therefore, I am moved to present you with the following considerations.

canon.

Before the Lecturer can build a spiritual Zion on the scriptural foundation, or before he can re-paint and re-embellish the old superstructure, and invite the whole human family. to take possession, and satisfy them that they can live therein in safety and concord forever, it is first necessary to test and ascertain the condition of the premises. The ground plan should have been far removed from the neighborhood of earthquakes. It should be firm as a rock; capable of withstanding the surging billows of time; and impregnable to the army of sciences which promise to march steadily onward, regardless of popular superstitions and error. As you probably all know, Dr. B's foundation is neither Nature, nor Reason, nor Intuition, nor any thing else which is accepted by the Rationalistic school of philosophers; but his avowed basis is the Bible-the present recognized sacred Do you not see, then, what he should have done for the rising generations? Do you not see what all skeptics, infidels, atheists, lukewarm believers, and harmonial philosophers, very properly, and, hence, emphatically demand? My friends, if he could not have accomplished it in forty lectures, and yet believed such a consummation possible, in the sphere of historical proof and spiritual and inferential demonstration; nevertheless, he should have first given us the plain unanswerable evidence that the Bible is the veritable word of God! But has he done, this? Has he proved to our satisfaction that he stands upon a sure foundation, which can never be shaken? Far from it. He began his lectures by taking a text as bodying forth a great truth; yet he altered it to fit still closer the preconceived and prearranged convictions of his own mind. Thus making, as it were, assurance doubly sure, that man's Reason, after all on the ultimate analysis, is the master or umpire

*

of the Bible and its teachings. This was the most essential point to determine for the rationalist. The Lecturer should have known that the principal cause of skepticism in religious matters, is the self-evident fact, that the Bible, which is the only foundation of the supernaturalistic system, is the creation of human heads and hands; that it contains historical and chronological errors and contradictions; that it bears the impress of human imperfections in its codes and inculcations. These are points which required attention in the commencement. But these important matters were passed over; hence, all his arguments and special pleadings for the truth of supernaturalism, fall lifeless to the ground; and his superstructure is as the house built on the sandy foundation. The frame-work is completed; doors and windows are made and adjusted; and the whole house is put in readiness for the entrance and use of the proprietor. But the tempest sweeps o'er the hills; old ocean proclaims the speedy approach of the destroyer; the distant forests break forth in dismal lamentations; the rains descend; and the proprietor is driven out, amid the ruins of his newly constructed residence, to do battle with the prevailing storm! The prevention of such a disaster, evidently is a sound foundation and a firm construction. But does Dr. B. not see, that he has gone on in the work of constructing a theological fabric, without ever giving the least satisfactory assurance that the premises are tenable? Yea; whether he perceives it or not, it is nevertheless true, that he has totally neglected to do away with the chief cause of skepticism in Christendom. He employed his REASON, I am happy to say, throughout the discussion. But it was not a free reason. This I regret. It was manifestly engaged, (before the trial commenced,) to discharge the duties of an attorney or counselor for the system of supernaturalism, to which he stands

* See contradictions detailed in Harmonia, Vol. III.

before the world fully committed. He assumed the premises, and then applied a small amount of philosophical argument in order to convince the people that the Rationalistic system is essentially erroneous. This, I repeat, has not been done; because the ground plan of supernaturalism is not proved to be immutable; the Bible was not shown to be a supernatural revelation of God's will. More particularly, I come now to examine the lecture in question, delivered on last Sabbath evening. This text was again taken from the eighth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, twenty-second verse,reading as follows: "For we know that the whole creation. groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

When a modern son of Hippocrates or Galen, discovered a prescription for the chemical preparation of some blooddetergent or purifying compound, forthwith he sets himself to enumerating the number and variety of diseases for which his remedy is to be confidently recommended as a panacea. He thinks over the five hundred different "ills which flesh is heir to," and comes to the conclusion that his compound is not only a "perfect cure" for the great leading diseases— asthma, rheumatism, consumption, scrofula, and gout-but that it is in fine a "universal panacea" for all known and conceivable disorders. But here arises a question. How shall he make the people believe that, "the blood-purifying compound" is THE unfailing remedy for all diseases? His course is very plain. He must develop a "New Theory" of disease, culled from the writings of learned authors upon pathology and therapeutics. The theory must be constructed in such a manner as to make the final conclusion very logical and self-evident, that the "Blood-purifier" is the only invaluable sovereign remedy and infallible cure for the sick to get and use, no matter what the disorder may be, or how originated. In the first place, the Esculapian makes it appear, from certain argumentations, that all diseases originate in the

blood. He writes emphatically on this affirmation. He elaborates long columns of argument with the special design of creating a general faith in this one-idea theory of disease and physical distress. Every thing must originate in the vascular system. The respiratory and circulating departments give rise to many maladies; but the impurities, and impoverished condition, of the blood, he asserts, are the primary causes of all human physical and considerable mental suffering. Now, I ask, why does the proprietor of the "bloodpurifier" publish this philosophy of disease to the world as the truth? The answer is distinct. Because he believes he possesses a remedy for all blood-diseases. Hence he advertises that his "universal panacea" is an infallible and sovereign remedy for all diseases, which originate in the blood; among which, he enumerates, are the following: consumption, scrofula, cancer, broken bones, sick head-ache, measles, squinting, rheumatism, fevers, and clump feet!

Now does Dr. B. not see, that his recent effort to prove supernaturalism, is perfectly represented in the foregoing illustration? He has found, as he believes with commendable integrity, a soul-purifying and world-lubricating medicine, a certain and unmistakable remedy for all the disorders and consequences of sin. He, therefore, commences a learned and argumentative diagnostication of the moral constitution of man, and finds it sadly in need of the balm in Gilead. He discovers and affirms that this "universal panacea" can be made available and effective only in cases where the individual is actually guilty of the supernatural sin. Lest, however, he should fail to convict all mankind, (which he can not do by any known standard of righteousness,) of the high sin, for which the medicine is particularly designed and administered by clergymen; he prudentially quotes a text from Paul to prove that the whole family of man, together with a large portion of the productions of nature,

are charged, by the recording angel in the courts of heaven, with the commission of supernatural crime. This is just the universal disease which the redemptive plan is recommended to eradicate! Thus, it is manifest, that Dr. B. has, under the avowed intention of removing doubt and skepticism, put his mental energies to the work of creating a fresh demand for the ecclesiastical medicine which he scientifically compounds, and in the curative properties of which, I doubt not, he places the utmost hope and confidence. Hence, with all conceivable honesty of purpose and true zeal for the universal acceptance and administration of his infallible compound, Dr. B. proceeds to show that all "disorders" originate in the supernatural sin; among which he enumerates the following:-murder; theft; dissimulation; duplicity ; wars; famine; diseases; storms; fogs, which bedim nature; pestilential miasm, which generates death; deformed fish and vegetation; abortions; snakes; and malformed saurians. All these disorders, he thinks, are caused by the existence in this world of supernatural sin; and he presents his "compound" of atonement, redemption, forgiveness, special providence, and prayer-as the sovereign remedy for the regeneration and reformation of all. The Lecturer, also, recommended the redemptive medicine as the most perfect "fire annihilator" in the world! For he said; when a house was set on fire, it was evident that nothing in nature could do it, except self-causing and self-determining man. [Parenthetically, I will here remark, that houses, hay stacks, volcanoes, and coal mines, are frequently fired by the chemical action and combustion of nature's own ingredients. Query Is this one of creation's disorders?]. He said, "there was free will at one end of the line and a house on fire at the other." This burning house was a dissolving exhibition of the consequences of the supernatural sin. And the redemptive compound was recommended, in effect, as the best annihilator of