theologian, in a disinterested investigation of the influence of the Holy Spirit. The great God is one; and all Divine Influence is one: one immense source and boundless expanse of energies, though like the waters of the sea, it takes its various names from the different shores that it washes. From this conviction, I crave attention to the following statements and illustrations : I. God is the source of all physical Influences. Mind is the cause of motion. The eternal mind, the Parent Mind of the universe, is the original fountain of all its forces, attractions, and repulsions. These are called in Scripture "the ordinances of heaven," and "the sweet influences," by which God directs, controls, and wheels Orion and Pleïades. In all the movements and revolutions of these vast worlds, physical truths or principles, that is, energies and forces, act and operate according to given established laws. God exercises an unremitted influence, on all these; but in influencing them, nothing new is added supplementally. He influences them by a perpetually sustained energy, and not not able to dissipate; and thus our veneration for the supreme Author is always increased, in proportion as we advance in the knowledge of his works. As we arise in philosophy towards the First Cause, we obtain more extensive views of the constitution of things, and see his influences more plainly. We perceive that we are approaching to Him, from the simplicity and generality of the powers or laws we discover; from the difficulty we find to account for them mechanically; from the more and more complete beauty and contrivance, that appear to us in the scheme of his works as we advance; and from the hints we obtain of greater things yet out of our reach but still we find ourselves at a distance from Him, the great source of all motion, power, and efficacy; who, after all our inquiries, continues removed from us and veiled in darkness. He is not the object of sense, his nature and essence are unfathomable; the more immediate instruments of his power and energy are but obscurely known to us; the least part of nature, when we endeavor to comprehend it, perplexes us; even place and time, of which our ideas seem to be simple and clear, have enough in them to embarrass those who allow nothing to be beyond the reach of their faculties. These things, however, do not hinder; but we may learn to form great and just conceptions of him from his sensible works, where an art and skill are expressed that are obvious to the most superficial spectator, surprise the most experienced inquirer, and many times surpass the comprehension of the profoundest philosopher. From what we are able to understand of nature, we may entertain the greater expectations of what will be discovered to us, if ever we shall be allowed to penetrate to the First Cause himself, and see the whole scheme of his works as they are really derived from Him, when our imperfect philosophy shall be completed.". COLIN MACLAURIN'S Acc. of NEWTON'S Phil. Discoveries. B. 1. c. i. 7. I have quoted this long passage for the sake of showing that real communion with God may be enjoyed in philosophical studies. It is impossible to read this sublime peroration without feeling that we are near God: we seem to hear him and see him; and we feel the awe of his presence. by any impulses added to render the sustained energy more or less vigorous. These influences are inscrutably lodged in the relations of bodies, they are always there, and phenomena are the evidences and tokens of their presence and operations. Could we conceive of a world among the PLEIADES, shocked out of its regular orbit by the approach and incursion of a sweeping comet, the disordered world would be recovered by its Maker, if restored at all, only by his acting in the operations of "the sweet influences" already established. II. God is the author of all organic Influences. Organized substances are higher in the scale of being than inanimate matter, and are capable of influences peculiar to themselves: they are, therefore, subject to a peculiar class of laws. Organic Influences are superior to the merely physical; because they are more complicated and recondite in their combinations, and their phenomena are more diversified, beautiful, and elegant. A stone does not produce another stone; does not grow by a vitalizing conversion of contiguous matter appropriated for itself; does not, from a power within, unfold, by degrees, mysterious energies and progressive successions of beauty. In all the processes, for instance, of germination, vegetation, and fructification, there is in operation a Divine Influence. God sends forth his Spirit, and renews the face of the earth, and crowns the year with His goodness and influence. In this manner of influencing the earth and organic substances, no new or novel energy is added to the previous adaptations, which require neither addition nor alteration. Organic principles, or elements and agents, act according to organic laws adjusted to produce organic results. The influence is always there, always according to its season, and always sufficient for its work. Man, in all his speculations on contingences, calculates on the certainty of this influence; and employs his own agency only in putting the soil, or the seed, in a position for this influence to affect and benefit it. God will neither plough the ground nor sow the seed for man: this man can and must do, otherwise the influence, though present and powerful, will not reach him. III. Psychological influences are ascribed to God. I use the word psychological in a restricted sense, and intend to signify by it, that class of influences which is developed in what is denominated LIFE, or, that principle of spontaneous motion, and voluntary action, which constitutes animal exist ence.* This mode of existence is capable of high and powerful influences, as might be instanced in the effect of a sight of a wolf on the animal consciousness of a lamb. These influences might, probably, have been called the influences of instinct, had it not been, that this class is sometimes employed to modify, and even to counteract and overcome instinct, as in the manège, taming, training, &c. The psychological also embrace those influences which produce, in the animal man, the blush of innocent bashfulness, or of conscious guilt. This is not physical nor organic; nor is it necessarily moral; for instances of shame have been found in dogs, &c. The influences of instinct are more nearly related to the psychological kind than to any other; for, as in some animals, we discover the instinct of making a determined use of their organs, even before these organs are actually existing, which shows that it is not the possession of the organs that prompts them to use them. The closing chapters of the book of Job, and the hundred and fourth Psalm, ascribe these psychological influences to God. It is HE that sends forth his ordinances and emanations and invisible lessons to teach the ant foresight, industry, and care; that disciplines the nautilus to the complicated tactics of his sail; and educates the bee to work out the sublimest truths of geometry, in the lines and demonstrations of her cell. In the animal man (ψυχικος avgamos) these hidden, latent, and kindling energies are the deep sources of human sympathies, of which the Holy Spirit makes great use, as we shall show, in the revivals of religion. They are also of great force in the formation of constitutional temperament and bodily dispositions, which supply so many occasions for the influences of the Spirit to subdue or sanctify. In our examinations of animal phenomena we find psychological elements or facts operating according to psychological laws for psychological ends. In the whole process, nothing new is added, and no fresh modification is superinduced. All is produced by a given subject being in a given position with regard to a given agent. By these God works his providence when the ravens cry to him, and when a sparrow falls to the ground. IV. Intellectual influences come from God. *ux, when used in Scripture, in distinction from revua, means the animal principle, as revμa means the immaterial principle, or the intellectual soul. God is the Fountain of Mind. All intelligences are derived from Him. He is the Author of mental perception, the Source of emotions, the Governor of thought, the Judge of volitions. God influences mind according to intellectual laws of his own arrangement, which are the adjustments of design and contrivance, and not the metaphysical results of abstract truth. The energy of the Supreme Mind, adapted to influence thought, is enshrined in intellectual truths, principles, and facts, which discharge their influences to any mind that is in contact, and in right communication, with them. These influences, developed in the art and the skill of the builders of the tabernacle, and the architects of the temple, the holy scriptures ascribe to God. In these and kindred cases, there was no superaddition to intellectual truth, nor any new modification given to the intellectual influence; but intellectual truths, when perceived, conveyed to their minds intellectual influences, which operated, and disciplined, according to intellectual laws already fixed. The influences are always in the truth, and always ready to be elicited by a mind in a position to be benefited by it. God influences the minds of men now, as he influenced the minds of the builders of the tabernacle. At that period, and now, he employs no other agency than that which operates in intellectual means, by which he conveys the influence and force with which he has charged intellectual truth. As far as intellectual effects are concerned, God has put suitable influences in intellectual truth to produce them. In these influences God is ever present, and if any mind does not receive them, the deficiency is invariably in the descending bucket, and not in the supply of the well of living water. The mind of NEWTON Supplies us with an illustrious specimen of the capabilities and operations of these mighty influences; and also with a good test, to ascertain whether any new energy, or modification of influence, be necessary to the production of the most distinguished mental phenomena. NEWTON, it is reported, saw an apple falling to the ground. Thousands have seen such a fact without receiving the impression which it produced in him, and without deriving the influences which it conveyed to him. Here a physical fact, embodying an intellectual truth, arrested his mind. He voluntarily attended to it; and he thought on it. This exercise put his mind in communication with cognate and new truths contained in that fact, which now respectively diffused their influences abroad to his soul. Such relations and combinations of thought and truth affected, exercised, and enlarged his mind, and made it the pride and boast of philosophic glory. : In the production of such an instance of intellectual strength and amplitude, we do not suppose God to have exercised any immediate and direct agency on the mind itself. If the sacred writers had had to detail the discipline and training of such a mind, they would have ascribed it, as in the instance of Solomon, entirely to the Author and Perfecter of mind and such a devout ascription to God would be the calm award of philosophic "soberness and truth." God was the Author of his mind; was the Cause of the intellectual truths that arrested his mind; was the Originator and Contriver of the tendencies and adaptations with which he had impregnated those truths to influence and to enlarge the mind by exercise: and was also the Disposer of that providential arrangement by which Newton was brought in a certain state of mind to a spot, where an intellectual truth should draw his attention, and lead his mind to inquire and investigate. Therefore, in the strict and ample sense of the holy writers, God influenced the mind of NEWTON. This is a sounder, as it is a nobler, philosophy, than that which taught our great Lexicographer to define genius, "a great mind accidentally directed." A fortuitous concourse of atoms in the constitution of the material world, is sober and high philosophy compared with a fortuitous structure of intellect. The highest reason will justify and support the proposition that, in the sense of scripture, God opened the mind of NEWTON to attend unto the things revealed to him in nature, without employing any supplemental and ascititious exercise of an immediate agency. V. Moral influences issue forth from God. God is the supreme Source of moral science, the Author of moral principles, the Contriver of moral government, the Creator of moral agents, the Framer of moral susceptibilities, and the Conveyer or Diffuser of moral influences. There is a moral energy or power in a moral principle or fact, fitted to act upon, and to influence, moral susceptibilities: or, in other words, there is in moral truth an arranged adaptation to operate on a moral agent for the production of moral effects. An act of kindness or disinterestedness, perceived by a moral agent, acts on his moral susceptibilities to the production of the emotion of complacency and approbation: and an act of |