unspeakable, undying interest. We would not exchange the sense we have of it, for thrones and kingdoms. To take it away, would be to take from us our chief light, blessing, and hope. We have felt the power of the world to come, and no language can tell what that power is-can tell the value of an immortal hope and prospect. We have heard the great and good teacher, and we feel that "never man spake like this man. By him, we trust that we have been brought nigh to God; and this nearness consummates the infinite good, which we embrace in our religion.-On all this I might dwell long and abundantly; but I will not trust myself to say, what I feel that I might say for many, lest I be accused of "the foolishness of boasting." And if even for what I do say, I am so accused, I must adopt the apostle's justification, and say, I have been " compelled." For how can men, who feel that religion is the great resort of the mind, and the living interest, and the animating hope, consent to the charge, that all on this subject is cold and cheerless as death among them! We should be ungrateful for the first of blessings, if we could be silent. We have communed with religion in sorrow, and it has comforted us; in joy, and it has blessed us; in difficulty and trouble, and it has guided and calmed us; in temptations, and it has strengthened us; in conscious guilt and error, and this religion has encouraged, and comforted, and forgiven us; and we must testify our sense of its value. It is here that we have treasured up the joy and hope of our being; it is here that we have poured out the fulness of our hearts; and if this is to be cold and dead, we ask, in the name of sense and truth, what is it to feel? If this is philosophy, God give us more of this philosophy. Yes, it is philosophy, divine and heaven-descended; it is truth immortal; it is religion, which, if it can be carried on within us, will, we are persuaded, through God's mercy, lead us to heaven.

I have now completed the views, which, in conclusion, I intended to give of some of the popular objections to Unitarian Christianity. Let me warn every man, in close, to beware of taking any light and trifling views of the religion on which he founds his hope. If any views that ever enter our minds tend to slacken the obligation of virtue, or to let down the claims of piety, let us discard those views at once and for ever. Let us take a viper to our bosom sooner than lay a flattering unction to the soul, that will make it easier in sin. Sin is the sting of death, and it will kill and destroy all that is dear and precious to an immortal creature. Religion only is life and peace; and it is also zeal, and fervour, and joy, and hope, and watchfulness, and strictness, and self-denial, and patience unto the end.

THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION WITH OTHER

SUBJECTS CONSIDERED.

DISCOURSE I.

1 COR. x 15: “I speak as to wise men: judge ye what I say."

It was an observation of an eminent expounder of the science of jurisprudence, that "the reason of the law is the life of the law; for though a man, says he, can tell the law, yet if he know not the reason thereof, he shall soon forget his superficial knowledge. But when he findeth the right reason of the law, and so bringeth it to his natural reason that he comprehendeth it as his own, this will not only serve him for the understanding of that particular case, but of many others."

This comprehensive reason is as necessary in religion as in the law; which, rightly considered, indeed, is but a part of the science of religion or rectitude. The great danger to the mind, indeed, in pursuing every science, is that of being narrow and technical; and so of losing truth while it is gaining knowledge. For truth is universal; it is the conclusion derived from those facts, the possession of which we call knowledge. Truth, I say, is universal; and religious truth possesses this character as much as any other. What is true in religion, is true in everything else to which such truth is capable of being applied; true in the law, true in moral philosophy, true in the prudence of life, true in all human action.

From this position results the use of an instrument for religious investigation, to which I wish to invite your attention. The instrument I refer to is comparison. I invite you to compare religion with other things, to which it is analogous. Fairly to put this instrument into your hands, to give some examples of its use and application, will require a course of three or four lectures, which I shall give on Sunday evenings. Let it not be supposed that there is anything new in this mode of investigation. On the contrary, it is so familiar, that it enters more or less into almost every religious discourse. It is justified by the practice of all sorts of religious and moral teachers. It is the only instrument used in that great work of Bishop Butler, entitled his Analogy. All I wish to do is, for a little time, to fix attention upon it. It is not pretended that this instrument is infallible. The degree of proof to be gathered from any comparison, depends on the closeness of

* Lord Littleton.

the analogy. To this point, the closeness of the analogy, the main point in this kind of inquiry, I shall give the most discriminating attention that I am capable of, and shall wish my hearers constantly to judge, as wise men, what I say. The instrument, I confess, is liable to abuse. To give an instance of this: I have heard preachers liken the case of the unconverted sinner to that of a man in a burning house, or in a pestilence, or in peril of shipwreck, and they have advocated and defended the utmost extravagance of spiritual fear and effort, on the ground that the sinner is in still greater danger. Here is comparison, indeed, but no analogy. There is no analogy, that is to say, in the precise point on which the argument depends. There is analogy, indeed, in the danger, but not in the nature of the danger. In a burning house, or in a shipwreck, the peril is instant; all that can be done for escape, must be done in an hour or a moment; and men are justified in acting almost like distracted men at such a moment. But spiritual danger is of a different character; it is not all accumulated upon a given instant; it is not one stupendous crisis in a man's life, but it spreads itself over his whole being. It is not, like the whelming wave, or the already scorching fire, to bring fright and agony into the mind; on the contrary, the special characteristics of spiritual fear should be reflection, calmness, and intense thoughtfulness. That is to say, it is to be the action of the spiritual, and not of the animal nature. You perceive, therefore, that the instrument I am about to recommend to you, is to be used with great caution, with a wise discretion. In the use of it, I shall constantly hold myself amenable to that judgment of good sense, to which the apostle himself, in my text, appealed. Bishop Butler, in the great work before alluded to, limited the uses of analogy entirely to the purpose of defence. He maintained and showed, that certain facts in nature and in life, were analogous to certain doctrines in the Bible; and his argument was, not that the existence of the facts proved the truth of the doctrines, but simply that they took away all fair and philosophical objection from those doctrines. Thus, if the consequences of a single sin often follow a man through life, if this is actually a part of God's administration of the affairs of this world, then there is no objection to that doctrine of our Scriptures, which declares that consequences of a life of sin shall follow the offender into another state. With Bishop Butler's views of what the doctrines of revelation are, I have nothing here to do. I have only to say, that I am willing to be governed by a similar caution. I wish to present to you certain rational views of religion, as they appear to me, and these mainly of practical religion; and against the common allegations of insufficiency, shallowness, or untruth, in these views, I wish to appeal to what men allow to be sound, and satisfactory, and thorough, in other departments of human action and feeling.

There is, however, one objection to this method of inquiry itself, which I must consider before I enter upon it. It is said that religion is God's work in the soul, a peculiar, if not a supernatural work; and hence it is inferred that religion is not to be judged of, on principles common to it with other subjects and qualities. I answer, that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. I might deny the premises, perhaps, in the sense in which they are put; but for the purposes of the proposed inquiry, I need not deny them. I may allow that

religion is the special work of God in the soul, which it is in a certain sense, and yet I may fairly maintain that it is to be judged of like other principles in the soul. For all Christians of a sound and reasonable mind are now accustomed to admit, that God's work in the soul does not violate the laws of the soul; that the influence of the Infinite Spirit, whatever it be, is perfectly compatible with the moral constitution of the being influenced. But how is man influenced in other things? The answer is, by considerations, by reasons and motives, by fears and hopes. So is he influenced in religion. All moral influence, whether derived from Scripture, from preaching, from reflection, or from conscience, is one great and perfectly rational appeal to man's moral nature; and the result is to be judged of accordingly. What religion is true, and what is true in the views presented of the received religion; what are proper and just exhibitions of it; what are the due and right means and methods of cultivating it; and what are its claims upon us,-all these matters are to be considered, as we consider other obligations, truths, developments of character, and methods of improvement. It is no argument for unreasonableness, for impropriety of conduct or manners, for extravagance, fanaticism, or folly, that the subject is religion, or that religion is the work of God in the soul. This, on the contrary, is the strongest of reasons for insisting that religion should be perfectly and profoundly sober, rational, and wise. That which comes from the fountain of reason, and as its gift to a rational nature, will not, we may be sure, contradict the laws of that reason, and that

nature.

This is a point to be insisted on, and the proposed discussion may have special advantages in this view. Indeed, I know of no other way in which the worst practical errors are to be removed from the Church, but by the application of the test in question; by carrying religion entirely out from the walls of conventicles, and the pale of technical theology, and from all the narrow maxims of peculiar religious coteries and sects, into the broad field of common sense and sound judgment. The advocates, whether of a speculative system or of a practical economy in religion, can never tell how it looks, till they see it in this open light, and in its relation to the whole surrounding world of objects. Kept within a certain circle and never looking beyond it, and holding that things may be true in that circle, which are true nowhere else, men may reason in that circle, and reason strongly, and reason for ever, and never advance one step towards broad, generous, universal truth. Thus it has always been, that mistake, fanaticism, practical error in religious matters, have rested their claims on the peculiar, unusual, supernatural character of the subject. Religious extravagance of every sort has always had its stronghold within barriers that have shut out the common judgment and sense of the world. Nay, I may add, since I have spoken of comparing religion with other qualities of the mind, that there are many by whom it is yet to be learnt, that religion is a quality of the mind. They are apt to consider it as a gift, and an influence, rather than as a quality, principle, and part of the soul. They consider it as something superinduced, bestowed upon human nature, rather than as the great and just result of that nature. They do not feel as if it were something dear to that nature-something not forced upon its reluctant acceptance, not sustained in its rebellious bosom-but che

rished within it, craved by it, welcome and precious to all its strongest affections and noblest faculties. So the many, I say, are not accustomed to regard it. They do not see it as the great development of the soul; but they see it as a communication. And seeing it as a communication-as coming, in some supernatural manner, from God, they are apt to set it apart from other qualities and pursuits. They do not deal freely with it. If they do not feel as if it were something above reason, they, at least, feel as if it were something with which reason may not strongly and fearlessly grapple-as if it were too etherial an essence for the plain dealing of common sense. To this plain dealing, however, it must be brought. To this we are justified in bringing it, by the clearest principles of all rational theology; for all such theology admits, that God does no violence to the laws of human nature, when he works within it both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. And I say and repeat, that to this test of sober and judicious comparison, religion must come, if it is ever to be disabused of the errors that have burthened and enslaved it. Ilow, otherwise, could you proceed, if you had to deal, for instance, with the absurdities of Hindoo superstition? You might try to approach it in other ways; as, for instance, with solemn tones and solemn asseverations; but you would find, at length, that you could do nothing else with it, but to bring it into comparison with other principles and manifestations of human nature and human life. You would say, "This penance of yours, this hanging yourself from a tree, in a burning sun, to die, is absurd, useless, uncalled for by the Deity. Who ever thought of seeking happiness or securing the friendship of any other being, in this way?" And if he were to answer that religion is unlike every other principle in its exactions, and that God is not to be pleased as other beings are, you would undertake to show him, that the principle of goodness is everywhere the same; that God, whose nature is goodness, cannot be pleased with pain for its own sake; that he desires no sacrifice which can effect no good end. That is to say, you would endeavour to reason with the superstitious devotee, upon general principles; upon principles applicable alike to religion and to every other analogous subject.

This is what I shall now attempt to do with religion in general, by proceeding to some particular instances. The instances, which I shall take up in the remainder of this discourse, belong to the department of first principles; and in them I shall chiefly address the religious sceptic.

I. In the first place, let us look at the very elements of religion. By some it is denied, that there are any such elements. They say that religion is altogether a matter of institution and appointment. They say that it has been imposed upon mankind by priests and by governments; and but for these external influences, they say, that there never would have been such a thing as religion in the world. Let us look at these assumptions in the light of a comprehensive philosophy.

Now, it is to be observed, that the basis of every other science and subject in the world is laid in certain indisputable first principles. In other words, there are certain undeniable facts, either in nature or in the mind, on which, as a foundation, every system of truth is built up. Thus in the natural sciences, in mineralogy, in chemistry, and botany and astronomy, there are certain facts in nature, which are received as the basis. These facts are generalized into laws, and these laws are