tween heaven and hell;-the doctrine of purgatory with the Catholics, that of extended probation with others. Now, this is a question of fact, and unless God has decided it on the authority of miracles, it remains undecided, and it would be the height of presumption for any one to assume positively to affirm or deny in the premises. The votes of thousands of ecclesiastical councils cannot decide such a question, nor the embodiment of those votes in creeds and forms from time immemorial. Neither can any mere process of argumentation settle the controversy. With those who rely on the Bible as the word of God, it is merely a point of biblical interpretation. The testimony of God is alone sufficient to shed the light of certainty around such a point. It may be a man's duty to form an opinion in the case, and to act in accordance with the highest probability; but before he is certain he must be able to say, "Thus saith the Lord."

We are told that a controversy once arose in the ancient church with regard to the origin of the human soul. While some held the doctrine of pre-existence, that all souls were created in the beginning, and that each in its turn is introduced into a body as ages roll on, others held that a soul is created by an especial act for each body, whenever the latter is prepared for its reception. And others, again, contended, that the soul is produced, under the Divine superintendence in the natural process of gene

ration.

We have not introduced this question, in order to decide which of the above hypotheses is true; but to show how futile is any attempt at a decision, which is not based upon the unequivocal testimony of God on the point, either explicitly uttered or clearly implied. For if human experience or observation does not decide this question, then it requires a miraculous revelation to decide it. It is a question of fact; and if human testimony cannot reach it, then the testimony of God is necessary to its solution; and miracles are essential to seal that testimony as Divine. We may form an opinion on the point; but if God has not given His miraculous testimony, a cautious mind could scarcely go farther than mere opinion or conjecture.

But suppose the doctrine of pre-existence were to be revived, and were again to become the subject of controversy. Now it is obvious, that if universal experience were in favor of the doctrine, if all mankind could distinctly remember a pre-existent state, then there would be an end of controversy at once, or rather the question could never become a subject of controversy at all. But as no one has any such recollection, the question remains to be decided by miraculous testimony. Nothing else can decide it. It is in vain to present a plausible argument in favor of the doctrine. It is altogether a question of fact. Is it so or is

it not so? Let us have the testimony of a competent witness, and then we shall have a basis for certainty, and not till then.

We have foreseen an objection which may have arisen in the minds of some with regard to the Bible or any other book being received for all coming time as a sufficient revelation. While admitting the force of our argument for the necessity of miracles, some may contend that miracles could only satisfy those by whom they were witnessed, and that the argument which proves their necessity at all, proves the necessity of their repetition from age to age.

We would remark in reply, that the question, whether miracles have been wrought in attestation of certain declarations with regard to the revelations and destiny of man, is entirely one of historical evidence. If, therefore, we can have satisfactory historical evidence on the question, whether such a man as Julius Cæsar lived, conquered, usurped the supreme power at Rome, and was assassinated by Brutus and others; then is it possible by the same kind of evidence, to settle satisfactorily the question, whether such a person as Jesus Christ lived, made certain declarations, taught certain doctrines, wrought miracles, was crucified and rose from the dead. If then it is possible to become convinced that we have the teachings of such a being, we may be satisfied with them as a revelation.

But the difficulty vanishes, if we consider the true relation of a depraved and darkened mind to a system of revealed religion. A revelation, from the very nature of the mind, is necessarily progressive; for the plain reason, that the mind of the human race is progressive. The utterance of revealed truth must, therefore, be adapted to the stage of progress, in which it finds the human race at the time when it appeals to them for acceptance. Othertherwise the sublimest revelations might pass as the idle wind, finding no response to their deep and vast import in any human breast. Thus the human mind at one stage of development, may need miracles to enforce those very truths, which afterwards are seen in their own unaided light, and carry home conviction by their own inherent power. Such, we doubt not, is the manner in which many sublime moral truths have in past ages gained access to the human mind.

Again, those truths which are at first received on the ground of miraculous testimony, become the instruments of progress, by which the human mind is elevated to a position from which reason is able not only to grasp these truths themselves, but others still higher in the scale of progress. Thus, in a system of revealed religion, truth is passing by a constant transition from the province of miraculous testimony to that of reason. And here, it seems to us, is the true cause why so many have denied the necessity of miracles. In the pride of their reason, they deny

both the necessity and the possibility of miracles, because, forsooth, their own minds readily apprehend and receive without miracles, truths which are alledged to have been originally communicated to man through miraculous testimony. They reflect not, that those miracles which they deride have been the instruments of elevating them to that lofty stand-point, from which they presume to look with contempt on the superstitions and credulity of past ages.

It follows, therefore, that miracles will come to an end, when their necessity ceases to exist;-i. e. when all the great truths, which man needs to know are safely lodged within the human mind, and when our race has reached such a stage of development, that these truths will be securely held within the grasp of reason. Such, we conceive, has been the attitude of the human race since the time of Jesus and His apostles.

ARTICLE IV.

[In giving place to the following interesting review, we by no means intend to endorse the peculiar views of Madam Guyon or of her admirers, on certain doctrines involved in her experience, and seemingly taught in her writings. The characteristics of this work, the auspices under which it is introduced to the public, and the signs and tendencies of the age, warrant the belief, that it is destined to exert no little influence on the piety and character of the Christian church, for good or for evil, at no distant day. There stand connected with it subjects of vast and vital importance, which must be met-which are forced upon the attention and anxious inquiry of those who are praying for the regeneration of our world, in new aspects and relations, by every evolution of the great wheel of Providence. There is much in these volumes to interest, to instruct, to incite to holy living, with no little that may mislead and injure certain minds. They need criticism, kind, yet searching and faithful. Whether our reviewer is not too sparing our readers must judge. It is not our object at present to affirm the right or wrong of his views, but simply to present them to the reader.-ED.]

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MADAME GUYON.

By REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER, New York.

Life and Religious Opinions and Experience of Madame De La Mothe Guyon: Together with some account of the Personal History and Religious Opinions of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray. By THOMAS C. UPHAM, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Bowdoin College. In two vols. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1847: pp. 380 and 431.

THESE volumes make their appearance as the legitimate de

mand and offspring of the times, because there is arising in the religious mind of evangelical Christendom generally, a strong desire to know more of that form of holiness, or phase of religious experience, which was defended and exemplified with so much benignity, and illustrated by the radiance of so pure and useful a life as that of Madame Guyon. The thanks of the church are due to Professor Upham, for putting fairly within its reach, in other volumes by way of discussion and evolution, and in these by correspondence and exemplification, the most orderly and philosophical development of what he is pleased to call the Principles of Interior Life and the Life of Faith, which the world has perhaps ever yet known.

These Principles are by no means the natural cause of, or identical with, Antinomian Perfectionism; although we are well aware that the wide-spread but erroneous imputation of their consanguinity is a mill-stone which many, ignorantly perhaps, would like to hang upon the neck of truth, in order to drown it and its adherents in the depths of the sea. This, however, need not prevent one's attempting what we are impelled to as a simple offering of gratitude, juvenca votiva, for the benefit derived from the recent perusal of these volumes; which, though like every human work, they be far from perfect, or the character they exhibit a faultless one, we can on the whole heartily commend, and, as the Italians say, con amore, that is, with the earnest and particular good-will which we dare say many others will feel who shall be attracted to read the same.

Nor is this work only to be read, but it should be re-read and studied for two reasons, either as containing a fund of practical truth not found in "such a questionable shape," in our common theological and religious writings; which it is highly important, therefore, for the public teacher and private Christian to be in possession of, or it is to be most carefully examined and subjected to unequivocal tests, as containing subtle and recondite but attractive errors, that, in their inculcation, will be widely disastrous to the church and to the highest interests of humanity as involved in the church. In either view it is of very great consequence that the important truths wrapped up in Mysticism, Quietism, Pure Love, or Perfectionism so called, should be carefully unfolded, and the fossil remains and leaves of error taken away that have been laid between and around them, like the larminæ of strange matter often found interposed between geological strata.

It is but fair that the church should be having all the benefit both of the new light and the old light that has been struck out of the Rock of Truth, by the flint of experience upon religious doctrines and duties. Nor need we be frightened by the old bugbear howl of heresy from looking into quarters that seem suspicious in our search after truth. Nor because a doc

trine has gathered the damp moss of age and become a little musty, are we therefore to reject it, any more than we are another, simply because it looks novel, uncouth and raw. Nor because a good truth has got a bad name by having been sometimes in bad company are we therefore to be afraid of espousing it, any more than we are to be slavishly prone to adopt another truth merely on the ground of its having illustrious defenders. The proverb has a slavish and ill grace that says, "I would rather be wrong with a Prince or a Solomon, than right with a peasant or a fool.' Yet such is practically the servile unreflecting deference to authorities, even in theology, that there are many who will not even give a hearing to truth, unless it come under the auspices of some acknowledged leader of a religious school, or nestling under the wing of one of the great champions of orthodoxy, or in the shade of some clarum et venerabile nomen of antiquity.

But the words of the satirist hold good, and they constitute a good motto for independent minds.

The truth is truth, though private men declare it,

And falsehood's falsehood, though a council swear it.

We hold it just as possible now as ever, for new ideas to be started in theology, and original views of religious experience; and that, too, away from the schools, and without the cognizance of the Rabbis. It is as true at this day as it was in the time of the noble Puritan who said it, "the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word ;" and a truth is no more a truth nor any better, for being born into the world by the aid of doctors and midwives, than if brought forth alone, and left so long to get its growth in the wild woods, that it has become shaggy.

It is these plebeian-born notions, in the hairy strength and rude dressings of nature, untrammeled by the schools, that have come up out of the wilderness from age to age and broke prison, for the human mind chained by the dogmas of false priests and philosophers, and started it on its grand cycles of improvement. The ideas that have revolutionized the church and world, have generally originated in the cells of obscure enthusiasts, or the necessity-sharpened wits of hard-pushed sons of labor, not in the cushioned and ottomaned studies of prime-ministers and Prelates, or Professors in Divinity schools. And Coleridge says, "It would not be difficult, by an unbroken chain of historic facts, to demonstrate that the most important changes in the commercial relations of the world had their origin in the closets and lonely walks of uninterested theorists;-that the mighty epochs of commerce, that have changed the face of empires; nay, the most important of those discoveries and improvements in the mechanic 'Statesman's Manual, p. 19.