where infinite rewards are firmly believed, they must needs have a mighty influence, and will over-balance other motives. If therefore it be inconsistent with true virtue or goodness to be influenced by them as a considerable motive, it is wrong to propose them to mankind. For why should they be proposed, or to what purpose believed, if it be inconsistent with true goodness to be influenced by them in proportion to their worth and importance?

His Lordship moreover observes, that "by making rewards and punishments the principal motives to duty, the Christian religion in particular is overthrown, and the greatest principle, that of love, rejected." When he here brings, says the Doctor again, so heavy a charge against those who make the rewards of the Gospel their principal motives, his meaning seems to be this: that they make the hope of future eternal happiness a more powerful motive than the present satisfaction and advantages virtue hath a tendency to produce, which are the motives he so largely insists upon, and which he calls the common and natural motives to goodness. And is the being more animated by the consideration of that eternal happiness which is the promised reward of virtue, than by any of the advantages it yields in this present state (though these also are allowed to have their proper weight and influence) so great a fault, as to deserve to be represented as a subverting of all religion, and particularly the Christian?

If the eternal life promised in the Gospel be rightly understood, the hope of it INCLUDETH A DUE REGARD TO THE GLORY OF GOD, to OUR OWN HIGHEST HAPPINESS, and to THE EXCELLENCY OF VIRTUE AND TRUE HOLINESS; all which are here united, and are the worthiest motives that can be proposed to the human mind. There is a perfect harmony between this hope and what his Lordship so much extols,-the principle of divine love, such as separates from every thing worldly, sensual; and meanly interested. Nor can it be justly said concerning this hope of the Gospel reward, what he saith of a violent affection towards private good, that the more there is of it, the less room there is for an affection towards goodness itself, or any good and

deserving object, worthy of love and admiration for its own sake, such as God is universally acknowledged to be. The very reward itself INCLUDETH THE PERFECTION OF LOVE AND GOODNESS; and the happiness promised principally consisteth in a conformity to God, and in the fruition of him; and therefore the being powerfully animated with the hope of it is perfectly consistent with the highest love and admiration of the Deity on the account of his own infinite excellency.

Reader, you may now easily guess the true source whence this famous virtue of disinterested benevolence has proceeded. It is a peculiar feature of the Deistical scheme. The Age of Reason brought it to light, and all reason's sublime discoveries, it cannot be denied, claim our respect and veneration. It was one of the Earl of Shaftesbury's virtues,-a great and distinguished Earl of Britain who wrote confessedly pro bono publico, and thus exhibited the powerful influence of his principle!

Some honest people, however, may be disposed to question its correctness for this very reason, that it was started and advocated in the first instance by the enemies of Revelation: and caution ought certainly to be observed in receiving any new doctrine, however plausible and inviting. But we ought not rashly to condemn it merely because it turns out to be of sceptical or infidel origin. The child of a vicious parent may estimable member of society, and possess many excellent properties.

be a very

The fact is, there is something so grand in the idea of disinterested benevolence, and its effects as manifested in the conduct of those who profess to live under its benign influence, are so truly liberal, that it cannot fail to extort admiration, and excite a desire to possess it! One extraordinary effect produced by it is a WILLINGNESS TO BE DAMNED. For my own part, I freely confess that I do not give much credit to the professions of those who say they would be willing to be damned for the glory of God, while they appear to hope, and pray, and strive for heaven. I cannot help thinking, that in the event of their hearing the sentence of condeinnation passed upon them, they would do, as we are told many others shall do,-call to

the rocks and mountains to fall on them, and screen them from the wrath of the Lamb.

In the case of the Earl of Shaftesbury, however, we have a true exemplification of this effect. He was willing to be damned, because his great disinterested benevolence would not let him believe in a future punishment.

Again, It renders a person wise as a serpent, and at the same time, in his own estimation, harmless as a dove. If he make mental reservations when subscribing any contract, formula, or covenant; if he understand words or sentences in a sense different from that which they obviously convey, or will bear, from the connexion; if he practise art or dissimulation in his intercourse with others; still, as the end he has in view is a good one, viz. THE BENEFIT OF THE WHOLE, it sanctifies the means, and is justified in his own eyes. It was under the influence of this principle that Godwin said that "every engagement into which he had entered, an adherence to which he should afterward find to be a material obstacle to his utility, ought to be violated."

Finally, It disposes a person to be patient under injuries,— zealous in the work of removing old prejudices, (though, as Swift says, under the notion of weeding out prejudices, he may eradicate religion, virtue, and common honesty ;) and courteous in his behaviour to all. Several very striking examples of these effects can readily be produced.

Can we wonder then, Reader, that this virtue is, of late, so highly extolled, and so eloquently inculcated by many Christian teachers? It is, unquestionably, a fine subject for a luxuriant fancy. It opens a wide field for the display of every species of eloquence; and as with them it has the precedence as a Christian virtue, it is very properly the favourite theme of public discourse, and represented as the touch-stone or test of all true religion. But I must acknowledge that I never hear it declaimed upon, but I think of the preacher who was discoursing on the subject of the Divine anger: this he defined to be the dark side of the Creator set against the dark side of the creature to increase his darkness. The illustration proved to be

as clear as the definition;—and, full of delight, an admirer of the orator asked his friend, what he thought of the discourse?— the reply was laconic and decisive: I think it was the dark side of the preacher set against the dark side of the hearer, to increase his darkness.

ἀγάπη.

REVIEW.

An Address delivered before the Auxiliary New-York Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, in St. Paul's Chapel, in the City of New-York, on Tuesday, the 28th day of January, A. D. 1817, by THOMAS Y. HOW, D. D. Assistant Rector of Trinity Church, New-York.

(Concluded from p. 177.)

WE proceed to examine another position of the Rev. Ora

tor, viz.

2. The impossibility which he asserts, that departure from the true faith can enter the Episcopal Church, while she retains her apostolic constitution and her evangelical liturgy, p. 25. Though, in this assertion, he immediately refers" to the denial of the divinity of Christ, and salvation through the propitiatory merits of his atonement," yet, evidently, from the design of the address, its whole strain, and the manner in which he speaks of other doctrines, particularly in the series of connected remarks, from p. 20-25, intended to prove, that the Word and Church of God ought to be united, for the purpose of diffusing the light of religious truth," he meant to leave the impression upon those who heard it delivered, or may read it, that any fundamental error could not enter into that denomination, which he considers as constituting the Church of Christ.

We do not mean to take our opinion of "the true faith" for our guide, but the Author's, as expressed in this Address. Calvinistic principles, of course, are excluded from it, by him. He, moreover, condemns the doctrine of meritorious good works, (p. 30, 31. note)-of the Novatians, Donatists, and Arians, 'p. 23-the Congregational societies of Boston, p. 25-the Socinians, p. 35. He has thus furnished us with materials, by which we will now try the correctness of his position. That our readers may understand the nature of these materials distinctly, we shall, in a few words, explain the doctrines condemned. Of meritorious good works, we need say nothing, here. Of the Novatians, Mosheim says "there was no difference, in point of doctrine, between them and other Christians. What peculiarly distinguished them, was their refusing to re-admit to the communion of the Church, those who, after baptism, had fallen into the commission of heinous crimes, especially those who had apostatized from the faith, though they did not pretend that such were excluded from all possibility or hopes of salvation. They also required such as came over to them, from the general body of Christians, to be rebaptized."

The Donatists, according to the same author, maintained "that the sanctity of their Bishops gave their community alone a full right to be considered as the true, pure, and holy Church." They avoided all communication with other Churches-pronounced the sacred rites and institutions void of all virtue and efficacy among those Christians who were not precisely of their sentiments; and not only re-baptized those of them who joined their ranks, but obliged those who had been ordained ministers of the gospel to be ordained a second time, if they did not deprive them of their office.

The Arians maintain, that the Son of God was totally and essentially distinct from the Father: that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom God had created-the instrument by whose subordinate operation he formed the universe; and therefore inferior to the Father, both in nature and dig