fear is in the flighteft degree affociated with the idea of God, the mind will be incapable of fuffering him fully to reign in it. But we are prevented from attaining this perfect exemption from fear, by the infuperable sense of our own weakness, wants, and failings, from which, it is true, we are capable of freeing ourselves more and more, though never entirely, if we employ, with unabating ardour, the means prescribed by religion, for the improvement and confirmation of our faith, which will make it continually approach to the defired ftandard. To these means prayer particularly belongs, by which a lively idea of the invifible God is kept prefent, and frequently recalled to our minds, and we are led to an attentive contemplation of his ways, his word, and his works, more especially of those which we ourselves have experienced. Hence we acquire a difpofition to perceive God in all things, and to see and feel how kind and benevolent he is on every occafion; and take pleasure in loving moral good, and hating moral evil, for his fake. It is going a great way, when a man brings himfelf to this; even though confiderations of felfinterest, a nobler and more refined self-interest indeed, are intermingled with it. This feems to be the utmoft height we can attain in this life. Indeed, from the frailty inherent in us, and the infufficiency of our virtue, it may be perilous for us anxiously to ftrive after greater purity, and afpire to nothing lefs than a perfect delight in God unalloyed by fear. Such an attempt would be too apt to lead us into the errors of fanaticifm. Here we ought to remark, that perfect self-annihilation, and the pure love of God, are very wifely confidered by our author as a point which man can never attain, though he may continually approach it; like furd numbers, which we may continually approximate, though we can never exactly exprefs them. Eternity itself would be be too short for the fpirits of the righteous to arrive at the end, or to attain a point from which they could proceed no further. But our author does not limit this progreffion, or approximation to the pure love of God, to a few intelligent beings, or a single kind in his opinion, it is the common lot of all, without exception. It is obvious, that this must naturally follow, from his principles, and the doctrine of affociation. For if creatures, whofe thoughts and wills are governed by the laws of affociation, be exposed to the fame impreffions and experiences, for an indefinite time, their modes of thinking and willing muft continually become more like each other, and it seems to be impoffible, that the difference between them should increase, or even remain the fame. As the fame nature is common to them all, fimilar circumftances must produce in all fimilar effects. This cannot be denied, if we grant our author the following fuppofitions. In the first place, he supposes, that, in the various fcenes and viciffitudes which men pafs through in this life, all the affociations by which they figured to themselves as good what was detrimental, defiring and taking pleafure in it, as well as all thofe by which they were led to fhun as pernicious and hate what was good and defirable, are corrected by means of experiences in fome measure painful. Secondly, that the affociations which induce us to expect what is actually good from any created thing, and thus to attach our defires and love to fuch a thing, or to seek fatisfaction and happiness independent of God, are in the fame manner disjoined and annihilated by unexpected and oppofite confequences. Thirdly, that new affociations more juft, and more perfect, are formed, when our former pleafures are unexpectedly united with their confequent pains, and our former pains with their confequent pleasures. If these fup pofitions pofitions be admitted, we are justified in drawing the following inferences. First, By following this better way we acquire knowledge, and a love of what is truly good, in the fame manner as we were before made unwife and unhappy by false affociations. Secondly, As all true good is united and concentred in God, we muft ultimately know this, and fly to him in our fearch after happiness: and as we experience all good without him to be defective, unstable, and infufficient, we fhall finally fatiate in him our thirst after true good, and after permanent and increafing fatisfaction. If we admit the laws of affociation, and fuch a mechanism of the human mind as is conformable to it, this feems to be the natural progrefs of every rational being. It must be confeffed, that, in every given point of this progrefs, confidered separately, we muft admit a great difference with respect to the extent of the way that each has paffed but it cannot be denied, that every one approaches the fame point, whether by a fhorter, a longer, a straighter, or a more indirect way. No true aberration, and ftill lefs a retrogreffion in infinitum can take place: every deviation is merely apparent, and happens only to remove fome obftacle. This, however, is so far valid only, as the operations of the mind are not difturbed by the interpofition of any superior power, or as the being that strives after perfection is not fupernaturally and forcibly obftructed or repelled in its progrefs. It remains to be fhewn, that this approximation to self-annihilation, and the pure love of God, is also an approximation to the highest perfection and happiness of rational beings. It is already clear, from what has been faid, that they must always be approaching this point, from the frame of their natures. We infer too, that what is a natural and inevitable confequence of our nature, when we are placed in fuitable fuitable circumftances and a convenient fituation, and what every thing tends and impels us to, must be the proper object of our active powers, and the scope of our wishes and endeavours; and when we aim at this object, and in proportion as we approach it, we ftrive after the proper perfection of our nature. Thus the nearer we are to it, the greater is our perfection. From what has already been obferved, it is evident, that this object can be no other than the Deity himself; and this aim, nothing but the pure love of God. Every other object is unfatisfactory: every other aim is placed too low for the course we have to run, and is infufficient to content us. On the other hand, if we make God himself the immediate object of our defires, and ftrive after a pure love of him, perfect and durable blifs, as far as it can be the lot of a finite creature, must be our portion; or rather, in proportion as we approach to a pure love of God, we fhall also approach pure felicity for the good which we love and defire will be pure and unalloyed. We love the Father of light, in whom there is no viciffitude of light and darknefs. His good is unbounded, and his happinefs uncreated. Thus the good we feek and expect in him is not defective, infufficient, or limited, "but ever new, uncreated, and uncloying: he is infinity. Let us not forget to obferve, on this occafion, that former defenders of the pure love of God, a Fenelon and a Madame Guyon, if they had not found fewer antagonists, would have been treated with more refpect by them, had they known, like our author, how to give a clear explanation of it, deduce it from fundamental laws of the human mind, and illuftrate it from analogy and experience. PROP. PROP. LXXVI. p. 347. On Symbolical Books. UNDER the title of the rule of faith it was natural to expect an expofition of those doctrines, the knowledge of which, with affent to them, our author confiders as neceffary to excite and oblige men to pursue the preceding rule of life. It is evident, that, in his opinion, a belief of certain doctrines is only fo far neceffary and valuable as it promotes effective religion, or the performance of our duties. He contents himself, however, with fome admonitions to his readers concerning the precepts of natural religion before-mentioned, and only requires them to unite with their belief in these precepts faith in the holy fcriptures, as a complete and fufficient fummary of the divine doctrines of falvation. He is no friend to human articles or creeds, that are framed to serve, together with the Bible, as steadfast rules of faith and doctrine; deeming it neither neceffary, nor profitable, to extract any rule of faith from the Bible, and establish it under the form of a fymbolical writing. So many learned inquiries have been made and published of late years, refpecting the neceffity, juftice, utility, and value of fymbolical books, both in England and Germany, that what I have to say on the fubject muft appear in fome measure fuperAluous: but a fubject so extensive and involved is not eafily exhaufted. He that wishes to have a complete view of it may confult Blackburne's Confeffional, and the various controverfial writings to which that celebrated book has given birth. Of German publications Töllner's Abhandlung über die fymbolischen Bücher, |