THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



lence of angels and archangels descend to dwell 

 with- man upon earth, to expel selfishness from 

 the human breast, to hush every disordered affec 

 tion, and to restore tranquillity and order among 

 the bewildered race of Adam ? When will the 

 spirit of love, in all its beneficent energies, de 

 scend from the Father of light to arrest the con 

 vulsions of nations, to heal the wounds of suffer 

 ing humanity, to transform fields of slaughter into 

 regions of tranquillity, to soften the ferocious 

 tempers of * the people who delight in war,&quot; to 

 unite in one holy and harmonious society men of 

 every language and of every tribe? Not till 

 Christianity shall have shed its benign influ 

 ence on every land; not till &quot; the knowledge of 

 the Lord shall cover the earth,&quot; and the can 

 nons, and swords, and spears, and battle-axes 

 of the warrior shall be broken to shivers, and 

 forged into ploughshares and pruning-hooks. 

 &quot; Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, and 

 the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the 

 calf, and the young lion, and the fading toge 

 ther, and a little child chall lead them.&quot; &quot; Then 

 judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and 

 righteousness in the fruitful field. And the work 

 of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of 

 righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. 

 And all people shall dwell in peaceable habitations, 

 and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.&quot; 

 In fine, under the reign of love, most of the 

 evils, both physical and moral, under which men 

 are now doomed to suffer, would be either greatly 

 mitigated or completely abolished. It is scarcely 

 too much to affirm, that nine-tenths of all the 

 evils that affect humanity are the result of the 

 malice and unkindness of mankind towards each 

 other. If all the sorrow and wretchedness pro 

 duced by fraud, falsehood, avarice, extortion, 

 injustice, oppression, perjury, seduction, trea 

 chery, litigations, slander, pride, ambition, re 

 venge, robbery, murder, plunder, and devasta 

 tion, were extirpated, little would remain besides 

 the incidental evils which occasionally flow from 

 the elements of nature. And even these would 

 be greatly mitigated by the benevolent operations 

 of art, directed by the discoveries of science. By 

 clearing the surface of the globe of immense 

 forests, by draining stagnant marshes, and by 

 the universal cultivation and improvement of the 

 soil, the seasons would be meliorated, and 

 storms and tempests would be deprived of their 

 wonted violence and fury ; and the partial phy 

 sical evils which still remained would be almost 

 annihilated to the sufferer, by the sympathy, 

 and tendemess, and the kind and fostering hand 

 of universal benevolence. Where virtue, tem 

 perance, serenity of mind, and social joy reigned 

 triumphant, and where none of the ghastly phan 

 toms of skepticism and superstition haunted the 

 mind, disease would seldom invade the human 

 frame ; the span of mortal existence would be 

 extended ; death would become calm and tran 



quil, and every one would &quot; come to his grave, 

 like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.** 

 In short, under the influence of the emanation? 

 of love, malignity would be transformed into be 

 nevolence, vice into virtue, oppression into jus 

 tice, cruelty into sympathy and tenderness, sel 

 fishness into beneficence, contention into unity 

 and friendship,fraud info honesty, avarice into ge 

 nerosity, pride into humility, wretchedness into 

 comfort, sorrow into joy, war into peace, and this 

 spacious globe, now the receptacle of misery and 

 vice, would be transformed into the temple of 

 concord, happiness, and peace. 



Such are some of the beneficial effects which 

 would be experienced in the social state of the 

 human race, were a principle of benevolence to 

 pervade the minds of mankind. The immense 

 mass of moral evils, under which the earth now 

 groans, would be removed ; the moral aspect of 

 society, in every nation, would assume a new 

 lustre of loveliness and excellence; and nature 

 herself would be arrayed in new robes of grace 

 fulness and beauty. For it would be easy to 

 show, were it at all necessary, that every parti 

 cular now stated, and a thousand similar effects, 

 would be the natural and necessary results of love, 

 when it becomes the mainspring of human actions 



I shall now shortly trace some of the effects of 

 love, considered as directed more immediately 

 towards God. 



Supreme love to God would excite compla 

 cency in his character and perfections ; and piety, 

 in all its fervent and delightful emotions, would 

 naturally flow upwards to the fountain of all 

 purity. His glorious character would be vene 

 rated, and his name revered over all the earth ; 

 trophies would be erected to his honour, and tem 

 ples consecrated to his worship in every land. 

 Crowds of worshippers, beaming benignity and 

 devotion, would be held in every region, con 

 verging towards the &quot; dwelling-place&quot; of the 

 Most High, and encouraging one another in such 

 language as this : &quot; Come ye and let us go up 

 to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the 

 God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, 

 and We will walk in his paths.&quot; With enlight 

 ened views of the attributes of Jehovah, with 

 glowing affections, and with profound reverence, 

 would they join in the sublime exercises of the 

 sanctuary, and listen to the intimations of his 

 will. All voices would be tuned to melodious 

 strains, and the solemn organ, and those instru 

 ments of music which are now devoted to the 

 gratification of the sons of fashionable folly and 

 dissipation, would harmonize in exciting devo 

 tional affections, and in swelling the song of sal 

 vation &quot; to Him who sits upon the throne, and tc 

 the Lamb who hath redeemed us to God by his 

 blood.&quot; Every landscape, in every point of 

 view, would present a noble edifice devoted to the 

 worship of the God of heaven, adorned with every 

 majestic decoration suitable to its sanctity, and 



