acknowledge a First Cause; his dearest wish is immortality: Christianity comes but to second the dictates of his better self, and to give a sanction to his hopes; but with this advantage, that he whose mind has not been enough cultivated to reason out a foundation for these hopes, or to argue man's duties from his nature, finds plain precepts for his guidance which embody all and somewhat more than philosophy could have taught him:-if this system be not divine, at any rate had the Deity given a revelation to man, he could have given no other.

It will be my endeavor not to show how the one truth which forms the centre of both the authoritative and philosophical systems will be reflected back from each in turn, so as to throw light upon the other; and if, in so doing, I may set at rest some few of the angry feelings which are too apt to prevail on subjects where they are the most misplaced, if but one heart should learn to feel with me that where all are eagerly looking for the truth, that circumstance ought to make us rather friends than enemies, and that the path we take matters far less than the place we are going too ;-I shall have at least one cheering thought to go with me to my grave, brightening my path as all else grows darker.

THEOLOGY.

ONE of the most fruitful sources of angry diseussions on this subject on the one hand, and idle scoffs on the other, has been the disposition so prevalent among men, to a species of Anthropomorphism in their notions of the Deity; for though all will not go the length of the Egyptian monks who nearly murdered their bishop for endeavoring to persuade them that God had not actual hands and feet, as they alleged they found written in the Scripture, yet many would go nearly that length with him who should dare to assert that God has no more of the vindictive passions than of the bodily form of a man. Yet we must see clearly that one is nearly as absurd a fancy as the other, if we consider that a pure spiritual existence has no individuality but in will, and purpose, and feeling; and that therefore any of those changes in mood which are in truth a part of the animal nature of man would be equivalent to a change of individuality in the Deity; for a change of purpose is a change of person, where there is no animal nature to create or suffer that change. Philosophy asserts this, so does Christianity; in God "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," yet men in all ages have misapprehended a few eastern hyperboles in the language of the Scripture, till they have made a Deity for themselves such as we should not select, even for a human friend. "I defy you to say so hard a thing of the devil," said John Wesley, when speaking of Whitfield's doctrine of Reprobation; yet

Wesley was not free from the prevailing anthropomorphism himself.

The very first step, then, if we would wish either to understand what is predicated of the Deity in our Scriptures, or to know how we ourselves stand with regard to this exterior power, whose will evidently must control us something in the same way that the parent controls the child, is, to ascertain what are the necessary conditions of eternity and self-existence, for it is in vain to say that the Deity is utterly beyond the reach of our reasoning faculties. We can conceive eternity, we can conceive self-existence; every strong and cultivated mind that has turned its attention to these subjects knows this; though it is one of those parts of individual consciousness which admits no other proof than the feeling that we can. We can conceive,-that is, though unable to comprehend, (using the word in its sense of the entire grasping of a subject,) we can apprehend, or reach to and lay hold on, the great features of the case :-we can arrive in thought at an approximation to the nature of an immaterial existence, though we cannot fathom all its depths; and that we can do so is perhaps one of the strongest, though least conspicuous proofs that we have a sort of imperfect specimen within us of what immaterial existence is; for experience shows that man is unable to conceive what he has no exemplar of. The wildest imagination, while endeavoring to form a monster, has never done more than take dis-jointed parts of known things, and put them together. The essence of eternity and of self-existence is, that it is boundless, for, as I have already observed, if we suppose any other like power, we must either suppose a difference, or an agreement of individual will and purpose; if a difference, then

*

there must be discord and destruction: if agreement, then, as there are no bodily parts to prevent entire union, there is an amalgamation, and the power is one; one, in its individuality, that is,-but-as some ancient Christian philosophers have well observed, -not necessarily one in its parts or functions, since the individuality, the wisdom, and the actively exerted will, are distinct principles appertaining to the same essence for it is clear that the individuality might exist for ever without any active exertion, yet the power of exertion is in it, and capable of being manifested at any time; and though the individuality, the wisdom, and the exerted will, are distinct parts or functions of the one self-existent Being, they are necessary consequences of each other, and being each perfect, can be susceptible of no change; for the knowledge which directs the will being entire, the choice consequent upon it must be always the same; nor can there be any other essential part or function affirmed of the eternal self-existent Being than these three: all the rest must be mere negatives consequent on them. Thus God cannot be mistaken in the means to an end, or find his purpose changed by unexpected circumstances; because perfect knowledge forbids both. Nor can God suffer pain or grief, because either the one or the other results from the action of some force, exterior and superior to the being so suffering; a thing which perfect power equally forbids.

Again, there can be no distinction of past or future with the Deity. Man measures time by the revolu

* The mere English reader is not aware, and even some scholars scarcely consider that the term λcyos, which in the Gospel of St. John is translated "Word," has the meaning in the Greek of the "Reasoning Power," or "Wisdom in active operation."

tions of the earth, and by his own waxing and waning powers. Give him an eternal day and an unaltered body, what then will be his past and future? The past is what he has done and knows, the future what he has not yet done, and therefore does not know but the Deity knows all, where then is his distinction of time? To him it is one unbounded present, and all the events of the world, no less than its component parts, lie spread before him as in a map; save that our map only represents material objects, whereas it is the mind of man which the Deity looks through,-sees the motives which operate there, and bends the events of nature so far to control the actions resulting from them, as to make even evil intentions conducive to some good end. It is an earthly and a human notion which figures to itself the Deity arranging the affairs of the world by patching here, and mending there, as if any event could take the Creator by surprise. And here arises the question which has been repeated through all ages, "Why, then, is there evil? Why is there suffering in the world?" for if an all-powerful Deity sees and permits, it is equivalent to the causing it. Even in human law, the man who stands by and sees a murder committed, without endeavoring to prevent it, is held a party to the crime.

The answer to this is to be found in the nature of the beings in question. There is one thing which even to the Deity is impossible. The self-existent cannot make another self-existent, and what is not self-existent is bounded; for there is an antecedent and a greater power: and what is bounded is imperfect; for there is something which it does not know, and therefore it can commit errors. Now experience shows us that there is no happiness but in voluntary action: minerals have chemical affinities