And as the same effect might be produced upon others, it is necessary to guard against it.

There are occasions in which it may be both safe and wise to exhibit truth in striking shapes, even though they appear as paradoxes. When thoughtless inattentive minds are to be roused to inquire and think, when conclusions are to be cast into terse, portable, axiomatic forms, that they may be retained in the memory, even before the process of reasoning them out can be pursued—or, at times, when a sudden check must be given to some popular extravagance by suggesting its opposite principleit may be excusable, and even desirable, to risk apparent paradoxes. But there is one subject, in which they should scarcely ever be hazarded,—the subject of religion. It is not only too sacred to bear even the appearance of levity or rashness; but to familiarise the mind with the reception of novelties, or of seeming novelties, with curious speculation, with the indulgence of logical ingenuity, with a passion for discovery, and a distrust for simple truths, is to unsettle the very foundation of Christian faith. Quietness and simplicity are the characteristics of a Christian understanding.

And

excitement and curiosity are ill purchased by the sacrifice of such a temper. For these reasons I would not willingly hazard in any observations that follow even the appearance of paradox. And therefore the suggestions which startled you in the abruptness of conversation may better be thrown into another form.

We were inquiring, what was the proper mode of studying the Science of Politics in a Christian spirit and upon Christian principles. Let us consider first, the mode in which it would be studied by a Heathen, in the spirit and upon the principles of Heathen philosophy.

He would commence probably, as Aristotle has led the way, by a careful collection and comparison of the facts and phenomena of Society. He would examine different forms of government, different laws, different habits, and trace their causes and results in the history of nations. From these he would evolve certain general principles; the adoption or exclusion of which, in the formation of Society, he would recommend according to his own preconceived notions of good or evil. He would find that a free government was favourable to the accumulation of wealth; and if wealth was in his mind a good, he would advise that which encouraged it. He would observe that popular representation diffused a certain kind of intelligence; and if this kind of intelligence seemed to him conducive to happiness-that is, a good-he would pronounce popular representation a good also. He would in this manner decide upon the good and evil of political society. And without such a decision, speculation on such subjects is idle. But having advanced thus far, he must advance still farther. he believes at all in a Great Maker and Cause of all things, he must know that nothing can be good which is opposed to His nature, or estranged from His being. He must desire to be assured that what man has fancied to be good, is good in the eye of God. And he cannot be satisfied with any knowledge of God's works, which does not lead him up to God Himself. Even in the world of matter Science cannot rest, without struggling to mount up from earth to heaven. If wisdom be the knowledge of causes, there can be no true wisdom short of the knowledge of the One Great Cause. If happiness is sought, as it must be, in some external object greater and better than ourselves, there can be no perfect happiness, and therefore no contentment, until we have reached the throne of the All-Mighty

If

and All-Good. And so in Political Philosophy, in the study of God's greatest earthly work, the constitution of human society, the reason of man cannot rest without ascending from the creature to the Creator. And upon what axiom will he make this ascent? What great truth will he take as a fundamental postulate, in order to infer the nature of the Creator from the nature of His works?

He must assume that between an Intelligent Being, and the product of his Intelligence, there must be a close and essential relation. All reason acts towards some end. Its movements are never vague, capricious, or aimless. But that end is a conception of its own. It foresees, imagines, plans out in idea, before it executes in practice. A child may take up a hammer and a chisel, and blindly hew out a block of marble, without being able to give an account, or explain the intention of any of his movements. But a Phidias, while the marble is lying in its rude and shapeless mass, has already visioned to himself the form which it is hereafter to take; and to the production of this form he directs his energy. This, as far as human experience extends, is the universal law of reason. Nor, however we may be perplexed by metaphysical difficulties arising from the difference between a finite and an infinite nature, can we proceed to reason upon the operations, even of a Divine Intelligent Creator, without employing this analogy. The idea of the work lies within the mind of the worker before the work itself exists, and the work is a copy of the idea. The invisible things of God are seen by the visible. Upon this principle rests the whole argument of Natural Theology. From contrivances for producing happiness even a child will infer that the contriver is himself benevolent; from distractions and blemishes in the creation he concludes that the Creator willed

not this world to be our ultimate rest and Paradise; from providential dispensations of justice even now, he concludes the existence of a justice which will one day render to every man according to his works.

These principles are obviously sound. And upon them the Christian, like the Philosopher, must take his stand. But they must be fairly and fully carried out. The Christian will have a right to demand from what source the Philosopher has obtained the collection of historical facts on which he builds his induction. And the answer must be, from the testimony of man. No individual experience can accumulate enough to support an argument. Upon the validity, therefore, of historical testimony rests his whole superstructure. What, again, is the faculty by which the Philosopher educes from these materials his general principles? It is the logical faculty of a single individual. It is not the reason of human nature itself, or the intuition of those grand eternal principles which God has implanted in all hearts, indissolubly, indelibly, universally; but the art of argument, which varies, and fails, and errs; and is as likely, when uncontrolled by a superior power within the mind, to evolve falsehood as truth. Whence does he obtain his primary conceptions of the nature of good and evil? If from his own sensibilities, these also are capricious and wavering as a quicksand. If from the eternal laws of all human affections, by which we love virtue, and hate vice, these also can have no firm foundation, except as built up by the Creator of man in the depth of man's nature; and thereby assuring us that they possess a reality and a being external to man himself, and permanent in the nature of God. And on what principle does he infer the attributes of the worker from the characters stamped on the work? Upon a principle, which infers as cogently the nature of the work from the

nature of the worker. If Natural Theology can ascend by such a ladder from earth to heaven, with far greater facility can Revelation by the same ladder descend from heaven to earth.

It is not said, that a Christian will arrive by this process at the method which he is bound to pursue in studying Political Science, as perhaps all other sciences; for a Christian acts by faith prior to reasoning. But it is said, that he will be enabled by it to justify, even in the eye of Philosophy, a conclusion which, without it, must take the form of paradox. He will reverse the steps. He will begin by placing before him the same end with the heathen; the knowledge of God-the knowledge of God, whether considered as the highest and ultimate subject of man's thoughts and affections, or as involving the knowledge of all laws, the rule of all actions, the model of all creations, and, therefore, of political creations. He will be assured that, if he could once discover the essential attributes of the Divine Being, he would find in them a key to all the problems of the world; and that, whether he studied the constitution of society as a speculation or in practice, simply to understand its mysteries, or to assist in realising its perfections, in each case alike he could obtain no better guide than a knowledge of the will and intention and nature of Him who formed it. He will ask where that knowledge is to be obtained. And three offers will be made to supply it. There are the physical works of God, in which the secrets of His nature lie scrolled and blazoned in ten thousand mysterious symbols; and before which Natural Theology stands vainly endeavouring to peruse them, as hieroglyphics of an unseen hand. There is the voice of God within us, speaking in our conscience and in our reason; but it is deadened, and