ple, prepares all who enter on his book for the real nature of its contents. Witness these sentences: "The name of Infidel is applied to the best of men, the wisest, the most spiritual and heavenly of our brothers. The bad and the foolish naturally ask, if the name be deserved, what is the use of Religion, as good men and wise men can be good and wise, heavenly and spiritual, without it? The answer is plain-but not to the blind." "The prevailing theology represents God as a being whom a good man must hate; religion as something alien to our nature, which can only rise as Reason falls. A despair of man pervades our theology. Pious men mourn at the famine in our churches; we do not believe in the inspiration of goodness now; only in the tradition of goodness long ago." “Our reverence for the Past is just in proportion to our ignorance of it. We think God was once everywhere in the world-in the soul; but has now crept into a corner as good as dead; that the Bible was his last word. Instead of the Father of all for our God, we have two Idols,--the Bible, a record of men's words and works, and Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived divinely some centuries ago. These are the idols of the religious; our standard of truth; the gods in whom we trust. Mammon, the great idol of men not religious-who overtops them both, and has the truest worshippers-need not now be named. His votaries know they are idolaters; the others worship in ignorance, their faith fixed mainly on transient things. "I know there are exceptions to this rule. Saints never fail from the earth. Reason will claim some deserted niche in every church. But wise men grieve over our notions of religion; so poor, so alien to Reason; Pious men weep over our practice of religion; so far from Christianity. What passes for Christianity in our times is not reasonable; no man pretends it. It can only be defended by forbidding a reasonable man to open his mouth. We go from the street to the church. What a change! Reason and good sense, and manly energy, which do their work in the world, have here little to do; their voice is not heard. The morality, however, is the same in both places; it has only laid off its working dress, smoothed its face, and put on its Sunday-clothes. The popular religion is hostile to man; tells us he is an outcast-not a child of God, but a spurious issue of the devil. He must not even pray in his own name. His duty is an impossible thing. No man can do it. He deserves nothing but damnation. Theology tells him that is all he is sure of. It teaches the doctrine of immortality; but in such guise, that if true, it is a misfortune to mankind. Its heaven is a place no man has a right to. Would a good man willingly accept what is not his?-pray for it? This theology rests on a lie. Men have made it out of assumptions. The conclusions came from the premises; but the premises were made for the sake of the conclusions. Each vouches for the other's truth. But what else will vouch for either? The historical basis of popular doctrines, such as Depravity, Redemption, Resurrection, the Incarnation; is it formed of Facts or No-Facts? Who shall tell us? Do not the wise men look after these things? One must needs blush for the patience of mankind. "But has religion only the bubble of Tradition to rest on; no other sanction than authority; no substance but Belief? They know little of the matter who say it. Did religion begin with what we call Christianity? Were there no Saints before Peter? Religion is the first thing man learned; the last thing he will abandon. There is but one Religion, as one Ocean; though we call it Faith in our church, and Infidelity out of our church." None can expect to find in this book the old, worn-out, conventionalities of orthodoxy, after they have alighted on such sentences in the author's introduction. The whole work is divided into six books. The first treats "of Religion in general ;" and is also entitled "A Discourse of the Religious Sentiment and its Manifestations." In this book, the author describes with a power which almost equals painting, for- its impressive distinctness, the forms which Religion takes among men-Fetichism, Polytheism, Dualism, Pantheism, Monotheism; and descants, both learnedly and philosophically, on practices and doctrines arising out of these forms of Religion-such as Sacrifi ces and a Future State. The other five books treat of "the Relation of the Religious Sentiment" to "God"-to "Jesus of Nazareth" to "the Greatest of Books"-and to "the Greatest of Human Institutions": they are also, severally, entitled "Discourses" of "Inspiration" of "Christianity"-of "the Bible"-and of "the Church." It will be seen, from this arrangement, that Theodore Par ker, like Strauss, is a logician in his attachments. "What are we to do with this inexorable logic?" exclaimed the orthodox divines of Germany, in a complete paralysis at the first appearance of Strauss's Leben Jesu.' The fine rhetoric of Parker, in some measure, conceals the prevalence of the logic throughout his book; but the thinker cannot fail to feel it. In his first book, he had defined the Religious Sentiment to be “ a sense of dependence”—felt and experienced by the whole human family; and had thus argued: "Now the existence of this religious element-of this sense of dependence, this sentiment of something without bounds, is itself a proof by implication of the existence of its object,-something on which dependence rests." The Absolute, the Infinite,—that is to say-God, is thus 'proved by implication' from the universal sense of our want of Him, as a dependence -according to Parker. Readers must, however, examine his entire argument for themselves, in order to determine for themselves, whether it be sound. The second book is full of intense interest to the abstract thinker. The second chapter of it I cannot refrain from extracting, as one of the best samples of Parker's powers of thought and expression combined. Can the reader separate its teachings distinctly from what we call 'Pantheism'? The chapter is entitled "The Relation of Nature to God." "To determine the relation of Man to God, it is well to determine first the relation of God to Nature-the material world-that we may have the force of the analogy of that relation to aid us. Conscious man may be very dissimilar to unconscious matter, but yet their relation to God are analogous: both depend on Him. To make out the point, and decide the relation of God to Nature, we must start from the Idea of God which was laid down above,—a Being of Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness. Now to make the matter clear as noonday, God is either present in all space, or not present in all space. If Infinite, He must be present everywhere in general, and not limited to any particular spot; as an old writer so beautifully says, 'Even Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain him.' Heathen writers are full of such expressions. God, then, is universally present in the world of matter. He is the substantiality of matter. The circle of his being in space has an infinite radius. We cannot say, Lo here, or lo there, for He is everywhere. He fills all nature with his overflowing currents: without Him, it were not. His Presence gives it existence-his Will its law and force-his Wisdom its order-his Goodness its beauty "It follows unavoidably, from the Idea of God, that he is present everywhere in space: not transiently present, now and then, but immanently present, always; his centre herehis circumference nowhere; just as present in the eyelash of an emmet as in the Jewish holy of holies, or the sun itself. We may call common what God has cleansed with his presence; but there is no corner of space so small--no atom of matter so despised and little, but God the Infinite is there. "Now, to push the inquiry nearer the point. The nature or substance of God, as represented by our Idea of him, is divisible or not divisible. If Infinite, he must be indivisible; a part of God cannot be in this point of space, and another in that, his Power in the sun, his Wisdom in the moon, and his Goodness in the earth. He must be wholly, vitally, essentially present, as much in one point as in another point, or all points; as essentially present in each point at any one moment of time, as at any other or all moments of time. He is there, not idly present, but actively, as much now as at creation. Divine Omnipotence can neither slumber nor sleep. Was God but transiently active in matter at creation-his action now passed away? From the Idea of him it follows that He is immanent in the world, however much He also transcends the world. Our Father worketh hitherto;' and for this reason Nature works, and so has done since its creation. There is no spot the foot of hoary Time has trod on, but is instinct with God's activity. He is the ground of nature-what is permanent in the passing-what is real in the apparent. All nature, then, is but an exhibition of God to the senses; the veil of smoke on which his shadow falls; the dewdrop in which the heaven of his magnificence is poorly imaged. The Sun is but a sparkle of his splendour. Endless and without beginning flows forth the stream of divine influence that encircles and possesses the All of things: from God it comes, to God it goes. The material world is perpetual growth, a continual transfiguration, renewal that never ceases. Is this without God? Is it not because God, who is ever the same, flows into it without end? It is the fulness of God that flows into the crystal of the rock, the juices of the plant, the life of the emmet and the elephant. He penetrates and pervades the world. All things are full of Him, who surrounds the sun, the stars, the universe itself; 'goes through all lands, the expanse of oceans, and the profound Heaven.' “Inanimate matter, by itself, is dependent,-incapable of life, motion, or even existence. To assert the opposite is to make it a God. In its present state it has no will; yet there is in it existence, motion, life. The smallest molecule in a ray of polarized light, and the largest planet in the system, exist and move as if possessed of a Will, powerful, regular, irresistible. The powers of Nature, then, that of Gravitation, Electricity, Growth, what are they but modes of God's action? If we look deep into the heart of this mystery, such must be the conclusion. Nature is moved by the first Mover; beautified by him who is the Sun of Beauty; animated by Him who is of all the Creator, Defence, and Life. "Such, then, is the relation of God to matter up to this point: He is immanent therein, and perpetually active. Now to go farther. If this be true, it would seem that the various objects and things in nature were fitted to express and reveal different degrees and measures of the divine influence, so to say; that this degree of manifestation in each depends on the capacity which God has primarily bestowed upon it; that the material but inorganic, the vegetable but inanimate, and the animal but irrational world, received each as high a mode of divine influence as their several natures would allow. "Then, to sum up all in brief: The material world, with its objects sublimely great, or meanly little, as we judge them; its atoms of dust, its orbs of fire; the rock that stands by the sea-shore, the water that wears it away; the worm, a birth of yesterday, which we trample underfoot; the streets of constellatious that gleam perennial over head; the aspiring palm-tree, fixed to one spot; and the lions that are sent out free;-these incar nate and make visible all of God their natures will admit, If man were not spiritual, and could yet conceive of the aggregate of invisible things, he might call it God, for he could go no farther. "Now, as God is Infinite, imperfection is not to be spoken of Him, His Will, therefore -if we may so use that term-is always the same. As nature has of itself no power, and God is present and active therein, it must obey and represent his unalterable will. Hence, seeing the uniformity of operation-that things preserve their identity, we say they are governed by a law that never changes. It is so. But this Law-what is it but the Will of God?-a mode of divine action? It is this in the last analysis. The apparent secondary causes do not prevent this conclusion. "The things of Nature, having no will, obey this law from necessity. They thus reflect God's image, and make real his conception-if we may use such language with this application: they are tools, not artists. We never in Nature see the smallest departure from Nature's law. The granite, the grass, keep their law; none go astray from the flock of stars; fire does not refuse to burn, nor water to be wet: we look backwards and forwards, but the same law records everywhere the obedience that is paid to it. Our confidence in the uniformity of Nature's law is complete, in other words, in the fact that God is always the same-his modes of action always the same. This is true of the inorganic, the vegetable, the animal world. Each thing keeps its law, with no attempt at violation of it. From this obedience comes the regularity and order apparent in Nature. Obeying the Law of God, his omnipotence is on its side;-to oppose a law of Nature, therefore, is to oppose the Deity. It is sure to redress itself. "But these created things have no consciousness, so far as we know, at least nothing which is the same with our self-consciousness. They have no moral will-no power in general to do otherwise than as they do. Their action is not the result of forethought, reflec tion, judgment, voluntary obedience to an acknowledged law. No one supposes that the Bison, the Rosebush, or the Moon, reflect in themselves; make up their mind and say, Go to, now let us bring up our young, or put forth our blossoms, or give light at nightfall, because it right is to do so, and God's law.' Their obedience is unavoidable, they do what they cannot help doing. Their obedience, therefore, is not their merit, but their necessity; it is power they passively yield to-not a duty they voluntarily and consciously perform. All the action, therefore, of the material, inorganic, vegetable, and animal world, is mechanical, vital, or, at the utmost, instinctive; not self-conscious, he result of private will. There, is therefore, no room for caprice in this department. The Crystal must form itself after a prescribed pattern; the Leaf assume a given shape; the Bee build her cell with six angles. The mantle of Destiny is girt about these things; -to study the laws of nature, therefore, is to study the modes of God's action. Science becomes sacred, and passes into a sort of devotion. Well says the old Sage-Geometry is the praise of God." It reveals the perfections of the divine Mind; for God manifests himself in every object of science,—in the half-living molecules of powdered wood-in the Comet with its orbit which imagination cannot surround-in the Cones and Cycloids of the Mathematician, that exist nowhere in the world of concreate things, but which the conscious mind carries thither. "Since all these objects represent, more or less, the divine mind, and are in perfect harmony with it, and so always at one with God, they express, it may be, all of Deity which matter in these three modes can contain, and thus exhibit all of God that can be made manifest to the eye, the ear, and the other senses of man. Since these things are so, Nature is not only strong and beautiful, but has likewise a religious aspect. This fact was noticed in the very earliest times; it appears in the rudest worship, which is adoration of God in nature; it will move man's heart to the latest day, and exert an influence on souls that are deepest and most holy. Who that looks on the ocean, in its anger, or its play-who that walks at twilight under a mountain's brow, listens to the sighing of the pines touched by the indolent wind of summer, and hears the light tinkle of the brook murmuring its quiet tone, who is there but feels the deep Religion of the scene? In the heart of a city we are called away from God; the dust of man's foot, and the sooty print of his fingers, are on all we see ;-the very earth is unnatural, and the heaven scarce seen. In the crowd of busy men who set through its streets, or flow together of an holiday in the dust and jar, the bustle and strife of business, there is little to remind us of God: men must build a cathedral for that. But everywhere in nature, we are carried straightway back to Him. The fern, green and growing amid the frost-each little grass and lichen-is a silent memento. The first bird of spring, and the last rose of summer; the grandeur or the dullnes of evening and morning; the rain, the dew, the sunshine; the stars that come out to watch over the farmer's rising corn; the birds that nestle contentedly, brooding over their young, quietly tending the little strugglers with their beak ;all these have a religious significance to a thinking soul. Every violet blooms of God, each lily is fragrant with the presence of Deity. The awful scenes of storm and lightening and thunder seem but the sterner sounds of the great concert wherewith God speaks to man. Is this an accident? Ay,-earth is full of such accidents. When the seer rests from religious thought, or when the world's temptations make his soul tremble, and though the spirit be willing the flesh is weak; and the perishable body weighs down the mind, musing on many things; when he wishes to draw near to God, he goes not to the city-there conscious men obstruct him with their works, but to the meadow, spangled all over with flowers, and sung to by every bird; to the mountain, visited all night by troops of stars;' to the ocean the undying type of shifting phenomena and unchanging law; to the forest, stretching out motherly arms, with its mighty growth and awful shade; and here in the obedience these things pay, in their order, strength, beauty, he is encountered front to front with the awful presence of Almighty power. A voice cries to him from the thicket, 'God will provide.' The bushes burn with Deity. Angels minister to him. There is no mortal pang but it is allayed by God's fair voice as it whispers in nature, still and small, it may be, but moving on the face of the deep, and bringing light out of darkness. "Now to sum up the result. It seems, from the very Idea of God, that He must be Infinitely present in each point of space. This immanence of God in matter is the basis of his influence; this is modified by the capacities of the objects in nature; all of its action is God's action; its laws, modes of that action. The imposition of a law, then, which is perfect, and is also perfectly obeyed, though blindly and without self-consciousness, seems to be the measure of God's relation to matter. Its action therefore is only mechanical, vital, or instinctive, not voluntary and self-conscious. From the nature of these things it must be so." THE WORTH OF A GOOD COMPANION.-A companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning; nor men, that cannot well bear it, to repent the money they spend when they be warmed with drink. And take this for a rule: you may pick out such times and such companions, that you may make yourselves merrier for a little than a great deal of money; for "'tis the company and not the charge that makes the feast."-Isaac Walton. FUTURE STATE.-A dialogue between two infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's den, and are but embryo philosophers.-Sir Thomas Browne. (Religio Medici.) TOLERANCE. I have endeavoured to make it one of the governing principles of my life, never to abate anything of humanity and charity to any man, for his difference from me in opinion.-Abp. Tillotson. RELIGION. When temporal advantages are annexed to any religious profession, they will be sure to call in all those who have no religion at all: knaves will embrace it for the sake of interest; fools will follow them for the sake of fashion; and when once it is in such hands, omnipotence itself can never preserve its purity.-Soame Jenyns. HONESTY. A right mind and generous affection hath more beauty and charms than all other symmetries in the world besides; and a grain of honesty and native worth is of more value than all the adventitious ornaments, estates, or preferments, for the sake of which some of the better sort so oft turn knaves, forsaking their principles, and quitting their honour and freedom for a mean, timorous, shifty state of gaudy servitude. Shaftesbury. REAL KNOWLEDGE.-There is no difference between knowledge and temperance; for he who knows what is good, and embraces it; who knows what is bad, and avoids it, is learned and temperate. But they who know very well what ought to be done, and yet do quite otherwise, are ignorant and stupid.-Socrates. LIFE. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be of age; then to be a man of business; then to make up an estate; then to arrive at honours; then to retire.-Spectator. HATRED.-Hate is of all things the mightiest divider, nay, is division itself. To couple hatred, therefore, though wedlock try all her golden links, and borrow to her aid all the iron manacles and fetters of law, it does but seek to twist a rope of sand.-Milton. ON THE MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE.-There are few countries, which, if well cultivated, would not support double the number of their inhabitants; and yet fewer where one third part of the people are not extremely stinted, even in the necessaries of life.-Swift. HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.-There is no way but one to reform men, and that is to render them happier. It is good and easy to enfeeble vice by bringing men nearer to each other, and by rendering them thus more happy. All the sciences, indeed, are still in a state of infancy; but that of rendering men happy has not so much as seen the light yet, even in Christendom.-St. Pierre's Studies of Nature. How To GIVE ADVICE.-The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him, not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches, therefore, of a friend should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.-Budgell. BEFORE AND AFTER DINNER.-Before dinner, men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority, have the modesty not to talk when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.-Johnson. : WORKS OF THOMAS COOPER, To be had of JAMES WATSON, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES. A Prison Rhyme. In 10 Books. s. d. 3 6 THE BARON'S YULE FEAST. A Christmas Rhyme. In 1 volume, sewed,.. THE MINSTREL'S SONG AND THE WOODMAN'S SONG. The Poetry and the Melody by 0 6 1 0 0 6 Two Orations against taking away Human Life under any circumstances,. Eight Letters to the Young Men of the Working Classes. (Collected from the 'Plain Speaker,') PART II. of" COOPER'S JOURNAL," containing the 4 Nos. for February, 1850, and Part I., containing the 4 Nos. for January, stitched in a wrapper, Price, each, 44d., may be had of the Publisher. 66 Also, now Publishing in Weekly Numbers, at One Penny, OR CAPTAIN COBLER; LINCOLNSHIRE INSURRECTION:" An Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII. Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are now Published. London: Printed by WILLIAM SHIRREFS, 190, High Holborn; and Published by JAMES WATSON, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row... |