DIALOGUE ON REVEALED RELIGION.

MR EDITOR,

I Do not know whether I have not brought you into a scrape by seducing you into the publication of my Dialogues. I do not suppose they have at all increased the number of your readers, and there are passages in them which I fear may offend rather than edify. Perhaps you would have judged better, for the success of your work, if you had at once rejected them, but I suspect you bear some resemblance to the hare in the fable, which, as its poet has said with so much naiveté,

-in a civil way Complied with every one, like Gay.I shall, indeed, be sorry if your complaisance to me can have increased the complaint commonly made against the sober sadness of your journal, or, what is worse, can have brought your orthodoxy into question. That I may not hang much longer a dead weight upon you, I quite approve of your knocking me off at once in your Number for the present month; and to take away any suspicion that I am rather a disguised enemy than a friend to the great cause which I have undertaken to support, is my chief object in troubling you now with a few prefatory remarks.

I cannot proceed farther, however, without first expressing my great obligations to the only gentleman who

I hope, however, that my lucubrations will be correctly printed. In the last Number, p. 225, 1 have been made to say previous to existence, for previous to experience, and in the following page menage for manege.

seems to have taken any interest in my speculations-I mean your able correspondent who has adopted the signature A. B. It certainly has been very gratifying to me that he has so thoroughly entered into my views on the subject of Christianity-it was a happy thought in you to let him see in manuscript the part of my Dialogues in which these are brought forward, and which you are now about to publish, and I beg you to print, by way of notes, the few remarks which he has had the kindness to make on some detached passages. He is quite right where he points out their deficiencies, but I cannot now mend them. I have never had any skill in patching flaws in any of my writings, or, indeed, in improving them after I am not vain enough to think that the first heat of composition is over. all its faults, he bestows upon this the very liberal praise which, amidst part of my inquiries, is at all merited, I had in view, although I am far from but he has seen distinctly the object supposing, as he in his friendly enthusiasm affirms, that I have been able to attain it.

It certainly has been my aim to draw closer the_connection between Philosophy and Religion, and to show to the men of genius and letters of the age, that they will never employ successfully their great gifts and acquire ments, unless they surrender their souls to those impulses of piety, which, through all the different views of na

• We have complied with this request, although these notes are mere hasty jot tings, and were never designed by their author for publication.-ED.

ture and of revelation, are the only sentiments which are congenial with the force of reason and with the splendours of imagination. When these Dialogues were composed, scarcely any such attempt had been made, otherwise a bolder and more decisive tone would probably have been preferable, -yet although Christianity has, in the few years since they were written, made a great apparent progress, and has had the tide completely turned, if one may say so, in its favour, scarcely any writers have appeared who have directed their battery chiefly against the errors and prejudices of philosophical and literary men, and I think my work may still be useful as a specimen of the manner in which such men ought to be met and won. Dr Chalmers and some other great writers have done this after a sort-they have carried into all the field of their speculations the weight of powerful and commanding intellect, combined with the clearest intimations of sincerity, yet there is a repulsive tone about that species of theology which they chiefly enforce, and about the manner in which they enforce it, that keeps aloof the class of proud and independent thinkers from so much as intermingling their minds in their inquiries. It is this condition of things which I wish, if possible, to have changed-and I do not despair yet of seeing the change effected. The literature of the age must once more be throughout embued with Christianity, not by bringing it all down to some supposed level of evangelical precision and formality, but, on the contrary, by showing the intimate connection between every thing that is elevated in sentiment, and pure in taste, with the prospects which Christianity holds out, and with the feelings on which faith in its divine authority is built. In short, the men of letters must be made to feel that while they continue on the antichristian side, they are classing themselves with littleness of thought, and narrow and confined opinions, and that, so far from attaining the true freedom of intellect, they are permitting their noblest powers to be miserably fettered.

I do not say that this mode of making Christians is the most thorough in its influence upon the heart and affections. But the chief business

of a reasoner on Christianity is to convince the understandings of those with whom he has to deal, and to show them, if he can, that want of faith is an evidence of a narrowness of mind, of which, at least, all men who lay claim to any intellectual superiority, ought to be heartily ashamed. And if he can even bring men from a motive more suited to the natural than the spiritual man, to regard it as a disgrace upon their understandings, and as a proof that they are not rising to the true level of the age in which they live, if they go on in a state of stupid inattention, or of dull indifference to this vast subject,—he will do a great good to society, and although the attack may not be made, in the first instance, upon the strongholds of sin, it will be a mighty matter to get over the reason and even the pride of men, at least those of the superior order, to the side of Divine Truth. Whenever a man has got Christianity in his head, there if he is good for any thing, it will stick and work its own way,-there is no great matter by what entrance it got in. "It is made all things unto all men, that by all means it may save some." On this principle, it is, that I have felt very little concern in the course of the following Dialogue, about the careless and even irreverent expressions in which some of my speakers indulge,

that I have allowed them to pass scarcely noticed,-that I have not been very anxious to answer all the Deistical objections,—and that I have rather slurred over many points of great importance in the Christian system. Incomplete as the defence is, I will yet venture to hope that no man can weigh it without seeing that there is a great deal in it,-and that it will rather have the effect of leading on men of genius in the same course of inquiry, as one which, so far from being narrow and deficient in original views, is, in fact, the most comprehensive of all inquiries, and opens into the most novel and unexpected results. This, in my opinion, is the mode in which Christianity ought to be inculcated in the present state of men's minds, and I am happy to find in your correspondent A. B. a coincidence with these views.

I think there is still, however, great room for another Dialogue upon the sub

I have not the happiness, however, to enjoy your correspondent's approbation of the metaphysical dogmas, as he calls them, in the first part of my Dialogues. I may, perhaps, have put too much weight upon these, and considered them as of too great importance. There may be a way of pushing the best principles to an extreme, and very possibly in the use of unguarded language I may have justly laid myself open to misapprehension, and even to ridicule. At the same time, I think it an useful point to be established, and one which I cannot help being persuaded will lead to some curious and important views in pneumatology,-to make out that an intelligent being, such as man, cannot but constantly read intelligence wherever it is presented to him, and that many of those principles which are called the first elements of reason, or the dictates of common sense, actually come to be resolved into elements of theology. The whole difficulty lies in this, that there is something in the present condition of human nature, whether occasioned by the fall, or by original formation, which always inclines us to place a screen, as it were, which we call Nature, between us and the Deity; yet I believe the fact to be, that whatever, in a confused way of thought, we predicate of this thing called Nature, can only be made sense of, when it is explained by the supposition of a Divine intelligence involved in Nature, and that this explanation is really labouring in every human being's brain, but only has very seldom strength to come quite to the birth. This notion is no novelty of mine, but is to be found expressly stated by Bishop Butler, though he does not see, I think, how much may be made of it. "The only distinct meaning of the word natural, (he says,) is stated, fixed, or settled, since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i. e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow, that person's notions of what is natural will be enlarged in propor

Ject of Revelation, in which one might come closer to particulars, and use a more authoritative language, and if I find that the present one at all answers its end, I shall be much tempted to try my hand again.

tion to their greater knowledge of the works of God and the dispensations of his Providence. Nor is there any absurdity in supposing that there may, be beings in the universe whose capacities, and knowledge, and views, may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, i. e. analogous or conformable to God's dealings with other parts of his creation; as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us; for there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put upon the word but that only in which it is here used-similar, stated, or uniform."

It is very evident, that, if this is the sense in which all men understand what is meant by the course of Nature, all men are aware that there is Mind in Nature, and are in the constant habit of drawing conclusions from that perception which are quite sound and legitimate, although the perception itself is lost in so great a chaos of disorderly apprehensions, that it is very seldom made a clear and distinct object of separate thought. Thus it is, that, although the Altar of Nature has ever been inscribed To THE UNKNOWN GOD, all men have yet "felt after him and found him" in the daily course of their lives, and have, in truth, acknowledged his existence in every one of their actions; " for in him we live, and move, and have our being." As intelligent beings, we are constantly acting on the principles of theism; it is owing only to our corruption as moral beings, that we ever forget that we are "the offspring of God," and are apt to lose sight of his providence, or to live as without him in the world." For a remedy to this deep moral ignorance the Gospel was graciously ushered into the world, and although the times of this ignorance God winked at," yet he "now commandeth all men every where to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."-Such is

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the conclusion of St Paul's address to the Athenians of old. I hope that none of the wise men of our modern Athens, when they hear of "the resurrection of the dead," will be inclin

ed to mock, as some did in that ancient seat of philosophy; however, I shall be very well pleased if they are so far interested in this great subject as to be disposed to say, "We will hear thee again of this matter." PHILOTHEUS.

PART I.-Preliminary Observations. THE spot, my Hermippus, where Philo had appointed us to meet him, was one of those fine old avenues which are still sometimes to be found in such English residences as have not been entirely transformed by the operations of modern improvement. It ran along the summit of a steep bank, which was clothed by a continuation of the same lofty trees, and in the hollow beneath, a little stream might be discovered, through their stems, winding in a rocky channel. The old man sion-house, with its court and arched gateway, stood at the head of the avenue, but, from the bending course of the bank, was scarcely visible from the place where our conversations were held. The grove to the other side of the avenue soon terminated in cornfields, beyond which, at the distance of some miles, a bay of the sea and high hills closed the prospect.

The sun had just risen from the waves, and was dispersing the mists from the distant hills, and was shooting his level rays between the trunks of the trees, when I walked out, and found Philo apparently lost in pleasing contemplation. We were soon joined by Cleanthes, who began with expressing those sentiments of exhilaration which are naturally excited by a fine sunrise, and in his moralizing manner, he soon proceeded to draw analogies from the scene before him, to the circumstances of human

life.

The feelings, said he, which I at present experience, have always seem ed to me to bear a close resemblance to the habitual state of that mind, which is enlightened with true views of philosophy, and has a warm interest in the good of mankind. It is not only in the splendours of the sun of nature that such a mind discovers the effluence of Almighty benignity, it traces it equally in all the course of human affairs, and whatever may be the darkness, in which, to common apprehension, they may be obscured, the radiance of philosophic contem plation is ever at hand to illuminate

them. To the eye of uninstructed ignorance, how dark is that grave which closes upon our mortal career; or if it should seem to be the entrance to a new state of existence, how melancholy are the phantoms with which superstition has peopled that unknown region! Or when, forsaking this dark inquiry, we contemplate merely the destinies of the human race in the present life, how sad to the vulgar observer are the probable fates of nations, and how seemingly fortuitous are the circumstances of their rise or of their fall! It is thus. we find mankind in general grow dissatisfied with themselves, and with the world, as they advance in years. Death presents them with nothing but a gloomy prospect, and they have no longer any interest in the course of affairs, when their own infirmities prevent them from taking an active share in them. They have not philosophy enough to stand aside, and look upon the game when it is played by others, and they have not acquired that firm trust in Providence, by which they may look forward without any emotion of alarm, but with the liveliest hope to their own dissolution, or to the other appearances of human mutability. If there is any discipline to which I have in a more peculiar manner habituated my mind, it has been at all times to discover the light of Heaven dawning upon the darkness of the world, and I have so far succeeded as to have at tained a very equal and cheerful spirit, which I do not feel at all impaired by the approach of years. The chief obstructions to this temper of mind I have always thought to be scepticism and superstition,-the one of which prevents us from having any steady view of the order of Providence, and the other distorts and confuses it to our apprehension. The one I liken to the darkness of night, the other to the dimness of twilight. Philosophy alone is the rising sun which frees us from the gloom and the spectres of both.

But, pray Philo, what are the analogies which the splendid object before us has suggested to you, for your countenance seems to express some other sentiments besides the mere delight of this morning hour?

I have not been ruminating, I confess, said Philo, on the triumphs of Philosophy, which, however, I am