individuals or even to races and nations, supreme laws of the Rea son; and which are in being still, but not supreme. We might, as Wordsworth, gaze upon the face of Nature and from it struggle to call forth the Law for man's being. We might bring up, again, the reasonings of Plato, or of Aristotle, or the lofty Stoic guesses at the truth under laws that were to them true and the highest they had, but were not the ultimate, the adequate, and supreme law. But we are not as Plato, or the Stoics, or Aristotle. For us the Supreme Law of the Spiritual Reason is in the Faith of Christ, finally revealed and manifested.

It is literary trifling and absurdity to go back and imagine that we can place ourselves in the situation of the Heathen Philosophers. The same train of argument which in them, at their date, was deep and solemn enquiry, in us shall be frivolity and affectation. We cannot place ourselves in their position, and it is absurdity to imagine it. Instead therefore of going over their speculations to their results, we take the natural facts they had, and show the completion of them in the faith of Christ. For a Supreme Law we point not to outward Nature, to Platonic or Aristotelian Morals; to the Grecian "sense of Beauty," or the Roman sense and feeling of Justice-not to these but to that upon which all these rested, “Nature ;" and then to that which all these had not," The Faith of Jesus Christ;" and then, according to the maxim which makes and constitutes our Philosophy, "Grace is the complement of nature," we say, the Faith of Jesus Christ is that alone which as its Supreme Law perfects the Reason of Man.

Here then have we reached the highest point of Natural Ethics and the lowest of Spiritual Ethics, the point wherein the one unites with the other; and as, in reference to the "Natural Conscience, we showed that to the justified alone was the Conscience perfect, so now do we assert that to them who are "Sanctified" only is the "Spiritual Reason" perfected; and this takes place in both its results of "Moral Harmony" and "Moral Progress," by the constant influence of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Spiritual Reason of the Sanctified. The examination then of these two points, although we are led in search of them and towards them, and even within a very little of them, still lies outside the domains of Natural Ethics, and within those of Spiritual Ethics, it is therefore deferred to a future time. We shall

therefore recall some other characters of the Reason that illustrate the views we have given.

We would point out that the Reason is the faculty of the "Unseen," of that which is not tangible by the senses or to be brought under their examination-and side by side with this we would place the Apostle's declaration, that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen;"* his declaration also that "the things that are seen are temporal," that is, they flee away and abide not for ever. So that it would seem that the power in us by which when it is awakened we discern the Unseen, this power is the Spiritual Reason, and Faith is its act when under Grace. And, when God has awakened it, then only can it exert itself in Faith, as the Scripture says, "Faith is the gift of God."‡

Hence from Natural Ethics and from Revelation we have three truths.

First, There are things Unseen, which alone are real and fade not away.

Secondly, There is a power in man that may be awakened to see them, or may be left unawakened, so that it does not see, but still it is the sense of them.

Thirdly, There is an influence that awakens and perfects that power. This influence is what the Scriptures call the "Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and the sight by it awakened is called "Faith." Here again Nature rises upward, and the truths of which it speaks in dim enigmas are declared and interpreted by Revelation. The nature and effects of living faith and the enlightening and illuminating influence of Grace upon the mind, these explain and make clear this doctrine of natural Ethics.

Again, that it is the "sense of the Unseen." This, combined with that other fact, that "it may be trained unconsciously"-this bears witness to the Church's doctrine of the "Communion of Saints," and the influence that the angels of God and the Holy Departed have upon us.

For indeed the Spiritual Reason or Sense of the Unseen, is so far the witness and the faculty of a Spiritual World, that as no man who has the eye, the sense of natural vision, can be without a con+ Eph. ii. 8.

* Heb. xi. 1.

† 2 Cor. iv. 18.

viction that he sees, so with regard to an Unseen World, men may chase away the doctrine, call it absurdity, reason, argue against it as they will, and yet they cannot by all their labor get rid of it. It will cling by them.

Cultivate, then, in your children the sense of the unseen world of Spiritual things-the feeling of the actual and real influence of the Spirit of God, and of the guardianship of his "holy angels," and of the "Communion of Saints,"-and the sense of the Unseen shall receive its due nutriment in the truths of Revelation, and shall produce a sanctifying result upon the character, in that calm and holy habit of meditation which seems to be the highest grace of the perfect Christian mind.

But chase this belief away; sneer it down; call it superstition, &c., and you shall find that the faculty will not be deprived of some food; it sought for that "above human reason,"* and could not reach or obtain it, so it shall take refuge in that which is "against reason." Not being fed with the truths of the Unseen, it will turn to the garbage of the "Absurd." He that cannot believe in "one Baptism for the Remission of sins," he shall

* There are "things above reason," and "things against reason. This is a plain and manifest distinction, referring to the limited nature of man during his present state of existence with his present faculties. It asserts that there are truths in his life revealed to him which, while he takes them to be true upon the evidence of the revelation of God, still, owing to the limited nature of his faculties, and their adaptation only for this gross and earthly state of being, he cannot comprehend the grounds and reasons of them. They lie far above him, in a purer and clearer atmosphere, in which his mental faculties cannot live. And to rise to them a change must take place in him, from the animal and earthly to the pure celestial body.

These facts, whose reason is above our faculties, while we know them to be facts, are called mysteries. Such are the mysteries of the Atonement, of the Incarnation, of the Spiritual Body, of the Marriage Union, of our Regeneration and Spiritual Life through Christ, of the nutrition of our souls by His Body and Blood, as our bodies are nourished by the Sacramental symbols of bread and wine-all these are mysteries, facts revealed to us by God, to be received in faith, and yet incapable of being comprehended. Above reason, they are not against it; for we can, by reason, refute all gainsayers, whatever arguments they may bring forward. We can refute the opponents of these truths, but we cannot explain the truths themselves. For the explanation we must wait for a future life and a loftier state of intellectual being. Such is the distinction between "things above reason” and “ "things against reason," a distinction every student must see to be of deep importance in Moral and Religious Science.

believe in "Baptism for the dead" General Washington by Joseph Smith, the Mormon. He that "cannot believe in a Church of God existing upon the earth with its Divine Powers," he shall come to believe that "an impostor, half crazy, half knavish as Matthias, was the Shiloh."* And they who from youth upwards had set at nought all the truths of the Christian faith, they shall be converted by the frantic ravings of the Millenarian prophet, announcing the doom of the world, and the triumphant entrance of the Messiah into,-not Jerusalem, but New York!

Give the man the truths of the Unseen World, the truths "above reason," revealed in the word of God, upheld and interpreted by the Church, impressed by the Holy Spirit; and "the sense of the Unseen," the "Spiritual Reason" in him shall embrace them naturally, easily, readily. Keep the truths of the Faith of Jesus Christ away, and any absurdity, any superstition, any folly, he is prepared for. The natural faculty that is deprived of due and appropriate food and denied it, this faculty shall, whether in body, soul or spirit, thus become a depraved appetite, feeding upon garbage.

Upon these grounds, I say, the man who trains up his children without the truths of the Faith of Christ our Lord impressed upon their mind, this man (especially if they be unbaptized) by the very nature and reason of the case, trains them up as victims, by himself made ready for any absurd and unreasonable fanaticism. If they are baptized in the Church of Christ, then have they the teachings of the Spirit pledged to them, and of the Communion of Saints, and this in its secret operations upon their souls, may perhaps, through God's mercy, in some degree supply the neglect of the parents, without, in any degree, relieving them from the guilt.

Again: I would point out how much the fact that the Spiritual Reason can be taught and trained by an influence of which it is unconscious, illustrates the operation upon us of God's Spirit, whose teaching is known but by the fruits it brings forth; how much it agrees with the truth of the Scriptures, that "the angels minister to us," and that "our dead friends may not be apart, but near to us." All these, which are matters of Revelation, at the same time are matters of natural belief, which, because man has

* See Stone's "Life of Matthias the Impostor."

a "Sense of the Unseen," he will not give up to any argumentation whatsoever. And the fact and truth which the man can see in his "family," that Moral Teaching may be true and real teaching, although it is not consciously perceptible to the subjects of it, this aids him to see that all these influences, which are asserted in the Holy Scripture, and yet he feels not consciously, may still exist and be good, and have a true and real effect.

And again : we find the faculty ever seeking "Moral Harmony,' ever testifying by its desire after it to the natural want of it, yet ever struggling towards it as an object. Here, then, in its sense of incongruity, unsuitableness, inability in the natural state-here is its testimony to the doctrine of Original Sin. Ten thousand orators may prove to their own satisfaction that " men are now born as the first man came out of the hands of his Creator," but the "Spiritual Reason" of each man shall say "No" to their eloquence and their arguments. It shall say, "I wish,—desire,—seek after,-aim at 'Moral Harmony;' and in Nature by itself I feel it not." And the inner voice shall confute the eloquent argumentation of the orator and man of genius, and to the plain preacher of the Gospel, that proclaims the doctrine of Original Sin, that "man is fallen,” it shall uphold and support the truth he asserts.

Having thus brought this subject to a conclusion, so far as it is in the province of Natural Ethics, I would recapitulate; and from that recapitulation enforce another inference that may be drawn very distinctly.

First. There is a certain, distinct and clear body of definite, eternal moral truths, which are ever the same, and do not vary with circumstances.

Secondly. These have Institutions organized for the purpose of teaching them, which do, under all circumstances, teach consciously or unconsciously.

Thirdly. There is a peculiar faculty in each individual man, adapted to receive these truths.

Therefore to them that have these truths, and know them by earnest and true realization, whether Parent, or Magistrate, or Clergyman-these three principles say,-"That which you know as Divine Truth of the Spiritual Reason, that teach fearlessly, earnestly, zealously and no matter though a multitude were against you; the Harmony of Nature, the frame of Society, and its institutions, nay, the very unseen world itself, Angel and Arch