LETTER VIII.

Review of the Results of the Divine Plan which have been effectuated in Human Nature according to the appointed Design on several im portant subjects.

THE plan of the Deity as to man being thus far obvious, that his soul, or intellectual principle, should be on this earth within a specially-devised body-specially devised with a view to the effects that were, during its earthly life, to be produced by means of it to the soul; and being ordained to possess this incorporated existence here, in a world full of numerous things, moving and stationary, each of which should become objects of our conscious attention as the senses become affected by them; our next inquiry will be, what were the intended results of such a special apparatus? Have the meditated purposes been accomplished? or have the provisions failed to produce the ends for which they were designed?

transient praise of the vulgar, but to a solid and permanent existence in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world.

"Such sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted situations, and religious establishments ought to be provided, that they may continually revive and enforce them.

"Every sort of moral, civil, and politic institution, aiding the rational and national ties that connect the human understanding and affections with the divine, are not more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, MAN, whose prerogative it is to be, in a great degree, a creature of his own making.

"And who, when made, as he ought to be, is destined to hold no trivial place in the creation."

Prince Puckler Muskau.-On visiting his family vault, he remarks, "I fell on my knees and prayed-all the gloomy feelings which had agitated me, vanished before the consciousness of God's protecting providence, and a silent soothing sorrow alone remained.

"Mysterious power of prayer: it gives us strength to resist every affliction and to endure it; nay, to find in the more intimate communion with God to which it leads, something which of itself lifts us triumphantly above every earthly suffering.

"Yes, we stand in need not only of earthly reality, but also of a realm of imagination-not alone of increasing progression, but also of wise restriction-not only of religion, but also of its sacred rites.

"It is manifestly revealed to each of us in his heart, that there is something higher and more interesting than what the world can afford." VOL. II.-K

The just answer of our reason seems unquestionably to be, that it is not possible to suppose that any part of creation has failed to produce the effect which it was intended and ordained to occasion; because both the end and the means were always in the choice, and wholly at the command, of their Maker; and nothing has been made or is, but what he determined and caused to appear.

He knew, before he formed any thing, what it would be and do; and also what he himself meant, and whether his object was attainable or not, and also by what causations it would be effected. He would not devise and order what he knew he could not accomplish, for that would be a self-contradiction and an absurdity: nor would he devise or apply means which would not effectually operate as such. He was under no compulsion to fix on any one end, or to design any one object, more than another; nor to use any thing as means which would not prove to be so. Any form of creation would be equally creation by him; and all kinds of it that he made, must always have been his choice and will.

What was impossible to be done, could not be done. What would be ineffectual means to perform what was possible, would be discerned by him to be so, as soon as the thought of it could occur. It is the deduction of our common sense, that with his visible intelligence, he would never design and attempt what would not be realized, and that Omnipotence never would employ inefficient means or causes to effectuate his desired and intended ends and purposes.

Thus we may be sure that his creations have in every respect fulfilled his purposes and expectations; instantaneously, those ends which were meant to be immediate; progressively, those which were designed to be progressive; in their due period of succession those which could only successively occur, and the remote and ultimate, at their foreseen and appointed distance. His object and plans are manifestly of all these different kinds, and it is the confusion of our minds which confounds them together, and will not discriminate their several classes; not his unclouded and sovereign intelligence, in which order, process, gradation, and far-reaching thought and sagacity, are signally apparent. "Known unto God," says the apostle, "are all his works, from the beginning of the world;"* and nothing can more

* Acts xv. 18.

emphatically mark to us the length of his plans, and that they are ever extending far into eternity, than our Saviour's assurance, that before our world was made, his future kingdom of felicity was resolved upon, to be the inheritance of those who should be deemed fitted to become its immortal inhabitants. No principle is asserted by the great teachers of Christianity more clearly, than the planning and providing foresight of the Almighty, in the grand systems which he has devised and introduced for the gradual melioration and ultimate perfection of mankind.†

Hence our just inference seems to be, that in every respect his creations have fulfilled both his purposes and expectations, however unsatisfactory some results may seem to us, who form our theories and anticipations with so much ignorance and mistake, though we do not wilfully mean them to be erroneous.

What is true as to all that exist, must be true as to mankind, who are such important parts of our earthly whole. We may therefore presume that human nature has thus far been fulfilling what he intended and expected from it, in all its component parts, and in the various ages that have elapsed since its creation, and up to this period of its duration; and that the human race are still going on to accomplish the farther and ulterior designs, for which they have been created. We see that they are not stationary. They never were so excited as at present; they never have before been so agirated. They are cherishing a passion for change, reform, and revolutionary experiments, by some of which they will

"Come! ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world."-St. Matt. xxv. 34.

†Thus St. Paul mentions the Christian dispensation as having been ordained, before the world was formed, for our benefit; 1 Cor. ii. 7. He implies the same in Romans, xvi. 25; again to the Ephesians, he calls it "the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God," iii. 9. He tells his disciple Timothy, that it was given to us "before the world began," 1 Tim. i. 9. He represents the Christian race as chosen "before the foundation of the world," Eph. i. 4. He calls this improvement of human nature "an eternal purpose," ver. 11; so he assures Titus that it was what the Deity had "promised before the world began," Tit. i. 2. St. Peter, with the same fixed idea, declares that our Saviour's advent "verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world," 1 Pet. i. 20. No passages can more clearly show that the course of human nature, and the true sacred history of the world, is a gradual evolution of a divine plan, devised before our creation, for the progressive improvement and ultimate benediction of mankind.

be benefited, and by others greatly injured, at least in the existing generations. But He who is ever watching the tumultuary impulses and movements, will make such of them as will be so serviceable, instrumental to promote his farther plans for the progression and improvement of our being. The rest he will cause to fail from their own impropriety and inutility. It is our own imperfection to form misconceptions of his designs, or of what we may think ought to be done by him. But our mistakes of judgment are a blot upon ourselves, and not upon him, whatever criticism we may, with fretful or forgetting temerity, direct against him. We may be sure that his plans are never unexecuted, and that the means which he employs never fall short of their appointed issue. And as soon as we can discern what they really have been, and can rightly appreciate them, we shall admire their wisdom, and as clearly perceive their successful termination.

Some of the points which have been fully attained, and which could not have been attained without a skilful provision and adaptation of the effective means, and with which the sacred history of the world is essentially connected, may be here adverted to.

One of these is the complete union of our soul and body in their present life; which is and ever has been an inexplicable wonder to all who have reflected on it. We are all sensible of the fact. We see that it takes place in a progressive growth of form, from our embryo state to our full maturity; yet no one can discern how it is effected, nor what maintains as well as establishes the connexion. The immaterial so perfectly associated with the material, so inseparable, till death disunites them! It is not merely a one living and sentient principle united with a most artificial body, compacted into limbs, organs, and trunk, from innumerable particles of great variety. It was also requisite that due means and provisions should be continually furnished and applied, to blend and to keep blended unceasingly these two dissimilar things into a single animated frame in every individual, so that the mental faculty should have a sensibility in all its external surface, and continual sensations from its eyes, ears, and fingers, and should have full power of using and directing its combined form, and every moveable member of it, as its varying will should choose,

It was also necessary to accomplish two other ends contrary to each other. One was, by due causations to keep the body and its principle of life associated together in close and perfect junction, and in full efficiency, so long as each individual was to remain on earth, but no longer; and the other was, when his term of duration ended, by other causes operating likewise within us, to sever the connexion in every one, so that the vital sensibility, although before so firmly combined with its corporeal abode, should then without difficulty quit it. Connected with these two contrasted events, two other as opposing purposes have been also in every one effectuated, though by means inscrutable by us. The one, that while the soul is within the body the particles of this body shall never separate; or be replaced by others as fast as they do so; the second is, that as soon as the living principle leaves it, the particles shall no longer keep together nor be supplied, but shall instantly begin to disunite, and shall be decompounded into the minute matter or molecules which had been aggregated into it. Invariably, and unerringly, and universally, are all these curious results achieved.

Another law has been as fully operative. It was a part of the creative scheme that in the animated compound, before this severance should take place, there should be the power and means of causing beings like themselves to be formed, in order to be their successors, and to continue on earth their species of living forms. All these purposes have been accomplished at all periods. The provided means have been so wisely chosen and regulated, and so efficient, that millions of millions of other imbodied creatures, as well as of our own race, have been always existing and acting in this compound form-have each lived the period allotted to their class of being, and no longer-have always died within the term of their assigned durations, and have all possessed the devised reproducing power of continuing their species. No. where could means and ends be so precisely and successfully adapted to each other. The prescribed period of earthly life is never confined to one exact year or day. This is allowed to vary; but there is a peculiar boundary to each class which is never exceeded. Each live and die within these appointed limits. No horse can equal a man in longevity, and no human being since the deluge has reached to