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    may be asked , c Why was he taken from so much usefulness ? ' Were that state laid open to us , into which he is removed , we should have an answer . We should see that this world is not the only one where intellect is unfolded , and the heart and active powers find objects . We might see that

    such a spirit as his was needed now in another and nobler province of creation ; and that all God ' s providence towards him had been training and fitting him to be born , if we may so speak , at this very time , into the future world , there to perform offices and receive blessings which only a mind so framed and gifted could sustain and enjoy . He is not lost , nor is he exiled

    from his true happiness . An enlightened , just , and good mind , is a citizen of the universe , and has faculties and affections which correspond to all God ' s works . Why would we limit it to earth , perhaps the lowest world in this immense creation ? Why shall not the spirit , which has given proof of its divine origin and heavenly tendency , be suffered to rise to its proper abode ?"

    We agree with the writer of the volume before us , that considerations like these are not foreign to his argument , as the perplexities which arise from the dispensations of Providence may be greatly lessened by holding the most reasonable anticipations which the mind can attain of our state in a future world . After pointing out , at the beginning of the 7 th Section , the wide difference between the spontaneous kindness of the heart and Christian philanthropy , the writer proceeds to mark the peculiarities which distinguish the latter : viz . that it is vicarious , obligatory , rewardable , subordinate to an efficient agency , and an expression of grateful love .

    We feel ourselves compelled to dissent entirely from the view taken of the first of these peculiarities of Christian philanthropy . The writer observes , more than once in the course of his work , that " the great principle of vicarious suffering forms the centre of Christianity : " and he here adds , that it spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the system , and is the pervading , if not the invariable , law of Christian beneficence . This is not the place in which to enter on a discussion of the various ways of receiving

    the doctrine of the Atonement : we can now only notice the present application of what the writer esteems the central principle of Christianity . The p hilanthropist suffers by participation , not by substitution . The object of his benevolent regard obtains relief , not by his benefactor taking upon him his guilt or his sorrow ; but by their united exertions to remove the guilt , and remedy the sorrow . And if we frequently say that one takes upon him the griefs of another , and that a sufferer is lightened of his burden by the benevolence which shares it , we mean nothing more than to describe the

    operation of the laws of human sympathy by which the benevolent heart is softened , and the oppressed is lightened . If any proof be needed , it is . found in cases where the sorrows of the benevolent produce no apparent effect but on themselves . A minister of religion , whose heart is glowing with piety and benevolence , attends the last hours of a convicted criminal . The wretch is hardened ; he listens with apathy and indifference while his

    benefactor weeps , exhorts , or prays : he dies insensible , neither fearing God nor regarding man . His benefactor suffers acutely and long ; but who will say that he takes on him the guilt and suffering of the criminal ? The guilt remains , the suffering will ensue . The prayers of the righteous may avail something for the pardon of the one , and the alleviation of the other ; but it is monstrous to affirm that in this case the guilt of the criminal is imputed to his benefactor , or that the benevolent sorrow of the latter is so

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    Natural History of Enthusiasm . 477

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 477, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/29/