The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-05-24

Il
curb license, they protect the feeble, they orCum
vent fraud, they honor good faith, they bind the
turbulent in chains. Before our eyes we have
every day the great living mystery. the combination
of few principles in endless variety Of form and
infinite variety of application. But for this con-
summation the grand personifcstion Of Hooker,
which represents law rs the mother of peace and
Joy, with her seat in the bosom Of God, and her
voice the harmony Of the world, never would have
been possible.
| f. All forms of Just government are growths, not
original creations perfected at once by the forces
which gave them life Each one is the expression
of the social civil, military, and ethical life Of the
people whose traditions and principles are embOd-
led in it, and the peculiar form of each is deter
mined by the circumstances of those who frame
aud administer it. For this reason new form Of
government can never be permanently impressed
on those not prepared for it by their own trad
tions sentiments, and interests We have strk-
ing veri6cation of this in the failure of Shaftesbury
and Locke to frame constitutions for North Caro-
lima. When they were proclaimed, they were
thought so perfect as to be immortal, but they
4
to them, and persisted in quarter of century,
Similar too was the mistake of the founder of the
Commonwealth of Georgia, the amiable Ogle-
thorpe, who vainly hoped by legislation derived
from fsudal systems to form a popular govern
ment. The memory of that chivalrous man sur
wives, but the legislation which he framed did not
outive his own brief day.
| A. 6 Ii
which crystaEze into form of government resem-
bles the growth of trees. Esch tree is covered
with bark and adorned with leaves in accordance
with the laws which belong to its own life. No
force can trausmue the solid beech into the shaggy
pine, nor the slender palm into such columuar oaks
as those whose interacing arms form the solemn
aises and arches of that majestic cathedral of the
the cemetery of B,naventure.
5. When we rise to the higher and nobler field
of investigation which historical Christianity pre-
sents to vew we discover the existence of the same
great law No religion, true or false, ever attained
its full proportions except through gradual devel-
opment of its germinal principle. Ordinarily this
process has been the work of centuries.
1
men labored, and ye entered into their abors
if He referred to himself as some suppose, and to
| His great forerunner, John the Baptist, His say
ing also comprehended all their predecessors who
had sowed good seed in the field of the world. 1t
included the prophets, it went back to patriarchal
| times and embraced those whose examples come
down through all intervening ages like evangels
to the world, though they themselves possessed no
written revelation When the Apostles went forth
they did not enter upon field which no earlier
aborers had TILED. But for the work accomplished
by the Prophets some of the foundations on which
Christianity rests would have been wanting
Those inspired men Of God, were the conseryators
of the ancient faith. But for them the institutions
of worship would have persisted. But for them,
wicked kings would not have been rebuked nor
impious multitudes awed. But for them the idea
of the unity of God, and the spirituality of His
nature would have been swallowed up in the vortex
of Polytheism. But for them the ancient Church
would have never known the temporary character
of its own ritual and the superiority of the worship
of the heart to all the ceremonial forms Of religion.
But for them its eyes would not have been perpet-
uslly turned towards the East, purpling with the
light of the approaching Sun of Righteousness,
the coming Deliverer and Desire of all nations.
g. Aud yet we would fail to realize the whole
truth if we supposed that the Patrarchal aud Pro-
phetc dispensations were the only preparations tor
the introduction of Christianity. In separating one
people from the nations Of the earth to become the
special depository of His truth, God did not leave
the surrounding nations without witness of Him
SELF There we're those who did not belong to the
chosen people whose minds He Illuminated in
methods not revealed to US, who not only embraced
the truth but maintained and propagated it, as did
Meleh;sedec the prince of INDIAN and Priest of the
most High God, and the mysterious man of Uz,-
exciting our curiosity and touching our magma
ton as scarcely any other Scripture character does
coming we know not whence, going we know not
whther-crossing the fad of vision for moment
and uttering words of deep and solemn import
words which remain more indelible than if he had
found the iron pen for which he wished, and craven
them ia the rock, for they have been written in
the Book which endures forever Through all the
ages men like these lived for truth and God, and
transmitted influences which cannot die, even down
to the night when the jewellers in land more orr.
entail than Palestine, watching the heavens, saw
the star which heraded the Messiah.
Centuries before the Christian era, earnest and
honest irq1irerS among Gentle nations had in
tensely studied the great problems of life with its
origin and end; duty with its incentives; death
with It's consequences; eternity with It's retribu.
tons; God and His relations to His creatures;
man and his relations to his fellows; and upon
these themes many of them reasoned with sim
cerity and passionate desire to know the truth
which no reader who has spark of sympathy with
souls struggling in the dark can now peruse with
out the deepest emotion. How thoroughly the
ancient ssgeS mastered every problem conquerable
By the human intellect is evident from the fact
that there is scarcely single truth in mental or
moral science which cannot be traced back to their
day, and which did not have its first recognition
aud exposition in their writings; and Christianity
gains no honor in depreciating the value of the re-
searches of uninspired reason.
So far as its deductions are in accordance with
Revelation they are valuable in showing how the
Word of God is adapted to mans intellectual and
moral constitution and when speculation reaches |
its limits, as it always does, without discovering
religion such as man requires then its greatest les
son is taught by its very failure for then Reveal
ton comes in to I'll the void and furnish solution
for the irrepressible inquiries of the human soul.
The great typical religions of antiquity which
held their long sway over the consciences of men
had some germs of truth in them, which gave them
vitality, aud when Christianity supplants spurious
systems of belief, it does so not only by annhating
what is false in them, but by incorporating with
itself whatever is true in such systems.
T. We cannot but admire the everything Proyi-