guided by the pure principles of religion, and is free from the dominion of flesh and sense. He has been redeemed by the cross of Christ. He has armed himself with the mind of his suffering and dying Master, and thus his sufferings and his death have saved him.

Again, it is to be considered that the death of Christ was an exceedingly ignominious one in the eyes of the world at that time. The death of the cross was a punishment reserved almost exclusively for convicts and slaves. We all can understand how different from each other are what is called a death of honor, and what is thought a death of shame. We all know how the one is illustrated by the glowing light of eloqence, and crowned with the choicest wreaths of poetry, and how the other is left to darkness and to weeds. Comparatively it is easy to die a death which the opinions and customs of men have surrounded with glory. Thousands have chosen such a one. But to undergo a death which men term ignominious; to be made a warning spectacle; to suffer and die not only without applause, but almost without commiseration; to be exposed as a criminal, where they who pass by may wag their heads and point the finger, that is the trial, that is the agony. It is not to be supposed that the mind of Jesus was insensible to the appalling circumstances of such a death, but yet he triumphed over them, and then, on the cross, he taught the world the memorable truth, to be kept in the hearts of hist disciples for ever, that honor and dishonor do not depend on circumstances, however appalling, but on the character of the victim, and the cause in which he suffers. Though he was like God, in the power and dignity with which God had invested him, yet he humbled himself, and submitted to the death of a slave. How soon the disciples learnt, from this exhibition of the mind of their Saviour, what is glory and what is shame. How high it raised them above the misconceptions and false notions of the world. How deeply they came to reverence the very instrument of that death, which before was looked upon with abhorrence. 'God forbid that I should glory,' exclaims the Apostle Paul, 'save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' He had armed himself with the mind of his Master; that same mind with which he encountered public shame as well as bodily tor

ture, rather than renounce his heavenly commission, and give up the cause of mankind, and prove false to his own spirit. Here was a mind prepared to perform miracles. Here was armour to defend the inner man from the weapons of ignominy as well as death, and enable him to beat down, not only the opposition and the cruelty of the world, but its scorn and mockery also, under his feet. Many and many have armed themselves with the same. 'He despised the shame,' has been the motto of their shield, and so they have despised it, and accounted it honor and gain. This is one of the truest and most distinguishing sentiments of Christianity, this feeling of the real and paramount honor of virtue and devotion to God's service. It has been inspired into the hearts of the obedient and holy by nothing so much as by the death of Christ; not even so much by his precepts and commands, as by the clear and ever-present manifestation of his cross.

But this is not the whole. This is not the entire description of that perfect mind of our suffering Master, with which every true disciple of his has armed himself more or less completely. Let it be noted, that the mind of Jesus in his sufferings and death, was not alone a mind exalted above the dread of pain and of disgrace, but also above the least expression of resentment, desire of revenge, or murmur of discontent. That was the heaven of heavens into which his soul had ascended, while his flesh was quivering in mortal anguish. At that dreadful hour, when some word of reproach or repining might have been expected, if ever from him, his mind was all forgiveness to his enemies, and all resignation to his Father. A few sentences of pardon, and sympathy, and piety were all that escaped from his lips. This day shalt thou be with me in paradise ;' Son, behold thy mother; Mother, behold thy son;' the first stanza of the funeral hymn of his nation, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!' 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;' 'It is finished;' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; ' - these were all. And what a mind they show!-the heroism of perfect love. All that is verily Christian, in what is called the Christian world, has partaken of this mind, and formed itself upon this model, the pattern of the courage, and fortitude, and love, of the death of Christ. Armed with this

same mind, the apostles went forth conquering and to conquer. Mail-clad with the same constancy, resignation, and long-suffering, the protomartyr Stephen, though stoned to death in the highway, achieved a victory like that of his Leader; and soon afterwards, James followed him in the path of conquest, though killed with the sword,' at the command of a tyrant. We see how early the great example of the Master's death infused itself into the souls of his disciples. We see how well they understood from his lifeless body, that which they had learned so imperfectly from his living lips. We see how closely they could now emulate and copy the victories of him who loved us and gave himself for us. They received full supplies of wisdom and courage from that very cross, at the erection of which they had fled in despair. They labored, as Jesus did, for the welfare of mankind, and died, as he died, in the divine and all-vanquishing love of those by whose hands they were slain. For them, and for all who have been of the same mind, and have achieved similar conquests, a glorious promise is written; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.'

So far, then, from being unimportant in itself, we regard the example of the death of Christ as most important, all important. So far from being inferior in consideration to some other more mystical points of doctrine relating to his death, it has done almost all that has been done in counteracting the evil tendencies of those dogmas, and in preserving among Christians, in their feelings, convictions, and practice, if not in their creeds and books, the true doctrine of the cross, which has kept streaming down in direct illumination from the cross itself. If the idea of a stern and strange divine justice, which could not be merciful till it had exacted a full satisfaction, has been unpropitious to the formation of a gentle and forgiving character, the sight of a dying Saviour, who bore all, and forgave all, has often come in, to check the hostile influence, and teach a more Christian lesson. If the idea that men are saved by the imputed merits of the Saviour, has tended to paralyze individual exertion, as useless and worthless, the exhibition of them on the cross has excited more generous thoughts, preserved the inner life in its vigor, and compelled men actively and sav

ingly to imitate those merits on which they professed idly though gratefully to lean. True and excellent Christians have believed in the doctrine of substitution; but it is not that belief which has made them like their Master. They have declared that they were saved by the mysterious efficacy of his atoning blood; but they have felt that they were not saved, and could not be saved, till they had armed themselves with his mind.

Walker

ART. V.- The Light of Nature Pursued. By ABRAHAM TUCKER, Esq. From the Second London edition, revised and corrected. Together with some Account of the Life of the Author, by Sir H. P. ST. JOHN MILDMAY, Bart. M. P. In 4 volumes. 8vo. Cambridge. Hilliard and Brown. 1831.

WE welcome the first American edition of this curious, entertaining, and, in many respects, valuable work. The author's acknowledged ability, the wide range given to his thoughts, the interesting and practical character of many of his topics, and the sprightliness and broad humor which pervade his speculations even on topics the driest and most abstruse, make it difficult to account for the fact, that he has not been more generally known and read. The first two volumes, in five parts, were published by himself in 1768, and not in 1765, as asserted in the memoir; and the third volume in four parts, was published by his daughter, three years after his death, in 1777. The whole as bound up made seven octavo volumes, which were favorably noticed by the reviewers as they came out; but in other respects the work appears to have attracted but little attention.* The second edition, in eight volumes octavo, from

*The author of the Abridgment of Tucker says, that he was 'discouraged by his friends, neglected by the public, and ridiculed by the reviewers.' It was not so. Both the Critical and the Monthly Review notice and recommend his works in terms of more than usual respect. The latter, especially, not only gives a careful and extended analysis of his writings, continued through eight or ten numbers, but takes frequent occasion to extol him as a writer and philosopher above, as we should say, rather than below his deserts.

VOL. XI.-N. S. VOL. VI. NO. III.

42

which the present is taken, did not appear till 1805, and there has been no call, we believe, for another in England. 'The Light of Nature,' it has been justly said, would have found its way into more general circulation, if it had been less voluminous; and yet an excellent Abridgment of it, published in 1807, by the author of An Essay on the Principles of Human Action,' does not appear to have met with a better reception. Tucker's name is not mentioned in Aikin's General Biographical Dictionary,' nor is any notice taken of his writings in Mr. Stewart's Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy.'

As if to make amends for such neglect, those who have spoken of Tucker at all, have commonly spoken of him in terms of extravagant eulogy. Dr. Paley says, in the Preface to his Moral and Political Philosophy, I have found in this writer more original thinking and observation upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand, than in any other, not to say in all others put together.' The author of the Abridgment to which I have just referred, himself an able writer, also affirms, 'I do not know of any work in the shape of a philosophical treatise, that contains so much good sense so agreeably expressed. The character of the work is, in this respect, altogether singular. Amidst all the abstruseness of the most subtle disquisitions, it is as familiar as Montaigne, and as wild and entertaining as John Buncle.' Dr. Parr quotes The Light of Nature more frequently than any other book in the Notes to his 'Spital Sermon,' and even goes so far in one instance as expressly to place the author of it at the very head of the great English moralists. He has also found, as is well known, an equally warm but more discriminating admirer in Sir James Mackintosh, one of whose letters on this subject has been preserved and published by Dr. Parr's biographer, which, as it relates to the history of the edition here followed, and contains moreover some valuable criticisms, we shall copy entire.

'MY DEAR SIR,

Searle Street, 1st Dec. 1800.

'I thought it useless to answer your letter till I could answer your inquiries about Tucker, which I now do, by informing you that he was of Merton college, Oxford. Whether he took a degree there or not, I could not ascertain, but you will