NATURE AND HER LESSONS. Night grants thee the full freedom of the skies, With gain and joy she bribes thee to be wise. How boundless in magnificence and might! An undevout astronomer is mad. True; all things speak of God: but in the small, Why has the mighty Builder thrown aside 369 Dropp'd down that reasoning mite, that insect, man, That man might ne'er presume to plead amazement Shall God be less miraculous, than what His hand has form'd? Ed. If nature's wilds, wastes, and warts, furnish rich and valuable imagery, and elicit sublime, delectable, and useful thoughts, we may well conclude that nothing was made in vain, or without admirable ends.' The poets have evinced the truth of this remark in their descriptions of these thoughtinspiring wilds, a specimen or two of which follow:Campbell. The tempest blackens on the dusky moor, And billows lash the long-resounding shore; In pensive mood I roam the desert ground, Far different scenes allure my wondering eye,The white wave foaming to the distant sky; 370 NATURE HUMAN, NATURE MORAL. The cloudy heavens, unblest by summer's smile, The wide, wild glen, the pathless plains below, The cuckoo, sighing to the pensive wild! Young. A part, how small, of the terraqueous globe, Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands; More sad,- this earth is a true map of man ! 631. NATURE, HUMAN. Em. Mankind are selfish, unjust, unstable, fickle and capricious. As they are very mutable in their purposes and pursuits, they cannot be pleased very long by those who take the most pains to please them. And, when they find that any have pleased and flattered them to their disadvantage, they become their bitter enemies. Ed. If so, those who mean to live by managing human nature, should well know how and when to haw and gee. Ed. The first principle in the science of human nature, is best expressed in Jer. 16:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; 'who can know it?" This is the key to the science, without possessing which, no person can ever master it. Ib. Shakspeare is perhaps the most various and striking painter; and Byron, one of the most manifold exemplars, of human nature. [See 561.] 632. NATURE, MORAL. Ed. The moral nature of man does not exist before, but is constituted by the existence and operation of the mental and moral faculties. It is unscriptural, unphilosophical, hypothetical and absurd, to assume the existence of a moral nature prior to intellectual and moral exercises, which constitute both the nature and character of the agent. NECESSITY, NEGATION, NEGLECT. 633. NECESSITY, WANT. Necessity knows no law. Necessity will drive through a stone wall. Want prompts the wit, and first gave birth to arts. 371 Ed. Many imagine that every kind of necessity is incompatible with free agency. Let such persons test their theory, by trying to stop the free and spontaneous current of their thoughts for a few hours, and their vain imagination will be corrected. We necessarily live, and move, and have our being, by a cause from without. 634. NEGATION, FICTITIOUS. Spring. It is essential to the nature of mind, to be positively holy, or positively sinful. A being invested with the faculties of perception, reason, and conscience, is under law; and must either positively fulfil or positively violate it. There is no such thing as a failure to fulfil without positive violation. Sin would be a very harmless thing, if it consisted in the mere defect of holiness. What is mere negation, but nothing? Ed. All sins of omission involve a positive and actual transgression of the law of God, and are so represented in the Scriptures of truth. The notion of negative unrighteousness, is a positive solecism, both in expression and in fact. [See 638.] 635. NEGLECT, NEGLIGENCE. Em. I never could think well of a man's intellectual and moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appoint ments. Franklin. A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; and for want of a horse, the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by an enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail. Ed. The most ruinous neglect, is to neglect the commands, counsels, invitations, and expostulations of God and the Gospel, until the first death sweeps us away to the despair of the second. 372 NEIGHBORS, NEOLOGY, NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 636. NEIGHBORS, NEIGHBORLY. Good fences make good neighbors; bad, tempt both man and beast. Ed. The way to have neighbors, is to be neighborly. Ib. It is material in neighborly economy, for parents to provide an inviting and profitable home for their children. 637. NEOLOGY. Jay. "If any man speak, let him speak as becometh the oracles of God." New terms make way for new doctrines; nor has any subtlety of the adversary succeeded better in corrupting the mind from the simplicity there is in Christ, than modernizing the language of Divinity. When men are shy of the "words the Holy Ghost teacheth," we are afraid they are beginning to be ashamed of the things. Ed. Neology, or the coining of new phraseology, is so zealous for revision, that it is become difficult to tell who is who, or what is what. Theological sense and senses are becoming mazy, and crazy, and the science is losing its perspicuity, with the moral declensions of our times. 638. NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION, CHIMERICAL. Williams, T. When a spot of neutral ground, on which neuters can stand, is found, in heaven, on earth, or in hell, then let neuters take their stand. But real neuters are nothing. And professed neuters on religious subjects, are always false and faithless in reality. Nevins. The man who lives in vain, lives worse than in vain he who lives to no purpose, lives to a bad one. Ed. Neuters in religion, or morals, are hardest to convert. N. Y. Correspondent of a Boston paper. The publishing committee of the Tract Society, represent six evangelical denominations, and no work is issued, which has not their unanimous sanction. Its platform is so broad and so catholic, that every evangelical denomination can unite in its work, and no discord or jealousy results from their combined action. The harmonious labors of the distributing, financial, publishing, and executive committees, where gentlemen of various denominations weekly consult for the common furtherance of the kingdom NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 373 of Christ, through the prosperity of the Society, presents a spectacle of singular moral interest and beauty. It demonstrates that there is some neutral ground, a position of true discipleship, where Christians can embody their strength, and try vigorous, concentrated action, perfect measures for repelling the common enemy, and diffusing the doctrines of the cross. Ed. It does not appear, from the Bible, or the History of the Christian martyrs, that Christ, or his self-denying followers, ever made this discovery of "neutral ground," while fighting the genuine Christian warfare; and, if the above is an accurate statement of the platform of the American Tract Society, it is time for truly Evangelical or Bible Christians to call this child of the churches to account. Em. No scheme of religion can be devised, which neither includes nor excludes the essential doctrines of the Gospel, in their strict and proper meaning. The leaders in almost every sect and party, are now zealously engaged to form a neutral scheme of religious sentiments, and to bring all, who bear the Christian name, to adopt it. They have already made, in their own opinion, considerable progress, in forming a scheme of doctrines, which they represent as a medium between extreme truth, and extreme error. They suppose that the truths of the Gospel may be carried too far, as well as not far enough. And it appears that their middle scheme, so far as they have developed it, does neither include nor exclude the doctrine of Divine sovereignty, Divine decrees, and Divine agency. It neither includes nor excludes the doctrines of election and reprobation. It neither includes nor excludes the doctrines of saints' perseverence, disinterested benevolence, unconditional submission, and vindictive justice. But though this scheme has the appearance of neutrality, it is completely hostile to the fundamental principles of Christianity, and is adapted to undermine and destroy the whole system of Divine truth. This splitting the difference between truth and error, is the most effectual method that was ever practised, to involve every subject and interest in religion in total darkness, and to introduce infidelity, delusion, wickedness, and destruction. |