of imposture and fanaticism. Let us not flatter ourselves that credulity and fanaticism are confined to the Mormons: or that they furnish the only specimens of religious delusion sufficiently prevalent and flagrant to call for the compassion of the wise and the pious. He who supposes so, has studied the religious condition of our country with very little success. What inference, then, are we to make from such an admitted fact? That our hopes of the enlargement and peace of Zion are extravagant and unfounded? A little consideration will enable us to answer this question in the negative. It is no new thing in the history of Christianity, that the same age should be characterized by a real progress in the knowledge and prevalence of true religion on the one hand, and by many and disgraceful outbreakings of fanaticism and imposture on the other.

Nor is it difficult to point out the cause of this combination of opposite phenomena, seemingly resulting from the same causes. When a false principle has been admitted into the religious system of any community, it has a constant tendency to work out its own results, both logical and practical, more and completely, with each successive generation. A point at length is reached in the progress of that community at which those results become obvious and apparent to all. A threefold division of the popular mind may now be expected to take place. One party adheres still to the principle, and pushes it out boldly to all its consequences, however absurd in theory, however ruinous in practice. Those constitute the fanatical class. A second rejects with scorn and contempt the whole system of doctrines with which the false principle has been associated, without any discrimination or reservation. This class embraces the various forms and grades of religious skepticism. Others still, we fear, often a small and feeble band, adhere with attachment and conviction to the great truths of religion, and address themselves with discrimination to the work of eliminating the false principle which has produced all this mischief, and so dreadfully disgraced the respectable society into which it has been admitted. What we have here said of one false principle is of course equally true of many.

Such, we are persuaded, is the true philosophy of the present state of religious society in these United States, and indeed throughout Christendom; and nowhere is the conflict of these three conflicting forms of religious influence so fierce and so universal as in our country, and especially among the alluvial popula

tion of the new States of the West. If this then is our condition, if the time has really come when our American Zion must either throw off the last remains of the great apostasy, and stand forth in the full freedom and power of the gospel, or sink under her burdens, and fall an easy prey to her enemies; if this struggle is actually commenced, and going on around us, then how natural the occurrence of disorganization, confusion, and fanaticism! And how reasonable to expect the fiercest assaults of all the powers of darkness and spiritual despotism! If this is our condition, how solemn, how responsible is that condition! The man who would act well his part in such a crisis, has something more to do than blindly to adhere to a favorite creed or cherished system, and look with mingled anger and contempt on what he supposes to be the hosts of error around him. It is his duty to his God to scrutinize every phenomenon of religious society around him, and to trace it, if possible, to its proper moral cause, with as much care and patience as the astronomer scrutinizes the phenomena of the heavens. It is his duty to bring every doctrine, and every practice, to the test of God's word, and to abandon all as worthless which cannot abide that test; and while he is made to feel, as surely he must, that all else in the moral world is but writing on the sand, to be washed out by the next wave of the swelling ocean of discussion, to rest assured that the word of God is a rock, which shall not be removed from its place by all the tumult and commotion around it. We are mistaken in our judgment, or the darkest omen in the signs of the times is, that there is so little of this true Christian philosophy. God grant it may be multiplied a hundred fold to our American Zion.

ARTICLE V.

THE ECONOMY OF NATURE SUBORDINATE TO THE MORAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD.

By Rev. George Duffield, D. D., Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Detroit.

THE visible universe is adapted to produce, in the mind of a reflecting observer, the conviction of its perpetuity. At first

glance, indeed, appearances of decay and dissolution strike the eye, which, associated with the conviction of our own mortality, make the contrary impression. A second and more scrutinizing view, however, corrects the impression, and convinces us, that all the forms and processes of dissolution which we witness, are but the regular changes taking place in an endless series of being. The acorn breaks and liberates the germ of the stately oak, which, having evolved its innumerous offspring, crumbles in decay, depositing its own substance in the earth, to feed and enrich their growth. One generation passeth away, and another cometh, with the utmost certainty and regularity. Throughout the whole range of animated being, as life decays and disappears in one, it reappears and flourishes in another. And this alternation of life and death, this regular progression in the series of animated beings, is as fixed and uniform as the changes which occur in the physical world. The sun rises and goeth down, and returneth to his place again. The moon waxes and wanes, and passes through her monthly phases and revolutions. The planets sweep their orbits through immense circles of the universe, and preserve the vast cycles of their revolutions with uninterrupted uniformity. Summer and winter, seed time and harvest never fail. The tides have their ebbings and floodings; and the vapor, condensed and precipitated in the showers that refresh the earth, is transmitted through springs and rivulets and larger streams, till it is again borne in its elastic form from the bosom of the ocean, to repeat its revolution. And these processes have gone on, with as much uniformity in the wilderness and desert, as in the cultivated region. Nothing arrests the course of nature. All things, in this respect, continue the same as they were from the beginning of creation. Annihilation forms no feature of the physical government of God.

From this fact, the mind of man has drawn different inferences. Under the guidance of infidelity, it has been led to question the existence of a God, and the reality of a divine moral government altogether, and to reject and scoff at the day of final retribution. The scoffers of whom Peter prophesied, appear in these last days, walking after their own hearts' lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For, since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," 2 Pet. 3: 4. The uniform course of providence, and the delay on the part of God, to interfere in any miraculous manner, to punish the crimes of men,

have emboldened the wicked to attribute to priestcraft and to ambition of spiritual power, all they hear about the guilt and danger of violating the moral law of God. And science is sometimes adduced to countenance skepticism, and to fortify the minds of men against their apprehensions of coming wrath. Astronomy volunteers its aid to the human eye, as it traverses the immensity of space, and introducing us to worlds and systems, whose revolutions and cycles, compared with those of earth, are like eternity, compared with time, boastfully inquires, Are all these to be extinguished? Is this frail diminutive creature, man, the moral centre of the creation? Is this little globe of primary importance in the general system of the universe, or entitled in any respect of magnitude, position, relation, or constitution, to be regarded as exerting an influence over others? Shall man, remote in his position, low in his origin, insignificant in his abode, claim to be under the government of law, and anticipate adjudications and treatment different from that, which, in common with all the animated tribes of earth, he shares in the physical government of the material universe? If he violates the law of his physical being, it is admitted, he must suffer, as do the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea: but as to danger affecting his future and eternal relations, growing out of his violation of the moral law, many declare themselves to be perfectly incredulous. In the former case, the evil ensues immediately on the violation of a law of nature; but, in the latter case," because judgment against an evil work is not speedily executed, therefore, the hearts of men are wholly set in them to do evil." But, however skeptical men may affect to be, in relation to a divine moral government, and the certainty of its retributions, the Lord Jesus Christ has taught, in the most explicit manner, that God is more tenacious of his moral, than of his physical government, and that less may be hoped for from any change in the former than in the latter. The entire constitution of the visible universe, so far as human nature stands affected by it, may and will undergo a change, but there shall never be the slightest deviation from the grand eternal principles of right and truth, which God has made the basis of his moral government. If we think it difficult, that a change should take place in ponderous globes, and revolving suns and systems, Christ says, "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than one tittle of the law to fail," Luke 16: 17.

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The truth here taught is obviously, that the entire economy of nature is subordinate to the moral government of God. God would sooner, and could with more ease, obliterate the heavens and the earth, than alter his law, or allow its precepts and provisions, in the least respect, to be violated with impunity. In elucidating this interesting and solemn truth, it may be remarked:

I. That IT is REASONABLE TO BELIEve, from the nature of THE CASE, THAT IT MUST BE SO. The material universe is a sublime system of machinery, adjusted and balanced with the utmost skill, on the part of its great Architect. Everywhere are to be found traces of design in its structure. The order, arrangement, and motions of its various parts, all indicate the power and wisdom of Him, by whom the worlds were made and are upheld. But in all this great clock-work of creation, there are no vested rights, nothing necessarily affecting the interests and obligations of intelligent and accountable beings. The universe of mind alone is under the moral government of God. It is in the relations of rational beings, that we talk of mutual rights. Whatever changes, therefore, are made in the visible heavens and earth, they do not, in themselves, affect the rights and obligations existing between God and man. They are but new phases of the wisdom, and goodness, and power of the Creator. Revelation assures us, that they will and do wax old as a garment, and, as a vesture, they are changed by the Almighty, when fallen into decay. All such changes, however, serve only to reflect more intensely the glory of the divine power and majesty, just as we admire the wisdom of God, in the varying structure and functions of the worm, as it passes through different stages, from the egg to the chrysalis. But where the rights, and hopes, and interests, of rational and accountable creatures stand affected, changes, in the laws affecting them, become dangerous and improper. A government may level mountains, may drain marshes, and dig canals, turn the course of rivers, and fill up valleys, and change the soil and appearance of the face of the country, and get all the renown which is due to splendid improvements, but they no sooner annul laws, which vest rights, and become capricious or unrighteous in enactments, affecting the interests of their citizens or subjects, than they tarnish the glory of their moral character, and destroy the spirit of patriotism and love of country essential to their welfare. Now, God has a moral character, the maintenance