whom it is exposed.-The first to be adduced is that which gives plausibility, if not a basis, to all the rest. Most of the rationalising infidels, assume, while some distinctly labour to establish, the truth of the following theory: That the religious sentiment is strongly implanted, (by whom they do not say, nor with what design,) both for good and for evil, in the human mind; and that the objects of human worship are so many idols, more or less dignified, according to the character or attainments of the devotee, and invested with divinity only by our kindling imaginations and adoring hearts. Religion is with them subjective only they speak as if all that is commonly thought external to man, as God and nature, were really and only within him. They acknowledge no God independent of the creature's worship; no relationship subsisting betwixt God and man, as independent of our voluntary recognition of that relationship; no defi-. nite code of duty owing from man to God, as independent of human acquiescence and obedience. They lose themselves in the bewildering recesses of their own feelings and opinions, till they know not truly how much is cause and how much is effect; whether natural objects and events. are figments of the brain or the definite originals of thought; and how far these react upon those without creating them. They see many forms of religious faith adopted in the world, and certain discrepancies in the several. statements which set forth the best; and thence they hastily infer that there is no such thing as religious truth, but only a religious tendency; that no faith is authentic in its creed, and none false in its devotion; and that Christianity is superior to all Pagan forms of belief, only because it is the expression of a higher moral civilisation.*

a

It is in accordance with these views that man has been termed 66 religious animal." The expression is an irreverent one, and sufficiently indicates the hardened scepticism which prompted it; but we are not disposed to deny its substantial truth. Capacity of religious feeling is the, distinguishing characteristic of the human species. It is not denied that, the instinct of our race, in every variety of clime, is to aspire toward some higher and unknown good; to acknowledge some superior and controlling power; to respect the claim of supposed inalienable duties; to desire a life beyond the grave. But this universal hope is, of itself, a warrant and a promise of corresponding good; or the naturalist must own our case to be an anomaly amid the perfection of nature. Say, religion is a human,

* See A Discourse on Matters pertaining to Religion. By Theodore Parker., London: Chapman.-In this work of an American "Clergyman are embodied,, so far as these indefinite and negative sentiments are capable of embodiment, the extraordinary notions mentioned in the text. They are, unfortunately, too perceptible in the literature of this country; but much more awful is a consideration of the extent to which they have invaded the pulpits of America, and especially of New-England. In that fine country, which is in so many respects worthy of her Anglo-Saxon origin, the "churches" of Unitarianism and Universalism have reared. a thousand altars to Unbelief; for the thin disguise of the religious profession cannot conceal the professor's real features, stamped as they are with enmity to all Divine truth and spiritual worship. In England, we grieve to say, a similar perversion of the ministerial office is not quite unknown. A lecturer has opened in one of our large towns "A Church for the Doubters;"-such being a great desideratum, as he tells us in his discourse on The Demands of the Age upon the Church, Yet for doubters we are forbidden to read "infidels," because the "Minister" has deliberately named his edifice and people, "The Church of the Saviour."

"

Surely the worst and latest form of Antichrist is that which assumes the Saviour's name and denies Ilis reality!

instinct then is immortality a human necessity. Say, our hearts expand to God as a flower toward the sun : then is the dependence as real, the connexion as indisputable; and human homage as surely indicates an actual though unseen Object, as the reddening and unfolding rose is evidence of the solar heat. The filial instinct, which is the charm and blessing of infancy, were, by itself, an imperfection: its true complement resides in a mother's tender providence and care. The affections of the heart would be only so many sources of torture, and youth a lying promise for the rest of life, if no objects for our love and friendship were provided: and hope, however pleasing in itself, is merely frightful when regarded as the siren which betrays us to everlasting disappointment. In this view, then, we are encouraged by the religious tendencies of man: we take them as the earnest of religious truth. If our hearts beat towards a heavenly Father, how natural to suppose that we have a Father which is in heaven! If our affections lean toward "some peculiar and immortal friendship," and seek a Being worthy of entire confidence and highest love, how reasonable to suppose that our wants are but the measure of our real blessings! We challenge, then, the physiologist and philosopher. Be as impartial as you please examine a man as you would an ape: give him, like other animals, his definite place in the creation:-and yet you must pronounce him the favourite though far-off child of God. He is the highest type of creature on the earth; but he is evidently something more: he is related to heaven and to eternity. His best functions, which are neither corporeal nor temporal, are adapted only to answer such relationship; and, failing to discover the correspondence of fact to his immortal instinct, your philosophy is at fault, or man is an anomaly in nature.

We cannot, then, accept the circunstance of man's religious disposition as sufficiently accounting for the prevalence of religious sentiments throughout the world. But, as a part of the truth, we receive it gladly: as discovering the preparation for a knowledge of the true God, and as a fact implying the future maturity and completion of our present imperfect nature, it is prima facie evidence of a spiritual and eternal connexion with God, and as such should be gratefully acknowledged by every advocate of Christian truth.

But the error of this pretentious philosophy is yet more fundamental and fatal. It commits itself to the assertion, that, because all men are not agreed upon the subject of moral truth, therefore no absolute standard of such truth exists;-that because the nature of God, His relation to our race, and the rules of His government, are not uniformly recognised and obeyed, there is therefore no obligation on our part to Divine law, nor even to a definite belief in the Divine attributes and character ;-nay, that God Himself is only what men severally choose to deem Him,-a God of ven-' geance, because the savage fears Him; a God of mercy, because the Christian loves Him; a plural God, because the polytheist bows to Him in a hundred shapes; and no God at all, because the atheist recognises none ! These contradictions are all predicated of one and the same Being; for the rationalist does not professedly renounce the belief in a Deity. We should like to know what would be thought of the sanity of those reasoners who should adopt a similar method in regard to physical or mathematical science; who should argue, for example, that because the theory of light has been variously explained, and the laws of optics are not yet fully understood and received by all nations, therefore light cannot be distinct in its essence and uniform in its operation, but is in reality what it appears to

each; or rather, that, while seemingly true in so many ways, it is actually so in none! So, in many departments of science, there are phenomena which are interpreted by widely-different theories, according to the opportunities, prejudices, and points of view influencing such interpretation: but the FACT is surely independent of a thousand false CONJECTURES; and no sound inquirer after truth would allow such diversity of opinion to disturb his assurance that each phenomenon is the result of a certain definite and adequate cause, whether known or unperceived; and that every theory different from this, while incompetent to explain, is yet unable by its failure to invalidate, the actual truth which that phenomenon involves. To investigate nature upon the contrary principle would amount to no investigation at all it would be an absurd appeal to the ignorance, confusion, and prejudice of the uninstructed human mind, for that knowledge which is external to man, and upon which he is enabled justly to pronounce only in proportion as he carefully examines and impartially receives. To prosecute the inquiry with success, despite the contradictions of opinions and appearances, it is necessary for him continually to remember that objective truth exists in perfect independence of our receptiveness, and in constant uniformity as regards itself. And if this maxim is applicable to all the works of God,-which, whether we apprehend them or not, subsist in their appointed relations and exercise their respective functions with undeviating regularity and exactness,-it cannot but be pre-eminently applicable to GOD HIMSELF, who, as the Author of all being, and the Fountain of all sensation, is alone possessed of absolute independence. It is, therefore, absurdly false to say that the multifarious notions of God-degrading and conflicting as they are-which have prevailed in different ages, climes, and nations, are worthy of equal credit and respect: since it involves the monstrous proposition, that the perfections of the Creator are dependent upon the blind and imperfect homage of the creature; and that the Divine rule is not an invariable and wise providence, but accident merely, (so far as moral purpose is concerned,) devoid of all system except that with which each fancy separately invests it.

Now theology is the science or knowledge of God; of His nature, attributes, and government, especially as concerned in the existence, welfare, and destiny of man. The subject is entitled to be treated as a branch (if not rather as the root) of positive truth, independent of our natural or wilful ignorance, and incapable of being conformed or accommodated to merely human notions of right and wrong,-even as the laws of nature remain inflexibly true in spite of the misapprehension, contradiction, and oversight of men. Surely the truths of moral science are not less real or immutable than those of physical or mathematical science; and, though not attainable by the same method of demonstration, we think the proof must be held as convincing in its nature and as overwhelming in its force: for, when it is considered that axioms and sensible impressions are admitted at the outset of these latter branches of inquiry, we think the certainty of the former cannot be justly impugned, although its natural evidence and rational deductions are aided by consciousness and supplemented by faith. Thus if, by a process of à posteriori reasoning, we trace back nature to its Author, and establish the being, goodness, wisdom, and power of God, the reality of the Divine nature and perfections is placed as much beyond question as the reality of the sun. Both are demonstrated by sensible effects traced in unbroken sequence and if in each case the postulates assumed are universally admitted, the evidence or premiss undenied, and

the chain of inference complete, it is no less irrational and absurd to question the existence of the unseen GOD than to doubt that of the sun in his noontide glory. For, be it remembered, the sun is not irresistibly believed in because of any strong momentary sensation of his heat,—though, even in that case, the universal sentiment in regard to a living God would furnish an analogous argument of His existence. But the inference as to the reality of the solar luminary is rationally drawn from the uniform effects he is observed to produce; and these effects, being closely noted and carefully arranged, are finally generalised into laws. So in the moral inquiry: When God is proved by His works to be inconceivably powerful, wise, and good, the DEITY must then be acknowledged as DISTINCT and PERSONAL; as ONE that designs and executes, creates, orders, and sustains. It will not suffice to speak vaguely about a Divine principle, if we ignore this Divine Being. We affirm that the rationalist is shut up to the reception of this, which is the strictly philosophical idea of God; for, though the argument has been very briefly summed up here, it has been elsewhere, in many approved works, conducted to a satisfactory conclusion. So much, then, has been established by reason. The objective character of the Deity is a necessary part of the creed of all rational men; and let him who sneers at the “ superstition" of religion remember this. He cannot be the all-denying sceptic he pretends to be, without miserable inconsistency and folly. A God he must accept. His philosophy of negation will not answer here: and, if he persist in rejecting all positive ideas of God's nature, perfect attributes, and real government, he must stand convicted of an infidelity which is equally impious and insane. He may refuse to acknowledge the Divine Object of Christian worship; but we warn him that he must replace that Object with a Divinity of equal power and wisdom,-or the vacant throne of the universe, which his audacious dream pictures, will frown rebuke upon his rashness, and all men will shun the creature who would sever nature from her vital Cause, and orphan the most filial heart of man.

The Doctrine of the Pastorate: or, the Divine Institution, religious Responsibilities, and scriptural Claims, of the Christian Ministry, considered with special Reference to Wesleyan Methodism. By George Smith, F.A.S., &c. Mason.

We live in strange times. On all questions possessing a human interest, a startling diversity of opinion exists, and a conflict of passion rages. No thoughtful observer can overlook the prevailing tendency to extremes. Principles-some of them questionable, and others true, at best, only in a modified sense-are remorselessly pushed to their utmost logical consequences. The numberless checks and counterbalances arising out of the complications of society, are forgotten; and a reckless rage for theorising has taken hold of large sections of the public mind. That, in the end, this fierce elemental conflict will be attended with good,-that the moral atmosphere will be purified, and a calm, as profound as it will be holy, will be ultimately produced,-is matter of devout and cheerful hope to the enlightened Christian. But, in the meantime, it is painful to witness and to sustain the tempest, and to see how, amid the clamours of partisanship, the counsels of moderation and sobriety are unheard or despised.

It cannot be expected that the church of Christ, embodying as it does

interests which are pre-eminently human, should be kept aloof from the struggle of which we speak. Perhaps there has seldom been a time when theological and ecclesiastical questions agitated men's minds more than during the last twenty years. On the one hand, we have witnessed the revival of the most arrogant claims of the hierarchy by a large, learned, and influential party in the Church of England. With the monstrous assumptions and unmitigable bigotry of that party, our readers have long been familiar. The proscription of all Dissent, the insolent and contemptuous manner in which the church-status of Nonconformist communities has been ignored, and the arts of petty annoyance and persecution which have been adopted, are matters of history, and show strangely in the light of the philosophic and scientific nineteenth century. But extremes proverbially generate their opposites; and it is not wonderful that these absurd and impious pretensions have laid open the whole clerical order to the suspicion and dislike of a large class of minds. Men of enthusiastic temperament, passionately attached to liberty, and chafing at these attempts to reforge the chains of priestcraft, have been led to scrutinize the claims thus set up; and, as often happens in such cases, have been hurried into the opposite extreme of denouncing the doctrine of a separated ministry. Where these have been aided by selfish and designing demagogues, the result has been an amount of obloquy and odium, cast upon the entire ministerial institution, which has scarcely a parallel in the history of religious controversy.

It certainly does not mitigate our regret and anxiety to remember how largely we are indebted for this state of things to political causes. When, some seventeen years ago, a few Clergymen met in Mr. Hugh James Rose's parlour, and formed the nucleus of what has since become an unenviably notorious party, they were avowedly influenced by the apprehended danger to the Church-establishment from the reforming spirit of the time. On the other hand, licentious and revolutionary theories about "the rights of man" and "the sovereignty of the people" have unquestionably imparted to the counter-movement much of its intensity and virulence. It was soon discovered that the generally-received views of the Christian ministry present a powerful barrier in the way of revolutionary designs; and hence no pains have been spared to shake the all-butuniversal faith in the established doctrine of Christendom on this subject.

That Wesleyan Methodism, in which this doctrine is held with unfaltering tenacity, should escape the revolutionary storm, could not be expected by any one moderately acquainted with the principles and history of this section of the Christian church. Placed, by its constitution, midway between the extremes of priestly assumption on the one side, and democratic licence on the other, it has ever been exposed to the alternate dislike and assault of each party. How many efforts have been made to crush it by the hand of hierarchical tyranny, or to scatter it before the rude forces of popular rage and violence! We would willingly draw a veil over the occurrences which gave the immediate impulse to our recent agitations, and over the lawless and even brutal extremities to which some, of whom we had hoped better things, have proceeded. But the doctrines which the organs of agitation have propounded, and upon which their followers have too generally and faithfully acted, are so pernicious and anti-Christian as to demand exposure and protest.

The above remarks will serve to indicate the origin and occasion of the admirable treatise announced at the head of this paper. Mr. Smith needs

VOL. VII.-FOURTH SERIES.

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