mental philosophy as a profound and far-reaching science. But it is only an appendage of theological science, a portico to an august and imperishable fabric. Happy is that man to whom God has given, as he gave to Solomon, "a large understanding," accompanied with the love of spiritual and holy contemplations. He can revel on the riches of eternity. He can live by faith, in a higher sense than any other individual. He can rise to loftier and calmer regions. He can comprehend more of the glories of the celestial city. He can connect more intimately and satisfactorily the seemingly discordant and insulated events of a probationary state, with

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the great eternal scheme, Involving all."

He can join with deeper and more emphatic delight in the sublime exclamation, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee!" We have often thought of the satisfaction and unknown ecstacy which such a mind as that of JOHN HOWE, or JONATHAN EDWARDS, enjoyed, when they first awaked in the Divine likeness. Their intellect was disenthralled. The great facts of revelation burst on their view in immeasurable extent and in ravishing sweetness. The ONE SYSTEM of the allcomprehending Mind was seen in something of its glory. They might perhaps behold the same harmony and order in the moral laws of a system of worlds, which Newton disclosed and demonstrated in a portion of these material heavens.

Whoever, therefore, enlarges our conceptions of Christianity; whoever, with the Bible as his guide,

gives us clearer and more extended views of "the unspeakable gift," is a benefactor to man of no ordinary kind. Such a benefactor, unquestionably, is Mr. Douglas. He is doubtless mistaken in regard to some of his positions. It would be easy to verify this remark in the present volume. Some of his sentences, very obviously, have more of the majesty of the Castilian tongue, than of the compact and embodied sense of the Laconian. A more perfect combination of critical and acute remark, of deductions derived from watching the operations of his own mind, with his powers of wide, general observation, in the external world, would doubtless enhance the value of his thoughts, as it has pre-eminently those of the author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm. Nevertheless, no diligent reader can fail to derive great profit from the perusal of the works of Mr. Douglas. They will raise him to the pure regions of an enlightened and thoroughly Christian philosophy. They will show him the utter comparative insignificance of all the distinctions that separate real Christians. They will breathe through his soul love to God and good will towards man. They will cement him in bonds of strong affection to all for whom Christ died. They will lead him to look forward with lively hope, to that grand consummation when the groans of suffering humanity shall be at an end, and when the Great Redeemer shall reign over the pure and happy millions of our

race.

Boston, April, 1831.

B. B. E.

INTRODUCTION.

THE principles of Morality and of Religion are few and simple. After all the systems and disputes of ethical philosophy, the great Teacher has comprised the essence of morality in one sentence, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." In like manner, natural religion is summed up in, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." On these two commandments hang, not only the law and the prophets, but the religion, as far as reason can discover, of all intelligent natures, of angels as well as of men.

It is obvious that God, the source of all beauty and majesty, is the natural and rational object of our highest love and veneration; he bears a more intimate relation to each of his creatures than does all the rest of his creation put together. In him we live, and move, and have our being; and the breath we every moment receive from him is justly spent in his praise. Independent of positive rewards and punishments, it is our highest interest to serve him. His worship is its own reward. Contemplating and admiring his ways and works, the mind, in some measure, assumes the thoughts, and is changed into the likeness of that which it admires. The love of God alone truly reconciles us to the laws of God. By love we fulfil the law. Then the understanding joyfully traces the vestiges of Divine wisdom in all things, and in all

events; and the human will enters into the Divine will, and, by its cheerful acquiescence, makes the plans and purposes of the Godhead its own.

Such should be the mind of all intelligent creatures, but such is not the mind of man. Any theory which supposes human creatures actuated supremely by love to God and man, immediately places us in a world peopled by other beings, living in a golden age, whose history is the reverse of ours. It is, indeed, very possible that the holy angels possess this natural religion in its entire perfection; that, rising from the hand of their Creator in the full exercise of their powers, and unalterably formed in the image of God, their will has ever been in accordance with the Divine will, and love to God has ever been the principle, as well as the condition, of their glorious being. But man is placed in very different circumstances: he comes into the world ignorant and weak; even were his bias to the right, he cannot in childhood choose for himself. By the condition of his birth, he is placed at the disposal of others; and by the condition of his understanding, knowledge comes to his aid late, imperfect, and precarious; and his present state of moral probation is far different from that free and deliberate choice, which had the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, placed clear and opposite to its view.

This anomaly in the state of man, presupposes a corresponding addition to the few and simple tenets of the creed of reason. A religion fitted for man, must not only rest upon the relation which every creature bears to the Creator, but must adapt itself to his feebleness and error, provide for the removal of his guilt, convince him of his sin and misery, and restore him to the love of God and to the Divine likeness. Thus the religion of reason, which regards merely the relation of God to his intelligent crea

tures, must necessarily be modified, when it comes to include the more complex reference to sinful, weak, and dependent creatures; and hence natural religion, which is founded simply on the essential relation between the Creator and the creature, is totally inadequate to the necessities of our fallen race. A revelation adapted to man, while it includes in itself natural religion, must provide both an atonement or expiation for guilt, and also the means of changing and renovating our sinful nature. These two are necessary conditions of a revelation proposed to the guilty.

But man is not only guilty, but derives his guilt and his errors from those from whom he derives his life. The vices and the ignorance of mankind are hereditary, and national, as well as personal; and the characters of men depend in no small degree upon their parents and their country. No individual stands separate his character is moulded by that of the generation in which he lives; that generation derives its color from the preceding ones, till we arrive at the fountain of all these moral impressions and changes, by ascending to the protoplasts and heads of the human race. This second anomaly in the human condition demands a second provision, in a revelation which provides for human nature such as it actually exists, and leads us to a new head of the renovated portion of our race-the Messiah-the Father of the everlasting age-and the Founder of a new moral world.

Hence religion consists, first, in the belief of our fall in Adam; secondly, of our new dependence on a Divine head, that we may cease from the creature, and trust to the Creator; thirdly, of a Divine expiation of our guilt; fourthly, of the method by which our guilt is removed; fifthly, of the process by which our will and our nature are changed into a similitude to the Divine; and, sixthly,