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    which philosophy is couched be sufficiently plain ; and they will no doubt feel , in common with the educated , that Christianity owes much of its power to the mind which communicates it , and that the more active the exertion of the intellect , the deeper and more permanent will be the impression on the soul .

    The second section , on Enthusiasm in Devotion , is admirable . The clearness and beauty with which the terms and mode of communion between God and man are described , are striking ; but our extracts cannot be sufficiently copious to convey to the reader the impressions he must receive from the work itself . The ideas developed in a series of beautiful passages are , if not new to us , placed in a new light , and illustrated by new images , while their truth is unquestionable :

    " The very idea of addressing petitions to Him who ' worketh all things ' according to the counsel of his own eternal and unalterable will , and the enjoined practice of clothing sentiments of piety in articulate forms of language , though those sentiments , before they are invested in words , are perfectly known to the Searcher of hearts , imply that , in the terms and the mode of intercourse between God and man , no attempt is made to lift the latter above his sphere of limited notions and imperfect knowledge . The terms of

    devotional communion rest even on a much lower ground than that which man , by efforts of reason and imagination , might attain to . Prayer , in its very conditions , supposes , not only a condescension of the Divine Nature to meet the human , but a humbling of the human nature to a lower range than it might easily reach . The region of abstract conceptions , *^ of lofty reasonings —of magnificent images , has an atmosphere too subtile to support the health of true piety ; and , in order that the warmth and vigour of life may be maintained in the heart , the common level of the natural affections is chosen as the

    scene of intercourse between heaven and earth . In accordance with this plan of devotion , not only does the Supreme conceal himself from our senses , but he reveals in his word barely a glimpse of his essential glories . By some naked affirmations we are indeed secured against false and grovelling notions of the Divine Nature ; but these hints are incidental , and so scanty , that every excursive mind goes far beyond them in its conceptions of the infinite attributes . "— " As the hearer of prayer stoops to listen , so also must the suppliant § toop from the heights of philosophical or meditative abstraction , and either come in genuine simplicity of petition , as a son to a father , or be utterly excluded from the friendship of his Maker /'—Pp . 25 , 26 , 31 .

    These ideas are enforced by illustrations which shew that as the distance between earth and heaven , between God and man , is infinite , and therefore overwhelming to the faculties in the contemplation , there is no resting-place for the soul in its communion with its Maker but that which he has appointed . The religious affections must be cherished by the exercise and utterance which he has prescribed , or they will languish ; their kindred affections must be employed on the objects set before them , or they will pass into sports of the imagination , while the heart is either given over to interminable scrupulosities , or gradually hardened .

    After some observations on the Romish worship , the writer considers the propriety of employing material images in popular oratory for the sake of affecting the minds of the hearers . He gives , as a subject , the day of final retribution . We cannot imagine how the minds of the hearers , especially if they be " poor and uninstructed , " can be affected except by material images ; or how any conceptions of the last judgment can be formed from other elements . Minds of high cultivation , moral as well as intellectual ,

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    422 NaturaI History of Anthuslasm .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 422, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/54/