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Untitled Article
more evident , it is perceived that the full completion of that building not raised by hands' is not yet effected . Shall we say , then , that the rules of this vast and noble architecture must be sought in religion * as exhibited in a sound and scriptural theology ; and in reason , as contemplated in demonstrative and
practical science ?—that ihe materials are the capabilities of moral and physical nature ?—that the workmen ^ are the wisdom and energy of man ?—and that the work is human happiness—the temple of God ' s glory ? Or must we expect some overwhelming and wide-spreading evil to rouse us from our lethargy—to remind us of the period of the world's age , and the infancy of many of its institutions—to startle us out of our recklessness into a
sense of the true elements of happiness—and to bid us remember that , if our progress in the physical sciences prevent the ravages of individual disease and public pestilence , of barbarous irruptions and wasting famines , there is the more need that we be protected from moral evils . '—p . 281—284 . ( Of separate edition , p . 51—54 . ) * But if the objects of Providence be more and more attained ; ( if , indeed , the miseries of war can be arrested by civilization
becoming watchful over her blessings ; if the wretchedness of excess of population can be gradually removed by the adjustment of numbers to " the means of sustentation ; " if the grievances of the law ' s injustice can be made to give way to more perfect institutions ; if the gratifications of intellectual cultivation and the fruits of knowledge can be extended , so that the enjoyments of imagination and memory and reason may unrol their page to the poor man ' s hour of rest ;)—supposing these objects to be not only
possible , but looking forward to the time when they actually shall have been attained by human wisdom and energy , there yet remains a duty which it will be not only ungrateful but dangerous to neglect . For , when men shall have at length loved mercy and sought justice , it yet remains that they walk humbly with their God ;—that they feel that still they have nothing but what they have received ;—that it is His kingdom , not their kingdom , which is come;—that it is His will , not their will , that has been done . ' —p . 288—( 58 . )
It may be said that all this is , after all , only the alphabet of morals , —only a new rendering of the old fable of the waggoner and Jove . It may be so ; but have we out-grown the moral ; and njay not $ n old truth be extended and newly applied ? We refer our readers to the work before us for proof that such teaching is not out of date , and that the learning and the eloquence of a minister of the gospel may be well employed on the same theme as onqe exercised the ingenuity of a heathen fabulist . Our author has availed himself of his own and his readers'
classical predilections to illustrate , in the appendix , the truths of his treatise in the form of a dialogue of Lucian . There is much use in diversified presentations of the same truth to minds variously
Untitled Article
954 On Nature and Providence t 6 Communities .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 254, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/38/
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