or the collapse of chemical elements, and of the agency of the highest order of intelligences, who seek their happiness at large on all the fields of the universe, under one and the same set of affected phrases. And thus, because mind is furnished with knowledge, and is susceptible of emotion, and is endowed with power, and is thus qualified to maintain and enlarge its well-being through a course of endless advancements; and because this well-being is secured by its invariable connexion with an established order of events, therefore (say sophists) it becomes reasonable to speak of the lot of such high intelligences as if it were overruled by the same fatality which confines a stone to the spot whereon it has fallen!

For the purpose of banishing for ever these delusions, it would be well to lay aside entirely the word necessity, which is ridiculously superfluous and redundant in some of its applications, and absurd or seductive in others. If, for example, we have occasion to speak of a known relation of equality or proportion, why not be content with the simple assertion, that the predicate is true of the subject? or that a+b is equal to c? Or, if a conclusion has been derived from a somewhat complicated series of proofs, so that a moderate asseveration seems to be called for, let the word certainty suffice us. Certainty is the knowledge of truth, obtained by labour and research; and when by labour and research we have gained the knowledge of any complex system of relations, it may be granted that there is a propriety in speaking of the certainty of those relations; though in fact nothing more is meant than what is affirmed

when the relation is expressed in the very simplest and most modest form.

If the noble liberty-the range, and scope, and unrestrained capacity of happiness, which is the distinction of rational agents of the higher orders, be the subject of discourse; and if we would express the fact that such beings rule their destinies through the changeful scenes of immortality by their knowledge and virtue, we shall do well to avoid the employment of a phrase which seems to imply that those destinies are overruled in some other way than by the combinations of knowledge, virtue, and

power.

All that is important to ethics and theology is implied in the knowledge of the introvertible power of mind; and we must here observe, that its existence as a physiological fact-as a fact which forms the elementary difference between man and the inferior classes of sentient beings, has been too little insisted upon by ethical and religious controvertists; and though familiarly known to all men, has been (like ten thousand other familiar facts) overlooked by philosophers.

The Arminian divine, inwardly persuaded, he knows not on what ground, that human nature contains a something more than the passivity of brute matter, or of animal life, has recourse to the figment of Contingent Volition; and then, to give his unintelligible notion an appearance of consistency, has been led to the enormous error of denying the Divine foreknowledge. Thus, in his zeal to defend one attribute of Deity, he has demolished another. Why will he not be content with the simple principles of human nature, as known to all

men, and as recognised in the transactions of every day, and with the plain evidence of the Bible, which always takes up and supposes the existence of those principles?

His opponent, the Calvinist, spurning the absurdities of Arminian metaphysics, believes that, when he has scattered these sophisms, he has exhausted the subject of human agency, and may triumphantly return from the vanquished field to his own theological position; nor deems it necessary once to lay aside his high lenses, or to look abroad upon human nature as it shews itself to the naked eye of common sense. Then he goes to his Bible, cased in metaphysical certainties, and proceeds, without scruple or compunction, to apply the crushing engine of dogmatical exposition to all passages that do not naturally fall in with the abstractions which he has framed to himself. Meanwhile, men of sense are disgusted, and sceptics glory. How shall these evils be remedied?-how, unless by the prevalence of a better a genuine system of interpretation?

But even without this better exposition, a great and important reform would spontaneously follow from a more vivid persuasion of the reality of the great facts affirmed in the Scriptures. Let but the quickening affirmations of the inspired writers be allowed to take effect on the ground of the ordinary motives of human life; let it but be believed that the Son of God has come to inform men (his fellows, by an ineffable condescension,) of a future danger to which all are liable; and to impart to them freely a benefit they could never have obtained by their own efforts; and then it will no more seem pertinent

or necessary to adjust the terms of this message of mercy to metaphysical subtilties, than it does to do the like when a friend snatches a friend from ruin, or when a father bears his children in his arms from a scene of perils. How much mischief has arisen from the supposition that a mystery belongs to the matter of salvation, which waits to be cleared up by philosophy!

Philosophy, it is to be hoped, will at length work its way through its own difficulties. But the result to Christianity of so happy a success, would simply be, to set in a stronger light the enormous folly of obstructing the course of a momentous practical affair by the impertinences of learned disputation.

THE devout EDWARDS. -The life of Edwards should be perused by every one who reads his "Essay on Freedom of Will." Let it be said, that his style of Christianity might have borne some corrections; and let it also be admitted, that, in his modesty, and his low estimation of himself, and in his love of retirement, his melancholic temperament had an influence. After every deduction of this sort has been made, it must be granted, that this eminent man, whose intellectual superiority might have enabled him to shine in European colleges of learning, displayed a meek greatness of soul which belongs only to those who derive their principles from the Gospel. How refreshing is the contrast of sentiments which strikes us in turning from the private correspondence of men who thought of nothing beyond their personal fame as philosophers or writers, to the correspondence and diary of a man like Edwards! In the one case, the single, paramount motive-literary or philosophic vanity— lurks in every sentence, unblushingly shews itself on many a page, and when most concealed, is concealed by an affectation as loathsome as the fault it hides. But how much of this deformed self-love could the most diligent detractor cull from the private papers or works of the President of the New Jersey College? We question if a single sentence which could be fairly construed to betray the vanity or ambition of superior intelligence is any where to be found in them. Edwards daily contemplated a glory, an ABSOLUTE EXCELLENCE, which at once checked the swellings of pride, and sickened him of the praise which his powers might have won from the world.

Edwards (though, in listening to his own account of himself, one would not think it,) was a man of genius--we mean imaginative, and open to all those moving sentiments which raise high souls above the present scene of things. Among the reasons which inclined him to excuse himself from the proffered presidency, he alleges,- First, his own defects,