every soul! Oh, that all could read, and be made by the Holy Spirit to feel it! Every Sabbath and sermon would then be improved, and the gospel be the wisdom and power of God to salvation, to many, who from now misimproving it, will but sink to death under an aggravated doom! The pulpit-every pulpit, will be remembered with joy or with remorse and anguish, in the world of light or the abodes of despair! We cordially welcome every effort made by Dr. Spring, through the press, to serve his generation. We should rejoice if more of our fathers in the ministry would imitate his laudable example in this respect. From their varied and rich experience they might leave many a lesson to do good, long after they have gone to their reward. And even if they tell us, that as a profession we are degenerating, we will hear it with the meekness of humil ity, though with the incredulity of unbelief, and still endeavor so to profit by their counsels of wisdom, that all beholders, as they see us, shall say, "The spirit of Elijah DOTH rest upon Elisha!" CHRIST IN HISTORY. TRUE religion consists in the love and service of the true God. By the angels who have not sinned, the true God may be approached directly, without the intervention of a Mediator. But it is not so with men. Our entire race have revolted from God, and become the objects of his just displeasure; and we can have audience and acceptance with him, and come into a situation to receive his blessing, only on the ground of the Gospel. To us, therefore, the true religion is the religion of the Gospel. And as this is the only religion for man, so it is the only source of virtue and happiness. Without the religion of the Gospel, founded in the blood of Christ and applied by the influence of the Holy Spirit, man, in no situation, under no circumstances, neither in this world nor in any other, can rise to his proper dignity and glory, and be truly and permanently happy. As much as this God has told us, often, in his word; and we should have reason to believe him, even if we had no other evidence. For does not God know? And would he knowingly deceive us, in a conVOL. VI. 65 cern of so much importance? In this instance, however, God has not shut up his people to his simple word; but in the entire history of the world, for almost six thousand years, has been illustrating before their eyes the sole sufficiency of Christ and his Gospel, as a ground of happiness for man. All history, indeed, whether ecclesiastical or civil, sacred or profane, is but a continued practical illustration of this great truth. To make the illustration the more perfect, so as to cut men off from every other dependence, and lead them to trust in Christ alone, God has been pleased to try-or rather to permit a great variety of experiments,-and such experiments as, to sinful men, might seem the most hopeful,-just to show them the worthlessness of such experi ments, and convince them that, if they would be happy, they must come to Christ and receive the Gospel. One of the first of these experiments was that of a long probation. It might have been said, if the experiment had not been tried and failed, that nothing more was ne cessary, in order to the improvement and happiness of men, than that they should live a long time in the world. Only give them a sufficient probation, a long space for repentance, time enough in which to grow wise and good, and the great object of life will certainly be secured. They must, at length, be weary of sin, and weaned from it, and become universally holy and happy. But this pretence, however plausible it may have appeared once, can not be offered now. The experiment has been tried, and has signally failed. In the first ages of the world, God favored mankind with a long probation. He protract ed their lives to the period of almost a thousand years. He gave them time enough, in all reason, in which to become happy here, and prepare for happiness hereafter. And what was the consequence of this long probation? Did men become universally wise and good? Was the earth filled with holiness and happiness? Or has not the pen of inspiration, which has recorded little else respecting those early times, faithfully recorded this; that "the wickedness of man was then great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, and that continually ?" "The earth," we are told, "was corrupt before God;" it " was filled with violence;" and nothing remained but that, in awful judgment, it must be destroyed. The floods of the Almighty must be rolled over it, to purge it of its heaven-daring impiety, and wash out the traces of its pollution. Another experiment of those early times was that of separating men one from another, and scattering them abroad on the face of the earth. Perhaps it was thought by some of the early descendants of Noah, (as it has been by some of his later descendants,) that there was no inherent corruption in men; that their wickedness was the result of bad in fluences and example; and that if they were only separated, the virtu ous from the vicious, the precious from the vile, a portion of them, at least, would escape contamination, and be able to preserve themselves pure. And so God was pleased to put this opinion to the test. He did early separate his wayward and rebellious creatures. He confounded their language, and scattered them abroad on the face of the earth. Some settled in India, some in Egypt, some in Canaan, some in the wild regions of the north, and some in the Grecian isles; and from these primeval nurseries of men, the race rapidly diffused itself, till it is found in every corner of the earth. There is not a sea or ocean which restless man has not traversed. There is not a continent or island, mountain or plain, which he has not visited, and where his habitations are not seen. Surely, if scattering mankind was likely to reform them, they ought long ago to have been thoroughly reformed. They ought ere this to have become universally wise and good. What then have they become? What has been the result of this general diffusion? Where is the colony or tribe that has so elevated itself, as to disprove its descent from a fallen father, or as to contradict the asseveration of heav. en, that we are all "by nature chil. dren of wrath?" The experiment has been a long one, and the issue of it is plain and unanswerable. Wherever on the face of the earth man is found, he is found corrupt. Wherever he exists, he is naturally the same sordid, selfish being. To whatever quarter of the earth the eye of the Omniscient may be directed, he must say of men now, as he did in ancient times, "They are all gone aside; they are together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no not one." They all alike need the Gospel; need it now as much as ever; and must be elevated, sanctified, and saved by it, or not at all. A third experiment which God has permitted to be tried, is that of other and idolatrous religions. But for this experiment, it might have been said, that to shut men up to a single religion, a single method of worshiping God and securing his favor, would be exclusive and illib. eral. The religious principle in man must be allowed to develope itself more freely. The invisible God is too spiritual, too intangible, to be made the object of universal worship. The creatures of sense, we need something palpable to the senses. The great lights of heaven, the sun, the moon, and stars, images of curious workmanship, the symbols, the representatives of an indwelling divinity-let these be the objects of worship, at least to uncultivated minds, and they will undoubtedly be more devout, more religious, and proportionally more happy. Thus reasoned the original advocates of idol worship; and thus might we have reasoned, had not the experiment been fairly tried. But it has been tried. It has been tried on a large scale, and for a long time. Men have worshiped the sun, moon, and stars. They have worshiped idols which their own hands have made. They have worshiped birds, beasts, and creeping things. But instead of becoming more religious and happy, they have been uniformly and dreadfully degraded by such worship. They have been depraved and corrupted under its influence. They have sunk down from one degree of debasement to another, till they have lost, in great measure, the attributes of humanity, and become almost like the brutes themselves. We may not pretend to fathom all the designs of heaven, in permitting the long and terrible reign of idolatry in the earth. But this, undoubted. ly, was among these designs; to convince men, by actual experiment, as to the nature and tendency of all such impious inventions, and the folly of trusting to them as a ground of peace. Still another experiment which has been tried, in the fruitless search after happiness, is that of learning, philosophy, and the arts. It might have been said, but for this experiment, that it is only necessary to our highest welfare to improve the understanding and the taste. Let the mind be cultivated and enlightened. Let its thoughts be elevated and enlarged. Let it be enriched with oriental wisdom, and liberalized and refined by literary pursuits. Let the secrets of nature be investigated, and the arts be carried to the highest perfection. By such means, surely, the heart will be softened, the character improved, and a foundation of virtue and happiness will be laid. Thus reasoned the votaries of mere learning thousands of years ago; and thus they reason now. And far be it from us to say that there is nothing plausible in such reasonings. To inform and improve the understanding, to refine and cultivate the taste, to advance in all useful knowledge, is certainly a dignified and praiseworthy employment. But does it, of itself, and of necessity, improve the character? Does it raise the thoughts and the heart to God? Does it subdue the power and secure the pardon of sin, and thus open a fountain of holy, spiritual, and enduring enjoyment? The experiment has been often tried,tried in different ages, and under various circumstances; and we hesitate not to say that it has always failed. Some of the most learned men in the ancient world were some of the basest men. And the times when the lamp of learning shone brightest in Greece and Rome, were times of the greatest corruption and wickedness. In the days of Æschines and Demosthenes, the Grecian states had become so corrupt, that they were no longer capable of governing themselves. And long before learning was advanced to its highest perfection at Rome, the stern virtues of the earlier Roman character, and with them the republic itself, had disappeared. The most elegant literature, and the most atrocious wickedness, flourished at Rome together. Such was the experience of the ancient world; and that of the mod ern European world has been the same. Else, why has France been proverbially denominated," the land of science and of sin ?" And why has plodding, delving, literary Germany produced such hordes of infidels? The truth is, mere intellectual culture, however important on other accounts, has no necessary tendency to improve the heart. So far from this, it rather enables its possessor to sin with a more ruinous influence, and a bolder hand. And all this has been illustrated by a thousand experiments, under different forms, and at different periods of the world. over the face of the earth,-the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman; they have been splendid in affluence, and terrible in power, devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue with their feet. But have they promoted general happiness, or have they obstructed it? Have they given it, or taken it away? The experiment has been often tried; and the pen of history has recorded the result. In a great majority of cases, the governments of this world have been despotic, arbitrary, tyrannical, oppressive; plundering what they ought to have protected, and rendering life itself more a burden than a blessing. They have involved their subjects in cruel and almost perpetual wars, bathing the earth with blood, and filling it with the slain. It is mournful to look back on the experiment we are now considering, and see how an institution of God, which was intended for a blessing, has been perverted into a curse. Nor has the perversion been confined to any particular forms of gov Free governments and despotic have been alike ambitious, grasping, and oppressive; thus proving, conclusively, that it is vain to look to governments alone to make man happy. A fifth experiment which God has permitted to be tried, in the search after happiness, is that of civil government. ernment,-different forms of government, governments great, and rich, and powerful. Civil government is an institution of God, intended for our well being in the present life. It was never designed to be an ultimate source of happiness, either to rulers or ruled; and yet men, in their folly, have been led thus to regard it. And so God has permitted them to try the experiment. It has been tried under a variety of forms; under every form, indeed, which human ingenuity can invent. There has been the patriarchal form of government, and the monarchical. There have been aristocracies and democracies, oligarchies and republics. There have been governments absolute and limited, pure and mixed. Nations great and powerful have risen up, one after another, and spread themselves Another experiment which God has permitted to be tried, is that of leaving men, without learning or arts, without any settled forms of reli gion and government, to live as it is called in the state of nature. Infi. dels and enthusiasts have long been crying down what they term the artificial modes of life, and crying up the state of nature. Only let civil government be abolished, and the right of property be taken away; let learning and the arts be forgot. ten, and man be permitted to roam the common earth in his native lib. erty, subsisting by the chase, and on the spontaneous productions of the fields and woods; and then he will be happy. Men in our own time, who reason in this way, do not consider how long, and how often, this same experiment has been tried. It was this state of nature, probably, which filled the antediluvian world with violence, and provoked the Almighty to come out in wrath against it, and destroy it. It was the attempt to live after the same manner, which led to the earliest op pressions after the deluge. Nimrod was "a mighty hunter," subsisting by the chase, and living after the course of nature; and he seems to have been, for the time, the great oppressor and corrupter of the world. And from that age to the present, wherever we find man in what is called the state of nature, we invariably find him a cruel, ignorant savage. We find him but little better than a brute. Murderous wars, unbridled licentiousness, the immolation of human victims, slavery, cannibalism, exposures of all kinds, and in frequent instances death by starvation or suicide,-these are some of the continual, woful attendants of what is cried up to us as the state of nature. Let our modern advocates for such a state go and spend a few years with the savages in the interior of Africa, or in the fastnesses of New Zealand or New Holland, or in the deep recesses of our western woods, and the experiment, should they survive it, may perhaps cure them of their mania, and convince them that it is vain to look to the state of nature as a source of happiness. Still another experiment which God was pleased to try in ancient times, and which seemed to promise most of all, was that of withdrawing his own people from the rest of the world, and organizing them as a community by themselves. Possibly this experiment began to be tried before the flood; for we read, in that age, of "the sons of God," as distinct from "the daughters of men." After the deluge, the ex periment was entered upon more effectually. When idolatry had begun to prevail extensively, and the knowledge of the true religion was likely to be lost, God called Abraham out of the land of his fathers, and brought him into Canaan, and instituted a church in his family, of which he was to be the visible head. He took this church into solemn covenant with himself; gave it new revelations, rites, and ordinances; and separated its members from the world around, that they might be a holy people unto the Lord. These transactions on the part of God were of solemn interest, and of the utmost importance to the world. Considered as a means of revealing the Savior to come, of keeping up a knowledge of him in the earth, and of drawing and binding sinful men to him, the only foundation of the sinner's hope, too much importance can not be attached to the church in the family of Abraham. But the members of this church came ere long to regard it, not as a means, but an end; not as a help to bring them upon the right foundation, and keep them there, but as itself the foundation. They came to trust to it, and to the privileges connected with it, as a ground of hope. "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these." And now it became necessary for God to show them, by actual experiment, that they were trusting to a broken reed. Their church gradually became corrupt. It became so corrupt, that after repeated and long continued reproofs and corrections, after reforms and relapses, revivings and backslidings; the patience of God was exhausted with it, and the great body of its members went into utter and irretrievable apostasy. They were cut off and cast off for their unbelief; their holy city and temple were demolished; and all those things in which they vainly trusted and gloried were taken forever away. |