And again, the evident folly of questioning the goodness of God, has driven some into the absurdity of viewing an eternity of moral evil as a good ("one of the glories of God") and one sect of Christians makes a willingness to be damned an essential element of the Christian character; and if damnation were an eternal thing, this would be reasonable enough, since whatever is eternal must be pleasing to an allhappy Deity, and consequently should be acquiesced in, by those whose happiness is to be found in communion with him.

Both these absurdities may be avoided by viewing moral evil as limited with respect to every individual; and this may be done, even though we carry moral evil beyond time and death, as reason and revelation both compel us to do. Even supposing it possible, that free agency should be abused to the last degree, moral evil would still be limited by the cessation of existence itself; for no individual can be supposed to exist in creation, in whom is no element of the Creator, or in other words, no good whatever; (and this, by the way, strikes at the root of the whole science of demonology, and the whole world of intelligent evil spirits).

But if moral evil is overruled for good, and is limited, therefore, as to the Divine Mind; still it is something very great, relatively to the human mind on earth; and what is it, and how does it enter into the character?

We have said that Moses does not say man was perfected at his creation. Let us inquire, however, what was done for man at his birth; or what is necessary to moral existence? Conscience and power were given him, with the desire, and a progressive capacity, to receive into himself a knowledge of the world without. Conscience means the feeling of the distinction between right and wrong. Power means the choosing faculty or will. These are necessary to moral existence, and in looking back (for this question is only to be settled by self-recollection), do we, or do we not, remember the time, when we were not conscious of these? We were responsible, we were susceptible of moral evil, only so far back, as we do remember them. And is not our remembrance coëxtensive with memory and the recognition of personal identity?

On the recognition of personal identity, as on a rock, rests indeed our power of choosing. This incomprehensible but

most intimate feeling of our nature, is a sense of inalienable, absolute being; and, relatively to this feeling, all temporary states of mind, no less than matter and circumstance, seem to be external, a rush of winds and waves, which are only dashed against it and broken. The strength of will is in proportion to the habit of silence and reflection, which gives opportunity for the winds and waves to subside, and then the rock rises sublime and evident in the face of heaven, on which it does not fear to look.

But the subsiding of the winds and waves, whence may it come? A fountain wells up in the bosom of the rock itself, a fountain whose flood is oil; this is a feeling of alliance to the Eternal Excellence, involving a love, as diverse from every other emotion of the heart, as is the idea of personal identity from every notion of the mind; — and this oil when poured on the waters produces a calm. Revelation calls this, in its own poetical dialect, the influence of the Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer.

But we must remember the material creation, or circumstance, has two aspects; it is one thing to the human mind active, and quite another thing to the human mind passive. To the human mind active, it is the stepping-stone to heaven; to the human mind passive, it is a weight which may crush. The progress of knowledge is a continued temptation, for a little light shows things in a false coloring. And often we must act even on confined views, and learn that they are confined by the consequences of our actions. Thus a limited moral evil will arise; but it is limited by sensibility and conscience, if not in the days of probation, surely in those of retribution. The moral evil, in this limited degree, it is true, exists necessarily; but its existence may become to the human mind a means of future elevation; for the experience of the evil of departing from the right line will give new light to conscience, and new energy to the purified will. At any rate, if the possibility of this limited moral evil is necessary to free agency, there is no one but will feel, that the infinity of the blessing reduces the risk of the evil, to a nonentity, in the eye of immortality; consequently, Ignorance, which is alike the source of free will and of sin (for should we not be bound by a necessity as strong as the will of the Omnipotent, if we could see and realize all consequences?) when looked upon in its remotest bearings, is

as much a proof of the wisdom and love of God as any thing else in the creation. But could not Omnipotence have given free will without setting us out in life ignorant, or with only one guide instead of two? In reply it may be asked, could Omnipotence create a valley without at the same time creating hills?

But sin, though finite in its nature and consequences, is still too great an evil to be provoked: its consequences too, limited though they be in the eye of the Divine Being, are doubtless, when considered relative to the present powers of human conception, unlimited; and even if Revelation did not run over heaven and earth for images to express its fearfulness, we might reason from the progressive acuteness of a violated conscience, as we become more and more elevated in the scale of excellence, that it is only necessary to conceive the relations of eternity to be consciously developed, in order to understand that what constitutes the trial of probation in time, will become the pangs of retribution in eternity. The hint of this theory was derived from the name given by Moses to the forbidden fruit.

ART. IV. - Review of a recent Portraiture of the Saviour's Sufferings.

THE sufferings of the Messiah furnish a subject of deep int rest to the Christian world. To obtain correct views of the occasion, the nature, and the object of these sufferings should be the aim of every minister of the gospel. If we reflect on the temper man fested by the sufferer, we may find evidence, that this is a subject in the discussion of which, we should put away all bitterness, clamor, evil speaking, and censorious judging, and be clothed with meekness and humility.

"The Christian Spectator," for June, 1833, contains an article on this important question;" How can the sinner be made to feel his guilt? The article was written by the Rev. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia, "at the request of the Revival Association, Andover." Of the various means to be employed to make the sinner feel his guilt, an exhibition

of the sufferings of Christ is supposed by the writer of the article to be of the highest importance, and the most efficacious. The following extracts are from his "Portraiture," or the view he has given of the subject.

"The gospel in the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ has exhausted all the appeals which can be made to men's sensibilities, to make them feel their guilt. It comes in at the end of the law, and when all other topics of persuasion have been found to be ineffectual. It became needful that some other should be tried to see whether men could be made so effectually to feel their guilt and ill desert, as to hate it and abandon it. That plan was what was expressed in the cross of Christ. The essence of that plan consists in a man's being made to see an innocent being suffering unutterable agonies in his stead, and as the proper expression of his crime. "Now the value of that plan may be seen by supposing that human law had some such device. One thing strikes every man in going into a court of justice. It is that the criminal, who knows his guilt, and who may expect to die, is so unmoved by the scene and the danger; and especially that he seems to have so little sense of the evil of the crime for which he is to die.. But suppose there could be placed in full view, where the man alone could see it, some innocent being voluntarily suffering what his crime deserved, -illustrating on the rack or in the flames, just what he ought to suffer, and bearing this so patiently, so mildly, as he sank into the arms of death, as to be the highest expression of pure friendship. Suppose this was the brother or the father of the man he had slain, and that the dying man should tell him that he bore this to show the importance of maintaining violated law, and that but for these sufferings the guilty wretch could not be saved from death, and how much more affecting would be this than the mere dryness of statutes, and the pleadings of counsel, and the charge of the judge. You may find here perhaps a slight illustration of the principle on which the gospel acts. Law had tried its power in vain, and the only effectual scheme is to place before the sinner the innocent Lamb of God, bleeding for his sins. Hence the Apostles met with such success, whose preaching was little more than a simple statement of the truth, that Jesus died and rose. And however it is to be accounted for, it is this which has, in all ages, been attended with convictions of guilt among men. Nor do I doubt that this is the way in which men must be taught to feel their guilt, as the gospel spreads over the world. If you wish to make men feel

the evil of sin, go and tell them, that its magnitude is so great that none but God's own Son could undertake the task of bearing the burden of the world's atonement. Go and remember that angelic might was not equal to this; that all on high but God, was incapable to breast the tide of human sins, that so great were the plans of gigantic and all-spreading evil, that it was needful that God should become incarnate, and in our nature meet the evils of sin, aimed at his head and his heart. Go, and look on embodied holiness, the august blending of all virtues in the person of the Son of God, moving a present deity, through the scenes of earth, and himself the only innocent being that had blessed our world with his presence. Then go and see innocence itself in torture, and ask, Why was this? Is this the fair expression of the desert of our sin? Did God judge aright when he deemed that woes like these should tell how much men ought to endure?" Christian Spectator, for June, 1833. - pp. 189, 191.

We have no occasion to question either the ability or the sincerity of Mr. Barnes. These may be admitted; still we may question the correctness of some of his views. In speaking of the opinions of others he has said,—"Dark dogmas, however pompous, statuary, and solemn, will not supply the place of light. Men will think and reason and draw their own conclusions; and this must be fully understood by the ministry," (p. 181.) To aid in this work of thinking and reasoning will be the object of this review. An answer to the last question but one in the foregoing extracts may embrace nearly all we have to say at the present time. The question is the following:

"Is this the fair expression of the desert of our sin?" The question relates to the sufferings of the cross as the writer had described them. To his question we conscientiously answer, NAY. Some reasons for this answer will now

be given.

1. We object to the "Portraiture," because it exhibits Jehovah as the "innocent Being" who suffered on the cross. It is true that the writer uses the phrases" the Son of God" and "God's own Son "; but he is careful to inform us that he uses the word Son in a sense not known in any other case; and that by the "Son of God" he means God himself;" that all on high but God, was incapable." The Scriptures, however, teach us that the sufferer was a being who