The New York Herald

Lecture In Lafayette Church, by Rev'd. Dr. Bethune.

The Rev. Dr. Bethune, of Phila., delivered a discourse on Wednesday night, to a very large assembly, in Lafayette Church. Seldom has such profound attention been evinced on any occasion as was manifested on this. The discourse was a sublime and lucid vindication of revealed religion. The eloquence, profound learning, and wonderful extent of reading—the complete mastery possessed by the Reverend gentleman, of civil and ecclesiastical history—his familiarity with sacred and profane, ancient and modern authors, sophists, bards, enthusiasts and philosophers, made an obvious impression; and the time occupied crept past almost imperceptibly.

The Dr. expressed a little regret at having disappointed them on a former evening, and feared that his remarks to-night would ill requite the flattering interest manifested.

The question he proposed to discuss was: "What is the source of moral opinion." By "moral opinion" he meant those which relate to what ought not to be, or what we ought not to do. They had an intimate connection with the state of man after death and a future state, and it would be necessary to take a review of the opinions of antiquity which bore on the subject. The inquiry first suggested was, as to the source of human knowledge in general. Whatever plausibility might be in Locke's theory of innate ideas—and it had many opposers —he could not entertain any belief in innate ideas of moral truth. Whatever the mind takes cognizance of, must be different from, and cannot be contained in itself; and if the doctrine of innate ideas be true, the opinions of men must be identical, as to the being of a God. It was well known what latitude existed among different nations on this point, and that some did not at all recognize the truth. One of the most eminent men of the day, and who has greatly distinguished himself by the education and mental cultivation of mutes, asserts, that the first ideas they ever possessed of the being of a God, were imparted by him. He did not believe that there was a natural conscience sufficient of itself to determine what was wrong and what was right. Nay, there were some who, with seeming reason, doubted the existence of a separate moral faculty. The case of the Spartan boy, who saw no wrong in theft but in its detection, was relevant to the inquiry. The difference of learned authorities was great as to the nature of truth, and it was notorious that some were blind to the evil of a falsehood if it did not prove injurious; and the maxim that the ends sanctifies the means or to do evil for the sake of good, was well known, and all went to prove that conscience was subservient to something superior, and could not be its own standard, judge, and jury. It was still an important enquiry, "Was there light enough in the world without revelation, to discover what is right or wrong? what ought to be done? and what ought not to be done? To treat that question fairly, reference must be had, to antiquity; to those ages before the birth of Christ, when the world was illumined by the splendid mysteries of divine revelation. Socrates, the wisest and best of the heathen philosophers, and whose name should never be spoken without admiration, asserted, that "inspiration was necessary to impart a knowledge of the divinity." He (Dr. B.,) doubted whether there is such a thing as natural religion, or whether that which passes by the name is only a natural confirmation of revelation. If there be truth in the holy scriptures, there was a revelation to man from the very beginning. Moses, in his account of the creation, tells us that man's primitive state was one of innocence and felicity; and both his and the testimony of St. Paul, set forth his fall, and consequent depravity. His position went no farther than that unaided nature was insufficient; he did not deny that natural truth confirmed those of revelation. But there was an important difference in proof before and after discovery. God made an early discovery of himself to man—who became dark through perversity and blindness; and the erroneous religions of the world were not made through efforts, or did not originate in a desire to discover God. but were departures from him. The correctness of the assertion that conscience was referable, and derived from revelation, could be sustained by many arguments.

First—It was agreeable to the common sense of mankind. No nation, either ancient or modern, attempted to deny that man was created by God, and as the contrary would be perfectly absurd, there was no use in confuting it. The universal testimony of all ages ascribe man's origin to a divine source. The heathens invested Diana with divine perfections, whilst her abode was with men. The soul, by the greatest authorities, was looked upon as a divine emanation from the mind of God, and that philosophy was either sent direct from heaven or brought down by men. Anarchus, in his life of Pythagorus, says so. The early teachers of morality, and law-givers of the Persians, Egyptians and Chaldeans, were their priests, who professed to hold immediate intercourse with their Gods. The oldest compositions on record were political, and it was curious that the Latin term for poet and prophet were the same. The name of God among many ancient nations was that which distinguished their earliest lawgiver, a striking instance of which was afforded by that of Belus, Baal, or the Baalim of scripture. (The Rev. gentleman then took a review of heathen mythology, and pointed out its bearing on the inquiry. The honest, sober, and rational Socrates himself believed that he was attended by a Demon and Guardian Angel sent from God to counsel him for his welfare, and guide his life; and the Delphian oracle predicted for Aristotle that he was to be a great philosopher, although he would have laughed at the teachings of the oracle himself. The vulgar regard for dreams, divinations, fortune tellers, and the Norse and Lapland witches, were all analogous to the old mythological errors; and all these. however fabulous, fraudulent, or false, showed the belief in a divinity, and the force of moral truth in man. It was very doubtful whether human reason was in itself adequate to discover scientific truth, although an after perception of these truths was perfectly reasonable. He thought it was to be ascribed to revelation The authorities of Hesiod, Virgil, Lucretius, Tibullus, &c., say the golden, happy age, came first, when man was innocent and happy, when life was without care and pain, and a scene of uninterrupted joy. So the earliest ages of remote antiquity was the time of the Saturnalia. when Saturn, the father of heaven, the most venerable of all the gods, reigned personally over, and dwelt with men, and Astrea or heavenly justice had her abode on this earth, until growing depravity frightened her back to heaven. It no belief of this kind existed, it might be used as a plausible argument by skeptics against revelation; but when we find the universal and concurrent testimony of the world—of all nations, barbarous or refined, that at one period the divinity held converse with mankind, is the strongest confirmation of our faith, and proves that the moral principle is not inherent in the human mind, although agreeable to the common sense of mankind. The next consideration was, whether or not it was handed down to man by divine revelation. Beyond doubt, whatever knowledge was diffused through the old world was derived from the east, and most probably first conveyed by those immigrants. who, travelling westward, settled in the more genial climate of Greece. Stillingfleet has brought an amazing amount of research to prove that the Pelasgians, a people whose history is shrouded in obscurity. derived their name from Peleg, the fifth from Noah, and he is sustained by the learned Grotius in this opinion. It has become very fashionable. especially among the metaphysical and somewhat visionary German literati There was various fashions in learning, as in coats. To prove that the learning of the Greeks was not imparted to them from others, but radical and spontaneous, and to carry out their theory they are driven to the necessity of making the great personages of their history imaginary; but that the master spirits, the profound intellects, arose in the midst of darkness, unaided, was a personation too silly even for German philosophy. Dr Bethune then entered into an examination of the writings of the most eminent of the Heathens, quoting some of the most sublime passages from Plato. Pythagoras, Aristotle. Cicero, &c , to show that their views on the two grand doctrines of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul was imperfect and crude. The great Tully, after an elaborate disquisition, in which he alludes to the fact that some nations were so barbarous as to be without any conception of God, which might arise from the bad manners of the age, the different accounts given of the deity, by different writers, the clashing opinions—says, in his Tusculan Questions, that there was little certainty on the subject, and that if he were to be guided in his belief by clearness and plausibility, he would go for the Atheist rather than the Theist. He entertained a belief in a future state from the universal anxiety about futurity, the transmission of the works and acquisitions of men to posterity the desire for children, for monuments and eulogies.— "Hercules," said he, "wished for heaven, but if he had not by his labors secured a passage through the world to it, he never would have gone," and he was of opinion that as all antiquity was on his side in a belief of futurity, philosophers might draw their strongest arguments, not from reason, but from nature. Dr. Bethune then took a masterly survey of the proofs of the antiquity, authenticity, and divine origin of the Holy Scriptures. He proved that the Books of Moses were incomparably more ancient than any other extant. Porphyry has quotations from him; Berosus, the Babylonish historian, makes mention of the Jewish records; while Manetho, the Egyptian, lived but 270 years before Christ. The learning of the Hindoos was of greater obscurity: but no doubt it was of great antiquity. Ward, the missionary, who has acquired, by vast research, great familiarity with their sacred writings, refer them to about the time of David. Josephus says that Abraham, when in Egypt, instructed Cycrops in arithmetic; but whatever truth there might be in that, it was certain that the influence of the Jew on the opinions of the Egyptians, during their sojourn there, must have been great, and in no small degree connected with the boasted learning of their magi. It was on record that Pythagoras pursued his travels among the wise men of Babylon, and Zoroaster, who restored the Chaldean about the time of the prophet Daniel, was said to be from Palestine and a pupil of Daniel. It was well known that so many traces of resemblance existed between the Zendavesta and some parts of scripture, especially the Psalms of David; and this was hard to be accounted for, considering the tenacity with which the Jews monopolized and guarded their sacred writings, and the rigid spirit of seclusion which marked them as separate from the rest of the world. The inference was conclusive from all he said. that there was nothing innate in the human mind to furnish a perfect standard of morality—a sure guide between right and wrong; that the truth of morality does not depend upon human reason, but upon a revelation from God to man. He would stop here, as he feared the arguments were dry and wearisome. The conviction, however that an interest in religious truth prevailed among them, and that they were desirous to see tested the validity of skeptical objections, encouraged him. It was a matter for exultation that the divine oracles of God have, and shall survive all the various and clashing and loose systems which would rear themselves in their stead. And it would be wise to remember the words of the old divine—" Pernicious weeds may be planted in divine soil ; the Devil built his chapel nowhere but on the sacred ground where God's temple stood; truth is of the greatest antiquity, although error has still the most wrinkled face, and would pass her deformity for antiquity and there is nothing so old as that which could not give an account of its age"

The doxology was sung, and the vast assembly separated, evidently much edified by the eloquent and powerful discourse.