Dr. Paley argues the question throughout as if our good works were to furnish the criterion by which we are to be tried, and our admission or rejection on the great day to be determined. However conformable this doctrine may be both to reason and scripture, it would be difficult, I suspect, to shew its conformity with the system which represents the righteous and the sinner as in respect of justification before God precisely upon a level, and owing their different fate solely to the circumstance that the Father for his own glory has been pleased to elect the one and reject the other. It is generally understood, I believe, (though not by any means universally,) by the advocates of this opinion, that the elect will be distinguished for good works; their admission into heaven does not, however, in the smallest degree, depend on these, but solely on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; while on the other hand many, though by no means all the reprobate, have led wicked lives in this world; but it is not on that account that they are doomed to eternal torment, but because they sinned in the person of their federal head Adam, whose offence is consequently imputed to them. Taking these views of imputed sin and imputed righteousness into the account, as furnishing (in the estimation of the orthodox) the true and only ground of future admission or rejection, happiness or misery, it is difficult to see in what way, consistently with the system, however loudly both reason and scripture may call for it, we can apply such a graduated scale to the condition allotted to mankind in a future state, as Dr. Paley suggests.

But there is another important conclusion to which it seems to me naturally to lead us; and that is, the possibility of passing from one of these states to the other. Those at least who are introduced to a state of rewardto a condition which deserves in any the most modified sense to be called one of happiness for a rational and intellectual being-must be enabled to continue the exercise of their rational powers, and probably, in proportion to the progress they have made here, under circumstances more advantageous to a continued improvement. No one can suppose that they are destined to rest contented and satisfied with their present attainments; or that the happiness of a future state is to consist in mere rest or unprofitable speculation. Doubtless the blessed spirits made perfect are advancing continually in the divine likeness, and going on through endless ages from one degree of glory to another. Now if this is the case with all those who are admitted to heaven, and if, as Dr. Paley says, there may be as little to choose in the conditions of the lowest that are admitted and the best that are rejected as there is in their characters, who shall say that these latter may not be introduced to a state of discipline and correction; who shall deny them the benefit of that activity which seems an essential attribute of mind, under circumstances which, though in the first instance penal and involving much suffering, may be for that very reason adapted to bring them to a sight and seuse of their sins and their duty, and thus to place them at length on the same level in moral and religious attainments, which had been reached by some of those who were in the first instance admitted to a state of reward? Again, if it be true that there is a uniform, unbroken gradation from the highest to the lowest, where shall we draw the line which excludes the possibility of such a transition as has here been suggested from one side of it to the other, from any one state to that immediately above it, and by consequence, (only allow time enough,) from the very lowest to the very highest? Such appears to me to be a not unfair, practical inference from the views suggested by this excellent and valuable writer. And let it not be supposed that they tend in the smallest degree to weaken the efficacy of the prospects

held out to us in a future state as the sanction of the divine laws in the present state. For they proceed in every instance upon the strict application of the principle that we shall be tried according to our works. The more sinful our conduct has been here, the more degraded, sensual, and selfish our desires and pursuits, the more inconsistent our habits and prevailing tastes with a state of pure and spiritual blessedness, of course the lower must be the condition assigned to us hereafter; not as a satisfaction to vindictive justice, but as the necessary consequence, arising inevitably from the very nature of things. For it is the nature of sin to produce misery; it is the nature of low, carnal, and sordid pursuits, of violent and bad passions, to produce a habit of mind which is incapable of tasting the refined joys prepared for the faithful in the mansions of their Father's house. In this lower and more degraded state, the sufferings of such as are reduced to it will of course be more severe; the evil habits more inveterate and deeply rooted; the difficulty of introducing the salutary influence of moral discipline, of serious reflection upon the causes of their present miserable condition, will be so much the greater, while the series of transitions before spoken of which is to be successfully performed by these unhappy beings, before they can be at length made fit for entering even upon the lowest ranks of the celestial hosts, into the humblest mansions of their Father's house, is in the same proportion more extensive. What length of time will be required for effecting these transformations is known only to Him who seeth and knoweth all things; but who hath reserved this among the secret things which he has not thought it necessary, or perhaps conducive to our moral and spiritual welfare, that we should be informed of. It is not unreasonable to presume that it will be different in different cases; nevertheless we humbly hope that it is permitted us, when mourning over the vice and folly which deform our world, to console ourselves with the belief that to all the means of making progress will be afforded. Doubtless at all periods through the endless ages of eternity there will be various degrees of advancement towards the unattainable perfections of the Divine nature, as one star differeth from another star in glory; but we rejoice to persuade ourselves that nothing forbids the cheering hope that a period is appointed in the inscrutable counsels of Providence, when the last enemy shall indeed be destroyed; when all the intelligent creatures of God shall become true disciples of Christ, and shall see the face of the Son of man; when as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.

We are aware that the apostle adds, "but every man in his own order;" from which we think it may be fairly inferred that there will be various periods at which those who have made different degrees of progress here in their preparation for heaven will be admitted to the enjoyment of its privileges. Christ is the first-fruits; afterwards those that are Christ's, those who have shewn themselves here in the character of true and faithful disciples, will be admitted with him at his coming to judge the world; then, after that (a) cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father. The coming of Christ, therefore, it appears, is not the end; for what is to happen first? Why all things are to be subdued unto him; the last enemy is to be destroyed, even death. But can it be said that the last enemy is destroyed, so long as there continue to be those who remain subject to his power; or, what is so much worse, exposed to all the unspeakable miseries of hell? If, therefore, we are to receive the authority of the Apostle Paul on this subject, it would seem that the kingdom of Christ cannot be finally merged in the kingdom of God his Father, until all shall be finally collected into one sheep-fold under one Shepherd. That

there will ever be a perfect equality established among the rational creatures of God, in respect of their progress in the Divine likeness, there seems no reason to believe; however true it may be, that it is the natural tendency of a course of moral discipline extending through endless ages, in conformity with the principle of association to produce a continual approximation to such a state. At all finite distances of time, it appears not unreasonable to conclude, that those who are so much further advanced on their heavenward journey here, as the Christian saint is before the abandoned profligate, will retain their advantage. And in this sense it may even be true that the punishment of sin, that is, the evil consequences arising from it to the sinner, may last for ever. Though we should suppose that he will ultimately be released from a state of positive misery, and even attain to a high degree of improvement, and be advanced to an exalted rank among glorified spirits, still it may be true, that in every period of his existence he will be worse off than he would have been, if he had not been a sinner in the present state.

I have heard it said, upon what authority I know not, that there are some professed advocates of eternal punishments, whose doctrine, when fairly explained, amounts to no more than this; if so, it is evident that they can be Calvinists only in name; and they differ from the Universalists in a mere shadow, or a slight peculiarity of language not worth the disputing about; and which both parties may at length happily perceive is only the veil of a real uniformity of sentiment. So perish all the bitter dissensions which at present divide Christian brethren in hostility from each other. Halifax.

W. T.

LETTERS FROM GERMANY.

Nos. III. and IV.*

SIR, Heidelberg. THE philosophical public of Germany have been for some time past withdrawing from the metaphysical speculations in which system after system had been swallowed up without leaving behind them any vestige of discovery; and are at length collecting themselves upon the firm ground of experience. They have found that by chasing phantoms on the fairy land of à priori assumptions and ideal abstractions, nothing is to be gained in philosophy, and that in religious speculations one meteor has glimmered and vanished only to be succeeded by another, leaving the inquirer baffled and perplexed, and always in want of a certain guide to truth. Still the language of the Kantische school pervades more or less most of the departments of literature; and at the present time in Berlin, Professor Hegel has been able to gather round him numerous disciples, I suppose rather juvenile. The doctrine of his school out-Kants Kant in transcending abstruseness and temerity. As to its religious bearing, it appears to flow in a direct course into the frozen deep of a sort of ideal Pantheism. Its examiner in the Hermes finds a coincidence in the speculations with some of the opinions and reasonings of Spinoza. As they are either unprofitable or unintelli

For Nos. I. and II. sce pp. 545 and 585.

gible, I shall not extract from them. The following passage is only a specimen of the author's manner; it is taken from his Encyclopædia of Phítosophical Knowledge: "Kant once pronounced the strong expression that the understanding of man is the lawgiver of nature. He was humble enough to explain this expression of the universal forms of time and space : but others have gone beyond him, and exulted to have the forms, categories, ideas of all existence, in the laws of thinking, and to develop them out of human thought. I will not remain behind in this sublime art. The principle of the independence of reason, of its absolute self-sufficiency, from the time of Kant, has been regarded as a universal principle of philosophy, as one of the decisions of time, and to this decision, so far from opposing it, I yield homage and allegiance. Experience is the starting ground of philosophy which has no other object than experience; but on this ground I do not remain. I soon drop the experience, raise myself above it, and soar into the open region of thinking à priori, and now commences its original, perfect, self-sufficient operation. Here I sit, shaping forms of thought, developing categories and ideas; and it is wonderful and glorious, that I possess this original, self-active power of forming ideas out of conceptions à priori; that these ideas, all in their necessity, stand before me as a thick phalanx; that I now look back upon the facts of experience, and discover in them a separate and after-formation of thought and its ideas; and that I can point to the things of experience and say exultingly, Behold it is in fact as I in my à priori thoughts have developed that it must be." But enough of chimera. The critic upon Hegel's philosophy (so called) in the Hermes, describes it as a work remarkable only for the most sophistical perplexing of the most simple thoughts. In the same critique he offers his own induction of Theism; and it is a specimen of the manner in which the plainest reasoning, such as the apostle's argument from the things that are made of the eternal power and Godhead, is here not unfrequently involved in metaphysical obscurity, or clothed in terms which are not understood, and are not always intelligible, any where else: "When I infer the Divine existence from the contingency of things in nature, (they are events, they begin to be,) and from their adaptation to an end, I set out from the phænomenon, the world; but it is not from the spectacle that I rise to the idea of a God, and what the idea involves, for he who stops at the contemplation of the facts of nature will never rise to the knowledge of a God. The condition of contingency and relationship to an end, are unquestionably thoughts of the mind, and through them I rise to the being of a God. It is these which connect my acquaintance with nature, and my recognition of Deity with one another, and the process of the mind is this; I apply to the natural world certain ideas which have been suggested in the view of its phænomena; I cannot substantiate them in the world itself, that is, when I think upon the facts in nature as events or contingencies, I connect with them the idea of a cause, but I do not find in nature what has been called the sufficient cause; that is, I do not find in the phænomena my idea verified, since they offer to me only conditional (second) causes, and an infinite regression of them, but not an absolute, a first cause. In the idea of an end is involved relationship to an intelligence, and the inference from an object or end in the natural world to the existence of God, rests upon the notice that intelligence in a proper and sufficient sense is not in nature itself. But since the positive ideas of cause and end are not seen verified in the world itself, the mind passes on beyond it. The ideas are in truth conceptions of the understanding, but the power which, not finding their equivalents in

nature, refers them to that which is above nature, is reason." Many of your readers will not be sorry to escape from this profound into open day, and it shines out brightly in the following anecdote of Rousseau: On a mild autumnal morning before sunrise, Madame d' Epinal said to Rousseau, "I am sorry, my dear friend, but I cannot help it; the reasoning of St. Lambert (against the being of a God), which he brought forward the last evening, appears to me to be strong, and to prevail over the arguments on the opposite side." "Yes," answered the philosopher, "I must confess often, when I sit with my hands upon my eyes, or in the dark night, after having passed a tumultuous day, when sickness or men have wounded me, such reasonings appear to me also to give evidence against the being of a wise ruler of the world. But, lady, see there;" (and he pointed enthusiastically with his head and hands raised towards heaven ;) "Behold, the sun rises and scatters the cloud which covered the earth, and brings before me this wonderful and sublime scene of great nature. I require nothing more to expel every doubt from my heart. I have found again my trust, my God, my confidence in heaven. I wonder; I prostrate myself before the Omnipresent; I adore." A parallel passage in a different manner occurs in the works of a distinguished philosopher of Germany, Mendelsohn: "The Atheist asks, what God is? Shew him what God has done: shew him the whole majesty of the creation, and all the beauty and perfection which it contains: tell him God has produced all, sustains all, after the laws of wisdom and goodness, of which we find the proof in every sun-mote, as well as in ourselves. Not satisfied with this reply, he still asks, What is God himself? When I tell you what any thing does or suffers, question me no farther what it is. The Materialist holds all simple, spiritual existences to be creations of the brain. He asks, What is your simple, spiritual existence, which must have neither magnitude, nor figure, nor colour, nor extension? In vain you lead him into himself, and make him observe what passes within himself, when he thinks and feels, desires and refuses, acts and suffers. All this does not satisfy him and solve his question, What is the soul if it is not corporeal? He reflects not that we know of body itself nothing more than what it does and what it suffers, and that beyond the action and the suffering of any thing, nothing is ever in our thoughts." I am tempted to add a passage which is in some affinity with the preceding, by the pleasure it affords me at this great epoch in political history to add the homage of an obscure and unknown individual to the patriotic name of Benjamin Constant. In the celebrated preface to his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, reprinted in his Mélanges de Littérature and de Politique, is an illustration of that kind of natural superstition and instinctive feeling of the supernatural, through which, he says, the loftiest and strongest minds seek to place themselves in connexion with universal nature, and inquire into their own destiny: "I believe that no man who surveys an unbounded horizon, or walks on the shore of an agitated sea, or raises his eyes to the starry heavens, is a stranger on these occasions to a feeling which he cannot analyze or make plain to himself. It might be said, a voice descends from the lofty skies; it rises from the summits of the rocks; it is repeated in the rushing stream and sounding forest; it comes forth from the depth of the abyss. Even in the laborious flight of the raven, the scream of the birds of night, the distant roar of the wild beast, there seems to be a prophetic language. Only those things which man has made for his use are silent, because they are without life; and even these, when the time of their use is past, regain a mysterious life. The breath of de