when a thousand inferior agents, or causes, are able to produce emotions of various kinds; gentle or violent, painful or pleasing. But well-meaning divines, endeavouring to explode those extravagant pretensions to feeling, which have deluded the vulgar, disturbed society, and driven many to madness, have denied the possibility of such sentiments, and attributed them entirely to the force of fancy, to folly, and to hypocrisy. They deserved praise for their endeavour to prevent evil; but by exceeding the bounds of truth in their censure, they prevented good at the same time. For their doctrines unintentionally taught men to neglect the benign seasons of grace, and to confound the holy assistance of heaven with the mere operations of the human mind. They allow that the Scripture plainly speaks of heavenly influence; but they boldly assert, that it can never be distinguished from the ordinary actings of natural sentiment, intellect, passion, and imagination.

The word feelings, in religion, has been treated with such contempt and ridicule, that the truth is in danger of suffering, without a fair examination. Such is the force of words and prepossession. But let the word be changed to the synonymous term, sentiment, and then let any one object, with solid argument, to giving the name of religious sentiment to that pious, virtuous, pure state of mind, which is caused by the influence of the Holy Ghost, in the happy hour when God, in his mercy, showers it down, more abundantly than usual, on the human bosom.

But, on this topic, great caution is required; for men, especially the ignorant and passionate, are prone to attribute their own dreams and emotions

to demoniacal or celestial impressions. Such a persuasion leads to spiritual pride,' to a perseverance in error and vice, to cruelty, and to persecution. He who is acquainted with ecclesiastical history, will recollect many dreadful examples of false feelings, and pretended inspiration. The deluded and deluding persons have represented themselves as prophets, new Messiahs, and even as God; and what is more extraordinary, they have persuaded many to believe them, and have conducted a willing multitude to whatever mischief their zealous hearts erroneously conceived.

While, therefore, a conviction that there is indeed a religious sentiment, or a divine and holy feeling, which impresses the heart more forcibly than any argument, induces me to maintain so important a truth; I must, in the most anxious and importunate terms, express my desire that none may teach, and none submit to be taught, a belief, at this period, in extraordinary inspiration.

All spiritual pride, all cruelty, all persecution, are, in their nature, repugnant to the Spirit of grace; and though they probably proceed from strong feelings, they are feelings arising from passion, fancy, and actual insanity. Whoever is under their influence, must have recourse to the Spirit of grace, that his feelings or sentiments may become all gentle, benevolent, peaceable, and humble. If his extravagancies still continue to carry him to injurious actions and disorderly behaviour, application must be made to the physician, or, in cases of extremity, the civil magistrate.

False religion is always ostentatious. Its object is to be noticed, admired, revered. When men talk of their feelings, there is reason to suspect vanity, hypocrisy, or knavery. It is justly said, non est religio, ubi omnia patent."

There can be nothing in the genuine sentiment, or feelings, occasioned by the Spirit of God, which is not friendly to man, improving to his nature, and co-operating with all that sound philosophy and benignant laws have ever done to advance the happiness of the human race.

SECTION XXXVI.

Of Enthusiasm.

ENTHUSIASM is commonly used and understood in a bad sense; but if its real meaning' be attended to, it may certainly admit of a very fine one. It means a consciousness or persuasion that the Deity is actually present, by an immediate emanation or impulse on the mind of the enthusiast; the reality of which, in certain cases, is the doctrine of the church and of the gospel; a doctrine sufficiently consonant to reason, and not necessarily connected with self-delusion, folly, madness, or fanaticism.

But because many have made pretensions to the privilege of God's immediate presence in their hearts, whose lives and conduct gave reason to suspect that they were not thus favoured, the word enthusiasm, which, in common language,

1 ΕΝ ΘΕΟΣ.

expressed their false pretensions, has fallen into disgrace, and now often implies no more than the idea of a bigot, or a devotee, weakly deluded by the fond visions of a disordered imagination.

But let not enthusiasm of the better kind, a modest confidence of being assisted, as the gospel promises, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, be involved in undeserved disgrace. We are taught

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"Gratia immediata, qualis ab orthodoxis docetur, nihil habet commune cum enthusiasmo, sed diversimode ab eo differt. "1. Enthusiasmus novas quæret Revelationes extra verbum; sed gratia immediata nullas, quia verbum semper comitatur, nec aliud agit, quam ut illud menti imprimat.

2. In enthusiasmo, objecta quæ menti imprimuntur non extrinsecus adveniunt, sed intus a Spiritu per arcanas inspirationes suggeruntur. Sed hîc objectum supponitur semper extrinsecus advenire et ex verbo peti.

3. Enthusiasmus fit per subitos motus, qui ipsum discursum et ratiocinationem antevertunt, et sæpe excludunt. Sed Spiritûs operatio non excludit, sed secum trahit ratiocinationem et gratum voluntatis consensum.

4. Denique, ne plura discrimina jam persequamur, enthusiasmus non infert cordis mutationem; et mentem afficit, immutata sæpe manente voluntate; unde in impios etiam cadit, ut in Balaamo et aliis visum; sed operatio gratiæ necessario infert cordis mutationem et sanctitatis studium."-"Immediate grace, as the doctrine is taught by the orthodox, has nothing in common with enthusiasm, but differs from it in various respects.

"1. Enthusiasm seeks new revelations extrinsic to the written word; but immediate grace seeks none that are new, because it always accompanies the word, and aims at nothing more than to impress the word more forcibly on the mind.

2. According to the tenets of enthusiasm, objects which are impressed on the mind come not from any thing external, but are suggested within by the Spirit and by secret inspiration. But here (in the case of immediate grace) the object is always supposed to come from something external, and indeed to be sought from the written word.

3. Enthusiasm is caused by sudden emotions, which precede all reasoning of discourse and sometimes exclude them entirely. But the operation of the Spirit does not exclude, but takes with it reasoning and the ready consent of the will.

"4. Lastly, not to pursue any further distinctions, enthusiasm

that the Divinity resides in the pure heart. The belief of it is, indeed, enthusiasm, but it is enthu siasm of the noble, the virtuous, the necessary kind. The ardour which it inspires is laudable. Like that of all other good things, the corruption and abuse of it is productive of great evil; but still it is not itself to be exploded.

There is, indeed, a cold philosophy, which seems to discourage all the warm sentiments of affection, and will hardly allow them in any thing which concerns religion. It aims at reducing theology to a scholastic science, and would willingly descant of the love of God, and the sublimest discoveries of the gospel, in the same frigidity of temper as it would explain the metaphysics of Aristotle. But there is a natural and laudable ardour in the mind of man, whenever it contemplates magnificent objects; and which is certainly to be expected, when that object is the Lord God omnipotent, and the human soul, the particle of Deity, aspiring at reunion with the Supreme Being, and meditating on immortality.

Is there not an ardour of enthusiasm, which admires and produces excellence in the arts of music, painting, and poetry? And shall it be allowed in the humble province of imitative skill, and exploded in contemplating the great archetype of

does not produce a change in the heart, but affects the understanding, leaving the will unaltered; whence it happens that enthusiasm may exist in wicked men, as it appears to have done in the instance of Baalam and others; but the operation of grace necessarily produces a change in the heart and a love of holiness."-Turretin.

This author here speaks of enthusiasm in its vulgar sensewhich is certainly a disease; a mental fever, attended with delirium.