we have noticed, they do so in direct contradiction the one to the other. Under such circumstances, it is certainly not at all becoming for them either to boast very loudly of the superior clearness of the new light which they have discovered, or to speak in very harsh and censorious terms of the moral and religious differences of their predecessors and cotemporaries. This is the more obvious from the fact, that many of the topics about which they differ are fundamental to all morals and all religion. If any questions in ethics are fundamental, those which have respect to the nature we are studying, and the standard by which it is to be tested, are so. If any questions in religion are vital, those which have regard to the Godhead, to a future state, and to a radical change of man's moral nature by a Divine power, must be enumerated among them. Men who differ on inquiries like these, cannot be expected to harmonize on other material points. The system which leaves an open door for divergence here, ought to be very careful how it vaunts its authority, or boasts of its utility.

From a contemplation of the discordance which exists among these expounders of this new system of morals, we pass to view their opposition to some of the plainest instructions of the Divine word.

Here we owe a passing remark to the position which they assume in respect to the authority of the Scriptures. They affirm that their phrenological system is to be taken as an interpreter of the written Word. This view may be allowed, where there is any real ambiguity in the language of the Bible itself; where the laws of exegesis do not afford us a clear and intelligible explanation. If cases like these really occur, we may call in the aid of natural and mental science, when these have any real applicability to the subjects which we are investigating, to enable us to ascertain "the mind of the Spirit." When, on the other hand, the grammatical construction of a Scriptural declaration is plain, and its meaning obvious, then to attempt from other sources to give it a different construction, and to affix to it another meaning, is to contradict, and not to explain the Scriptures, and he who does it is guilty of "handling

the Word of God deceitfully." These remarks, as it seems to us, apply with full force to the works now under consideration.

Let us, first of all, examine their teachings in regard to the great doctrine of a Special Providence.

Upon this point Mr. Fowler, speaking of Phrenology,

says:

"About Providential interposition it knows nothing. Whatever effects do not result from causation, or especially whatever interrupts causation, it discards. Nature never allows any thing to step in between causes and effects.'-Page 107.

Again:

"We die in spite of Providence, instead of by its hand." In a similar spirit Mr. Combe says: "There are those who believe that God by spe cial acts of Providence, or particular manifestations of his power, rewards and punishes men's actions in a manner not connected, by any natural link of cause and effect, with their offences, or at least so remotely connected that the link is not discernible by human sagacity." Of this view he says, that it appears to him "to be erroneous, a great fountain of superstition, at once derogatory to the dignity of the Divine Ruler, and injurious to the moral, intellectual and religious character of his subjects."-Page 47.

We need hardly remind our readers how utterly opposed are all these views to the teachings of the Word of God. One word, however, before we proceed to this point, upon the metaphysics of the above quotation from Mr. Fowler. Nobody pretends to believe that events happen without causation. What the believers in a special Providence affirm, and what, it seems to us, the Bible most clearly teaches, is that God, the great Author of creation, and the fountain of all causation, has often suspended, and does now in the ordinary workings of his hand, often vary, the influence of the laws of Nature,-which phrase, by the way, rightly understood, is only another expression for the ordinary method of God's working-in order to reward the good, to punish the evil, or to accomplish other important purposes in His administration. When this intervention takes place in what are to us the invisible links of the chain of cause and effect, we call it Providence, when it is done in that part of it which is open to our inspection, we name it Miracle.

The doctrines above propounded, in their very terms, deny both these kinds of the Divine interference, inasmuch as they assert that the natural order of events is never interrupted, and that all things move on in an unvarying and immutable chain of cause and effect. Of course, on

this theory, miracles are impossible, and the accounts of the standing still of the sun and moon, of Daniel in the den of lions, of the three children in the fiery furnace, of the raising of Lazarus, and of Peter released by the angel from prison, together with all the other records of the special and direct interference of God in the affairs of men, are myths, with no reality, and no existence. On the same principles, the declarations of the Bible which teach the safety of the people of God, and which inculcate the great truth that God preserves them in the midst of danger; that "the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them," must all be untrue.

Opposed to all such views as these, the Scriptures uniformly speak of the events of the world's history, as the result of the constant, superintending Providence of God. We must not now pause to dwell upon particular examples, as we most profitably might do. The whole sacred history is full of direct declarations that the safety of good men, and the punishment of the wicked, even when they occur in accordance with the ordinary working of natural law, are often the result of the special and direct interposition of the Divine hand. Yet more, on the principles laid down by our authors, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment of the world are impossibilities. The principle affirmed, be it remembered, is that "Nature never allows any thing to step in between causes and effects." Now of all causes and effects, as seen by us, the death of the body, and its consequent corruption and dissolution, are the most universal and uniform in their exhibition and influence. We behold the body cold in death, and decaying under the unvarying operation of natural causes, and since, on their theory, these effects are never interfered with, the hour can never come when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they that hear shall live.”

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Such a theory of Divine Providence is manifestly fatal to some of the most peculiar and glorious doctrines of the Word of God. It is not only opposed to some of the most interesting assurances and promises of revealed truth, but it levels a blow at the greatest evidences of inspiration, and, if entertained, necessarily destroys all confidence in the representations which are given us of the final consummation of all things. It is a step farther in the road of Infidelity, than the celebrated argument of Hume against the miracles recorded in the Scriptures. That only denied the sufficiency of the evidence that miracles had been wrought, this declares that it is impossible that they should ever occur.

Closely connected with this view of the providence of God, is the denial, by Mr. Fowler, of any such thing as chastisement, in the administration of the Divine government. He says: "Afflictive providences do not exist. All pain is but punishment, not providences; the natural consequences of violated law, not Divine chastisements."Page 108.

We will not stop now to inquire what distinction Mr. Fowler here intends to make between chastisement and punishment, or whether, as often occurs with him, he has been uttering little else than high-sounding nonsense, in the sentence which we have just cited. Passing this, we have to do with the denial here of the direct Divine agency, in the calamitous events which overtake men. To all these oracular dogmas, which he does not even attempt to prove, we oppose the explicit declarations of Scripture, teaching that God "turns a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein;" that he brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly, and that he chastises his people for their profit, "that they might be partakers of his holiness." In the Scriptural examples to which we have now referred, we apprehend it would puzzle even Mr. Fowler, to tell us by what natural law barrenness of the earth was made the punishment of sin, or a flood the retribution of ungodliness. We do not see how such examples, and such declarations from the Word of God, can be reconciled with the dogma, that all pain "is the natural

consequence of violated law." When Mr. Fowler shall tell us how famine, flood, and fire and brimstone from God out of heaven, are natural issues of a broken law, we shall have some further difficulties to present to his consideration. For example, when he has disposed of what has now been said, we should be inclined to ask him, by what violations of natural law it happens that one man's labors are drowned by a swollen river, as it sweeps over the plain, and bears away the fruit of long years of toil in utter ruin? By what organic statute invaded, does a whirlwind rush over his houses and his fields, and mingle the results of architectural skill and the ripened harvests of the earth in indiscriminate desolation? As the penalty of what natural requirement transgressed, do the storms that howl in desolation along the sky, consign him to the unfathomed depths of an ocean grave, or the forked lightnings strike with their tongues of fire, and leave him cold in death? Plainly his theory of God's providential government is at war alike with the clearest teachings of the Bible, and with the plainest lessons of human experience. If these be the teachings of Phrenology, most obviously they are not those of common sense, of daily and constant observation, or of that Word which God has revealed.

Let us pass from this view of the providence of God, to contemplate what these men affirm to be the teachings of this science in regard to the influence of prayer, and its relations to the bestowal of blessings, either upon the suppliant himself, or upon others, in behalf of whom he intercedes. They admit that prayer has an influence, but it is an influence upon men only, and that, not by procuring for them any gifts from above, which they would not otherwise have enjoyed, but simply by the states of mind which it induces in the petitioner himself, or in those for whom he prays. Thus Mr. Fowler says:

"This science shows,-all nature shows, that the whole universe, God himself included, is governed by immutable, unalterable laws, that causes and effects reign supreme, and allow not the least chance for prayer to effect the least change in effects, because it cannot change their causes.”—Page 103.