Volume 4. Number 11. June 4, 1827, pp. 338-346.

• Speculation in Religion by W. B., pp. 338-340.
• On Experimental Religion.--No. II. by Philip (Walter Scott), pp. 340-341.
• To the Editor of the Christian Baptist by A Believing Unbeliever, pp. 341-342.
• Reply to the Above by Alexander Campbell, pp. 342-343.
• The Social System and Deism.--No. II. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 343-345.
• [Letter to the Editor] by Candidus, p. 345.
• Reply to the Foregoing Letter by Alexander Campbell, pp. 345-346.

      BY speculation in religion we mean religious ideas that never enter into practice. Man is a religious creature, because, as an intelligent, immortal and accountable being, he is dependent on God, and the more dependent he feels himself, the more religious he is, while his speculations in religion bring him no nearer to God. Man, therefore, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the only mediator between God and man, has no godliness. By godliness we mean, the transformation of mind, passion, and conduct to the will of God as revealed in the gospel. Speculation in religion is that which does not affect, according to the will of God, either the sentiments, passions, or conduct of the religious being.

      Speculation in philosophy has been wisely discarded from approved systems. Since the days of Bacon our scientific men have adopted the practical and truly scientific mode--That is, they have stopped where human intellect found a bound, over which it could not pass, and have been contented to go no further than material objects, analyzed, gave out their qualities, and left the manner of their existence, as beyond the bounds of created intellect. Since men have been so wise in handling and analyzing material objects, we have heard little or nothing about occult sciences: but the sciences and the arts have advanced with increased velocity to the great good of the human kind. We plead for the same principle in the contemplation of religious truth. The qualities of matter are to be found in the great laboratory of the material world, by inducing matter by every process to give out its qualities, and to deduce nothing from hypothesis; so religious truth is to be deduced from the revelation which the deity has been pleased to give to man. And as in the laboratory of the material world, every truth concerning the qualities of matter is to be deduced from the matter itself; so in divine revelation we are to deduce what is practical, avoiding all speculation.

      Philosophers have become wise in their generation, and, therefore, we will not even mention the hypotheses of past ages with respect to the material world, which have been scouted by science; but come immediately to our point, namely, that the men of religion have been less wise than the men of science. A few examples shall suffice.

      It would, indeed, be an arduous undertaking to give specimens of all the ways in which men speculate in religion. The above specimens are given as an example of what is meant by speculation in religion. It is of great consequence to have spiritual discernment to distinguish between that which is speculation in religion and that which is truth. The more especially as such speculations put on the appearance of truth, or seem to have truth for their basis. Such was the first speculation in religion, by attention to which man fell from his original state. You shall be as God, knowing good and evil, is as true as any speculation that has been proposed since that time.

      Speculations in religion may be known by this test: though they could be ascertained, they do no good; and agitated, and discussed, and acted upon, they have the most pernicious consequences. Such are the features of speculation as drawn by Paul--Foolish and untaught questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strife. Of this cast was the first speculation, "You shall be as God." Well be it so. What has been the consequence? Or take any of the above specimens of speculation. Say God is too good to condemn and punish his creatures. Well! agitate the question. Be emboldened in sin, and then find that he will by no means clear the guilty. Again, say that holiness is God's darling attribute, and then have all your powers hardened in despair. Proceed again to mercy as the favorite of the Most High, and speculate yourself into hardened insensibility. Speculate again, and say that the Saviour is God's eternal Son, and try if you can believe and act upon it, that the Son, as such, and the Father are equally eternal, as regards the Deity. Or if you try your powers upon what men call the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, endeavor to show what you have gained in knowledge of the influence of the Spirit in regeneration, and in that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Or say that the Redeemer came to save the elect only: discuss the question in all its bearings--Do you know who are the elect? or in what way are you to know your own election? Or if you contend that the gospel is only to be preached to sensible sinners, the truth leads to inquire who is the sinner that is truly sensible of his sins before he receives the gospel? Or are you such a sensible sinner as to value the gospel without believing it?

      The pursuit of speculation leads further from truth and further from God. But the truth is one; always does good, and its practical tendency is happiness to the individual and benevolence to all.

      The test of truth is the word of God in its plain sense, addressing itself to every man's conscience. The word of God is itself the truth, nor is there one speculation in all the word of God.

      Speculations seem to be founded on the sacred scriptures. It is, however, only a false appearance. Say that speculation takes up the proposition that men in their natural estate are dead in sin, and do nothing pleasing to God, and cannot repent, nor believe the gospel without the Spirit of God. It is all true in a true sense, the bible says the same things, and much more strongly than men's words can express; but the bible does not say the same things by way of speculation. It speaks practically; that is, it represents man's entirely helpless state, that he may come to the Saviour, and that in not coming to the Saviour, he may condemn himself as a guilty and depraved enemy to God, and to the gospel, in his mind and by wicked works. Speculation always [339] leads from practice. Men, in their speculations, even about the guilty, depraved and totally helpless state of man by nature, become vain and proud of their accuracy of knowledge, and thereby are kept from the Saviour, while the reception of the truth of God upon the state of human nature leads to the Saviour, because it is derived from a knowledge of him that came to seek and save that which was lost.

      IN my last paper it was observed that a knowledge of general christianity, the primitive churches, the apostles, and even of Christ himself, as written of in the New Testament, was of too popular, too remote a nature to consummate personal happiness; and that while those high matters concerned mankind universally, our individual comfort terminated ultimately upon a knowledge of ourselves, viz. whether we were or were not personally possessed of those graces of faith in Christ, hope of eternal life, love of God and man; and the gift of a holy spirit, which, as was observed, go to define the unsound phrase "experimental religion." Of the four particular evidences of personal adoption, viz. faith, hope, love and a holy spirit, I shall select the last for the subject of this essay--the gift of a holy spirit.

      Well, then, by way of premises, let it be observed that the visible universe, the law of Moses, and the gospel are to be regarded as so many oracles by Jesus Christ concerning the divine character, which it is his high office to reveal. These oracles set the divinity in the several attitudes of creating, commanding, redeeming; consequently in the universe we behold his physical grandeur--in the law we hear his moral authority--in the gospel we perceive him sympathizing. "Jesus wept." The universe, then, is God manifest in works--the law is God manifest in words--the gospel is God manifest in flesh; and thus Jesus Christ in these revelations causes the divine character to approach mankind gradually by three successive advances from mere physical power to moral supremacy, and from that again to the intensest and most unparalleled sympathy and sensibility, sweating blood, and weeping tears and uttering shrieks at the painful idea of being shamefully hung on a cross, naked, in the presence of three millions of people. His feelings broke his heart--"Reproach has broken my heart." Ps. So much for the developement of the divine character in these three dispensations of nature, law and the gospel. But now in regard to the comparative advantages brought to the worshippers by the successive introduction of these economies, it will appear obvious from what has been stated that an increased degree of light respecting the divine existence and character, the origin of the universe, the creation and destiny of man, the causes of death and of immortality, and the federal relations by which we are made partakers of these, are the chief. But this is not all; it is but the one half, for as in each of these dispensations there is a primary revelation of God round which all others are made to play, so in each of them there is a fresh advantage bestowed upon the worshipper, round which his increased responsibility is made to turn. In nature, then, heathens see God's physical greatness; in the law Jews hear his moral authority; in the gospel christians experience his spiritual power.

      In the first dispensation men sinned against the invisible power and godhead by changing his glory into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four footed beasts, and creeping things.

      In the law Jews sin against his moral authority, expressed on tables; but in the gospel, in which God has substituted spirit for literal sounds and natural symbols, the worshippers sin against the Holy Spirit, they grieve or quench the Holy Spirit, for the gospel is the ministration of Spirit. In the first dispensation, we see; in the second, we hear; in the last we enjoy God.--But how the untreated Spirit dwells in a created spirit, filling it with joy, we know not; but certain it is that this fellowship is set forth in the following words: "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me." Again--"If a man love me he will keep my commandments, and my Father will love him, and we will come in to him and make our abode with him!" Supping with Christ means joy in a holy spirit. In a word, some men are condemned because they believe not in the Son of God; and secondly, others are condemned because, believing in him, they "turn away," "love the present world," "mind earthly things," "deny the Lord who bought them," "trample under foot the blood of the Son of God, and do despite to the Spirit of Grace;" and to me it is evident that the present race of christians are to be censured not so much for their informality as their carnality and contempt of the Spirit of our God.

      But now if any should ask why Jesus Christ made us to see the divine grandeur, and hear his moral authority, before he let us taste his spiritual power, my answer is this, That it was necessary that the law of God should be written on stone; first, in order that fallen nature might by experiment (and we are altogether creatures of experiment) discover its inadequacy to keep it; and second, that this same written law might be for a book of reference in the days of the Spirit; in the days or economy in which power to fulfil the law is fully and freely given by God to those who believe that whensoever men sin against the Spirit which they have of God, they, may be reproved, corrected, instructed. The scriptures are therefore said to be profitable for all these ends.

      Let us, then, christian reader, walk in the Spirit, and we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; "for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." If we live after the flesh, we shall die; but if we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live; and if the Spirit of God dwell in us, he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead will quicken our mortal bodies also by his Spirit which dwells in us. Concerning the written law as a rule of life, I should think that "Book of Reference" were a better title for it, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is both the christian's life and the rule of it; but by the present commercial, trading race of professors, our religion is transformed into a written law, a letter, a commandment; and by men so guilty of the spirit of gain, christianity, which is godliness, will never be experimentally understood to mean any thing else than a written instrument; nevertheless to some it is the "power of God."

      But some will say, When is this gift of the Holy Spirit given--before or after belief? In reference to this good gift of God, I heard it observed a few nights ago that we had turned the gospel wrong end foremost--the modern gospel reading thus: "Unless you receive the Spirit you cannot believe!" the ancient gospel reading thus: Unless you believe you cannot receive the [340] Holy Spirit; or to give it in the terms of Peter, Believe and be baptized, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise (i  e. of the Holy Spirit) is to you," &c. &c. Indeed it must be confessed that if we say to sinners, When you receive the Holy Spirit you will believe; and the apostles say, When you believe you will receive the Holy Spirit, that there is manifestly an inversion of the apostolic annunciation concerning the heavenly gift, the question in the primitive age being, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" But without being casuistical, i. e. jesuitical in this matter, we shall drop it; and without striving about the time when the gift is bestowed, let us thank God that it is bestowed at all, and glorify him by walking in it, living in it, praying in it, and rejoicing in it; for "to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

      Again--Some will say, What does the expression Holy Spirit mean? Well, in scripture it stands first for God the Holy Spirit, and secondly for the holy mind or spirit of a believer--for illustration, take Peter's words to Ananias, "Why has Satan tempted you to lie to the Holy Spirit; you have not lied to men, but to God," (the Holy Spirit.) And the Saviour says, How much more will your heavenly Father give a holy spirit (as it should be translated) to those that ask him. Again--Praying in a holy spirit. Again--Paul says he approved himself God's servant "by knowledge, by long sufferings, by kindness, by a holy spirit," i. e. by a mind innocent of the love of gain, or commerce, or sensuality.

      Now then the expression stands for both God the Holy Spirit, and for a believer's spirit made holy by him.

      I shall now answer, from scripture, the following questions.--When do we know that we are born of the Spirit? I answer, when we know that our spirits are holy. But it will be asked again, when do we know this? I reply, when we behold our minds producing the fruits of a holy spirit. But what are the fruits of a holy spirit? Paul says they are joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance, against such there is no (written) law. Now how many unholy Baptists are there? how many unholy Presbyterians, how many unholy Methodists, Episcopalians, Independents, and schismatics of every name? Well may the editor say we are still in Babylon! Ah me! when shall we return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked: between him that serves God and him that serves him not? Ah apostatizing christians, grievers and quenchers of the Spirit of our God, are we not ashamed?

      Now, reader, let us return to God and holiness, for without it no one shall see his face--and believe me that a disputatious mind is not a holy mind--an intemperate, unmeek, or unfaithful spirit is not a holy spirit--neither is one that does not practise goodness, and gentleness, and long suffering, and peace--neither the mind that does not love, or does not rejoice in Jesus. Ye cavillers, ye conceited few, who boast of your scriptural knowledge; but whose spirits, nevertheless, cannot move even the elements of the heavenly oracles, let me whisper to you a secret, that the kingdom of heaven is not so much in an abundant knowledge, as in an abundant spirit of righteousness, peace and holy joy.

PHILIP.      

O. S. Virginia, October 21st, 1826.      

      DEAR SIR,--ONE who wishes to see truth triumph over error in every thing, and who believes that the Christian Baptist is destined to be instrumental in bringing about this great desideratum in matters of religion, begs the favor of addressing the Editor a few lines upon a subject of great interest to one who believes himself out of the "ark of safety" but whose supreme desire is to know the truth as it is in Jesus.

      Regarding you as a teacher in Israel, I desire your aid in my researches after truth, and in the present instance I make the application with the strongest assurance of being satisfactorily answered, (if you see fit to answer me at all) as the subject upon which I solicit information once operated upon your mind precisely as it does on mine.

      In your dissertation on Conscience, No. 7, vol. 3, you have literally told my experience. This is the part to which I allude. You say,

      "I well remember what pains and conflicts I endured under a fearful apprehension that my convictions and my sorrows for sin were not deep enough. I even envied Newton of his long agony; I envied Bunyan of his despair. I could have wished, and did wish that the Spirit of God would bring me down to the very verge of suffering the pains of the damned, that I might be raised to share the joys of the genuine converts. I feared that I had not sufficiently found the depravity of my heart, and had not yet proved that I was utterly without strength. Sometimes I thought that I felt as sensibly, as the ground under my feet, that I had gone just as far as human nature could go without supernatural aid, and that one step more would place me safe among the regenerated of the Lord; and yet heaven refused its aid. This too I concealed from all the living. I found no comfort in all the declarations of the gospel, because I wanted one thing to enable me to appropriate them to my self. Lacking this, I could only envy the happy favorites of heaven who enjoyed it, and all my refuge was in a faint hope that I one day might receive that aid which would place my feet upon the rock."

      Now, sir, you cannot conceive with what intense interest I followed you through every word of this paragraph; every word was in perfect coincidence with my own feelings. I thought, as I read the piece, at last I have found a pilot who was once entangled in such quicksands and vortices as obstructed my passage, and who of course will be able to give me some important direction how to steer so as to reach the desired haven.--But alas! what was my disappointment when, instead of informing us how your feet were ultimately established, "upon the rock," you suddenly break off the thread of your narrative, and leave us in painful suspense as to your future destiny. The sentence following the paragraph above quoted, began thus: "Here this system ends and enthusiasm begins." I am at a loss what construction you would have us place upon these words. I am sure you cannot mean that it would be enthusiasm to wish for supernatural aid in regeneration, for without such aid, as I understand the matter, no man can be a christian. The following scriptures, I think, confirm my opinion--The natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Now as the natural man has not and cannot have this discernment, the conclusion is inevitable that it must be a supernatural work. Again, we are informed that faith is the gift of God, and of course I must say cannot be learned in the school of [341] nature. But I am sure, as before said, that this cannot be your meaning--I would, therefore, fain see you resume the subject in a future paper. I want to hear again from you about the ONE thing which you once felt so much in need of, and which I have thought (with humility be it spoken) was the one thing I lack to become a christian--for my judgment has long since been convinced of the truth of christianity. The morality of the gospel, its rapid propagation under its first illiterate preachers in opposition to the prejudices of the world, the accomplishment of the Old and New Testament prophecies, the miracles wrought by the Saviour, &c. &c. constitute a chain of testimonies which infidels have in vain tried to break. I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. But how did I become possessed of this kind of faith? So far as I know, by my own efforts; by reading and reflection, just as I learn and believe that Rome is situated on the Tiber, and that Oliver Cromwell usurped the liberties of his country. With grief, therefore, I am constrained to believe that mine cannot be saving faith. I know of no title by which I can be more fitly designated than the paradoxical one of

A BELIEVING UNBELIEVER.      

      DEAR SIR--YOUR letter has been deferred beyond my intentions, having, with some others, laid off for immediate attention, been overlooked, in the accumulation of business. My experience broke off, you think, too abruptly. This may have been so for your case, but for my object at that time, which was to show that every man's experience corresponded with his religious education, it was conducted sufficiently far to demonstrate the point in hand. Persons educated by the apostles had no such experience as that which I related. The New Testament furnishes no such a case. The consummation of such a case is as unscriptural as is the commencement and progress through. It is not the result of apostolic but of systematic teaching. But few are able to trace their mental exercises and excitements to the proper cause. Hence divine and human causes are so completely blended together that few can discriminate the one from the other.

      "Where this system ends enthusiasm begins." The system brings us down to a certain point of sadness, grief, or despair. To extricate us it is necessary that a door should be opened for conceits to arise. Hence we look for divine interpositions of a peculiar character at a certain crisis, and as the drowning man holds fast his straw, so we take hold of a dream, or a conceit, or an impression, or an impulse, or a voice, or a particular occurrence, and by a favorable interpretation imagine it a sign or token for good, and console ourselves that Heaven has now lent its long withheld aid. We begin to rejoice in our supposed personal safety, and, by a slight but quick transition, rejoice in God for his sovereign aid or grace bestowed on us. This gives a brighter color to every thing we see. An almost sensible difference is discovered on even natural objects around us. Now the landscape smiles nod blooms which before hung in mourning.--The winds whisper peace. The waters roar no more.

"The swallow twittering from its straw-built shed," or the raven croaking on the leafless tree, is heard with pleasure unknown before. A thousand springs of enjoyment are open now and overflowing which before were dry.

      The strong minded are longest in the gloom. Where the rational faculties are vigorous the passions are weaker, and vice versa. Children are proof of this. The men of strong intellect and much reflection are not so easily satisfied when in doubts or fears. Hence the system leaves many in the mire whom no conceit or reverie can bring out. So much I add to my former statements in the essay referred to in our letter. To resume my experience where left off. I rested for a while on the bare probability or possibility that divine aid would come to my relief. This I soon found to be but slender support to a troubled mind. It were long to tell, and worth little when told, how many efforts, how many hopes, and how many disappointments in succession agitated my mind. I was all the while looking for an aid which was never promised, and expecting an interposition without which I was taught I could derive no assurance of the favor of God. I was once, nay more than once, led to believe that I had received this aid in consequence of the vivid impression made on my mind on hearing a layman speak to me of a righteousness without law, a righteousness of God through a belief in facts attested by the law and the prophets. So soon as I imagined the aid was granted I felt a joy and peace unknown before. These feelings, I afterwards saw, arose not from a belief of the philanthropy of God; but in consequence of a special interposition on my behalf. Hope and fear alternated in my breast just as I thought upon the help which was afforded me. If I thought it was divine aid, I had hope; if I supposed it to be altogether human, I feared, I began at last to rest with more satisfaction on the proclamation "whosoever will." I reasoned thus, "I was most certainly willing, and God was most certainly a God of truth, and had most assuredly invited me to partake of his favor, and why should I not? But I could not boast like others, I had still something to fear which they had not; and this, like a worm unseen, made my leaf wither and my head droop. Nor was it until I clearly apprehended that it was quite compatible with the blessed gospel for a person to view himself as destitute of any peculiar or personal claim founded upon any supposed favor bestowed upon him, or assistance given him, or good quality in him, and at the same time to rejoice in hope of the favor of God abounding through the gift of Jesus that I could feel myself at all stedfast in the faith and hope of eternal life. I found ultimately that the gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes it, and the divine aid was vouchsafed in a way which I had not expected. I had looked for it independent of all the grace revealed in the gospel, but found it inseparably connected therewith. My experience hitherto was the experience of a misguided education, and indeed the experience of unbelief. My present peace and joy and hope arise from a firm persuasion that in the Lord Jesus through the love of God, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have acceptance, and am adopted into the family of God. Of this I have assurance from the spirit of adoption which I have received, and from the love I have to all the saints. There is not a man, woman, or child upon the earth who sincerely loves the King, my Lord and Master, whom I do not unfeignedly love for his sake. And there is no commandment of the King, there is no expression of his will, to obey which, I feel the least [342] reluctance. Such is the head of the chapters of my christian experience.

      I feel myself bound to give you this disclosure of my experience from the spirit and tenor of your epistle. But to say that it can be profitable to others for me or any other person to tell all their agitations and describe their journey to their present abode in the favor of God, is with me quite questionable. Myriads were brought to rejoice in the Lord in a few minutes or hours, and I blame my religious education for all the darkness, and gloom, and uncertainty, of which I have been conscious. I am now in the enjoyment of the blessings of the gospel of Christ; but this I might enjoy manifold more, and might have enjoyed much sooner, had it not been for the obstacles thrown in my way by an abstruse and speculative theology. Thousands by a different road have arrived at the same hope, and may much excel me, in their enjoyments and spiritual devotion, and therefore I cannot give this narrative as a standard by which any man's pretensions to the christian character may be tested.

      As to the supernatural aid afforded in any case, I have to observe that it is all supernatural, the truth believed, the good things hoped for, and the amiable one loved are all supernatural. And if by your "own efforts" you could believe that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God--by your own efforts" you can believe in him to the salvation of your soul. That is "saving faith," (for there is but one faith,) which purifies the heart and works by love. If your faith does not work in obeisance to all the Lord's commandments, it is no faith, not even of your own efforts. We can have, and we do have, the blessing of God, or the aid of God, whenever we sincerely ask it. Your references to the "natural man," and to "faith being the gift of God," would have been unnecessary in this case had you read the essays on the work of the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, page 124, 131. To these I refer you. It is one of the monstrous abortions of a purblind theology for any human being to be wishing for supernatural aid to be born again. Transfer such an idea to the first birth and to what an absurdity are we reduced!!

      Be assured, my dear sir, that other teaching than the apostles has confused you. You might, at this moment, have been a believing practitioner of the commandments of the Lord, instead of a believing rebel against the Lord, had you honestly read and examined the New Testament. For there the power of God is always exhibited, and supernatural aid displayed in behalf of every sinner who is disposed to receive it. If you have not, it is because you ask not; and if you ask and receive not, it is because you ask for an improper purpose. And no man living can now be excused for disobedience to the faith, or will hereafter be excused for his disobedience, because supernatural aid was withheld. It is just as sure as the genial influence of spring which now clothes the forests and the fields with verdant beauty; but to him whose fields are unprotected and uncultivated, the influences of spring are as though they were not. You might as well tell me that you can bake a loaf by your own efforts, without flour, water, and fire, as that you can believe that Jesus is the Son of God, by your own efforts. I refer you to the excellent essay in this number on speculation in religion, written by an elder in Israel, and to that on experimental religion, by Philip.

	Yours, benevolently,
	EDITOR.

      FROM the reception which my Reply to Mr. D, a Sceptic, has received--from the requests of many of my readers--from a consideration of the prevalence of scepticism in this country--and from the bold and open attacks of Deists on the Scriptures of Truth, I feel it my duty to devote a few pages of this work to the Sceptics of the present day.

      Of these there are two kinds--the inquisitive, speculating, and, in his own judgment, sincere Sceptic; and the ignorant, impudent infidel, who never seriously read the Christian Scriptures, and who glories in being an unbeliever, as if it was essential to his dignity to discard revelation, and to blaspheme the author of the christian religion. Their case is a hopeless one. They are too ignorant to be addressed by reason--too wise in their own conceits to learn any thing, and their conscience so perfectly seared as to have become insusceptible of conviction. There are moral disorders in the human race as incurable as any of those corporeal diseases which have been for ages, and still are, considered beyond the control of all remedies. Amongst these I would place the moral distemper of this latter class of infidels. Some of this class were given up by the Great Physician himself. Miracles could not be wrought in their presence; or, if wrought, could effect nothing. I do not say that it is impossible for God to raise the dead, or to cure such infidels; but it is incompatible with the principles of his moral government to display omnipotence this way. The Saviour could lament the catastrophe of Jerusalem; but could not, consistently with his government, heal them. But there are some of the former class who may be brought to their reason or right mind, and for their sakes I think some efforts ought to be made. The weak-minded christian, and the young convert too, may be strengthened, and the lame may be healed. When an apostle told christians to be always prepared to give a reason of the hope that was in them, he did not mean what the people of this time mean by these words. We in this day call our mental exercises the reason of the hope that is in us; but he meant the evidences of the gospel, and not our evidences of our interest therein. "Be always ready to afford to magistrates and rulers, when called before them, good reasons why you believe and hope in Jesus as the Messiah." I think, too, the New Harmony Gazette, which, in this country, is the focus of the lights of scepticism, to which, as Tacitus said of Rome, flows all the cream, shall I call it, of enlightened infidelity, merits a particular attention. The conductors of that journal are amongst the most assiduous, devoted, and persevering Sceptics of the 19th century. The bible, some how or other, stands in their way, and is supposed to be inimical to some favorite scheme, or darling hypothesis of the builders of the city of Mental Independence. At all events, we have not seen a number of that paper in which there is not either a popgun or a blunderbuss discharged at Revelation. For my part I rejoice to know that so much of the reflex light of christianity shines in our political institutions that no bastile, no auto da fe awaits the man who vends his sceptical reveries in books or papers, or publicly declaims against the bible and in favor of Deism. If our most pure, holy, and heavenly religion can be defended, supported, inculcated, and diffused by no other weapons than iron locks, swords, and faggots, I wish not to be in the rear or van of its [343] advocates. No! on our banner is inscribed, reason, argument, persuasion.

      I never censure a Deist for his eulogies on reason, but for his want of it. I have, indeed, regretted to see and hear men extol common sense, and immediately turn round and shew that they had not a particle of it. If there be in this country a reasonable Deist, I have not had the good fortune to become acquainted with him.--Some of them, I know, talk a great deal about reason; but, really, if I know the meaning of the word, they are the most unreasonable beings I have met with. But I would not get angry with them on this account, but rather I would pity and lend my aid to assist them.

      I propose not in these essays to wear any suit of armor made ready to my hand, nor to panoply myself with the fashionable shields and breast-plates of the famous defenders of the bible. I know of few of them that have not in some way injured the cause they labored to defend. Nor will I direct an arrow at every pigmy who squeaks upon an oaten reed. Nor can I yield to the liberales at New Harmony the right of using every species of attack at one and the same time. But to drop the metaphorical and to come to the literal, I will premise a few things in this number--

      1. The bible is commonly, by friends and foes, styled the Revelation of God, or a Divine Revelation; and under this title the Sceptics attack it with the most apparent effect and raise the loudest cry. I come not forward to be attacked through the media of other men's sophistical technicalities. I must tear them all off as David did Saul's armor. Any Sceptic that may deign me a reply, is to remember one thing above all others, that I am to be attacked only in my own style and acceptation of terms and phrases, and that I defend the bible, and not any man's system of religion, nor his arguments in favor of its divine original. Although not so rich in mental independence as the conductors of the social system, I have some little property of this sort of which I would be parsimonious.

      I do not believe, then, that the book commonly called the Bible, is properly denominated a Divine Revelation, or communication from the Deity to the human race. At the same time, I am convinced that in this volume there are revelations or communications from the Deity to man. Revelation, properly so called, is an exhibit of supernatural things, a disclosure of things unknowable by any other means in the reach of mortals. Whatever can be known by reason, or the exercise of our five senses, is not a subject of revelation at all. But the things revealed are all reasonable when all the premises are understood. I grant that the simple statement of any thing not known before may in some sense be called a revelation. For example; the history of the French or American Revolution to a child who never read or heard any thing of it before, is a revelation, but not a divine revelation. To constitute a divine revelation, in our sense of the terms, it is not only necessary that God be the author of it, but that the things exhibited be supernatural, and beyond the reach of our five senses. For example; that God is a Spirit, is beyond the reach of our reasoning powers to discover, and could not be known by any human means. That a Spirit created matter, or that God made the earth, is a truth which no man could, from his five senses or his reasoning powers, discover. It is therefore a revealed truth. That man has a spirit in him capable of surviving his mortal frame, is also a supernatural truth. That man will live again, and be either happy or miserable in a future state, is another supernatural truth. That God so loved the world as to send his only begotten Son to enlighten, purify, and happify men, is a supernatural truth. Now the Bible contains a thousand things that belong not to this class. For example; Moses writes five books in which he relates many thousand historic facts and incidents, none of which are supernatural, though there are many communications in his writings which are supernatural and rank under the head of Divine Revelations. The history of the bondage in Egypt, of their pilgrimage through the wilderness, of their possession of the land of Canaan, of their judges and kings, is no more than true and faithful history. From the perusal of which the divine character and human character is developed to the mind of the reader.

      This is as true of the apostolic writings as of the ancient Jewish prophets. In the five historical books of the New Covenant or Testament many thousand items are written which are no divine revelation; such as the reasonings, objections, and discourses of the Jewish priests, scribes Pharisees, and Sadducees. Many historical facts, such as the decapitation of John, the calling of Peter, the enrolment of Augustus Cesar the death of Herod, the martyrdom and burial of Stephen, the peregrinations of the Saviour and the apostles, &c. &c. These, and a thousand other items cannot be called, in our sense of the terms, a divine revelation. Many things in the prophetic books of the Jewish scriptures, and many things in the epistles of the christian scriptures are of the same kind. It would be as great a misnomer to call Paul's request about his cloak left behind him a divine revelation, as to call the Inquirer who writes against the Bible, a Christian. I mean that "Inquirer," in the New Harmony Gazette, who begins by pronouncing sentence, and afterwards calls for the proof. Now it must be remembered that generally both the Old and New Testament writers make a distinction such as I have made between those communications which were from God, and the other parts of their writings. The Jewish prophets were wont to call the divine communications a word from the Lord--the message or burthen of the Lord, &c. And the Saviour promised two things with a reference to this subject, of which we should be mindful. 1st. That the Spirit would qualify them to be faithful historians, by bringing all facts necessary to their narrative, to their remembrance; and, in the 2d place, he would guide them into all supernatural truth. This is quite a different work. It is one thing to recall to a person's remembrance that of which he was once conscious, and another to make him know things of which he, with all the world, knows nothing. The former qualified them to be faithful historians--the latter, to be ambassadors of God, or teachers of his will to men. Thus we believe Moses and all the historians in the Old and New Testament to be credible and faithful witnesses; but in reasoning upon the contents of these books, we must always discriminate between what is supernatural and what is not; we must distinguish what is a Divine Revelation from what is human. Not adverting to this, has been the means of much of that nonsense called argument against the Revelation of God. Now much superstition amongst christians owes its origin to the same cause. It is in the present time an enviable path which lies midway between scepticism and superstition. Thomas Paine never would have written his Age of Reason [344] had it not been that he supposed the Bible was in the way of his politics. I will not say that he might save his life by avowing such principles as would be deemed orthodox by those who controlled the guillotine; but I will say that it was because he supposed, so long as the Bible was held sacred by the great mass of the community, that it would be impossible successfully to oppose the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Had he ever read, or at all understood the Old Testament, he would, from the same motives which led him to oppose it, have inculcated its authority upon the minds of the community. His devotion to a commonwealth, and his dislike of monarchy, which caused him to attack, would have induced him to defend the ancient oracles. For this good reason: the only form of government which God himself actually set on earth was that of a commonwealth. He permitted a monarchy for a punishment, but set up a commonwealth for a blessing to the nation which he took under his special care for special purposes.

      Had the unreasonable author of the Age of Reason been better acquainted with the volume he oppugned, he would, even from his politics, have been obliged to plead its authority in his favor. I have some misgivings that none oppose the Bible who do not think it opposes them. And it might, perchance, be of some use to those who profess to inquire after truth, and yet oppose this book, to inquire amongst their other inquiries, why they at first found themselves sliding off to the opponents of Revelation. I have one great philosopher on my side in this hypothesis. He said men disliked the light that condemned them. To give it in his own words, "He that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be detected."

      But I must not omit to state another preliminary consideration, with me of much consequence. It is this: It is not the patriarchal, nor the Jewish, nor the Christian Revelation in piecemeal that I am about to defend against the querulous, captious Sceptic--it is the consummation of all the ancient revelations in the mission of the Son of God. In reference to this, I view the whole volume; for this is the Alpha and the Omega of the whole. The christian religion is the corn in the ear. It germinated in the patriarchal, it shot forth in the Jewish, and ripened at the christian era. It is not the bud, nor the stalk, nor the leaves, nor the blossoms, but the ripe ear which we are to eat. And it is this about which we are concerned. I know the Sceptics reason or talk as if the ripe ear should have come first; that it is unreasonable that there should be a root, a stem, leaves, and a husk. They are eccentric geniuses, when talking against the Bible.

      To obviate the unfounded fears of some weak minds, arising from my remarks on Revelation, I will state distinctly, though it is fairly implied in my remarks, that, as historians, the sacred writers are infallible. Not only is their record of divine communications, but their narratives and episodes are infallibly correct. The account of the deluge, of the confusion of human speech, of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, are as much to be relied on as the revelation of God's gracious purposes in the mission of his Son. But many, not discriminating between the history of human affairs, such as Jacob's obtaining the blessing, and Abraham's denying his wife, and the Israelites carrying off the goods borrowed from the Egyptians, &c. &c. and the revelations from God, impiously rail against divine revelation as if these were essential items thereof.

      It matters not whether these historians wrote in part or in whole from tradition, from their own observation, or from immediate suggestions, their historical accounts are to us infallible, because sanctioned, approved, and quoted by those under the fullest influence of the Holy Spirit. These things premised, I purpose in my next to come in contact with the sceptics of the present day. And as I am determined to put them on the defensive, and to have halt of the interrogations, and thus to meet them on fair grounds, I will propose them a few questions for consideration; and in order to obtain suitable answers, I will answer question for question, and divide to a scruple the onus probandi, or burthen of proving our respective positions.

      Quest. 1. Is there a God who created all things? And if answered in the affirmative, upon what evidence is this known?

      2d. Is there a spirit in man which will survive the body or live after the animal life is extinct, and upon what evidence is this known?

      3d. Is there a future state of felicity or of torment, and if so, upon what evidence is this known?

      I will not be further inquisitive at present I will reciprocate the favors demanded on principles perfectly liberal. Definite answers and rational proof is expected from some of the enlightened Deists at New Harmony. I have no doubt that it will be conceded that questions and discussions, to the great mass of mankind, paramount to these cannot be conceived.

EDITOR.      

Dear Sir,

      ONE of our teachers in this county has refused to have the new translation read in a public meeting because it is not the word of God, alleging that the common version is received as the word of God, but that the new translation is not considered such. Pray whose word shall we call it? Answer this, if you please, for some of us are in doubt upon this subject.

	Yours, truly,
	CANDIDUS.

Mr. Candidus:

      DEAR SIR--YOUR teacher was certainly right, and you should all passively submit to his determination. For the common version is the word of God, but the new translation is not. The reason I will now tell you. The common version was made by forty-nine persons authorized by a king, paid for their trouble by the king, and when their work was published, the king ordered it to be read as the word of God in public assemblies and in families, to the exclusion of every other version. Now all the versions that were read before this king's reign, ceased to be the word of God when the king signed the decree; and from that moment the king's version became the word of God. You will see, then, that there are two things necessary to constitute any translation the word of God; first that it be authorized by a king and his court; and again, that it be finished by forty-nine persons. Every translation becomes the word of God, or is more or less the word of God, according to the number of persons that make it. Thus, if one hundred persons made a translation it would be doubly more the word of God than that made by the forty-nine, and four times more than that made by twenty-five, and thirty-three times and one third more than the new version, provided it was so decreed by a king. For you must remember that both are necessary, and that if a thousand men should agree to make a version, it would [345] not when made be the word of God, because it wanted the royal approbation. You will naturally conclude, from these plain facts, that if one man or three men should most exactly and perfectly translate the original Greek and correct very many errors and inaccuracies in the king's translation, it would nevertheless still be the word of man; for all the errors, inaccuracies and imperfections in the common version are the word of God, and the correction of them all or any number of them, by only one man or three men, would be no more than the word of man. This, sir, is not only sound, but most orthodox logic. It would, therefore be a profanation of the pulpit, and the holy place, to read within thirty yards of it, the new version. If it be read at all, it ought to be at least beyond the grave yard, or outside of all the consecrated ground. It may be read in families, just like Robinson Crusoe or any other romance; but never with the veneration of a sermon-book, and infinitely less of the word of God. For the sake of making this matter a little more plain, I will extract a few sentences and phrases out of the common version and out of the new, that you may see how the word of God differs from the word of man:

      Now if forty-nine men, summoned and paid by a king, should, in obedience to the king not translate but anglicise such Greek words as baptism, bishop, angel, church, &c. &c. and should one or forty-eight persons, from their own better information and mental independence, translate those words into English, and give us immersion, overseer, messenger, congregation, &c. &c. this version ought not to be read in a public meeting because it is the word of Man; but the other being the work of forty-nine men, sanctioned by a king, should be read as the word of God. By such arguments as these, my dear sir, we prove the common version to be the word of God, and the new to be the word of man. If any man has any better arguments than these to offer, we shall cordially thank him for them.

EDITOR.      

[TCB 338-345]