give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty give him water to drink : for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee:' which words are quoted by the Apostle Paul, Rom. xii, 20, with a view to discourage that spirit of revenge which is condemned equally under the old and new dispensations, and therefore does not form the distinguishing trait of Christianity. Indeed we have too hastily concluded that there was this specific difference between the Jewish and Christian religion, that the one allowed its professors to hate their enemies, and the other commanded them to love them. They are both alike in all their essential features, both requiring us to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, to be not only just, but also merciful in all our intercourse with mankind.

6

Nor does this peculiarity consist in inspiring its votaries with a spirit of martyrdom. We believe all systems of religions have had their martyrs, not excepting even atheism itself. It is stated on good authority, that Protagoras and Diagoras, followers of Democritus, and Theodorus, among the ancients, were accounted martyrs for atheism. The first was banished, the second condemned, and was obliged to flee from his country, and the last underwent the punishment of death. The following persons in more modern times suffered death for their perverted zeal in endeavoring to propagate atheistical principles :-Giordino Bruno, the author of many impious works, was burnt in Rome in the year 1600. Vanini was burnt at Toulouse, 1629, adhering to the last moment to his infidelity. Cassimir Leszynski, a Polish knight, was burnt at Warsaw, in 1789, and, after his body was consumed, the ashes were collected and shot from the mouth of a canon. Cosmo Ruggeri, a Florentine, one of the most audacious infidels of any age, died at Paris in 1615, uttering the most horrible impieties.'*

We know that Jews, Mohammedans, and Pagans, as well as Christians, have all had a multitude of martyrs for their faith. This therefore is not any peculiarity of Christianity. Nor is it, we humbly conceive, any test of the truth of religion; for if it was, all religions, however false and delusive, absurd or blasphemous, might furnish themselves with ample testimony to their truth. All we can safely say in reference to this subject is, that martyrdom may prove the sincerity of the sufferer in the cause he had espoused, and in defence of which he died.

In what then does this distinctive peculiarity consist? We answer, In the resurrection of its FOUNDER from the dead. Search the world around, and examine all the systems of religion which have ever been propagated, and you will no where find that any of their founders ever rose from the dead. Was it on account of the importance of this fact to the integrity and vital interest of the Christian religion, that Mohammed wished to have it believed that his body rose in the leaden coffin in which it was deposited after

* See New Edinburgh Encyclopedia, art. Atheism.

his death, that he might thereby more effectually rival the peculiar glory of Christianity?

Nor let any one suppose that this is a small or trifling article in the Christian faith. The apostles considered it so vitally connected with the very existence of the system, that on the day of pentecost, as well as at subsequent times, they set themselves to work in the most labored and pointed manner, to prove the fact of Christ's resurrection. Consult particularly St. Peter's discourse to the people on the day of pentecost. So very important was the fact. of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that if the apostles had failed to establish it, the whole system of Christianity must have fallen to the ground, as the baseless fabric of a vision.' Other systems of religion had their martyrs who had died in their defence; and the object of the apostles was to prove that the worshippers of the manes of those departed heroes was idolatry, that is, a worship of mere images, shadows, or nothings, as the original Hebrew word rendered idol sometimes signifies; and if they had failed to prove the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, Christianity would have had nothing-unless we except its superior morality-to recommend it to the acceptance of the people, as they would still have been called upon to believe in, and to worship merely the manes of dead heroes, or dead gods. Hence they bent all their force, and exerted all their strength, to establish this cardinal point; and having succeeded, they presented a most triumphant refutation of Heathenism, as well as an irrefragable argument in favor of Christianity.

They did more. The Jews had crucified Christ as an impostor. And one of their most powerful accusations was, that he had said, respecting himself, Destroy this body, and in three days I will raise it up again.' This they considered blasphemy. Now had not the apostles succeeded in proving beyond all reasonable doubt, the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the accusations of his Jewish enemies would have been substantiated; and hence their triumph would have been complete. In establishing this important fact therefore, the cavils of the Jews were for ever silenced, and the cause of Christianity obtained a complete triumph over all its enemies.

And yet, although this truth was so vitally connected with the , signifies nought, vain, nothing, or nothing worth, and was used as a term of reproach by the Hebrews, when they applied the term to the gods of the Gentiles. It is rendered by our translators in Job xiii, 4, of no value; and in Jeremiah xiv, 14, a thing of nought they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and, a thing of nought. It is probably in reference to this use of the term in the Old Testament that the Apostle Paul says, 1 Cor. viii, 4, 'We know that an idol (dwλov) is nothing in the world.' When the word is applied in the sacred Scriptures to the false deities of the Gentiles, we know indeed that in general it signifies an image of wood or stone, brass, or other metal, which was a visible representative of the object of their idolatry; but as these objects of false worship were, in reality, no gods, but only fanciful deities, mere shadows of their imaginations, hence they were derided by the prophets of Jehovah as mere nothings, or lying

vanities.

integrity of the whole system, it was so new and mysterious, so entirely beyond the range of human calculation, that it seems never to have entered into the minds of the disciples, until some time after his death, that such a thing should ever come to pass. Though He had frequently apprized them of it, in unambiguous terms, so dull were their eyes in seeing, and backward their hearts in believing, that when they found He had been taken from them and crucified, and buried, they seemed to think that their hopes were all blasted, and their expectations of realizing the kingdom of the Messiah upon earth were for ever disappointed. Neither could they be convinced of the reality of His resurrection, until its truth burst upon them, in despite of all their unbelief and desponding fears, in the effulgence which shone around His personal appearance by which He demonstrated His own identity. The unbelief of Thomas was but an epitome of the unbelief of all the rest of His doubting and timid disciples, brought out to be sure in more bold relief; nor was this dissipated, until by handling the Lord Jesus Himself, and thrusting his finger into His side, he received a sensible demonstration, that this was indeed the identical Jesus with whom they had conversed for three years, who had taught them in the most familiar manner, who had been crucified and slain, but was now in truth risen from the dead.

But when the truth of the resurrection burst upon them in such a manner that they could no longer doubt it, all the illusions of their minds were banished, the whole vision opened upon them with all the radiance of demonstration, so that it is said, They could not believe for joy. It was then indeed that their understandings were opened to understand the Holy Scriptures which spoke of His resurrection, because they saw their actual fulfilment before their eyes. This then was the triumph of the Christian cause, the archstone of the whole sacred edifice, which its builders now brought forth with shoutings, Grace, grace unto it.

This, therefore, is that trait in the Christian religion which strikingly distinguishes it from all others. Other religions have had their sacrifices, their gods, altars, and priests, their confessors and dying martyrs; have recognized the doctrines of the unity of God, of Providence, of depravity and repentance, of faith and obedience, of love to friends and enemies, of the immortality of the soul, and of a future day of retribution; but none of them has ever been built on the resurrection of its FOUNDER. In this particular, therefore, as well as the consequences resulting from it, Christianity stands alone--having no rival, no equal, no competitor --and eclipses the glory of all others in the effulgence of that light which issues from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and which sparkled upon the land of Judea on the morning of the resurrection.

It may, nevertheless, be still affirmed by some that as the resurrection of Jesus Christ was predicted by the Jewish prophets, it was an article of their faith, as well as of the faith of Christians.

But allowing all this to be true, it invalidates not our position. The religion of the Jews was first founded, under God, by Moses, and was afterward explained and amplified by the prophets; and therefore, independently of the coming of Christ, existed in all its binding force, as an institution of God. Yet none of those patri archs or prophets, by whom this grand institution was revealed and established, ever rose from the dead in order to attest the truth of their doctrine. It remained therefore as the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity to have its truths attested, not only by the crucifixion and death, but more especially by the resurrection of its Divine Founder; and hence the apostle says, Rom. i, 4, that Jesus Christ is declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead'--intimating that the fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead gave the finishing touch to that mass of testimony which had been accumulating for ages in favor of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. This then is the keystone of that mighty arch which stretches from earth to heaven, and which forms the magnificent bridge on which the happy believer may safely pass over the cold river of death, and then triumphantly enter into the regions of perennial happiness.

MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF WILLIAM

PALEY, D. D.

THE celebrity of Paley as a writer upon various subjects connected with moral and political economy, as well as with theology, has given a sanction to almost every thing which has dropped from his pen. And it is this very circumstance which should induce us to examine with caution before we adopt as sound what he may have written in the form of moral maxims.

As the author of the 'Evidences of Christianity,' of 'Natural Theology,' and of various other useful tracts, we venerate the name of Paley as an able champion in favor of Divine truth. It is with some reluctance, therefore, that we feel impelled to dissent from him on some points of no small moment.

We think that many of his maxims of morality are entirely too lax in their character. Take for instance his Law of Honor. 'It allows,' he says, 'of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme; and lays no stress upon the virtues opposite to these.' It is true Paley does not give his sanction to these shameful vices, but in a subsequent chapter condemns them; yet he speaks of them as existing in honorable society, between equals, that is, we suppose, among the fashionable society of England, without any note of disapprobation; 'because,' as he remarks, a man is not a less agreeable companion, nor the worse to deal with, in those concerns which are usually transacted between one gentleman and another, for the vices of profaneness, neglect of public or private devotion, cruelty to servants,' &c. The

manner in which Paley speaks of these vices among equals leaves his readers to infer that the laws of honor established among gentlemen of 'equal rank give sanction to them, and therefore ought not to derogate from their character. And it is no less lamentable than true that these laws are sanctioned by most of those who wish to be esteemed as honorable gentlemen.

Look also at his chapter on lies. In this he justifies all those falsehoods which are told as 'jests, to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments of a story, where the declared design of the speaker is not to inform, but to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter, a servant's denying his master,' together with several other instances in which he justifies deviations from the truth. How flatly contradictory is all this to the apostolic precepts, Lay aside all jesting and foolish talking, which are not convenient, and lie not one to another, but speak every man truth with his neighbor.

The lax and indefinite manner in which Paley interprets subscription to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England is well known. By such an interpretation a man may swear his belief in almost any article of religion, however foreign from the real conviction of his mind; for according to this, if a man abjure popery and the peculiar doctrine of the Anabaptists, though he does not heartily embrace the doctrines of the said articles, he may solemnly subscribe to them as the articles of his belief. With such an interpretation, is it any wonder that so many of the English clergy profess to believe one thing while they preach another?

When treating of the Sabbath, though Paley admits that its observance was obligatory on the Jews after its institution in the wilderness -for he does not allow that it existed before among them-yet he denies that Christians are under any moral obligation to observe the Sabbath any farther than to assemble together on that day for Divine worship that with this exception, we are permitted to attend to the common occupations of life as on other days-and hence he supposes that it was a mere ceremonial institution, having no moral force after the coming of Christ. Thus one of the most powerful restraints upon mankind is done away, as, according to this interpretation, after spending an hour or two on the Sabbath in public worship, men may devote the residue of this day of holy rest to sports and plays, or to the common avocations of life. How demoralizing in their tendency are such views of God's Sabbath!

We should not have made these remarks upon Paley's philosophy had we not known that it is quite extensively adopted in our country as a text book in our academies, from which our youth, of both sexes, are taught to derive their lessons of morality. It certainly ought to be either substituted by one better suited to our political condition and to the tone of morality running through the Bible, or so revised as to have all such objectionable parts expunged from its pages. Paley is, in general, an able, perspicuous, and lively writer, and has done much in defence of Christianity; but ever since we were made acquainted with his science of morals, we have felt a regret that it did not come up more fully to the standard of revealed truth, and of those sound political maxims which every American should be taught to hold sacred.