Newton, Milton and Isaiah, Leibnitz and Paul, Mozart, Raphael, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Orpheus, receive into their various forms the one spirit from God the most high. It appears in action not less than in speech;-the Spirit inspires Dorcas to make coats and garments for the poor, no less than Paul to preach the Gospel. As that bold man himself has said. 'there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit; diversities of operations, but the same God who worketh all in all,' In one man it may appear in the iron hardness of reasoning, which breaks through sophistry and prejudice, the rubbish and diluvial drift of time;-in another it is subdued and softened by the flame of affection; the hard iron of the man is melted, and becomes a stream of persuasion, sparkling as it runs. 66 6 Inspiration does not destroy the man's freedom; that is left fetterless by obedience. It does not reduce all to one uniform standard; but Habukkuk speaks in his own way, and Hugh de St. Victor in his. The man can obey or not obey-can quench the spirit or feed it, as he will. Thus Jonah flees from his duty; Calchas will not tell the truth till out of danger; Peter dissembles and lies. Each of these men had schemes of his own, which he would carry out, God willing or not willing. But when the sincere man receives the truth of God into his soul, knowing it is God's truth, then it takes such a hold of him as nothing else can do. It makes the weak strong-the timid brave; men of slow tongue become full of power and persuasion. There is a new soul in the man, which takes him, as it were, by the hair of his head, and sets him down where the Idea he wishes for demands. It takes the man away from the hall of comfort, the society of his friends; makes him austere and lonely-cruel to himself, if need be; sleepless in his vigilance, unfaltering in his toil; never resting from his work, It takes the rose out of the cheek; turns the man in on himself, and gives him more of truth, Then, in a poetic fancy, the man sees visions-has wonderous revelations; every mountain thunders-God burns in every bush, flames out in the crimson cloud, speaks in the wind, descends with every dove, is All in All. The Soul, deep wrought in its intense struggle, gives outness to its thought, and on the trees and stars, the fields, the floods, the corn ripe for the sickle, on man and woman, it sees its burthen writ. The spirit within constrains the man. It is like wind that hath no vent;-he is full of the God. While he muses, the fire burns; his bosom will scarce hold his heart; he must speak or he dies, though the earth quake at his word. Timid flesh may resist, and Moses say, 'I am of slow speech.' What avails that? The Soul says, Go, and I will be with thy mouth, to quicken thy tardy tongue,' Shrinking Jeremiah, effeminate and timid, recoils before the fearful work-The flesh will quiver when the pincers tear.' He says, 'I cannot speak; I am a child.' But the great Soul of All flows into him and says, 'Say not I am a child; for I am with thee. Gird up thy loins like a man, and speak all that I command thee. Be not afraid at men's faces, for I will make thee a defenced city, a column of steel, and walls of brass. Speak, then, against the whole land of sinners; against the kings thereof, the princes thereof, its people and its priests, They may fight against thee, but they shall not prevail; for I am with thee.' Devils tempt the man, with a terror of defeat and want, with the hopes of selfish ambition. It avails nothing;-a 'Get-thee-behind-me, Satan!' brings angels to help. Then are the man's lips touched with a live coal from the altar of Truth, brought by a Seraph's hand. He is baptised with the spirit of fire. His countenance is like lightning. Truth thunders from his tongue-his words eloquent as Persuasion; no terror is terrible-no fear formidable. The peaceful is satisfied to be a man of strife and contention, his hand against every man, to root up and pluck down and destroy, to build with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. He came to bring peace, but he must set afire, and his soul is straightened till his work be done. Elisha must leave his oxen in the furrow; Amos deserted his summer fruit and his friend; and Bohme, and Bunyan, and Fox, and a thousand others, stout-hearted and God-inspired, must go forth on their errand into the faithless world, to accept the prophet's mission, be stoned, hated, scourged, slain. Resistance is nothing to these men ;-over them steel loses its power, and public opprobrium its shame: deadly things do not harm them; they count loss gain, shame glory, death triumph. These are the men who move the world;--they have an eye to see its follies, a heart to weep and bleed for its sin. Filled with a Soul wide as yesterday, to-day, and forever, they pray great prayers for sinful man;-the wild wail of a brother's heart runs through the saddening music of their speech. The destiny of these men is forecast in their birth;-they are doomed to fall on evil times and evil tongues, come when they will come. The Priest and the Levite war with the Prophet, and do him to death;-they brand his name with infamy; cast his unburied bones in the Gehenna of popular shame;-John the Baptist must leave his head in a charger; Socrates die the death; Jesus be nailed to his cross; and Justin, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, and millions of hearts stout as these, and as full of God, must mix their last prayers, their admonition, and farewell blessing, with the crackling snap of faggots, the hiss of quivering flesh, the impotent tears of wife and child, and the mad roar of the exulting crowd. Every path where mortal feet now tread secure has been beaten out of the hard fint by prophets and holy men, who went before us, with bare and bleeding feet, to smooth the way for our reluctant tread. It is the blood of prophets that softens the Alpine rock;-their bones are scattered in all the high places of mankind. But God lays his burthens on no vulgar men;-He never leaves their souls a prey;-He paints Elysium on their dungeon wall. In the populous chamber of their heart, the light of Faith shines bright and never dies. For such are on the side of God, there is no cause to fear." At length, the question of the historical or legendary character of the gospel relations is touched; and the consonance of Parker's convictions with those of Strauss, is plainly perceived, as in the following extract : "To speak of the four Evangelists:-admitting for the sake of argument, that we have their evidence, and that the books in our hands come really from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that they bore the relation to Jesus which they claim;-the question comes, Are they competent to testify in the case?-can we trust them to give us the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Admitting that they were honest, yet if they were but men, there must be limitations to the accuracy of their testimony. They must omit many things that Jesus said and did,—perhaps both actions and words important in estimating his doctrines. They can express only so much of their teacher's opinions as they know; to do this they might perhaps modify, at lest colour, the doctrine in their own minds. They might sometimes misunderstand what they heard; mistake a general for a particular statement, and the reverse; a new doctrine of the teacher might accidentally coincide in part with an old doctrine, and he be supposed to teach what he did not teach; a parable or an action might be misunderstood; a quotation misapplied or forgotten, and another put in its place; a general prediction, wish, or hope, referred to a specific time or event, when it had no such reference. He may have merely allowed things which he was afterwards supposed to have commanded. The writers might unconsciously exaggerate or diminish the fact; they might get intelligence at second hand, from hearsay, and popular rumour. Their national, sectarian, personal prejudices, must colour their narrative; they might confound their own notions with his, and represent him as teaching what he did not teach. They might not separate fact from fancy; their love of the marvellous might lead them astray. If they believed in miracles they would ascribe prodigious things to their teacher; had they a faith in ghosts and devils, they would naturally interpret his words in favour of their own notions, rather than in opposition thereto. If the writers were ignorant men; if they wrote in one language, and he spoke in another; still more, if they wrote at some distance of time from the events, and were not skilled in sifting rumours and separating fact from fiction, the difficulty becomes still greater. These defects are common, more or less, to all historical testimony ;-in the case of the Evangelists they constitute a very serious difficulty. We know the character of the writers only from themselves; they relate much from hearsay; they mingle their own personal prejudices in their work; their testimony was not reduced to writing, so far as we know, till long after the event; we see they were often mistaken, and did not always understand the words or actions of their teacher; that they contradict one another, and even themselves, that they mingle with their story puerile notions and tales which it is charitable to call absurd. Such testimony could not be received if found in Valerius Maximus and Livy, or offered in a court of justice, when only a few dollars were at stake, without great caution. "Now the difficulty in this case is enormoous; it has been felt from an carly age. To get rid of the evil, it has been taught, and even believed, that the Evangelist and Apostles were miraculously inspired, to such a degree that they could commit no mistake of any kind in this matter, and had none of the defects above hinted at. The assumption is purely gratuitous; there is not a fact on which to base it. From the doctrine of inspiration as before laid down, it appears that such infallibility is not possible; and from an examination of the facts of the case, it appears it was not actual. The Evangelists differ widely from the Apostles; the Synoptics + give us in the Jesus a very different being from the Christ whom John describes; and all four make such contradictory statements on some points, as to show that they were by no means infallibly inspired;-for in that case, not only the smallest contradiction would have been impossible, but, without concern, they must all have written exactly the same thing; yet John omits the most surprising facts, the Synoptics the most surprising doctrines. "What has been said is sufficient to show that we must proceed with great caution in accepting the statements of the Gospels. The most careless observer sees inconsistencies, absurd narrations; finds actions attributed to Jesus, and words put into his mouth, which are directly at variance with his great principles and the general tone of his character. Still there must have been a foundation of fact for such a superstructure; a great spirit to have com + Matthew, Mark, and Luke. menced such a movement as the Christian; a great doctrine to have accomplished this, the most profound and wondrous revolution in human affairs. We must conclude that these writers would describe the main features of his life, and set down the great principles of his doctrine, its most salient points and his most memorable sayings, such as were poured out in the highest moments of inspiration. If the teacher were true, these sayings would involve all the rest of his doctrine, which any man of simple character, religious heart, and mind free from prejudice, could unfold and develope still farther. The condition and nature of the Christian records will not allow us to go farther than this, and to be curious in particulars. Their legendary and mythical character does not warrant full confidence in their narrative. There are certain main features of doctrine in which the Evangelists and the Apostles all agree, though they differ in most other points." * The character of the record is such that I see not how any stress can be laid on particular actions attributed to Jesus. That he lived a divine life, suffered a violent death, taught and lived a most beautiful religion,-this seems the great fact about which a mass of truth and error has been collected. That he should gather disciples, be opposed by the Priests and Pharisees, have controversies with them, this lay in the nature of things. His loftiest sayings seem to me the most likely to be genuine. The great stress laid on the person of Jesus by his followers, shows what the person must have been;-they put the person before the thing, the fact above the idea. But it is not about vulgar men that such mythical stories are told. (To be concluded next week.) DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.-The strong barriers which confined the stores of wisdom have been thrown down, and a flood overspreads the earth old establishments are adapting themselves to the spirit of the age; new establishments are rising; the inferior schools are introducing improved systems of instruction, and good books are rendering every man's fireside a school. From all these causes there is growing up an enlightened public opinion which quickens and directs the progress of every art and science, and through the medium of a free press, although overlooked by many, is now rapidly becoming the governing influence in all the affairs of man.-Dr. Arnott.-Elements of Physics. THE BARON'S YULE FEAST. A Christmas Rhyme. In 1 volume, sewed,. 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.. The Poetry and the Melody by 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, 41d., may be had of the Publisher. 1 0 0 6 66 Also, now Publishing in Weekly Numbers, at One Penny, CAPTAIN COBLER; THE LINCOLNSHIRE INSURRECTION:" An Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII. Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 are now Published. No. 1 of the Romance is still given away with No. 9 of the Journal. London Printed by WILLIAM SHIRREFS, 190, High Holborn ; and Published by JAMES WATSON, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row... OR, UNFETTERED THINKER AND PLAIN SPEAKER FOR TRUTH, FREEDOM, AND PROGRESS. "AND though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple! Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"-Milton's Areopagitica. ww No. 13.-Vol. I.] FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1850. THE CHURCH REALLY IN DANGER. [Price One Penny. ww Dryden's Religio Laici. THE shadow on the dial-plate of the Age, is now telling the Church of England that the sun of her supremacy is fast sinking in the political horizon. All who can read the signs of the times, written as they are in broad text-hand on the walls of the holy temple within and without, cannot deny that the constitution of the Church is on the eve of important changes. The High Priest party, or, as they may justly be styled, the Romanizing section of Protestantism, see the revolution advancing, and are inclined to hail it with rejoicing; the low Church or self-dubbed 'Evangelical' party of the Establishment, perceive the gathering clouds, and tremble for the consequences. The iron is growing warmer and warmer every day, and will soon be ready for the anvil, when the Anti-State-Church Association must awake from its lethargy, and assist in hammering out the consummation of its hopes. Extremes are often said to meet, and on the question of the separation of Church and State, Democratic Dissent will probably be aided in its efforts to liberate religion from political control, by the most bigoted advocates of Hierarchy. Differing on every other point, these two parties at last agree that the civil authorities have no right to regulate ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline. At all events, the ultrachurch party says so now, because the secular arm has lately inflicted rather an ugly blow on the dignity and fancied independence of Mother Church. When, however, the question of church property comes to be overhauled, perhaps this unanimity will be turned to discord. When tithes, church-rates, the taxing one creed to support another, and some other little privileges enjoyed by the Act-of-Parliament Clergy, are brought under investigation, war will certainly be proclaimed. The Church will say then, as it says now, "if we are disunited from the State, we shall not give up our property; we must still retain our tenths, and enjoy the privilege of mulcting dissenters to maintain the true worship." But the champions of religious freedom will say that they understand by the phrase 'separation of Church and State' no less than this, viz.: the appropriation of the tithes for educational and national purposes, the abolition of Church-rates, the abrogation of the royal supremacy in spiritual matters, the expulsion of the Bishops from the House of Lords, the abolition of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and, may be, the repeal of the statute which now precludes men in 'holy orders' from sitting and voting as Members of the House of Commons. To bring all these things to pass, we shall no doubt have to sustain a hard fight; but ultimately realised they must be. The recent trial of the " Gorham and Exeter" case, has imparted a powerful impetus to the wheel of church reform. In a religious point of view, the decision of the Privy Council on that case was as unimportant as if the question to be decided had been the average number of hairs on a tom-cat's tail. In spite of the solemn judgment of the royal court, some folks will believe in 'baptismal regeneration,' and some won't; some of the clergy will continue to preach the spiritual influence of baby-sprinkling, and endeavour to excite reverence for the damp finger of an ordained priest, while others will regard the ceremony as necessary to be performed, but having no effect on the infantine soul. Men of free thought will treat baptism and no-baptism as subjects unworthy the consideration of an enlightened mind, except as matters of history and antiquarianism. In a political point of view, however, this 'Gorham' business is not to be despised. It is fraught with vast results. It has brought to a crisis the divisions that have long been fermenting in the ministration of the Church. Look at the frantic protest of the Rev. G. A. Denison, and other clergymen, against the decision; look at the meetings of the clergy held to express their feelings against the authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, declaring it an illegal tribunal; look at the number of pamphlets advertised on both sides of the question; read the two sermons just published by the Rev. W. Bennett, of Wilton Place Church, Knightsbridge, entitled" The Crown, the State, and the Church," in which the Church is made to lament its crushed position, cries out for liberty of conscience, and deplores royal dictation; and then who shall say that the Church is not really in danger of a rupture with the State? Time was when Mother Church trampled on dissenters with unrestricted foot; time was when she ruthlessly struggled to keep down the growth of freedom, and sought to smother every voice but her own; but circumstances have altered; truth and justice are more and more recognised, and are shining more and more unto the perfect day. The Church of England is no longer a compact body; external influences, direct and indirect, have succeeded in changing her relationship with the governing powers of the realm, as the feelings of those governing powers toward her are also changed, and now she is " House divided against itself." The rock on which she once stood is crumbling beneath her foundations, and ere many years the ́Establishment' must give place to a system of voluntaryism and congregational discipline. LAYMAN. THE PEOPLE'S DUTY REGARDING NATIONAL EDUCATION.' Mr. Fox, in the spirit of real enlightenment, has renewed the demand in the Legislature it now remains to be seen what the People without are inclined to do. It is surely high time that something should be done. Thousands of children are daily growing up into men and women, without receiving any proper moral or intellectual training to qualify them for the discharge of the great duties of citizens. What we designate crime, is only the necessary result of our own greater criminality-and the fitting punishment upon us for the wicked neglect of our duties to those who, by this very neglect, become criminals. It is surely wiser and better to provide schools, than to build prisons, |