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and let us quietly return to the review of what hath been said.

We seem to ourselves, allowing for these occasional digressions, to have kept with sufficient constancy to the matter of our discourse, and to have brought the subject to a good termination, arguing strictly according to the plan we chose and laid out at the beginning; and if we mistake not, we have kept generally within the sight and experience of common minds. All abstract discourse upon responsibility in general, and the freedom or necessity of the human will, we have avoided; not out of terror of that marlstroom in the ocean of thought, but because it is too nice a question to be handled by the way, and when it is taken up, should occupy the whole diligence of the mind. But instead of such metaphysical discourse, we entered upon the inductive and experimental inquiry, How the nature of man accorded with a state of responsibility, and discovered that in no one of its relationships was it found devoid thereof, but acceded to it with a constant choice, as the very buckler of its social existence. Thence we passed, to inquire what right God hath to lay the human race under control, and what is the character of that responsibility under which he hath actually placed them. His claim rests upon the whole structure and sustenance of our estate, and his intention is to multiply the nobleness and happiness of our being. For which end, he hath in his mercy granted to us a constitution of law

and government to live under; which we then passed on to peruse and consider.

man.

Here there opened upon us a wide field of ethical and political discourse, into which we followed the train and leading of our argument. The largeness of divine law, compassing every province of purity, came under our review; the unmeasurable requirements of Christ's discipline, the unanswerable demands of his judgment, the inquisition of conscience, with the purer inquisition of God. These considering well, our mind was staggered not a little, and we applied ourselves to discover the profitableness and the fitness of an institution so incommensurate with the limited powers of Which application it pleased the Lord to reward to the satisfaction of ourselves, and we hope the profiting of others. For it did appear, that while the heart-searching pureness and divine simplicity of the institution answered, both to enlighten the eye of conscience and to awaken the enthusiasm of the heart after the heroism of holiness, the deficiencies and defalcations into which nature fell, were hindered from oppressing the heart with fear of judgment and horror of condemnation. It did appear, that the divine invocation which it sung over every good faculty, was like the songs of patriotism to an oppressed land, bringing forth the generous, the just and the good, from the neighbourhood of the base, the malicious and the wicked; making a noble insurrection within the breast for the old original condition of the soul; while the high abstrac

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tions of purity, to which every energy was summoned forth, did come to awaken and nourish that longing which there is in human nature to pass into the perfect, and return again into the embrace of an unfallen existence. And the inspection of conscience did make us supreme masters of ourselves, and elevate us into the cognizance of the Almighty's eye, abstracting us altogether from the watching of the laws and the customs and the authority of man; making every one a state within himself, better regulated of law and warded of police than the most free or the most despotic state upon the earth; laying not only the foundation, but completing the superstructure, of the good citizen, the good friend, the good relative, and the good man. Thus becoming satisfied upon the great purchase which such a spiritual institution takes upon the spirit of man to raise it to dignity and honour, we then gave ourselves to canvass the provision which it makes for our deficiencies, and to sound this question to the very bottom.

Thereto we made trial, in the opening of the Third Section, of various suggestions which, nature presenteth from her own stores, and which men are wont to uphold as a sufficient account of this matter. These having tried upon principles of law, and exhibited their total inadequacy to any end, except to the end of making law and responsibility altogether void, we came to the "great disclosure of Christ sacrificed for the sins of men. And here we wandered, well pleased, in

a glorious field which we had no leisure nor ability to disclose to others, though, we trust, God hath made it profitable to ourselves (alas! how little!) And we showed how this glorious revelation of the Gospel of peace takes a pleasant, powerful hold upon all our affections and all our interests, sustaining and promoting all the enthusiasm which the pure law hath awakened; how it feeds the lamp of knowledge with oil from heaven, and enlightens the whole house, and setteth all useful works on foot; how it awakens, how it cheers, how it presseth us forward. Ah! it is sweet to speculate upon these glorious themes! we are sorry it is drawing to a close; we could gladly renew all that hath been done-burn these papers, only to renew them again, but that the occupations of life are so many. Then, feeling within our souls an enthusiasm arise for God, we did invoke, as Elijah did of old, all the priests of Baal to the contest, and call upon them to kindle such a flame in the cold bosom of man, such an enthusiasm after holiness, as this which glowed beneath the feeding hand of God-which invocation of the Antichristian people we again repeat, praying them right early to lay down within compass their scheme for raising fallen man, and making him great and good; and we pledge ourselves to give it the same impartial trial of reason and understanding which we have given unto this.

Meanwhile, we doubt not our reader thought the wheels of our argument moved but slowly on to the great question of Judgment to Come... Ne

vertheless we deemed it expedient to indulge our humour another turn; and for the purpose of bestirring the God-forgetting spirit of this age's policy, we adventured into the thorny path of man's political well-being, and endeavoured to study how this constitution tended to the remedy of its ills. And here, as before, we reaped the fruit of our labour, finding it to be the long-sought remedy of personal and political disorders, regenerating the sluggish and taming the fiery, and setting every subject of the realm into the position which is most easy to a good governor, and most terrible to a bad one; all which we proved by the induction of many cases, and by the ineffeetual struggles which have been made and are making at social improvement, without this necessary implement of Religion. Oh! in this crisis of the world, when thrones are shaken, and nations are arising to the work of terrible revenge, and all things are unsettled, oh! thou Almighty ruler of the destinies of men, make the voice of truth to be heard by the raging people, and guide them into those measures which will ensure their success, and make Thy name glorious over the slavery and idolatry in which the nations are held.

Having thus justified the constitution to which God hath made man responsible, both as to its necessity, its wisdom, and its good effects, wè then felt ourselves at liberty to lanch upon the great question of the Future Judgment. Yet cautiously and thoughtfully, as one who had the conviction of wakeful reason to win. Therefore, we

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