LETTER VIII. REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF THE DIVINE PLAN WHICH HAVE VIII. THE plan of the Deity as to Man, being thus far LETTER 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? 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, VIII. LETTER 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. It 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. 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 LETTER 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 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.2 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.3 Hence our just inference seems to be, that in every respect His creations have fulfilled both His purposes and expectations, however unsatisfactory 1 Acts xv. 18. 2 Come! Ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the World.' St. Matt. xxv. 34. 3 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 fore-ordained before the foundation of the world,' 1 Pet. i. 20. No passages can more clearly shew 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. VIII. LETTER VIII. 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 further 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 agitated. They are cherishing a passion for change, reform and revolutionary experiments, by some of which they will 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 further 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 VIII. what they really have been, and can rightly appre- LETTER ciate 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 connection. 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 movable member of it, as its varying will should chuse. It was also necessary to accomplish two other ends contrary to each other. One was, by due |