of my nature, I receive this religion as the greatest blessing Heaven in its goodness could confer upon mankind; and I should still receive it with gratitude were I to consider it only as the very best and most perfect system of practical philosophy. "BONNET." That man, hurried away by the impetuosity of his passions, is capable of strange and monstrous irregularities I am not to learn; even vanity and the mean ambition of being eccentric may draw out very wild expressions from him in his unguarded hours; but that any creature should be deliberately blasphemous, and reason himself (if I may so express it) into irrationality, surpasses my conception, and is a species of desperation for which I have no name. If the voice of universal nature, the experience of all ages, the light of reason and the immediate evidence of my senses cannot awaken me to a dependence upon my God, a reverence for his religion, and a humble opinion of myself, what a lost creature am I! Where can we meet a more touching description of God's omnipresence and providence than in the 139th Psalm? And how can I better conclude this paper than by the following humble attempt at a translation of that most beautiful address to the Creator of mankind. PSALM CXXXIX. 1 O Lord, who by thy mighty power 2 In whatsoever path I stray, 3 Nor can my tongue pronounce a word, 4 In every particle I see The fashion of thy plastic hand: 5 Knowledge too excellent for me, Me, wretched man, to understand. 6 Whither, ah! whither then can I From thine all present spirit go? 7 To Heaven? 'tis there thou'rt throned on high: To Hell? 'tis there thou rulest below. 8 Lend me, O Morning, lend me wings! 9 Ah, fool! if there I meant to hide, 10 Again, if calling out for night, 11 Nay, darkness cannot intervene 12 Thine is each atom of my frame, 13 Oh! what a fearful work is man! My God, how marvellous thy plan! 14 My very bones, though deep conceal'd 15 That eye, which through creation darts, 16 Ere time to shape and fashion drew 17 O God! how gracious, how divine, 18 I might as well go tell the sand 19 Wilt thou not, Lord, avenge the good? 20 Loud are their hostile voices heard Doth not my zealous soul return 22 Yea, Lord! I feel my bosom burn, 23 Try me, dread power! and search my heart; 24 If devious from thy paths I stray No. LXI. THE deistical writers, who would fain persuade us that the world was in possession of as pure a system of morality before the introduction of Christianity as since, affect to make a great display of the virtues of many eminent heathens, particularly of the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and some others. When they set up these characters as examples of perfection, which human nature, with the aids of revelation, either has not attained to, or not exceeded, they put us upon an invidious task which no man would voluntarily engage in, and challenge us to discuss a question, which if thoroughly agitated, cannot fail to strip the illustrious dead of more than half the honours which the voice of ages has agreed to give them. It is therefore to be wished that they had held the argument to its general terms, and shown us where that system of ethics is to be found which they are prepared to bring into comparison with the moral doctrines of Christ. This I take to be the fair ground whereon the controversy should have been decided, and here it would infallibly have been brought to issue; but they knew their weapons better than to trust them in so close a conflict. The maxims of some heathen philosophers, and the moral writings of Plato, Cicero, and Seneca, contain many noble truths worthy to be held in veneration by posterity; and if the deist can from these produce a system of morality as pure and perfect as that which claims its origin from divine revelation, he will prove that God gave to man a faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong with such correctness that his own immediate reve 1 lation added no lights to those which the powers of reason had already discovered. Let us grant therefore for a moment that Christ's religion revealed to the world no new truths in morality, nor removed any old errors, and what triumph accrues to the deist by the admission? The most he gains is to bring reason to a level with revelation as to its moral doctrines: in so doing he dignifies man's nature, and shows how excellent a faculty God gave his creatures in their original formation to guide their judgments and control their actions; but will this diminish the importance of revealed religion? Certainly not, unless he can prove one or both of the following positions; viz. First, That the moral tenets of Christianity either fall short of, or run counter to, the moral tenets of natural religion; or, Secondly, That Christ's mission was nugatory and superfluous, because the world was already in possession of as good a system of morality as he imparted to mankind. As to the first, I believe it has never been attempted by any heathen or deistical advocate to convict the Gospel system of false morality, or to allege that it is short and defective in any one particular duty when compared with that system which the world was possessed of without its aid. No man I believe has controverted its truths, though many have disputed its discoveries. No man has been hardy enough to say of any of its doctrinesThis we ought not to practise! though many have been vain enough to cry out-All this we knew before. Let us leave this position therefore for the present, and pass to the next, viz. Whether Christ's mission was nugatory and superfluous, because the world already knew as much morality as he taught them. |