to oppress with a sense of obligation and want, even those who, in their ignorance and unbelief, are farthest from God, rather than the academician, intent chiefly on the acquisition or communication of science, and who, in his philosophic pride, seems to withdraw himself and his pupils from the gospel itself, to repose in the substitute which his reason has discovered. True, the very topics in the natural world which he has selected as the basis of his arguments, stand in most intimate relation to the obligations and spiritual wants of man, and thus strongly favor the subserviency of the subject in his hands to the ends of christianity; but it is the minister of Christ, who, by the very nature of his vocation, in studying and ministering to the moral maladies of mankind, is most at home in these topics, as well as most disposed to urge them to their highest and best results. The topics of Dr. Chalmers are taken from a field, we have intimated, than all others more subservient to practical christianity. In Ray and Derham, and in the consummate work of Paley, the eye is kept chiefly on studying physical and external nature; the exhibitions are chiefly those of wisdom, and power, and skill; the emotions chiefly called for are those of wonder or of calm delight: and though we allow these topics a high and useful place in subservience to true religion,-as indeed adoration and delight in the wisdom and goodness of God are,yet they are chiefly so to a mind and heart that has already become reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, in lifting it up in the ways of God; while to a heart averse to God and reconcili ation, this survey of the natural loveliness of God, portrayed in the external objects of the natural world, may lead that heart to repose and linger on this outer field of truth, rather than take refuge, as a lost sinner, in the saving truths of christianity. Dr. Chalmers, on the other hand, after taking a brief survey of the external world for evidence of the being of God, enters into the internal and spiritual world of man, to fetch up from man's nature the memorials not only of his Creator's being, but of his Creator's righteousness,-the bonds of obligation are felt to be around him, the moral laws of his Maker and Sovereign are heralded in his very nature,-the voluntary course on which he is em barked in life, is seen to be against the law, and working its righteous penalty of death upon his very nature, in the fixedness of destructive habit; and amid the terrors of apprehended wrath, and the faint gleamings of mercy, that dawn from the forbearance that is waiting on him, he is led to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" Nature thus warns of danger, and points the guilty to a refuge in Christ. -- 20 230 Oder an We would not imply, in these remarks, that each topic and branch of evidence in Natural Theology is not worthy of strict and close attention; but rather, that the whole field, and every part of it, should be exhibited as a practical system, landing man in no place of security short of the gospel. "Along the confines of its domain," as says the writer we are reviewing, "there should be raised, in every quarter, the floating signals of distress; that its scholars, instead of being lulled into the imagination, that now they may repose as in so many secure and splendid dwelling-places, should be taught to regard them only as towers of observation-whence they have to look for their ulterior guidance and their ulterior supplies, to the region of a conterminous theology." We will, however, descend from these general remarks, to a more minute survey of the work itself we are reviewing:-The work opens with a chapter on the distinction between the ethics of theology and the objects of theology, and on the ground of this distinction proceeds, in the next chapter, to show the duty which is laid upon men by the probability or even the imagination of a God. The design in these chapters is, to bring on the conscience of every one the obligation to inquire, with candor and earnestness, after the evidences of God and his ways; to reach even the atheist, in his darkest retreat of ignorance and unbelief, with the obligation, if not of the instant belief of God, of the instant and earnest inquiry after him. After showing, that the atheist cannot possibly take the positive position, that there is no God,-which would require for its demonstration a knowledge of the whole universe, and that he cannot recede from theism any farther than to the simple point of ignorance and unbelief, he remarks: 'Now to this condition there attaches a most clear and incumbent morality. It is to go in quest of that unseen benefactor, who, for aught I know, has ushered me into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me. It is to probe the secret of my being and my birth; and, if possible, to make discovery whether it was indeed the hand of a benefactor, that brought me forth from the chambers of non-entity, and gave me place and entertainment in that glowing territory, which is lighted up with the hopes and happiness of living men. It is thus that the very conception of a God throws a responsibility after it; and that duty, solemn and important duty, stand associated with the thought of a possible deity, as well as with the sight of a present deity, standing in full manifestation before us. Even anterior to all knowledge of God, or when that knowledge is in embryo, there is both a path of irreligion and a path of piety; and that law which denounces the one and gives to the other an approving testimony, may find in him who is still in utter darkVOL. X. 41 ness about his origin and his end, a fit subject for the retributions which she deals in. He cannot be said to have borne disregard to the will of that God, whom he has found. But his is the guilt of impiety, in that he has borne disregard to the knowledge of that God, whom he was bound by every tie of gratitude to seek after-a duty not founded on the proofs that may be exhibited for the being of a God, but a duty to which even the most slight and slender of presumptions should give rise.' Vol. I. pp. 68, 69. A moral force is thus brought to bear on the individual who is farthest from God, and which ceases not to urge him forward, if he yield to its dictates, to a landing in christianity, a happy reconciliation with God, and a holy and joyous fellowship, that bears in its very nature the stamp of immortality. For, 666 'He that doeth truth," says the Savior, "cometh to the light." He that is rightly affected by the ethics of the question, cometh to the objects and thus an entrance is made on the field of the Celestial Ethics, and possession taken by the mind of at least one section of it-Natural Theology. But after this is traversed, and the ulterior or revealed Theology has come into prospect, we hold that the same impulse which carried him onwards to the first, will carry him onwards to the second.' Vol. I. p. 94. In the two chapters immediately succeeding, the metaphysics which have been employed by Dr. Clarke in the proof of God, and by Hume in evading the proof, are considered. The argument of Clarke, that infinite space and eternal duration are necessary, involving a contradiction in the very supposition of their non-existence, and that consequently they must be the properties of a being, who is alike necessary, involving a like contradiction in the very supposition of his non-existence,-that is, of a self-existent and infinite being,-is represented as being subtle, rather than conclusive, and as operating, even if it were conclusive, by its very abstruseness, to impede, rather than favor conviction in the mass of minds. To the reply which is given to the argument of Hume, the author, in his preface, has requested the judgment of the more thoughtful of his readers. The argument of that infidel and atheistic writer is based on the position, that experience is necessary in order to ascertain the actual sequences in nature. The sequences are admitted to be established and invariable; but it is claimed, that the conjunction between any two terms in such a sequence, must be first observed by us, before we can infer at a future time, from the observation of only one of them, the existence of the other. Hence, as we never saw an instance of world-making, we have no experience on which we can found the conclusion, that the world has an antecedent or a maker. Reid and Stewart, in replying to this argument, have denied, that the inference of design, from its effects, is a result either of reasoning or experience, but have claimed, that it is founded on an intuitive judgment of the mind. But our author objects to the course taken by these philosophers, and chooses rather to base his reply on the very position of Hume, as being, in his view, the ground of truth: 'We concede to him his own premises-even that we are not entitled to infer an antecedent from its consequent, unless we have before had the completed observation of both these terms and of the succession between them. We disclaim the aid of all new or questionable principles in meeting his objection, and would rest the argument a posteriori for the being of a God, on a strictly experimental basis.' Vol. I. p. 138. Passing over the slow process by which Dr. Chalmers strips, one after another, the non-essentials, first from the antecedent, and next from the consequent, in a specific sequence, we will present barely the sum of the argument:-An individual sees, in his own case, by consciousness, the connection between his own mind and some contrivance which springs from it; and from this experience he infers, when he sees a like contrivance executed by another, that it proceeded from a like antecedent, a thinking and contriving mind in him; or when he sees the contrivance itself only, he infers, that some designing mind gave it its origin. Nor is the inference which thus began in his own experience, confined to one kind of mechanism or one kind of artificer; it matters not whether it be a watch, a house, or a steamboat, that is before him, or whether it proceeded from a carpenter, a joiner, or watchmaker; his inference, that it proceeded from a mind of commensurate wisdom and power, is but applying to the given case, the generality which lay in the germ of his first and constant experience of causation in the actings of his own mind. Though, therefore, the world is a singular and special effect, which he has not competent power to produce, and which he never saw produced by one that is competent; yet, his experience in its general conclusion,-that the adaptation of means to an end, springs from an intelligent mind, clearly carries with it as a consequent, that it is an effect. He ascends by a sure stepping-stone," from the seen handi-work of man, to the unseen handi-work of God;" for, the adaptation of means to an end, that which is the essential thing in the sequent, established by his experience,-is as discernible in the framework of the world, as in any frame-work of human art. In our view, the position of Hume, as he himself states and defends it, is untrue; for it implies, that for every special effect we must have observed the antecedent; whereas mankind universally infer from the inspection of a particular species of mechanism, that it sprung from an intelligent author, whether they ever contrived the same species themselves, or saw the same made by others. But as the position is modified and restricted by Chalmers to refer to a general sequent,-to the essential and not the circumstantial, found in a special sequent,-it passes into a verity. At least, the power of the mind to produce mechanical contrivance, is so far a matter of experience at least, as that the power must first be called into exercise, either in adjusting the parts of some contrivance ourselves, or in comprehending some contrivance that is presented to us, before we see, by intuition, that the mind is the proper and real cause of contrivance. But, we think, the belief may be originated and sustained by the action of our minds in comprehending a piece of mechanism presented to our view, as truly as by the direct act of striking out an original contrivance. For the general truth, that it is mind which plans, which thinks, is as obvious to consciousness in comprehending, as it is in striking out a plan,-in following, as it is in guiding a train of thought. And the order of the world favors most the idea of this method of receiving our earliest convictions. For we begin existence, not as planners, contrivers, and inventors, so much as pupils; not in workshops, to perform or witness the varied elaborations of art, but in the family, with all the means and appliances of busy life around us. The thought just presented, suggests a distinction we would make on the subject of causation, which, however, we will omit to state just now, in order first to present to our readers the subject to which we would apply it-the subject of the Second Book in the work before us the proofs for the being of a God in the dispositions of matter. In managing this argument from the manifestation of design in the external world, Dr. Chalmers presents, clearly, the distinction between the collocations and arrangements of matter and the laws of matter, and by showing the inadequacy of the laws of matter to account for the arrangement of matter, sweeps away the favorite and most plausible subterfuge erected by the atheist, and moves decidedly in advance of Paley in the power he gives to this part of the theistic argument. But in order to show that the world with all its arrangements had an origin, he immediately forsakes the argument from design, and rests the whole conclu |