way illustrated, from reason, from Scripture, from the moral consciousness of man, from the absurdities of the contrary, from history and anecdote, from the nature of things, from the nature of virtue, and from many other allied considerations -which a man can resist only as he hates the light.

Dreadful indeed will be the account of those ministers of Satan who have deceived the impenitent and edified their wickedness in presumption! God will judge them; because with lies they have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom he has not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising kim life.

Mr. Lane has managed his work in a happy medium between metaphysical ratiocination, and a popular but loose exhortation, of style and manner. He has lost no time in speculation and hypothesis. His way is that of manly argument and straight-forward application. He gains as he goes, both in the quantum and dependence of his thoughts, and in the profound interest he awakens in the reader and sustains increasingly to the end. Having read his volume of 130 pages through, we are competent thus to speak in its commendation. We are not indeed idolaters, and we have seen an end of what they call perfection here below.' not a faultless monster, and we are not blindly praising it. But taken as a whole, we welcome its appearance, and dare almost predict for it a prosperous career of usefulness.

We furnish a few specimens of his manner.

The book is

"That the wicked will be reclaimed in or after death, supposes that there are means for reclaiming and saving sinners, more powerful and efficacious than those of the gospel. Why are not those means now employed? Is it not as easy for God to employ efficient measures at the present time, if there are such, as it ever will be? If the love of God will ever call them into existence, why does it not now call them into existence? If it is said that it is the change which death will produce, that will renovate their moral characters, why does not God renovate them now, by producing a change equivalent to death? He can easily do it."

*

*

*

"God's love is impartial. He loves the happiness of all beings according to their worth. He does not love the happiness of an ani

mal, as well as the happiness of a man or an angel, because it is not worth as much. We cannot suppose that he loves the happiness of an almost idiot, as much as he loves the happiness of a Bacon or a Locke, because his susceptibilities and powers of enjoying and communicating happiness are not so great. Impartial love must love things according to their worth; otherwise it would be a mere irrational affection. God does not love the happiness of a part of mankind, as much as the happiness of the whole; and it is as much a dictate of benevolence to cut off a part from his favor, when that part endangers the happiness of the whole, as to cut off a putrid member from a child to save its life. * * It is as much the dictate of impartial benevolence to provide a hell for the ungodly, as to provide a heaven for the righteous. If there is a portion of mankind who will not be reclaimed from their sins, and who endanger the happiness and well-being of the universe, it is not inconsistent with the love of God to banish them forever from his presence, and the presence of all holy beings, and leave them to eat the fruit of their own doings forever."

In reference to the great philosophical distinction between the love of benevolence, of which the object is being, and the love of complacency, of which the object is moral excellence, the one desiring the welfare, the other delighting in the character, of its object, respectively, Mr. Lane has well illustrated and sustained the positions of his book, as at one with those of the Greatest of Books.

Our author vindicates the justice of God in the punishment of sinners, in a manner clear and convincing. He says that

"God has shown his love of holiness, by making man upright, in his own image, and after his own likeness. Man has lost that image, and given himself up to the love and service of sin. God, in infinite benevolence, has put forth numerous means to reclaim him, and bring him back to the love and service of holiness. He has done all that infinite benevolence can do to make him holy and happy. Many refuse to be reclaimed, spurn at the offers of mercy, and cherish a character at war with God and his government. It is not therefore inconsistent with the infinite love of God to banish such from his presence, and punish them with an everlasting destruction."

As to the final cause of punishment, we concur with Mr. Lane in an obvious position-it is in a way suited to the honors of infinite wisdom and benevolence; it is for the good

of the universe, which wicked sinners are justly sacrificed to subserve; it is retributively to make them useful-sublime and awful as is the thought-to make them useful in their destruction. If God punishes sinners, it is for some purpose; and just as certainly is it for an end good and worthy of himself. If he had no end to answer by it, then plainly he would not do it; for he takes no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, and is as perfectly incapable of punishing for the sake of punishing, as he is of showing himself to be, what he is not, infinitely malevolent. He is just as really incapable of delighting in misery-any where, any misery, as he is of delighting in sin. But shall men hence conclude that he will never inflict misery for any cause? Such an inference were rash, incredible, and plainly false. It is contradictory to facts by thousands, of human experience and constant occurrence. It is inconsistent with the story of Calvary, with the agonies of crucifixion, with the unutterable misery of the dying Redeemer, when it pleased the Lord to bruise him. If then he executed such severe misery on his own Son for our sins, how plain is it that he may execute the natural and proper penalty of the law on transgressors, who, refusing such a glorious substitute, must be justly punished for their own sins. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

But still the question returns-For what does he punish them, as the final cause? what end can he answer by it? why not rather annihilate them? The answer is-He makes them useful in their punishment. He gains good to the universe by their penal misery, and that in ways innumerable as the relations of moral government. It is a monumental demonstration to all rational creatures, of the law of God-its nature, its use, its equity, its glory, its importance, and the value of those eternal interests which the law represents and guards, and which sin and rebellion and impenitence and unbelief unite to destroy. It may thus prevent sin in others, and be among the necessary moral causes of the everlasting holiness and conservation of the redeemed. It is not necessary, how

ever, that we should show all the final causes, or amply vindicate them shown, on account of which infinite wisdom and truth punishes the lost. If the fact be revealed that he punishes them, we know it is just, good, benevolent, and wise, and consequently that the ends to be answered by it are, like God, all excellent. Mr. Lane conformably evinces the fact, and mainly assumes in it the perfect wisdom and goodness of Jehovah. He He says,

"We have barely hinted at an argument which we might have illustrated, and drawn out to some length-that the future punishment of the wicked will be productive of great good to the universe at large; and that the love of God therefore to the great whole of rational being, after the glorious display which he has made of his perfections to bring them to obedience and happiness, demands their final condemnation."

In one of his applications to the impenitent, with which we conclude, Mr. Lane thus solemnly deals with their consciences:

"Allow me, my impenitent friends, to call your minds to one serious reflection. If you perish, you perish under a most holy, righteous, and benevolent administration. It will be, because wisdom, and power, and justice, and benevolence, have failed to make you turn from your evil thoughts and ways. We can find something to sustain us under the inflictions of malevolence; but under the angered strokes of love, whither will you turn for consolation? * * Think before you enter on your eternal state, what it will be, to be shut out from his presence, and hope, and happiness, for ever. Do not abuse his love, and trample on his truth, by indulging the delusive hope that you will be saved whether you repent or not. You cannot be saved in impenitency."

ARTICLE IV.

THE TEUTONIC METAPHYSICS, OR MODERN TRANSCEN

DENTALISM.

By C. E. STOWE, D. D., Professor of Bibl. Lit., Lane Sem., Cincinnati.

For more than a quarter of a century past, the attention of the literary world has been turned very strongly toward Germany. The freshness, the boldness, and the exuberance of the German literature; the copiousness, the strength, and the flexibility of that majestic language; the literary treasures of the German universities, and the astounding labors of the German professors, have been well calculated to attract general notice. In some branches of literature and science, the Germans certainly have excelled all other nations; while in others, if I read them aright, they have made very great pretensions with quite mean results. As in sailing along the New England coast, you sometimes seem to approach a magnificent country, variegated with every beauty of mountain and vale, which, as you come nearer, proves to be a pile of illuminated fog; so many of the products of the German intellect, which, viewed at a distance, show rich and splendid, on closer inspection are found to be poor and commonplace. When set forth in the imposing vocabulary of the German language, they sound wonderfully weighty, but translate them into homely English, and they strike the ear like flat non

sense.

In classical learning, in translations, in all the departments of history, in philology, in some branches of theology, in certain forms of fictions and poetry, in literary criticism, the German writers are unsurpassed, unrivalled-but on some other topics, it seems to me, they have vastly more credit than belongs to them, and that their writings have been admired, praised, and imitated without much discrimination, and to the manifest injury of many young and ardent minds. I propose,