an ancient Greek poet of Megara in Achaia, flourished about the 50th Olympiad, 144 B.C. We have a moral work of his extant, containing a summary of precepts and reflections, usually found in the collections of the Greek minor poets.

THEOLOGY

Definition. Is a Greek word (θεολογία), and signifies that science which treats of the being and attributes of God, his relations to us, the dispensations of his providence, his will with respect to our actions, and his purposes with respect to our end. The word was first used to denote the fables of those poets and philosophers who wrote of the genealogy and exploits of the gods of Greece. It was afterwards adopted by the earliest writers of the Christian church, who styled the author of the Apocalypse, by way of eminence, ἀποκάλυψις, the Divine.

Although every pagan nation of antiquity had some tutelary deities peculiar to itself, they may yet be considered as having all had the same theology, since an intercommunity of gods was universally admitted, and the heavenly bodies were adored as the divi majorum gentium over the whole earth. This being the case, we are happily relieved from treating, in the same article, of the truths of Christianity and the fictions of paganism, as we have elsewhere traced idolatry from its source, and shewn by what means "the foolish hearts of men became so darkened that they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." See POLYTHEISM.

The absurdities and inconsistency of the pretended revelation of the Arabian impostor have been sufficiently exposed under the words ALCORAN and MAHOMETANISM; so that the only theology of which we have to treat at present is the Christian theology, which comprehends that which is commonly called natural, and that which is revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. These taken together compose a body of science so important, that in comparison with it all other sciences sink into insignificance; for without a competent knowledge of the attributes of God, of the several relations in which he stands to us, and of the ends for which we were created, it is obvious that we must wander through life like men groping in the dark, strangers to the road on which we are travelling, as well as to the fate awaiting us at the end of our journey.

But if this knowledge be necessary to all Christians, it is doubly so to those who are appointed to feed the flock of Christ, and to teach the ignorant what they are to believe, and what to do, in order to work out their own salvation. The wisdom and piety of our ancestors have accordingly founded professorships of theology intended for all our universities, where the principles of our religion the service are taught in a systematic and scientific manner; and of the church has ordained, that no man shall be admitted to the office of a preacher of the gospel who has not attended a regular course of such theological lectures.

It must not, however, be supposed, that, by merely listening to a course of lectures however able, any man will become an accomplished divine. The principles of this science are to be found only in the word and works of God; and he who would extract them pure and unsophisticated, must dig for them himself in that exhaustless mine. To fit a man for this important investigation, much previous knowledge is requisite. He must study the works of God scientifically before he can perceive the full force of that testimony which they bear to the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of their author. Hence the necessity of a general acquaintance with the physical and mathematical sciences before a man enter on the proper study of theology, for he will not otherwise obtain just and enlarged conceptions of the God of the universe. See PHYSICS, N° 115.

But an acquaintance with the physical and mathematical sciences is not alone a sufficient preparation for the study of theology. Indeed it is possible for a man to devote himself wholly to any of these sciences, as to make it counteract the only purposes for which it can be valuable to the divine; for he who is constantly immersed in matter, is apt to suspect that there is no other substance; and he who is habituated to the routine of geometrical demonstration, becomes in time incapable of reasoning at large, and estimating the force of the various degrees of moral evidence. To avert these disagreeable consequences, every man, before he enter on the study of that science which is the subject of the present article, should make himself acquainted with the principles of logic, the several powers of the human mind, and the different sources of evidence; in doing which he will find the greatest assistance from Bacon's Novum Organum. The man who proposes to study theology ought to have it in view, as the ultimate end of his labours, to impart to others that knowledge which he may procure for himself. "Amongst the many marks which distinguish the Christian philosopher from the Pagan, this (says a learned writer) is one of the most striking—the Pagan sought knowledge in a selfish way, to secrete it for his own use; the Christian seeks it with the generous purpose (first in view, though last in execution) to impart it to others. The Pagan philosopher, therefore, having cultivated the art of speaking, proceeds to that of speaking, in order to display his vanity in the dexterous use of deceit. On the other hand, the Christian philosopher cultivates the art of speaking, for the sole purpose of disseminating the truth in his office of preacher of the gospel."

As every man, before he enters on the proper study of theology, receives, at least in this country, the rudiments of a liberal education, it may perhaps be superfluous to mention here any books as peculiarly proper to teach him the art of speaking; we cannot however forbear to recommend to our student the attentive perusal of Quintilian's Institutions, and Dr Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres. A familiar acquaintance with these works will enable him, if he be endowed by nature with talents fit for the office in which he proposes to engage, to express his thoughts with correctness and elegance; "without which, it has been well observed, that science, especially in a clergyman, is but learned lumber, a burden to the owner, and a nuisance to everybody else."

No man can proceed thus far in the pursuits of general science without having been at least initiated in the learned languages; but he who intends to make theology his profession should devote himself more particularly to the study of Greek and Hebrew, because in these tongues the original scriptures are written. He who is incapable of consulting the original scriptures, must rest his faith, not on the sure foundation of the word of God, but on the credit of fallible translators; and if he be at any time called on to vindicate revelation against the scoffs of infidelity, he will have to struggle with many difficulties which are easily solved by him who is master of the original tongues.

The student having laid in this stock of preparatory knowledge, is now qualified to attend with advantage the theological lectures of a learned professor; but in doing this, he should be very careful neither to admit nor reject anything on the bare authority of his matter. Right principles in theology are of the utmost importance, and can rest on no authority inferior to that of the word of God. On this account we have long been of opinion, that a professor cannot render his pupils so much service by a systematical course of lectures, as by directing their studies, and pointing out the road in which they may themselves arrive in the shortest time at the genuine sense of the sacred scriptures. In this opinion we have the honour to agree with the ablest lecturer* in theology that we have ever heard. The authors of all systems are more or less prejudiced in behalf of some particular and artificial mode of faith. He, therefore, who begins with the study of them, and afterwards proceeds to the sacred volume, sees with a jaundiced eye every text supporting the peculiar tenets of his first matter, and acts as absurd a part as he who tries not the gold by the copel, but the copel by the gold. Before our young divine, therefore, sit down to the serious perusal of any one of those institutes or bodies of theology which abound in all languages, and even before he read that which the nature of our work compels us to lay before him, we beg leave to recommend to his consideration the following

Preliminary Directions for the Study of Theology.

Christian theology is divided into two great parts, Christian natural and revealed; the former comprehending that theology which may be known of God from the creation of the world, even his eternal power and Godhead; the latter, that which is discovered to man nowhere but in the sacred volume of the Old and New Testaments.

Concerning the extent of natural theology many opinions have been formed, whilst some have contended that there is no such thing. Into these disputes we mean not at present to enter. We believe that one of them could have had an existence among sober and enlightened men, had the contending parties been at pains to define with accuracy the terms which they used. Whatever be the origin of religion, which we have endeavoured to ascertain elsewhere (see Religion, No. 6—17.), it is obvious, that no man can receive a written book as the word of God till he be convinced by some other means that God exists, and that he is a Being of power, wisdom, and goodness, who watches over the conduct of his creature man. If the progenitor of the human race was instructed in the principles of religion by the Author of his being (a fact of which it is difficult to conceive how a consistent theist can entertain a doubt), he might communicate to his children, by natural means, much of that knowledge which he himself could not have discovered had he not been supernaturally enlightened. Between illustrating or proving a truth which is already talked of, and making a discovery of what is wholly unknown, every one perceives that there is an immense difference (A).

To beings whose natural knowledge originates wholly from

(A) The discriminating powers of Aristotle will not be questioned; and in the following extract made by Cicero from some of his works which are now lost, he expresses our sentiments on this important subject with his usual precision:—"Præclare ergo Aristoteles, si essent, inquit, qui sub terra semper habitavissent, bonis, et illustri bus domiciliis, quae effrent ornata signis atque picturis, instructaque rebus illis omnibus, quibus abundant ii, qui beati putantur, nec tamen existent unquam supra terram: ACCEPISSENT AUTEM FAMA ET AUDITIONE, ESSE QUODDAM NUMEN," Preliminary from sensation, and whose minds cannot, but by much discipline, advance from sense to science, a long series of revelations might be necessary to give them at first just notions of God and his attributes, and to enable them to perceive the relation between the effect and its cause, so as to infer by the powers of their own reason the existence of the Creator from the presence of his creatures. Such revelations, however, could be satisfactory only to those who immediately received them. Whenever the Deity has been pleased by supernatural means to communicate any information to man, we may be sure that he has taken effectual care to satisfy the person so highly favoured that his understanding was not under the influence of any illusion; but such a person could not communicate to another the knowledge which he had thus received by any other means than an address to his rational faculties. No man can be required to believe, no man indeed can believe, without proof, that another, who has no more faculties either of sensation or intellect than himself, has obtained information from a source to which he has no possible access. An appeal to miracles would in this case serve no purpose; for we must believe in the existence, power, wisdom, and justice of God, before a miracle can be admitted as evidence of anything but the power of him by whom it is performed. See Miracle.

It is therefore undeniable that there are some principles of theology which may be called natural; for though it is in the highest degree probable that the parents of mankind received all their theological knowledge by supernatural means, it is yet obvious that some parts of that knowledge must have been capable of a proof purely rational, otherwise not a single religious truth could have been conveyed through the succeeding generations of the human race but by the immediate inspiration of each individual. We indeed admit many propositions as certainly true, upon the sole authority of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and we receive these scriptures with gratitude as the lively oracles of God; but it is self-evident that we could not do either the one or the other, were we not convinced by natural means that God exists, that he is a Being of goodness, justice, and power, and that he inspired with divine wisdom the penmen of these sacred volumes. Now, though it is very possible that no man or body of men, left to themselves from infancy in a desert world, would ever have made a theological discovery; yet whatever propositions relating to the being and attributes of the first cause and the duty of man, can be demonstrated by human reason, independent of written revelation, may be called natural theology, and are of the utmost importance, as being to us the first principles of all religion. Natural theology, in this sense of the word, is the foundation of the Christian revelation; for without a previous knowledge of it, we could have no evidence that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are indeed the word of God.

Our young divine, therefore, in the regular order of his studies, ought to make himself master of natural theology before he enter upon the important task of studying the scriptures. On this subject many books have been published in our own and other languages; but perhaps there is none more worthy of attention than the Religion of Nature delineated by Mr Wollaston (B). It is a work of great merit, and bears ample testimony to its author's learning and acuteness; yet we think it ought to be read with caution. Mr Wollaston's theory of moral obligation is fanciful and groundless; and commendable whilst we readily acknowledge that he demonstrates many truths with elegance and perspicuity, we cannot deny that he attempts a proof of others, for which we believe no other evidence can be brought than the declarations of Christ and his apostles in the holy scriptures. To supply the defects of his theory of morals, we would recommend to the student an attentive perusal of Cumberland on the Law of Nature, and Paley's Elements of Moral Philosophy. A learned author * of Warburton, firms of Cumberland, that "he excels all men in fixing the

NUMEN, ET VIM DEORUM; deinde aliquo tempore, patefactis terrae faucibus, ex illis abditis sedibus evadere in hæc loca, quæ nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent: cum repente terram, et maria, coelumque vidissent: nubium magnitudinem, ventorumque vim cognovissent, adspexitentque folem, ejufque tum magnitudinem, pulchritudinemque, tum etiam efficientiam cognovissent, quod diem effeceret, toto coelo luce diffusa: cum autem terras nox opacæfet, tum coelum totum cerneret aëris distinctum et ornatum, lunæque luminum varietatem tum crecientem, tum fenebrantem, eorumque omnium ortus et occasus, atque in omni rerumtate ratos, immutabileisque cursus: hæc cum vident, PROPECTO ET ESSE DEOS, et HÆC TANTA OPERA DEORUM ESSE arbitrarentur." De Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. § 37.

From this passage it is evident, that the Stagyrite, though he considered the motions of the heavenly bodies, the ebbing and flowing of the sea, and the other phenomena of nature, as affording a complete proof of the being and providence of God, did not however suppose that from these phenomena an untaught barbarian would discover this fundamental principle of religion. On the contrary, he expressly affirms, that before a man can feel the force of the evidence which they give of this important truth, he must have heard of the existence and power of God.

(B) It may not be improper to inform the reader, that Mr Wollaston, the author of the Religion of Nature, was a different man from Mr Woolston, who blasphemed the miracles of our Saviour. The former was a clergyman of great piety, and of such moderate ambition as to refuse one of the highest preferments in the church of England when it was offered to him; the latter was a clergyman likewise, but remarkable only for gloomy infidelity, and a perverse desire to deprive the wretched of every source of comfort. In the mind of the former, philosophy and devotion were happily united; in the mind of the latter, there was neither devotion nor science. Yet these writers have been frequently confounded; sometimes through inadvertence from the similarity of their names; and sometimes, we are afraid, deftly, from a weak and bigotted abhorrence of every system of religion that pretends to have its foundation in reason and in the nature of things. the true grounds of moral obligation, out of which natural law and natural religion both arise; and we have ourselves never read a work in which the various duties which a man owes to his Maker, himself, and his fellow-creatures, are more accurately stated or placed on a surer basis than in the moral treatise of the arch-deacon of Carlisle.

As Wollaston demonstrates with great perspicuity, the being and many of the attributes of God, it may perhaps appear superfluous to recommend any other book on that subject. The present age, however, having among other wonderful phenomena, witnessed a revival of Atheism, we would advise our student to read with much attention Cudworth's Intellectual System, and to read it rather in Moehlheim's Latin translation than in the author's original English. It is well known that Cudworth wrote his incomparable work in confutation of Hobbes's philosophy; but instead of confining himself to the whimsies of his antagonist, which were in a little time to sink into oblivion, he took a much wider range, and traced atheism through all the mazes of antiquity, exposing the weakness of every argument by which such an absurdity had ever been maintained. In exhausting the metaphysical questions agitated among the Greeks concerning the being and perfections of God, he has not only given us a complete history of ancient learning, as far as it relates to these inquiries, but has in fact anticipated most of the sophisms of our modern atheists, who are by no means such discoverers as they are supposed to be by their illiterate admirers.

The student having made himself master of natural theology, and carefully endeavoured to ascertain its limits, is now prepared to enter on the important task of searching the scriptures. In doing this, he ought to devote himself as much as possible of the prejudices of education in behalf of a particular system of faith, and sit down to the study of the sacred volume as of a work to which he is an entire stranger. He ought first to read it as a moral history of facts and doctrines, beginning with the books of Moses, and proceeding through the rest, not in the order in which they are commonly published, but in that in which there is reason to believe they were written (see Scriptures). If he be master of the Hebrew and Greek languages, he will doubtless prefer the original text to any version; and in this perilous we would advise him to consult no commentator, because his object at present is not to study the doctrines contained in the bible, but merely to discover what are the subjects of which it treats. Many histories of the bible have been written; and were we acquainted with a good one, we should recommend it as a clue to direct the young divine's progress through the various books which compose the sacred volume. Stackhouse's history has been much applauded by some, and as much censured by others. It is not a work of which we can express any high degree of approbation; but if read with attention, it may no doubt be useful as a guide to the series of facts recorded in the scriptures. Between the Old and New Testaments there is a great chasm in the history of the Jewish nation; but it is supplied in a very able and satisfactory manner by Dr. Prideaux, whose Old and New Testament connected is one of the most valuable historical works in our own or any other language. Suckford's Sacred and Profane History of the World connected is likewise a work of merit, and may be read with advantage as throwing light on many pages of the Old Testament; but this author is not entitled to the same confidence with Prideaux, as his learning was not so great, and his partialities seem to have been greater.

In thus making himself master of the history of the Old and New Testaments, the student will unavoidably acquire some general notion of the various doctrines which they contain. These it will now be his business to study more particularly, to ascertain the precise meaning of each, and to distinguish such as relate to the whole human race, from those in which Abraham and his posterity were alone interested. He must therefore travel over the sacred volume a second time; and still we would advise him to travel without a guide. From Walton's Polyglot Bible, and the large collection called Critici sacri, he may indeed derive much assistance in his endeavours to ascertain the sense of a difficult text; but we think he will do well to make little use of commentators and expounders, and still less of system-builders, till he has formed some opinions of his own reflecting the leading doctrines of the Jewish and Christian religions.

"Impressed (says an able writer) with an awful sense of the importance of the sacred volume, the philosophical divine will shake off the bias of prejudices however formed, of opinions however sanctioned, and of passions however constitutional, and bring to the study of it the advantage of a pure and impartial mind. Instead of wasting all his labour upon a number of minute and less significant particulars, and of refining away plain and obvious sense by the subtleties of a narrow and corrosive mind, his first object will be to institute a theological inquiry into the general design of the written word, and from principles fully contained and fairly understood, to illustrate the true nature and genius of the religious dispensation in all its parts. He will mark the difference between the first and second covenants, and observe the connection that subsists between them. He will trace the temporary economy of the Old Testament, and weigh the nature and intent of the partial covenant with the Jews; observing with astonishment how it was made introductory of better things to come: and he will follow it through the law and the prophets in its wonderful evolutions, till he see this vast and preparatory machine of providence crowned and completed in the eternal gospel. This New Testament, the last and best part of the religious dispensation, he will pursue through the sacred pages of that gospel with redoubled attention; contemplating the divine foundation on which it claims to be built, the supernatural means by which it was executed, and the immortal end which it has in view."

In the course of this inquiry into the import of the sacred volume, the student will pay particular attention to the circumstances of the age and country in which its various writers respectively lived, and to the nature of the different styles, analogical and parabolical, in which it is written. He will likewise keep in mind that God, whom it claims for its author, is the parent of truth, and that all his actions and dispensations must be consistent with one another. He will therefore compare the different passages of the Old and New Testaments which relate to the same doctrine, or to the same event, reasonably concluding that the bible must be the best interpreter of itself; and though the opinions which he thus forms... Preliminary forms may often be erroneous, they will seldom be dangerous errors, and may easily be corrected by mature reflection, or by consulting approved authors who have treated before him of the various points which have been the subject of his studies. Of this mode of proceeding one good consequence will be, that, having from the sacred scriptures formed a system of theology for himself, he will afterwards study the systems of other men without any violent prejudices for or against them; he will be so much attached to his own opinions as not to relinquish them in obedience to mere human authority, at the same time that he will be ready to give them up when convinced that they are not well founded; and if he have read the scriptures attentively, he will have acquired such a love of truth as to embrace her wherever she may be found.

As we have supposed that every man, after having formed a theological system of his own, will consult the systems of others, it may perhaps be expected that we should here recommend those which, in our opinion, are most worthy of his attention. To do this, however, would, we apprehend, be an interference with the rights of private judgement. But lest we should be suspected of wishing to bias the mind of the young student toward the short system which we are obliged to give, we shall just observe, that by the divines of what is called the Arminian school, Episcopus's Theologia Institutiones, Limborch's Theologia Christiana, and Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity, have long been held in the highest esteem; whilst the followers of Calvin have preferred the Institutiones of their master, Turretine's Institutiones Theologica Elementae, and Gill's Body of Divinity. This last work has many merits and many defects. Its style is coarse and tedious; and the author embraces every opportunity of introducing the discriminating tenets of his feet; but his book is fraught with profound learning, breathes the spirit of piety, and may be read with advantage by every divine who has previously formed the outlines of a system for himself.

As the Jewish and Christian dispensations are closely linked together, being only parts of one great whole, it is impossible to have an adequate notion of the latter without understanding the design of the former. Now, though the Mosaic religion is nowhere to be learned but in the Old Testament, it may be convenient for our student, after he has formed his own opinions of it from that sacred source, to know what has been written on the subject by others. For illustrating the ritual law, a learned prelate warmly recommends the Doctor Dubitantium of Maimonides, and Spencer's book entitled De Legibus Hebræorum Ritualibus. Both works have undoubtedly great merit; but our young divine will do well to read along with them Hermanni Witthi Ægyptiaca, and Dr Woodward's Discourse on the Worship of the Ancient Egyptians, where some of Spencer's notions are shortly and ably refuted. On the other parts of this dispensation, such as the nature of its civil government; the rewards and punishments peculiar to it (c); its extraordinary administration by appointed agents, endowed with supernatural powers, and directions, with the gifts of miracles and prophecy; the double sense in which the latter is sometimes involved; and the language consequent on its nature and use—the reader will find much erudition and ingenuity displayed in the second part of Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated. That work is entitled to a serious perusal; for it displays great learning and genius, and, we believe, the heaviest censures have fallen on it from those by whom it was never read.

Having proceeded thus far in the course, the student's inquiry to next business should be to inquire seriously what evidence there is that the doctrines which he has so carefully studied were indeed revealed in times past by God. He must already have perceived, in the nature and tendency of the doctrines themselves, strong marks of their origin being more than human; but he must likewise have met with many difficulties, and he must prepare himself to repel the attacks of unbelievers. Here he will find opportunities of exerting the utmost powers of his reasoning faculties, and of employing in the service of religion all the stores he may have amassed of human learning. The scriptures pretend to have been written by several men who lived in different ages of the world; but the latest of them, in an age very remote from the present. His first business therefore must be to prove the authenticity of these books, by tracing them up by historical evidence to the several writers whose names they bear. But it is not enough to prove them authentic. They profess to have been written by men divinely inspired, and of course infallible in what they wrote. He must therefore inquire into the truth of this inspiration. The Bible contains a number of truths doctrinal and moral, which are called mysteries, and asserted to be the immediate dictates of God himself. To evince this great point to man, a number of supernatural tests and evidences are inseparably connected with those mysteries; so that if the former be true, the latter must be likewise. He must therefore examine these tests and evidences, to establish the divinity of the Holy Scriptures; and in this part of his course he will find much assistance from many writers whose defences of the truth and divinity of the Christian religion do honour to human nature.

The first step towards the embracing of any truth is, Books recommended on the Mosaic dispensation. to get fairly rid of the objections which are made to it; and the general objections made by deistical writers to the Christian revelation are by no writer more completely removed than by Bishop Butler, in his celebrated work entitled The Analogy of Religion natural and revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature. This book therefore the student should read with attention, and meditate on with patience; but as it does not furnish a positive proof of the divinity of our religion, he should pass from it to Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianæ, and Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae. Both these works are excellent; and the latter, which may be considered

(c) On this subject the reader will find many excellent observations in Bishop Bull's Harmonia Apostolica, with its several defences, and in a small book of Dr Wells's, entitled A Help for the Right Understanding of the several Divine Laws and Covenants, whereby man has been obliged through the several ages of the world to guide himself in order to salvation. Preliminary considered as an improvement of the former, is perhaps the fullest and ablest defence of revelation in general that is to be found in any language. In this part of the united kingdom it is now indeed scarcely mentioned, or mentioned with indifference; but half a century ago the English divines thought it a subject of triumph, and styled its author their incomparable Stillingfleet. Other works, however, may be read with great advantage, and none with greater than Paley's Evidences of the Christian Religion, and Leslie's Short Method with the Deists; which last work, in the compass of a very few pages, contains proofs of the divinity of the Jewish and Christian revelations, to which the celebrated Dr Middleton confessed (d), that for 20 years he had laboured in vain to fabricate a specious answer (e).

Having satisfied himself of the truth of revelation in general, it may be worth the young divine's while to provide a defence of the Christian religion against the objections of modern Judaism. In this part of his studies he will need no other instruction than what he may reap from Limborch's work entitled De Veritate Religions Christianae amica collatio cum erudito Judeo.

"In that disputation, which was held with Orobius, he will find all that the stretch of human parts on the one hand, or science on the other, can produce to vanquish error or unravel sophistry. All the papers of Orobius in defence of Judaism, as opposed to Christianity, are printed at large, with Limborch's answers, fed by fiction; and the subtlest sophisms of a very superior genius are ably and satisfactorily detected and exposed by the strong, profound, and clear reasoning, of this renowned remonstrant." See Orobius and Limborch.

The various controversies subsisting between the several denominations of Christians, about points which separate them into different churches, ought next to be studied in the order of the course; for nothing is unimportant which divides the followers of that Master whose favourite precept was love. It has indeed been long fashionable to decry polemical divinity as an useless, if not a pernicious, study; but it is not impossible that this fashion has had its origin in ignorance, and that it tends to perpetuate those schisms which it professes to lament. We are, however, far from recommending to the young divine a perusal of the works of the several combatants on each side of a disputed question, till he has fitted himself for judging between them by a long course of preparatory study; and the only preparation which can fit him for this purpose is an impartial study of ecclesiastical history. He who has with accuracy traced the progress of our holy religion from the days of the apostles to the present time, and marked the introduction of new doctrines, and the rise of the various sects into which the Christian world is divided, is furnished with a criterion within himself by which to judge of the importance and truth of the many contested doctrines; whilst he who, without this preparation, shall read a multitude of books on any religious controversy, will be in danger of becoming a convert to his last author, if that author possess any tolerable share of art and ingenuity.

There are many histories of the Christian church which possess great merit, but we are acquainted with none which appears to us wholly impartial. Mosheim's History, and perhaps the most perfect compend (f); and one of books whose greatest excellencies is, that on every subject the best commentators are referred to for fuller information. These indeed should often be consulted, not only to supply the defects necessarily resulting from the narrowness of the limits which the author, with great propriety, prescribed to himself; but also to correct his partial obliquities; for with all his merits, and they were many and great, he is certainly not free from the influence of prejudice. Indeed there is no coming at the true history of the primitive church, but by studying the works of the primitive writers; and the principal works of the first four centuries will amply reward the labour of perusing them (g). The rise and progress of the reformation in general, the most important period of church-history, may be best learned from Sleidan's book De Statu Religiosi et Reipublicae, Carolo V. Cæsare, Commentarii; the History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland from Knox and Spottiswoode; and that of the Church of England from the much applauded work of Bishop Burnet.

After this course of ecclesiastical history, the young divine may read with advantage the most important controversies which have agitated the Christian world. To enumerate these controversies, and to point out the ablest authors who have written on each, would be a tedious, and perhaps not a very profitable task. On one controversy, however, we are induced to recommend a very masterly work, which is Chillingworth's book against Knott, entitled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation; in which the school jargon of that Jesuit is admirably exposed, and the long dispute between

(d) This piece of information we had from the late Dr Berkeley, prebendary of Canterbury, who had it from Archbishop Secker, to whom the confession was made.

(e) To these defences of revelation we might have added the collection of sermons preached at Boyle's lecture from 1691 to 1732, published in three volumes folio, 1739; the works of Leland; Bishop Newton's Dissertations on Prophecy; and above all, Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History, with the Supplement to it. But there would be an end of recommending eminent writers on this subject. We have mentioned such as we most approve among those with whom we are best acquainted; but we must, once for all, caution the reader against supposing that we approve of every thing to be found in any work except the sacred Scriptures.

(f) The bishop of Landaff, in the catalogue of books published at the end of his Theological Tracts, recommends several other ecclesiastical histories as works of great merit; such as, Dupin's, Eckhard's, Gregory's and Torney's, together with Paul Ernesti Jablonski Institutiones Historiae Christianæ, published at Frankfort in three volumes, 1754-67.

(g) For a proof of this position, and for a just estimate of the value of the Fathers, as they are called, see the introduction to Warburton's Julian, and Keit's Sermons at Bampton's Lectures. PART I. OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.

Sect. I. Of the Being and Attributes of God.

HE who cometh to God, says an ancient divine*, deeply read in the philosophy of his age, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him. This is a truth as undeniable as that a man cannot concern himself about a nonentity. The existence of God is indeed the foundation of all religion, and the first principle of the science which is the subject of this article. It is likewise a principle which must command the assent of every man who has any notion of the relation between effects and their causes, and whose curiosity has ever been excited by the phenomena of nature. This great and important truth we have elsewhere endeavoured to demonstrate (see Metaphysics, Part III., Chap. vi.) ; but it may be proved by arguments less abstracted than the nature of that article required us to use. Of these we shall give one or two, which we hope will be level to every ordinary capacity; while, at the same time, we earnestly recommend to the young divine a diligent study of those books on the Being and the subject which we have mentioned in the preceding directions.

We see that the human race, and every other species of animals, is at present propagated by the co-operation of two parents; but has this process continued from eternity? A moment's reflection will convince us that it has not. Let us take any one man alive, and let us suppose his father and mother dead, and himself the only person at present existing: how came he into the world? It will be said he was produced mechanically or chemically by the conjunction of his parents, and that his parents were produced in the same manner by theirs. Let this then be supposed; it must surely be granted, that when this man was born, an addition was made to the series of the human race. But a series which can be enlarged may likewise be diminished; and by tracing it backwards, we must at some period, however remote, reach its beginning. There must therefore have been a first pair of the human race, who were not propagated by the conjunction of parents. How did these come into the world?

Anaximander tells us*, that the first men and all animals were bred in warm moisture, inclosed in crustaceous skins like crab-fish or lobsters; and that when they arrived at a proper age, their shell-like prisms growing dry, broke, and made way for their liberty. Empedocles informs us, that mother Earth at first brought forth vast numbers of legs, and arms, and heads, &c. which, approaching each other, arranging themselves properly, and being cemented together, started up at once full grown men.

Surely those sages, or their followers, should have been able to tell us why the earth has not in any climate this power of putting forth vegetative men or the parts of men at present. If this universal parent be eternal and self-existent, it must be incapable of decay or the smallest change in any of its qualities; if it be not eternal, we shall be obliged to find a cause for its existence, or at least for its form and all its powers. But such a cause may have produced the first human pair, and undoubtedly did produce them, without making them spring 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 can be propagated but from 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 feed 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 (see Being and Optics, No. 63—68, Physics, No. 23); and that there are considerable interferences 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 subsistence 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 subsistence endowed with power which is not material.

Of this subsistence or being the power is evidently immense. The earth and other planets are carried round the sun with a velocity which human imagination can scarcely 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 (see Metaphysics, No. 196—200, and Optics, No. 67); 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, even the motions of the heavenly bodies themselves.

If this powerful Being 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 everything but his own intelligence and volition. In vain have Atheists alleged, 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 (see Metaphysics, No. 288): of an infinite but not to insist on this at present, we shall only beg the reader to consider such a series as a whole, and see what consequences will flow from the supposition. That we may with logical propriety consider it in this light, is incontrovertible; for the birth of each individual of the human race shows that it is made up of parts; but parts imply a whole as necessarily as an attribute implies its subject. As in this supposed series there is no cause which is not likewise an effect, nor any body moving another which was not itself moved by a third, the whole is undeniably equivalent to an infinite effect, or an infinite body moved: but if a finite effect must necessarily have proceeded from a cause, and a finite body in Being in motion must have been put into that state by a mover; is there a human mind which can conceive an infinite effect to have proceeded from no cause, or an infinite body in motion to have been moved by nothing? No, surely! An infinite effect, were such a thing possible, would compel us to admit an infinite cause, and an infinite body in motion a mover of infinite power.

This great cause is God, whose wisdom, power, and goodness, all nature loudly proclaims. That the phenomena which we daily see evince the existence of one such Being, has just been shown; and that we have no reason to infer the existence of more than one, is very evident. For, not to lay more stress than it will bear on that rule of Newton's, which forbids us to multiply substances without necessity, such a harmony prevails through the whole visible universe, as plainly shows it to be under the government of one intelligence. That on this globe the several elements serve for nourishment to plants, plants to the inferior animals, and animals to man; that the other planets of our system are probably inhabited, and their inhabitants nourished in the same or a similar manner; that the sun is so placed as to give light and heat to all, and by the law of gravitation to bind the whole planets into one system with itself—are truths so obvious and so universally acknowledged, as to supersede the necessity of establishing them by proof. The fair inference therefore is, that the solar system and all its parts are under the government of one intelligence, which directs all its motions and all the changes which take place among its parts for some wise purposes. To suppose it under the government of two or more intelligences would be highly unreasonable; for if these intelligences had equal power, equal wisdom, and the same designs, one of them would evidently be superfluous; and if they had equal power and contrary designs, they could not be the parents of that harmony which we clearly perceive to prevail in the system.

But the Being capable of regulating the movements of so vast a machine, may well be supposed to possess infinite power, and to be capable of superintending the motions of the universe. That the widely extended system of nature is but one system, of which the several parts are united by many bonds of mutual connection, has been shown elsewhere (see Physics), and appears daily more and more evident from our progress in physical discoveries; and therefore it is in the highest degree unreasonable to suppose that it has more than one author, or one supreme governor.

As the unity of design apparent in the works of creation plainly proves the unity of their Author, so do the immensity of the whole, and the admirable adjustment of the several parts to one another, demonstrate His power and His wisdom. On this subject the following beautiful reflections by Mr Wollaston are deserving of the most serious attention.

"In order (says that able writer *) to prove to any Attributes of God.

There is only one original cause.

Vol. XX. Part I.

visits which the comets make to us, and the large trains of uncommon splendor which attend them, the far country from which they come, and the curiosity and horror which they excite not only among us, but in the inhabitants of other planets, who may also be up to see the entry and progress of these ministers of fate; to direct his eye and contemplation through those azure fields and vast regions above him up to the fixed stars, that radiant numberless host of heaven; and to make him understand how unlikely a thing it is that they should be placed there only to adorn and bespangle a canopy over our heads; to convince him that they are rather so many other firms, with their several systems of planets about them; to show him by the help of glasses still more and more of these fixed lights, and to beget in him an apprehension of their inconceivable numbers, and those immense spaces that lie beyond our reach and even our imagination: One needs but to do this (continues our author), and explain to him such things as are now known almost to every body; and by it to show, that if the world be not infinite, it is infinite similar, and undoubtedly the work of an Infinite Architect.

"But if we would take a view of all the particulars contained within that astonishing compass which we have thus hastily run over, how would wonders multiply upon us? Every corner, every part of the world, is as it were made up of other worlds. If we look upon this our earth, what scope does it furnish for admiration? The great variety of mountains, hills, valleys, plains, rivers, seas, trees, and plants! The many tribes of different animals with which it is stocked; the multifarious inventions and works of one of these, i.e., of us men; with the wonderful instincts of others, guiding them uniformly to what is best for themselves, in situations where neither sense nor reason could direct them. And yet when all these (heaven and earth) are surveyed as nicely as they can be by the help of our unassisted senses and of telescopes, we may discover by the assistance of good microscopes, in very small parts of matter, as many new wonders as those already discovered, new kingdoms of animals, with new and curious architecture. So that as our senses and even conception fainted before in the vast journeys we took in considering the expanse of the universe, they here again fail us in our researches into the principles and minute parts of which it is composed. Both the beginnings and the ends of things, the least and the greatest, all conspire to baffle us; and which way forever we prosecute our inquiries, we still meet with fresh subjects of amazement, and fresh reasons to believe that there are indefinitely more and more behind, that will forever escape our eagerness pursuits and deepest penetration.

"In this vast assemblage, and amidst all the multifarious motions by which the several processes of generation and corruption, and the other phenomena of nature, are carried on, we cannot but observe that there are stated methods, as so many forms of proceeding, to which things punctually and religiously adhere. The same causes circumstanced in the same manner produce always the same effects; all the species of animals among us are made according to one general idea; and so are those of plants also, and even of minerals. No new species are brought forth or have arisen anywhere; and the old are preserved and continued by the old ways.

"It appears, lastly, beyond dispute, that in the part Being and Attributes of God.

And model of the world there is a contrivance for accomplishing certain ends. The sun is placed near the centre of our system, for the more convenient dispensing of his benign influences to the planets moving about him; the place of the earth's equator intersects that of her orbit, and makes a proper angle with it, in order to diversify the year, and create an useful variety of seasons; and many other things of this kind will be always observed, and though a thousand times repeated, be meditated upon with pleasure by good men and true philosophers. Who can observe the vapours to ascend, especially from the sea, meet above in clouds, and fall again after condensation, without being convinced that this is a kind of distillation, in order to clear the water of its grosser salts, and then by rains and dews to supply the fountains and rivers with fresh and wholesome liquor; to nourish the vegetables below by showers, which descend in drops as from a watering-pot upon a garden? Who can view the structure of a plant or animal, the indefinite number of its fibres and fine vessels, the formation of larger vessels, and the several members out of them, with the apt disposition of all these; the means contrived for the reception and distribution of nutriment; the effect this nutriment has in extending the vessels, bringing the vegetable or animal to its full growth and expansion, continuing the motion of the several fluids, repairing the decays of the body, and preserving life? Who can take notice of the several faculties of animals, their arts of faving and providing for themselves, or the ways in which they are provided for; the uses of plants to animals, and of some animals to others, particularly to mankind; the care taken that the several species should be propagated, without confusion, from their proper seeds; the strong inclination planted in animals for that purpose, their love of their young and the like.—Who (says our author) can observe all this, and not see a design in such regular pieces, so nicely wrought and so admirably preserved? If there were but one animal in existence, and it could not be doubted but that his eyes were formed that he might see with them, his ears that he might hear with them, and his feet to be instruments by which he might remove himself from place to place; if design and contrivance can be much less doubted, when the same things are repeated in the individuals of all the tribes of animals; if the like observations be made with respect to vegetables and other things; and if all these classes of things, and much more the individuals comprehended under them, be inconceivably numerous, as most unquestionably they are—one cannot but be convinced, from what so plainly runs through the nobler parts of the visible world, that not only they, but other things, even those that seem to be less noble, have their ends likewise, though not always perceived by capacities limited like ours. And since we cannot, with the Epicureans of old, suppose the parts of matter to have contrived among themselves this wonderful form of a world, to have taken by agreement each its respective part, and then to have pursued in conjunction constant ends by certain methods and measures concerted, there must be some other Being, whose wisdom and power are equal to such a mighty work as is the structure and preservation of the world. There must be some Almighty Mind who modelled and preserves it: lays the causes of things so deep; prescribes them such uniform and steady laws; defines and adapts them to certain purposes; and makes one thing fit and answer another so as to produce one harmonious whole. Yes,

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good! Almighty, thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!

How wondrous in wisdom and in power!"

But the goodness of God is not less conspicuous in goodness in his works than His power or His wisdom. Contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivances indicates the disposition of the designer. "The world (says an elegant and judicious writer *) * Dr Paley, abounds with contrivances, and all the contrivances in it which we are acquainted are directed to beneficial purposes. Evil no doubt exists; but it is never that we can perceive the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; but it is not its object. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In delineating implements of husbandry, one would hardly say of a sickle that it is made to cut the reaper's fingers, though from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often happens. But if he had occasion to describe instruments of torture or execution, this, he would say, is to extend the finesse; this to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to scourch the soles of the feet. Here pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said, this is to irritate, this to inflame, this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidney, this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout. If by chance he come to a part of which he knows not the use, the most that he can say is, that to him it appears to be useless; no one ever supposes that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment. If God had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be as many fores and pains to us as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or, by placing us among objects so ill suited to our perceptions as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for instance, every thing we tasted bitter, every thing we saw loathsome, every thing we touched a stinging, every smell a stench, and every sound a discord."

Instead of this, all our sensations, except such as are excited by what is dangerous to our health, are pleasures to us: The view of a landscape is pleasant; the taste of nourishing food is pleasant; sounds not too loud are agreeable, while musical sounds are exquisite; and scarcely any smells, except such as are excited by effluvia obviously pernicious to the brain, are disagreeable; while some of them, if not too long indulged, are delightful. Our lives are preserved and the species is continued by obeying the impulse of appetites; of which the gratification is exquisite when not repeated too frequently, to answer the purposes of the Author of our being. Since, then, God has called forth his confluence Being and mate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, attributes and has made those things which are necessary to our existence and the continuance of the race sources of our greatest sensual pleasures, who can doubt but that benevolence is one of his attributes; and that, if it were not impious to draw a comparison between them, it is the attribute in which he himself most delighteth.

But it is not from sensation only that we may infer the benevolence of the Deity: He has formed us with minds capable of intellectual improvement, and he has implanted in the breast of every man a very strong desire of adding to his knowledge. This addition, it is true, cannot be made without labour; and at first the requisite labour is to most people irksome; but a very short progress in any study converts what was irksome into a pleasure of the most exalted kind; and he who by study, however intense, enlarges his ideas, experiences a complacency, which, though not so poignant perhaps as the pleasures of the sensualist, is such as endears him to himself, and is what he would not exchange for anything else which this world has to offer, except the still sweeter complacency arising from the consciousness of having discharged his duty.

That the practice of virtue is attended with a peculiar pleasure of the purest kind, is a fact which no man has ever questioned, though the immediate source of that pleasure has been the subject of many disputes. He who attributes it to a moral sense, which instinctively points out to every man his duty, and on the performance of it rewards him with a sentiment of self-approbation, must of necessity acknowledge benevolence to be one of the attributes of that Being who has so constituted the human mind. That to protect the innocent, relieve the distressed, and do to others as we would in like circumstances wish to be done by, fills the breast, previous to all reflection, with a holy joy, as the conviction of any crime tears it with remorse, cannot indeed be controverted. Many, however, contend, that this joy and this remorse spring not from any moral instinct implanted in the mind, but are the consequence of early and deep-rooted associations of the practice of virtue with the hope of future happiness, and of vice with the dread of future misery. On the respective merits of these two theories we shall not now decide, but only observe, that they both lead with equal certainty to the benevolence of the Deity, who made us capable of forming affections, and subjected these affections to fixed laws. This being the case, the moral sense, with all its instantaneous effects, affords not a more convincing proof of his goodness, than that principle in our nature by which remote circumstances become so linked together, that the one circumstance never occurs without bringing the other also into view. It is thus that the pleasing complacency, which was perhaps first excited by the hopes of future happiness, comes in time to be so associated with the consciousness of virtuous conduct, the only thing entitled to reward, that a man never performs a meritorious action without experiencing the most exquisite joy diffused through his mind, though his attention at that instant may not be directed either to heaven or futurity. Were we obliged, before we could experience this joy, to estimate by reason the merit of every individual action, and trace its connection to heaven and future happiness through a long train of intermediate reasoning, we should be in a great measure deprived of the present reward of virtue; and therefore this associating principle contributes much to our happiness. But the benevolence of a Being, who seems thus anxious to furnish us with both sensual and intellectual enjoyments, and who has made our duty our greatest pleasure, cannot be questioned; and therefore we must infer, that the Author of Nature wishes the happiness of the whole sensible and intelligent creation.

To such reasoning as this in support of the Divine Objections, Benevolence many objections have been made. Some of them appear at first sight plausible, and are apt to flatter the faith of him who has bestowed no time on the study of that branch of general science which is called physics (see Physics). To omit these altogether in such an article as this might be construed into neglect; while it is certain that there is in them nothing worthy the attention of that man who is qualified either to estimate their force, or to understand the arguments by which they have often been repelled.

It has been asked, Why, if the Author of Nature be a benevolent Being, are we necessarily subject to pain, disease, and death? The scientific physiologist replies, Because from these evils Omnipotence itself could not in our present state exempt us, but by a constant series of miracles. He who admits miracles, knows likewise that mankind were originally in a state in which they were not subject to death; and that they fell under its dominion through the fault of their common progenitors. But the fall and restoration of man is the greatest subject of revealed religion; and at present we are disfranchising the question like philosophers who have no other data on which to proceed than the phenomena of nature. Now we know, that as all matter is divisible, every system composed of it must necessarily be liable to decay and dissolution; and our material system would decay and be dissolved long before it could serve the purposes of nature, were there not methods contrived with admirable wisdom for repairing the waste occasioned by perpetual friction. The body is furnished with different fluids, which continually circulate through it in proper channels, and leave in their way what is necessary to repair the solids. These again are supplied by food ad extra; and to the whole processes of digestion, circulation, and nutrition, the air we breathe is absolutely necessary. But as the air is a very heterogeneous fluid, and subject to violent and sudden changes, it is obvious that these changes must affect the blood, and by consequence the whole frame of the human body. The air indeed in process of time consumes even marble itself; and therefore we cannot wonder, that as it is in one state the parent of health, it should in another be the source of disease to such creatures as man and other terrestrial animals. Nor could these consequences be avoided without introducing others much more deplorable. The world is governed by general laws, without which there could be among men neither arts nor sciences; and though laws different from those by which the system is at present governed might perhaps have been established, there is not the smallest reason to imagine that they could on the whole have been better, or attended with fewer inconveniences. 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 pain, disease, corruption, and death, and that too by the very influence of those laws which preserve the order and harmony of the universe. Thus gravitation is a general law so good and so necessary, that were it for a moment suspended, the world would instantly fall to pieces; and yet by means of this law the man must inevitably be crushed to death on whom a tower shall chance to tumble. Again, the attraction of cohesion is a general law, without which it does not appear that any corporeal system could possibly exist: it is by this law too, or a modification of it, that the glands and lacteals of the human body extract from the blood such particles as are necessary to nourish the solids; and yet it is by means of the very same modification of the very same law that a man is liable to be poisoned.

Although the human body could not have been preserved from dangers and dilution but by introducing evils greater on the whole than those to which it is now liable, why, it has sometimes been asked, is every disorder to which it is subject attended with sickness or with pain? and why is such a horror of death implanted in our breasts, feeling that by the laws of nature death is inevitable? We answer, That sickness, pain, and the dread of death, serve the very 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. Felt we no uneasiness in a fever, we should be insensible of the disease, and die before we suspected our health to be impaired. The horror which generally accompanies our reflections on death tends to make us more careful of life, and prevents us from quitting this world rashly when our affairs prosper not according to our wishes. It is likewise an indication that our existence does not terminate in this world; for our dread is seldom excited by the prospect of the pain which we may suffer when dying, but by our anxiety concerning what we may be doomed to suffer or enjoy in the next stage of our existence; and this anxiety tends more perhaps than anything else to make us live while we are here in such a manner as to ensure our happiness hereafter.

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. We must not, however, suppose the Divine benevolence to be a fond affection like that which is called benevolence among men. All human affections and passions originate in our dependence and wants; and it has been doubted whether any of them be at first disinterested (see PASSION): but he to whom existence is essential cannot be dependent; he who is the Author of everything can feel no want. The divine benevolence therefore must be wholly disinterested, and of course free from those partialities originating in self-love, which are alloys in the most sublime of human virtues. The most benevolent man on earth, though he wishes the happiness of every fellow-creature, has still, from the ties of blood, the endearments of friendship, or, perhaps from a regard to his own interest, some particular favourites whom, on a competition with others, he would certainly prefer. But the equal Lord of all can have no particular favourites. His benevolence is therefore coincident with justice; or, that which is called divine justice, is only benevolence exerting itself in a particular Being and manner for the propagation of general felicity. When God prescribes laws for regulating the conduct of his intelligent creatures, it is not because he can reap any benefit from their obedience to those laws, but because such obedience is necessary to their own happiness; and when he punishes the transgressor, it is not because in nature there is any disposition to which the prospect of such punishment can afford gratification, but because in the government of free agents punishment is necessary to reform the criminal, and to intimidate others from committing the like crimes.

The 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, and it would be impious presumption to inquire. It is sufficient for all the purposes of religion to know that God is some how 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 illustrate the perpetual superintendence of his providence, both general and particular, over every minute part of the universe: but that subject has been discussed in a separate article; to which, therefore, we refer the reader. (see PROVIDENCE). We shall only observe at present, that the manner in which animals are propagated affords as complete a proof of the constant superintendence of divine power and wisdom, as it does of the immediate exertion of these faculties in the formation of the parent pair of each species. For were propagation carried on by necessary and mechanical laws, it is obvious, that in every age there would be generated, in each species of animals, the very same proportion of males to females that there was in the age preceding. On the other hand, but could generation depend on fortuitous mechanism, it is not flantly preconceivable but that, since the beginning of the world, sent to his several species of animals should in some age have generated nothing but males, and others nothing but females; and that of course many species would have been long since extinct. As neither of these cases has ever happened, the preservation of the various species of animals, by keeping up constantly in the world a due, though not always the same, proportion between the sexes of male and female, is a complete proof of the superintendence of divine providence, and of that saying of the apostle, that it is "in God we live, move, and have our being."

Sect. II. Of the Duties and Sanctions of Natural Religion.

From the short view that 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. This is indeed not only a duty, but a duty of which no man who contemplates these perfections, and believes them to be real, can possibly avoid the performance. He who thinks irreverently of the Author of nature, can never have considered ferociously the power, the wisdom, and the goodness, displayed in his works; for whoever has a tolerable notion of these must be convinced, that he who performed them has no imperfection; Part I.

Duties and Sanctions of Natural Religion.

Sanctified by whom no positive idea should be formed.

How he ought to be spoken of; and what is meant by serving him.

Theology.

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 and without any alloy of selfish design. This conviction must make every man on whose mind it is impressed ready to prostrate himself in the dust before the Author of his being; who, though infinitely exalted above him, is the source of all his enjoyments, constantly watches over him with paternal care, and protects him from numberless dangers. The sense of so many benefits must excite in his mind a sentiment of the liveliest gratitude to him from whom they are received, and an ardent wish for their continuance.

While silent gratitude and devotion thus glow 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. He knows that God is not material; that he exists in a manner altogether incomprehensible; that to frame an image of him would be to assign limits to what is infinite; and that to attempt to form a positive conception of him would be impiously to compare himself with his Maker.

The man who has any tolerable 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. He knows that the terms of all languages are inadequate and improper, when applied directly to him who has no equal, and to whom nothing can be compared; and therefore he will employ these terms with caution. When he speaks of his mercy and compassion, he will not consider them as feelings wringing the heart like the mercy and compassion experienced by man, but as rays of pure and disinterested benevolence. When he thinks of the stupendous system of nature, and hears it, perhaps, said that God formed it for his own glory, he will reflect that God is so infinitely exalted above all his creatures, so perfect in himself, that he can neither take pleasure in their applause, nor receive any accession of any kind from the existence of ten thousand worlds. The immense fabric of nature therefore only displays the glory or perfections of its Author to us and to other creatures who have not faculties to comprehend him in himself.

When the contemplative man talks of serving God, he does not dream that his services can increase the divine felicity; but means only that it is his duty to obey the divine laws. Even the pronoun He, when it refers to God, cannot be of the same import as when it refers to man; and by the philosophical divine it will seldom be used but with a mental allusion to this obvious distinction.

As the man who duly venerates the Author of his being will not speak of him on trivial occasions, so will he be still further from calling upon him to witness impertinences and falsehood, (see OATH). He will never mention his name but with a pause, that he may have time to reflect in silence on his numberless perfections, and on the immense distance between himself and the Being of whom he is speaking. The slightest reflection will convince him that the world with all that it contains depends every moment on that God who formed it; and this conviction will compel him to wish for the divine protection of himself and his friends from all dangers and misfortunes. Such a wish is in effect a prayer, and will always be accompanied with adoration, confession, and thanksgiving (see PRAYER). But adoration, duties and confessions, supplication, and thanksgiving, constitute what is called worship, and therefore the worship of God is a natural duty. It is the addressing of ourselves as his dependants to him as the supreme cause and governor of the world, with acknowledgements of what we enjoy, and petitions for what we really want, or he knows to be convenient for us. As if, ex gr. I should in some humble and composed manner (says Mr Wollaston) pray to that " Almighty Being, upon whom depends the existence of the world, and by whose providence I have been preserved to this moment, and enjoyed many undeserved advantages, that he would graciously accept my grateful sense and acknowledgments of duty, of all his beneficence towards me; that he would deliver me from the evil consequences of all my transgressions and follies; that he would endue me with such dispositions and powers as may carry me innocently and safely through all future trials, and may enable me on all occasions to behave myself conformably to the laws of reason piously and wisely; that He would suffer no being to injure me, no misfortunes to befall me, nor me to hurt myself by any error or misconduct of my own; that he would vouchsafe me clear and distinct perceptions of things; with so much health and prosperity as may be good for me; that I may at least pass my time in peace, with contentment and tranquillity of mind; and that having faithfully discharged my duty to my family and friends, and endeavoured to improve myself in virtuous habits and useful knowledge, I may at last make a decent and happy exit, and find myself in some better state."

That an untaught savage would be prompted by instinct to address the Supreme Being in such terms as this, we are so far from thinking, that to us it appears not probable that such a savage, in a state of solitude, would be led by instinct to suppose the existence of that Being. But as soon as the being and attributes of God were, by whatever means, made known to man, every sentiment expressed in this prayer must necessarily have been generated in his mind; for not to be sensible that we derive our existence and all our enjoyments from God, is in effect to deny his being or his providence; and not to feel a wish that he would give us what we want, is to deny either his goodness or his power.

The worship of God therefore is a natural duty resulting from the contemplation of his attributes and a sense of our own dependence. But the reasoning which has led us to this conclusion respects only private devotion; for it is a question of much greater difficulty, and far enough from being yet determined, whether public worship be a duty of that religion which can with any propriety be termed natural. Mr Wollaston indeed positively affirms that it is, and endeavours to prove his position by the following arguments.

"A man (says he) may be considered as a member of some society; and as such he ought to worship God for it, if he has the opportunity of doing it, if there be proper prayers used publicly to which he may refer, and if his health, &c. permit. Or the society may be considered as one body, that has common interests and concerns, and as such is obliged to worship the Deity, and offer one prayer. Besides, there are many who know not of themselves..." Duties and themselves how to pray; perhaps cannot so much as Sanctions of read. These must be taken as they are; and consequently some time and place appointed where they may have suitable prayers read to them, and be guided in their devotions. And further, towards the keeping mankind in order, it is necessary there should be some religion professed, and even established, which cannot be without public worship. And were it not for that sense of virtue which is principally preserved (so far as it is preserved) by national forms and habits of religion, men would soon lose it all, run wild, prey upon one another, and do what else the worst of savages do.

These are in themselves just observations, and would come with great force and propriety from the tongue or pen of a Christian preacher, who is taught by revelation that the Matter whom he serves has commanded his followers "not to forsake the assembling of themselves together," and has promised, "that if two of them shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of his Father who is in Heaven." As urged by such a man, and on such grounds, they would serve to show the fitness of the divine command, and to point out the benefits which a religious obedience to it might give us reason to expect. But the author is here professing to treat of natural religion, and to state the duties which result from the mere relation which subsists between man as a creature and God as his creator and constant preserver. Now, though we readily admit the benefits of public worship as experienced under the Christian dispensation, we do not perceive any thing in this reasoning which could lead a pious thief to expect the same benefit previous to all experience. When the author thought of national forms and establishments of religion, he certainly lost sight of his proper subject, and, as such writers are too apt to do, comprehended under the idea of nature what belongs only to that which is revealed. Natural religion, in the proper sense of the words, admits of no particular forms, and of no legal establishment. Private devotion is obviously one of its duties, because sentiments of adoration, confession, supplication, and thanksgiving, necessarily spring up in the breast of every man who has just notions of God and of himself; but it is not so obvious that such notions would induce any body of men to meet at stated times for the purpose of expressing their devotional sentiments in public. Mankind are indeed social beings, and naturally communicate their sentiments to each other; but we cannot conceive what should at first have led them to think that public worship at stated times would be acceptable to the self-existent Author of the universe. In case of a famine, or any other calamity in which the whole tribe was equally involved, they might speak of it to each other, inquire into its cause, and in the extremity of their distress join perhaps in one fervent petition, that God would remove it. In the same manner they might be prompted to pour forth occasional ejaculations of public gratitude for public mercies; but it does not follow from these incidental occurrences that they would be led to institute times and places and forms of national worship, as if they believed the omnipotent Deity more ready to hear them in public than in private. That the appointment of such times and forms and places is beneficial to society, experience teaches us; and therefore it is the duty, and has been the practice, of the supreme magistrate, in every age and in every civilized country, to provide for the maintenance of the national worship. But this practice has taken its rise, not from the deductions of reason, but either from direct revelation, as among the Jews and Christians; or from tradition, which had its origin in some early revelations, as among the more enlightened Pagans of ancient and modern times.

We hope none of our readers will imagine that we mean, in any degree, to call in question the fitness or the duty of public worship. This is far from our intention; but while we are convinced of the importance and necessity of this duty, we do not apprehend that we lessen its dignity, or detract from the weight of almost universal practice, by endeavouring to derive that practice from its true source, which appears to us to be not human reason, but divine revelation.

But whatever doubts may be entertained with respect to the origin of public worship, there can be none as to the foundation of moral virtue. Reason clearly perceives it to be the will of our Maker, that each individual of the human race should treat every other individual as, in similar circumstances, he would expect to be treated himself. It is thus only that the greatest sum of human happiness can be produced (see Moral Philosophy, No. 17. and 135.) for were all men temperate, sober, just in their dealings, faithful to their promises, charitable to the poor, &c., it is obvious that no miseries would be felt on earth, but the few which, by the laws of corporeal nature, unavoidably result from the union of our minds with systems of matter. But the design of God in forming sentient beings was to communicate to them some portion, or rather some resemblance, of that felicity which is essential to himself; and therefore every action which in its natural tendency co-operates with this design must be agreeable to him, as every action of a contrary tendency must be disagreeable.

From this reasoning it follows, that we are obliged not only to be just and benevolent to one another, but also to abstain from all unnecessary cruelty to inferior animals. That we have a right to tame cattle, and employ them for the purposes of agriculture and other arts where strength is required, is a position which we animals a little has seldom been controverted. But if it is the intention of God to communicate a portion of happiness to all his creatures endowed with sense, it is obvious that we sin against him when we subject even the horse or the ass to greater labour than he is able to perform; and this sin is aggravated when from avarice we give not the animal a sufficient quantity of food to support him under the exertions which we compel him to make. That it is our duty to defend ourselves and our property from the ravages of beasts of prey, and that we may even exterminate such beasts from the country in which we live, are truths which cannot be questioned; but it has been the opinion of men, eminent for wisdom and learning, that we have no right to kill an ox or a sheep for food, but in consequence of the divine permission to Noah recorded in the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. Whether this opinion be well or ill founded we shall not positively determine, though the arguments on which it rests are of such a nature as the reasoners of the present day would perhaps find it no easy task to answer; but it cannot admit of a doubt, that, in killing such animals, we are, in duty to their Creator and ours, bound to put them to the least possible pain. If this be granted, it is still more evident Duties and evident that we act contrary to the divine will when we torture and put to death such animals as are confessedly not injurious to ourselves, or to any thing on which the comforts of life are known to depend. We are indeed far from being convinced with the poet, that insects and reptiles "in mortal sufferance feel as when a giant dies:" but their feelings on that occasion are certainly such, as that, when we wantonly inflict them, we thwart, as far as in our power, the benevolent purpose of the Creator in giving them life and sense. Let it be observed too, that the man who practises needless cruelty to the brute creation is training up his mind for exercising cruelty towards his fellow-creatures, to his slaves if he have any, and to his servants; and, by a very quick progress, to all who may be placed beneath him in the scale of society.

Such are the plain duties of natural religion; and if they were universally practised, it is evident that they would be productive of the greatest happiness which mankind could enjoy in this world, and that piety and virtue would be their own reward. They are however far from being universally practised; and the consequence is, that men are frequently raised to affluence and power by vice, and sometimes sunk into poverty by a rigid adherence to the rules of virtue.

This being the case, there can be no question of greater importance, while there are few more difficult to be answered, than "What are the sanctions by which natural religion enforces obedience to her own laws?" It is not to be supposed that the great body of mankind should, without the prospect of an ample reward, practise virtue in those instances in which such practice would be obviously attended with injury to themselves; nor does it appear reasonable in any man to forego present enjoyment, without the well-grounded hope of thereby securing to himself a greater or more permanent enjoyment in reverent. Natural religion therefore, as a system of doctrines influencing the conduct, is exceedingly defective, unless it affords 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 divines, and by many philosophers of a different description, who, though they profess Christianity, seem to have some unaccountable dread of being deceived by their bibles in every doctrine which cannot be supported by philosophical reasoning.

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 continue to live in some other state after death has separated their souls from their bodies. "Quod si omnium confusus nature vox est: omnique, qui ubique sint, consentiunt ebe aliquid, quod ad eos pertineat, qui vita cesserint: nobis quoque idem existimandum est: et si, quorum aut ingenio, aut virtute animus excellit, eos arbitratur, quia natura optima sunt, cernere naturam maxime: verisimile est, omnem optimam quisque maximae posteritati serviat, ebe aliquid, cujus est mortem semper fit habiturus. Sed ut deos effe natura opinamus, qualeque sint, ratione cognoscimus, sic permanere animos arbitramur confusa natum omnium."

That this is a good argument for the truth of the doctrine, through whatever channel men may have received it, we readily acknowledge; but it appears not to us to be any proof of that doctrine's 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. In the Elysium of the Greek and Roman poets, departed spirits were visible to mortal eyes; and must therefore have been clothed with some material vehicle of sufficient density to reflect the rays of light, though not to resist the human touch. In the mythology of the northern nations, as deceased heroes are represented as eating and drinking, they could not be considered as entirely divested of matter; and in every popular creed of idolatry, future rewards were supposed to be conferred, not for private virtue, but for public violence, on heroes and conquerors and the destroyers of nations. Surely no admirer of what is now called natural religion will pretend that these are part of its doctrines; they are evidently the remains of some primeval tradition obscured and corrupted in its long progress through ages and nations.

The philosophers of Greece and Rome employed much of the philosophy and great talents in disquisitions concerning the immortality of the soul and its state after death as could afford no rational support to suffering virtue. (See Metaphysics, Part III. chap. 4.) Socrates is indeed an exception. Confining himself to the study of ethics, that excellent person inferred by the common moral arguments (see Moral Philosophy, No. 232—246), that the reality of a future state of rewards and punishments is in the highest degree probable. He was not, however, at all times absolutely convinced of this important truth; for a little before his death he said to some who were about him, "I am now about to leave this world, and ye are still to continue in it; which of us have the better part allotted us, God only knows." And again, Plato in the end of his most admired discourse concerning the Apology, immortality of the soul, delivered at a time when he must have been serious, he said to his friends who came to pay their last visit, "I would have you to know that I have great hopes that I am now going into the company of good men; yet I would not be too peremptory and confident concerning it."

Next to Socrates, Cicero was perhaps the most respectable of all the philosophers of antiquity; and he seems to have studied this great question with uncommon care: yet what were his conclusions? After retailing the opinions of various sages of Greece, and showing that some held the soul to be the heart; others, the blood in the heart; some the brain; others, the breath; one, that it was harmony; another, that it was number; one, that it was nothing at all; and another, that it was a certain quintessence without a name, but which might properly be called ethereal—he gravely adds, "Harum fententiarum qua vera fit, Deus aliquis videt: qua rerum illimina, magna quaestio est." He then proceeds to give his own opinion; which was, that the soul is part of God.

To us who know by other evidence that the soul is immortal, and that there will be a future state in which all Duties and all the obliquities of the present state be made straight, Sanctions of the argument drawn from the moral attributes of God, Natural Religion, 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, and have said with the latter, on reading the arguments of the former as detailed by Plato. "Necio quomodo, dum lego, affention: cum posui librum, et mecum ipse de im- mortaliitate animorum cepi cogitare, affention illa elabi- tur *."

Ibid.

Without the light of revelation we should have doubted like them.

No one, we hope, will suspect us of an impious at- tempt to weaken the evidence of a future state. God for- bid! The expectation of that state is the only support of virtue and religion; and we think the arguments we have stated elsewhere, and referred to on the present oc- casion, make the reality of it so highly probable, that, though there were no other evidence, he would act a very foolish part who should confine his attention wholly to the present life. But we do not apprehend that we can injure the cause either of virtue or of religion, by confessing, that those arguments which left doubts in the minds of Socrates and Cicero appear not to us to have the force of complete demonstration of that life and immortality which our Saviour brought to light through the gospel.

Were the case, however, otherwise; were the argu- ments which the light of nature affords for the immor- tality of the human soul as convincing as any geometri- cal demonstration—natural religion would still be defec- tive; because it points out no method by which such as have offended God may be restored to his favour, and to the hopes of happiness which by their sin they had lost. That he who knows whereof we are made would show himself placable to sinners, and that he would find some way to be reconciled, might perhaps be reasonably inferred from the consideration of his benevolence dif- played in his works. But when we come to inquire more particularly how we are to be reconciled, and whether a proposition will be required, nature stops short, and ex- pects with impatience the aid of some particular revela- tion. That God will receive returning sinners, and ac- cept of repentance instead of perfect obedience, cannot be certainly known by those to whom he has not de- clared that he will. For though repentance be the most probable, and indeed the only means of reconciliation which nature suggests; yet whether he, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, will not require something further before he restore sinners to the privileges which they have forfeited, mere human reason has no way of discovering. From nature therefore arises no sufficient comfort to sinners, but anxious and endless solicitude about the means of appeasing the Deity. Hence those different ways of sacrificing, and those numberless super- stitions which overspread the heathen world, but which were so little satisfactory to the wiser part of mankind, that, even in those days of darkness, the philosophers frequently declared that, in their opinion, those rites and oblations could avail nothing towards appeasing the wrath of an offended God, or making their prayers ac- ceptable to him. Hence Socrates and one of his disciples are represented by Plato† as expecting a person divinely † In Alcibi- commissioned to inform them whether sacrifices be ac- ceptable to the deity, and as resolving to offer no more till that person's arrival, which they piously hoped might be at no great distance.

This darkness of the pagan world is to us who live under the sunshine of the gospel happily removed by the various revelations contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. These taken together exhibit such a display of providence, such a system of doctrines, and such precepts of practical wisdom, as the ingenuity of man could never have discovered. The Christian, with the scriptures in his hands, can regulate his con- duct by an infallible guide, and rest his hopes on the surest foundation. These scriptures it is now our business to examine.

PART II. OF REVEALED THEOLOGY.

IN every civilized country the popular system of the- ology has claimed its origin from divine revelation. The Pagans of antiquity had their augurs and oracles; the Chinese have their inspired teachers Confucius and Fohi: the Hindoos have their sacred books derived from Bra- hama; the followers of Mahomet have their Koran dic- tated by an angel; and the Jews and Christians have the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which they believe to have been written by holy men of old, who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

That the claims of ancient Paganism to a theology derived from heaven, as well as the similar claims of the Chinese, Hindoos, and Mahometans, are ill founded, has been shown in various articles of this work, (see CHINA, HINDOSTAN, MAHOMETANISM, MYTHOLOGY, and PO- LYTHEISM); whilst under the words RELIGION, REVE- LATION, and SCRIPTURE, we have sufficiently proved the divine inspiration of the Jewish and Christian scrip- tures, and of course the divine origin of Jewish and Chris- tian theology. These indeed are not two systems of theo- logy, but parts of one system which was gradually re- vealed as men were able to receive it; and therefore both scriptures must be studied by the Christian divine.

There is nothing in the sacred volume which it is not true, of importance to understand; for the whole proceeds from the fountain of truth: but some of its doctrines are much more important than others, as relating imme- diately to man's everlasting happiness; and these it has been customary to arrange and digest into regular sys- tems, called bodies or institutes of Christian theology. Could these artificial systems be formed with perfect im- partiality, they would undoubtedly be useful, for the bible contains many historical details, but remotely re- lated to salvation; and even of its most important truths, it requires more time and attention than the majority of Christians have to bestow, to discover the mutual con- nections and dependence.

Artificial systems of theology are commonly divided into two great parts, the theoretic and the practical; and and these again are subdivided into many inferior branches.

Under the theoretic part are sometimes classified,

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 on 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 are,

1. 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. Catechetical 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.

3. Confessional theology, or the science which decides on doubtful cases of moral theology, and that 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, for the greater part of them indicate distinctions where there is no difference, and tend only to perplex the student. As the truths of Christianity are all contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, it is obvious that dogmatic theology must comprehend the speculative part of that which is called moral, as well as every doctrine about which controversy can be of importance. But no man can extract a single dogma from the bible but by the practice of what is here called the exegesis; so that all the subdivisions of this arrangement of theoretical theology must be studied together as they necessarily coalesce into one. The same thing is true of the three branches into which the practical theology is here divided. He who has acquired the art of adapting his homilies to the various capacities of a mixed audience, will need no new study to fit him for instructing children, and the most ignorant persons who are capable of instruction; and the complete matter of moral theology will find it no very difficult task to resolve all the cases of conscience which he can have reason to suppose will ever be submitted to his judgement. For these reasons we shall not trouble our readers with the various divisions and subdivisions of theology. Our preliminary directions will show them how we think the science should be studied; and all that we have to do as system-builders is to lay before them the view which the scriptures present to us of the being and perfections of God, his various dispensations to man, and the duties thence incumbent on Christians. In doing this, we shall follow the order of the divine dispensations as we find them recorded in the Old and New Testaments, dwelling longest on those which appear to us of most general importance. But as we take it for granted that every reader of this article will have previously read the whole Sacred volume, we shall not scruple to illustrate dogmas contained in the Old Testament by texts taken from the New, or to illustrate doctrines peculiar to the Christian religion by the testimony of Jewish prophets.

Sect. I. Of God and his Attributes.

In every system of theology the first truths to be believed are those which relate to the being and attributes of God. The Jewish lawgiver, therefore, who records the earliest revelations that were made to man, begins God to his history with a display of the power and wisdom of a known God in the creation of the world. He does not inform his countrymen, and expect them to believe, on the authority of his divine commission, that God exists; for he well knew that the being of God must be admitted, and just notions entertained of his attributes, before man can be required to pay any regard to miracles which afford the only evidence of a primary revelation. "In the beginning (says he) God created the heavens and the earth." Here the being of God is assumed as a truth universally received; but the sentence, short as it is, reveals another, which, as we shall afterwards show, human reason could never have discovered.

There is nothing which the scriptures more frequently or more earnestly inculcate than the unity of the divine nature. The texts asserting this great and fundamental truth are almost numberless. "Unto thee (says Moses to his countrymen *) it was shewed, that thou mightest Deut. iv. know that the Lord is God; there is none else besides 35 and 39, him. Know therefore that the Lord he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. And again, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," or, as it is expressed in the original, "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah," one Being to whom existence is essential, who could not have a beginning and cannot have an end. In the prophecies of Isaiah, God is introduced as repeatedly declaring, "I am Je-† Isaiah xiv. hovah, and there is none else; there is no God besides 5, 6, 18, me; that they may know from the rising of the sun and 21. xlv. 3. from the west, that there is none besides me: I am Jeho- uah, and there is none else: Is there a God besides me? Yea there is no God; I know not any." In perfect harmony with these declarations of Moses and the prophets, our Saviour, addressing himself to his Father, lays it, "This is life eternal, that they might know John xvii. Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent;" and St Paul, who derived his doctrine from his divine Master, affirms §, that "an idol is no Cor. viii. thing in the world; and that there is none other God but one."

The unity of the divine nature, which, from the order and harmony of the world, appears probable to human reason, these texts of revelation put beyond a doubt. Hence the first precept of the Jewish law, and, according to their own writers, the foundation of their whole religion, was, "Thou shalt have none other gods before Me." Hence, too, the reason of that strict command to Jews and Christians to give divine worship to none but God: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve;" because he is God alone. Him only must we fear, because he alone hath infinite power; in him alone must we trust, because "he only is our rock and our salvation;" and to him alone must we direct our devotions, because "he only knoweth the hearts of the children of men."

The word אֱלֹהִים does not indicate 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 perhaps be rash to rest the proof of so sublime a mystery on any single text of holy scripture, and would certainly be so to rest it on the text in question. That Moses was acquainted with this doctrine, we 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 אֱלֹהִים to denote clearly a plurality of persons, how could we have known that the number is neither more or less than three, had it not been afterwards 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 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 on 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. When Moses represents God as saying, let us make man, the majesty of the plural number had not been adopted by earthly sovereigns; and it is obvious that the Supreme Being could not, as has been supposed, call on angels to make man; for in different places of scripture creation is attributed to God alone. Hence it is that Solomon speaks of Creators in the plural number, though he means only the one Supreme Being, and exhorts men to remember them in the days of their youth. In the passage first quoted from Isaiah, there is a distinction made between the Lord God and his Spirit; and in the other, three divine persons are introduced, viz. the Speaker, the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord. It does not, however, appear evident from these passages, or from any other that we recollect in the Old Testament, that the persons in Deity are three and no more: but no sober Christian will harbour a doubt but that the precise number was by some means or other made known to the ancient Hebrews; for inquiries leading to it would be naturally suggested by the form in which the high priest was commanded to bless the people. The Lord blest thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

The form of Christian baptism establishes the truth of a Trinity the doctrine of the Trinity beyond all reasonable ground in unity of dispute. Go (says our blessed Saviour) and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. What was it the apostles were to teach all nations? Was it not to turn from their vanities to the living God; to renounce their idols and false gods, and to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? What now must occur to the Gentile nations on this occasion, but that, instead of all their deities, whom they had before bowed down, they were in future to serve, worship, and adore, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as the only true and living God? To suppose that God and two creatures are here joined together in the solemn rite by which men were to be admitted into a new religion, which directly condemns all creature-worship, would be so unreasonable, that we are persuaded such a supposition never was made by any converted Polytheist of antiquity. The nations were to be baptized in the name of three persons, in the same manner, and therefore, doubtless, in the same sense. It is not said in the name of God and his two faithful servants; nor in the name of God, and Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which might have suggested a thought that one only of the three is God; but in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Whatever honour, reverence, or regard, is paid to the first person in this solemn rite, the same is paid to all three. Is he acknowledged as the object of worship? So are the other two likewise. Is he God and Lord over us? So are they. Are we enrolled as subjects, servants, and foldiers under him? So are we equally under all. Are we hereby regenerated and made the temple of the Father? So are we likewise of the Son and Holy Ghost. We will come (says our Saviour) and make our abode with him.

If those who believe the inspiration of the scriptures could require any further proof that the Godhead comprehends a trinity of persons in one nature, we might urge the apostolical form of benediction; "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." Would St Paul, or any other man of common sense, have in the same sentence, and in the most solemn manner, recommended his Corinthian converts to the love of God, and to the grace and communion of two creatures? We should think it very absurd to recommend a man at once to the favour of a king and a beggar. But how, it will be asked, can three divine persons be but one and the same God? This is a 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 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 (see Metaphysics, No. 309, 310). Both these truths, his inextension 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 to form a distinct notion than unity simple, and absolutely indivisible. Though the Trinity in unity, therefore, were no Christian doctrine, mysteries must still be believed; for they are 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 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 above what is written; but since they have acted otherwise, we must, in justice to our readers, animadvert on one or two statements of this doctrine, which we have reason to believe are earnestly contended for by some who consider themselves as the only orthodox.

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 attributes, 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 John 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 are all things, and we in him, or for him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."

That the primitive fathers of the Christian church maintained this subordination of the second and third persons of the blest Trinity to the first, has been evinced with complete evidence by Bishop Bull. We shall transcribe two quotations from him, and refer the reader for fuller satisfaction to sect. 4. of his Defensio fidei Nicaeae. The first shall be a passage cited from Novatian, in which the learned prelate affirms us the sense of all the ancients is expressed. "Quia quid est Filius, non ex se est, quia nec innatus est; sed ex patre est, quia genitus est; five dum verbum est, five dum virtus est, five dum sapientia est, five dum lux est, five dum Filius est, et quicquid horum est, non aliunde est quam ex Patre, Patri fac originem suam debens." The next is from Athanasius, who has never been accused of holding low opinions respecting the second person of the holy Trinity. This father, in his fifth discourse against the Arians, says, καὶ ἡ γὰρ τοῦ Λουκᾶν ἐστὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος, ἢ πάντων τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Ὁς γὰρ ἦν ὁ ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἦν ὁ ἀνθρώπους ὁ λόγος; according to John, the Word was in this first principle, and the Word was God. For God is the principle; and because the Word is from the principle, therefore the Word is God. Agreeably to this doctrine, the Nicene fathers, in the creed which they published for the use of the universal church, style the only begotten Son, God of God, ὁ Ἰησοῦς τῷ Θεῷ.

Regardless however of antiquity, and of the plain sense of scripture, some modern divines of great learning have contended, that the three persons in Deity are all confounded, co-eternal, co-ordinate, without derivation, subordination, or dependence, of any sort, as to nature or essence; while others affirm, that the second and third persons derive from the first their personality, but not their nature. We shall consider these opinions as different, though, from the obscurity of the language in which we have always seen them expressed, we cannot be certain but they may be one and the same. The maintainers of the former opinion hold, that the three persons called Elohim in the Old Testament, naturally independent on each other, entered into an agreement before the creation of the world, that one of them should in the fulness of time assume human nature, for the purpose of redeeming mankind from that misery into which it was foreseen that they would fall. This antemundane agreement, they add, constitutes the whole of that paternal and filial relation which subsists between the first and second persons whom we denominate Father and Son; and they hold, that the Son is said to be begotten before all worlds, to indicate that He who was before all worlds was begotten, or to be begotten, into the office of of redeemer; or, more decisively, to signify that he undertook that office before the creation, and affirmed to himself some appearance or figure of the reality in which he was to execute it; and he is called ἀπογεννημένος or the only begotten, because he alone was begotten into the office of redeemer.

To many of our readers we doubt not but this will appear a very extraordinary doctrine, and not easy to be reconciled with the unity of God. It is however sufficiently overturned by two sentences of holy scripture, about the meaning of which there can be no dispute. "In this (says St John) was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." Taking the word Son in its usual acceptation, this was certainly a wonderful degree of love in the Father of mercies to send into the world on our account a person so nearly related to him as an only son; but if we substitute this novel interpretation of the words only begotten Son in their stead, the apostle's reasoning will lose all its force. St John will then be made to say, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent a divine person equal to himself, and no way related to him, but who had before the creation covenanted to come into the world, that we might live through him." Is this a proof of the love of the person here called God? Again, the inspired author of the epistle to the Hebrews, treating of our Saviour's priesthood, says, among other things expressive of his humiliation, that "though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;" if we substitute this metaphorical fopship in place of the natural, the reasoning of the author will be very extraordinary. "Though this divine personage agreed before all worlds to suffer death for the redemption of man, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." What sense is there in this argument? Is it a proof of condescension to fulfill one's engagement? Surely, if the meaning of the word Son, when applied to the second person of the blest Trinity, were what is here supposed, the inspired writer's argument would have been more to the purpose for which it is brought had it run thus; "Though he was not a Son, i.e., though he had made no previous agreement, yet condescended he to learn," &c.

The other opinion, which supposes the Son and the Holy Ghost to derive from the Father their personality, but not their nature, is to us wholly unintelligible; for personality cannot exist, or be conceived in a state of separation from all natures, any more than a quality can exist in a state of separation from all substances. The former of these opinions we are unable to reconcile with the unity of God; the latter is clothed in words that have no meaning. Both, as far as we can understand them, are palpable polytheism; more palpable indeed than that of the Grecian philosophers, who though they worshipped gods many, and lords many, yet all held one God supreme over the rest. See Polytheism, No. 32.

But if the Son and the Holy Ghost derive their nature as well as their personality from the Father, will it not follow that they must be posterior to him in time, since every effect is posterior to its cause? No; this consequence seems to follow only by reasoning too closely from one nature to another, when there is between the two but a very distant analogy. It is indeed true, that among men, every father must be prior in time as well as in the order of nature to his son; but were it essential to a man to be a father, so as that he could not exist otherwise than in that relation, it is obvious that his son would be coeval with himself, though still as proceeding from him, he would be posterior in the order of nature. This is the case with all necessary causes and effects. The visible sun is the immediate and necessary cause of light and heat, either as emitting the rays from his own substance, or as exciting the agency of a fluid diffused for that purpose through the whole system. Light and heat therefore, must be as old as the sun; and had he existed from eternity, they would have existed from eternity with him, though still, as his effects, they would have been behind him in the order of nature. Hence it is, that as we must speak analogically of the Divine nature, and when treating of mind, even the Supreme mind, make use of words literally applicable only to the modifications of matter, the Nicene fathers illustrate the eternal generation of the second person of the blest Trinity by this procession of light from the corporeal sun, calling him God of God, light of light.

Another 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 volitions, from being some agreeables, 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 the Catholic doctrine they serve perhaps to help our labouring minds to form of the justest notions of that mystery which it is possible for any of us to form in the present state of our existence; and they seem to refuse the doctrine sufficiently from the charge of contradiction, which has been so often urged against it by Unitarian writers. To the last analogy 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 (see Passion); but understanding, memory, and will, are absolutely and equally necessary to every rational being. But whatever be in this, if the human mind can be conceived to be one indivisible substance, consisting of different faculties, whether many or few, why should it be thought an impossibility for the infinite and eternal nature of God to be communicated to three persons acting different parts in the creation and government of the world, and in the great scheme of man's redemption.

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? Plato indeed taught a doctrine in some respects similar to that of the Christian Trinity, and so did Pythagoras, with many other philosophers of Greece and the East (see Platonism, Polytheism, and Pythagoras); but though these fables appear to have been on some occasions extremely credulous, and on others to have indulged themselves in the most mysterious speculations, there is no room to suppose that they were naturally weaker men than ourselves, or that they were capable of inculcating as truths what they perceived 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 tententious 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 civilized 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.

Having thus discovered that the one God comprehends three persons, let us now inquire what this triune God exerted when he created the heaven 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 יָעֵד does not always imply the production of substance, but very often the forming of particular organized bodies out of pre-existing 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 יָעֵד is used on both occasions, we are not to conceive that the bodies of the first human pair, and of these animals, were brought into being from nonentity, 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 taught by cannot be supposed to mean, that "in the beginning God Moses 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.

That the Jews, before the coming of our Saviour, understood their lawgiver to teach a proper creation, is plain from that passage in the second book of the Maccabees, in which a mother, to persuade her son to suffer the cruellest tortures rather than forsake the law of his God, uses the following argument: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not." To the same purpose the inspired author of the epistle to the Hebrews, when magnifying the excellence of faith, says, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear;" where, as Bishop Pearson has ably proved, the phrase ἐκ ῥήματος is equivalent to εὐεργέτης, in the quotation from the Maccabees.

The very first verse, therefore, of the book of Genesis informs us of a most important truth, which all the uninspired wisdom of antiquity could not discover. It assures us, that as nothing exists by chance, so nothing is necessarily existing but the three divine persons in the one Godhead. Every thing else, whether material or immaterial, derives its substance, as well as its form or qualities, from the fiat of that self-existent Being, "who was, and is, and is to come."

It does not, however, follow from this verse, or from any other passage in the sacred Scriptures, that the universe 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 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 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 *, which exhorts us to give thanks to God who made the moon and stars to rule by night; for his mercy endureth "for ever." The first verse of the book of Genesis informs us, that all things spiritual and corporeal derive their existence from God; but it is nowhere said that all matter was created at the same time.

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 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; but there is one difficulty which has furnished ignorance with something like an objection to the divine legation of the Hebrew lawgiver, and which we shall notice.

Moses informs us, that on the first day after the production of the chaos, the element of light was created; and yet within a few sentences he declares, that the sun, the fountain of light, was not made till the fourth day. How are these two passages to be reconciled? We answer, That they may be reconciled many ways. Moses wrote for the use of a whole people, and not for the amusement or instruction of a few astronomers; and in this view his language is sufficiently proper, even though we suppose the formation of the sun and the other planets to have been carried on at the same time, and in the same progressive manner, with the formation of this earth. The voice which called light into existence would separate the fiery and luminous particles of the chaos from those which were opaque, and, on this hypothesis, consolidate them in one globe, diffusing an obscure light through the planetary system; but if the earth's atmosphere continued till the fourth day loaded with vapours, as from the narrative of Moses it appears to have done, he fun could not till that day have been seen from the earth, and may therefore, in popular language, be said with sufficient propriety to have been formed on the fourth day, as it was then made to appear. (See Creation, n° 13.) But though this solution of the difficulty serves to remove the objection, and to secure the credit of the sacred historian, candour compels us to confess that it appears not to be the true solution.

The difficulty itself arises entirely from supposing the sun to be the sole fountain of light; but the truth of this opinion is not self-evident, nor has it ever been established by satisfactory proof. It is indeed to a mind divested of undue deference to great names, and considering the matter with impartiality, an opinion extremely improbable. The light of a candle placed on an eminence may in a dark night be seen in every direction at the distance of at least three miles. But if this small body be rendered visible by means of rays emitted from itself, the flame of a candle, which cannot be supposed more than an inch in diameter, must, during every instant that it continues to burn, throw from its own substance luminous matter sufficient to fill a spherical space of six miles in diameter. This phenomenon, if real, is certainly surprising; but if we pursue the reflection a little farther, our wonder will be greatly increased. The matter which, when converted into flame, is an inch in diameter, is not, when of the confluence of cotton and tallow, of the dimensions of the 20th part of an inch; and therefore, on the common hypothesis, the 20th part of an inch of tallow may be so rarefied as to fill a space of 113,5976 cubic miles! a rarefaction which to us appears altogether incredible. We have indeed heard much of the divisibility of matter ad infinitum, and think we understand what are usually called demonstrations of the truth of that proposition; but these demonstrations prove not the actual divisibility of real solid substances, but only that on trial we shall find no end of the ideal process of dividing and subdividing imaginary extension.

On the whole, therefore, we are much more inclined to believe that the matter of light is an extremely subtle fluid, diffused through the corporeal universe, and only excited to agency by the sun and other fiery bodies, than that it consists of streams continually issuing from the substance of these bodies. It is indeed an opinion pretty generally received, and certainly not improbable in itself, that light and electricity are one and the same substance (see Electricity Index); but we know that the electrical fluid, though pervading the whole of corporeal nature, and, as experiments show, capable of acting with great violence, yet lies dormant and unperceived till its agency be excited by some foreign cause. Just so it may be with the matter of light. That substance may be "diffused from one end of the creation * to the other. It may traverse the whole universe, form a communication between the most remote spheres, penetrate into the inmost recesses of the earth, and only wait to be put in a proper motion to communicate visible sensations to the eye. Light is to the organ of sight what the air is to the organ of hearing. Air is the medium which, vibrating on the ear, causes the sensation of sound; but it equally exists round us at all times, though there be no favorable body to put it in motion. In like manner, light may be equally extended at all times, by night as well as by day, from the most distant fixed stars to this earth, though it then only strikes our eyes so as to excite visible sensations when impelled by the sun or some other means of Nor let any one imagine that this hypothesis interferes with any of the known laws of optics; for if the rays of light be impelled in straight lines, and in the same direction in which they are supposed to be emitted, the phenomena of vision must necessarily be the same.

Moses therefore was probably a more accurate philosopher than he is sometimes supposed to be. The element of light was doubtless created, as he informs us, on the first day; but whether it was then put in that state in which it is the medium of vision, we cannot know, and we need not inquire, since there was neither man nor inferior animal with organs fitted to receive its impressions. For the first three days it may have been used only as a powerful instrument to reduce into order the jarring chaos. Or if it was from the beginning capable of communicating visible sensations, and dividing the day from the night, its agency must have been immediately excited by the Divine power till the fourth day, when the sun was formed, and endowed with proper qualities for instrumentally discharging that office. This was indeed miraculous, as being contrary to the present laws of nature: but the whole creation was miraculous; and we surely need not hesitate to admit a less miracle where we are under the necessity of admitting a greater. The power which called light and all other things into existence, could give them their proper motions by ten thousand different means; and to attempt to solve the difficulties of creation by philologic theories respecting the laws of nature, is to trifle with the common sense of mankind: it is to consider as subservient to a law that very power by whose continued exertion the law is established.

Having thus proved that the universe derives its being, as well as the form and adjustment of its several parts, from the one supreme and self-existent God, let us here pause, and reflect on the sublime conceptions which such astonishing works are fitted to give us of the divine perfections.

And, in the first place, how strongly do the works of creation impress on our minds a conviction of the infinite power of their Author? He spoke, and the universe started into being; he commanded, and it stood fast. How mighty is the arm which "stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth;" which removes the mountains and they know it not; which overturneth them in his anger; which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble! How powerful the word which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and which fealeth up the stars;" which sustains numberless worlds of amazing bulk suspended in the regions of empty space, and directs their various and inconceivably rapid motions with the utmost regularity!

"Lift up your eyes on high, and behold, who hath created all these things? By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the North over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span; and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure; and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Behold! the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him as lefs than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God, or what likened will ye compare unto him?"

As the works of creation are the effects of God's power, they likewise in the most eminent manner display his wisdom. This was so apparent to Cicero, even from the partial knowledge in astronomy which his time afforded, that he declared "those who could assert the contrary void of all understanding." But if that great De Naturae Deorum, 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; had he known of the wonderful motions of the comets, and considered how such eccentric bodies have 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, And good has been already shown with sufficient evidence (see next Metaphysics, No. 312, and No. 29, of this article); 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, and that "as is his majesty, so is his mercy." Out of his own fulness hath he brought into being numberless worlds, replenished with myriads of myriads of creatures, furnished with various powers and organs, capacities and instincts; and out of his own fulness he continually and plentifully supplies them all with everything necessary to make their existence comfortable. "The eyes of all wait upon him, and he giveth them their meat in due season. He openeth his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing: he loveth righteousnes and judgement; the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. He watereth the ridges thereof abundantly; he setteth the furrows thereof; he maketh it soft with flowers, and bleareth the springing thereof. He crowneth the year with his goodness; and his paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered with corn; they shout with joy, they also sing." Surely the whole of what may be seen on and about this terrestrial globe, and say, if our Maker hath a sparing hand. Surely the Author of so much happiness must be essential goodnes; and we must conclude with St John, that "God is love."

These attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness, so conspicuously displayed in the works of creation, belong in the same supreme degree to each person in the blessed Trinity; for Moses declares that the heaven and the earth were created, not by one person, but by the Father himself. The Logos indeed, or second person, appears to have been the immediate Creator; for St John affirms us*, that "all things were made by him, and that without him was not any thing made that was made." Some Arian writers of great learning (and we believe the late Dr Price was of the number) have affirmed, that a being who was created himself may be endowed by the Omnipotent God with the power of creating other beings; and as they hold the Logos or word, to be a creature, they contend that he was employed by the Supreme Deity to create, not the whole universe, but only this earth, or at the utmost the solar system. "The old argument (says one of them), that no being inferior to the great Omnipotent can create a world, is so childish as to deserve no answer. Why may not God communicate the power of making worlds to any being whom he may choose to honour with so glorious a prerogative? I have no doubt but such a power may be communicated to many good men during the progress of their existence; and to say that it may not, is not only to limit the power of God, but to contradict acknowledged analogies."

We are far from being inclined to limit the power of God. He can certainly do whatever involves not a direct contradiction; and therefore, though we know nothing analogous to the power of creating worlds, yet as we perceive not any contradiction implied in the notion of that power being communicated, we shall admit that such a communication may be possible, though we think it in the highest degree improbable. But surely no man will contend that the whole universe was brought into existence by any creature; because that creature himself, however highly exalted, is necessarily comprehended in the notion of the universe. Now St Paul expressly affirms†, that, by the second person in the blessed Trinity, "were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Indeed the Hebrew Scriptures in more places than one‡ expressly declare that this earth, and of course the whole solar system, was formed, as well as created, not by an inferior being, but by the true God, even Jehovah alone; and in the New Testament §, the Gentiles are said to be without excuse for not glorifying him as God, "because his eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen from the creation of the world." But if it were natural to suppose that the power of creating worlds has been, or ever will be, communicated to beings inferior to the great Omnipotent, this reasoning of the apostle's would be founded on false principles, and the sentence which he passed on the Heathen would be contrary to justice.

But though it be thus evident that the Logos was the immediate Creator of the universe, we are not to suppose that it was without the concurrence of the other two persons. The Father, who may be said to be the fountain of the Divinity itself, was certainly concerned in the creation of the world, and is therefore in the apostle's creed denominated the "Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;" and that the Holy Ghost or third person is likewise a Creator, we have the express testimony of two inspired writers: "By the word of the Lord (says the Psalmist) were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Hebrew, Spirit) of his mouth." And Job declares, that the Spirit of God made him, and that the breath of the Almighty gave him life. Indeed these three divine persons are so intimately united, that what is done by one must be done by all, as they have but one and the same will. This is the reason assigned by Origen* for our paying divine worship to each; διακρίνεσθαι εἰς τοῦτο τελευταῖον p. 386. παλαιὰ τῶν ἀληθειῶν καὶ τοῦτο τῶν ἀληθειῶν, ὡς δὲ τὸ ἐπιστήμην παραγόντα, ἢ ἔστιν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, ἢ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τῷ ἀληθεῖ, ἢ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τῷ ἀληθεῖ, ἢ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τῷ ἀληθεῖ. We worship the Father of truth, and the Son the truth itself, being two things as to hypostasis, but one in agreement, consent, and sameness of will. Nor is their union a mere agreement in will only; it is a physical or essential union; so that what is done by one must necessarily be done by the others also, according to that of our Saviour, "I am in the Father and the Father in me: The Father who dwelleth in me, doth the works."

Sect. II. Of the Original State of Man, and the first Covenant of Eternal Life which God vouchsafed to make with him.

In the Mosaic account of the creation, every attentive reader must be struck with the manner in which the supreme Being is represented as making man: "And which God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them; and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth; and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.*"

This is a very remarkable passage, and contains much important information. It indicates a plurality of persons in the Godhead, describes the nature of man as he came at first from the hands of his Creator, and furnishes data from which we may infer what were the duties required of him in that primeval state, and what were the rewards to which obedience would entitle him.

Of the plurality of Divine persons, and their essential union, we have treated in the preceding section, and proceed now to inquire into the specific nature of the first man. This must be implied in the image of God, in in which he is said to have been created; for it is by that phrase alone that he is characterized, and his pre-eminence marked over the other animals. Now this image or likeness must have been found either in his body alone, his soul alone, or in both united. That it could not be in his body alone, is obvious; for the infinite and omnipotent God is allowed by all men to be without body, parts, or passions, and therefore to be such as nothing corporeal can possibly resemble.

If this likeness is to be found in the human soul, it comes to be a question in what faculty or power of the soul it consists. Some have contended, that man is the only creature on this earth who is animated by a principle essentially different from matter; and hence they have inferred, that he is said to have been formed in the Divine image, on account of the immateriality of that vital principle which was infused into his body when the "Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." That this account of the animation of the body of man indicates a superiority of the human soul to the vital principle of all other animals, cannot, we think, be questioned; but it does not therefore follow, that the human soul is the only immaterial principle of life which animates any terrestrial creature. It has been shown elsewhere (see Metaphysics, No. 235.), that the power of sensation, attended with individual consciousness, as it appears to be in all the higher species of animals, cannot result from any organic structure, or be the quality of a compound extended being. The vital principle in such animals therefore must be immaterial as well as the human soul; but as the word immaterial denotes only a negative notion, the souls of men and brutes, though both immaterial, may yet be substances essentially different. This being the case, it is plain that the Divine image in which man was formed, and by which he is distinguished from the brute creation, cannot consist in the mere circumstance of his mind being a substance different from matter, but in some positive quality which distinguishes him from every other creature on this globe.

About this characteristic quality various opinions have been formed. Some have supposed * that the image of God in Adam appeared in that attitude, righteousness, and holiness, in which he was made; for God made man upright (Ecclesiastes vii. 2), a holy and righteous creature; which holiness and righteousness were in their kind perfect; his understanding was free from all error and mistakes; his will bialled to that which is good; his affections flowed in a right channel towards their proper objects; there were no sinful motions and evil thoughts in his heart, nor any propensity or inclination to that which is evil; and the whole of his conduct and behaviour was according to the will of God. And this righteousness (say they) was natural, and not personal and acquired. It was not obtained by the exercise of his free-will, but was created with him, and belonged to his mind, as a natural faculty or intuition. They therefore call it original righteousness, and suppose that it was lost in the fall.

To this doctrine many objections have been made. It has been said that righteousness consisting in right actions proceeding from proper principles, could not be created with Adam and make a part of his nature; because nothing which is produced in a man without his knowledge and consent can be in him either virtue or vice. Adam, it is added, was unquestionably placed in a state of trial, which proves that he had righteous habits to acquire; whereas the doctrine under consideration, affirming his original righteousness to have been perfect, and therefore incapable of improvement, is inconsistent with a state of trial. That his understanding was free from all errors and mistakes, has been thought a blasphemous position, as it attributes to man one of the incomprehensible perfections of the Deity. It is likewise believed to be contrary to fact; for either his understanding was bewildered in error, or his affections flowed towards an improper object, when he suffered himself at the persuasion of his wife to transgress the express law of his Creator. The objector expresses his wonder at its having ever been supposed that the whole of Adam's conduct and behaviour was according to the will of God, when it is so notorious that he yielded to the first temptation with which, as far as we know, he was afflicted in paradise.

Convinced by these and other arguments, that the image of God in which man was created could not consist in original righteousness, or in exemption from all possibility of error, many learned men, and Bishop Bull among others, have supposed, that by the image of God is to be understood certain gifts and powers supernaturally infused by the Holy Spirit into the minds of our first parents, to guide them in the ways of piety and virtue. This opinion they rest chiefly upon the authority of Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, and other fathers of the primitive church; but Bishop Bull they think, at the same time, that it is countenanced by and some several passages in the New Testament. Thus when St Paul says, "and so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit," they understand the whole passage as relating to the creation of man, and not as drawing a comparison between Adam and Christ, to show the great superiority of the latter over the former. In support of this interpretation they observe, that the apostle immediately adds, "howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual;" an addition which they think was altogether needless, if by the quickening Spirit he had referred to the incarnation of Christ, which had happened in the very age in which he was writing. They are therefore of opinion, that the body of Adam, after being formed of the dust of the ground, was first animated by a vital principle endowed with the faculties of reason and sensation, which entitled the whole man to the appellation of a living soul. After this they suppose certain graces of the Holy Spirit to have been infused into him, by which he was made a quickening spirit, or formed in the image of God; and that it was in consequence of this succession of powers communicated to the same person, that the apostle said, "Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."

We need hardly observe, that with respect to a question of this kind the authority of Tatian and the other fathers quoted is nothing. Those men had no better means of discovering the true sense of the scriptures of the Old Testament than we have; and their ignorance of the language in which these scriptures are written, added to some metaphysical notions respecting the soul, which too many of them had derived from the school of Plato, rendered them very ill qualified to interpret the writings of Moses. Were authority to be admitted, we should consider that of Bishop Bull and his modern followers as of greater weight than the authority of all the ancients to whom they appeal. But authority cannot be admitted; and the reasoning of this learned and excellent man from the text of St Paul is surely very inconclusive. It makes two persons of Adam; a first, when he was a natural man composed of a body and a reasonable soul; a second, when he was endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and by them formed in the image of God! In the verse following too, the apostle expressly calls the second man, of whom he had been speaking, "the Lord from heaven;" but this appellation we apprehend to be too high for Adam in the state of greatest perfection in which he ever existed. That our first parents were endowed with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, we are strongly inclined to believe for reasons which shall be given by and by; but as these gifts were adventitious to their nature, they could not be that image in which God made man.

Since man was made in the image of God, that phrase, whatever be its precise import, must denote something peculiar and at the same time essential to human nature; but the only two qualities at once natural and peculiar to man are his shape and his reason. As none but an anthropomorphite will say that it was Adam's shape which reflected this image of his Creator, it has been concluded that it was the faculty of reason which made the resemblance. To give strength to this argument it is observed †, that when God says, "let us make man in our image," he immediately adds, "and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth;" but as many of the cattle have much greater bodily strength than man, this dominion could not be maintained but by the faculty of reason bestowed upon him and withheld from them.

If the image of God was impressed only on the mind of man, this reasoning seems to be conclusive; but it has been well observed ‡ that it was the whole man, and not the soul alone, or the body alone, that is said to have been formed in the divine image; even as the whole man, soul and body, is the seat of the new and spiritual image of God in regeneration and sanctification. "The very God of peace (says the apostle) sanctify you wholly; and may your whole spirit, soul and body, be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is worthy of notice, too, that the reason assigned for the prohibition of murder to Noah and his sons after the deluge, is, that man was made in the image of God. "Who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man." These texts seem to indicate, that whatever be meant by the image of God, it was stamped equally on the soul and on the body. In vain is it said that man cannot resemble God in shape. This is true, but it is little to the purpose; for man does not resemble God in his reasoning faculty more than in his form. It would be idolatry to suppose the supreme majesty of heaven and earth to have a body or a shape; and it would be little short of idolatry to imagine that he is obliged to compare ideas and notions together; to advance from particular truths to general propositions; and to acquire knowledge, as we do, by the tedious processes of inductive and syllogistic reasoning. There can therefore be no direct image of God either in the soul or in the body of man; and the phrase really seems to import nothing more than those powers or qualities True by which man was fitted to exercise dominion over the port of the inferior creation; as if it had been said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, that they may have dominion, &c." But the erect form of man contributes in some degree, as well as his rational powers, to enable him to maintain his authority over the brute creation; for it has been observed by travellers, that the fiercest beast of prey, unless ready to perish by hunger, shrinks back from a steady look of the human face divine.

By some *, however, who have admitted the probability of this interpretation, another has been devised for its being said that man was formed in the image of God. All the members of Christ's body, say they, were written and delineated in the book of God's purposes and decrees, and had an ideal existence from eternity in the divine mind; and therefore the body of Adam might be said to be formed after the image of God, because it was made according to that idea. But to this reasoning objections may be urged, which we know not how to answer. All things that ever were or ever shall be, the bodies of us who live at present as well as the bodies of those who lived 5000 years ago, have from eternity had an ideal existence in the Divine mind; nor in this sense can one be said to be prior to another. It could not therefore be after the idea of the identical body of Christ that the body of Adam was formed; for in the Divine mind ideas of both bodies were present together from eternity, and each body was formed after the ideal archetype of itself. It may be added likewise, that the body of Christ was not God, nor the idea of that body the idea of God. Adam therefore could not with propriety be said to have been formed in the image of God, if by that phrase nothing more were intended than the resemblance between his body and the body of Christ. These objections to this interpretation appear to us unanswerable; but we mean not to dictate to our readers. Every man will adopt that opinion which he thinks supported by the best arguments; but it is obvious, that whatever more may be meant by the image of God in which man was made, the phrase undoubtedly comprehends all those powers and qualities by which he is enabled to maintain his authority over the inferior creation. Among these the faculty of reason is confessedly the most important; for it is by it that man is capable of being made acquainted with the Author of his being, the relation which subsists between them, and the duties implied in that relation from the creature to the Creator.

That the first man, however, was not left to discover religious these things by the mere efforts of his own unsanctified instruction reason, we have endeavoured to show in another place; (see RELIGION, No 5—10.) and the conclusion to which we were there led, is confirmed by the portion of revelation before us. The inspired historian says, that "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his works, which he created and made;" but Adam could not have understood what was meant by the sanctification of a particular day, or of any thing else, unless he had previously received received some religious instruction. There cannot therefore be a doubt, but that as soon as man was made, his Creator communicated to him the truths of what is called natural religion, which we have endeavoured to explain and establish in Part I. of this article; and to these were added the precept to keep holy the Sabbath-day, and set it apart for the purposes of contemplation and worship.

This was a very wise institution, as all the divine institutions must be. "The great end for which we are brought into life, is to attain the knowledge and be confirmed in the love of God." This includes obedience to his will in thought, word, and deed, or that course of conduct which can alone make us happy here, and fit us for everlasting glory hereafter. But of these things we cannot retain a proper sense without close and repeated application of thought; and the unavoidable cares and concerns of the present life occupying much of our attention, it is, in the nature of things, necessary that some certain portion of time should be appropriated to the purposes of religious instruction and the public adoration of our Creator, in whom we all live, and move, and have our being." Hence a very learned divine has inferred, that though the particular time is a matter of positive appointment, the observation of a sabbath in general is a duty of natural religion, as having its foundation in the reason of things. See SABBATH.

Man therefore in his natural and original state was a rational and religious being, bound to do "justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with his God, and to keep holy the Sabbath-day." These seem to be all the duties which in that state were required of him; for as soon as he was introduced into the terrestrial paradise and admitted into covenant with his Maker, he was placed in a supernatural state, when other duties were of course enjoined.

That our first parents were both made on the sixth day, Moses expressly affirms when he says, that "God created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name Adam (K), in the day when they were created;" but that they were introduced into the garden of Eden on that day, is an opinion which, however generally it may be received, seems not to be reconcilable with the plain narrative of the sacred penman. After telling us that on the sixth day God finished all his works, which he saw to be very good, and rested on the seventh day, he briefly recapitulates the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth, gives us a more particular account of the formation of the first man, informing us that the "Lord God formed him out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, when man became a living soul;" and then proceeds to say, that the "Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, where he put the man whom he had formed." From this short history of the first pair it appears beyond dispute evident, that neither the man nor the woman was formed in the garden; and that from their creation some time elapsed before the garden was prepared for their reception, is likewise evident from a comparison of Gen. i. 29, with Gen. ii. 16, 17. In the first of these passages God gives to man, immediately after his creation, "every herb bearing seed which was upon the face of all the earth, before he and every tree, without exception, in which was the fruit of a tree bearing seed: to him he said it should be for meat." In the second, "he commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." When the first grant of food was given, Adam and his wife must have been where no tree of knowledge grew, and they must have been intended to live at least so long in that state as that they should have occasion for food, otherwise the formal grant of it would have been not only superfluous, but apt to mislead them with respect to the subsequent restriction.

In this original state man was under the discipline of what we have called natural religion, entitled to happiness while he should perform the duties required of him, and liable to punishment when he should neglect those duties, or transgress the law of his nature as a rational and moral agent. This being the case, it is a matter of some importance, to ascertain, if we can, what the rewards and punishments are which natural religion holds out to her votaries.

That under every dispensation of religion the pious and virtuous man shall enjoy more happiness than misery; and that the incorrigibly wicked shall have a greater portion of misery than happiness, are truths which cannot be controverted by any one who admits, that the Almighty governor of the universe is a Being of wisdom, goodness, and justice. But respecting the rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice, more than these general truths seems not to be taught by natural religion. Many divines, however, of great learning did not, and worth, have thought otherwise, and have contended, that from the nature of things the rewards bestowed by an infinite God upon piety and virtue must be eternal like their author. These men indeed appear willing life, enough to allow that the punishments with which natural religion is armed against vice must be only of a temporary duration, because reason, say they, is ready to revolt at the thought of everlasting punishment.

This opinion, which confounds natural with revealed religion, giving to the former an important truth which belongs exclusively to the latter, has been so ably controverted by a learned writer, that we shall submit his arguments to our readers in preference to anything which we can give ourselves.

"If reason doth, on the one hand, seem to revolt at everlasting punishment, we must confess that vanity, on the other, (even when full plumed by vanity), hath scarcely force enough to rise to the idea of infinite rewards. How the heart of man came to consider this as no more than an adequate retribution for his right conduct during the short trial of his virtue here, would

(K) The woman was some time afterwards distinguished by the name of Eve, אֵוֶה, because she was to be the mother all living, and particularly of that blest seed which was to bruise the head of the serpent. See Parkhurst's Lexicon on the word. be hard to tell, did we not know what monsters PRIDE begot of old upon Pagan philosophy; and how much greater still these latter ages have disclosed, by the long incubation of school-divinity upon folly. What hath been urged from natural reason, in support of this extravagant presumption, is so very slender, that it recoils as you enforce it. First, you say, "that the soul, the subject of these eternal rewards, being immaterial, and so therefore unaffected by the causes which bring material things to an end, is, by its nature, fitted for eternal rewards." This is an argument ad ignorantiam, and holds no farther.—Because an immaterial being is not subject to that mode of dissolution which affects material substances, you conclude it to be eternal. This is going too fast. There may be, and probably are, many natural causes (unknown indeed to us), whereby immaterial beings come to an end. But if the nature of things cannot, yet God certainly can, put a final period to such a being when it hath served the purpose of its creation. Both ANNIHILATION impeach that wisdom and goodness which was displayed when God brought it out of nothing? Other immaterial beings there are, viz., the souls of brutes, which have the same natural security with man for their existence, of whose eternity we never dream. But pride, as the poet observes, calls God unjust,

If man alone engrosses not heaven's high care; Alone made perfect here, IMMORTAL there.

However, let us (for argument's sake) allow the human soul to be unperishable by nature, and secured in its existence by the unchangeable will of God, and see what will follow from thence.—An infinite reward for virtue during one moment of its existence, because reason discovers that, by the law of nature, some reward is due? By no means. When God hath amply repaid us for the performance of our duty, will he be at a loss how to dispose of us for the long remainder of eternity? May he not find new and endless employment for reasonable creatures, to which, when properly discharged, new rewards and endless succession will be assigned? Modest reason seems to dictate this to the followers of the law of nature. The flattering expedient of ETERNAL REWARDS for virtue here was invented in the simplicity of early speculation, after it had fairly brought men to conclude that the soul is immaterial.

Another argument urged for the eternity of the rewards held out by natural religion to the practice of piety and virtue is partly physical and partly moral. The merit of service (say the admirers of that religion) increases in proportion to the excellence of that Being to whom our service is directed and becomes acceptable. An infinite being, therefore, can dispense no rewards but what are infinite. And thus the virtuous man becomes entitled to immortality.

The misfortune is, that this reasoning holds equally on the side of the unmerciful doctors, as they are called, who doom the wicked to EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT. Indeed were this the only discredit under which it labours, the merciful doctors would hold themselves little concerned. But the truth is, that the argument from infinity proves just nothing. To make it of any force, both the parties should be infinite. This inferior emanation of God's image, MAN, should either be supremely good or supremely bad, a kind of deity or a kind of devil. But these reasoners, in their attention to the divinity, overlook the humanity, which makes the decrees keep pace with the accumulation, till the rule of logic, that the conclusion follows the weaker part, comes in to end the dispute.*

These arguments seem to prove unanswerably that immortality is not essential to any part of the compound being man, and that it cannot be claimed as a reward due to his virtue. It is not indeed essential to any created being, for what has not existence of itself, cannot of itself have perpetuity of existence (see METAPHYSICS, No. 272, &c.) ; and as neither man nor angel can be profitable to God, they cannot claim from him anything as a debt. Both, indeed, as moral agents, have duties prescribed them; and while they faithfully perform these duties, they have all the security which can arise from the perfect benevolence of him who brought them into existence, that they shall enjoy a sufficient portion of happiness to make that existence preferable to non-existence; but reason and philosophy furnish no data from which it can be inferred that they shall exist for ever. Man is composed in part of perishable materials. However perfect Adam may be thought to have been when he came first from the hands of his Creator, his body, as formed of the dust of the ground, must have been naturally liable to decay and dissolution. His soul, indeed, was of a more durable substance; but as it was formed to animate his body, and had no prior conscious existence, it is not easy to conceive what should have led him, under an equal providence, where rewards and punishments were exactly distributed, to suppose that one part of him should survive the other. In his natural and original state, before the covenant made with him in paradise, he was unquestionably a mortal creature. How long he continued in that state, it seems not possible to form a plausible conjecture. Bishop Gore's interpretation of Warburton supposes him to have lived several years production under no other dispensation than that of natural religion; into paradise during which he was as liable to death as his fallen posterity are at present.

"We must needs conclude (says this learned writer*), Divine that God having tried Adam in the state of nature, and Legation, approved of the good use he made of his free-will under book ix. the direction of that light, advanced him to a superior chap. i. station in Paradise. How long, before this remove, How long man had continued subject to natural religion alone, we can continue only guess: but of this we may be assured, that it ed in that was some considerable time before the garden of Eden state, could naturally be made fit for his reception. Since Moses, when he had concluded his history of the creation, and of God's rest on, and sanctification of, the seventh day proceeds to speak of the condition of this new world in the following terms: "And God made every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth." Which † Gen. ii. seems plainly to intimate, that when the seeds of vegetables had been created on the third day, they were left to nature, in its ordinary operations, to mature by sun and showers. So that when in course of time Paradise was become capable of accommodating its inhabitants, they were transplanted thither."

This reasoning is not without a portion of that ingenuity which was apparent in every thing that fell from the pen of Warburton; but it was completely confuted. ed almost as soon as it was given to the public, and shown to be deduced from premises which could be employed against the author's system. If only the seeds of vegetables were created on the third day, and then left to nature, in its ordinary operations, to mature by sun and showers, the first pair must have perished before a single vegetable could be fit to furnish them with food; and we may suppose that it was to prevent this disaster that the garden of Eden was miraculously stored at once with full grown trees and fruit in perfect maturity, whilst the rest of the earth was left under the ordinary laws of vegetation. There is, however, no evidence that they were only the seeds of vegetables that God created. On the contrary, Moses says expressly, that God made the earth on the third day bring forth the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and when he recapitulates the history of the creation, he says, that God made, not every seed, but every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. From the process of vegetation, therefore, nothing can be inferred with respect to the time of Adam's introduction into Paradise, or to ascertain the duration of his original state of nature. If angels were created during the six days of which the Hebrew lawgiver writes the history, an hypothesis very generally received (see Angel), though in the opinion of the present writer not very probable, there can be no doubt but our first parents lived a considerable time under the law of nature before they were raised to a superior situation in the garden of Eden; for it seems very evident that the period of their continuance in that station was not long. Of this, however, nothing can be said with certainty. They may have lived for years or only a few days in their original state; but it is very necessary to distinguish between that state in which they were under no other dispensation than what is commonly called natural religion, entitled, upon their obedience, to the indefinite rewards of piety and virtue, and their state in Paradise when they were put under a new law, and by the free grace of God promised, if they should be obedient, a supernatural and eternal reward. Into that state we must now attend them, and ascertain, if we can, the precise terms of the first covenant.

Moses, who in this investigation is our only guide, tells us, that the Lord God, after he had formed the first pair, "planted a garden eastward in Eden, and took the man and put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it." And the Lord God (continues he) commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Here is no mention made of the laws of piety and moral virtue resulting from the relation in which the various individuals of the human race stand to each other, and Gen. ii., in which all as creatures stand to God their Almighty and beneficent Creator. With these laws Adam was already well acquainted; and he must have been sensible, that as they were founded in his nature no subsequent law could dispense with their obligation. They have been equally binding on all men in every state and under every dispensation; and they will continue to be so as long as the general practice of justice, mercy, and piety, shall contribute to the sum of human happiness. The new law peculiar to his paradisaical state was the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a positive precept, not founded in the nature of man, but very proper to be the test of his obedience to the will of his Creator. The laws of piety and virtue are sanctioned by nature, or by that general system of rules according to which God governs the physical and moral worlds, their life and by which he has secured, in some state or other, made with happiness to the pious and virtuous man, and misery to such as shall prove incorrigibly wicked. The law respecting the forbidden fruit was sanctioned by the penalty of death denounced against disobedience; and by the subjects of that law the nature of this penalty must have been perfectly understood; but Christian divines, as we shall afterwards see, have differed widely in opinion respecting the full import of the Hebrew words which our translators have rendered by the phrase thou shalt surely die. All, however, agree that they threatened death, in the common acceptation of the word, or the separation of the soul and body as one part of the punishment to be incurred by eating the forbidden fruit; and hence we must infer, that had the forbidden fruit not been eaten, our first parents would never have died, because the penalty of death was denounced against no other transgression. What therefore is said respecting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, implies not only a law but also a covenant (L.), promising to man, upon the observance of one positive precept, immortality or eternal life; which is not essential to the nature of any created being, and cannot be claimed as the merited reward of the greatest virtue or the most fervent piety.

This obvious truth will enable us to dispose of the objections which have been sometimes brought by free-thinking divines against the wisdom and justice of punishing so severely as by death the breach of a mere positive precept; which, considered in itself, appears to be a precept of very little importance. We have only to reply, that as an exemption from death is not due either

(L.) It does not appear that any transaction between God and mankind in general was denominated by a word equivalent to the English word covenant till the end of the fourth century, when such phraseology was introduced into the church by the celebrated Augustine, bishop of Hippo. That the phraseology is strictly proper, no man can suppose who reflects on the infinite distance between the contracting parties, and the absolute dominion of the one over the other. To be capable of entering into a covenant, in the proper sense of the word, both parties must have a right either to agree to the terms proposed or to reject them; but surely Adam had no right to bargain with his Maker, or to refuse the gift of immortality on the terms on which it was offered to him. The word dispensation would more accurately denote what is here meant by the word covenant; but as this last is in general use, we have retained it as sufficient, when thus explained, to distinguish what man received from God upon certain positive conditions, from what he had a claim to by the constitution of his nature. either to the nature or to the virtue of man, it was wise and just to make it depend on the observance of a positive precept, to impress on the minds of our first parents a constant conviction that they were to be preserved immortal, not in the ordinary course of divine providence, but by the special grace and favour of God. The same consideration will show us the folly of those men who are for turning all that is said of the trees of knowledge and of life into figure and allegory. But the other trees which Adam and Eve were permitted to eat were certainly real trees, or they must have perished for want of food. And what rules of interpretation will authorise us to interpret eating and trees literally in one part of the sentence and figuratively in the other? A garden in a delightful climate is the very habitation, and the fruits produced in that garden the very food, which we should naturally suppose to have been prepared for the progenitors of the human race; and though in the garden actually fitted up for this purpose two trees were remarkably distinguished from the rest, perhaps in situation and appearance as well as in use, the distinction was calculated to serve the best of purposes. The one called the tree of life, of which, while they continued innocent, they were permitted to eat, served as a sacramental pledge or assurance on the part of God, that as long as they should observe the terms of the covenant their life should be preserved; the other, of which it was death to taste, was admirably adapted to impress on their minds the necessity of implicit obedience to the Divine will, in whatever manner it might be made known to them.

A question has been started of some importance, What would have finally become of men if the first covenant had not been violated? That they would have been all immortal is certain; but it is by no means clear that they would have lived for ever on this earth. On the contrary, it has been an article of very general belief in all ages of the church†, that the garden of Eden was an emblem or type of heaven, and therefore called Paradise (see Paradise); and that under the first covenant, mankind, after a sufficient probation here, were to be translated into heaven without tasting death. This doctrine is not indeed explicitly taught in Scripture; but many things conspire to make it highly probable. The frequent communications between God and man before the fall (M), seem to indicate that Adam was training up for some higher state than the terrestrial paradise. Had he been intended for nothing but to cultivate the ground and propagate his species, he might have been left like other animals to the guidance of his own reason and instincts; which, after the rudiments of knowledge were communicated to him, must surely have been sufficient to direct him to every thing necessary to the comforts of a life merely sensual and rational, otherwise he would have been an imperfect animal. It is obvious too, that this earth, however fertile it may have originally been, could not have afforded the means of subsistence to a race of immortal beings multiplying to infinity. For these reasons, and others which will readily occur to the reader, it seems incontrovertible, that, under the first covenant, either mankind would have been successively translated to some superior state, or would have ceased to propagate their kind as soon as the earth should have been replenished with inhabitants. He who reflects on the promise, that, after the general resurrection, there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, will probably embrace the latter part of the alternative; but that part in its consequences differs not from the former. In the new earth promised in the Christian revelation, nothing is to dwell but righteousness. It will therefore be precisely the same with what we conceive to be expressed by the word heaven; and if under the first covenant this earth was to be converted into a similar place, where, after a certain period, men should neither marry nor be given in marriage, but enjoy what divines have called the beatific vision, we may confidently affirm, that, had the first covenant been faithfully observed, Adam and his posterity, after a sufficient probation, would all have been translated to some superior state or heaven.

To fit them for that state, the gifts of divine grace and the feet have been absolutely necessary. To them it gifts of was a state certainly supernatural, otherwise a God of infinite wisdom and perfect goodness would not, for a grace, moment, have placed them in an inferior state. But to enable any creature, especially such a creature as man, whom an ancient philosopher has justly styled ζων παράδεισος, to rise above its nature, foreign and divine aid is unquestionably requisite: and therefore, though we cannot persuade ourselves that the gifts of the Holy Ghost constituted that image of God in which man was originally made, we agree with Bishop Bull, that these gifts were bestowed on our first parents to enable them to fulfil the terms of the covenant under which they were placed.

On the whole, we think it apparent from the portions of scripture which we have examined, that Adam and Eve were endowed with such powers of body and mind as fitted them to exercise dominion over the other animals; that those powers constituted that image of God in which they are said to have been formed; that they received by immediate revelation the first principles of all useful knowledge, and especially of that system which is usually called natural religion; that they lived for some time with no other religion, entitled to the natural rewards of piety and virtue, but all the while liable to death; that they were afterwards translated into paradise, where they were placed under a new law, with the penalty of death threatened to the breach of it, and the promise of endless life if they should faithfully observe it; and that they were endowed with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to enable them, if not wanting fore improved themselves, to fulfil the terms of that covenant, which perly called has been improperly termed the covenant of works, since the covenant flowed from the mere grace of God, and conferred privileges on man to which the most perfect human virtue could lay no just claim.

Sect. III. Of the Fall of Adam, and its Consequences.

From the preceding account of the primeval state of man,

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(M) That there were such frequent communications, has been shown to be in the highest degree probable by the late Dr Law bishop of Carlisle. See his Discourse on the several Dispensations of revealed Religion. man, it is evident that his continuance in the terrestrial paradise, together with all the privileges which he there enjoyed, were made to depend on his observance of one positive precept. Every other duty incumbent on him, whether as resulting from what is called the law of his nature, or from the express command of his God, was as much his duty before as after he was introduced into the garden of Eden; and though the transgression of any law would undoubtedly have been punished, or have been forgiven only in consequence of sincere repentance and amendment, it does not appear that a breach of the moral law, or of the commandment respecting the sanctification of the Sabbath-day, would have been punished with death, whatever may be the import of that word in the place where it is first threatened. The punishment was denounced only against eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: "For the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." To the word death in this passage divines have affixed many and different meanings. By some it is supposed to import a separation of the soul and body, while the latter was to continue in a state of conscious existence; by others, it is taken to imply annihilation or a state without consciousness; by some, it is imagined to signify eternal life in torments; and by others spiritual and moral death, or a state necessarily subject to sin. In any one of these acceptations it denoted something new to Adam, which he could not understand without an explanation of the term; and therefore, as it was threatened as the punishment of only one transgression, it could not be the divine intention to inflict it on any other.

The abstaining from a particular fruit in the midst of a garden abounding with fruits of all kinds, was a precept which at first view appears of easy observation; and the penalty threatened against the breach of it was, in every sense, awful. The precept, however, was broken notwithstanding that penalty; and though we may thence infer that our first parents were not beings of such absolute perfection as by divines they have sometimes been represented, we shall yet find, upon due consideration, that the temptation by which they were seduced, when taken with all its circumstances, was such as no wise and modest man will think himself able to have resisted. The short history of this important transaction, as we have it in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, is as follows.

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made; and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die: For God doth know, that on the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wife, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."

To the less attentive reader this conversation between the serpent and the woman must appear to begin abruptly; and indeed it is not possible to reconcile it with the natural order of a dialogue, or even with the common rules of grammar, but by supposing the tempter's question, "Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" to have been suggested by something immediately preceding either in words or in significant signs. Eve had undoubtedly by some means or other informed the serpent that she was forbidden to eat of the fruit on which he was probably feasting; and that information, whether given in words or in actions, must have produced the question with which the sacred historian begins his relation of this fatal dialogue. We are told that the woman saw that the tree was good for food; that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wife; but all this she could not have seen, had not the serpent eaten of its fruit in her presence. In her walks through the garden, it might have often appeared pleasant to her eyes; but previous to experience she could not know but that its fruit was the most deadly poison, far less could she conceive it capable of conferring wisdom. But if the serpent ate of it before her, and then extolled its virtues in rapturous and intelligible language, she would at once see that it was not destructive of animal life, and naturally infer that it had very singular qualities. At the moment she was drawing this inference, it is probable that he invited her to partake of the delicious fruit, and that her refusal produced the conference before us. That the yielded to his temptation need excite no wonder; for she knew that the serpent was by nature a mute animal, and if he attributed his speech to the virtues of the tree, she might infer, with some plausibility, that what had power to raise the brute mind to human, might raise the human to divine, and make her and her husband, according to the promise of the tempter, become as gods, knowing good and evil. Milton, who was an eminent divine as well as the prince of poets, makes her reason thus with herself.

Great are thy virtues, doubles, best of fruits, Tho' kept from man, and worthy to be admir'd; Whole taile, too long forborne, at first effay Gave elocution to the mute, and taught The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise.

* * * * *

For us alone Was death invented? or to us denied This intellectual food, for beasts reserved? For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first Hath tasted, envies not, but brings with joy The good befallen him, author unsuspect, Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. What fear I then, rather what know to fear Under this ignorance of good and evil, Of God or death, of law or penalty? Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine, Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, Of virtue to make wife: what hinders then To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?

Paradise Lost, book ix. Full of these hopes of raising herself to divinity, and not, as has sometimes been supposed, led headlong by a sensual appetite, she took of the fruit and did eat, and gave to her husband with her, and he did eat. The great poet makes Adam delude himself with the same sophistry that had deluded Eve, and infer, that as the serpent had attained the language and reasoning powers of man, they should attain

Proportional ascent, which could not be But to be gods, or angels, demi-gods.

Thus was the covenant, which, on the introduction of our first parents into paradise, their Creator was graciously pleased to make with them, broken by their violation of the condition on which they were advanced to that supernatural state; and therefore the historian tells us, that "lest they should put forth their hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever, the Lord God sent them forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence they were taken (x)."

Had they been so sent forth without any farther intimation reflecting their present condition or their future prospects, and if the death under which they had fallen was only a loss of consciousness, they would have been in precisely the same state in which they lived before they were placed in the garden of Eden; only their minds must now have been burdened with the inward sense of guilt, and they must have known themselves to be subject to death; of which, though not exempted from it by nature, they had probably no apprehension till it was revealed to them in the covenant of life which they had so wantonly broken.

God, however, did not send them forth thus hopeless and forlorn from the paradise of delights which they had so recently forfeited. He determined to punish them for their transgression, and at the same time to give them an opportunity of recovering more than their lost inheritance. Calling therefore the various offenders before him, and inquiring into their different degrees of guilt, he began with pronouncing judgment on the serpent in terms which implied that there was mercy for man.

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

That this sentence has been fully inflicted on the serpent, no reasoning can be necessary to evince. Every species of that reptile is more hateful to man than any other terrestrial creature; and there is literally a perpetual war between them and the human race. It is remarkable too that the head of this animal is the only part which it is safe to bruise. His tail may be bruised, or even cut off, and he will turn with fury and death on his adversary: but the slightest stroke on the head infallibly kills him. That the serpent, or at least the greater part of serpents, go on their belly, every one knows; though it is said, that in some parts of the earth serpents have been seen with wings, and others with feet, and that these species are highly beautiful. If there be any truth in this story, we may suppose that these walking and flying serpents have been suffered to retain their original elegance, that mankind might see what the whole race was before the curse was denounced on the tempter of Eve: but it is certain that most of the species have neither wings nor feet, and that many of the most poisonous of them live in burning deserts, where they have nothing to eat but the dust among which they crawl.

To this degradation of the serpent, infidels have objected, that it implies the punishment of an animal which was incapable of guilt; but this objection is founded in thoughtlessness and ignorance. The elegant form of any species of inferior animals adds nothing to the happiness of the animals themselves: the ais is probably as happy as the horse, and the serpent that crawls as he that flies. Fine proportions attract indeed the notice of man, and tend to impress upon his mind just notions of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator; but surely the symmetry of the horse or the beauty of the peacock is more properly displayed for this purpose than the elegance of the instrument employed by the enemy of mankind. The degradation of the serpent in the presence of our first parents must have served the best of purposes. If they had so little reflection as not yet to have discovered that he was only the instrument with which a more powerful being had wrought their ruin, they would be convinced, by the execution of this sentence, that the forbidden fruit had no power in itself to improve the nature either of man or of beast. But it is impossible that they could be so stupid as this objection supposes them. They doubtless knew by this time that some great and wicked spirit had actuated the organs of the serpent; and that when enmity was promised to be put between its seed and the seed of the woman, that promise was not meant to be fulfilled by serpents occasionally biting the heels of men, and by men in return bruising the heads of serpents! If such enmity, though it has literally taken place, was all that was meant by this prediction, why was not Adam directed to bruise the head of the identical serpent which had seduced his wife? If he could derive any consolation from the exercise of revenge, surely it would be greater from his revenging himself on his own enemy, than from the knowledge that there should be a perpetual warfare between his descendants and the breed of serpents through all generations.

We are told, that when the foundations of the earth were laid, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; and it is at least probable that there would be similar rejoicing when the six days work of creation was finished. If so, Adam and Eve, who were but a little lower than the angels, might be admitted into the chorus, and thus be made acquainted with the existence of good and evil spirits. At all events, we cannot doubt but their gracious and merciful Creator

(x) The ideas which this language conveys are indeed allegorical; but they inform us of this, and nothing but this, that immortal life was a thing extraneous to our nature, and not put into our paste or composition when first fashioned by the forming hand of the Creator." Warburton's Divine Legation, book ix, chap. 1. Creator would inform them that they had a powerful enemy; that he was a rebellious angel capable of deceiving them in many ways; and that they ought therefore to be constantly on their guard against his wiles. They must have known too that they were themselves animated by something different from matter; and when they found they were deceived by the serpent, they might surely, without any remarkable stretch of sagacity, infer that their malignant enemy had actuated the organs of that creature in a manner somewhat similar to that in which their own souls actuated their own bodies. If this be admitted, the degradation of the serpent would convince them of the weakness of the tempter when compared with their Creator; and confirm their hopes, that since he was not able to preserve unharmed his own instrument of mischief, he should not be able finally to prevail against them; but that though he had bruised their heels, the promised seed of the woman should at last bruise his head, and recover the inheritance which they had lost. See Prophecy, No 9, 10.

Having thus punished the original instigator to evil, the Almighty Judge turned to the fallen pair, and said to the woman, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shalt thou bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Here is a terrible denunciation of toil and misery and death upon two creatures; who, being ruined to nothing, and formed for nothing but happiness, must have felt infinitely more horror from such a sentence, than we, who are familiar with death, intimate with misery, and "born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward," can form any adequate conception of. The hardship of it, too, seems to be aggravated by its being severer than what was originally threatened against the breach of the covenant of life. It was indeed said, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die:" but no mention was made of the woman's incurring sorrow in conception, and in the bringing forth of children; of the curse to be inflicted on the ground; of its bringing forth thorns and thistles instead of food for the use of man; and of Adam's eating bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face till he should return to the dust from which he was taken.

These seeming aggravations, however, are in reality instances of divine benevolence. Adam and Eve were now subjected to death; but in the sentence passed on the serpent, an obscure intimation had been given them that they were not to remain for ever under its power. It was therefore their interest, as well as their duty, to reconcile themselves as much as possible to their fate; to wean their affections from this world, in which they were to live only for a time; and to hope, with humble confidence, in the promise of their God, that, upon their departure from it, they should be received into some better state. To enable them to wean their affections from earth, nothing could more contribute than to combine sensual enjoyment with sorrow, and lay them under the necessity of procuring their means of subsistence by labour, hard and often fruitless. This would daily and hourly impress upon their minds a full conviction that the present world is not a place fit to be an everlasting habitation; and they would look forward, with pious resignation, to death, as putting a period to all their woes. Had they indeed been furnished with no ground of hope beyond the grave, we cannot believe that the Righteous Judge of all the earth would have added to the penalty originally threatened. That penalty they would doubtless have incurred the very day on which they fell; but as they were promised a deliverance from the consequences of their fall, it was proper to train them up by severe discipline for the happiness reserved for them in a future state.

After the passing of their sentence, the man and woman were turned out into the world, where they had formerly lived before they were placed in the garden of Eden; and all future access to the garden was for ever denied them. They were not, however, in the same state in which they were originally before their introduction into Paradise: They were now conscious of guilt; doomed to severe labour; liable to sorrow and sickness, disease and death: and all these miseries they had brought, not only on themselves, but also on their unborn posterity to the end of time. It may seem indeed to militate against the moral attributes of God, to inflict misery on children for the sins of their parents; but before anything can be pronounced concerning the Divine goodness and justice in the present case, we must know precisely how much we suffer in consequence of Adam's transgression, and whether we ourselves any share in that guilt which is the cause of our sufferings.

That women would have had less sorrow in the bringing forth of children; that we should have been subjected to less toil and exempted from death, had our parents been first parents not fallen from their paradisaical state—are exempted truths incontrovertible by him who believes the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; but that mankind would under the influence of the Holy Scriptures have been wholly free from pain and every first corporeal distress, is a proposition which is not to be found there, in the Bible, and which therefore no man is bound to believe. The bodies of Adam and Eve consisted of flesh, blood, and bones, as ours do; they were surrounded by material objects as we are; and their limbs were unquestionably capable of being fractured. That their souls should never be separated from their bodies while they obtained from the forbidden fruit, they knew from the infallible promise of him who formed them, and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life; but that not a bone of themselves or of their numerous posterity should ever be broken by the fall of a stone or of a tree, they were not told, and had no reason to expect. Of such fractures, pain would surely have been the consequence; though we have reason to believe that it would have been quickly removed by some infallible remedy, probably by the fruit of the tree of life.

Perhaps it may be said, that if we suppose our first parents or their children to have been liable to accidents of this kind in the garden of Eden, it will be difficult to conceive how they could have been preserved from death, Fall of Adam as a stone might have fallen on their heads as well as on their feet, and have at once destroyed the principle of vitality. But this can be said only by him who knows little of the physical world, and still less of the power of God. There are many animals which are susceptible of pain, and yet not easily killed; and man in paradise might have resembled them. At any rate, we are sure that the Omnipotent Creator could and would have preserved him from death; but we have no reason to believe that, by a constant miracle, he would have preserved him from every kind of pain. Indeed, if, under the first covenant, mankind were in a state of probation, it is certainly conceivable that some one individual of the numerous race might have fallen into sin, without actually breaking the covenant by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge; and such a sinner would undoubtedly have been punished by that God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity: but how punishment could have been inflicted on a being exempted from all possibility of pain as well as of death, we confess ourselves unable to imagine. Remorse, which is the inseparable consequence of guilt, and constitutes in our present state great part of its punishment, flows from the fearful looking for of judgment, which the sinner knows shall, in a future state, devour the adversaries of the gospel of Christ; but he, who could neither suffer pain nor death, had no cause to be afraid of future judgment, and was therefore not liable to the tortures of remorse. We conclude, therefore, that it is a mistake to suppose pain to have been introduced into the world by the fall of our first parents, or at least that the opinion contrary to ours has no foundation in the word of God.

Death, however, was certainly introduced by their fall; for the inspired apostle affirms us, that in Adam all die*; and again, that through the offence of ONE many are dead†. But concerning the full import of the word death in this place, and in the sentence pronounced upon our first parents, divines hold opinions extremely different. Many contend, that it includes death corporal, spiritual or moral, and eternal; and that all mankind are subjected to these three kinds of death, on account of their share in the guilt of the original transgression, which is usually denominated original sin, and considered as the source of all moral evil.

That all men are subjected to death corporal in consequence of Adam's transgression, is universally admitted; but that they are in any sense partakers of his guilt, and on that account subjected to death spiritual and eternal, has been very strenuously denied. To discover the truth is of great importance; for it is intimately connected with the Christian doctrine of redemption. We shall therefore state, with as much impartiality as we can, the arguments commonly urged on each side of this much agitated question.

Those who maintain that all men sinned in Adam, generally state their doctrine thus: "The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in that first transgression; whereby they are deprived of that original righteousness in which he was created, and are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually; which is commonly called original sin, and from which do proceed all actual transgressions, so as we are by nature children of wrath, bond-slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all punishments in this world and in that which is to come, even to everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and to most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell fire for ever."

That which in this passage we are first to examine, is the sentence which affirms all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation to have sinned in him and fallen with him in his first transgression; the truth of which is attempted to be proved by various texts of Holy Scripture. Thus St Paul says expressly, that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if, through the offence of one, many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many; and not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift (for the judgment was by one unto condemnation); but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if, by one man's offence, death reigned by one; much more they, who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as, by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by the righteousness of One, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.* In this passage the apostle affirms us, that all upon whom death hath passed have sinned; but death hath passed upon infants, who could not commit actual sin. Infants therefore must have sinned in Adam, since death hath passed upon them; for death "is the wages only of sin." He tells us likewise, that by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; and therefore, since the Righteous Judge of heaven and earth never condemns the innocent with the wicked, we must conclude, that all men partake of the guilt of that offence for which judgment came upon them to condemnation. These conclusions are confirmed by his saying expressly, that "by one man's disobedience many (i.e., all mankind) were made sinners;" and elsewhere †, that "there is none righteous, no not one;" and that his Ephesians 2:13 and converts ‡ were dead in trespasses and sins, and were by Eph. ii. 14 nature children of wrath even as others." The same doctrine, it is said, we are taught by the inspired writers of the Old Testament. Thus Job, expostulating with God for bringing into judgment with him such a creature as man, says, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." And Eliphaz, reproving the patient patriarch for what he deemed presumption, asks †, "What is man that he should be clean, or he who is born of a woman that he should be righteous?" Job xiv. From these two passages it is plain, that Job and his unfailing friend, though they agreed in little else, admitted as a truth unquestionable, that man inherits from his parents a sinful nature, and that it is impossible for any thing born of a woman by ordinary generation to be righteous. The psalmist talks the very same language; when acknowledging his transgressions, he says ||, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Having Having thus proved the fact, that all men are made sinners by Adam's disobedience, the divines, who embrace this side of the question, proceed to inquire how they can be partakers in guilt which was incurred so many ages before they were born. It cannot be by imitation; for infants, according to them, are involved in this guilt before they be capable of imitating any thing. Neither do they admit that sin is by the apostle put for the consequences of sin, and many said to be made sinners by one man's disobedience, because by that disobedience they were subjected to death, which is the wages of sin. This, which they call the doctrine of the Arminians, they affirm to be contrary to the whole scope and design of the context; as it confounds together sin and death, which are there represented, the one as the cause, and the other as the effect. It likewise exhibits the apostle reasoning in such a manner as would, in their opinion, disgrace any man of common sense, and much more an inspired writer; for then the sense of these words, "Death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," must be, death hath passed upon all men, because it hath passed upon all men; or, all men are obnoxious to death, because they are obnoxious to it. The only way therefore, continue they, in which Adam's posterity can be made sinners through his disobedience, is by the imputation of his disobedience to them; and his imputation is not to be considered in a moral sense, as the action of a man committed by himself, whether good or bad, is reckoned unto him as his own; but in a forensic sense, as when one man's debts are in a legal way placed to the account of another. Of this we have an instance in the apostle Paul, who said to Philemon concerning Onesimus, "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee any thing (ἀναγκαίον), let it be imputed to me," or placed to and put on my account. And thus the posterity of Adam are made sinners by his disobedience; that being imputed to them and put to their account, as if it had been committed by them personally, though it was not.

Some few divines of this school are indeed of opinion, that the phrase, "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners," means nothing more than that the posterity of Adam, through his sin, derive from him a corrupt nature. But though this be admitted as an undoubted truth, the more zealous abettors of the system contend, that it is not the whole truth. "It is true (say they) that all men are made of one man's blood, and that blood tainted with sin; and so a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean. What is born of the flesh is flesh, carnal and corrupt; every man is conceived in sin and brought into iniquity; but there is a difference between being made sinners and becoming sinful. The one respects the guilt, the other the pollution of nature; the one is previous to the other, and the foundation of it. Men receive a corrupt nature from their immediate parents; but they are made sinners, not by any act of their disobedience, but only by the imputation of the sin of Adam."

To illustrate this doctrine of imputed sin, they observe, that the word ἀπολάθησαν, used by the apostle, signifies constituted in a judicial way, ordered and appointed in the dispensation of things so it should be; just as Christ was made sin or a sinner by imputation, or by that constitution of God which laid upon him the sins of all his people, and dealt with him as if he had been the guilty person. That this is the sense of the passage, they argue further from the punishment inflicted on men for the sin of Adam. The punishment threatened to that sin was death; which includes death corporal, moral, and eternal. Corporal death, say they, is allowed by all to be suffered on account of the sin of Adam; and if so, there must be guilt, and that guilt made over to the sufferer, which can be done only by imputation. A moral death is no other than the loss of the image of God in man, which consisted in righteousness and holiness; and particularly it is the loss of original righteousness, to which succeeded unrighteousness and unholiness. It is both a sin and a punishment for sin; and since it comes on all men as a punishment, it must suppose preceding sin, which can be nothing but Adam's disobedience; the guilt of which is made over to his posterity by imputation. This appears still more evident from the posterity of Adam being made liable to eternal death in consequence of his transgression; for the wages of sin is death, even death eternal, which never can be inflicted on guiltless persons. But from the passage before us we learn, that "by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation;" and therefore the guilt of that offence must be reckoned to all men, or they could not be justly condemned for it. That Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity, appears not only from the words, "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners;" but likewise from the opposite clause, "so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous;" for the many ordained to eternal life, for whom Christ died, are made righteous, or justified, only through the imputation of his righteousness to them; and therefore it follows, that all men are made sinners only through the imputation of Adam's disobedience.

To this doctrine it is said to be no objection that Adam's posterity were not in being when his sin was committed; for though they had not then actual being, they had yet a virtual and representative one. They were in him both formally and federally, and sinned in him; just as Levi was in the loins of Abraham, and Rom. vii. paid in him tithes to Melchizedek. From Adam they derive a corrupt nature; but it is only from him, as their federal head, that they derive a share of his guilt, and Rom. vii. are subjected to his punishment. That he was a federal head to all his posterity, the divines of this school think Adam a figure evident from his being called a figure of Christ; and deral head the first Adam described as natural and earthly, in contrast to his posterity; the second Adam described as spiritual and the Lord from heaven; and from the punishment threatened against his sin being inflicted not on himself only, but on all his succeeding offspring, He could not be a figure of Christ, say they, merely as a man; for all the sons of Adam have been men as well as he, and in that sense were as much figures of Christ as he; yet Adam and Christ are constantly contrasted, as though they had been the only two men that ever existed, because they were the only two heads of their respective offspring. He could not be a figure of Christ on account of his extraordinary production; for though both were produced in ways uncommon, yet each was brought into the world in a way peculiar to himself. The first Adam was formed of the dust of the ground; the second, though not begotten by a man, was born of a woman. They did not therefore resemble each other in the manner of their formation, but in their office as