HISTORY AND NATURE.

UPON the threshold of our intricate yet interesting and delectable subject,-approved by the united testimony and sanction of Revelation, Religion and Reason, that divinelyappointed triumvirate for the moral and mental government of man's social and spiritual nature,-would we conspicuously inscribe the Christian sentiment and judicious admonition of Lord Lyttleton, that, "God is pleased, in this present world, to appropriate and proportion our knowledge, not to our pride and curiosity, but to our wants and condition."

The peculiar brevity, transcendent simplicity and instructive reserve which distinguish and dignify the Mosaic narrative, in reference to the primordial origin of all existences, and the vivific operations of the workmanship of omnipotence in the production of this material world, associated with the incorporeal and unseen presence of the subtle vitalities of spiritual beings, plainly and evidently declare, that "it is the glory of God,* to whom belong secret things,† in their profound and fathomless depth,‡ to conceal" from the unhallowed temerity of mortal intrusion, those incomprehensible mysteries which envelope the elemental principles of organic life, and the essential attributes of spiritual essences! For, notwithstanding the remarkable endow

* Proverbs xxv. 2. † Deut. xxix. 29.

Romans xi. 33.

ments and capacious faculties of the human intellect, is not the imperfect attainment of our knowledge, in connection with the sublime and astonishing exhibitions of divine power, and benevolence and wisdom, admirably calculated to promote a beneficial tendency upon the mind, with respect to the fear, and homage and adoration due towards, and the sense of our entire dependence upon, the constant care and protection, as well as providential supplies of the almighty Creator of "the heaven and the earth"? True! with the first elements, the bases, the essences, of matter and spirit, and all things contained in the circumference or presented in the phenomena of being, the prying attempts of the most penetrative, enlarged and gifted understandings cannot cope. With their properties, qualities, combinations, affinities, component parts, specific influences and peculiar effects, however, much has been recently elicited by the aid, and brought to light in the surprising and splendid discoveries of the searching science of modern chemistry; but, beyond this separating line of the demarcation of experience and knowledge, Reason is strictly forbidden to trespass, though to Faith, in the joyous hope of a believing expectation, guided by the gracious disclosures of Inspiration, she is encouraged to a nearer and more anxious approach to the Supreme Cause of all causes.

This sacred and majestic laconicism is likewise applied to the early history and society of mankind, giving but very slight information to what extent the arts and sciences flourished in primeval time; and withholding any very minute description of those excessive vices and artificial refinements of wickedness which provoked the awful punishment of divine displeasure, resulting in that watery destruction which overwhelmed and swept the entire antediluvian race from off the surface of the polluted earth! So, with

regard to the inherent principles and hidden workings of nature in the curious machinery of the material universe, the invisible inhabitants and the secret agencies of the ethereal world, the communications of the Bible are circumscribed by divine" wisdom and knowledge," in correspondence with the necessities and limitation* of our finite faculties, mental apprehensions, moral condition, immortal desires and eternal destiny, either in the blissful perfection of Heaven, or the dolorous perdition of Hell!

The unevangelical disquisitions of some theologico-geologists to quadrate the discoveries of modern science with the infallible truth of God's word and the requisitions of a divine faith, it is to be apprehended, are calculated to produce a most unfavorable tendency on the proud and unenlightened mind. The observation of Dr. Anderson, in his recently published work entitled The Course of Creation, receives its own approbation. "The wisdom of man will be confounded when it tries to fathom the methods and devices of the divine Artificer in originating his works. His safety will often be in distrusting his own understanding, in not magnifying overmuch the ingenuity of his own speculations; and in sometimes believing that even science will be exalted by approximating to, rather than departing from, the literalities of Scripture."

Indeed, it is well for Philosophy to kindle her torch, and Reason to light her lamp, at the pure and brilliant flame, which ever burns with a steady and undiminished lustre upon the ethereal altar of the sacred temple of immutable and

* "We know but little of the invisible world, or of the manner in which the disembodied spirit continues to exist; our understanding and our apprehension are so limited in this stage of existence, that we cannot comprehend one-half of those truths which both our senses, our reason and revelation compel us to approve."-DR. GEO. TOWNSEND, Note on Witch of Endor.

3

eternal Truth. The mind but once convinced upon the testimony of authentic history, and other demonstrative evidences of the inspiration of the Bible, whatever difficulties may arise, or apparent contradictions may present themselves to its oracular declarations, in the recent discoveries of science, must not be allowed, even, for a single moment, to interfere with the valid and established claims of a divine Revelation. The obscure province of Reason and the bright regions of Faith are too remote, and the specific objects of the one, are too distinct and dissimilar from the heavenly aspirations of the other, and a holy faith can never succumb to the vain and haughty pretensions of the former, because, in her loftiest altitude she will never be able to reach the sublimities of the latter. The very instant that reason is permitted the ascendant, Faith, also, loses her virtue, her validity, her essence,-being at once lifeless, and bereft of her vitality upon the withdrawn favor and protection of her offended God. To suppose a Revelation devoid of mysteries, involves the paradox of identifying the temple without its presiding God. Neither can I justify the bold assertion of the pompous philosophy of our quaint physician, in his Religio Medici, that in his religion there were not impossibilities (incomprehensibilities) enough to satisfy his faith : when I reflect upon the incomprehensibility of the self-existent Jehovah, who inhabiteth the immensurability of the circle of eternity, whose presence fills all space; at whose fiat came forth, “out of nothing," the beautiful fabric of this fair creation, the mysterious hypostasis of the holy trinity of the Godhead,-the permitted introduction of moral evil into this sin-disordered world,-the prophetic incarnation of Deity to impart validity to the atonement of the Redemption, in the substitution of the innocent for the guilty, typified in the sanguinary rites of the Aaronic priesthood and ceremonial,

to answer the demands of moral law and harmonize the essential attributes of the divine character,-the wonderful and needful operations of the Holy Ghost, in Regeneration, by the constant descent of the enlightening, consolatory, and sanctifying influences of the promised Paraclete,—the revealed resurrection of the body, having been resolved into its original dust, to receive the irreversible sentence of its destiny, during the transforming and purifying process of the conflagrant flames of a blazing universe,-in the presence of the august assize of an assembled world, before the solemn tribunal of the omniscient scrutiny and righteous decision of the Angel-Jehovah Judge, upon the indictment of every thought, imagination and action,-every idle word and vain conversation, misapplied time and misimproved means of grace;-in this awful whirlwind of mental emotion and spiritual consternation, "the small still voice" of Faith alone restores the tranquillity of my mind, and sustains my overwhelmed and fainting spirit; whilst the thrilling apostrophe of St. Paul, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" suits my agitated feelings best, elevates me, awhile, to the "third heaven" of his supercelestial vision, or supports me in the contemplation of his unutterable spiritual experience; arresting the erratic inclinations of unbelief, and bidding her return, from whence she had wandered, to the orbit of faith. in the solar system of Christianity, obscured in the penumbra of doubts, and amidst the gravitating influences of centrifugal temptation, which, but for the polarizing attractions of the MYSTIC CROSS, would draw my oscillating soul away, from completing the epicycle of Christian duties and moral responsibilities and conscientious monitions belonging