by us, not clearly taught in the Bible, and we say no more. But so long as the matter stands as it now does, let all know that the hatred and opposition to us, at present manifested among the self-styled Orthodox, cannot be from the love of God nor the Spirit of God. If men wish to be regarded as Christians, let them hold the doctrine of Christianity in the love of it, and show something of the spirit and deportment of Jesus in their conduct. Brethren, what is being done for our missionary? The Lord has been with him. Have we followed him with our prayers? And are the churches making contributions for this great work over all the land? We ought to hold special meetings for prayer, consolation, and consultation, with a direct reference to this interesting object. We need no schemers now to devise plans. We need no learned critics to review the present plan. We need no orators to make fine speeches about it. The work is undoubtedly approved by all heaven, and by the hearts of all the good on earth. Objections have ceased to the plan. What is now wanting is, that the officers of every church bring the matter up boldly and manfully, and ask the brethren, in a Christian spirit, to give liberally to this great work? Will any church neglect to be known in this great and good work? B. F. SACRED COLLOQUY.-No. III. CHRISTIANITY-ITS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES-FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE. Julius. How beautiful the morning, my Nereus? That sun-that stream of gold poured from his gorgeous, face how fair! The welkin, too, looks like the purple of his kingly shoulders; while the earth, his footstool, spreads her verdant carpeting, and sparkles with bright forms for use, for beauty, and for ornament. Blessed God, how rich the habitation thou hast framed for man! Nereus. The kingdoms of nature, in their beautiful creations and forms, furnish us, my dear Julius, with patterns of the highest beauty, gracefulhess, dignity, and majesty, for use and ornament, and all the imitative arts; so that we have only to draw upon the rich resources of the garden, orchard, | field, and forest; the air, the water, the green earth beneath, or the spangled heavens above, to gratify our most per fect taste, and to rise in the scale of morals and intelligence. Julius. The simplicity, chastity, beauty, order, richness, minuteness, and vastness of the works of nature are, I confess, most impressive, and afford the highest evidences of the existence, power, wisdom, and goodness of their great and immortal Creator, God our heavenly Father, to whom be glory by Jesus Christ! And if we would possess original taste we must love nature, and be able to judge of her various and endless productions-their attributes, relations, and uses: but, my dear Nereus, if, at the same time, we would perfect our taste, and have it as extensive as original, we must not stop at mere natural objects, their relations and uses; but observe, and accustom ourselves to judge of the things in morals and religion to which those are analogous. The mind which stops short of this, and fails to discern the analogy which subsists between the present and the future, between time and eternity, and the things of nature and those of revealed religion, is microscopic rather than vast. It may, indeed, be beautiful and various; but it cannot rival, in grandeur and sublimity, the genius which sees the connection of all things, and unites in itself the different powers of both the microscope and the telescope; and contemplates the innumerable systems which constitute the universe, as all mutually subservient to each other-every relation and every system of relations subservient to other relations and other systems of relations -nature to society, and both of these to religion, and all of them to that state of glory to be revealed hereafter. As such a person sees the whole mundane system with its sun, planets, moons, and comets, acting in subserviency to the order and well being of other mundane systems, and these again to others, and these to others, without any conceivable limits; so he conceives all of them to operate relatively to some great, and to us as yet, unknown centre, which forms the throne of God; where, in a pre-eminent manner, with surrounding cherubim, the Author of the universe displays his glory, and sits transcendent in the midst of his creation, with countless systems of shining orbs, their Are lost in their extremes, and where to count These lines, my dear Nereus, are by one who saw, to a great extent, the subserviency of the visible creation to that state of glory which we Christians hope for. Nereus. You will not, Julius, understand me to reject Christianity, as if I had fairly and fully concluded that it wants authority. It may be divine, but before I either receive or reject it, I must know certainly what it is, and what it proposes to accomplish for mankind. If it "has God for its author," as the first of Englishmen, John Locke, has said, I doubt not that there are in it many points analogous to the systems which compose the universe. I have not, however, been able, as yet, to acquire from the teachers of Christianity any distinct ideas of what it really is. During our last confabulation, you drew upon my mind a thought or two which, I confess, made a more lasting impression on it, than all I have heretofore heard on this important subject, viz. "that Christianity has its first principles, and in this respect, is analogous to the different systems in nature. Julius. The great mental powers which the Author of Christianity has selected as a foundation on which to rear his religious superstructure in the minds of men, are the most powerful by which our nature is distinguished: and are, at the same time, possessed by men universally. The first of them is belief, the greatest of them is love-they are belief, hope, and love-powers the most influential and inspiring, and fitted most eminently to exalt the person who possesses them, and to make him what God would have him to be. Now, belief, hope, and love are first principles in the Christian system, and are neces sary for the perfection of a Christian, as the cohesive and vital forces are necessary to the perfection of a plant. "Without faith it were impossible to please God;" and without hope, the heart of the disciple would die; but both these, again, would be useless and unavailing without love. Love, indeed, is the offspring of faith and hope, and forms a third great power. Belief has done: hope on those things which terminates on the things which God he has promised to do; while love terminates on the Deity himself; and is, therefore, most holy, most purifying, most glorious. "We love him, because he first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.' Thus belief and hope in what God has done and promised, operate to give birth to love, according to the Christian system; and these three--belief, hope, and loveremain as the only principles on which we can live and die accepted by our Creator. Nereus. I admit the supremacy of the principles which you have named, and if the Author of the Christian system has pitched his fabric of morals on powers of the human mind so universal, active, and efficient in their operation, as belief, and hope, and love, then his knowledge of the human heart is not less certain than the renown of his name is obvious and glorious; for there are no elements in the mind of man more determinately and more generally active, than the principles you have enumerated. But, my Julius, Christianity lays before my understanding a mass of ideas most confused, most unassorted, most undefined. Where is the beginning? Where does its Author desire his disciple to commence? Julius. There is in Revelation an inexhaustible fund of theme and subject, so that in point of variety, religion may be regarded as analogous to nature. The Bible treats of the origin of the world, and of the birth of time and of man. It seizes in the form either of prophecy or history, the two extremes of the world, and all its essential points. It depicts to us, in simple but most impressive style, the great changes to which the world and man are destined, and the causes from which these changes spring. It sounds the tocsin of the fate of nations, and claims as within the province of its legitimate boundaries, the divine and stirring subjects of death and life, eternity and time, reward and punishment, man and his Maker, and every thing that regards the conduct, words, and thoughts of man in this life and in the life which is to come. But, like every other system that has God for its author, the "true religion," as has already been observed, resolves it self into certain first principles, on the truth and operation of which, all subsequent matters depend. And from a knowledge of this, all certain understanding and enlightened views of Christianity, must flow. If you have overlooked this truth and these laws, I wonder not at your confusion. In such a case, the perplexity of which you complain is unavoidable. This is the rock, on which the teachers who have proved so useless to you, have split. They have failed to teach you what Christianity is, because they have failed to teach it to you as it is written. and mongers of the present and the past, since the days of our Lord downward. Instead of watching the course of revelation, and looking at Christianity as a scheme of things already systemized by its author, they foolishly imagined that this had been left for them to do; and so, disregarding or overlooking the matter which form the foundations of our holy religion, they have arbitrarily assumed, as "first principles," things which are not "first principles;" and, in many instances, they have built their schemes on matters which are not found in revelation at all. Nereus. I have sometimes, I confess, my Julius, been no little astounded, at hearing the teachers of your religion emphasize on what they call "eternal election;" and I think the Westminster Creed, from which you have apostatized, speaks of certain of the race of man irremediably destined to be consumed in hell for ever, by the decrees of a fatal reprobation. How is this? Julius. I have told you, my dear Nereus, how it is. This is the result of system-making: and consequences not less abhorrent to reason, than derogatory to the character of God and destructive to man, have, in thousands of instances, arisen from the same prolific source. Nereus. But, my dear Julius, many of these men are eminently skilled in the sciences, and shine in the heavens of literature as stars of the first magnitude; and their consummate scientific elaborations and prodigious learning show, that they were not ignorant of the connection which subsists between "first principles" and the details of science. Are the schemes of Christian- One visionary (and he will be folity which are taught from the sacred lowed by a thousand others, more the desks of parties abroad, wholly without children of error than himself,) will lay first principles? And are the teachers it down in opposition to the experience of these schemes ignorant of the neces- of the world, that man is incapable of sary connection of first principles with believing the gospel. This is a "first subsequent phenomena? I cannot pos- principle." Now his next thought is sibly regard them as such ignoramuses. to inquire for the results of such preJulius. Nereus, the schemes of philo- mises. He then fairly infers, that as a sophy and of the different systems of man must be saved, seeing Christ has nature, which were in vogue anterior died for him, then he must be made to to the time of Bacon and Newton, were believe; and thus enters the doctrine not without first principles; so that the of supernatural agency in order to faith. error of philosophers did not consist in This is enough. The multitude immea total abandonment of, or disregard to diately begin to gape and turn up their these, but in an arbitrary assumption eyes to the skies, to hallo, to complain, of them; for, without waiting upon the to madden with enthusiasm, or sink course of nature, and laying the founda- into despair. But Christianity, altion of science on experience, they though she has to bear the burden of trusted to their reasan alone, and were the people's ignorance, is no more to too frequently in the conclusion before blame with it, than Jesus was to blame they had settled the premises. They for the cross although he had to carry it. arbitrarily assumed things as "first It is no first principle in Chrstianity, principles," which were not "first "that men cannot believe." But faith principles." This was their fundamental itself is a "first principle." First principles are agents-active agents. Now faith is that active principle in the mind of the man of God, which gives birth error. This, too, is the error-the radical error of the religious system-makers to all subsequent things, whether they relate to the man's character, state, privilege, or destiny. Hope and love are dependent on the pre-existing principle of faith; for without faith it were as impossible to have hope and love towards God, as to please him: and the apostle says, "without faith it is impossible to please God." Nereus. My dear Julius, I have seriously reflected on the best plan of inquiring into this important subject. And I think I have concluded upon the best. Many, without knowing what | Christianity is, seek immediately for a proof of its authority; and I think I have seen in the gospel a strong propensity to talk about its divinity, rather than to spread before us the thing itself as it is written. Now I am willing to know what Christianity is, before I inquire into its divinity. 1 shall waive the question of its authority until the last. I shall, in this manner, know at least what I reject, if I do reject it; and what I admit, if I do admit it. In the mean time I shall be happy to ascertain what are its first principles, and to hear you more fully on the analogy of nature and religion. Julius. I hear, with unfeigned pleasure, the resolutions to which my beloved Nereus has come, and my anxious heart is ready to make application of that famous Scripture, spoken by the King himself, "That seed sown in good ground are they, who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience." The honorable and considerate manner in which you approach this subject, is truly gratifying, and worthy of all imitation. Praised be the God of my salvation. Adieu, my beloved. sophy. Much, indeed, may be plausibly inferred from what is seen and known of the things around us and within us, as to man's existence hereafter and for ever; but nothing so satisfactory as to make the notion a principle of conduct sufficient to influence us to deal out what is just and right to all men. In a moral point of view, the torch of philosophy would afford but a very dubious and uncertain light upon man's immortality. It never was clear enough to enable man to pursue it with confidence of success. His immortality could not be reasoned out of the analogy of nature, beyond a doubt. To doubt it, was so to impair the feeling in the human mind, as to destroy its motive power. The most enlightened men of the most enlightened nations of heathendom, were never able to refrain from the vices of the age in which they lived. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Diogenes, were more or less guilty of the vices, from the influences of which they sought in vain to reclaim their countrymen. They speculated much upon ethics, and delineated theories, in themselves so plausible of advantage to the practitioner, that they thought to attract men, by the charms of their utility, to the practice of virtue. But long and repeated trials of their theories upon morals-urged from considerations of religious obligation, too, as affording additional, if not the stronger motive proved only their weakness and inefficiency. It was, therefore, no hasty conclusion to which that sage and accurate observer of the principles of human actions arrived, when, in view of all they had done in reclaiming men from the dominion of their appetites and passions, he pronounced them systems of vain and deceitful philosophy. The lives of their founders prove them as void of motive power to reclaim men, as they were false in theory. He must, indeed, have studied the lives and theories of those philosophers but very imperfectly, who has not discovered them to have been as unsatisfactory to their authors, as they were to those to whom they were delivered. They not only prove that men, by mere human reason, unaided by a clear revelation, cannot think and act according to the capabilities of their entire nature, but as clearly show that traditional truth, divine in its origin, passing through the channels of an unchaste and corrupt imagination, and superadded to the deductions of human reason, leave men still the sport and victim of their passions. The wisest of the Heathen philosophers wanted he knew not what, but it was something to which he had not attained. Had he found it, what think you it would have been? He would have found it, say you, in what would have filled up the measure of his intellectual and moral capacity. He wanted, then, the impersonation of truth, goodness, and love. To love and to adore such a Being required a clear revelation of his character. But this could not have been made without clearly revealing to man his relations to such a Being. The secret of his wants will thus be discovered, and he will make its discovery obvious to all, by seeking for eternal life, and truth, and good, to live upon for ever. He will as evidently show, that there is no reasonableness in reasoning so long, as men seek nothing more than daily amusement, occupation, and aliment. He exclaims, as did one of classic memory, "I have found, I have found!" The grand secret is happiness, without death. And its daily enjoyment is loving God supremely, the author of his being and his bliss. But tell him he is to perish to-morrow and for ever, and in vain do you exhort him to love God. The hope, alone of an imperishable existence, as an irrevocable boon, is that only upon which he can found his gratitude to his Maker, and who thus becomes the author of his felicity. But need we say, that no such assurance and hope, as the foundation of present and future bliss, is anywhere to be found save in the Bible; for, however ready men may be to felicitate themselves upon the acquisition of their desires, they find, in the end, self-deception, and that they have rested only in that which is no better than the Rhadamanthine dreams of natural heathenism, if they found not their morality upon the revealed will of God. The question of man's immortality is one which comprehends much more than the mind of Plato ever conceived in his argument for the immortality of the soul. He had but half the idea, and that he obtained from Jewish tradition, rather than from abstract reasoning upon spiritual existence. The Bible alone gives us the whole idea. The immortality of the spirit or soul was never the subject of a special revelation. But that man in his entire nature in body, soul, and spirit - shall live again and for ever, is a revealed truth, and the burthen of the Christian revelation. It is there taught us, not in word, but in fact. The Author of immortality, in the fact of his resurrection, brought to light the immortality of body, soul, and spirit. From this fact the Apostle Paul argues for the immortality of man in his entire nature. The argument runs thus: If Christ be not raised, the believer is not raised-he is perished. This negative argument, had it been true, would have proved the mortality alike of soul and body. They who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished, if Christ be not raised. But the apostle carries his argument triumphantly, from the fact that Christ arose from the dead, and has become the first fruits of them that slept. The argument, then, for the revival and deathlessness of the body, is thus stated by the apostle: If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall make even your mortal bodies alive by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. Many sceptics, like Plato, may have professed to believe in the immortality of the spirit of man; but the apostle argues, that if the body be not raised to life, the man has perished in body, soul, and spirit. The revival of the latter he makes to depend upon that of the former. The future life of the spirit is consequent upon the future life of the body. We repeat, then, that all true morality and religion are based upon the hope of immortality; not only so, but the very desire to regulate his moral and religious conduct by a given rule, does, indeed, indicate an intense feeling of deathlessness. And what are our notions of right and wrong, but an evidence of our belief in a future state, where good and evil are to find their proper results. With the consciousness of our immortality, we feel ourselves bound to right conduct, seeing the laws of heaven are the laws of eternity; and with the apostle, we feel that we cannot escape the sentence already passed against us, if we neglect our salvation. |