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is not fitted to discern or appreciate,—and let us see to what it leads. It follows immediately, that in calling upon us to obey the Gospel, our Maker requires us to act, not by our rational powers, but without them, and even contrary to them, since to act under the influence of motives which we do not understand, is evidently contrary to the clearest dictates of common sense. We represent our Maker then as commanding reasonable creatures to act unreasonably. Is this possible? To have been created with rational powers is the peculiar distinction and glory of mankind, and to bring our rational powers into exercise is the tendency of all God's natural and providential arrangements. Can it then be supposed, that in our most important concerns, he means to degrade us from the elevation he has given us; and that although we are to make use of our understanding in every thing else, in reference to our highest capacity and our eternal destiny, we are to act the part of irrational creatures? To imagine that he who gave men reason for their guide, should thus call upon them to act in violation of it, must be deemed surely nothing less than absurd!

pp. xv. xvi.

The common source of error on the subject, arises from a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Divine influence, or the office and work of the Holy Spirit. The all important declarations of the Scriptures, so often repeated, respecting the necessity of Divine instruction, are misinterpreted as if that supernatural assistance must in some way suspend the exercise of our natural powers. Instead of the real humiliation which the Scripture statement suggests, and ought to produce, even the shame of our proneness to abuse the gifts of God, the attempt is unhappily made to disparage those gifts themselves. Indignation is directed, not against the disorders induced by sin, but against that for which, whatever may be our pretence, we certainly cannot blame ourselves, even the very constitution of our nature. error is thus exposed in the work before us:

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It would be a very strange and unwarrantable view of his work (that of the Holy Spirit), however, if it were to be affirmed that, whereas God had made us with rational powers, he had sent his Spirit to supersede them. In truth the whole aim of the Spirit's operation is to induce a right employment of our rational faculties. His office is to open the heart, that we may attend to the things which concern our peace; to give an effectual impulse to consideration; in a word, to engage the exercise of common sense on religious subjects-an effort from which men are otherwise withheld by passion and prejudice in a thousand forms. The work thus allotted to the Divine Spirit is a vast and all-important one; and the condition that the whole system of divine truth shall in itself be fitted to the common sense of mankind, far from being out of keeping with it, is indispensable to the congruity and success of his operations.'-pp. xiv. xv.

Let it then but be understood what reason is,—that it is not feeling, prejudice, the chain of judgements true or false, already

in the mind,--not even the limited demonstrations of the metaphysician, nor the deductions of natural science, but that allcommanding attribute of mind, by which, from whatever source, or of whatever kind may be the evidence, we judge of the truth of facts, or the harmony of moral relations ;—and there can be no danger in its application to any part of religious doctrine or of revealed requirement; the peril is in the contrary assumption. To employ the term with a vulgar vagueness, and then to admit its incompatibility with faith, is but to arm the enemy, and to betray the noblest cause which ever claimed the homage of mankind.

But we must leave this ably written preface, pervadingly ex-tensive and important as is the principle which it successfully defends;-not, however, without recommending its salutary warn-ings to the attention of those readers who may have been beguiled. by an affectedly spiritual, but fatally erroneous mode of speaking on the subject; entreating them at the same time, not to suffer a sentence or two of the Author's rather dashing condemnation of his fellow ministers, to rouse their prejudice, or to impair their judgement on the general question.

The first Essay is on the fundamental principle of religion, the basis of all we have to hope or fear, the existence of God.. Momentous as is this subject, and just as every man must feel to be the Psalmist's censure, that it is " the fool who says in his heart, no God;" yet it is a melancholy fact, that Theists, in their manner of treating this great question, seem to have done all that can be done to furnish at least a plausible excuse for that folly. So little harmony and consistency exist in their writings, that, considering them as a body, they seem to have endeavoured to the utmost to demolish every kind of evidence. Scarcely has a single champion of late entered the field of argument, who might not be supposed to have felt it to be his first duty, to destroy the credit of his coadjutors. He must himself be the only trusty guide, and his favourite kind of proof must be without a rival.

One class of Theologians affirm, that all our knowledge of the being of God must be derived immediately from Revelation: another, among whom is the Author before us, asserts, that no such fact is revealed in the Scriptures.

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It is,' he says, with the most perfect propriety and with the most admirable wisdom, that God has no where in his word asserted his own existence. Aware that, in order to speak with effect, he should be known before he speaks, he spreads his works before us, as a sufficient and a complete demonstration of his existence, entirely apart from his word. To vindicate his claim to be, he leaves to the heavens which declare his glory, and to the firmament which sheweth forth his handy work, to the days which utter knowledge, and to the nights which proclaim wisdom.'

The Rev. Alexander Crombie, D.D., attacks the metaphysical arguments of Clarke; and the Rev. A. Norman, B. A., with similar zeal, denies the relevancy of any part of the principles on which Dr. Crombie builds the fabric of his reasoning. When will Rev. Gentlemen cease thus unwittingly to play the cards of the Atheist? Is it in them a worthy ambition, to shew with how much superior skill and energy they can perform the work of the enemy? Is there any department of nature or science in which the proofs of the Divine existence do not press around us? Are they not as diversified in kind, as there are classes of mental structure, habit, or taste amongst our species? The argument which works with mighty energy in the bosom of this man, may be but feebly discerned by that, while yet it may be quite as just and forcible as the favoured one by which his neighbour is impressed. One, however, thinks he honours his intellect, and forwards his cause, by exploding Des Cartes; another by repudiating Clarke. This writer will have no à priori proof: that rejects entirely the à posteriori argument, as built, he tells us, only upon an unsupported analogy between the works of nature and those of man. A fifth will have it, that when we even examine other evidence, we dishonour Revelation; and the sixth declares that Revelation, from the first, assumes this fundamental fact. It is with pain that we make these observations; but surely the time is come, when those who would not betray the happiness and hope of man, must look beyond their personal fame, must suspend their skirmishing with each other, and honourably combine their efforts in the common cause. Comparing the evidences, as they now stand in the works even of Divines, for the all-momentous truth of the Being of God, they are absolutely neutralized ;each one class of those Reverend advocates denying the premises of the other classes, until the sum of all is mere nihility. What a humiliating proof of human weakness!

Yet, after all the misdirected efforts of our public writers against each other, and the hazy obscurity which, in consequence, they have succeeded in throwing round this fundamental truth, it will at last be found, that our glorious Maker has not left himself without witness;-that he has taken ample care, in our very constitution, to prevent the end of man, which is to know, to honour, and to enjoy him, from being finally frustrated, without laborious efforts on our parts to undo ourselves. On the leading points, the being of God, his government, and our accountability, no more is necessary than simply to trust, that convictions the most spontaneous, intimate, and primary, are not fallacious; and so trusting, whatever the medium of contemplation, we shall feel and know the truth. Call these convictions, the dictates of common sense, or give them any other appellation, they are manifestly too powerful and peremptory to be rejected, without unhumanizing our whole nature, and leaving us to be the pitiable

sport of every vain surmise. Short and unelaborate, therefore, as is the first essay in this volume, and notwithstanding he has selected as its basis, the very argument which Crombie has repudiated, repudiated, in fact, for want of logical form, rather than for deficiency of solid strength;-yet, the Author has so lodged in the bosom of the reader, the conclusion at which he aims, that no unsophisticated understanding can resist its force.

The second essay is on the Capacity of Man;—a most important subject, involving essentially the principles of moral accountability. Every man feels the difficulty of escaping from the sentiment that he is accountable, and in the affairs of life infallibly experiences the fact; but the "darkeners of counsel" have here also been most mischievously active in their efforts to weaken its power in relation to God, and to the claims of religion.

The least observant of mankind cannot but perceive the influence of external things upon his thoughts, feelings, and character; nor less does every man discover a strong reluctance in his heart, to be controlled by considerations of what is holy, just, and good. These perceptions are in very lively and frequent exercise, and therefore trongly operate on our opinions respecting the constitution of our mental nature. For the artful corrupter of his fellow-men, to seize on these advantages of attack on the moral principle, is according to the common course of human depravity; and for the indolent, the superficial, and the willing victim to become his dupe, an almost necessary consequence. Hence the welcome error, that man is altogether the creature of circumstances, not unfrequently propounded with much complacency of seeming wisdom; and hence the unguarded dogmas of the vulgar theologians on the incapacity of man to perform the requirements of his Maker. Admit, however, these facile maxims, and it is plain that our ideas of guilt and virtue become uselessly indistinct; moral obligation, not only a mystery but a contradiction; religion itself, where it exists, a happy accident, and the want of it, at most, a pitiable misfortune.

The Scriptures, in their exhortations, warnings, threatenings, denounce these strange conclusions; but, amidst the din of spurious metaphysicians and conceited theologues, the voice of Scripture is inaudible. The religionists, indeed, some from dulness of the apprehensive faculty, and some, even from simple, but uninstructed piety, imagine that they have Scripture on their side. The former, quoting a few figurative passages as if they were plain descriptive representations, with confidence maintain that man is really but a moving corpse, is actually dead, though seemingly alive; and the latter adopt the cheat, because they have formed the notion, that, in depriving man of his capa

VOL. IX.-N.S.

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cities, they humble him, and honour Grace. These eager humblers of mankind do not discern the fact, that, however proud of intellect, men are but little wont to be proud of accountability. The more you make them irresponsible, the more you minister to pride; nor can you so effectually accomplish this result, as by allowing them the fond delusion, that, possessing what they may beside, they are incapacitated to obey the will of God. They feel at once the irrefragable consequence, that their not doing what they literally cannot do, can never press their consciences with guilt. Morally to humble us, we must feel the defect to be, where in truth it is, not in power, but in will; in inclination, not in incapacity. The difference, often overlooked, is clearly between want of power for merely mental, and for moral acts: to be made conscious of the former, is naturally humiliating; to imagine the latter, is the very relief to which depravity will gladly Level but moral distinctions, and every passion, pride amongst the rest, will wanton in its license. Power for moral acts, of which we speak, is not to be confounded, however, with inclination, or a disposition to obey; it obviously means, ability of every kind the case requires, except that disposition; power such, that, were we so disposed, nothing would obstruct our actual obedience. Of this, we are always in the Scriptures regarded as in full possession; and nothing can be more demonstrable, than that, without it, we cannot be the subjects of accountability.

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But the fallacies above described, the pseudo-philosophic inference that man is but the creature of circumstances; and the dictum of mongrel theology, that, through the sin of Adam, human nature has lost the capacity as well as the disposition to obey and honour God, are, in this Essay, exposed and condemned. Nor can we omit to state that, in the judicious omission of the epithets moral and natural, added to ability, employed by most of our Divines, the discussion has an advantage in perspicuity and therefore in effect. While awarding this praise, however, we must remark, that there is one omission, in our view important, to which we shall have occasion, in a future part of this article, particularly to advert.

The third Essay, on Divine Revelation, calls for no further remark, than that, with conciseness and perspicuity, the Author has given in it, a selection from the proofs of the sacred origin and authority of the Scriptures, with some general observations on objections against its claims, and on the difficulties with which it stands connected. To enter at large upon this subject would have been inconsistent with the principal design, while enough is stated to satisfy a candid inquirer, and more than enough for an unbeliever ever to be able to refute.

In the succeeding Essay, on the Revealed Character of God,

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