fore they understand religion. As well might we say that infants should have no food till they understand its nature and use. Death in one case would be certain, and such conduct might be no less fatal in the other.

"But since this depends upon revelation, how did men act before that revelation was made?"

Mankind were never without a revelation. God created the first man perfect in faculties; and before he acted at all he gave him a revelation both of his own attributes and of man's relation to him, including his duty. Man transgressed, and changed this primitive relation:—but with this change he received a new revelation,-so that mankind were never without a revelation; and they do greatly err who say the heathen world have only the light of nature; or know no more of God than what they obtain from observation. All mankind separated from the family of Noah some few centuries after the Flood; and wherever they spread themselves over the face of the earth, they carried with them the institution of sacrifice as a type of the atonement, or of some great deliverance from bondage, and a restoration to that happy state from which they always believed themselves to have fallen.

"Do you mean to say that the heathen world were in possession of the true religion?" Certainly as all sprang from the patriarch

Noah, their forefathers were such as that patriarch, Job, Abraham, and Melchisedec, as to their knowledge and practice. But since man is a fallen creature, in the stream of time, the true notion of the efficacy of sacrifice, and all the history of the origin of the human race, as contained in the first ten chapters of the Bible, evaporated in a tissue of fables, such as those we find in the mythology of Greece and Rome. No nation is found without a load of superstitious rites, all evidently founded upon the events recorded in the opening of the Bible narrative, so that the origin of all religion was one and the same.

I. "What is Theology?"

A discourse upon the divine attributes, as they are displayed in the works of God.

"What is Divinity?"

A more extensive view of theology, including the light of divine revelation.

1. "What have you to say of Theology as a science?"

Its principles are truth itself. But as men of depraved minds have interested motives and selfwilled views to support, they frequently both erroneously and with design misrepresent the divine attributes, and set forth sophisticated conclusions, and still call their lucubrations Theology. We

ought therefore to be on our guard when we read a work which claims our perusal by the imposing title of 'A Scientific System of Theology.'

2. "How do you distinguish what you understand by God, from what you mean by Nature?"

As I would the machinist from the engine which he constructs, only the machinist adapts materials and their attributes to his use; but the Supreme Being first created the materials with their attributes, before he erected the grand machine of nature.

"How do you prove that there is a God?"

From the works of creation: for every individual work bears marks of contrivance. This requires a contriver with intelligence and power. Thus we go back till we arrive at the source of all intelligence and power: and this, whatever it is, is what we mean by the word God or Deity.

"Did not the ancient philosophers, called Materialists, maintain that this Great First Cause unfolded himself into the material universe, and therefore nature is the only Deity, and every part and portion of it, even to stocks and stones, are portions or limbs of the universal God or Divinity, and as such claim divine adoration?"

They did and of such importance to mankind was the refutation of this pernicious doctrine, that

it forms the very first verse in the Bible, wherein it is said, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth'; meaning thereby, that he first created the matter of which they are composed from nothing, or at least without diminution of his divine essence or substance, and therefore he reigns as full and perfect as if these had never been created.

“But if men still persevere in the belief of this ancient doctrine, has God any where wrought a miracle to convict them of error?"

No: God never wrought a miracle to convince an obstinate atheist or infidel. The evidence which he in his infinite wisdom pleased to give, is adapted to the probation to which he subjects mankind, and here rests the matter.

"What description can you give of the Deity?" To pretend to fully comprehend and describe the Deity, would be equally vain with an attempt to grasp the ball of the earth in the hollow of the hand, or to hide the sun and its light in the apple of the eye. In this case man contents himself with describing what he understands by a few attributes, such as his incomprehensibility, his eternity, spirituality, omnipotence, and so forth. But to attempt to search thoroughly the divine nature, would be like lighting a taper to scrutinize the heavenly bodies.

3. "What do you mean by incomprehensibility?"

By it I allude to the finite nature of man's understanding, so that it cannot comprehend the extent of the divine nature any more than a potter's vessel can contain the waters of the ocean. The wisest man's conceptions of the Deity are as inadequate as those of an earthworm must be to the extent of the solid globe.

4. "What do you mean by eternity?"

When I look at the material objects which compose the universe, they all contain proofs of contrivance. They cannot have existed till after the contriver had existence, and therefore are not eternal. But the Great First Cause could not have arisen from nothing,-for if there had ever been nothing, or a universal blank, it would still have been; and therefore the Deity is eternal. That our minds are not at ease under the conception of a Being which never had a beginning of existence, is, because we, with finite faculties, strain at an infinite object.

"How do you distinguish time from eternity?" Time I would designate as definite and indefinite. By the former I mean that measurable space from the creation of the world. By indefinite, that which commenced with the first act or conception of creation in the Divine mind, and may