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THE

Emperial Magazine ;

OR, COMPENDIUM OF

RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

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JANUARY.] SOCIAL REFINEMENT DAS NO EXISTENCE WHERE LITERATURE IS UNKNOWN." [1822.

THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL WORLD.

No. 1.-Connection between Natural and Revealed Truths ;-Development of Mr. Macnab's Theory of the Uni

verse.

As the circumstances which gave rise to the following papers, did not originate from the author himself, though nothing could have been more congenial to his mind; but from his being requested, by the Editors of a respectable periodical publication, to prepare a Review of the "Theory of the Moral and Physical System of the Universe," of Mr. Macnab, in order to its insertion in that publication; it is deemed of importance that this should be understood. The review was accordingly undertaken, and prosecuted to a considerable length; but feeding in such a rich pasture, and surrounded by objects so grand and sublime, the notion of merely a review, was, in consequence of the advice of many intelligent and learned friends, abandoned, as altogether insufficient for such a glorious subject; so that the originally Intended brief review has now given place to a more enlarged speculation, which, it is humbly hoped, will be both necessary and useful.

In an age so pregnant with great events as the present; an age which has convulsed the political, philosophical, and moral worlds; an age in which the infidel has done his utmost to disseminate his ruinous tenets; an age in which the politician and the warrior have approximated to the zenith of that career, in which they had been so long struggling; an age in which the modest and receding philosopher also comes forward to claim his quota of public applause, for the many services he has rendered, by his numerous and useful discoveries; in such an age, when all are on the alert to distinguish themselves by something remarkable, is the advocate of truth, of moral as well as physical truth, to be the only idle person? By no means. No. 36.-VOL. IV.

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He too has plenty to occupy his attention. For, through the influence of sophistical philosophy, that important work, which is the grand object of Divine Revelation, is still in a great measure retarded; and it is the duty of every friend of truth to do all in his power to root it up. There are thousands in the present day, who would give countenance to the work of God, were they only convinced of the divinity of the scriptures. But when they find, as by their teachers they have been led to suppose, that philosophical facts run counter to revelation; when philosophers teach one thing, and the scriptures another, they cannot be but stumbled, and at a loss which to believe. And it is in vain to urge them to abandon sense and reason for an unintelligible something which the Christian calls faith. No: the sophist wishes to make surer work of it. Of two such opposite sources of information, he reasons upon the propriety of cleaving to that which proceeds upon the surest principles, and that which, in his view, is established on matter of fact. Thus religion, through sophistry, loses many of its advocates; through the supposed opposition of philosophy to revelation, and the book of nature to the gospel of the Son of God.

And what has contributed to cherish this error the more, is, the constant, and hackneyed, and fearful procedure of many Christian teachers, in their mode of only treating what they conceive to be evangelical doctrine; but standing aloof from touching on natural truths, as if they were no part of a divine system, lest they should strike false fire. The term philosophy having been applied exclusively to such sort of truths, has also misled many; for by this means they have, in a manner, been wrested out of the hands of Christians altogether; they have been considered as belonging to a system, entirely different from that, which the Christian, from principle, has espoused; and this has rendered

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