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and thicken, so that it neither flew round, nor drew in as rapidly as the rest, and was accordingly left to itself. This ring, thus left, girding the entire circumference, was, by design of the law, we suppose, unequal in different places; and, as a consequence, it broke into numerous fractions, and the smaller were absorbed by the larger, until they all became one mass, moving round on the orbit the ring had occupied when it was forsaken. It was still, however, very gaseous. and diffused, occupying a vast circumference. But our skilful law set an eddy to work in its centre, which served it just as its illustrious predecessor served the whole original mist, and with similar results! You may thus comprehend, without further detail, how this toilsome and cunning law managed to separate and make all the planets and all their satellites.

However, notwithstanding all its pains, by some chance or other, there were a few mistakes. The first occurred in working out the system of the planet Uranus and its satellites-so serious that the whole concern underwent an actual bouleversement- -a kind of overset, so that its satellites have ever since had a retrogressive movement! The next occurred in making the moons of Saturn; two of the rings wheeled off from it, for that purpose, being accidentally so equally distributed, that they never broke up at all, and hence remain to this day, Saturn's rings! Another was, that the ring designed for a planet between Mars and Jupiter, was so badly managed, that, instead of its matter aggregating into one, as it had done in all the other cases, it agglomerated into four, and thus made what are called the Asteroids! But as far as we know, in all other cases, matters worked well; and the magnificent result is our splendid sun and all his attending planets with their satellites! Was not that a Law?

What it has been doing in the other globes-suns, planets and satellités, since their separation and condensation was completed, our Author does not tell-perhaps is as yet uninspired to say. But in ours, its doings are absolutely marvelous. The most wonderful and peerless of them are traced in the process by which it eliminated from the inert mass all the vegetables and animals that have ever lived in its deeps, or on its bosom! It is true, it has taken it a long time to effect these amazing results; but then, no wonder! Look for a moment at those fossil remains-corals, encrinites polypiaria--the remnants of earliest animation; and then follow on, step by step, the stages of progress and improvement

in animal organization and development, through fish, fowl, quadrupeds and bipeds, till you arrive at what is as yet, the climax of its wonder-working skill, the Caucasian Man, with all his faculties and attributes; and surely, when you remember that those, earliest fossil remains were the great ancestors of this glorious being, you will not marvel that it has required such a series of circling ages, to attain such a magnificent consummation! But who can tell what improvements it will yet make, as it toils onward and gains skill, during the progress of the limitless future! We can only admire our own imaginings of what shall yet be!

Such is this creed-a creed whose inevitable deductions would utterly supplant and expel from human belief every element and trace of the Christian system. And shall we swell the retinue of those who are turning away from the oracles of God, to follow in its train, and shout its blasphemous hosannas? Shall we bring to its shrine, and immolate at its altar, all that essentially distinguishes humanity from the tenants of the stall our spiritual and immortal nature, our belief in, and allegiance to a present and parental God," in whom we live, and move, and have our being;" our trust in a crucified Savior, and our hopes of heaven? And shall we, with brute indifference, henceforth herd ourselves "with four-footed beasts and creeping things," with whom, as we have had one common nature, we must have one common end-extinction in the abhorred gulf of annihilation? Is it not, on the contrary, our imperious duty, not only to scout the impious creed and all its implications, but to turn to its credulous author and priest, and indignantly ask

"Beneath what baleful planet, in what hour
Of desperation, by what fury's aid,
In what infernal posture of the soul,
All hell invited, and all hell in joy
At such a birth, so near of kin,

Did thy foul fancy whelp so black a scheme
Of hopes abortive, faculties half blown,
And deities begun, reduced to dust? "

Out on such goblin theories! and out on the shocking credu lity which can credit them! Out on any theory which with one dash of its pencil dipt in hell, blots out at once all just conceptions of God and his government, of man and his des tiny, and involves the universe in eternal gloom! Out on any theory which, not only sets aside the Bible, the cross, and eternal salvation by grace divine, but belies our consciousness, denies our moral freedom, misrepresents our real

nature and condition, defames all virtue, and sanctifies all crime, giving it free course to run and be glorified! Out on the infinite credulity of scepticism! Say what we will, it is universally brewed in the cauldron of deep and desperate depravity-it is conscious guilt flying from the presence of infinite purity!

8. From the views we have presented, it is easy to see the difference between real faith, and that which is antinomian, superstitious, or fanatical. Real faith is confiding in God and the validity of all his declarations on the ground of the evidences of his absolute goodness and truth. It is voluntary submission to evidences.

It differs from antinomian faith, because that is merely intellectual belief, involving no actual consent of the will; and hence does not determine the moral exercises and conduct of the agent.

It differs from superstitious faith, because that consists in voluntarily assuming as true, theories, dogmas and inculcations without any good evidence of their validity--and in many cases in opposition to absolute proof against them. Take as specimens the faith of the heathen in their fictitious and fabulous gods; of the Jews in their traditions; of Romanists in priestly absolution, transubstantiation, purgatory and infallibility of the Pope. We do not intend to affirm that every Romanist who assents to these falsehoods and fables is thereby necessarily void of true faith; but that whoever relies on these and kindred fictions as grounds of salvation is. Who, for example, that had real reliance on God and his declarations would dream of placing any dependence for salvation on the Virgin Mary or any of the saints? At any rate, to do so is pure superstition.

It differs from fanatical faith, because that is intellectual or superstitious belief accompanied by malign will towards all who reject the grounds on which it rests, and dissent from its validity. It involves no true love either to God or man, but is disposed to traduce and injure, and sometimes even to torment and exterminate all who bow not down and do it reverence. It not seldom attempts to prove and promote its creed by the holy text of pike and gun; but where this is impracticable, it adopts measures less fierce and furious, but quite kindred in character, such as, excommunications, denunciations, vilifications, and petty persecutions. How dif ferent is such a faith from that simple reliance on the Father of mercies, through Christ his Son, which transmutes the

heart into affectionate loyalty to God, and universal good-will to man, and which sends forth all the moral energies of the soul in earnest endeavors to promote universal well-being.

[We defer to a future occasion what remains of our proposed field of investigation. It has amplified in our hands much beyond our first design. Had we been left to act according to our feelings we should never have published such an article in the Quarterly. It is given substantially as we delivered it, some loppings and prunings excepted, in lectures to our charge: and was wholly prepared without any design of immediate publication. This will explain to any to whom it may seem too sermonical, the reason of the type and texture it bears. We think, however, it is not devoid of such theoretical and practical bearings as render it worthy of your attentive perusal, candid reader,-otherwise we should not have consented to its publication.]

ARTICLE XLII.

The Responsibilities of the Christian Citizen.

By Rev. L. F. WALDO, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

BUT little has been said from the pulpit of late, concerning the relations of the Christian as a member of civil society, and his duties as connected with civil government. For this comparative silence doubtless one important reason is to be found in the fact that men are unwilling to hear, upon this subject, the cry often raised that "it is not the minister's business," and that he is "meddling with politics," whenever he presumes to instruct his hearers in these great and important duties.

Now to this plea we would answer, that the idea is wholly of modern date. In the American Revolution, it was generally regarded not only as the right but the duty of ministers to aid in the struggle by their counsels and prayers; and if we examine the works of divines of the past generationmen whose "praise is in all the churches," and whose names the world honors and reveres-we shall find that no inconsiderable portion of their discourses pertain to the relations and duties of men and citizens; with other kindred subjects. "To preach such sermons," says Dr. Dwight, "is unquestionably the right, and in certain cases, as unquestionably the duty of every minister of the gospel. It is as really the duty of a minister to explain this part of the gospel to his congregation, and to enforce upon them these precepts as any other. Nor can he be at all excused in passing them by." And well did he practically illustrate this sentiment in his admirable discourses on "the Duty of Rulers," and "the Duty of Subjects." Indeed, in all ages of the church, until the present, these have ever been regarded as appropriate themes for the sacred desk.

But we are not dependent upon these alone for authority to preach upon this important subject. We have the countenance of apostolic example, and of apostolic precept, uttered under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. When the apostle Paul commands his brethren at Rome, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers"-when he tells them to "be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake"-when he declares that they "pay tribute" because

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