CHAPTER II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SUBJECT. "Philosophy, Wisdom, and Liberty, support each other:-he who will not reason is a bigot-he who cannot is a fool-and he who dares not is a slave. SIR W. DRUMMOND. HAVING, as we conceive, shown in the preceding chapter, from the Scripture of Divine truth, that the popular opinion, in reference to the natural duration of human life, is erroneous, and believing that Philosophy is always consonant with Holy Writ, we proceed to examine their joint testimony on the subject. And here we premise, that God has evidently established a three-fold law, which must be obeyed by man, in order to his enjoyment of Health and Longevity. Those laws are moral, mental, and organic. These are the laws of God-the reflections of his holy and blessed character and perfections. It is evident that an infinitely wise and good Being must suit his laws to that which is to be governed. There must be adaptation.— Moral laws are not suited to irrational creatures, nor mental laws to material things. Mere matter is governed entirely by organic laws-mind by intellectual laws-and moral beings by moral laws. Hence it is, that as moral agents, we are under moral laws, as accountable beings to God. These laws, by which we are to be governed, or by which we shall be judged and condemned at the last day, are revealed to us in the Scriptures; and have special reference to our conduct towards God, ourselves, and our fellow-men. And though the full amount of happiness or misery, resulting from the manner in which we observe these laws, will not be realised in this life, yet God has often made obedience to those laws a condition on which has rested the manner in which he has intended to deal with his rational creatures: this was more especially the case with the Jews, his ancient people. Hence we read of such promises, founded on such conditions as the following: viz., “If ye will walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments and do them; Then will I give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your thrashing shall reach into the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely."-"The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick," "And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread and thy water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee."-Ex. 23. 25. * On the other hand, God threatens them, "If ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my "This is a nervous and beautiful promise of such entire plenty of corn and wine, that before they could have reaped and thrashed out their corn, the vintage should be ready, and before they could have pressed out their wine, it would be time to sow again. The prophet Amos, chap. 9, 13, expresses the same blessing in the same manner: The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who soweth seeds."-DODD. statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you, terror, consumption, and burning ague, that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And if ye will walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me ; if ye will not be reformed by me by those things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and I will punish you yet seven times more for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters. The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land. The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with an extreme burning; with the blotch of Egypt, and with emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed." See Lev. 26, xiv. etc.-Deut. 28. xv. etc. These are astonishing declarations, and prophecies, and though delivered more than 3,000 years ago, are now fulfilling in the persons and sufferings of the Jews, affording demonstrable proof that obedience to the laws of God, will secure his blessing, and that disobedience will ensure his curse. In the New Testament, all moral excellency is based on faith in God: on the belief of his paternal goodness, and the merciful and gracious character of the Lord Jesus Christ. The work of the Holy Spirit on the heart, producing Re * This was literally fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem. Josephus, WARS of the Jews, book 7, chap 2, gives us a particular instances in dreadful detail of a woman named MARY, who, in the extremity of the famine during the siege, killed her sucking child, roasted, and had eaten part of it when discovered by the soldiers! See also Jer. 19, ix. pentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ! enabling the subject of its influence to turn from sin, and to walk in the ways of God. We are also under mental laws, as intellectual beings. We have capacities for knowledge; improvement; and the expansion of our intellectual powers. This capability should be cultivated; because if left to itself we can expect but little progress. We differ from animals by the reason which we exercise, and for which their instinct is a substitute; if our minds are neglected, we only show that we leave a capacity for improvement, but as to the actual employment of that capacity we might almost as well be brutes. Let man be trained-his capabilities be employed,give him opportunities to unfold and improve his faculties, and he shows at once his vast superiority to all the creatures amidst which he is placed. Nay, it is almost impossible to set bounds to the extent of his powers. "Who can easily weigh the vast sense of Plato, or master the keen logic of Aristotle, or grasp the scientific research of Newton, or fathom the all comprehending philosophy of Bacon! Cultivate the human intellect, and in the chemist's laboratory it can analyze or compound the various substances of the earth; it can resolve them into their original elements, or re-construct them into their appropriate forms. Cultivate the mind, and, by an unerring geometry, it can measure the earth, and even the heavens; with the mariner's compass, it can sail a ship to any part of the globe, and at any hour tell the place which she occupies on the immense expanse of water. Cultivate the mind, and availing itself of steam, made of nature's bev erage, it can effect land or water travelling with the speed of the wind; inventing types, it can re ceive and communicate thought to an indefinable extent; and, by reason of memory, it can possess itself of the knowledge of all antiquity." Is not such a mind worth cultivating? Let us remember that every child has this mind in embryo ! That it will be trained in some form. Reading, study, and reflection are as necessary to mental health and vigour, as food, digestion, and exercise are to physical. By the diligent use of these a man may excel in intellectual things but if he neglects them, he remains mentally sick and dwarfish. We are also under organic laws, having organic bodies. These bodies were originally formed of the earth and are earthy. They also require sustenance, and preservation from evil, etc. Therefore food in proper quantity and quality, Air, Exercise, etc. are necessary to its wellbeing. Obedience to any one of these laws will not of itself secure the threefold end. Obeying the organic and intellectual laws, and yet rebelling against the moral, may bring upon us the chastising rod of our Heavenly Father, though this mode of punishing sin is not so often adopted by him towards us, under the Christian dispensation, as it was towards the Jews, ours being a more spiritual economy. Neglect of the organic laws will produce disease, pain, and premature death. A man may be very intellectual and devotional, but this will neither prevent disease, sustain life, nor avert other calamities. Nor is it right for a man to pray against sickness or peril, if he neglect the laws which affect the physical constitution: He would be thus tempting God to reverse the laws of the universe. This is a subject which has been much misunderstood, and has, led to " charging God foolishly," with a large amount of the suffer |