be dislodged and discomfited. And this he attempts to do, not by reconciling with what are called the principles of Natural Theology and the moral sense, those parts of the Scriptures to which the Deists object as being inconsistent with them, but by annihilating the ground on which they stand, and utterly denying that Natural Religion teaches us any thing with regard to God's moral attributes, and that our own moral constitution is any criterion by which to judge of the propriety or impropriety of the acts of the Diety. To this purpose more than hundred pages are devoted before he proceeds to the direct proof. This he rests entirely on the credibility of the sacred writers as witnesses of a supernatural interposition to enlighten mankind. From the Scriptures, and from the Scriptures alone, he thinks, do we derive any evidence of the moral attributes of the Deity, and from them alone do we derive any moral distinctions, which are of sufficient authority to be applied as a test to the propriety of his moral actions. Whether he has done wisely in thus thinking to annihilate Natural Religion, the reader must judge.

Our Author begins by observing:

"Now before we can undertake to estimate the truth or falsehood of Christianity, it is of essential importance, that we first ascertain the actual value of the principles by which we are to make our decision. In other words we must accurately determine the following particulars :

"What is the actual amount of knowledge, that we derive from the study of Natural Theology?

"What is the actual value of those principles, that constitute the Theory of Natural Religion?

"What is the true theory of Moral Distinctions, i. e. what is it that makes one action to be right and another wrong?

"What is it that constitutes a man a credible witness, and what is it that makes us mistrust and reject the testimony of another?" -p. 24.

He then proceeds to estimate the value of the dogmas, as he calls them, which constitute Natural Religion.

"Our actual knowledge concerning the origin of religious dogmas, may be stated in a few words. The past history of mankind, exclusive of the Bible, does not communicate to us any information, how the theory of religious obligation has originated. The most ancient records of human transactions, in every instance, exhibit mankind as then living under the influence of religious

institutions, and the latest discoveries of modern enterprise, in hitherto unexplored regions of the earth, inform us of a similar religious condition of things, with every newly discovered nation. Hence it seems to be incontestable, that no nation, or people, have ever yet been discovered, who were destitute of the theory of religious obligation, and of which the following are the essential dogmas.

1st. That there are gods, creators, and governors of the world, who rule all things, with both general and particular providence. "2d. That all men are responsible beings before the gods, and accountable for their actions.

"3d. That the soul of man is immortal, and that, after the death of the body, it shall exist in either happiness or misery, according to the manner they may have lived in the present life.”

"Instead of speculating how these dogmas originated among men, we shall alone inquire into the value of the proofs or arguments by which they are sustained."

p. 29.

These dogmas, to our great surprise, our Author, with the exception of the first, finds altogether unsupported by the appearances of the universe. After a labored discussion he comes to these conclusions concerning them, to our mind, we must confess, most extraordinary.

"1st. That our universe, and all it contains, is the production of intelligent power, but whether of one or more gods we cannot determine.

"2d. Of this god, or gods, we have not the smallest idea, except that he, or they, possess great power and intelligence; and it may be important to add, we are altogether unable to discern their possession of excellent attributes, such as benevolence, mercy, justice, &c.

"3d. We are unable to perceive, that the moral affairs of human life are superintended by any particular providence, and that universal experience opposes such a notion.

"4th. That there is not only no proof, but on the contrary it is against all fact, and the evidence of our senses, to believe that the intelligent principle of man is immortal, and consequently we have not the smallest reason to justify the theory of future reward or punishment. p. 73.

Of these striking conclusions we have space to examine but one, and that is the proof of the Divine benevolence. This, every one must perceive, depends on the apparent predominance of happiness or misery, in those beings that are made capable of both.

Now," says our author, "with respect to mankind, there can be no dispute, that human life is so much embittered by sorrow, affliction, and pain, so much by tyranny and oppression, so much by poverty and disease, that, in all ages, every moral writer whatever has exhibited human nature as being essentially unhappy; and death, however much we dread his approach, has ever been regarded as our great deliverer from the troubles of human life. The Scriptures decidedly take the same view, and, in short, none but certain advocates of natural theology, hold any other language on the question of fact." "As he (God) is, by his visible works, possessed of infinite power and intelligence, so, as he has not appointed a happy state and condition to human existence, it follows that we have no reason whatever to consider him good, from any view derivable from our experience of his providence." -pp. 46, 47.

He also contends, that, "with respect to the brute animals, a stronger position against the theory of the divine goodness may be sustained." And, in another place, he thus concludes; "If a man will have a positive dogma on the subject of the nature and attributes of the Creator, he can come to no other conclusion, reasoning only from nature and experience, than that the Deity was totally indifferent to human and animal happiness."

The facts here assumed, it will be perceived, rest entirely on individual opinion, an opinion which we confess we had never before either seen or heard expressed, except it may be in some moment of great suffering or passionate grief. The conclusions, then, which are drawn from them, will be satisfactory only to those, and we cannot help hoping they will be but a small number, who coincide with him in this opinion. But, supposing it proved that the Creator is "totally indifferent" to the happiness of his creatures, and man especially,

-nay, more than this, that suffering actually preponderates, and, therefore, as our author has cut off all consideration of any compensation in a future state, that the balance inclines rather to the side of his malevolence; - this being proved, we seriously would inquire, if the foundations of revelation as well as natural religion be not equally shaken. It immediately establishes a presumption against a revelation. If God be "totally indifferent" to human welfare, it becomes improbable that he would make a revelation at all, if its purpose be to do man good; much more, if he be in any degree malevolent. Besides, unless you consider the goodness of the Deity, and

his care for human happiness, to be proved by the light of nature, how can you possibly prove the truth of revelation; we do not here mean that it is a revelation, but that what is revealed is true? You can place no dependence on the divine veracity. Veracity is certainly a moral attribute; and our author denies, that we can know any thing of the moral attributes of God by the light of nature. Veracity, moreover, in this case is blended with the divine goodness, and that, he says, has no evidence in nature. A God whose moral attributes are by supposition unknown, and who is "indifferent" to the happiness of mankind, would be quite as likely to deceive them in a revelation, as to create them in a condition essentially unhappy." Are we told that the Scriptures assert that God is true, and therefore his veracity may proved from them? We answer, that this assertion makes a part of that very revelation, the truth of which cannot be proved, except by assuming as proved or made probable from some other source, that God himself is true. It is to be feared then, we think, that our author has made too great a sacrifice in order to silence the infidel objections derived from natural religion. In giving up the moral attributes of the Deity as being antecedently unknown, and indiscoverable by the light of nature, he has abandoned the only ground on which revelation itself can be defended.

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Our author next proceeds to dispose of the objections brought by the Deists against the Scriptures, from what they call the immutability of moral distinctions. They say that the God of the Scriptures is represented in the Scriptures to have done this and that, which contradict our ideas of moral propriety, and therefore they are to be rejected as coming from him. This objection, which is similar to the last, he disposes of in much the same manner. He meets it by saying, that our ideas of moral propriety are relative only to ourselves, and totally inapplicable to the Deity; and therefore we have no right to say that any thing whatever which has been done, or is said to have been done by him, is either right or wrong. He sums up the argument in the following manner.

"Then all that we claim for Christianity is, that it shall not be supposed condemnable for any statement it has made concerning Jehovah, or his proceeding with mankind, on the very intelligible ground, that we know nothing whatever concerning his nature and VOL. XX. 3D S. VOL. II. NO. III.

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attributes." "Every attempt to estimate the morality of God's act, by what is called the immutability of moral distinctions, has never failed in a single instance to end in error, folly, and mischief.". . . . . "All that moralists have ever written on the subject of moral obligations, extends to no system more universal than is embraced by the word Philanthropy. Virtue and morality, justice, right, &c., are mere synonymes with philanthropy, and it is impossible for us to give them any other universality.” — pp. 103, 92, 91.

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We shall attempt briefly to examine the correctness of these positions. In the first place we observe, that they take for granted the truth of a hypothesis, which, to say the most, has as yet gained but few suffrages, and which seems to us to be positively false; namely, that utility is not only the foundation of morality, and the safe and proper one for men to adopt when they come to years of discretion; but that it is constituted the standard in the human mind from the first, the first and only criterion by which the mind judges any act to be right or wrong. This, we repeat, we do not believe to be a fact. Of this every human being is a sufficient judge. He has only to ask himself, if to perceive any action to be calculated to promote the enjoyment of another, be the same as to perceive it to be right? Is not the simple perception of right and wrong in the mind long antecedent to the complex perception of an action's being calculated to produce good on the whole? Does not the child's consciousness of the criminality of lying, long precede his knowledge of the social evils, which at length grow out of it?

Benevolence or philanthropy, so far from being the supreme authority of the mind, and the standard of action, is no authority at all. It is a motive, an affection, and belongs rather to the heart than the mind. It has a power above it, to which it is subjected, instead of reigning supreme, this very sense of right and wrong. And we have no other evidence that it is good to be benevolent, except this very sense of right and wrong, which assures us that benevolence is right and malevolence is wrong. It is not a fact then, that all moral principle can be resolved into philanthropy. That God has so constituted the moral sense, that its instinctive judgments shall coincide with the greatest good of the human race, we do not deny. Such an ordination corresponds to that wisdom which forms the embryo bird or fish for the