will produce regret, and this regret, without preventing our enjoyment of heaven's felicities, will, together with other causes, maintain within us a constant humility, a virtue which will not lose its lustre and value amidst the brightest glories of the New Jerusalem. If, therefore, we may remember with regret our own past offences, without losing the privilege of heavenly happiness, we may likewise view with regret the banishment of some of those with whom we were connected on earth by the ties of nature or habit, and yet be so enlightened with regard to the justice and beneficial ends of that banishment, as not to experience therefrom any suffering which would embitter or be inconsistent with celestial blessedness. Secondly, it must be considered, that vile conduct does alienate brother from brother, and impair affection here on earth. May it not, therefore, be presumed that the good will not take with them into a future state any strong affection, or any other than compassion, for those whose vices have estranged affection, and weakened, if not broken, the bonds of nature and of love. "And it may be," again observes Bishop Mant, "since God's rational creatures are dear to him according to their moral excellence, and since the blessed in the future state will be 'like God'; it may be, that their affection toward those, who, in their earthly relation, were naturally the objects of it, will be regulated by this likeness to the Divine nature; and that, whilst it will be ratified, confirmed, and strengthened with respect to such as partake of their Father's blessing, and are objects of his love, it will be annihilated with respect to those who are banished from his presence, and pronounced aliens from his affectionate regard." In one sense, God loves and must for ever love all his creatures, but the love which he bears toward those who have remembered and kept his commandments, must be of a different character from that which he bears toward those who have forgotten and disobeyed him. And so in a similar manner will the love which the beatified feel for those with whom they walk in heaven as they have walked on earth, be different from the love which they feel for those who wandered from them on earth and meet them not in heaven. God's love for the latter demands their punishment, and the love of his servants toward them will not question its infliction. They will bow before the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness. They cannot regard as their friends those who are not the friends of God. And in this view, it may be said, that the righteous in the future world will have all their friends with them. They who are not with them cannot be their friends. And yet memory will be faithful, and love may plead. And here we come to a consideration which may obviate the difficulty advanced better than any other, and on which better than on any other we like to dwell. Though we fully believe that the wicked will be punished hereafter, and will not undertake to deny that they may not retain their wicked dispositions, and thus bring on themselves perpetual punishment, we do not believe that their wickedness or their punishment is necessarily and inevitably eternal. We believe that God's punishments hereafter, as his chastisements here, are designed to be corrective, and that on many, if not on all, they will have a correcting, reforming, and consequently restoring influence. We also believe, according to Apostolic teaching, that "charity never faileth," no, not in heaven. And so we believe that it may extend its pitying and saving regards to those who most need them, to those who have made themselves outcasts from the heavenly country, the city of our God. In what errand, in what duty can the blessed be more celestially employed, than in bringing back, or endeavouring to bring back, into the family of the redeemed, those erring and lost ones, to whom nature had formerly bound and endeared them? May it not be one of the employments, one of the most glorious employments and crowning pleasures, of those who have been saved themselves, to be made instrumental in restoring others, who once were dear, to that peace of spirit which they have madly destroyed, to that heaven which they have justly forfeited? O who that has been found worthy to be a partaker "of the inheritance of the saints in light," would hesitate to forego for a time, and time after time, the society and the joys of his blissful abode, that he might work upon the heart of one whom he had numbered among his family on earth, and place him once more in the same mansion with himself? Who would not pray before the mercy-seat to be sent on such a mission of mercy? "Let me go," he might say, "let me go to the exile, and persuade him to return. He has suffered long. Long has he been wailing in outer darkness. Remorse must have visited his burning heart. Solitude and anguish must have broken down his perverseness. He was not always perverse and wicked. Through the long vista of ages I can see him as he once was. He once was a happy child, an inno» cent child, affectionate and ingenuous, and pure as the light which beamed from his eyes or played on his clustering hair. I have held him in my arms. I have watched his smiles, and dried his tears. I loved him once. O that I might cherish him again! that I might bear to him thy forgiveness! that I might bring him back to happiness, to heaven, and to Thee!" Would not the Universal Father grant the prayer? Can it be proved to us, that the saints and angels are not and will not be occupied in fulfilling his restoring purposes? Are we told, that between the saved and the lost there is a great gulf fixed, so that they who would pass and repass cannot do so? We will not insist that this argument is drawn from merely the illustrative part of a parable, which is not intended to convey either doctrine or fact; but will grant, that there must needs be a profound separation between the happy and the wretched, the acquitted and the condemned, in the future state; a separation which neither party can pass over at will. And yet, by the permission of the Almighty, and on messages of his own grace and compassion, that gulf may be passed; and what gulf can there be too wide for the wings of love, too deep or broad for the passage of charity? The considerations which have been mentioned, are abundantly sufficient, to our mind, to obviate the difficulty which they have been brought forward to answer. But if they were less convincing, if the difficulty remained in its full force, yet the doctrine of future recognition would not be disproved. No objection drawn from a probable state of painful feeling for the wicked, could overthrow the fact that heaven is a social condition of being, on which fact the doctrine of the mutual recognition of friends in heaven still would rest unmoved. This fact should be sufficient to content and console us. Heaven is a social state, a city, a kingdom, a church, in which there is a great assembly, an innumerable company, and in which the innocent and good, the servants of the King Eternal, the spiritual and true worshippers of the Father, will meet together, and know each other, and never be separated any more. There the parent will see the child, improved by heavenly culture, and listen to the voice, now made more musical, which in days gone by was the sweetest music he ever heard. There the child will find the parent, and hear from him those words of love and wisdom which were early lost to him on earth. There brother and sister will meet again, and VOL. XVIII. N. S. VOL. XIII. NO. II. 30 exchange again that confidence and sympathy which passed between them and united them here. There the widowed wife will meet the husband, and the husband the wife; and though they will be as the angels, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, the ties and affections of earth will not be forgotten, and in spirit they twain will be one. Years soon finish their revolutions. A few more incidents, and the scene of mortal life is closed. Time hastens to restore that which we thought it was too hasty in demanding. Death promptly repairs as well as destroys, rejoins as well as divides, is cruel and kind in quick succession. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait," said the patient man, “till my change come." The last change cannot be long in coming to any. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait," is the language of every pious spirit, "till my change come.' All the days are but few. I will wait, and hope, and cheerfully trust, till they are gone. The distance can be but small which keeps me from those whom I have loved, and yet love, and, in the presence of God and my Redeemer, and in the light of heaven, shall continue to love for ever. "Pass a few fleeting moments more, Which death hath snatched away; 22 [For the Christian Examiner.] ART. V. Essay on the Doctrine of Divine Influence. Concluded. I. DISMISSING, therefore, the doctrine of the supernatural character of the Divine Influence as it operates upon the human mind, we next observe that there is no sufficient reason for believing that this Influence is "specially" communicated, in the modern or "revival sense of the word. The terms supernatural or miraculous used in this connexion, have been, * See Christian Examiner for March, 1835, pp. 50 -84. as we have already suggested, for reasons not distinctly avowed, laid aside by some of the more recent and able writers on this subject, though the thought is still contained or implied in the general tenor of their language, and in many of the authorized formularies of that faith, to which they still professedly adhere. We feel justified in making this remark; for if they who use the term "special" and those analogous to it, in reference to this subject, would accurately define the ideas attached to these terms, they would find, that, in removing from them every thing that is strictly miraculous, much, if not all, that is distinctive in them as applied to spiritual influence, would be taken away. What then is intended to be conveyed by the term "special" as thus used. Are we referred for the meaning to the effects of the Spirit, in what are called, in these modern times, "revivals" of religion? This is commonly done. We are directed, with a decisive and triumphant air, by those who use the phrase, and advocate the doctrine, whatever it may be, that is denoted by it, to the alleged effects of the Holy Spirit as manifested in these seasons of excitement, as decisive evidences of their "special" character. They "would as soon doubt," they tell us, "of their own existence, as that these effects proceeded from this influence." But what effects? All? By no means. None, certainly, but those which are "genuine.' But which are genuine? Here there is no criterion. The test fails, precisely where its discriminative power is needed. Edwards, the great authority, says, that in these times of excitement there are no 66 unerring signs” of "gracious affections," that is, of those which are caused by the "special" agency of the Spirit. Stoddard, a great" Revivalist" in his day, as quoted by Edwards, observes, "All visible signs are common to converted and unconverted men; and a relation of experiences, among the rest." And of more than twenty modern divines, all high authorities on this point, whose letters are appended to Dr. Sprague's "Lectures on Revivals of Religion," and all of whom believe, with an undoubting confidence, that these revivals are the work of the "Special" Influence of the Spirit, none pretend to be wiser than their great hierarch Edwards on this subject; but all coincide, in a strong, sensible, and edifying manner, in denouncing the mistakes, delusions, excesses, and counterfeit conversions, which usually prevail at such times. They unite, with |