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highest sentiments have led to crime. This is partícularly apt to occur in matters of the most important kind, as in relation to points of religious faith. It cannot be doubted that many persecutors of heretics have been incited to acts of the most atrocious cruelty, from the most firm and conscientious belief, that they were acting for the benefit of the souls of mankind, and even of those whom they most bitterly persecuted. Can it be doubted that this was the case with Saul the persecutor, when he went down to Damascus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord." His sincerity in this has never been questioned; he firmly believed he was doing God service. But after his miraculous conversion, we can easily conceive the anguish of mind which this sincere and conscientious man must have endured, when he discoverd that Jesus of Nazareth, whom he persecuted, was in truth the Son of the living God - the Eternal King of Glory — the Saviour of the world. He possessed the sentiments of veneration, hope, wonder, benevolence, justice, and firmness, in great endowment, and in high activity, before as well as after his conversion; and it was in consequence of their activity that he was a persecutor; but this would afford him little consolation after it was declared to him how grievously they had been misdirected, and how deeply and fatally he had been in error. We may imagine his thoughts during the three days that elapsed before the visit of Ananias, while he remained blind, solitary, and fasting; all his self-righteousness cast down, and humbled in the dust. His previous ignorance would not then appear to excuse him, for he would feel that he ought to have inquired into the evidence before he persecuted the followers of Christianity, and that, in fact, his understanding had been darkened by an evil heart of unbelief. Accordingly his remorse, or con

demning conscience, was so strong, that notwithstanding. all his subsequent labours and sufferings in the cause of the Gospel, he declares himself to Timothy to have been "the chief of sinners."

Here is an instance of a condemning conscience, where there has been no premonitive warning given to save from the committed act. His whole faculties, sentiments, intellect, and propensities, were acting in a state of perfect harmony, when he persecuted the Church of Christ. His conscience fully approved of his threatenings and slaughter of the disciples. The difference, therefore, between the abuses of the higher sentiments and those of the lower feelings seems to be this, that in the former case, in many instances, there is no premonitive warning. Conscience not only does not disapprove, but approves, and hence the crimes arising from this source are perfectly frightful. The author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm asserts, that the blood shed by the Church of Rome, in direct persecution, in the loss of life in pilgrimages, and in the Crusades, and other religious wars, far exceeds that of all the other wars that ever have been waged on the face of the earth, or loss by calamities of earthquakes or volcanoes, &c..

In the case of St Paul, his conscience was awakened, and a complete new turn given to all his feelings and ideas, by his being miraculously convinced of the fact, that what he had so strenuously opposed as a false religion, actually was the true one. But there are cases

Infidel writers

where no such conversion takes place. have in all ages opposed, vilified, ridiculed, and abused the professors and the doctrines of Christianity, and no reasonable doubt can exist that many of them have done so from a sincere belief that the whole was a system of delusion, that the Bible was a cunningly devised fable,

236 TRUE REMEDY FOR HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

arrested in his designs, by appealing to an organ of Conscientiousness, and the statement that this principle is superior to Acquisitiveness and Secretiveness, for that these organs lie at the base of the brain, while that of the former lies on the coronal surface? There seems to be here so slender a ground to serve as the foundation of so vast an edifice-so immense a distance between the admitted premises and the desired conclusion,—that I am at a loss to conceive how any sane individual can seriously believe for a moment, that upon such a foundation as this he can be able to rear a system for the recovery of a lost world.

But though it were certain, that, by the means proposed, man were capable in some respects of improving his condition, one thing is clear, that if we are right in our account of human depravity, no effort of man can avail to remedy that evil, because it must ever remain impossible for him to remove its cause. That cause, as has been explained, is the alienation of man from God, banishment from his favour and presence, the dissolving of that intercourse and connection with God, in which he was originally placed, in which state only his faculties were furnished with their highest objects, and where only he could use them in unison with the divine will. Created for a state of dependence upon a Being of infinite perfection, nothing can remove the evils caused by his revolt, but restoring him to the same state. It is needless to ask if the means proposed by Mr Combe will effect this. All his pretended remedies are mere palliatives, utterly powerless to effect any important relief while this grand evil remains unredressed. As well might it be attempted, in the case formerly supposed, of the earth being removed from the cheering influence of the sun, to supply the want of that influence by artificial means, as to remove the evils of man's lot, and the defects of his

many cases there is no warning: hence these abuses are the most fatal, and are least likely to be removed or remedied. Repentance or conversion in such cases is rare; and hence the care that is incumbent upon us to take, before we finally make up our minds to enter upon a course involving such fearful responsibility.

In all cases it is believed the premonitive warning is less strongly and decidedly pronounced than the accusing voice after the act; and the experience of this is just one of the constraining reasons why the previous admonition, when given, ought to be more promptly and implicitly obeyed.

Each individual is the sole custodier of his own conscience. No one can decide for another of what feelings he is conscious, or what is the extent of his knowledge of moral and religious duty. If the sentiments are deficient, the intellect narrow, the education defective, and the knowledge of duty imperfect, we cannot expect from the individual the same correct judgment of right and wrong, or the same correct conduct in society, as we look for in men whose minds are cast in a happier mould, whose sentiments are sound and active, their intellects clear, and who have been trained in the knowledge and practice of good and virtuous principles. But this we may rely on, that the best are conscious of many deficiencies; that all, whatever may be the standard of their moral judgments, come short of that standard which they themselves bear impressed upon their minds. Not only is it so, but those who stand the highest in moral and intellectual attainments, are just, on this very account, the most feelingly conscious of their own imperfections, and are the first to acknowledge how far they have fallen below that standard of perfect right, which they see a little more clearly than others. Thus it is that the conscience of every man, and particularly

of the best men, acknowledges the truth of what is so forcibly stated in the Bible, that he is a sinner in the sight of God, and that, if brought before the tribunal of a perfectly righteous Judge, he has no hope of acquittal, except through the merits and intercession of Him who is mighty to save.

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

In the first chapter, I examined particularly Mr Combe's assumption, that the world, and especially the moral and intellectual condition of man, is in a state of slow and progressive improvement; and his argument derived from thence against the doctrine of man's original perfection, his fall from that state, and the consequent depravity of his nature. I think it was sufficiently proved, in the course of that investigation, that Mr Combe's views, in regard to these points, are quite destitute of any solid foundation.

I could not in that preliminary chapter enter upon the phrenological view of the question, as it was necessary, before doing so, to state what the phrenological doctrines are, and what are the different powers of intellect, and the different propensities and principles of action, which in that science are stated to be comprehended in the complicated system of the human faculties. Having now in some degree explained what phrenology has revealed to us in regard to these, I shall proceed very shortly to state, 1st, What I understand to be the real scriptural doctrine of the depravity of human nature; and, 2d, What light, if any, is thrown upon

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