and dissected in every possible form, while the weightier matters are treated as secondary or entirely forgotten.

An immediate consequence of this solicitude about feeling, will be the derangement and desolation of genuine religious sensibility. There is a wide difference between true and false sensibility, which every one professes to understand, and the distinction is no where so broad as in religion. That religious sensibility may be pure, it must be consistent. It must not pour itself out to excess in one direction, and be deficient in another. If it be directed. chiefly to one point, insensibility will collect around every other point, and the character will be distempered. Religion fills the soul with a joy that is deep and sublime. It gives the character a chastened enthusiasm, a quenchless ardor, a sublime earnestness. It has its seat in the heart. But pure religion creates no disproportion; for it is perfectly symmetrical, and whatever tends to produce excessive anxiety about feeling, is alien to it because it destroys symmetry and operates to degrade sensibility into sentimentalism. The religious sentimentalist will study his feelings as a duty of the highest and most indispensable importance, and we may sometimes hear him talk of his "glorious meetings," and "precious seasons," when it is obvious that he possesses very little of the sensibility which the unobstructed operation of religious principle awakens; and when the chief ingredient in the rapture of the "precious seasons," upon which he lays so much stress, is plainly nothing but animal excitement, and of course is purely sensuous. Whether practical religion reigns in his character,— whether he is steadfast in fulfiling all the ministries of benevolence, whether he is faithful in discharging all the duties that grow out of his relations in life, are with him secondary and comparatively trivial considerations. Calm and rational contemplation, unyielding obedience to principle, the carrying of religion into all the scenes of real life,-intelligent moral culture,-these are things which he cannot properly appreciate. He regards them as not to be named in comparison with one "precious season." The great thing, that which in his views transcends every thing else, is feeling. The importunate cry of his solicitude, is, "give me feeling, give me feeling, or I die." Such a man will not deny the importance of religious practice. Perhaps he is unconscious of being wanting in a just estimation of it. But you can see the nature of his malady in the form and direction of his solicitude. The importance he attaches to feeling and excitement is every where manifest. His chief inquiry is about these when he forms an estimate of the religion of others. The state of religious tempers and practice interest him far less than the fervors of excitement; and he approves or condemns according as these do or do not accord with his opinion of what should be. For

himself, he cannot live without them. He must have the gush of excitement in his soul. He must have that delicious rapture of sentimentalism pour and glow through his nervous system, which comes as readily in the thrill of a lovely song, or in waves of music from a skilfully played instrument, as in the sing-song cadences of the most perfectly chanted rhapsody. But this is not true religious sensibility; and every man capable of reading his bible and studying the constitution of his being, may know that it is not. It is poison, and unless removed by the proper remedies will steal into every part of christian character, inflaming and maddening. It is strange fire, and unless promptly quenched will leave scathing and desolation upon the soul. How vigilantly, then, should every christian guard himself, and, as he aims to cultivate the true sensibility and excitement of religion, instantly repress and spurn every thing that would disturb the symmetry of his character.

By deranging the true sensibility of religion, this insatiable "hungering and thirsting" after feeling, produces that fitful religion which has been very expressively termed spasmodic,-a form of religion which is of course chiefly the product of a nervous and imaginative temperament,-and whose leading characteristics are to increase in proportion as excitement grows more intense, and to be as fitful in its changes as the temperature of the atmosphere. Such religion is grievous; and one of the chief anxieties of a careful pastor, will be to secure uniformity and permanence in the religious affections and zeal of his church; and to promote this, he will apply himself to detect and remove every obstruction, and to heal all the maladies in the zeal of his church. He will carefully inculcate clear views of what religion really is, and teach his people to discriminate between the true and the false. How often will such a pastor find it necessary to show, that religious affections differ widely from sentimentalism,-that the purest religion does not always produce the most noisy agitations,-that the most beautiful and expressive emblem of christian character is not the furious torrent that pours down the mountain side, scattering foam and thunder along its track, but the calm, ever flowing river, which moves along in comparative silence, communicating fertility to the soil and loveliness to the landscape, mirroring the sky, and perpetually receiving accessions to its waters, until it rolls its broad tide into the ocean. And in the midst of his endeavors, how of ten will he see fair appearances pass away like morning mist, and be constrained to weep and pray over the state of his people in secret, and remember the language of God concerning the Israelites: "Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always!" But should he go to his people with the doctrine of these sermons, and teach them to cultivate impressions as the leading evidence of

their justification, the evil will not fail to increase; for such instruction will produce it where it does not exist, and make it flourish where it does. It sets up a factitious standard. Teach a man, that in determining whether he is converted he must rely on frames and sallies of feeling,-teach him to regard these as the life and soul of religion,-teach him that he "falls from grace" just as often as he loses them, and, if he practises accordingly, how soon will his religion resemble the mercury in a thermometer, and change with the temperature of feeling, now elevated above fever heat, and anon standing many degrees below zero! The influence of such teaching will impel him to a continual dissection of feeling, and in consequence the ebb and flow of the nervous system will be resolved into religious affections, and the charlatanry of enthusiasm into the action of religious zeal.

There is another aspect of the evil. Every philosophical observer, who examines with the scriptures before him, fails not to perceive, that whatever contributes to promote fitfulness in religion, promotes declension and insensibility. Indeed, this is so obvious as scarcely to require to be dwelt on. The declension follows on the principle of reaction. When we see a swollen torrent in the spring rushing and roaring onward, and afterwards, when summer comes, find its channel dry, we know how to account for it; or when we see a mountain wave dash in fury and foam upon the shore, roll far up the beach, and then subside, we all understand what it means. So in the moral world, every form of wrong and tumultuous excitement, contains the elements of reaction in all their life and vigor; and when a man is brought to believe, that he cannot be religious without a certain amount of nervous sensation, it is but natural that his devotion should decline just as often, and in the same proportion as the sensation subsides. The glow of animal excitement which is mingled with his religion, from its nature, cannot be otherwise than transitory; and when it expires, he believes his religion has departed; and influenced by this persuasion, he gives it up and yields himself to the full power of declension and insensibility. So it will be in a church, if a similar excitement steals into it. Now the excitement of religion is not neccessarily spasmodic and transient; it requires to become permanent, and it will become so, if sustained with fidelity and carefully guarded against the disturbing forces and fires of wild enthusiasm. We sometimes hear the complaint, that the effects of a revival have been in a great part temporary, and even in some cases, that it has been succeeded by a strange coldness. Other causes may have produced this state of things, but it is of the utmost importance in such cases to know how far the revival suffered from the evil in question. Faithful inquiry will seldom fail to discover, that in a great measure the declension results as the reac

tion of distempered excitement. Let religious affections be kindled by nothing but the Holy Spirit working in his wisdom and power; let religious zeal be pure, intelligent, guided by principle, and unswerving in its action; let the churches be "steadfast and unmovable" in righteousness, and it will not be necessary to promote religion in the world by means of revivals; or rather, religion will be promoted by means of a wide-spread, extending, inextinguishable revival, which burns with nothing but celestial fire sent down from heaven, and which will perpetually advance until the earth is filled with holiness, and all nations hail the endless sabbath; until the hearts of men are mingled together in peace and good will, and the day arrives when Cowper's language shall become reality:

'One song employs all nations,—and all cry,
"Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till,-nation after nation taught the strain,—
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.'

We have approached a point of thrilling interest; but as we have not proposed to discuss it in this paper, we will not enter upon it. We will not dismiss it however without commending it to the attention of every pastor in the land. Oh, could our voice peal through the churches and ring in the heart of every christian, we would say: "Men of God, be of sound minds; be guided by heavenly wisdom; keep yourselves unspotted, and in every thing take heed to your ways!"

In taking our leave of Mr. Wesley's sermons, we repeat it, that while we differ from him and deprecate the tendency of his views of the 'witness of the Spirit,' we admire the excellences of his character. Therefore we demand to be heard with candor. We say this, because hitherto our Methodist brethren have shown a morbid sensitiveness whenever their favorite writers have been reviewed, or their favorite doctrines controverted. We would remind them, that, astonishing as it may seem in their eyes, we have no more faith in their infallibility than in that of the pope ; and when their theology passes into what some philosophers have called the second moments of thought, perhaps they will become a little less dogmatical, and at least permit it to be made a question, whether it does not contain some error. When that time arrives, we invite them to re-peruse our remarks, and subject the sentiment we have examined to a rigorous analysis. Meanwhile we suggest the propriety of a little meditation upon the following aphorism of the great English philosopher: "Idola et notiones falsa, quæ intellectum humanum jam occuparent, atque in eo alte hærent,

non solum mentes hominum ita obsident, ut veritati aditus difficilis pateat; sed etiam dato et concesso aditu, illa rursus in ipsa instauratione scientiarum occurrent, et molesta erunt; nisi homines præmoniti, adversus eas se, quantum fieri potest, muniant."

ART. III.-ON THE CHERUBIM OF THE SACRED SCRIPtures.

The Cherubim that guarded the way of the tree of life. Gen. iii. 24. THE remarkable nature of the statement respecting the guard that was stationed (Gen. iii. 24.) to prevent men from partaking of the tree of life, and the difficulty of the passage itself, will justify an effort to offer an explanation. The statement is the following: "And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." This statement is in itself very obscure, and has given rise to many unfounded opinions. "The common notion," says Faber, "that they were a sort of terrific scare-crows, employed to prevent mankind from approaching the tree of life, seems to me to be no less childish than irreconcilable with other parts of scripture."

The word which is rendered cherubim, ba in the singular

cherub, occurs frequently in the sacred scriptures. Its derivation is, however, unkown. Gesenius supposes that it is derived from the Syriaco cherubi, potens, magnus, fortis; strong, great, mighty. The translators of the Septuagint have not attempted to translate the word, but retain the Hebrew word in Greek letters, pou. The Syriac, (Gen. iii. 24.) retains the same word cherubo. The Targum of Onkelos, also retains the same word. The Arabic renders it by the word angels, and evidently supposes, that angels were there stationed. Probably this is the most common supposition.

D

In order to ascertain the sense of the term here used, and the idea which Moses intended to convey, it may be useful to trace the history of the cherub, and its various forms as it appears in the sacred writers. We shall find it presented in the following instances: 1. In the guard that was placed at the east of Eden. 2. In the figures inwrought in the tapestry, or veil, of the ark and temple. 3. In the figures that were made over the ark of the covenant, in the tabernacle, and subsequently in the temple of Solomon. 4. In the temple described by Ezekiel, (Ch. xli. 18.) 5. In the description of Ezekiel as seen by the river Chebar, (Ezek. i. 10; x. 14.) 6. As seen in the clouds supporting God, and the emblem of his magnificence, and grandeur, and majesty, and the rapidity of his movements, (Ps. xviii. 11; 1 Sam. vi. 4;