is nothing in it that can stir the soul in the least degree, or strike a solitary chord in the recesses of man's spiritual being, or have any other effect whatever than an iceberg, or a continent of icebergs would have upon our whole atmosphere, should it move down from the polar seas, and take up its station along our coast, to remain there moored for centuries! If this freezing, desolate negation of godliness be true christianity, the sovereign, vaunted remedy for infidelity, why do not its adherents try it for the conversion of the world, and prove its truth by its powerful effects? If this is the power of God unto salvation, why do they not obey the command of Christ, and go into all the world to preach this gopel to every creature? Why leave the evangelization of the world to be effected by the preaching of that very doctrine, and that very system of doctrines, which they cast out as absurd, and even ridiculous,—a libel upon God's character. If they have a better way of exhibiting God's character, a moral talisman of mightier energy than the exhibition of Jesus Christ and him crucified; above all, if they deem the doctrine of atonement, and the truths that shine in its light, a perversion of the bible, and the fictions of gloomy men, bent upon reducing the world to spiritual bondage,-why, in the name of all that concerns man's best interests, do they not send to the perishing, imploring nations, their own LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY, this last, best gift of heaven to man, and let us behold it working its wonders of regenerating mercy on our ruined race? Ah, liberal minded men! your own experience has taught you, that the spirit of a missionary forms no part or principle of your system; nor of any system, that does not bear, written all over it, the loved and adored name of Jesus Christ and him crucified, and that does not breathe throughout, the memory of the Lamb of God, that "taketh away the sin of the world." A missionary's peculiar emphatic designation, his title of honor and love, is and has been all the world over, Missionary of THE cross.

This blasphemed system of religious truth-Jesus Christ and him crucified-is the system, in the exhibition of which the bible has exerted its most powerful effect on the intellect as well as the heart of men. In the light of this truth, Professor Norton's assumed intellectual superiority over the doctrine of the trinity, and his grave conclusion that it is expunged from the creed of all who make any pretensions to intelligence, are very amusing. Perhaps he has forgotten the names of Lord Bacon and Henry More; and probably the Halls, the Taylors, the Coleridges, and the Fosters, are in his view men of very weak intellect, by the side of Dr. Channing.

age

The truth is a great one, and it were well if this would reflect upon it, that the best period in the literature of Great Britain, the period in which that nation appears, for her intellectual power,

like a giant among the nations, is the one in which her noblest minds were imbued and penetrated with the evangelical system of religious truth, the system that includes the ideas of a holy God, and a holy law, with an adequate sanction; the ideas of a guilty world, an atoning Savior, and a regenerating Spirit; the system that exhibits both the Cross and the Trinity. Then men were abundant, whose learning was not only of a gigantic aspect, but whose love to Christ crucified would have adorned the age of primitive apostolic piety. And when Christ crucified began to be left out of view, and a spiritual death, something like that of Unitarianism, was creeping over the nation, then was it that giants like Howe, Cudworth, and Leighton, began to be succeeded by the Tillotsons, the Seckers, and the Seeds; and together with the departure of the national mind from the spiritual principles that center in the atonement, may be measured the decline of the nation in intellectual energy.

It is nothing but the combined intellectual and moral spirit of the system of the cross, that has produced in the literature of the English tongue, such books as the Paradise Lost, Butler's Analogy, the Pilgrim's Progress, Edwards on the Will, the Saint's Rest, the Blessedness of the Righteous, Cowper's Task, Henry Martyn's Memoirs; and such writers of hymns as Watts and Charles Wesley, almost the only individuals who have been eminently successful in this difficult species of composition. Now, think of the system of liberal christianity as producing such a work as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress!! The combined energies of all the minds that ever were deluded by that fatal system, would be inadequate to the production of a solitary page.

Again: A great guide to the true interpretation of God's word, is to be found in the opinion of those, who are known to have communed most closely with God. They are most likely to discover and know, without mistake, God's precise meaning in the words he uses. This is the dictate of true wisdom, and not of superstition; we act according to it in the things of this world. All men, who have come to such greatness as to be considered authorities among their fellow men, have at one time or another had the meaning of their words, even of their written phrases, dispu ted. Now, to whom would all most readily repair for a decision of the disputed point? Would it not be to those, if any such could be found, who had been intimately acquainted with the character and habits, both intellectual and moral, of the author in question; who had enjoyed his intimate friendship, and known the workings of his mind, and his opinions on many subjects. To take an individual instance for illustration. James Madison was one amongst the framers of the constitution. He was a friend to Washington, and knew the views and feelings of almost all his fellow laborers

It is therefore justly and with great wisdom, that we apply to this living oracle, to know what the constitution means, in phrases whose meaning is now made the subject of dispute.

We may learn a lesson from this in regard to God's word. There have been men, especially since the reformation, who have gilded the gloom of the world with the light of a living and radiant piety; men of great and acknowledged wisdom, who have lived very near to God, who are known and confessed, even by their enemies, to have maintained a close walk with him, and to have arrived at such a degree of holiness, as will render their names illustrious forever. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and such men have participated, as it were, in God's counsels; have been admited to the honor of knowing the secrets of his mind; and are of all others the least likely to be mistaken in their interpretation of God's word. Let us mention a few of their names. Leighton, Usher, Baxter, Hall, Taylor, Howe, the Henrys, Owen, Hale, Sir Robert Boyle, Watts, Doddridge, Newton, Cecil, Bunyan, Henry Martyn, David Brainard, President Edwards, Whitefield, Payson. These are native names; we have not gone beyond our own language. These and multitudes of others who walked with God through life, trusted in Christ as an Almighty Savior, and loved God's word, because it spake to them of Jesus Christ, and him crucified it revealed to them, not a catalogue of Unitarian negatives, but the doctrine of the Trinity, and the system of the Cross. "These all died in faith;" they found in the bible an atoning Savior. We would give more for an opinion on this subject from a man like David Brainard, than for all human arguments else.

We have spoken of the harmony of the bible. One word in regard to its whole spiritual tenor, according to which it should be interpreted in particular passages,—it is manifestly from beginning to end one of solemn warning. The beings it addresses are evidently considered by it in peril of their souls forever; and its whole tenor looks to a day of judgment, and an endless retribution of happiness or misery. The words of particular passages innumerable declare the same thing, with positive and pungent application to every individual conscience. In putting any different construction upon them, we have both to wrest the particular passage from its plain and inevitable signification, and to do equal violence to the argument gathered from the whole tenor of the scriptures. The very object of the bible is to tell men their danger of perdition, and to point out the way whereby they may avoid it. Its professed aim and design, and the whole purpose for which it was sent into the world, is to save men from hell, and to raise them to heaven; and in view of all this, what shall we call the conduct of those, who, in the very face of all the awful descriptions and warnings of the bible, would gravely persuade us, that there is

no hell! If the bible has not a correspondency in the eternal world to its descriptions and warnings and imagery, if they are descriptions without the correlative realities, of all the books that ever were published, it is the falsest. Such a book would indeed be a marvel and miracle of falsehood; it would require superhuman powers to construct it.

The last principle we shall mention, and one that lies at the foundation of all others is this: The bible should be interpreted with right feelings of heart, in the exercise of penitence, humility, faith and love. All the principles we have specified are in subordination to this: a heart friendly to God is the only right interpreter either of his works or word. And this is what our Savior meant when he said, "If any man will do my will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." A sinful heart can have no right views of God, and of course will have defective views of his word. Sin distorts the judgment, and overturns the mind's balance on all moral subjects, far more than even the best of men are aware. There is, there can be, no true reflection of God or his truth from the bosom darkened with guilt, from the heart at enmity against Him. That man will always look at God through the medium of his own selfishness, and at God's word through the coloring of his own wishes, prejudices, and fears. A heart that loves the Savior, and rejoices in God as its sovereign, reflects back in calmness the perfect view of his character, which it finds in his word. Behold, on the borders of a mountain lake, the reflection of the scene above received into the bosom of the lake below. See that crag projecting, the wild flowers that hang out from it, and bend as if to gaze at their own forms in the water beneath. Observe that plat of green grass above, that tree springing from the cleft, and over all the quiet sky, with its sailing clouds, reflected in all its softness and depth from the lake's steady surface. How perfect the reflection! Does it not seem as if there were two heavens ? And just as perfect, and clear, and free from confusion and perplexity, is the reflection of God's character and the truths of his word, from the quietness of the heart that loves the Savior, and is seeking God's glory.

Now look again. The wind is on the lake, and drives forward its waters in crested and impetuous waves, angry and turbulent. Where is that sweet image? There is no change above. The sky is clear, the crag projects as boldly, the flowers look just as sweet in their unconscious simplicity; but below, banks, trees and skies, are all mingled in confusion. There is just as much confusion in every unholy mind's idea of God and his blessed word. God and his truth are always clear, always the same; but the passions of men fill their own hearts with obscurity and turbulence; their depravity is in itself obscurity; and through all this perplexity and wilful ignorance, their souls troubled,

like the stormy sea, with restless conflicts of passion, they contend that God is just such a being as they behold him, that their hearts give back the true reflection, and that they themselves are very good beings in his sight. We have heard of a defect in the bodily vision, which represents all objects upside down; but that man would certainly be called insane, who under the influence of this misfortune, should so blind his understanding, as to believe and assert, that men walk on their heads and that the trees grow downwards. Is is not a much greater insanity for men, who in their hearts do not love God, and in their lives insult and disobey him, to give credit to their own perverted representations of him and his word? As long as men will continue to look at God's truth through the medium of their own pride and prejudice, so long they will have mistaken views of God and eternity, and are deceiving their own soul into endless ruin.

Of what infinite importance to man's best interests is the right interpretation of God's holy word! A mistake here is a mistake for eternity. It is so because the bible is so plain a book, that he who runs may read, and if his heart were right with God, could not fail to know precisely what God means. Therefore, whoever takes up with a deceitful interpretation, and suffers himself to be lulled with error, will be found at the great day of judgment to have done it, because he would rather listen to the dictates of his depraved heart, than to the voice of conscience enlightened by God's truth> Followers of Dr. Channing! beware! beware! Unbelief is not innocent; error is crime. There would be no error were there no depravity; it is therefore infinitely dangerous. And remember: You go into eternity, not with Dr. Channing's Discourses, or Professor Norton's Statement of Reasons for not Believing, as your judge; but, with the bible in your hands, and its declarations of your own character and destiny plain before you. In the light of this book, there are no shadowy and uncertain shapes flitting on the interminable shore of the ocean you are soon to sail; the scenes that will receive your coming, and surround you forever, are revealed with such fullness of splendor, in characters of such impressive, unalterable, deep-traced truth, that your duty could not be better known, if it were marked by the path of the lightning, on the vaulted sky above you. Oh beware! If you take not refuge in Christ, you are lost, lost.

"There is no other name under

heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved."