and that I have established, as the MOST RATIONAL BELIEF We can entertain on the subject, that God is the only SPIRIT in existence; and that angel and archangel, cherub and seraph, whatever the immortal essence of which they are compounded, are, like man, and all other living creatures with which we are acquainted, merely organized beings. That our hopes of a future state cannot rest with any certainty upon the existence of a soul, as maintained by the ancient philosophers, but upon our resurrection from death, as announced by Christ, and taught by the evangelists and apostles throughout the whole of the Christian revelation. And, lastly, though the kingdom of heaven, when restricted to the triumphant reign of moral and religious feelings upon earth, may properly be called a spiritual kingdom, yet that the promised heaven of hereafter is not an immaterial world of immaterial spirits, but a local and substantial portion of the universe, peopled by visible, tangible, active, and sociable beings, the more pure, intelligent, permanent, resplendent, and powerful, in proportion as their organization and essence are refined, exalted, and imperishable; and that, with the exception of God himself, who is A SPIRIT, and whose incommunicable essence no creature can participate, all living beings, in their gradations from the highest class to the lowest, bear a semblance or relation, either intimate or remote, to each other; that as planet resembles planet, and sun resembles sun, so universe resembles universe throughout the creation; and whether those universes roll round a void, or round some mighty orb in the centre of all, which may constitute the highest empy-the more immediate dwelling of God—the seat of his visible glories, still that NATURE, in all its varieties of worlds and beings, is, like its Creator, but ONE-exemplifying in all its complication of arrangements, however minute or stupendous, an unity of design, the simple, the uniform, the exquisite result of an infinite, all-gracious, omniscient, omnipotent MIND." P. 95.

rean

No part of this little work is more satisfactory than the section in which the scriptural evidence for and against

a separate soul is collected and weighed. It is perfectly clear that the nature of this evidence has been widely mistaken, as much through an excessive attachment to our common translation of the Scriptures, as through ignorance of the Jewish superstitions. Change spirit into breath, soul into life, hell into hades, and paradise into a garden of rest, as often as they might fairly be so changed, and what becomes of the evidence for the doctrine so long and pertinaciously held as a part of Christianity? With one more extract, containing a suggestion, of whose value our readers will judge for themselves, we conclude.

"With this history of the word Paradise before us, we may reasonably doubt that the modern sense of the word had ever been applied to it in the time of our Saviour. The sense in which he used it in that singular and often-quoted text, Luke xxiii. 43, remains now to be investigated. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us: but the other answering rebuked him - - and said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom: and Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It has been suggested to me by a learned and intelligent friend, in whose clear views, unbiassed judgment, and enlightened understanding, I place unqualified confidence, that the meaning of this passage has been utterly mistaken; and that whatever was the penitence of the thief, there was no beatitude in the paradise promised by our Saviour. On the contrary, that his words were intended as a check to those hopes of a temporal kingdom so generally entertained by all his followers, and which, from the preternatural events that attended his crucifixion, appeared on the very verge of being realized. — His revilers and persecutors exclaimed, 'If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him.' No wonder that those who already believed him, should also believe that the marvels they witnessed were but a prelude to his actual

descent from the cross, and the establishment of his expected kingdom. No wonder the malefactor, who was a Jew, trained up in the expectation of a Messiah that was to emancipate Judea, and extend his dominion over the earth, should fall into the same self-deception - should rebuke his railing companion; and, confiding in the power of the king of Israel thus awfully manifested, not only to save himself and them, but to advance their temporal interests in a kingdom which was indeed to embrace mankind, but which had no concern save with spiritual and eternal interests, should, with more of self-love than repentance, exclaim, 'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;' and Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, instead of that temporal kingdom thou dost hope for, to-day thou shalt be, with me, among the dead." Pp. 125–127.

CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION.*

"WHAT is Christianity? the Unbeliever sarcastically demands, after enumerating the various and contradictory creeds of its professors." What is Christianity? he still inquires, when he has witnessed the modes in which it is taught in the cathedral and the conventicle; in the meetinghouse and on the hill side. Those modes are various, as the preachers and auditories by whom they are employed, and to whom they are addressed; but all appear to him, in a greater or less degree, inconsistent with the principles of philosophy, calculated to pervert or impair the intellectual strength which he prizes above all things, and discordant with the spirit of the age. From teachings which are

* The Perpetuity of the Christian Dispensation, viewed in its Con. nexion with the Progress of Society. A Sermon, preached before the Supporters of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, at their Annual Meeting, June 2, 1830. By John James Tayler, A. B. London: 8vo. pp. 39. 1830.

prescribed by creeds and bounded by formularies, he expected nothing, and turns from them without disappointment. He joins the multitude who are gathered together to undergo a revival a revival of tumultuous and unholy passions. He feels pity and disgust at the tears and groans of the sufferers, knows that all this is not religion, and strongly suspects that it is not Christianity. He enters meetinghouses where creeds are abjured and superstition reprobated. He hears assertions of the right of private judgment, and arguments in favor of unlimited freedom of thought and speech in matters of religion. These assertions he believes to be just, these arguments sound, because he maintains them himself: but these are not Christianity. Again, he listens to an exposure of some monstrous popular errors, and a condemnation of various doctrines which prevail in the Christian world. From these he learns what Christianity is not; but is as far as ever from ascertaining what it is. Again, he hears instructions which he knows to be sound, and exhortations which he feels to be forcible, on subjects of eternal importance, on purity of life, and the strict discharge of the moral law. Something very like this he has met with before in Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus, Seneca, and especially in the Old Testament. This is not Christianity. Where shall he seek it next? There are places, a very few so few that it is well if he can find his way to them, where the teacher has not only discovered the fine affinities which subsist between the spirit of Christianity and the soul of man, but has had the courage to fling away the caput mortuum, which is commonly mistaken for the essence. That the Unbeliever has hitherto been unable to institute this process on the materials with which his wanderings have furnished him, is at once a proof and a consequence of his having fallen into the same error with the preachers who have only taught him what Christianity

is not. Now is his time to rectify his deficiencies. If he will act upon the religious suggestions of the preacher as readily as the preacher reasons from the principia of his philosophy, he may at length obtain an answer to his question, "What is Christianity?".

This answer he must obtain from his own mind; for it is one which no man can advance for another. The preacher himself can only determine for himself. He may teach the principles on which the investigation is to be pursued; he may remove obstructions, clear up obscurities, declare his own convictions, and, above all, describe the invariable effects, the inseparable attributes of Christianity, and thus lead his flock to the apprehension of the truth; but he cannot apprehend it for them. He may strip the essential facts of the gospel from their accessory circumstances, so that the reasoning faculty may be undisturbed in its operation, and the result be predicted with moral certainty; but over the act of assent he has no control. The power of drawing an inference is not transferable. If the Unbeliever, startled by finding his philosophic principles acted upon, should set about examining the facts of the revelation, and drawing the necessary inferences, it is well. If not, at least it is well to have learned that all Christian teachers do not believe that the vitality of the gospel resides in the apparel with which it is clothed, or even in the body which it temporarily inhabits.

The duty of the Christian teacher is to declare what he apprehends to be "the whole counsel of God; " not bit by bit, at random; - now a portion of doctrine, and now a piece of practical instruction, separated from the fundamental principles on which all sound doctrine and good practice are founded; but in the first place to ascertain those principles, then to announce them, and afterwards to assist his hearers in applying them to the rectification of their errors,