prophecies, that the Jews did not perceive their relationship to Christianity as it was actually introduced into the world. Respecting the variations of the moral law, some persons greatly and very needlessly perplex themselves by indulging in such questions as these." If," say they, "God be perfect and if all the dispensations are communications of His will, how happens it that they are not uniform in their requisitions? How happens it that that which was required by Infinite Knowledge at one time, was not required by Infinite Knowledge at another?" I answer-I cannot tell. And what then? Does the enquirer think this a sufficient reason for rejecting the authority of the Christian law? If inability to discover the reasons of the moral government of God be a good motive to doubt its authority, we may involve ourselves in doubts without end.— Why does a Being who is infinitely pure, permit moral evil in the world? Why does he who is perfectly benevolent permit physical suffering? Why did he suffer our first parents to fall? Why, after they had fallen, did he not immediately repair the loss? Why was the Messiah's appearance deferred for four thousand years? Why is not the religion of the Messiah universally known and universally operative at the present day? To all these questions and to many others, no answer can be given; and the difficulty arising from them is as great, if we choose to make difficulties for ourselves, as that which arises from variations in his moral laws. Even in infidelity we shall find no rest; the objections lead us onward to atheism. He who will not believe in a Deity unless he can reconcile all the facts before his eyes with his notions of the divine attributes, must deny that a Deity exists. I talked of rest :-Alas! there is no rest in infidelity or in atheism. To disbe lieve in revelation or in God, is not to escape from a belief in things which you do not comprehend, but to transfer your belief to a new class of such things. Unbelief is credulity. The infidel is more credulous than the Christian, and the atheist is the most credulous of mankind that is, he believes' important propositions upon less evidence than any other man, and in opposition to greater. It is curious to observe the anxiety of some writers to reconcile some of the facts before us with the "moral perfections" of the Deity; and it is instructive to observe into what doctrines they are led. They tell us that all the evil and all the pain in the world, are parts of a great system of Benevolence. "The moral and physical evil observable in the system, according to men's limited views of it, are necessary parts of the great plan; all tending ultimately to produce the greatest sum of happiness upon the whole, not only with respect to the system in general, but to each individual, according to the station he occupies in it." They affirm that God is an "allwise Being, who directs all the movements of nature, and who is determined, by his own unalterable perfections, to maintain in it at all times, the greatest possible quantity of happiness.”† The Creator found, therefore, that to inflict the misery which now exists, was the best means of promoting this happiness-that to have abated the evil, the suffering, or the misery, would be to have diminished the sum of felicity-and that men could not have been better or more at ease than they *This is given as the belief of Dr. Priestly. See Memoirs : Ap. No. 5. † Adam Smith: Theory of Moral Sentiments. See also T. Southwood Smith's Illustrations of the Divine Government, in which unbridled license of speculation has led the writer into some instructive absurdities. are, without making them on the whole more vicious or unhappy!-These things are beacons which should warn us. These speculations show that not only religion, but reason, dictates the propriety of acquiescing in that degree of ignorance in which it has pleased God to leave us; because they show, that attempts to acquire knowledge may conduct us to folly. These are subjects upon which he acts most rationally, who says to his reason-be still. MODE OF APPLYING THE PRECEPTS OF SCRIPTURE TO QUESTIONS OF DUTY. It is remarkable that many of these precepts, and especially those of the Christian Scriptures, are delivered, not systematically but occasionally. They are distributed through occasional discourses and occasional letters. Except in the instance of the law of Moses, the speaker or writer rarely set about a formal exposition of moral truth. The precepts were delivered as circumstances called them forth or made them needful. There is nothing like a system of morality; nor, consequently, does there exist that completeness, that distinctness in defining and accuracy in limiting, which, in a system of morality, we expect to find. Many rules are advanced in short absolute prohibitions or injunctions, without assigning any of those exceptions to their practical application, which the majority of such rules require.—The enquiry, in passing, may be permitted— Why are these things so? When it is considered what the Christian dispensation is, and what it is designed to effect upon the conduct of man, it cannot be supposed that the incompleteness of its moral precepts happened by inadvertence. The precepts of the former dispensation are much more precise; and it is scarcely to be supposed that the more perfect dispensation would have had a less precise law, unless the de ficiency were to be compensated from some other authoritative source:—which remark is offered as a reason, a priori, for expecting that, in the present dispensation, God would extend the operation of his law written in the heart. But whatever may be thought of this, it is manifest that considerable care is requisite in the application of precepts, so delivered, to the conduct of life. To apply them in all cases literally, were to act neither reasonably nor consistently with the designs of the Lawgiver to regard them in all cases as mere general directions, and to subject them to the unauthorized revision of man, were to deprive them of their proper character and authority as divine laws. In proposing some grounds for estimating the practical obligation of these precepts, I would be first allowed to express the conviction, that the simple fact that such a disquisition is needed, and that the moral duties are to be gathered rather by implication or general tenor than from specific and formal rules, is one indication amongst the many, that the dispensation of which these precepts form a part, stands not in words but in power: and I hope to be forgiven, even in a book of morality, if I express the conviction that none can fulfil their requisitions—that none indeed can appreciate them—without some participation in this "power." I say he cannot appreciate them. Neither the morals nor the religion of Christianity can be adequately estimated by the man who sits down to the New Testament, with no other prepartion than that which is necessary in sitting down to Euclid or Newton. There must be some preparation of heart as well as integrity of understanding -or, as the appropriate language of the volume itself would express it, it is necessary that we should become in some degree, the "sheep" of Christ before we can accurately "know his voice." There is one clear and distinct ground upon which we may limit the application of a precept that is couched in absolute language the unlawfulness, in any given conjuncture, of obeying it. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man."* This, literally, is an unconditional command. But if we were to obey it unconditionally, we should sometimes comply with human, in opposition to divine laws. In such cases then, the obligation is clearly suspended; and this distinction, the first teachers of Christianity recognized in their own practice. When an "ordinance of man required them to forbear the promulgation of the new religion, they refused obedience; and urged the befitting expostulation—“Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." So, too, with the filial relationship : Children obey your parents in all things." But a parent may require his child to lie or steal; and therefore when a parent requires obedience in such things his authority ceases, and the obligation to obedience is taken away by the moral law itself. The precept, so far as the present ground of exception applies, is virtually this Obey your parents in all things, unless disobedience is required by the will of God. Or the subject might be illustrated thus: The Author of Christianity reprobates those who love father or mother more than himself. The paramount love to God is to be manifested by obedience.§ So, then, we are to obey the commands of God in preference to those of our parents. "All human authority ceases at the point where obedience becomes criminal."|| Of some precepts, it is evident that they were designed to be understood conditionally. When thou * 1 Pet. ii. 13. † Acts, iv. 19. Col. iii. 20. ? If ye love me, keep my commandments-John xiv. 15. || Mor. and Pol. Phil. |