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PHILOSOPHY

OF THE

PLAN OF SALVATION.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTORY.

MAN WILL WORSHIP-HE WILL BECOME ASSIMILATED TO THE CHARACTER OF THE OBJECT THAT HE WORSHIPS - - CHARACTER OF HEATHEN DEITIES DEFECTIVE AND UNHOLY-FROM THIS CORRUPT ING WORSHIP MAN HAS NO POWER TO EXTRICATE HIMSELF

THERE are three facts, each of them fully developed in the experience of the human family, a consideration of which will prepare the mind for the investigation which follows. When considered in their relation to each other, and in their bearing upon the moral interests of mankind, they will be seen to be of exceeding importance. We will ad duce these facts, in connexion with the statements and principles upon which they rest, and show how vital are the interests which depend upon them.

THE FIRST FACT STATED

There is in the nature of man, or in the circum stances in which he is conditioned, something which leads him to recognise and worship a superior being. What that something is, is not important in our present inquiry:-whether it be a constitutional

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instinct inwrought by the Maker—whether it be a deduction of universal reason, inferring a first cause from the things that are made-whether it be the effect of tradition, descending from the first worshippers, through all the tribes of the human familywhether any or all of these be the cause, the fact is the same -Man is a religious being➡HE WILL

WORSHIP.

In view of this propension of human nature, phi losophers, in seeking a generic appellation for man, have denominated him a 66 religious animal." The characteristic is true of him in whatever part of the world he may be found, and in whatever condition, and it has been true of him in all ages of which we have any record either fabulous or authentic.

Navigators have, in a few instances, reported that isolated tribes of men, whom they visited, recognised the existence of no superior being: subsequent re searches, however, have generally corrected the error -and, in all cases, when it has been supposed that a tribe of men was found believing in no god, the fact has been stated as an evidence of their degradation below the mass of their species, and of their approximation to the confines of brute nature. Of the whole family of man, existing in all ages, and scattered over the four quarters of the globe, and in the isles of the sea, there is scarcely one well authen ticated exception to the fact, that, moved by an impulse of nature, or the force of circumstances, man worships something which he believes to be endowed with the attributes of a superior being.

THE SECOND FACT STATED.

The second fact, connected as it is, by the nature of things, with the preceding, assumes the highest degree of importance. It may be stated in the following terms:-Man, by worshipping, becomes

assimilated to the moral character of the object which he worships. This is an invariable principle, operating with the certainty of cause and effect. The worshipper looks upon the character of the object which he worships as the standard of perfection. He therefore condemns everything in himself which is unlike, and approves of every thing which is like that character. The tendency of this is to lead him to abandon everything in himself, and in his course of life, which is condemned by the character and precepts of his god, and to conform himself to that standard which is approved by the same criterion. The worshipper desires the favour of the object worshipped, and this, reason dictates, can be obtained only by conformity to the will and the character of that object. To become assimilated to the image of the object worshipped must be the end of desire with the worshipper. His aspirations, therefore, every time he worships, do, from the nature of the case, assimilate his character more and more to the model of the object that receives his homage.

To this fact the whole history of the idolatrous world bears testimony. Without an exception, the character of every nation and tribe of the human family has been formed and modified, in a great degree, by the character attributed to their gods.

From the history of idolatrous nations we will cite a number of familiar cases, confirmatory of the foregoing statement, that man becomes like the object of his worship.

A most striking instance is that of the Scythians, and other tribes of the Northmen, who subdued and finally annihilated the Roman power. Odin, Thor, and others of their supposed deities, were ideas of hero-kings, blood-thirsty and cruel, clothed with the attributes of deity, and worshipped. Their

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