered 
 with the appetites and interests of the passing moment, 
 little or nothing of the sort may be felt, it is otherwise in 
 minds of superior and more ingenuous order ; and the 
 most vigorous and elevated spirits are those that feel, with 
 the most intensity what it is hard to express the strug- 
 gles of that desire which would embrace infinite perfec- 
 tions, and yet seems to fail the more it succeeds to be 
 baffled the more it actually advances. 
 
 Now it is not very difficult to distinguish the specific 
 emotions that attend our contemplations, as we ascend the 
 scale of the Divine attributes. For example ; Indepen-
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 331 
 
 dent and Eternal existence the Omnipresence the Om- 
 niscience the Omnipotence, and the absolute wisdom of 
 God, which are proper objects of the intellectual faculty, are 
 entertained not without a feeling in part painful in part 
 pleasurable : or at least pleasurable just so far as associa- 
 tions have been formed between such ideas and the devout 
 affections. But inasmuch as Reason is a subservient 
 power, and must look to some definite result as the reward 
 of its toil, the endeavour to become conversant with infini- 
 ty must (by the nature of the case) always fall short of 
 satisfaction ; must want the sense of achievement. The 
 impulse to advance is strong ; and so is the discourage- 
 ment in proceeding ; and the balance of emotion is perhaps 
 painful. We might conclude this to be the fact from the 
 circumstance, that the devout mind, in any early stage of 
 its effort to meditate upon the Natural attributes of Deity, 
 turns aside to contemplate the Moral. 
 
 In this region, of merely intellectual notions we are at 
 once encountered by the imparity of the object, and the 
 faculty employed upon it. But in ascending to contem- 
 plate the rectitude, the purity, and the benevolence of the 
 Divine Nature, a real affinity between the object and the 
 faculty that is to say the moral sense (spiritually inform- 
 ed) bears up the mind, and overcomes the uneasy sensa- 
 tions just before mentioned. In its emotions of love, 
 complacency, and affectionate adoration, the soul ceases to 
 dwell upon the idea of infinite and incomprehensible per- 
 fections ; and seems to be blending its own nature with 
 the divine, rather than to be contrasting (as in the former 
 case) the one with the other. And here it should distinctly 
 be noted that, as it is the affections more than the reason- 
 ing faculty that are in activity, and as the affections are 
 ultimate powers in the human mind, and do not look on
 
 332 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 to any result beyond themselves, they are not liable, like 
 reason, to a painful evulsion from the sense of not having 
 reached the utmost limit possible. The soul reposes, and 
 is satisfied, so far as it goes, on the path of love ; but 
 never is so satisfied can never so repose on the path of 
 reason, until the goal be attained. 
 
 Pleasure, chastened by awe, attends this perception of 
 the " beauties of Holiness." The mind agreeably alter- 
 nates between its rational and moral notions ; reverting 
 to the former that it may again, and with new force, admit 
 the latter. The Eternal, the Omnipotent, the " Only 
 Wise," is thought of for a moment in His incomprehensible 
 perfections, in order that an augmentation may be gained 
 to the sentiments wherewith His benignity and purity are 
 contemplated. 
 
 These emotions, as we have already surmised, reach 
 their acme in the separate state, which is specifically 
 assigned to them, and while all other powers and desires 
 are suspended. In that state (as we conjecture) the 
 Divine Presence still remains veiled, and the Divine 
 favour continues to be dispensed through the medium of 
 the Mediator, whose office endures until the work of re- 
 demption is completed. May it then be thought that, 
 when this intervention comes to an end, and admittance 
 is allowed to the open Presence of the King eternal, that 
 which is ultimate in the Divine Nature, namely un- 
 changeable and absolute felicity, shall become the prime 
 object of the perceptions of all worshippers, and the one 
 source or reason of all enjoyment? And then, both the 
 natural and the moral perfections of God shall be, to His 
 absolute Blessedness;, what, at present, the natural are to 
 the moral ; that is to say, they shall serve as the grounds 
 of a higher sense of that Blessedness. In the manifested 
 presence of the Sovereign Happiness it can no more be
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 333 
 
 conceived of as possible, that created and dependent spirits 
 should make to themselves, or find room to admit, any 
 happiness which does not emanate from that of the 
 Supreme Being, than it is possible, in the very face of the 
 summer's sun, to kindle a blaze which can repel or sur- 
 pass that of noon. The very structure of the Mind 
 implies that the greatest and most vivid cause of excitement 
 should prevail over the lesser. 
 
 And though a natural prejudice (easily understood) may 
 reject such an idea, those who will attentively follow 7 up 
 the rudiments of our religious knowledge, whether abstract 
 or documentary, and will calmly compare such notions 
 with the necessary conditions of a finite being, must 
 discern a glimmering at least of the great truth That the 
 Supreme Being self-existent, and altogether sufficient in 
 Himself, possesses a felicity that is immensely remote from 
 any relation of mutuality with that of his creatures 
 even the most exalted of them. And thence it will follow, 
 not very indistinctly, that there will be presented to the 
 observation of intelligent beings (more or less openly) cer- 
 tain movements or evolutions (language is utterly at fault) 
 which have their issue only in that sovereign, independent 
 Felicity, and in which movements the creature has no 
 part, and can be no fellow. It is hard to conceive of the 
 Infinite Excellence at all, otherwise than as comprising 
 interactive causes which must have products possessing 
 absolutely no affinity with any thing exterior to itself, and 
 which can be but imperfectly surmised or discerned by 
 any created intelligence. Nay, it ought to be assumed 
 that the shoreless ocean of the Divine Felicity contains 
 elements, and combinations of those elements, which 
 utterly surpass all finite knowledge. And then the fact of 
 such unsearchable depths being admitted, as a necessary
 
 334 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 deduction of reason, there will be open to created minds 
 the peculiar emotion naturally springing up when, with 
 the boundless radiance of Infinite Blessedness full in view, 
 it is recollected that a vast unknown remains beyond and 
 within that visible glory ! "Who by searching can find 
 out God : who can find out the Almighty to perfection ?" 
 
 In these principles there is comprehended a provision, 
 never to be exhausted, for supplying new enjoyments to 
 pure and intelligent beings. It is evident that to active 
 natures, endowed with the power and desire of advance- 
 ment, the eras of protracted duration must impart contin- 
 ually fresh accessions of capacity for discerning the 
 perfections of the Infinite God. That which might not 
 at all be known or conceived of in an early stage, may be 
 comprehended in a stage more advanced ; and thus the 
 Boundless Felicity which none shall ever fathom, will be 
 to all and for ever, a spring of perpetual pleasures. 
 
 Themes of this order, which here have been but hastily 
 and rudely touched upon, may properly employ the medi- 
 tative faculty, without soon being exhausted. And it is 
 much to be observed that, while the mind rests upon them, 
 and rests upon them too until all emotions and faculties 
 have duly fallen into the general movement, so as to con- 
 tribute their aid and especially while the Divine Spirit 
 is cherishing the flame of pious hope, more may be attain- 
 ed or conceived of than language is fitted to convey. On 
 this ground it is not true that a man may express what- 
 ever is really present to his mind ; for the medium of 
 communication was framed for no purpose so high ; and 
 it absolutely wants, as well the single terms, as the forms 
 of connexion, necessary to effect it. It is a poor thing to 
 advance, in our religious contemplations, only as far as to 
 the boundary of that circle over which human language
 
 THE THIRD HEAVENS. 33o 
 
 spreads i'self. And how poor a thing not even to extend 
 the empire of the mind so far as to that boundary ; but to 
 be continually repeating wonted phrases, of which the in- 
 dolent spirit has never yet taken intelligent possession ! 
 
 It is also to be noted that the just reprehension, or even 
 contempt, which may be bestowed upon an idle endeavour 
 to penetrate by IMAGINATION the invisible worlds, and to 
 describe, in oriental style, the things which " eye hath not 
 seen, nor the heart of man conceived," is not at all due to 
 the proper effort of the mind when, by revolving the rudi- 
 ments of its owii nature, and by pursuing the indications 
 of its highest affections, and by collating these with the 
 evidence of Scripture, it labours to anticipate, in idea, its 
 approaching destiny. If any are found blaming a labour 
 of this sort, it will be the inert, the frivolous, or the 
 sensual. 
 
 Truly we are not thinking to depict the scenes and 
 personages of the celestial world : we are not assigning 
 names, fortunes, qualities, adventures, to seraphim and 
 cherubim ; are not bringing together the bright colours, 
 and perfect forms, and the odours, and gaiety, of the 
 heavenly plains ; or speaking of groves, gardens, foun- 
 tains, flowers, fruits, melodies, temples, palaces, triumphs. 
 All this we leave. How unlike to any such pictures may 
 probably be the actual scene, where the nations of heaven 
 immortal ancient wise experienced fraught with 
 energy, courage, sacred ambition, loyalty to God, and good- 
 will to all creatures, are performing their parts, or hasten- 
 ing: on their endless courses ! 
 
 O 
 
 |* It is quite another thing, with modesty and with painful 
 .efforts, and in devout hope of heavenly guidance, to work 
 problems by the aid of those materials of cogitation which 
 reason and nature and Revelation afford.
 
 XXVI, 
 THE PRECURSOR. 
 
 " Thou wilt Skew me the Path qf Lj/e." 
 
 DIVINELY guided, and yet very dimly, or perhaps not 
 at all discerning the purport of his prophetic ode, the royal 
 poet uttered, as in the person of " him who was to come," 
 the confidence and hope of Messiah, in prospect of the 
 arduous course he was to pass through. His God was to 
 " shew him the path of life ;" that is to say, was to con- 
 duct him, as Leader of Salvation, over all the road, and 
 through all the stages of human existence ; even from the 
 virgin's womb, to the right hand of Pow^r in the heavens. 
 Mortal life with its humiliations, and pains, and fears ; 
 and death, with its anguish and dismay ; and Hades 
 too. But Hades could not detain him who was to " lead 
 its captivity captive ; and ere " his flesh should see cor- 
 ruption," he was to burst the bars of the prison, and return 
 to the light of day ; and thence ascending, should enter 
 upon the fulness of joy. 
 
 The Mediator is the PRECURSOR of his people, on thia 
 " Path of Life," and an experienced Guide also, in its 
 dangers. In all things " he has the precedency ;" and 
 advances in front of the host he is leading to the skies. 
 By the right, both of conquest and experience, He exer- 
 cises " domination over the dead and the living." There 
 is no hazard of error in thus assigning its specific sense to 
 the prophetic words of David ; for the chief of the apostles, 
 under the fresh influence of the Divine Spirit, applies and 
 expounds them as fulfilled in none but Jesus the Christ, j
 
 THE PRECURSOR. 337 
 
 Leaving olher implied principles unnoticed, we may, 
 for a moment, meditate upon the relation of this Precur- 
 sive part of the Mediator's work to the immortality and 
 celestial felicity of his followers. 
 
 We have spoken of the " prepetual pleasures" that sur- 
 round the throne of God. But what has man to do wi.th 
 themes so high, and so little in harmony with his actual 
 condition ? Look at him in the guise he wears ! Does 
 he seem like an aspirant to immortality and glory ? Is 
 such a one as he indeed on his way to the Royal abode of 
 universal dominion? Is not his eye anxiously fixed upon 
 the low path he is treading ? is not his brow knit with 
 care, and soiled with degrading labour ? is he not in heart 
 ignoble ? is he not emaciate ? are not his garments worn 
 his feet lacerated his provision corrupted ? Yes, and 
 has not his spirit bowed to the humiliations of his lot ; 
 so that he even consents to the scorn that belongs to it? 
 All this is true, and more might be said ; nevertheless 
 man must not surrender his pretension to the heavens. 
 He has a special reason for his hope a reason stronger 
 than all contradictions. 
 
 That hope of immortality -which the Christian enter- 
 tains is neither a mere inference of reason ; nor a bare 
 verbal promise, sent from heaven to earth, that might be 
 interpreted in various extents of meaning. But it is a 
 deduction from an actual experiment, all the parts of 
 which have been set out before us ; and in examining 
 them we attain the confidence and the familiarity which 
 distinguish real knowledge from theory or imagination. 
 If a future life simply had been announced, many analo- 
 gies of the physical world, as well as our own conscious- 
 ness of infirmity and degradation, might have led us to 
 imagine that our next stage of existence was to raise 
 
 30
 
 333 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 human nature a degree or two on the scale of power and 
 of well-being ; and was at length to be succeeded by 
 another small accession to its faculties of enjoyment, or to 
 its virtue ; and so on through an extended period. The 
 influence of any such supposition must have been to re- 
 move to a faint distance those bright objects, and that 
 divine glory, which the Christian scheme brings into 
 the nearest apposition to our hearts. 
 
 If we were to speak in this connexion of the physiolo- 
 gy of human existence of what might be called the 
 natural history of the race, then we find it exhibited, or 
 modelled, in the narrative of redemption. The Saviour 
 of the world did not rescue man by making a visit, in 
 royal state, to the scene of ruin ; but by himself going 
 through the several stages of their destined course ; and 
 while we contemplate his progress, we see, and have it 
 ostensibly proved to us, that things far greater and higher 
 than reason could at all have supposed, are actually 
 brought within the range of hope ; are " standing at the 
 very door." There is but a " step between man and 
 death." Nay ; there is but a step between him and the 
 very highest promotion. ONE who was " made like unto 
 ourselves in all points," has in our view trodden the ground 
 of earth, and has passed thence immediately and not 
 through an immeasurable circuit, or by countless progres- 
 sions " into the heavens." From this cur low abode, 
 He, having loosed the bonds of death, and broken the bars 
 of the grave, burst at once into the presence-chamber of 
 the Majesty on high ; nor did he fear there to present 
 himself in the form of humanity. 
 
 The assumption of the human by the Divine Nature, 
 to say nothing now of its primary consequences, supersedes 
 a multitude of questions and speculations that might 
 have been entertained relative to the station which man
 
 THE PRECURSOR. 339 
 
 may natively be fitted to occupy. And it should not es- 
 cape notice that human salvation is, \vith great uniformity 
 of terms, spoken of by the inspired writers as a restora- 
 tion, a recovery ; it is the bringing him back to the 
 dignity he had lost. No expressions are employed which 
 might seem to indicate that an alteration, or extension of 
 the original plan of the human system had been admitted ; 
 or as if an arbitrary derangement of the ranks and orders 
 of the intelligent system had been made, in consequence 
 of which the family of Adam are to be promoted over the 
 heads of others to a place higher than their qualities 
 should fairly warrant. 
 
 Philosophical theories of human nature are in fault, on 
 the side both of presumption and of frigid diffidence. 
 Far too much is assumed" in behalf of man in all that 
 belongs to his actual condition, and his unassisted powers; 
 and far too little in what relates to his original distination 
 to the importance of his present behaviour, and to his 
 future lot. But the Scripture, in their history of man 
 set out from a point more elevated ; follow him through 
 a course that descends to the lowest depths ; and again 
 present him as emerging, and as setting out on an upward 
 path that leads to an immeasurable height. And the special 
 circumstance of this history is that the several stages of it 
 are all displayed -in the narrative of Redemption. Is it 
 asked, on any side, " what do you mean what do we 
 pretend to, when we speak, at large, of glory, honour, 
 immortality, or of a crown of life, or of being constituted 
 kings and priests unto God ; or of setting on thrones to 
 exercise powers of judgment, even over superior natures?" 
 we reply at once, that we pretend to whatever is involv- 
 ed in the union of the members with the Head that 
 Head being Divine ; and we expect whatever may fairly
 
 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 be presumed when it is said, of all believers, that they 
 shall be ll like Him, and near Him (as his kinsman) who 
 is the " Brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 Image of his person." 
 
 The Representative of mankind, and their Deliverer, in 
 anticipation of the part assigned him, appeals to the 
 Father, and says " Thou wilt shew me the path of life." 
 And when afterwards he stood in the midst of that path ; 
 or nearly at the point of its lowest depression, he still 
 keeps in view his character of LEADER of his people, and 
 looking to heaven exclaims (is it prayer, or is it omnipotent 
 volition ?) " Father, I will that those whom thou hast 
 given me should be with rne, to behold my glory ; and 
 that where I am, they should be also." At the same time 
 as if to assure the courage of his followers in the moment 
 of fear, he says " Whither 1 go ye know, and the way 
 ye know." And now that he is ascended on high, the 
 invitation he sends forth to all who seek immortality is 
 " Follow me !" Jesus, Head of the Church, is " gone to 
 appear in the presence of God for us ;*' not merely as 
 Mediator, or High Priest ; but as PRECURSOR : and be- 
 cause he has actually attained that summit of glory and 
 felicity, his people shall reach it also. 
 
 Thus we have the reason of our hope of future 
 advancement ,set out in a living form, in the course or 
 track of our Representative, from earth to heaven. And 
 yet there remains an accommodation of the same expres- 
 sion, open to every believer. For after the primary inten- 
 tion of the prophetic words of David has been secured, 
 we may assume them, not improperly, on behalf of the 
 Christian, who, with solicitude or doubt, looks forward to 
 the concealed path he has yet to tread, and addressing the 
 "Shepherd and Bishop of souls," exclaims " THOU wilt 
 shew me the path of life !"
 
 THE PRECURSOR. 341 
 
 The capital purposes of the present scene of things 
 demand that even the Christian should be left to approach 
 the very verge of another state in ignorance of what it is 
 that awaits him : that is to say, of its circumstances, 
 mode of existence, transactions, society. He is assured of 
 the fact of continued consciousness ; and the spiritual 
 rudiments of that after-state are also made known to 
 him : but nothing more. This ignorance, which to the 
 irreligious is the occasion of desperate and stupid insensi- 
 bility, iu treading upon the brink of the invisible world, 
 gives rise, in the heart of the Christian, to a trembling awe, 
 and a dread expectation. His firm and matured belief of 
 immortality quite forbids that he should, as others do, throw 
 himself reckless from the shore of life. But the same 
 faith, though it saves him from dismay, can never (or 
 only in very rare instances) entirely exclude the trepidation 
 so natural to the human mind on all signal occasions ; 
 and most of all when nothing less than the dissolution 
 of the fabric of life is, each successive moment, expected. 
 
 Now this blank ignorance of the world into which he 
 is so suddenly, and so soon, to enter, is plainly intended 
 to throw the Christian ingenuouslv, and without distrac- 
 tion, upon those very emotions which the unseen world 
 is to call into exclusive activity. What can the dying 
 believer do, uninformed as he is of the way he is to tread 
 his foot advanced, though the ground on which it is 
 next to rest is unseen -what but recur to the rudiments 
 of his hope? What but look to the PRECURSOR, who is 
 also the Lord of that unseen world ? How different might 
 be his sentiments if, in approaching the gate of death, or 
 in first entering its shadows, a prospect were allowed to 
 the mortal eye of the crowded and magnific scene which 
 lies immediately beyond that gate ! The frailty of the 
 
 31*
 
 342 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 mind, shall we say that infantile* misdirection of its 
 curiosit)', which belongs to its period of nonage, would 
 lead it to prefer the less to the greater the form to the 
 substance. In a word, the principal and the essential 
 emotion so signally proper to the great crisis of sense and 
 faith, would give way to secondary feelings, which shall 
 find other and more fit occasions for their exercise, and 
 space enough in the long leisure of eternity. 
 
 Provision is made in the Scriptures for meeting the 
 peculiar sentiment which the Christian's conjoined faith 
 in the unseen world, and ignorance of its conditions, 
 engenders. And, as matter of fact, the dying expressions 
 of multitudes of the faithful, in every age, have exemplified 
 the fitness of this provision to the occasion. If a solemn 
 renewal of repentance is proper to the hour of death if 
 an explicit and fervent challenge of the Divine mercy is 
 proper toil, these acts are not enough to impart confidence 
 and joy, or even always a settled tranquillity. The pal- 
 pitating heart must appropriate the personal affection of 
 the Redeemer to his people. THIS APPROPRIATION is 
 the secret of dying. The human mind, when once 
 thoroughly occupied by a benign affection, specially fixed 
 upon its object, can meet any danger, can brave any 
 dismay. History abounds with illustrations of this fact ; 
 it is a capital law of our nature. Men, nay women, 
 thus animated, have forgotten all fear, and carried them- 
 selves through fields of death as calmly as if they had none 
 but an ethereal frame. If we analyse our emotions on 
 any occasions of this sort, we shall find that if at any 
 time, a steady courage has borne us with force, and anim- 
 ation, and cheerfulness, through hours of imminent peril, 
 it has been when we have had to act on behalf of those 
 most dear to us ; or when the welfare of such has depend-
 
 THE PRECURSOR. 343 
 
 ed altogether upon our conduct. Even the martial cour- 
 age of the field (if it be more than animal bravery) is 
 constituted on the same principle, and would be nothing 
 if stripped of its affections. 
 
 Those who would blame as enthusiastic or presumptu- 
 ous the fervours and speciality of devout affection, such as 
 eminent Christians have expressed in their dying moments, 
 know nothing of Christianity beyond the bare story they 
 read in the Gospels ; and nothing of human nature (or 
 of human nature as affected by religion) beyond what 
 belongs to the servile sentiments of a pelagian faith (better 
 called distrust.) If multitudes of those who receive Chris- 
 tian burial, because they have received Christian baptism, 
 die joyless, and disappear from the upper air as if sinking 
 in a stagnant pool ; it is not the fault of Christianity. 
 Christianity meets us where we most of all need its aid ; 
 and meets us too with the very aid we nesd. It does not 
 tell us of the splendours of the invisible world : but it 
 does far better when, in three words, it informs us that 
 (ctvaXoo'ai) to loosen from the shore of mortality, is (tfOv 
 X^itfrw sfvai) to be with Christ. 
 
 This is precisely the assurance which the occasion 
 demands ; for it not only quickens the. devout affections 
 but it fixes them on their object. Whoever has truly 
 admitted the emotions peculiar to Christian faith, desires 
 nothing more than is conveyed in this pregnant phrase. 
 All security, and all joy, are comprised in the idea of 
 beholding and of approaching the Son of God the Son 
 of Man now exercising universal dominion ; and 
 especially ruling the world of spirits. " If I go, I will 
 come again to receive you to myself." This, and some 
 parallel expressions, though they have a primary reference 
 to a future signal event, may, on no very slender grounds,
 
 344 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 be interpreted as conveying a promise to individuals ; as 
 if the " Shepherd of the sheep" were wont in person to 
 meet the new-coming spirit at its entrance upon the realm 
 of peace. Be it so or not, it is clear that the faithful are 
 authorized to entertain the well-defined hope the hope of 
 the heart, if the heart be indeed renewed, of coming, at 
 death, into the sensible presence of the Saviour. What is 
 the dread or reluctance of nature, if the Christian, in 
 closing his eyes upon the world, can fix them on the 
 Divine Deliverer, and say " Thou wilt show me the 
 path of Life?"
 
 XXVII. 
 ENDLESS LIFE. 
 
 "Neither can they Die any More." 
 
 CERTAIN objects of meditation, though intrinsically 
 inferior to others, fully make up their original deficiency 
 by the relation they stand in to our personal welfare. 
 The fate of an empire must not be put in the scale with 
 the life or fortune of an individual : nevertheless when 
 that individual is watching public revolutions which must, 
 in their results, decide his particular destiny, he may find 
 it difficult to mainlain in his feelings a due proportion 
 between the less and the greater object. All other notions 
 or objects of thought sink into insignificance, or quite 
 disappear, by the side of those two paramount ideas the 
 Existence of God, and the proper Immortality of human 
 nature. And although the latter can bear no comparison, 
 abstractedly, with the first, its ineffable importance to 
 ourselves places the two on a sort of equality in our 
 minds. 
 
 If the first of these truths challenges to itself all perfec- 
 tions, and infinity, as the crown of all ; the second, how 
 limited soever may be the elements to which it relates, 
 claims also infinity ; and thus gains an importance that 
 is" not to be measured. And in fact it is this second truth 
 the immortality of man, which imparts its fearful mo- 
 ment to the first. If the present life were the whole of 
 our destined period, we might assign the principles of 
 theology to a place among curious questions. But when
 
 346 SATURDAY EVENLMG. 
 
 it is told us that the consciousness we inherit is strictly 
 indestructible tb.at no mutations in the mode of existence 
 no accidents no alterations in the laws of nature ; not 
 even the upturning of ihe material universe not the 
 extinction of all things visible, can bring about the anni- 
 hilation of man, then indeed it becomes a question of 
 unutterable consequence " What is God ?" for we 
 even we, are to be the companions of his eternal duration ! 
 The creatures of a day of a summer of a century, 
 might be imagined, when they stand upon the threshold 
 of their term of existence, to make inquiry concerning 
 the attributes and dispositions of the Creator, and the 
 rules of his government : for these are to give law to their 
 season of life, and to be the measure of their enjoyments. 
 But with what intenseness of anxiety might the SONS OP 
 IMMORTALIY put such questions, as they come severally 
 to set foot upon a course that shall have no end, and that 
 must always be gathering to itself importance ! If man- 
 kind were awake to futurity, and discerned the present 
 stage of life to be an infancy for eternity a tentative only 
 in existence all would rush, as it were, upon the great 
 field of divine Science, that by every means they might 
 truly know Him, who is Sovereign Disposer of their 
 destiny. Apart from the doctrine of immortality, the 
 doctrine of the Divine attributes might be tranquilly dealt 
 with, as we deal with any abstruse matters, or with math- 
 ematical principles : they are of some moment ; but it is 
 bounded by the brief period of our own connexion with 
 the material world. How much otherwise is it when 
 every attribute natural and moral, of the Infinite Being 
 shall forever concentrate its rays, as in a focus, upon the 
 immortal created spirit ; so that this spirit shall draw to 
 itself, in some manner, and without end, a special conse-
 
 ENDLESS LIFE. 347 
 
 quence from the omnipotence, and the omniscience from 
 the rectitude, and the benignity of God ! 
 
 These great truths are too closely allied not to share the 
 same fate in the world. If the one be obscured or deform- 
 ed, the other is forgotten or villified. Whoever knows 
 not God, knows not himself ; and the reverse. Or if 
 theology be frigidly treated as a sterile, difficult, or vapid 
 matter the future life is also a listless theme ; we shall 
 see the incredible inconsistency of a confession that man 
 is^ actually set out upon an endless pilgrimage ; along 
 with an easy contempt of all solicitude concerning the 
 direction it is to take ! But when once the soul awakes, 
 as from a dream, to the rational consciousness of either 
 truth, with what force and majesty does the other present 
 itself to the mind ! The belief of immortality brings God 
 bnhre tii3 siul, as if visibly manifested : the knowl- 
 edge of God kindles the conception of endless life. 
 
 Or if we would still more distinctly discern the connex- 
 ion of these prime principles, let us for a moment attempt 
 to sever them. lu the first place (if indeed we dare 
 entertain such a conception) we may think of finding 
 ourselves members of an innumerable community of 
 beings of like powers and dispositions ; not more good, 
 or more wise, and yet all immortal ; but atheistic ; 
 God having withdrawn himself far, and for ever, from 
 the circle of creation ; or that there were no Intelligent 
 Supreme no Omnipotence, no Ruler, no law, no order ! 
 but that passions and private interests pride, fear, 
 desire, took their courses, in single lines, rushing one upon 
 the other in confusion, perpetually more confused. Who 
 must not court annihilation, rather than launch upon any 
 such shoreless ocean of immortality without God? 
 
 Or let the converse be thought of, and it be supposed
 
 348 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 that a rational spirit, after becoming in the highest degree 
 conscious of its own powers of enjoyment and of progres- 
 sion, and after gaining a sight of the glory of the Most 
 High, and of the felicities of eternal life ; after tasting the 
 fruits of heaven, and drinking of the cup of immortality j 
 should find itself fast floating on to the brink of extinction ; 
 and while the e ye might yet gaze upon the bright and 
 unbounded field of endless bliss bliss it could so well 
 relish yes, with the attributes of God the source of good, 
 all before it, should look down and see the abyss of death 
 death absolute, wheremto a wave or two more must 
 hurl it ! Better not know at all the Divine Perfections, 
 than see and know them, just as we are about to fall from 
 our place in creation ! So true is it that, if immortal, we 
 must seek for God ; and if God be at hand, we must 
 covet immortality. It is even just conceivable that the 
 most gross, sensual, or malignant minds, which now 
 while the present life bounds their prospect '' desire not 
 the knowledge of the Almighty," and say to Him, " depart 
 from us," may, on their entrance upon that state whence 
 they shall look on through an interminable life, ask for 
 Him as Ruler and Arbitrator, although conscious of their 
 rebellion ngainst his government. As if it were less tolera- 
 ble to exist forever where God is not, than to exist where 
 he is an adversary. 
 
 It has been affirmed, and perhaps with reason, that the 
 mere power which the human mind possesses of conceiv- 
 ing abstractedly of a FIRST CAUSE Intelligent and 
 Benignant, is proper proof, and real demonstration, of the 
 fact. An argument of this sort comes not within the de- 
 sign of these pages. But it may be said that, if such an 
 argument be valid, it implies the goodness of another, fre- 
 quently urged That the expectation of a future life, and
 
 ENDLESS LIFE. ' 349 
 
 the strong and universal impression of mankind on this 
 subject, is equal to a natural proof of what is so universal- 
 ly looked for. If man be thought of only physiologically, 
 it seems a violent or monstrous supposition, that he should 
 be endued with an instinct that is absolutely nugatory, 
 or destitute of object, intention, utility. This common 
 belief of a future life if indeed there be no such state, 
 is much the same as if the shoulders of the human race 
 sprouted with wings, though men had no power of raising 
 themselves into the air. 
 
 But whatever may be the force of such arguments, our 
 faith in immortality actually takes its stand pn divine 
 testimony, rather than on abstruse reasons. In truth we 
 have need of this testimony to put an end to some doubts 
 which reason could never solve. There are lines of 
 argument which, although they might seem fairly to es- 
 tablish the doctrine of a life after the dissolution of the 
 body, would not absolutely include the notion amazing 
 idea ! of ENDLESS EXISTENCE. It is one thing to 
 awake at death to a new life ; and another to inherit ab- 
 solutely a never-ending life. The many physical analo- 
 gies which indicate the law of a renewal of functions, in 
 other forms, after long periods of torpor or decay, would 
 not necessarily imply more than that man, the noblest of 
 animals, should reappear also on the stage of action, and 
 pass through a century or more of transformations. The 
 same may be said of the common expectation of mankind, 
 and of the argument usually drawn (and very conclusive- 
 ly) from the notion of good government, which requires 
 another state, wherein may be vindicated the great axioms 
 of justice and virtue so much obscured as they are by the 
 events of the present state. Less than eternity might 
 suffice for restoring order to the moral system, according 
 
 31
 
 350 SATURDAY" EVENING. 
 
 to human ideas of what justice demands. All these 
 notions or conclusions, though they put contempt upon 
 the gross error of the atheist, will scarcely be deemed 
 demonstrative, though corroborative, of the capital truth 
 before us the assignment of endless duration to created 
 minds. 
 
 It will indeed be alledged, and perhaps justly, that the 
 same reasons which now demand an after life, will go 
 forward with undirninished force to another, and again to 
 another epoch of existence ; so as in fact to establish the 
 claim of man to absolute immortality. It may be so ; and 
 yet the vastness of such a belief, if we conceive of what 
 the terms convey, must throw us back upon the clearest 
 and most irrefragable proof. What is it we are speaking 
 of ? Infinity ! and infinity attached to a finite being ! 
 Does it not seem as if .for a creature to challenge to itself, 
 in any sense, a boundless attribute, were to trench upon 
 the prerogative of the Divine Nature 1 Or if Revelation 
 had not set this matter on another footing (as we shall see) 
 might it not seem a surrender of the first principles of 
 theology to admit, that beings, derived, dependent, limited, 
 might participate with the uncreated and unlimited nature 
 in the attribute of indestructible existence ? Can it be true 
 that men, or any other creatures, shall go on in company 
 with the Self-existent Being, through such tracts of dura- 
 tion as shall almost bring oblivion upon the point of 
 commencement, and generate a consciousness as if He 
 and they were alike eternal ? We talk lightly of immor- 
 tality : but it is because the greatness of the idea prevents 
 our considering what it is we affirm. More thoughtful- 
 ness would impel us to look more narrowly to the grounds 
 of our belief. 
 But has it not been demonstrated that MIND, because it
 
 ENDLESS LIFE. 351 
 
 is a simple and indestructible substance, must live for 
 ever ? Whoever accepts this demonstration is free to do 
 so ; and even those who decline to receive it as absolutely 
 conclusive, will gladly listen to an argument on this 
 ground after they have by another process, convinced 
 themselves that indeed the human mind is destined to 
 perpetuity. Meanwhile both parties will gratefully turn 
 to the inspired writings, to derive thence the best sort of 
 evidence the doctrine can admit. And this evidence will 
 be found to possess a force, by implication of principles, 
 which far surpasses any imaginable value that ought to 
 be attached to the etymological import of single words. 
 
 No etymon comprises what we are speaking of, or has 
 power to convey so much more than language was formed 
 to express, or than the notions of mankind at large have 
 ever comprehended. This truth, as it is beyond concep- 
 tion, is far beyond words, and must be drawn from the 
 great and unquestionable principles of religion. Those 
 who would succinctly say, that such, or such syllables 
 contain the affirmation of infinite existence, have probably 
 never fixed their minds, with any intentness, upon that of 
 which they speak ; have never asked themselves how 
 much less than to be divine, is it to be immortal ? Let 
 such persons toil awhile upon the conception, which so 
 easily they talk. To facilitate this toil let them exchange 
 the idea of duration for that of extension ; or rather 
 attempt to attach the former, of which we know little, to 
 the latter, of which we know much more. Let it be 
 imagined then, that the task assigned to man were to set 
 out, at his ordinary rate of movement, on a circuit of that 
 space which is filled by the visible creation. Are we 
 somewhere in the centre of that space ? Then must the 
 traveller first make his way, step after step, from this oen~
 
 352 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 tral starting-point to the utmost bounds of the inhabited 
 heavens ; he must go on till he has left behind him the 
 brighter of the stars ; and those too that are immensely 
 more remote than the brighter. But let us cut short the 
 preliminary journey, and fancy him standing (with his 
 task still unatternpted) at the extreme orbit of the mate- 
 rial system. He has to measure its circumference : the 
 human foot has to tread the zodiac of the universe ! Has 
 it at length accomplished the round of all worlds has the 
 course of the traveller girt the skies? then send him 
 forth anew to do the same : and when he has repeated 
 his task as often as there have been single steps in his 
 way, he will still be young in immortality. To live for 
 ever, is a far more stupendous matter than to make the 
 circuit of creation a myriad of times. 
 
 It is fearful, if we reflect upon what it implies, to bear 
 relation, in any way, even remotely, to infinitude : for 
 who shall calculate the whole result of such a connexion ? 
 How fearful then to carry infinity in our very bosoms ! 
 
 to be wedded inseparably to that which has no bounds ! 
 
 We may calmly survey all other properties of human 
 nature, and may admire the skill with which its several 
 functions are combined. But shall we dare steadily to 
 fix the eye upon that yet undeveloped property which 
 lurks beneath the fine machinery of life ? Shall we gaze 
 upon this faculty of endless existence faculty that is now 
 but just waking itself from the torpor of its birth, and will 
 go on expanding its vigour, and springing up yet young 
 and hale, after it has out lived the stars ? In comparison 
 with this power of eternal life, all powers are nothing : or 
 should we not rather say, that every faculty which is link- 
 ed to this, borrows from it an incalculable importance ? 
 
 The unfixed practice of our English translators in
 
 ENDLESS LIFE. 353 
 
 rendering the Scripture terms of duration, has thrown a 
 disadvantage upon certain very momentous questions, and 
 has made many affirmations of the inspired writers seem 
 vague, which probably were to themselves, and their first 
 readers, quite definite ; or at least more so than they are 
 to our ears. The confusion hence arising has led certain 
 controvertists to found an argument upon the supposed 
 force of a single term (/wvio5) to which Scripture usage 
 has given a very great latitude of meaning ; and which 
 therefore must, in every place, receive its specific value 
 from the subject in hand. Most fully may it be granted 
 that in the apostolic axiom as well as in many other 
 places { The gift of God is eternal life," there is included 
 infinite, or never-ending existence. But our persuasion 
 of this fact must not be made to hinge on the native or 
 independent force of the adjective there employed ; but 
 upon the evident intention of the writer, as illustrated and 
 confirmed by other means. 
 
 If the direct calculations by which the distances of the 
 heavenly bodies is fixed, were called in question, recourse 
 would be had to some more circuitous process of proof 
 the parallax the times of revolution the ascertained 
 irregularity, and disturbance of forces ; and when every 
 line of proof was found to accord with the fact, as at first 
 affirmed, the primary calculation would be deemed incon- 
 testible. It is thus that the obvious or apparent sense of 
 the phrase eternal life," is attested and settled by several 
 concurrent arguments. A brief allusion to these is all 
 that can comport with our present purpose. 
 
 In the first place then, generally, the Scriptures assign 
 to man an original dignity, much greater than mere philo- 
 sophy supposes, or than is implied in the grovelling senti- 
 ments which the sensuality and the degradation of the 
 
 31*
 
 354 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 human mind itself engender. The inspired writers, while 
 they deal faithfully with man in regard to his actual 
 corruption, magnify, without scruple, his character as 
 related to God, and 'to futurity. The style of the Bible, in 
 this point, prepares us to receive whatever it may affirm 
 concerning his destiny. And leave is given at once to 
 entertain the greatest conceptions, when, in the first page 
 of the sacred Canon, it is said and said with emphasis, 
 that " God created man in His own image ; in the image 
 of God created he man." This first principle of religion 
 forbids or forestalls, in brief, every objection against what 
 may follow. And that this dignity, whatever it might 
 include, was not forfeited by the transgression of Adam, is 
 made certain when the same principle is anew affirmed, 
 as an abstract or universal truth " Man is the image of 
 God ;" or less universally, that, by the Gospel, all that 
 believe are " made partakers of the Divine Nature." 
 
 But it is the mystery -of Redemption that carries our 
 point, and gives even a facility to our conception of a 
 truth so astounding, as that man is to live for ever, by 
 placing it in a subordinate position to the still more amaz- 
 ing truth of the union of the Divine and human natures, 
 in the person of the Mediator. The latter includes the 
 former, as the greater includes the less, and implies it also; 
 so that even if the promise of eternal life had not been 
 conveyed in terms free from ambiguity, they must have 
 received this absolute sense from the superior principle to 
 which they are related. We stand here on ground far 
 more substantial than that of etymology, or verbal criti- 
 cism. We are conversant with substances, not svmbols. 
 Our Lord, in his private conversations with his disciples, 
 avails himself of the stores of tropical expression for the 
 purpose of fixing in their minds the belief of an intimate
 
 ENDLESS LIFE. 355 
 
 and indissoluble union between themselves and him. 
 And the copiousness and variety these esoteric discourses 
 are manifestly intended to meet and obviate doubts, from 
 whatever quarter arising. There is a progression from 
 the figurative to the abstract style a progression natural 
 when the speaker is solicitous to provide against all objec- 
 tions. Christ is " the Shepherd, who so loves his flock as 
 to lay down his life for their sakes." He is " the vine," 
 and the source of life to the branches. But this is not 
 enough ; and in the most solemn forms of which human 
 language is susceptible, and in a direct address to the 
 Father, he carries to the highest point, the idea of the close 
 and inseparable junction of the Divine and human natures, 
 of which junction himself is the medium : " That they 
 all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee ; 
 that they also may be one in us." If any thing of expli- 
 citness or of certainty be here wanting, it is only because 
 the powers of language must somewhere find a limit. 
 
 The Author of immortality resplendent in his title as 
 Prince of life"" the Living One" He who " has life 
 in himself who is abstractedly " the Life, and the 
 Light of men," and is " alive for evermore ;" and " the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever :" the Possessor of 
 all duration " whose goings forth have been from ever- 
 lasting ; whose name is, Father of eternity ;" He who 
 thus draws to himself all honours, as Fountain of exis- 
 tence, sums up every other assurance, when he tells his 
 followers that, " BECAUSE HE LIVES, THEY SHALL LIVE 
 ALSO ;" as if formally to pledge his own immortality for 
 theirs ; or as if they might fear extinction, when He 
 the Lord of life, should be no more. 
 
 It ought to be noticed that the apostles, in that inciden- 
 tal manner which belongs to them, take up and employ,
 
 356 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 on this subject, the several terms of perpetual duration 
 which their habit of using the Greek language in a Jewish 
 sense naturally presented them.* "So shall we be for 
 ever (-ravrors, not sis TOV a/wva) with the Lord." The faith- 
 ful shall be made pillars in the temple of God, and shall 
 " go no more out" (l|w ou w l&^&ji eVi) a mode of expression 
 as conclusive and emphatic as language well admits of. 
 
 But if yet there were room for a form of affirmation 
 which might seem to comprise all others to grasp the 
 very idea of endless existence, and to exclude ambiguityj 
 we find it in our Lord's declaration concerning those who 
 should be " deemed worthy to obtain part in the future 
 life (Ours yap dirodavsiv lr\ Suvavrat) " They CANNOT DIB ANY 
 MORE ; being on a par with the angels." The terms 
 carry the idea of an abstract, or of a physical impossibility 
 of undergoing dissolution or extinction : such are to be 
 made heirs of indestructible existence. 
 
 * The full illustration of this point is unsuited to our purpose ; but 
 is in itself, well worthy of particular attention. All distinctness on 
 this subject is merged in our English version.
 
 XXVIII. 
 THE PERPETUITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 " This mortal must put on immortality." 
 
 AND now are we to rest here ? Should we come to 
 the conclusion that the heirship of endless life, though it 
 be clung to firmly, is a matter too vast and inconceivable 
 to employ our deliberate meditations ; and must be left as 
 a vague expectation, until it be entered upon ? There is 
 a semblance of modesty, or devout humility in such a 
 conclusion : but indolence, or earthliness, or frivolity, 
 may have a part in it : and we may as properly be jealous 
 of these, as careful not to trench upon those. 
 
 We must recur to a principle already mentioned, 
 namely That the Christian doctrine of the resurrection 
 of the body, places subjects of this class in a position very 
 different from that which they might otherwise have occu- 
 pied. If a simple announcement had been made to us of 
 a future, and an endless life, we might well have 
 thought that it would bear so little analogy to the present 
 condition of man as scarcely to come within the range of 
 our conjectures. How probable is it, we might then have 
 said, that the most elaborate conceptions will prove to have 
 been utterly erroneous, as well in principle, as in circum- 
 stance ; and that the labour of the mind in anticipating 
 futurity, will be idle even as a dream. 
 
 But the Christian hope of immortality is not altogether 
 of this vague or unsubstantial kind : on the contrary, though
 
 358 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 much brevity belongs to the announcement, it is not inde- 
 terminate. It is HUMAN NATURE, in its essential elements, 
 that is to inherit eternity ; not an ethereal rudiment, just 
 saved from the wreck of the former fabric, and just serv- 
 ing to connect, as by a film of identity, the earthly with 
 the heavenly state. It is THIS MORTAL that must, put 
 on Immortality j" the very nature now subject to dissolu- 
 tion, is to escape from the power of death, and to clothe 
 itself in imperishable vigour. Do we want at once con- 
 firmation and exemplification of this doctrine ? We have 
 both in the resurrection of the Lord. 
 
 Whatever belongs ' especially to the economy of the 
 present life is of course understood to drop with the disso- 
 lution of the body ; but all other elements are to be 
 perpetuated. And the modes of action, and the sentiments, 
 and the affections, which now are human, and rational, 
 will then be so, even when man shall have set out anew 
 upon the road of life. It is therefore by no means pre- 
 posterous, or presumptuous, or idle, to look inward upon 
 the actual principles or machinery of our nature, and to 
 ask How shall these same powers work, one upon 
 another, when they shall take their play at large upon 
 the fields of boundless existence ? We may lawfully thus 
 ruminate upon ourselves enkindle the embers of hope 
 within our bosoms, and look, with a steady intelligence, 
 to that afterstate, which is nothing but the consummation 
 of the present. The proper office of religious meditation 
 is to sever the precious from the vile to throw off from 
 the immortal spirit, the adjuncts and degradations that 
 oppress it ; and to borrow something from the inexhausti- 
 ble riches of eternity, for ennobling the poverty of time. 
 
 The human mind is liable to two kinds of sudden 
 revolution ; each giving a new character to its emotions,
 
 THE PERPETUITY OP HUMAN NATURE. 359 
 
 and a new direction to its faculties. The first is when 
 every habit and taste, nay, almost the identity of the 
 character, is broken up by some disastrous stroke, which 
 levels to the dust every possession, and every honour, and 
 every cherished hope ; and sends a man forth, as if upon 
 a strange scene of things, with faculties (mature indeed) 
 but not adapted to the usages of that sphere which must 
 now give them exercise. The recollection of his former 
 life is a dream, that only the more alienates him from the 
 realities of the present. The second kind or revolution is 
 of a happier kind, and takes place when a man, by an 
 unlocked for turn of fortune, is in an hour raised from 
 obscurity and penury, or from inaction and discredit 
 (which he had believed to be his unalterable lot) to high 
 employments, and dignity, and affluence to a station 
 where at once he finds scope for those powers of mind of 
 which heretofore he had almost feared to think himself 
 the possessor, and which his modesty had taught him to 
 repress more than to cherish. In such an hour of eleva- 
 vation. a sound understanding, healthfully excited rather 
 than made giddy, and much less moved by the adjuncts 
 of high fortune, than by the substantial matters that claim 
 attention, bends all its thoughts to the principles of conduct, 
 and to the temper, which now are called for. Such a one 
 loses little time in idle amazement at his own promotion ; 
 but with diligence adjusts his latent and unpractised 
 powers to the functions of his place ; and even if a day be 
 given to exultation, to-morrow finds him the man of his 
 order serene, energetic, and familiarly occupied with the 
 great cares that have fallen into his hand. 
 
 This kind of sudden change is in fact only a natural 
 expansion of existing powers : it is so that the blossom 
 unfurls its ripened gaiety to the sun ; so that life,
 
 360 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 ordinarily breaks from its confinements ; and so, as we 
 may well believe, that the sons of immortality shall awake 
 to their lot in the future world. Doubt and sadness, and 
 the pusillanimity that infests depression, shall be forgot- 
 ten : the husk has withered, and is fallen ; and all is 
 vigour, and freshness, and growth. The child of heaven 
 breathes at length his proper element looks, without 
 amazement, over the endless road that lies outstretched at 
 his feet, wonders not to feel himself immortal, and thinks 
 nothing strange but that he should?ever have doubted of 
 eternity as his inheritance. 
 
 Shall the first clear prospect of this inheritance a 
 possesion never to be spent, and never forfeited, generate 
 a feeling like that with which vast wealth is grasped ? 
 In like manner as the love of sensual pleasure and ease 
 is only (as we have said) a perversion of the original 
 instinct of our nature, so is cupidity, and the lust of 
 property (one of the firmest and most permanent of pas- 
 sions) a perversion also of the native impulse of the mind 
 to embrace and retain something which it may call, 
 without dispute its own. The vicious sentiment that has 
 attached itself to this strong native impulse, must not 
 prevent our acknowledging that it takes its rise from the 
 very roots of the human mind ; and if so, shall, in some 
 manner, find at length a just sphere of exercise. Perhaps 
 we might assume it as true, that the independence with 
 which intelligent natures are endowed, and which distin- 
 guishes such from all inferior orders, and which is the 
 ground too, or necessary condition of the moral system, 
 demands, or involves, an emotion of this sort. The 
 pleasurable SENSE OF POSSESSION is (as we presume) a 
 proper constituent of an intelligent and accountable being. 
 We scarcetafind a trace of any such passion among the
 
 THE PERPETUITY OP HUMAN NATURE. 361 
 
 lower tribes. Man is the only proprietor on earth ; and 
 the only miser. It is by blind instinct that the bee and 
 the ant fill their garners, 
 
 Man's ignorance of what himself is capable of enjoying, 
 throws him upon the capital error of looking to things 
 exterior and alienable, as his wealth ; and in making this 
 ill choice, he heaps to himself a world of care ; for a 
 thousand accidents may come and intervene between his 
 passion and its object. Thus it is that, while other irreg- 
 ular desires bring their retributive sorrow after the hour 
 of gratification is gone by, Avarice stands, scourge [in 
 hand, over her victim, and inflicts a cruel pang at every 
 instant. No such error or disorder shall have place in 
 the world of perfection. The strong instinct of the soul 
 shall be turned inward : and how shall we conceive of 
 the force it shall suddenly acquire when its object is 
 nothing less than a title to endless life ! We say sud- 
 denly acquire ; and yet it may be conceived that the 
 impression which, during its terrestrial course, has fixed 
 itself deeply in the mind, of the brevity and near termina- 
 tion of all enjoyments, will be carried forward awhile, 
 even into eternity ; nor at once be obliterated. Perhaps 
 some experience of the solid and permanent quality of 
 happiness in the future world must be had, before the 
 mind shall be fully awake to the sense of its boundless 
 property in joy. It may have advanced some way on 
 the road of endless life, and may have looked on with 
 exultation to a remote eminence of the great horizon 
 bright in the beams of perpetual day toward which it is 
 advancing, before the thought distinctly arises that that 
 far distant height even when attained, shall but afford a 
 new prospect of a still wider expanse of the plains of 
 eternity. This it is to be wealthy : this is POSSESSION 
 
 32
 
 362 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 to have in the bosom the principle or law of immortal- 
 ity, and while conscious of it, to look abroad upon a world 
 of pleasure, whereon there is nothing exclusive. 
 
 This is wealth ! and yet it is held on conditions. 
 What were eternity without the providence and promise 
 of God ? Let it be supposed that beings like ourselves 
 were to enter upon unbounded duration, under the fairest 
 circumstances, and in possesion of all powers and means 
 of enjoyment : nevertheless it must be felt that the revo- 
 lution of all possible events which eternity includes, must 
 (if uncontrolled) bring- into jeopardy," in turns, every 
 source of happiness, and every principle of virtue. If 
 happiness and virtue might even be secured thrcugh one 
 period of duration, or through many, the infinite series 
 will, somewhere, place in opposition principles that shall 
 clash, and shatter one the other. The powers of Eternity 
 are then so many powers of terror to the inheritors of 
 immortality, unless they are known to be all provided for 
 by the SUPREME POWER. If we do but attentively 
 consider what is meant by endless duration, we shall 
 vividly feel that the prospect of if, as actually outstretched 
 before us, must drive the soul in amazement and dread 
 to throw itself upon the Divine care. What is the fore- 
 sight of a created mind what are its resolutions what 
 its faculties what its personal sufficiency, when brought 
 into play with the hazards of eternity ? Shall not the depen- 
 dent spirit eagerly seek a refuge, and a strength, and an 
 explicit promise too, before it can dare even to look down 
 upon that terrible infinity (though it seemed crowded with 
 delights) which spreads itself out on all sides ? Must not 
 the finite, the insufficient being, cling to the arm of Om- 
 nipotence, when first it sets foot upon the road of eternal 
 life 1 Will it not hold back as it gazes upon the vast
 
 THE PERPETUITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 363 
 
 unknown, and ask to hear those words of consolation 
 " I will never leave thee, no, never forsake thee !" 
 
 Does not this idea bring into view one of those princi- 
 ples, that, as a means, or motive, secures the allegiance of 
 happy and immortal beings With our present feelings, 
 when we look up, and conceive of the loyal hierarchy 
 that surrounds the mount of God, we almost tremble lest 
 some unlooked-for caprice of the voluntary power, should 
 surprise any, and ia a moment hurl them from their 
 places. But beside other principles of conservation do 
 not all orders, from their high standing, look forward 
 through the unnumbered ems of duration, which each for 
 himself has yet to pass through ? and who knows what 
 strange occasions those ears may produce who can 
 divine what trials may yet sleep in the womb of eternity? 
 Certain devout expressions of confidence in God, which 
 we ordinarily presume to be applicable only to this present 
 state of pains and fears, may perhaps be heard (who shall 
 say they are not ?) to ring around the throne in the hea- 
 vens, among those who (better taught tlian we are in the 
 great lesson of the frailty and dependence of finite beings) 
 tremble in the consciousness of their own endless exis- 
 tence, and prostrating themselves before God, exclaim 
 " Thou art our Refuge and Strength : our Rock and 
 High Tower : in Thee will we be confident. What 
 time we are afraid we will trust in Thee. Yea, in the 
 name of our God will we set up our banners. Thy 
 throne, O God, is for ever and ever, and \ve, while press- 
 ing around the foot of it, are secure in bliss !" 
 . A blank promise of security is not that which the 
 Scriptures afford to those who receive the Gospel ; for the 
 " promise left us," sanctioned by the " oath of Him who 
 cannot lie," is made the vehicle of conveying to the hu-
 
 364 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 man race all the knowledge it can at present receive of 
 the ineffable constitution of the Divine Nature. The one 
 God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, is not made 
 known to us in the method of an independent revelation 
 of that high mystery ; but only in its relation to the re- 
 demption and ultimate security of man. This observable 
 fact (which gave occasion to the error of the Medalists and 
 Sebellians) involves a pregnant inference for the future 
 world ; and naturally leads to the supposition (or let it be 
 called conjecture) that the same mystery is hereafter to 
 evolve itself, to the apprehension of the redeemed, on the 
 same principle of its bearing upon their preservation. 
 As if the personal solicitude of the heirs of eternal life 
 or rather their sense of dependence and frailty, was to be 
 the special motive that should impel them intently to gaze 
 upon the Supreme Nature, and to watch its gradual 
 developements, that they may discern, more and more 
 clearly, the reasons, immutable, of their own safety. 
 
 The Supreme Nature, which includes all perfections 
 and elements of bliss, need not be conceived of as certain- 
 ly affording to any beings a full manifestation of its own 
 constitution. Nor perhaps would do so at all, if it were 
 not that this constitution has, in a special manner, been 
 involved in the destinies of some members of the intelli- 
 gent creation. May it distinctly be conjectured, or vaguely 
 surmised, that the occurrence of evil, and the DIVINE 
 ACTS consequent upon it, have served to bring forth from 
 the Eternal Bosom the long-hidden mystery of the Divine 
 Existence ? Shall it be lawful to think that, in suddenly 
 coming forth to the rescue of a fallen race, God became 
 manifest to the eyes of all intelligent orders, as heretofore 
 He had not been ; and that they then beheld the Infinite 
 Nature, in its essential distinction ?
 
 THE PERPETUITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 365 
 
 With more certainty it may be affirmed that the econ- 
 omy of human salvation has, to the human family, so 
 signalized the distinction of the Triune Nature, that it 
 will not again be lost sight of ; but rather will be more 
 and more evolved in the view of the redeemed race. 
 This at least may readily be supposed, that human minds 
 shall find all their sense of safety, and all the calmness of 
 their joy, to spring from their knowledge of the Great 
 Mystery, of which on earth they had received the rudi- 
 ments, and which heaven shall much more develope. 
 
 The greatest object must command the attention of all 
 who have it ia prospect. And where the Supreme Being 
 is sensibly present, He must fix upon himself every eye. 
 But shall it be so for ever ? Shall active and intelligent 
 natures, always advancing (and perhaps rapidly) in know- 
 ledge and in power of comprehension, at length attain to 
 such a maturity and completeness of conception, as to 
 leave nothing unfathomed, even in the Infinite Nature? 
 It seems at first sight almost difficult to believe the con- 
 trary ; for the faculties of knowledge are open to what 
 may be termed a law of geometrical progression ; every 
 argument is pregnant and multiplies itself by combination 
 with others. Our first thoughts might lead us thus to 
 suppose that the accumulations, both of knowledge and 
 of the power of comprehension, might at length (or must) 
 reach a climax and a pause. But more deliberate con- 
 sideration brings us to a different conclusion, which, if it 
 wmsl be summarily expressed in abstruse terms, neverthe- 
 less may be expanded by whoever will fix his mind upon 
 ihe subject Although the Divine Nature be not in any 
 sense mutable or progressive, its perfections do, as we see 
 come into relation with that which is both mutable and 
 progressive. In other words, there is going on now (and 
 
 33*
 
 366 SATURDAV EVENING. 
 
 we should believe always will be going on) an interaction 
 between the power, wisdom, and moral attributes of God, 
 on the one hand, and the finite and created system on the 
 other. It is by the fruits or products of this interaction 
 that the Divine Nature becomes cognizable ; and it might 
 be affirmed, almost as a demonstrable verity, that The 
 Infinite Perfections shall never have exhausted those com- 
 binations of which the finite and created system is suscep- 
 tible. If the works and dispensations of God are the 
 book ifl Ayhich intelligent beings are to read the character 
 pf the author, we may certainly aver, that the Commeir 
 tary shall never reach a close. And not merely is it true 
 that there shall be no end to the series of facts and events 
 of products, persons, revolutions ; and these always 
 various, so that there shall be an incessant streani of 
 novelties ; but (which is of far more consequence) all 
 such new products actors and destinies, shall be fresh 
 manifestations of the principles whence they proceed 
 further interpretations of the Divine Nature. 
 
 The intelligent and immortal nations, continually ac.- 
 cumulating their knowledge, and by means of these 
 accessions gaining more and more power of grasping the 
 principles of celestial wisdom, shall find, that the effect of 
 such advancement is only to give them a still more en- 
 larged conception of the immeasurable distance between 
 the creature and the Creator. It is so that the traveller 
 who ascends slowly the steep sides of the Andes, when, 
 stage after stage, he looks beneath and around him, and 
 gazes at each advance upon a wider horizon than before, 
 convinces himself that he is actually attaining a great 
 elevation above the common level of earth, whence he 
 started. And yet, when he looks upward to the starry 
 vault, and sees it now in all its amplitude, and through a
 
 THE PERPETUITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 367 
 
 more translucent medium, so as that more distinctly 
 than before he is conscious of the vastness and distance 
 of the heavenly system, his impression is not that he 
 is getting nearer to the stars ; but rather that, though 
 actually he rises, they are drawing back to a greater 
 remoteness, and are contemning his feeble efforts to climb 
 on high. 
 
 But how shall \ve at all conceive of that strange com- 
 mixture of sentiments, apparently incompatible, the one 
 with the other, which shall result, after the lapse of ex- 
 tended periods, from this vastly-augmented sense of the 
 Infinitude of God, on the one hand ; and from that sense, 
 on the other, of the lessening of the distance between the 
 created and the uncreated spirit, which (as before we have 
 observed) belongs to the full play of the devout affections ? 
 This inconceivable conflict or counterpoise, well deserves to 
 be thought of. And we may think of it though imperfect- 
 ly ; because it just makes itself felt in the present state. 
 Does there not sometimes arise a sort of pleasurable agony in 
 the heart, when intimate, and affectionate, and even ten- 
 der emotions of gratitude, and love, and complacency 
 (such as the Scriptures authenticate) are vividly combined 
 with ideas of the power, majesty, and incomprehensible 
 attributes of Him with whom thus we are conversing ? 
 How do these emotions enhance one the other, until the 
 frailty of the mind compels it to fall back to earth. And 
 shall it be, that both this affectionate approximation, and 
 this augmented sense of the remoteness of the Supreme 
 Being, are to go on together through the eras of eternity, 
 each more and more intense continually, and each 
 working upon its antagonist with greater force ! The 
 thought of a counterpoise like this, does it not well 
 exclude from our anticipation of endless life, all idea of 
 stagnation pr decay J
 
 XXIX. 
 UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 
 
 " Christ the Head of all Principality and Power." 
 
 LET such a state of things be distinctly conceived of as 
 would be produced among mankind if shall we say, a 
 thousand of the heroes and sages of antiquity men born 
 for domination, or born to instruct their fellows Cyrus, 
 Numa, Pythagoras, Themistocles, Coriolanus, Solon ; 
 Epaminondas, Hannibal, Scipio, Sylla ; Alexander, 
 Caesar, Trajan, with others subordinate, and fitted to be 
 the ministers of their power had enjoyed immortality on 
 earth from their own age to ours, and during the lapse cf 
 the intervening centuries had been in the midst of affairs, 
 and conversant with all revolutions ; in one era at the 
 summit of prosperity ; in another struggling with rever- 
 ses ; but always accumulating theoretic and practical 
 wisdom : that they had long ago thrown off, as a man 
 discards the follies of boyhood, the prejudices or unsound 
 principles of their early course ; had learned to concen- 
 trate all motives and passions upon the one great purpose 
 of securing to themselves the submission of mankind ; 
 had been, during all that time, so perfecting their know- 
 ledge of the laws of human affairs, as to enable them 
 almost infallibly to predict the course of events, and to 
 adapt their conduct to furturity, as if guided by an oracle 
 in every practical decision. 
 
 In what manner would our statesmen and captains 
 the men of ftiirty, fifty, or seventy years, beseem them-
 
 UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 369 
 
 selves in the society, and under the orders of the men of 
 twenty centuries? How would those who have had 
 experience of, perhaps, as many affairs as they could give 
 the history of in a day, sit in council with the Fathers of 
 empire, each of whose personal adventures would be more 
 voluminous than the entire bulk of our extant universal 
 history ? If there be indeed any general principles to 
 which the affairs of men and nations are conformed, and 
 if also these general principles are much entangled with 
 indirect or latent causes, then must an incalculable 
 advantage rest on the side of those whose actual know- 
 ledge and experience was, to that of other men, as fifty or 
 a hundred to one. It is hard to imagine any sort of com- 
 munion, or of combined agency, or any mutual good-will 
 and respect, among parties so immensely unequal. With 
 the seniors, the courtesies of conversation must have been 
 insincere mere affectations of sociality, a voluntary 
 humility, more mortifying to the juniors than open arro- 
 gance and contempt. With the juniors, silence arid 
 servility would have been the only mode of good sense : 
 manly independence must have seemed the most egregious 
 folly. Wisdom would rather be crushed in the germ, 
 than cherished in such society. 
 
 And yet what is it that we have to look to in the world 
 of immortality ? Are there no ancients in that world 
 no superiorities ? are we not infallibly told that it contains 
 Thrones Principalities, Powers ? Are there not probably 
 (nay can we believe otherwise) are there not, in that 
 world, a thousand servants of the Most High, who have 
 occupied posts of trust and honour at the right hand of 
 universal dominion, while sun and planets have been 
 running through their destined periods, and have vanish- 
 ed ? On this matter of fact the brief but intelligible notices
 
 370 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 of Revelation accord entirely with the suppositions of 
 sound reason. The Sadducean belief that man is the 
 only intelligent order in the creation or the most ancient 
 order, is an opinion very much on a level (as to its ab- 
 stract probability) with that of those sages who .deem the 
 stars and planets, the sun nnd the moon, to be nothing 
 more than spangles, or fiery points in our mundane firma- 
 ment. 
 
 Reason would indeed easily assent to the supposition 
 that tribes and orders immensely unequal in power and 
 knowledge, should keep to their several abodes, and 
 observe impassable intervals between rank and rank. 
 This would evade the difficulty. But the implied mean- 
 ing of certain scriptural phrases leads us to a different 
 belief namely, that man is to take no subaltern position 
 in the great world ; and on the contrary, is to come, on 
 terms of honour, into the highest communities. And the 
 principle which shall harmonize this system, is at once 
 seen, if it be assumed that when the Eternal World was 
 made flesh when He who was " before all things, and 
 in whom all things consist," humbled himself to the level 
 of mortality, and, " passing by the nature of angels," took 
 upon him a nature " somewhat lower," there was a pur- 
 pose involved which goes beyond the immediate results of 
 the propitiatory work of the Redeemer. So that when 
 his vicarious function shall have reached their completion, 
 the union of the Divine and human natures shall continue 
 to bear a relation to the social economy of the great im- 
 mortal family in the heavens, and shall for ever subsist, 
 as the principle, or the reason of communication and 
 harmony, among all ranks. 
 
 The mystery of redemption has fairly brought all sup- 
 positions within our range ; for the most amazing facts
 
 UNISON OP THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 371 
 
 must still be inferior to this. We may say then that, 
 when the Eternal Word took upon him the nature of 
 man, he embraced in one bond of love all intermediate 
 orders. Without annulling real and native inequalities, 
 without degrading the high, for the sake of the low, he 
 brought in a law of relationship, which at once obliges the 
 highest to recognise a dignity, in the lower, without pre- 
 sumption, to take the place assigned them. If analogies 
 or comparisons on such subjects did not spoil our concep- 
 tions as much as aid them, we might find illustrations in 
 the history and affairs of men, in some degree applicable 
 to our theme. But at least we may discover in our bosoms 
 a natural sentiment, that will aid the mind in conceiving 
 of the influence which the assumption of our nature by 
 the Divine nature, may exert, in familiarizing the human 
 spirit with other orders let them be lofty as they may. 
 Shall the elder and princely personages of the celestial 
 polity think it irksome to live as brethren with the race of 
 Adam? Shall they draw off to their privileged quarters, 
 and consort only with their peers ? This were to stand 
 aloof from the Throne , or to be distant from Him who is 
 the Visible Manifestation of the Invisible God. 
 
 And this great scheme may also serve to illustrate signal- 
 ly, in the view of all beings, the important truth That, 
 whoever is capable of knowing God, and whoever actually 
 loves Him, is therefore capable of any function, and 
 eligible to any dignity. What is there that may not be 
 known, comprehended, or achieved, by an intelligent agent 
 who has attained to intimate friendship with the Most 
 High ? What task is there too arduous to be confined to 
 those whom the Son of God calls his brethren and his 
 friends ? If human nature had, in its native construction, 
 lacked any capital element intellectual or moral, that is
 
 372 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 possessed by higher orders, it could not have admitted of 
 such an alliance as it has. But in the scheme of redemp- 
 tion, the original purpose of the Creator, when he said 
 " Let us make man. in our image," is at once ex- 
 pounded and authenticated, and it is seen that nothing 
 great or illustrious was to be denied him. 
 
 Once well harmonized by a principle so efficient as that 
 here spoken of, diversities of rank, power, office, and attain- 
 ment, existing within the same circle of intercourse, cannot 
 fail to be the source of pleasures and advancement. It is 
 so even on earth, and would be so in a vastly greater 
 degree, if malign and selfish passions were not in opera- 
 tion. Both arrogance and modesty operate as impedi- 
 ments to the expansion of faculties, where self-love is 
 pur-blind, and petulant. If men were jealous of no 
 rivalry ambitious of no exclusive praise in fear of no 
 misinterpretations fretted by no errors of estimation 
 encumbered by no diffidence (offspring of pride and in- 
 firmity) ; if, in a word, they were impelled always by the 
 simplest and the most DIRECT motives, the minds of all 
 would start up with a new energy, and move at another 
 rate, than heretofore. On the one hand, the spectacle of 
 signal instances of power and virtue, if the bosoms of all 
 were purged of envy, would furnish an exhilarating mo- 
 tive, that must at once strengthen and animate all minds : 
 just as the most invigorating warmth is produced on 
 the surface of the earth, not so much by the direct radiance 
 of the sun, as by the reverberation of his rays from the 
 sides of hills rocks edifices. 
 
 Neither is it in a small degree that the morbid sensitive- 
 ness of the selfish principle in the mass of mankind, gives 
 embarrassment to those who are conscious of superior 
 power. The native differences between man and man
 
 UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 373 
 
 are not great enough to break up the system of ostensible 
 equality. The law of equality is therefore maintained in 
 society, as a convenient means of avoiding the collisions 
 of self-love, and the contestations of arrogance and vanity. 
 By a conventional rule, all are to beseem themselves as if 
 all were on a par. But this figment, which draws its 
 reason from pride, imposes a real disadvantage upon those 
 who, in complying with it, have, if not to hold their per- 
 sonal advantages in abeyance, at least to assume a posture 
 which in fact makes the native stature of the mind to 
 cringe. Freed effectively from the feelings that arise from 
 this artificial equalization of mankind, how would all 
 powers spring into action ! 
 
 No such concealment or disadvantage shall belong to 
 the great community of heaven. Even if it were desira- 
 ble, it could not be effected, in a system which combines 
 inequalities a thousand times greater than any that are to 
 be found among men. But the disguise by which on 
 earth it is attempted to make all men seem on a par, will 
 not be needed in heaven ; for the blindness of self-love 
 will be dispelled ; the arrogance of ambition will not 
 exist ; nor will envy pine there. And- may we again 
 revert to the supposition that the presence and supremacy 
 of the INCARNATE WORLD shall operate among the diverse 
 and unequal orders as a special principle of harmony in 
 which the highest shall find more than motive enough for 
 moderation, and the lowest a motive (most peculiar) that 
 must dispel abject timidity. In Him " all things consist" 
 (things heavenly) who being exalted ''far above principal- 
 ities and powers," brings together, in the mystery of his 
 person, the least and the greatest ; the most recent, and 
 the most ancient of the intelligent tribes. 
 
 Of the heavenly edifice, still more emphatically than of 
 
 33
 
 374 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 the militant church, it may be affimed, that " Jesus is the 
 key-stone of the pediment, in whom all the structure duly 
 framed, increaseth to a holy temple even in the Lord." 
 Or the figure being changed " HE is the head, related to 
 which all the members are jointed together, and firmly 
 compacted ; so as that by rendering, according to their 
 several functions, mutual aid, the entire body continually 
 augments itself in power of love-" In the doctrine of the 
 human and divine nature of Christ we have an effective 
 principle of sociality among unequal orders ; and the more 
 we meditate on the subject, the more shall we see its fit- 
 ness to answer this purpose ; and the more be disposed to 
 think, that without it, no such communion would be 
 practicable. 
 
 At least to the human race the headship of the Incar- 
 nate Word must form the reason of an indissoluble union 
 among all the members. How probable may it seem, on 
 mere grounds of rational calculation, that the protracted 
 eras of eternal life might for ever separate those who, in 
 starting upon such a course, are prepared to move at vastly 
 different rates. So far as such an illustration is applica- 
 ble to the subject, it may be said that, while the lower 
 and physical powers of human nature are capable of 
 improvement or augmentation only at the rate of arith- 
 metical progression, its higher powers of knowledge, 
 intelligence and virtue are susceptible of geometrical 
 progression : that is to say, of increase and expansion 
 by working one upon the other, as well as by simple 
 accessions. The several intellectual and moral faculties 
 are to each other, when fully put in play, as multiplicator 
 and multiplicand ; and each new product is a new power 
 of acceleration. If so, every initial advantage is an in- 
 calculable one, when an endless series is in view. And
 
 UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 375 
 
 it may seem almost inevitable to believe that the difference 
 among the competitors, at a remote stage of their course, 
 will be immeasurably greater than it was at its commence- 
 ment. 
 
 How then shall these unequal velocities be kept in 
 harmony ? A difficult problem, unless we conceive of all 
 as performing their endless circuits around one and the 
 same Centre of Light. On this plan, the wider orbits, 
 always embracing the smaller, shall maintain unity and 
 neighbourhood. Of Him who is the centre of that system 
 it is said, that " the fulness of Deity dwells in him ;" 
 that " all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid 
 in him ;" so that He, standing incomparably above the 
 highest created minds, and yet condescending to maintain 
 familiar intercourse with the feeblest, shall hold all 
 extremes in amity. UNISON is the word which at oce 
 characterizes true religion, and describes the upper world. 
 And of this unison Christ is the principle, both in heaven 
 and on earth. Because in heaven " all things are subject 
 to the Son," heaven is happy : and on earth man is not 
 happy, because this is not the fact. And so within the 
 circle of the church there is peace, and joy, and the energy 
 of expansion, when the church is one in Christ : there 
 is dejection, and doubt, and a sickly or inefficient zeal, 
 when the honour which belongs to Him as the centre of 
 Love, is given to the idols of discord. 
 
 " From him every family* in heaven and earth is de- 
 nominated ;" pregnant words, which at once reveal the 
 
 * nsaa *arfh, not " the whole family ;" but " all tribes" or races. 
 The author is not ignorant that the predication (Ephes. iii. 15) is by 
 some attributed tothe Father ; but he must profess to hold with those 
 who assign it to the Son.
 
 376 SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 mysteries of the upper world, and are prophetic of the 
 future condition of mankind. It is even now true that 
 *' all in heaven" those who have reached their perfection 
 are bowing to that name, '' which is above every name ;'> 
 and true also, that the innumerable souls in waiting 
 around the " spiritual tabernacle," though gathered from 
 " many kindreds, and tribes," of earth, rejoice in Him 
 only whose " memorial is with them," whose NAME 
 contains the reason of their hope of the expected redemp- 
 tion of the body. 
 
 But in its reference to earth, this affirmation is antici- 
 pative, or prophetic, in two senses. It must receive its 
 completion, first, in the conversion of all tribes of men to 
 the faith of Christ ; and then in the utter and final 
 disappearance from the church of those villifying designa- 
 tions, which at present signalize the common appellative 
 Christian, only to defame it, by calling up the recol- 
 lection, either of corruptions or of strife. 
 
 It is indeed true that men nay multitudes, from all 
 the several stocks or distinctly characterised families of 
 mankind, have become, at some time in the course of 
 eighteen centuries, or are now members of the Christian 
 community ; and have, in their several tongues, invoked 
 the sacred name of Jesus, and have bore it as their glory 
 and opprobrium. Every generic form of human speech 
 (extant or extinct) has been consecrated as the medium of 
 prayer and praise, addressed to Him, of whom it is declar- 
 ed that, " all nations shall worship Him." But the first 
 fruits are not the harvest. And if we do not misinter- 
 pret the most significant and emphatic phrases, the era 
 shall come when, at one and the same time, men of every 
 colour and every dialect shall be called by the name of 
 Christ. Or may we suppose that, even this the best and 
 most comprehensive of all designations, shall then cease
 
 UNISON OP THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 377 
 
 to be thought of, because no longer distinctive, but univer- 
 sal ? By what order or means the mighty renovation 
 shall be effected, it does not belong to us confidently to 
 divine ; our part is to use with dilligence, such as are 
 actually in our power ; and incessantly to pray that these 
 means, or others, may speedily be made efficacious. 
 
 The second sense in which the glory of Christ, as 
 Head over all things, remains to be consummated on earth, 
 is in the final disappearance of all designations but the 
 one which his name confers : and who can doubt but 
 what the two are intimately connected ? This connexion 
 may be predicated in every form positively and negative- 
 ly : and in every form it is true. While the church was 
 one, Christianity spread ; or should we not say, burst 
 over the world, and gathered myriads of converts from 
 lands within and far beyond the limits of the Roman em- 
 pire. When Christians became factious when other 
 names than the name of Christ were called upon, then the 
 evangelical circle drew in apace: no more conquests were 
 made ; or they were conquests purely nominal ; and ere 
 long the fierce Avenger of the Lord's quarrel with his 
 church, breaking bounds!, sword in hand, from his sultry 
 Arabian sands, drave the distracted flock from field to 
 field, until the Christan name was near to be quite lost 
 from the world. 
 
 Nothing effectively was done to retrieve the honours of 
 the cross, or to carry the name of Christ beyond its re- 
 stricted circle, during the lapse of fourteen centuries. Not 
 even in that bright hour when truth broke at length from 
 its confinement ; not even then, when the great trumpet 
 of the Gospel was again loudly blown throughout Chris- 
 tendom, was any voice heard in the wilderness, or the 
 solitary places of the world, calling idolatrous men to sal-. 
 
 29*
 
 378 . SATURDAY EVENING. 
 
 vation. It was indeed a time of TRUTH ; but not of 
 LOVE ; and therefore, though a season of renovation, was 
 not one of enlargement. And because the church of that 
 day would not, or did not discharge its duty, in zealously 
 attempting to propagate the faith, but rather employed 
 itself in vain jangling, it was soon given up to the spirit 
 of discord ; and thence sank through the natural stages 
 of formality, and frivolity, and absurdity and unbelief. 
 
 The sudden reappearance, in our own times, of the 
 primitive zeal for evangelizing the world, has filled all 
 minds with the brightest expectations. And justly. But 
 the expectation is not infallible nay, may actually prove 
 itself fallacious. This very same holy and benevolent 
 desire to bring all men into the fold of Christ, has hereto- 
 fore existed in the highest imaginable vigour ; but after 
 gathering an abundant harvest, in a brief season, it died 
 away : the polytheistic world heard no more of the 
 Gospel, century after century. In the course of a thou- 
 sand years scarcely a single light was carried into the 
 centre"of the gross darkness that covered the earth ; or if 
 carried, was soon extinguished. 
 
 Shall we then learn nothing from the contemplation of 
 such a course of events? Shall we fear nothing when 
 we have proof before us, that the principles of the Divine 
 government actually admit of the long-continued and 
 almost total withdrawment of efficacious influence from 
 the church 1 Shall we take no warning when a lesson 
 like this is drawn out at large in our view, and we see 
 that the Lord adheres to a system of PUBLIC .RETRIBU- 
 TION, in His conduct towards his people, as a body ; and 
 that when they refuse to hearken to his voice in capital 
 matters, He retires, as if in grief, to the recesses of the 
 invisible state, and though he preserves the spark of piety
 
 UNISON OF THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY. 379 
 
 on earth from extinction will do no more ? Was it not 
 in fact thus, from the sixth to the sixteenth century ? 
 
 And did there not follow another wkhdrawment of 
 Divine agency from the church at large, soon after the 
 age of the Reformation ? That was a time in which 
 Christians might have returned to the simplicity of charity 
 and fervour ; but they did not : and He whose commands 
 were slighted drew back. 
 
 It is now confidently believed on all hands that no such 
 punitive abandonment of the church is any more to be 
 feared. But on what does this confidence rest ? There 
 are two grounds on which it might rest with some degree 
 of assurance. Of these the first would be the fact of an 
 open, and unquestionable prevalence, throughout the pro- 
 testant communities, of a spirit of contrition, on account, 
 both of the corruptions and the discords that exist, and 
 have so long existed, within them ; together with a cor- 
 dial expression of willingness to make, or admit, all ne- 
 cessary reforms ; and especially a hearty desire to compose 
 all feuds. Is this then the actual state of things ? And 
 is this the source of the confidence we indulge, that the 
 Lord will not again withdraw Himself from his church ? 
 Alas ! dare we profess h ? 
 
 The second source from which such an expectation 
 might be drawn, would be, the indubitable import of the 
 prophetic Scriptures, declaring that, notwithstanding all 
 appearances of an opposite kind, the " bright appear- 
 ance of the Lord drew nigh." But is our argument 
 settled, and our path ascertained on this ground ? None 
 but the most presumptuous will say so. Even without 
 controverting any of the best established conclusions of 
 modern prophetical exposition, there is room for the sup- 
 position that Christianity, may yet have to sustain a signal
 
 380 SATURDAY 1 EVENING. 
 
 reverse ; and once more be driven in upon its very centre. 
 
 Without pretending to deny that a far more agreeable 
 supposition may be entertained, it may be surmised, as 
 not altogether improbable That after the several reform- 
 ed communities, in the old and the new world, have 
 enjoyed their now current term of reanimation a term 
 fast running out, and have distinctly been called to re- 
 pentance, and have deliberately refused to give heed to 
 that call, and have replied " We need not will not do 
 otherwise than we do ; or than our fathers have done" 
 that then the fatal decree shall go out ; not audible 
 indeed by mortal ears ; but certain enough in its effects. 
 Unbelief, and secularity, and strife, shall rush abroad, and 
 make an easy conquest. Perhaps the work of devastation 
 may be consummated by temporal judgments, and the 
 enemies of the Gospel may be looking every moment for 
 its expulsion from the world. 
 
 Meanwhile, in some new quarter, where the soil is yet 
 unbroken, the imperishable seed shall be seen to have 
 fallen into " good ground," and shall rapidly spring up, 
 and the religion of Christ appear in its glory, and put on 
 colours that are not to fade. The Lord himself shall 
 " plant in the wilderness" the beauty of Paradise : and 
 shall " set in the desert" the verdure of heaven ; " and 
 the nations shall see and know, and consider, and under- 
 stand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this J 
 and the Holy One of Israel hath created it | ?> . 
 
 THE END.
 
 
 
 
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