"How vast his knowledge, how profound

A depth, where all our thoughts are drowned,"

these truths are all harmonious in themselves; they violate no dictate of the understanding, and accord with the consciousness of the soul itself, upon all those subjects which are addressed to this innate feeling of our nature. Every one at all conversant with these subjects, must perceive a vast difference in this respect, between those systems of metaphysical philosophy, which discard the doctrines of the Bible, and those which are based upon the truths of revelation. But it is often argued that these doctrines, in order to be true, or to be entitled to our confidence, must be shown to be perfectly harmonious, because truth cannot conflict. We might answer this argument by challenging the proof of any inconsistency. Who can demonstrate that the perfections of God's nature interfere in the least with the freedom of his creatures? This is a position which is often assumed but never proved. Must a finite understanding be capable of analyzing the operations of the Infinite Mind, and finite powers be capable of grappling with infinite truth, before it is received as God's truth? Though revelation cannot violate reason, it must be above the human understanding, as God is exalted above His creatures. It will not do to deny facts as they are proved to exist merely because we cannot perceive all their relations to each other, and to the Universe, for such a course as this, if carried out, would lead us to deny everything in nature, as well as revelation. If any astronomer were to calculate an eclipse, and we should behold the heavens darkened at noon-day, could we deny the evidence of our senses, because our uneducated mind could not comprehend the process by which the truth was discovered? Or if a comet, clear and well defined, were to be seen, nightly taking its position among the heavenly bodies, but from some pecularity in its orbit, it should conflict with pre-existing opinions, respecting the motions and relations of other bodies, would this conflicting of human opinions disprove the fact that the comet existed? These questions appear plain enough when directed to other subjects, yet it is the neglect to treat the doctrines of the Bible with equal candor, which has made the plain truths of revelation a subject of so many perplexing enquiries, and the strongest internal proof that it is the inspired word of God, an argument for discrediting the whole system.

The Bible claims the reverence of the human mind, because of the evidences of super-hnman wisdom which it contains; therefore it is a subject worthy of some examination, to ascertain whether its developments of the nature of causation are more consistent than those results which have been obtained by human research. Either without a knowledge of revelation, or when in the possession of that knowledge, the mind has endeavored with

all its powers of sophistry, and all possible perversions of reason, to overthrow its doctrines upon these subjects. These truths which are so often reiterated in the word of God, are the very acme to which human investigations have all aspired, but which they have signally failed to reach; therefore, as a book of metaphysics, the Bible deals more largely in these first truths, than any other book in the world. It assumes positions as startingpoints, which the most accurate metaphysicians never reached in their most labored conclusions.

Pythagoras, Thales, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, probably carried their researches as far as unaided genius can go; because their high attainments in other sciences, such as mathematics and the astronomical discoveries, (particularly of the first,) shows that these men possessed as acute and discriminating intellects as any men that have lived in any age. But the Bible assumes a vast number of truths as starting-points, such as philosophers never dreamed of. It cannot be denied that two of these important doctrines of revelation were taught in the Grecian schools, viz: the unity of God, and the immortality of the soul; but it is a singular fact, that with these fair starting-points, they never advanced in rational investigation; but on the contrary the longer these truths were discussed the more perplexed and entangled they became with heathen mythology, until at last they were buried beneath such a mass of rubbish, that they are scarce to be recognised as identical with the truths of revelation. But it is susceptible of incontrovertible proof, that their ideas upon these important subjects were not derived from the operation of their own minds, but were directly or indirectly derived from revelation. "It is well known that Pythagoras and Thales were the parents of all Grecian Philosophy." "It is equally well known that these two men founded their doctrines, concerning subjects of this nature, chiefly on traditions, which they collected from different nations with intense assiduity." Pythagoras, particularly, travelled in quest of information, in theology and morals, into Egypt, Judea, Babylon, Persia and Hindostan, residing seven years on Mount Carmel. "Thales, also, whose mother was a Phenician woman, travelled into Syria, Phenicia, and probably into Judea. Plato resided twelve years in Egypt, where he conversed extensively with Egyptians and Jews, and he declares, distinctly, in his writings, that some of his best doctrines were derived from them."

In the Bible we have a variety of writers, living in different nations, in Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Babylon, Greece and Rome. Their writings extend through many centuries. They treat upon and disclose truths that have baffled the greatest minds; they are all harmonious in their doctrines; all ascribe the same attributes to God and take the same views of human responsi

bility; and we ask how it comes, that these men commence with declarations, which philosophy could never reach, but which philosophy has attempted in vain to overthrow.

Why is it, that in all philosophical enquiries that are not based upon Bible truth, the common mind can detect the most glaring inconsistencies and the most palpable absurdities, from which these writings are free? How is it, that these ignorant men, as some of them were, in human science, have wrought out, without concert, a system of such abstract truths, placing each in its proper relations so exactly, that the least variation throws the whole into confusion, when they are all above human comprehension ?

The candid reasoner can give but one answer to these questions. They were taught of God, and the book which contains their teachings, is a revelation from the Infinite and Eternal Mind, to His finite and dependent creatures.

ARTICLE VIII.

REDEMPTION-ITS GLORY.

REDEMPTION is the glory of the universe. It is the crowning work of Providential wisdom and goodness-the ultimate end and grand exponent of all God's other works. "Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name !"" While Redemption supplies a seen and felt want in the universe, meets an emergency of great pressure, repairs the amazing waste of moral desolation which sin has achieved; it is, in itself, an immense accession of positive good, a new dispensation, the light of which, and that alone, discloses to us the real constitution of all things; the full meaning of the book of Nature, and of the law of Providence, and sheds floods of glory upon all the worlds of being.

The purpose of Redemption spans eternity, past and future. Its theatre is the circuit of a vast dispensation. The immense system of providence was arranged with special reference to its evolvement and accomplishment. Its history is one of wonders, mysteries, grandeurs, conflicts and triumphs, without a parallel. Angels stand amazed at the unfolding scene: heaven waits the issue with intense solicitude: hell is filled with rage as it sweeps along in the career of conquest; and the universe will celebrate a jubilee when the whole is done. After time and earth have pe

'Ps. 138: 2.

rished, the results of this Redemption, "like the circle produced in a peaceful lake, will be widening and perpetually widening, through the length and breadth of a shoreless eternity." "Oh! for an angel's wing and an angel's vision, to survey this vast and stupendous theme, whose breadth takes in every intelligence and every interest, whose length reaches from everlasting to everlasting, whose depth fathoms the lowest state of depravity and misery, and whose height throws floods of glory on the throne and crown of Jehovah.""

A less glorious view of Redemption is current in our world. Very few indeed, who have written or preached on this subject, have appeared to appreciate fully the moral grandeur of the theme. We are wont to contemplate it from so humble or isolated a point of observation, or with so imperfect a vision and dull a heart, that we see not the length and breadth, and depth and height of this stupendous measure of Infinite Wisdom and Mercy. We are so accustomed to view and speak of Christianity in its special application to mankind, to this earthly theatre of conflict and triumph, that we are in danger of forgetting that it has other and grander applications; that the salvation which it achieves for man, however great and glorious a good in itself, is only a means to an end of still greater magnitude and of more extensive good, viz. the glory of God, made known to and appreciated by universal intelligence.

There are those who disparage Redemption; who count it as a small affair amidst the grandeur of an infinite system. They view it as subordinate to things natural; as sustaining no direct fundamental relation to God's original constitution; as an incidental measure, adopted to meet the special emergency occasioned by human apostasy; proposing, as its end and glory, the salvation from sin and hell of those who are embraced in its covenant provisions, beginning and ending on this lower order of sinful beings. Among these are found the enthusiastic adorers of Nature, whose God is a mere creature of poetry and sentiment, without any moral character or distinct spirituality; who are ravished with the beauty of sensible and perishable things, and awed and thrilled by "the music of the spheres," but who never come to behold the glory of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, and beams from every page of Redemption; and who live and die in stupid ignorance of the Source, the Life and the Glory of all things. Here, too, are not a few, who claim to be philosophers the people and wisdom shall die with them"-with whom the highest authority is the reason and fitness of things; who adore a God of eternal necessity, of natural organic being, rather than a spiritual moral Essence, whose will is nature's only 'Jenkyn on the Atonement, p. 329.

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law, the sum of whose perfections is holiness, and who, in all his works and ways, is pursuing a great moral purpose. There are those who are called Christian philosophers, who shut Christ out of his own subject universe, and are satisfied with a "Christless God." They so exalt the stupendous system of natural being, in its immensity and in the perfection of its laws, as quite to dwarf the mediatorial kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Some portions of DICK's writings, though confessedly able and interesting, breathe a spirit and have a tendency, we think, not very Christian. His philosophy is not always the philosophy of Paul, and is wanting, at times, in that peculiar, spiritual baptism, which fellowship with the Cross alone imparts. His highest inspiration is drawn from Astronomy, and not from Redemption; and while beholding the varied and august grandeur of innumerable worlds and systems, he appears somewhat to forget

the sweet wonders of that cross,

Where God the Saviour loved and died,

and to have too little sympathy with the one grand theme of universal nature's final chorus-"WORTHY IS THE LAMB." He seeks to show, that Redemption is confined to so narrow a sphere in the range of its facts and its results, as that it would soon be exhausted, and, therefore, it " cannot be supposed to be the principal subject of contemplation in the heavenly state, nor sufficient to produce those diversified gratifications which are requisite to insure perpetual enjoyment to the expanded intellects of redeemed men in the future world; though such contemplations will undoubtedly be intermingled with all the other intellectual surveys, of the saints in glory."" And, again, "it has been asserted, that the mysteries of redemption will be sufficient to afford scope for the delightful investigation of the saints to all eternity.' It is readily admitted, that contemplations of the Divine perfections, as displayed in human redemption, and of the stupendous facts which relate to that economy, will blend themselves with all the other exercises of redeemed intelligences. While their intellectual faculties are taking the most extensive range through the dominion of Him who sits upon the throne of universal nature, they will never forget that love which brought them from darkness to light, and from the depths of misery to the splendors of eternal day. Their grateful and triumphant praises will ascend to the Father of glory, and to the Lamb who was slain, for ever and ever. But, at the same time, the range of objects comprised within the scheme of redemption, in its reference to human beings, cannot be supposed, without the aid of other objects of contemplation, to afford fuli and uninterrupted scope to the faculties of the saints in heaven, throughout an unlimited duration." This may be man's philosophy, but it is not God's. 'Dick's Philosophy of a Future State, p. 178. 'Ibid. p. 183.