discern the bounding circle, cannot, surely, be the dullest to perceive the truths that are within. The study of the power and limits of the understanding, and of the sources of evidence in external nature and ourselves, instead of either forming or favoring a tendency to scepticism, is the surest, or rather the only, mode of removing the danger of such a tendency. That mind may soon doubt even of the most important truths, which has never learned to distinguish the doubtful from the true. But to know well the irresistible evidence on which truth is founded, is to believe in it, and to believe in it for ever."

ON NATURE AND PROVIDENCE TO COMMUNITIES.*

Two Essays have been added to the three published some time ago under the title of "Essays on the Lives of Cowper, Newton, and Heber; or, an Examination of the Evidence of the Course of Nature being interrupted by the Divine Government." We notice them as a whole, not only because we have hitherto been silent on the first publication, but because the five essays have a close connexion with each other, forming the component parts of a fine treatise on the doctrine of an Interruptive Providence.

The three first parts of this treatise contain the inferences from facts respecting the tendency of this popular doctrine: and the two last, on Human Corruption and Divine Grace, and on Nature and Providence, proceed to apply the principles thus obtained to a more extensive class of facts. issue is a logical triumph over a wide-wasting superstition; and, since Providence gave us our logic as well as our grace,

The

* Essay on Nature and Providence to Communities, 8vo. pp. 79.

we conceive that no adversary can gainsay the result without first confuting the logic.

No three men ever lived more according to their opinions than those whose names stand in the title. No one will deny their being fair representatives of the different classes to which they belonged, whatever name is given to each class. Whether the first be called by different parties, the evangelical or the superstitious, the same class is meant, and Cowper is its representative. Whether the second be called the elect or the enthusiastic, the same class is meant, and Newton is its representative. Whether the the third be called the lukewarm or the religious, the same class is meant, and Heber is its representative. What were these men? The first, with all his gifts and all his graces, was the most abject of spiritual slaves. The second, with all his Christianity, was the most despotic of spiritual tyrants. The third, with all his orthodox entanglements, was free, and tried to make others free, with a glorious liberty. And whence this difference, while the faith of the three was, according to the letter, the same? The two first were practical believers in an Interruptive Providence; the third was not.

The evil tendency of such a belief being established by a chain of evidence as interesting as it is complete, it is applied to the explanation of some of the ills under which man is groaning, the spiritual sufferings and consequent moral perversion of individuals, and the political evils and consequent moral hinderances of society. This last method of testing principles assumed to be religious, - by applying them largely to the state of society, has not been used so extensively as it deserves. In the work before us, it is done with admirable success. Mr. Sadler may be ineffably scandalized at the ridicule cast upon his favorite principle of "a selfadjusting, sacred equipoise, by which Nature proportions her numbers to her means of sustentation;" but those to whom

our author addresses himself, "men of a clear judgment, of feelings and imaginations under their own control, and too fearful of error not to be bold in the cause of truth," will fully agree with him in the principle which it is the aim of his book to establish, that Providence governs man by giving him unvarying principles, natural and moral, whose operation he must modify himself.

To perceive this is the best wisdom, to act upon it is the highest glory of a human being; and though but few minds have discerned this truth otherwise than faintly, and still fewer have acted upon it otherwise than fitfully and indolently, yet through it alone has there been happiness in the world. We are ready enough to allow this in whatever relates to the external world, while we hesitate to admit its uniform operation in the world within.

We admit, because we cannot help it, that the whole duty of man as regards his outward condition is to modify the operations of unchanging principles. When we grow our corn, we modify, as it suits our purpose, the influences of principles which we cannot touch, those by which roots strike down, and sap rises, and affinities act, so as to produce now a verdant leaf and a juicy stem, and then a hard and golden grain. When we erect our dwellings, we bring various forces to bear upon one another, and obtain our purpose through their counteraction. We avail ourselves of gravitation when we lay the foundation, and of cohesion when we plaster the walls, and of combustion when we kindle our fires, and of radiation when we light our candles, and of far more principles of light and colors than the ancient world dreamed of, when we dispose our curtains and carpets and pictures and chandeliers so as to please the eye. When we cure diseases, we expose certain substances to the operation of certain principles, and either obtain the wished-for result without reaching the principles themselves, or fail through

ignorance of some intervening influence. In proportion to our knowledge of principles is the accuracy of our calculations, and the variety of achievements of which we become capable: that is, in proportion to our physical knowledge is the improvement of our temporal state. But it is clear that we can have no knowledge, and can form no calculations, and can therefore make no steady progress, unless there be immutability in the principles on which we depend. If gravitation acts to-day and not to-morrow, there will be poor encouragement to build a house. If the principles of vegetation sometimes work, and are sometimes suspended for two or three seasons together, the husbandman may till his field for the sake of taking his chance of the corn coming up, but he will lose all the heartiness of assured hope. If the crew of a merchant vessel which sails for America find at last that the compass has (for however wise a purpose) varied so as to guide them to India, they may possibly see such a destination to be best for them in the present instance, but they will be slow to trust their compass again. There may be one case in which this immutability may apparently give way without producing injury. If it be intimated by the Power which institutes the principles that, at a particular period, for a particular purpose, and by means of a particular set of persons, bearing credentials which cannot be mistaken, so unusual a modification shall take place that it shall appear as if the principles themselves were changed, such a phenomenon need not shake man's confidence in the constitution of nature. Warning being given, and the power of causing change being confined to those who bear indisputable credentials, the world may go on as if nothing had happened, except in as far as it has become wiser respecting the origin of all principles, and enlightened respecting the power by which they are ordained and conducted. Ordinary men will not, any more than before, attempt to walk the waves, or to heal dis

eases by a word, or to make the dead sit up and speak by touching the bier, while they may discern more clearly than before by whose command the deeps open a path to the industry of man, through whose permission sickness vanishes before the skill of man, and by whose will the principle of life is withdrawn, to act more vigorously in some other region.

The intimate connexion between the physical and the moral state of man, the blending of the finer shades of natural and moral good and evil, afford a strong presumption that a process precisely analogous to that of the natural is appointed to the spiritual man. And such a presumption is borne out by facts to a degree of certainty which no reasoning mind can resist. There is only one point of difference, — that the laws of the spirit have been absolutely unvaried in their operation. There has not even been one guarded and express exception, as Christians hold there once was in the outward world.

"What! not in that very case? Not in the very men who held the credentials?". No. Their means of illumination were special, and therefore their light was singular in their day but the means being once furnished, the rest of the process was natural, though rapid. There is no reason to doubt that Christ himself grew in grace, however that growth might be fostered by unusual influences to rapid and absolute perfection. The apostles were gradually initiated into the wisdom, and trained to the holiness, which they attained, and surpassed their countrymen only precisely in proportion to the superiority of their natural means. Paul, the object of a stupendous miracle, was withdrawn, to undergo an education of years, before he was fitted to execute his commission; and we all know how long afterwards it was that he described himself as still reaching forwards, still conscious that he had not fully attained. There is no instance on record of a moral