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MORISONIANISM PUT TO THE TEST, AND FOUND

WANTING.

THAT there is no conviction like experimental conviction, is a statement that requires no argument in support of it. Experience rectifies many errors, and every theory which will not stand this test is, beyond all doubt, unsound. So long as powers are untried, they may be invested with fictitious strength; but a practical confutation does more to unmask their hollow pretensions than any amount of argument, however forcible. In all theories there is an important principle, of universal prevalence, which must never be lost sight of-the principle of adaptation or mutual fitness, existing alike in the natural, social, and moral world-in virtue of which there is a nice accuracy of adjustment, that leaves no chasm or fissure, and which will eventually make up, when all things are fitted into their places, a perfect whole. Selecting but one instance, and tracing it through all its analagous manifestations in the different departments we have adverted to, let us consider the gracious relation between weakness and strength, between dependence and support, between helplessness and help, whether as evinced in the tendrils of the ivy or the vine, clasping in close embrace the prop by which the feeble plant is upheld-in the fragile infancy of the animal and rational tribes, reposing on parental tenderness and parental strength, or, in its highest manifestation, the spirit of man, awakened, for the first time, to cry out, 'Woe is me, for I am undone!' just at the moment when an Omnipotent arm is outstretched for his rescue. Without the sense of helplessness, on the one hand, there would be nothing fitting or appropriate in the proffered help, on the other. They who can walk are not to be carried-they who can walk alone are not to be led. Many who, in the time of health and peace, have great confidence in their own strength, and much assurance of their own good estate before God, may find, when death draws near, that their strength is weakness and their hope delusion. By way of illustration, we have heard of one who, in the pride of an unsubdued and selfdeceiving heart, disdained to admit the humbling fact of human inability to believe on the Saviour, and to do those things on the fulfilment of which all that is truly important to human weal depends. Flushed with a high conceit of the innate powers of the human soul, he passed from village to village, from hamlet to hamlet, from house to house, declaring, as he went, that in the matter of man's salvation, God had already done all that was to be done in every case. No further divine interposition was required; for in every soul he addressed, he assumed that there lay the latent power, which only needed to be aroused and excited, of embracing gospel offers and believing gospel truth, and to which there was no impediment that human power could not remove. One after another waked up from the dream of their easy slumber, as he passed along-gazed at him for a moment, smiled a glad acquiescence, proud to think their destinies were so entirely under their own control, their wills so much at their own bidding, and congratulating themselves that what they could do at any

time they need not do now, folded their hands, and closed their eyes, and again composed themselves to their dreamy slumbers, as the sound of his footsteps and vehement declamations died away. Many of them, we believe, continued to sleep on till they lifted up their eyes, being in torments. But we may not pause to inquire into the fate of the sleepers; for our course is with him who had lulled them, as he passed into this fatal torpor, as by the wafting of some poisoned breath, from the destroying angel's wing. Following his erratic wanderings, we find him at last in the grasp of fell disease. Life trembles in the balance-Death, ghastly death, confronts him, and, with his skeleton hand, seems about to open the portal of the spirit-world. He reels, he staggers-the ground sinks from beneath his feet-his boasted confidence gives way, just when he was needing to lean all his weight upon it for eternity. As the shades of the dark valley seem to gather around him, his lamp is going out-its flickering flame, quenched by the damps of that noisome atmosphere, expires as he advances into the thickening gloom, and he cries out in an agony of conviction and despair! We sketch no imaginary scene: it is a tale from real life. To meet the necessities, and, if possible, relieve the sufferings of body and mind, medical and spiritual aid were both called in. The physician skilfully arrested the ravages of disease; but the pastor strove in vain to pacify the tortured soul. 'Dead! dead!' was his constant cry. Yes; dead have I been, and dead am I still-dead, dead in trespasses and sins. I have been under a dreadful delusion, as I now see too clearly.' Think not of the past, but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt live,' was the emphatic reply, the right christian counsel of the man of God. But, oh, it seemed to add mockery to misery. 'Believe! yes, if I could believe, all were indeed well. Believe!-easy for you to stand there and say, Believe! Sir, I cannot believe; and yet unless I believe, I must perish! I know it-I know it all; but with death on my right hand, and the devil on my left, and hell yawning beneath me, I cannot believe. I now, indeed, feel I can do nothing. O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?' This was the point; here was the cry of helplessness wrung from his despairing lips; and the Helper was at hand. Help was laid upon One who was mighty-that cry brought him to the rescue, and the lawful captive was delivered. He received faith to be healed-he believed, because the Spirit touched him, and set him upon his feet-he leaped, he walked, and resolved, ere he came down from this bed of affliction, to be as zealous in proclaiming the absolute necessity of special grace, as he had once been in opposing it. His language to us all is: 'I was dead, and am alive again; I was lost, and am found. Ye are dead— ye are lost. He that quickened me, can quicken you; he that found me, can find you; but except ye be quickened by him, and found by him, ye are dead-ye are lost for ever! Let no man, therefore, deceive you by flattering words, respecting the innate powers of the human soul. I was once thus deceived; but, in the time of need, I found this doctrine to be a lying mockery-and so will you, sooner or later.'

ETERNITY.

What is Eternity to man, unto the souls of all

Who are the death-doomed travellers of this terrestrial ball?

O thought exceeding ev'ry thought!-for thou wouldst speak a clime Where is no perishable thing, no root or branch of time,

No ruins of antiquity, no dust, and no decay,

Eternal night at once around-at once eternal day?

Giants of fear, and dread, and awe, thou rousest in the mind,
In garb of probeless mystery, in shape all undefined,—
Eternity, O how immense! how deep! how broad! how vast!
Whose ages everlasting roll when Time hath groan'd its last.
Though near and nearing to thy coast life's voyage we pursue,
What mortal eye can pierce the mists that hide thee from the view?
And those of earth who are the sons once landed on thy shore,
The great, the bold, whate'er they be, they can return no more.

Death, over busy on our world, strides, slaying with his dart
That shatters ev'ry risen shield, and baffles ev'ry art.
The proud and meek alike he smites, the lofty and the low,
The favourite of fortune, and the wretch of want and wee;
The wise, the foolish, and the mad, the pious and profane,
The wicked and the good-and though a nation's tears should rain
For loss of one whose virtues high a nation's heart hath won,
Yet tender ties availeth not-he slayeth, sparing none.
Within a day what thousands fall! what dismal gaps are made!
What burial rites performed are!-The grave receives the dead.
But Death bath higher office far than tombs to multiply:
It launcheth souls into the deep of dread Eternity,
Beyond the reach of mortal ken, nor waiteth o'er the dust
One ling'ring moment when he hath made sure his fatal thrust.

He who all things created, he, the one eternal God,
At whose command did infant Time assume his temp'ral rod;
He, hating sin, gave Death his might o'er all the human race-
He, merciful, hath freely oped the avenue of grace—
He, just, hath sworn to be the judge, the righteous judge of all,
And Time and Death shall perish, when to judgment he shall call.
When he, to sit in judgment brief, shall quit his lasting throne,
And when the latest trumpet shall, at his command, be blown,
Then shall the righteous appear, a glad, a lucid throng;
They shall come forth like pious notes that swell a heaving song.
The sons of sin, once that did vaunt, now pallid with dismay-
A reeling rabble-shall unto the judgment-bar essay;

Then irreversible awards, ill-comprehended now,

From the Immutable proceed, who breaketh not a vow.

The faithful, they shall shout for joy, accepted of their Lord,

Who for men suffered on the cross, and pierc'd was with a sword.
For ever destined they to share great glory, his bestowed,
Unfading, incorruptible, in ever-blest abode.

The wicked and the perverse ones, who have their souls betrayed-
All those who unto other lords allegiance have paid-

The godless, in this whelming hour, shall God not laugh to scorn,

So that the wish their breasts may tear, that they had ne'er been born. When Time has fled, when Judginent 's o'er, to which Time feeteth on, Then, then, in fullest measure, shall Eternity be known!

REVIEW.

The Method of the Divine Govern

ment, Physical and Moral. By the Rev. JAMES M'Cosн, A.M. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox, 1850.

THE modest title of this volume scarcely intimates the nature of its contents. To some it might suggest a common-place treatise on Divine Providence, and to others the discussion of some quisquis question in ecclesiastical polemics. It is therefore with all the greater pleasure that the reader, on opening it, finds himself introduced to a profound and interesting disquisition on an important department of natural theology, constituting at the same time, after the manner of Butler's Analogy, a powerful argument in behalf of the truth of revelation. The harmony between scientific and revealed truth has engaged the attention, particularly of late, of some of the most gifted and pious minds. Alive to the obvious fact, that neither can that theology be sound which dreads the development of any department of God's works, nor that philosophy successful which, in attempting to penetrate the arcana of the physical and moral world, would reject the aid of a volume dictated by its author, they have devoted all their energies to the interesting demonstration, that the truths of science and of holy scripture have one common origin, and shed a most benign and satisfactory light upon one another.

In this field our author has shown himself a most able and successful labourer. He enters the temple of science, (with the penetralia of which he shows himself intimately acquainted,) not like the mere philosopher groping in the dark, or availing himself only of the few scattered rays of Nature's light which penetrate through the crevices; but carrying the torch of Divine revelation in his hand. Like the guides into the celebrated grotto of Antipatros, he veils indeed its light for a time, till he has conducted his readers

into the inner sanctuary; but he then lets forth its full effulgence; and as it is reflected from the crystalline arches, and glittering walls of the splendid, though damaged edifice, the clear view thus furnished of the original beauty of the structure, the glory of its architect, its present dilapidated state, and the condition of its fallen and guilty inhabitants, most strikingly exhibits the brightness and beneficence of that supernatural light by which it is now illuminated.

·

The volume is divided into four books. Their titles are, I. A general view of the Divine Government as fitted to throw light on the character of God.' II. Particular inquiry into the method of the Divine Government in the physical world.' III.Particular inquiry into the principles of the human mind through which God governs mankind.' IV. 'Results-the reconciliation of God and man.' The argument of the author is twofold: an analysis of the government of God, as displayed in those physical laws by which he governs the material world; and in those mental and moral phenomena which distinguish the present condition of man. From both these sources separately, as well as from their mutual relations, he not only draws, with the ordinary writers on natural theology, many beautiful illustrations of the Divine perfections, but also deduces many pregnant proofs that man is at present under a peculiar state of discipline-that both his own moral condition, and the physical laws to which he is subject, plainly imply a state of restraint and forbearance; and applying to this independent but indistinct representation the clear light of the word of God, like a key to an intricate lock, he at once explains the mysteries of man's actual condition, and establishes the divine origin of that blessed volume by which the discovery is fully made.

The volume displays great powers of metaphysical research, and extensive acquirements both in physical

and mental philosophy. The author is at home in both departments of his argument. He seems, however, to have spent his strength upon the first, and perhaps has given it comparatively an undue place. But though we could have desired that he had enlarged more upon the other and richer field, we know not what portion of this we could have wished omitted. With a power of philosophical analysis which we have never seen surpassed, he has taken to pieces, as it were, the laws of nature, and shown that they not only furnish the most conclusive evidence of an everpresent and all-powerful Deity, but that they exhibit him as adjusting all departments of the mundane system to the present condition and for the appropriate discipline of those intelligent and moral creatures by whom it is presently occupied. We consider as particularly happy his beautiful analysis of Causation, in which, in opposition to the pantheistic, or rather atheistic, sentiment, which, by referring all things to fixed and general laws, would exclude the Deity from the management of his own world, he shows that what are called general laws are mere adjustments, which imply in each individual case the presence and agency of a superintending and intelligent agent.

The style of the work is beautifully appropriate. Simple, clear, and pure, like a mountain stream, it seems to bring the profoundest deeps over which it flows to the very surface, and place their treasures within the reach of the observer. It is that stream, however, after it has descended to the quiet valley, unbroken by cataracts and rapids, save where the ripple, occasioned by the introduction of some happy figure, at once enlivens its flow, and throws light on its subject. Nothing, in fact, pleases us more, in perusing the volume, than the variety and felicity of the author's

ciples to the old reflection, that they have all the gnarls of the oak, without its strength-all the contortions of the sybil, without her inspiration,' our author has imbibed, not the manner, but the spirit, of his great instructor. His fancy is entirely his own, chaste, unaffected, and always appropriate; and, like the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the charm of his style throws an air of peculiar attraction around an abstruse subject; and, alluring to its study the admirer of genuine taste, will reward him with something more substantial than a baseless theory.

As a specimen, we insert the following, selected at random. It is from Book II., chapter ii., section 5th, entitled, Practical influence of the various views which may be taken of Divine Providence.' After describing Atheism, which sees God in none of his works-Pantheism, which confounds him with the principle of order discovered in all his works— Superstition, which sees him only in some of his works, and forms a very imperfect and distorted idea of him -and a sound and enlightened Faith, which sees him in all the discoveries which he has made of himself, and forms a correct and intelligent view of him, he thus contrasts these different sentiments:

'The error of the atheist arises from his not observing the footsteps of a designing mind in the heavens and earth without us, or of a Governor and Judge in the moral sense or law within us. The error of the pantheist does not consist in his contemplating the laws of nature, so exact and so beautiful, but in refusing to look beyond them to a wise, an intelligent, a righteous, and benevolent Being, who not only gave to matter all its laws, but all its arrangements also, and uses them for the furtherance of moral ends. The error of the superstitious man consists in his seeing God only in those events which are fitted to startle his fears or stir his

imagery. As a distinguished pupil fancy, while he pays no regard to other

of Dr Chalmers, we would have expected from him not a little of the play of fancy; but, entirely free of the servile imitation which has exposed not a few of the Doctor's dis

portions of God's works reflecting no less clearly the perfections of his character. The atheist closes his eyelids, and asserts that there is no God, because he will not open his eyes to behold the traces of him.

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