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ture are very plain, and honest inquirers readily understand them.

But we have a few words to say about the remark of the brother already mentioned, that "the differences between different religions, concern matters wholly beneath the notice of God." In them we have no reference to the existence of God, or his unity, or the duty of love and obedience to him, or such things as the different religions agree in, but we have our eye on that great subject by which the Christian religion is distinguished from all others- the doctrine of atonement or salvation from sin, through the death of Christ in our stead. No one can deny that a doctrine like this is essential and claims the supreme attention of every member of our sinful race. Paul the apostle, whose labors exceeded those of all the rest, counted it so important, that he wished to preach nothing else but Christ crucified; and the apostle Peter, when a prisoner in the presence of the Jewish council, cried out that there was no salvation in any other, for there was not another name under heaven whereby we could be saved. John the forerunner said, pointing to Jesus: Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world; and Jesus himself said, at his death: "For this hour I came into the world." He said also: "No one cometh unto the Father, but by me;" and the Father, by his voice from heaven, testified, "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," and commanded men to hear him. Finally, if we searched the New Testament to ascertain the essence of its teaching, that to which it ever returns, and on which the whole depends, we should find that it was this doctrine of atonement through the death of Christ. For the apostles taught it in all they wrote, and Christ held it up as the end for which he left the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, clothed himself with human weakness and bowed submissive to shame and suffering. For the sake of this, also, the Father did not spare his only Son, but delivered him up into the hands of sinners. If all this be true, how can the denial of the atoning death of Christ be a matter beneath the notice of God? How can he count it a

venial sin, if we neglect this Saviour, or apply to any other for salvation? Or how can he overlook our error if we think that our own good works can save us? thus degrading the toils and sufferings of Christ as unmeaning and useless things? Would not that be contradicting God, when he calls this the greatest of all things? Would it not be an open insult to the Most High? All this, provided the gospel is from God. If it be not, then to entertain such thoughts is blasphemy. So that, on either supposition, it cannot be a matter of indifference to God.

Therefore let this dear brother study the word of God with care, that he may know the value of those teachings in it that are linked in with the doctrine of atonement through the blood of Christ, and then shall he comprehend the greatness of his error.

CHAPTER VII.

A revealed law is necessary. Man would deny the truth even of natural laws, did not their operation continually take place before his eyes.

The decisions of the human mind, whether affirmative or negative, are not always after the same manner; for at one time it forms an absolute judgment, at another a relative one, and still again one according to analogy. An absolute judgment is one that is necessary and cannot be otherwise than it is; as, for instance, that a given number is odd or even, that the same body does not occupy two places at once, that this cannot be the same with that, that every effect must have a cause, or that a body cannot be white and not white at the same time. A relative judgment is one in which the decision has reference to some other known fact; as, for instance, that such a thing is coarse or long, that is, in comparison with another known object that is finer or shorter than it is; or that the stars are farther off than they seem to be; and so on of things relatively true.

A judgment according to analogy, is that which a man knows according to established custom, from observing the regular repetition of the occurrence, while he is ignorant of

the true cause of that occurrence; as, for instance, that the magnet will attract iron, that the heavenly bodies attract each other, that heat expands bodies, that illuminated bodies obscure to the unaided eye are clearly seen through the telescope; that water extinguishes, and the wind fans fire into a flame, or that the dampness of the soil causes germination of seeds; and so on, of things man cannot know with an absolute knowledge.

These are called natural laws, and in all of them man cannot know the really efficient cause. The extent of his knowledge is the fact confirmed by his observation of the occurrences; as, for instance, he knows the fact, but does not know the cause, why different kinds of trees growing in the same soil, or, still better, grafted on the same stock, produce fruit, some sweet, some bitter, and some sour, yet are all nourished, through one root and stem, from the same soil. So he knows not why, in a chemical solution, substances exist, not to be found in its component parts. In like manner, we do not know the certain connection between the form of the ear and the organs of generation: we only know that animals having external ears are viviparous, and all others, poisonous serpents excepted, are oviparous.

The observation of an established custom in these occurrences, constantly repeated, has led men to look on them as easily understood, though each one of them defies the intellect of the whole race to comprehend it. Indeed fire, one would say, is of all things the most easily understood; yet suppose a people unacquainted with it should be told that a spark of it touching a combustible body, would set it in a blaze and cause a great light, till the body was consumed; that, even if it were a whole city, it would consume it; and that it could burn all the cities of the world, with the forests of the wilderness, till it desolated the face of the whole earth, nothing remaining of all it had touched, but ashes; and no doubt they would pronounce the thing impossible, because it exceeded all their knowledge and experience.

But let us turn from things beyond the power of man to those inventions in which the present age excels its prede

cessors. Look at the galvanic fluid, which produces the movements of life in the muscles of the dead. And what shall we say of casting a man into a deep sleep simply by the motions and signs of another? And if the words spoken by this sleeper concerning things absent, prove true, would not this be one of the greatest delusions, exceeding human comprehension?

These few things, besides many more not mentioned, are enough to show our inability to comprehend many truths perceived by the senses. The knowledge we have of them is based wholly on analogy. We decide that they are true from our observation of the uniformity of certain events under given conditions, and not from any comprehension of their true nature; for if that uniformity of occurrence should cease, our faith in them would also cease, and they would be non-existent so far as our inability to understand them was concerned, and actually existing so far as relates to their own absolute nature. Many things go to show this which the mind, à priori, pronounces impossible and then decides to be true, the moment it observes them as actually existing.

If then we find in nature laws above human comprehension, the knowledge of most of them remaining wholly mysterious, and yet the mind decides that they must be true when the testimony of the senses bears witness to some of their manifest results, is it not much more bound to acknowledge the higher laws of him who created nature and gave her laws, and rest in the witness to their truth furnished by the prophecies and miracles of the Bible, and the evident effects it has produced on the character and condition of those who obey it? since there is no people that does not admit the necessity of a Divine law, and confess that their ignorance is the ground of that necessity; nor can the mode of its emanation hinder its reception, while its tendency to promote the good order of the world constrains our acceptance of this gift of God. For it does not become the exalted glory of the wise and just God, not to show forth his wisdom in the good government of his intelligent creatures, in the exercise of his justice, and in his reducing to or

der the confusion that exists among them. These things cannot take place without the giving of a law, especially since the Divine Wisdom does not leave the inanimate creation, such as the stars and this our earth, without laws which may not be transgressed. Not only so, but man, weak and dependent though he be, yet gives a law to his household for its good order and continued prosperity, that learning the obedience which it owes to his requirements, it may continue to render the service which it owes to him as the provider for its varied wants. How then can it befit the greatness of the Most High, to leave his intelligent creation without a law to secure their good order and prosperity?

CHAPTER VIII.

Religion is all-important to man; therefore there is no excuse for its neglect.

Error in judgment occasions more or less injury, according to the nature of the thing it concerns; for instance, the unjust sentence which dooms to the payment of a fine, is not so injurious as that which dooms to the loss of our hand1 or our head. And the man who errs in judgment in temporal things, generally finds the evil consequences endurable and perhaps balanced by some good; at the very worst, it cannot be more than the death of the body, and it ends with the close of this fleeting life.

A man therefore should be exceedingly careful not to err in judgment; and this care should be proportioned to the importance of the matter in question. What, then, should it be in the matter of religion? a subject which no other can equal in importance, much less excel. A wrong judgment here cannot be rectified hereafter; there is no escape from its consequences, however injurious, but they must abide forever, so long as God exists.

If this be so, how careful should we be not to err on such a subject. Since no other interest can be compared with it for a moment, should a prudent man neglect a matter so

1 This and similar punishments are inflicted under Mohammedan law.

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