of implicit reliance on any other authority than that of the inspired volume, the "entrance" of whose "words giveth life."

They deemed it to be the duty of Christians to labour after the most just and consistent views of the truths of the Bible. The precept, "In understanding be men," was taken in the literal sense. Thus holy Brainerd wrote a short time before his death, to a young gentleman, who was a candidate for the Christian ministry: "Labour to distinguish clearly upon experience and affections in religion, that you may make a difference between the gold and the shining dross: I say, labour here, if ever you would be a useful minister of Christ; for nothing has put such a stop to the work of God in this late day, as the false religion and the wild affections which attend it. Suffer me, therefore, finally, to entreat you earnestly to give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths; strive to penetrate to the bottom of them, and never be content with a superficial ki owledge."

These great men, it is true, were not eminent critics and philologists. Does it follow, therefore, that they were not qualified to decide on Christian doctrines? They had the most essential qualifications of interpreters of the Sacred Writings, high powers of investigation, plain common sense, love of the truth, simplicity of purpose, and deep humility. "The meek will he guide in judgement; the meek will he teach his way." Oh! that their spirit were found, in its purity, patience and glowing zeal, in the heart of every instructor in our theological seminaries, of every preacher, of every student for the evangelical ministry, of every professed believer in Christendom!

The discrimination with which they judged of the character of revivals of religion, and professed conversions, was never more necessary than now. In an age of innovation and excitement, every thing new and strange will find admirers. Has the great enemy of our salvation changed his character? Is he not still the father of lies? Does he not still seek to transform himself into an angel of light? Is there no danger except on the side of inactivity and indifference to religion? Tinsel may glitter as much as gold. The unreflecting savage may part with the wealth that would have enriched him for a bauble; but shall we be so unwise?

The meteor's sudden flash may startle us more than the fullorbed brightness of the meridian sun. But is its light, therefore, as useful to guide us through the devious paths and perils of our journey? "It greatly concerns us," says Edwards, "to use our utmost endeavours clearly to discern, and have it well settled and established, wherein true religion does consist. Till this be done, it may be expected that great revivals of religion will be but of short continuance." He also observes, that "the consequences of neglecting to distinguish between saving affections and their counterfeits, are often inexpressibly dreadful."

It is trifling to say in reply to such appeals, "This is the age of action;-away with your musty and worm-eaten speculations; it is time to leave all controversies, and the senseless jargon of other days, and go to work for the salvation of the world." Such is often the cry of ignorance and indiscreet zeal on the one hand, and of indolence and a timeserving policy on the other. True, the salvation of souls, next to the glory of God, should be the prime object of our prayers, our charities, our unceasing labours. But men, be it remembered, may be converted to errour as well as to truth; to pharisaism as well as to humility; to a party as well as to Jesus Christ. False religion may swell them with pride and fantastic hopes, while it forges for them fetters stronger than adamant, and never to be dissolved but by death. A soul saved, or lost forever! How overwhelming the thought! The infinite magnitude of such a result impresses upon us, with resistless force, the deep necessity of a clear and practical recognition of the peculiar traits of the Christian character, and of those humbling doctrines, by which, as by a fire, the dross of all false religion is purged off and consumed. It will be of no advantage in the great day, to have reckoned on numerous converts, unless it shall appear, that they have been converts to the pure gospel, delivered from the power of Satan, and assimilated, in temper and life, to the meek and lowly Saviour.

ART. IV. THEOLOGY A STRICTLY INDUCTIVE SCIENCE.

By Rt. Rev. B. B. Smith, Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the
State of Kentucky.

It is remarkable that the discovery of the great principle of correct investigation was not made in connexion with those sciences which were most likely to suggest it; but on the contrary, we are indebted to the very intricacies and delicacy of the science of mind for the developement of a principle which was not applied in the might of its simple power to the natural sciences, to which it now appears most akin, till centuries after it began to throw forms of proportion, of order, and of beauty over the most unsubstantial, and, until the days of Bacon, the most chaotic and absurd of all sciences, the science of mind, as previously taught for many generations. Chemistry, which now stands forth as most inductive of all sciences, was a strange medley of facts and theories, many years after mental philosophy and astronomy had undergone an entire transformation by the application of correct principles of philosophizing. But a curious enquiry here presents itself, whether mental philosophy, which first gave birth to the Baconian system, is not itself hereafter to be further modified by the operation of that very system, perfected as it has been, by subsequent application to more definite and tangible materials?

In certain respects, the strange facts just noticed, might have been anticipated. For the mind of man, more curious to turn in upon itself, and to examine its own almost unsearchable structure, than to learn any of the facts connected with external nature, might be supposed to concentrate its highest powers most patiently in the study of itself. And the impossibility of arriving at any satisfactory conclusions on this subject, by ransacking the stores of antiquity, or observing loosely the motley and seemingly contradictory manifestations of mind, must have driven the stern inquirer, to adopt some orderly method of procedure which might lead to results exactly coinciding with nature and with truth. And, thus, the necessity of overcoming the greatest of difficulties, led to the discovery of a principle which removes all others with comparative ease.

A like conjecture would have rendered it probable that the very next subject to which this principle, after its discovery, would have been applied, would surely have been Theology. For, more perhaps, than the science of mind itself, did it, at that period, require some spirit of order and of power to brood over its chaotic materials, and to restore them the symmetry and perfection which they bore in earlier times, before a deluge of speculation and errour had been poured in upon them by the pride and waywardness of polemics. And if mind, in its most concentrated energy, had achieved the discovery of the inductive principle in the study of its own powers, it might well have been supposed that the science of Theology, to which the same concentrated powers of mind had been devoted with more patient energy, on the part of far the greater proportion of men most highly endowed by nature, through so many successive generations, would have been reduced to perfect order, long before sciences, then esteemed, and justly esteemed, inferiour sciences, had partaken of the benefit. The fact, however, has turned out differently. No science has yielded so slowly to the influence of the inductive principle as the science of Theology. And yet the natural sciences themselves scarcely solicit the application of this principle more strongly than Theology; and surely none have greater need of its application.

In proof of the fact that Theology, even to this day, is generally treated of most uninductively, let any one take pains to consult standard works in the department of SysTEMATIC THEOLOGY, (as the term unfortunately goes). To his amazement he will find that hardly one, if one of them, gives even a common definition of the subject to be discussed, not one a history of it, as a separate subject of inquiry, and surely not one which even claims to treat of it as an inductive science, to be approached, analyzed, arranged, and exhibited precisely on the same principles upon which a philosophic writer would treat of either of the subordinate departments of Natural Philosophy.

And yet it is clear, that no science is more strictly inductive than Theology. The etymology of the term, is, as usual, a sort of definition of the science. It is that science which treats of God, in his essence, his character, his works and his word, and of the various relations which he sustains to all intelligent beings, all created things, and all possible

events, and of their corresponding relations to him. It places God, where he actually is, at the centre of all beings, all things, and all events, and calls upon us to learn HIM by studying them. Carry this study as far as we may, the manifestations of Jehovah may no more enable us to ascertain the very essence of the Deity, than the attributes of matter enable us to penetrate into the very essence or intricate nature of matter. But whilst we cleave to the facts, are guided by the facts, and pause where the facts terminate, we do learn a great deal concerning the nature, the character, the works and the ways of the Most High God.

This definition makes Theology, what it really is, the central science of all other sciences. If we knew enough of beings of an higher order than men, to construct a science out of the materials of that knowledge, still the whole science would have its peculiar relation to God, and thus would become only one of the branches of Theology; just as the science of mind, the science of moral feeling, the science of anatomy, and even the science of history, all having man for their object, may be complete sciences in themselves, but still, considering the higher relations of man to God, are only branches of the greatest of all sciences, Theology.

In like manner Astronomy, Geography, Mineralogy, Chemistry, and all the natural sciences, are only so many departments of the boundless field where God has left upon all things the impress of himself, and where, therefore, we are to study the Creator, by the light of the works of his hands, and the events of his providence. This is, indeed, an elevated, but surely a correct view of the greatness of THEOLOGY, which may, by way of eminence, justly be denominated the CENTRAL SCIENCE.

How different a view of Physics is this, from that derogating, and even profane view which has sometimes been taken, according to which nature is placed at the centre of each science respectively, and the disjointed mass, severed from the centre of light and heat, has been made to teach lessons of downright Atheism; whereas, when all the departments of science are permitted to point, as they do spontaneously, to the centre of the vast system, they point to a glorious, intelligent sun, and that sun the God of the Uni

verse.

The moment it is definitely settled that Theology is an VOL. II.

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