THE COURT. Her Majesty and Prince Albert have aştended Divine Service every Sunday morning during the past month, except the 16th. On the 2nd at St. George's Chapel, Windsor; on the 9th at the Chapel Royal, St. James's; and on the 23rd in the Drawing Room at Clare mont. MISCELLANEOUS. PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT.-In the List of Petitions presented to the House of Commons between the 27th of Jan. and 30th of April, the following ap : pear: 369.. 38,139 Petitions. Signatures. Ellerker Braintree Bradford Wisbech Horncastle Rate refused. Ditto. Ditto, Ditto. Rate carried. The following is Dr. Lushington's opinion: placed, among which was one, that according to the Holy Scriptures, miraculously recovered life by touching the prophet. Many holy persons who were resuscitated at the death of our Saviour, were entombed out of Jerusalem, for it is written in the Scriptures, "they returned into that city." Every city had its public cemetery beyond the wall. A custom so constant, among a people who had received it from God, and who always very strictly observed it, ought to be considered as paramount authority among Christians. METROPOLITAN STATISTICS OF CRIME, 1840. No less than 70,717 individuals were taken into custody last year, and according to the returns in the police sheet, there were-Labourers generally, 18,105; artisans, 123; bakers, 141; bookbinders, 218; bricklayers, 908; brass-founders, 287; brokers, 91; brushmakers, 146; butchers, 754; buttonmakers, 10; carpenters, 1,523 clerks, 405; coach and cabmen, 1,319; coachmakers, 273; cork-cutters, 92; curriers, 151; cutlers, 159; drapers, 138; dyers, 220; engineers, 101; fishmongers, 202; French polishers, 709; gardeners, 523; glass-makers, 155; gold-beaters, 88; green-grocers, 85; grocers, 247; hair"A certain parish in vestry assembled dressers, 142; hatters, 196; jewellers, having refused to lay a Church-rate for 178; lawyers, 29; laundresses, 1,040; repairs and Divine ordinances, your medical men, 72; milliners, 1,091; opinion is requested in the following musicians, 69; painters, 1,111; paperpoints. 1st, Is there any clear and un- stainers, 431; pawnbrokers, 71; printers, disputed law under which the Church- 509; sailors, 1,681; sawyers, 246; wardens can, in consequence of the re- sadlers, &c. 181; servants, 2,563; shopfusal of the parish, lay and levy a right keepers, 107; shoemekers, 1,967; smiths, of their own authority? 2nd, Is there 1,143; soldiers, 464; sweeps,300; tailors, any clear and undisputed law under 2,043; tinkers and tinmen, 418; toolwhich the Church wardens, if they re-makers, 56; watchmakers, 203; waterfuse to lay a rate themselves, can be effectually proceeded against and punished for their refusal? 3rd, Is there any clear and efficient law, under which the parishioners (who are numerous) can be proceeded against and punished for their refusal to lay a Church-rate? Opinion" I am of opinion that all these three questions must be answered in the negative; I consider the law to be doubtful and unsettled on each point." -S. Lushington. men, 280; weavers, 740; and persons professing no distinct trade or occupation, male and female as above, amounted to 25,220. The above table also shows the degree of instruction of each person taken into custody. Those who could neither read nor write amounted to 23,938; those who could read only, or read and write imperfectly, were 37,551; those who could read and write well, 8,121; and those of superior instruction, were 1,107, thus showing that in proportion to education, crime BURIAL IN CITIES ONLY A MODERN PRACTICE.-Elisha was inhumed in a diminished. grotto, where other bodies also were We proceed to present our annual tabular view of the pecuniary circumstances of our religious Societies. It seems to indicate some little increased attention to the wants of Home, but a diminution of exertion for foreign objects. d £53,303 of this sum arose from the sale of books. e Amount of Income not stated; but the grants made by the Society during the year were £31,000. j Received since the alteration of the Society on the 20th of November. Amount not stated; about this sum. Of this sum £1,273 arose from the sale of publications; it does not appear what is the proportion of income thus obtained by the other two Temperance Societies. THE EVANGELICAL REGISTER. JULY, 1841. IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. BY THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. Extracted from Notes of Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh. In arguing for the immortality of the soul, I agree with Reid and Stewart, in not making it depend on its immateriality. The writers in question proceed in the moral argument for the soul's immortality; but I would restrict that argument more than Stewart does. For every desire and faculty in man and in brutes, there seems to be a counterpart object. Whether it be an appetite or a power that is in question, there is something provided for its gratification; as light for the eye, air for the lungs, food for hunger, water for thirst, &c. There is an adaptation of the objective to the subjective. There are also prospective contrivances, to minister to desires not yet felt; such as organs in the embryo, which will be needed only by and bye. We also see dispositions to future actions; as in the case of the young calf butting with its head, though yet unfurnished with horns. And in man, we may find parallel signs of his future destiny. It seems to be a principle, that there is nothing of waste in nature; but were it not for immortality, man would present an exception to this rule; having powers of understanding and intellect, for which nothing is prepared in this world as an object. For instance: there is the power of investigating all the sciences, compared with his only partial acquaintance with some, and his total ignorance of many. He is capable of enjoying all the sciences, yet he cannot completely overtake one; for though definite at first, all the sciences have their outgoings to infinity. He alone labours under an incongruity between his capabilities and his circumstances; and thus, were it not for immortality, the favourite child of nature would be her greatest failure. Now this argument I would make to stand out from the moral argument. The latter I would make to rest on the questions of justice, unsettled in this life, between man and man, and between man and God. The first relate to the injuries inflicted by one man on another; as in the wholesale violence of the strong on the weak. Turn your eyes on Africa; whose weeping families are daily broken up, that the families of Europe may fare more deliciously. But even in cultivated society, in dependently of the highway-robbery, how much of injustice is there, veiled by the courtesies of life; such as in the case of the bankrupt rising in splendour, after having brought ruin on his creditors! For all these things, there is no adjustment here; but for that reason, we may be sure of one hereafter. The appetency of the heart for justice, is an appeal to Him who placed that appetency there; and if death were to leave these questions unsettled, we should feel that injustice had been done. But there is another set of unresolved questions; questions between man and his God. The hardiest offenders, in spite of themselves, have an impression of an avenging God. There is a ready transition from the conscience within, to the reckoning of a God who is the Author of conscience. They are led to this, not by hopes, but by fears; not by unfufilled promises, but by unfulfilled penalties. If there be no hereafter, the attributes of God are violated. Immortality alone can adjust all, and harmonise all. It is well said, by Davies-" Conscience and the present constitution of things VOL. XIII. 2 M are not correspondent; it is conscience and the issue of things, that go together." The view we have taken separates man from brutes; since the latter have no moral nature, or unsatisfied powers. They would seem to share with him in immortality, if the latter were based on the immateriality of the mind. We rest it on a more popular, but withal on a more powerful argument. An How little does the sense of immortality,-how little does its importance affect us! Yet man is a prospective animal; and may be said to live in futurity. He is more powerfully affected by future, than by present things; but they are the present things of this world, which things are not so distant as to be placed beyond death. The doctrine of immortality must be estimated by the strength of its arguments, and not by the strength of our attention to them. We invert arithmetic, when we ascribe to time the attributes and importance of eternity. It is a clear proof of the derangement, which our intellectual, not our moral, nature must have undergone; and it is such as to prepare us for our moral derangement too. attempt is made to account for the latter physically; but it does not do it rationally. It is said, there is something so horrible in the thought of death, that it is no wonder we are scared away from the thought of what is beyond. But this does not rationally account for our being so insensible to death, and what lies beyond it, though so alive to all that lies before it. The moan of death is ever sounding; families are breaking up, and old societies pulling down; but death itself is as much disregarded, as if it stretched away indefinitely before us, and were indeed in eternity. Our unmoved apathy of soul to all this, demonstrates the need of something higher to reform it. All below only makes us cling more closely to what is here. We are convinced of the necessity of regeneration; and are persuaded that to "set our affections on things above," an influence from above is necessary. We might make an appeal for the being of a God, counterpart to that which we have just advanced for the immortality of the soul. Does man feel and acknowledge his subordination to God? Or, while alive to the beauty and glory of creation, does he not treat the Creator as forgotten and unknown? We have spoken of man's intellectual derangement; we now speak of his moral derange ment. In the one case, he is a defaulter against the highest wisdom; in the other, against the highest principle. Without the aid of revelation, we may see derangement and delinquency on the two grand points of the being of a God and the immortality of the soul. We are in the likeliest attitude for valuing the overtures of the New Testament, if we see the unprovidedness of those men for eternity, who live unmindful of the God who made them, and who do not embrace the truths of revelation. A feeling of man's insensibity to these two great questions, is the best preparative for a higher, or super-induced theology. We like to consider Natural Theology as a science, not of data, but of desiderata; and as giving an appetency for some other science to resolve them. Natural Theology casts some light on the God above us, and the eternity before us; but it lands us in perplexing doubts about their real nature, and finds the problem inexplicable. It constructs the formula which it is not able to resolve. It is unsatisfactory, if treated as a terminal science; but beautiful, as an initial one. Between the questions of a natural, and the responses of a supernatural revelation, there is the adaptation of a form to its mould. By the unaided power of Natural Religion, we may reach a probable estimate of the natural and moral attributes of Deity; but of the relation between God and man it can tell nothing. It shows that man is convicted of guilt; but not how he is to be reconciled to the Lawgiver. Here is the chief obscurity, respecting the hope and destiny of the species, which it is wholly unable to disperse. It audibly emits a note of terror; but we must not expect a word of comfort from this oracle. There is enough to excite fears of danger; but not enough to quell them. It knows how to state the problem; but not how to solve it. This is a subject, on which we are least entitled to assume the confident air o demonstration. Some would overcome all difficulties, by merging all Divine attributes into a placid, undistinguishing tenderness. But we will not expound the *Colossians iii. 2. lessons of Natural Theology, without telling of its limits. Though grateful for the light of science, we do not bid you turn away from the sun's meridian blaze, to contemplate the dim and tiny lustre of the glow-worm. After traversing the preliminary ground of Natural Theology, we enter on the Evidences of Christianity. The first of these evidences is the historical argument; and if we succeed in establishing the competence of testimony to establish the truth of miracles, we shall be on high and firm ground for combating the infidelity of philosophers. The argument for miracles rests on observational evidence; addressed, primarily, to eyes and ears; and carried down to the times in which we live. We proceed on what is known of human nature, and on the principles of ordinary criticism; and we contrast the arguments thus derived with the presumptions conjured up from a region which is utterly unknown. It is a contest between facts and fantasies. Orthodoxy in religion is as firm as orthodoxy in science. AN ANTIDOTE FOR AN ANTINOMIAN ERROR. SECTION III. BY CELA TU S. MR. EDITOR.-The vast and paramount importance of the subject elucidated very briefly in our last section cannot less than be fully admitted and felt by every candid and enlightened reader. And throughout the whole of the Scriptures, among the amazing variety of the most sublime subjects that illumine the holy page, we can find none that surpasses this in point of real value. In fact, it is the most vital, and the most awfully momentous, that can possibly agitate the sympathising bosom of a pious evangelist, or occupy the undeviating attention of the mightiest intellect. Repentance is set forth in the New Testament, as capable of giving a louder tone to angelic joy, and of swelling the sweet music of the holy throng, that surround with the profoundest reverence the eternal throne. Hence we would fain herein offer some additional observations, illustrative of this all-absorbing doctrine. And indeed, the clearer we make our premises, the easier we shall accomplish the end we have in view; namely, of showing that it is anti-scriptural for Antinomians to prohibit Gospel ministers to urge home repentance upon the unconverted and inconsiderate, especially as the great Dispenser of this blessing has deigned to allow it to flow to thousands and tens of thousands through such a medium; but more on this hereafter. Howbeit, repentance is a doctrine, of which, we fear, multitudes upon multitudes form but very inadequate judgment; and concerning which, they wander in the perplexing maze of error and of self-deception. This is a lamentable fact, particularly as it is connected with a fundamental doctrine in the Word of God-a doctrine of life and of death; a misconception here is ruinous to the soul, but an experimental understanding of it is life and peace. In short, this is the threshold of that religion, which alone can prepare us for heaven. It is the first step into that holy temple, the sacred edifice of real Christianity. Yea, when we reduce this doctrine to practice, then, and not till then, do we enter through the door into the fold of Jesus; and then, and not till then, are we welcomed to the rich pasture of Emmanuel's land. But having attempted in our last paper to set legal and evangelical repentance in contradistinction with each other, we shall here proceed to inquire into the nature of that which the Scripture denominates "repentance unto life.' And we shall be the more minute in our investigation because of the vast significancy of the subject, and the tremendous danger of forming a misapprehension herein. In prosecuting our undertaking, we shall endeavour, first, to detect and rectify the multifarious mistakes which are abroad concerning this doctrine; and then, we shall dissect or analyse its constituent parts. And first, with cautious words, and with solemn awe pervading our minds, we would express our suspicion that there is but a small proportion of the Christian world, who have formed a correct idea of what the Scripture means by this term |