rose and querulous to pretend that there is any want of it in this country and at the present time. On the contrary, the number of " public souls" and the general readiness to contribute to the public good, in science and in religion, in patriotism and in philanthropy, stand prominent among the characteristics of this and the preceding generation. The habit of referring actions and opinions to fixed laws; convictions rooted in principles; thought, insight, system;-these, had the good Bishop lived in our times, would have been his desiderata, and the theme of his complaints. "We want thinking souls, we

want them."

This and the three preceding extracts will suffice as precautionary aphorisms. And here, again, the reader may exemplify the great advantages to be obtained from the habit of tracing the proper meaning and history of words. We need only recollect the common and idiomatic phrases in which the word "spirit" occurs in a physical or material sense (as, fruit has lost its spirit and flavour), to be convinced that its

* The very marked, positive as well as comparative, magnitude and prominence of the bump, entitled BENEVOLENCE (see Spurzheim's map of the human skull) on the head of the late Mr. John Thurtel, has woefully unsettled the faith of many ardent phrenologists, and strengthened the previous doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On my mind this fact (for a fact it is) produced the directly contrary effect; and inclined me to suspect, for the first time, that there may be some truth in the Spurzheimian scheme. Whether future craniologists may not see cause to new-name this and one or two other of these convex gnomons, is quite a different question. At present, and according to the present use of words, any such change would be premature: and we must be content to say, that Mr. Thurtel's benevolence was insufficiently modified by the unprotrusive and unindicated convolutes of the brain, that secrete honesty and common-sense. The organ of destructiveness was indirectly potentiated by the absence or imperfect development of the glands of reason and conscience, in this "unfortunate gentleman!"

property is to improve, enliven, actuate some other thing, not constitute a thing in its own name. The enthusiast may find one exception to this where the material itself is called spirit. And when he calls to mind, how this spirit acts when taken alone by the unhappy persons who in their first exultation will boast that it is meat, drink, fire, and clothing to them, all in one-when he reflects, that its properties are to inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, and atrophy for the sequels;-well for him, if in some lucid interval he should fairly put the question to his own mind, how far this is analogous to his own case, and whether the exception does not confirm the rule. The letter without the spirit killeth; but does it follow, that the spirit is to kill the letter? To kill that which it is its appropriate office to enliven ?

However, where the ministry is not invaded, and the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, and the believer looks for the suggestions of the Spirit only or chiefly in applying particular passages to his own individual case and exigencies; though in this there may be much weakness, some delusion and imminent danger of more, I cannot but join with Henry More in avowing, that I feel knit to such a man in the bonds of a common faith far more closely, than to those who receive neither the letter nor the Spirit, turning the one into metaphor and oriental hyperbole, in order to explain away the other into the influence of motives suggested by their own understandings, and realized by their own strength.

X

X

APHORISMS

ON THAT WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL

RELIGION.

IN the selection of the extracts that form the remainder of this volume and of the comments affixed, I had the following objects principally in view :first, to exhibit the true and Scriptural meaning and intent of several articles of faith, that are rightly classed among the mysteries and peculiar doctrines of Christianity-secondly, to show the perfect rationality of these doctrines, and their freedom from all just objection when examined by their proper organ, the reason and conscience of man :-lastly, to exhibit from the works of Leighton, who perhaps of all our learned Protestant theologians best deserves the title of a spiritual divine, an instructive and affecting picture of the contemplations, reflections, conflicts, consolations and monitory experiences of a philosophic and richly-gifted mind, amply stored with all the knowledge that books and long intercourse with men of the most discordant characters could give, under the convictions, impressions, and habits of a spiritual religion.

To obviate a possible disappointment in any of my readers, who may chance to be engaged in theological studies, it may be well to notice, that in vindicating the peculiar tenets of our Faith, I have not entered on the doctrine of the Trinity, or the still profounder mystery of the origin of moral evil-and this for the reasons following. 1. These doctrines are not (strictly speaking) subjects of reflection, in the proper sense of this word: and both of them demand

a power and persistency of abstraction, and a previous discipline in the highest forms of human thought, which it would be unwise, if not presumptuous, to expect from any, who require aids to reflection, or would be likely to seek them in the present work. 2. In my intercourse with men of various ranks and ages, I have found the far larger number of serious and inquiring persons little, if at all, disquieted by doubts respecting articles of faith simply above their comprehension. It is only where the belief required of them jars with their moral feelings: where a doctrine, in the sense in which they have been taught to receive it, appears to contradict their clear notions of right and wrong, or to be at variance with the divine attributes of goodness and justice, that these men are surprised, perplexed, and alas! not seldom offended and alienated. Such are the doctrines of arbitrary election and reprobation; the sentence to everlasting torment by an eternal and necessitating decree; vicarious atonement, and the necessity of the abasement, agony and ignominious death of a most holy and meritorious person, to appease the wrath of God. Now it is more especially for such persons, unwilling sceptics, who believing earnestly ask help for their unbelief, that this volume was compiled, and the comments written: and therefore, to the Scripture doctrines, intended by the above-mentioned, my principal attention has been directed.

But lastly, the whole scheme of the Christian Faith, including all the articles of belief common to the Greek and Latin, the Roman and the Protestant Churches, with the threefold proof, that it is ideally, morally, and historically true, will be found exhibited and vindicated in a proportionally larger work, the principal labour of my life since manhood, and which might be entitled, "Assertion of religion, as necessarily involving revelation; and of Christianity, as the only revelation of permanent and universal validity."

APHORISM I.

LEIGHTON.

Where, if not in Christ, is the power that can persuade a sinner to return, that can bring home a heart to God?

Common mercies of God, though they have a leading faculty to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4.) yet, the rebellious heart will not be led by them. The judgments of God, public or personal, though they ought to drive us to God, yet the heart, unchanged, runs the further from God. Do we not see it by ourselves and other sinners about us? They look not at all towards Him who smites, much less do they return; or if any more serious thoughts of returning arise upon the surprise of an affliction, how soon vanish they, either the stroke abating, or the heart, by time, growing hard and senseless under it! Leave Christ out, I say, and all other means work not this way; neither the works nor the word of God sounding daily in his ear, Return, return. Let the noise of the rod speak it too, and both join together to make the cry the louder, yet the wicked will do wickedly. Dan. xi. 10.

COMMENT.

By the phrase "in Christ," I understand all the supernatural aids vouchsafed and conditionally promised in the Christian dispensation: and among them the spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, were it only that the knowledge of spiritual truth is of necessity immediate and intuitive; and the world or natural man possesses no higher intuitions than those of the pure sense, which are the subjects of mathematical science. But aids, observe:-therefore, not by the will of man alone; but neither without the will. The doctrine of modern Calvinism, as laid down by Jonathan Edwards and the late Dr. Williams,