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as plants from the soil. Indeed the growth of plants themselves clearly evinces a cause superior to any vegetative power which can be supposed inherent in the earth. No plant, from the sturdy oak to the creeping ivy, can be propagated but by seed or slips from the parent stock; but, when one contemplates the regular process of vegetation, the existence of every plant implies the prior existence of a parent seed, and the existence of every seed the prior existence of a parent plant. Which then of these, the oak or the acorn, was the first, and whence was its existence derived? Not from the earth; for we have the evidence of universal experience that the earth never produces a tree but from seed, nor seed but from a tree. There must therefore be some superior power which formed the first seed or the first tree, planted it in the earth, and gave to it those powers of vegetation by which the species has been propagated to this day.

Thus clearly do the processes of generation and vegetation indicate a power superior to those which are usually called the powers of nature. The same thing appears no less evident from the laws of attraction and repulsion, which plainly prevail through the whole system of matter, and hold together the stupendous structure. Experiment shows that very few particles of the most solid body are in actual contact with each other; and that there are considerable interstices between the particles of every elastic fluid is obvious to the smallest reflection. Yet the particles of solid bodies strongly cohere, whilst those of elastic fluids repel each other. How are these phenomena accounted for? To say that the former is the effect of attraction, and the latter of repulsion, is only to say that two individual phenomena are subject to those laws which prevail through the whole of the classes under which they are respectively arranged; whilst the question at issue is concerning the origin of the laws themselves, the power which makes the particles of gold cohere, and those of air repel each other. Power without substance is inconceivable; and, by a law of human thought, no man can believe a being to operate but where it is in some manner or other actually present: but the particles of gold adhere, and the particles of air keep at a distance from each other, by powers exerted where no matter is present. There must therefore be some substance endowed with power which is not material.

Of this substance or Being the power is evidently immense. The earth and other planets are carried round the sun with a velocity which human imagination can hardly conceive. That this motion is not produced by the agency of these vast bodies on one another, or by the interposition of any material fluid, has been shown elsewhere; and, since it is a law of our best philosophy that we are not to multiply substances without necessity, we must infer that the same Being which formed the first animals and vegetables, endowing them with powers to propagate their respective kinds, is likewise the cause of all the phenomena of nature, such as cohesion, repulsion, elasticity, and motion, not excepting even the motions of the heavenly bodies themselves. If this powerful Being, who is the pa

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rent of vegetable and animal life, and the source of all corporeal motions, be self-existent, intelligent, and independent in his actions and volitions, he is an original or first cause, and that Being whom we denominate God. If he be not self-existent and independent, there must be a cause in the order of nature prior and superior to him, which is either itself the first cause, or a link in that series of causes and effects, which, however vast we suppose it, must be traced ultimately to some one Being, who is self-existent, and has in himself the power of beginning motion, independent of every thing but his own intelligence and volition. In vain the Atheists allege that the series may ascend infinitely, and for that reason have no first mover or cause. An infinite series of successive beings involves an absurdity and contradiction.

To such reasoning it has been objected, 'Why, if the Author of Nature be a benevolent Being, are we necessarily subject to pain, diseases, and death? Our reply to this is, Because from these evils Omnipotence itself could not in our present state exempt us, but by a constant series of miracles. The world is governed by general laws, without which there could be among men neither arts nor sciences. As long as we have material and solid bodies capable of motion, liable to resistance from other solid bodies, supported by food, subject to the agency of the air, and divisible, they must necessarily be liable to change, it would seem, if not to pain, disease, corruption, and death. Sickness, pain, and the dread of death, certainly now serve the best purposes. Could a man be put to death, or have his limbs broken, without feeling pain, the human race had long ago been extinct. If we felt no uneasiness in a fever, we should be insensible to the disease, and die before we suspected our health to be impaired. The horror which generally accompanies our fear of death tends to make us careful of life, and prevents us from quitting this world rashly. Thus, from every view that we can take of the works and laws of God, and even from considering the objections which have sometimes been made to them, we are compelled to acknowledge the benevolence of their Author.

The substance or essence of this self-existent, all-powerful, infinitely wise, and perfectly good Being, is to us wholly incomprehensible. That it is not matter, is shown by the process of argumentation by which we have proved it to exist; but what it is we know not. It is sufficient for all the purposes of religion to know that God is somehow or other present to every part of his works; that existence and every possible perfection is essential to him; and that he wishes the happiness of all his creatures. From these truths we might proceed to prove and illustrate the perpetual superintendance of his providence, both general and particular, over every the minutest part of the universe. See PROVIDENCE. SECT. II.-OF THE DUTIES AND SANCTIONS OF NATURAL RELIGION.

But from the short view we have taken of the divine perfections, it is evidently our duty to reverence in our minds the self-existent Being to

whom they belong. He who has considered seriously the power, the wisdom, and the goodness, displayed in the works of God, must be convinced that he has no imperfection; that his power can accomplish every thing which involves not a contradiction; that his knowledge is intuitive, and free from the possibility of error; and that his goodness extends to all without partiality. With silent gratitude and devotion glowing in the breast of the contemplative man, he will be careful not to form even a mental image of that all-perfect Being to whom they are directed; for he knows that God is not material. The man who has any notion of the perfections of the supreme Being will never speak lightly of him, or make use of his name at all but on great and solemn occasions. Whether worship is a fruit of natural religion is a point of dispute; but no doubts can be entertained as to the foundation of moral virtue. Reason clearly perceives it to be the will of our Maker that every individual of the human race should treat every other individual as, in similar circumstances, he could justly expect to be treated himself. It is thus only that the greatest sum of human happiness can be produced.

There are few questions of greater importance, than What are the sanctions by which natural religion enforces obedience to her own laws?' Natural religion, as a system of doctrines influencing the conduct, is exceedingly defective in this point, unless it afford sufficient evidence, intelligible to every ordinary capacity, of the immortality of the soul, or at least of a future state of rewards and punishments. That it does afford this evidence is strenuously maintained by some deists, and even by many philosophers, who profess Christianity. One great argument made use of to prove that the immortality of the soul is among the doctrines of natural religion, is the universal belief of all ages and nations that men contine to live in some other state, after death has separated their souls from their bodies. Hence it is argued omnium consensus naturæ vox est. But there appears not to be any proof of that doctrine being the deduction of human reasoning. The popular belief of Paganism, both ancient and modern, is so fantastic and absurd, that it could never have been rationally inferred from what nature teaches of God and the soul.

To us who know, by stronger evidence, that the soul is immortal, and that there will be a future state in which all the obliquities of the present shall be made straight, the argument drawn from the moral attributes of God, and the unequal distribution of the good things of this life, appears to have the force of demonstration. Yet none of us will surely pretend to say, that his powers of reasoning are greater than were those of Socrates and Cicero; and therefore the probability is, that, had we been like them destitute of the light of revelation, we should have been disturbed by the same doubts.

But were the arguments which the light of nature affords for the immortality of the human soul as absolutely convincing as any geometrical demonstration-natural religion would still be defective; because it points out no method by

which such as have offended God may be certainly restored to his favor. This is the grand theme and object of revealed religion, or theology; and to this, therefore, we now turn with gratitude. These Scriptures it is now our busi

ness to examine.

PART II.

OF REVEALED THEOLOGY. SECT. I.-OF THE DIVISIONS OF THEOLOGY. Artificial systems of theology are commonly divided into two great parts, the theoretic and the practical; and these again are subdivided into many inferior branches. Under the theoretic part are sometimes classed

1. Dogmatic theology; which comprehends an entire system of all the dogmas or tenets which a Christian is bound to believe and profess. The truth of these the divine must clearly perceive, and be able to enforce upon his audience; and hence the necessity of studying what is called

2. The exegesis, or the art of attaining the true sense of the Holy Scriptures; and,

3. Hermeneutic theology, or the art of interpreting and explaining the Scriptures to others; an art of which no man can be ignorant who knows how to attain the true sense of them himself.

4. Polemical theology, or controversy; and,

5. Moral theology, which is distinguished from moral philosophy, or the simple doctrine of ethics, by teaching a much higher degree of moral perfection than the mere light of reason could ever have discovered, and adding new motives to the practice of virtue.

The practical sciences of the divine are1. Homiletic, or pastoral theology; which teaches him to adapt his discourses from the pulpit to the capacity of his hearers, and to pursue the best methods of guiding them by his doctrine and example in the way of salvation.

2. Catechetic theology, or the art of teaching youth and ignorant persons the principal points of evangelical doctrine, as well with regard to belief as to practice.

cides on doubtful cases of moral theology, and 3. Casuistic theology, or the science which dethat calms the scruples of conscience which arise in the Christian's soul during his journey through the present world. We have mentioned these divisions and subdivisions of the science of theology, not because we think them important, but merely that our readers may be at no loss to understand the terms when they meet with them in other works. Of such terms we shall ourselves make

no use.

SECT. II.-OF GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.

But before we compare the creation of the world, and what the Scripture says of it, with the opinions of the most enlightened ancients on the same subject, it will be proper to attend to the appellation which the Jewish historian at once gives to God; and enquire what light is thrown upon it by subsequent revelations. The passage in the original is ' * ', where it is emarkable that the Creator is denominated by a noun in the plural number. This is cer

tainly a very extraordinary denomination for the ONE supreme and self-existent Being; and what adds to the strangeness of the phraseology is, that the verb with which this plural noun is made to agree is put in the singular number. What now could be the sacred historian's motive for expressing himself in this manner? His style is in general remarkable for its plainness and grammatical accuracy; and we believe it would be difficult to find in all his five books a single phrase not relating to the Supreme Being in which there appears such a violation of con. cord. To this it has been replied that Moses uses the plural noun to express in a magnificent way the majesty of God, just as it is customary for kings and earthly potentates, when publishing edicts and laws, to call themselves we and us. But there is no evidence on record that such a mode of speaking was introduced among kings at a period so early as the era of Moses. Let it be observed, too, that whenever this phraseology was introduced among men, the plural noun was in every grammatical tongue joined to a plural verb; whereas Moses not only puts the noun and the verb in different numbers in the verse under consideration, but afterwards represents the D'n as saying, let us make man in our image;' and, behold the man is become as one of us.' Such phrases as these last were never used by a single man, and therefore cannot have been borrowed from human idioms.

It will not be here contended, that the word indicates a plurality of gods. In the opinion, however, of many eminent divines, it denotes, by its junction with the singular verb, a plurality of persons in the one Godhead; and some few have contended that, by means of this peculiar construction, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity may be proved from the first chapter of the book of Genesis. To this latter opinion we can by no means give our assent. That there are three distinct persons in the one divine nature may be inferred with sufficient evidence, from a multitude of passages in the Old and New Testaments diligently compared together; but it would be rash to rest the proof of so sublime a mystery upon any single text of Holy Scripture, and would certainly be so to rest it upon the text in question. That Moses was acquainted with this doctrine, we, to whom it has been explicitly revealed, may reasonably conclude from his so frequently making a plural name of God to agree with a verb in the singular number: but, had we not possessed the brighter light of the New Testament to guide us, we should never have thought of drawing such an inference. For supposing the word on to denote clearly a plurality of persons, and that it cannot possibly signify any thing else, how could we have known that the number is neither more nor less than three, had it not been ascertained to us by subsequent revelations?

There are indeed various passages in the Old Testament of the phraseology of which no rational account can be given, but that they indicate more than one person in the Godhead. Such are those texts already noticed; and the Lord God said, let us make man in our image after our

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likeness; and the Lord God said, behold the man is become like one of us.' To these may be added the following, which are to us perfectly unintelligible upon any other supposition; and the Lord God said, let us go down, and there confound their language.' If I be a master (in the Hebrew adonim, masters), where is my fear? The fear of the Lord (Jehovah) is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy (in the Hebrew holy ones) is understanding.' Remember thy Creator (Hebrew thy Creators) in the days of thy youth.' And now the Lord God and his spirit hath sent me.' 'Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read; for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.' That these texts imply a plurality of divine persons seems to us incontrovertible. But how, it will be asked, can three divine persons be but one and the same God? This is à question which has been often put, but which, we believe, no created being can fully answer. The divine nature and its manner of existence is to us wholly incomprehensible; and we might with greater reason attempt to weigh the mountains in a pair of scales, than by our limited faculties to fathom the depths of infinity. The Supreme Being is present in power to every portion of space, and yet it is demonstrable that in his essence he is not extended. Both these truths, his inextention and omnipresence, are fundamental principles in what is called natural religion; and when taken together they form, in the opinion of most people, a mystery as incomprehensible as that of the Trinity in unity. Indeed there is nothing of which it is more difficult for us to form a distinct notion than unity simple, and absolutely indivisible; and we are persuaded that such of our readers as have been accustomed to turn their thoughts inwards, and reflect upon the operations of their own minds, will acknowledge the difficulty is not much less to them. Though the Trinity in unity, therefore, were no Christian doctrine, mysteries must still be believed; for they are as inseparable from the religion of nature as from that of revelation; and atheism involves the most incomprehensible of all mysteries, even the beginning of existence without a cause. We must indeed form the best notions that we can of this and of all other mysteries; for, if we have no notions whatever of a Trinity in unity, we can neither believe nor disbelieve that doctrine. It is, however, to be remembered, that all our notions of God are more or less analogical; that they must be expressed in words which, literally interpreted, are applicable only to man; and that propositions understood in this literal sense may involve an apparent contradiction, from which the truth meant to be expressed by them would be seen to be free, had we direct and adequate conceptions of the divine nature. On this account it is to be wished that men treating of the mystery of the holy Trinity had always expressed themselves in Scripture language, and never aimed at being wise beyond what is written. In the Scriptures the three persons are denominated by the terms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or by God, the Word who is also declared to be God, and the Spirit of God. If each be truly

God, it is obvious that they must all have the same divine nature, just as every man has the same human nature with every other man; and, if there be but one God, it is equally obvious that they must be of the same individual substance or essence, which no three men can possibly be. In this there is a difficulty; but, as will be seen by and by, there is no contradiction. The very terms Father and Son imply such a relation between the two persons so denominated as that though they are of the same substance, possessed of the same attr butes, and equally God, just as a human father and his son are equally men, yet the second must be personally subordinate to the first. In like manner, the Holy Ghost, who is called the Spirit of God, and is said to proceed from the Father, and to be sent by the Son, must be conceived as subordinate to both, much in the same way as a son is subordinate to his parents, though possessed of equal or even of superior powers. That this is the true doctrine appears to us undeniable from the words of our Saviour himself, who, in a prayer addressed to his Father, styles him, by way of pre-eminence, the only true God,' as being the fountain or origin of the Godhead from which the Son and the Holy Ghost derive their true divinity. In like manner St. Paul, when opposing the polytheism of the Greeks, says expressly, that 'to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we in, or for, him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.'

A comparison has been made use of to enable us to form some notion, however inadequate, how three divine persons can subsist in the same substance, and thereby constitute but one God. Moses informs us that man was made after the image of God. That this relates to the soul more than to the body of man has been granted by all but a few gross anthropomorphites; but it has been well observed that the soul, though in itself one indivisible and unextended substance, is conceived as consisting of three principal faculties, the understanding, the memory, and the will. Of these, though they are all coeval in time, and equally essential to a rational soul, the understanding is in the order of nature obviously the first, and the memory the second; for things must be perceived before they can be remembered; and they must be remembered and compared together before they can excite volition, from being, some agreeable, and others disagreeable. The memory, therefore, may be said to spring from the understanding, and the will from both; and as these three faculties are conceived to constitute one soul, so may three divine persons, partaking of the same individual nature or essence, constitute one God. These parallels or analogies are by no means brought forward as proofs of the Trinity, of which the evidence is to be gathered wholly from the word of God; but they may serve perhaps to help our laboring minds to form the justest notions of that adorable mystery which it is possible for us to form in the present state of our existence; and they seem to rescue the doctrine sufficiently from the charge of contradiction, which has been so often urged against it by Unitarian writers. To the last ana

logy we are aware it has often been objected that the soul may as well be said to consist of ten or twenty faculties as of three, since the passions are equally essential to it with the understanding, the memory, and the will, and are as different from one another as these three faculties are. This, however, is probably a mistake; for the best philosophy seems to teach us that the passions are not innate; that a man might exist through a long life a stranger to many of them; and that there are probably no two minds in which are generated all the passions; but understanding, memory, and will, are absolutely and equally necessary to every rational being.

To the doctrine of the Trinity many objections have been made, as it implies the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost; of whom the former assumed our nature, and in it died for the redemption of man. These we shall notice when we come to examine the revelations more peculiarly Christian; but there is one objection which, as it respects the doctrine in general, may be properly noticed here. It is said that the first Christians borrowed the notion of a Triune God from the later Platonists; and that we hear not of a Trinity in the church till converts were made from the school of Alexandria. But if this be the case we may properly ask whence had those Platonists the doctrine themselves? It is not surely so simple or so obvious as to be likely to have occurred to the reasoning mind of a Pagan philosopher; or, if it be, why do Unitarians suppose it to involve a contradiction? The Platonic and Pythagorean Trinities never could have occurred to the mind of him who, merely from the works of Creation, endeavoured to discover the being and attributes of the Creator; and therefore, as those philosophers travelled into Egypt and the East in quest of knowledge, it appears to us in the highest degree probable that they picked up this mysterious and sublime doctrine in those regions where it had been handed down as a dogma from the remotest ages, and where we know that science was not taught systematically, but detailed in collections of sententious maxims and traditionary opinions. If this be so, we cannot doubt but that the Pagan Trinities had their origin in some primeval revelation. Nothing else, indeed, can account for the general prevalence of a doctrine so remote from human imagination, and of which we find vestiges in the sacred books of almost every civilised people of antiquity. The corrupt state in which it is viewed in the writings of Plato and others is the natural consequence of its descent through a long course of oral tradition; and then falling into the hands of men who bent every opinion as much as possible to a conformity with their own speculations. The Trinity of Platonism therefore, instead of being an objection, lends, in our opinion, no feeble support to the Christian doctrine, since it affords almost a complete proof of that doctrine's having made part of the first revelations communicated to man.

As the one God to whom Moses gives the plural name Elohim thus comprehends three persons; let us enquire what power this Triune God exerted, when, as the same sacred writer informs us, he created the heavens and the earth.

That by the heaven and the earth is here meant the whole universe, visible and invisible, is known to every person acquainted with the phraseology of Scripture; and we need inform no man conversant with English writers that by creation, in its proper sense, is meant bringing into being, or making that to exist which existed not before. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the Hebrew word does not always imply the production of substance, but very often the forming of particular organised bodies out of preexisting matter. Thus when it is said that God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind,' and again, that he created man male and female;' though the word 8 is used on both occasions, we are not to

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conceive that the bodies of the first human pair, and of these animals, were brought into being from noneutity, but only that they were formed by a proper organization being given to pre-existent matter. But when Moses says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' he cannot be supposed to mean that in the beginning God only gave form to matter already existing of itself;' for in the very next verse we are assured that, after this act of creation was over, the earth was still without form, and void;' or, in other words, in a chaotic state.

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It does not, however, follow from this verse, or from any other passage in the sacred Scriptures, that the whole universe was called into existence at the same instant; neither is it by any means evident that the chaos of our world was brought into being on the first of those six days during which it was gradually reduced into form. From a passage in the book of Job, in which we are told by God himself that when the foundation of the earth was laid, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,' it appears extremely probable that worlds had been created, formed, and inhabited, long before our earth had any existence. Nor is this opinion at all contrary to what Moses says of the creation of the stars; for, though they are mentioned in the same verse with the sun and moon, yet the manner in which, according to the original, they are introduced, by no means indicates that all the stars were formed at the same time with the luminaries of our system. Most of them may have been created long before, and some of them since our world was brought into being; for that clause (verse 16) he made the stars also,' is in the Hebrew no more than and the stars ;' the words he made being inserted by the translators. The whole verse, therefore, ought to be rendered thus:- And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light with the stars to rule the night; where nothing is intimated with respect to the time when the stars were formed, any more than in that verse of the Psalms (cxxxvi. 9) which exhorts us to give thanks to God, who made the moon and stars to rule by night; for his mercy endureth for ever.' first verse of the book of Genesis informs us that The all things spiritual and corporeal derive their existence from God; but it is no where said that all matter was created at the same time; and the

generations of men afford sufficient evidence of a successive and continual creation of spirits.

That the whole corporeal universe may have been created at once must be granted; but, if so, we have reason to believe that this earth, with the sun and all the planets of the system, were suffered to remain for ages in a state of chaos, without form, and void;' because it appears from other Scriptures that worlds of intelligent creatures existed, and even that some angels had fallen from a state of happiness, prior to the era of the Mosaic cosmogony. That the sun and the other planets revolving round him were formed at the same time with the earth cannot indeed be questioned; for it is not only extremely probable in itself from the known laws of nature, but is expressly affirmed by the sacred historian, who relates the formation of the sun and moon in the order in which it took place. Into the particulars of his narrative we have no

occasion to enter.

How strongly do the works of creation impress upon our minds a conviction of the infinite power and wisdom of their Author! This was so apparent to Cicero, even from the partial and very imperfect knowledge in astronomy which his time afforded, that he declared those who could assert the contrary void of all understanding. But if that great master of reason had been acquainted with the modern discoveries in astronomy, which exhibit numberless worlds scattered through space, and each of immense magnitude; had he known that the sun is placed in the centre of our system, and that, to diversify the seasons, the planets move round him with exquisite regularity; could he have conceived that the distinction between light and darkness is produced by the diurnal rotation of the earth on its own axis, instead of that disproportionate whirling of the whole heavens which the ancient astronomers were forced to suppose; have he known of the wonderful motions of the comets, and considered how such eccentric bodies had been preserved from falling upon some of the planets in the same system, and the several systems from falling upon each other; had he taken into the account that there are yet greater things than these, and that we have seen but a few of God's works ;' that virtuous Pagan would have been ready to exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches.' That creation is the offspring of unmixed goodness has been already shown; and, from the vast number of creatures on our earth endowed with life and sense, and a capability of happiness, and the infinitely greater number which probably inhabit the planets of this and other systems, we may infer that the goodness of God is as boundless as his power. Surely the author of so much happiness must be essential goodness; and we must conclude with St. John that God is love.'

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These attributes of power, wisdom, and goodcreation, belong in the same supreme degree to ness, so conspicuously displayed in the works of each person in the blessed Trinity; for Moses declares that the heaven and the earth were created, not by one person, but by the Elohim. The

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