a felt conviction in its divinity, is, the insight which it manifested into the arcana of his own spirit-the perceived accordancy which obtains between what it said that he was, and what he felt himself to be -the marks, wherewith it abounded, of that shrewd and penetrating sagacity, which can pronounce on the mysteries of the human character; and to which testimony from without, there is the echo of a respondent testimony from the conscience which is within us. There is no authorship so interesting as that which holds up to the reader the mirror of his own heart; and no wisdom to which we yield the homage of a readier admiration, than to that which can look through the deeds and the disguises of men. Now it is conceivable, that the volume in question might stand distinguished from all other authorship, by its profounder and more penetrating discernment into all the lurking places of our moral economy-so superior indeed to every thing else of human authorship upon the subject, that, by this superiority alone, it might recommend itself to be superhuman. To the man who can find his way among the penetralia of my bosom, and utter himself aright as to the thoughts and the passions and the purposes that hold the mastery there-to such a man we should readily award the credit of a very high and powerful intelligence. Now one can figure, at least, the proofs of such an intelligence to be so multiplied, as to pass upwards from what we have experienced of the intelligence of a man, to what we conceive of the intelligence of a God. Were a prophet to stand before us, and, laying claim to a heavenly inspiration, were he to divine,

and with unexcepted accuracy, all the thoughts of my heart and all the circumstances of my past history this miraculous achievement would reconcile us to his pretensions. Now this very power and property of divination, that such a gifted messenger from on high manifests in his oral testimony, he could transfer to the written testimony that he left behind him, for the instruction of distant ages and thus what we should hold to be a satisfying evidence of his commission, were he alive, and did he address us in person, might be conveyed from his words to his writings, and compose a book which should announce in perpetual characters to all future generations, the high original from which it had descended.

9. A merely human author might recommend himself both to the confidence and the admiration of those who study him, by the reach and the penetration of that sagacity, wherewith he finds his way among the hidden yet the felt and conscious intimacies of the human character. Now this sagacity might be evinced by an authorship that professes to be divine, in a degree so marvellous— there might be so minute and varied and scrupulous an accordancy between its representations of our heart, and the responses given to them by that faculty within, which takes cognizance of its feelings and processes the voice that is without may be so accurately reflected or echoed back again, by the still small voice that issueth in whispers from the deeply-seated recesses of consciousness-as first to draw our regards towards a volume that holds up to observation such a picture of ourselves;

and finally to decide our reliance upon it, as begin indeed a communication that hath proceeded from a higher quarter than from any individual, or any party of individuals within the limits of our species. It is a conclusion, drawn from the correct scrutiny wherewith the author of this book enters among the arcana of the human constitution, and so pronounces of this microcosm within the breast, as to evince a superhuman acquaintance with its laws and its processes. This evidence is founded on the accordancy between what is in the book, and what is in the chamber of our own moral and spiritual economy. Our reading of the volume. unfolds to us the one. The faculty of consciousness, awake and enlightened, unfolds to us the other; and the agreement between these two might be spread out and sustained in a way so evidently superhuman, as to evince that he who constructed the volume had a superhuman acquaintance with all the peculiarities and the wants and the phases of that nature to which it constantly refers and for whose benefit it was framed. To come in contact with this evidence, we do not need to range abroad over the walks of a lofty or recondite scholarship. The whole apparatus that seems requisite for the impression of it, is to be in possession of a Bible and of a conscience—and, with the readings of the one, to combine the reflections of the other.

10. There is one most notable example that might be given of this species of accordancy between what the book says that we are-and what we, should our attention be earnestly directed to our

selves and our consciences be prepared for an enlightened decision, must feel ourselves to be. We refer to the assertion, that is so often repeated throughout the pages of this profest revelation, of man's total and universal depravity. It was a fearful thing, with this high pretence of the christian message to a divine inspiration, it was a fearful thing thus to commit itself to an affirmation, on which it stood liable to be confronted with the experience of one and all of the human species. Had it spoken to us of distant things, in distant and by us unexplored parts of the universe, it might have been safe from all the cross-examinations of those on whom it had made the high demand of their faith and their obedience. Of that remote and lofty region it may have told us many things, without the hazard of any effectual resistance on the part of those who had no contrary experience of their own to oppose it. But when, in addition to things that lie afar, and which it professes to have fetched from the upper sanctuary-it tells us of things that lie within the precincts of our own daily and familiar experience when, instead of bringing its informations from a land of dimness and mystery, it maketh averment in regard to such facts and phenomena as are accessible to all-more especially, when it ventures on the ground of a man's own heart and history; and proclaims to his face that such is the uniform character of the one, and such has been the uniform style and complexion of the other-when it speaks of that which is so near at hand, and stakes its credit on the affirmation of things within our own bosom, and that we,

therefore, should intimately know-Then it comes under the ordeal of man's severest judgment, because, while it hath mortified his pride, it hath laid itself open to the scrutiny of his most close and intimate observation. Man hath no antecedent knowledge wherewith to confront the messenger, who fetches down information from the altitudes of heaven; but he may be well able to confront him, when told of the things that lie within the grasp of his own consciousness-because all within the limits of his own moral and spiritual economy. He may know, for example, whether he lives without God in the world. He may know whether or not there be such a thing as the fear of God before his eyes. It is a matter of fact that lies within the reach of his internal observation, whether the affection he bears to the things that are made hath wholly dispossessed him of the affection he owes to Him who formed all and who upholds all. might know, upon prior and independent ground, whether he be justly chargeable with all that foul and fearful guilt which the scriptures have so boldly denounced against him. Had they restricted their information to the things of heaven that are without our reach, they might have claimed the deference of our entire understanding, and reposed on the strength of their external evidence alone. But they have touched furthermore on the things of earth that are within our reach, and, in so doing, they have made an appeal to the consciences of men-they have placed themselves at the bar of a human reckoning, where, if they are convicted of error, the fallacy of their high pretensions will be

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