will be some disruption of the material fabric of doctrine in which the spiritual feeling has hitherto had its abode. But, if the principle of love have been cherished and made strong from the first, the broken forms of doctrine will re-unite; and love, with whatever strivings and wrestlings, will find an organic faith in which to set up its rest, and secure itself from accidents of the intellect, as well as from what the world can do against it. H. TAYLOR. Calm and blest is our composure Hath to us His heart expressed; Space and time, O Lord! that show Thee Are too vast for us to know Thee As our trembling spirits would; Father! Thou art understood. LYNCH. Lovest thou God as thou oughtest, then lovest thou likewise thy brethren, One is the sun in heaven; and one, only one, is love also. Bears not each human figure the godlike stamp on his forehead ? Readest thou not on his face thine origin? Is he not sailing, Lost like thyself, on an ocean unknown, and is he not guided By the same stars that guide thee? Think of thy brother no ill, but throw a veil over his failings; Guide thou the erring aright; for the good, the heavenly Shepherd Took the lost lamb in His arms and bore it back to its mother. This is the fruit of love, and it is by its fruits that we know it. * * * * * Faith is enlightened hope; she is light, is the eye of affection -her countenance shines like the Prophet's, For she has look'd upon God: Therefore love and believe, for works will follow spontaneous, Even as day does the sun. The right from the good is an offspring Love in a bodily shape; and christian works are no more than Animate love and faith, as flowers are the animate springtide.-TEGNER. LONGFELLOW. "If a man love Me, he will keep My words. Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." If there be any principle fully ascertained by religion, it is that this life is intended for a state of trial and improvement to man. His preparation for a better world requires a gradual purification carried on by steps of progressive discipline. The situation therefore here assigned him is such as to answer this design by calling forth all his active powers, by giving full scope to his moral dispositions, and bringing to light his whole character. Hence it becomes proper that difficulty and temptation should arise in the course of his duty. The impressions of sense are so balanced against the discoveries of immortality, as to allow a conflict between faith and sense, between conscience and desire, between present pleasure and future good. On the competition between time and eternity depends the chief exercise of human virtue. BLAIR. Though God is a most perfect free agent, yet he cannot but do what is best and wisest in the whole. The reason is evident; because perfect wisdom and goodness are as steady and certain principles of action, as necessity itself; and an infinitely wise and good Being, endued with the most perfect liberty, can no more choose to act in contradiction to wisdom and goodness, than a necessary agent can act contrary to the necessity by which it is actuated; it being as great an absurdity and impossibility in choice for Infinite Wisdom to choose to act unwisely, or Infinite Goodness to choose what is not good, as it would be in nature for absolute necessity to fail of producing its necessary effect. It is the beauty of this necessity, that it is strong, as fate itself, with all the advantage of reason and goodness. CLARKE.-Being and Attributes of God. There is a great difference to be made between the destiny of blind, unintelligent fate, and that which is made so by the certain operation of the laws of a personal God. In the one case a man has a loving Father to look to, Who, he knows, has consulted his highest good in everything-Who by will and design and mental calculation has done it; in the other he has nothing to contemplate but blind, unconscious laws, and he is the sport of these cold laws for ever. FERNALD. Neither freewill nor necessity, in their absolute and universal sense, is a whole truth in itself, but, taken both together, they make a complete truth. A man must have a perfectly balanced mind to see the great truth that there is here. If he is all head, or predominantly given to reason and the law-side of things, he will decide in favour of philosophical necessity; if he is predominantly a man of heart or a practical man, he will decide for freewill as commonly understood. But, if he has a well-balanced mind, disposed to see into the laws and connections of the universe, the union of God with nature, of spirit with matter, the spirit-world with the natural world, and intellect with affection or truth with good, he will then both see and feel the truth in both of these things; and, gratefully acknowledging the stupendous force and mechanism of the universe and the power of God through all, he will at the same time act in accordance with those higher moral and spiritual laws, which equally reign therein, and make a part of the wonderful unity. In short, he will not only think, but feel; not only reason, but act; not only say this or that, but go to and make it an actual and practical necessity. FERNALD. The impress of life from God upon His creatures is made both from within them and from without them. In His creature-man-the force of impress is from within and from without equal, so that man is in exact equilibrium; hence arise Reason and Freewill-the faculties in which God dwells individually with men ; for man is at liberty to re-act either upon the impressions from within or upon the impressions from without, that is, to live for his outward self and the delights of sense, or for God and the delights of truth and love. Which last, however, when lived for, flow into and fill to overflowing all outward delights. The permanent shape and organization of the mind proceeds from what we feel and do, and not from what we think. HEN. TAYLOR. Oh, heart! but try it once: 'tis easy good to be, FROTHINGHAM. Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief? Breathes freely its perfume throughout the ambient air. |