gression to still better habits is equally possible, and equally necessary; and that no means were rendered more conducive to such progress, in the period which is passed, than the agitations of the same awful and afflictive kind which we are now doomed to contemplate.

It will be seen that the same infinite wisdom often permits human evils to balance each other, and, in subservience to his grand purpose of general good, not only sets good against evil, but often, where the counteracting principle of religion seems wholly suspended, prevents any fatal preponderance in the scale of human affairs, by allowing one set of vices to coun terbalance another. Thus, societies, which appear, on a general view, to have almost wholly thrown off the Divine government, are still preserved for better things, or, perhaps, for the sake of the righteous few who still remain in them, by means of those exertions which bad men make from selfish motives; or by the vigilance with which one party of bad men watches over another. The clash of parties, and the opposition of human opinion, are likewise often over-ruled for good. The compages of the public mind, if we may use such a term, are no less kept together, than the component parts of matter by opposite tendencies. And as all human agents are nothing but the instruments of God, he can with equal efficacy, though doubtless not with the same complacency, cause the effects of evil passions to be counteracted by each other, as well as by the opposite virtues. For instance, were it not for indolence, and the dread of difficulty and danger, ambition would deluge the world in blood. The love of praise, and the love of indulgence, assist, through their mutual opposition, to keep each other in order. Avarice and voluptuousness are almost as hostile to each other, as either is to the opposite virtues; therefore, by pulling different ways, they contribute to keep the world in equipoise. Thus, the same Divine hand, which has so adjusted the parts and properties of matter, as that their apparent opposition produces, not disruption, but harmony, and promotes the general order, has also conceived, through the action and counteraction of the human mind, that no jar of passion, no abuse of free agency, shall eventually defeat the wise and gracious purposes of Heaven.

:

For an illustration of these remarks, we scarcely need go farther than the character of our own heroic Elizabeth. Her passions were naturally of the strongest kind and it must be acknowledged, that they were not always under the control of principle. To what then can we so fairly ascribe the success which, even in such instances, attended her, as to the effect of one strong passion forcibly operating upon another? inclinations which were too violent to be checked by reason were met and counteracted by opposite inclinations of equal violence; and through the direction of Providence, the passion finally predominant was generally favourable to the public good.

Do we then mean to admit, that the Almighty approves of these excesses in individuals, by which his wisdom often works for the general benefit? God forbid. Nothing, surely, could be less approved by him, than the licentiousness and cruelty of our eighth Henry, though He overruled those enormities for the advantage of the community, and employed them as his instruments for restoring good government, and for introducing, and at length establishing, the Reformation. England enjoys the inesti

mable blessing, but the monarch is not the less responsible personally for his crimes. We are equally certain, that God did not approve of the insatiable ambition of Alexander, or of his incredible acquisition of territory by means of unjust wars. Yet, from that ambition, those wars, and those conquests, how much may the condition of mankind have been meliorated! The natural humanity of this hero, which he had improved by the study of philosophy under one of the greatest masters in the world, disposed him to turn his conquests to the benefit of mankind. He founded seventy cities, says his historian, so situated as to promote commerce and diffuse civilisation. Plutarch* observes, that, had those nations not been conquered, Egypt would have had no Alexandria, Mesopotamia no Seleucia. He also informs us, that Alexander introduced marriage into one conquered country, and agriculture into another; that one barbarous nation, which used to eat their parents, was led by him to reverence and maintain them; that he taught the Persians to respect, and not to marry, their mothers; the Scythians to bury, and not to eat, their dead.

There was, on the whole, something so extraordinary in the career of this monarch, and in the results to which it led, that his historian, Arrian, amidst all the darkness of paganism, was induced to say, that Alexander seemed to have been given to the world by a peculiar dispensation of Providence.

Did the same just Providence approve of the usurpation of Augustus over his fallen country? No-but Providence employed it as the means of restoring peace to remote provinces, which the tyrannical republic had so long harassed and oppressed; and also, of establishing a general uniformity of law, and a facility of intercourse between nation and nation, which were signally subservient to the diffusion of that divine religion which was so soon to enlighten and to bless mankind.

To adduce one or two instances more, where thousands might be adduced. Did the Almighty approve those frantic wars, which arrogated to themselves the name of holy? Yet, with all the extravagance of the enterprise, and the ruinous failure which attended its execution, many beneficial consequences, as has been already intimated, were permitted, incidentally, to grow out of them. The Crusaders, as their historians demonstrate, beheld in their march countries in which civilisation had made a greater progress than in their own. They saw foreign manufactures in a state of improvement to which they had not been accustomed at home. They perceived remains of knowledge in the East, of which Europe had almost lost sight. Their native prejudices were diminished, in witnessing improvements to which the state of their own country presented comparative barbarity. The first faint gleam of light dawned on them, the first perceptions of taste and elegance were awakened, and the first rudiments of many an art were communicated to them, by this personal acquaintance with more polished countries. Their views of commerce were improved, and their means of extending it were enlarged.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the excess to which the popes carried their usurpation, and the Romish clergy their corruptions, was, by the providence of God, the immediate cause of the Reformation. The taking of Constantinople by the Turks, though in itself a most deplorable scene

*Quoted by Gillies, vol. iii. p. 385.

of crimes and calamities, became the occasion of most important benefits to other countries, by compelling the only accomplished scholars then in the world to seek an asylum in the western parts of Europe. To these countries they carried with them the Greek language, which, ere long, proved one of the providential means of introducing the most important event that has occurred since the first establishment of Christianity.

May we not now add to the number of instances in which Providence has over-ruled the crimes of men for good, a recent exemplification of the doctrine, in the ambition of that person who, by his unjust assumption of imperial power in a neighbouring nation has, though unintentionally, almost annihilated the wild outcry of false liberty, and the clamour of mad democracy?

All those contingent events which lie without the limits and calculation of human foresight; all those variable, loose uncertainties which men call chance, has God taken under his own certain disposal and absolute control. To reduce uncertainty to method, confusion to arrangement, and contingency to order, is solely the prerogative of Almighty power.

Nothing can be farther from the intention of these remarks, than to countenance, in the slightest degree, the doctrine of optimism in the sense in which it was maintained by Mr. Pope. Far be it from the writer, to intimate that the good, which has thus providentially been produced out of evil, is greater than the good which would have been produced had no such evil been committed; or to insinuate, that the crimes of men do not diminish the quantity of good which is enjoyed. This would, indeed, be to furnish an apology for vice. That God can and does bring good out of evil, is unquestionably true; but, to affirm that he brings more, or so much, good out of evil as he would have brought out of good, had good been practised, would be indeed a dangerous position.

If therefore, God often "educes good from ill," yet man has no right to count upon his always doing it, in the same degree in which he appoints that good shall be productive of good. To resume the illustration, therefore, from a few of the instances already adduced: What an extensive blessing might Alexander, had he acted with other views and to other ends, have proved to that world, whose happiness he impaired by his ambition, and whose morals he corrupted by his example! How much more effectually, and immediately, might the Reformation have been promoted, had Henry, laying aside the blindness of prejudice, and subduing the turbulence of passion, been the zealous and consistent supporter of the protestant cause; the virtuous husband of one virtuous wife, and the parent of children all educated in the sound principles of the Reformation! Again, had the popes effectually reformed themselves, how might the unity of the church have been promoted; and even the schisms, which have arisen in protestant communities, been diminished! It would be superfluous to recapitulate other instances; these, it is presumed, being abundantly sufficient to obviate any charge of the most distant approach towards the fatal doctrine of necessity.

CHAPTER XV.

On the distinguishing characters of Christianity.

THE great leading truths of Scripture are few in number, though the spirit of them is diffused through every page. The being and attributes of the Almighty; the spiritual worship which he requires; the introduction of natural and moral evil into the world; the restoration of man; the life, death, character, and offices of the Redeemer; the holy example he has given us; the divine system of ethics which he has bequeathed us; the awful sanctions with which they are enforced; the spiritual nature of the eternal world; the necessity of repentance; the pardon of sin through faith in a Redeemer; the offer of divine assistance; and the promise of eternal life. The Scripture describes a multitude of persons who exemplify its truths; whose lives bear testimony to the perfection of the divine law; and whose characters, however clouded with infirmity and subject to temptation, yet, acting under its authority and influence, evince, by the general tenor of their conduct, that they really embraced religion as a governing principle of the heart, and as the motive to all virtue in the life.

In forming the mind of the royal pupil, an early introduction to these scriptures, the depository of such important truths, will doubtless be considered as a matter of prime concern. And, as her mind opens, it will be thought necessary to point out to her, how one great event led to another still greater; till at length we see a series accomplished, and an immovable foundation laid for our faith and hope, which includes every essential principle of moral virtue and genuine happiness.

To have given rules for moral conduct might appear, to mere human wisdom, the aptest method of improving our nature. And, accordingly, we find such a course generally pursued by the ancient moralists, both of Greece and Asia. Of this, it is not the least inconvenient result, that rules must be multiplied to a degree the most burdensome and perplexing. And there would be, after all, a necessity for incessant alteration, as the rules of one age could not be expected to correspond with the manners of another. This inconvenience might, perhaps, in some degree be avoided, by entailing on a people an undeviating sameness of manners. But, even when this has been effected, how oppressively minute, and how disgustingly trivial, are the authorised codes of instruction! Of this, every fresh translation from the moral writings of the East is an exemplification; as if the mind could be made pure by overloading the memory!

It is one of the perfections of revealed religion, that, instead of multiplying rules, it establishes principles. It traces up right conduct into a few radical dispositions, which, when once fully formed, are the natural sources of correspondent temper and action. To implant these dispositions, then, is the leading object of what we may venture to call the scripture philosophy. And as the heart must be the seat of that which is to influence the whole man, so it is chiefly to the heart that the holy Scriptures address themselves. Their object is to make us love what is right, rather than to occupy our understandings with its theory.

"Knowledge puffeth up," says one of our divine instructors, but it is love that edifieth. And the principle which is here assumed, will be found most strictly true, that if a love of goodness be once thoroughly implanted, we shall not need many rules; but we shall act aright from what we may almost call a noble kind of instinct. "If thine eye be single," says our Saviour, "thy whole body shall be full of light." Our religion, as taught in the Scripture, does, in this very instance, evince its heavenly origin. St. Paul, whose peculiar province it seems to have been, to explain, as it were, scientifically, the great doctrines of his Master, gives us a definition of Christianity, which outdoes at once in brevity, in fulness, and even in systematic exactness, all which has been achieved in the art of epitomising, by the greatest masters of human science— "Faith which worketh by love."

It is not too much to affirm, that this expression substantially contains the whole scope and tenor of both Testaments; the substance of all morality, and the very life and soul of human virtue and happiness. A want of attention to what St. Paul means by faith, too generally makes the sense of the passage be overlooked. But the well-directed student will discern, that St. Paul assumes exactly what has been intimated above, that God's object in revelation is not merely to convey his will, but also to manifest himself; not merely to promulgate laws for restraining or regulating conduct, but to display his own nature and attributes, so as to bring back to himself the hearts and affections of fallen man; and that, accordingly, he means, by faith, the effectual and impressive apprehension of God, thus manifested. In his language, it is not a notion of the intellect, nor a tradition coldly residing in the recollection, which the Scriptures exhibit, but an actual persuasion of the divine realities. It is, in short, such a conviction of what is revealed, as gives it an efficacy equal, for every practical purpose, to that which is derived through the evidence of our senses.

Faith, then, in St. Paul's language, is religion in its simplest, inward principle. It is the deep and efficacious impression, which the manifestation of God, made to us in Scripture, ought in all reason to produce in our hearts; but which it does not produce until, in answer to our earnest prayer, his Holy Spirit "opens, as it were, our hearts," to receive the things which are thus presented to our minds. When the unseen realities of religion are able to do more with us than the tempting objects of this visible world, then, and not before, is the divine grace of faith really formed within us.

That this is the scriptural idea of faith, will appear at once, from a perusal of that most interesting portion of Scripture, the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews. The definition, with which the chapter commences, states this precise notion, "Faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the demonstration of things not seen.' And the instances adduced are most satisfactory exemplifications. "By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, being moved with fear, prepared an ark,” "By faith, Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible." With the heart," says

&c.

* I thus venture to strengthen the expressions in the authorised translation, in order to convey some clearer idea of the original terms, which, as the best critics allow, have, perhaps, a force to which no English words can do justice.