phrase. The natural creation is never thus spoken of. The sacred writers do not say, "God created all things, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities," but "God made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is."

Those who interpret this passage of the natural creation, do so without considering the context, and the peculiar language of the passage itself, both of which equally oblige us to give a different rendering.

ON MYSTERIES.

It seems to be the opinion of some persons, that religion derives all its authority, its dignity, and its influence, from certain mysterious or unintelligible doctrines, which they suppose belong to it; and therefore that all attempts to clear up these obscurities, and to place Christianity, where it stood in the days of Christ and his Apostles, on a level with the common sense of mankind, ought to be considered as a blow aimed at the very existence of the gospel. It is said, that by the constitution of human nature, the greater part of mankind associate something venerable and awful with what they do not understand; that this is the very feeling or frame of mind best suited to religious exercises, and the operations of the spirit; and hence they can perceive the infinite wisdom of the Supreme Being, in giving the world a system of religion made up of mysteries, and in requiring, as the best evidence of our christian humility, that we should give them an immediate, implicit, and unresisting faith.

We conceive it would be a task of no great difficulty to show, in answer to these opinions, that if such an absolute sacrifice of reason and judgment were an act of religion, it could reflect no honor upon God or man—that the Creator, whose wisdom and knowledge are perfect, can be worthily adored only by rational beings, and by a rational service-that man, whose distinguishing privilege consists in having been made in the image of God, in the possession of intellectual faculties, in the power of discerning truth and acquiring knowledge, cannot glorify the Being who gave him these faculties, by suffering them to remain idle, to be perverted or weakened, by seeking

and loving darkness rather than light, by assenting submissively to what is seen to be false, by believing what sound judgment declares to be absurd and impossible. It might also be easily proved, that religion is never injured by being made plain and intelligible. Injury is done by mistaken and confused notions of its nature and object; by perplexing it with unnecessary difficulties; by covering its clear light with a veil of obscurity. That gloomy feeling, which is thought so favorable to divine influences, is the parent of bigotry, superstition, and intolerance. It is blind, and may easily become ungovernable and ferocious. It is most unfriendly to true religion. It has been a source of evils, whose extent cannot be estimated; of cruelties too dreadful to be described. What other consequences indeed can reasonably be expected, when the religious principle is neither enlightened, nor guided by the understanding, and when there exists no clear and definite views of our duty to God, what other consequences, we repeat, can be expected, than that the worst passions, stimulated by an overheated imagination, should break out into violence and crime?

Our present purpose is not to describe particularly the effect of a dark, mysterious religion upon the public feelings or morals; nor to inquire whether it is the duty of good men to attempt, by the assistance of reason and revelation, to make it plain. Our design is to show that the system, of which Jesus Christ was the author, is not a mysterious religion. That its doctrines and rules of conduct are intelligible-that we are required to believe nothing which cannot be understood, at least so far as it is required to be believed; and that, whatever might have been the character of the Jewish or any other dispensa

tion prior to the coming of our Saviour, unto us," as Christians, "it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God."

This subject we shall pursue in future numbers.

S. J. M.

SOME ERRORS RESPECTING THE METHOD OF PARDON.

(Concluded.)

IT has been imagined that the divine mercy and the divine justice clashed, and were only made to agree by a punishment inflicted on the Son of God, which appeased justice and opened the way for mercy to accomplish its desire to save. But in a perfect mind there must be the most unbroken harmony. No variance can exist there. Opposing principles, jarring attributes, are found only where there is weakness, and error, and sin. God can only wish to do what it is right he should do. If to pardon the penitent were in itself a wrong act, God would have had no desire to pardon. And if to punish the penitent were not consistent with divine clemency, it would not be required by divine equity, for it is not just to be cruel, or to inflict unnecessary suffering. Since then the scriptures teach us that divine love is the source of that redemption, which is provided in the gospel for a sinful world, we are bound to acknowledge that there was nothing in the justice of God, which interfered with the restoration of the penitent to his Creator's favor. Had there been a contest between justice and mercy, each being infinitely powerful principles, how could the strife have been composed? The usual way of accounting for the reconciliation, which is supposed to be necessary

among the divine attributes in order to pardon, is by pointing to the dignity of Jesus, who was punished in our stead. He was God, it is said, and his sufferings were an infinite satisfaction to divine justice, and justice being satisfied, mercy could be indulged. It seems, then, that justice triumphs in the contest. But aside from this, we are constrained to ask, which of the two things is the most derogatory to the divine glory; the descent of God from his throne, his humiliation in the form of a slave, his violent death by the hands of his creatures,—or the pardon of the penitent in pure mercy?

Does any one shudder at such language? So do we. But we would vindicate our holy Father's name from the dishonor done to it by a creed that covers all Christendom with its pall. That we may prove ourselves not unjust to that creed, we quote authority not to be questioned for the above representation. Says the Rev. Dr Griffin,"There is a foundation somewhere among the mysteries of the Trinity and personal union for a distinction to exist between the Father as holding the authority of God, and the Mediator in his whole person; and not only for a distinction, but for opposite relations, as opposite as any which can be found among men; such as king and subject, master and servant, the commander and the one who obeys, the representative of God and the representative of sinners, the demander of satisfaction and the satisfier, the inflicter of stripes and the receiver, the hearer of prayer and the supplicant, the one who makes and performs one part of a covenant, and the one who makes and performs the other, the one who owes and grants a reward, and the one who earns and receives it otherwise there is no foundation in the Trinity for the work of re