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When I see a new moral theory springing up in other churches and denominations, I care little. about the matter; considering the theorist to be, among his party, a very innoxious animal. But when I see a theorist among Calvinists, I tremble. This oddity of temperament; or, as the great American physician would call it, this idiosyncracy of constitution, has arisen, I suspect, from the following causes. The peculiar attribute which has distinguished the Calvinistic sect, in all nations, and in all ages, is a firm and stubborn faith. I use these epithets in their fullest and most favourable sense; a Calvinist will believe God's word, but he will believe nothing else, in matters of religion. Talk to him of the decisions of ten thousand councils, he cares nothing about them, and indeed, rarely gives himself trouble to know any thing about them. Talk to him of moral theories, expand their beauties, display their uses he listens patiently, and when you have done, laconically quotes at you a text of scripture. In short, the head of a Calvinist is bullet proof against any cannon of any calibre, unless the bullet be a text of scripture. This is not satire. It is only truth with a benevolent smile; and I treat that lady, as I do all her sex, I prefer her smiles to her frowns by far. I mention it to the honour of that section of the christian church; and I mention it as the great secret of their characteristic firmness in doctrine, and other matters connected with doctrine.

But causes produce effects. And this characteristic devotion to faith has been the cause, that while no sect has been so rich in sound theologians, who have taught the pure doctrines of the gospel, who have enforced its pure morality, who have conducted afflicted souls through all the mysteries and mazes of Satanic tempt

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ations, and saintly feelings and experience; no sect has been so poor in moral philosophers. I cannot recollect the name of one single moral philosopher in the whole, I mean a philosopher with a theory. Whenever such a philosopher has appeared, he has led off his column from the army, and formed a new encampment, at first bidding defiance to his ancient friends, and afterwards making war on them. Such were Arius, Socinus, Wesley, Priestley, and others. I mention these names only as exemplifications of the fact, that a Calvinist with a new theory always leads off his column from the grand army; but I protest against ranking them together as equals.

Perhaps the instance of president Edwards may be quoted against me; but I do not think it ought. He was the cause, he sowed the seed, of the Hopkinsian sect; but if he were back on earth, with the principles he had when he left it, he would not join those who call themselves his pupils. And even he is a strong proof, that the moment a Calvinist turns philosopher, there is a danger of a schism. Is the doctrine of the bible then in opposition to philosophy? No: That is not my meaning. It is philosophical, most philosophical; infinite wisdom cannot establish a constitution which shall not be infinitely philosophical.

But my meaning is, that the philosophy of Christianity is by far too vast and too profound to be understood, till the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of the human mind, and the philosophy of man in general, as a sentient, intelligent, social being, has made great advances. We can, however, enjoy Christianity without its philosophy: as Pliny enjoyed the sun, when his philosophy had ascertained no more than that it was just a little bigger than Mount Athos. I can eat my dinner without being a chymist, or a phi

sologist. I can enjoy the light of the sun, whether I believe he moves or stands still. By looking in the almanac, I can tell when it will be flood tide at market street wharf, whether I can calculate the moon's situa tion in her orbit or not; and it is the easiest course; and the very one that the best astronomer in the city of Philadelphia would resort to. Go to your Bible for the rule of your faith, and leave Jesus Christ to answer for its philosophy: assure yourselves that he who is the wisdom of the Father, will, in the end, flout at the wisdom of those who impeached the philosophy of his gospel.

Jonathan Edwards had all the talents requisite to form a systematic moralist: acuteness and grasp of intellect, coolness and patience in investigation, a tho rough power of reading all that was going on in his own bosom, great acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, great experience of the work of the holy spirit on his own heart, much experience of the ingratitude, injustice, and cruelty of men; he loved truth, he adored truth as an attribute of his God; he felt the power of investigating truth to be the peculiar talent God had given him, and was as free as any man from base ambition and vanity. Every one of these elements is essential to the composition of a systematic moralist.*

* Ought not good humour to be added to this enumeration of the elements of a good metaphysician? Thirty years ago, the great Dr. Reid was emeritus professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow: whenever he appeared on the walks of the college green, every eye was turned to him; every student gave the word, there's Dr. Reid. And yet his great talents and science were never thought of. His gentleness, his kindness, his simplicity, his amiability, made the whole impression. It was not the great man that was admired, but the good man, the good old

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But he went to work too soon. In his days, the philosophy of mind was in babyhood. He laboured also under some hallucinations of mind, which have led astray many of the ablest of the human race. He went out in quest of a radical truth, a radical virtue; from which all truth, all virtue, must descend, by legitimate logical deduction. And he seems to have thought, that if we have an absolutely certain knowledge of two truths, it must be possible to trace the connecting links which bind them together. The sect which sprung out of his tomb, is celebrated for extreme logical subtlety; and use weapons so delicately pointed, that nobody but themselves can see their point, nor be absolutely certain whether they have any point at all. But their conclusions confound and terrify. Like Hobbes, the best logician ever England produced, they land you in conclusions that you are sure are wrong.

The churches are in awful troubles. Satan has great wrath, because he knows his time is short. And he manages with admirable dexterity. This is a philosophical age, and men will think, and

patriarch, the grandfather of them all, that they venerated and loved. Bishop Berkley was a most chivalrous philanthropist. John Locke was a good humoured facetious companion. Who ever saw in the christian church, an ill-natured man, who had the slightest pretensions to the name of a metaphysician? On the contrary, all the deistical and atheistical metaphysicians are ill-natured and malignant-selfish, retiring within their own shell; without friendship; their ambition, their interest, engrossing all their soul. So destitute of affection to their kind, that they cannot love even a woman :--so conscious of dishonesty, that they can trust nobody; and hence few of them ever marry. They wrote their systems for their own fame and profit, and to do evil to a race they cordially hated. They mixed their poisons because they intended to kill.

thought discovers truth, and truth is naturally prometive of piety, virtue, peace and happiness; it is his policy, therefore, to corrupt truth at its fountain. He is taking the brilliant discoveries of this age, in all sorts of philosophy, and converting them into machines to batter down the fortress of the christian faith, or to corrupt its fountains by deleterious infusions. To arms then, ye sons of the brave: but let no man rein a steed on this field who cannot establish his title to that honour, by the scars and experience of twenty campaigns. One who has the true coup d'œil; one who can estimate his enemies' force as well as his own; who sees at a glance the meaning of every movement, and quicker than lightning, has a counter movement to meet it; one who knows and has poised every weapon on each side of the war. But keep back the youth, or rather let them have the discretion to keep back themselves. One of them will do more harm than a hundred of them are worth.

Willingly would I suppress what I am going to say, could I reconcile the suppression to a sense of duty. But somebody must be found to tell young preachers their duty, on the same terms that they impress duty on the consciences of their audience-eternal responsi bility to the Son of God. And I wish the application to be as extensive as the applicability of the remarks. I would tell young preachers, then, that Jesus Christ has sent them to preach his holy gospel, to gather in the travail of his soul, to feed his lambs, to visit the forsaken, to find out the forgotten, and to bind up the broken hearted. And they are to preach his gospel as his own word, sanctioned by his own authority; and not to permit themselves to be questioned why, and how, and wherefore these things can be. While you

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