PREFACE. THE circumstances which attend the commencement of the presei. volume of the Christian Spectator, require that a few things be said by way of preface. What we have to offer shall relate rather to the plan and object of our labours, than to our success. It has been the aim of the conductors of the Christian Spectator, from the first, to merge all local and sectarian preferences, in a catholic endeavour to vindicate the truth. They have felt that a concentration of effort and of influence, on the part of those who held the doctrines of the Reformation, was demanded by the character of the prominent controversies of the age. Questions touching the distinctive tenets of a sect, may be left to the parties who originate them; but in a controversy which concerns not the peculiarities of this or that denomination, but the fundamental doctrines of Christianity itself, Christians have a common cause, and the vindication of those doctrines is their common duty. And if it be their duty to contend at all for the faith delivered to the saints, it is equally their duty to avail themselves of such means as may enable them to contend in that manner which shall be most effectual. Let it be considered then, how a controversy of the kind alluded to a controversy in which learning, and talents, and influence are to be encountered-can be sustained with most advantage to the cause of truth; whether, by a great diversity of publications, each supported by a local and precarious patronage, and moving in a circumscribed sphere, or by a publication which shall go abroad with the influence of a work, supported by the best talents in the country, wherever found, and read, and approved of by the whole orthodox community. In such a sense as this, a work may be 'national,' even though it be the offspring of no national church, and the object of no state favours. We are not speaking of what our own, or any American miscellany, has actually attained to, or perhaps ever will, but of what has seemed to us desirable. Nor do we undervalue the many religious publications with which our mails are loaded. In various ways these promote the interests of piety, and we bid them God speed. But while many of them are more or less sectarian, both in respect to their character and their sphere of influence, and many more are simply vehicles of intelligence, do they collectively present such a barrier to the enemies of truth as to leave nothing to be desired? While they gladden the hearts of Christians, do they rebuke error-error propagated at all points, with a bold and restless zeal, and not without "assistance of the learned,"-so effectually as to render a work of aggregated talent, and of general interest to the community, superfluous? 42X1020 iv If it may be said, that, in proportion to the ability with which a publication is sustained will be the wideness of its circulation, it may with equal truth be said, that in proportion to the wideness of its circulation, will be the ability with which it is sustained. A work which is read only by a few hundred individuals, cannot, generally, command great literary resources. Great minds love a wide field to act upon. And it is with such a field before them, ordinarily, that they put forth all their strength. The reflection that one is writing for a whole community, and that thousands are to weigh his arguments and canvass his opinions, creates within him that ardour and elevation of mind which alone can prompt him to his highest efforts. Patronage, we repeat, therefore, is essential to success; and if we have never seen an American religious miscellany which has been waited for, and widely circulated on the other side of the Atlantic, as some foreign periodicals have been on this, it is because we have never seen an American religious miscellany, which could distribute its 20,000 copies' in a day. Those who have been acquainted with the Christian Spectator, will be in no danger of inferring from these remarks, that it is exclusively a controversial work. While we have laboured to convince the enemies of truth, we have not forgotten the importance of practical godliness among its friends. Much, it is believed, may be found on our pages, to edify the Christian; and something, it is hoped, to interest the worldly-minded-who, though they may be too busy, or too indolent, to give their minds to elaborate discussions, may read occasionally, a lighter essay, and feel their hearts inclined to virtue. The occasion reminds us of our obligations to all who have assisted us, either by their talents or their patronage. Expressing our gratitude for these favours, and soliciting a continuance of them, we commend our work to Him whose cause we humbly hope to serve, and without whose blessing, all who labour spend their strength in vain. GONNEXION BETWEEN SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING AND THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. SOME kinds of writing can be un derstood and interpreted by intellect alone; others require the united assistance of intellect and feeling. Where the subject is purely intellectual, as in mathematical or philosophical investigations, he who fully comprehends the whole train of the intellectual process, is entire master of the subject, for he comprehends all which the author intended to communicate. But if the subject be not merely intellectual.but the powers of intellect are called into use merely to describe the emotions and passions of the mind, the language cannot be fully understood, unless those passions and emotions are felt; for so long as these are unfelt, the entire meaning of the author is not apprehended. Is it not an acknowledged truth, that the simple bodily sensations cannot be understood except by sensation? Can language cause a blind man to understand the sensations of sight? Can it bring before him the glories of the sun, and cause the smiles of the landscape to charm his mind? Can he who is deaf, understand the sensations of hearing? Can the language of signs communicate to him the melody of sounds ?-So likewise feeling can be understood only by feeling. It is a simple mental sensation, and description can no more illustrate any such sensation to him who has not felt it, than it can illustrate sight to the blind, or sound to the de f. Could we suppose any one so constituted by nature as not to be qualified to exercise filial affections that in circumstances where the minds of others glow with love and gratitude, his mind is a blank; can language supply the defect, or cause him to understand those emotions which never moved his breast? Or as the joyous freeman exults in bis blessings and pours forth in all the conscious dignity of independence, the deep feelings of his soul, can the slave on whom the light of freedom never dawned, and whose breast is a stranger to the exalted aspirations of the other, understand the language which describes these lofty emotions? But on the other hand, let the son begin to love his father, or let the dark mind of the slave be illuminated by the feelings of a freeman, and immediately the language which describes such feelings, becomes intelligible. It describes something which has been felt, and the feelings of the heart sympathize with the description. If the feelings do not at the time exist, yet the remembrance of them, if they ever have existed, will in some measure illustrate the lan guage. But most of all, will the actual existence of them throw a flood of light upon the language by which they are described. As the heart glows, the language becomes lucid, and the sympathy of feeling complete. Another fact ought here to be noticed feeling will influence the language by which it is communicated. What that influence is cannot perhaps be defined, but the fact is undoubted. There is a colouring, and a glow in the language corresponding to the state of mind in which it was uttered. It influences the mode of arrangement, and the selection of words of different degrees of intensity, and causes the accumulation of similar intensive epithets, and other artifices of language indicative of different states of excited feeling. If the mind of the reader is excited by the feelings which glowed in the mind of the writer, he will feel all those proprieties of expression which are descriptive of that state of feeling, and the glow of the language will correspond with the glow of his own mind. But on the other hand, if any one in a cold and frigid state of mind, attempts to read the language which was prompted by excitnd feeling never experienced by himself, he is entirely senseless of all those niceties of expression; nay, there will often arise a feeling of repulsion between his own mind in its cold inanimate state, and the glowing lan guage of a fervid mind. In short, a mind warm with feeling impresses its own image and superscription upon the language which it selects, and the mind which would correspond with this impression, must be like the original. These principles, of extensive application in the concerns of common life, are no less applicable to the religious world. We read in the Bible of spiritual understanding and of spiritual discernment; we read of the natural man to whom the things of the Spirit are foolishness, by whom they cannot be understood, because they are spiritu ally discerned; and again we read of the darkness of the heart, and of spiritual blindness. The principles already stated, furnish an easy explanation of all these modes of expression, and illustrate clearly the nature of this spiritual understanding and this spiritual blindness. Man by nature has no holy feelings. Whatever else he has of intellect or of social affection, the love of God is not in him. Sorrow for sin, faith in Christ, love to the brethren, and in short all the emotions of a holy mind, have ceased from the whole race of man. There is none that doeth good, or seeketh after God, no not one. But on the other hand, every exercise of a holy mind is described in the word of God-all the emotions of the sanctified heart, from the first sensation of sorrow for sin, to the last emotion of triumphant joy in the departing saint, are therein exhibited with all the fervid eloquence of holy feeling. Now, can the mind which has never felt one of these emotions enter into the spirit of such language, or feel its expressive eloquence? No chord will vibrate; there will be no sympathy of feeling, no harmony of soul. This then is spiritual blindness and spiritual understanding is the reverse of this. It is the sympathy of the holy heart with the language of the Bible. By the agency of the Holy Spirit, the same feelings are excited in the renewed heart which glowed in those holy men who wrote the word of God; and thus their language is understood, because the feelings which prompted it are felt. If now we appeal to facts, and ioquire how and in what circumstances spiritual understanding first displays itself, and what is its progress, we shall find an abundant and striking confirmation of these views. Take then the sinner dead in trespasses and sins, in childhood or in mature age, and in what parts of the Bible is he interested? He can read: historical narrations, or the |