tings, they make use of a number of mystical signs or hieroglyphics, particularly the picture of a heart, which they fill with symbolical figures, expressive of the spiritual state of the supposed possessor. In this manner they use numbers of such pictures, filled with hieroglyphics, expressive of the passions, talents, virtues, and vices of men, from the most abandoned to the most right

eous.

They pretend to visions and discoveries both in physics and metaphysics, by which they say they arrive at the most exalted spiritual knowledge. This sect of mystical religionists is not numerous at the present day; but it consists, in general, of men who have the character of being learned, and whose chief object seems to be to support this character, by pretensions to great acquirements in hidden sciences, to which they say others can never attain, till once they arrive at the same degree of spiritual and physical knowledge with themselves.

The Martinists profess a warm regard for the word of God, which, according to them, contains not only the way of deliverance to fallen men, but also the whole secrets of nature. Hence their mode of interpreting scripture is absurd and pernicious in the extreme; for, in general, they represent the most simple texts of scripture

Y

as full of some mystical meaning, which they are pleased to call the spiritual sense. Thus they unhinge the real sense of almost every passage of scripture, and are at liberty to give it such a turn as best suits their own particular interests and fanciful opinions.

That the Martinists, notwithstanding their pretensions to scientific knowledge, have gone as far wrong in their opinions about religion, as many of the ignorant and illiterate sects abovementioned, must be evident to every one whỏ deliberately reflects on the subject. For to reject the literal and obvious meaning of the plainest passages in the word of God, and to suppose that they are to be explained only by recourse to mystical allusions, is to undermine the authority of revelation, and to represent it as incapable of being understood by the great majority, of those to whom it has actually been addressed by God himself. We have, therefore, no hesitation in saying, that the opinions of the Martinists in Russia, are not less remote from the doctrines of truth, and the principles of duty, revealed in the sacred oracles, than many which are held by the poor and ignorant peasants among their countrymen, who are ready to offer up their lives in defence of some insignificant ceremony.

In explaining and understanding the religion

of Jesus, we need not either the discoveries of metaphysicians, or of those who pursue the study of occult or magical science; or the dreaming fictions of a heated imagination; and he who, giving the reins to fancy, seeks for every thing but what is plain and obvious in the divine word, delivers his soul into the hands of an unfaithful guide, who, leading him into the mazes of enthusiastical error, may, if grace prevent not, conduct him to everlasting disappointment and re