By carefully inspecting the manifestations of divine wisdom, as they appear in the works of creation and providence, we find satisfactory proof of the extensiveness of divine goodness, which fully corresponds with the extensiveness of that wisdom. There is not an instance in which divine wisdom is manifested in the works of God, or in his providence, in which goodness is not as fully manifested as is wisdom. In fact, it is goodness only which brings conviction to our minds of divine wisdom. Had the laws of organic nature, through all creation, been as they now are, and had their material operations been as they are, excepting that they now result in producing enjoyment to sensitive beings, the absence of this enjoyment would prove the entire absence of wisdom throughout all nature. If the Creator had constructed our physical system as he has, and had he given us the same natural senses and faculties which we now have, had he not so directed the operations of the whole as to result in affording us enjoyment, it would have been impossible for us to have seen any wisdom in all this vast work. In agreement with this reasoning, we find the following inspired declaration : "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." (James iii. 17.) The instructions of Jesus are so clear and full on the subject of the goodness of God, that it is not possible for us to limit that goodness without directly denying those instructions. Jesus taught men to call God their Father. It is one character of a father to employ all his faculties and means for the good of his offspring, and that, too, to their full extent. His reasoning on this subject cannot be misunderstood: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt. vii. 9—11.) Even men of narrow minds, and of limited views of the divine goodness, are willing to allow that God is good to such as do his will, and are themselves good in his sight;

but Jesus was careful to assert the divine goodness in a far more extensive manner : "But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great; and ye shall be the children of the Highest; for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." (Luke vi. 35.)

The goodness of God and the infinite extent of that goodness, are clearly seen in all the duties enjoined on us, in the divine requirements. Our Creator requires nothing of us which is not necessary to our happiness; nor have we any reason to believe that the commandments of God are designed for any other purpose: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Mic. vi. 8.) These requirements, which comprehend all human duty, are set before us to show us what is good. It is good for man individually to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God; and these virtues are good for men collectively, as living in communities. Any departure from these duties, is an equal departure from that good which constitutes human enjoyment. As it is clearly seen by the text, just cited, that by complying with these divine requirements, we walk with God, so it is as clearly seen that God himself walks in the same path. He does justly, he loves mercy, and his spirit is a spirit of humility. Jesus, who is the brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of God, said, "I am meek and lowly in heart." (Matt. xi. 29.) When Jesus was interrogated respecting the great commandment in the law, he answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matt. xxii. 37-40.) Here we find fully comprehended all which God requires of man; and it is evident that a compliance with it secures the most perfect enjoyment of which we can conceive, or of which we are susceptible.

Having thus presented a few of the innumerable evi

dences of the infinite goodness of God, which he has furnished, it remains necessary to request the reader to keep continually in view the bright and heavenly example of the divine goodness, that this example may exert its natural influence on the mind and heart, whereby the whole man may be brought into an assimilation with it.

In these times, when professors of religion are so vehemently contending for their respective creeds, and are far less concerned in regard to a conformity of spirit and character with the true spirit and character of our heavenly Father, it is believed that no better service can be rendered to the religious community than to call universal attention to this subject. And if what is here presented should, in any instance, or to any degree, operate to favor the object the writer has had in view, he will be abundantly rewarded for the humble attempt.

H. B.

ART. XXXIII.

Universalism in the Greek Church.

Considérations sur la Doctrine et l'Esprit de l'Eglise Orthodoxe. Par Alexandre de Stourdza. Stuttgard. 1816, 8vo. pp. 218.

THE subjoined extract was published, some years since, in one of our weekly religious papers, in a letter addressed to the secretary of the Universalist Historical Society. A desire to preserve it in a more convenient form, has induced us to insert it in this volume of the Expositor, where it will very properly accompany the notices, with which we have been favored, of Universalism in the Lutheran Church of Germany.

The present Greek Church may be called the descendant of that part of the ancient Christian church which spoke the Greek language, and of which the principal patriarchates, or archbishoprics, were those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. It will be remembered, that most of the early Universalist fathers belonged to this body. It was separated from the Church

of Rome in the end of the fifth century; and, though an unquiet union was soon afterwards formed, a final and complete separation from the Romish communion took place in the ninth century. The Greek Church now embraces most of the Christians in Russia, Greece, and Asia Minor, and some of those in Egypt, Syria, and the countries still farther east.

The extract, which we have translated from the work mentioned above, throws some light on the doctrine of this church concerning the eternity of sin and misery. Of the author, Stourdza, we have been able to obtain no other account than that he is, or was, counsellor of state to the emperor of Russia. His book is an exposition of the doctrine and practice of the Greek Church, (which he calls the Orthodox Church,) contrasted with those of the Roman Catholic; the whole being intended to show the excellence of the former, and the error of the latter. the Introduction, he informs us that he wrote it to guard those who went to dwell at St. Petersburg against certain errors that lurked there, - meaning Roman Catholicism, which had crept in, by means, probably, of immigrants and visitors from the south.

In

While reading him, we must keep in mind, that what he says of future retribution is aimed against the Catholic tenet of purgatory,-a purgatory in which delinquents undergo "a gross, material purification," as he expresses it, and in which their punishments may be "commuted " by the alms and prayers of the living. Should we overlook this reference, some of his expressions might seem to bear against any end whatsoever of punishment. But that such is not his meaning, will be seen from his allusions to a period at which all evil will be extinct, and God become all in all.

To preserve the thread of his discourse unbroken, we insert his entire chapter on rewards and punishments, though a part of it only relates to the point in view:

"CHAP. III. Of Punishments and Rewards.

Everything announces that the order of things in which we exist, is the fragment of a primitive model in

finitely more perfect. Physical nature is now but the magnificent prison of man, that royal slave, fallen from his power and grandeur. It presents the mysterious aspect of a system incomplete, which can be explained only by going back to its origin, and forwards into the future. As any single instant of human life is inexplicable without a knowledge of what preceded it, and of what is to follow it, so the collective existence of the human race, and that of the individuals who compose it, become comprehensible only through the doctrine of original sin, and of the rewards and punishments that await us in a future life.

"Mankind have invariably had an instinctive persuasion of a future life, serving at once as a vindication of the supreme justice, and as a hope to the good, and a terror to the evil. There is not a single tradition of antiquity, that does not bear marks of that belief, universal among savage colonies as well as among the most civilized nations. The indestructible sense of just and unjust, which is never satisfied on this earth, dictates to all mortals that terrible rallying cry, common to all races and to all languages. It pierces the vault of heaven, and repeats its echoes through the abyss of ages. The word of life will, one day, respond to these echoes, and absorb them in its majestic concord; and it is from these two voices, of which the one invokes Deity, and the other arraigns the creation, that will arise the celestial accord of an eternal harmony.

"Certain modern writers have attempted to impair the sublimity of the doctrines taught by Christianity concerning the recompenses and chastisements of a life to come, by bringing into view their affinity with all the fabulous and pagan traditions. But they did not consider that truth is one, and that its separate reflections attest the reality and energy of the ray that produces them; nor did they reflect that the edifice of religion, disguised by the scaffolding of ages, existed long before the epoch at which its magnificent courts were opened to us.

"Other persons, of an unreflecting turn, or of a compassionate temper, have taken up against the doctrine of the eternity and rigor of the punishments reserved for the