New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-08-03
the wisest researches. II does not follow because
miracle cannot be proved that miracle is impossi-

Bile. We may receive no truth and no prophet on
the ground of miracles, but still believe ina WONDER
working power We can CONCEIVE that PropheV
may work miracles through the power Of the Spir'
many will accept them as the seal OF his missohi
but they will not be performed merely for that pur-
pose; they will be the natural effect of spirit III
harmony yith the Divine Spirit. Still further, IL
is argued by DR.. Hedge, tho fruit OF revelation Is
traditions but revelation in its origin ana essence,
is spiritual insight Spiritual insight Is the human
aspect; revelation. the divine. But spiritual in
SIGHT is not TO be COMPOUNDED with the deductions
Of reason. The knowledge Of God is not conclu-
sion Of the understanding, but an intuition oil the
moral sense. Theism is not the product of scientific
research, but of the spiritual nature Of man. And
this is true of the whole compass Of revelation. 1t
is thing of degrees, though essentially the same.
All revelation is founded on the divine elements in
the soul. 1t is not a voice speaking from the
clouds, not an angelic apparion, but the voice OF
a brother, proclamng the truths which have
awOke to consciousness within him. Thus the true
revelation is internal. The only eifectual knowl-
edge of God is the private experience of the indi-
vidual soul.
Tie theory OF Providence embraced by DR.. Hedge
rejects the idea of universe governed by general
laws impressed upon it in the beginning of crea-
ton, leaving the Deity as mere overseer Of past
arrangements instead of present, living, inwork-
ing power. On the contrary, he regards the course
of Providence as the uniform action of Deity, the
sum and substance of all the agencies and laws
which we call Nature, and by which the material
universe subsists. According to this conception,
there is no power in Nature but Cod no law but
divine voiiton no process but divine performance.
Grayitation is one mode of Providence; magnetism
another; electricity another. Providence is at
traction and repulsion, cohesion and explosion,
motion and rest, food-tidc and ebb-tide, sunrise
and sunset. All the energies of nature are methods
of divine activity. All tho phenomena OF Nature
are phases of the one eternal Presence. In this
theory, God is equally earat all times, equally near
and equally bencfcent in every event that takes
place. 1t spiritualizes the universe, instead of
matchmaking it. Instead of brute matter, insensate
forms and unconscious forces, we have the living
Presence. the conscious Spirit, the pervadng God
The universe is TRANSPORTED to him who considers
! il in this light.
| II may be said that in stunning the extreme
of far-oil, isolated God, God who dwes apart
from his works in solitary selfsuiiciency, this doc
trine runs 10 the opposite extreme of pantheism.
This plea Dr. Hedge has desire to repel. He ac-
cepts the charge of pantheism, not in the impious
sense of identifying God with the world of making
the Infinite Being merely the total of thefnite
material forces of the Universe, but in the true and
primary sense of losing the world in Coda God
pcrvadine embracing and vivifying all his works
by his presence, God, in apostolic phrase, " in
whom and through whom all things" If this
is pantheism, it is the pantheism which has ever
been the doctrine of the deepest pety the panthe-
; ism proiessed by devout men in every age Of the
2 world; the pantheism Of Berkeley when he speaks
of Il" finite agents mbosomcd in an Infinite Mind,
: the pantheism of Newton when he speaks of " q
Being pervadng space, who. present 70 all things
. sees and embraces all things present within him
, SELF
o The special application Of the principles of this
G volume to the connection between reason and
S Christianity forms the subject Of the second part
q in which few of the questions that are at Tho
$ foundation of different branches of the Church
fail of an ample and thorough discussion. On
every theme, DR.. Hedge evinces profound earnest
G ness of purpose, choice and well-digested erudi
ton, and style of great dignity and weight,
select, sometimes perhaps little dainty, in its use
of language, and occasionally betraying tendency
10 repetition both in the illustration of idca and
the form of expression. His volume will commend
itself to contcmpa,ye and thoughtful minds. The
themes which he considers, and the profoundness
Of his reflections will prove bar to popular effect
but readers who have no dread Of original aspects
of familiar truths, who wish to retain the sub
stance while changing the form Of the sacred ira
ditions in which they have been Durtured, and who
do not shrink from persistent mental activity while
comparing the results of subtle speculation. will
find store of rich and wise suggestions in the
present work. In a historical point Of view, the
volume has not little significance 1t is the first
American work with any prctcnsions to complete
ness which attempts to apply the principles Of the
transcendental philosophy to religion, on conserva-
tive grounds. DR.. Hedge is no radical no destruc-
tive, with no love Of innovation in the church; his
intellectual habits and tastes lead him to cling 10
the prestige OF antiquity; he delights in the sacred
words in which good men of the olden time have
expressed their emotions Of faith and JOY; but he
has sufficient sense to perceive that the ancient
theories demand revision in the light of modern
science and that if reason and religion are to be
welded in an "open and solemn marriage" it must
be through the means of more profound philoso-
ply than the shallow English empiricsm which
we have inherited from Locke and Paley.
Under Green Lear6s is the picturesque title Of
Utl. volnun of rural nocms nv favorite Enclsh and