the nature of the mind, as in some of its relations to the Supreme Being. A being, invisible and infinite, cannot so easily be made, nor so distinctly, an object of contemplation. These obstacles, I think, however, are exaggerated; and they are by no means so great as those which our own mistakes have interposed in the ways of piety.

When children are acquiring their first ideas of God and of their duty to him, I apprehend that there are many things told and taught to them, which although true and right in themselves, are inculcated prematurely, and with too little preparation. The parent teaches his child, perhaps, that God sees him continually, in the darkness and in the light; or teaches him, with too little explanation, that God is displeased, is angry with him, when he does wrong; or instructs him that he must pray, and obliges him to go through with that formal action, without making it a sufficiently sincere, grateful, and real homage.

The first idea which a child can gain at all, of moral qualities, is from the experience of his own heart. There should begin his idea of the Divinity. From the love within him, he should be taught that God loves all beings. From the moral approbation or displeasure he feels in himself, he should be taught how God approves the good, and condemns the bad. Next, his parent should be to him the image of God; and from his love to that parent, and from all that parent has done for him, he should be led to consider how easy and how reasonable it is that he should love God. God should be made a real and ever-present Being to

him, and not the image of a being, a Monarch, or a Master, seated on a throne, in the far-distant heavens.

Instead of this natural method of teaching the knowledge of God, I fear that which is usually adopted is extremely artificial, technical, and constrained, and very little adapted to make any clear or agreeable impression. And I am persuaded that the same method adopted in regard to an earthly parent would tend powerfully to repress the filial sentiment towards him.

In order to make the cases, as far as may be, equal, we must suppose the parent to be absent from his child; absent let it be imagined, in a foreign country; and his child has never seen him. And now my sup

position proceeds.

The child is told of this parent. But how told? I will suppose it to be, with a manner always strange and constrained, with a countenance mysterious and forbidding, with a tone unusual and awful. Instead of being taught to lisp amidst his innocent prattlings, the name of father, to speak that name, as if there were a charm about it, to associate with the idea of that father, all brightness, benignity, and love; instead of this ease, simplicity, and tenderness, he is called away from his sports, and plays, he is made to stand erect, and attentive; and then he is told of his father. He is told, indeed, that his father is good, and loves him; but the words fall lightly upon his ear; they make little or no impression, while the manner, the countenance, the tone, sink into his heart, and tell him far more effectually, that there is something strange and stern about this father, and that he cannot love such a being. Yet this is the very thing on which the main stress is laid.

He is told that he must love his parent. He is constantly urged and commanded to love him. He is warned continually that his father will be very much displeased, if he does not love him. He is admonished that all the good things he enjoys, were sent to him by his parent, and he is exhorted to be grateful. He is shown a book-a fearful book of laws, which this parent has written for him to obey, and told that he will be punished if he is undutiful. And to complete this system of influences, he has it continually held up before him, that his father will, ere long, send for him, and if he should find a lack of duty, gratitude, and love, he will cast him into a dismal prison, where he will have to spend his whole remaining life in misery and despair!

Now I ask if any child could love such a parent? And yet I aver that this is the manner in which most men have been taught the love of God. Is it strange, then, that they do not love him? Does their want of this love, show that their very nature is opposed to God? As well might you prove from the case just stated, that the nature of a child is opposed to his parent; that it is natural to all children to hate their pa

rents.

But it is time that I should draw my reflections to a close; and I do so by intreating my reader, if he has never yet cherished the love of God, if he has never yet felt the blessedness of religious contemplations and affections; by intreating him to distrust that part of his education; to distrust the influences under which his indifference or aversion to religion has been formed. Do not conclude that religion was not designed

for you; that your nature has no aptitude for it, nor want of it; and that it must be wrenched from its strongest biasses in order to become religious. Believe not in your teachers; confide not-no, not in your parents; trust not in any thing that would make you mere children of earth and sense; no matter how reverend in office, or imposing in authority; reverence not that which will thus lead you astray. Admit the holy and blessed affection of piety into your heart, and you shall find that it is no form, no irksome restraint, no dull compliance with duty, merely; but spirit—but freedom-but life: life to your heart; the beginning of a new life—of the life everlasting.

D.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

There is perhaps no point which he who is endeav oring to think out his religious views for himself, finds it so hard to settle as the exact connection between the salvation of man and the death of Jesus Christ. He perceives much that is objectionable in the common opinions on this head. The death of our Saviour is generally represented as conducing to human salvation by satisfying the justice of God, by answering the claims of the Divine Law. Man, it is said, is exposed on account of a sinful nature to the eternal wrath of God. And he is saved from his dreadful doom by the sufferings of Christ, which are received by the Father as a full equivalent for the execution of his vengeance

upon every soul of man. But where, the serious and candid inquirer is disposed to ask, where is the goodness of God all the while? Is it not contrary to every idea that can be formed of benevolence, to represent God as bringing his creatures into being under an eternal curse which cannot be remitted until its fury has been spent somewhere-upon some devoted head? But this view of the death of Christ seems to be inconsist

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ent not only with the divine mercy, but with every notion that can be entertained of Justice, although of Justice it is supposed to be an eminent illustration. Justice is not satisfied by a certain amount of mere suffering. It does not look to the mere infliction of pain. The claim of justice is, that the guilty should suffer. And it is not answered, it is directly defeated by any scheme that shifts the punishment of sin from the guilty to the innocent. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.' This is the language of scripture and the plain dictate of natural justice. The death of our Saviour then, as it is frequently described, is to be reconciled neither with the justice nor with the mercy of God. Besides, is it not calculated to lift from the minds of men the weight of personal responsibility and give them room to say, Why should we be so afraid to sin? The wrath of God has been quenched in the blood of Christ. An infinite price has been paid for the sins of the world. Is not our salvation sure?'

In the foregoing paragraph I have not even attempted to state all the objections to the common doctrine