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We will not try to imagine the perturbation of the council, nor their expressions, when told by the defendant, that the idea of pre-existence is the only key-stone that will bind the tumbling arch of their theory into symmetry and strength.

Dr. Beecher's brethren, as a general thing, will, no doubt, smile at his theory of pre-existence. But when they turn it off, what is to be done with the arguments that have led him to it? They are called upon to answer them. They are solemnly bound to show that his impeachment of their system, in the name of benevolence and equity, is invalid. A voice within their own circle tells them, that a satisfactory response to the indictment of Orthodoxy by liberal Christians, at the bar of justice and mercy, cannot be made, by any combination of the elements that have thus far appeared in its creeds. More rigidly Orthodox, in most of its details, than the real views of many modern subscribers to the symbols, this volume strikes a fatal blow at every form of the popular faith that is not organized around its own fantastic hypothesis. Orthodoxy plus pre-existence, or, as the alternative, a hopeless wrestle with the noble elements of human nature-such is the formula with which Dr. Beecher astonishes his friends. If they deny his solution, they have to fight for the moral nobility of their system with a man who knows what logic is, and can put the truth in vigorous words. If they turn it off with a sneer, they trifle with the deep experience of a man as sincere, learned, and pious, as any opponent can claim to be.

To all who live without the circle of the sacrificial faith, Dr. Beecher's volume is of the deepest interest, as a new index of the disquiet and the struggles which heave underneath the formal assent to its propositions. Human nature was not made to live contentedly on such a faith. The great majority of its adherents, not intellectually and vitally experiencing the tough problems which it raises, are swayed by its master motives, fear and selfish hope, and so live in the service, not the liberty, of religion. Others find some nutriment for their souls in the great principles of Divine holiness and the love of Christ, which permeate its structure, and pay little attention to its horrors, as a theory of Heavenly government, or an

interpretation of human life. But there are others still, whose intellects demand that their religion shall present them with something like a consistent and noble theory of the universe, a theory that shall satisfy and inspire every faculty of their nature. They examine their theology, and are perplexed in mind by the elaborate confusion of its analytic dogmas about an incomprehensible Trinity. Their moral sense is offended by its pictures of a placatory and substituted sacrifice. Their sense of equity is pained by the disproportion between a short earthly probation and an eternity of consequences. The inequalities of earthly lot, too, complicate this difficulty. And their benevolence is utterly overwhelmed by the vision of unending suffering, as the destiny of myriads under a nominally perfect rule. They cannot reject the doctrines, and they cannot deny that the doctrines war with their peace. In every age of the church, such men have lived in the gloomy latitude of such a faith, and have repeated the experience of Milton's fallen angels, when they explored the landscape of their infernal home:

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through many a dark and dreary vale

They pass'd, and many a region dolorous,

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,

*

*

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*

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Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire."

*

Dr. Beecher knows what this condition of mind is; and the fantastic weakness of his solution only betrays the depth of the inward disquiet which disposed his intellect to seek relief in upholding it. The offence his theory gives to our common sense, is a measure of the turmoil which popular Orthodoxy had stirred in his soul. Who can tell how many thousands are represented by these experiences that break into expression? And is that the highest interpretation of Christianity, which introduces such discord into the bosoms of the sincerest believers ?

Dr. Beecher has used the proper word, in maintaining so strenuously that the elements of Christian theology are misadjusted." However deep the depravity of man

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may be; whatever theories of a corrupt lineage may be necessary to account for it; however serious the call to a consecration of the will, that comes to us through the religion of Jesus, it is absolutely essential to any symmetry of faith, that all doctrines be set in the light and under the control of the absolute perfection of God, as the human reason and the human heart would naturally interpret that perfection. If there seem to be any mystery in the idea that God suffers so many human beings to come into existence here, amid hostile circumstances and with damaged constitutions, we must solve it by looking ahead,→ by believing in an infinite vista of hope, in which all the hard conditions of the dawn of being may be compensated by a greater good which they render possible at last. There is no other way to vindicate the government of a good Creator, no other way in which infinite perfection can be manifest. The human soul must wrestle with every system of theology which does not interpret infinite goodness in ways that fill the heart with cheerfulness and joy, making life seem, when taken in connection with its great future, the greatest privilege and blessing.

The deepest troubles of the Orthodox systems are connected with the two ideas of the sovereignty of God, and a limited probation for man. All the ethics of the

sacrificial forms of faith are stained more or less deeply with the assumption, that God, as the legitimate emperor of the moral realm, has the right to establish such a system of government as He may please. Regard for His own holiness and worship, rather than a constant effluence of His own life for the good of His creation, is practically considered the highest law of the heavenly administration; while in men the supreme type of goodness is seen in the disposition that seeks the happiness of others, and is never weary in labor and charity for their welfare. And then the idea of a limited probation entangles the whole system of life into an insoluble confusion. First, the principles are wrong; and second, the scanty time allotted for their working would not allow any thing but anarchy, as the result, even if the principles were right. The misadjustment is as strange, as if the cold, dull disc of Uranus were put in the centre of our family of worlds, and the sun were banished, as a satellite, to the outskirts of the

planetary fold. What life, what order, what beauty there would be in such an arrangement, a moment's thought will set before us. And no less derangement of balance, consistency, and peace, will there be in a theology which puts the gloomy principle of justice, divorced from love, in the centre of its elements, and banishes the idea of grace to a subordinate and far-off position. The principle of infinite goodness must take its natural office in our scheme of religious thought, including justice as the gravitating principle of order, in the same way that the sun hides within its bulk the energy that binds the planets into harmony, but pouring everywhere unstinted rays of light and heat; then truths will stand in right relations, and their apparent perturbations can be interpreted as contributions to a vast, intricate, and enduring harmony.

T. S. K.

ART. IV.

The Kind, and Amount, of Evidence necessary to establish the doctrine of Endless Hell-torments.

It is a fortunate thing for Christianity, and for our faith in it at the present day, that, among its early disciples, there was one, at least, who cannot be supposed to have been misled by credulity. Whatever may be thought of the other apostles, it seems quite certain that Thomas would not have been imposed upon. He was slow to believe the great fact of his Master's resurrection. When he saw him laid in the tomb of Joseph, he doubtless supposed that that was to be the end of the matter. Probably he no more expected to see Christ living again, here on the earth, than we now do the friends which we deposit in their graves. And when his resurrection transpired,when, on the morning of the third day, Jesus showed himself to his followers, and they went and told Thomas of the fact, he refused to repose the least confidence in

their statements. The fact doubtless seemed to him extremely unnatural. It was so very different from any thing which he had reason to expect or hope for, that he persisted and declared that nothing but a personal examination would satisfy him. "Except I see in his hands the print of the nails," said Thomas, "and put my finger in the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe !"

It is granted that the apostle took an extreme position here; and, still, the case was one that probably appeared to him to require evidence of this character. He may have suspected that the minds of his companions were tinged with enthusiasm. It was possible perhaps that they might have been mistaken as to the person of Jesus. At least, to suppose that they honestly thought that they had seen him, when in reality they had not, was less incredible to the doubting Thomas, than their statement appeared to be. And so long as there was nothing to render his demand impossible, it is evident, that, in a case of such vast importance, he did right in requiring a proof of this con clusive character. He should not have believed on slighter grounds.

This opinion seems to be strengthened by the manner in which Christ treated his claim; for, although he told him to "be not faithless, but believing," still, he did not intimate that he ought to believe without sufficient proof, or that he had demanded more than the facts would fully justify. Jesus freely gave him the personal demonstration he asked for, and satisfied him, beyond all shadow of doubt, that he whom he had loved as his divine Master, whose remains he had seen cold in the grave, was really a victor over death, and the great doctrine of life and immortality made fully manifest.

In looking over this sketch, as given by the sacred biographer, I think that we may properly deduce from it the following rules of evidence:

1. The kind and amount of proof which we ought to demand in any given case, will vary according to the nature of the fact to be proved, and the circumstances. attending it. 2. Any fact of an ordinary character, such as would seem to involve no improbability, may be suffi ciently substantiated by an ordinary kind and amount of

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