ON

THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS

BY

SEVEN CLERGYMEN OF OXFORD.

BY

THE REV. DR. BAYLEY,

Minister of the New Jerusalem Church,
Argyle Square, Kings Cross.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.(Ps. xcix. 18).

LONDON:
ALVEY, 36, BLOOMSBURY STREET;
HODSON AND SON, 22, PORTUGAL STREET;
PITMAN, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1862.

London:
Printed by J. S. Hodson and Son, 22, Portugal Street,
Lincolns Inn.

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4. The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement.
8. Difficulties on the Atonement.
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE No. I.

GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.

THE SUCCESSIVE DAYS OF CREATION IN GENESIS NOT THOSE OF SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF THE EARTHS OLD CREATION, BUT SUCCESSIVE STATES OF THE SOULS NEW CREATION.

And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaves, to divide the clay from the night: and let them be for lights in the seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights in the firmament of the heaven, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.--GEN. i. 14-16.

THE subject we have this morning selected is occasioned by the great interest attached to the expositions of some who stand high in the theological world, and who have startled their religious friends by their freedom of inquiry. We allude to the suggestions offered in the work entitled Essays and Reviews. In many, this work has excited religions rancor; by many, the cry of infidelity has been raised; but by very few are the reasons met which these clergymen have offered for their convictions. These gentlemen are evidently men of thought, men of large attainments. They see difficulties which shallower minds pass unobserved. They are conscientious men, who look at scientific teachings in the ace, and reverently mark them. They are devoutly brave.

They have uttered the result of their researches in science and religion, and have placed their positions in life, and their estimation in the Church, in considerable jeopardy, by their free utterance of what they believe to be the truth; and they are worthy, not of reprobation, but of respect for their sincerity. Yet the conclusions to which they come are distressing and dangerous. Their results point to the abrogation of all definite faith in a Divine Book. Their views would practically lessen, rather than increase, our reverence for the Bible. Regarded as these teachers have been induced to regard it, the Word of God would practically be acknowledged only as the words of men; and the immortal children of the Eternal Father would be pursuing their voyage across the ocean of life with no chart by which to steer, no compass upon which they could rely, no lighthouse whose friendly gleam would guide, and no pilot to direct. We shrink from this conclusion. We dare not accept such a termination to our researches. We feel there must be error in the mode of inquiry, and we invite a reconsideration. There must be mistake in any conclusion which weakens our hold on the spiritual riches of Divine Revelation on heaven, and on the Savior. We would not condemn honest minds who state they cannot but arrive at dreaded conclusions; but in the strongest faith that Revelation must be right, if we know how to understand it, we invite to a re-examination of the problem.

Of the Mosaic account of creation, these writers state, we must regard it, not as an authentic utterance of Divine knowledge, but a human utterance which it has pleased Providence to use in a special way for the education of mankind (p. 253). It is stated thatif we regard it as the speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, promulgated in all good faith as the best and most probable account that could be then given of Gods universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which the writers in question have done their utmost to deprive it (p. 252). The early speculator was harassed by no such scruples, and asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities. But we are not, on that account, to doubt his perfect good faith; nor need we attribute to him willful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which he knew not to be true.

He had seized on one great truth, in which, indeed, he anticipated the highest revelation of modern inquirynamely, the unity of the design of the world, and its regard to detail, observation failed him. He knew little of the earths surface, or of its shape or place in the universe, the infinite varieties of organized existence which people, the infinite varieties of organized existences which people it, the distant floras and faunas of its different continents, were unknown to him. But he saw that all which lay within his observation had been formed for the benefit and service of man; and the goodness of the Creator to his creatures was the thought predominant in his mind (p. 253).

While thus virtually surrendering the citadel of the Divine Word to the unbelievable, Mr. Goodwin seems at times at the very entrance of paths worthy of his best attention, and leading to very different conclusion. He remarksthe circumstances of the second narrative (i. e., Gen. chap. ii.) Of creation, are indeed such as to give at least some ground for the supposition that a mystical interpretation was intended to be given by it (p. 323).

If mystical be taken as synonymous with spiritual, which, in this use of it by Mr. Goodwin, is we presume meantand it is admitted that there is some ground for the idea that a spiritual interpretation is intended in the second chapter of Genesiswould it not be at least worthy of those who feel the need of a Divine revelation, before depriving themselves of this inestimable boon to ask if it be not possible the Divine Author, which revelation supposes, might not intend a spiritual interpretation also for the first, and in this spiritual element its especial Divine character might consist? Would not this probability of the spiritual interpretation being the one really intended be greatly heightened if the very difficulties and discrepancies which are manifest when the narrative is brought face to face with Nature, should be found each to be in perfect harmony with the development of the stages by which the soul is conducted to realize the blessed unfoldings of a new spiritual creation.

Again, Mr. Goodwin observes:--

It would have been well if theologians had made up their minds to accept frankly the principle, that those things for the discovery of which man has faculties specially provided, are not fit objects of a Divine revelation.

Here is a great truth propounded, but unhappily not at all pursued. Here is a most fertile principle indicated, but almost immediately passed by and forgotten. Mr. Goodwin shows that the Mosaic cosmogony cannot be Divine revelation, because its statements are not in harmony with the disclosures of science; but, according to the valuable principle we have just quoted, and which must commend itself to the Christian thinker, the result would have been just the same if its statements had been all most exactly in harmony with the teachings of geology: for man has faculties specially fitted for discoveries in geological science; and, as Mr. Goodwin says, those things for the discovery of which man has faculties specially provided are not fit subjects of a Divine revelation. Mr. Goodwin, then, has only been looking for the Divine character of the opening of Genesis, in a direction in which, according to his own principle, it could not possibly be found. The investigation, then, cannot be considered as closed. Other and more hopeful modes of inquiry must be pursued, ere we give up the glorious thought that God has spoken to man.

Indeed, there is much in these Essays and Reviews which indicate that their authors recognize the spiritual nature of man in its yearnings, its breathings, its perceptions, and its demands. At times, their sense of the requirements of this immortal part seems so distinct and definite, that one expects they will fully admit that in a Divine revelation this spiritual nature would be addressed everywhere, and fully provided for; but, unhappily, the positive statement constantly evades you, and you are left wondering what the writers can mean at all by Divine revelation, what clear and definite idea they have, or if they have any. Now and then, averments are made, which, if definitely carried out, would lead to glorious results indeed. We allude to such as Mr. Jowetts observationScripture has an inner life or soul: it has also an outer body or form (p. 389);

The interpretation of Scripture requires a vision and faculty divine (p. 337); or to such passages as the following, by Dr. Temple--The law may be an internal law--a voice which speaks within the conscience, and carries the understanding along with it; a law which treats us not as slaves but as friends, allowing us to know what our Lord doeth; a law which bids us yield not to blind fear or awe, but to the majesty of truth and justice; a law which is not imposed on us by another power, but by our own enlightened will. Now the first of these is the law which governs and educates the child; the second, the law which governs and educates the man. The second is in reality the spirit of the first (p. 35). Or in Professor Williams review of Bunsen, where we find, among others, the following passages--Lamenting, like Pascal, the wretchedness of our feverish being, when estranged from its eternal stay, he traces as a countryman of Hegel, the Divine Thought bringing order out of confusion. Unlike the despairing school, who forbid us to trust in God or in conscience, unless we kill our souls with literalism, he finds salvation for men and states only in becoming acquainted with the Author of our life, by whose reason the world stands first, whose stamp we bear in our forethought, and whose voice our conscience echoes (p. 60).

Again--But the distinctively Mosaic is with him not the ritual but the spiritual, which generated the other, but was overlaid by it (p. 63).

He (Bunsen) reasonably conceives that the historical portion begins with Abraham, where the lives become natural, and information was nearer (p. 57). Once more--It was truly felt by the early fathers that Hebrew prophecy tended to a system more spiritual than that of Levi; and they argued, unanswerably, that circumcision and the Sabbath were symbols for a time, or means to ends. But when, instead of using the letter as an instrument of the spirit, they began to accept the letter in all its parts as their law, and twisted it into harmony with the details of Gospel History, they fell into inextricable contradictions (p. 65).

Also, notice the observations of Mr. Wilson, the vicar of Great Staughton, and author of the fourth essay, who says:--

Neither should the idealist (spiritual interpreter) condemn the literalist, nor the literalist assume the right of excommunicating the idealist. They are really fed with the same truths--the literalist unconsciously, the idealist with reflection. Neither can justly say of the other that he undervalues the Sacred Writings, or that he holds them as. inspired less properly than himself (p. 200).

Again--We must think it wrong to lay down that whenever the New Testament writers refer to Old Testament histories, they imply of necessity that the historic truth was the first to them. For their purposes it was often wholly in the background, and the history valuable only in its spiritual application. The same may take place with ourselves, and history and tradition be employed emblematically, without, on that account, being regarded as untrue. We do not apply the term untrue to parable, fable, or proverb, although their words correspond with ideas, not with material facts: as little should we do so when narratives have been the spontaneous product of true ideas, and are capable of reproducing them (p. 202).

The spiritual significance is the same of the transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing the tongue of the stammerer to speak plainly, of feeding multitudes with bread in the wilderness, of cleansing leprosy, whatever links may be deficient in the traditional record of particular events (p. 202).

Once moreThe idealogian (spiritual interpreter) sometimes be thought skeptical, and be skeptical or doubtful as to the historical value of related facts, but the historical value is not always to him the most important; frequently, it is quite secondary. And, consequently discrepancies in narratives, scientific difficulties, defects in evidence, do not disturb him as they do the literalist (p. 203).

With all these acknowledgments of mans spiritual nature, the supreme importance of spiritual teaching, the relation of all outward facts to inward changes as emblems, we cannot but be surprised that the talented Essayists should have failed to perceive the bearing of all this upon the character of Divine Revelation, or to have applied it to the interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.

We must not, however, forget that the Essays and Reviews are by seven different authors, whose views are more or less diverse, and that each author is only responsible for his own production. Some, therefore, will lean more to the spiritual side of Divine teachings than others, some be more content with the letter, which, as it lends to the negation of the Divine authority and worth of the Bible, seems in their case, indeed, the letter that killeth. 2 Cor. iii. 6.

The chief failure, as it appears to us, in the Essays and Reviews, is the want of any defined idea. of the Word of God. There is abundant observation on what is not the object of Divine Revelation, but scarcely anything of what is. On the character of inspiration we have next to nothing; for Professor Jowetts definition of inspiration as That idea of Scripture which we gather from the knowledge of it; is so vague, that it hardly conveys any meaning at all. And his often repeated axioms, Scripture has only sense, You must interpret Scripture as you would interpret any other book, are dicta not at all self-evident. Indeed, they seem only consistent with a foregone conclusion, that the Bible is not inspired by God at all; that its books are the productions of the authors whose names they bear, if rightly named, and spoke the meanings these authors had in their minds, and not any Divine meaning at all.

But, from this conclusion, our inmost souls shrink. It is the gulf into which infidelity would plunge us, and, into which we will not go. We feel that God, our Father, who has provided food and guidance for the meanest insect, has not left unprovided mans immortal soul. We are not orphans, with no counsels from our Father. God has spoken, let us reverently but intelligently listen. God has given a law, and this law is better to us than thousands of gold and silver.

But, many fail to perceive the Word of God, who have yet sought diligently for it, because they have not set out with any clear idea of what a Divine Revelation would be. They are like a child who has been sent to fetch a certain flower, but not waited to he informed of the marks by which it might be known. The child goes about, looks on all sides, perhaps tramples it under foot, and comes back and says it is not there, simply because he does not know it when he sees it, not having learned the marks by which it may be distinguished.

So, Mr. Goodwin says of the Mosaic Narrative, this is not the Word of God. It is not a true account of the creation of the universe. If it had been a correct little treatise on Geology, would that have met your anticipations? Is a small brief history of any science your ideal of the Word of God?

The first mark of a Divine Revelation, then, we conceive must be its spiritual character, announcing its origin in God, who is a Spirit. The second, its natural form, consequent upon its being addressed to the natural man.

The spiritual character of the Word of God is involved in its very idea. For the Word of God must include the thoughts of God, and the thoughts of God are spiritual, both in their essence and their objects. God is a spirit, and He seeks that they who worship Him should worship Him in spirit and in truth. Show us any book, or part of a book, that does not contain a spiritual lesson, and we may know from that fact, it is not the Word of God. Gods book must contain Gods thoughts, as mens books contain mens thoughts.

And this is the precise claim of the Bible in general, and of this very portion of the Bible in particular. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, with the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isa. lv. 8, 9. And in relation to this especial portion, the law of Moses, of which the account of creation is the introduction, we are informed, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Ps. xix. 7.

Whatever comes from the Spirit of God, must have reference to mans spiritual nature, must be intended to train him for heaven. Earthly objects are cared for by mans earthly faculties. Revelations are daily made to man on such subjects by nature; for this purpose no other revelation is needed. If God speaks, it must be to reveal what man could not otherwise learn, the truths of his regeneration, the things belonging to his eternal home.

But, while we regard the spiritual side of revelation, its issue from a spiritual Being, and its relation to spiritual subjects, we must not forget that it addresses itself to the natural man; it must therefore have a side accommodated to him. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

To accommodate the spiritual things of God to the natural state of man, there must be a letter that will interest and awaken the natural man. On all the glory, there must be a covering. This letter will vary with the varying states and tastes of the generations to which it is addressed. It may be the language of parable, of history, of poetry, of prophecy, of narrative, of symbol, or of vision. God clothes Himself with light as with a garment; but this is His inner garment, woven of a piece throughout. His outer garments may he divided: for they are diverse. The outer, but not the inner, can be separated, like the robes of the Word in Person.

The outer lessons are always for the child, and for the novice in Christ. But there is a line upon a line, a precept upon a precept, an inner word as the soul beneath the outer word, and this is the great object of revelation.

The outer word may be naturally true or not, as seems best to Infinite Wisdom, to ensure its proper reception by the natural man. Gut whether each portion be outward fact or allegory, its grand mission is ever to be the vehicle of heavenly wisdom. The early portions of the Word, up to the history of Abraham, were given in allegory, because given to an age delighting in allegory. The history of the Jews was real history, because they were a nation of intensely matter-of-fact people. Yet their history was allegorical (Gal. iv. 24). Their law was a shadow of good things to come (Heb. x. 1). Everywhere there were the patterns of heavenly things (v. 23); figures of the true (v. 24). The tabernacle was an outward building, but it was made after a heavenly pattern, down to Moses in the mount. The priests served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things (Heb. viii. 5).

If God ever gives a revelation, we see not how it can be otherwise than this.

It must be spiritual in its bosom, it must be natural in its form.

To us, then, it is not astonishing that the first chapter of Genesis is not a perfect treatise on geology. It never was intended to be so. It was a Divine revelation, given to the spiritually-minded generations of the early world. They saw all things of earth as shadows of heaven. The creation they were concerned about was the creation in themselves of purer thoughts and holier affections. They knew that paradise was never attained but by the successive formations in the soul of those exalted principles of which all God-formed outward nature is the expressive symbol.

Raphael, in Paradise Lost, expresses the living conviction of the most ancient people,

What if earth

Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein

Each to other like, more than on earth is thought.1

1Book V. p. 571.

The mythology of the early Hindoos, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the beautiful fables of Greece, the sacrifices of all lands, all originated in this disposition of the early world. The absurdities of degenerate ages originated in the sublime wisdom of the most ancient. Whoever will trace up the idolatries and myths of the hoary nations of the East will find that they are but the degenerate literalism of the exalted knowledge of the early fathers of our race. The fire-worshipers at first adored on intellectual sun, and so of all other systems. The ancient world is strewn with the fragments of a sublime spiritual system in ruins; each nation took a portion and made it an idol.

To this wise, early people, then, the early chapters of Genesis were given, as a Divine revelation, and it was given in the style they loved, which is indeed the Divine style; by outward symbol, to teach of inward virtues.

In relation to outward things being used as symbols of inward principles, and outward creation as a symbol of regeneration, we say this is the Divine style, and it is indeed continued throughout the Sacred Writings. We find a parallel for the description of the earth prior to the operations of the first day, in Jeremiah.

It is written in Genesis i. 2: The earth was without form (empty) and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep Jeremiah says: My people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. I beheld the earth, and, lo it was without form (empty) and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. Jer. iv. 23, 23. It is manifest that an unregenerate state of the people is described by the symbol of a chaotic earth and darkened heavens. While, on the other hand, a regenerated soul and a restored church are presented to us by another prophet, under the image of new creation. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion. Then art my people. Isa. li. 16. The apostle Paul gives a striking illustration of the same mode of speaking, If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 5 Cor. v. 19.

That this Divine style is founded upon the very order of the universe, every deep-thinking mind has seen from Hermes Trismegistus (the thrice great), who, near the time of Moses, uttered the echo of all ancient wisdom in his time, when he said, All things on earth exist also in heaven, but in a heavenly manner, to Plato, and down to Robertson of Brighton, who commenced one of his beautiful discourses1 with the following words: There is a close analogy between the world of nature and the world of spirit. They bear the impress of the same hand; and hence the principles of nature, and its laws, are the types and shadows of the invisible.

1 Spiritual harvest.

If such an order be true, and the Divine Being reveals His wisdom, can we doubt for a moment, whether its object will be to instruct us concerning spiritual or material things? And if, besides this reasonable expectation, we are assured that the professed revelation, though guarded by the highest authority, is not in harmony with a scientific treatment of the outer world, is it not every way proper that we should alter the direction of our research, and inquire, may it not be that we have been looking in the wrong direction, and applied that revelation to outer nature, that was meant for the soul?

What then, may we regard the Essays and Reviews in this respect, but the last outcry of those who have utterly deceived themselves, by trying to open the door with a wrong key. They cry, we give it up.

This confession is uttered by almost every writer; but of course most elaborately by Mr. Goodwin, the author of the essay on the Mosaic Cosmogony.

Dr. Temple observes:--

Therefore, nothing should be more welcome than the extension of knowledge of any and every kind; for every increase in our accumulations of knowledge throws fresh light upon these, the real problems of our day. If geology proves to us that we must not interpret the first chapter of Genesis literally ... the results should still be welcome (p. 47).

The Rev. Mr. Wilson has the words:--

Under the terms of the Sixth Article one may accept literally or allegorically, or as parable or poetry, or legend, the story of the serpent tempter (p. 177).

Thus, some may consider the descent of all mankind, from Adam and Eve, as an undoubted historical fact, others may rather perceive in that relation a form of narrative into which, in early ages, tradition would easily throw itself spontaneously (p. 201).

The Rev. Mr. Goodwin observes:--

The difficulties and disputes which attended the first revival of science have recurred in the present century, in consequence of the growth of Geology.... Geologists of all religious creeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of years, to be counted by millions rather than by thousands, and indubitably more than six days elapsed from its first creation to the appearance of man upon its surface (D. 210).

When this new cause of controversy first arose, some writers, more hasty than discreet, attacked the conclusions of geologists and declared them scientifically false. This phrase may now be considered past, and although school-books may probably continue to teach much as they did, no well-instructed person now doubts the great antiquity of the earth any more than its motion (p. 210).

The day during which the present generation came into being, and in which God, when he made the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind, at length terminated the work by molding a creature in His own image, to whom he gave dominion over them all, was not a brief period of a few hours duration, but extended over, mayhap, millenniums of centuries.

Professor Jowett does not fail to add his conviction that the literal truth of the early portions of Genesis cannot be maintained He says:--

Almost all intelligent persons are agreed, that the earth has existed for myriads of ages; the best informed are of opinion that the history of nations extends back some thousands of years before the Mosaic chronology; recent discoveries in geology1 may perhaps open a new vista of existence for the human species, while it is possible, and may one day be known, that mankind spread not from one, but from many centers over the globe (p. 349).

1 The discovery of human implements, with fossil remains, near Abbeville, &c. &c.

They will no more think that the first chapters of Genesis relate the same tale which geology and ethnology unfold, than they now think the meaning of Joshua x. 12, 13, to be in accordance with Galileos discovery.

These intimations are surely full enough to show that the Essayists are deeply convinced that no mode remains of holding to the literal reading of the early chapters of Genesis. Mr. Goodwin enters into an elaborate examination of the most likely methods which have been suggested, to make it out, that the Eternal has interposed with a revelation, to teach man geology, and that the lesson is one that must be apologized for and explained away, for such are all the schemes for making the literal sense of Genesis harmonize with geology, and sorry expositions are they all, says Mr. Goodwin, and he says so, truly.

The conciliators are not agreed among themselves, and each holds the view of the other as untenable and unsafe. The ground is perpetually being shifted, as the advance of geological science may require. The plain meaning of the Hebrew record is unscrupulously tampered with, and in general the pith of the whole process lies in divesting the best of all meaning whatever (p. 211).

And this is indeed the fact. Whoever will read the attempts of those who have laudably desired to vindicate the Word of God, and have mistakenly supposed that this could only be done by making the letter of the Word teach scientific truth, will see how completely this is a labor in vain. It is Sysiphus rolling once more the stone up hill, which is never to reach the top. It is Tantalus ever straining for the water that evades his lips. The will is deep, and these haven nothing to draw with. Even the English Churchman, that organ of the High Church body, has begun to assume the possibility of Divine allegory being the truer designation of this portion of the Word of God, and writes:--

Whatever may be the explanations of the early chapters of the book of Genesis, and the difficulties connected with the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, a serpent tempter, and the existence of sin before Adams fall.--March 14th, 1861, p. 264.

Oh that these guardians of the oracles of God would indeed look upward and inward, and remember the words of Him who spake as never man spake. The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit that quickeneth; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John vi. 63.

The wise ancients knew that man was a little universe, why should we forget it? The macrocosm for the great world, the microcosm for man as a little world, were terms well known to them, why should they not be familiar to us? Though far from disdaining the marvels of science, especially modern science; though admitting its grand and wondrous lessons to the fullest extent; yet these are but the avenues to higher temple--the avenues to the temple of wisdom, where He is found who said, What shall it profit a man if he; gain the world, and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Mark viii. 36, 37.

This representation of the lowest degree of mans mind, by earth, is in accordance with the divine style, and it appears throughout the Word of God. A recognition of its propriety runs through all literature, and bursts continually upon us in poetry.

The soul, in ifs uninstructed condition, is an earth uncultivated; the soul, regenerated, is an earth smiling in order, teeming with plenty, rejoicing in beauty. Isaiah xxxv. 1, lviii. 11; Hos. ii. 21-23; x. 11; Matt. xiii. 33; 2 Cor. v. 17; Rev. xxi. 1. The soul, wrecked, broken-down, and ruined, is an earth in a state of devastation. Psalms lxxv. 3; lxxxii. 5; Isaiah xxiv. 1, 4, 5, 9, 20. It is the same with the Church upon earth, which is but a large number of minds congregated, together with their surrounding institutions. The Church, about to be formed, is an earth, as a wilderness, into which the voice of Heaven and the spirit of the Savior are about to introduce order and renovation Isaiah x1. 3; lxi. 3-4; lxv. 17--18; Jer. xxii. 29. The Church, truly accepted and expanded, is an earth, over which, Jesus the Divine King, Jehovah manifest, reigns. Zech. xiv. 9; Isaiah li. 16; Rev. ii. 15; xxi. 5. The Church in ruins having forsaken its principles, and blotted out its great aims by self-love and mammon, is the earth at an end; its sun darkened, its moon not giving her light, its stars fallen from heaven, its surface a howling wilderness. Isaiah xiii. 9-10; Acts ii. 16-20; 1 Cor. x. 11; Heb.
i. 1; ix. 26; 1 John ii. 17-18.1

1 Of the end of the Jewish Dispensation, the noble-minded Robertson, of Brighten, observes:--But this was all on the eve of dissolution. The Jewish earth and heavens, i. e. the Jewish Commonwealth and Church, were doomed, and about to pass away.

By the perception of this relation to each other, of the outer and the inner world, and its use in the Divine style of revelation, we are freed al once from all the difficulties that have clustered round both the beginning and the end of Holy Writ. The objections of geology fall at once. Genesis treats not of it, but of a creation entirely different. The end-of-the-world divines, from Mede to Cumming, are relieved from their monotonous and sorry labor of beating the gong to frighten the timid, and their efforts may be directed to nobler pursuits.

Let us then examine this earliest revelation as an unfolding of spiritual creation, as a disclosure of the Divine dealings with the earliest men, and applicable to men in all ages; and if we should find that its declarations are strictly true in this respect, and its difficulties in science are excellences in relation to the soul, me may not only be victorious over infidelity here, but see the law of the Lord indeed, as perfect, converting the soul.

Viewed thus, the words, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, are the announcement that God created, and creates those faculties of the soul which form the heavenly degree, and the earthly degree, of the human soul. There is in embryo the little heaven which is afterwards to form the kingdom of God within us (Luke xvii. 11), and the earth, or natural man, which is in due time to become like a watered garden (Isa. lviii. 11). The earth, or the natural man is always empty1 and void in the beginning, and darkness is on the face of the deep.

1 Erroneously translated without form.

We have two grand mental faculties, the will and the intellect; the one is empty of goodness, intended afterwards to fill it from the love of God, and the other void of truth from the Divine wisdom. The darkness of ignorance is over them both. They have deep and vast capabilities over which the spirit of God, the Divine mercy broods, but as yet all is still.

This was true of the ancient men; it is also true of men now. How wondrous are the possibilities in a child! There slumbers a young immortal! The powers that may would an age are there. The powers that may build cities, form fleets, measure worlds, and suns, and systems, are there. The future director of States, it may be, or the embryo archangel is there, but as yet all is dark. The Divine Love hovers over the wondrous being, and in the secret chambers of its awful, marvelous life, provides for its freedom and its future weal. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.

Light for the mind is knowledge. Day means state, for the, mind has a succession of states, as the earth has of days.

God always begins our progress by saying, Let there be light. Here science has encountered its first difficulty.

There is no light without the sun, and according to the letter of the Word, there was no sun made until the fourth day God divides the day from the night on the first day, yet day comes from the presence of the sun, night from his absence. Some have conjectured that day was first produced from a diffused light, and afterwards this was condensed into a sun. But no scientific mind, we presume, at the present day, doubts that the earth originated in the sun, as a means, in the hands of the Almighty. And very little worthy of Infinite Wisdom is the conjecture that God made days at first on one plan, and three days afterwards altered it. But all these difficulties disappear when we view the description as the delineation by Divine Wisdom of the progress of the soul in regeneration. Light corresponds to knowledge, which man must have before he can make a single step forward; the sun corresponds to the love of God in the heart, which is only given at a later stage of heavenly advancement.

The apostle speaks of light in the same sense and of the same kind. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. iv. 6.

In the spiritual sense we see the reason for two other peculiarities, which are not very satisfactory in the letter. The first is, the progress from evening to morning, in each case, to make a day. We always start from ignorance, and come to knowledge--from shade to light; and to indicate this, the Hebrews, whose customs, with those of other eastern nations, originated in those ancient days when the world was all a book, which spoke of the wonders of the soul, and of a still higher world, always reckoned from evening to morning for a day.

The evening and the morning were the first day. The second peculiarity is the form of the divine flat. LET there be light. It is hardly reason enough to say it is a sublime form of speech. A far more human and dearer interest it has for us, when we perceive it accurately describes the Divine operation on the free soul, inducing it to receive the light divine. God never forces. He gently insinuates, induces, and persuades. LET there be light, He says, and when the soul, wooed by the call of its Heavenly Father, unfolds itself for instruction, it can be truly said, and there was light.

God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.

How truly good is light! Oh, give me more light, said the dying Goethe, and so says every progressive soul. Light is good; it opens the way to every excellence. The true soul yearns for light. It is strange that there are timid spirits who have been cabined in the dim twilight of some miserable superstition and who shrink from the brightness of more real knowledge, not knowing that light is good. Plants seek the light; the world assumes a living beauty in the light. Children love the light. Light for the body is good, but light for the mind is better. Let us never cling to shade and darkness, but ever press on to the light. God sees the light that it is good, and He calls the light day. There is no bright state without it.

The second days operation has presented fresh difficulty to the natural, merely scientific interpreter, but is most interesting and suggestive to the spiritual one. Verses 6, 7, make a firmament in the midst of the waters. God divides the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament. This day also is remarkable as not obtaining the customary word of approbation that it was good, while it is twice stated on the third day that it was good. There is no such permanent division between two masses of water in nature. This division was not foreign to the ideas of ignorant men, who supposed there were immense reservoirs above, out of which come the snow and the rain. But we know it is not so.

In the spiritual meaning there is no difficulty, and the second state of mans spiritual progression is described.

Water is the symbol of truth1--that which is an ocean in itself, but of which each man takes what is necessary to quench his souls thirst, soften and direct all his other spiritual nourishment, permeate his soul, and keep it free from all pollution.

The first day, the first state of the souls advance, is to distinguish knowledge from ignorance, light from darkness. The second great stage of progress is to distinguish between truth and truth, to see that there are high and holy truths relating to heaven and eternal life, and truths of practical duty relating to earth. There are things for eternity, and things for time, things for God, and things for Caesar. This discrimination is highly important if carried on to further practical results, but of no worth if it remain a mere intellectual effort. The divine benediction is only given to that which is carried out to a full perfection in work. Hence, on this day, it is withheld. It is not said, God saw that it was good.

1 Water is used as truth in all its varied forms and applications throughout the Scriptures, John iv. 11, 16; vii. 38; 2 Peter ii. 17; Rev. xxii. 1, 17.

We come now to the third day, when there is another kind of discrimination made, the separation of dry land from the water, and after the dry land was formed, God said--Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day (v. 9-13).

Ground is the symbol of those good dispositions in the heart into which the seeds of instruction should fall; the good ground, said the Savior, is the honest and good heart. Luke viii. 15. The work of the third day indicates that state in the souls progression when it has been long delighted with truth, but now finds there is something holier than truth, duty, obedience, goodness. The grass, the herbs, and the fruit-trees are the emblems of these living thoughts and purposes of active righteousness, which bear the fruits of piety, charity and justice.

When the heart responds to the truths that have been opened to the mind, the gentle, living thoughts of trust, repose, and confidence, which we experience, are the green pastures upon which the Divine Shepherd makes his sheep to lie down. Psalm xxiii. 1. In this state of living, spring effort, it is first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn of the ear. The herb yielding seed represents a living faith, imparting the seed of Divine things to all around.

This, which is like a grain of mustard seed at first, becomes the greatest among herbs. Mark xiii. 38. And, lastly, all these active principles of practical righteousness which go forth in doing good, are the fruit trees, whose seed is in themselves. They are trees of righteousness, branches of the planting of Jehovah. Isaiah lxi. 3.

There is a beautiful truth in the expression, whose seed is in itself. Every good deed is reproductive; its seed is in itself. Do an act of charity, and you will find the disposition flow in to do another. Do an act of virtue, it will be worth a hundred good thoughts. Do acts of justice and of kindness, and your example will inspire others, and spread the blessed influence around. You will be like those trees of clustering fruit, which bear for all; and every fruit has many seeds. The trees of the Lord are full of sap. They are branches of that tree of life which boars twelve manner of fruits, fruits for every season and month of the spiritual year. On this day the Divine Being says twice that it is good. It was soon when the dry land appeared, and good when the fruit tree yielded fruit, whoso seed was in itself. This peculiarity to the spiritually-minded Christian is not without its significance. Have we opened the good ground of a heart, seeking heavenly virtue, and prayed that the trees of heavens own fruit would grow? Have we desired to do good, and to be good? Have we purposed acts of justice, works of use, deeds of active doing and daring in the spirit of benevolence? Then shall we have found that these works are twice blessed. They are blessed in the intention, and blessed in the act. They are done at first from duty, and for a time it may be with some compulsion of self, some constraint to right, but; in that self-compulsion and constraint there is a sense of the Divine approbation; that is no mean reward, while in every act of virtue God originated, there is a blessing that acts and re-acts upon the agent and the receiver. This is the reason of the double approbation on the third day.

The fourth day, which is that which we have selected for our text, refers td the creation of the sun and moon, and on this day God made the stars also.

And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day; and the lesser light to rule the night, He made the stars also. and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Gen. i. 14-19.

In dealing with the creations of this day, we have not only geology teaching that such circumstances could not be literally applicable to the earth six thousand years ago, but astronomy also. Millions of years ago the earth was revolving in its orbit round the earth as now, plants were growing which required the seasons as now, myriads of creatures with eyes lived and died through vast periods, and life flourished in all its countless forms, all impossible without a sun. But astronomy teaches also that it is puerile, to suppose the stars were created only six thousand years ago, and for this earth. Portions of the astral system are grown whose light must have been traversing space for two millions of years. These objections, and many others, seem totally immoveable on any mode of interpretation which regards the letter as a narrative of natural creation.

Let us apply the spiritual system. The sun is the symbol in its highest sense of the Divine Love. This was known to the ancients: this is its representative character in the Word of God. The Divine Love in its grandest manifestation, high above the everlasting heavens, is the light which no man can approach unto. 1 Tim. vi. 16. The Lord is a sun. Ps. lxxxiv. 11. He is the Sun of righteousness, which arises upon those who fear His name with healing in His wings. Mal. iv. 2. This same Divine love now shines through the glorified person of our Lord Jeans Christ. His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. Rev. i. 16. This Sun illuminates and blesses the heavens, and His rays addressing themselves to human minds are the true light which enlightens every man that cometh into the world. John i. 9.

Of this eternal Sun the prophet says to the Church triumphant, Thy sun shall no more go down, nor thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord (Jehovah) shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Isa. lx. 20. But, besides this grandest manifestation of the Divine love in the person of the Savior high above the heavens as the spiritual central sun of the universe, the Divine love as it is enkindled in the heaven of each regenerate heart is a son there. When the soul has practised the laws of religion from duty, and persevered in the doing of that which is lawful and right, in good time a new state opens. Two great lights, love for the heart and faith for the intellect, begin to shine within. The heart warms with love and its attendant joy. What he did formerly, because it was right though scarcely pleasant, he does now with delight. He is willing in the sunshine. It is not cold light, but a warm glow that rules this day. The ruddy glow within irradiates all things. He smiles with inward joy. He carries happiness within him wherever he goes. God has made for him a great light. He feels the luxury of doing good, the blessedness of being good. His light has come, the glory of the Lord (Jehovah) has risen upon him, and he arises and shines. Isa. lx. 1. A little summer is formed within his soul, and a delightful Paradise is there, and bliss untold. He, however, has nights too, though not dark nights. He has a moon. There is a variety within him. The evening comes with its shade, and softness, and illuminated by a silvery light. Faith, like a moon, shines when love has gone down. It is good for man to have variety of life. Too continuous a glow exhausts; a change relieves. Hence, sleep comes to the body, and rest to the wearied mind. He giveth his beloved sleep is an universal law prevailing both with bodies and souls, with nature and spirit. Love for the souls days and faith for the souls nights are both provided by the merciful Father of His creatures, are both felt by the regenerating soul which has attained the fourth day.

It is said they shall be for signs. The sun of love that glows in the regenerate heart, and makes a little heaven there, is a sign of the heaven to come. He gives us, says the apostle, an earnest of His spirit. 2 Cor. v.

Many sigh when they look to the future. They have no cheerful hope, no happy anticipation. They look within and all is gloomy; they look forward, upward, and all is dark. Let them love the things of heaven, and they will see a sign. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Matt. v. 2. He who has heaven here, may rest assured that heaven will he his hereafter. The sun within, is a sign that he is in harmony with the eternal sun. Christ in Him is the hope of glory. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. But if he has from Him the love that suffereth long and is kind, the love that envieth not, the love that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, the love that doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things--then has he the essence of heaven, and its preparation and promise too. Behold the sign.

But faith is also a sign. The light of the moon is only the light of the sun reflected. When the moon shines, you have the proof that the sun shines still, though you cannot see him. So is it with the spiritually-minded. In the sorrows of the souls night faith shines and cheers. Like a gentle moon, she illuminates the traveler on his weary way. He feels sometimes disconsolate, and cast down, but faith strengthens and supports him. She tells him of the love he no longer sees, and bids him hope and trust. Weeping, she says, may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Sometimes we listen but sadly to these notes of comfort; yet if we reflect, we may be assured that the existence of faith is a sign that love still cares for us, for the light of faith, is love at second-hand.1 Faith is loves sentinel, and loves herald. Faith is the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things hoped for. Just as the eye is an evidence for light; the ear for sound. Whenever there is an organ or faculty there will certainly be found the object that gratifies it; as surely as an appetite implies food, so faith implies that there are invisible realities which in good time will be unveiled, and bless the trusting soul with everlasting joy.

1 There is a nicety in Hebrew which expresses this unity of the two lights in the words Let them be. The verb let be is in the singular, but there is difficulty in presenting the idea, in the English rendering.

These two, Love and Faith, the two great inward lights, are also said to be for seasons also as well as for signs. And the soul has its seasons as well as the year. There are spring, summer, autumn, and winter within, as well as without us. We have periods when new states are budding; cheerful times, when we are fresh and vigorouswhen our thoughts are radiant, our perceptions clear, our hopes all new. Flowers spring about us on every side. We are bright, if not warm. It is spring. Then come on maturer feelings. We advance towards fruition. We have states of placid happiness in continued succession. Our serene enjoyment announces that all is well with us. It is summer. Autumn is only the completion of this. In it our deeds acquire a ripe maturity. The acts at first wanting in purity of motives, in child-like dependence on the Most High, in wise humility, become gradually divested of all self-righteousness, and transformed into the rich fruits which announce the circulation of celestial purities. They are gathered in, and the state gradually changes into winter. The period for patience and self-denial comes on. Memories, that were green with us once, wither, die and are buried. We no longer are redolent with hope and vigor, but feel the chill of trial is upon us; yet we live on the experience of the past, and we cherish the roots of righteousness and truth. We faithfully tread on in the path of duty, and rely with quiet confidence that our winter will pass away, and a new year will come.

These seasons of mental life, though not measurable by stated times, are us real as those of nature. They arise from the aspects of love and faith within us, or in the mind of a wicked man--for he, too, has his spiritual years and mental changes;--they arise from the sun of self-love--the opposite of love for the Divine--and the sufficiency of his own wisdom, which is his moon. These seasons and their years are recognized unmistakably in Scripture. They furnish the months for which the fruits of the Tree of Life are adapted.

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Rev. xxii. 2. Of such seasons it is written againAnd it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem: half of them towards the former sea, and half of them towards the hinder sea in summer and in winter shall it be. Zech. Xiv. 8. There are the years of the right hand of the Most High. Ps. lxxvii. 10. These years all have. God makes them by laws as steadily affecting mans spiritual being as those of nature affect the world; and happy are they in whose spiritual universe God has made the great lights. Love glows, faith shines, and all is happy. He makes the stars also.

When the heart and mind are right with God, there are hosts of lesser lights which afford their radiant gleams. When we read the Holy Scripture, we see the individual verses, shining with new light, like the stars in the firmament. Each then seems to have something to cheer or to teach us. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto we do well to take heed as unto a light; that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in our hearts. 2 Pet. i. 19. Unto him that overcometh, the Lord said, I will give the morning star. Rev. ii. 28. In the fourth grand state of spiritual creation, on the fourth day, when the soul is conscious of the presence of Divine things, the whole Word becomes a. glorious milky way studded with stars of various splendors, but each affording a holy and a beautiful light. And God made the stars also. And God sees that this is good. And the evening and the morning are the fourth day.

When this state of heavenly attainment has been reached, and the soul has been blessed by the holy warmth and confidence of interior love and trust, an amazing impetus is given to ah its powers of production--the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life, and fowls that fly in the firmament of heaven. Water here, as before, is the emblem of truth. The water brings forth abundantly when the soul is happy. A heavenly activity of thought is engendered, a holy ingenuity is exercised, and dispositions to investigate swarm on every side.

These are the fish of the holy water (Ezek. xlvii. 10), and of the fifth day.

The scientific dispositions of the mine are fish that rejoice in the waters of truth. A person who give himself to science, and nothing more, who desires vain-glory for his attainments, and imagines his discoveries are his own, is like Pharaoh of old; a great fish lying in the midst of his rivers, and each saying my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. Ezek. xxix. 3. On the other hand, the mind of a person lucid and clear, because diligent and orderly, is like a stream or lake of limpid water, full of gold and silver fish, and every form of marine and fluviatile beauty. The waters this day bring forth flying fowl also. Water, as before, is the symbol of truth in its general form. Birds correspond to rational thoughts, which are suggested by truth as we reflect. These soar in the mind like birds in the air. The good man has lofty conceptions, which mount in his spiritual atmosphere, and gather from the glories of eternity prospects; which cheer and animate him for ever. They mount up with wings like eagles; they run and are not weary; they walk, and never faint. Isa. xl. 31.

We may remark, in passing, that though in this first chapter, birds originate in the water (v. 20), in the second chapter they are described as made out of the ground (v. 19). This, and some minor points of difference, and the use of the name God for the Deity in the first chapter and the Lord (or Jehovah) God, in the second, has led to the conjecture that they were two traditional documents of different authors giving their speculations on creation and compiled only by the author of Genesis. Far different conclusions await the spiritually-minded inquirer into the wisdom of the Divine Word.

A far higher and worthier significance is seen when we view the spiritual stages of mans inner creation in the regenerate life as the subject of the Divine teaching. For then, the successive states of the soul are delineated in the first chapter, so long as the Deity is his leader, chiefly by the power of TRUTH, which is expressed by the appellation El Elohim (power, or powers); the Hebrew term for God in the first chapter; this continues through the six days, and while it continues, there is labor and difficulty experienced.

When man is exalted to a higher state still, expressed by the seventh day, then he is in paradise, then all is at rest, not the rest of idleness, but the rest of harmony, of love triumphant, of sweetness and inward peace. Then he is blessed by the Lord God, Jehovah God, because this double name with Jehovah first, indicates the Divine Love and Wisdom combined, and man in a celestial state, seeing and feeling all Wisdom as but the expression of Divine Love, and all Love as the holy essence of Wisdom. When this state is reached it is paradise, and in the center is then the Tree of (two) Lives.1

1 Hebrew, not the Tree of life, but the dual form, Ets ha chayim, the Tree of two lives.

This view, therefore, reveals the reason why the birds are said to be from the water on the fifth day, and from the ground on the seventh. When in the earlier stages of the regeneration, the soul has Divine Truth as its director, its thoughts, however lofty, are all derived from the truths with which it is surrounded, and from which its views and opinions come; but when it has advanced to a. higher state, and love roles, and the soul dwells in love, and it views our Heavenly Father, as Jehovah God; then the birds are formed from the ground, or in other words, the noblest aspirations of love come direct from the heart.

But, we must proceed to the sixth day. The first thing presented to us on that day is the formation of cattle, creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after his kind. Land animals are the symbols of the affections of the heart. The domestic, of the dearest and most sacred. Lambs, sheep and oxen, those of innocence, charity and obedience, which make the human breast a little fold of the Great Shepherd. The appetites are the creeping things; the beasts that roam at large and browse and graze in freedom are those affections which enjoy the outer life of exploring and adorning the world around. All are good. The symbolic character of animals is recognized everywhere in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.

Is it needful that I should recall the Saviors morels, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves, (Luke x. 3); the sheep on his right hand and two goats on his left (Matt. xxv.); the blessedness of sowing beside all waters, of taking thither the feet of the ox and the ass (Isa. xxxii. 30); or, the living ones seen in the midst of the throne in heaven, having the face of a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle. (Rev. iv. 7). This symbolical character of the animal world, as figuring forth all the living affections of the human character, has been the source of instructive parable in the times; of ancient wisdom, and of Divine teaching in every age. Let us for a moment dwell upon the scene presented before us, as the type of the soul thus far regenerated. It is an orderly and beautiful world, swarming with forms of life and loveliness. The wilderness has become, like Eden, the desert like the garden of God; joy and gladness are found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. (Isa. ii. 3). All is under the government of man, in the image and likeness of God; indicative of the human being, having attained now the free adoption of all that truth teaches for its own sacred worth, which is the essence of the truly human character, and the image and likeness of God. Man has the dominion over all lower things. When we have entered upon our interior exalted manhood, all our little world obeys and rejoices in that obedience. Every principle of the soul has its delight, imaged by Gods providing food for every animal, and He, the Eternal Father, looks upon this glorious result of all His Divine operations, a soul in order, a new creation, overflowing with life, and pronounces all, not simply good as heretofore, but VERY GOOD. The heavens are shining over the rejoicing in life and beauty, and every thing is happy. And the evening and the morning are the sixth day.

This language of the Divine Wisdom, in which all things outward speak of inner things, by a law as unerring as nature itself, is a style worthy of God; it is infinitely suggestive; it was the most sacred knowledge of the early world. Dupuis, in his Origirie des tous les Cultes, proves the prevalence over all the earth, in hoary antiquity, of sun-worship; and he deduces from this the material origin, as he supposes of all worship. But the reverse of this is abundantly evident.

His sun-worship was only the degradation, when men sank into Naturalism, of that true worship of the Eternal Sun, the Creator of all things, of whom, the wiser, earlier ancients knew the Sun of nature was the majestic symbol. So writes Colebrooke, the profound Hindoo scholar, of the ancient mythology of that immense and mysterious nation. Of the Vedas, their ancient sacred books, most likely older than Genesis, with the exception of those parts earlier than Moses, and which were probably, as Bunsen says, from a Bible before the Bible,1 yet equally from the Divine Revealer. Colebrooke says, speaking of the Rik-Veda, the most ancient, In fact, there is only one Deity, the great Soul (Mahun atma) He is called the Sun, for He is the Soul of all things.2

1 Essays and Reviews, p. 62.

2 Essays on the Religion and the Philosophy of the Hindoos, p. 13.

Every line is replete with allusions to mythology, and to the Indian notions of the Divine nature and of celestial spirits. The deities invoked appear, on a cursory inspection of the Veda, to be as various as the authors of the prayers addressed to them, but according to the most ancient annotations on the Indian Scripture these numerous names of persons and things are all resolvable into different titles of three deities, and ultimately of one God.3

3 Ibid., p. 12.

Let us meditate on the adorable light of the Divine Ruler (Servitri); may it guide our intellects. Desirous of food, we solicit the gift of the splendid Sun, who should be studiously worshiped. Venerable men, guided by the understanding, salute the Divine Sun with oblations and praise.

The commentator, whose gloss is here followed, considers this passage to admit of two interpretations: the light, or Brahme, constituting the splendor of the Supreme Ruler or Creator of the universe, or the light or orb of the splendid Sun.4

4 The first book of Vedas which, like the first book of Moses, or Genesis, contains the cosmogony of the Hindoo system of religion, must be 2800 years older than the birth of Christ, which according to the Hebrew computation is 800 years before the time of Abraham. In so remote an age, the Hindoos possessed written books of religion.Theogony of the Hindoos, by Count M. Bjornstjerna, p. 20.

Sir William Jones computes the age of the Vedas to be about the same, but from different grounds.Ibid.

That the Divine Substance is a fire, is asserted by the Zend-Avesta, but in order that it might not be mistaken for a material fire, they declare this fire is intellectual, and cannot be perceived but by pure minds.1 The Persians give to the sun, which they adore, the name of Mithras, which name, in the ancient language of their country, signifies love or mercy. We know that one of the most striking pieces of antiquity is the hymn to the Sun, by the Emperor Julian, in which this Sun is called spiritual. Plotin expresses himself: thus:--All that which appears in the natural world really exists in the world of mind. In this latter there is also a Sun.

1 Acad. Des Inscrip. P. 15.

The Egyptians believed their great God Osiris surrounded by celestial light which shines in the Sun.2

2 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris.

All these statements, and they might be indefinitely multiplied, show that over all mankind in ancient times one great system or Church prevailed, they were wise to discern spiritual things under all the forms of nature. As the Apostle expresses it--The invisible things of him from the creation of the world were clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead. (Rom. iv. 20.) The sun, fire, and light, are the highest symbols of the Deity in nature, and are constantly so used in the Divine Scriptures. Jer. x. 17; Ezek. i. 27; Psalm xxvii. 1; Matt. iii. 11; John i. 9. It is clear the sun was the highest symbol; it was the Divine Love, and all holy affection from Him in human souls formed a miniature sun in the miniature heavens. This was the crowning symbol; all other things were, however, symbolic in their order. Such was the wisdom of the ancient men in the golden age, such is true wisdom now, and such will be the wisdom of those noble souls that earth will see when we have the golden age again, and the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven.

To view, then, the early chapters of Genesis,3 which were given to such a race of people as we have described as symbolizing spiritual things and states, under natural allegories, is the simplest conclusion possible, and it relieves from all difficulties with science, and it creates no other difficulty.

3 That the first eleven chapters of Genesis were susceptible of spiritual treatment, the wonderful genius of Bunyan clearly saw. He gave an exposition in which his editor says. The most pious penetration is exhibited in the spiritualizing of the creation and the flood; every step produces some type of that new creation, or regeneration, without which no soul can be fitted for heaven.Bunyans Works, by Offor, p. 414.

The solution to which the Essays and Reviews point, is an attempt to escape front the difficulty of having an apparent contradiction between two lessons, equally Divine, those of revelation and of science. It would escape the assaults of infidelity, but only by yielding the ground. It escapes from the defense of Divine revelation only because it confesses that in this respect it has no Divine revelation to defend. This is itself a sorry termination to the struggle, and is it a termination? Whether does it lead? Is it not the high-road to the denial of Divine revelation altogether? This portion of Genesis has always been a part of Genesis since Genesis was given as a sacred deposit to the Jewish people. God promised to be with Moses and teach him what he should say (Ex. iv. 12); to put words into his mouth, and into Aarons mouth, and teach them also what they should do (v. 15).

Moses wrote the words of this law in a book until they were finished (Deut. xxxi. 24), and said, Take this book of the law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be a witness against thee (v. 26). This giving of the copy of the law by the hand of the man who had signalized his leadership to be from heaven, by the unmistakable presence of the Deity, during the lives of the men who had received their national institutions from his hand, if true at all, must have guaranteed its genuineness and authority. And throughout Israels history all the prophets had appealed to Moses as to Divine authority, and as genuine and true. The whole spiritual life of the people stood on these works, and their whole national life also, with all they had to teach the world. If their books were a compilation of trifling stories, the guesses of ignorant men, their whole national history was built upon mistake, illusion, and imposture; and surely in such case it can have no real value for the world. Instead of Israel having the important part assigned them by Dr. Temple, of teaching the unity and spirituality of God and purity of mind (Essays, &c., p. 11), they were the deluded victims of pretended revelations all through their history, which now, after four thousand years, are discovered to be groundless and puerile stories.

Besides, the Incarnate One, whom the authors of the Essays evidently regard as worthy of adoration, and Wisdom itself, among men, He gave no sign of this portion of Moses not being inspired, or not worthy of all acceptation. He never appealed to Moses and the prophets as of Divine authority. Would His own authority remain if this reference to Moses should be discovered to be a reference only to unfounded traditions? We see no midway. Moses, as a genuine Divine revelation, the Jewish dispensation, Christianity, and the progressive religion of the world, all stand or fall together. Other religions than the Jewish, and the Christian, are no exceptions, for these really live on the truths communicated in an older revelation, and ultimately are to find their crown, their explanation, and their development into one great family, by the glorious truths of which the Savior is the center. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

But, if all this religious life of the world, this, which is the only redeeming side of humanity, and the only hope of the future, is a delusion, we are hastening to a night, dark and dismal indeed. It cannot be. Every holy and generous aspiration forbids it. We are moving to better things, not to worse. And, one of the pledges of progress is the conservation of the truths of generations gone. We may see, and doubtless shah see more deeply into truths of the past, than could be seen before, a wondrous unfolding of the old is yielding itself up in these days, as well as a manifestation of new discoveries, but we shall not surely discover that the holiest aspirations of our race which have all been unfounded. Every scribe instructed unto the kingdom is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old. Matt. xiii. 52. The whole world is obviously advancing to a wondrous future, but is also revealing a no less wondrous treasure of past progress, all tending to confirm faith, to awaken hope, and deepen love.

What mean those amazing disclosures of geology, which unveil the treasures hidden in formations millions of ages ago, yet all essential to civilization, and all promising far greater menders in the days to come? What can they mean, but that Love Divine was providing, and Infinite Wisdom was directing, the provision, for the demands of a glorious future. What mean those openings afresh of the lost knowledge of Egypt, still more, of Assyria, and most of all, of hoary Ind, with its unnumbered generations, reaching back to far, far distant times, but to bring us acquainted with a literature, and mode of thought, fully justifying the Divine style of early Genesis? Why, then, should we now shut ourselves up in a gospel of negation, closing our eyes as firmly as we can to the light streaming upon us from all sides? Why should we exhibit faithfulness only to the unfaithfulness, which persists in its strange efforts, not to see? How much more worthy of our adoption is the prayer of the devout Psalmist, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

It is true, that we cannot give a spiritual interpretation to the early parts of Genesis, and admit Professor Jowetts system of interpretation of Scripture, which forms so large, and, as we are compelled to say, unsatisfactory a portion of the Essays. The subject of the interpretation of Scripture, we shall resume in another discourse; but, even here we must state our protest against the doctrine, which, practically, though quietly, ignores inspiration, and states, ex cathedra, that we must interpret Scripture, as we would interpret; any other book (p. 377). Though that is a sense which may mean anything or everything, since any other book must be interpreted, certainly, according to the mind of the author, and the subject of which it treats, one differently from another. The dogma which comes next; that it may be laid down, that Scripture has one meaning--the meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet, or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers, or readers, who first received it (p. 378) is so unfortunately vague, that one call only hope it may indicate so undefined a slate of mind in the Professor, as may lead him to reconsider his views of inspiration altogether. Why we must take it for granted that Scripture has only one meaning, we are nowhere told.

Why we must take Professor Jowetts dictum rather than the teaching of the apostle, who said Which things (though the real apostle of Abraham) are an allegory (Gal. iv. 31), we are not; informed. How that one sense. can be the sense of the speaker, and the sense of the hearer, when we are often assured that the hearers quite misunderstood the speaker, as in Matt. x-iii. 1.7, John vi. 41-85. Or what one sense there can be in such declarations as those, which state that we are to eat the Saviors flesh and drink his blood (John vi. 53), hate our father and mother that we may love Him (Luke xiv. 26), pluck out our eyes, cut off our offending hands and feet (Mark ix. 43, 45-47), have salt in ourselves, (v. 50), receive the morning star; (Rev. ii. 28), and others too numerous to mention. How we can assume that we have exhausted by some one meaning, all the wisdom of an Infinite speaker, is really difficult to perceive, or rather, it is evident, that such a rule of criticism is totally inconsistent with the idea of any inspiration whatever. Hence in the extremes to which it leads,all the distressingly dangerous conclusions of these Essays and Reviews, we may hope will be seen the beacon which will warn the student from it. Yet these canons of criticism are not peculiar to Professor Jowett, they are those which have long prevailed in high quarters in the Church, and at the Universities. .Let us hope that this revelation of their destructive tendencies will lead to their reconsideration, and it will be really admitted, as Professor Jowett somewhat inconsistently but very truly states elsewhere, Scripture has an inner life or soul; it has also an outward form or body (p. 389); and so will the ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ in our day, like the early ministers of the Word, confess Our sufficiency is of God, who hath also made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. 2 Cor. iii. 6.

Nor, must we be supposed, when we speak of the spiritual meaning of the creation in Genesis, to have the slightest community of thought, with that unaccountable declaration of Professor Laden Powell, that more recently the antiquity of the human race, and the development of species, and the rejection of the idea of creation, have caused new advances in the same direction (p. 129, Essays).

Geology speaks as loudly as any other science, of creation, by the power of the Infinite Creator. Geology leads us from the living, blooming surface of the world on which we stand, through miles upon miles of strata, formed time after time, through incalculable ages, but always conducts us to a beginning. Though we pass through the tertiary strata, and we notice through all the beds of pleistocene, pliocene and eocene, the indications of ever-varying life, through the seventeen hundred feet deep of sands, clays, crags, the results of ages of creative energy, yet during the secondary formations, they were not. Though we go down again through the cretaceous Wealden, and oolitic deposits, again, crowded with the fossil remains of life, forming three or four thousand feet thick of strata, all of which were once swarming with living beings, yet there was a time, however remote, when they were not. And, pass we lower still, through the lower oolitcs, and lias and the triassic beds of the Mesozoic formations, or through the eighty thousand feet of the magnesian limestone, the coal measures, and the Devonian and Silurian deposits, notwithstanding we are conducted to periods inconceivably remote, yet the mind sees as cleanly as it discerns it of the daisy of today--all these began to be, and in their beginning, and through all their changes, they are the results of the Almighty energies of that Adorable One by whom all things have been made that are made (John i. 3). From the grain of dust, whose form and qualities are the bases of vegetable and animal existence, to worlds, and suns, and systems, however grand and gorgeous, and impossible to number, they may be, fitness, arrangement, order, law, reign. Order and law imply MIND, and the unutterable benefits order and law subserve, imply benevolence and love in Him who is the upholder and sustainer of all things. Life and motion everywhere declare the power Divine, which fills, sustains, and governs all existence. Preservation is perpetual creation. All the parts of the universe are pregnant with the creative energy now, as from the beginning, and all announce the fullness of that Omnipotent Being who is the Head of all things, and from whom, and for whom, all things exist.

Let us rather speak then of creation being every moment seen, and announcing the unceasing presence everywhere of His power, who is all in all, and who has revealed Himself to the Human heart, in the glorified person of Him who said, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;--who is Himself the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.

TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE No. II.

MIRACLES.

THE MIRACLES OF THE LORD JESUS WERE EVIDENCES OF HIS LOVE, AND VERY SECONDARILY, EVIDENCES OF HIS DOCTRINE.

When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming; another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk.--JOHN v. 6, 7, 8.

ON Sunday last, we intimated that we should this morning consider the subject of miracles, as they ass introduced to us in the history of our Divine Redeemers life in the world; and, also, as they have been presented to the reflections of the student, in the work now famous, the Essays and Reviews.

The miracles alluded to, are those wondrous displays of Divine power, by which both the Jewish and the Christian dispensations were established in the world. To us, the evidences of these miracles, inwoven as they are with both parts of that Divine Revelation, which is the power of God unto salvation, appear complete and triumphant.

That the Jewish nation, with its marvelous tenacity of character--a tenacity that has been proof against Christian persuasion and persecution alike, for nearly twenty centuries,

--against bribes, blandishments, and terrors, wielded by caliph, emperor, king, or pope, and yet found everywhere, in the east, in the mast, in the north, in the south, with its ancient faith and costly customs, witnessing to the law of Moses, is a standing miracle. That this nation was induced to leave Egypt, not only their own history attests, but Egyptian monuments confirm; that they were induced to accept a system of religion painful, costly, multifarious, permeating their whole existence, loading them with rites and sacrifices, involving them in great self-denial, there must have been some adequate cause. Their miraculous history gives one. Without that, they are the enigma of the world--the sphynx, far more than that of Egypt, which refuses to unfold its mystery.

Institutions affecting the whole nation--circumcision, the passover, and the other national feasts, to celebrate miracles declared to have taken place before the eyes of the whole people, and which declarations the whole people must have known to be false, if they did not really happen, were established in the life-times of the first-actors; those institutions were accepted, nationalized, worked into the Jews nature with a depth and power that are visible still, and energetic still. Only one solution for this standing miracle seems to be philosophical, viz., that there. Must have been adequate cause for all this. The Divine will, manifested by Omnipotence working the wonders alleged, bringing Israel out with a mighty hand end a stretched-out arm, is such an adequate cause. If it be not the real one, what is? On this foundation, the prophets rise, and the psalmist sings, a glorious superstructure! The Israelitish lawgiver spoke the language which gives a solution perfectly easy when he said:--

And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying what mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God commanded you? Thus shalt thou say unto thy son, We were Pharaohs bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt, with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware to our fathers.

And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us. In the Christian MIRACLES we have the same exhibition of Divine power, but in a gentler, tenderer form. It is the Healer, the Teacher, the Savior, that appears in them all. The sacred system of the New Testament recognizes the sacred books of the Old, and vouches for their truth. With the New Testament, miracles are inextricably bound up. They are recognized by the Savior, by the apostles. The wonders said to be done were such that there could be no mistake about them. The man blind from his birth, the hungry multitudes, the lepers, the paralytics, presented cases about which there could be no mistake. Either they were truly done as they are described, or no character in the New Testament can remain its worthy of veneration. The disciples went out, however, declaring their risen Lord wherever they went. They declared His miracles; they were Jews, declaring a system higher than that of Moses; they obtained the hatred of their people; they went out into hostile nations declaring everywhere as facts, what they must have known to be frauds, if they were so. These facts were to introduce a system of righteousness, truth, and purity; they were preachers of these sacred things; yet, if the things they avouched were untrue, things not of opinion or of metaphysical difference, but matters of fact, about which eye-witnesses could not be mistaken, they preached, they averred, they declared, they taught that not only the doctrines were true, but the MIRACLES were true. They did this in pain and privation, in reiterated peril and persecution; they all, probably, sealed their testimony with their blood. Could all this be done, and the alleged facts be false? It is a terrible amount of incredulity that unbelief demands.

The Christian religion is an enormous fact. No one can deny its existence or its influence in modifying and improving the history of the human race. It has its own sacred books, existing in the first century, with corroborative epistles, referred to by a stream of writers from the second century downwards.

The sacred books of the Christian religion, between twenty and thirty in number, belonging to the first century of Christianity, are the fountains of its history. Though they are now gathered into one volume, and have usually been bound together since the Nicene Council, A. D. 324, yet, in reality, they present separate authentications of the facts of the Christian religion being what they are professed to be. The system thus introduced won its way over Jew and over barbarian, with both doctrine and miracle, in a continued widening stream to the present day.

Let the acceptance of Christianity by the apostles, their self-immolation for a fraud to support a religion that condemned them to everlasting punishment, as the knowing abettors of imposition, be accounted for if they were really not the preachers of truth. Let their success be explained in an age of philosophy, of high art, of eloquence, and of unbelief Cicero informs us that the augurs no longer believed the mysteries in which they were the officiators, but laughed at the follies into which the old religions had sunk. How came it that this new thing, without the venerable prestige custom and antiquity, imposing restraints long unfelt, involving changes of the most serious character, exposing its converts to privation, to persecution, and to scorn, still spread its influence and gained its victories, if all the while it was as baseless as that which it displaced? It was not an age of myths (meaning deep wisdom parabolic form), in the good and sacred sense of that term. That age was long gone by. n proposition in the time of the Savior must either be a fact, if it professed to be a fact, or it must be a falsehood.

Yet in that age Christianity with its miracles, won acceptance both from philosopher and peasant, great and small. No demonstration of its falsehood appeared. It took deep root; it spread its benign influence among the nations. Though mingling with, and often polluted by, the streams of barbarism and heathenism with which it came in contact, it lived on still, like the sacred corn in the hands of the mummy, it was already to spring again wherever favorable soil was found. These considerations will present broad, deep, prima facie evidences that Christianity is Divine; its facts are true, its statements worthy of all acceptation.

Besides, we trust to show that the MIRACLES themselves are not open to the objections that have been suggested by the Essays and Reviews; but, on the contrary, they are Divine lessons, exhibiting by objective demonstration the mighty power of the Redeemer--unfolding for human consolation the mode by which the Divine Physician heals our sorrows, and performs mental miracles in every age.

We are satisfied that both the miracles and their meaning will come out of this trial, with fuller acceptance than over, and that the really thoughtful will find their confidence in the providence of the Most High, more deeply rooted by the examination they have given to the foundations of their faith.

We must observe, however, that the remarks in the parts of the Essays and Reviews which treat upon this subject, are in many respects exceedingly valuable, exceedingly suggestive. They are not by any means what the fears of some, and the bigotry of others, have figured them to be. They are not altogether unworthy of consideration, nor do they necessarily lead to infidelity. By many considerations, they tend to correct the false notions of miracles that have been prevalent in the world for a long time. They are worthy, at least, of the perusal of men of true religion.

It should never be forgotten that truth is true of itself, and of itself worthy of all acceptation. No number of wonders worked will ever make that which is false in itself, true. That two and two make four, we ought to believe, because it is so; that two and two make five, a thoughtful man will never believe, even if a thousand miracles were wrought to prove it. Truth is given to men who have minds proper for the reception of truth, for its own sake. To men duly sensible of this, miracles are of no value whatever, as evidences of truth. They would rather impede a real intellectual belief, than promote it. Our blessed Lord himself evidently taught this concerning miracles, both in practice and in precept. He never wrought a miracle to compel faith, though He appeared to them when addressing such as valued them. His miracles were works of mercy. As would not compel belief. Of Jesus, in His own country, it is said (Matt. xiii. 66), He did not many mighty works, because of their unbelief.

On another occasion He said, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but no sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonas (Matt. xii. 39); that is, that man should repent. It is, then, a mistake to regard miracles as tests of truth to the thoughtful man. Far better is it at all times to remember that truth is so beautiful a thing--a thing so infinitely valuable of itself--that it ought to charm the hearts, guide the minds, and bless the souls of all immortal beings, for its own sake. We ought to feel with the poet Cowper, when he says

And truth alone, whereer my lot be cast,

In scenes of plenty, or the pining waste,

Shall be my chosen theme, my glory

To the last.

That the argument for miracles has been pushed much beyond legitimate bounds, must be admitted. Paley and the crowd of writers of the century preceding him, who make miracles the logical foundation of the Christian faith, attribute far more to miracles than our Lord or His apostles did, or than a thoughtful inquirer at the present day will be inclined to do. In the extravagances of those who have overrated the importance of miracles in the grand system of an intelligent faith, the most powerful arguments of Professor Laden Powell find their strength and justification. In the admissions he himself makes, the Gospel accounts of miracles may easily be embraced and defended.

First. Let us record those admissions.

Secondly. Review the objections.

Thirdly. Take a general view of the miracles, and refer to their relation to the ordinary laws of nature, and their meaning.

Fourthly. Apply our view of miracles, and their necessity when they were wrought, to the case of the impotent man.

First, then, let us review the admissions of Professor Powell.

The reason of the hope that is in us is not restricted to external signs, nor to any one kind of evidence; but consists of such assurance as may be most satisfactory to each earnest individual inquirers own mind.

And the true acceptance of the entire revealed manifestation of Christianity will be most worthily based on that assurances of faith, by which the apostle affirms me stand (2 Cor. ii. 24); but which, in accordance with his emphatic declaration, must rest, not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. 1 Cor. ii. 5p. 144.

True, the reason of the hope that is in us is not restricted to external signs, or to any one kind of evidence. Hence it does not reject the evidence of miracles, any more than it rejects all the other evidences of truth which offer themselves to faith, to love, and to historical research, to reasonable evidence of testimony, and to the ever-increasing spiritual insight of him who does the will of God, and therefore knows of the doctrine whether from God or not. John vii. 17.

Second admission. The most seemingly improbable events in human history may be perfectly credible, on sufficient testimony, however contradicting ordinary experience of human motives and conduct; simply because we cannot assign any limits to the varieties of human dispositions, passions, or tendencies; or the extent to which they may he influenced by circumstances, of which, perhaps, we have little or no knowledge to guide us. But no such cases would have the remotest applicability to alleged violations of the laws of matter, or interruptions of the course of physical causes.--p 132.

This admission, that seemingly improbable events in human history may be credible on sufficient testimony, will go very far to reconcile the acceptance of miracles in the dealings of Divine Providence with His creatures in securing human progress, if sufficient testimony shall be offered to convince the earnest inquirer that, an epoch of human history existed in which miracles were of use to secure the attention of a dull and groveling age to the principles, upon the acceptance of which, human progress to a state in which miracles would be altogether needless, would depend. The history of miracles, is certainly a part of human history.

Third admission. By the Jews, we know such manifestations, especially the power of healing, were held to constitute the distinctive marks of the Messiah, according to the prophecies of their Scriptures. Isa. xxxv. 3, 4. Signs of an improper or irrelevant kind were refused, and even those which were granted, were not necessarily nor universally conclusive.

With some, they were so; but with the many, the case was different. The Pharisees set down the miracles of Christ to the power of evil spirits; and, in other cases, no conviction was produced, not even on the apostles.

Even Nicodemus, notwithstanding his logical reasoning, was but half convinced. While Jesus himself, especially to His disciples in private, referred to His works as only secondary and subsidiary to the higher evidence of His character and doctrine, which was so conspicuous and convincing even to His enemies as to draw forth the admission, Never man spake like this man--p. 116.

Fourth admission. All moral evidence must especially have respect to the parties to be convinced. Signs might be adapted to the state of moral or intellectual progress of one age or one class of persons, and not be suited to that of others. With the contemporaries of Christ and the apostles, it was not a question of testimony or credibility; it was not the were occurrence of what they all regarded as a supernatural event, as such, but the particular character to be assigned to it, which was the point in question. And it is to the entire difference in the ideas, prepossessions, mode and grounds of belief in those times, that me may trace the reason why miracles, which would be incredible now, were not so in the age and under the circumstances in which they are stated to have occurred (p 117).

The force of the appeal to miracles mast ever be essentially dependent on the pre-conceptions of the parties addressed.p. 118.

Here, the necessity of miracles, as appeals to the prepossessions of that time, is so fully admitted, that the ways of God to men in that age would certainly be fully justified in appealing to them by miracles, when their prepossessions required such an appeal; as now Providence is justified in appealing by the higher evidences of truth which apply themselves to the rational powers of men. It is of no force to say all were not then convinced by miracles--all are not sow convinced by reasons. The Christian Church was established by the one--it is now continued by the other.

The establishment of the Christian Church was a moral event of such magnitude, and consequences so momentous have flowed, and do now flow, from it, that they amply justify the miracle of the Incarnation: and that event, the presence of the Source of life among His creatures, openly, could not but be attended by more striking displays of the presence of Deity, than usual. The Incarnate God was there, and virtue must go out from Him. In this admission, too, it is conceded that the Savior himself and His apostles assumed the miracles to have been wrought. There is no attempt to describe them as the myths of a later age, clothing with wonders what was simple enough at first. So that, if Professor Powell should not admit the reality of the miracles, there would seem only one conclusion remaining--namely, a denial of the sincerity and integrity of the Savior and His apostles; a conclusion not by any means admissible, at the same time with the frequent reference to His Divine character, by many of the writers, and His sacredness and wisdom by all.

Fifth admission. Dean Trench has evinced a higher view of physical philosophy than we might have expected from the were promptings of philology and literature, when he affirms that we continually behold lower laws held in restraint by higher; mechanic by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral: remarks which, if only followed out, entirely accord with the conclusion of universal subordination of causation; though we must remark, in passing, that the meaning of moral laws controlling physical, is not very clear. (p. 134.)

The importance of this admission on the general argument of Professor Powell for the fixity and regularity of two laws of nature. is extremely great; for the difficulty with many, in the reception of the Gospel narratives, arises from a mental assumption that nature not only operates by fixed laws, but that these unerringly present an external uniformity quite constant, and devoid of even apparent exceptions. But, as Dean Trench observes, this is not the case.

The action of chemical laws is frequently suspended or intensified by magnetic and vital forces. We cannot admit the character of the worthy Deans remark to be doubtful, of which our Essayist does not seem over-confident. It is no new doctrine, that healthy action in the body largely depends upon a healthy moral activity in the soul.

Pure joy, stimulates a healthy circulation; pining anxiety, impoverishes and perverts the system. The circulation, impeded in one direction, will find its way in another. The broken limb will have its weakness guarded for a time by the production of a collar, which holds the fractured parts together until the wonted order and strength have been restored. Nature is no blind, unconscious machine, nor stinted to one fixed and meager path. Nature is benevolent and merciful, and, though everywhere actuated by law, it is a law with broad and tender margins. There is an abundant provision of means overflowing with appliances to restore and to heal.

We are astonished at the learned Professor finding difficulty in apprehending either the meaning or the truth of the assertion that moral laws often control physical. What are half the diseases of mankind but the results of effects in the body produced by faulty conditions of mind? Moral laws have disturbed the physical. Is it not a common observation that the laws of vital chemistry are very different, in their action, from the laws of the mechanical chemistry of the outer world, and of the laboratory? Nay, is not the whole system, beautiful and glorious as it is, by which the tissues and organs of the body are wrought into all their wondrous, exquisite, perfect forms, the controlling of the dead powers of nature, the seizure of its substances, and their reproduction in those forms of loveliness, which announce the play of the Divine laws of moral and spiritual life--an instance of the moral laws controlling the physical? The warm blush is surely not the result of simple circulation; the eye glistening with love, suffused with joy, fixed by firmness, is not the creature of the laws, which make the mirror, uncontrolled. What, indeed, is the whole domain of life, but the play of powers controlling gravitation, subduing and transforming its laws at the behest of higher laws? The simple movement of the arm, at the dictate of the will and intellect, is an example of the control of the downward tendency which its matter ordinarily has, by the higher powers of the soul. Wherever life reigns, there the material is subdued, and made plastic by the moral and higher laws of the inner sphere of things. What transforms the previously healthy juices of the serpents food into the hateful poison of its tooth, but the malignant chemistry of its malevolence?

What but the strange operation of rage and cruelty transforms the otherwise harmless saliva of the feline tribes, into fluids deadly in their nature? All organized nature, indeed, is but a theater, in which the physical is transformed and transfigured by the increasing activities of inner and Diviner qualities. The refined beauty of the lilies of the field and of the petals of the rose, the rich hues of the butterfly tribes, and the glistening luster of the hummingbirds, are not the were collocation of dead laws--they are the physical, seized and transfused, and fixed and filled, with living beauty.

In this play of life upon matter, daily miracles, in the true sense, occur; higher laws come down, suspending and transforming the lower, and exhibiting effects so truly wonderful, that they only cease to be miraculous, because they are so common. The life that draws to itself the heavy humus in the time of spring, and out of the dull mass robes nature in its gorgeous green, its flowers of myriad hues, its trees of graceful beauty and of goodly fruits, presents innumerable illustrations of higher laws controlling lower; each would be a miracle, if it but rarely happened. it less a miracle, because the mercy is so multiplied? And if me look still higher, and see the magnificent laboratory of life in the human body, what wonders disclose themselves! When animated by a healthy mind, diffusing joy and order through the system, the laws of cohesion are suspended, changed, subjected to new and astonishing combinations; and out of the simplest elements of food, the subtle tissues of the brain and nervous system, the heart and lungs, the arteries and veins, the muscle, sinew, and bone, the cartilage, hair, and nails, with all their marvelous forms, are educed. And, all this scene of miracles presents, ever the mastery of living and moral laws over those of matter and of death.

In this region, too, of outer and of inner life, we have extraordinary compensations for shortcomings and defects. The branch, unable to find light in one direction, will adapt itself, and rise or fall, or contort itself, to find it in another. The artery, injured and forbidden to flow in one direction, will make for itself a new path, anastomose afresh, and win its way by another.

The broken bone has soon its ends secured and held together by the callus, which sustains it for the time, until the, inner weaving is complete, and all is strong again. Nature is merciful as well as good, and miracles are daily wrought, if we but seek them, and seek them especially, in those higher scenes of being, where the physical laws are controlled by the moral.

The last admission, or rather crowd of admissions, we would notice, is made by Mr. Powell when he says:To conclude, an alleged miracle can only be regarded in one of two ways--either abstractedly as a physical event, and therefore to be investigated by reason and physical evidence, and referred to physical causes, possibly to known causes, but at all events to some higher cause or law, if at present unknown; it then ceases to be super-natural, yet still might be appealed to support of religious truth, especially as referring to the state of knowledge and apprehensions of the parties addressed in past ages, or as connected with religious doctrine, regarded in a sacred light, asserted on the authority of inspiration (p. 142). This seems to cover the whole ground required by the Gospel miracles. They were required by the state of knowledge and apprehensions of the parties addressed in past ages. They were the results, no doubt, of higher causes or laws, known or unknown; and were appealed to, on the authority of inspiration, in support of religious truth, in a peculiar age and state of mankind. This, according to Mr. Powell, would justify miracles; especially, as he further remarks, when they are regarded as involving more or less of the parabolic or mythic (spiritual) character; or, at any rate, as received in connection with, and for the salts of, the doctrine inculcated.

This really grants all that the Gospel narratives require.

Undoubtedly, the miracles must have had causes grounded in laws known or unknown; undoubtedly, they were adapted to the apprehension and mode of thought of the parties addressed; undoubtedly, they had a parabolic character.

How, with these admissions, Mr. Powell could still seem to insinuate that miracles could not have been wrought, seems of itself to approach the miraculous, though not on the gratifying side.

Mr. Powells great source of difficulty would seem to be a materialistic idea of law, as a final cause. Law would appear to be with a species of Fetish worshiped as Deity. Refer a thing to LAW, and it ceases to be supernatural; religion loses it; it is in nature and from nature, and in nature and from nature, by science and by reason, we neither have, nor can possibly have, any evidence of a Deity working miracles. But, why not? It is answered, because an natural effects come from laws.

Laws uncaused, and self-evolving, of which the Professor speaks, seem to be no more rational than the miracle uncaused, to which he objects so strongly. Nature with him seems to be an endless concatenation of things, ever in motion, subject to blind objectless powers, which he calls laws, forming an iron destiny over unresting, but having no aim. If this were indeed the universe, well might the soul seek refuge from the relentless crush of such unmeaning powers in the Nirvana of Boodism, if that, indeed, be annihilation. But no, the universe belongs not to blind law, but to the living God. His adorable infinite love is the ever-active center whence suns and systems are evolved and ruled. Almighty Love desires to bless others, and these are His instrumentalities for forming an ever-increasing ever-multiplying heaven; all laws--and laws are everywhere--are filled by this grand law. Every law is subordinate to this sublime aim. Law is not a functionless, purposeless thing. Each law, however limited, has its part to do in the production of universal good. It is Eternal Love working in Divine order.

What, then, are laws? Are they anything but the decisions of the law-giver? If laws are constant, if they are universal, if they are wise, if they are benevolent, do they not imply ONE who upholds them, and who is loving, wise, omnipresent, ever-operative? How can the admission that everywhere, and in every domain and degree of existence laws prevail, cut us off from Him who supports, who fills, and energies the whole with the Spirit of Infinite and Eternal Love?

Laws, then, truly considered, do not shut us from, but rather draw us toward, Him, in whom we live, and move, and have our being; they show us everywhere a Deity working miracles and the objections of Professor Powell do not in fact impugn the real doctrine of miracles, viewed in the relation they have to other facts in the history of the Divine dealings with man; but only serve to correct certain unfounded ideas, in relation to miracles, which have indeed prevailed with many writers, and in high places, but which are immature inferences by which truth has been obscured, and which the Essays and Reviews will probably assist to disperse.

The characteristics of miracles which Professor Powell considers unfounded are two, and neither of them are really inherent in Divine miracles themselves: they apply only to ill-founded views and definitions, entertained by short-sighted reasoners upon the subject.

The first is, The main assertion of Paley, that it is impossible to conceive a revelation given, except by means of miracles (p. 140). The second is urged against miracles in the old theological sense, as isolated, unrelated, and uncaused; whereas no physical fact can be conceived as unique, or without analogy and relation to others, and to the whole system of natural causes (p. 142).

Neither of these objections apply to miracles, rightly regarded.

Miracles are not the sole evidences, or chief evidences, of religion; and, yet, they may have had their past to play, in relation to the time and people to whom they were addressed. This is admitted, as we have seen, by Professor Powell. He says: In whatever light we regard the evidences of religion, to be of any effect, whether external or internal, they must always have a special reference to the peculiar capacity and apprehension of the party addressed (p. 125). This was also the argument of several of the Reformers, as Luther; Huss, and others have reasonably contemplated the miracles as a part of the peculiarities of the first outward manifestation and development of Christianity: like all other portions of the Divine dispensations, specially adapted to the age and condition of those to whom they were immediately addressed; but restricted, apparently, to those ages, and, at any rate, not continued in the same form to subsequent times, when the application of them would be inappropriate.

The force of the appeal to miracles must ever be essentially dependent on the preconceptions of the parties addressed (p. 118). If we add to these considerations the view presented by Dr. Temple, that every age through which humanity has passed has had its relation, backwards and forwards, to every other: if all Humanity has proceeded through stages similar to those of one individual, and may be regarded as one vast man, and if, as professor Powell declares in this objection, no physical fact can be conceived as unique, or without analogy and relation to others, and to the whole system of natural causes, the period when miracles were required, would have its miracles, as surely as the age of Humanitys infancy would have its innocent poetry, its graceful allegories; the age of Egypt, its sacred learning; the age of Greece, its sense of the beautiful in nature and in art; the age of Rome, the sense of law and duty; with Asiatic culture, ever running side by side, and yearning for the spiritual; while Israels types and shadows, her prophets and holy memories, served to supply the literal stage on which the Redeemer could come, and, at earths lowest point in declension, show the wonders of His Godhead, the tenderness of His mercy, and the deep mysteries of His unutterable love.

If to procure the acceptance of the Christian religion amongst a peculiarly literal, but a peculiarly tenacious race--a race who would receive it, not as Greeks, who would have discussed it as a new form of philosophy, and then let it pass; but who would accept it as a thing to live for, and to die for, the great fact of the universe--it was essential that the miracles which take place mentally with others, should take bodily form with them, and, through them, a basis be laid for the salvation and regeneration of mankind; does not the concatenation of causes demand that these causes should not be withheld? The miracles, though having a spiritual bearing, were not were myths. The Jews were not a mythical people, nor the age of the Redeemer a mythical age. The childhood of the world was over, as Dr. Temple observes, when our Lord appeared upon earth. Mr. Jowett also remarks truly:

It (the decay of the Greek language) may be numbered among the causes which favored the growth of Christianity. That degeneracy was a preparation for the Gospel--the decaying soil in which the new elements of life were to come forth, the beginning of another state of man, in which language, and mythology, and philosophy, were no longer to exert the same constraining power as in the ancient world (p. 390). The foundation then laid must be real, intensely real; so that all the future superstructure might be steady. The Jews saw no inner glorythe veil was on their hearts; but by laying the roots of religion deep amongst them, there a provision for its magnificent branches covering all nations, affording shelter and blessing to all.

It is true, as Mr. Wilson states, that there is a spiritual significance of the Transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing the tongue of the stammer to speak plainly, of feeding multitudes with bread in the wilderness, of cleansing leprosy, which is the same, whether we admit; the literal history of these events to be externally true or not; but spiritual significances are not perceived by men whose eyes are covered by the slims of sin. They must, be first led to receive truth by inducements adapted to them, and as they obey they acquire higher powers of perception; their mental atmosphere clears, their inner eyes are opened, and they behold wondrous things out of the law. The Redeemer always estimated belief, on the evidence of miracles, as a very low form of faith; yet he admitted it, as adapted to the states and requirements of some. When John sent two of his disciples to learn for themselves if the Savior were really the Messiah, or their should still look for another Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the deed are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them (Matt. xi. 4, 5). This appeal, by the Holy One Himself, shows that He regarded these evidences as true evidences, and proper for those to whom they were adapted. He always places the miraculous proof in this secondary, but necessary, light. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost thou make us to doubt?

If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not; the works that I do in my Fathers name: they bear witness of me (John x. 24, 25). Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works sake (John xiv. 11). This belief, from the ground of inner yearnings after truth and goodness is first, and from the evidence of the work, second; but both are real, both are true, or nothing is real, nothing is true.

These evidences did their work. By them Christianity was received and established among men. The Divine seed has grown; the little one has become a thousand; the small one a strong nation. The faith of Him who was despised and rejected of men, has spread, and is spreading, ever preparing itself for purer, and higher achievements, and more splendid triumphs. It embraces and transfuses three hundred millions of mankind, including all the dominant races. Nothing higher can be conceived than its doctrines of love and wisdom. It has within it the principles of unlimited progress, and its aim is to transform the world into a resemblance to heaven. Esto perpetua, must be the aspiration of every devout and holy heart. That same heart can never believe that all this superstructure of good is based on fraud. Miracles then had their part assigned them in the training of the world; they did their part, and had their influence. Their history has its part to do, its influence to exert, and will perform its work in the experience of every redeemed soul

The parts of the whole argument sere supplied, either by different portions of the same Essay in some cases, or by the different Essays taken together.

It is admitted often that the age when the miracles were performed, was one when such proofs were likely to be effective. It is admitted that the early Church triumphed, and largely, by their means. It is admitted that the Christian Church is the worlds great educator and that by example. It is admitted that the miracles perpetually teach, by their spiritual significance, lessons of purity, elevation, and wisdom. Surely the argument requires, that to accomplish all these blessings, the foundation should be laid in truth.

That there is higher evidence than that of miracles, we have been the Savior ever taught, and the thoughtful will readily admit. Nothing can be truer than truth. Truth is itself the evidence of all other things, when clearly seen. It is spiritual light, and as its sacred splendors are reflected from object to object, it reveals to the spirits eye the substance of things hoped for. Yet sometimes we need assistance to uncover the windows, and let in the lightto open the blind eyes that we may see clearly. This assistance outward and may give. This, reach hither the finger, did for the disciple Thomas. This the miracles did for the Jews. No number of miracles can prove a falsehood to be true. There are minds, however, whom a startling occurrence will assist to receive a truth. Minds, thoughtful, conscientious, and progressive, do not need miracles; they see the truth better without them, than with them. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed; yet minds of a lower caste, who will not believe unless they see the print of the nails, are not despised by Him who cares for the sparrow. They see, they believe, and they yield the hearts frank acknowledgment, My Lord, and my God.

An objection near akin to that which we are now discussing is felt by some, namely, that a miracle is a strange and unusual thing in the universe--that nature knows no miracles. Mr. Powell says,Of a Deity working miracles, me can have, in nature, and from nature, no proof whatever. We suspect, however, that he is here using the word miracle in the sense to which he objectsa sense absurd, as a thing uncaused. But in the proper sense of miracle, that which the word itself implies a wonderful thing, we live amongst miracles daily. He is a shallow observer who sees no miracles. Everything is miraculous. What is more wonderful than that from the commencement of this discourse, we, who have appeared to be almost motionless, have moved a thousand miles through space. What enormous power does this imply! This ponderous earth with all its oceans, its continents, and their myriads of myriads of creatures, rational and irrational, borne with inconceivable rapidity onwards, and yet enjoying the advantage of complete stability and rest. Life is a miracle.

What wondrous power is that which displays itself in the unconscious embryo, and gradually evolves the infant man, with all his capabilities, his perfections, and his beauties! Who can sufficiently admire the momentary constant miracle by which the blood pulsates in the heart, and all the arteries, seventy times in every minute, and supplies the needs of the whole body! What a miracle is that by which the lungs heave and play, and purify the system, bringing the ocean of air into communion with the powers of life! How miraculous is that marvelous operation of the organs of nutrition by which each is found in its right place, and does its right work, and food is transformed into all the wonderful constituents of the body--each bone, each muscle, each sinew, each fibre, each nerve, each tissue, each nail, each hair, formed as it ought to be, and fitted in its proper place. Miracles are everywhere. Love Infinite only can explain them all, operating through all the innumerable channels through which it flows to bless.

Tell me not of the power required to work a miracle; the power that makes the sun rise is illimitable. Tell me not of the unlikelihood of the Deity descending to operate special wonders for his people. If they were needful, if they had a part to bear in the worlds salvation, the same Divine Love that works wonders for us every moment yes, for the meanest thing that lives--would not fail to do the wonders requisite to accomplish His great end, the establishment of a Church, to train souls for heaven.

It has been objected to the belief in miracles, that they are inadmissible, because they are contrary to the laws of nature. And a very common description of a miracle by those who have relied upon miracles as evidences of Divine Revelation, has been, that it was an action performed in contravention of the laws of nature, by a messenger from heaven, as an attestation of his character. This description, however, is essentially defective, and does not apply to the miracles of the Savior. They were wonders performed by the Redeemer, God manifest in the flesh. It is God always who doeth great wonders. The New Testament doctrine is, that He who made the world (John i. 10), assumed the humanity, the son of His Love (Col. i. 17) by the instrumentality of the virgin (Luke i. 35), and, therefore, Jehovah. Himself was there, for mans redemption. The worlds Maker and Controller was there, and not one act was done, which He is not constantly doing.

Were the fact of the Incarnation denied, of course, that would then be the doctrine to be established. This great Christian truth is not controverted in the Essays. Several of the writers admit that the Savior of men was higher than all men. He was One whom, as Professor Jowett writes, we do not name with heroes and prophets, because He was above them. The Scripture doctrine undoubtedly is, that Jehovah would become mans Savior (Isa. xl. 3, 10; xliii. 11; xlv 15, 21; Hosea xiii. 4), and that, in Jesus the earth beheld the presence of God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. God was manifest. The Word was made flesh. God was with us, the very Creator, by whom all things were made. (John i. 3.) God over all, blessed for ever. (Rom. ix. 5.) We do not further dwell upon this, because me are not; at present concerned with its deniers. But, that doctrine admitted, then the miracles are neither contrary to the laws of nature, nor anything at all unusual. They were the acts of the God of Heaven tabernacling for the time among men, and manifesting openly and palpably the Divine works He is ever doing, in the more secret operations of ordinary nature.

The first miracle of the Savior was the turning of water into wine. Here, by the way, we may notice that Jesus, and His disciples, were at Cana in Galilee, where the first miracle was wrought, evidently showing that the disciples had not been converted by miracles, but by the higher influences of His life and doctrine, addressed to their inner reverence for truth and goodness. Jesus turned the water into wine. He does this every year. What are the generous juices of our vine-harvests, but water turned into wine. The act, no doubt, was symbolic. It shadowed for the truth, that when Jesus visits the soul, and blesses the unition of heart and mind together, by faith and love being in harmony, or when He is present at lifes most important rite, and man and wife are united in love to each other, and in communion with Him, the cold truth of duty, the water of purification is transformed into the warm, generous wine of truth, glowing with love. But in both senses, there was nothing contrary to the usual law.

The wonder was brought by Him who transmutes in the transcendent chemistry of the vine-stock, every year, the rains of spring and summer into the generous juices of the autumnal wine.

Take we another miracle. The second act of Omnipotent love was the removal of fever from the noblemans son. (John iv. 54). And, afterwards, Jesus healed the sick from all the country round. Here, again, there was no act contravening the laws of nature. God always heals the sick. The medical man removes the hindrances to healing.

The wise physician, skilled our woes to heal,

Is more than armies to the public weal.

But, he is only an instrument. God is the true restorer of health. God was present as the Savior, and virtue what out from Him, and healed them all. The miracles of every-day are slower, but in essence they are the same as those of Galileo. None but Jesus can impart health. Wise Physicians know this, and give all honor to the Divine physician; and when both physician and patient fed this, the healing comas more surely and more rapidly. When the Lord Jesus was personally present, His word healed, and healed at once. This was but natural. When the Sovereign is personally present, a fiat takes effect at once, which in other cases is slow, from the necessary intervention of many stages. Then, because the Divine Omnipotence was manifested, and because the bodily cures were the symbols of spiritual cures (which are rapidly effected when the soul comes in agonizing energy to the Savior), healing immediately followed.

The fever of the body, which the Saviors second miracle cured, was a symbol, doubtless, as well as a reality. The study of the diseases healed by the Redeemer, will be a study and a salutary lesson for evermore. He only can Divinely minister to a mind diseased, and truly heal and bless. Has not the spirit feverish states equally with the body? Are there not violent inflammations, in which passion inflamed to fury, bursts all bonds, and perils everything good with instant destruction? Is there not the pining, weeping consumption of the soul, in which health becomes gradually less and loss, until the hateful, suffocating miasma poisons the blood of all the living active power for good, and the soul dies to every noble, virtuous, holy thought, thenceforth a miserable crawler on Gods earth--dead while he liveth?

There are blind souls, deaf hearts, spirits dumb, affections palsied, powers withered, lives maimed and halt now, that require to learn that they may be healed, by the same Savior that healed the sufferers in days of yore. And the Divine stories in the Gospels are the records of the particulars by which these great lessons may be learned. The same power, that effected those cures, will effect these; and, if the penitent is earnest, as speedily too. Earth was the witness of these wonders, for earthly men; the soul may witness still greater wonders now. Greater things shall ye do, because I go to the Father. (John xiv. 12.)

Another reason why the cure was rapid, doubtless was because the greater portion of the diseases healed, were from demoniacal possessions. This is often stated. The world was in its lowest state of debasement. Evil spirits, which work more subtly, in the dispositions and thoughts of man, usually, at that time, took bodily possession, and enslaved their victims both mentally and physically. Men were mesmerized by hell, biologised by infernals. The fatal influences of the powers of darkness, overpowering the souls of men, and inflicting the most horrible of diseases, constituted the grand necessity for the descent of the Redeemer. When the enemy came in like a flood, the Spirit; of the Lord lifted up a standard against him, and the Redeemer came to Zion. (Isa. lix 19.)

That the diseases cured by the Savior were usually of this abnormal kind, is often intimated.. (Mark ix. 17, 27; Luke xiii. 16). When the Lord came into the world, the enemy came in like a flood, and none but Jehovah Himself could redeem and save. This is declared in the Old Testament, New: I am the Lord (Jehovah) thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me, for there is NO SAVIOR beside ME. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help. I will ransom them from the power of the grave (hell)*. I will redeem them from death.

O death I will be thy plagues. O grave (hell), I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. (Hos. Xiii. 4; ix. 14).

* Sheol, in Hebrew, like hades in Greek, refers to a living world after death, and chiefly to the bad portion of it. It is chiefly rendered grave, in our common version, though occasionally hell. Deut. xxxii. 22; 2 Sam. xxii. 6; Isa. xxviii. 15.

For this purpose he assumed our outward humanity as the Son--Son of God, and Son of man. A humanity that was Divine, and a Divinity that was human, appeared in Him, that hell might be approached, and hell might be conquered. He, the only God, was the only self-existent, real man. We are men derived from, and imperfect images of Him.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation (the humanity) in the house of His servant David. That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life (Luke i. 58, 69, 74, 75). For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8). Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 14, 15).

This, then, is the statement of the Scriptures, of the necessity for the Incarnation, and the purpose the Redeemer had to accomplish. It is the explanation of the healing influences he shed around Him. It is also the key of the history of our race. Humanity slowly declined to a certain point bordering on diabolism; since the Incarnation it has been slowly rising, and its progress is still upwards towards a wise, a developed, and regenerated humanity--a golden age re-constituted, enriched with all the stores of science, philosophy, and experience.

When the Redeemer was accomplishing His work, no wonder that health tool; the place of disease. The sent of innumerable mischiefs was in the inner world, the mental world of causes; as He expelled the powers of darkness from the world, all the evils they inflicted would naturally disappear. Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, to come out of him, and enter no more into him, would naturally be followed by good.

Jesus took him (the delivered child) by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose (Mark ix. 25-27). When the Conqueror of hell was there, each possessed one, however miserable, however torn, would hear the words, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit; and would soon be found sitting and clothed, and in his right mind. Mark v. 15. But in both cases, those of ordinary sicknesses and of demon-inflicted ills, their cure was performed by the Divine Physician, who always really cures; and though done quickly in one case, and slowly in another, the difference of time makes no difference in the law. The miracles were illustrations, not contraventions, of the ordinary law.

The stilling of the tempest on the sea of Galilee is another illustration of the same truth. Many have been startled at this miracle, who forget the miracle, performed twice every day--the rising and ebbing of the tide. You stand and watch the waters as they retire; they slacken and decrease gradually more and more, until they have reached their lowest; then some invisible power changes the order, and they as gradually advance majestically to their highest point, and then again retire. This wondrous operation is constantly going on--an illustration of Omnipotence. The superficial, self-satisfied philosopher presumes he has given a full explanation of all this when he has pronounced the talismanic words, Oh, that all takes place by regular law. But what is law? Is law anything but the utterance of will? The philosopher who has grouped all the facts he knows on a particular subject, and concludes that some law exists which pervades them, and around which they operate, has already gone into the unseen. He has trusted the conclusion of his reason, which has taken him from matter to law from the enter to the inner; it is but the repetition of the process which concludes the other step, and says law, too, must have its underlying cause; and this is the case with all the laws of nature, whose laws must be subject to higher laws, and these to higher, as in the human system, and all be sustained and subordinated to Omnipotent Will, Love, whose expression in the universe is Divine Order.

Professor Powell indeed speaks of the self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which pervade all nature. But this is begging the question.

Reason knows nothing of self-sustaining, self-evolving powers in nature. Self-creation is a prima facie absurdity. And what is self-evolving power? To us, self-sustaining, self-evolving powers in nature, are effects without causesthe perpetual-motion theoryat which the Professor elsewhere justly smiles. Laws exist everywherelaws upon laws, in series wonderful and innumerable, and in order Divine; but each law is only the form of a force, and force resolves itself at last into the will of Him that sets it in motion. Finite force and law come from finite will. No engine will exist without the, will of its maker--no engine will start without the will of the engineer. Precisely so the innumerable laws and the infinite forces present in nature, imply the infinite strength and will of One who creates, who sustains, who animates, and who governs all with unutterable love, order, and skill.

When this adorable One presented Himself in human form as the Son, in whom was the Father (John xiv. 8-10), He ruled the sea, because He always rules it; He stilled the tempest because it is He who ever gives law to the stormy winds. The Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Admitting His Divine character in His human formand this is the very essence of the Christian religion, and is admitted by the Essayists--then the difficulty disappears at once. When the Lord Jesus said, Peace, be still, and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm, all was perfectly natural and in order. The same Almighty Love spoke which rules the sea at all times. To understand it, we have but adoringly to utter the question from our hearts, What manner of man is this, that well the wind and the sea obey Him? (Mark iv. 41.)

The spiritual significance of the calming of the storm in Galilee, illustrates the point we are endeavoring to enforce, equally with the literal. We are all making the voyage of life. Each has his little bark, and guides it as best he can, over the sea of human opinion, and often finds himself in a storm. The billows rise, all things threaten to overwhelm.

Assailing views, impelled by fierce gusts of purpose, inflamed by passion, alarm us with the horrors of impending death. Who, then, can hush the tempest into silence, and reduce the storm to rest, but He who rules all nature; He who said, in the midst of the dark horrors of the eventful night on the troubled waters in Galilee, Peace, be still. The law is the same, the love is the same, the Divine Person is the same.

Let us apply ourselves to the last form of miracle, the raising of the dead. This takes place every moment, and by Him who said, I am the Resurrection and the life. True, in the ordinary resurrections, men rise into another world, but that constitutes no real difference. They have a body, as before, though a spiritual body (1 Cor. xv. 44); they are men, as before, though spiritual men (Rev. vii. 9); they live in a world, as before, though a spiritual world (Heb. xi. 16). The same glorious Being who raised Lazarus, raises all. That He who was life in Himself should impart life, is what we can at once admit, and rejoice in. Instead of wondering that the Giver of Life should impart it, when it was needed to illustrate His mission of raising a dead and sunken humanity to renewed life and vigor, the wonder would have been, if He had not done so. Being presented before men in the outer world, on the threshold, as it were, of existence, He did before the visible eye, what He is every moment invisibly doing; the Doer is the same, the law by which it is done, is the same. A spiritual law was brought down to earth, that earth might witness the great truth that the One Giver of natural and spiritual life was present for mans redemption, and as a sign to the spiritually dead in all ages, that Christ would give them life. This act, was a symbol for ever, of the raising by the Savior of the human soul from sin. Awake, it says, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (Eph. v. 14).

The only thing extraordinary in these wonders, or miracles, is, that they were done by the visible God, whereas ordinarily they were done by the invisible, and done immediately, instead of in the usual mediate mode, by which the Divine assistance is given.

But, in this, is illustrated the very necessity for the incarnation. Mankind had sung too low for the usual modes of help.

They were gross, benighted, enveloped, enslaved, by the powers of darkness, beyond all the ordinary means of recovery. The law given by the disposition of angels (Acts vii. 53) was too weak, the Father whose voice they had not heard, and whose shape they had not seen, was too vague to kindle their chilled hearts, and vivify the benumbed faith. God must come down, or they could never rise. He would not be less Divine in becoming a Divine man. He was from eternity the Alone Man in His infinite love and wisdom, that is, in the first principles of humanity. It was necessary that He might draw His children from their degradation to Himself, that He should become a man in last or outermost things, and thus be the First, and the Last (Rev. i.17). Without this, there could be no salvation for the human race; no love, no faith, no hope, no light no victory over self and sin. Men were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death; and there, unless their Father became their Redeemer, hey must remain.

The professors of were law, would coldly say, so be it, all must perish. The law says so much must be done for human help, and if that does not suffice, they must perish. But not so says the Spirit of Love. None must perish, that call be saved. Law is tame, love is the wonder-worker. Law says, it has obeyed the rule; love says there must, if necessary, be new rules. Life is continually showing the play of these two principlesmere low, that adheres to routine, and in crises always breaks down, and love that comes to the rescue, stoops to save, and wonderfully succeeds. In the late Crimean war the troops were perishing in the severe weather, from the want of warm clothing for night and for day. There was abundance of that which was requisite in store, but, before the doors of the storehouses could be opened, many signatures must be obtained, and the parties to give them were distant, and in divers places. The men were starving, dying; the authorities were shaking their heads, but there was no hell, for it; the rules of the service could not be broken. Human lives must be sacrificed to the majesty of rule. Then came female love to help. Miss Nightingale heard of the difficulty, and saw the sad results. She hesitated not for a moment.

Punish me, she said, if you please, but I will have those doors broken open. I will take the responsibility, but the men shall be saved. The stores wore set free, abundance of warm bedding and clothes were procured, and preserved health and life announced the triumph of love over were law.

In the history of one of our best kings we have another striking illustration of the triumph of love over routine, the illustration of love stooping to save. The Danes had wasted England in young Alfreds time, so that the king was forced to hide, the nobles were destroyed, or disheartened, the people were dispersed or overawed. This had continued for a considerable time. Success had made the victorious Danes careless, and hope had begun to show faint life among the Saxons. King Alfred called a little band around him, and animated by patriotism, they determined to strive once more for freedom and for country. They longed for correct information concerning the Danish enemies, but knew not how to get it. The kings love for his country, suggested the means. He undertook to become a minstrel, he took the minstrels dress, sung to the soldiers, sung to the Danish general. In a little time, he gained all the information he needed, and this led the way to the deliverance of the country, and to one of the grand turning points of her history. Routine would be shocked, no doubt, at a king becoming a poor player on the harp; but patriotic love stooped, and conquered. Was he less a king in the poor minstrels garb, than when surrounded by royal splendor? Was he not more a king? An act so great, love so patriotic, would have made royal any man. His love jeopardized its own safety, when needful, that others might be delivered, and the nation be saved. Love, therefore, is the wonder-worker. Love stoops to save, and because God is Infinite Love, He descended to perishing man.

The miracle narrated in our test, illustrates all our positions. At the pool of Bethesda, with its five porches, there was a means of healing. An angel went down at a certain season, and troubled the water; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stept in, was made whole, of whatsoever disease he had.

This, a miracle of itself, as the Jewish Dispensation by the ministry of angels was, among them it answered for the sick in ordinary times; but, there was one poor person there, who bad been suffering thirty and eight years.

He was too weak to fulfil the conditions; others constantly came before him; and unless some other, and unlooked for help, came, there he must lie and perish. But Jesus saw him lie, came to him, and said, Wilt then be made whole? He was the very one the Savior selected.. Jesus looked at him in his helplessness and said, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And, immediately, the men was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked; and on the same day was the Sabbath.

This act of mercy was done by our Lord, not only from benevolence to the impotent man, but as a symbol of the Divine tenderness, to the helpless, everywhere. The pool of Bethesda (the house of mercy) with its water, its five porches, and the healing by angelic influences, represented the Word as it had been, the House of Mercy to a multitude of impotent folk, of blind, and halt, and withered. The five porches represent the sense of the letter, the outside sense, in which, great numbers lie impotent for good, blind to all the true light of wisdom, halting continually in their moral walk, having no spiritual freshness, life, or vigor about them, withered. The angel who came down and troubled the water, before the healing took place, represents the angelic influence, by means of which Divine life was conveyed to the world in all previous dispensations, when men had not seen God at any time (John i. 18). This angelic arrangement, through which the Divine flowed, was represented by the angel who spoke to Moses at the bush; by the angel, who led Israel in the pillar: by the angels, through whom the law was given. Heb. ii. 3.

The angelic arrangement was strong enough at first, and in ordinary times, to succor, to save, and to heal, man. Those who could rise up when they saw the waters moved, who could co-operate, when they saw the Word, living, as it were. But the time came, when there wits a vast multitude, like the impotent man, too weak, to rise and seek for a blessing. Help must come to them. They are powerless--impotent. God must come to them, or there is no salvation. A love less than that of a descending Savior, will not suffice, to kindle life, in the dying embers of worn out hearts.

These, like the impotent man must lie and die, if they are only to be served by ordinary rule. But Divine love sees them lie, and comes to them. Divine love, saw men universally lie perishing, and came to them. They were too low to lay hold on God as the distant incomprehensible Deity, therefore God came down to them as the Divine man. They could not find the Father afar off, they must see the Father in Him. In His tenderness, they might feel the Fathers love; in His counsels, they might see the Fathers wisdom; in His beneficence they might acknowledge the Fathers care; in His pure power, before which evil spirits quailed, they might know the Conqueror of hell; in His resurrection of Himself, they might perceive His power to raise and bless them; in His ascent to heaven, and filling all things with His Holy Spirit, they had the, witness that wherever two or three were gathered together, there He would be in the midst of them.

And, all this was done, not only for their comfort, but for ours. Have there not been seasons when we have been impotent, and lain for a long time, in that case. No one helps us. We have no man to care for us. We are weak and forlorn. We mourn, but apparently no help comes. We fear we must, lie there, and there perish. But no, Divine Love cares for us. Jesus comes. A wonderful presence of the Savior is revealed to us. We feel a new hope awakened in us, and an inquiry felt like a living voice, Wilt thou be made whole? We scarcely dare to hope; we cannot expect so great a blessing. We have been disappointed so often before, we dare not presume upon help now. Presently the Divine voice comes again, Rise, take up thy bed and walk. The heart is elevated, the mind filled with light, our whole being is invigorated. We stop forward, strong in all purposes of Good Jesus has visited us, as He visited the impotent man, and blessed us, as He blessed him.

When God is thus a healer and inspirer to the soul, He is not thought of as the incomprehensible Ruler of the universe, grandly and coldly distant, not as the great Machine Mover, the Infinite Mechanic, ruling only in His omnipotent might. So long as He is thus thought of, the soul lies helpless, impotent to rise, impotent to walk.

But when God comes down to man, infinitely loving and merciful, He comes as Jesus, and thus He wakes and wins the heart. He does not speak to man as cold philosophy does, You ought to do right; you ought to be perfect; go and do what you are not able to do. He says, not, oven, become whole, but, wilt thou be made whole? He fills the soul with new life and joy, and thus brings salvation home to that house. Rise, He says, rise to nobler purposes, to higher aims. Rise to holier love, to angelic excellencies. Take up thy bed and walk.

The bed is a resting place for the night. The souls night is a stilts or shade, or of gloom, and depression. Some nights are pleasant, some are tempestuous, but in all our nights, we find comfort and restoration in a good bed. Our doctrinal system is such a bed for the souls night. We lie upon it, we lest upon it, and we rise recruited to the labors of a new day. Take up thy bed, had its significance for us in the Saviors address to the restored man. Bed is a good place for the night, but not a good place for the day. The soul may lie in its bed, in the night time of trouble, or sorrow, is the trials of life, or in times of exhaustion and repose, but it must not lie too long. Do not dwell with doctrine too long. Do not let that which has been a bed in your night time, be still your bed in the day time. Take up your bed, lift up your doctrine. Walk in the, way of true progress, walk in the duties and uses of daily life. Walk in the path of the Divine commandments. Walk joyously, vigorously, ever onwards, steadily, firmly, listening to the voice that says, This is the way, walk thou in it.

It is not without significance that the duration of the impotent mans infirmity is mentioned--thirty and eight years. No doubt that was the real time, but it also had its spiritual lesson to give. Three, seven, and eight, were sacred numbers, much used among the ancients generally; and in the Old Testament, their frequent and peculiar use, may be noticed. Three, and numbers derived from three, are symbolic of that which is complete in mental things. Hence, me have the three branches on the vine in the Egyptian butlers dream, three baskets in the bakers (Gen. xl.); the three measures of meal, into which heaven was put; and the Saviors saying; Today and tomorrow I cast out devils, and do cures, and the third day I shall be perfected (Luke xiii. 32).

Seven is the number especially appropriated to things most complete in relation to the affections; either complete in their fullness and holiness, or complete in their decay. This use of the number seven as the symbol of what is sacred and complete, is most frequent in the Scriptures. We have the seven days of the week, the seven lambs of the morning offering, the seven lamps of the golden candlestick, the seven Spirits of God. Eight, represents a new commencement; the completion of a former series being involved in seven. The period, thirty and eight, then, implied a completion of all former means of salvation, and a preparation for the new help to come. So it is with a soul about to be blessed with spiritual help. It has tried, and found wanting all its former plans and purposes. It is completely satisfied there is no help in any of them: yet it yearns still for a higher state, a new beginning. It sighs, but hardly hopes for better things.

I would, but cannot rest,

In Gods most holy will;

I know what He appoints is

Yet murmur at it still.

But, if indeed I would,

Though nothing I can do;

Yet the desire is something good,

For which my thanks are due.

The Divine narrative adds--And, on that same day, was the Sabbath.

The Sabbath of the week, is an emblem of the Sabbath of the soul. The Sabbath of the soul is that peaceful state, after struggle and deliverance, when we come into holy rest. No doubt it was the Sabbath day when this cure was effected; but it was mentioned thus to point to a spiritual lesson of far deeper meaning. Whenever the sick soul is restored to health, on that same day is the Sabbath. A holy tranquility, takes the place of suffering; a Divine peace is felt, passing all understanding. Anxiety, pain, sorrow, remorse, foreboding, all vanish; and an interior quiet, with a sweet delight, and confidence, and joy unspeakable, diffuse themselves over the soul. That same day is the Sabbath.

The state of conflict now is past,

The long temptations cease;

Darkness and storms no longer last.

The soul is blessed with peace.

The sum of all our considerations is, that the miracles of our Lord, and of those for which the Divine Word vouches, were as real as if they were literal facts, and nothing more; but at the same time they were so ordered by Divine Providence as if they had spiritual lessons to teach, and nothing more. They were beneficial, to those who experienced them at first, in a natural manner; they are beneficial to Christians of all ages, in a spiritual manner.

Two propositions put forth by the authors of the Essays, in separate portions, when brought together, seem to demand our conclusions, which, however, these authors fail to draw. They admit the value of the spiritual significance of the miracles (Powell, p. 142; Wilson, pp. 202-204); they admit the age, in which the miracles were alleged to have taken place, was one to which such evidences were accommodated and essential (pp. 118, 119; Temple, p. 202). The legitimate conclusion is, that Divine Providence would give what was required, and lay the foundation of the progress of the world upon truth, not upon illusion. The authors of some of the Essays, however, just point to conclusions which would perpetrate the extreme faults to which incomplete reflections would lead. In some portions they hint at mythical and parabolical modes of viewing the historical parts of Scripture, pushed to an extreme which would destroy their character as real history altogether; while in others they lay down the canon that the Scripture has only one sense, which, if that one sense is discovered to be not actual fact, would destroy their value altogether. This is manifestly to be inconsistent with the two truths which we have noticed above, which demand literal miracles, but with a spiritual significance, and plunging into the two errors of pushing the letter too far, and having nothing but the letter; and yet pushing parable too far, and destroying real history.

Of course, no one will deny that there are very many parts in the Divine Word purely parabolic, both in the Old Testament and in the New; but either the statement that they are parables, or something in the contest, or in the circumstances, plainly indicate their character.

One instance also of border-land may be given, where, although the main incidents were outward facts, some portions of the narrative, which appear to be objective, must really have been, subjective. We allude to the temptation in the Wilderness. The scenes described as presented by the powers of darkness can only have been realized in the mental consciousness of the Redeemer. There is no earthly mountain in existence, where all the kingdoms of the world could have been seen, in a moment of time. But evil spirits can present phantasies to the mind in temptation, in which the sensations for the time are as vivid as are those of outward life. This scene, which appears to have been witnessed by the Savior alone, and the immediate spiritual actorsthe infernals, at first, presented in one personified form, as the Devil (see Mark v. 2, 9, 15), and the angels subsequently, who came and ministered to the Savior--is certainly best explained as a mental one. Spirits, can only be visible, to spiritual perception.

The term, too, led up of the spirit, [Greek: aneichthei ton Pneumatos] is so like [Greek: en Pveumati] of St. John (Rev. i. 10), in which, he described the commencement of his spiritual experience, that one may adopt without difficulty a solution so simple and so clear. It was a temptation presented to the consciousness of the Redeemer, prefiguring the temptations which mentally assail all His followers, urging them to three great classes of evils: the desire to interfere with the arrangements of Providence, for the supply of their wants, turn stones into bread (v. 3); the presumption from spiritual pride to tempt Providence by rashness, (v. 6), (to cast themselves down needlessly); and the lust of human glory and the desire for great possessions. Being taken to a high mountain, and shown all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them (v. 8). To accept these as inward, not as outward occurrences, is not a vitiation of our rule, for temptations are really always inward, and these are leading illustrations of great classes. The devil takes us all upon high mountains, and shows us magnificent prospects, which he paints with the gaudy colors of phantasy, and which he promises to give. Alas, for those, who accept as realities these false and airy visions.

Stern truths come, at last, to condemn a life wasted, hopes withered, a soul cheated and desecrated, talents prostituted, and a career that might have been a blessing to mankind, a mockery to the world, and a curse to itself. Happy they who learn from the great Savior to say, to all such baseless promises as evil proffers, Get thee hence, Satan. They, too, will find the tempter will leave them, and angels will come to minister consolation, peace, hope, and joy.

We cannot conclude this discourse, without, once more pressing upon our beloved friends, a deep and steady faith in the reality of the miracles, as recorded in the Gospels. They were the outward and visible signs, of the present God. They were not contrary to the laws of nature. Nature daily obeys her God, who is daily the Wonder-worker. Love is higher than law, and sometimes brings forth higher laws to adapt and modify the lower, when the end requires it. The highest law, the redemption of mankind, required the Highest Love to descend and raise humanity from its depths of degradation, exhibit its own transcendent tenderness and goodness, to warm and attach the hearts of debased mortals to itself, and transform them by the Holy Spirit to a new and regenerated life. The Highest stooped to seek and to save that which was lost. The Day-spring from on high visited us. This was the miracle of miracles; the Incarnation of Love Divine; the appearance of the Infinite in the finite; the manifestation of the Godhead in manhood; the Good Shepherd seeking His sheep. Yet, great as this miracle was--Jehovah bowing the heavens and coming down to begin a new and sanctified humanity, by sanctifying our nature, first in Himself and from Himself, sending out the Holy Spirit with the new flesh and new blood, the goodness and truth, which give eternal life--it would have been a far greater miracle if He had not descended. What! Infinite Love see the world He had created perish, and extend no hand to help? What! God allow hell to triumph, and not interfere to succor and to save? Oh, no! it is impossible. Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee (Isa. xlix. 15).

Thy maker is thy husband: the Lord (Jehovah) of Hosts is his name: and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: the God of the whole earth shall he be called (Isa. liv. 5). God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them (2 Cor. v. 19). So let us adoringly confess the mercy of our Heavenly Father who became our Savior; and, while me rejoice in this miracle, and the others which flowed from it, rejoice that there is something higher and deeper than law, than routine, both among men and in the Deity Himselfthat love to which all things are possible, among men, and from which, and for which, all laws flow, even in God Himself, for God is Love.

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No. 3.
THE GREAT MIRACLE--THE SAVIORS RESURRECTION.

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DISCOURSE NO. III.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE SAVIOR--THE GRAND MIRACLE.

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.-JOHN xx. 19.

THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED, and hath appeared to Simon. Such were the words said by the apostles to each other, when announcing that the Savior was risen.

The great subject that forms the theme for our contemplation today, is the resurrection of our Divine Master. We have just recently been considering the reality, and the spiritual signification of the Lords death. We have sought to obtain some conception of the infinite love that brought the Almighty One into open contact with fallen human nature. And, while we are endeavoring to perceive the Divine mercy of the Lord, in coming down to us, and while we are contemplating the Divine Love, expressed in these glorious words--He saved others; Himself he cannot save,--and who is there that does not perceive that such is the nature of all true love,--of all spiritual--and much more of all Divine affection, we may have the deepest conviction that however low such love may descend to suffer, it will always re-appear in glorious resurrection.

We are now led to consider our Lords resurrection, the announcement of the full glorification of his Humanity. This result was infinitely important in itself, and is most attractive in its lessons for us. The death and resurrection of the Lord teach that when the Humanity of the Savior was allowed to come into contact with the powers of darkness, for the sake of exhibiting the unutterable depth of the Divine Love, He conquered by suffering; conquered by bearing and purifying the nature He assumed, and, not by saving Himself; being content to be maltreated, even to the lest, for mans salvation.

We must ever bear in mind, that there was a Divinity in the Humanity; a Divinity even in His suffering; this was that Divine condescension, that Divine contentedness--to bear and suffer what all hell could inflict. He was glorious even in bearing this for us. There was a Divinity in this. No similar suffering, no similar sorrow, was ever displayed. This depth of sorrow and of love, can only be found in God manifest in the flesh. When all hell was arrayed against Him, and assailing Him with the bitterest violence, He bore it for the sake of others--for the sake of the vilest-the rebellious, who were the instruments of the miseries that He experienced. He bore all these outrages for their sakes. Even at this time the Divinity of His Humanity was manifested. Himself he could not save. But although it seemed that He was deserted and without help, His Heavenly Father cared for Him; Infinite Love saved Him. When all were finite love and finite life had expired, infinite love and life took its place. This was seen in symbol at the temple, when the vail was rent in twain, the whole was then laid open. So in the temple of the Lords body, part was rent, but the Divine love and wisdom descended in all their fullness; filling the temple of His Body. He had not saved himself, but the Infinite Father had saved Him. He had not glorified Himself, but God glorified Him in and for Himself. He then prepared that triumph of His Divine life, His glorious resurrection. He rises, both God and man complete.

All His Humanity made Divine; all His Godhead made Human. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It was this Divine Person then, who manifested Himself so that we might here no doubt that all these glorious facts were accomplished. He rose because there was nom nothing dead about Him; nothing that could be held by death. All the principles of Humanity were there, made perfect. This was the completion of the great work. Today, and tomorrow, I shall do cures, and cast out devils. The third day He was perfected. (Luke xiii. 32.)

It had been intimated from the first, during the Lords life in the world that He should die and rise again; but by reason of the extraordinary nature of such events, the disciples were not prepared for them when they came, although they had been from time to time informed, That the Lord would go to Jerusalem, and be crucified and die, and rise again on the third day. These were facts they could not grasp. Even after the Lord had been crucified, His followers still could not fully comprehend the truth; not fully grasp the fact, that He would rise again. It is said in the ninth verse of this chapter, For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the deed. Not that they had not been told it, but they could not realize it to themselves. It was a matter that they had not, fully brought home to their faith, and therefore it is said, They knew not what the rising of the dead might be. But they were to know, in order that they might know the Lord.

The Lord revealed Himself first to Mary--she who had fondly watched at the foot of the cross during the sad gloom of the crucifixion. He was gone, and she exclaimed, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. The angels had spoken to Simon and John; but His first manifestation was to Mary. Afterwards, He appeared to the two disciples going to Emmaus; subsequently, to the ten, as we have read in our text. They were sitting sorrowfully, thinking of what had occurred; their hearts were heavy with grief, and they thought that the death of the Lord was but the prelude to their own; the doors were shut for fear of the Jews.

They had heard of the vision of angels, but were yet uncertain of the wondrous truth. The word which is here rendered shut, is expressed in the original by a word which signifies barred; and it is of some interest to remember, that the doors were barred where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews. They knew little yet of the import of this great resurrection. They yet shrunk from fear, and felt that the strictest guard was necessary. Some interpreters have applied themselves to this account of the Lords appearance, and supposed that, when He manifested Himself, He was still subject to the laws of time and sense; and that, therefore, the doors would be a very serious hindrance to His progress. They suppose, therefore, He suddenly opened the doors. They can account for his entrance, if it were really so performed. They can imagine they see enough power in, the Lord to force the doors, but they can scarcely conceive how he could have entered, if the doors were shut. This fact, nevertheless, the Gospel confirms, not only by the declaration here, the doors were shut, but also by the repetition of it, in the twenty-sixth verse. We are there informed: Then came Jesus, THE DOORS BEING SHUT, said stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Both by this fact, and by the other intimations of His appearance, as continually given in the Gospel, it is intended to teach us, first, that the Lords Humanity was now no longer what it was. It was, superior to matter, to time, and to space. He came in and out, the doors being shut. He appeared where He would; He was, invisible merely by the closing of the spiritual eyes of those about him. He was glorified. The Divine Love had come down to men in Him, so that He was glorified in all respects. We may say, then, the doors were shut--not opened, either suddenly or slowly. He was now above all material laws. That Jesus would be glorified, is declared from time to time in the Gospel. (John vii. 39; xii. 27, 28; Luke xii. 50.) It was a fact provided for in the Incarnation.

As we have said, His Humanity was a Divine Humanity always. He was a Divine child: the wise men worshiped Him. When the Father put forth the Sonthe First-begotten--it was said, Let all the angels of God worship Him. (Heb. i. 6.)

He was a Divine youth in the temple. We are only imperfect imitations of humanity. The Lord alone is the true Divine man--the more truly Human, the more truly Divine.

In every man, there is a foundation laid by the Lord, that he may be regenerated. We are fallen, but the Lord has left unto us a very small remnant, lest we should be as Sodom, even as Gomorrah. (Isa. i. 9.) Divine Mercy implants in every child the germs of angelic life, and the commencement of the kingdom of God. This heaven in embryo, this germ of every angelic excellence, every human being bears within him. It is the Creators stamp and warrant for immortal happiness. It is not the will of our Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. (Matt. xviii. 14.) Of such is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. xix. 14.) These first germs of salvation appear in childhoods embraces--are felt in childhoods kiss; they are the holy seeds which make salvation possible. The Lord comes to His own in man. So long as there is anything good from Him still remaining, any Israelites in our Egypt, any righteous men in our Sodom, so long destruction tarries. Only when the last impulses of conscience are extinguished, the last embryos, of perishing humanity die within us, is all hope of salvation over. The Savior still comes, but there is none to answer.

Just as the Lord provides for mans regeneration in his birth, so He provided for His own Humanitys glorification in its birth. That Holy Thing that shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God; (Luke i. 35.)

There was from the first, in the Lords Humanity, the Son of God, as well as the son of Mary. The Word was made flesh in Him. There was the Divine in Him as well as the Human, in every part of His nature. The Lord laid on Him, (as it is said in the fifty-third of Isaiah), the iniquities of us all: or as it might be better rendered, Jehovah met in Him the iniquities of us all. Jehovah was there, our nature was there, our frailties were there. While there were all the germs in Him of humanity, there were also all the germs of Divine Humanity, in Him at the commencement of His human life.

These were put forth more and more during the Saviors whole life in the world. It is said, as you find in Luke xiii. 33, Behold I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. This glorious work of perfecting His human nature, described by the apostle (Heb. ii. 10; v. 9) was going on continually. Hence, too, it is described in the Gospel according to John, in the thirteenth chapter and thirty-first and thirty-second verses, Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him; Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him. In this way, there was an inward Divine essence in the Humanity. The Father was in the Son everywhere, like love in a purpose, like a tone in a word, like life in every faculty. While this work of glorification was incomplete the Redeeming Spirit was straitened (Luke xiii 50), but when the glorification was completed in the Divine Humanity, the Father was everywhere in the Son, and the Son embosomed in and surrounded by the Father (John xiv. 10). Then was the Resurrection; then the glorified Savior was manifested in His glorious Humanity. Then the Lord appeared, after overcoming death and hell, triumphing over all evil, and free from all matter, He appeared among His disciples as the center of all happiness, saying, Peace be unto you.

This was the grandest fact in the worlds history. It was the fact of facts. It was the turning point in the progress of humanity. It was the degradation of the universe arrested: a Divine life inserted into the worlds death. It was a new core, from which could spring a world renewed and regenerated; an endless addition to heaven.

In the discourse on the Miracles, we drew attention to the fact, evident from the records of all antiquity, that at the time of the Lords incarnation, the world was in the last stage of a downward course, and trembling on the brink of Diabolism. Belief in religion as a Divine communication, and a Divine law, had died out. The period of the French Revolution in our own time, presents perhaps the nearest parallel.

Insincerity, hypocrisy, and a refined but all-polluting corruption, reigned in the higher circles of society, and a coarse universal brutality in the lower. We know what a dread night was ushered in during the terrible time dwelt upon in the Essay of Mr. Pattison, during the degeneracy from 1688 to 1750. The eighteenth century was a thorough heartless swindle upon mankind; a vile, a brutal, a bankrupt century, as Carlyle names it. The chief churchmen were infidel, the kings were infidel all over Europe, with perhaps one or two exceptions. The Archbishop of Paris, who organized the procession of asses in priests surplices, and desecrated in public the sacred elements of the Sacrament, was but the outward visible sign of the universal infidelity where religion ought to have reigned. The king, Louis Quinze, with his harem in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, was but an exhibition a, little more striking than usual of the contempt in which earths rulers lived of every law of purity and right, human and Divine. The lamp of religion was dying down to the dregs; the light flickered m the socket. It was a period, says Mr. Pattison, of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of language; a day of rebuke and blasphemy. Even those who look with suspicion on the contemporary complaints from the Jacobite clergy, of decay of religion, will not hesitate to say that it was an age destitute of depth or earnestness; an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy was without insight, and whose public men were without character; an age of light (sin?) without love, whose very merits were of the earth, earthy. In this estimate the followers of Mill and Carlyle will agree with those of Newman. (p. 254.) This period, entailed that terrible scourge, the French Revolution, with its consequent wars. The storm was needed to clear away the moral lurid glooms that tainted the whole atmosphere in which mens spirits breathed. This was, to a great extent, a repetition of the epoch of the Saviors advent. In the pages of Tacitus, of Cicero, of Sallust, and of Juvenal, the awful picture of a degenerate world is drawn in terms so dark, and with details so revolting, that one sees the counterpart in the fullest extent of the Apostle Pauls description, which was indeed addressed to the Romans, the then universal rulers.

Even as they did not like to God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which were not convenient; being filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

The pages of ancient history only too faithfully verify the picture of man thus drawn by the pen of the apostle. The Sadduceeism of infidelity, the Phariseeism of hypocrisy and the gross corruption of sensuality claimed the entire allegiance not of the Jews only, but. under one form or another, of all mankind. The whole world lieth in wickedness, said St. John, and the terrible pages of Tacitus manifest the fact that this was as true of the Roman world as of the Jewish. The immense nations of the East we know were no exceptions. The dark places of the earth were full of cruelty, Abominations the most loathsome were idolized. The tyrants and slaves who harassed each other in ceaseless struggles, tortures, and rebellions, presented on earth a representation of the infernal regions, but a few shades lighter, than the grim nations of the dead themselves. There were none righteous, no, not one.

How then, could salvation come to such a world? How could health be poured into the veins of this diseased humanity? How could Lazarus live again, unless One all-powerful to give life to the dead should visit and raise him?

The writers of the Essays seem to have but little sympathy with the supernatural; and some of them to imply that the records of demoniacal possessions in the Now Testament, and the personality of evil spirits, and even the nature of angels ass subjects of a questionable character. (p. 177.) Of course, all subjects are fairly matters of scrupulous inquiry. We have no sympathy with that weakness of mind which esteems any subject too sacred for inquiry.

Things too sacred for inquiry are often only too weak to bear it. But, me are satisfied, that honest and faithful inquiry and reflection will verify the creed of all ages and of all countries, the creed of the Sacred Scriptures, that me are in association with the supernatural, as well as with the natural, every moment. There are worlds visible and invisible.

Millions of spirits walk the earth unseen.MILTON.

The frank and genial lovers of all truth call it natural or supernatural, from Socrates to Channing; confess cheerfully their conviction that there is a ladder of being, graduating between ourselves and heaven, on which the angels of God ascend and descend in communion with the good; there are stages of connection too by which the malignant doers of past sin on earth, who have gone into the inner world, still influence the groveling and the wicked; affecting them with suggestions, from bad to worse, and then to worst.

The unceasing spring of ever-deepening suggestions to the soul prove this. The occurrences of supernatural facts, recorded and unrecorded in almost every family throughout the whole of human existence and history--and not less, certainly, in the present age than any other--prove this. The readiness with which we accept, and are affected by, information which shows that men live and act after death proves this. The sceptic feels a shudder creep over him even while he denies. The great Scripture doctrine of the ministry of angels, and its counterpart, of the agency of deceased wicked men, naturally explain the contrary influences that affect us all constantly, as well as throw light on the necessity of Redemption, and unveil the unseen causes of the debasement of mankind, down to the Redeemers time. There was a mental association between evil men on earth, and evil men who heel left the earth, ever increasing in orient and malignity, as each succeeding generation added increasing numbers to the vile hordes of the evil.

The fallen condition of the ancient world before the coming of our Lord, is fully admitted by the Essayists. The moral degradation of Greece and Rome are too well known to be questioned.

Fleshly lusts not only widespread, but defiled and worshiped, gave a hideous pre-eminence to vice, which proclaimed the utter desecration of the conscience. The vile prostrations before Bacchus and Venus in the Greek and Roman world, and the loathsome abominations of the religions of India, Tartary, and China, all alike give an appalling illustration of the words of the Gospel They sat in the region and shadow of death. Mankind were groping for the wall like the blind, they groped as if they had no eyes; they stumbled at noon-day as in the: night; they were in desolate places as dead. They looked for judgment but there was none; for salvation, but it was far from them. Isaiah lix. 10,11. One only hope the Scriptures constantly hold forth, and all the religions of mankind embody--that God would visit the world, and redeem it. The Avatars of Hindooism, the Boods of Boodhism, the advents of the gods in Grecian Mythology, all embody this one hope, given; in the earliest Scriptures, that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpents head. This one hope, held up persistently throughout the whole line of prophets, gathering fullness and clearness with each successive utterance, was, that in the Savior, Jehovah would become a man. (Isa. xl. 3, 10; ch. xliii. 11; ch. xlv 115, 21, 22; Hosea xiii. 4, 14; Zech. xiv. 9.) God would be manifest in the flesh, Godhead in Manhood. This hope, the New Testament takes up, and assumes to have been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. It is God becoming a central Divine Man and thence radiating redemption into the world. It is the Divine descending to save the human, the human alienated, from the Divine, being desecrated, polluted and lost, but capable of salvation by its adorable Parent,-- that Parent who was from eternity, Infinite. Love and Wisdom, the very essence of all that is human. The whole life of the Savior is the life of the Divine in the Human. Nothing but Divinity could have originated such a life; nothing but reality could have suggested it.

The problem was, how the world could be saved. War had wasted provinces, kingdoms, continents. It could harass and destroy, change one tyrant for another, but it could not save. Philosophy had a pompous promise for man.

It prosed, and explained, and reasoned, and expounded, and divided, and disputed, and contradicted itself in learned attempts at exploring the origin of things, and ended in laughing at its own absurdities. In nothing it began, and in nothing it ended. The old falsified religions were worn out. Their priests could not seriously perform their idle service. All was hopeless, helpless. How was the world to be saved? The answer of the prophet is, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, and The Prince of Peace. (Isa. ix. 6.)

We can see now, that salvation for the world, and for each individual, can only come from the supremacy of pure love. But how could this be seen two thousand years ago, in the worlds murkiest hour, but; by Supreme Love manifesting itself, and how could Supreme Love manifest itself but as a man, a man of sorrows in the transgessions of the world, suffering yet saving, dying yet rising again. No man has ever saved himself. It is the truth that has come to him individually that has saved him. No nation has ever saved itself, the truth that has been brought to it has saved it. So the world could not save itself, the Truth in Person, the Word made flesh, coming to it alone could save it.

This descent of Divine Life in the Son from the Father to vivify the morally-dead world is the very burden of the New Testament, the very soul and proclamation of the Old Testament, and certainly what reason hails as the only mode of saving a lost world. He who ignores God in Christ, the Divinity of the Father in the Son, ignores, as it appears to us, the greatest fact in the worlds history, the fact which accounts for all its present progress, and gives warrant for all the glory that shall follow. There were wonders of love, and wonders of power, as well as of wisdom, in the Son from the Father. No man knew the Son but the Father. (Matt. xi. 27.) He was God hiding Himself to approach man (Isa. xlv. 15), but revealing Himself to save him. And He has saved man, will save, and can save man to the uttermost.

With the Divine Man, whom the New Testament places in the foreground, all the wonders it relates are in harmony. Each fact, each occurrence is human, but Divinely human. He has compassion upon the multitudes and then creates them bread. He sympathizes and even weeps with Mary and Martha, and then raises their brother from the dead. He suffers, bearing with Divine dignity, contumely, contempt, insolence, blows, crucifixion, and death, still breathing compassion to others, Divine Love towards his destroyers to the last, and then He raised His human, from the deed. No man taketh my life from me, I lay it down of myself I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John x. 18.) His death was human, in which the Divine tenderness and love was manifested, in suffering. His resurrection was the Divine love now triumphant, now glorious, malting the human form the very fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Coll. n. 9.)

Here, then, was a life Divine, a love triumphant, a doctrine, and an evidence to proclaim to the world, of a kind that could save, of a power that would save.

Without the resurrection as a crown to the life, the apostles would have had a defeat to preach, not a triumph: that would never have raised the world.

Let us contemplate the twelve active apostles going forth, including Paul, who seems to have been actually chosen personally, by the Savior, instead of Judas. They preach Jesus, and the resurrection. Their story if true. This, Peter proclaimed, and the rest confirmed, at Jerusalem, where the event happened. This Jesus, he said, hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. (Acts ii. 32.) This fact, instead of being disproved on the spot, was so cogent, that combined with the inward convictions pressing upon men from the Spirit of the Lord, three thousand were converted in one day. (verse 41.)

Peter and John went into the Temple, and after raising the lame man in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, reproaches the people around with having killed the Prince of life, whom GOD HAD RAISED UP, WHEREOF WE ARE WITNESSES. (Acts iii. 15.)

The Sadducees came round and joined with the priests, and the captain of the temple, being grieved that they taught the people in Jesus (scanner unable to insert phrase) the resurrection of the dead (Acts iv. 2.) Now the two apostles were seized, and cast into prison. After being all night confined, did they quail the next morning and flinch from their testimony from fear, or from guilt? Not in the least. They appealed to the fact just recently performed in the name of Jesus, of the good deed done to the impotent man and said, Be it known unto you that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God hath RAISED FROM THE DEAD, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. Now, when they the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus: (Acts iv. 10, 13.)

They were threatened, they were commanded, not to speak at all, nor to teach in the name of Jesus, but in vain. In the court, and amid the crowd of hearers, at their own home, they declared boldly they were witnesses of the Saviors resurrection. With great power gave the apostles witness of the RESURRECTION of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. (verse 33.)

The Sadducees were filled with indignation at a doctrine and a fact which entirely overthrew their teachings; and they, together with the high-priest, who at that time was also a Sadducee, opposed with all their might. But, instead of producing the body of the Lord Jesus, or otherwise convicting the apostles of fraud, they determined to try the prison, They laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. (Acts v. 18.) This time, however, by some means, the apostles were set free; the sacred history says, the angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. And early in the morning there certainly the apostles were, not abashed or overcome with dread, but boldly declaring we ought to obey God rather than man. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.

And WE ARE HIS WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS, and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.

The high-priest, and the rulers, and the council, and all the senate of the children of Israel had sent the apostles to prison, and now were astonished at finding them free, and not only free, but in the temple, declaring the self-same things as before, Jesus has risen, and we are His witnesses. The council were thereto disprove it if they could. They were on the spot where the alleged resurrection had taken place, hardly three months before. They had every motive to exterminate the new religion. They were bearded in their very temple, by men who declared nothing at second-hand, but said WE ARE THE WITNESSES. Under these circumstances can any one conceive that if the fact of the Lords resurrection could have been successfully disproved, it would not have been done. But all that was done is recorded. When they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

Now, how can we reconcile these circumstances with anything but the truth of the alleged RESURRECTION, or at least with the belief of it by the apostles, and the inability to disprove it on the part of the Jewish authorities. Could the apostles have acted as they did unless they believed the facts of the Lords life, death, and resurrection. They were timid in the hour of danger; they forsook their master and fled; they were disheartened when they saw Him die. But now they are bold, and face anything, because they say they have seen Him again and again; they are witnesses of His resurrection. They were formerly divided and inclined to dispute; now they are united and enthusiastic. They suffer gladly, they preach boldly, and multitudes believe. And all this in Jerusalem itself, within three months of the death of the Savior.

Now what must we, what can me, believe of these things if me do not accept them as grounded on rigid truth.

No people were so thoroughly in the letter of things, so thoroughly matter of fact, as the Jews. They refined, and particularized, but all on literal trifles, losing the spirit of a precept, by a minute attention to literal applications; yet, among this people, and in their very temple, a new religion appeared, preached by Jews, asserting a great fact, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the PREACHERS AS WITNESSES ready to testify against all opposition, and under all affliction, even unto death, the resurrection and triumph of Him who had died. This was indeed essential to the spread of the religion. Without this, it was a failure, and could make no progress. It must have been crushed in its bud, and, with it, all the past progress which has grown out of the Christian religion, the progress of 300 millions in the present age, and an ever increasing number. It was needful then that this central fact should be placed before the world in the most unexceptionable manner, and so IT WAS. Here were the original witnesses testifying boldly and freely, having themselves embraced new and higher truths against their national and religious prejudices, against their Jewish nature, proclaiming the brotherhood of all mankind, flowing from the Lord Jesus: these truths consequent upon facts of which they had been the living observers, and especially of the fact of the resurrection, testifying to their countrymen on the spot, immediately after the event testifying in the temple, in the prison--testifying before the council--testifying when beaten--testifying when they saw Stephen put to death, and when threatened with death themselves-testifying and glorying in their testimony, notwithstanding the loss and danger, the charge of apostasy, the hatred, the opprobrium and the martyrdom to which they daily exposed themselves, and this not for a speculative opinion, but for the declaration of a palpable fact, Jesus and His resurrection, which to them, if it were not true, must have been a palpable falsehood. Can any explanation be given that reason can receive, except this, that the statement was true; that the effect thus manifest had an adequate cause?

They had not had a slight opportunity of observation. It was no single vision they had seen, a vision explicable by the supposition of a momentary illusion, caused by a vivid imagination. They had not readily believed the wondrous fact. They were astonished, and hesitated, even about what they saw and heard. The Lord had appeared to them, again and again. On the resurrection morning, He was seen first by the women, especially by Mary Magdalene. They had come with spices to manifest their feelings towards Him they loved, by offering them at his venerated sepulcher, and if possible to anoint Him. On the first sight of the stone disturbed, they were alarmed, but were permitted to see an angel, who addressed them, took them into the sepulcher, and told them that their Master and Savior was risen. These occurrences were so surprising that they could scarcely realize or believe them. They went, however, and told the apostles; and two of these, Peter and John, hasted to the sepulcher. Within, they saw two angels. They found what the women had said so far true that the body of the Lord could not be found, only the clothes in which it had been wrapped. They wondered and pondered, yet believed not. Two disciples who had gone to Emmaus, returned, and declared they had seen and conversed with the Lord. Though now in another form, not material, as He had been, only known when those inward eyes were open, which ordinarily were closed, the eyes of the spiritual body, yet they had fully seen Him, and were sure of His resurrection.

That same day, he appeared to the: apostles called the eleven, although Thomas was absent. The doors were shut (barred), (scanner unable to insert phrase) when the Savior appeared amongst them. But, from their sight, and His words, they had no doubt of His presence. They rejoiced in this new and definite manifestation, and they announced to Thomas the wondrous circumstance we have seen the Lord.

Thomas seems to have been the representative of the rationalists of that time, a well-disposed man, but not too ready to believe, asking for complete external demonstration.

He declared he would not believe unless he should see and touch the print of the nails, and thrust his hand into the sacred side of his risen Master; a rude proof certainly, but suggested evidently by honest doubt. In eight days the Savior again appeared, again the doors being shut (barred), the whole of the faithful apostles being present, including Thomas. Full proof was given of the actual presence of the Divine Redeemer, even to the satisfaction of Thomas, who, when thus convinced, hailed the Savior with the exclamation, My Lord and my God. A third time, the Lord appeared to the disciples collectively, when they were fishing (John xxi. 4.) Another time he appeared to 500, according to the Apostle Paul, the greater part of whom were still living when the apostle wrote (1 Cor. xv. 6), and lastly, the eleven apostles, with many others, saw His ascension. (Acts i. 9.)

These, and probably many unrecorded appearances (John xxi. 25, Acts i. 3) formed the infallible proofs upon which the apostles underwent so decided a change that, from being timid and fearful doubters themselves, they became the undoubting and enthusiastic witnesses of the truth, and the proclaimers of their Masters kingdom. They hesitated no more. In labors, in difficulties, in stripes, and in death, they were faithful to their mission; they were witnesses of the resurrection. They were successful witnesses also. Their earnestness, their courage, their manifest truthfulness, their daring, their living zeal, their self-forgetfulness for the truth, defying danger explicable on no other principle than their having truth to declare; and this, not respecting opinions only, but respecting facts, and in favor of a religion of purity, sincerity, and goodness. These, to say nothing here of their miraculous powers, were the invincible reasons that converted thousands, and established the New Church of the Savior. These are the evident and the alleged causes, and they are perfectly sufficient to account for the continued and undoubted triumph of the Church, the great fact that has continued from the first century to the present day.

If we do not admit this solution, so natural, so complete, and so fully testified by all documents from the first century onwards, what must we believe?

Can we suppose that a number of men combined together, to give up the religion of their country, a traditional religion, revered as the very gift of the Almighty, sanctioned by the most wonderful miracles, inwoven into the national life of the most tenacious people in the world, confirmed by many centuries of time, and long venerated customs, hallowed by religious services daily presented, and connected with. imposing structures, and all that individuals and nations hold sacred; and that these men mode this change in their faith land life in favor of a religion of truth and goodness, because of facts which they averred they had witnessed, and persevered in their declarations through loss, imprisonment, long years of toil and danger, and ultimately through death itself, and yet all their pretended facts were only fabrications? Are we to believe this? Really unbelief is fearfully credulous.

Or, must we suppose that about the time of Nero, some documents,* twenty-seven in number, some appearing in one part of the Roman dominions and some in another, were forged by persons unknown, alleging the most extraordinary things, as having taken place within the life-time of many persons appealed to and alluded to, and that these documents were not only accepted without question, but that thousands of people changed their most cherished convictions of religion and duty, and on such baseless grounds began a dispensation which has changed the face of the world and given rise to a progress undoubtedly immensely superior to the old world it changed, and with undoubted signs of ever-growing nearness to complete victory over sin, fraud and misery, on earth, as well as peopling the higher abodes of our Heavenly Father.

Can this be a rational and philosophical account of the issue of effects from adequate causes? With facts, with undoubted truths, it is difficult enough to induce men to change their convictions, and still more their habits, to any great and lasting extent; but to imagine that preachers have changed their own faith and braved difficult labors for years, and painful deaths, to prepare men for a better world, on what they must have known were merely forged papers, and have succeeded is triumphing over opposing multitudes, rulers and ruled, and, undetected, accomplishing their fraudulent impositions,--this is really so outrageous a supposition that it is wholly untenable.

* The books of the New Testament were separate before the Council of Nice, A. D. 324, and should be regarded as a collection of separate testimonies. It is occasionally asked. by inquirers if there are no historical works of the times of the New Testament which refer to the events connected with the rise of Christianity. The short incidental notices in Pliny, Suetcnius, and Juvenal, heathen writers of the time, may be referred to, but the true reply is, that the New Testament itself is a collection of documents, originally separate, all being parts directly illustrating each other, and containing the separate direct histories, and letters relating to the great event, of the birth of the new religion.

But, we must believe that the apostles acted the unaccountable part we have suggested, or that there were no apostles, and multitudes of men began to change their religion from a belief in forged unauthenticated documents, both of which propositions seem really incredible; or, lastly, accept the facts of Christianity, the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, as witnessed by His apostles, and followed by the existence of the Church. The Church began to exist at the epoch named, it did work its way and triumphed. Let those who will not accept as truth, the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ as offered in the New Testament itself, assign some other, equally sufficient and satisfactory.

There is however another witness of the resurrection, the apostle Paul. And last of all, He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. (1 Cor. xv. 8.)

This apostle, formerly a zealous persecutor, well-intentioned, learned, but prejudiced, while hunting the disciples of the Lord with cruel fervor, was suddenly arrested in his course; he fell to the earth, trembling and astonished; at length he arose, unable to see earthly objects, but declaring he had seen and heard the Lord Jesus. For three days, he was without sight, but at the end of that time, he was visited by a Christian, one Ananias, fearful of him of whom he had heard as a determined waster of the Churches, but commanded as he said, by the Lord to visit tide persecutor now humbled. He did so; as it were scales fell from the penitents eyes at the prayer of Ananias, and he went forth changed in his life and purposes, dedicating both, now, to that Jesus whom he before opposed.

This man continued faithful through life to his new convictions; in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths oft, of the Jews receiving five times forty stripes save one, twice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice suffered shipwreck, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethen,* in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. (2 Cor. xi, 23, 27.) The changed course, and the fearful tribulations undergone by the apostle are facts undisputed, the reason he gave for this transformation was always the same I have seen the Lord Jesus and he has commanded me to preach this Gospel. This he declared at Damascus, this at Jerusalem. To the Jews, and to the Greeks, to the circumcised, and the uncircumcised, he gave the same testimony. Before King Agrippa, before the high-priest, before the Roman Governors Felix and Festus, he had the one thing to Preach, the resurrection of the dead, as manifested in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus whom he had seen. This he declared in all his epistles, and this he desired to declare in the presence of Caesar. Here, surely is no mean witness of the resurrection. We may suppose him an enthusiast, and a visionary, if we are quite certain we have solid proofs, that visions are not realities to the inner sight, but the certainly was not insincere, and when he was the companion of the other apostles, he sometimes gravely differed from them (Acts xxi. 21; Gal. ii. 9, 13); and, if they had been wanting in truthfulness h, would have been sure to proclaim it. He had a groundwork for his knowledge of the Gospel, and his authority to preach distinct from theirs; he had seen the Lord himself, and bed revelations direct from Him.

The circumstance of the Apostle Paul, always acting and suffering with the other apostles, proves that they were faithful men in ms estimation, and if they did not live a life of pain, and die a death of martyrdom to induce their fellow men to become good, by believing a lie, then the facts of which they witnessed must be true, and especially the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Indeed, it may be truly said that no single fact has had testimony so efficient in evidence, as this fact of the resurrection. The sealed tomb, the terrified keepers, the silent and baffled priests; the disheartened, doubting, and then exulting apostles; Thomas objecting, and then adoring; the whole sealing their testimony by their sorrows and their blood; the Church winning its may against all opposition, and ever widening and deepening its influence under the providence of the Most High, as servants of Him whose name was exalted above every name (Phil. ii. 9), all this forms an accumulation of testimony invincible to the seeker after truth, strong enough to afford a sufficient means of bringing again to a benighted world life and immortality to light.

* There were false brethren then, and had there been any collusion and imposition their difference and divisions must have brought it out.

The resurrection of the Lord was not the resurrection of a spirit, it was the resurrection of a body, the body of God-man, no doubt, but still the resurrection of a body. He said A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. (Luke xxiv. 39.)

In this, our Lord is First and Last, as well as in all other things. For mediation, between His hidden Deity which no man hath seen, or can see. (John i. 18; 1 Tim. vi. 16.) His Humanity, even to the very body, though glorified, is still needed. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Col. ii. 9.) There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. ii. 5.) To bring His Love and Wisdom in power upon earth, to redeem mankind, He assumed a Humanity, even to the body. Son of God and Son of man, that He might seek and save that which was lost. To be a perpetual Redeemer, he glorified and raised the body, that the Holy Spirit might flow through it. (John vii. 39; xx. 22.) In that glorified humanity, all power is His, in heaven and on earth (Matt. xxviii. 18); the Government is on His shoulder. He is the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.

The angelic host now adore God in His Divine Humanity. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. (Rev. v. 12.)

Mr. Wilson has well said, that, according to St. Paul, our Lords resurrection was a prerogative resurrection. (p. 163). Every man in his own order. [Scanner unable to insert phrase]. The prerogative of the Savior is to govern both worlds, those of mind and of matter. He has, therefore, a body to communicate with, and protect the earth, and will thus reign Lord and King for ever and ever. (Rev. xi. 15.)

We see with pleasure that Mr. Wilson draws clearly the distinction made by the apostle between the Lords resurrection and that of man. The Lords body, having no human father, was different from that of man, though, from the mother, in the likeness of sinful flesh, the Divine element was in his body from the first. That holy thing that shalt be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. (Luke i. 35.) This was never to see corruption. With this, therefore, the Lord rose. He did not leave it behind him, as man does his earthly body, and in this glorified body, He is the Father in the Son, the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Regenerator.

We stay only for a moment to note the satisfaction with which we observe the Vicar of Great Staughton recognizes the resurrection of man, not as the gross, conception of the aimless recalling of scattered atoms from the soil, at some unknown distant day, but as the rising of the real man in a spiritual body immediately after death. He says of Paul,--first, he represents the rising to life again, not as miraculous or exceptional, but as a law of humanity; and he treats the resurrection of Christ not as a wonder, but as a prerogative instance. Secondly, he shows, upon the doctrine of a SPIRITUAL BODY, how the objections against a resurrection of a flesh. and blood body, fall to the ground. (National Church, p. 163.) Again, he says,So in Luke xxii. 27, 35, the Sadducees are dealt with in a like argumentative manner. They understood the doctrine of the resurrection to imply the rising of men with such bodies as they now have; the case supposed by them loses its point when the distinction is revealed between the animal and the angelic bodies.

A similar clear view of mans resurrection is evidently that of Bunsens, mentioned with approbation by Professor Williams, who remarks, in reference to Bunsen,But the second volume of Gott in der Geschicte, seems to imply that if the author recoils from the fleshly resurrection and Indian millennium of Justin Martyr, he still shares the aspiration of the noblest philosophers elsewhere, and of the firmer believers among ourselves to a revival of conscious and individual life, in such a form of immortality, as may consist with union with the Spirit of the Eternal Lawgiver. (P. 90.) Surely the time is coming when all Christians will understand and accept the apostolic doctrine which science is teaching to be the only possible one, and reason accepts as the only satisfactory one--the resurrection at once in a spiritual body. There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial. (1 Cor. xv. 40.) Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. (verse 50.) And, when the earthly house of this tabernacle falls off, look not for the living amongst the dead, but remembering the words of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life--see the rising immortals in their spiritual bodies entering the inner circles of their Fathers kingdom, while faith listens reverently, and trustingly, to the Divine words,He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; all live to Him. (Luke xx. 38.)

We return again to the Lords resurrection. Though Mr. Wilson evidently accepts that great truth, as well as the truth of mans resurrection, yet he is not very hopeful of seeing the Gospel narratives as clearly harmonious as faith hopes for and desires. He says, But, neither to any defect in our capacities, nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narrators, can we attribute the difficulty, if not impossibility of reconciling the genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke, or the chronology of the Holy Week, or the accounts of the Lords resurrection. (Essays &c.--National Church, p. 180.)

The Vicar of Great Staughton, in many parts of his Essay so plainly admits and suggests a spiritual significance in the Scriptures, that one cannot but wonder that in the instances cited by him, where difficulties exist in harmonizing the Gospels, all reference to spiritual significance should have failed him. Nay, he says, there can be no reasonable presumption of a hidden sense to account for the apparent discrepancies he finds so perplexing. me cannot but imagine that here again we have the same feeling as that which addressed the Savior at the well of Samaria. Sir, the well is deep, and thou hast nothing to draw with. Yet it is a sad case when me are compelled to feel our helplessness, and deplore that nothing in our religious system can aid us. We have nothing to draw with, nor, we think, has any one else.

In this case, too, it is the more deplorable, because the confession that the Gospels cannot be reconciled by us in the letter, and that there is no reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, amounts to a surrender of Divine revelation as existing in a definite form, in a Divine Book as the Word of God. We ought to look this alternative full in the face. If the Sacred Volume is not definitely Divine, inspired by Infinite Wisdom, composed according to definite laws, for the Spiritual sustentation, comfort, and strength of mankind, but only Divine as having some truth mixed with error and some holy purpose in it, more or less like ten thousand other books, then are we still at sea, compassless, rudderless. We have no Word of God. In the sense of a term the Word of God are the utterances of men, partly right and partly wrong. Our books are as Divine as they. We have Divine Life flowing into us, and with the admixture, more or less, of the human element, it influences our utterances and our writing. This would indeed be a sorry result of our progress, and of our science. If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do? Again, the Church will cry out as Mary of old, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. How do we know, however, that there is no hidden wise design, justifying these differences of statements.

There would have been no use for four gospels, to say just the same thing. They would not have been four in such case, but only one repeated four times. Does not such an assertion grow out of a foregone, perhaps unconsciously received, conclusion, that Divine revelation is only a record of the past, not a living speech to every soul that listens. Yet the Word of the Lord is Spirit and Life. It is not body and death. Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter i. 21.) The Word is a fire, the Word is a hammer. (Jer. xxiii. 29.) The Word is the sword of the Spirit. (Heb. iv. 12.) The Word is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. (Ps. cxix. 72.)

The great and the good of the first six centuries of Christianity* had a profound conviction that there were Divine reasons why four Gospels were written; and these reasons, or some of them, it is not difficult to define.

* On this subject see Nobles Plenary Inspiration.

The value of the Gospels is inestimable, as the record of the Divine Life of the Savior in the world, but it is not less so as the means of producing the Life of the Savior in us. Christ in you, is the hope of Glory.

Jesus in the world redeemed it. Jesus in the miniature world of each soul, saves it. He must be born in us, live in us, die in us, and rise again in us, or he will never reign in us. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. (Rom. viii. 9.) Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man will open the door I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me. (Rev. iii. 20.) Now the great power of the Gospels is, the power of thus introducing the Savior to the soul, that He may walk in us and live in us. (2 Cor. vi. 16.) Of His own will, begat He us, by His Word of Truth. (James i. 18.) If we advance in the regenerate life, all the great scenes of the Gospel will, in miniature, be transacted in us, and the Gospels contain the truths which are mirrors by which our progress may be read as well as sustained. The Lord lives with us, for a while, and then lives in us. (John xiv. 17.) We know Him for a time as one who is a Savior to us, historically and doctrinally; the period comes, however, when He is uplifted into our inmost affections; nay, above them all, and reigns there for evermore. (John xiv. 23.)

He dies, as an external doctrinal Savior. He rises as an internal living Savior, inspiring the heart. A crisis comes in the spiritual history of every Christian, he dies with the Lord, and rises again with Him. We suffer with Him first, and reign with Him afterwards.

In the solemn crisis of the souls progress, the terrible scene of the crucifixion is re-enacted. Self-will, pride, envy, lust, discontent,--each with its army of followers, arraign the Lord within. He is opposed, mocked, beaten, crucified. All religion is sullenly renounced; not ostensibly, perhaps, but really. We will not have this man to reign over us. Still, there are better sentiments withinlike a Mary, and a John, and a Joseph of Arimathea. They watch round, and lament, and cry for deliverance. If they cannot have Him living, they cling to the deed body of religion, and of the Lord, with veneration and love. They regard the Word with hallowed love, as containing Divine Truth, though they do not, as yet, see or feel its presence.

My Lord is dead, they say,

Oh, when will He arise;

His power and peace again display,

And bless my waiting eyes.

O burst the awful tomb,

Jesus, my Lord ascend:

Dispel once more my spirits gloom,

The night of sorrow end.

They watch, and ponder, and pray, and come to anoint with spices. The Word is a tomb, which they know contains the Savior. For the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. Heaven and earth pass away, but the Word of the Redeemer will not pals away. System after system, dispensation after dispensation, comes and goes, as wave follows wave; but Divine Truth still remains the source of future progress.

The Lord dies, as it were, or is not acknowledged, to one class of men, but He is in His Word, and will surely rise again.

He is in a tomb, in which never man has been laid.

The Resurrection of the Lord in the soul and in the Church, is what the Word depicts, and what the Divine Wisdom has in view, in describing the Resurrection of the Savior. The one is as red as the other. The Resurrection of the Savior in the soul, is as essential to mans salvation as the Resurrection of the Savior in person was to the worlds redemption. Now, if we be dead with Christ, me shall also live with Him. (Rom vi. 8.) If there he evils in us which crucify the Son of God afresh, so are there holy affections in us that watch for His Resurrection.

But this Resurrection in the soul, and indeed the whole life and operation of the Savior within, take place by the same general stages, yet with differences in detail, according to the class of character to which a mind belongs. Four great groups may he seen without difficulty: men of action, men of doctrine, men of inward thought, men of inward love. Four streams were said to flow out from the one source in paradise, the symbols of heavenly wisdom accommodated to end class; four living ones to fill the throne in heaven, the symbols of heavenly excellence and happiness attained by each; and why not four Gospels, to describe the mode in which the Divine Regenerator trains each for their spirit-work, and for their eternal home? Why attribute to chance, and to imperfection, those differences of detail which the Holy Spirit intended to represent, those differences in character and experience which really distinguish the children of the Lord? The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. (Ps. xix. 1.)

Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter i. 21.) They were moved to insert this, or to omit that detail, to place the events in this or that order, as the Divine Wisdom required for its spiritual teaching. The great and general features, would teach the general lessons of duty and of doctrine; the particular details would address themselves to the inner experiences of the soul, according to the differences of each class of mind.

This difference of object and character in each Gospel is easily discernible, and will impress itself on the devout and thoughtful reader. Matthews Gospel is so full of injunctions to the performance of good works, so incessant in its commands to do, so frequently reiterates the necessity of fruits, as essential to the character of the Christian exhibited as a tree, that many of those who preach the emasculated Gospel of only believing, have not hesitated to declare this Gospel to be filled for the greater part with were morality, and to suppose the genuine Gospel not to have been revealed at the time our Lord taught, but to have been given afterwards through Paul. It is true, indeed, that in the glorious Sermon on the Mount, the very pith and broad charter of the Gospel, the word faith only occurs once, and then only in the sense of trust and confidence in the Divine will and Providence. The Lord insists perpetually on keeping the commandments as the indispensable requisite for heaven. In no case can a men enter heaven without. Whoso breaks the least commandment will be called least there; whosoever clods and teaches them will be called great there. (Matt. v. 20, 21.) Do the will of God, Do what I say. Not; every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not, prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from ye that WORK iniquity. (Matt. vii. 21-23.) This Gospel of obedience, of course, implies faith, for no one will do a duty unless he believes he ought to do it; no one will obey a command unless he believes in the authority of Him who commands. Love, faith, obedience are all implied in DOING; and when our Savior in this Gospel by Matthew places Christianity before us in its practical character, it is not to exclude, but to include, that humble love which rejoices to piece the Divine will above its own will, that trustful Spirit which confides in the rectitude of Divine truth, and that willing obedience which asks, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

The Christian, however, to whom this Gospel is addressed, is the Christian prepared to do his Lords will unquestioning, and this is the early state of every Christian.

This Gospel of DOING, addressed to the MAN OF DUTY, is rightly placed the first, and all its descriptions and narratives will be found to have a, remarkable practical external bearing. Matthew is pre-eminently the evangelist of obedience.

In Mark there is much more frequent reference to doctrine. When this evangelist describes the Savior as teaching, he especially relates that they were astonished at His doctrine. When the unclean spirits were cast out men said, What new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him. (Mark i. 22-27.) Peter, the apostle of doctrine, is oftener mentioned in this Gospel than in any other, and particularly by the single term, Peter. A literal reason has been given for this, which has been supplied from very ancient records in the church, that Mark was the companion of Peter, who mentions him 1 Peter v. 13, and that naturally he would give distinctness to all proceedings connected with that apostle; but we cannot doubt the spiritual reason is the better one. The Gospel of Mark was intended to relate the Saviors life, not only such as it occurred, but also such as it will again be found in the experience of the doctrinal Christians.

The Gospel of Luke is adapted to the man of inward thought, and the events recorded in it are so ordered by the Divine Wisdom, that they describe the regeneration of the soul, and the discernment of heavenly things such as they occur in the inwardly reflecting mind. There is a striking instance of this distinction of character in the Gospel, as exemplified in the account of the behavior of the two thieves at the crucifixion. Matthew and Mark represent both malefactors as joining the railing multitude, and reviling the crucified Redeemer. Luke mentions only one as railing, and the other, he informs us, reproved his more vicious companion, and expressed a full faith in the Divine Sufferer before him. Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. (Luke xxiii. 42.)

The ordinary way of reconciling the accounts is that the first two evangelists record what happened at the beginning of the crucifixion, when both thieves reviled, while Luke relates what happened near the termination of the suffering, when one had been brought to a better state, and now humbly trusted in Jesus. The literal reason for the discrepancy is good, so far as it goes, but the spiritual reason goes deeper, and is not only perfectly satisfactory, but is intended to convey most weighty instruction. The Crucifixion was a graphic living picture of the mental state of mankind when the Church is at its end. The Lord is rejected, hated, and transfixed they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to open shame. (Heb. vi. 6.) But when the fallen Church robs her Lord of His authority, rejects and crucifies Him, her state is represented by these two thieves, and she is herself rejected and crucified by the world. She has robbed the Lord of His glory, and man of his good. She has prostituted to herself what was meant for the universal good. She is convicted and condemned. All such a Church are regarded as alike to the external observer; they believe the same false doctrines; they say the same things; they are parts of the same evil system. To one who looks at the things in the light to which the Gospels of Matthew and Mark are adapted, all revile the Savior. But inwardly there are two great classes--those who love darkness rather then light, because their deeds are evil; and those who have been taught by education, custom, and fashion, to go with the multitude, but inwardly love light, and desire better things. These in heart do not deny. They believe they are doing God service, even when speaking against Him, and the truths he owns. Seen by the Lord, and by men of inward thought, they do not revile when they seem to revile, and because they are inwardly better than their creed--better than their speech--they are speedily converted like St. Paul, and the penitent malefactor; where they had railed in ignorance, they penitently adore. The Gospel according to Luke, then, because it describes things accommodated to the mind of the Christian of inward thought, places every subject it describes in the lights in which they are seen by him. The Gospel of John has always been regarded in the Church as the Gospel of Love. It describes things as LOVE sees them, Love learns them, and Love does them.

The character of the evangelist was such as to qualify him to be a proper medium for such a Gospel. He was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He leaned upon the breast of Jesus. To him was committed the Saviors mother, and he beheld in vision the descent of the New Jerusalem, the golden city, the symbol of a Church of celestial love. The Gospel given then by Infinite Wisdom through him, was the Gospel of Love, given, and it contains the life of the Lord as seen and heard by His loving disciple, and descriptive of the phases of the Divine life in the loving Christian. In the soul of such one, the Savior turns all the water of strict and purifying truth, into the new wine of tenderest wisdom. He shows Himself and the Father to be One, and when He examines Peter, it is not to ask him what he believes, but, Lovest thou me?

These various aims and objects of the Divine Gospels, all required, and all complementary to each other, show the reason why the Gospels should be four, and why there should be those differences and seeming imperfections, which, when understood by the heavenly-minded Christian, are perceived to be the very glory and perfection of the Word, which will not pass away.

The facts occurred, with all the details mentioned in the four Gospels, but some are omitted in one, and some in another, and they present the appearance of inconsistency perhaps, for want of some details which are omitted altogether; because the object of the Divine wisdom was not to construct a narrative curiously exact and complete for the natural man, but a lesson Divinely important for the different classes of spiritual men.

The literal narrative of the resurrection, may be harmonized as a whole, by noticing that Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, visited the sepulcher twice,*--the first time by themselves, and this visit Matthew and John relate: it took place while it was yet dark.

The second time, they were joined by the other women, with spices; this visit, Mark and Luke relate, and it happened when the sun had risen. Matthew and John further narrate what happened as the women were returning from the second visit. Mary could not fully believe that the Lord was risen, from what the first angel on the stone told her, whom she probably mistook for a human being, its was frequently done on such appearances, for

Angels are men in lighter bodies clad.

They are not winged men (see Gen. xviii. 2; Judges xiii. 11). But after the second visit, the .Lord himself appeared to her as she was about to return, and fully blessed her with the assurance of His Resurrection. Matthew, then relates what occurred to Mary and the women, after the second visit.

* Dr. Bloomfield writes: After the researches of recent Harmonists and Interpreters have established the fact, which had escaped the earlier commentators, namely, that there were two parties of women, to show the two Evangelists refer respectively, thus also we are enabled satisfactorily to remove a difficulty, which had embarrassed the old Commentators, namely, how to reconcile [Greek: anateilantos tou eiliou] (Mark xvi. 8), with [Greek: proi skotias eti ouseis] (John xx. 1.)

Few particulars in relation to the Resurrection are named in Matthew, more in Mark, still more in Luke, and most of all in John. In relating the account of the Crucifixion, the order is reversed; Matthews description is the fullest; Marks is less copious; Lukes still less; and Johns the least of all.

We have already intimated how the differences may be reconciled in the literal narrative, namely, by the records referring to two visits. But in the spiritual sense the Divine wisdom is full of significance, for it relates to the appearances of spiritual power and beauty, which appear in the soul when the Lord rises within. To the man of duty, treated of in Matthew, that spiritual power, represented by the angel, is seated on the stone cover of the sepulcher, representing the letter which covers the Word; to the man of doctrine, treated of by Mark, the spiritual power is in the inner sense of Scripture--the angel is within the sepulcher; to the man of inward reflection, the spiritual man, there are two angels seen, but standing. He perceives that the whole Word embodies two heavenly influences, love end truth, end desires to embody them in himself; to the man of love, there are two angels, and sitting, because these represent the two heavenly principles of love and truth settled and confirmed in the soul, represented by the sitting.

MATTHEW,

Chap. 21.

At early dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, came to see the sepulcher. The angel of the Lord rolls away the stone from the door, and sits upon it. The angels assures them the Lord has risen. He invites them in to see the place where the Lord lay, and then desires them to go and tell the disciples that the Lord will meet them in Galilee.

As they are going, Jesus meets them, and repeats the charge to be given to the brethren, and they worship him.

No other appearance is mentioned in Matthew, until the last, when the eleven went away, into Galilee, to a mountain where Jesus had appointed. They received His last charge; they worshiped Him, but some who were there doubted.

Ascension not named, but they are assured of His presence if they do what He commands.

MARK

Chap. 16.

Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, who brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. They arrived at the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. They saw the stone rolled away, and entering into the sepulcher, were addressed by the angel, and charged to tell the disciples, and Peter especially, the Lord would meet them in Galilee.

The Lord appeared to Mary, out of whom he had cast seven devils. She told this, but was not believed.

After that he appeared to two disciples, as they went into the country. They were not believed.

Then he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat.
He afterwards again appeared; gave them his last charge; and they are assured of the blessed changes that will follow true belief. Devils will be cast out, new tongues will be spoken with, &c.

Afterwards he ascended to heaven.

LUKE.

Chap. 24.

Very early in the morning, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and other women with them, came to the sepulcher, brining spices. They found the tone rolled away. They went in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus, but saw two angels, who stood in shining garments.

The women returned and told their news, but were not believed by the apostles.

Peter, however, arose and went to the sepulcher, saw the linen clothes lying by themselves.

The same day the Lord appeared to the two going into the country. Their eyes needed to be opened to see Him, but He was known and the breaking of the bread.

They return to Jerusalem and tell the rest; and while they are relating, Jesus himself appears in the midst, asserts His reality, and instructs them.

The last interview is then mentioned, and His ascension at Bethany.

JOHN.

Chap. 20.

Early, while it was yet dark, came Mary Magdalene, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher. She runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, and said, They have taken away my Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid Him.

Peter and the other disciple ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter, and arrived first at the sepulcher, and looked in, but did not go in.

The two went away to their own homes.

Mary stood without, weeping; she stooped and looked into the sepulcher, and saw two angels sitting. They speak to her, and when she had uttered her sorrowing reply, she turned and saw Jesus, but did not know him until He called her by her name, Mary.

The same day He appeared to the disciples, when the doors were shut, Thomas being absent.

Eight days after He appeared again, when Thomas was present and convinced him. A third time he appeared to the assembled apostles at the sea of Galilee.

Ascension not named.

In Matthew, the Lord is spoken of as appearing to Mary, and then meeting the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, in the north of Palestine, having all power in heaven and earth, and being present with those who obey His commandments; because the man of obedience and duty sees the Lord, and is blessed, but there is little expansion and fullness in his state.

The Lord spiritually meets him on a mountain in Galilee, that is in a spirit of love, though comparatively in an external state. He does what the Lord commands, and he feels his presence.

In Mask, whose narrative is so ordered as to represent how the Lord rises in the man of doctrine, more women are brought into view, because more affections for truth are awakened, and brought into activity. There is more light, too; it is the rising of the sun. The angel they see, is inside the sepulcher. The inward spirit of the Word is opened to them, and they see it is truth ever animated by goodness--the angel on the right side. The Lord appears to such in their inward affection for Him, which has been purified from all evil-Mary Magdalene, out of whom he has cast seven devils. He unfolds his presence, power, and blessing, over them when they make their efforts to exercise love to God, and charity to their neighbors. He commands them to tell Peter, the apostle, who represents faith. He speaks much to these, of belief, and assures them that faith, in practice, will cast out their evils--give them to speak with new tongues--no falsity will hurt them--they will come into full heavenly strength. He then rises into the interior of their souls, and, consciously or unconsciously, directs them for ever.

In Luke, who describes spiritual events as they take place with the man of inward reflection--the lover of inward things--the same openings take place as with the man of doctrine, but with greater fullness, and more particulars. He sees two angels, where the other saw only one; but our space entirely forbids the expansion of the idea. We can only indicate the principle by which the Divine wisdom may be unfolded.

In John, by whom the Lords rising in the man of inward love is portrayed, the particulars are the fullest of all. He sees a thousand heavenly things, where others saw but few, and he is sure there is an infinity he does not see. (Chap. xxi. 25.) Mary Magdalene comes while it is yet dark. Affection is stirring, even where there is no light.

The two disciples, Simon Peter and Join, are stimulated, and John outran Peter, but did not go into the sepulcher until Peter had come up. Again, portraying the ardency of love symbolized by the loving disciple John, but its impossibility to enter into the interiors of the Word without faith, represented by Peter. They see two angels sitting. Mary, the symbol of inward celestial affection, sees the Lord, and knows Him by the tone of His voice. Numerous particulars are given in this Gospel, ah relating to and unfolding the spirit of love. Upon these, however, we cannot further dwell. We must, however, be brief, and shall conclude by illustrating the words of our text, for this, too, has its spiritual, as well as its literal, application: Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the meek, when the doors were shut (barred) where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

There were the disciples assembled, alone, withdrawn from the harassing tumult of the world without--a world that had slain their Master. Jews, hating and hateful. They had closed, and barred, the doors. They had heard tidings too blessed to be believed in their fearful, doubting state. They durst scarcely hope; they trembled with excitement and expectation when gently the Savior appeared amongst them, and uttered the heavenly Peace be unto you. Then were they glad, when they saw the Lord. It was a touching scene, but eminently suggestive also. The human mind is like a house, especially the interior of the soul. Into this house we can retire, when mental storms infest us. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. (Isaiah xxvi. 20.) When temptation thus assails us, it is always evening. We dwell in shade and gloom. All around seems threatening and uncertain: the brightness we once enjoyed has gone. It is spiritual evening. Our wisdom is in sitting still. Rest. Wait. Rely. We have principles as opposed to the Lord as those Jews were who slew the Savior.

When we have been infested by turbulent and evil passions--when deep trials have troubled us, but we have entered upon a new statewhen new hopes have been awakened, but as yet we dare scarcely venture to trust those hopes, and we are vigilantly watching ourselves, and keeping the doors closed for fear of the Jews, or, in other words, for fear of everything that is opposed to the Lordwe are then in the collected, guarded state that the assembled disciples represented. And while we long, yet tremble; while we hope, yet fear; while we dread, yet guarda Holy presence appears in the midst of us, and speaks, Peace be unto you.

Happy are they who, when it is evening with them, and evils are about, thus close their doors! Happy are they into whose midst Jesus comes! It will ever be true of them, as it was of the little trembling group in the house at JerusalemThen were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.

In conclusion, I trust we may assume that the great miracle of the Lords Resurrection has been shown to be worthy of all acceptation. It was that upon which the Redemption of the universe hung. Without His Resurrection, His death would have been in vain. We are saved by His life. Because He lives, we live. Because He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also walk in newness of life. His Resurrection announced His conquest over Hell. His resurrection was the manifestation of His Glorification. His Resurrection exhibited the Divinity made completely Human; the Humanity completely Divine; the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb in One Glorious Divine Person, King of kings and Lord of lords. Well, then, may it be said, the Resurrection is the Grand Miracle.

By the same Author. Second issue. Price 7s. 6d.
THE DIVINE WORD OPENED. Illustrating the spiritual interpretation of specimens of every portion of the Scriptures, but especially of the events of the early chapters of GenesisThe CreationGarden of EdenThe FallThe FloodThe ArkNoahThe Tower of Babel.

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TWELVE DISCOURSES
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ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. IV.

THE WORD OF GOD, WITH ESPECIAL RELATION TO MR. JOWETTS ESSAY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

THE INNER SENSE OF SCRIPTURE; THE NECESSITY AND THE GLORY OF THE WORD OF GOD.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written that no man knew but he Himself.

And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God.REV. xix. 11-13.

THE Word of God! The Word of God! What a fountain of hope, and strength, and happiness, is revealed in those expressive terms. The soul yearns for a revelation from God. It finds itself in a world fraught with beauty, but also fraught with danger. It looks above, and around for guidance, and longs for the Eternal Father to speak. It asks, what am I? Whence came I, and whiter do I go? It feels its incompetency to answer these vital questions, and asks for the only competent teacher on these all-important questions, a WORD to disclose to mortals the mind and the purpose of God.

That a Divine Word should exist, is what reason readily admits. No creature lives, but is provided with its proper food.

Each tiny insect has a full supply. Each one of natures living, varied myriads, that people earth, or air, or sea, has its blade, or leaf, or grain, or fruit, to meet its wants and give it satisfaction. Mans bodily needs, with all their instincts, are furnished everywhere with objects to impart not being only, but well-being. No requirement is neglected. Can it be, then, that the demands of our higher instincts, our immortal appetites, have no provision? The child of the Everlasting asks for a guide, a path, a light,--an assurance of love. We ask for wisdom from above, and can it be that such demands have no supply? Oh, it cannot be! God must have spoken. He is not a Father heedless of His children; much less is He like those unnatural parents who forsake their offspring, and leave them without counsel or comfort, to wander through the world unheeded, undirected, and unloved.

The yearning of the soul for infallible direction in the highest things is everywhere felt by man; and there is no interior solid peace until its requirements are satisfied. When God speaks, the earth keeps silence, but never else. All men distrust themselves alone. Let them feel that they stand upon the Rock of Ages, and the sense of safety is given, and all is well. Even the traditions of ancient, and of distant nations, the remnants of former revelation, give security to the peoples who know of nothing diviner. But all ask for God; all seek a judge--a law-giver Divine, in whom they can trust; they need a Word of God. As the hart panteth for the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come, and appear before God.

This yearning after God is universal. The Word of God is its supply. When I found Thy words I did eat them, and they were the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.

Superstition acknowledges this want, and attempts to still it with a spurious supply, whose inefficiency is seen in the constant fears which haunt, and the multiplied remedies in which the weak seek for refuge. This want is felt by the evil, and displays itself in the qualms of conscience, and the spasmodic fears and efforts to begin a communion with something higher than themselves.

Deism feels and acknowledges the same want, but professes to find it supplied in the teachings of nature. Even atheism acknowledges it, in the ceaseless attempts, and the incessant activity it displays to disprove it. Men dont raise armies, and keep incessant watch and ward against empty nothing. The very struggle which unbelievers keep up from age to age, evinces a sense of the reality of God and His Word, against whom they wage incessant war.

There is, then, in one form or other, a confession universally made, of a need for a revelation from the Most High,a voice from the Invisible,a light to disperse the darkness which otherwise shrouds eternal things from view.

It is to the tenderness of this universal feeling, that the alarm which the Essays and Reviews have created, is due. It is feared they jeopardize the respect the many have, and desire to have, for the Word of God. The freedom of their criticisms, the much that they deny, and the little they affirm, do something to justify the fears they have created. The one great defect, which appears in a hundred forms in these Essays, is a want of a full and definite recognition of Divine Revelation. The Word of God in the hands of these writers, or at least the majority of them, becomes the words of men. There is so ready an admission of error, of mistake, of impossibility of reconcilement, of what is called the human element admixing itself with the Divine, that one feels that the whole ground trembles under ones feet, and we are tempted to ask, on these principles, where is the Word of God? It is true that there is a reverential air maintained, a sober and even a devout spirit breathes through a large portion of these Essays and Reviews; but, nevertheless, there is no cordial recognition of a definite Divine authority for the Bible. And by implication, by insinuation, and, in some cases, by direct impeachment, human error is so largely assumed to exist, that the readers feel that if such an estimation be allowed, it is in vain to call the Bible they have hallowed and revered, the Divine Truth of God.

To this result we are necessarily brought by Mr. Jowetts axioms.

1. Interpret the Scripture as you would any other book. (p. 377.)

2. It may be laid down, that Scripture has one meaning--the meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it. (p. 378.) In like manner we have no reason to attribute to the Prophet or Evangelist any second or hidden sense different from that which appears on the surface. (p. 380.) Of what has been said, this is the sum;--That Scripture, like other books, has one meaning, which is to be gathered from itself, without reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines; and without regard to a priori notions about its nature and origin. (p. 404.)

These axioms, expanded and illustrated in a great variety of ways, constitute the sum, as he says, of what Mr. Jowett has to offer on the momentous topic of the interpretation of Scripture. They assume that the Scripture has no deeper origin than any other book, and therefore is to be interpreted as you would interpret any other book. They assume that Scripture has only one meaning, that which it had to the parties who first uttered and first heard it. Another assumption being, that the meanings in the minds of these two different parties, were one and the same meaning.

But, first, as to the leading axiom, it may be observed, there is a sense undoubtedly in which such a law of interpretation would be quite admissible. We do interpret every book in accordance with the origin and character of the book, and the laws of the science or subject upon which it treats. No one interprets a book on Algebra, as he would a book of History. No one would interpret a book on Music, as he would on Grammar or Philosophy. In this meaning of the sentence, Interpret the Scripture as you would any other book, no one can object to it. The rule would read thus--Interpret every book according to its nature, and the laws of the subject upon which it treats, and, therefore, interpret the Scripture as the Word of God, and according to such laws as belong to a Divine Revelation. But, this is evidently not Mr. Jowetts meaning. Be means, take the Scripture as if it were not Divine, as you would any other book, and interpret it in the best may you can, from a study of its literal sense only.

If this be right, what did the Apostle mean by the words, The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life? (2 Cor. iii. 6.)

Interpret the Scripture as you would any other book. Of course you must, if it were just the same as any other book. But is not that assuming the very point in question? Interpret the Scripture as you would any other book, if it is the same as any other; but, is it the same as any other book?

Interpret the Word of God by the laws of the Word of God, as you would interpret a book on any science by the laws applicable to that science, would seem to be an unexceptionable rule.

What then are the laws of the Word of God? Here again Mr. Jowett remarks, What is inspiration? And he says, The first answer, therefore, is that idea of Scripture which we gather from the knowledge of it. It is no mere a priori notion, but one to which the book is itself a witness. It is a fact which we infer from the study of Scripture,--not of one portion only, but of the whole. Obviously, then, it embraces writings of very different kinds, the Book of Esther, for example, or the Song of Solomon, as well as the Gospel of St. John. It is reconcilable with the mixed good and evil of the characters of the Old Testament, which nevertheless does not exclude them from the favor of God; with the attribution to the Divine Being, of actions at variance with that higher revelation, which He has given of Himself in the Gospel; it is not inconsistent with imperfect or opposite aspects of the truth, as in the Book of Job or Ecclesiastes, with variations of fact in the Gospels, or the books of Kings and Chronicles, with inaccuracies of language in the Epistles of St. Paul. For these are all found in Scripture; neither is there any reason why they should not be, except a general impression that Scripture ought to have been written, in a way different from what it has. (pp. 347, 348.)

This description of Inspiration is so singularly vague that we may hope its respected author will reconsider it. The question is, What is Inspiration? The, answer would just as well apply to all the books in the world as to those of Holy Scripture.

And, it is prefaced by the statement, that Inspiration, is our idea of Scripture. There seems to be a complete confusion of the God-breathing by a complete Divine Scripture is given (2 Tim. iii. 16), and our impression of Scripture which is certainly a very different thing. And we are further informed this Inspiration is compatible with opposite aspects of truth, with variations of fact, and with inaccuracies of language, in which Mr. Jowett seems to confound the record of these things, which may be Divine, and intended for the highest lessons of wisdom and use, and the occurrences themselves, which may be inconsistent with each other, and in many respects, opposed to truth and righteousness. The looseness of thought implied in statements so confused implies, we would hope, no ideas so confirmed, but that; the writer may welcome, so far as to investigate, if it can be offered, a more excellent way.

What, then, is the character we must attribute to a Word of God? The very phrase implies the expression of the Wisdom of God. God is a Spirit. His Word must be spiritual. The declaration of the Savior comes with the force of a MUST BE to the reflecting mind My words, they are spirit and they are life. (John vi. 63.)

Again, we ask, What are the laws of a Word of God? Must not the Word be the utterance of the thoughts of God? And are not the thoughts of God, as much higher than our thoughts, as heaven is higher than the earth? (Isaiah lv. 9.) Can we conceive of any other mode of Divine operation in speech than that which is the law for the utterance of human speech? Love, which is the motive, clothes itself with thoughts, which are as causes to speech, and thoughts clothe themselves in words. The Divine Love clothes itself with the Divine Wisdom, and this clothes itself with the Divine Speech. Can we conceive of any other order than this? I cannot.

In the universe, this is undoubtedly the arrangement of things. Infinite Love is the source of all things, the end for which all things exist. The pleasure of Infinite Love is to bless, and to create that it may bless. Hence, on a survey of the universe, it is written, For Thy pleasure they are, and were created.

But the Love of the Almighty in its own deeps, is silent, and inscrutable. Hence He clothes Himself with light as it mere with a garment. (Ps. civ 2.) This Light, or the Divine Wisdom, is the Word in its first and greatest manifestation in the universe. It is the Word, by which the heavens were made. By the Word of the Lord the heavens are made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. This Word, which is, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, in His first manifestation, is the True Light, of which St. John speaks, that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. (John i. 9.) It is the light of eternity, the veriest power in the universe. From this Word systems, suns, and worlds are formed, with all their innumerable varieties of things. They are the outward clothing of the Word. Its material outbirths and signs. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear. (Heb. xi. 9.) God thus speaks in the universe; all nature is His book. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork, Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. (Ps. xix. l-3.)

What though, in solemn silence, all

Move round the dark terrestrial hell;

What though no outward voice nor sound,

Amid their radiant orbs be found;

In reasons ear they all rejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice;

For ever singing as they shine,

The hand that made us is Divine.

A little reflection will teach us that the countless forms of the universe speak, not only of the hand by which they were made, and are sustained, but of the Love in which they were originated, of the laws by which they are moved and multiplied, and by which their beauties are evolved. Each blade, each leaf, each flower, each tree, each insect, fish, bird, and beast, is a letter of the wondrous alphabet in which the universe is written, and he who learns its magnificent language most completely, will best understand the sublime lesson proclaimed by all things,The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.

The WORD OF GOD. WHAT IS GOD? GOD IS love. Must not the WORD OF God, in its first utterance, be The Divine out-flow of Infinite Love, from which all things come, the light of the Eternal Sun, the first manifestation of Deity? The brightness of His glory, the character of His substance (scanner unable to insert phrase) upholding all things by the WORD of His power. (Heb. i. 3) This light in which was the Divine Life, or Divine Wisdom, in which was the Divine Love, (John i. 4.) is the first sphere of Jehovahs glory, full of the infinite desire to bless. The Word which forms the heavens. A faint idea of this infinite glow of Divine Love may be obtained by reflecting on the inmost purpose of a truly heavenly-minded man. Openly or silently one aim is his inmost object, pervades all he thinks, does, and speaks, that is, the burning desire to secure everlasting happiness of others. God maketh His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire. (Ps. civ. 5.) As with the good man who is the image, so with the Divine man, the Infinite Original, the hidden, inmost purpose must ever b, the everlasting happiness of His immortal children, and for this end the universe must exist.

But out of an end, come CAUSES, MODES, by which the end can be accomplished, and out of the Divine Inmost sphere must come a second sphere of causes, impelling, arranging, organizing, producing, giving all things their form, quality, and character. This second sphere, like the causes set in motion by a mans inner object, is the immediate soul, out of which a third, a sphere of effects, as it were, which is the life of outward Creation; out of this come all the objects of natural existence, suns, systems, worlds innumerable. This third sphere of the Divine Word, containing the two first, is for ever settled in the heavens, as the Psalmist says, For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. (Ps. cxix. 89.) Thus, there are three grand spheres of being, from the Creator, the first, or inmost, warming, quickening, energizing; the second, illuminating, directing, impelling; the third, evolving, forming, effecting; answering to the three operations, in the productions of a finite mind, the LOVE that intends, the THOUGHT that plans, and the EFFECT that is produced, in every human operation.

In every object in creation, from the mightiest sun to the simplest flower, we see the wisdom and acknowledge the love of the Divine Creator.

From the throne of the Highest, the mandate came forth,

From the Word of Omnipotent God,

And the elements fashioned His footstool, the earth,

And the Heavens His holy abode.

And His Spirit moved over the fathomless flood

Of eaters, that fretted in darkness around,

Until at His bidding, their turbulent mood

Was hushed to a calm, and obedient they stood

Where lie fixed their perpetual bound.--Knox.

But the WORD, the fiat of the Eternal, is not the mere utterance of a sound, an empty verbal enunciation; it is the Eternal Purpose of Infinite Love going out into operation, and causing all the innumerable existencies of beauty, utility, and blessing, which constitute the universe. In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word, (Greek: kai theos ein o logos). The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made, that was made. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. (John i. 1, 3.) The Word is thus presented as the manifestation of life or love, the first grand sphere in the heavens; the manifestation of light, the second sphere in the heavens; and the manifestation of effects, the outer sphere of spiritual existence. The Word, as the universal essence of all things, has three great degrees, or spheres of being. The universe is a sublime book with three senses or degrees of meaning, the outer, the inner, and the inmost, under the crust which is matter. The outer, in all the innumerable varieties of animal, vegetable, and mineral existence,--and happy is he who in this letter of the sublime book of nature, can read the order, the tender mercies, and loving-kindness of Him, who is Maker and Monarch of all. Happy is he who adoringly exclaims, O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom best thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches. The inner, which can be discerned by Him who sees all things outward, as the shadows of heavenly things, the outbirths of the true; and the inmost, which consists of the holy ends of benevolence and love which are inscribed fully or faintly on all existence.

Regarding this wonderful book of Creation, blessed is he who can take up the language of the Psalmist and say, I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord. (Ps. civ. 33, 34.)

We have dwelt thus upon the spheres of existence, and upon the universe as a grand book, a sublime Word of God, that the reflecting mind may see that outer and inner meanings of things are written on all. Being, are essential necessities of all Divine operations. But, many will admit this, who doubt a Divine Revelation in the form of a Book. If nature, say they, is a book in which are inscribed the Divine Will and Wisdom, what do we want with any other? This book is a grand book, worthy of the Creator. Very different is a written book. Here is mans work, and mans imperfection. Of course there are hidden meanings in the universe, deeper wisdom than appears to the superficial observer, perceived by deep and meditative thinkers. But, if the universe contain such stores of wisdom, cannot man read that and be instructed? Here, then, we join issue.

The universe is a book indeed, and quite sufficient; if man were in order, to unfold to him the inestimable riches of Divine Love and Wisdom; to be a never-ending source of progress and delight: but man is not in order. He is fallen, and one of the fruits of the fall is, that He is born mentally blind. He sees only what he is trained to see. This is true even of our perception of natural sciences. Mathematics are in nature, in all their exactitude, complexity, and subtlety. The rude mind, however, unacquainted with teachers and books, sees no geometry on earth, and none of the celestial mechanism of the sky. Chemistry surrounds us every; where; and in the laboratory of nature transformations are taking place every moment, at which science itself can only gaze to admire, not to imitate yet the rude mind knows nothing of this. The mind is opened to perceive the world of science by the books of science, so the mind can only be opened to see the menders of the world of God by the training of the Book of God.

Hence the manifest necessity of the Word of God as a Book.

Many, however, will admit the desirability of a Divine Revelation, and the probability of a Divine Revelation, but say the Bible is not a Divine Book. We have examined it and find it is not correct in its science. Its astronomy is Jewish, not philosophical, and as to its geology that is certainly not correct. Its chronology is faulty, the earth is much older than the Bible makes it, and the account of the universal Deluge cannot be made to harmonize with the facts of ancient history. Nations have existed in continuity from periods long before the time fixed as that of the Deluge. Some of the pyramids were undoubtedly in existence long before the time of the Deluge, and although geology gives evidences of hundreds of local floods, and of the gradual change of the oceans bed, again and again, yet it lends no support to the account of a contemporaneous covering of the whole earth at the same time, with many miles deep of water. Besides many things in the Bible seem puerile, trivial, unworthy of God. I dont see why the Jewish history, is more a Divine history than that of the great nations of the earth, or, in fact than any other. God rules all nations, and has no favorites. He is the universal Father, and that providence which watches over a sparrows fall, watches over all the events of every human life, and therefore of every nations history, as fully and as completely as He did over the proceedings of the Hebrew nation. God is a living God and is as wisely and lovingly ever present now, as in any period of the past.

So speaks our objector, and while listening to his views we are tempted to ask in the words of our Divine Master, What went ye out for to see? You speak of the Word of God not being in accordance with science or with history, as if you expected a revelation to teach astronomy, geology, or history, which we can very well learn without revelation. You expect a revelation to the natural man of natural thing, whereas there would be no need of God. to speak at all, unless to teach man spiritual things. Every book is like its author? A wise man writes a wise book; a foolish man writes a foolish book. Will not, Gods Book, therefore, be like its author? Will not the Divine Book be like the Divine Being--spiritual?

The apostle says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. ii. 14.) But the natural man can receive an account of geology or of history, and discern it easily enough. The Word of God cannot therefore consist in these things, these are not the things of the Spirit of God. The natural man does not think these things foolishness, they are great things to him. A gentleman some time ago was conversing with his friend, who was satisfied he was a converted Christian, and who was strongly opposed to the spiritual meaning of the early chapters of Genesis, insisting that Moses was giving an account of natural creation and nothing else. The gentleman asked, What interpretation did you put upon the first chapter of Genesis before you were converted? Why said his friend, the same as I do now. Are you not, then, yet carnal? rejoined the first, you receive no more of the things of the Spirit of God, in this respect, than you did before, and yet they are spiritually discerned.

Mr. Goodwin perceived clearly this part of our argument, but unhappily draws a strange conclusion from it, and then in applying it, forgets it altogether.

He says, It would have been well if theologians had made up their minds to accept frankly the principle that those things for the discovery of which man has faculties specially provided are not fit objects of a Divine revelation. (P. 209).

This is precisely our view, but only its negative side. He does not tell us what are fit objects of Divine revelation. Indeed we would strongly advise the authors of the Essays to supplement their labors, and give their positive views on all the subjects upon which they have treated. To throw down an old habitation without providing a new one is hardly in accordance with Christian charity.

We maintain that every book must be like its author, in the very constitution of things; and God being a Spirit, His book must be spiritual. Mr. Goodwin, however, after having laid down the indisputable principle above, does not draw from it the conclusion that other things, which mans natural faculties are not adequate to discover, must be the subjects of Divine revelation, but this

Had this been unhesitatingly done, either the definition and idea of Divine revelation must have been modified, and the possibility of an admixture of error have been allowed, or such parts of the Hebrew writings as were found to be repugnant to fact, must have been pronounced to form no part of revelation.

How it could possibly follow that by allowing an admixture of error it would then be consistent with a true view of the nature of revelation, we must confess to be unable to understand. Ought we, then, to admit that it might consist of such things as our special natural faculties could discover of themselves? This seems to amount to this: admit it to be wrong, and then it will be right. But Mr. Goodwin still more errs against his own principle, in proceeding to show that the Mosaic account of creation is repugnant to Geology and, therefore, can form no part of revelation. If we regard it, he says As the speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, promulgated in all good faith as the best and most probable account that could be then given of Gods universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which the writers in question have done their utmost to deprive it. (p. 252.) That is, admit the Mosaic cosmogony to be the production of a person making a very probable speculation for his time, but entirely wrong, and then it will be regarded as dignified and valuable document. Surely, such cannot be the serious respect to be accorded to Divine revelation. It is not the admission of Divine revelation at all.

Quite true, notwithstanding, is it, that such things for the discovery of which man has special natural faculties are not fit objects of a Divine revelation, but equally true that spiritual truths, the laws of regeneration, the doctrines of the Church, the lights of faith, and hope, and love, the constitution of heaven, and the nature and attributes of God, ARE fit objects of Divine revelation. Any book not containing these in its bosom everywhere cannot be a Divine revelation. But this is precisely what the Bible claims for itself. Under the veil of the letter, there is a spirit in every portion. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. (Ps. xix. 7.)

My words they are spirit and they are life. (John vi. 63.) Mr. Goodwin, and after him, Mr. Jowett, seems to have laid down that there is only one meaning, that of the letter; and then that very often the letter is incorrect--and then what follows? Does anything follow but the realization of what the Apostle said, The letter killeth? (2 Cor. iii. 6.)

On the contrary, we maintain that the Word of God as a Book, must be spiritual in its essence like the Word of God in creation; and this the Bible professes to be, and IS. Life, Law, Matter, are the three grand spheres of things which pervade nature. Love, Light, Letter are the three grand degrees of truth in the Divine Word, and these are parallel with the former.

Mr. Jowett is happily so inconsistent with his own dogma that the Scripture has only one meaning, as to say, in perfect harmony with our principle, Scripture has an inner life or soul, it has also an outward body or form. (p. 389.)

A second great feature in the works of God, distinguishing them from the works of men, is, that, their perfection increases towards the interiors, and this is disclosed the more deeply they are examined. The outside of a flower, is beautiful, but to the scientific mind the perfection of its interior is far more so. The surface of the human body is remarkable for comeliness and grace, but what is that compared with the wonders of the organic structure within? The marvels of the heart and lungs, the brain and nervous system, the muscles; and bone, the wondrous motions of the interior of the human frame, leave far behind all admiration of the outside. The statue of the artist, is just what it is on the surface: the Divinely formed statue, the body of a man, for one grace it has on the surface, has myriads within. So must it be with a human composition, as compared with the Word of God. The glory of the latter, must be a meaning within a meaning a line upon a, line, a precept upon a precept. Like the productions of earth, its noblest jewels are obtained far beneath the surface. Its gems, and: noble metals, are hidden within their matrices. They need the outside to be removed before their splendors are revealed.

The wise ancients fully recognized this order of Divine Wisdom in the remarkable proverb referred to in Job. He would show these the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is. (Job xi. 6.) All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, (scanner unable to insert phrase), God-breathed) and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17).

Our second principle, therefore, would seem to be as evident as the first, that the Word of God, as a Divine work, must follow the law of all Gods works, and increase in perfection, within; its spirit, being more beautiful to the mind, the more deeply it is examined.

All Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness, but not profitable for instruction in geology, astronomy, or any earthly science whatever.

The Essayists often recognize the inward yearning of the soul after inward wisdom. Thus Professor Williams says It was truly felt by the early fathers, that Hebrew prophecy tended to a system more spiritual than that of Levi, and they argued, unanswerably, that circumcision and the sabbath were symbols for a time, or means to ends. (p. 64.)

Professor Jowett remarks Both methods of interpretation, the mystical and logical, as they may be termed, have been practiced on the Vedas, and the Koran, as well as on the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, although we must take exception to what he adds, the true glory and note of Divinity in these latter, being not that they have a hidden, mysterious, or double meaning, but a simple and universal one, which is beyond them, and will survive them. (p. 332.)

Again, The tendency to exaggerate or amplify the meaning of simple words, for the sake of edification, may indeed have a practical use in sermons, the object of which is to awaken, not so much the intellect, as the heart and conscience. Spiritual food, like natural, may require to be of a certain bulk to nourish the human mind. (p. 333.)

Once more, It may be thought another ungracious aspect of the preceding remarks, that they cast a slight upon the interpreters of Scripture in former ages.

The early Fathers, the Roman Catholic mystic writers, the Swiss and German reformers, the nonconformist divines, have qualities, for which we look in vain among ourselves; they throw an intensity of light upon the page of Scripture, which we nowhere find in modern commentaries. But it is not the light of interpretation.

They have a faith which seems, indeed, to have grown dun now-a-days; but that faith is not drawn from the study of Scripture: it is the element in which their own mind moves, which overflows on the meaning of the text. The words of Scripture suggests to them their own; thoughts and feelings. They are preachers, or, in the New Testament sense of the words, prophets, rather than interpreters. There is nothing in such a view derogatory to the saints and doctors of former ages. That Aquinas or Bernard did not shake themselves free from the mystical method of the Patristic times, or the scholastic one, which was more peculiarly their own; that Luther and Calvin read the Scriptures in connection with the ideas which were kindling in the mind of their age, and the events which were passing before their eyes;--these and similar remarks are not to be construed as depreciatory of the genius or the learning of famous men of old: they relate only to their interpretation of Scripture, in which it is no slight upon them, to maintain, that they were not, before their day. (pp. 376, 377.)

We have made these selections, not at this moment, to refute the assumptions with which they are: constantly interlarded; but as illustrating the fact by these confessions of the universal tendency of the good and great to spiritualize the Scripture,--the yearning after hidden meanings. Who made the mind with these appetites and yearnings? Was it not He who gave the Scripture? Is it not probable then, that in the revelation from Him, there would be a supply for this tendency of the soul which He had implanted? Is this not implied in the sacred words, O every One that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. (Isa. lv. 1, 2.) Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. (Jer. xv. 16.)

There is no weight in the observation that spiritual interpretation has been abused, for literal interpretation has been for more extensively abused. What is that tremendous despotism, the Papacy, but a literal understanding of what was spiritually meant. How truly have those poor fanatics, who are reported occasionally in the papers, as having plucked out an eye, or cut off a hand or a foot, because they thought they were taught to do so by the letter of Mark ix., shown how truly the letter separated from the spirit of the Scriptures: it is the letter that killeth. Besides, it must not be forgotten that the abuse of any thing implies and proves its use.

When Mr. Jowett is unfolding the axiom that Scripture has only one meaning, it is remarkable how completely he exhibits its inaccuracy. First, it may be laid down, he observes, that Scripture has one meaning--the meaning which. it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers, who first received it. (P. 378.)

In another place, he remarks, The office of the interpreter is not to add another but to recover the original one; the meaning, that is, of the words as they struck the ears, or flashed before the eyes of those who first heard or read them. (p. 338.)

But this view altogether ignores the idea of Divine inspiration. The meaning is not the meaning of the Divine Being who inspires the Word, but of the persons who utter, and the persons who hear it. and in those numerous cases in which the speaker and the hearer evidently have different meanings, which is to be the Divine meaning the professor fails to point out. Take, for instance, the words of our Lord, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life in you. (John vi. 83.) The Jews strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat? They evidently had only the most literal idea of the words: some of the disciples, when they had heard this said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? To Him, the Divine speaker, it must have been easy.

There must have been three different meanings here attacked to the same words; yet, Professor Jowetts rule is that there must be only one meaning, and that one must be the one of the speaker, and, at the same time, the one of the healer.

The view of the worthy Professor respecting inspiration seems equally unsatisfactory with that of interpretation. What is inspiration? he says. He replies, The first answer is, That idea of Scripture, which we gather from the knowledge of it. (p. 347.) Here, the idea we have of Scripture is confounded with the inspiration out of which the Scripture has originated. He remarks further, It is no it a priori notion, but one to which the book itself. is a witness. This latter is quite true; but it is not the same as the former. The first definition is, that our idea of Scripture is its inspiration; the latter is, that inspiration is that to which the book itself is a witness. And the book states, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they mere moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Pet. i. 21.) The book states that the prophets declared what the Spirit of Christ in them did signify. (1 Pet. i. 11.) Inspiration then, is that flowing in of the Spirit of God, which enabled the inspired not to speak from themselves, but from the inspiring influence, dictating the events to be related., the words to be uttered, the order to be pursued. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, said the Psalmist, and His Word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake by me. (2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3.)

The true meaning, then, me should presume, would not necessarily be what the prophet understood or intended; much less what the first reader or hearer understood; but what the Spirit of the Lord intended. On many occasions we are distinctly informed, they understood not the saying, (Deut. xii. 8; Luke ii. 60), nor even the symbolic acts which mere done. The Lord said to Peter, what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. (John xiii. 7.) This losing sight of all proper idea of inspiration, and the assumption that the sacred writers themselves are the authors of the books which bear their names is the real defect in these Essays and Reviews, and loads to all the conclusions which really leave the soul practically without a divine guide and teacher in the world.

On the other hand, a cordial recognition of inspiration; and a thorough belief in the declaration Thus, saith the Lord, will lead to the acceptance of our two previous principles:--

1. That the Word of God must be, like its author, SPIRITUAL. And

2. That, like every thing else from God, its perfection will be found to be greater the more deeply we examine.

3. A third principle is, that, in its form, Divine Revelation must be natural, adapted to the natural man, or he can never grasp it at all. It must be a ladder whose top reaches to Heaven, but whose foot is on the earth. (Gen. xxviii. 12.) It must be a chain commencing from the throne of God, but reaching down to man.

Natural things in order are in harmony with spiritual things, there is a parallelism--not on the same level, but in degrees, higher and lower, like light for the soul, and light for the body--a correspondence between the two, like the relation between mind and matter. In man the true correspondence between natural things and spiritual things has been disturbed by sin. Selfishness is enthroned and goodness debased. His wisdom has become the wisdom of self-love, and the love of the world, earthly, sensual, devilish. (James iii. 15.) Hence, he is quick to discern what will answer these ends, but slow to perceive the beauty and blessing of high and eternal things. Nevertheless, he has an ability from God to discern truth, if brought, low enough, and, by obedience to the truth, to acquire a greater and still greater power of spiritual sight and insight, The shades of natural thought, compared to spiritual thought, are as clouds compared to light. But the mercy of the Lord is great unto the heavens, and His truth into the clouds. (Psalm lvii. 10.) The declaration of the Divine Will is simple, and obedience to the Will of God gives spiritual discernment. If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. (John vii. 17.) He who will practice one known truth is prepared for another and another. As truth enters into a man and conquers a sin in him, by an earnest desire to co-operate with the Lord, the mind is brought more and more into order; the spiritual sight becomes clearer, the spiritual taste purer; freedom is acquired instead of slavery, health instead of sickness, strength to do good instead of weakness, and rest instead of turmoil.

Thus the Word comes down and heals: the Word creates a new heaven and a new earth for the regenerated man: the Word makes him free, and he is free indeed. The Word is the fire that melts away the dross: the Word is the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. (Jer. xxiii. 29.) The Word is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart: neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. (Heb. iv. 12, 13.)

Mr. Jowett only delivers the award of universal experience when he utters the remark, The least expression of Scripture is weighty: it affects the minds of the hearers in a way that no other language can.

In tracing the operations of the living Divine Word in creation, we saw it must consist of three grand spheres: the SPHERE OF DIVINE LOVE, going forth to create, as a sphere of ends, that it may bless; the sphere of Divine Law or Wisdom; the SPHERE OF CAUSES originating all the arrangements which produce and sustain Creation; and lastly, the SPHERE OF EFFECTS, the outward universe itself,--the sublime result, the ever-beautiful, ever-beneficent, ever-varying, ever harmonious outer nature,where man is produced and trained, that heaven may be peopled. If the Word thus goes forth by three degrees, when it produces work, can it be otherwise when it inspires speech? Must there not be the same Divine Love as the inmost moving END, the same Divine Wisdom as the immediate CAUSE, and the outward speech as the DIVINE RESULT? One thing is evident, this is the order the Bible claims for its own inspiration and arrangement, LIFE, SPIRIT, FORM. This is the order in which the Word in the Divine Book is often represented; the order, the Lord Jesus himself declared when He said, The flesh profiteth nothing, My words, they are Spirit, and they are Life. (John vi. 63.) The letter forms the BODY of course, then we have SPIRIT within, and LIFE again within.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord, for as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. In the letter these heavenly and Divine thoughts frequently do not appear, but things of a trivial or worldly character are all that can be seen. It must be, therefore, in a sense beneath the letter that the Divine thoughts will be found, and this must ever be present whether visible in the literal meaning or not.

The same order is manifest in the declaration of the Psalmist, Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Ps. cxix. 97.) Here the lamp for the feet is obviously the literal meaning which guides the outer life; the light within is the spiritual meaning which guides and delights the intellect; while still on inmost meaning would be implied in the gentle flame from which the light would proceed.

This character of the Word, of having an inner sense, and yet an inmost, which we have seen is inherent in the nature of a Divine Revelation, and indeed, of every thing from the Deity, is everywhere claimed for the Scriptures by themselves. Take first the Law, the five books of Moses. And Mr. Jowett, using his own estimate and line of interpretation,--taking for granted that the Scripture has only one meaning, and that the literal one which flashes on the mind of the reader when he first peruses; it,--says It saves him from the necessity of maintaining that the Old Testament is one and the same everywhere: that the books of Moses contain truths or precepts, such as the duty of prayer, or the faith in immortality, or the spiritual interpretation of sacrifice, which no one has ever seen there. (p. 387.) But, how different from this is the estimate of the inspired Psalmist, and the Apostle Paul. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, meaning wise the simple. (Ps. xix. 7.) The Reverend Professor can find nothing about the soul, or its immortality even, much less about its conversion; the reason is, his definition, his doctrine upon the subject, is faulty He has resolved beforehand that there is nothing to be found, and he finds nothing.

In the Jewish laws he finds laws and ordinances for their tabernacles, their houses, their garments, their cattle, and their lands, and nothing more; as if Divine Revelation were concerned about things: of earth. How differently the Psalmist continues, The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clear, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold; yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey, and the honey-comb. (Ps. cxix. 8, 10.)

Again, we read, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law. (Ps. cxix. 18.) But if there were nothing in the law, but its external regulations, such a prayer could scarcely be appropriate. To read these, the eyes that we open ourselves are amply sufficient. The wondrous things of which the Psalmist speaks, must surely be something more than the things of time and sense.

Mr. Goodwin allows that there is something of a mystical (or spiritual) indication about the second chapter of Genesis, but he is quite positive against any spiritual meaning being intended in the first. While, on the other hand, Mr. Williams, in the essay on Bunsens Researches, assumes the truly scholarly position which he shews to be that of Bunsen, that the historical portion of the Bible begins with Abraham (p. 57); that the former portion including the Creation, is not geologically, but spiritually correct. The Garden of Eden with its trees of Life and of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the taking serpent, whose head was to be bruised by the Savior, the Deluge, the Ark, the Tower of Babel that was to reach to heaven, the long lives of the Antediluvians, are regarded as belonging to Divine symbol (p. 57), to the style of that Bible before the Bible, which is marked by references is the Bible itself, as to both its portions. (Num. xxi. 14 and 27.) This Bible before the Bible, which Bunsen demonstrates to have existed, and Swedenborg before him, was a Divine revelation of heavenly things in allegorical form, in which those ancient men delighted. To them the beautiful myths which lie at the bottom, and make the common element of all the old religions, from the earliest Brahminism of the east to the Druidism of the islands and continents of the west were dear and full of heavenly wisdom.

Our Bible would probably have still been all parable, in which eternal things would have shone through a transparent veil, had mankind not become so grossly stupid. Nothing would be received that was not in some way accommodated to their states, being in its form apparently taken up with their petty interests, and their sordid and temporal concerns. It was not without a meaning, that, when the commandments were first given from Sinai, the stone was provided by God as well as the writing. (Exod. xxxii. 16.) Only when rebellion caused these stones to be broken, mere a second portion provided by Moses, not by God; the Divine finger only writing thereon. (Exod. 9xriv. 1.): The first Revelation was above our sublunary concerns, in form as well as in spirit; the second had the letter provided by man under direction--in form concerned with outward history and worldly facts, but still in spirit embosoming eternal things, and written by the finger of God. Moses has still the glorious splendor he obtained by communion with God, but covered with a veil when he speaks to the people. (Exod. xxxiv. 29, 35.) They who maintain that the law has only the one meaning--which appears upon the surface,--see only the veil, which Paul declares was upon the heavy hearts of the Jews in his day, and will have neither the face nor the glory which were luminous within. The water descending from the celestial mountain was pure enough itself; it was only when the people had made and worshiped the golden calf, that it was necessary to grind the calf to powder and mix it with. the pure water, and thus give it these people to drink. (Exod. xxxii. 20.) But, when the Divine word took the form of Jewish history, that history, though naturally true, was so ordered by the Divine providence, as still to be AN ALLEGORY, having Divine thoughts within, though couched under the cover of the annals of Jewish history, and of Jewish men. The grand drama of Redemption was portrayed,--the victories of Him who is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, is the highest theme. Christ is the end, (scanner unable to insert phrase) (the final object or aim)of the law. (Rom. x.4.) The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Rev. xix. 10.) Whether Adam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, or Solomon be the outward lesson, they all illustrate the character of Jesus the Divine Prophet, Patriarch, Priest; and King.

Thus, it must be, if the Bible a Divine revelation, underneath and parallel with this highest sense there ever runs a spiritual meaning, in which the progress of the church and of the souls regeneration ale the themes; the wars not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in heavenly concerns. [scanner unable to insert phrase] (Eph. vi. 12.) Hence the apostle says of the history of Abraham, the first literal history, to famish a specimen of the rest, For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-womanwhich things are as AN ALLEGORY. (Gal. iv. 24.) Of the national history, when David was about to relate the progress of Israel from Egypt, with all its vicissitudes, he commenced, I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old. (Ps. lxxviii. 2.) Shewing that the journey of the Israelites, though true, was also a Divine parable on the grandest scale; a Divine drama where the actors were millions of real men; the time was ages; the scene a nations seat, the mountains and vales of earths portion; and the history to be produced, the Word, the Fountain of Wisdom for all ages, and all peoples, the grand instrument of training men for heaven, the Word of our Lord which endureth for ever. (Isaiah. xl. 8.)

That the ritual of the Jews was intended to represent heavenly things, the apostle plainly teaches, and is in fact taught in the giving of the ritual itself. The pattern for the tabernacle was given to Moses in the mount. (Exod. xxv. 40.) The tabernacle and its furniture, the apostle calls the patterns of things in the heavens. (Heb. ix. 23.) The first tabernacle was a figure for the time then present. (v. 9) The law had a shadow of Good things to come. (Heb. x. 1.)

Most clearly evident, then, is it that while the manna was the type of spiritual meat, and the water of spiritual drink (1 Cor. x. 3, 4), the sacrifices of spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter ii. 5), the tabernacle was the symbol of that holy home into which our Lord first entered, that He might prepare the way for the Israelites indeed, who would faithfully follow Him in the regeneration.

That the Gospels, though really true in the facts they relate, have a spiritual significance also, we rejoiced to see recognized in Mr. Wilsons essay. The spiritual significance, he remarks, is the same of transfiguration, of opening blind eyes, of causing the tongue of the stammerer to speak plainly, of feeding multitudes with bread in the wilderness, of cleansing leprosy, whatever links may be deficient in the traditional record of particular events. Very true; but still truer would the whole statement have been, had he said that to secure that spiritual significance being perfect, the Divine Spirit had selected such links in the history as would best make the letter the vehicle of everlasting wisdom.

That the Lord intended this spiritual significance in His acts no one can doubt who reads with reverence the details of each miraculous operation. He who could raise the dead with a simple command, needed not to anoint the eyes of blind men with clay, put his fingers into the ears of the deaf, order the taking of a fish for the silver contained in its mouth, if it had not been that his acts had a wise significance, which, if not known then, might be known hereafter. His parables, all admit to have a spiritual meaning; and that His ordinary teaching had, He not only declared to the Jews, in the words we have already quoted, My words they are Spirit and they are life, (John vi. 63) but He plainly intimates, in His significant question to the caviling Jews, Why do ye not understand my SPEECH? even because ye cannot hear my Word. (John viii. 43.) Too many, alas, at the present day, fail yet to understand the outer speech of the Divine Teacher, because they have no real relish for the inward Divine Word.

That the book of Revelations is intended to have an inward spiritual meaning, its symbolical character would, one might suppose, have naturally suggested, had we not had multiplied evidence of the proneness of the natural man to sensualize spiritual things. The efforts that have been made to cull from the spiritual scenes behold by the Apostle the fortunes of nations, or of temporary warriors and chiefs, have been most astonishing. Instead of the rise and decline of principles, and states in the Churchs history, and the progress of the human mind in regeneration or degeneration, the worldly wise have sought to descry Napoleon or Wellington, or any other hero of the day, and made Divine Writ the echo of our personal likes or dislikes, or the surgings and surgings of political states.

Yet, what call be more simple than the apostolic rule, Which things also we speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing SPIRITUAL THINGS WITH SPIRITUAL. The visions of St. John mere undoubtedly spiritual. I was in the Spirit, he says, on the Lords day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet; and I turned to see the voice that spake to me, and being turned I saw. The things he saw, being seen by the eyes of the spirit, must be spiritual, and the of rule interpretation, Paul says, is to compare spiritual things with spiritual.

We have now gone through all the leading portions of the Holy Word, and everywhere we have found its claim to be what we had before hand shewn the Word of God must be a book on spiritual subjects; a book whose wisdom is more excellent, the more deeply it is unfolded; and a book accommodated to the natural man only that it may serve as a Divine means of ascent from temporal to eternal subjects, enabling the soul to draw water with joy from the wells of salvation. (Isaiah xii. 4.) And now, may we not ask what is this but coming again to the true method inaugurated by the Savior himself after His resurrection, when, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself? (Luke xxiv. 27.) In this wise, Our sufficiency is of God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not after the letter, but after the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. (2 Cor. iii. 6.)

It may, perhaps, be objected by those who look unfavorably upon the idea of a spiritual sense pervading the Holy Scripture everywhere, by the very constitution which its origin imparts, that such a doctrine would make the Scripture mean anything; and this objection is, in fact, made by Mr. Jowett. (p. 368). Gallus in campanili, as the Waldenses described it--the weathercock on the church-tower, which is turned hither and thither by every wind of doctrine. But this objection is founded on a mistaken conception of the view of the Divine Word we are endeavoring to advocate.

We maintain the integrity of the letter of the Word, just as firmly and fully as any one can who clings to the letter only--the one meaning of the Divine Writings. He does not ignore or undervalue the body of man who maintains, nevertheless, that, in every nerve, muscle, fibre, and atom, it is filled and invigorated by a living soul. The outward meaning of the Bible, although known to be diversified in style--being sometimes allegory, sometimes history, sometimes psalm, sometimes prophecy, sometimes narrative, sometimes precept, and sometimes vision--is never underrated in its own province by the true spiritual interpreter. He learns its doctrine and he learns its moral: he is exact in acquainting himself with the true bearing of all its facts, and desires to become thoroughly acquainted with the contemporaneous history and circumstances of eastern life, which can throw light upon the inspired utterances, and be has a greater anxiety to do so than any one can have who values them only as the words of men. However pious and holy the writers may have been, if giving forth their own views or recollections only, they will necessarily be regarded as human authors, not as writing down the words of the living God. He who handles a dead statue, cannot have that deep and abiding sense of responsibility in its management, that reverent sensitiveness of touch, as it mere, that is had by one who knows that he is dealing with a living man, and that a sacred human life is jeopardize or preserved by his heedlessness or by his care.

One cannot but notice in the treatment of the Sacred Volume by Mr. Jowett, and some of his brother Essayists, a sort of jaunty readiness to object, and to assume contradictions in the Divine Writings, that could hardly co-exist with the reverential spirit, which necessarily arises when there is a full conviction that the Sacred Pages are really the oracles of God. The casket is reverently regarded, which is known to be filled with the purest gems: the cloud is observed with deepest interest whose silvery lining and radiant streaks of light reveal that it but curtains with a friendly mantle the dazzling splendor of the sun.

The devout spirit, sometimes from veneration, fears that if a spiritual sense of the Word of God be acknowledged, there will be insuperable difficulty in obtaining it, or wild metaphor and lawless allegory would be substituted for sober sense.

But a recognition of the law of inspiration which we have endeavored to unfold, would remove this objection. We saw that there was and must be in the operations of the creating and inspiring Spirit, degrees or spheres, one within another, like a cause in its effect, a soul in its body. There is thus a relation between them quite definite and fixed, which may be known by reflection, as clearly as any other law or science is known.

Let a person transfer his thoughts from the body to the soul, which is a spiritual body; from the other world to the inner world of mind and life to which the enter corresponds; from the scenes, circumstances, and objects of time, to the states, operations, and principles of everlasting life, and he will have a key, the key of correspondences, which will unlock treasures of inestimable wisdom. Each thing on earth is the type, as it has been the outbirth of life within. It is the living presentment of an inner cause. To that cause, it corresponds or answers, part to principle--object of sense to object of soul--the enter world to the inner world. The sun of nature corresponds to the Sun of righteousness,--the Sun of Eternity, the Lord; his warmth to love, his light to wisdom, both from the Lord.

The operations and changes of nature correspond to mental operations and changes in the soul. There is sowing and reaping spring, summer, autumn and winter in the soul as well as in the world. Outward food corresponds to the meat of the soul--the inward bread, wine, water, milk, &c., which supply the spirits wants, and give the strength which endures to everlasting life.

All animals correspond to affections in the soul, each according to its nature and use; all birds to thoughts which move in the atmosphere of mind; fishes to affections, which move in the lower element of scientific truth; reptiles to appetites for bodily gratification. Each object has its definite spiritual antetype, and is used in the Book of God with definite relation to the spiritual object, which has a corresponding nature and use.

With the good every object has a good use and a good signification. With the evil each Good is turned into its opposite, and each object has an opposite signification.

Let us take the horse, the prominent object in our text. It is a noble and beautiful animal, whose great use is the assistance it renders to bodily progress. It corresponds to the INTELLECT of man, which is the grand means of spiritual progress. When the intellect is guided by the Lord, the progress is rapid, safe, and triumphant, like the brilliant advance of a goodly steed. For the Lord of HOSTS hath visited His flock, the house of Judah, and made them as His goodly horse in the battle. (Zech. x. 10.) The horse is thus in nature an ever-speaking symbol, and thus it is used in the Word of God, both in the Old and the New Testament, because the law is the same, the Inspirer being the same--God. In Genesis, the second time the horse is mentioned in the Scripture, it is mentioned in a manner not very instructive, if we were restricted to the one meaning ofMr. Jowetts rule. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, no adder in the path, that biteth the horses heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. (Gen. xlix. 17.)

Dan was of course a man, and not literally a serpent. But his nature, and that, alas, of too many others, is described by the serpent. We understand the intellect to be represented by the horse, the low sensual nature by the serpent. And how often is the progress of the intellect impeded and the man destroyed by sensual considerations (the heels of the horse), which, at the best, are only appearances, being suffered to sway the judgment, and overthrow the true direction of the mind.

When self the wavering balance shakes,

Tis rarely right adjusted.

The man who advances with a firm regard to the right, onward and upwards, is riding a noble horse; the man who substitutes whim instead of wisdom, is riding a hobby, one of the most terrible inflictions of mankind.

A gentleman, some time ago, looking through a lunatic asylum, saw a poor man across a stone bench, jerking backwards and forwards with incessant motion. Youre riding, I see, my friend, said the gentleman. What is it, a horse? No, said the insane man, with a deep, sad expression on his face; its not a horse, I wish it was; its a hobby. Well, whats the difference, said the former; is it not all the same? No, said the lunatic; when you are on a horse, you can stop it when you will, and when you are tired you can get off; but when you are on a hobby, you call never stop it, and you can never get off.

A terrible and salutary truth is suggested by the rocking lunatic.

When the intellect of man is directed by the wisdom of the Lord, he is following a Divine leader, and realizes those words of the Psalmist, In thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. (Ps. xlv. 4.)

Intellectual powers, furnished with heavenly intelligence and loving truth, from an ardent love of goodness, are the horses of fire, drawing the chariots of true doctrines, which bears an Elijah to heaven. In the inner sphere of things,--the Eternal World--these are visible in corresponding forms of beauty, as they were to the prophets, eye. (2 Kings ii. 11, & vi. 17.) Angels thus, glowing with intelligence and love, have near them such horses and chariots of fire as were round about Elisha. Such intellects, are the horses and chariots of salvation (Hab. iii. 8, 15), which the Divine Wisdom guides through the seas of worldly thought and knowledge; and, in the storms of life, when doubts and difficulties, like opposing billows, dash upon the soul, He guides them safely through the path of great waters. An intellect stupefied by the delusive opiates of false teaching, which induces the maudling lull of superstition, and delegates its thinking to some narrow mortal only more bigoted and presumptuous, not more enlightened than itself, has the chariot and horse, rebuked by the Lord, and cast into a deep sleep. (Psalm lxxvi. 6.)

With this correspondence, how read we the wonderful vision of John (Rev. vi. l-8), where the horse bears so striking a part? The changes of the. horses were to describe the changes of the earth. The earth is the spiritual earth, the church upon earth. The changes of the earth, are the changes of the church; the end of the world, is the end of the church: a new earth is a new church, or dispensation of Divine things amongst mankind.

The first horse, or white horse, on which One sat with a bow; to whom a crown was given, and who went forth conquering and to conquer, represents the intellect of the early church, fresh and vigorous, white with truth, simple, clear, and earnest in its pursuits of heavenly things, having spiritual love to man as its beacon founded upon love to the Divine Savior; true faith then, being a living trust in the love of God in the Lord Jesus, to be worked out in self-devotion and self-sacrifice, in every useful work, each work being a labor of love.

Then, the Church progressed from victory to victory. Heathen abominations, and heathen darkness faded away before the triumphs of the Crucified and Glorified One, whom the new converts preached; and the Cross waved gloriously, alike over the empty but jeering philosophy of Greece, the stern law of Rome, the hot natures of Africa, and the cold hardihood of the West and the North. The banner of the cross floated at last over the palace of the Caesars. The white horse had gone on conquering and to conquer.

Another horse was introduced, a Red Horse, and he who sat thereon had power to take peace from the earth. This color was not the bright and blessed red of heaven, but its opposite,--the blood red of hatred, the red that pervades in hell. (James vi. 5.) Never forget the law of opposites. Whatever any object represents in a good sense, it represents the opposite in a bad sense. All the powers and faculties of a bad man are the same as those of a good man, but prostituted to bad purposes, and opposed to virtue and to heaven. The Red Horse is the symbol of intellect, inflamed and swayed by the lust of power; a fiery passion of deadliest force, this would take peace from the church. The struggle for power, which arose after political consequence was given to Bishops and Spiritual Rulers, by Constantine, ushered in the age of dissensions, the age of creed-making, the age of violence, and cruelty in the Church. The Red Horse, had taken peace from the earth.

Then comes a BLACK HORSE, and he who sat on him had balances in his hand, to estimate the little wheat and barley left, and with an injunction not to injure the oil and the wine.

This BLACK HORSE, announces the age of superstition, and the darkness of ignorance that would come over the church; and the little goodness and truth, the spiritual wheat and barley which would be present among men, and the great price (twenty times the usual value), which must be paid in such an age for the full corn in the ear (Mark iv. 25), the finest of the wheat (Ps. lxxxi. 16) of true religion.

In such an age, the outward virtues of duty and truth were all that could be realized by the best; there was a Divine providential inward always to preserve the holier excellencies of inward religion, the interior love and wisdom, See that thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

The last Horse was a pale horse, Death rode upon him, and hell followed after.

The Pale Horse, is the terrible symbol of the state of the Churchs intellect, when a sanctimonious pretense of piety and profession covers internal infidelity, covetousness, and lust.

This is a state into which a fallen church settles down. It has a name that it lives, but is dead. Its whiteness is not the whiteness of life, but the whiteness of death, pale. The death of sin guides the living hypocrisy of a church, in which pretended piety, without justice or charity; composed the religious condition. It curses the world, and hell follows after. Such is the state represented by the PALE HORSE.

The vision of the seer was thus divinely furnished with a revelation of the progress of the Church, from its beginning to its end. That progression which prophecy unfolded, history now recognizes as having been accomplished in the eighteen centuries of ecclesiastical career, closing with the terrible period Mr. Patterson describes. The description certainly was quite as much applicable to the Roman Catholic and Greek church countries, as, to these Protestant ones.

Bishop Butler speaking of this age,--the middle of the last century,--writes, as quoted in the Essays and Reviews, (p. 313).

It is come to be taken for granted, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of enquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. Accordingly, they treat it, as if in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment, and nothing remained, but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.Advertisement to Analogy, 1736.

The general state of the Church is also thus depicted by a layman, David Hartley.--Observations on Man, Vol. II. p. 441.

There are six things which seem more especially to threaten ruin and dissolution to the present state of Christendom.

1st. The great growth of Atheism and infidelity, particularly amongst the governing parts of these States.

2nd. The open and abandoned lewdness to which great numbers of both sexes, especially in the high ranks of life, have given themselves up.

3rd. The sordid and avowed self-interest, which is almost the sole motive of action in those who are concerned in the administration of public affairs.

4th. The licentiousness and contempt of every kind of authority, divine or human, which is so notorious in inferiors of all ranks.

5th. The great worldly-mindedness of the Clergy, and their gross neglect in the discharge of their proper functions.

6th. The carelessness and infatuation of parents and magistrates with respect to the education of youth, and the consequent early corruption of the rising generation.

Such descriptions are so general, and so corroborated by the witnesses of the times left by the writers of that period, as to leave no doubt of their correctness, and they announce that end of real interior religion which is meant by The Pale Horse.

The Pegasus, or winged horse of Mount Olympus, was with the ancients the symbol of the Intellect also, When it broke with its hoof the covering of the fountain of the Muses, and let the waters of true inspiration flow forth, we see the Divine lesson taught by the beautiful fable, that he whose intellect penetrates beneath the surface of things, alone unfolds the streams of beauty and blessing for mankind.

The seven horses which bore along the chariot of the Sun, and the horses by which Neptune conducts his path through the mighty waters, are also varied uses of the same symbol, well known by ancient scholarship and seership.

In our text, the Horse is presented once more, and again a WHITE HORSE. The restoration of the church by the Word, is the subject of the prophetic vision. A new dispensation is described as a new heaven and a new earth.

The Horse is once more the symbol of the INTELLECT, enlightened, and guided by Divine truth. He who sat on him had for his name, the WORD OF GOD. (v. 13.)

He w said to be Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

Only, by the intellect of mankind--as it is truly illuminated--can time human race advance. They must be sanctified by the truth, and the Word is truth. The first operation, then, towards the removal of evil and error, and thus of the miseries of mankind, is the unfolding of new influences from heaven, into the human mind. Hence John says I saw heaven opened. Then the WORD is presented to view. No power can shake the battlements of error or make them crumble to the dust, like the Word. When Luther was commencing his efforts to set forth the knowledge of the Word afresh, he had a dream. He thought he saw himself translating the Word, and his pen was so long that it reached to Rome, and struck off the triple crown of the Pope. The truth can make man free (John viii. 32), and nothing else can.

He is the freeman whom the TRUTH makes free,

And all are slaves besides.

When the divine vision, then, is revealing the mode by which the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, the grand center from which all improvement would flow is presented--THE WORD. The more the WORD is opened, understood, loved, and revered, the more rapidly will mankind, both in their persons and institutions, be reformed and regenerated. The Word is faithful and true. Goodness and truth form its very soul. To produce the union of these two in all mens minds and habits, is the entire aim of all divine operations. The Word makes war in righteousness;--it lights incessantly;--it judges and makes war against all the evils and false principles which desolate mankind;--it condemns and overturns every unrighteous claim, every unhallowed passion. Let the Word be opened in the soul, and it will detect evils, however secret or however minute. Its eyes are like a flame of fire; its wisdom is inexpressibly bright and flaming, from the ardent love that glows in it. It his many crowns; its victories are innumerable; it will still go on conquering and to conquer. The glory of the Word is unspeakable. Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy name. (Ps. cxxxviii. 2.)

It has a quality so deep, so inexhaustible, so rich, that no one fully knows it. A name that no one knows but He himself.

The vesture of the Word was dipped in blood. It has been opposed, violated, and crucified, again and again. The Word in person was slain, but rose again. The Word in revelation has had its covering, its vesture, its letter, perverted, maltreated, falsified, blood-stained, but it also rises again, for it is His who said, My Word shall not pass away. The Word is the supreme ruler in Heaven and on earth. It is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Each nation is great, as the Word is exalted amongst its people, and so will it be. There is a Divine inextinguishable life and power in the Word, that nothing can really destroy. The efforts of mistaken men will clash against this ROCK in vain, while men and nations who love the Word will feel their feet established and when the storms of life come, they will be like The wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and heat upon that house: and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. (Matt. vii. 24, 25.)

If the Word could be blotted out, the souls of men would then indeed have suffered an eclipse; mankind would indeed be once more sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death. But it is impossible. Heaven will be more and more opened--the Word be more and more powerful. Its spirit will shine through the clouds of its letter, with power and great glory, until superstition, and sin, and sorrow shall vanish like the last murky shadows of a long night, and the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And, none shall hurt nor destroy in Gods Holy Mountain. (Isa. xi. 9.)

In conclusion, we cannot but remark how striking is the contrast between that virtual denial of the Word of God, which flows from the principles on this subject of the Essays and Reviews, with the beautiful and consolatory utterances of Swedenborg, on the same subject, in his small Treatise on the Sacred Scripture, which we commend to the reflections of all.

How great wisdom lieth concealed in the Word which we have on earth for therein is hid all angelic wisdom, which is inexpressible. He had, doubtless, the same view which is given in the Sacred Volume itself.

Thy Word, O Lord, is for ever settled in the heavens. Moreover, the Lord is present, and in conjunction with man through the Word, seeing that the Lord is the Word, and, as it were, converses in it with man, because Lord is Divine Truth itself, and the Word is Divine Truth also. With this St. John agrees. The Word was God. The Word is like a garden, which may be called a celestial paradise, containing delicacies and delights of every kind; delicacies by virtue of its flowers in the midst whereof are trees of life, and beside them fountains of living waters, and round about the garden are forests. Whoever now is under the influence and in the possession of Divine Truth, by virtue of doctrine, he is in the midst of the garden, amongst the trees of life, and in the actual enjoyment of its delicacies and delights. Was it in reference to this garden the prophet Ezekiel said to the King of TyreThou hast been in Eden, the Garden of God. O may this glorious Word be to each of us the fountain of Wisdom, as it is to the angels, (1 Pet. i. 12) the fountain at which the Lord will meet us and give us the water that springs up to everlasting life (John iv. 14); a divine garden in whose paths we may walk, in whose arbors we may sit down and view those magnificent prospects of a holier state and d better world which may console us for the present turmoils, the dust and the struggles of this.

Thus saith the living God,

So shall my Word descend,

Almighty, to effect

The purpose I intend:

Millions of souls shall feel its power,

And bear it on to millions more.

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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. V.

THE BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.--MATT. xii. 31, 32.

THERE are few Christians who have not paused and pondered over these divine words: few who have not felt perplexed at their meaning and solemn import. Can it be that I have committed this sin? has been the spirit-searching inquiry of many a thoughtful soul. What is this sin? How is it committed? Why is it so much more fatal then any other sin? To answer these deep ponderings of many a tender conscience, let us now devote ourselves, and look up with prayerful thought, while we do so, to Him whose Holy Spirit is the light which illuminates and the love which warms.

And, first, let me observe, that part of the difficulty which surrounds our text is due to inaccuracy of translation; part, also, to mistake in the ordinary doctrinal teaching. The word which is here rendered forgiveness, is the same word which is elsewhere translated remission, and sometimes deliverance. In Greek it is the same word for both. In English, the two words, forgiveness and remission, have a very different signification.

Forgiveness implies a change of mind in the person offended against. It is believed to mean, in relation to God, a change from a stern determination to punish the sinner, to a state of favor and approbation towards the penitent. Remission has more especial relation to man, and means loosing off, setting free, removal; and remission of sin signifies the removal of sin from its government and activity in the soul. When the Lord said he had come to preach deliverance to the captives (Luke iv. 18), the word for deliverance is orphesin, the same word which is here rendered forgiveness; and in the same passage we have to set at liberty them that are bruised, where again it is orphesin which is rendered by to set at liberty. The verb from which this word for remission is derived is used very frequently in the New Testament, and is rendered by such words as leave, Matt. v. 24; forsaken, Matt. xix. 29; omit, Matt. xxiii. 23; suffer, Matt. xix. 14; let, remit, John xx. 23,all yielding the same radical idea of separating from, or, loosing off. Far deeper are the teachings of the Divine Word, than the suggestions of human thought. Man craves forgiveness. He fears the consequences of his misdoing from a retaliating Deity, whom he supposes revengeful, like himself (Ps. l. 21). God requires a change of heart, a removal of the sin, and with it the source of all his sorrows.

In the Old Testament, as well as the New, the removal of sin is the one thing insisted on as needful to; restore peace and every blessing. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions: so INIQUITY shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezek. xviii. 30, 31). If thou doest well, shalt then not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at thy door (Gen. iv. 7). Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from ALL HIS INIQUITIES (Ps. cxxx. 8). I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy TRANSGRESSIONS for MINE OWN SAKE, and will not remember thy sins (Isa. xliii. 25).

We shudder at pain, but we neglect the purity that brings peace. We sap the foundations of our happiness, and then wonder that the edifice falls.

We suffer worms to burrow in our gourd, and then are astonished that it dies. We allow the wild beasts of evil passions to strengthen and increase within us, and then are alarmed and distressed bemuse they bite, and tear, and howl. Not so, the Divine Teacher; not so His Holy Word. The lesson, the all-necessary lesson of Infinite Wisdom is, Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion, and the dragon, thou shalt trample under foot (Ps. xc. 13).

By power from the Great Savior, used in persevering effort, we can subdue our iniquities, and we MUST. There is no deliverance from pain, but by deliverance from sin. The hell of passion can be crushed out, and the heaven of peace can be unfolded in the soul by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, received by obedience to his commandments. Our text then is the announcement not of what sins the Lord is willing to forgive, for God our Savior willeth that all men should come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved,1 Tim. ii. 4; but, of what sins can be removed from the soul of man, and what sins are too deeply seated in the perverse will, too much loved, and defended, and hugged, for the Spirit of the Lord to remove them, without destroying the man altogether.

Let us rejoice, then, at our escape from the first soul-benumbing fallacy, that the Lord does not pity his creatures, that He is unwilling that some sinners should be saved, and made happy. As well, might you believe, that the sun is unwilling to warm the stunted tree. The Lord unwilling! why, God. is Love. The Lord unwilling I why, the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. The Lord unwilling! who makes His soul to shine on the evil and the good, His rain to descend upon the just and upon the unjust? Oh no, never lose this sacred truth--that the Lord loves you with an everlasting love--that He made you to be happy--that the Divine Love which formed you at first, never has changed, and never will change. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves and live ye (Ezek. xviii. 32).

Again, we say to every weak and weary soul, we dwell upon, and reiterate this all-important, all-reviving truth, God is never unwilling to receive you. Alas, we have seen sufferers in despair, for want of this assurance. We have seen in lunatic asylums souls wrecked, minds in ruins, crushed by the awful phantasy that they mere souls reprobate, eternally rejected of God, passed by for ever, hopeless, helpless.

But, it cannot be; it cannot be! The sun cannot chill, brightness cannot darken, unchangeable truth cannot lie, unchangeable love cannot bate, unchangeable mercy cannot revenge. Our Heavenly Father is the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning (Sam. i. 17); He is a Fountain: that sends not forth sweet and bitter (James iii. 2). Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good (Sam. 38.) He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. (v. 33). It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning (v. 22, 23). Gods love fail! Why, He came down to earth for mans redemption. Gods love fail! Why, He suffered and died, lived on earth to conquer hell, died the death of the cross, because greater love hath no men than this, that He lay down His life for His friends; but His was greater than the love of man; He laid down His life for His enemies. He tasted death for every man (Heb. ii. 9). Whosoever will come unto me, I will in no wise cast out, He said, and He says so now. A mothers love is the faintest possible image of His. It comes from Him, and is a holy and beautiful thing. How it yearns over the angel-bud committed to His care! How it glorifies the little dress, the little cap, the little shoes! How it anticipates a noble future! How it trembles if ought of danger threaten to touch its treasure. How easily it pardons again and again, and hopes, and bears, and strives, and believes all things good of the loved one with a celestial credulity; and if unfortunate at last, and compelled to cover sadly a life of shame, and a death over which the best friends must heave a sigh, the mothers love will yet find, with yearning, busy, tender fondness, some redeeming trait, unseen by any other, and trust it will be seen by Him, whom her heart whispers is the Infinite Ocean of that tenderness which is her only balm, her only warrant for the undying hope, that by mercies she believes in, (but she cannot measure,) They yet may meet again. Yet a mothers love is but as an atom to a world compared with His from Whom it flows, and Who said, Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she may not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee.

O, then, never despair.

Let the storms of life, beat on you as they may, be assured, that if your faith fail not, you will be piloted safely through danger, and, amidst the gloom, a Divine Presence will shortly be seen, whose words of strength and comfort will be, It is I, be not afraid.

The second difficulty connected with our text, has arisen from the erroneous idea that in the Divine Trinity there are three separate Persons, and that the Holy Spirit is the third of these Persons. For the thoughtful mind has not failed to ask, Why blasphemy against one of the three Divine Persons should be more deadly, than the same sin against another? If they are all equal, should they not all be equally honored? Why in particular should it be the third Person who must not be blasphemed against, under pain of so tremendous a penalty? These difficulties seem great, but they are so only because they are directed against a view not founded in the Sacred Scriptures. Revelation knows nothing of a third divine and separate person. Revelation teaches nothing of three co-equal, co-eternal persons. The Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ,--the holy influence which flows from Him. The Infinite Divine Love is the Father within Him (John xii. 30; xiv. 10; Coll. ii. 9, 10). The manifest Divine Person of the Lord is the Son (Luke i. 35); and the Divine flowing forth of life, light, power, peace, purity, and every blessing, this is the Holy Spirit. The Lord is that Spirit, said the Apostle, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor. iii. 17). The Lord is that Spirit; what can be plainer? The Spirit of the Lord Jesus is the ever-potent Spirit of the New Testament. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, Paul said, He is none of His (Rom. viii. 9). Searching, said the apostle Peter, what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them (the prophets) did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (1 Pet. i. 11). The Spirit of Christ is undoubtedly a Divine Holy Spirit; if there be another, there are two Divine Holy Spirits. But everything in the Scriptures leads to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. When He came into the room where the disciples were sitting, He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit (John xx. 22). We do not use the term Holy Ghost, because Ghost now conveys the idea of a vague personality, not as it did originally of breath. It is the word whence originally the word gas came.

The Holy Breath of the Redeemer was the Holy Spirit; He breathed upon them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.

When the Lord Jesus delivered to John His seven epistles to the Churches, He prefaced end one with some terms characteristic of Himself. He said, Thus saith the First and the Last, who was dead, and is alive. Thus saith the Son of God. Thus saith He that hath the seven spirits of God, and so on. But at the end of each epistle, He closes by saying, He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Thus shewing that when He speaks the Spirit speaks, giving thus a sevenfold testimony to the apostolic declaration, The Lord is that Spirit. Besides, it is written, the seven horns and the seven eyes of the Lamb are the seven Spirits of God, because His perfect strength and wisdom are so named. He hath the Seven Spirits of God (Rev. iii. 1). In the gospel He taught that His spiritual presence was the Holy Spirit. This He called another comforter, because it was Himself in another aspect; thus to them, another, but still the same. It is, He said, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him but YE know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you (John xvi. 16, 17). Thus shewing that the another was still Himself, but otherwise received, and in another character. The Holy Spirit is sometimes personified, and spoken of by our Lord as He, Him, for this is according to the customs of the East, and of the sacred writers. Trees, swords, qualities, are all personified, and all have personal pronouns used in relation to them, but without in the least intending this usage to warrant any one in considering them to be persons, in the strict use of that expression, no more than the seven lamps of fire before the throne of God, which are said to be the seven spirits of God, would prove that the Holy Spirit is seven Divine Persons; or the eleven cloven tongues of fire which alighted on the apostles heads on the day of Pentecost, would prove that the Holy Spirit was eleven persons. The Holy Spirit, then, is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to blaspheme against His Spirit. It is to contemn, to deride, to scorn, and to oppose that Spirit of the Lord Jesus, which alone is powerful to purify, to illuminate, and regenerate the soul.

It is written in the text, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. 

Thus we are informed, there are two classes of sins. One class can be removed, and the other cannot, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.

It is not that Divine Mercy will not forgive, but that Divine Providence, consistently with its own laws and mans freedom and existence, cannot remove the sins meant by the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

These two classes of sins are very clearly pointed out by John. If any man see his brother sin a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

There is a SIN UNTO DEATH. I do not say he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; find there is a SIN NOT UNTO DEATH (1 John v. 16, 17).

This distinction is not peculiar to the New Testament. In the Levitical law there were sacrifices especially ordained for sins of ignorance (liv. v. 15-18).

All unrighteousness is sin: but sins done in ignorance are not unto death. The servant who knew his Lords will and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes: but he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few (Luke xii. 47, 48). He KNEW NOT his Lords will. He was in sins of ignorance, and did things WORTHY of stripes, but he shall be beaten with few.

What a wide field for thought opens upon us here. Sins of ignorance are not worthy of death. Then the sins of ignorance of the heathen are not worthy of death. The immense nations of those who have not the Word, will be judged by what they have, and not by what they have not. The myriads of China, and of hoary Ind; the Arabs of the desert, and the dark tribes of Africs golden sands; the tenants of the sunny isles of the Pacific; and the hardy children of the icy fields where lie the bones of Englands best and bravest, will be saved; and from the lessons of angelic teaching, cast away their sins of ignorance, perhaps, not without some pain, it they have loved them; all, all, may come together, and tenant the many mansions of our Fathers everlasting home.

The sins of ignorance, are not unto death.

Then, blessed be the goodness of the Most High, whose tender mercies are as much above the conceptions of Calvins narrow soul, as the magnificent vault of heaven, is beyond the mole hills paltry span. Then, in every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him (Acts x. 26).

But sins of ignorance, go further, much further. How ignorant in the same nation we are of each other: of the views we entertain and our reasons for them! How much are we ignorant of, that others see in bright light! How ignorant are they of much we know! How ignorant are religious bodies of each other, from the narrow classifications and jealousies that have been handed down to us! How much we suppose, and how little we know, of another out of our walk and denomination! One class views mother as extremely dangerous persons, and views them with dislike, and do things to them worthy of stripes. But they are sins of ignorance. They think they are doing God service. He who looks upon the hearts of men, will see many antagonists here, to be brothers in soul. They were divided by ignorance. They looked at different sides of the shield, and were true to their side, though too narrow and mistaken. The evils of sectarianism, originating in ignorance of each other, and of other views of truth than our own, will soon fall away from the good. It is becoming so in this life. No intelligent man seriously (now) inclines to believe that salvation is to be found only in his own denomination (p. 425). The Lord seeth not as man seeth, man looketh on the outward appearance (on the eyes), but the Lord looketh upon the heart.

Sins of ignorance go still further. Those waifs of society, of whom the well-to-do know little; who lead a rude life, often missing their way, caring little for the refinements, not always respecting the decencies, of life, are not all to be measured by one standard. They have not had the truth, which can make man free. They have not had parental, not a nations care. They are in some cases as ignorant of the laws and truths upon which morality and religion are based, as the wild Indian. They have never seen their Heavenly Father represented in their earthly one, the care of heaven shown round all their steps, by their mother. The thousand stays, locked round its children by a well-ordered home, which support by touches, and strengthen, unseen; the thousand efforts of diligent teachers to unfold intelligence and expand the sense of right, are all strangers to them.

They see but a very short way before them, and cannot start with horror at the long vista of ruin, which follows a loss of rectitude. Many things condemned by the voice of short-sighted human justice, will, perhaps, be adjudged by a higher tribunal, the sins of those who though they did things worthy of stripes, knew not their Lords will, and will be beaten with few. It is quite true, as Mr. Jowett observes, that there is an infinite number of classes, or individuals, from the lowest depths of misery and sin, to the highest perfection of which human nature is capable, the best not wholly good, the worst not entirely evil (p. 401). The ruling love will no doubt be seen to divide them into two great kingdoms at last, in which there will still be unnumbered classes and degrees. But, we doubt not, many whom the world rejects, as utterly cast away, and worthless, will be found better than they seem, and erring only through the effects of habit, induced by sins of ignorance.

Again, sins of weakness, are not sins against the Holy Spirit. Many weak but tender souls Fret and condemn themselves, because they cannot reach states of purity and peace, which are yet too high for them. The babe in Christ, is not a man. He cannot walk well, and he stumbles, possibly falls down altogether; but like Peter, goes out and weeps bitterly. From experience, he is becoming humble; from humility, he flies to the Lord, and fears to go alone. The steps of a good man ore ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he fall not be utterly cast clown, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand (Ps. xxxvii. 23, 24).

Many have been disheartened by failures of temper and faults of habit returning, which perseverance would entirely subdue. Many do not sufficiently remember that Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. Many have given up the hope of perfection in the commandments of God, because they have been told by a mistaken use of St. James, that he who offendeth in one point is guilty in all. Forgetting that it is only the deliberate, purposed sin which offends, not the fault of weakness.

He sees by sure Omniscience within,

Observes when frailty errs, and when we sin.

He who deliberately breaks one commandment, because it suits his whim or passion, would break any other, if his unholy feelings or temper stimulated him to do so, and he is guilty of all.

But he who only fails because as yet his faith is feeble, and his love is weak, may take courage, persevere, look up, and trend on. Let him be diligent in prayer. Let him commune often with himself and his Savior, and his weakness will be turned into strength. Let the language of the sacred poet be his--

Lord, it is my chief complaint,

That my love is weak and faint;

Yet I love Thee and adore,

Help me, Lord, to love Thee more.

His peace will become as a river, and his righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa. xlviii. 18).

Sins of ignorance are removed as knowledge is given. Sins of weakness will cease as strength is acquired. When they are not delighted in, but abhorred, they are not deeply rooted, and will soon cease.

The Lord proceeds in the text to say, And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. This phrase, the Son of Man, is a peculiar one. It means the Lord as the Son, such as He appeared in the world. The Son is a general name of the Humanity. As to the Divine Love already glowing in the Human, breathing in, and through the Humanity from the Father, it was called the Son of God. As to the divine truth, it is called the Son of Man. It has been thought, on a cursory glance, by some, that this term, Son of Man, is used in the Word to denote the Lord as to the mere humanity--the Lord as a man. But it is not so. The Son of Man is said to have been in heaven when He was speaking upon earth (John iii. 17). The angels are said to ascend and descend upon the Son of Man (John i. 61). He executes judgment, it is written, because He is the Son of Man (John v. 21). Except we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, we have no life in us (John vi. 55). What, said the Lord, if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend where He was before (John vi. 62.) Indeed, so much extraordinary is said, that it is quite appropriate in us to inquire, as the Jews did, Who is this Son of Man? (John xii. 34). And here let me remark that the term man has many significations. It is commonly used as expressive of human weakness. He is only a man. It has a higher signification. That is a real man. Yes, he is a man indeed. These terms intimate that we perceive exalted elements to be proper to our mysterious, wondrous being.

True manliness is true goodness, especially the goodness which is the result of principle, of manly thought. The more a person reflects, the more truth he understands and loves, the more is he a man. The good man is an image of God. All the virtues in man are infinitely in God. The true man is loving; God is infinite love. The true man is wise; God is infinitely wise. The true man is sympathizing; God is infinitely sympathizing. The true mall is fatherly, brotherly; God is infinitely fatherly, infinitely brotherly. The true man is a likeness of God; God is an infinite divine man, as the catechism says, all-good, all-wise, all-powerful, and everywhere present. This God was in Himself, and always was, an underived Eternal Man, an Eternal Father. The Son expresses derivation And in the languages of the Old and New Testament anything derived from another is its son. The spark is the son of the fire, the brand the son of the tree, the arrow the son of the bow, bad men the sons of wickedness. The Eternal Love, being essentially man, the divine truth, the Word, is the Son of man. The Word, spoken by the prophets, caused them to be called sons of man, as you will see especially in Ezekiel. The Word, shining through the heavens and adapted to the angels, is the Son of Man, on which they ascend and descend. The same Word incarnate in the Lord Jesus, is the Son of Man, to whom judgment is given, with whose flesh and blood we are to be spiritually nourished, and who appears gloriously at the right hand of God high above the heavens, that is, possessed of all power, and when we lift Him up in our hearts; and supremely adore Him. But the Divine Word in the Lord appeared at first humbly accommodated to the Jews and the world. He was born amongst us that He might come down to us, and raise us up to Himself. The Son of Man introduced Himself to the human race as His truth comes now to the human soul. It comes like other truth. It comes into the memory. It is born where the intellectual horses feed. It has no comeliness. It seems of less value than worldly learning.

The truths of religion seem, to the naturally minded youth, as not half so valuable or so lovely, as those which will form his path to fortune, or to fame. To the tradesman, business must be attended to, religion may be. To the scientific man, his science; to the professional man, his art; to the man of the world, his knowledge.

All seem vastly more important than that Eternal Truth which enters like a grain of mustard seed, but is destined to grow as wisdom gross, and at last become a mighty tree overtopping and overshadowing, protecting and blessing the whole man. Men still too often live only in the present, pursue with eager grasp its knowledge and its duties,

And to the mercies of a moment leave

The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

So was it with the Truth in Person, the Son of Man in human form. True, angels heralded His entry into the world, but these were seen only to the spirits eye. To men, he was a lowly child.

Cold on His cradle, the dew-drops were shining;

Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall:

Angels adore Him in slumbers reclining,

Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.

Only wise men say the Divine King under the baby-form. And so is it now. The Divine in the Human is slowly seen. Even now the idea of most men is that the spiritual is the negation of the natural, much more the Divine. But it is not so. The negation of the natural, is the nursing of a conceit, not the spiritualizing of a man. He who leaves a duty undone, that he may rehearse a prayer, cares more for himself, than he does for either humanity or for God. To do our duty from spiritual motives, is to become spiritual. To pray to be able to do this, that the will of the Lord may be done in our earth, as it is done in heaven, is the true object of prayer. The man, in whose every work and word--truth, justice, order, and meekness shine, is half-angelic. The man who could do it with Infinite nicety and perfection, would be ALL DIVINE. Only One has done it. Only One could ever say, Which of you convicteth me of sin? Of One only could it be written, In whose mouth there was no guile. Of only One, has there been a life in the world without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, and He was the Lamb without spot (Heb. ix. 14; 1 Pet. i. 19). He became perfect through sufferings, not putting off His own imperfections, but ours; assumed that His glorious Divine Humanity might enter into ours. He then put off our infirmities, subduing the bells that burrowed in them, bringing our nature into perfect order, by a spotless loving life; and be the seed and the heart of a new spiritualized world, by a suffering, loving death; so glorifying that nature, that the Lamb that was slain might be adored in the hosannas of all the heavens.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing (Rev. v. 12.)

His Creatures fell: no pitying eye,

No mighty arm to save was nigh,

Or aid our feeble powers:

He saw, He came, He fought alone,

And conquerd evils not His own,

That He might conquer ours.

Temptations thorny path He trod,

In form, a Man, in soul, a God;

And trod the path alone:

In vain the direst fiends assaild:

His mighty arm of power prevaild,

And hell was overthrown.

In entering on His work, the Son of Man could only enter in form of man, and pass through the conditions of our being. Although Divine Wisdom was in Him, in that guise it was scarcely known. Among the Jews, to be man was to be NOT God. To speak authoritatively, was to speak presumptuously. They thought Him the carpenters son. He had not been to any of their famous schools; what could He know? He spoke strangely too. He said, they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. He took the mask from venerated faces. We set little value on their most sacred rites. He said man was greater than the Sabbath, greater than the Temple. True, there seemed a Divine awe about Him, that pressed mysteriously upon them. True, He cast out devils; they submitted to His authority. He wondrously healed the sick. By some strange power He fed thousands out of a few loaves and a few small fishes. There was something marvelous about Him. It was even reported that the mind and the seas obeyed Him. But, then, how could that be? had any of the rulers believed on Him? What did the priests say?

The timidly good shrink from anything new until it has been endorsed, and the powers that be are slow to endorse that, which must overturn their authority.

The priests said He spoke audaciously. Their traditions had no reverence in His eyes.

He spoke of God being in Him, and of God Being His Father, so as that He who saw Him, saw the Father.

This could not be true, it was opposed to the established religion. Had not their fathers been of this faith, their mothers, and even their grandfathers? Did not everybody say the sacrifices and the gifts, and the customs, and the traditions were all quite right? Had not the tithes been established ever since the time of Moses? And, who was He to say that Mercy was better than Sacrifice, and LOVE better than Law? Who was He to say that poverty in spirit was the foundation of every virtue, the essence of heaven? Did not the respected Pharisee come along every day, have the trumpet blown, to announce that he was giving alms; and then go and thank God that he is notes other men? Let us ask our established Lords spiritual what they think of this strange and upstart Preacher. The narrow-minded priest, by profession, the men of phylacteries and long prayers, soon settled the matter. They knew this man was a sinner. He walketh not with us. We sit in Moses seat. We are the authority by right divine. Have we not the tradition of the elders? He cast out devils, but not in the regular way. Better men should keep their devils, than have them cast out in this unauthorized manner. He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. The blind man said that He had given him sight, but we have cast him out of the synagogue, we have silenced him. The poor weak fellow that had lain so long at Bethesda, said he had received strength from the same hand, but we represented to him how wrong it was to be carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. Lazarus, too, has been raised from the dead; that is an awkward circumstance. But, wait, we will dispose soon of him, and then this disturber shall be silenced. The unthinking multitude echoed these utterances of their blind guides. They looked askance. They said, He deceives the people. The Pharisees must know, and they say so. Away with. Him, away with Him.

The tones were the same from priest and from people; the words were the same. The people echoed the teaching of the priest, and the established authorities. Our fathers taught this, and we believed, and so teach we. As if every teaching of the fathers could be regarded as perfect, which had produced so unsatisfactory a state of society as that which the Lord found.

Society is the work of the principles and practices by which it is formed. When any teachers, clergy and statesmen, can show the people they direct to be permeated by justice, wisdom, and the love of God, a free and wise and understanding people, where law-givers rise above the prejudices of caste and party, and provide equally for the well-being of all, especially of the feeble; where liberty is hallowed by religion, where labor is inspired by love, directed by order, and respected by all: where the children are all taught, the arts and sciences all encouraged, and universal enlightenment prevails; where genial benevolence, sincerity, and honesty animate trade and commerce; where fraud is accounted folly, and crime is banished by purity, intelligence, and goodwill; where use is accounted dignified, and brotherhood universally felt; where competency and content are brought home to every man, and all rejoice in a Saviors love and blessing; then may the promoters of such a heaven below be privileged to say, See here are our principles in action, so have we taught and these ore the results. But, was society such at the time of the Lords coming? Alas, it was the reverse. Is society all that we would wish it now? We trow not. Yet it is what the principles and practice that have prevailed, have made it. We inherit what our fathers have taught and been. If we are not all we could wish to be, all we think a society might be--either the principles of doctrine, or the principles of practice, are wrong. They are not entitled to pass unquestioned, until their work is better. In any other workshop, an article miserably defective would not be a recommendation, but a warning. Its maker would be shunned, not applauded. If the workman who had made a bungled table, would be rebuked and urged to become more skillful in his trade, should not the framers of a society which swarms with wrong and sorrow, be urged to humble themselves, set their house in order, and pray for higher light?

The Pharisees and rulers of the Jews did not, however, think thus; few priests and rulers do. They go on reiterating the same things, as though their teachings and rulings had produced the most blessed state of things imaginable. And, when any one proposes new views find improvements in principles and practice, the stereotype reply is, It is contrary to the traditions of the fathers, contrary to the established principles. The obedient people repeat this, and oppose the innovators.

They say, of the great and good who offer them nobler things, They deceive the people. Of the Greatest and the Best, they said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him? But, exclaimed some, Can He that hath a devil open the eyes of the blind? He casts out devils. We have seen him who was raging with madness, because possessed by a legion of devils, sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. Oh, still say the prejudiced, the inwardly malignant, He casts out devils, by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. We will have none of Him. Do ye tend us We order that if any man shall acknowledge Him, he shall cast out of the synagogue.

It was on the occasion of a. tumult like this that our Lord spoke the words of our text.

There was blasphemy on every side. But it had very different grounds. The simple blasphemed from custom; from ignorance, from leadership. They meant right all the while, but they did not understand the Savior. They saw Him, as a teacher from Galilee, and they had been taught that go good can come out of Galilee. They saw He was not endorsed by the great Rabbis. He said strange and unheard of things; they were startled, and frightened; they exclaimed against Him, but they thought they were doing God service. The Savior saw their hearts, and sew they would come right at last. Their sin and blasphemy were against the Son of Man; they spoke a word against Him as He appeared to them. They thought He was presumptuous when He said that God was His Father, and was in Him. They thought he was human only, and was making Himself equal with God (John v. 18). They did not know Him, no one then knew the Son but the Father (Matt. xi. 28). They took up stones to stone Him. They did not know that infinite goodness and truth were in Him, that He was God manifest in the flesh. This they had to learn by a little here and a little there; by miracles of love and tenderness, and by the musing of their minds while the thought pressed upon them. If any man be a worshiper of God, him He heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened they eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, He could do nothing. They tried His precepts, and they found a strange peace: steal over them, and they found that if any man will do His will, he can know of the doctrine whether it is of the God (John vii. 17).

They who did good came to the light, and found joy in believing.

Some who came to scoff, remained to pray.

The word against the Son of Man was forgiven. What ignorance caused, light removed. They were before inwardly true to their sense of right; when their sense of right was enlightened, all their sin and blasphemy against the Son of Man melted away, and they joined the other disciples in singing, Hosanna, blessed be He who comes in the name of Highest.

And it is ever so. The Word now is the Son of Man, the Divine Truth with us. Many, who see only its letter, speak against it. They think it only a Jewish book, and know no reason why the annals of Israel are worthy of profounder regard than the annals of Gods ways with other nations. There are many things there they suppose not dignified enough for Deity. The letter sometimes contradicts itself, because it describes truth as it appears contradictory to man. They know nothing but its appearance, and religion they have heard in talk, and seen in profession; but in act, it has often appeared unlovely. Narrow conceits, instead of broad principles of exalted love and universal goodwill, have come in its venerable name. They seek for good, but have not found it. The actual in religion is not in accordance with their ideal. They ask for a help that can open heaven to the soul, and light up the dark problems of our being. Light, they say, more light. But in the name of religion they often hear strange mutterings about the blessedness of darkness, the profundity of mystery. They seek for something which will make them better in temper, higher in principle, clearer in wisdom, freer from doubt; rejoicing in the Word, stronger in struggle, unwavering in temptation, content in the present, happier in prospect, cheerfully firm in adversity, humbly grateful in prosperity, patient in sickness, smiling in death.

They are true to their own conceptions of what religion should be. They speak a word against the Son of Man, but; it is forgiven them. They know not what they do.

Perplexd in faith, but pure in deeds,

At last, they beat their music out.

There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

They fight their doubts, and gather strength,

They will not make their judgment blind,

They face the specters of the mind

And lay them. Thus they come at length

To find a stronger faith their own;

And power is with them in the night,

Which makes the darkness and the light,

And dwells not in the light alone.

Among those multitudes in our own country and in others, who make no profession of religion, there are many noble hearts. Among the neglected poor, the millions of the workshops and the fields, there are daily manifestations of uprightness, self-sacrifice, love of fair play and just principle, which would often shame the sectarian mind, by comparison. Many a poor woman will sit with a dying neighbor, and attend to every faint wish, night after night, not thinking of her own comfort, until death relieve her of the sacred task! Many a workman will share his last shilling with a brother son of labor, or adopt his orphan child! Yet these are loosed off from religion. They have an aversion to that which calls itself by the hallowed name. They speak a word against the Son of Man. But the day will come when their sin and blasphemy will be removed. They will see that Religion is labors truest, goodliest friend. It comes to give them Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Their opposition was not against the spirit, but only against what they had been taught was its form. They will feel a holy influence coming over them as a voice saying, Arise! shine for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord hath arisen upon thee (Is. lx. 1).

The prejudiced feelings of good people of different religions,--the dislikes they are taught to entertain for those who differ from them,--the oppositions they utter against truths, in the creeds and in the mouths of denominations not their own, are sins of the same class. They have been taught to look upon men of other creeds, as wolves most dangerous to the hock. They see men cast out devils, but they say continually, Lord, forbid them, for they follow not with us (Mark ix. 38). They are often led to think that the devils had better remain in, unless they are cast with proper, orthodox bell, book, and candle. All this is contrary to the spirit of charity, which is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, but it is grounded not in evil but in mistake. They forget that the same spirit may exist under many forms: eyes may be different in color, but may be equally useful for vision.

Many flowers may beautify a garden, though they are not the rose. Other sheep, said our blessed Lord, have I, that are not of this fold; them also must I bring that there may be one fold and one shepherd. I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

These sins and blasphemies, sins rather of man, not in man, the remnants of former states, or against forms not understood, these are against the Son of Man: they are against truth as it appears not as it IS; and, therefore, sooner or later, they will be removed; for ALL manner of sin and blasphemy will be remitted, BUT the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Sins of ignorance, sins of weakness, sins of mistake, sins of superstition not grounded in evil, sins against the Word owing to the appearances of the letter, when the spirit is not seen; these are all sins against the Son of Man. These can all be removed, and will be removed as the light of heaven shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Like the shades of night melting into the morning; like the fog rising from the mountain as the sunbeams gather strength; so vanish the mists and chills of error, as the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings.

We rejoice to think these sins and blasphemies against the Son of Man, form a large proportion of the misdeeds of men, sins of mistake, or sins of weakness, and are removable. Mankind need helping, not depressing nor condemning. The Son of Man came not to condemn the world, but to save the world. In our early conception of men, our judgments are short and sharp. We are strict to mark, and swift to punish. But as life advances, and experience gives life--wisdom we learn to make exceptions, and take a truer view of things. In many errors we mark a soul of good. We learn that evils are sometimes done, that are inwardly abhorred. We see souls struggling who need sympathy, and the touch of brotherly kindness, to help them from the quagmire in which they are sorely straggling. Sins sometimes grow parasitically--they are round the person, but are not deeply rooted. They will fall off like scales when the inner wound is fully healed by the spirit of the Lord Jesus. In the meantime, our wisdom is to help, to cheer, to encourage, to breathe hope, to show how evils can be conquered by our example: to launch the life-boat of gospel-loving kindness, that each poor struggling sinner may be aided in the Spirit of Him who said, Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.

O, be kind to each other!

The night s coming on,

When friend and when brother

Perchance may be gone.

Then midst our dejection,

Holy sweet to have earnd

The blest recollection

Of kindness returnd!

We come now to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit--that terrible sin, which cannot be removed either in this world, or in that which is to come.

The sins against the Holy Spirit, are the opposites of the sins against the Son of Man.

On them, we remark, first--They are sins, not of ignorance, but of knowledge. A person must have got to see and feel the Holy Spirit, or he cannot sin against it.

Secondly--They are sins not of weakness, but of wickedness.

Thirdly--They are not sins against the letter and appearances, but against the Holy Spirit of the Word of God.

We call earnest attention to the first particular.

A person, before he can really know the Holy Spirit of the Lord, must have made much advancement in heavenly things. The spirit of religion is of difficult attainment; the knowledge of it, even, is a great thing.

The first thing we meet with in our religious career is the letter of the Word, and the letter accommodated to our low states. The first gate, of the way that lends to life, is the north gate, of the way that looketh eastward (Ezek. xlvii. 2). Or, in other words, that surface knowledge of divine things, which is obtained in the Holy Word, by the perusal of its histories, narratives, and parabolic forms. This is the surface soil of Revelation; the gems of interior wisdom are not found there. This is the stone on the wells mouth. The soul that is of the earth earthy is taken up with this. He is curious about the geography, the chronology, the interesting adornments of the gate; but he does not knock; he is not anxious to go in. He strays about for awhile, and then goes another way. The cherubim that guard the way have kept him from going to the tree of life.

Another comes, and looks more closely at the gate.

He takes account of how many bars, what adornments, what bosses, what pinnacles it has. He has heard that many people make mistakes upon these subjects, and he will set them right. He maintains, there are mysterious and perplexing forms there--that no one can understand, and he will prove it. He is satisfied the essential use of the gate is to have these figures proved, not to be opened. He challenges the universe to come and look through his spectacles, and see if these mysterious, incomprehensible figures are not there, and declares all are wicked and deserving of eternal perdition who wont say as he says upon this important point. He continues to talk, to write, to scramble, and to fight, bat he never strives to enter in. He knows nothing of the spirit that is within. He is like those mentioned in the Acts of the Apostle, who said, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Spirit (Acts xix. 2). Thousands, now, have heard of the name, but have no real acquaintance either with the Spirit of the Lord or the spirit of religion. And, if they are not disposed to take up their cross and do the work of religion, it is better that its spirit should be hid. A refined and subtle hypocrite is the most incorrigible, the most depraved, and most dangerous of men.

To guard men against this most deadly form of sin, the Lord has given His Word, as it is. To His true servants, He says, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand (Luke viii. 10). Upon all the glory, there is a covering (Isaiah iv. 5). Blessed is the ignorance that hides from a great crime. To hide the truth from one man, is as great a mercy as to reveal it to another. The man who will betray, is better without a knowledge of the treasure chambers of a palace.

Sad is it to be without a knowledge of the hidden truths of the spiritual sense of the Word: those truths, so bright, so holy, so all-embracing, so beautiful as they are; but sadder still is it to have known and loved them so as to embrace them clearly in the mind, and then, from corruptions of the heart, treat them as a villain does his courtezan, hate them interiorly while he uses them, to lure the unwary to his snores. This is to sin against the Holy Spirit.

The apostle very clearly describes the state of such persons.

For it is impossible for those who mere once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame (Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6).

Such persons have mixed good and evil together in themselves, truth and falsehood together, heaven and hell together. They have pressed on, and in, contrary to all the, Divine barriers that the mercy of the Lord hast set up, and whenever the truth that would save them is suggested, the evil with which, they have polluted it is suggested also, and destroys its power, while at the same time there is the still inner wickedness of defiant self-will, which induced so fearful a state. Thus they become spiritual monsters who WILL not, and who therefore cannot, be saved.

The Pharisees, are the scriptural illustration of this character. It was in application to them these words were said. See verse 32 of this chapter, and in Mark, after similar words, the sacred writer adds, Because they (the Pharisees) said he hath an unclean spirit.

These men were inwardly depraved. They were whited sepulchers, beautiful without, but within, full of dead mens bones, and all uncleanness. They watched the Savior, but only to betray Him. They heard His wisdom, but they only mocked. They used Scripture, but only to catch something to report, that they might ruin. They saw His wonderful works of benevolence and love, but they were only moved to prove Him a sinner, because He healed on the Sabbath. Nothing softened, nothing won them. The more He rose, the more they sunk. When they beheld Lazarus raised from the dead, it only excited them to conspire and murder such a testimony of His Divinity and their helplessness, that so their fiendishness might triumph. Divine Mercy cannot give them from such a state. Its influx only provokes more dreadful opposition. Let them alone.

Secondly: We notice this state is one, not of weakness, but of deep inward wickedness.

You will perceive it is not said who opposes the Holy Spirit, but the BLASPHEMY against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven (or removed).

This state, implies an entire destruction of the spirit of good, in ourselves. We begin life, with the germs of heaven implanted within us. We have a depraved nature from our parents, and a sanctifying nature from the Lord. He who places it there took the little ones into his arms, find said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven. Childhoods kiss is not of nature, nor of sin. It springs from the kingdom of God, within. The rainbow of love in the infants eye, is the promise that mercy dawns over it. It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. If we grow up and become as Egypt, there are Israelites in our Egypt, who may find the promised land. If, like Sodom, there will be no destruction so long as ten righteous men, or even one, be left in the city. While these interior germs of heaven be there, if we sin like Peter, the chanticleer will make his voice heard, and perchance we may go out and weep bitterly. If we be leporzied like Naaman, the little maid will still entreat, Would God that my master were with the Prophet that is in the midst of Israel. The lights of heaven within the soul only go out one by one, but if we persist in wrong-doing the time comes when the last goes out, and evil finally triumphs over the very life of good. There is then no friend of God, to open the door. He knocks, but there is no response, save an inward hissing of hate, and a certain fearful looking for of judgment. They blaspheme, not only against the Son of Man, but against the Holy Spirit. They know what goodness is, but they call it evil. They know what truth is, but when it hashes over them, like Ahab of old, they say, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy. Evil be thou my good, has become their motto, the very spirit, and hidden warp and wool of the soul. Evil is not so much with them, as in them. Their motto, like that of Miltons Satan, is

Whereer I go is hell,
Myself am hell.

These depths of iniquity are not common in this life; Divine Providence makes them as few as possible; yet they sometimes occur, and ere the final state of every wicked man is reached, he must thus cast away every right feeling and tender thought, and become insane in sin. All other sins are removed by the workings of a merciful Savior, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

All, therefore, who people the abodes of sorrow must come into this blasphemy. All others are saved.

Thirdly, we remark, that it is a state, not due to errors and mistakes, but a hatred of the very inward character of religion. It is not against the letter. It is against the Holy Spirit. It is the soul it hates, not the form. It hates it until it mocks and blasphemes.

The Pharisees saw the Lords love, but they said He seduces the people. They saw His meekness, His forbearing tenderness, but they said away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him, crucify Him. They saw the remorse of Judas at his guilt in shedding the dear blood of the most innocent.
But they growled only, What is that to us!

Such is the awful condition of those who go on from sin to sin, until they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit; for whom there is no salvation, for they will not be saved, neither in this world nor that which is to come. To be saved, means to be enlightened, to be purified, to be hallowed, to be made heavenly. There is only one power who can do these things, and that is the Holy Spirit which the sinner blasphemes, and will neither admit nor obey. The sun shines over his house but he hates the light, and closes up the windows. The fountain that would purify flows on, but he stops out the water; or if he allows the slightest amount to pass, he so defiles it, that it rather increases than lessens the impurity. What is required to be done only One can perform, and He is forbidden to enter. The non-remission of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, even, is not on account of want of mercy and love on the part of the All-merciful, but solely from the unwillingness, the obstinacy of the creature. Such a man loves darkness rather than light, defiance rather than love, virulence rather than gentleness, turbulence rather than peace, hell rather than heaven.

Over such the All-loving Savior exclaims, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, now OFTEN would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, but YE WOULD NOT (Luke xiii. 34).

Turn we now, to consider those who have not committed the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Many tender souls are often fearful lest they may have been betrayed into the unpardonable sin, or may be tending towards it, unwittingly. They feel so many frailties, so many short-comings, so much to condemn in themselves, and make so little progress, they fear they have committed this awful sin, and are blighted in all their endeavors. They lament sorely, lest this should have been done, but fear there is no hope. Sins against the Holy Spirit, however, cannot have been done unwittingly; they are sins of purpose, of intention, against the very spirit of religion. Those who have intended the right, but so far have often failed, who have wished and striven to avoid evil, but yet have found the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak; may perhaps be blamable for want of diligence, may not have been faithful enough in prayer, in reading the Word, in attendance upon the Sacraments, and the various means of grace, and so are weak when they might have been strong, but they are NOT in blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Many are astonished at the revealings of their interior evils, as their regeneration proceeds. In their early times, they found much of light, and joy, and peace. Their hearts bounded lightly in the feeling of recent deliverance, and all around was happy. They had entered on a new world. All was bright above and around. They felt vividly the presence of new life. Now, however, they seem dull, and flat, and dead. They are heedless of divine things. They drag themselves along, but it is hard work. They are disheartened, discouraged. There are principles revealed within them, at which they are astonished. They believe they are getting worse, rather than better. They mourn over themselves and are most miserable. Temptations of a fearful character beset them. They are tempted to give up religion altogether as a vain dream. Hard thoughts against Providence infest them. What have they done to be subject to sorrow like this? They hate evil, but it comes again and again, and they cannot away with it. They accuse themselves continually, and sometimes accuse Divine Providence of giving them a harder lot than others; then will come the dark suspicion, have I sinned against the Holy Spirit. Is it all over with me? That thought I cannot bear. As long as a person complains, the better nature is present, and really in the ascendant. Evils are in the external man; when we mourn about them, condemn them, condemn ourselves for suffering them, there is a better state within, that sees and judges the worse.

There is a living man, as well as a dead one. Persevere; through the life within, the Lord will restore the dead. Lazarus may have been in the grave four days; but while Martha and Mary are watching and sending to the Savior, there is a warrant for his resurrection. The sins we hate are with us, but not in us. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? said the apostle. And, the answer is, Blessed be God, who giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Through His own Glorified Humanity, God in Christ redeems, restores and transforms us into His own image, and will raise us to Himself.

The soul that is in the sin against the Holy Spirit, no longer mourns, it blasphemes.

Our spiritual food, be it good or bad, enters the soul like our natural food enters the body. It is first seen, then touched and tasted, then masticated, swallowed, and digested. It then passes on into the blood, and by the blood is introduced into the tissues of the body, and becomes part of its astonishing system. At first, it is most palpable, but at each step of its progress it becomes less and less sensible to us; and when it passes into the blood, and circulates in the system, we are not conscious of its presence. It moves silently on. It acts and performs the most important functions, but it does them secretly. It becomes the body itself.

So, evil and false principles, when presented, at first are disagreeable to us. But if, alas, betrayed by the traitors within us, our aversion is overcome, and we touch and taste them. If we masticate and enjoy them, if we favor and digest them, and pass them on into the intestines of the soul, they become our living, active principles, and repel, by inward repugnance, all things holy and good. There is no interior conflict, that is over. All is silent within. The inner life of heaven has been crushed, subdued, and extirpated. It abhors and abominates purity, order, wisdom, righteousness, and heaven. It blasphemes against the Holy Spirit. So long as there is a struggle for good, a mourning over defects, a lamentation for lost states of piety, and a longing for higher grace there is no blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: While there is struggle there is life, and while there is life there is hope.

Take the case of the Pharisees as they are introduced in the Word. There is no trace of inward compunction--no struggle with themselves.

One cold, deceitful, deadly opposition appears, where the Pharisee appears, making good evil and evil good, sweet bitter and bitter sweet. Such is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Again, none are in this awful blasphemy, who do not love evil, and love it interiorly, and hate goodness maliciously, and treat it with deceit.

So long as we do not love evil, although we may not yet have thrown it fully off, the Spirit of heaven is within us, and by looking to the Lord and strengthening ourselves by His Word, we shall overcome the habits we abhor, and by little and little, all the states of mind and heart in which they have their roots. Hope, trust, persevere, and the time will come in which the long temptations will cease, and all will be well.

They are not in the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, who have NOT YET entered into the knowledge and reception of heavenly things, and not tasted of the power of the world to come. They may be in rude and deplorable evils, but they are not in this subtle and fatal one. They have never seen nor felt the Holy Spirit at all, and cannot blaspheme that of which they are ignorant. And here is the justification of a wise caution in the presentation of holy things to others. To those who are in manifest evils, we may speak, like the Baptist, of repentance, but not cast our pearls before swine, nor give that which is holy unto the dogs. The most fearful state of all, is that of those who are charmed by divine things and eater into them for a time, but who then systematically pervert and defile them. Better that we should remain ignorant, than become spiritually intelligent, and diabolical. Of all sinners, the worst is a deceitful, sanctimonious hypocrite--

A villain with a smiling face;

A goodly apple rotten at the core.

No profession, no creed, no ceremonial, nor faith, can save such a man. His heart is one mass of wrong. He has blotted out the very soul of good. His sins cannot be remitted, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.

This was very strikingly represented by the Jewish law in relation to one who had slain a man. If a person killed another hastily or without malice, he could fly to the city of refuge, and he was safe from the avenger of blood. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die (Ex. xxi. 14).

So, we may err, in a thousand ways from ignorance, from weakness, from inconsideration, from the habits of our age, from the circumstances which have surrounded us from birth, but when we discover the wrong done, if we fly to the church, the city of refuge, and in repentance and love, lay hold of the altar of heaven, we shall be saved. No avenger of blood will be permitted to destroy us; our sin will be forgiven. The sins of ignorance and of weakness will be removed by: the prayer of penitence, at the altar of the Lord. But, if we have sinned from malice, from deceit; against light, destroying the light, and destroying the life of heaven in ourselves, although we had the light of godliness, no profession of religion, no amount of frantic appeal in the hour of death, will save us. Thou shalt take him from mine altar, and he shall die. Lastly, let me affectionately warn all who hear me, that every known evil is sin, and should be striven against and overcome.

No small sin can be persevered in without great danger. The small sin, may be the inlet, by which still greater enter. He who is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in the greatest. He who risks his great salvation for a little sin, perils an invaluable inheritance, for a great folly.

Sins of ignorance are not small, when knowledge is easily attained. When the soul has little concern for truth, it is a bad sign. Goodness loves truth, and seeks it. Goodness desires to do good, but without truth, does not know the way. Ignorance itself, when opportunity of light is afforded, is a sin. The love of the truth is the turning point of salvation. He who loves the truth will break the bonds of sin, for THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE HIM FREE. He who loves the truth, will love the Word which is the truth, and come to Him who is the Truth and the Light, and thus obtain the light of life, and his ignorance will disappear, and the sins of which it was the cause. Sins of weakness become more serious sins, if the strength to overcome them, is not diligently sought.

Weakness of character, sometimes, implies strength in obstinacy. The apathy that will not ask for strength from the Savior, who is willing to impart it, implies self-will, self-conceit, that prefers the weakness which fails again and again, to the power that would give purity and rest, and is itself a serious evil.

Oh, for the heart at all times to seek energy and persevering power from Him whose love redeemed, whose goodness saves, and who has all power in heaven and on earth.

We must never forget, that every sin persevered in, runs its career to insanity, and ends at last in the sin against the Holy Spirit. Let us arise, then, from every evil, seek the Inspirer of every good, and receive that heaven within, while we faithfully keep the commandments, which will prepare us for our everlasting home.

We have spoken of the REMISSION OF SINS, or the removal of sins, which is a GREAT TRUTH, full of comfort. This removal is done by the power of the Lord Jesus in the soul of man. We cannot leave this subject without a caution against confounding this truth, with what has so largely overlaid it in the minds of many, namely, the removal of the wrath of God, which is a GREAT MISTAKE.

The Lord Jesus came to remove sins and save sinners. He accomplished His work, and still accomplishes it in every soul that comes to Him.

For this He came; for this He redeemed; for this He died. It has been a marvelous instance of the subtlety of self-delusion, which has in many minds, substituted the idea of pacifying the Divine Wrath, for the removal of our sins. Even the words of Scripture are read, and quoted, which reiterate the assurance that our sins are removed by our Savior; there is a species of mental change of terms takes place, and we think of the removal of the wrath of one Divine Person, by the transfer of the pains and merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ; and we overlook the great truth, that r our sins are to be removed. We think that the condemnation of our sins will be blotted out, because God has accepted our substitute for us; and, as for our sins themselves, we often imagine that we must retain them, while we have a sinful body, but we are saved from their effects. In gratitude for our deliverance from the Wrath of God, we are exhorted to live, from love to the Savior; but salvation does not depend upon it. With this persuasion, much sin is suffered to haunt the soul undisturbed, and we make ourselves comfortable with the assurance that our salvation is not in the least jeopardy; the satisfaction to the Father has been paid, and our sins will not condemn us.

There is much of fallacy, and much of danger in this. The Scriptures know nothing of paying the Father for us.

The Scriptures proclaim the REMISSION OF SINS by our Savior: the REMISSION OF SINS. We cannot too much dwell upon this truth, until it sink deeply into our hearts. Our sins dwell within us. They give us the feeling of opposition to God. They induce us to think He is angry with us. His holiness is opposed to our impurity. And, when we contemplate His holiness and His laws, and our sinfulness and disobedience, me necessarily regard Him as angry with us, and the pain we feel, as the consequence of His wrath. But the truth is, our sins separate between our God and us. Our sins must be removed by repentance on our part, and His Spirit working in us. On our part, we are to repent for the remission of sins; the Lord Jesus has redeemed us, that our sins may be removed. Never forget that REMISSION OF SINS, is the REMOVAL OF SINS. Before repentance, sins rule. Pride, self-will, obstinacy, passion, envy, hatred, malice, revenge, vanity, ostentation, contempt for others, and a thousand varieties of these: lust of gain, greed of power, thirst for applause, a defiance of law, when it can safely be done, where power or pelf is concerned, impure pleasures, all these sins and their offshoots reign within the soul. To them evil spirits and evil influences, are adjoined. There is an agreement with death, a covenant with hell. Who can break it? Who can remove these sins? The Lord Jesus can, and will. Unless He had come into the world, there would have been no remission of sins. Unless He had finished His work of redemption by dying for us, and glorifying His Humanity, there would have been no remission of sins. Without the shedding of blood, there was no remission. But He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from ALL INIQUITY, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Tit. n. 14). Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world (John i. 29). Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke xxiv. 46, 41).

The great doctrines of repentance, and the REMISSION, that is, the REMOVAL, of sins, with the unfolding of the wonders of love, in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of God our Savior, were the constant themes of apostolic preaching, and indeed of the whole testimony of the New Testament.

John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the REMISSION of sins (Mark i. 4). This is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many, for the REMISSION (that is, the REMOVAL) of sins. The blood of the Lord Jesus, shed on the cross, was shed for the removal of sins, because it was the lest of the redeeming acts by which hell was conquered, by whose terrible power men were held in the bondage of sin, and the inward blood of the Saviors Spirit, which flows from Him, through His Word and Sacraments, flows for the removal of sins. Whosesoever sins ye remit, (remove,) they are remitted; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained (John xx. 23). That is, I have given you the truths of the Gospel; go forth, preach, explain, and enforce them; whosesoever sins ye remove by their LIGHT and POWER, are really removed. Whosesoever sins ye retain, because they harden themselves against you, are thoroughly, deeply, ineradically retained.

When the apostles went forth, the burden of their preaching was the great lesson of DELIVERANCE FROM SIN. Thus Peter, on the day of Pentecost, Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the REMISSION OF SINS, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts ii. 38). Him hath God exalted with His right hand, a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness, REMISSION, REMOVAL OF SINS (Acts v. 31). Again, Peter, at Caesarea, To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name, whosoever believeth in Him, shall receive the REMISSION of sins (Acts x. 43).

This remission from sins, this salvation from sins, the great aim of apostolic preaching, was realized by their converts, and may be realized now. Yet, partly because we are indisposed to believe it, and shrink from real self-sacrifice and self-conquest; and partly from unwise preaching, this doctrine is strangely overlooked, and its soul-hallowing effects unattained.

It has come to be almost a maxim, even amongst professing Christians, that sin is a power that CANNOT be overthrown, and all that we have to look for, is to be saved from hell. We are not taught to pray, with a confident faith that it can be done. Cleanse me from my sin (Ps. ii. 2). Blot out mine iniquities (ver. 9). Wash away my sins (Rev. i. 5).

Cleanse us by thy Divine Blood, O Lord Jesus, from all sin (1 John i. 7); from all unrighteousness (ver. 9). But a decrepit, a shred faith is loudly preached, instead.

Instead of the stalwart faith of believing all that the Lord Jesus teaches, believing in His everlasting Love, believing in His everlasting Wisdom, believing that we must repent, believing that all our sins can be subdued by the power of our Savior, received in persevering confidence and love, believing that we must keep the commandments, believing that the Divine Providence watches over, around, and within us, with infinite tenderness, care, and foresight, believing that we shall know the truth, if we follow on to know the truth, and the truth will make us free, and as Gods freemen, we shall enjoy this world, and heaven and happiness will be ours; instead of this faith, that overcomes the world (1 John v. 4), a flimsy faith is preached, and mens ears are dinned, stunned we might almost say, with a monotonous tune, having only one note. Believe, believe, believe!

Saving Faith is made to consist, not in reverently and lovingly accepting all the truth, that we see, and OBEYING it, but in believing one fact, and one falsehood, curiously blended together. Jesus died for us, which is not a fact that almost everyone in Christendom believes, and that His death saves from the wrath of His Father, which is not a fact, for God so loved the world that He sent His Only-begotten Son, (His Humanity, begotten of Himself,) that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life (John iii. 16).

This miserable substitute for the Divine Faith of the Gospel, multitudes accept, and hold in unrighteousness. They are told they can believe in five minutes, and all will be right. God will be satisfied and heaven will be theirs, and they conclude as it is so short and simple a matter, they will be sure to have five minutes, and a large margin, in their last illness; and notwithstanding a life of sin, they will escape hell. Others accept this Gospel, now, and leave the grosser sins of impiety, unchastity, intemperance, and neglect of the worship of God; but the less obtrusive sins, their faith is powerless to remove. And there is a sort of persuasion, which is again a curious compound, partly, that these sins are too much for the Gospel, which means that they are too much for the Almighty Savior to overcome; and, partly, that they are not of much consequence; they are only in the body, and will be put off with the body.

Swearing is given up, but not the peevish temper, the ungovernable violence, the bitter passion, the hot hastiness, which formed the base of swearing, and still cause the great miseries of home. Downright theft is not allowed, but the daily frauds of false advertisements, the lies which fraudulently palm inferior goods upon people; the hypocrisies of daily life; the pretensions to be what we are not; the smooth sleek frauds by which wide confidence is won and cheated; these lurk, and corrupt in ten thousand ways, and are scarcely touched by the tinsel faith of which we have spoken.

Men are recommended TO BE GOOD, for the love of the Savior, but they are told, also, that salvation does not depend upon this, it depends ONLY upon their having the faith which they are told to have, and they choose the easier way.

But, O how the Savior is dishonored by this, how is Christianity mocked, man cheated, and society cursed by it!

God our Father, descended in the Son, to subdue sin. He conquered all hell, that was its support. He glorified His Humanity, that He might always be, God with us. His Holy Spirit is ever near. And yet, we fear, He cannot subdue sin, in us. Oh what infatuation!

Sin is not an institution, not a necessity: it is a plague, and a curse. Sin is only a power, while it imposes upon you. Drag the mask off it; look at it as your enemy; look at your own sin, and look at your Savior. An incipient hell, is in every sin. Pray, labor, read the Word daily for light, comfort, and strength; agonize, persevere, and your sins, like Marys, will be removed, for you love much (Luke vii. 47).

As soon as you heartily come to Him, your sins are removed. They were in the active center of your soul, but He will remove them to the circumference. He will hold them, like muzzled lions, unable to harm yen. He will cast them so far that you cannot see them. He will make them like things forgotten, buried in the depth of the sea (Ps. ciii. 12; Mic. Vii. 9). If, when you have gathered strength, they come again, they will only come so tempered, and so, one by one, that you will be able to destroy them. Come, and receive this REMISSION, this REMOVAL of your sins.

Your temper may be hasty and violent; do not be discouraged; you shall become a lamb; take up your cross. Fear not, the Lord is with you. Your bad habits may have been long confirmed; again, fear not; the new man shall be formed in you in righteousness and true holiness.

You are mistrustful, that in this fraudulent state of the world, your business will be ruined, if you do justly, speak the truth, and are honest in all things; again, have faith, fear not. He who has all power in heaven and on earth, is on your side. Uprightness, integrity, truth, courtesy, diligence, virtue, have all their worth, and infinitely outweigh fraud, even in this world. All manner of sin and blasphemy will be removed, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; and you have not that, for you are concerned for your salvation, and you seek the Spirits help.

Again, my beloved friends, fear nothing; enter upon this holy work. Look at your especial sin, and fight against it. Oh, you will have such victories, if you will struggle against vexed home will become the abode of peace. A weary and harassed life will be transformed into a firm career, abounding in pleasant duties, hopeful and honorable. Every cloud will have, for you, a silver lining; every sorrow, a deep soul of inward peace. Do not delay. Begin now. It is a lifes work, but when begun, there is a lifes joy. You are not called to be melancholy, but to be happy. This world is gods world, not hells. For you, it will be a world of increasing bliss, as your inner world comes into order.

When your sins are remitted, these four signs will follow

FirstYou will delight in worshiping the Lord. Your soul will gush over with gratitude. Emotions of love and joy will often prompt the tear of tenderness, and the burst of faith. O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever.

SecondYou will love to serve your neighbor. You will wish to do him good. You will delight to learn truth that you may do him goodespecially you will delight in the Word. You will look round to see how you can serve mankind, doing good for the sake of good, and believing truth for truths sake. You will rejoice in every opportunity of use, and in justly fulfilling your greatest use, the especial duties of your daily office and employment.

ThirdYou will shrink from all thought of merit, in anything you do. You will exalt the Lord, and subdue self.

FourthYou will more and more dislike all evils, shunning them, holding them in aversion as hateful things, irrespective of their punishments.

You would not do them if you could. But you will daily follow whatsoever things ore true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report (Phil. iv. 8). If these signs are with you then rejoice. Heaven is in you, and die when you may, you will go to heaven.

By the same Author. Second Issue.
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ERRATA IN DR. BAYLEYS 5TH DISCOURSE ON THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. Page 2, lines 10 and 12, for orphesin read aphesin.

TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. VI.

TRUE SPIRITUALISM:

FOLLOWING THE LORD JESUS AND HIS WORD IN THE REGENERATE LIFE; NOT SEEKING INTERCOURSE WITH SPIRITS.

And when they shall any unto yen, Seek unto them which have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.ISA. viii. 19, 20.

True Spiritualism, is spiritual mindedness. To BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED, SAYS THE APOSTLE, IS LIFE AND PEACE (Rom. viii. 6.) God is a Spirit, and True Spiritualism is to become like Him, and to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Man is a spirit clothed with a body: true Spiritualism is allowing the spirit to rule, and to keep the body in order. The interiors of the spirit are the will and the understanding; the will for the reception of Spiritual Love, from the Divine Love, the understanding for the reception of Spiritual Wisdom from the Divine Wisdom.

True Spiritualism, is, in, liberty, to receive such love with our WILLS while we obey the Divine Commandments and, in rationality, to receive such wisdom into our UNDERSTANDINGS. True Spiritualism is always in harmony with the Word of the Lord, which is SPIRIT AND LIFE. (John vi. 63.) True Spiritualism is heavenly mindedness. True Spiritualism is a loving obedience to the Divine Commandments. True Spiritualism is a regard for the Word.

The true Spiritualist; is one who communes with the Divine Spirit of our Lord at all times, referring all his thoughts and affections to Him. The Lord rules his inward man, the inward rules the outer; and this gives a sacred tone at all times to the mind and manners. Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. (Rom. viii. 9.) The true Spiritualist knows that the law of the Lord is spiritual, and he lovingly obeys it. He delights in the law of God after the inward man. (Rom. vii. 22). He mortifies the deeds of the body and finds the fruits of the Spirit to be love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law. (Gal. v. 22, 23.) The true Spiritualist, has his delights in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night; or he knows it is the treasure-house of all wisdom, and true understanding. The Word is his light; the Word is his spirits food; the Word is his director and defense. The spiritual meaning of the Word of Heavenly Love and truth, is his especial delight. He prays in the Spirit, lives in the Spirit, sows in the Spirit, and of the Spirit reaps life everlasting.

Spiritualism in this sense, is an invaluable thing; it is worthy of all acceptation. But like other excellent things, it is often misunderstood. Counterfeits present themselves, and are often received. Let us then examine the subject, a little more closely.

I. True Spiritualism, is a devout and humble love of the will, laws, and order of the Lord: and this is true righteousness. Pseudo-spiritualism is the adoption of some human substitute for the Divine will, laws, and order; and this is self-righteousness. Should not it people seek unto their God?

II. True Spiritualism, is a devout love for the Holy Word, and a constant communion with the Lord by its means. To the law and to the testimony. Pseudo-spiritualism, is seeking direction and information on spiritual subjects by other means, such its by familiar spirits, table-turnings, spirit-rappings, &c.;

And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them which have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? If they speak not according to this Word it is because there is no light in them.

A devout love of the Divine will, laws, and order, perceives them, in all things. It sees the goodness of the Lord on every side, above and below. In the glorious sun-beams; in the silvery moon, and the star-spangled curtain of night; in the ever-changing grandeur of the clouds; in the airy ocean in which we live, with all the fragrant odors with which it is laden; in the beautiful trees, flowers, shrubs, and grasses of the world, and all the varieties of land and ocean, mountain and valley, hill and plain, forest and field, goodly river and tiny rill, stream and lake, with all the myriad forms of life and beauty with which they are peopled. The true Spiritualist rejoices in them all, is grateful for them all. And while he gazes on some lovely landscape where hill and dale, mood and water, sky and earth, trees and singing birds, all present their beauties to delight eye and ear and smell, his heart often offers its grateful incense of praise and thanksgiving. Bless the Lord, he says, all his works, in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord O my soul.

There is beauty in all this delectable world;

There is beauty above, and around, and below;

The heavens and the earth are but beauty unfurled,

From the daisys sweet hue, to the suns golden glow.

The true Spiritualist sees, too, the lovingness of the Divine will, in all the relations of society. In the family circle, in the relations of parent and child, of brother and sister, husband and wife, in friend and fellow citizen, in thinker and worker, in rulers and ruled, in the thousand forms of busy life on land and sea, he beholds the ministries of love and wisdom, in which the will and law of the Almighty Father and Savior, are blessing His creature man.

He is grateful for his faculties of mind. He knows the grandeur of their powers. He knows they are inlets, by which Infinite Mercy imparts the thousand thousand blessings of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and virtue. He is grateful for his senses, he is grateful for his body. He regards himself as he truly is, as a compound of wondrous appetites in such relation to all things in heaven and earth, that they may bless him, within and withoutthat heaven may pour in its celestial riches, and earth its lower but yet beneficent treasures. He rejoices, from love, in the arrangements of Divine Providence, and humbly seeks to adapt himself to them. Thankful for all the blessings he obtains, thankful too for the difficulties which prepare him for higher blessings; he bears what, Mercy sees it fitting he should bear. He applies himself firmly when necessary, to the stern work of life, but he is lovingly grateful for every benefit he receives. He loves and labors in the work of regeneration. He blesses the Lord for his Word, as well as for his world; and the constant grateful acknowledgment of the true Spiritualist is, Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Such is the true Spiritualist. His loving, faithful obedience to the Divine commandments by power from his Savior, neither seeking to go above nor below them, is the righteousness of God in him. He strives to walk by the Divine rule. He hears the Word like a voice behind him, saying, This is the way, walk thou in it, when he would turn to the right hand or to the left. (Isa. xxx. 21.)

Such is TRUE SPIRITUALISM; and to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

There is, however, a spurious spiritualism, a pseudo-spiritualism, a melancholy mixture of piety and bile, which jaundices the soul, and under the persuasion of being very religious, deems it a duty to be very miserable. Such a spirit throws a pall over creation, and sees nothing anywhere but lamentation and woe. Instead of the reasonable commands of the All--wise and All-good, this pseudo-religiousness caricatures religion, and condemns the greatest blessings and all the innocent enjoyments of life. This pseudo-spiritualism, in one department of Christendom, has frowned upon marriage, making its highest saintship consist in the rejection of lifes highest responsibilities, and its sweetest gifts.

This Pseudo-spiritualism placed the dirty saints of the Egyptian deserts on their pillars for years, imagining their lazy instincts to be holiness, and their groveling hideousness, until they approached a resemblance to the brutes amongst which they lived, the best preparation for heaven,the land of highest purity, and Divinest beauty. This fanaticism induced Pascal to be walled out from the lovely sights and sounds of nature, lest he might be allured to be happy, by the beauteous world of his Maker.

This pseudo-spiritualism, but real fanaticism, does not distinguish between the world of God, which is pious and beautiful, and worldliness, which is evil. In some, it condemns music; in others, painting and sculpture; in others dancing, as ministers to the senses, as if the senses were not from the Lord, and had not the sacred office of making the world subordinate to the eternal world in us. This morbid spirit makes religion sour, and hateful to the young: while true religion, embodied in the Savior, ever says, I come not to take your joy away from you, but that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full. (John xv. 11.)

This pseudo-spiritualism looks condemnatory at the world, yet in its own bitter way is most keenly bent on having as much power and pelf in it as possible. It slights the easy, blessed commandments of the Lord, which are the laws of happiness, and has given hard commandments of its own, which take away all the delight out of life.

Pseudo-spiritualism makes long prayers, has a whining speech; revels in cant; but when weighed by the standard of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with the Lord, is greatly deficient.

The world in man, unregenerated, like the world out of him, uncultivated, is a world in disorder. The work of true religion is to reduce this inner world to order and beauty; to tame the passions, to conquer evil habits, to correct the temper, to learn the laws of truth and duly, and, humbly, but faithfully and lovingly carry them out, into every work of life. To do this is meek dependence on the Savor, and by His spirit, word, and example, thus to work out our salvation with fear and trembling but with trust, love, and perseverance; this is true Spiritualism.

Dark sensualism never does this holy life-work; for the soul whom it governs loves darkness rather than light, because its deeds are evil. Pseudo-spiritualism never does it. It pretends that the world cannot possibly be regenerated; so it builds castles in the air, and exults in fancied security. It lives upon morbid sentimentalities, and vainly dreams that with the body all the sins it fails to subdue, because it really loves them, will at last be put off.

Pseudo-spiritualism will not be merry, because it says this is worldly, as if anything could be less worldly than the hearty enjoyment of anothers joy, and the delighted smile that recognizes our Heavenly Fathers goodness; but it is grasping and keen in dealing, which is the essence of worldliness. Pseudo-spiritualism either rejects business as altogether unspiritual, and thinks that salvation will follow praying well and singing well, but cannot possibly have anything to do with working well; or it will submit to do business as an unmanageable necessity, as a totally different thing from religious duty. It wishes to be out of the world. It bans the world as a possession of evil ones, as an incurable den of the depraved. The Divine language of the Savior, I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wouldst keep them from the evil, is not understood by pseudo-spiritualism. Only the truly spiritually-minded trust in the Omnipotent power of God, their Savior, and work in faith, and hope, and love, until every department; of mind and life, and business, with them, has been corrected, transformed, and brought under the spirit of heaven. In them the wilderness has become like Eden, the desert-like the garden of God; joy and gladness is found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

When every man enters upon this holy work, of bringing heavenly feeling, and justice, and judgment into his avocation, whatever that may be: whether that of workman or employer, tradesman or merchant, statesman or subject, whether monarch or cottager, then will the world around us and the world within us, be like the world above us, the stars and those grand and solemn planets which do their work to a moment of time, and declare the glory of God.

This is Christian work. This is true saintly duty. Here is holy hardihood required; to go into each walk of business-life, and work out there the Christianisation of trade and employment of every kind, until the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

O for the Christian workman who, from love to his Savior, will subdue his own evils, and the disorders of his trade, and help his fellows to work from the spirit, and by the laws of heaven. O for the Christian employers who will deliver their workman from unhealthy workshops and unhealthy hours, who will be content with modest gain, so that comfort and health may exist round them. O for the tradesman, the merchant, the broker, and the banker, who will have no frauds, either patent or conceded, in their transactions. O for Christian jurists who will do battle for the sake of Him who is the Truth and the Life, against all legal fictions, and let law be equity, and justice and judgment everywhere prevail. May Thy kingdom come, O Lord Jesus, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. This is true Spiritualism. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. (John v. 4.)

O the golden chains that link heaven to earth,
The rusts of all time cannot sever;

Evil shall die in its own dark dearth,

And the good liveth on for ever.

And, man, though he beareth the brand of sin,

And the flesh and the devil have bound him,

Hath a spirit within, to old Eden akin,

Only nurture up Eden around him.

We come now to the second form of pseudo-spiritualism, that which accounts it spiritualism, to consult with spirits, and seeks comfort slid direction by spirit-rappings, and other modes of dealing with the dead.

True Spiritualism, we have seen, is, holding communion with the Spirit of the Lord, and the means of doing that, are the truths of the Holy Word. The Word is a Divine ladder, reaching from earth to heaven, on which the angels ascend and descend.

With this means, provided by Heaven, our communications will be safe and sure. He who reads, loves, and practices the Word, will be associated with Heaven. All these are come to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-born. (Heb. xii. 22.)

But this association of men and angels takes place by the Divine care, unknown, except in special instances, on both sides. Time was, no doubt, when men and angels were visibly associated with each other; but since men fell from order into sin, the mercy of the Lord has interposed a veil between the two worlds, the world of spirits and the world of men; and, for kindest, obvious reasons. The law of association is, that like minds associate with like; evil men are associated with evil spirits; men in false principles with spirits like themselves, but with this difference, spirits are fixed in their principles, and far more subtle in them than men. If, therefore, a man were open to receive communications from spirits, they would be in similar principles to those he cherished, only more deeply in them; and the echoes of his own Phantasies from his associate spirit, would come back to him, invested with the supposed authority of heaven. Evil spirits would infuse lusts and infernal subtleties into their dupes, rendering salvation impossible. Instead of being led by the Lord, and freely working out his regeneration by the power of truth, he would be the creature of familiar spirits.

To some minds the entire consideration of this subject is an idle labor. They know nothing of angels or spirits, nor of their connection or association with man. The philosophy of the past century was so Sadducean, and so widely spread, that, to vast numbers, the subject of spiritual existence, was a thing exploded. When the Papal dignitaries had compelled Galileo to sign the declaration that the world was stationary, the truth compelled him, while he threw down the pen, to sayAnd yet it moves. So, men may ignore the spirit-world and immortal life, as much as they please; but yet, the facts of human experience, and the yearnings of the soul, as well as the teachings of Scripture, show that man lives after death, in a, world not far from us--a spirit-world--and, that communication with that world is possible.

So long and so drearily had materialism lain coldly on the best aspirations of the soul, that, when there came tidings, some years ago, of communications being had in America, with deceased relativesand this not in some one case, but in thousands of cases, and that similar communications could be obtained, by certain processes, in England or anywherenumbers rushed at once to experiments. These declared that, by moving tables, by speaking-mediums, by writing-mediums, and by raps, there mere intelligent communications obtained in very numerous instances. The adherents of these practices continued to multiply, and still perseveringly assert that they have actual experience of the absolute existence of their relatives and friends who have left the body. There are now, probably, some hundreds of thousands of such witnesses, and there is a large literature in support and illustration of their views, giving alleged examples of spirit-intercourse. There are cases of collusion, probably induced by impostors attempting what sincere minds have really achieved, and helping of experiments by enthusiastic and fanatical minds; with all this allowed for, yet there is an immense body of evidence that real communications with spirits can be obtained, have been, and are obtained. We seek not to contravene the evidence of such facts; we wish to warn against the danger of such communication, to show the rational ground for such danger, and to suggest the reason why it is expressly forbidden in the Word of God.

That such intercourse, and the existence and nearness of the spiritual world, should have been accepted as marvels of an astounding kind, is in itself a marvel. It is a sad disclosure of the paralysis of faith, during the last hundred years, in the souls of men. When the Son of man shall come, shall He find faith in the earth? must surely refer to this time, when men, with the forms of religion about them, and the words immortality, angels, spirits, devils, on their lips, and some faint whispers of a vague hope that they should meet their friends after death, yet started as from a deep slumber when told that life after death was a real fact; that men and women were still men and women when the outward covering of matter was left behind.

It came like a discovery of some unheard-of thing, instead of its being the constant living conviction of Christian minds. Yet, if the Bible is true, if the Savior is true, if the apostles have taught truly; if innumerable records of appearances from an inner world, ingrained in all histories of all ages, are not strange mendacities; if the yearnings and instincts of all men are not to be regarded as groundless, men do lire on in spiritual bodies, when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved. We rejoice to see the full recognition of this truth in the Essays and Reviews, both by Professor Williams (p. 90) and Mr. Wilson (p. 163).

The former remarks of Professor BunsenBut the second volume of Gott in der Geschichte seems to imply that, if the author recoils from the fleshy resurrection and Judaic Millennium of Justin Martyr, he still shares the aspiration of the noblest philosophers among ourselves, to a revival of conscious and individual life, in such it form of immortality art may consist with union with the Spirit of our Eternal Lawgiver. The latter, Mr. Wilson, states:--St. Paul represents the rising to life again, not as miraculous or exceptional, but as a law of humanity, or, at least, of Christian and spiritualized humanity; and he treats the resurrection of Christ, not as a wonder, but as a prerogative instance. Secondly, he shows, upon the doctrine of a spiritual body, how the objections against resurrection, from the gross conception of a flesh-and-blood body, fall to the ground.

And, in the foot-note, he observes:--So, in Luke xx. 27-35, the Sadducees are dealt with, in alike argumentative manner. They understood the doctrine of the resurrection to imply the rising of men with such bodies as they now have. The case supposed by them loses its point when the distinction is revealed between the animal and the angelic bodies.

To the fleshly doctrine of the resurrection of the earthly body, which derived originally from the Jewish residence in Babylon, early overlaid the grand scriptural doctrine of the resurrection of man in a spiritual body, is mainly due the Saduceeism of later ages.

When men see no prospect of life after death, except through the rising again of what moons have eaten, the winds have scattered, and the atoms which have been incorporated in human forms again and again, and belong as much to any one body in a thousand as to any other, their faith and hope grow dim. If is only when they have a living conviction of the truth embodied in the Saviors words, God is not God of the dead, but of the living; all live to him (Luke xx. 38); Today thou shalt be with me in paradise (Luke xxiii. 43), that they can truly feel the comfort flowing from a heartfelt utterance of the words of the sorrowing Psalmist, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.

The doctrine of the Scripture undoubtedly is, that resurrection is immediate; and the spiritual world, though invisible to our earthly sight, is near. How else can we understand the visions so constantly related by the prophets, in which the inhabitants or the inner world are seen only by the opening of the eyes of the seer without any change of place? There are the visions of the patriarchs, of Joshua, of Elijah, Elisha, of Micaiah, of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, the apostles, especially St. John, whose whole Apocalypse is a series of spiritual scenes.

Unless this doctrine be admitted, how can we understand the consolatory assurance, The angel of the Lord encampeth round them that fear him (Psalm xxxvii. 4); He shall give his angels charge concerning thee to keep thee in all thy ways (Psalm xci. 11) ; Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation? (Heb. i. 14.) Without this doctrine, what can we make of the apostles assurance that true Christians are already in company, spiritually, With the spirits of just men made perfect, and an innumerable company of angels? (Heb. xii. 22-23.) Nay, the very mode of spiritual sight is explained in the Scriptures. The prophet Elisha was at the top of a mountain, with his young man, when the Syrian host were approaching to take him. The prophet knew his invisible protectors were near, for he could see them; the servant of the man of God could not, and he cried out, Alas! my master, what shall we do? The prophet said, Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

The prophet did more; he prayed for his weak servant, that his faith might be strengthened by sight. Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee OPEN HIS EYES that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and HE SAW; and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. (2 Kings vi. 17.) The young man was a spirit himself, having a spiritual body and senses, clothed with a material frame for a time: so are we all; and when the Lord sees it proper to open our eyes to see the things near us, but not usually beheld, there is no difficulty in the accomplishment.

The nearness of a world of mind, and of beings mentally associated with ourselves, is not difficult to conceive, and is indicated by a large mental experience which takes place with every soul. Who does not experience the frequent inflowing of thoughts, sentiments, and hopes other and higher than his own? In darkness comes light; in despair come hopes; in perplexities, solutions and unravelments such as we have never had before; these are often unexpected. Occasionally warnings, and admonitions are given so striking, that the most heedless are startled, and the most negative souls confounded and impressed. again, we often say such and such a thing struck us. Every one knows that each soul is in progression; the good men each day sees better things; the bad men worse. In philosophy, in science, in art, we say we invent, we discover, we find out. All these terms imply a perception of what other minds disclose rather than the origination of new ideas in ourselves. Columbus discovered America, but that only means he found out what was there. We invent, we find out, we discover new ideas, sentiments, and principles, but these were in existence before we discovered them, they come to us from the world of mind, from those minds associated with our own by the Divine wisdom of the Most High, who, being nearest to the states of our own, can most help. Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of light. (James i. 17.) But as they come from Him, they are too perfect for us; they must be accommodated to our states by minds in succession, nearer and nearer to us, until me can receive them.

But this wonderful arrangement, this ladder of being, is of the Divine Providence alone; it is wisely hidden from us. It is no argument against the existence of this world of mind, this inner world, that it is not discernable by our natural senses: if it were, it would not be a spiritual but a natural world. There are many spheres of things only recently discovered, which yet have existed since the world begun. Electricity has but lately been discovered, though it pervades all nature. If we had been created without eyes, the world of light, with all its beauteous forms and colors, would have never been known to exist, though around us everywhere. We have undoubtedly five worlds around us, which co-exist without confusion, and each one only revealed by the sense peculiar for its observation; we mean the world of sight, the world of sound, the world of odor, the world of taste, and the world of touch. Why not, then, the world of spirit? The world of sound, from the deep bass of the oceans roar, to the larks shrill warble; from the gentlest whisper to the roar of multitudes; from the rustle of the leaf, to the innumerable sounds which compose the grand symphony of Natures wondrously varied musicall would have existed, though undiscovered by us, had we not been possessed of ears; and so with sight, taste and smell. When, therefore, revelation, reason, and experience combined to tell us an inner world exists, and man lives on, it is perfectly futile to object we have not seen it. It is wisely hidden from view; it exists, nevertheless.

This brings us to our immediate theme. To obtain open communication with this inner world, and to talk with the reputed dead, is not true Spiritualism; it is only another form of pseudo-spiritualism; its true name is spiritism.

True Spiritualism, we have seen, is spiritual-mindedness, that state of the soul which reveres the Lord and His Word, which labors in life to make the spiritual principles of love and light prevail in every pursuit, which is obedient daily to the commandments of God. But spiritism is very different from this; it is the pursuit of things forbidden.

The moment one sees the true character of spirit-connection with man, one may perceive the danger of intruding into the open knowledge of it.

If a person is associated for providential purposes with a spirit like himself though both the man and the spirit are mercifully unaware of the connection, there can no harm come. It is under the Divine government, and the Lord does all things well. He has veiled this connection from both, for wise and merciful objects; and thus, though supplying man with the inner elements of mental life, He preserves his freedom and guides him by His Word. But, if man rashly presume to put aside this providential guard, and open himself to visible spirit-communication, he makes himself the tool, it may be the sport, of spirits, who then know with whom they are present, and the echoes of his own phantasies by spirits no better than himself become to him sacred lights, though they are the merest flashes of falsehood.

But the practicers of these forbidden arts presume they are in good states, and sincerely desire to be led aright, and so must be ready for communication with spirits; and though it may be dangerous for others, they think it is quite safe for them. The very presumption that they are in good states, and in no danger, is inconsistent with humility, and ought to warn them to beware. Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. The faith which is so poor as to need sight, is very weak, and implies much that is dangerous in the soul. The way to improve our faith, is to improve our PRACTICE, not to hunt after spirits. If any man will no His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. But not only is the presumption that we can, without risk, set a Divine safeguard aside, itself an evil, and itself calculated to lead to danger in such self-created intercourse with spirits, but when we know that the seeking of such intercourse is forbidden again and again in the Holy Word, what expectation ought we to have, of a course which implies strong self-will opposing the Divine will, and self-conceit setting at nought Divine wisdom? These, are but poor preparations for a safe intercourse with spirits.

Even, when a person feels strongly the darkness of the age, and the immense importance of a recognition of the existence and immortality of man after death, yet he would do well to fear, rather than to seek any extraordinary communications.

Self-will often suggests its fitness to do great things; it wishes to be some great one: to seek power by spiritual gifts, did not die with Simon Magus. (Acts viii. 9) All the prophets of old, whose calling is especially described, feared and shunned the appointment from self-humiliation, except Balaam; he sought again and again to be sent, but the result was not encouraging.

Not only, however, is there obvious danger in the very nature of things, in seeking intercourse with the dread, but it is expressly forbidden as one of the abominations which Israel should especially shun.

And, here, allow me to remark, that if such intercourse were not possible it would be difficult to account for the strong prohibitions of the Bible, and the penalties with which they were accompanied. Partly from the Providential care which had led almost to forgetfulness of the crime, and partly from the materialism of the age, which scarcely knows anything of mind-existence separate from the body, those passages of Scripture which relate to forbidden arts, have been read with scarcely any perception of their meaning, or any idea of their having any concern for us. The dark mysteries of infernal magic were lost sight of, and necromancy supposed to be nothing but legerdemain. Necromancy, however, means consulting with the dead, and by noticing the passages in which that and kindred terms occur, we shall perceive the contrariety to Divine command, involved in seeking intercourse with spirits.

Take first our text, When they say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. No expression could more aptly describe the relation between a man who has opened a communication with the spirit nearest to his state, than this, in Hebrew (Ob), familiar spirit. Wizards that peep, are no doubt those who have intercourse through glasses, or by some similar contrivance, while the muttering would apply to the unearthly noises, made in imperfect communications. Of all of them, is it, not most clear that they lead away from the Word, and are forbidden?

Divinations, and all forms of fortune-telling, are in the same category. They foster an anxious spirit. Heavenly-mindedness seeks not to know the future, but is content in the Lord Take no anxious thoughts for the morrow, is a law of heaven, and of heavenly men. A good future is always contained in a well-acted present. Should not a people seek unto their God. To the law and the testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. In Isaiah, xxix. 4, reference is again made to these familiar spirits. Thy voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. Those who know anything of modern manifestations of spiritism, will perceive the similarity to this description of ancient manifestations. Rappings, with strange, peculiar sounds on the floor, in the dust; tappings on the floor or table, twitchings under the table, experiments needful to be done in the dark, or with very little light, all these indicate the affinity for such communications with the low and gloomy kingdom, not with the kingdom of light.

Communications with such spirits, evidently led to the Canaanitish abominations, which gave rise to the necessity for the extirpation of the polluted tribes which possessed the land, prior to Israel. And even now, sad experience in America, and in this country, had disclosed depths of abomination, which throw an awful light upon the pernicious results of these practices, and the necessity of their being so rigidly forbidden. Turn to Deut. xviii. 9-12. When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of these nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, a sorcerer,* an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or one who INQUIRES OF THE DEAD [scanner unable to insert phrase]. For all that doe these things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out before thee.

* The English version has observe of times; the true meaning, however, is sorcerer.

Here, we are undoubtedly informed, that questioning the dead and consulting familiar spirits, mere abominations which led to the driving out of the Canaanitish nations. The Israelites are warned against similar practices, and all who do them are called an abomination unto the Lord. In Leviticus, very emphatic notices of consulting with spirits occur. Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God. (Xix. 31.) Again,-- And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. (xx. 6.) And, once more,--A man also that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall be upon them. (27.)

Surely these passages are distinct enough, and masked enough, to lead every one to pause, before seeking intercourse with the dead--enough to induce all who love their fellow-creatures, to entreat them never to fancy that they are true Spiritualists, because they interrogate the dead. They but degrade a holy name to unhappy purposes. Such Spiritualism, is but the dread entrance to an enchanters cavern. There may be flowers there, but they are the gaudy poppies that allure, until the deadly narcotic is taken, which enfeebles, benumbs, and destroys.

Any one who has seen or read much respecting the communications from spirits, given through this pseudo or modern spiritualism, will be well aware of its unreliability for any genuine purpose of truth, or good. Sometimes a common-piece, but pious-looking sentence, is spelled out; and those well-disposed minds who have listened, in the hope of learning to become wiser and better, ore delighted; but, soon afterwards, there will b given sentiments of the most baneful kind, blasphemous and impure. No precautions prevent this. No one can ever tell who is speaking to him. The spirit may profess to be his father, mother, a dear departed child, or friend, a much reverenced teacher, or a notability of ancient times, whom you please. But, in almost every case, an attentive examination will show that there is only a personation there, not the real person; a lying spirit is abusing the credulity of the inquirer.

You may inquire for Burns, and some one will come and give you the lamest possible doggerel--a distinguished preacher, some esteemed departed friend, and some one will give you the most miserable twaddlea Swedenborg, who, instead of his own deep, wise sentences, will utter some vapid nonsense utterly dissimilar to the weighty words of the real man.

The Word of the Lord, which warns us on all points of danger, gives a striking instance of these personations. Saul, who had been elevated from a lowly station to a throne, had forgotten that obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat of rams. Wealth and success had induced carelessness, self-sufficiency, jealousy, and contempt for the Word and the will of the Lord. The heroic David, he had treated with the utmost cruelty. Darkness came over him, and over his land. There was no answer from the Lord, when he inquired, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. It never occurred to Saul to try genuine repentance. He thought he would inquire of the dead. He well knew it was forbidden. He had himself in an earlier and a better time put away all whom he knew to deal with familiar spirits; but now this means occurred to him as the only way of escape from his many dangers. He remembered Samuel, his old, tried, faithful friend, the servant of God, who feared no man. He imagined, if he could get to him, even through a forbidden path, some counsel for good would be given. The Philistines threatened the loss of crown and kingdom. Too proud to sink into genuine humility, and seek pardon from the All-Merciful, he caught at another means. He inquired for a woman who had a familiar spirit, and learned there was one at Endor. He disguised himself, and went with some of his servants to consult this miserable person. She, afraid of the stringent law which she knew had been in force in the land, and not knowing the king, objected to be consulted, but at length gave way to Sauls entreaty. She undertook to procure him the interview he sought. The veil is, as if it were, taken away in this strange scene. The woman declares she saw one come up whom she believed to be Samuel, for whom Saul had asked, and who purported to be Samuel.

But the circumstance of his coming up indicated that he belonged to the lower kingdom, rather than He higher. He had no word of comfort to give, but overwhelmed the king with reproach and with despair. His words descended like a pitiless storm, and the dismayed monarch fell to the ground. After awhile he rose up, and, having taken some refreshment, traveled all night to his camp, to prepare with withered courage and broken heart, to lose crown, kingdom, and life, on the morrow. Here is a case of a spirit from the lower kingdom pretending to be Samuel, breaking down the lest vestige of the kings hope, and overwhelming him with despair. Alas, for those who trust for deliverance to such means, instead of to a change of life, and to the Word of the Living God. The lying spirit who went to persuade Ahab that he might go to battle, and caused him to perish at Ramoth Gilead, is another instance of a similar kind. He filled the prophets of Ahab with the phantasy that he was the Spirit of God. Not by forbidden arts, not by the powers of darkness, can help ever come to man. There is only one way in which aid can be found; that is, come to the Savior, learn His Word, cease to do evil, learn to do well.

Let no one, therefore, mistake spiritism for Spiritualism. The one is a forbidden thing; the other is life and peace. The one is an intrusion into a dark path; the other is following the Lord Himself in the work of regeneration. The one is laying ourselves open to the wiles of Satan, decked as an angel of light; the other is taking the Divine means provided by our Heavenly Father, to prepare us for His kingdom.

In reply to the express and marked condemnations which the Word gives of the practice of consulting spirits, it is said by those who have gone so far in these habits, that the Word has but little weight with them. These are parts of the old law, and that law has been repealed. This is the ready reply always of those who seek to justify their own will, rather than to do the Divine will. The ten commandments are often disregarded on the same plea. But the Levitical law has not been superseded in the spirit, but only in the letter. The letter of the law was not abrogated for a lower and looser law, but for a higher and holier. The commandment, Thou shalt not commit murder, was not superseded by any law leaving persons at liberty to do this sin, but by recognizing the principle in the law more deeply and widely.

We are not to offend it by an angry feeling, by murdering a kind affection, or a holy thought, by doing anything that would injure our brother in mind, or in any way. So with every other law, the spirit of it is to be carried out more fully with the Gospel, than before. Think, not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets, said the Lord Jesus, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. v. 17-19.)

The precepts respecting inquiring of the dead, and consulting familiar spirits, ought not only to be kept by a Christian; but every desire to substitute any thing of our own, either in will or thought, instead of Divine guidance, ought to be eschewed, not lest, as in the old letter, we may be stoned to natural death, but lest, in the soul, we may be reduced by false principles to a state of spiritual death.

The Lord Himself in the New Testament, gave the very principle of these laws. The evil rich man in the parable, is represented, as desiring that Lazarus may be sent to warn those who were still living on the earth, in his fathers house, that by the superior influence of a voice from the dead, they might be induced to repent. We find constantly the same feeling now. Men continually suppose if they had miraculous proof of this or that truth of religion, they would certainly believe it. Their faith wavers, they think, because they have not evidence enough; they do not suspect that it is because they have not obedience enough. Goodness loves truth, seeks it, sad welcomes it; embraces it with a steady, firm grasp, and looks up for more. He that doeth good, cometh to the light. The man who does feebly the duties truth has already shown him, is weak and wavering in his belief. He is continually asking for truth to be proved, as if the only use he had for religion was to be always proving it; or, in other words, allowing his rationed faculty to play with it.

Truth is to be done, not sported with; loved for its use and worth, not for its fair appearance. Let evil be condemned and uprooted by truth, and more truth will be given. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

Not so, however, think the evil. They image if the truth were only more proved by miracle, or by voices from the dead, they would bow to its authority. But Divine Truth has judged differently. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and no sign shall be given unto them, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas. (Matt. xii. 39.) Repentance and humiliation are the means of improvement. There are really no other. This character of mind, tacitly lays the blame of unbelief on the Lord, for not having given proof enough of immortality, and the great truths of eternity. If one went unto them from the dead, they would repent. But what says the Divine Teacher. If they hear not Moses end the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke xvi. 31.) This is not it the Old Testament, but in the New; not from Moses, but from the Sender both of Moses and all the Prophets. And, how markedly he shows the futility of all substitution of speaking from the dead, for that Living Glorious Word which is the voice of the Eternal Himself.

Surely, the Divine Speaker knew the real nature of man, and what is suited for his best interests. He could at His pleasure supply either miracles or spirit-teaching in this world. But He does not. He warns against it, and gives His Word instead. Is not this enough for a humble, faithful mind, to enable it to rest assured that this course must be the wisest and best.

But there can be no difficulty in seeing why it is so. The Word of the Lord gives communication with the Lord Himself, and angels, who are by Him seen to be the best to open to us liberty and light. It is the ladder on which the angels ascend and descend. (Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.) It is the transcript of the Eternal Wisdom, for the Word is God. We see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. (John i. 51.) By obeying the Word, in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God, we are in the hands of the Lord, and all will be well. As we hear, so shall we see in the city of our God. (Ps. xlviii. 8.)

The Word gives us light. The Word gives us food. The Word gives us strength. The Word vanquishes our evils. And, as we become pure in heart, we see God. This is the very door of the sheepfold, for the Lord in His Humanity, and the Lord in His Word, are exactly parallel; by it, we enter in and are saved, while we go in and out and find pasture. On the other hand, by accepting the teaching of spirits, we are listening to we know not whom. We are like a person blindfold, holding out the hand to whomsoever may take it.

By the law of spiritual association, those spirits are nearest to a man who are nearest to his own sensual man will have a spirit more state. The sensual man will have a spirit more sensual than himself near him, but still nearly enough like him, to suggest his deeper obscenities, in the way most likely to be accepted. The man in fallacious notions, will have spirits disposed to the same fallacies, urging him on to more extravagant phantasies, to wilder delusions. Experience justifies this view. Spiritism, under one form or another, has often made itself strikingly manifest. Let persons give themselves perseveringly and fanatically to pray and long for spirit-intercourse, and it will sooner or inter come. The followers of the late Mr. Irving gave themselves for months to pray that they might be able to prophecy and to speak in strange tongues; and after a time, they began to experience strange wild impulses, urging them to scream gibberish, and to utter prophecies that never happened. True, the now tongues with which the Apostles spoke were to make them understood by foreign hearers, and the strange noises of these fanatics were to make them not understood; and the Divine prophecies came to pass, while these were constantly found erroneous; but the poor dupes of spirit-dictates were ever led on by fresh excuses, and listen tremblingly to new phantasies. The blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. Fanatics of numerous persuasions: have obtained spirit-dictates while their zeal was furious Roman Catholic fanatics are always seeing crucifixes, and the Virgin Mary, and healing driveling directions to pilgrimages, scourges, and relies. Southcottians or Wroeites have had their polluted dreams echoed back, and Mormonites theirs.

So, by the spiritists of the present day, both in Europe and America, every ancient and every modern phantasy, however wild, from metempsychosis to murder, from the Atheism of Davis,* to the making of idolshas each its spirit-revelation and sanction. These efforts at spirit-communications constituted a delusion in the Apostolic times. Hence, Paul wrote, Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. (Col. ii. 18.) The fleshly mind boldly intrudes anywhere, everywhere, but only becomes more fleshly still.

* See American works on Spiritualism:Spiritualism, by Judge Edmonds and Dr. Dexter.Modern Mysteries; Mahan.Three-fold Test of Spiritualism; Gordon.Spiritualism against Christianity; Daniels.Astounding Facts from the Spirit World; Gridley.

How grateful, then, should we be that the Most High has not left us a prey to these strange and terrible delusions, but has given us His Word to be an ever-glorious guide, adapted to our every condition, and caring for our every want.

Spiritism also tends to slavery. The person who takes spirit-dictates, imagines the spirit an authority. If he is a religious person, he thinks the dictator to be the Holy Spirit, and believes it his duty to submit implicitly to what is thus given. Revivalists are often the subjects of strange fanatical dictates, which are believed to be from the Holy Spirit, but are fraught with every extravagance, inducing spasmodic excitement, instead of patient rational self-denial, and steady obedience to the Divine commandments. The Word, on the contrary, opens the mind, and imparts freedom. The truth is unfolded to the soul like light to the eyes. It is proposed, and is adopted freely. It is judged by the intellect, and regarded, until it is understood and adopted. It is loved, because the mind sees it to be right. It is in harmony with the Lord, and with the universe, and it represses all evil and falsehood. Man accepts it as of himself and it imparts freedom more and more. He knows the truth, and the truth makes him free.

As he advances in the truth, its glorious beauties open more and more grandly to him, and they make him more and more free, as he is raised above his evils and errors, and enjoys, at last, the glorious liberty of the children of light.

Some, modern spiritists avoid the extreme slavery of others, partly, by the knowledge, that spirits are only human beings like themselves, and not infallible; and that such as communicate with spirit-seekers, are of a low and earthly kind. While such persons are ostensibly not guided by spirit-dictates, you will still find some mental conceits creep in, some notions of fancied superior wisdom, or peculiar holiness, assumed, which exhibit a frame of mind far less healthy than that which the Word imparts to those who love and do it. To know spirits, then, is not to be spiritual; it is often to become more carnal. Only by overcoming evils, and receiving the holy principles of truth and goodness, do we become truly spiritual.

Are we then, it may be said, not to accept any open communication with the eternal world? Are not messengers appointed by the Lord to convey His will and wisdom to mankind when He sees fit, now, as in ancient days? Accept, we answer, at once, whatever comes from the Lord. Far be it from us to say a word against any message or messenger that Infinite Goodness may employ to enlighten mankind, or any particular portion of it. But, when the Lord selects any one, He will select a mind suitable. He will prepare him for his office, and all will be well. What we oppose is, our seeking such intercourse--virtually selecting, and appointing ourselves. The danger lies in our daring to assume that we are in good states, fit to be great messengers of the Most High, and may break through the curtain, which hides the invisible from us, and shields us from intrusive spirits. Seek nothing of this kind--seek not to familiar spirits, but seek to be humble, to be obedient to the Lord, to be pure, and to be wise in the Holy Word. Thus will you become truly spiritual. Orderly Spiritualism comes from the Lord.

The Word, the only true leader of men, is represented by the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, which led the Israelites. In this, there was an angelic guard, an angelic guide. The angel was in the cloud, and the Lord was in the angel.

No familiar spirits were to be consulted, no inquiries of the dead were to be made, for their direction, On the day that the tabernacle was reared up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony; and, at even, there was upon the tabernacle, as it were, the appearance of fire, until the morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. (Num. ix. 15, 16.)

Just so is the Word of God to us. The letter, like a cloud, everywhere covers its Divine wisdom. Upon all the glory there is a covering. The natural man must not be dazzled; he must be gently led. Interested by the narratives and histories, the Psalms and the Prophets of the Sacred Book, and, above all, its life of the Redeemer, he is attracted to gaze upon this Divine cloud of witnesses. He sees a golden light break here and there, through its dim veils, and everywhere, a silver lining. He draws near from time to time, and listens. He finds a wondrous weight, a supernatural charm in that sacred cloud. If he earnestly desires to penetrate its varied shades, he finds at every point, an angel is in it. The Lord speaks to him from the cloud,--Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him. But, if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

In Raphaels grandest picture, the San Sisto at Dresden, the clouds above the virgin and child seem only at first the dim, checkered shades that indicate an ordinary sky; but on a nearer gaze, there are seen a crowded array of minute angel faces--the clouds are made up of them. So is it with the wondrous, glorious Word of God. Each verse has angelic influence in it, and the Lord is in the angel. My name is in Him. The mercy of the Lord is great unto the heavens, and His truth UNTO THE CLOUDS. Ps. lvii. 10.

It is true, those clouds are dark, very dark to some, but only to men of Egyptian mind. If merely natural man consult it, only to find the natural origin of all things, the ethnology of man, Divine geography, geology, astronomy, the rise and fall of nations, the learning of the Egyptians, and nothing more, it will be a cloud and darkness to these.

They will be puzzled at its strange events, puzzled at its curious science, puzzled at its unsatisfactory accounts of matters to them immensely important. They dont see why the Divine Being should not be as earnest as they are, to speak of Cosmical Matter, the Nebular Theory, and the exact nature of comets. They would have a revelation to settle the Darwinian Speculation, the exact origin and history of the first human beings, the true classification of animals, plants, and minerals, the correct political course of nations, and their future destiny. Some wish to be made quite clear about the year of the downfall of the Pope and the Turk, and the find conflagration of all things. Instead of all this being clearly made out there are the faintest and strangest intimation son such subjects. The cloud is between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it is a cloud and a darkness to them, but it gives light by night to these. To those who are spiritual Israelites, Jews inwardly (Rom. n. 29), those who love the things of the Spirit of God, and through the letter of the Word, both in its history, literally true, and in its Divine allegories, seek to behold the things which belong to their peace, and the glories, which angels desire to look into, it will be a light by night to these. To their opened inner eyes, it will be full of angels faces, and the glory of the Lord will be there. It will be a cloud to guide them by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

The truly spiritual man has his alternations; his days of clearness, and nights of shade. Some nights are calm and lovely, with a splendid moon, and a sky brilliant with stars. He is in shade, but a glorious faith, and a thousand lights of heavenly knowledge, cheer and comfort him. Other nights are black with gloom, and very stormy; dangers press and trouble him, and threaten him sorely. The soul seems nearly overwhelmed, but, lo, the same cloud, the Word, that guided him in the day, becomes a pillar of fire by night; it is all a-glow with the Divine love; it protects the sacred interests of man from being injured; it goes between him and his tempters; it gives light to him, and secures that no injury is done from behind him.

The most precious powers of the brain are behind, in the cerebellum; the most precious affections of the soul are behind, hidden from view, in the recesses of the will. But the pillar of fire protects these, and having led by day, it guards by night, and thus serves in all states for a blessing. For the cloud of the Lord is upon the tabernacle by day, and fire is on it by night, in the sight of in the house of Israel, throughout all
their journeys.

Thus guided, thus guarded, what needs any man with more? What can be more unwise than to seek for spirits as teachers, when One is our teacher, even Christ, in His Word? With the Word before us, the Divine Providence around us, and an obedient heart within us, all must be well. In keeping the commandments of our Savior, in fighting from faith and love, not; against the world, but against worldliness, and every known sin, we shall acquire that Spiritual tone of heart, mind, and life, in winch true Spiritualism consists.

Work from Spiritual virtues, and every work will become Spiritual. You will spiritualize your trade, your avocation, and employment, because filling it with the spirit of goodness and truth. Exterminate merely selfish and carnal ends, in what you do, and the life and peace of the Spirit, will take their places. I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, said our Lord, but keep them from the evil. To vanquish evil in everything we do, and live and work in charity and love, is true Spiritualism. Once more, let me entreat you to avoid the pseudo-spiritualism of supposing you are spiritual because you know something of spirits, especially because you have violated the Divine commands, and sought to be familiar with spirits. To the Word and to the testimony.

Lastly. Let us notice the conclusion of the Divine words we have selected as the basis of our observations. To the law and the testimony; if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. Strictly rendered, the latter portion of the text is, To them, there is no MORNING. Morning in the spiritual sense of the word, means the dawn of a better state. The regeneration of man and churches, is represented by morning. Thy people are willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning; thou hast the dew of thy youth. (Ps. cx. 3.)

While men are slumbering in sin and darkness, it is dreary and harassing night with them. When they become sensible of their wretchedness, and yearn for a better life, they look for a new morning. My soul waiteth for the lord, more than they that watch for the morning. (Ps. cxxx. 6.) How important, then, is the announcement respecting those who forsake the Word, and give themselves to familiar spirits; to them there is no MORNING, no dawn-light. The Word is the source of spiritual light to man. The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. (Psalm cxix. 130.) Spirits are the embodiments of the past. Hence the strange phantasies which have been given to the world from spirit-authorship, the transmigration of souls, and every foolish and dark fallacy of heathendom have been revived. There is night and a dark past enough, but no MORNING. But to those who look to the Savior, and who trustingly learn and love to do His Word, the Sun of righteousness ariseth with healing in His wings.

To the penitent lover of the Word, light ariseth; a new morning comes. To those who faithfully keep the Lords commandments, His mercies are new every morning. And, when first a full, holy light breaks over the soul who turns to the Lord, what a glorious morning is that! New hopes, new warmth, new light, new end adoring gratitude, like the new splendors of a glorious dawning, rise over the soul. Life, then, becomes enriched with an everlasting worth. All things become new. It is as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rein. (2 Sam. xxiii. 4.) This true Spiritualism let us adopt and follow; but let us as carefully shun every practice of which these Divine words give the result. To them there is no morning.

Oh, glorious Word! best gift of God to man. Unfolder of Divine treasure; light in our darkness; strength in our weakness; food of the soul; healer of sorrow; defender from evil; inspirer of freedom; may Thy Divine lessons ever guide and bless us, raising us above the cares and the fears of this life, and guiding us to that still better life where Thou art at once the glory and the sun.

May Thy direction be with us always as a guiding pillar. May our journeyings through life be guided by Thee, as was Israel by Thy symbol. When the cloud abode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed: whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed. They kept the charge of the Lord at the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. (Num. ix. 21, 23.)

APPENDIX.

As some of our readers may not be aware of the strange character, which spiritism has assumed both in Europe and America, some few works have been referred to which unveil it, that it maybe known how terrible are the dangers which Divine Providence intended to guard us against, by closing up open intercourse with spirits, and warning us against it in the Word. These warnings were reiterated in the writings of that remarkable man, Swedenborg; and the rational necessity for them, was explained by him, nearly one hundred years before the occurrences took place which so amply justify them.

The spirit-manifestations, which have been so largely developed by rappings, table-movings, and varied mediumships, commenced in the family of a person named Fox, in a small wooden house, at Hydesville, in the town of Arcadia, county of Wayne, State of New York, not far from the City of Rochester. The date of the first account is April 11, 1848. The desire, however, to communicate with the invisible had been greatly stimulated by the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis, a young shoemaker, who commenced to give extraordinary lectures in a clairvoyant state, after being mesmerized by a Mr. Levingston, a tailor, and subsequently by a Dr. Lyon, a medical gentleman, whose mental state was tolerably well reflected in Daviss Lectures. This was in 1845. These lectures contained a view of the universe in accordance, mainly, with Fourierism, and Dr. Lyon, we believe, was a Fourierist.

Davis also knew some little, but very little, of Swedenborg. The Rev. Mr. Fishbough, another chief associate of Davis at this time, was a Universalist, and the spirits mentally associated with Dr. Lyon and Mr. Fishbough could fully account for all the wonderful revelations of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer. These, however, were astounding at the time; especially so to those who understood nothing of the association of spirits with man; end of such are the great mass of mankind.

The wonderful tidings of Daviss Lectures, the mesmeric operations then very prevalent, the striking circumstances of clairvoyance, then little understood, induced an intense desire with many to penetrate, if possible, the deep mysteries of nature and so came the strivings for spirit-communications, the mental longing and abstraction which have led to all the strange and wild disclosures of spiritism. In the communications, much is occasionally uttered that is pious and true; yet this is always extremely commonplace, and mixed up with things most vicious and false. Herein consists the great danger. Davis himself, by far the most wonderful of these mediums, is one of the coolest possible utterers of Atheism and blasphemy. The Rev. T. L. Harris, was so captivated by Daviss* Revelations at first, as to exclaim, When that book is published, I shall lock the Bible in the drawer under the desk, put the key in my pocket, and preach the angel-utterances of the New Philosophy. He, along with Mr. Fernald, and some others, were for a time full of zeal for this, and formed part of a committee for spreading his views, but afterwards separated from him, retaining, however, enough of both his views and his language to account for the curious mixture of truth and error observable in the writings of Mr. Harris.

* See Daviss Autobiography, pp. 342, 345.

It may not be amiss to insert, the account of a scene between Mr. Davis and Mr. Harris, related by the former, as it illustrates that want of rational power to grasp firmly Divine truths, and follow them stably to their legitimate and consistent conclusions, which united to his straining after spirit-guidance, and slight appreciation of the Word of God, has left Mr. Harris still a prey to the strongest vagaries.

He had not rational strength of mind to throw aside fully his old theological notions which lurk about him in attenuated forms, the ghosts of former days. Hence his rejection of the resurrection of the material body, but his own notion of a future resurrection of something neither spirit, nor body, which the angels are now needing; his rejection of the destruction of the world by fire, but, at the same time, his announcement of some terrible event, quite of the Dr. Cumming stamp, being at hand. His feeble appreciation of THE WORD, is manifest from its slight presence in his writings, and from the significant fact that in his preaching you hear a text uttered at the commencement, which is rarely ever noticed afterwards. But we insert the conversation:--

What have you resolved to do, Brother Harris? I inquired.

Having privately withdrawn from the Universalist denomination, said he with deep energy,
I am now preparing a course of lectures to deliver on my western tour.

Have you made out the plan of your trip? I asked.

I shall need your impressions, Brother Davis, on the best course for me to pursue, said he with much emotion. I shall consider myself in due wisdom, as acting under your guidance.

Has Brother Fishbough got the Revelations published yet? I askedfor as I had just returned from the journey, I had not ascertained the facts.

No, he replied; the book is expected here about the first of August. I am anxiously waiting to see it out. Have you seen the pretended review in the Troy Whig?

Mr. Harris then read a manuscript closing with the following: In March last, he [Mr. Davis] stated that a further development of his powers would soon occur. This has taken place. He is now able, without being magnetized, to make full use of his spiritual powers--to heal the sick-to foretell future events--to see the most distant occurrences--to solve the most abstruse questions in psychology--and to declaim for hours with the eloquence of an angel, in defense and exposition of the principles he has revealed.

After Messrs. Davis and Harris had separated, the former reflected upon the spirit of exaggeration in the latter, and concludes as follows:--

This ended my meditations on that matter. But there was another thing that troubled me: his positive exaggeration of my personal abilities. Why, I dont pretend to foretell future events, thought I, only so far as they lie in the track of fixed principles. And again, I cannot declaim for hours with the eloquence of an angel. The fact is, people complain that I dont talk enough, and that, when I do talk, I bungle words together so, that I am often unintelligible to them.

Thus meditating, I began to feel alarmed. That wont never do, I mentally exclaimed. Brother Harris will speak of me in his lectures, without qualification, as being an angel and all that, when I am nothing of the kind any more than he is. My thoughts began to succeed each other with tumultuous speed, but excusing Benevolence soon checked and quieted them; and I thus soliloquizedOh, never mind. Brother Harris is a poet. Thats the way with poets. They dont tell things just as they appear to common people. Its all right for him, and I guess Ill let it pass, and not think nor worry any more about so trifling and manifest a matter.

The pitiable weakness to which a devotee of spirits is reduced, is evinced by even the dressed-up account of Mr. Harris in the Preface of the Lyric of the Golden Age. He unquestionably possesses brilliant talents, though defective in the higher qualities of rational judgment. We insert the following extract as an illustration of the helpless way in which he was conducted by spirits without any rational judgment of his own:--

On his return from the South, in July last, Mr. Harris located himself at a quiet country house near the foot of Schroon Lake, for the purpose of recreation and repose, having previously learned from his spiritual friends that they had communications to make from the interior. On this occasion he was accompanied by a learned and gentlemanly associate, in the person of Mr. B., who had previously assisted him in the capacity of amanuensis. After a long days ride they arrived at the village of Pottersville, in Warren county, N. Y., weary with the journey, and oppressed with the heat of the day.

Soon after their arrival Mr. Harris was entranced, and induced to walk at twilight to an eminence at the East, a distance of half a mile from the village. On reaching the place, his spirit friends and guardians identified themselves, and informed Mr. H. and his associate that the hotel at which they proposed to sojourn was unsuited, to the character of the medium, and the objects of their retirement. The right arm of Mr. Harris was then made rigid, and pointed in a south-easterly direction, whereupon the spirit, en rapport with his organization, proceeded to say, that if they would but travel a short distance in that direction, they would find a place precisely suited to their necessities. Accordingly, on the following morning, Mr. B., pursuing the course previously indicated by the spirit, crossed a bridge at the outlet of the lake, and found the place denoted, but he was himself utterly averse to remaining there, and repeatedly interrogated the spirits, respecting their designs.

It is pitiable to see a man of unquestionable ability, and apparently of much excellence of character, yielding himself thus blindly to spirit-direction. Still more pitiable are the accounts we elsewhere read of him, and Dr. Scott, mesmerizing a Mrs. Benedict until they could get through her communications from John and Paulthe communications that led them to form the community of Mountain Cove, that ended so miserably for all, and landed Mr. Harris once more into bitter infidelity. Since then, his visions of fairies, and scenes of earth, a little gilded by fancy, announce not the true seer, but the self-absorbed one, who makes a fantastic world, and peoples it with his own abstractions.

Still lower are the depths of spirit-mania, into which thousands of others have sunk. In America, Polytheism, Demonism, and Idol-making and worship have been openly revived, by spirit-communications, and at the same time and by the same authority, the grossest immoralities and the saddest insanities have been the result. We could easily parallel them, by instances in our own country, and cases within our own knowledge. Both Davis and Harris, and many others, profess to have communicated with Swedenborg; and many spiritists, who know little of his peculiar mission or teaching, assert their practices to be in harmony with both.

We shall take this opportunity of showing how completely that greater writer has warned against the dangers, now unhappily so abundantly evident. Through Swedenborg the Lord warned men afresh, and gave the rational grounds for the warning, lest for want of knowledge they might rush into practices destructive to their freedom, and thus to their manhood, and be led to accept the vagaries of how spirits, rather than wall; in the only true path, the highway of the Word of God. It is wrong for men to break through to spirits unauthorized; it is equally wrong for spirits to break through to men. When did disobedience to the All-Good lead to anything but disaster?

We will first show the teachings of Swedenborg, who was especially prepared and guarded by the Lord, to give the knowledge of the other life and its laws, that they might be rationally understood and acted upon, without, being obtained at the serious risks and detriment which would follow in case that knowledge had been obtained through promiscuous communication with spirits. Spirits, coming to man against the Lords command, MUST BE EVIL. SWEDENBORG SAYS:--

Man is in association with spirits like himself.--The spirits who are adjoined to man are of the same quality as he is himself, as to affection or love. Good spirits are adjoined to him by the Lord, but evil ones are invited by man himself (H. H. No. 295.)

Good spirits are indeed adjoined to those who are not capable of being reformed and regenerated, but only that they may be withheld from evil as much as possible, for their immediate conjunction is with evil spirits, who communicate with hell, and are like themselves. If they be lovers of themselves, or lovers of gain, or lovers of revenge, or lovers of adultery, similar spirits are present, and, as it wore, dwell in their evil affections ; and so far as man cannot be restrained from evil by good spirits, evil spirits inflame him with evil lust; and in proportion as lust prevails, they adhere to him, and do not recede. Thus, a wicked man is conjoined with hell, and a good man with heaven (H. H. 295).

The Divine care, lest spirits should know with whom they are, and thus injure them.

The greatest care is exercised by the Lord to prevent spirits from knowing that they are attendant on man for, if they knew it, they would speak with him, and, in such case, evil spirits would destroy him; for evil spirits, because they are conjoined with hell, desire nothing more earnestly than to destroy man, not only as to the soul, that is, as to faith and love, but also as to the body. (H. H. 292.)

To speak with spirits at this day is rarely granted, because it is dangerous; for then they know that they are with man, which otherwise they do not know, and with deadly hatred, and desire nothing more vehemently than to destroy man both soul and body. This also they effect with those who have indulged much in phantasies, so as to remove from themselves the delights which are suitable to the natural man. (H. H. 249.)

Various spirits excite evil and false principles.It is believed by many that man may be taught of the Lord by spirits speaking with him; but they who believe this, and are willing to believe it, do not know that it is connected with danger to their souls.... The speaking spirit is in the same principle with the man to whom he speaks, whether they be true or false, and likewise he excites them, and by his affection, conjoined to the mans affection, strongly confirms them.... From this consideration, it is evident to what danger man is exposed who speaks with spirits.... Man is ignorant of the quality of his own affection, whether it; be good or evil, and with what other beings it is conjoined; and if he is in the conceit of his own intelligence, his attendant spirits favor every thought which is thence derived. In like manner, if any one is disposed to favor particular principles enkindled from a certain fire, which has place with those who ire not in truths from genuine affection, when a spirit from similar affection favors mans thoughts or principles; the one leads the other, as the blind lends the blind, until both fall into the pit. (A. E. 1182.)

Dealing with spirits led to enormities amongst the ancients.--The Pythonics, or those who had familiar spirits, formerly were of this description, and likewise the magicians in Egypt and in Babel, who by reason of discourse with spirits, and of the operation of spirits felt manifestly in themselves, were called wise.

But by this the worship of God was converted into the worship of demons, and the Church perished; wherefore such communications were forbidden to the sons of Israel under penalty of death. It is otherwise with those whom the Lord leads; and He leads those who love truths, and will to do them from Himself. All such are enlightened when they read the Word, for the Lord is in the Word, and speaks with every one according to his comprehension. (A. C. 1183.)

No one is really reformed by speaking with spirits.Speaking with the dead would have the same effect as miracles, of which above; viz., that a man would be persuaded and compelled to worship for a short time; but forasmuch as this deprives man of rationality, and at the same time shuts in evils, as was said above, when this charm or internal restraint is dissolved, the included evils break out with blasphemy and profanation; but this only happens when spirits induce some dogmatic principle of religion, which is never done by any good spirit, still less by any angel of heaven. (D. P. 134-1/2.)

Nothing can be more strikingly proved and illustrated than the warnings and cautions of the great Swedish seer, by the follies and blasphemies of Pseudo-spiritualism. Once more, then, let us carefully shun these, and be guided by the only true teacher, the Lord in His Word.

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
1.Genesis and Geology.
2.Miracles.
3.The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4.The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5.The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6.True Spiritualism.
7.The Atonement.
8.--Difficulties on the Atonement.
9.The Life of Heaven.
10.The New Church Religious Life.
11.The Lord Jesus Christ.
12.The New Church.

By the same Author, Second issue. Price 7s. 6d.
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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. VII.

THE ATONEMENT.

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us; that He might redeem us from all iniquity; and purity unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.--TITUS ii. 13, 14.

THE world is marred by sin and sorrow. This is the conviction and the complaint of man everywhere. The traveler comes upon a landscape full of beauty; he sees the undulating country stretching far away, a very paradise of loveliness; the forests and the fields with tints and shades innumerable, enchanting all; the river with its silvery hues, a form of winding gracefulness. The rapt spectator feels at once here must be peace and sweet content; but it is not so. A closer acquaintance reveals neighbor at feud with neighbor, village with village. There are smoldering hates and rivalries, only checked by the healthy restraints of labor and of duty. It is the same with private homes. We speak not of the abodes of wretchedness, where squalid misery reveals itself at every turn; but we speak of the abodes of elegance, where not only comfort is supplied, but abundance ministers to luxury, and refinement and splendor appear on every side; even here a thousand petty demands of selfishness poison life; and where you hoped for serene enjoyment you find anxiety, weariness, bitterness, and care.

The world of mind has broken off from its God. There needs everywhere in the human world a RECONCILIATION, an ATONEMENT. But what is this? It is REUNION with God by the transformation, the REGENERATION of man. God has brought Himself near, and provided the means: man must adopt them. Be ye reconciled to God (2 Cor. v. 29).

This doctrine of the Atonement has two aspects,--what God has done from love to man, and secondly, what man must do from love to God. In the work of redemption, which the Lord Jesus effected in the world, and finished on the cross, we have God's part, which was done most perfectly. In the reconciliation of man to God, which is effected by repentance and regeneration, we have man's part, which has, alas, been done very imperfectly.

The imperfection of man's part of the work of full atonement, is not owing to any want of interest in the subject, for, especially since the Reformation, no subject has been so abundantly preached sad expounded, as the subject of the Atonement. In proportion, however, to the importance of a subject is the importance of having true ideas upon it. ERRORS are greatly dangerous, and mischief from them is widespread when they affect concerns of universal interest. Mistakes then are deadly, and such, alas, have they been on the subject of the ATONEMENT.

We have said the Lords work in the Atonement was perfectly done. Then came mans part in co-operating, with the Lord. To have man in freedom trained for heaven, he must work out his salvation: by fighting against his inborn evils; by repressing and purifying his passions; by amending his habits; by fulfilling the law of love, and walking in obedience to the Divine Commandments. But this part man has shrunk from doing. Instead of acquiring a loving spirit, and amending his ways, in too many instances man has remained the creature of his appetites, scarcely heeding the dictates of a higher law. Recklessness, selfishness, and disobedience, have been, and are, the wild companions of very large portions of the human race, and the truth that would make them free has been neglected or denied. But the All-merciful has not left himself without a witness in the souls of any.

There are emotions stirred by the Spirit of the Lord; moving on the face of the deep, felt by even the most thoughtless; some rays of truth penetrate even to them. They are far from being truly obedient, but they are restrained from those extremes of sin into which they would otherwise have descended. The roughness of their natures is not made smooth, but smoother than it would have been; their crookedness is not made straight, but straighter. They acknowledge but little the claims of obedience; nevertheless truth is not without its effect upon them. And if, as it percolates to them through the examples and the words of the professors of religion, it were presented in a purer practice, is deeds more just and true, in speech more fully imbued with loving kindness, its influence would doubtless be more potent and influential. Why, then, is this not the case? Why are not the followers of their Lord and Savior living examples of purity, justice, and love? Why do they not keep the commandments He gave? Why is not. His will done, by those who profess to be His in faith and worship? Why, with a Lord so pure and holy, whose commands, if obeyed, would make all mankind happy, why is the practice of Christians so very imperfect? Why are the followers of the Gentle One so little gentle; of the Merciful One, so little forgiving; of the All-embracing One, so restricted and sectarian; of the Peaceful One, so warlike? Why hear we so much of faith, so little of practice? Why are the redeemed not also the regenerated?

We suggest these questions for the attention of all. We trust those who hear and those who read, will put them home to themselves, until they have obtained satisfactory answers: satisfactory, that is to say, to the perception of the cause or causes of our imperfect Christianity. It will be admitted, no doubt, by many, that our very faulty practice is owing to the evil that is in us. Can it be, that the evil within us, has disposed us to faulty doctrine? Does it inwardly instigate us to receive readily views that excuse our shortcomings? Does it dispose us to acquiesce with eagerness in doctrines which lighten the responsibilities of life, and under the pretext of honoring our Savior and His work, leave us in states of disobedience to His commands, and a stopping short in the work of salvation? When God has, in his infinite wisdom, given His commandments as a Law of Love and Happiness, accompanied by the assurance that His commandments are not grievous (John v. 2), and man tells us that it is not necessary to salvation to keep Gods commandments, and that they are so hard that they cannot be kept, and we eagerly listen to such assertions and readily embrace them, is it possible that the same hidden tendencies which make the reckless daringly disobedient, make the religious easily ensnared and smoothly disobedient?

It is worth the inquiry. The examination of ourselves may reward the labor.

When the Savior spoke of the two sons who were told to go into the vineyard, and the one said I will not, but went, and the other said, I go, sir, but went not, He did not speak approvingly of the last. Certain, too, it is, that a large portion of the Christian world, when called by the Savior to go into the vineyard of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with the Lord exclaim, We go, sir, but go not. They say, but DO not (Luke vi. 46). And, strange to say, this want of real obedience is palliated and justified by the profession of higher honor to the Savior and the Saviors work. He has done everything, say some, and it is dishonoring to Him to say we have anything to do. What shall we do to be saved? cries the penitent. You have to do nothing, the teacher replies, only believe. If, as Dr. Cumming asserts, you have been the wickedest of criminals up to the hour of death, and in that hour are ready with the plea upon your tongue, My Substitute has been punished for me, and therefore I ought not to suffer, that plea is sufficient, you are ready for the Bridegroom, and certain of everlasting happiness.*

* Now, how do you expect to appear? What will be your answer when you stand before the great white throne, and when you are asked why sentence of endless exile should not be pronounced upon you? Have you the answer in the depths of your heart, on your tongue and on your lips, ever ready to be uttered the instant it is inquired for? He that knew no sin became sin for me and bare its curse, and, therefore, I ought not to bear it: He stood in my stead, obeyed the law for me, fulfilled all righteousness, and deserved heaven as my Elder Brother, and, therefore, I am entitled to it? That answer is complete and conclusive, and were you the worst and wickedest of criminals, if in the hour of death and at the day of judgment, you can plead that glorious Sacrifice, that perfect Righteousness, let the hour be when you think not, and where you think not, all is well with you. The bride hath made herself ready. You are prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven.--Dr. Cummings Great Tribulation, p. 201.

The doctrine of the Atonement, is made to defeat the work of the Atonement.

A supposed pacification of God is put instead of the real regeneration of man. To ransom us from Gods wrath, is said to have been the work of the Redeemer, instead of delivering us from all iniquity. And, while we are taught, to be delighted at having escaped the tortures threatened by an angry Deity, imagined to rule, instead of the real God of the Universe, who is Love Itself, our attention is distracted from the ravages of self-love within. Self-love is thus suffered to pervert the very tissues and principles of the soul, until a character is formed so out of harmony with all order and a righteousness, that to its pride, vanity, sensuality, and folly, the whole universe is a torture-house, in time and in eternity.

The work of Atonement, as unfolded in the Scriptures, is truly simple: it is the work of God manifest in the flesh to reconcile and unite His erring children to Himself. It is God our Father, becoming incarnate in a Humanity called His Son, to remove the powers of hell from His creatures, and to enable them to subdue their sins, to do good, and to prepare for heaven, by becoming heavenly. Thus it was Divine Love, putting itself forth, to give the means of salvation to His weak and erring children. The Good Shepherd coming to seek and to save that which was lost. This is so often and so fully stated in the Sacred Scriptures, that it is a perfect marvel that we go wrong,a marvel only to be explained by the inherent subtlety of our fallen nature cunningly contriving to avoid the power of truth, covering itself with specious and misleading fallacies. A perverse will can alone account for such strange mistakes as the Christian world has made, in the face of such strong, clear, simple, direct utterances of Divine teaching upon the subject.

Let us take as our first example, the prophetic declaration of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, when filled, it is said, with the Holy Spirit. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David: as He spake by the mouth of His Holy prophets, which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us..... Thus He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear; in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life (Luke i. 68-76).

Here we have the clear and simple fact staled, that the Lord God of Israel Himself visited and redeemed His people: which He did by assuming the Humanity, the horn of salvation, in the house of His servant David; that this was to deliver us from our enemies; and that when this was done, we might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

Here, there is not a word about one divine person having to die to appease the wrath of another, but the Lord God of Israel Himself would visit and redeem His people. There is not a word about being saved from the wrath of God; but we were to be delivered from the hand of our enemies. There is not a word about being saved by only believing; but we must serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. What can be more simple, what more rational, what more calculated to excite our love for our Heavenly Father than this? And what more calculated to elevate the world than this? to lead men to walk in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.

Take, again, the concise account of the Savior in Matthew. Thou shalt call His name Jesus (Savior), for He shall save His people from their sins. Evidently mans Maker was to become His Savior. He Himself would save His own people FROM THEIR SINS; not from the wrath of another Divine Being.

Again, listen to the Apostle Paul. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them: and hath committed unto us the Word of reconciliation. Now, then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God (2 Cor. v. 19, 20). Nothing, surely, can be more simple, clear, and emphatic than this. God was in Christ: not a second divine person; God Himself in Christ. Reconciling the world, not needing Himself to be reconciled;reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. God and His angels impute good. Evil spirits and wicked men impute evil. Not imputing their trespasses unto them. And now that God, in Christ, has visited the world, and redeemed it, the whole work is begun, but not completed: a Word of reconciliation is given, glad tidings of great joy. Men, must be cheered and comforted, directed, strengthened, blessed, changed, and reconciled by the light and the power of that Word. Be ye reconciled to God. Repent, turn, embrace, love, obey.

Be ye reconciled to God. He has done His part, and He has given you power to do yours. Use it. Be ye reconciled to God. Oh, do we not bind with shame, that this Omnipotent, All-merciful, All-loving Benefactor has thus wooed us with Infinite Tenderness, and still the words have to be said, Be ye reconciled to God.

Let us view our text, as another description of the Atonement. The Great God and Our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works (Titus ii. 13, 14).

The apostle thus states that Jesus Christ, our Great God and Savior, was not himself bitter against us with vindictive justice, but gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity. Not that He might redeem us from the anger of God, but FROM ALL INIQUITY. Iniquity is mans ruin. Iniquity debases the heart, find leads us now as it led men aforetime, to thraldom beneath the powers of darkness. Iniquity leads to ignorance, to disorder, and to misery.

This grand purpose of God in our Redemption has always been His purpose. How earnestly is this declared in Ezekiel, Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions: so iniquity shall not be your sin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a right spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and live ye (xviii. 30-52).

Equity is straightness, fairness, right. Iniquity is crookedness, unfairness, wrong. Iniquity in the heart divides it from God, depraves the affections, and pollutes and sensualizes the desires. Iniquity in the mind, darkens its counsels, corrupts its conclusions, and makes it the ready defender and apologist for every mean passion and base delight. Iniquity in practice hardens and fixes sin, strengthens inclination, and burns as it were the habits which enslave the soul into the warp and woof of the character, so that the sins which came in as dwarfs, grow up to be gigantic tyrants, lender escape to virtue daily more difficult, and at length almost hopeless: ever-hopeless without a Saviors hell.

Iniquity is mans ruin: to redeem him from all iniquity his Savior came, and comes; to purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works.

To purify unto Himself a peculiar people, seems at first sight, to be almost the same thing with the statement of the former part of the verse, to redeem us from all iniquity, but it is not so in reality. Redemption refers more to deliverance from iniquity, out of us, such as it is embodied in evil spirits, with hell as their headquarters, that fearful power which interposed between God and man before the incarnation, wrapping human souls in captivity, darkness, and, death; THE SERPENTS HEAD. The Lord redeemed us from this iniquity, when He subdued this fearful power, in His life and at His cross, and gifted the souls of men with new freedom, and thus prepared the way for purifying their souls individually by regeneration, from the iniquities within them. This latter process is salvation as distinguished from redemption. We are redeemed from the power of hell: we are purified and saved from the power of sin. And as this latter process goes on, we become zealous for good works.

Zealous for good works. How different is this language of the apostle from much that we have for many years been accustomed to hear. Fearful of good works, would much more truly express the spirit which is engendered by the preaching of many who teach that man is saved, not by the impartation of the righteous Spirit of the Savior, but solely by the imputation of His righteous merits. In many pulpits, and in many tracts, much more is said against keeping the commandments and being zealous for good works, than in their favor. Nevertheless such is the apostolic teaching. And, how simple it is. The Great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, gave Himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

This clear and precious statement is the doctrine of the whole Sacred Scripture. Let any one read the prophetic announcements of the coming Savior, and if he expect to find it said that the Second Person of the Trinity would come to pacify the wrath of the First, according to Dr. Jelfs assertion of the meaning of propitiation, in the last meeting of the Convocation, he will be disappointed beyond measure.

The prophecy of Isaiah proclaims a coming Savior continually; but that Savior is always Jehovah Himself, not another, a second person. There is nothing about pacifying divine wrath; but to satisfy His Divine Love, by redeeming man from infernal bondage, is ever declared to be His work. He would suffer, because, only by suffering could mans redemption be wrought out, and a kingdom of love set up. In His Love and in His Pity He redeemed us (Isa. lxiii. 9). The Great God and our Savior gave Himself for us.

We may here be reminded, that sometimes the Scriptures state that He gave His Son, and sent His Son into the world. But we must not forget the peculiar manner in which this Son is spoken of, the Only Begotten Son of God. He had no human father. He was produced by the Spirit of God, by the instrumentality of the Virgin, that God Himself might be present in the world. The Humanity was the Son of the Divine Love (2 Pet. i. 17), as thought is the son of will, as the body is the son of the soul. Not as a son which is another, but as a Son which is Himself: a Son, One with His Father (John x. 30); a Son with His Father in Him (John xiv. 8-10): a Son which is God manifest. Thus, whether the apostle says, The Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, or gave His Son, which is the Humanity by which He manifested Himself to the world, it is the some thing. The Lord Jesus Himself said, He that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me (John xii. 45).

Let us turn then to the Scriptures in which the coming Redeemer is spoken of, and see if it be any other than the Great God, Jehovah Himself, who is described as about to undertake the great work of redemption. Let any friend who has been trained to think that a Second Person in the Trinity is the redeemer, keep an especial eye on the prophetic testimony, and discern, if he can, one word about any Second Divine Person. The prophetic declarations are so full, that one cannot but be amazed that readers of the Scriptures should have failed to mark their character and teaching; but we fear that, though the possession of Bibles is nearly universal in our beloved land, thanks to the Bible Society, the reading of every part of the Bible with devout and thoughtful care is not so general.

Let us take first, as an example, one chapter, the forty-fifth of Isaiah.

One thought, one great truth, evidently pervades the prophetic writings.

To us it is amazing that so many professed students of the Scriptures fail to see it. It is, that Jehovah, the one Lord of heaven and earth, our heavenly Father, would become our Redeemer. The Scriptures know no second Divine Person; the Son is the Humanity assumed by the Father, that He might manifest HIMSELF to man. The Great God and our Savior gave Himself for us. He Himself became our Redeemer.

Let us then notice the clear and unequivocal character of the prophetic statements in the chapter we have named. I am the Lord (Jehovah), and there is none else; there is no God beside me (ver. 5). I am the Lord (Jehovah), and there is none else (ver. 6). Then, the Human Nature of the Lord is spoken of, inwardly DIVINE from the Father, and called the Son of God. I have raised Him up in righteousness, and I will direct all His ways: He shall build my city, mid He shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord (Jehovah) of hosts; That this Divine Manhood had God Himself in Him, as His soul, is plainly stated, Surely God is in Thee; and there is none else, there is no God (besides). Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior (ver. 14, 15).

Here it is explicitly declared that God as a Savior would be God hiding Himself, but nevertheless He would be God alone. See, further, the following verses in the same chapter. Israel shall be saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation (ver. 17). There is no God else besides me; A JUST GOD AND A SAVIOR; THERE IS NONE BESIDE ME. (ver. 21).

Again, LOOK UNTO ME, AND BE YE SAVED, all the ends of the earth; for I AM GOD, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE (ver. 22). Surely shall one say, in the Lord (Jehovah) have I righteousness and strength, and to Him shall men come, and all that are incensed against Him shall be ashamed. In the Lord (Jehovah) shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory (ver. 24, 25).

Here, in this one chapter, we have the most clear and positive announcements that there is One God, and no more, and that this One God is the only Savior, Jehovah Himself, to whom men should come. There is not the slightest him that one Divine Person is our Savior, and that He would come to pacify the wrath of another, and that other, the very one who here declares that besides Him there is no Savior.

We might select several other chapters in which the same truth, namely, that Jehovah our Heavenly Father is Himself the only Savior and Redeemer, is presented in the clearest and simplest manner. Notice the forty-third. In the opening of the chapter we read, But now saith the Lord Jehovah that CREATED thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have REDEEMED thee: I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. Surely it is plainly stated, that the same person who created man also redeemed, and will preserve him.

Again, in verse 3. For I am the Lord (Jehovah) thy God, the HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL, THY SAVIOR: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Once more, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there he after me. I, even I, am the Lord (Jehovah), and BESIDE ME THERE IS NO SAVIOR. I have declared and have saved, and I have showed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord (Jehovah), that I am God (ver. 10-12). The Divine Speaker continues, Thus saith the Lord (Jehovah), your REDEEMER, THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL. Again, I am the Lord (Jehovah), your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King (ver. 14, 15). Surely it must be confessed that these texts declare the great truth that Jehovah, the Creator, is also the Redeemer and Savior of man; or, if they do not, it must be admitted that language altogether fails to declare that truth.

We have taken the term SAVIOR chiefly as the name expressive of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is generally regarded as the Second Person of the Trinity, in obedience to the creed of unknown origin, commonly called, as the church of England judiciously states, the creed of St. Athanasius. But He, as we have thus abundantly shown, was Jehovah the Creator Himself, manifest by His Humanity, called His Only Begotten Son.

We take now the other name, the Redeemer, undoubtedly the appellation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and again, undoubtedly, no other than Jehovah Himself according to the Scriptures. And here, let us remark, that there is a considerable difference between salvation and redemption, and between the divine character as Savior, and as Redeemer. It is not without a reason that the Eternal is called so frequently Our SAVIOR and REDEEMER.

Redemption is deliverance from the powers of hell; salvation is deliverance from the power of sin, in the soul. The Lord is our Redeemer, because He delivers us from our enemies (Luke i. 14). He is our Savior, because He saves His people from their sins (Matt. i. 21). Redemption comes first, salvation afterwards. All men were redeemed by the Lord alone; to be saved they must cooperate with the Lord. While men were under the slavery of hell, they were in fetters; they were like the victims of banditti, shut up in a cave, wounded, bleeding, and dying. So long as their prison-houses mere shut up, no possible step in their regeneration could be made by the imprisoned slaves of the powers of darkness. They sat in the valley of the shadow of death. Redemption, was putting the robbers to flight, breaking open their prison-doors, and proclaiming deliverance to the captives. Whether they would really use their freedom, come out to the light, walk to the holy city to which they were called, and, by throwing away their sins, will their glorious inheritance, would depend upon themselves; and in case they did this, they would be saved.

The Lord Jesus opened His ministry by saying, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He birth sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to preach DELIVERANCE TO THE CAPTIVES, and recovering of sight to the blind, TO SET AT LIBERTY THEM THAT ABE BRUISED, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke iv. 18,19). This He said as the Redeemer. When men had become by redemption free, and heard the glorious Gospel preached, inviting them to holiness and to heaven, and came to the Lord for help against their individual evils, He gave and He still gives that help by which they overcome their sins, and in such case He is their SAVIOR. In both cases, it is the Divine Man, Jehovah Jesus, the God of the Old Testament, the Father, manifested as the Good Shepherd of the New,-- the Son, who is the Savior and Redeemer. We have seen this plainly declared in relation to the character of the Savior; we will now notice the same truth in relation to the character of Redeemer. We all remember the declaration of Job, made so familiar in the burial service, I know that my REDEEMER--liveth; and it is equally clear that the Redeemer he meant was God Himself, who did afterwards appear to him.

The Psalmist expresses the same truth, And they remembered that God was their rock, and the High God their Redeemer (Ps. lxxviii. 35). But nothing can be more emphatic than the divine language in Isaiah, Fear not thou worm, Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy REDEEMER, saith the HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL (Isa. xli. 14). For thy MAKER is thine Husband; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel: the GOD OF THE WHOLE EARTH shall He be called (liv. 5). Let any one ponder over this declaration, until it has sunk deeply into his mind and impressed him with the remarkable truths it contains, and he can scarcely hesitate to admit that it does indeed fix the attention upon one Adorable Being, who is the MAKER, the HUSBAND, and the REDEEMER of mankind, and whom, sooner or later, all mankind will confess to be the Only God. The God of the whole earth shall He be called. The same declaration is made with equal plainness, where it is written, Thus saith the Lord (Jehovah) the King of Israel, and his REDEEMER the Lord (Jehovah) of hosts; I am the First and I am the Last; and beside Me there is no God (Isa. xliv. 6). Again, Thus saith the Lord (Jehovah) thy REDEEMER, and He that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord (Jehovah) THAT MAKETH ALL THINGS; that stretcheth out the heavens ALONE, that spreadeth abroad the earth BY MYSELF (ver. 24). If any one does not realize in these words the declaration that Jehovah our Maker and the REDEEMER are the same Divine Person, let him try if he can conceive any other words that would declare it. We cannot. The Being who says He made all things, who declares He stretched forth the heavens alone, and spread abroad the earth by Himself, is our REDEEMER. The Redeemer says He is the First and the Last, and beside Him there is no God.

Again, it is written, Thou shalt know that I the Lord (Jehovah) am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the MIGHTY ONE of Jacob, (Isa. lx. 16). And, if any one would still, ask for the term Father, being applied to the Redeemer, he will read it in chap. lxiii. 16. Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, thou O Lord, art our FATHER, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. And, here, we must not forget those other divine words: Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the EVERLASTING FATHER, and the Prince of Peace (Isa. ix. 6).

Surely, then, the first proposition of the text is clearly proved. The Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ gave Himself for us. It was no other Being, but the Great God Himself, our Father, our Maker, who became our Redeemer, and gave Himself for us.

He gave Himself. What better thing could He give. He gave Himself. Elsewhere it is said, He gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world (Gal. i. 9). Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify, and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it unto Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish (Eph. v. 25-27). It is elsewhere said, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John iii. 17). And this is only another form of the same truth, for His only-begotten Son, is Himself, in His Humanity. The Father, who is the Invisible Godhead, could not give Himself for mans redemption, but by the Son, the Visible Divine Man. In so other way could His mercy, His wisdom, His power, His love, His tenderness be unfolded, so as to win human hearts, and ransom them to Himself. Himself alone could attract to Himself. No love was like His: no patience like His: no truth like His: no gentleness like His. Through the heart, the eyes, the words, the acts of the Son of Man, the Father flowed, to win His children to Himself. The Father who is in Me, he said, He doeth the works (John xiv. 10). I and the Father are one (John x.30). He that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me (John xii. 46). He that seeth Me, hath seen the Father (John xiv. 8).

The Father formed the Son, as the soul forms the body. The Father was in the Son, as the soul is in the body. The Father gave to the Son power, as if of Himself, to work out mans redemption, loved the Son, gave all things into His Land (John iii. 35). All, that in, and through the Son, He might give Himself to man, and ransom man from hell, and sin, from folly, and ruin. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Cor. v. 19).

He thus gave light to ransom man from darkness, love to ransom man from hatred, strength to ransom man from weakness, Himself to ransom man from the powers of hell. He whom God sent, spake the words of God, for God gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him (John iii. 34). How contrary to all this, and to the Scriptures is the view, that has too commonly prevailed. The Father has been represented as vindictive, and requiring the Son to be punished to satisfy Him. The attention of men has been turned to the supposed necessity of pacifying God, instead of being themselves changed from evil; and when they have got Gods anger appeased, they have rested satisfied, and supposed they were free from all danger, while sin, open or concealed, still remained to a great extent unconquered and unexpelled from them. The result has been, that to a great degree the work of regeneration has been neglected, believing that because God was pacified, they were all safe. Under these circumstances, the religion of life has been grievously weakened. The great doctrines of repentance, of obedience to the divine commandments, of daily growth in heavenly virtues, of complete sanctification of soul and body to the Divine Will, have become faint, and in many cases have faded from the esteem of Christians. Great numbers have been taught, that if at any time in their lives, even at the last hour, they could believe that Jesus died for them, their salvation would be accomplished. Under these circumstances, the power of religion to improve the world has been largely paralyzed, and instead of the world being made better and happier by it, a fixed conviction exists with many on the one hand, that religion is a thing of faith, and not of life; of belief, and not of practice; and on the other, large numbers conclude that a religion that does not make the world really better, is not of any sterling worth.

Those who have thus conceived that our salvation was first effected by pacifying Gods anger; and that we become personally possessed of salvation as soon as we believe that this was done, for us, declare that God could not forgive, unless He had been satisfied by the punishment of some one. In their estimation, either the guilty person, or an innocent person will do; either the sinner or a substitute will suffice. Justice is not particular whom it punishes; only it will punish some one, ere it forgives a sinner. It only forgives for the sake of another, whom it has punished, though He was not guilty.

This phantasy, born of the natural man, who is prone to revenge, is in direct opposition to the declarations of the Divine Father Himself. I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for MINE OWN SAKE, and will not remember thy sins (Isa. xliii. 25). If Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon Thee (Ps. lxxxvi. 6). If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayst be feared (Ps. cxxx. 3, 4). The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works (Ps. cxlv. 9). A certain creditor hath two debtors, the one owed five hundred pence, the other fifty, and when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love Him most? (Luke vii. 41, 42).

Nothing can be more contrary to these divine truths, than the ordinary doctrine of the Atonement. The true doctrine, however, the doctrine of our text, is in perfect harmony with them. He gave Himself for us to REDEEM US FROM ALL INIQUITY, not from divine wrath. It is iniquity that is mans ruin. God seeks to redeem him from it, and thus to save him. The head-quarters of iniquity are to be found in the kingdom of hell. The kingdom of hell, had man in kingdom, when the Redeemer came. The work of the Redeemer, then, was to deliver man from this bondage. This deliverance was foretold in the first prophecy. The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents Head. It shall bruise tiny head, and thou shalt bruise His heel (Gen. iii. 16). The head of the serpent is the concentration of self-love in the dark world. To overcome this the Redeemer came, and He accomplished it. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be delivered? But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.... And all flesh shall know that I, the Lord (Jehovah), am thy Savior, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob (Isa. xlix. 25, 26). I will ransom them from the power of the grave, or, as it would be better rendered, hell; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, (hell) I will be thy destruction (Hos. Xiii. 14).

To redeem us, then, from all iniquity, by first overcoming the infernal powers, was the true object of the Saviors coming into the world. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (John i. 3, 8), and He did it. He descended to redeem man from hell. He jived to redeem man from hell; He died to redeem man from hell. For as much, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 14, 15).

Such, then, is the first part of the work of Atonement according to the Scriptures. It was the work of the mercy of the Lord, our Heavenly Father, descending into the world, to free mens souls from the powers of darkness, from infinite love to His children. It was our Father ransoming His lost ones from the hand of them, wile were stronger than they. Blessed be His Holy Name, He did not forsake us, when we were at our worst and darkest period, but followed His sheep into the wilderness, nod rescued them from the wolf. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies (Ps. ciii. 3-5).

Another part of the gracious work of the Atonement, which is not expressed in our text, though very amply unfolded elsewhere by the Apostle, as well as by His Master in the gospels, was the making perfect of His Humanity. There was a Oneness to be produced in Himself by the sanctification and glorification of His Human Nature, which prepared the way for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, by which His servants could be made One with Him. This subject is little understood, but it is of great importance, and accounts for much in the gospels which otherwise remains perplexing. The Lord assumed a Humanity by the instrumentality of a virgin. This Manhood partook necessarily of the infirmities of our fallen nature. We had a high priest who was touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb, iv. 15). The Lord indeed laid on Him the iniquities of us all (Isa. liii. 6); not actual sin, but the crookedness of our nature; that he might be tempted as we are by the powers of darkness, conquer them all, as our Head and example, find by the same process, so perfect His Human Nature, that in Him might for ever dwell all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. ii. 9).

During the progress of the work of redemption and glorification, there was more or less a sense of separation from the Father, especially while a trial or temptation was in progress. Though the life and all the power of the Humanity was from the Father, set it was so given that the Humanity consciously felt as if it lived of itself, just as mans lower nature feels as if it lives of itself, though the Divine being gives it all the life it has, through its inner and higher nature. As the Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given unto the Son to have Life in Himself (John v. 26). While infirmities from the mother were in the Lord, there was a sense of disunion from the Father, a sense of two-ness in His consciousness. And the manhood was to sustain temptation to the uttermost, and conquer, as if it were left to itself until all infirmity was rejected, and then, when all order was introduced into the Humanity, the Divine Life would descend so fully and gloriously, that perfect one-ness would be the result. Until this was done, there was a sense of straitness in the Savior; the Holy Spirit was not fully operative, and there was prayer to the Father. There was an ATONEMENT, a RECONCILIATION, to be effected in the Lord, between the Son and the Father, by the perfecting of the Son through suffering and death, which was essentially completed on the cross, and by the cross. The Humanity achieved this from the Father, and then the two became eternally, in all respects, one, just as the two degrees of mans nature become one, when regeneration is completed. To this work the Lord often refers. I have a baptism to be baptized with, He said, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished (Luke xii. 60). And, again, I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected (Luke xiii. 32). Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being MADE PERFECT, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him (Heb. v. 8, 9). The apostle speaks of the same work of perfecting the Human Nature, that through it God might for ever act as the Savior of His people in another place. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.

For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS (Heb. ii. 9, 10). This perfection through suffering, produced One-ness between the Father and the Son, and the Son became glorified, with all the glory of Infinite Love and Wisdom. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory (Luke xxiv. 26). Whatever of will there was, that was not the Fathers (Luke xxii. 42) was put away, so that the Father was perfectly in Him and He in the Father (John xvii. 27). The Son of man was glorified, and God was glorified in Him (John xiii. 31). And, having sanctified Himself, the Divine Lamb, all glorious, sent forth the Holy Spirit to sanctify all who felt the need of wisdom, purity, and peace, and would obey Him. To this, refer these striking words of the apostle, Having abolished, in His flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain, one new man, so making peace, that He might reconcile both unto God, in one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity, thereby (in Himself) (Eph. ii. 15, 16). The unity produced first in His humanity, and then the perfect reconciliation of humanity and divinity in Himself, was a type and a foreshadowing of that brotherhood of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, which His Gospel is producing, and will produce, until all nations shall be united in brotherhood with each other, and in fatherhood with the glorified Jesus, the First and the Last.

Till oer our ransomd nature

The Lamb for sinners slain,

Redeemer, King, Creator,

In fullness, comes to reign.

Thus One with the Father, thus folly glorified, His Holy Spirit, would act upon the souls of His disciples, giving them liberty, light, and power, through the new and living way of His Humanity, to perform in all the obedient, the third part of the work of the Atonement, to purify unto Himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

The work of Atonement thus consists of three parts. First, the conquering of hell; second, the perfecting of the Lords Humanity, that through it the Holy Spirit might illuminate, and warm, and bless.

These two, which are of the Lord, are perfectly done; then comes the third, in which man must co-operate, the regeneration of the soul, and thus its reconciliation to God: to purify mite Himself a peculiar people. So, the Apostle adds after he has declared God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them, and until committed unto us the ministry of RECONCILIATION,Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God (2 Cor. v. 19, 20).

The Lord, having conquered hell and made man free; having also glorified His Humanity, and thus poured out the Holy Spirit, and given the Word by which the Spirit acts; then comes the co-operation required of man. Gods love is shewn to be unuterrable. He has descended to save His rebellious creatures. He has endured mortal life, contumely, from those He came to save; He has endured buffeting, thorns, scorn, and death, for every man. The hatefulness and folly of sin have thus been shewn. The ineffable mercy of oar Heavenly Father, and the Gospel containing the glad tidings of the Saving Love of the Most High, were to be preached, to induce repentance and hatred of sin, that sin might be remitted, that is, put away; and so individual men were to be reconciled, by being purified from evil, and made zealous for good works. This is the apostolic doctrine of the Atonement. How simple it is! How clear it is ! How effective it is! Man was ruined by sin; he is saved by mercy. He did evil in his lost state, and suffered misery; he does good in his saved state, and feels peace and joy. His redemption was real, he was delivered from hell; his salvation is real, he is delivered from sin. He is not sinful in temper; the Lord has infused love and gentleness. He is not sinful in thought.

To purify unto Himself a peculiar people, that is, to remove their evils, and to make them meek, loving, just, and pure. A peculiar people. The nations of the earth had become selfish; pride, with its exclusiveness and insolence, strove everywhere for rule; vanity, with its yearning for display, decked itself out, and claimed homage on all sides. Corruption, lust, and cruelty abounded. Men sat in darkness. They not only were ignorant, but satisfied with it; besotted, hugging their greatest curses, and supposing there was nothing amiss. To make men Christians, was to make them a peculiar people.

Through repentance, to make them pure; through faith, to make them trustful, confiding, bold for their Lord and His kingdom, and against their sins; through truth, to make them intelligent; through love, to make them self-sacrificing, gentle, good, and kind. This was to be a peculiar people. The earth had for a long time not had such people. They are not numerous now. But all the true followers of the Lord Jesus become, such a peculiar people. They receive the truth, and apply it to their sins; to their owe sins. They pray daily to become better. They look up to their loving Savior for help, and for example. The worlds motives, the worlds ways, and the worlds laws, are nothing to them, where they are opposed to the motives, ways, and laws of the Lord Jesus. They are a peculiar people. They are dead to the old world; alive only to a new world of virtue, holiness, truthfulness, pence, and joy. Heavenliness is their character, and heaven their home. They believe the laws of their Divine Master, which make heaven hereafter, would make heaven here. To them, justice is before self-interest, truth before fraud and deception, active usefulness before lounging idleness; iniquity, of every kind, shunned with aversion, and growth in goodness daily sought. They deliberately choose the folly, in the worlds esteem, of renouncing power and pelf, if these can only be reached by meanness, hypocrisy, and truckling to wrong; they despise the wisdom that creeps through crooked ways to a temporary triumph. They know that every success, not founded on the eternal principles, goodness, wisdom, and order, must be only stages on the way to a final defeat. They ore a peculiar people; they believe and they do what the commandments of the Lord require, and are sure it must issue in all being for the best. Their idea of salvation is of a real salvation: a salvation from bad tempers, bad principles, and bad habits. They do not dream of being saved, when they know that they are not saved. They look for an imparted righteousness, imputed only so far as imported. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, they say with St. John (1 John iii. 7). To declare that a vicious man is innocent, an angry man peaceful, a corrupt man pure, a fraudulent man righteous, a hypocritical man sincere, a mean man noble, because of the merits of our Savior being imputed to him, is then attributing fraud and self-deception to the Most High.

Their forsaking of evil is a real forsaking; their growth in goodness is a real growth. They have no merits in anything they do. They are accepted because the Lord is merciful, and ready to forgive, and they really seek His forgiveness, and to be made by Him fit for heaven. They are a peculiar people. They fight against those things which the evil prize. They hunger and thirst after righteousness, and they are filled. They dwell in love, end thus they dwell in God, for God is love. They grow daily in heavenly excellences and heavenly wisdom. They are beloved of the Lord, and they follow His will. They are content in the present, and they confide in the future. The beloved of the Lord dwells in safety by Him. The Lord covers him all the day long. Blessed of the Lord is his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath.

They know experimentally the blessedness of these divine words, He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. If a man love Me, he will keep My. words: and My Father will love him; and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.

They who are obedient to the divine commandments, shew their love to the Divine Truth, and they who love the Divine Truth prepare themselves for the descent of the Divine Love (the Father), and from love, to see the Truth in greater and greater fullness. From the increased reception of Divine Love, they will become still more lovingly diligent in carrying out the Lords words, and Divine Love and Divine Wisdom will dwell in their hearts: and intellects, blessing all they purpose, think, and do: on earth, and for ever. They are a peculiar people, zealous for good works.

This is a solid, real atonement, flowing from the mercy of the One Great God our Savior, Jesus Christ our Father, our Redeemer, our Friend, the One Lord, whose name is one, and who shall be King over all the earth (Zech. xiv. 9), King of kings and Lord of lords.

That these sentiments are now growing amongst Christians of every denomination, we cannot but see, and we cannot but observe it with peculiar pleasure. It is the prevalence of real religion over superficial, of real righteousness over imputed righteousness.

It is well known that at Oxford now, for a long time, the views of Professor Jowett have been received with increasing favor; and those views were well described some time ago in the TIMES, as the restoration of the faith of the first six hundred years of Christianity; the faith that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself; by His life, death, resurrection, His Spirit, and His Word; not that One Divine Person was dying to pacify another Divine Person, and reconciled Him to the world.

In the RECORD, and in one of the Oxford papers, recently, these views have been stigmatized as Swedenborgian; but what of that? Are they not true? If so, they are from heaven and lead to heaven, through whatever instrumentality they have descended, or have been renewed.

In the Essays and Reviews the same spirit of realism in salvation, as opposed to salvation by mere imputation evidently prevails. In Professor Williams account of Bunsen, we cannot fail to discern the rejection of the prevalent ideas of the Atonement, which involves different persons and warring attributes in God, and the advocacy of the real Atonement, which is consummated in regeneration. He says, If our philosopher had persuaded us of the moral nature of justification, he would not shrink from adding, that regeneration is a correspondent giving of insight, or an awakening of forces of the soul. By resurrection he would mean a spiritual quickening. Salvation would be our deliverance, not FROM the Life-giving God, but from evil and darkness, which are His finite opposites. P. 81.

Again, Why may not justification by faith have meant the peace of mind, or sense of Divine approval, which comes of trust in a righteous God, rather than a fiction of merit by transfer? St. Paul would then be teaching moral responsibility, as opposed to sacerdotalism; or, that to obey is better than sacrifice. Faith would be opposed, not to the good deeds which conscience requires, but to works of appeasement by ritual. Justification would be neither an arbitrary ground of confidence, nor a reward upon condition of our disclaiming merit, but rather a verdict of forgiveness upon our repentance, and of acceptance upon the offering of our hearts.

Equally clear is it that Mr. Wilson has no sympathy with salvation by the imputed righteousness of our Lords merits in a moment, as soon as we daringly believe that our Lords merits are ours, when he says, Moreover, to our great comfort, there have been preserved to us words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, declaring that the conditions of men in another world will be determined by their moral characters in this, and not by their hereditary or traditional creeds.

When the great truth is seen, that character in this world prepares for happiness in the next, and that character is only formed slowly by struggle, choice, and habit, all those flimsy fancies that an enthusiastic imagination conceives, of instant changes from a diabolic to an angelic nature, as soon as a person believes something he is told to believe, will fade away before the realities of the Divine assurance, Not every one who saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.

When Mr. Pattison mentions the recent origin of the Evangelical Schools issue of its most prominent dogma, namely, in the present century, its want of accordance with apostolical truth is thereby intimated. Even the Evangelical School, which had its origin in a re-action against the dominant Rationalism, and began in endeavors to kindle religious feeling, was obliged to succumb at last. It too drew out its rational Scheme of Christianity, in which the Atonement was the central point of a system, and the death of Christ was accounted for as necessary to satisfy the Divine Justice. P. 260.

The air and tone of the last essay, the one by Professor Jowett, is totally different from that which is engendered by the harsh demand which insists, Believe, or perish; Only believe, and you shall be saved.

Experience, he says, shows us not that there are two classes of men animated by two opposing principles, but an infinite number of classes, or individuals, from the lowest depths of misery and sin, to the highest perfection of which human nature is capable; the best not wholly good, the worst not entirely evil. p. 491. Again, no intelligent man seriously inclines to believe that salvation is to be found only in his own denomination.

Examples of this sturdy orthodoxy in our own generation rather provoke a smile, than arouse serious disapproval. p. 425. Of course, every one feels that this is language involving quite a different train of ideas from the imputation of Adams sin, condemning a man by nature, and the imputation of the merits and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, saving him by grace. It is the character here which is the ground-work of happiness or misery, the evils of the unregenerate man unfitting him for happiness, and the virtue and wisdom of the true Christian imparted from his Savior God, preparing him for that measure of joy and peace, which he has made his own by love and practice. The Broad Church in general in this country may now be said to have endorsed this. Thus far, the gospel of God our Savior, seems to be universally and happily adopted by all of that school. God is unchangeable love and wisdom. All who embody that love and wisdom in themselves by actual life, will be happy. The imputations which have no ground in real character, of which the Calvinistic views of the doctrine of the Atonement have furnished so wide a field, are rejected with an energy that is sometimes rather startling.

Mr. Robertson, the late incumbent of Holy Trinity Chapel, Brighton, whose life was a consecrated Christianity, and whose sermons are alike full of grace and full of thought, repudiates altogether the idea of our Lords death being a punishment or penalty paid to the vindictive requirements of another Divine Person. The only true sacrifice is complete conformity to the Divine Love. I say it firmly, he declares, all other notions of sacrifice are false. Whatsoever introduces the conception of vindictiveness or retaliation; whatever speaks of appeasing fury; whatever estimates the value of the Saviors sacrifice by the penalty paid; whatever differs from these notions of sacrifice contained in psalms nod prophets, is borrowed from the bloody shambles of heathenism, and not from Jewish altars.

This alone makes the worshiper perfect as pertaining to the conscience. He who can offer it in its entireness, He alone is the worlds Atonement; He in whose heart the law was; and who alone of all mankind was content to do it; His sacrifice alone can be the sacrifice all-sufficient in the Fathers sight as the proper sacrifice of humanity; He, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, He alone can give the Spirit which enables us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.Sermons, second Series, p. 162.

Still more strongly do some other ministers of the Church of England condemn those mistaken ideas of the Atonement, which they have long been popularly preaching, as essentially unreal, unscriptural, and hollow, implying make-believes as the part of the Divine Being quite inconsistent with His essential truthfulness and holiness. Take as an instance the following from the discourses of the Rev. D. I. Heath, Vicar of Brading:--

Those, for instance, who preach the imputed righteousness of Christ, those who preach that a Lamb can be angry, and teach all the kings of the earth, and the great men and the rich men, and every bondsman and every freeman, the doctrine of an angry Lamb assuaging the wrath of God. Those who preach the downright lie, that a just Being must inflict a penalty upon sin; whereas, neither the word inflict nor penalty is used once in the whole Bible, and the most just of Beings orders us when me are smitten on one cheek, not to inflict a penalty. Those who preach metaphysical non-sense about putting away the guilt of sin, instead of putting away the sin itself, as if the word guilt was ever once used in the whole Bible, and as if guilt of sin could ever be put away, except by putting away the sin. All these preachers, and such as these, either do or do not search the Scriptures when they preach. If they do not, they ought to If they do, they know in their hearts that the whole of their theology is in a state of unutterable confusion; full of contradictions; more than half of it incomprehensible; a system heaped up by the scribes and the wise of this world, whom God will confound; and in either case such ought to pass in and out among us in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling: but I, for my part, am redeemed from that vain conversation, received by tradition from my fathers, by believing that God raised Jesus from the dead, and gave Him glory, that my faith and hope might be in God. It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again. p. 113.

Elsewhere, this gentleman defines the common doctrine of the Atonement in terms that are its self-evident condemnation: The death of Christ is somehow supposed to show to the world that the Father is just because he punishes the wrong person, and when people have brought themselves to believe this, then they may expect Him to be merciful (p. 201).

This writer says in another place: I have myself heard the question addressed to a meeting of about twenty clergymen, From whom did Christ buy the Church? (To redeem means to buy here.) And after a long pause not one of them had an answer. I have also heard the same question addressed to some dissenting ministers, and with the same shameful result. If they answered, He bought us from God, they know well they should differ in opinion from the four-and-twenty elders who fell down before the Lamb and sang a new song, saying, Thou hast bought us to God. And if they should answer, implying that He bought us from any body or anything else but God, then all modern theology tumbles to bits; for it is all founded upon the statement that God accepts the sufferings of Christ as a satisfaction or price due to His justice. p. 160.

I might add many similar extracts from other discourses of the same clergyman, equally protesting against the theology of imputation, and yet everywhere insisting upon regeneration by obedience to the commandments and spirit of our Savior, but space will not permit. We add some additional extracts from other writers. Our aim is to show how widely the views of the New Dispensation are permeating all denominations of Christians, at which me exceedingly rejoice.

The want of truthfulness in all the relations of society, the frauds of trade, the wide-spread dishonesties of commercial life, the hollow amenities by which polite society covers its crookedness and pollution, are so largely unchecked and unreformed by the only power capable of doing it, the POWER OF RELIGION, because religion itself has been made unreal and imputative. The fall of men has been treated, not as a real vitiation of his nature, a desecration of the affections, and a degradation of man, by the folly and wickedness of listening to the serpent of selfishness; but as an annoyance to the Deity, and an excitement of His wrath. He determined, it is said, to destroy the whole human race, body and soul, for the sin of their ancestor, which he imputed to them. Men are thus led to dread not the evil tendencies which are derived to them by their parents and their hereditary ancestry, which they know to exist, but a supposed anger of God which never really existed at all. God appears to be angry to the wicked, who are contrary to Him, but in reality He is ever the Father of lights, in whom there is no darkness, nor shadow of turning (James i. 17).

The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works (Ps. cxlv. 9).

Busy with removing the supposed wrath of God, they overlook the removal of their own evil passions, evil thoughts, and evil habits, which are their grand and abiding danger, and so the curses of the earth remain,--selfish and sinful men remain, as often under the cloak of religion as is defiance of it. The religions of the earth at the present day are chiefly regarded as means of appeasing the wrath of the Deity, who is Love Itself, instead of being engaged in; their own grand legitimate work, the regeneration of man.

The imputation of one mans sin to another, is a mere phantasy. A just man would not do that, much less the All Just God. It is true, our nature was depraved in our sinful forefathers. As in Adam all die, that is, become carnally minded, for TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; but this was done, and is done, by man turning away from the fountain of Life. This death is a real disorder and desolation of soul, not a mere imputed evil. So the Lord Jesus came to give us real life, the life of spiritual-mindedness, the life of love, wisdom, and peace. In Christ, shall all be made alive. It is not Christs righteousness, which is imputed to us, when we do not possess it, by a self-deception on Gods part, but real spiritual life flowing into us, as we depart from evil by repentance, and seek truth, virtue, and progress in all goodness, from Him. Daily we walk on; daily we grow in faith and actual obedience; daily we acquire by prayer and practice, by struggle, patience, and effort, more of the spirit and walk of the Lord Jesus. Thus we obtain the actual righteousness of faith, and, we put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephes. iv. 29).

No righteousness is imputed to us, which we do not possess. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile (Ps. xxxii. 2).

Oh, if this real religion of actual victory over sin, and actual virtue, in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God (Micah vi. 8), were preached in the forty thousand pulpits of Great Britain, it would surely make this a better land, and through the example of this land hold out a beacon of blessing to the world.

To be a religious men at present is one thing; to be a just man is another. But, they fire really the same. Righteousness is only the English word for justice. The Lord Jesus was embodied Righteousness, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world (John i. 29). When we follow Him, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, He gives it, not in imagination but in fact, word and deed. He washes us from our sins, by His Love and Wisdom, His living Blood, and we are made pure and white, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. The idea, that the death of the Lord Jesus was a punishment to pay the debt of mankind to the justice of the Father, is admitted by theologians to have originated with Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry II., who died 1105. It started very modestly at first, but spread by degrees, until it assumed its present form and influence, chiefly since the Reformation. Now, happily, we are witnessing its decline. Hear, on this subject, another clergyman of the Church of England:--

Anselm, as I have said, is considered the author of the prevalent theology of the West on this subject; and on the whole, rightly so. But it is often overlooked, that he came greatly short of it.

He rightly argues that the devil cannot have a lawful claim of any kind; and for this, the previously received theory, he substitutes that of satisfaction to Gods justice. Indeed of phrase as well as theory, he is generally considered the author. Sin involved, according to him, a debt to God, with the payment of which Gods essential attribute of justice did not permit them to dispense.*

* The Rev. Francis Garden, Subdean of the Chapel Royal. Tracts for Priests and People, No. III, pp. 5, 6.

Thus it is freely admitted now, that the ordinary idea of the Atonement did not originate in the Scriptures, but in the dark ages in this Romish Archbishops mind. Hear the same writer again:--

When men had learnt to regard the Lord on the cross as a substitute, suffering the penalty due to their sins, they were led to ask in what way did His sufferings amount to this. What was that full penalty of sin which He paid? It could not have been mere temporal death: for it was held that the true penalty of sin amounted to something infinitely more awful than that, and from temporal death, he did not seem to have delivered us.

Accordingly, they were led to the strange and revolting notion that the infinite nature of Christ rendered Him capable of suffering in a limited, what would have had to pour itself out on finite beings throughout an unlimited time,--a thought which one really dares not bring out into distincter statement. P. 9.

Another clergyman in the same pamphlet writes:--

And though I would never speak of Christs blood as Redemption money paid to the Devil, I do maintain that a deliverance of men by their True Father, from an evil power who had chained them as his subjects, underlies all the lessons concerning Redemption in the Bible, and explains the passage in St. Peter (1 Pet. iii. 18), and a thousand others, which, as the writer of the Essay truly says, startle the modern render. Any idea of Redemption, but that which imports that it is the purchase of a creature out of bondage by a Creator who cares that it should be free, seems to me feeble, self-contradictory, impractical. p. 27.

The same clergyman odds, in relation to Dr. Jelfs recent statement, that propitiation means the pacifying of the Fathers wrath:--

I believe I should cheat my people of the message of reconciliation which God has sent me to deliver to them: I believe I should confuse their minds about His nature and purposes to them: I believe I should not represent the Son as the express image of the Father: if I compelled the divine words to undergo this violence. The words, pacifying of Gods wrath, may convey the best and most blessed meaning to some minds. I would deprive no one of such meaning. But I must preach Gods gospel to sinners; and to me, and from my lips, this would be no gospel at all. p. 57.

The Rev. Llewellyn Davis, in his sermons, on the Atonement, equally insists that love, not wrath, brought our Redeemer to live and die for us. He says:

I should wonder at the boldness of the man who would say that the Gospels, at any rate, contain the doctrine that Gods forgiveness could not act freely, until the punishment of His Son had satisfied His justice. How Jesus Christ when teaching upon the earth could have withheld this: doctrine, and represented God as like the father of the prodigal son, or the creditor who frankly forgave the debtors who had nothing to pay, is for those who hold the doctrine to explain.

The fact is, that there is not a word in the Bible about the punishment due to our sins being inflicted by a just God upon His own Son. The notion is indeed a very common one,--so common that there are few religious books of the widest currency which are entirely free from it. There are two, however, from which it is absent, the Bible and the Prayer Book.

* * * * * *

There are two or three assumptions against which I would be understood to protest. (1.) One is that God, through a necessity to which the Almighty Himself is subject, cannot pardon without the infliction of the punishment deserved by sin;an assertion utterly without warrant, contradicted by the human analogies which our Savior Himself commended to us as our best guides, and which would probably have never been thought of, unless the perverted notion of the substitution of Jesus Christ for us had suggested it.

(2.) The second is, that the guilt of sin in Gods eyes could be wiped out by any punishment, however infinite. Imagine the sinner punished to the utmost of his deserts: What is the effect produced? Is there any atonement or reconciliation? If enmity existed, will it not remain? If the sinner was offensive to God, must he not be so still?

(3.) The third is, that Gods perfect righteousness, if it called for punishment, could be satisfied by the punishment of the innocent in the place of the guilty. The reverent and the Scriptural idea of Gods righteousness is that it is more considerate, more equitable, more free and unembarrassed, than mans righteousness; and that the man who would be most really and inwardly righteous should seek after Gods righteousness and imitate that. But if the highest representation of Gods heavenly righteousness exhibits Him as accepting with satisfaction the sufferings of the innocent as the punishment of the guilty, could you honestly recommend the Divine righteousness to the imitation of the Judges of our Criminal Courts, to the heads of our families? Could you pretend, as I have seen it urged, that Gods infinite Majesty made it just for Him to do what it would be unjust for one of his representatives on earth to do?

How could the difference in greatness affect the comparative justice of the proceedings?

These are all evidences of a wide movement affecting the Church of England, and leading to the adoption of a theology based on the fundamental principle, God is Love, and rejecting the religion of terror and vindictiveness. But this, we are happy to say, is not confined to the Church of England. The leading Dissenting bodies are accepting the same great change, and adopting real regeneration, not imputation, as the substance of their preaching.

The Rev. Baldwin Brown, in his beautiful work, The Divine Life in Man, has the following just remarks, which wear a far higher character than that of the long-prevalent theology of mere imputation. He is dwelling on the passage, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith (Rom. i. 16, 17):--

Salvation is a deliverancean escape from death and hell. Salvation is the possession of imperishable bliss. But there is that in it which underlies both these conditions, and through which alone they can be completely realized: the recovery by the soul of that vital force which in its rudiment man lost in Eden, and which in its maturity man regains in Christ. It seems to me very significant that St. Paul connects so closely in this passage, the righteousness of God, will life. The Gospel is a power, because therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall line by faith. The righteousness of God, say the critics, clearly points to justification. Certainly, if by justification they mean something vital, something which can stand fairly in close connection with the words power and life. If they mean simply that God agrees, on account of the righteousness of Christ, to count and treat as righteous those who choose to submit to a condition which He imposes, viz., faith, it being equally within his discretion, according to a recent expositor of the doctrine, to ordain any other condition which might please him--which is called the forensic view of justification, then I say that all the vital meaning of this passage is destroyed. We must search for the roots of this theory of justification in the writings of the Roman Schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the great and good Anselm at the head of them: and in the forensic view, the emphatic words of this passage call have but slight meaning, and the sentence The just shall live by faith, becomes inconsequent and as intrusive as a blood-warm form amidst a dance of specters, or in the valley of dry bones, a breathing man p. 132.

While Mr. Brown, with many others, is showing clearer conceptions of Salvation, the Atonement, and real progress in the regenerate life among the Baptists, among the Congregationalists, Mr. Lynch is speaking words of truth and beauty, disclosing with great power, the theology of love. We select a few brief sentences from his tract AMONG THE TRANSGRESSORS.

The crucifixion of Christ was not Gods work. It was a punishment most unjustly indicted, and God will call the world to account for it. p. 10.

I repeat again,--Christ was punished. But was it God that punished Him? Certainly not. He was punished wickedly, and God does nothing wickedly. It was the evil world that punished Him. He was not pursued with the sword of the Fathers justice, but with that of the devils injustice. p. 16.

We have looked at the feet, and seen that Christ was punished, but not by God: that He submitted to be sins victim, that He might be mans Savior. p. 31.

God cannot punish His Son in mans stead; neither can any one be justly punished in anothers stead. But one may be unjustly punished in the stead of another; and God may Himself accept such unjust punishment,--perfecting justice is receiving the stroke of injustice; expressing in an agony the fullness of that holy love which is the very ground of justice; overcoming the strength of sin,--loves contradiction,--by loves own abundantly exceeding strength. p. 31.

We might abundantly multiply these quotations, which reveal movements on all sides to more just, reel, living, practical doctrines, both of the Savior and His Atonement. We hail them as preparing for the descent of real religion from heaven. We believe they are irradiations from the New Jerusalem. He who sits upon the throne is now saying, Behold I make all things new. Old things are passing away. The old false views are breaking away from churches, and from nations. And, oh, how gladsome are the rays that come to us already.

A religion of love, wisdom, and usefulness, the very principles which form heaven, will form a heaven upon earth. The sentences in the Lords prayer are not Utopian sighs; they will be fulfilled. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. Nations will learn righteousness from a truthful, living, and loving church. Laws will be founded on justice, and justly carried out. All things will be clear and kind, and love rule everywhere. Each home educated, gentle, and happy, will be, on a small scale, an exemplification of the vast home of just men made perfect. All will be cared for. Education, philosophy, the arts, beauty and plenty, will be the portion of each and of all. The LORD shall be king over all the earth. There shall be One LORD, and His name ONE.

With this just view of the Atonement, as reconciliation with God, and the reception of new life from Him in the process of regeneration, all those declarations of the Scriptures which insist upon a good life as an ESSENTIAL OF SALVATION will be restored to their proper influence over mens minds. With the idea of Infinite Merits being attributed to men, the moment they believe, a good life however desirable on metal grounds, was destitute of support, as a necessary religious. What they did, or did not do, was a matter of no account. He who believed aright in the death of the Savior, would go to heaven whether he had lived a good life or not. Judgment was practically a nullity. What he had done was nothing. All that would be demanded would be, did he believe Christ had died for Him. If he did so, all his deficiencies would be lost in the blaze of the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer. If he did not believe in this rightly, all his honest, humble, sincere efforts to walk according to Gods commandments by Gods help, would be mere filthy rags, and would not be noticed, nor cause him to be spared for a moment; to hell he must go and be lost for ever. This theology, the theology of too many railway tracts and Scripture readers, will be seen in its native superficiality and the theology of loving God in Christ and keeping His commandments, once more appear in its Divine power and authority, and the life of virtue be seen to be also the only true expression of the life of religion.

Men will again be familiar with such a passages of Scripture as the following, and believe they mean what they say. O, that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children for ever (Deut. v. 29).

And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, FOR OUR GOOD ALWAYS; that He might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us (Deut. vi. 24, 25).

O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through Thy commandments hast made me miser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts (Ps. cxix. 97-100).

O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa. xlviii. 18).

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of tie Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord (Isa. liv. 17).

But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and DO that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath DONE he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways and live? (Ezek. xviii. 21-23).

Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and DOETH that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die (Ezek. xviii. 27, 28).

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall DO and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt, v, 10, 20).

And shall come forth; they that have DONE good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have DONE evil, unto the resurrection of damnation (John v. 29).

Who will render to every man according to his DEEDS: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God (Rom. ii. 6-11).

And, behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his woes shall be (Rev. xxii. 12).

Blessed are they that DO his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city (Rev. xxii. 14).

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC. By Dr. Bayley, of Argyle Square Church, Kings Cross, London.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle--The Resurrection.
4. The Liner sense of scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement
8. Difficulties of the Atonement
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

By the same Author. Second Issue.
THE DIVINE WORD OPENED. Illustrating the spiritual interpretation of specimens of every portion of the Scriptures, but especially of the events of the early chapters of Genesis--The Creation--Garden of Eden--The Fall--The Flood--The Ark--Noah--The Tower of Babel. 7s. 6d. cloth.

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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. VIII.

THE ATONEMENT. PART II.

DIFFICULTIES EXPLAINED.

But God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.ROM. v. 8.

God commended His Love towards us, a Love Infinite and Divine, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Human love will die for a friend, only Divine Love will die for an enemy.

Regard for a moment, my beloved friends, the Love of God in Christ. Such is the Infinite Majesty of Him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is Holy, that it is a condescension for Him to notice the heavens: He humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven (Ps. cxiii. 6). For Him to descend to earth to assist a good man, would be an act of wondrous benignity and grace. But to bow the heavens and to come down to aid sinners is indeed wonderful. His name shall be called Wonderful. But if, for the God of Love to live on earth at all would be marvelous, what then is it to live to endure for man opposition, contradiction, malignity, taunts, ingratitude, treachery, thorns, buffeting, the assaults of hell, death, the death of the cross? And this for sinners, for the
world, for me.

Amazing mercy! Love immense,

Surpassing evry human sense,

Since time and sense began!

That man might shun the realms of pain,

and know and love His God again;

His God became a Man!

The mystery of love is unsearchable. None but those whose hearts are touched with Love Divide can even receive its marvels. Well might the apostle exclaim, For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, !received up into glory (1 Tim. iii. 16).

The incarnation, the Redemption of the world, and the Glorification of His Humanity by our Lord and Savior, will be the wonder find the adoration of angels, as well as of good men, for ever. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John iii. 16). God commendeth His Love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This one thing we must ever bear in mind, that Redemption and Atonement were from the Love of God, equally with Creation. In His love and in His pity He redeemed us. (Isa. lxiii. 9).

In our former discourse, we endeavored to set forth the reel character of the Atonement, as performed by God Himself, from love to fallen man, and set forth so simply by the apostle. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. But, with some there is difficulty in accepting this simple truth, because they have been long taught otherwise. They have been accustomed to hear that there were two Divine Persons, and that in redemption they mere variously affected and engaged. 

The first person, regarded as God Himself was angry at man for transgressing His law, and demanded satisfaction, by punishment.

The second person was merciful, pitied mans estate as doomed to everlasting misery, and offered to die in mans stead. The offering was accepted, and thereby, the man who believes this, goes free.

Often with a great show of reasoning this doctrine is put forward, and with many particularities. Some undertake to relate what took place in a council held by the three divine persons, of whom they (and not the Scriptures) speak, where the persons of the Godhead settled what each should do, when man fell, and the part each should take in his restoration, or at least the restoration of a portion of his race, then determined upon, to be saved.

To the difficulties against receiving the apostolic doctrine thus restored in the New Dispensation of Divine Truth to mankind, felt by sincere minds, we now give our best efforts, and entreat they may be received in a spirit of kindness, as an attempt to magnify the Divine Love of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, as our Father, Redeemer, and Savior, in One adorable person, the First and the Last, the Christians all in all.

The first difficulty arises chiefly from the idea that there is in God a principle which must retaliate upon one who does wrong; and this is called justice. When a sin has been committed, it is said, it cannot be pardoned unless Gods justice has had satisfaction. And this satisfaction is believed to be equally complete, whether it is the wrong-doer who is punished, or another, instead of him, provided that other is willing and competent to suffer. The Savior, it is said, was willing and competent, to suffer, because He had no sin of His own for which to answer, therefore, His punishment was a complete Atonement, and Justice was satisfied.

But all this is simply an illustration of the declaration in the Psalms, Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself (Ps. 1. 21). The natural men thinks it just that he should be revenged upon any one who has injured him. But not so the spiritual man; not so the Christian. He has been taught by the Divine Being Himself, Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall he great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful, and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful (Luke vi. 35, 36).

Let any one ask himself whether the natural man, with his revengeful justice, or the spiritual man, with his merciful justice, is the best likeness of the Lord, and he will soon decide that the spirit of retaliation can have no existence in Him who is Love Itself, except in the form He has given it to His servants upon earth. Do good to them who hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you (Luke vi. 27, 28). He maketh His sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust (Matt. v. 45).

Mans sins cannot hurt the Divine Being: they injure himself; and they originate the miseries that poison his life on earth, and create the hell which exists first in his own bosom, and which he takes with him into the eternal world to form part of the awful collection of the fixedly wicked and miserable beings there, whom we denominate hell.

Of the Lord, our grateful love must ever say, O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever (Ps. cxxxvi. 1).

The real justice of God is unswerving love, unswerving righteousness. He does not weakly alter His laws; He sustains them under all circumstances, because they are the expression of Infinite Love, Wisdom, and Mercy. It would be no mercy to a wicked man to prevent him receiving the pain which flows from his evils. That pain is a true index to the wrong he has done, and is full of merciful lessons, tending to reformation. Sorrow cannot be separated from sin. Remove sin and you remove sorrow. The maintenance of His Divine Laws in time and in eternity is from Infinite Love; having the everlasting happiness of His creatures as its end. Punishment is not the end. Happiness from love is the end. This rectitude, therefore, can never change. This is Gods justice. It is the inflexible adherence to right, for the sake of the end, which is mans everlasting salvation. This justice is always on the side of salvation. I am a just God, and a Savior; Jehovah says, THERE IS NONE BESIDES ME (Isa. xiv. 21). The Lord Jesus Christ is said to be just, and having salvation (Zech. ix. 9).

Because God was just to His own infinite love, when man changed and fell, He never changed. He followed man still with tender exhortations, with prophets, angelic messengers, and at length with his own presence as a Savior in the world. All this flowed from His justice, which in Him is the unchangeable adherence to His own nature, which is Unutterable Love.

The justice of God the Father, it is said, was offended by mans sin, and only the adequate punishment of the offender could appease it. But if one asks, if God the Sons justice would not also be offended, and require adequate punishment to be inflicted upon some one, and if God the Holy Ghosts justice also would not be subject to the same anger and appeasement, the argument is seen at once entirely to fail. If the two latter needed no punishment of any one to satisfy them, why did God the Father need it? Are they not all alike? In fact, this idea, is founded upon a mistake from beginning to end. It is attributing to God the desire for retaliation which only belongs to fallen man. Gods justice is an attribute of His love. When man sins, he shuts out from himself the divine blessing which God desires to give him. And so long as he continues wicked, so long that exclusion must continue. When he repents, and turns to the Lord, he opens his heart and mind for the reception of the divine blessing, which never fails, because still the Lord desires to give it.

How grandly the divine nature was proclaimed before Moses. The LORD, the LORD GOD, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7).

The Lord forgives (that is, removes) iniquity, transgression, and sin from the penitent, but there are NO MEANS by which he who is still guilty can be admitted to happiness.

When a man repents, and seeks pardon and regeneration, the spirit is there, which the Lord accepts. No payment is needed to insure His acceptance. The very desire to come is prompted by the Lord, that He may bless him. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, who shall stand? but there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared (Ps. cxxx. 4). A certain creditor had two debtors, the one owed five hundred pence, the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love Him most. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom He forgave most. And he said, Thou hast rightly judged.

The law which determines how much is forgiven, is the law of how much we love.

Hence the Lord said of the penitent woman, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

Another form, in which the difficulty we have been considering is sometimes urged, is that God gave a law to man in Eden, and this was the tenor of it: In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. ii. 17). It is said that Gods honor was at stake, and he was necessitated to see that this law was executed. Hence man, including the whole race, of which it is assumed Adam was regarded as the head and representative, must die, unless a substitute could be found. This substitute was the Lord Jesus Christ. Through His death, man escaped. The difficulty in this form speedily disappears when it is closely examined. The law spoken of was not law; it was a caution and a warning. That warning was fulfilled. In the day man sinned, he did die. The soul that sins always dies; or, in other words, comes into that carnal-mindedness and misery which the Scriptures call death, and which is the only real death, the death of holy thoughts and affections in the soul. TO BE CARNALLY-MINDED IS DEATH (Rom. iii. 6). And, since the effect forewarned took place, there is no ground for demanding any other or further punishment. Gods laws always execute themselves, they never fail.

The Divine allegory of Eden is most beautiful and instructive, when truly understood. It describes the state of the early men. Adam is the Hebrew name for man. At that time, as at this, man was in freedom. The divine love and wisdom was a tree of lives in the center of their souls. Their happy state is described by the garden of delights, or Eden, which signifies delights. They hail also the tree of their own knowledge of good and evil, acquired by the senses. If they partook of the tree of lives, and its kindred trees, they would be fed celestially from the Lord, and all would be well. If under the persuasion of the love of sensual thought and indulgence, they chose their own short-sighted knowledge of appearances, they would sink into evil and falsehood, which is spiritual death. The Lord would not make them die. They would die of themselves. He would follow to raise them again. And so He did. In a passage, very puzzling to those who look at the letter only, it is written, They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees* of the garden.

And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (Gen. iii. 8, 9).

* Hebrew, tree.

In this divine account, the operation of the Spirit of the Lord in the conscience is described. When man sins the Lord always comes there. It is the cool of the day. It is chilly, when we fall away from love and light. Joy and warmth fly when innocence is no more. The stirrings of divine mercy in the conscience are well described by asking the question, so strange at first sight for the Omniscient to ask, Where art thou? But He asks questions, not for His sake, only for ours. It was to lead fallen man then to ask himself, Where art thou? Thou wert in a state of innocence and bliss, of light and joy, of hope and peace. Now, all these angels within have fled. Gloomy thoughts have overspread thy spirits atmosphere; then art cold and unhappy. The trees of Eden are hid from thee, and thou art concealing thyself from thy Makers presence in the tree of thine own poor knowledge. Where art thou? Come back, in penitence and love. Humble thyself. Take the sorrow thy folly has brought, but be henceforth wise, diligent, and trustful. A Savior will be revealed, to bruise the serpents head, and restore thy race when at its worst. But be thou grateful, repentant, and sincere at once, and thou shalt be regenerated and restored. The law of Adams posterity was given to Cain, and was still merciful. If thou doest well, shalt then not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at thy door (Gen. iv. 7).

Such is the divine lesson, which comes from a true consideration of the history of Eden; and it is all a lesson of mercy. There is no being bound by any necessity to punish either Adam or his posterity. Sin does that itself. Divine love warns where danger is; and when we have fallen, comes to save. The did view is painfully inconsistent. It assumes that God undertook to put man to death, which is not at all to be found in the text. It then declares that God could not be untrue to his threat, and then it makes Him shrink from it; first, in not putting man to death that day, according to the warning, and secondly, not doing it at all, but finding some one to be put to death instead, which was no part of the so-called law. It begins by saying, He must keep His word, and it ends by showing He kept no part of it.

Thus, this professed logical reason for the punishment of the Lord Jesus by the Father, is entirely wanting in all logical connection.

It assumes that literal death, that day, was threatened as a consequence of sin. And, then, that it did not happen that day, but nine hundred years after. It asserts that the Lord Jesus received the punishment due to mans sin, although man had, at least in part, been receiving it himself. And, although the Lord Jesus paid the debt of man in full, yet man has been dying still. In fact, anything more inconclusive and unsatisfactory to a thoughtful mind, it is hard to conceive.

This old view assumes that it is required by justice, the natural mans justice, or what is really his revenge. But even the natural mans justice claims punishment ONLY UPON THE OFFENDER. The wild passion that burns to destroy the innocent for the guilty, is many degrees lower than the moral sense of the natural man, yet this is attributed to God.

On the other hand, without this theory, all is instructive, clear, and beautiful. Man had every ability from his Heavenly Father to be wise and good, He closed himself against the kingdom of life, and sank into evil. The love of the Lord was unchangeable, and the means of restoration were supplied, and at length, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, He visited and redeemed His people.

Another difficulty, which has occasioned some hesitation in sincere minds to embrace that view of the Atonement which exhibits the One God, our Heavenly Father, being Himself the Reconciler of His children, Himself the Seeker and the Saver of them who were lost, has resulted from the prevalence of an erroneous idea of sacrifice. They have been taught that sacrifice meant punishment;--that the animal was punished for the sin of the man who offered it, and he went free. Hence, when they have read that our Lord was sacrificed for us, they have tacitly concluded that it means He was punished for us.

This is altogether a mistake. The true idea of sacrifice is offering, gift, worship, dedication. Hence, there are sacrifices of praise, sacrifices of thanksgiving, sacrifices of righteousness, sacrifices of doing good, spiritual sacrifices to be offered by Christians, the living acceptable sacrifices of our bodies, which is called a reasonable service (Rom. xii. 1).

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise (Ps. ii. 17).

To do the divine will, is the truest sacrifice. The animals offered up by the Jews mere the correspondences of the different thoughts, affections, and principles of the soul, and these were offered up by fire, to denote the offering up of these principles in ourselves, from a spirit of love. The Lord in His Humanity did always the Will of the Divine Love. In every act He dedicated Himself to carry out its sublime purposes in the work of redemption. In every hour, in every thought, in every word, what Infinite Love dictated to be done He did; what Love dictated to be suffered He suffered, even to enduring all the malignity of hell, and all the sorrows of the cross. He was the grand sacrifice, the center of all other sacrifices. We sacrificed Himself for us. For us He lived; for us He died; for us He rose again; for us, He offered Himself, a whole burnt offering. This is the very nature of God, to give Himself to others to make them happy. This nature He communicated to His manhood, more And more, until the crowning act of the CROSS. He gave Himself for us all, that His love might commend itself to us all; and, by being commended to us, it might be embraced by us, and thus be enabled to save us. God sacrifices Himself infinitely. He has written sacrifice upon everything. The sun throws itself off to invigorate, beautify, and fertilize the worlds by which he is surrounded. Each star throws off its radiance, to illuminate the firmament with brilliancy and glory. Each mountain stream that dashes from rock to rock, and sparkles in the sunbeams like liquid silver, rushes to be sacrificed. Each flower gives its sweetness to all around. Each tree loads itself with fruit, to be yielded for others. All things in divine order sacrifice themselves, give themselves away to increase the universal bliss. A parent lives for the children, a friend for a friend. The wife gives herself to her husband, loses her name even for him and his, and the more perfectly she does this, the more perfectly without seeking it, she reigns over heart and home. So with our Savior. He saved others; Himself He could not save. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us; and by this sacrifice he was won hearts, and will win hearts for ever. We love Him, because He first loved us. His truth comes, commenced by His love. It is accepted as a seed. It sinks into the ground, and seems to slumber and be forgotten for a time. In this very forgottenness it is acquiring strength, and will appear again a goodly tree, the parent of a paradise with in.

The Lamb that was slain died and rose again, that He might be Lord of the dead and the living. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Who could believe such a report? The eternal God would become a Man: not a Man only, but a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and despised and rejected of men. He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes are we healed.

His creatures fell, no pitying eye,

No mighty arm to save was nigh,

Or aid our feeble powers.

He came, He saw, He fought alone,

And conquered evils not His own,

That we might conquer ours.

Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. The Divine Love of the Godhead gave Him for us. The Divine Human Love of the manhood gave Himself for us, to redeem and save us from all iniquity, and be our all in all.

Perhaps the best illustration that earth affords of the self-sacrificing nature of true love, is afforded by the full yielding of herself to another of a pure and loving woman. If she perceives the God-given qualities which form her ideal of a noble soul-companion, in the man by whom she is sought, she sacrifices freely her affections, her self-control, and at the altar her person and her very name. Yet in this sacrifice, how is she raised again with love and honor. She reappears strengthened and surrounded by her husbands love, her husbands strength, her husbands care. She is enthroned queen of the domestic circle. The more perfectly she is affectionate and unselfish, the more perfect is her command of those higher inner feelings in all who surround her, that will command, with most lasting influence, their abiding esteem and love. The self-sacrificing wife, with gentlest words secures her husbands loving acquiescence. The self-sacrificing mother impresses the gentle influence of her spirit on young souls, who afterwards move their thousands, and bless a nation, and who in age and death own as their Gods priceless gift to them, a self-sacrificing, tender, loving mother.

All saintly souls are self-sacrificing. They give themselves more and more perfectly, as their regeneration progresses, to the Will such Wisdom of the Highest, to the purposes of Christian and public good.

Their meat and drink it is to do their Fathers will. They do good, and communicate, for they know that with such sacrifices God is well pleased (Heb. xiii. 16). But oh! How poor is the sacrifice of the highest and best to that sacrifice of perfect devotion which He made, who was infinitely rich, yet for our sakes became poor. He made Himself of no account. Monarch of all worlds, He was born in a manger. Possessed of all wisdom He submitted to contradictions and taunts from His short-sighted creatures. Possessed of all power, He suffered Himself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. Possessed of all purity, He submitted to be tempted by the wicked, and even by the impure inhabitants of hell. He suffered Himself to be treated as He suffers His Word to be treated now. Yet, thus, Love Divine triumphs. The Crucified One inaugurated the kingdom of Sacrifice. All lower powers have influences more or less limited; their wave moves on, and dies. But the power of love and self-sacrifice, the feeblest of all at first, grows and gathers, founds schools, churches, hospitals, breaks off the chains from slavery, obliterates selfish landmarks, sanctifies homes, ennobles nations, still widens its hallowing mercies, evidently foreshadowing the time when all the nations of the earth shall be varied parts of one great family of love; the Lamb in the midst of the throne being the center of all purity, innocence, strength, sacrifice, and blessing. O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, impart thine innocence, and take away from us all self-will, and pride of heart; take away all hesitation and distrust; impart to us of thy spirit of sacrifice, and enable us to offer up ourselves sweet smelling savors to Thee, as Thou didst offer up Thyself to thy Love, to carry out the Redemption and Salvation of the world. Yes, in very deed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us and He gives Himself to be eaten by every Christian pilgrim, who has his loins girded for the great journey of the regenerate life. And he who eats Him, lives by Him, as the Passover indeed (John vi. 57).

The influence of Gods all sacrificing Love, especially as displayed in the Savior, is like the suns heat in nature. It comes so softly, it stirs not a leaf, it rustles not a blade, yet it is the great power which insinuates itself into all the myriad pores of nature, upheaves all its juices, unrolls bud and leaf, flower and fruit, and crowns the earth with plenty.

The Love that gives itself to all, imparts to its subjects new powers of receiving, and gains for itself its only reward, fresh opportunities of blessing. God is all-sacrifice. He draws all beings to Himself that He may give them more.

SHEDDING OF BLOOD.

In the sacrifices of the Old Testament, there was shedding of blood, and in the New Testament it is written: Almost all things are, by the law, purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. And some have gathered from this, that the blood-shedding is to appease the wrath of an offended Deity. But in this, they pay no regard to the reel expressions of Scripture. The Scripture always states, that the sprinkling of blood upon the altar and the other objects of the tabernacle, was to hallow them, and cleanse them, not to appease God. See Exodus xxix. 36, 37. And thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin-offering for atonement, and thou shalt cleanse the altar when thou hast made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it. Seven days then shalt make an atonement for the altar and sanctify it; and it shall be an altar most holy; whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. See also, Leviticus xvi. 18, 19. And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. In all these cases the statements of the Sacred Word have been read upside down. The statements are that the blood was to hallow and cleanse mans holy things. They have been read to mean that the blood was to appease God. In the same way the apostle states, Without shedding of blood, there is no remission (or removal) of sins. He does not say there is no pacification of Gods anger. The truth is, the remission of sins was promoted by the shedding of blood in two ways, the literal and the spiritual. Literally, the Lords Cross and Passion, by manifesting His Love, excited the love of His creatures, and thereby their repentance, aversion, and removal of sin.

But the blood, which is the life, spiritually corresponds to the Life of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom from Him, which circulates through the regenerating soul and imparts new life, throwing off old evils and building up the new man in holiness, and true righteousness. By this shedding of blood, there is remission of sins. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, said the Lord, hath eternal life. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him (John vi. 54-56). It is the blood of the Divine Truth which washes us from our sins, which washes our robes and makes them while in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. vii. 14). But in all these cases, and in all others, let it not be forgotten, the blood affects and changes man, not God.

CHRIST, A RANSOM.

This brings us to another form of speech, which occurs, in speaking of the Lords work of Redemption. He is said to have given His life a ransom for us (Matt. xx. 28). We are said if to be bought with a price (1 Cor. vi. 20). And, these figures have sometimes been pressed to very remarkable conclusions. It has been said, a ransom is a sum paid to a slaveholder to let his captives free. And strange attempts have been made to carry out the figure in this style, although there is often some confusion in the minds of those who use it, that prevents them from fairly settling whether the slave-holder in this case is God or the Devil. From the time of Origen, in the fourth century, to the time of Anselm, in the twelfth, those who thus pressed the figure too extensively, concluded that the slave-holder was the Devil; but, from Anselms time to the present, the verdict has rather leaned to its being God. A somewhat different conclusion certainly, and not very honorable to the All-Good. But, really the whole theology of those who contend that the Atonement consists in the First Divine Person punishing the Second Divine Person for the sins of man, involves that strange inversion that clothes the Best of beings with the attributes of the worst.

A worthy gentlemen once said to me, how thankful we should be, my dear sir, that we have so rich and glorious a Redeemer. He has paid for our sins twice over. He fulfilled the law Himself, perfectly satisfying all the requirements of justice as a man, for us, and then He died, and paid by all His sufferings the penalty of all our sins besides.

So you see how safe we are. We have been paid for twice over. He then cited, as a confirmation, the words applying to a very different subject, She has received at the Lords hand double for all our sins (Isa. xl. 2). In such a confused manner Scripture is often quoted. My worthy friends pious exultations were, however, a little checked, when I remarked:--But if the Lord has paid for us twice over, somebody has received twice as much as He ought to receive; and you know, in ordinary affairs, we do not esteem such a creditor quite an honest man. Oh, he said, you know Satan is not very particular. But, I said, my dear friend, you dont mean to say that the Savior has been paying Satan. We owed him nothing. You dont think that the wrong person has been paid. In such case we are as little clear as ever. My worthy friend drew off with the remark, that we must not be too strict in our examination of these things. An observation always made by those who are not very clear, either in their doctrines or illustrations. I finished the conversation by strongly pressing upon him the importance of I determining who received the price of our Redemption, God or the Devil?

The price, however, by which the Lord has bought us, is all that he has done and suffered for us, and all He is now doing and suffering for us. We are bought to the Lord Jesus, and by the Lord Jesus, by all the benefits we have received. Joseph bought the love of his brethren by the kindness and the favors bestowed upon them. They received those benefits. They had their corn, they had also their money in their sacks. They were thus won to reverence and love. So our Father and Savior has bought us by all our blessings in Creation, by the blessings of our Redemption, and by all the blessings of our daily mercies in nature and in grace. Those who are truly ransomed, are ransomed from self, by love; from folly, by wisdom; from iniquity, by virtue and obedience, all from the Lord. They will any always with the angels, they are bought TO GOD, not from God (Rev. v. 9); and has made them kings and priests unto God, for ever and ever (Rev. i. 6).

KEEPING THE LORDS COMMANDMENTS.

A deep necessity is supposed by many to exist for some other mode of satisfying the requirements of the Divine Being, from a conviction of their inability to keep the commandments of the Lord in the virtues of a good life.

And so strange is the conception they have of God, that they imagine God can be satisfied for their shortcomings by punishing the Lord Jesus, and then will esteem them holy because Jesus kept the commandments. In this the object of the divine laws is entirely forgotten. That these laws, the Ten Commandments, are the laws of happiness and of health, spiritual and natural, the gift of divine mercy and wisdom, is quite overlooked. They seem to be regarded as a sort of test. Man is commanded to do what it is impossible to accomplish, that God may have a justification for sentencing him to eternal death. But would such a case form a justification? If I command my son to do what I have not given him the means to do, would any just person sanction me in the infliction of punishment? Besides, the origin of this argument may be plainly manifest. It contemplates the Divine Being receiving gratification, or at least satisfaction, from the infliction of punishment, when it is well known that only a bad men does that? A good man has the utmost aversion to the infliction of pain or loss upon any one, and only permits such infliction to a criminal, for the good which he hopes will be attained by it, good to the criminal, and good to society. To punish, for the sake of punishing, is the spirit of a wicked one, and infinitely distant from the disposition of our Father who is in heaven. To charge this upon Him, is a repetition of the charge made by the man in the Gospel, who hid his talent in a napkin: I knew that thou wert a hard and austere man, reaping where thou hadst not sown, and gathering where thou hadst not strawed. I went and hid thy talent in a napkin. But no one else knew this but him. He knew it not because it was so, but because his own evil nature made such suggestions against the all-merciful Giver of all talents. So, in the giving of the divine commandments, the natural man regards the Divine Being as requiring more than can be reasonably expected. He thinks the Lord hard and austere. And strange indeed is it to find religious men endorsing this sentiment, and making a theology from it. Nothing can possibly exhibit the low character of religious teaching in the last hundred years, more strikingly than this often reiterated declaration, that the Lords Commandments are hard, and cannot be kept.

Why, this is the very doctrine of evil spirits. If you seek to prevent a thing from being done, try to prove its impossibility, and it is never attempted. No reasonable person starts on a journey he knows he can never accomplish. It ought to be the aim of the servants of heaven to show the beauty and reasonableness of the divine laws, for they are in accordance with the essence of reason. It should be the work of the ministers of the Lord to remove difficulties, and to commend to their fellow-creatures the blessedness of doing upon earth the will of Him whose perfect kingdom is realized in the perfect obedience and the perfect happiness of heaven.

For false men and evil spirits to bring discredit on the Commandments, by the asseveration that they are too hard to be kept, and were never meant to be kept, would be what we might expect. But to find this become the theology of the churches themselves, is indeed the sign of the abomination that maketh desolate, being in the Holy Place.

Divine Law is the perfection of right. None could possibly be happy, however they might be forgiven, who did not lovingly rejoice to keep the Divine Law whole and undefiled.

The good amongst the Jews never spoke of the commandments of the Lord being hard, but on the contrary, of their being the very joy and rejoicing of their hearts. And, is it for Christians, with all their higher motives: for gratitude, and their fuller revelation of spiritual light and immortality, to adopt a maxim that would have struck a pious Jew as unworthy of the law of the One Adorably Good.

If the Ten Commandments are difficult to keep, that difficulty announces our distance from the kingdom, and the necessity of our instant determination to commence. If any one had abstained from walking until his limbs had become so stiff that it would be difficult to make the effort, the earnest physician would say there is no time to be lost, begin the reformation at once, or the power will be totally gone, and restoration will be impossible. But such a ease would be no argument that walking was not essential to health, or was never intended to be done.

So, the keeping of the Divine Commandments has become irksome, because we have become godless. We must turn this irksomeness into ease and pleasure, by setting our hearts in love and faith to follow the Lord. He magnified the law, and made it honorable by perfect obedience, and by opening up its spiritual and deeper application, not to induce men to obey it less, but to obey it more.

He has given a thousand reasons and motives to good works, more than mere known to the Jews, and his announcement is, Blessed are they that keep His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, anti may enter through the gates into the city.

The holy city of the blessed is for those who have fitness for the inheritance of the blessed, and they have the right who, by keeping the commandments, attain such fitness.

Under what pretense can any one urge that Gods commandments are grievous to be done? The apostle John says His commandments are not grievous, and the Giver of the commandments, (for it was really the Lord Jesus Christ as Jehovah before the incarnation, who gave them--i Pet. i. 11,) says the same thing. My yoke is easy, and My burden light (Matt. xi. 30).

It is always easy to act according to the true nature of things. If a machine is worked as its maker intended, it works well, and works easily. It is when it is attempted to be worked by ignorance or malice, contrary to the true principles on which it is constructed, that difficulty and destruction come. So is it with man. If he is trained according to the true nature of his mind, his training is easy. How weakness and wickedness often contravene the laws of mind in the training of children, the sad results of a wide experience show. If they were not so difficult altogether to spoil, still fewer would turn out well than we now see. How largely they are led away from the Lord, rather than led to Him! How largely do they see examples in those whom their impulses implanted by the Lord, and their duty, prompt them to love, which can only lead them to habits they ought most sedulously to be taught to shun! No; human beings, fallen as they are, are grand in their ruins, and can be totally depraved only by the efforts of diabolical subtlety and perseverance. There is a terrible struggle before all the lights of the soul are extinguished, and man or woman sits down quietly in the darkness of the shadow of death. The young soul often escapes from the dreariest bondage, and though laid among the bulrushes, becomes a prince among men. Many a Joseph, in despite of cruelty in false brethren, of pits in the wilderness, of seduction in a myriad forms of false and oppressive bondage, becomes a beacon and a blessing to his fellows.

The wonder is that so many escape.

The commandments difficult! It is the breach of them that constitutes all the obstructions to happiness in the world.

If men loved God and their neighbor, which is the essence of the commandments, would not the woes of the world soon disappear? And who is the thankless spirit, the hardened heart, that feels no cause to love and praise, and obey the Lord of all good; the God of this and all other worlds, the Source of every blessing?

Why, if there is a little pressure in the supply of food, and some benefactor comes who lowers the price by increasing the store, how grateful all but the most vicious are! Yet, the Lord gives abundance to all, and gives it gratis. If an eye is diseased, and we suffer pain and partial blindness, how grateful we are to the physician who restores health and all its blessings to the suffering organ. Yet the Lord gives the organs themselves, with all their wondrous arrangements from head to foot, and all the elements in which they move and have their being. The light, the heat, the air, the magnetic elements, and all the wondrous powers of nature, from the subtlest to the coarsest are His gifts. They are so many we cannot number them. They are so vast, we cannot measure them. Those of the mind far exceed those of the body, and are everlasting. Wondrous are they in time, still more wondrous in eternity. And we cannot love the All-gracious Giver? O, prodigy of ingratitude! And He has revealed Himself. The Invisible became a Man. Mankind saw Him, and saw that He was Love. The King in His sorrowful beauty was seen, and men mere thus kindly trained to know Him in His humiliation as their Redeemer, to prepare them to know Him in His Glorification, as the King in His inexpressible Majesty; King of kings, and Lord of lords. And shall the God of heaven thus humble Himself to us, and we not love Him? O, rather say:--

Lord, it is my chief complaint

That my love is weak and faint;

Still I love Thee and adore,

Help me, Lord, to love Thee more.

Does the keeping of the commandments, in relation to our neighbor, feel hard and difficult?

The very hardship and difficulty tell how essential to us is the work of regeneration, and this proceeds as we labor to shun evil and do good, or, in other words, keep the commandments.

Do kind feelings make our duties hard to our brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, families, friends, and all mankind? Is it not the opposite? When dislike creeps in, duty is toilsome. When love is there, the wheels of action go quickly mid easily. When a man, from earnest kindness, does his duty justly and truthfully in whatever he undertakes to do; when he labors genuinely and uprightly in his calling or his dealing, is it then he finds difficulty? is it not rather when he ceases to be upright and truthful? With fraud comes fear. With falsehood come suspicion, jealousy, anxiety, harassing care. These things poison life. Evil is a seed which has a hateful following. Short-sighted are they who suppose that innocence, truthfulness, justice, and judgment make hardships for mankind. It is the want of these. Self-love, self-indulgence, a desire to make others subservient to ourselves, the spirit of covetousness engendering envy, cupidity, unfairness--these are the things which make lifes course full of thorns and thistles.

Is it a heavy undertaking for us to begin a right course? Let us pray to the Lord for help, and be earnest and sincere. Help will be given. Unto such as receive Him, to them gives He power to become the sons of God, even to such as believe on His name. With earnest love, and a faithful application to the Lord and His Word, the crooked will be made straight, and the rough places plain.

It is the business of the minister of religion to encourage the penitent, to cheer the faint, to confirm the wavering. He has trodden the ground, and knows that evil can be vanquished. He has done it. Giant habits can be slain. He has slain them. The ten false spies in Joshuas time magnified the dangers and diminished the chances of success. But Joshua and Caleb said The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord; neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread for us; their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not (Deut. xiv. 7-8).

And they who disheartened the people: even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord (Deut. xiv. 31). But Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess; for we are well able to overcome it (Deut. xiii. 30).

O, that the teachers of religion were all like Caleb and Joshua. Then, instead of those miserable Jeremiads, by which men ale led to take it for granted that they cannot overcome the grievous evils of their fallen nature, or the evils that afflict trade, commerce, government, society in general, they would be engaged in a trustful and sincere spirit, and many a Jericho which seems too strong to be subdued, would fall at once. Religious virtue, a life of loving obedience, begun in this spirit, with the Savior ever as our Captain, His Word ever as our pillar of cloud by day, and fire by night, no obstacle would be too great for us. The pilgrimage which began with heavy feet would gradually become lighter and lighter, until we should run and not be weary, and walk and not be faint.

Look at the worthies of old. They were not accustomed to speak of the precepts of the Lord as heavy burdens, of the commandments as a frightful battery of artillery, as some do now. Let any one lead the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, day by day, until its spirit has permeated his mind, and he will learn to prize the law of the Lord, as the very way of truth, of life, and of happiness.

Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn Thy commandments. The law of Thy mouth is better unto me, than thousands of gold and silver.

O how I love Thy law I it is ray meditation all the day.

These men were not afraid of the law. They knew that He who had made them had made the law; and that its lessons were the precious rules of happiness. And now that our blessed Savior has magnified the law, by opening its deeper spirit and meaning, and at the same time given us a mightier power, the power of His Holy Spirit, to give an obedience which Pharisees never knew, are we to misrepresent our Fathers laws of happiness as burdens too grievous to be borne?

The keeping of the commandments, according to the prophetic Psalmist, is the very way to become wise. Through Thy precepts I get understanding (Ps. cxix. 104). Thou, through thy commandments, hast made me wiser than mine enemies.

Practice is, indeed, the may to get understanding in all other things, and it is also the case in religion. A theorizer supposes he is wise, but a practical man really obtains understanding.

To love the law of the Lord brings peace. Great peace have they that love Thy Law, and nothing shall offend them (Ps. cxix. 103).

Obedience to the commandments conjoins us with purity, understanding, and wisdom, and with the Lord, and He gives the peace which passes all understanding, the great peace which pervades the whole soul in time, and continues to eternity.

Let any one look to the commandments, and say which cell be neglected or broken, and the soul continue happy.

The Ten Commandments may be divided into three, which contain our duties to the Lord, and seven, which contain our duties to our neighbor. The seven may again be divided, into five which relate to forbidden acts, and two to forbidden motives.

The first three commandments ore briefly summed up by our Lord in the Divine Words, Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. And can happiness be attained without this? Must not love to God pervade the will, the intellect, and the action to unite us with Him, the Source of every joy? Could heaven be happy unless each angel received happiness interiorly from its Source, by opening himself in love to His Creator and Redeemer?

To His claims as our Maker, He has added those of our Savior. And not to love, surrounded as we are, and ever shall be, with mercies and blessings innumerable, is to have self as our center; and that principle, as a rule, is the very spring of misery, the essence of hell. Not to love the Lord, who has provided for us from the first breath we drew, who has blessed us in soul, and blessed us in body; who has made us a wonderful center of appetites, that all may be gratified in true order, is to be ungrateful, beyond all other ingrates; and how could such be happy?

Again, regard the five succeeding commandments, down to Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Could a community of thieves be happy; or, a community of those whose habits are more polluted still. Could a community of haters or murderers be happy?

Could a community of those who love falsehood and make lies, be happy? In any one of these cases, forbidden by the Lord, however much forgiveness might be extended to a community if the evil disposition were not removed, there could be no happiness; turmoil and misery would soon be experienced.

But, say some, the very motives are to be pure. We are not to covet anything of our neighbors? Certainly not. A covetous disposition is the very destroyer of peace. The gnaw of unsatisfied desire, (and nothing can satisfy the inward pining of a grasping spirit,) is the very embodiment of living misery. Cleanse first the inside of the cup and the platter and the outside will be clean also. A correct outward demeanor, but with a covetous heart, would be but a den of impure and hateful lusts, a curse to its owner, and, at no distant period, a curse to all around.

On the contrary, let a man in sincerity turn to his Savior, ask from Him the power sincerely to conquer his evils, especially the one to which he is most prone, and faithfully use that power. If he fail the first time, let him try again and again, and he will be sure to conquer. I give you power, said the Great Conqueror of hell, to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Love Him, follow Him, and every difficulty will vanish. Soon, instead of its being a hard task to walk in the path to heaven, you will find you can run and not be weary, and walk and never faint. Your language will be like that of the servants of the Lord of old. Therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. I will delight myself in Thy statutes: I will not forget Thy Word. Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart.

Let, then, the dreary and absurd cry, No man can keep the commandments, become one that Christians ore ashamed to use, as a libel on their heavenly Father. Let them, on the other hand, hear Him uttering the words of infinite wisdom and tenderness: O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, then had thy peace been like a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa. xlviii. 18).

It has been common to confound together, doing the commands of the Lord from love, and doing them from a desire for merit; but they are wide as the poles asunder.

The Lord Himself drew the distinction accurately when He said, And ye when ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say we are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do (Luke xvii. 10).

There is no more merit in having works, than there is in having faith, or having love. Every grace we possess is from the Lord. His only should be all the praise.

THE MEDIATOR.

The Humanity of the Lord is called the Mediator. There is one God, and one Mediator between God and Man, the MAN Christ Jesus. It was impossible for the Divinity, so pure that no man can see His face and live; so pure, that it was a condescension to Him to behold the things that are in heaven, to manifest Himself among men, and live amongst them, and to come into contact even with the powers of darkness, except by means of a Humanity. The Humanity, however, was assumed as a Mediator by the Divinity to work out its purposes of love, to bring back man from the slavery of sin, self, and hell, and be reconciled and conjoined to our merciful Father and His heavenly kingdom. The mistake in the prevalent views has been not in the facts of redemption and mediation, but in regarding them in an inverted order, turning them upside down. There was a reconciliation effected between God and man in redemption, by bringing man to his God again: thus man was reconciled to God; but the common idea is, that it was God who was reconciled to man. There was a Mediator, the Manhood of God manifest, that He might thus reach and save man. The common idea is that the Mediator was to pacify God. The Lord came into the world to restore us to that regenerate state, when it would be our highest delight to do His blessed commandments, and make a heaven upon earth. The common idea is, that he came to make it unnecessary to keep the commandments at all. We go to heaven by believing in what He has done.

Mediation is the law of the universe. All good is ever communicated by mediums. The Divine Love created all worlds and all existences by the Divine Wisdom. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

The Word is the Divine Light, Wisdom, Power of God. That was the True Light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. The Divine Will can only bring about its ends by the Divine Thought as the Mediator. Human will can only operate by human thought as mediator. Human thought, again, can only act through speech as mediator. The soul can only act through the body as mediator. All central things act upon other things through mediation. Essences can only act thus through forms.

In the Israelitish dispensation, all its arrangements of priest and tabernacle were mediatorial. The tabernacle, will its three-fold division, was the center of all the blessings of the twelve tribes. The Holy of holies, with the ark, the Mercy Seat, and the cherubs, all of gold, were the mediatorial center of every good to Israel. Thou shalt put the Mercy Seat, said the Lord, above the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the Mercy Seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment into the children of Israel (Ex. xxv. 21, 22). These were for mediation and for propitiation; not, however, to induce an angry God to be merciful, but that a merciful God might thereby bless the people. We should constantly bear in mind that these arrangements were all directed by the Lord Himself. He desired thus to provide for the safety and well-being of Israel. So in the temple of His body, the living tabernacle in which God was manifest, its mediatorial character was not to induce the Father to be merciful, but the merciful One assumed it that man might be saved. God was in the Humanity to reconcile the world into Himself. The golden array or the Holy of holies, but symbolized the celestial love present in the Humanity from the Father, to win man from his sins and from self, to His all-merciful Parent. There the Lord would meet him, not to be made placable, but that His Love might be visible: not to be propitiated, but to propitiate man by turning him from his evils. There the Lamb of God would take away the sins of the world. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (I John ii. 2).

We must never forget that there was mediation, and that the Humanity of Jesus our Lord was the Mediator; but at the same time ever remember that His mediation was the operation of Infinite Love acting through a Divine Manhood to speak the words of tenderness, to act the deeds of mercy, to evince loves purity, loves patience, loves sorrow, loves perseverance, through opposition, suffering, and death, to rescue fallen man. The Lamb that was slain redeemed us TO GOD by His blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people and nation (Rev, v. 9).

INTERCESSION.

Intercession is the work of the Divine Love at all times, and it may be regarded in three points of view: as it existed in the bosom of the Lord, as it existed in Divine Humanity, and as it exists in the Spirit of the Lord, inwardly prompting us to ask for such things as are requisite for our happiness, and Divine Mercy, is therefore desirous of bestowing. The intercession of Love in the bosom of the Deity is portrayed to us in the Gospel, in the parable of the unprofitable fig-tree: A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he to the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none: cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground. And he answering, said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it, and if it bear fruit, well, and if not, then thou shalt cut it down.

Here the inspection and judgment of truth upon the states of the wicked, is described by the examination of the proprietor of the vineyard, and the proposal to cut down the barren tree, which had remained fruitless for three years. The merciful impulses of the Divine Love are expressed by the entreaty, let it alone this year, also. The Divine Love, in this sense, constantly intercedes, and constantly provides every means possible for human help and restoration. This is done by the Lord, not for the sake of another, but for His own sake. I, even I, am He, the Lord says, that blotteth out thy transgressions FOR MINE OWN SAKE, and will not remember thy sins (Isa. xliii. 26). To this graciousness on the part of the Divine Mercy, all penitents are taught to appeal. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? but there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared (Ps. cxxx. 3, 4).

Continually, in the Psalms, is the Lord exhibited as doing every act of redemption, salvation, or regeneration for His goodness sake, His mercys sake, His loving-kindness sake, His names sake, but never for the sake of another.

In a mothers breast there is always a love that pleads for her erring child, and Infinite Love, as compared to the love of all the mothers since the world began, is an ocean as compared to a drop. Can a mother forget her sucking child, or cease to have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, but will I not forget thee (Isa. xlix. 15).

This intercession of the Divine Love, in the all-merciful bosom of our Heavenly Father, provides that no means shall be wanting for the possible salvation of every one of His children. The Truth exposes mans perverse condition, lays open his uselessness, his iniquity, the plagues of his heart, the wickedness of his life, so that Truth alone would always any, Why cumbereth he the ground? In the bosom of the Almighty there is no Truth done. LOVE still pleads, Let him alone this year also. I will dig him about. I will stir up any latent good there is in him. I will remind him of past prayers for him, past hopes, of east resolutions in earlier and better days of the innocence of childhood. I will bring all past experience to his assistance, as well as excite his trust in the future, and if he bear fruit, well. Thus Love pleads, and God is Love, and all the counsels of His wisdom are the counsels of Love. That is the Great Intercessor. That led Jehovah to bow the heavens and come down for our redemption. God so LOVED the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. And just as Love was, in the only Divinity, the Father, so was it in the Divine Humanity. As the Father hath life in Himself so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself Life is Love.

In the assumption of Humanity, and in the operation of the Divine in the Human, the idea we have of it is often too confined. We should remember the wondrous complexity, and arrangement of degrees and faculties of being, of which Humanity consists. The Divine assumed the Human, not as the hand assumes a glove, which latter has no life in it but as the higher degree of mind assumes the lower, giving to it a consciousness of life, existent, as if of itself as the soul assumes the body, giving to it the appearance of distinct and independent consciousness; as life assumes an organ.

Hence in the human powers of the Savior, the Divine was a secret soul, but giving them to feel and to net, to do and to suffer, as of themselves. Love in the Humanity appeared as human love for the Divine will, and mans salvation. Human, with a touch of infinite tenderness, working as of itself, but really from the Divine within. This love of the Redeemer in the Humanity, was at first straitened by the conditions of Humanity assumed by the Lord, but always yearning, always interceding, always pleading in Him, to accomplish the Will of the Father in the salvation of man. As the Lords life in the world proceeded, this Love in the Humanity expanded and permeated all its powers more and more, and thus the Divine was glorified in the Human. The Son of Man was glorified, and God was glorified in Him (John xiii. 31).

Now, the intercessory work of Love in the Humanity of the Lord, was the constant yearning, desiring, pleading, longing, agonizing even, that man might be saved, and that thus the Will of the Father, the Divine Love might be done. In the natural degree of a good mans mind there is a constant yearning for purity, for spiritual-mindedness, for deeper, fuller, broader, all-permeating wisdom, love, peace and joy. This yearning is the presence of the spiritual element in the natural, and is the source of all those aspirations, prayers, efforts, abiding purposes, and longings for perfect order, perfect submission to the Divine Will, perfect resting in the Lord, and perfect peace, which every good man feels.

This, in man, is the spiritual in the natural. In the Humanity of the Lord, there was a similar yearning, but a yearning in His case, however, for the salvation of the whole human race. It was the Divine in the Human, inducing the Human to become the exact and full correspondence, or complete image of the Divine.

This desire of love in the Humanity, to be altogether one in purpose, with the Inmost Divine, or the Father, was manifest through the life of the Redeemer. When a boy in the temple, and found there by Joseph and His mother, He said, Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? (Luke ii. 49.)

This originated those prayers to the Father, which most strongly suggest a diversity of persons in the Godhead, to those who have not with equal strength impressed upon themselves the truth of the Unity of person in the Redeemer.

The Humanity had to work out its Glorification as if of itself, though really from the Father, as man in the natural degree of his mind has to work out his regeneration, as if of itself, though really all the power to do so comes from the Lord, through his inward man, or spiritual degree. See the intercessory prayer, John 17. It is a prayer for Glorification, and through such Glorification, for the salvation of men. Glorification was effected when the Divine Love was complete in the Human, so that the whole nature of the Human was to the Divine, like a harp, with music divine, perfectly arising from every string, or as a whole burnt offering unconsumed, but perfectly obsequious to, and perfectly pervaded by, the Fire Divine.

When, in the Humanity, He felt Himself shrinking from the appalling presence of loathsome fiends, who pressed on as the hour of darkest gloom approached in His trials and temptations. Father, glorify Thy name, he said, as a good man Says, O, that I were fully spiritual! O that I were altogether conformed to the image of heaven.

Thus, the Son of Man was glorified, and God was glorified in Him, again and again (John xiii. 32), until that work was completed, and then a full and eternal union was effected in the Redeemer, of Essential Divinity and Glorified Humanity. One Divine self was formed, in which Divinity was Human, Humanity Divine.

This work of Glorification was ever advanced by the desire for Glorification in the Son, and the impartation of it by the Father. The desire for Glorification was the INTERCESSION OF LOVE in the Humanity, not to change the Father and make Him merciful, but to become as the Father, all glowing with AFFECTION INFINITE. Father, glorify thy Son that thy Son may glorify thee (John xvii. 1). As thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. Those who suffered themselves to be attracted by the Divine Love, to come to the Savior and receive His truth, are said to be given by the Father, and He, the glorified Savior, would be thenceforth the channel, the new and Living Way, of eternal life to them.

Eternal life comes from interior conjunction with Eternal Love, the only true God, and that Glorified Humanity by which He has approached His creatures, which is not another, but Himself in a new relation to His erring children (ver. Iii.) He that seeth me, said the Savior, seeth Him that sent me (John xii. 45).

The Son had glorified the Father on earth (ver. 4); had done perfectly the requirements of the Divine Love; had done in all things the Divine will; had shrunk from no humiliation,--from no sorrows--from no suffering which would forward mans salvation; had spared nothing in Himself which was weak or infirm from the mother, and now was prepared for full union with the Fathers own self.

GLORIFY THOU ME WITH THINE OWN SELF; that is, altogether fill me with the FULNESS of thine own infinite love. These desires are from thee, O Father! In thine Infinite bosom they were glorious from eternity--they were glorious in the Godhead. Make them glorious in the Manhood by which thou hast made thyself known in me. Let no infirmity--no weakness, no intrusion of human shrinking from sorrow, from agony however terrible--be with me. Not my will, but thine be done. Let LOVES infinite sacrifice be offered so that thou art glorified in me. Glorify thou me, with thine own self, so that as we were ONE from eternity in first principles, we may be ONE to eternity in last principles, and thou in me, and I in thee--love and Wisdom in eternal embrace--in manhood as in Godhead, may be first and last, for ever. All things worldly have gone from me, but my disciples have still to struggle, still to be saved. Thus they who have been secretly drawn to me by the tender impulses of Thy love, and have received the words of Divine truth from me and kept them, have still to suffer, that their regeneration may be completed. But, I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified by the TRUTH (ver. 17). Make me altogether one with thee, O Love Infinite I then will every word of mine go with a sun like power, with melting, subduing affection; and all mine will be thine, and thine will be mine, and I shall be glorified in them (ver. 10). Let this highest, closest, most perfect union take place WITH US, in will, in wisdom, in operation, be thou, O Love Divine in me, and I in thee, and so let the bright and holy sphere go forth, softening, illuminating, and transforming, until the Church may be in all things one ill its degree, in us. As we are one infinitely, that they may be one, finitely.

I in them, as their visible God, Thou in me as the invisible Source of all things. Thus may the Church be regenerated and be one in love, faith, hope, and virtue, and through the Church, the world be regenerated, and become one grand family, rejoicing in truth and love. We one in the highest degree; heaven and the Church one in the next degree; the world one in itself, and with the Church in the lowest degree (ver. 23). Thy love, O infinite tenderness, through my wisdom diffusing itself through all; saving, hallowing, and blessing all; circulating through and sustaining all, while I, the central Divine Man, shall be in them and to them--shall be for ever the fountain of peace and joy (ver. 21).

We have thus given a sketch of the intercessory prayer of the Redeemer; and it will be seen that its whole purport is not to appease the wrath of an angry Father, but to bring the Spirit of the Bather down into the manhood, and that the manhood might be fully glorified by being made as the Father, glowing with LOVE, and a source of blessing to mankind, to heaven, and earth. This is the second kind of intercession--the yearning of Divine love in the Humanity for full glorification, that redemption might be finished, and man be saved.

In reference to this second kind of intercession, John says--We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 Ep. i. 1). The term Advocate, is in the original Comforter. And the glorified humanity is called a comforter with the Father, because by its means the Godhead can now fully carry out its saving designs. It is a mercy seat, whence radiates the Holy Spirit to remove sins, to diffuse holiness, to restore a mined world, to plant Paradise afresh, to bring heaven once more upon earth. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the. sins of the whole world (ver. 2). The Glorified Humanity, as the medium by which Omnipotence sustains His Church, and regenerates His servants, is represented as being at the right hand of God, and making intercession for us (Rom. viii. 34).

The third kind of intercession, of which the Scripture speaks, is the secret operation of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus prompting us to ask for blessings, and thus to intercede for us, in us. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. viii. 26).

The Divine Mercy waits to be gracious; nevertheless, man must ask before he receives, must seek before he will find, must knock before it will be opened. If there were no co-operation there would be no regeneration. The Spirit of the Lord then excites us to pray, and suggests the prayer. And in this sense He maketh intercession for us. But, every one will see, that such intercession is not to excite His mercy, or to change Him from wrath to grace, but is the operation of His grace forming in us, those desires and affections, those dispositions and virtues, by which we can be conducted from carnal-mindedness, to perfect purity, and perfect peace. The inner warmth that prompts each beauteous flower to unfold its graceful petals to the sun, and receive fresh streams of brightness and of bounty, was also derived from Him. The life that comes for fresh blessings is itself the gracious proof that it has been blessed before. Every good and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning (James i. 17).

The sum of all our remarks is, and with this we would leave this important subject, that Atonement, with all its blessings, Reconciliation with all its mercies, Regeneration with all its parities and joys, flow from the unbought Love of the Highest, Himself. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over an His works. We joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom WE HAVE RECEIVED THE ATONEMENT (Rom. v. 11). Here, in the only place in the New Testament, in the English version, where the word Atonement occurs, it is declared we, and not God have received it; and in every other place, where the same word occurs in the original, but is rendered by some form of the idea of reconciliation, it is always He who reconciles, and we who are reconciled. And, having made peace, through the blood of His cross, by Him, to reconcile all things UNTO Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath HE RECONCILED (Coll. i. 20, 21).

He is the blessed Father, who needs no inducement to be merciful; but while His children are very far off, matches over them with unceasing care, and prompts them to repentance.

And, when the returning prodigal lifts his eyes and hands to heaven, and sighs forth the prayer of penitence, this Father of Mercies has compassion on him, runs and falls upon his neck and kisses him. Bring forth the best robe, He says, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry, for this My Son was dead and is alive again: he was lost and is found (Luke xv. 22-24).

No one needs suffer to induce Him to be merciful. He is Himself the Fountain of all Mercy, the Author of all Salvation, the Giver of all Peace.

The Savior suffered for us, and was impelled by the Divine Love, meant by the Father, to suffer for us, that He might redeem us, because hell would not give up its prey without the most terrible efforts to bruise, and to destroy the Redeemer. It pleased the Lord (Jehovah) thus to bruise Him, to put Him to grief; that is, it pleased the Divine Love that He should thus endure, for the sake of mans salvation.

Surely, He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. While wicked men and wicked spirits were smiting Him, and he, impelled by love from the Father, was content to receive it, to exhaust the cup of sorrow to the last awful drop, we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But it was not God, it was men nod devils who opposed, who pained, and who crucified Him. The very first revelation of a Redeemer had said, to the serpent, the personification of self-love and of hell, He shall bruise thy head, and THOU shalt bruise His heel; THOU shalt bruise His heel. When in the midst of the sorrows which were crowned by His death, the Savior said to the Jews, THIS IS YOUR HOUR, AND THE POWER OF DARKNESS (Luke xxii. 53).

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all, or, as it ought to be rendered, the Lord (Jehovah) hath caused to meet in Him the iniquities of us all (Isa. liii. 6).

In no other way could the iniquities of mankind be but by their assumption in a, humanity, in which all their tendencies could be met and subdued by Power and Purity Divine.

Into the humanity of the Savior, then, these infirmities were taken; God made Him to be (hereditary) sin for us, and then By purifying and glorifying that nature He made it to be the Righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. v. 31).

In stooping to this contact with our fallen nature, who can tell the depth of the Divine Sorrow, in sustaining the assaults of hell, in the Humanity; who can describe the grief of unutterable Purity, the shrinking, the horror which the Savior would feel at the loathsomeness of hell; then, there was the rejection of Him by the men whom He came to save, the betrayal and forsaking of Him by the very disciples who had been His intimate associates, and who were, with the exception of the betrayer, to be the heart and center of the New Church. Yet His love, the Divine Love, in Him, would not spare itself for the sake of the end. He saved others, Himself He could not save.

Through this inexpressible sorrow, there was seen the subjugation of infernal power, the glorification of His Humanity, the redemption of the world, the salvation of the humbly good, and the onward spread of His Kingdom, until a regenerated world would exist once more; the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea, and none should hurt or destroy in all Gods holy mountain (Isa. xi. 10).

For these great ends, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him to put Him to grief (Isa. liii. 10). For these great objects His soul (that is His life) was made an offering for sin, that is an entirely consecrated and glorified offering up of His entire Manhood, to put away sin, and then He saw His seed, He prolonged His days, and the pleasure of the Lord (Jehovah) prospered in His hand. The Manhood bare the sins of many, all removable hereditary sins, indeed, and made intercession for the transgressions (ver. 22), by becoming a NEW AND LIVING WAY (Heb. x. 20), through which Divine Love could come to man, and penitent men, weary and heavy laden, could come to Him, and find rest unto his soul.

One passage there is which has been thought to authorize the idea, that God the Father Himself punished the Savior. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man, that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones (Zach. xiii. 7).

The wicked are called the Sword of the Lord (Ps. xvii. 13), because of their evil propensities, and under the Divine Government, they are permitted to be made subservient to the arrest and correction of greater evils than those in which they themselves indulge, and thus are overruled for good. Awake, O Sword, then, meant that Divine permission was given by Infinite Love, that the Savior should be opposed, smitten, crucified, because out of His sufferings would come, life for the world. This, He willingly sustained, and if for a moment there was a mental disposition to shrink from His immediate sorrows, as in the garden of Gethsemane, He exclaimed, Not my will, but thine be done (Luke xxii. 42). The Fathers will was the salvation of the world, at whatever cost of suffering; the Sons will, when shuddering, was conformed to the Fathers.

In all this, the one grand lesson is,--and we wish it should remain with us, sink deeply into our hearts, and rise in grateful confession at all times, God commended His love to us, in that while me were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Oh, there is such an unspeakable spring of consolation in the conviction that God loves us, has Infinite Love for us, that we would wish to implant it in every heart. It gives such a motive to perseverance in the penitent, to courage in the weak, to comfort in the desponding, that we would wish it written in letters of gold in every home; we would inscribe it on every soul,--God your Creator, the Maker of all worlds, loves yen, and became Himself your Redeemer. In His Manhood, He spared not Himself, but lived in sorrow for you, died for you, rose again for you, all from His unsearchable Love!

There was no wrath of one Divine Person punishing another Divine Person in the sorrows of the Redeemer. There was the Divine Manhood, formed by the Father, enduring for you, fighting for you against the powers of darkness, until the temptation became so bitter, and the gloom so intense, even as it is in human temptation in its extremities of woe, that all holy light was gone, and He cried out in agony, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Matt. xxvii. 46). This was misery at its deepest depths. He was not, however, forsaken. It was an appearance only. It was the last moment of exhausted wretchedness, and entire devotion, just ere the conflict ended, and by suffering, the Captain of our Salvation was made perfect (Heb. i. 10).

The Father was inwardly sustaining Him, and preparing for that complete glorification by which He would become Lord of the dead and the living, King of kings and Lord of Lords. For to this end, Christ both died, and rose, that He might be Lord of the dead and the living (Rom. xiii. 9). Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing (Rev. v. 12).

The Adorable God-Man could now say, All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth (Matt. xxviii. 18). The government was upon his shoulder. He was seen to be, and His name was now called what prophecy proclaimed it would be, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.

On Gods part, the work of Atonement, or Reconciliation, was completed when He proclaimed on the Cross, It is finished. On mans part there was required Faith in the Lord his Savior. Faith, that is, trust, confidence, child-like reliance on the truth: And this faith is an all-embracing principle; it is belief in the Lord as HE IS, and belief in what He teaches and commands. Some have strangely misunderstood this glorious principle. They imagine it to be a belief in the fact, that the Lord died for us, a fact certain of itself, but forming only a portion of a true Christian faith. We are saved by faith, through the grace of our Lord, when that faith is heartfelt and child-like; heartfelt in springing from love, and child-like in believing the Lords teaching when He says, If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the commandments (Matt. xix. 17). A faith that selects some Divine truths which it will accept, and rejects others, is vitiated by prejudice, and perhaps by pride, and is wanting in the groundwork of an honest, earnest heart; With the heart a man believes unto righteousness (Rom. x. 10). Faith, grounded in earnest love, believes on the Lord Jesus fully, believes that He can conquer every sin in us, and enters with child-like trust on the holy work of keeping His commandments. Faith delights to believe and adore Him as all-sufficient. When the Lord Jesus says, If ye love me, keep my commandments (John xiv. 15); He that hath my commandments and keepth them, he it is that loveth me (ver. 21);

If it man love me, he will keep my words (ver. 23); If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love (John xv. 10); faith looks upwards with trustful gaze, and utters with the earnest one of old, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Through faith, the Holy Spirit of the Lord Jesus forms in the soul those affections, and in the conduct those righteous habits, which constitute the righteousness of God, in man.

The righteousness thus wrought out is imparted gradually to all those who truly believe. They pray in their desire to be made like to their glorious Lord, and as their regeneration proceeds, a heaven of peace and joy is opened within them; a consecrated life makes their light shine before men, who glorify their Father who is in heaven. Thus, their faith working by love (Gal. v. 6), gives them constant victories over themselves, and all their evils, and they are filled with that love of God which makes it easy to keep the, commandments, and they can say with St. John, By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith (John v. 2-4.).

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC. BY DR. BAYLEY, of Argyle Square Church, Kings Cross, London.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4. The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement.
8. Difficulties on the Atonement.
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

By the same Author. Second issue. Price 7s. 6d.
THE DIVINE WORD OPENED. Illustrating the spiritual interpretation of specimens of every portion of the Scriptures, but especially of the events of the early chapters of GenesisThe CreationGarden of Edenthe Fallthe FloodThe ArkNoahThe Tower of Babel.

GREAT TRUTHS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 2s.
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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. IX.

THE LIFE OF HEAVEN UPON EARTH.

Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed desolate; but thou shalt be called Hophzibah, and thy land Beulah, for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.--ISAIAH lxii. 4.

THY kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven, is part of the prayer divinely taught us. To realize this, is to live the LIFE OF HEAVEN upon earth. Our object, on the present occasion, is to contemplate this life of heaven: to ascertain what it is, and to strengthen our desire to bring it down into our own hearts, minds, and circles. May the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, the God of both worlds, warm our hearts, and enlighten our minds, that our considerations may strengthen our purpose and effort, to live below as angels live above!

We may be met at the outset of our inquiry by the objections not unfrequently heard, What do we know about heaven, or its laws, or its life? How can we imitate that or which we have no experience? Has any one come back to tell us how they live in heaven?

These objections assume much more than they are warranted in assuming. They take it for granted that we know nothing of heaven either by revelation, or our own best experiences.

But this is far from being the case. The essential laws of heaven have been amply revealed. We have not faithfully attended to them. Hence the world has been a scene of toil and trouble. Let us now investigate those laws, and seek to bring them home to ourselves, until we are filled with a holy desire to realize them within and around us; and we can say,

Now love and truth together meet,

Thus heavenly laws ordain;

And, from their union, joy complete,

May bless the earth again.

Let us then, not fear to ask what constitutes the happiness of heaven: what constitutes the life which makes this happiness. When me in some measure understand the constitution of the heavenly world, as revealed in the Scriptures, and intimated in the evident intuitions of the soul itself, we may then better see how the life of heaven may be transferred to this lower world.

The subject may be presented under many aspects, but there is one most interesting point of view in which our text regards it: that is, the feature of heavenly life which is placed before us, when we contemplate it as a marriage, as a condition of things in which the reality of union and communion is perfectly carried out, both in general and in particular. The Lord delighted in thee, and thy land shall be married.

This plenary union and communion of things, may be presented in many ways, and will bring out most delightful results. Let us restrict ourselves to these four:--

First, The union of all heaven with the Lord.

Second, The union of heart and mind, affection and thought, word and deed, in each angel.

Third, The harmony of mutual love, and the communion of angelic gifts and graces by the angels with each other.

Fourth, The unity which exists between the angels, and the scenes and circumstances which surround them, and the tendency to such union amongst men.

The first and inmost cause of happiness in heaven, and in the heavenly state, when it is realized on earth, is union with the Lord. He is the fountain of joy. From Him come innocence, wisdom, peace, and every blessing. This is placed strikingly before us in the fifth verse of this chapter. As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

In the Book of Revelation, also, the same truth appears. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted, that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And he said unto me write, Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb (Xix. 7-9).

It is a fact of universal experience that man has an inmost yearning after God. It appears in the inner life and impulses of all nations. It has molded in all time their history, their institutions, and their daily life. Where truth has not brought them to an acquaintance with the one glorious God, the fountain of love and wisdom, it has substituted other and various deities, or they have even worshiped a devil. But the tendency reveals the inner and supreme want of the soul. It is the golden link destined to attach man to his Maker, and open him to the inmost source of happiness. To this the Divine invitations are addressed by the Savior. Abide in me, and I in you. For as the branch cannot bear fruit in itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (15, 4, 6).

The branch attached to a living vine receives sap and vigor; a healthy circulation throws life into every part, and leaf, flower, and fruit, testify to its inner life. So with the human soul, if in union will the Lord, a heavenly growth of healthy thought in natural and in spiritual things, followed by a healthy obedience, testify of its interior devotion and love. There is then trust, confidence, and peace. There is an unshaken adherence to the right, whatever may oppose, because the soul inwardly rests on the All-wise, the All-good, and the All-powerful. The soul feeds this inner state by revelation, by reflection, by experience, by hope, and by anticipation. The sweetest joys come in occasionally like celestial warmth and light, and bathe the soul in bliss, giving it a rich foretaste of heaven. The Lord said, In me, ye shall have peace. And, this is not inconsistent with external storms. The lower atmosphere is sometimes tossed with raging hurricanes, while the deep blue above announces an upper region of calm and tranquil rest. Martyrs on the rack find the outward tortures counterbalanced by a strange peace.

A Russell in his cell, or a Fenelon in his banishment, has meat to eat which the world knows not of, and which enables them to be more than conquerors through Him that loved them. God is their refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore they did not fear though the earth were removed, find though the mountains were carried into the midst of the sea; though the waves thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. They felt that God was in the midst of them, they could not be moved. God would help them, and that right early.

On the contrary, where this inner attachment to the Lord does not exist, there can be no real permanent peace, no fixed and certain confidence. Like a vessel in a storm, without anchor, every moment threatens them with ruin; anxiety must be in the heart.

The interior conjunction of the eternal and the immortal, is the source of all celestial bliss. It exists in a measure in every regenerating soul, and though often clouded, get breaks forth from time to lime, and gives a foretaste of heaven. Abide in me, and I in you, said our blessed Lord, and this internal union is set before us in the Word, as the secret origin of delight, of joy unutterable. All nature is summoned to furnish emblems and correspondence to bring it vividly to view. It is the spring of the soul, the paradise within, the heaven of the spirit. The dawn of the Sun of Righteousness over the inward man is as the bright peace of early morning; the hidden manna satisfies the longing soul. They who hunger and thirst after righteousness are filled. Peace flows like a river, and righteousness like the waves of the sea. The sun goes down no more, nor does the moon withdraw itself; the Lord is our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning are ended.

The soul inmostly united to the Lord, by love, dwells in His peace, exults in Him; like John, reclines on His bosom. It feels an ever radiant hope, arising out of heartfelt trust and inmost affection. In the very center of our being, mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. The adoring language of one in this state is, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities: who healeth all thy diseases:

who redeemeth thy life from destruction: who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies: who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles.

Such is the inmost source of the joys of heaven. It is full, deep, unspeakable. In its presence all care, anxiety, and disquietude are hushed. The soul is content in God. It is the realization of the Divine promise, I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. The heart lives in joy, the mind in gladness, find all within is peace. Such is the deep spring of angelic bliss. The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne feeds them and leads them to fountains of living waters; and God wipes away all tears from their eyes.

This deep source of the joys of angels can also be experienced on earth. Where the Lord is, there is heaven. Christ in you is the hope of glory. When the door of the heart is opened by penitence and self-denial, and the Savior enters in, He diffuses the sphere of holy rest; as He said in the closed room of the disciples, Peace be unto you. The Savior enthroned within, gives the kiss of his benediction, and n peace springs up, that passes all understanding, and this new state the opening of the heaven within the soul, is the resemblance below of the inner life of heaven, as it is also the commencement of true angelic joy.

With such an interior rest in the Lord, how different would be the condition of earthly life? Those weary cares, those harassing anxieties, those painful fears which, like streams of gall issuing from a center of bitterness, poison human existence even in its most favored walks, would disappear. The skeleton would be removed from the inner chamber of the house, and instead of its horrid form, the Savior, radiant with love and wisdom, would be seen. His joy would be in us, and our joy would be full.

The worldling imagines that religion means the extinguishment of delight, and sometimes a mistaken piety has given a confirmation to this idea; but the reverse of it is true. We only then begin to base true delight, and full delight, when our ways are just, our pleasures innocent, and there is in them all that perfect love which casts out fear. This makes a deep satisfaction, which takes the thorn from every rose of human life.

The world is to us our Fathers world, and we enjoy its glorious beauty. For that the human soul was constituted as it is. The love of a human parent so confiding, so embracing, so beautiful in a child, is the bud, the embryo of a love for the Divine. That love was intended to be strengthened by the daily fostering of parental affection. The wise provisions of a Fathers care, tender, considerate, and complete; the Fathers counsel, stimulating yet guarded, experienced, orderly, and rational; the mothers gentle, matronly gracefulness, and constant loving-kindness, ever providing what maternal feeling suggests, and surrounding the home with an atmosphere of purity, and loveliness; these image the Divine Love and Wisdom in our Heavenly Father, and were doubtless designed to train in the young immortals an inmost love for Him. But, alas! how often do earthly parents fail in being to the child a likeness of its Father who is in heaven. Often a harsh, cold, selfish, repulsive demeanor in one parent, a weak, ill-regulated, ever vacillating conduct in the other; a home, the scene of quarrels, petty hypocrisies, and chilling miseries assail the warm love that glows in the soul of the child, and chills it in the bud. Or in cases more unhappy still, where wickedness more positive degrades the parental abode, the young heart is early linked to sin, by the very affections which were implanted to associate it with heaven. Grievous, beyond all other grief, is it to see the gentlest affections of our nature damaged and defiled in early childhood, and the soul intended to be the palace of the Highest, desecrated and wrecked already in its tenderest emotions. No mender is it that many who afterwards, by penitence in later years, seek to throw off the incubus of sin, find their work terribly toilsome, and their weaknesses the source of bitter, bitter sorrows, from the long years of accumulated mischief in an unhappy childhood, a mistrained youth, and a manhood ushered into life not only without the wise intelligence, and pure safeguards of a heaven-loving home, but the positive impurities of a degrading example, and an atmosphere all poisoned with falsity. Linked to sin by that very affection which prompted it to think its parents the model of all that should be followed, and betrayed by its holiest feelings, to a ruin the most terrible. Hard, very hard, is it for those whose early life has been thus unhappy, to work their way to purer states, in days of penitence, in after life. Yet, thanks to the Incarnate God, even that cut be done.

The love of our Divine Savior, of the Father manifested in Him, is so abounding, so tender, so pure, it comes down so low to the sinner, it lifts him so high to the saint, it creates such ardor, such confidence in Him who laid down His life for His friends, that all the dress, even, that was laid so deeply in childhood, melts away while me gaze upon, love, and follow the Lamb, that takes away the sins of the world.

The Godhead revealed in the, Divine Man who appeared for the worlds redemption, and stands now, and knocks at the door of the heart, that He may enter in, regenerate it, save and bless it, is so unutterably kind, and the Son in His wisdom, His saving power, His purity, His consoling love, His healing tenderness, His restoration of dead affections, His suffering with man and for man, His revelation of His divine glories as King of kings and Lord of lords, His becoming the All-in-all to the regenerated spirit, as the Sun shining in His strength, His garments shining as the light, having ascended far above all heavens and filling all things (Eph. iv. 10); the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace (Isa. ix. 6), the Son reveals the Father (Matt. xi. 21). He who knows the Son knows the Father. He who knows the Son, in His true character, sees the Father (John xiv. 9). The Son as Loves human manifestation as the Lord, revealed to us; the Father in Him (John xvii. 23-26). This is the true order for men and angels. The Lord God Almighty is the light of the Holy City, and the Lamb is the Lamb from which it shines (Rev. xxi. 23). Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, find riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing (Rev. v. 12).

This conjunction with the soul of the Eternal Father, whom no man hath seen or can see, by the Son, the Divine and glorified Manhood, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is the Fountain of every joy of the blessed; and this source of all benediction is equally open to men on earth. All power is given unto Him in heaven and on earth (Matt. xxviii. 19).

When the Lord Jesus Christ, the manifested God, is the center of every thought, and of every affection, all will go well. He is the light of the world. He is the bread of life. He is the power of salvation, the help of the mourner, the crowner of every joy.

Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions (Luke x. 18). Abide in Me. In Me ye shall have peace. Fear not, I am the first and the last! My joy shall be in you. Be ye faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

What words are these! What wonders to be realized! Rest, peace, purity, confidence, trust, fearlessness, faith, love, death transformed into the change in which life is crowned with blessedness. These all flow from conjunction with the Lord, and these admitted into human life would make the foundations of angelic happiness on earth. Then would rapidly disperse the anxieties, cares, sins, and sorrows, the miseries and defilements, the oppressions and the wails of earth. Hasten, blessed Lord, that glorious time.

O may those gracious words rapidly receive a large fulfillment. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God (Rev. xix. 3).

The love of God our Savior supremely, is the first great essence of joy in heaven and on earth. Well did Dr. Rowland Williams say, is his Review of Dunsen, Heaven is a state of the love of God, more than a place.

The second source of the joys of heaven is the union of principles in the angelic character. In this sense, also, their land is married. They are just men made perfect, each is his degree (Heb. xii. 23). The human mind in its irreligious state is like an unregulated kingdom, which has rejected its lawful sovereign; all the subjects are in disharmony, engaged in intestine war. Like an arch, whose keystone is thrust out, from which every other stone is more or less displaced, so is the soul which has said to its Maker, we will not have this man to reign over us. The passions are wild, impure, and greedy, and urge a thousand things which conscience, reason, and common sense condemn. The conscience itself is misinformed, and makes things absurd, or trifling, into burdensome duties. Reason is often lawless, and, in its determination to see without light, strains itself to innumerable extravagancies. Talents exist without judgment, practice without principle. The appetites of the body are opposed to the perceptions and convictions of the soul.

We are harps, of which every string is out of tune or broken. As the body exhibits disease in one person, or another, infecting every organ however delicate, however minute, or however important, so in our mental organization. From the sole of the foot, even unto the bend, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores (Isa. i. 6). How often do we see wonderful talents allied to disgusting sensuality; power of almost angelic brilliancy united to vanity absolutely childish. The capacity for government which regulates a nation, is often accompanied by an incapacity for self-government which degrades the public sage to a private idiot. A Marlborough at the head of armies, is a mean pilferer of the army chest. The patriot in public may be a time-server in private. The flatterer of a crowd, may be a truckler to a tyrant. The disunion between faith and charity in mens souls is proverbial. The eloquence which can charm, when religion is the theme, is by no means certain to be accompanied by an inward reverence for its holy requirements, or a practical obedience to its divine commands. The enchanting singer may have no music in the heart. Elegant accomplishments may be associated with a very gulf of turpitude and defilement. Happy is it for the world, and thrice happy for the possessor, when we meet with great talents, great knowledge, great judgment, dutiful obedience, sound principle, manly firmness or feminine delicacy, devoted charity, true piety, and child-like humility united together! There we have a true man or a true woman. To produce these angelic characters is the work of religion, the very business of regeneration. The conflicts of the soul, the operations of the Savior, the mourning of penitence, the agony of secret prayer, the daily help of the Word, the alternations of peace and war in the soul, are all to issue in overcoming these spiritual disorders and diseases, in making the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. When this is done, the Christian has attained the stature of a man in Christ Jesus. For this he has lived and labored, loved and worked out his salvation with fear and trembling. For this he has read the Scriptures daily, prayed to the living Redeemer in public and in private. For this the world has been his probation. Angels have been ministers to assist and console; evil spirits have been permitted to irritate and bring impurities to view; all things have been working together for good.

In the processes and events of daily life, deficiencies have been revealed, mourned over, and corrected; new-born virtues in the heavenly life have been strengthened and confirmed; the old man has been put off and the new man has been put on, until he can say, I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, henceforward there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. This mental discipline, this conflict of the soul, this restoration of the spirit to harmony and order, this change of the sensual to the angelic in man is the work for which life is given, for which the Word is written, and for which the church and the world alike exist. Where it is accomplished, what noble, what gentle, what wise, what kindly, what useful, what beautiful characters we have! The angel shines through the mortal. Men and women already sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Their conversation is in heaven. A heaven exists within, a heaven around them. They are men and women who suffer long and are kind, envy not, vaunt not themselves, are not puffed up, do not behave themselves unseemly, seek not their own, are not easily provoked, think no evil, rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in the truth. At peace with themselves, they diffuse peace around. Wherever they go is heaven; themselves are heaven. Whoever has not attained this stale, or is not in the way of its attainment, is not in a condition to be happy anywhere. He is at war within himself and must be fretful, uneasy, complaining, and wretched. He may cover his misery; he may defy it, but it is there. Nothing but the work of regeneration can change it. He who does not follow the pillar of a cloud and the pillar of fire through the wilderness cannot arrive at
Canaan.

Look at the contorted souls you see on all sides, where aged unregenerated men push on their daily lives! One has constantly fed his disorderly appetite, that has grown by what it fed upon, until he may be regarded as an embodied appetite, ever craving, and never satisfied.

The dread peculiarity of disorderly sensual appetite is, also, that the yearning for enjoyment increases, while the power of enjoyment fades. The husks of sense are still gasped after, bur they yield no delight. The morbid spirits longs on, but the palled sense pronounces all from Dan to Beersheba entirely barren. What fate can be more terrific than that, which must be the fixed result of every wasted lust, perpetual yearning, with perpetual failure, and perpetual desolation.

Like Tantalus, such a soul is ever thirsty, but never able to satisfy itself. Like Sysiphus, always rolling up the stone, but never reaching the top. The lust becomes monstrous by an absorption of the whole man, into its terrible ramifications; goads on to incessant crime, though the guilty indulgence has long lost all power to charm.

Another has devoted himself to some intellectual crotchet, some scientific conceit. He is incessantly restless with the wish to make all the world see the beauty of his whim, and becomes the terror of all who meet him, and who cringe from the indication of one whom painful experience has taught them, is socially a bore. He who will not become a freeman of the Lord, must become a slave of some disorderly propensity in himself. And although be becomes absorbed in his passion, his lust, or his delusion, and worships it day and night, others behold him as its victim, and are compelled to feel that a great and ever-widening gulf is separating him from the wise, the good, and the heavenly.

The angels, however, who have all come through much tribulation, have washed their robes and made them white in the Divine Wisdom, the Blood of the Lamb. They have dethroned their own idols, subdued their own evil propensities, and morbid hallucinations. They have denied themselves, takes up the cross and followed their Savior. They regard their faults as their great foes, and daily fight against them. Others may condemn their half-subdued failings a little, but they condemn them much. They see their shortcomings, and mourn over them continually until they are finally subdued, and a new heart and a right spirit unfold a little heaven within. They yearn after spiritual freedom, until the fetters of enslaving lusts have been broken, and they walk in the glorious liberty of the children of light. They strive, they agonize to enter in at the strait gate, until the shades of the letter open, and beholding the beauty and power of the spirit of religion they go in and find pasture. They prose on in the labor of life, to the mark of the prize of their high calling; sometimes in cloud, sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in thick darkness, sometimes in glory, sometimes in joy, sometimes in grief, always in patience, striving to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with his God, the disciple of the Lord Jesus grows up to the order of heaven. Then, what he believes, Ire speaks; what he loves, he does.

Time was when his spirit was weak, and his fleshly mind was strong. Now, he has washed again and again in the waters of the Word, the spiritual Jordan, and his flesh, like the flesh of Naaman, has come again like the flesh of a little child. Time was, when like Paul, he would say, What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do; but now he can any, with John, I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me. Time was when he felt a delight in the law of God, after the inward man, but he saw also a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and he felt impelled to exclaim, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! Such persons have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created them (Col. iii. 9, 10). Their wilderness has become like Eden, their desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness are found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody (Isaiah lxi. 3). Their little universe has been brought into order. The sun of love, and the moon of faith, and the bright stars of heavenly knowledge have come out, and now shed their glories in their spiritual firmament. Their spiritual earth blooms with beauty. Their souls have become like a watered garden (Isaiah lviii. 11), and the paradise within, makes a paradise around. In this internal world, there is necessarily peace and joy. They are like a little kingdom, where each subject faithfully and lovingly performs his part,--a palace where all is prosperity, order, and beauty. Their inner land is married. Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth has sprung out of the earth, and righteousness hath looked down from heaven, and they have met and blended in the supreme regions of the soul, and diffused tranquillity and blessedness throughout. So live the angels, and so may we exist on earth.

To strive for this inner peace is the work of regeneration. No rest is possible while strong passions and strong convictions struggle with each other. Sinning and repenting make the alternate tossings of some men, checkering their lives with sensuality and remorse. Depraved as the will became by the fall, and by the continued perversity of the human race, the capacity of receiving truth remains.

The love of knowledge, the power of rational investigation, the inner disposition to perceive the right, remain and constitute the means by which the truth, as a saving power from the Lord, can make man free. But in the battles between truth and falsehood, between truth and evil, what poignant struggles surely come! The strong man often sins strongly, and suffers strongly. Conscience armed with remorseful condemnation, often whips with scorpions, the trespassers who have strayed from virtue, and in the wild whirl of delirious pleasure forgotten alike the voice of reason, of duty, and of God. As truth, united with love, however, accomplishes its holy victories in the soul, a harmony of its powers becomes more and more complete, and as the Christian steadily pursues his way, like Bunyans pilgrim, he finds entrancing views, delightful fields, heavenly visitants, become more frequent; the vista opens more widely and discloses in richer loveliness, the heaven to which he goes. Now and then a short, sharp, terrible struggle must come, but his abiding state is one of holy faith, interior love, steady obedience, of calm tranquillity, and heartfelt joy. Like Israel, in the time of Solomon, there is peace over the whole land.

We now come to the third source of angelic joy, that is, the harmony of the mutual love, and the communion of angelic gifts and graces with each other.

Angels are men in lighter habit clad.

They are just men made perfect. Heaven is a home of happiness, because it is the home of the good. But goodness is not sameness. There are differences of talent, of gift, and of character with the good, as there are varieties in every other work of the Divine hand. Variety is one of the marks of infinity in the creation. No two trees are alike, probably no two leaves or blades of grass. No two faces are alike. In fact, it is not difficult to see that if we were to discover two things absolutely repetitions of each other it would argue the exhaustion of the Creator, since he had begun to repeat himself. Minds differ like faces. Precisely the same qualities, the same gifts, the same tone, the same temper, the same graces have probably never been possessed by two human beings, and never will. Amongst the regenerated, though all good, there will still be differences of excellence and grace, which will constitute a perpetual variety. The perfection of the world is a perfection of harmonizing parts; will it not be so in the eternal world?

The perfection of the body, is the perfection of varying but according members. It is the same in the body social, the body politic, the body artistic, and the same in the Church, which is the Lords body. So says the Apostle, If the whole body were the eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member where were the body? But now there are many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand I have no need of thee: nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. Now, ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular (1 Cor. xii. 17-22, 27).

This harmony by variety, governs the future world undoubtedly, as it governs this. One star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv. 51, 52). And, when we bear in mind that the apostles of the Lord, the germs of the future Church, differed from each other, its did the prophets of old, and look at the vast multitude of the good and the greet of all ages who will form the immense kingdom of our heavenly Father, can we conceive of an idea more full of sublimity and grandeur? There, with their affections expanded, deepened, and purified will be the saintly Johns, the Taylors, the Fletchers, the Fenelons, the Channings, of every dime and century. There, the Peters, the Augustins, the Luthers, the Baxters, and the Bunyans, with their gifts exalted, matured, and multiplied, by as much as spiritual excellence is superior to that of the body. There, the Handels, the Mozarts, the Purcells, the Clarkes, and those whose rapt souls have caught the airs of heaven and poured their inspirations forth, that men may emulate the anthems of the blest. There, the Michael Angelos, the Raphaels, the Wests, the Flaxmans, and those who with pencil or chisel have shaped grand thoughts on canvass or in marble, and from loving hearts, have formed with patient labor those things of beauty which are joys for ever.

Nor will the wondrous thinkers of the world be left behind. Those kings uncrowned, who, from the highest realms of holy thought, find principles which rule and mold the coming ages; these will, from loftier Horebs, hand celestial treasures down to bless their humbler brethren.

The men of holy eloquence too, whose burning thoughts, and glowing words, blest the Church; and those who stirred up nations for the right, and gained for freedom, law, and order, victories which defend the feeble and set labor free; who wrestle with corruption, and educe for suffering nations those laws under whose sacred shield all virtues flourish, and all crimes are checked, will not be wanting. Indeed, all the good, however great, however humble, their uses spiritualized, transformed to aims and purposes such as they best love to do, for brother and sister angels, will all be there, and all be active. Lazy angels are inconceivable. Heaven is a country, a world, not just one room (Heb. xi. 16). In our Fathers house there are many mansions (John xiv. 2); and there will be room and scope for all the countless multitudes of the happy.

But all will live in mutual love. Their land will be married. The good affections which loved the Lord here will be more seraphic there. Those who loved their neighbors as themselves here, and in all cases loved that truth and right which protects the happiness of all, will love them better than themselves in heaven. Here, then, is the third great charm of angelic existence. Each angel desires to give his graces, his talents, his all, to bless the others. Every other having a similar wish, the results, and must be, that end becomes, as far as possible, the receiver of the graces and the joys of all. Every fresh angel increases the bliss of all. The more angels, the more beauty; the more perfection, the more happiness. The perfection of the whole, coming from the perfection of every part, heaven will become more perfect and happy as the multitudes of its inhabitants increase. And, with mutual love, precisely the same law holds good on earth. Let each inhabitant of a town or district cultivate his faculties, bring out his latent powers, perfect himself with knowledge, reflection, and above all with diligence and perseverance in his duties. Then let him, with a loving, patient heart, do his particular part for the public good, and his path will be strewed with blessings. Let a single family do this. Let the aim of every member of a family, the parents, brothers, sisters, and servants in the house be animated with this spirit, and heaven will be there.

A home is, indeed, the earthly type of heaven.

There are the diversities of relation and talent, which serve to complete the circle of blessing; the father and the mother, not counterparts, but complements of each other; deep, manly thought and strong intelligence, clear perception and rational caution, distinguishing the one; gentle, patient, sympathizing, goodness, and pure, instinctive delicacy, distinguishing the other. The brothers, vigorous, buoyant, varied in their talents, and attainments, full of heartiness, hope, and energy, loving their sisters as beings all sacred, treasures of loveliness and purity; the sisters, confiding, neat, graceful, full of the love of the beautiful themselves, and esteem and admiration for the manly qualities of their brothers, touching their harder and more adventurous nature with a delicate tact that softens and nurtures it, blending force with considerateness, manliness and gentleness delightfully together.

See a family composed of these elements in ever-varying proportions: all ruled by love to the Lord. Each cares for the other. Each desires to add to the happiness of home. In the morning each awakes, grateful to the Father of mercies. Each bends a lowly knee to thank the giver of all good, and to ask Him for a blessing on the day. Each then thinks how to bless the others; how to do every duty so as to promote the felicity of all. The mother and sisters seek to make order and beauty visible in every room at home. The father and brothers bring home the ringing tone of hearty cheerfulness, some fresh acquisition of talent, some good-humored to story, some project of usefulness, some new book, something to show goodwill, each in his way, the sisters enjoying all, and responding in kind remark and welcome recognition; a perennial kindness flowing on every side, filled with delicate respect and mutual love. All this, based on love to the Savior, forms a Christian home, and is a heaven below. As for me and my house, said the great Jewish leader, we will serve the Lord; and this is the grand secret of happy homes. Let the several members of a family first serve the Lord, have continually a loving obedience in heart and mind to the God of Love, the God of heaven and earth, and they will be certain to seek the happiness of all around them. Then, the diversity of position, of duties, of talents, of inclinations, tempers, age and resources, will form a never-ending series of varying and returning enjoyments. Each member of such a family can say, The know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren (John iii. 14).

Each member of such a family is certain of sympathies, cares, and kindnesses, which are a continual comment on the declaration, It is not good for man to dwell alone. Is he sad? he is sure of considerate kindness and attention. Is he ill? the tenderest concern is felt, and speedy help secured. Is he weak, and unable for the moment to attend to necessary duties? another volunteers at once, and engages that nothing shall suffer. Is he languid and apathetic? some one throws in new life, brings a new book, starts a new plan, opens a new avenue for instruction or enjoyment, and changes the scene with ever-freshening pleasure and improvement, while, over all, religion spreads her sacred aegis, such wards off whatever would mar the feeling of true good will, the element in which they live.

Such is a family carrying out the Divine designs, and forming a truly happy home. And, what is a neighborhood, a city, but a larger family, with still greater differences of talent, and wider varieties of good, but with the same capabilities for harmony, reciprocal advantage, and unceasing interchange of use, of help, and of delight. What is a nation but a still larger family, with distinctions of genius, tastes, and habits, making it differ from other nations, but comprising in itself all the great affections and capabilities of the race; but with such varieties of grace, manner, and endowment, as to invest our common nature with new charms, unspeakably valuable as a member of the universal brotherhood? Nay, may me not conceive that the some law will hold good in worlds, and admit the probability that each planet, and not those of our solar system merely, but those attendant on the countless sons of the universe, may each be a varying member of the grand whole, furnishing to the eye of the Universal Parent, a variety of His children contributing graces, beauties, and excellencies, all-enriching, all-blessing, all-permeating with countless joy, that Fathers house in which there are many mansions?

This view lends directly to one delightful truth, that every new comer in heaven will increase the general joy. He brings with him a variety of being, of celestial or spiritual endowment and character unknown in heaven before. He adds to the particular felicity of some angelic society by the mercy of the Divine Arranger, whose order prevails in all things; some peculiar use and bliss, which enhances the general joy.

The new comer imparts new happiness to all, and receives blessings from all. Thus the more angels, the mole happiness. Heaven can never be filled to eternity, and must, therefore, have an everlasting increase of bliss. Mutual love in its very nature produces this. And their land shall be married.

In the out-going of the desire to make others happy in heaven, we may discern two great sources of bliss: the multiplication of mutual uses, graces, and joys, by the number of angels in each society, and the number of societies of heaven; but attended also with an inflowing from the Lord, of interior delight, in proportion to the out-going of the desire to bless. The more an angel purposes to bless, the more the Divine blessing flows in. Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and running over, said our Divine Savior to His disciples, and this law is perpetual and universal.

He who seeks to do good to another feels happy on earth; how much more so in heaven? There is blessing in the desire to bless. Let an individual intend some unselfish act, for individual or for general good, and he will find a sweet pleasure infused into him, like the kiss of the All-loving, which will be to him a token of Divine approval.

Such is the order of heaven, and such the heavenly state. The heavens are the abodes of happiness, because of the operations of the grand laws of happiness. Earth is not so, because of the defective adoption of these two holy principles. Religion with us is not the religion of life, the religion of true charity, the religion of union, the religion of mutual good; yet we expect to go to heaven, and to be happy there, if we end a selfish and contracted life by a few prayers; and a piteous pleading for the mercy of God.

God is always merciful. His tender mercies are over all His works. But no mercy can make a mass of selfish men happy. They are internally antagonistic; proud, revengeful, suspicious, and self-seeking. It is the minds of such men that make earth a battle-field, bitter parties unjust to each other in kingdoms, cities, religions, homes. The contracted souls which draw everything to their own circles and give nothing out, if possible, cannot make a happy society or a happy home.

And souls trained to this spirit, embedded in an atmosphere of sell and worldliness in all things, cannot be reversed in every thought and feeling by some pious wishes at last, which are indeed nothing better than selfish still; a hope for themselves, stripped of all their fond possessions, to gain what they have been given to understand are the imperishable riches and joys of eternity. It cannot be! It cannot be! Man takes himself with him.

He who has cared nothing for the happiness of others here, and made for himself a character incessantly grasping, will exhibit that character in the eternal world, but with greater virulence, because then, as untrammeled spirit, more vehement than when surrounded by material forms. He who has been sensual and depraved here, will be an unclean spirit hereafter. He who has burned with ambition to be the greatest here, will glow with impetuous desires, a thousand times more violent hereafter. The whole soul is possessed by the ruling love. Often this has been covered for a time in sickness and pain, but it is well known to observers that the ruling passion strong in death reappears in the hour of dissolution, as the last flash on the world of a gleam then quitting it for ever. Those who seek to become happy in heaven, must become heavenly. We must be born again.

The more we dislike the process, the more the absolute necessity to begin. If it is difficult now, it is evident our spirits have hardened into a contrariety to heavenly order, and are already fixing themselves into forms opposed to real happiness.

The limb that has recently been ill-set may, with comparative readiness, be restored to an orderly construction, but when it has fixed itself, and its whole surroundings have been long adjusted and settled to the deformity, to readjust it and rectify the malformation, is a difficult work indeed. So with human hearts and minds. When these have been contorted and depraved, when every fiber, its it were, has been warped to selfishness, worldliness, and sensuality,--when daily and nightly the aims and thoughts have been directed into sordid and sinful channels,--to unwarp them and bring them into harmony divine, and rearrange them to angelic order and beauty, is a difficult, and cannot be a transient, operation.

In health and freedom, while we have the opportunity of testing ourselves, of entering into conflict with our bad passions again and again, of repenting, and resolving, and working out our salvation with fear and trembling, ever looking in faith and obedience to the Divine Savior, who fights in us and for us, and forms His kingdom within its as we obey Him, then we shall really live and triumph, and find the truth of His divine words, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And to be heavenly, to live the life of heaven on earth, is a happy life.

To have the joys of a religion faithfully practiced--to have an interior communion with the Lord Jesus Christ in meditation, and secret as well as open prayer,--to have an adoring heart and good will to all mankind to be ready to serve others, and defer to others, to avoid those offensive angularities which destroy the comfort of society, to seek peace and pursue it--to do honestly our duty, and more than others would claim, and do it cheerfully and lovingly, this is the way to be blessed among men. No other life is for a moment to be compared to this. The man who pursues such a course, may not present any immoderate accumulations, but he will be among earths happiest inhabitants. He may be modest in his house and his possessions, but he will be contented, cheerful, genial, trustful. Such men are the salt of the earth. They do not provoke to envy by ostentatious display. They have not a large mansion, but no love--large estates, but no content,--large indulgences but no satisfaction. They diffuse a sweet peace around them, whether their station be among the great or the lowly. They are expected with pleasure. They are depended upon to help where assistance is needed. They are the genial supporters of every circle in which they move. They are the solid basis of society. In them, religion is seen diffusing justice, order, contentment, benevolence, and peace. And while they seek not advantages or happiness for themselves, these benefits come without seeking. They grow naturally on the virtues which the Savior has planted in their obedient souls, and silently, but surely, these virtues still bear their fruits in old age, and form a living paradise within and around them.

A society of such persons cannot be otherwise than happy. They show their fitness for a heavenly world, by making their home a heaven. They show their rapacity for being happy hereafter by being happy now.

There are difficulties in becoming true Christian, but difficulties far greater in not becoming such. It is, no doubt, a struggle to be good, but far greater struggles are insured by not being so. The struggles of a good man advance him to purity, and victory, and peace.

The struggles of a bad man, usher him to certain defeat at last. He is out of harmony with true nature. He must be sooner or later exhibited as an abortion in the universe. He wars against the laws of the Almighty, and whatever may be the appearances of the moment, he must sink to deeper and deeper mortifications, and at length to ruin and despair. It is an expensive and a bitter road by which men go down to death. On the contrary, mutual love, mutual sympathy, mutual help, sustained by a spirit of religion, softens sorrows, removes obstructions, increases and multiplies their means of comfort, makes content with a little, and makes that little more. Godliness has the promise of the world that now is, as well as that which is to come. He who, by destroying in himself the passions which disturb and desecrate the soul, and by daily religion lives here as the angels live in heaven--will find a preliminary heaven in this world. He will have eradicated the roots of a thousand sorrows which afflict society and give an unimpeachable testimony that this world, if brought under the laws of heaven, may also be the abode of angel-men,the abode of true and genuine virtue founded on love and faith, both directed to the Savior, and both acting as channels down which descend the strength which sustains in trouble, fortifies in weakness, purifies in youth and manhood, and blesses in old age.

They err, who deem loves brightest boor in blooming youth is flown,

Its purest, tenderest, holiest power in after-life is known.

When passions chastened and subdued to riper years are given,

And earth, and earthly things are viewed in light that breaks from heaven.

The last kind of union to which we would direct attention as existing in heaven is union between the inmost souls of the angels, and their surrounding circumstances. In this respect their land shall be married.

Nor must we forget that the marriage relation--that sweetest form of mutual love, where the motives for union have been the love of heavenly virtues in each other, is continued after death, and forms as it did here the sweetest source of mutual bliss. They, said our heavenly Master, whom God hath joined together are NO MORE twain but one flesh; whom God hath joined together in holy purposes, and holy thoughts, in daily sweet communion of heart and sentiment, in work and care, in worship and in airy; those that have in mental union so blended together, that no thought exists in one but has its companion thought in the other, no love but has its companion affection in him stronger, in her softer, in him firmer, in her more graceful--the bass and the treble of the whole being permeating each other.

This loveliest of the forms of mutual love is still more perfect in heaven than on earth. They are no more twain but one flesh.

This correspondence between the inhabitants of heaven and their circumstances, has a wide range and application. The want of it in this world has much to do with discomfort.

This is a world of trial,--a mixed world. Here we find things often much ajar. The necessities of inward purification sometimes require that troubles should be permitted to those who can bear them, which, though not flowing from their faults, may be useful for their eternal good. The highest suffered undeservedly, and it is enough that the disciple should be as his Master. Hence we find often virtue straitened and vice gorged with outward abundance. The princely mein often covers a very unprincely nature. Broad acres own a lord frequently, scarcely fit to be the companion of the stable-boy whom he hires. A poor creature is often the master of tens of thousands, whose soul, if measured by its sympathies, might indeed inhabit that pineal gland scarcely larger than a pea, once thought by purblind philosophers to be its probable abode. In fact, here we anomalies of all sorts. A great mind in a puny body. Virtue in rags, vice in royal mantles. Noble souls in narrow dwellings; mean spirits in splendid mansions. Great sympathies with little power to gratify them. The proud and impious strong, the gentle and the upright weak.

The rule, no doubt, is that sincerity, knowledge, skill, uprightness, care, and diligence, will win their way, and obtain their reward in the world as it is; and vice and folly tend to defeat their owners, and entail exposure, disgrace, and decrepitude. But the exceptions are so numerous that one often stands aghast at triumphant villainy, and shudders at the sufferings of lowly worth. Yet, no doubt, it is best that here and note, so the world should be. And the Judge of all the earth does and will do right. The discordances, however, we all feel to belong to a mixed and imperfect state of things. There are no doubt good reasons why the selfish, but energetic and enterprising man should become rich.

He will thus become useful to thousands by his fertile plans for self-aggrandizement, and promote the public good, although blind to his own best interests. There are reasons, we must admit, seen and adjudged good by the All-merciful Savior, who has all power in heaven and on earth, for the permission to harass the good who are able to become better, and give to virtue the sweet uses of adversity. The Lord loves all His children too well to permit them needless sorrow. We all deserve find we all require chastening. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept Thy Word, is true now as it was when the Psalmist spoke it. Patience alone does perfect work, and tribulation worketh patience, and patience hope.

The troubles, the mixed state of things, the struggles, the martyrdoms of the world have no doubt their grand objects to achieve. The soil in which high virtues grow must be refreshed and mellowed, doubtless by the boisterous winds and nipping frosts of mental winter. The crucible alone yields the pure gold tried in the fire.

All men feel however, that such a state of things is necessarily only temporary and transient. It is not fitting that virtue should always be oppressed, that vice should always be triumphant. It is not the true order of things, that goodness and disease, goodness and unloveliness, goodness and poverty, goodness and misery, should be perpetual companions. We intuitively feel that goodness and loveliness, goodness and comfort, goodness and outward prosperity should go together.

When our Lord speaks of those who had used their talents well, bring received into heaven, it is with these words of welcome salutation, Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

We here rule over only a few things; in the heavenly world we rule over many things.

Take the body, for instance. We only partially rule over it. We receive such a body, with such health or sickness, strength or weakness, beauty or plainness, as the states of out parents, through whom the Creator formed us, enables us to have. We have since contributed to our original health, or lessened it according as we have lived, according to the laws of health or the reverse. In mature life we govern this matter more fully, but still not entirely.

We have our original defects of constitution to work with; we have the unfavorable circumstances of our position to contend against; the bad regulations of society; the frauds and adulterations of food to sustain. These we cannot in many respects control. These things affect our health, our comfort, such our comeliness. We rule in this respect over a few things, but not entirely. But in the spirit-world this is entirely changed. The soul has a body as it has pleased our heavenly Father. God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body (1 Cor. xv. 38).

Important truth, witnessed by experience. In the soul of the true Christian, now, goodness and beauty go together. There is something in goodness, which sheds an agreeable tone over the plainest features, while goodness and lovely features approach the angel form upon earth.

The aged Christian is a beautiful being. The sweet, placid benevolence that rests upon the brow, and beams in the eye, the silvery locks, and pure expression of the whole face and demeanor, are redolent of beauty, and radiate from the angelic form within. God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him. Not an independent body, but to every seed his own body. If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, said the apostle in another place, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. v. 1). The earthly house is the earthly body. We have now a heavenly house, a celestial body. True, it is covered at present by the earthly tabernacle, but it is within, and far more properly our own body than that which shall shortly be put away. The ruling love, and the mind, are all in all in the spiritual body. When, therefore, the work of regeneration is completed, the earthly form is put away, and man appears in the eternal world; the soul stands forth an angel amongst angels. The Divine Being is the Infinitely Beautiful; angels are beautiful, as they are likenesses of Him, in a higher or lower degree. Their purified affections rule over everything in their forms. Innocence, goodness, purity, order, reign within them and around them.

The angel, who showed John the things he saw, was one of the prophets, but so majestic and lovely was he that John fell at his feet to worship him, and was only restrained by the change of the angel, See thou do it not, worship God.

This conception of the angelic principles, forming the angelic body, leads to a thousand suggestive ideas. Many are the imperfections of the good here, because of their bodily defects in organization. A joyous, grateful, and harmonious heart here cannot do justice to its feelings, because the organization is so imperfect as to forbid the concord of sweet sounds. The music of the heart is there; but not the music of the voice. In the spiritual body it will not be so. The body being as the soul, and being, indeed, the soul itself as to its form, what the soul wishes, the body can realize, as we can do here in thought, but not in act.

Let us, then, conceive a world of just ones made perfect, each in his kind of perfection. The myriads of glorious ones, all forms of love and charity; not a hypocrite, not a vicious one, not an ugly one amongst them. What the good soul wishes is there expressed, having a body capable of giving it expression. Can anything be conceived more glorious, more magnificent? The whole blooming in perpetual youth, glowing with the beauty and purity of goodness, each with especial graces, talents, and perfections, all in harmony, and all filled with an adoring love of the Lord. Such is the first result of the great truth, that the spirit and its circumstances are in union in heaven. They rule not over few, but over many things; their land is married. They have entered into the joy of their Lord.

The dress of the angels is another circumstance in which their inward state rules everything. Speech is the clothing of thought, thought is the clothing of affection. The deep affections of our spiritual being, when we would shew them to others, necessarily clothe themselves with ideas and sentiments, which, if true, are like spiritual garments, and, in the spiritual world, appear as garments, with varied degrees of brightness, beauty, and color, according to their nature and slate. On this principle, much of what we find in Scripture respecting clothing is written. Glowing affections give forth burning thoughts, and, if we could see the spirit clothed with them, they would appear ruddy with the gleams of unconsuming fire. The angel whom Daniel saw was clothed, it is said, in linen, and his body was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his feet like in color to polished brass (Dan. x. 6).

Of the angel that descended to remove the stone from the Lords sepulcher, it is said, his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow (Matt. xxviii. 3), The two angels within the sepulcher were clothed in shining garments. The great multitude which no man could number, who stood before the throne and before the Lamb, were clothed in white robes, and had palms in their hands (Rev. vii. 9).

Souls are indeed clothed here. The truths we receive are woven into coverings genuine or hypocritical, as the case may be. And it is extremely interesting to observe the numerous notices in Scripture of that spiritual foot, and of precepts founded upon it. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me in the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness; as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels (Isa. lxi. 10). I counsel thee to buy of me fine gold, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see (Rev. iii. 18). Thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall walk with me in white raiment (Rev. iii. 4, 6).

These references manifestly relate to the coverings of the soul which exist when truth performs for it the same offices which garments do for the body. Garments preserve the body from undue cold, and generally from the bad effects of ungenial weather. Religion duly fitted to a mans mental and spiritual requirements performs a similar kind of office for his soul. It shields him from the keen chills of withering selfishness, and from the hot blast of sensual excitement. It serves him as an adornment in the day-time, and as a covering in which he can wrap himself, and rest in peace during the states of mental night.

The laws respecting dress among the Israelites were numerous, and curious, but most important and interesting when applied to the dress of the soul. The wedding garment which was wanting to him who was rejected from the heavenly feast, and who was commanded to be cast into outer darkness (Matt. xxii. 11), was the symbol of religious sentiments in which faith and love are united together, and word and work go hand in hand.

The man had it not, and therefore could not remain. No faith alone can endure the presence of the heart-searching Redeemer. We must have the charity which blesses, as well as the faith which illuminates our garment; if not like those of the angels, we cannot remain in their company. The best robe which was ordered to be brought forth for the returning prodigal is that robe of righteous thought arising from holy motive, by which the pilgrim to heaven clothes himself when he purposes to walk worthy of his high calling; and both in the gentle sentiments which breathe goodwill to all, and in the daily doings which form his constant duty, he exemplifies his profession by a Christian life, even to the simplest acts of ordinary routine,--the shoes upon his feet.

Affections cannot manifest themselves of themselves; they clothe themselves with thoughts, and most beautiful and graceful are the forms that pure and heavenly affections take; some are like wrought gold (Ps. xlv. 13). These are the sentiments of those who breathe loving-kindness in all they do. They are the seraphs of the Christian life and of heaven. Some are bright like silver; these are they whose sentiments glitter and sparkle with spiritual intelligence. They are the cherubs among the servants of the Savior. Some have garments less exalted, but true and pure. They fire clothed in fine linen, clean and white, and the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. There is variety in this. Every robe is exactly fitted to its owner, and precisely expresses both the measure and the colors of the inward spirit of the wearer. In outward things, often we cannot entirely govern the dress we would have on. Poverty may prevent it, fashion and custom may also overrule our wishes to a great extent. We rule here over few things, but in the eternal world we overrule many things. The souls clothing will be precisely what the soul itself is; it will express the utterance of its genuine, purest sentiments, the glow of its holiest aspirations, its thoughts as they are, all befitting its heavenly teaching, and all derived from the Divine Truth itself. They love what is pure, they think what is pure, they speak what is pure, and there is no constraint.

Such is the inward ground or principle upon which the angelic dress exists, and probably forms the secret tastes and bias which induce us to prefer certain shapes, colors, and varieties of dress in this world; and which has its deep source in the nature and tone of our spiritual states.

Certain it is, that whenever you see an individual oddly dressed, you will learn on a nearer acquaintance that his mind is as odd as himself; while on the other hand, a chaste and modest spirit is distinguished by a tendency to a neat and quiet dress. Here, however, where hypocrisy can are the purities it never possessed, and the wolf can appear in sheeps clothing, dress is far from being an infallible guide to character; but in the eternal world in this respect, there is nothing hidden, but what will be revealed, and the clothing, like the person, will be the true outbirth, and manifestation of the soul which it covers and adorns. The beautiful dress will be the expression of a beautiful mind, and the innumerable varieties of mental state, tone, and temper in angelic minds will rise to corresponding innumerable varieties in the spiritual beauties of heavenly clothing. The same law will govern the houses, and in our Fathers house there are many mansions. In the midst of the street (of the city which John saw) and on each side of the river was there the tree of life (Rev. xxiii. 2). The heavenly land is a country having houses, cities, hills, mountains, and plains, with every variety of beautiful scenery, far more magnificent than the world has, but all spiritual, and all governed by the states of the inhabitants. Such as the angels are, such are their mansions, such their cities, their paradises, and the entire scenery. All is in harmony within and without.

The Scriptures often unfold to us heavenly scenes, and they all proceed upon the law of correspondence or perfect harmony between the spirits, both of the good and the bad, and their surroundings. It is wonderful how a material philosophy has blinded even the readers of the Scriptures, until they imagine there is nothing in the sacred pages concerning the spiritual world. Notices of that world, its inhabitants, its scenes, and circumstances, form an ever-recurring underground of Holy Writ, which comes to view from time to time in most marked distinctness.

The nearness of angels is taught in direct declaration, and their appearance described on frequently-occurring occasions. The mode in which spiritual things become visible is at times intimated, and, we may almost say, explained. The eyes of a mans spirit are opened, and he sees what was all unseen before.

When Elisha and his servant were alone on the top of a mountain, and seeing the Syrian host coming, the servant was afraid, the prophet not only said to him, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them, but he prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kings vi. 16, 17).

Horses and chariots of fire are the symbols of the states of the angelic guardians, all aglow with that love which is celestial fire, and progressive ever, even in their angel world, as with horses and chariots. The old name for prophet was seer (1 Sam. ix. 9); and we may say of almost all the prophets, they were emphatically seers. Micaiah saw, he says, the Lord sitting on a throne, and the host of heaven standing by Him on His right hand, and on His left (1 Kings xxii. 19). Isaiah saw a vision, which he describes through the sixth chapter. Ezekiel commences with the assurance that heaven was opened to him, and he saw visions of God. Daniel, Zechariah, and lastly, John, equally declare they saw--saw, not dreamed of--the scenes of the spiritual world, which they, especially John, so largely describe. The eyes of their spiritual bodies were opened for the time (there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body), and they saw what exists at all times, near and around us, but is usually veiled, and providentially veiled from our view.

Experience in all ages and at all times has supplied innumerable instances of spiritual sight, especially on the approach of death; and for the comfort of the dying, unhappily, open intercourse is not safe, except by special guardianship of Divine Providence, and hence is not ordinarily permitted; but nevertheless, the angels of the Lord do encamp round them that fear Him. Are they not all ministering spirits sent Forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation?

We would dwell a little further upon the great fundamental law of the heavenly world--the law of correspondence between the spirit and its surroundings in its varied ramifications--because of its being the great law the Scriptures disclose as the groundwork of the celestial scenes they unfold. It is not only the most universal, but the most perfect of laws.

If we consider the possibilities of the case, we shall see they resolve themselves into three. In any state of a society the circumstances around the inhabitants must be either worse or better than the states of their minds deserve, or they must precisely correspond with them.

The state of things in a society, when circumstances are worse than the minds of the inhabitants deserve, is that piety and virtue exist in companionship with straitness, disease, and misery. Though such is not the normal nor necessary state of things, yet for wise purposes we see it does sometimes exist. Our Lord was poor, and was crucified, though He was virtue itself. The truly good are not exempt from misfortunes, and sometimes bitter trials, even because of their faith, and because of their goodness. Joseph in prison, Daniel in the den of lions, and other instances which are furnished alike by history and by daily life, abundantly prove this. But evidently such is not the perfect order of society. Our whole nature revolts from sanctioning undeserved suffering. We long to see virtue triumph; and injustice defeated. We delight to see the innocent made happy, and downtrodden righteousness exalted. By all these noble impulses of our better nature, then--and the truer we are to heaven, the more do we protest against undeserved sorrow to the good--we recognize the truth that in heaven it can never he that the angels live in circumstances unbefitting the purity, the innocence, the wisdom, and the love which they have attained From the Lord by regeneration in the world. They must rule over these things. Inequality and injustice must not endure for ever. Their land must be married.

Take the other hypotheses--a society, where the circumstances are better than the states of the inhabitants. This is evidently not a true and proper condition of things. What are the beauties of taste to one who has no taste for them? What is a splendid mansion, a magnificent park, to one whose mind is gloomy, narrow, and depraved? Daily experience shews that there must be a peaceful mind, or no outward prospect pleases. A jaundiced soul will throw a pall over all that is beautiful without, and throw the shroud of its misery over the most glorious scenes of earth. Far better a cottage and content, than a lordly palace where it is but misery in purple. Guilt or stupidity masquerading in scenes and circumstances for which they are unfitted, can have no real enjoyment. The land must be married, or there will be no marriage feast.

There only remains the third condition of things, which must therefore be the one which exists in heaven--that is the outward circumstances and the inward states of the inhabitants exactly answering to each other--that is, inward purity and outward purity, inward beauty and outward beauty, inward prosperity and outward prosperity, inward charms in ever-varying loveliness, and all filled with the spirit of innocence such peace, and this developing itself in the riches of external magnificence, robed in charms which reflect every moment the graces which reign within, and the glory of the great Architect of the universe, from whom all these perfections are derived, which compose both the heaven within and the heaven around.

Is there a home for every golden affection of celestial love--that fine gold of which the Savior speaks--and for those pearly thoughts as clear as crystal, in the hearts of the angels? Their mansions sin appear resplendent with gold, and enriched with precious stones of hues surpassing earthly splendor.

Is there a paradise within of glorious perceptions of countless truths, which grew up from the seed of the Word of God, so that their souls are like a watered garden? (Isa. lviii. 11.) All around them will be seen a paradise of trees of the Lord, trees of life, flowers of fragrance and of loveliness beyond what earth has knownall things good and fair, and yielding to the inhabitants, through whom they are formed, unceasing illustrations of inward beauty and eternal love.

Does their righteousness flow like a river, and their peace like the waves of the sea? (Isa. xlviii. 18.) So will there be rivers of the water of life flowing through the celestial cities, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb.

In fine, all the circumstances of the heavenly world, governed by this law, must he most perfectly just, and most perfectly calculated to make the blessed happy; while over all the heavens the Sun of Righteousness pours His love and wisdom as heat and light, filled with happiness, giving not only glory, but blessing. The Lord is their everlasting light, and the days of their mourning are ended.

And lo! what wonders there are found!

What beauteous objects glow around,

Where heavens bright mansions rise!

All that can fill the raptured sense

Unite pure pleasures to dispense

Mid scenes of Paradise.

But, whence are these? They all express

Is outward from the holiness

That lives within the soul:

Each beauteous object fitly shews

Some heavenly grace the Lord bestows,

Whose presence fills the whole?

On the other hand, the operation of the same great law, in and through wicked souls, must produce around them scenes of honor inexpressible. Their inner darkness, their inner hate and madness, their inner impurity, their inner false and strange monstrosities of thought and Imagination, their wretched fancies, must, from the operation of the law by which principles within produce themselves in corresponding forms without and around, necessarily result in the hideous scenes of hell. Let the wicked look within at the chambers of imagery already formed there, and beware and repent.

We turn, however, from this sad subject to notice that, in reality, the law of correspondences is in manifest operation in this world, though its revelations here are mixed and moderated; for man himself here is in a mixed and moderated state. Society, in all its forms, institutions, arrangements, business, and buildings, is the product of the minds that have composed it and do compose it. The world around is from the world within.

If the world around is false, flimsy and ugly, it must be because the world of mind from which it came is so. Whatever there is which is solid, good, substantial, beneficial, and beautiful, must have come from minds who have received good gifts from the Lord, and brought them out into forms thus noble and good.

In every town, and it is especially noticeable in every large town, while the great bulk of it is tolerably orderly, good-looking, clean, and neat, indicative of the corresponding states of the people, in whom the love of outward order at least prevails to a moderate extent, there are quarters where high degrees of beauty and purity are to be found; and, on the other hand, there are quarters where the low, the lazy, the impure, herd in squalid misery, disorder, and filth.

On both sides there are exceptions to the general state. In beautiful mansions the most unworthy people will occasionally be found; and in the lowest haunts of poverty and misery will the needy but virtuous poor, overwhelmed with misfortune, be for a time compelled to live.

The exceptions also will speedily make themselves appear by the visible signs of difference they will manifest from the general rule.

With these allowances each town presents strong indications of heavens and hells. Religion, wisdom, and virtue turn homes and neighborhoods into heavens. Irreligion, impurity, injustice, and folly make hells upon earth. Oh! that men would daily lay these truths to heart. Oh! that each individual would suffer the voice of the Almighty to be heard within him today and every day, as it was heard of oldAdam, where art thou? Oh! that the wicked man, whose spirit has already clothed him with defilement and sorrow, would make a grand stand for life, remembering that the great Savior is at the door of his soul, and waits to be admitted that He may save him, and turn his hell to heaven. Let any seek His help, and He will not fail to overthrow self and sin in all their varied forms, and bring forth judgment unto victory. Let no one despair. Let no one halt. Let no one be discouraged. Let no one feel his mountain too great to be removed. Let him have faith in the Lord Jesus, and work in shunning evil and doing good, and soon the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. Oh! it is so pleasant, as well as so beautiful, to live the life of heaven upon earth, that one would think it would charm every heart. The commencement of goodness in the commencement of happiness. The very thought of living for heaven throws a gleam of sunshine over the soul long since forlorn. When the penitent seeks earnestly his heavenly Father--and he is ever to be found in our blessed Lord, who said, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father--while he is yet very far off, the Father sees him, and runs and falls upon his neck and kisses him. The Divine benediction assures him of protection, and encourages him to persevere. Then, as he proceeds, new comforts grow around him; he gains for earth as well as for heaven.

There are few who do not love virtue in others, however much they may neglect it in themselves. The truly good man, be he rich or poor, acquires character, credit, and respect. He cuts off the waste which formerly held him down; and now as he proceeds in his career of inward growth in wisdom, goodness, and beauty, he will also produce around him all things that indicate neatness, order, purity, loveliness.

New tastes will arise, and possibly new talents show themselves, His home will be his dearest spot, and he will love to adorn it. The poor mans cottage, with such a spirit, will become a heaven upon earth.

Once, during the period when Robert Owen was blowing his bubble with the greatest energy, striving to persuade men that happiness was to be attained by the organization of men, good or bad, from without instead of by regeneration from within, I was walking in a rural district of the North of England. I knew by report that a silk weaver, one who acted upon the principles of this discourse, lived in that neighborhood, and I determined to seek him out. There was not much difficulty in doing so. I was soon directed to the spot, and found it a cottage in a garden. It was in June, and the first thing that struck me was the small garden, probably not more than twelve yards by ten, but all full of flowers in rich variety and ranged in order, one mass of bloom, nod perfuming the sir with fragrance. When the door was opened, I was recognized and welcomed. The father, mother, and several daughters were there. The place where their looms mere was close at hand, and in the house and in the work-place there was a wonderful neatness, so complete that the table was scarcely cleaner than the floor. The furniture was sufficient, and, where possible, highly polished. The walls were adorned with framed needle-work, evidently done by the daughters. We sat down, and I was soon made welcome to refreshment. Cheerful conversation followed. The weaver and his family took part freely in a manner which showed great intelligence on subjects relating both to earth and heaven. Then followed music, the father with one instrument, one of the daughters with another--a small organ--and a number of hymns were sung, with thoughtful and cheerful conversation on each. We then prayed together; and as I went away, I felt that HERE WAS THE TRUE SOCIAL SYSTEM. I took leave of the weavers home with a deep and earnest wish--and one which I trust will one day be realized--that every cottage home in England and the world might be like this. A Christian home, however humble, is a heaven upon earth.

The same principles in every grade of society will introduce blessing into all. Righteousness exalteth a nation. Let the principles which form heaven, and which must be had ere heaven can be, only be introduced into our particular portion of earth.

Let us pray each morning to be enabled that day to do the Saviors will. Let us strive each to do right to all, and make all amongst whom we move, as far as possible, happy; and around us and throughout our circles will be seen the sign of the Lords will being done on earth as it is done in heaven. Soon may it be said of us, Thou shalt no longer be termed forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her), and thy land Beulah (married); for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC. BY DR. BAYLEY, of Argyle Square Church, Kings Cross, London.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4. The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement.
8. Difficulties on the Atonement.
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

By the same Author. Second issue. Price 7s. 6d.
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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. X.

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good: and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and DO not the things which I say?--LUKE vi. 46, 46.

WHEN true religion is possessed, it pervades a mans whole life and conduct. When religion is united once more to every work in which we are engaged, and the workman and the employer, the tradesman, the merchant, the artist, the man of letters, and the man of government, are all animated by the bright light and the pure warmth of wisdom derived from love to God, the golden age will once more have blessed the world.

When religion is separated from life, it makes a weak religion, and a bad world. Faith, separated from work, is pretense and hypocrisy. Faith, when not producing good works, is not rooted in the deep sources of our being. WORDS proceed from the intellect, WORKS from the heart, and what the heart is, such is the real man. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things. An evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things (Matt. xii. 3). What a man DOES, then, is the test of the state of his heart.

It is a test to himself. It is a test to the world. It will be a test when he comes into the eternal world. They that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life; and they that have DONE evil unto the resurrection of condemnation (John v. 29).

The heart, or will, of man, is the receptacle of love in him, the outbirth and the image of the Divine Love. The good treasure of the heart is love to the Lord, giving rise to love for man, and this good treasure brings forth the good things of obedience to the Divine Commandments. The evil treasure of the heart is imperious self-love, giving rise to overweening love of the world, and this brings forth the evil things of disobedience, quarrelsomeness, fraud, and impurity. Once more then, we say, what the heart is, such the acts are. Hence the supreme importance of a religion of deeds. The apostle expresses this in the strongest language, when he says, Who (God) will render to every man according to his DEEDS: to them who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath: tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God (Rom. ii. 6-11).

From acts, come habits; from habits, character; and to form a character for heaven--a character that can be happy in heavenly principles and a heavenly life--is the one great use of the world, in the ways of Divine Providence. The world is the seminary for heaven, the nursery for Paradise. To be happy, man must be trained to be like his Heavenly Father--loving, wise, and actively good; and work is the grand instrumentality for the formation of such characteristics in man.

The Creator could undoubtedly have supplied all human wants as readily as He supplies those of the animal and vegetable worlds, without human contrivance or human labor, had it suited His grand design in the formation of man to do so. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.

Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Man might have been endowed, without his effort, with sufficiency and splendor, had the Lord chosen that thus it should be. But it is not so. Divine Wisdom has judged it best to be otherwise, and Divine Love bas ordained that the earth should yield its riches and be abundantly supplied only by the exertion of labor. The fields teem with plenty when cheerful toil has ploughed, and sown, and harrowed, and weeded them. The mines yield their gems, their metals, and their marbles, only to hard work. The fibers adapted for clothing are transformed into useful and brilliant textures, only when thoughtful art, plodding science, and persevering industry have spun and woven the dull threads into forms of exquisite delicacy, and covered them with shapes and hues of beauty. The blessings of civilized life are all the result of work inspired by energy and directed by intelligence. Without work the human lace could never have been sustained, and would quickly perish. With work the barren wilderness soon smiles with waving corn, lovely flowers, blooming fruit-trees; cities and states are formed, commerce unites nations in friendly interests, arts flourish, sciences spread, philosophy, literature, religion expand themselves and bless mankind.

In Paradise man was pieced, not to be idle, but to dress and to keep it (Gen. ii. 15). It is an error of ancient date, and quite destitute of support from truth, that work was the penalty of mans fall. It is rather mans likeness to his Maker; for by work man becomes a kind of creator. Painful, toilsome work, work with the sweat of the brow (Gen. iii. 17), overwork, may be attributed to the fall, but not the cheerful activity of loving labor. The Lord is a worker. He works in creation; He works in redemption; He works in our regeneration. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. The angels are all workers, though of higher businesses than ours. Their active ministries, all from love, are of innumerable varieties. He maketh His angels spirits, His ministers flames of fire. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth for them who shall be heirs of salvation? All good men are workers either with head or hand; only the evil, desire to live upon the toil of others, and render no service in return,--to absorb and not to give. The Creator ministers to all.

Creation reflects its Maker in this; each part ministers to the other. The sun pours out its heat, light, and actinic power--its morning splendor and evening glory for all. The atmosphere bears its health,breezes, not only to supply all living things with life and vigor, but it is laden with the perfumes of innumerable flowers, and offers a magnificent feast of odors rich with grateful fragrance. The mountains yield both soil and streams, and lessons of majesty, and might, and silence. Each tiny stream that dances down the mountain side, and pearls with diamond drops its neighbor shrubs and blades of grass, is also a bright worker. The trees bear, the flowers bloom for others. The earth, from all her fertile bosom and her wondrous deeps, yields treasures,--all for others. Each creature, each plant, each atom, has a use by much it stands in relation to others, and imparts uses, and receives them in return. The kingdom of the Lord is a kingdom of uses. One grand purpose stands out in that constitution of things which makes it necessary for man to work--it is to bring out in him this likeness to His Heavenly Father, to initiate Him into the blessedness of doing good. Hail, then, O ministry of work, all-hail! Thine is the godlike province of leading out the young immortal to nobleness and service; to draw him from apathy of self to genial ministry; from barrenness to plenty; from pining helplessness to self-help and helpfulness for others; from the destitution of ignorance to the riches of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. Thine is it to make of emptiness a scene of beauty, a banquet of abundance, a store-house of plenty, a paradise below, and a preparation for a paradise in heaven!

The necessity for usefulness, and the love of use, are therefore both from the All-wise. And, when we survey the innumerable varieties of talent, and endowment, which go to make the wondrous perfection of graceful human life, we cannot doubt that these varieties of good and glorious gifts which enable some to supply the nutriment or the embellishment which others need, and all mutually subservient to each, and each to all, are also from Him, who is the author of every good and perfect gift (James i. 17).

It was said of Bezaleel, the director of the tabernacle work of the Israelites in the wilderness, I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship......and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they make all that I have commanded thee (Ex. xxli. 3-6).

And, indeed, may me not ask, if the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to devise works in precious stones, and metals, and wood, and all manner of workmanship, were the inspirations of the Divine Wisdom then, must they not be from the same adorable source now? Whence but from Infinite Wisdom, can any interior light be derived? That is the True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John i. 9).

And if we have rightly drawn the conclusion from the very constitution of the world, that the Creators intention is to form man into His own image, to make him happy in being useful to others, as He is infinitely happy in being infinitely useful, for He ministers to all; to countless heavens and to the meanest worms, through all the vast chain of being; then, must not his daily life have the weightiest bearing upon his mental constitution? Will it be all the same for his everlasting condition, whether six days out of seven he is doing justly, or acting fraudulently? In the slow formation of character, will the selfishness which is busy in his daily acts, or the prayers and meditations of Sunday, be the most potent? Will what a man thinks and says in pious hours or moments affect his perpetual states, or what be loves and does in his daily operations? Blessed are the dead, it is written, that die in the Lord, from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them; or, more correctly, follow with them (Rev. xiv. 13). Those who die, take their works with them. But what works? Not the outward results which appeared before men. The things they manufactured, the buildings they erected, or the treasures of art they produced, are all left behind. But was there not an inner series of works going on in the soul which through thought after thought, affection after affection, motive after motive, effort after effort, they were building themselves up to become characters noble, loving, truthful, benevolent, and adoring; or were desecrating themselves to become characters domineering, defiant, self-seeking, fraudulent, mean, sensual, polluted, and insane? THESE WORKS WILL FOLLOW WITH THEM.

He who is holy will be holy still; he who is righteous will be righteous still; he who is filthy will be filthy still; and he who is unjust will be unjust still (Rev. xxii. 11).

Piety and faith are constituent of practice; but deeds are the embodiment of the whole man. A man IS what he DOES, when he sets unforced. The temper he indulges when no one is present by whom he cares to be controlled, exhibits his real spirit. The uprightness with which he does his work when no checking eye is over him, or the dishonesty with which he deals and slights his obligations where he can, these display his real character. These already announce the rising angel, or the partly formed infernal. By their fruits ye shall know them. So taught the Great Teacher, our Divine Savior Himself. Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A god tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn dawn, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that DOETH the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matt. vii. 17-20).

Whenever mans final judgment is described in the Sacred Scriptures it is always announced to be according to his works: not to the exclusion of piety and faith, but including these. If the works of a man are sincerely good, his piety will be sincere and his faith sincere; if his works, are dishonest, his piety will be dishonest, and his faith hypocritical. Hence, what a mans work is, so is he altogether. And, hence, the sufficiency of the divine judgment, being a judgment of works, as undoubtedly it is always represented by the Great Judge Himself. I, the Lord (Jehovah) search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to every man according to his WAYS, and according to the FRUIT OF HIS DOINGS (Jer. xvii. 10). Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his WORK (Ps. lxii. 10). I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you ACCORDING TO YOUR WORKS (Rev. ii. 23). And behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his WORK shall be (Rev. xxii. 12).

In the sublime representation of judgment given in the 25th chapter of Matthew, the Judge is represented as saying to the sheep on His right hand, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have DONE it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have DONE it unto Me. And to the goats on His left hand, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye DID it not unto the least of these, ye DID IT NOT to me. What they had DONE in life fired their destiny on both sides. Doubtless, because it had before fixed their characters. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things DONE IN HIS BODY according to that HE HATH DONE, whether it be good or bad (2 Cor. v. 10).

The religious life, according to the Scriptures, is beautifully simple, rational, and complete. It is, to use the talents with which the All-Good has endowed us, and do no evil. We are shown what evil is by the Divine Commandments.

The law of life is sometimes given in the Divine Word by illustration, by example, and by parable, and sometimes by a single sentence; but it is always clear, and always reasonable. It is the absolute law of happiness. The virtues it commands are the essential foundations of well-being and peace. The evils it forbids are the certain causes of misery. Gods Commandments are easy in themselves; and if we obey sincerely and from our hearts, they soon become easy to us. It is delightful to learn of the Lord Jesus, who says, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Human devices have made false virtues. Burdens have been laid upon man in the name of religion that are no duties at all in the sight of the Most High; and just as these human contrivances are multiplied the real duties of true religion are lightly esteemed.

To a large class in Christendom it has been represented that a higher perfection could be attained than that of the ordinary obedient Christian, by abstaining from marriage; and to the priesthood it has been made compulsory, as if the highest perfection was not the truest obedience to the ordinations of the Creator. The result of this war against that central source of all excellence and well-being, the sacred love of marriage, has been not blessedness, but untold impurity and misery.

Others have taken themselves from active life, and made a virtue of standing day and night on pillars, living in caves, fasting excessively, multiplying prayers and religious ceremonies, substituting their own fanatical conceits for the grand and simple laws of Divine Order, and the result has been the brutalization of themselves, not the production of those noblest of all our Heavenly Fathers works,wise, noble, beautiful, and happy human beings.

As self-conceit has substituted their unauthorized whims for the grand and simple lows of the Word of God, so self-will makes them fierce and exacting from others. They become self-absorbed, furious, and impatient, ready to persecute and to slaughter in the name of the Lord, but really under the influence of their own unsubdued and pent-up passions.

The inquisitions, those fellest crimes against the human race, were founded and worked by persons thus cut off from holy sympathies with their kind, holy because from the Divine Love; and because they cut themselves off from the blessed sympathies of social life, they became hard, unfeeling, and persecuting men, with whom it was no heaven to live here, and who had made themselves repulsive to the joys of heavenly life hereafter. In modern times, when it has become unhappily the practice to repudiate works altogether from religion, and to profess that we have a warrant to enter heaven by faith in the Lords death for us, solely, whenever that faith is experienced and confessed, it has, nevertheless, come to pass that works of a peculiar kind have been highly magnified, while the works of obedience to the Divine Will, of justice and mercy, have been correspondingly undervalued, and even decreed not to conduce to salvation.

Frequent attendance on the means of grace, diligence at prayer meetings, class meetings, revival meetings, continual reading of books of piety, ore by many regarded as the great duties of religion; and though not loudly avowed as meritorious in the sight of the Lord, are, nevertheless, suffered to engross so entirely the attention of many, as to evince that they have not yet well-learned the Divine lesson. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Means of grace are not grace. And, if they are multiplied, until duties are neglected, and the weightier matters of the law-justice, mercy, and faith--are not duly exercised, they make Pharisees, but not Christians. Justice is the central virtue of Christianity, and piety the means of attaining this. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God (Micah. vi. 8).

Means should be attended to in the order of their importance; but the end should never be sacrificed; and the end of the Commandment is charity (the love of goodness), out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned (1 Tim. i. 5).

The red life of religion is twofold--the life of piety and the life of justice. The life of piety includes prayer to the Lord morning and evening, at especial times when the especial needs of the soul require it, and also at meals, reading the Word, and meditating upon Divine things. Faithfulness to Sabbath duties, as means to enable us to be faithful to all other duties. A constant effort to be well instructed in sound doctrine and spiritual truth, and the constant desire to be influenced by the Divine love and wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and abide in communion with His angelic kingdom.

The life of justice is to do right in all things; to sacrifice selfish gain to the claims of truth and goodness always; to love the Divine commandments as the ways of peace and purity; and to do unto others as we would they should do unto us.

These comprehend the whole duty of man; and when these are attended to, life becomes beautiful, true, and happy. We experience then the fulfillment of the assurance of the blessed Savior--I come not to take your joy away from you, but that My joy may remain in you, and your joy may be full (John xv. 11).

The life of religion is a delightful life. It is the denial of nothing but sin. It is a life in harmony with the love of God and man. It is a life of uprightness and justice, of innocence and goodwill, without crookedness and without remorse. It secures the roses of life without its thorns. It is a life of cheerful energy and health, of vigorous manhood and true enjoyment, far from the aches and pains which revelries induce. At peace with his Savior, the good man knows all is well. He has a cheerful spirit, rejoicing in life, and passing it as his Master did--doing good. Life here having been blessed, he knows it is a blessed thing to die.

A good man and an angel! These between,

How thin the barrier, what divides their fate?

Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year.

The life of religion ought to begin in early childhood. The Lord has prepared the young soul for a true knowledge of Himself, for help thoughts, and sacred lessons. A child will hang wonderingly and lovingly on the sweet narration that tells of angels and of heaven, of good men, and the victories of virtue in days gone by; and above all, of the Lord of life, and of His wonders when He dwelt on earth. The child will love to lisp its little prayer, and gather from the prayer of prayers that the will of God should be done on earth as it is done is heaven. The little soul should be gently led, and fortified by the histories and precepts of Holy Writ lovingly as it delights to hear them; but they should be given, here a little, and there a little. We should teach them diligently unto our children, and talk of them when we sit in the house, and when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up (Deut. vi. 7), Thus is the young soul prepared for the struggles of life, and especially for that greatest of all struggles--the conquest of self.

If a child is thus early taught that God is love, and its unchangeable friend; that His providence watches over all events and circumstances of life, and overrules all things for the best; that the Lords commandments are the laws of happiness, and can never be contravened but at the expense of self-inflicted misery; and if these precepts are manifestly the laws of life to its parents, then is such a child trained as the Lord would have it trained, and it will escape ten thousand false fears and cruel mischiefs. Such a child will be easily guided in the great concerns of life, and saved from defilements and errors which engulph millions, and from which some escape but with rude conflicts and terrible scars.

Imbued thus early with a life of piety and virtue in the atmosphere of a happy religious home, the young soul would be stored with every requisite for meeting those self-revelations which the temptations of later life would unfold. The struggles against sin would be real struggles, and real victories would be achieved. Owing to the too limited application of religion to life, a large amount of our conduct is supposed by many to be neutral ground. The temper is usually dealt with very leniently, if a person does not swear. A hasty, bitter, unkind manner, is often attributed to temperament, and not made the subject of prayer and especial persevering effort, that it may he changed into a patient, considerate, gentle respect for the feelings and the rights of others.

The whole domain of business is considered neutral, and in the transactions of trade, a latitude is allowed at which angels must weep.

Trade swarms with frauds. So many tricks and misrepresentations abound, that the utmost vigilance and the utmost skill are scarcely able to defend even the long-established; and hard indeed is it for novitiates to withstand the impositions of the conning. The crafty wiles of some wide-reaching villains, who spread their meshes through vast dishonest undertakings over half county, spread sorrow among thousands, and gild their harness with the plundered savings of honest industry, the filched support of widows and of orphans, are deadlier far than open robbery. The highwayman strips one victim of what he carries; these cheat multitudes of their all. The one is readily condemned; the other, through a depraved public sentiment, often escapes. Only the light of religion can combat these subtle refuges of lies, and tear these spider-webs asunder.

They are not always detected here, but in the eternal world they will be all unveiled, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be made known.

Whether successful or unsuccessful it the worlds esteem, the selfish plunderer is no doubt punished here. Could we lift the mask, and see the sordid man as he is, filled with cares, anxieties, lusts, passions, fears, doubts, hates, gnashing with disappointment when defeated, clutching the poor booty when successful, and for another figure in his bank-book, or for a larger house and more fields, hardening himself in villainy, and digging a deeper pit, and insuring a deadlier fall, we might pity those who are so ruthless to their fellow citizens.

Conspicuous, some short time ago, was the case of the bankers clerk, who had carried on a long fraud of twenty years; giving himself no respite, no holiday for all that time; incessantly on the watch and on the rack, yet still plundering. He had heaped up sixty thousand pounds, but was fit last detected, and while being conveyed away, sunk in paralysis, a helpless imbecile; the type, sooner or later, of all his tribe. A prostration, slow but sure, of all that is manly, that is angelic, even of the intellect itself, comes from persistent sin. The outer darkness of which the Savior speaks, is that horrid night of the soul that comes when conscience and reason are both alike completely wrecked by guilty perseverance in wrong.

When the heart, that is deceitful above all things, has so depraved the understanding that the light which is in a man becomes darkness, and he is insane from baseness, all is over with him, and such is the awful termination of every way that leads to destruction, no matter how far covered over by worldly success.

When the Savior had been prepared by going down into Egypt, by the training of the temple, by obedience to home duties and attendance in the synagogues, he was led into the wilderness to be tempted. Now, men are taken into the workshop, the counting-house, the bank-parlor, or on change to be tempted, and there temptations as real occur, as those of old, and essentially similar to them. Angels and fiends are near. Their principles operate in man. He stands between heaven and hell, and has to fight his fearful battle. His eternal destiny depends upon what he chooses. The Savior was tried first by the suggestion to get at bread in some ready way, not wait for the slow but divine method, but take what was at hand, and turn stones into bread. Next he was urged to recklessness, to cast Himself down, expecting that Divine Providence would prevent the consequences of His willfulness and folly. And, lastly, the false glare of worldly dominion was spread before Him, and He was promised by the deluding demon the kingdoms of the world and its glory, if He would but become a self-seeking demon-worshiper. The Savior conquered by the Word, to show us how to conquer; the devil departed, and angels came and ministered unto Him.

Now, see that young man in his counting-house. He is at the early part of his career, and poor. He has come into a low state, and is discouraged. Trade is gloomy, returns are slow; the ordinary operations of genuine business will be a considerable time before they make that successful return for which he longs; the tempter comes. The idea is suggested, that the supply in the usual way will be very slow; there are short ways in his power to become speedily rich. He can make a false show. He can adulterate his wares. He can put out worthless paper. He can present in some form that which to many will appear to be bread, but which will turn out only to be a stone. Near this young man are infernals with their fraud, and also angels with the suggestion, that all true life is lived in harmony with that Divine Word, which proceeds from the mouth of God.

Happy is he who listens to the angels, and conquers like his Lord.

Again the tempter comes. Be recklesscare nothing about orderly means--make a dash. You see no good down there, but plunge. It seems wrong enough, but perhaps Providence will make it right; who knows? The temptation thickens. Others have done wild things, and sometimes they have seemed to answer; shall he?

Self-will is urged to plunge recklessly down to meannesses, from which it has revolted, to a blind, rash, base course, under the delirious fancy that somehow no harm will be done; in some way the destruction that others have sustained will be averted. The tempter says, make the plunge, dash down. The young man is enveloped in gloom, and agitated with doubt, fear, and distress. But a voice comes from within, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. He listens. He adopts it in faith, and a second time is saved.

Again the tempter comes. This time love of the world is greatly excited. There is displayed before the young mans mind the large business, the great profits, the extensive establishments of many who are reputed to stick at nothing which will accomplish ready success. Look at that millionaire, whose ledger is his Bible, and whose counting-house is his church, even on Sunday. See his splendid mansion in the country, the respect that is paid to him in the city. His goods are falsely marked, to imitate whatever is successful; his lengths are dishonest; he will take advantage of any poor tradesmans necessities to grind him down to the dust nothing is too unfair for him to propose, or to carry out, if only it will succeed. Do as he does, and glories equal to his shall be yours, nay, greater even, for the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them are given up to the unprincipled, the ambitious, the false, the energetically unscrupulous. The young man is sorely tried; an overweening desire to be great and powerful infests him; the devil; taketh him up to an exceedingly high mountain. Day after day, and month after month the tempting influence assails in many cases. The young man prays fur help, but for a while no help comes. The infernal delusion is pressed on. All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. At times he is near falling; but faith in Divine Truth sustains Him. He is almost in despair, when there comes over his mind, like a dictate from heaven, which indeed it is,--Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve.

Then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels come and minister unto him (Matt. iv. 11).

These temptations are life temptations. The weak fall in them; the faithful conquer.

Let us analyze a scene like this, and something like it must be the experience of every young man in the present condition of trade and commercial affairs in the world, where gilded fraud is rampant, and where by vast numbers of professing Christians it is said, and by another great number the idea is connived at, that religion has in this field nothing to do.

These say, religion is a matter of faith, faith in the fact that Christ died for you. Believe that, and you are saved that very minute. Religion is indeed a matter of faith; but it is faith not in one incident only, but in all we know of the Savior, His character, His life, His works, His teachings, His death, His resurrection and ascension; His government of heaven and earth, His coming to us and regenerating us by His Spirit. It is a faith in what HE REQUIRES US to do and be, as well as a faith in what HE WAS AND IS. He who believes what he pleases, and passes over what he pleases, of the Lords teaching, has no faith in the Savior. He has only a faith in his own intellect, rather in his own caprice. True faith is the entire surrender of the heart, soul, and life, to the Spirit and commandments of the Lord Jesus, and is founded on love to Him. With the heart a man believes unto righteousness.

Let us, then, analyze the temptation to which we have adverted. The young man is in the midst, between two groups of influences. He is fresh, we will suppose, from a virtuous home. He has much love for God and goodness, which has been stored up and strengthened in him by his Heavenly Father, from within and from without, through earliest childhood and to his entrance upon life. He has been well taught in the Sacred Scriptures, and has faith in those teachings. He has a straightforward mind and truthful character. His imagination has pictured grand things to come from upright dealing and virtuous living. He has a high feeling of honor. He views trade as it means by which, with rectitude, frugality, perseverance, and energy, he can achieve competence and respectability, and render service to mankind.

He anticipates working hard, perhaps, but he anticipates civility and sympathy from his companions, uprightness in his employer, and fairness and honesty in those with whom his business brings him into contact. He has probably much poetry and romance in his disposition, and his musings have pictured life with a roseate hue, and presented an honorable career as his, sustained with comfort, and crowned with a goodly family, and the modest splendor of a beauteous home. Now, see him launched into life. His companions often coarse, flashy, rude, and unprincipled. His employer pursuing a trade tainted with questionable devices. He is expected to push business by cajolery, by misrepresentation, by tricks, by falsehood even. He observes those in high favor who do this. He sees all around him things done which shock his sense of truth and right. His faith begins to waver. Temptations commence.

The hereditary dispositions to evil are called out. His vanity, his pride, his envy, his love of gain, his love of pleasure are called up, and every weakness is skillfully played upon. He needs all the help that his religion can give him, and sad indeed is it for him if he has been led to think that religion has nothing to do with these things. He sinks down into a worldling, and throws aside his youthful virtuous impressions and religion altogether, as impracticable things that wont do for this world at all, or into that verbally Christian, but semi-infidel state which gives a Sunday respect to religion, but neglects it all the rest of the week. In either case the man is debased, the real work of life is left undone, and the evils of his hereditary nature are strengthened, hardened, and intensified by his whole actual daily life. A devil has no great objection to prayers, and a few stray pious thoughts transiently passing over the mind on the Sunday, so that the absolute, active, practical work of life is done by evil principles, which form the soul for hell. The lusts and passions which bear sway in such a soul acquire power by daily action and by evil deeds. Bad maxims and bird habits acquire strength continually. He gradually believes less and less in integrity, sincerity, and truth anywhere, as they die out in himself. He grows suspicious, malevolent, impatient; is never satisfied; ceases to believe in peace, contentment, or happiness on this side of the grave, and has many misgivings of a hereafter.

The love of the world goes on absorbing such an one more nod more completely, until his thoughts are ever wandering after the indulgence of his leading propensity, be it love of gain, the passion for fame, or the lust of sensual indulgence, and, if he lives long enough, he becomes a dotard and an imbecile, ever craving to indulge the ruling passion, his reason broken down, his candlestick taken out of his place (Rev. ii. 6).

On the other land, if the young disciple in life has been taught that the very object of living in the world is to acquire by choice and practice a Christian, that is, an angelic character, he will be prepared for the struggle, and armed with a sense of its tremendous issue. He will not deceive himself with lip-service, or with thought-faith. He will know that he must work out his salvation with fear and trembling, and the time to be true is the time when he is tempted. take up his cross daily (not weekly), and follow the Lord (Luke ix. 23); and when he is proposed to be a party to that which would be unjust and unprincipled, he will courteously but firmly intimate his obedience to God, rather than to unrighteous men. Sometimes he will find his integrity will win esteem; sometimes it will provoke dislike, and bring him loss. He must be prepared to be a martyr, if need be; for such are the martyrs required in our day. But he must preserve his love for his Saviors law and commandment under all circumstances, for on this his salvation depends. No matter that in fancy he prefers the Savior and His Kingdom, if in act he denies Him, in his inward soul he betrays his Master, and denies the Lord that bought him. There is a canker in his soul, and it will be sure to find him out.

If, however, he fight and overcome, he will find a blessing from the Lord; all that is good in him will be strengthened; his love, his faith, his virtue, will be established, and the foundation will be laid of a real heavenly character. Having conquered once by power from the Lord, he will conquer more readily the next time, and the next. The power of evil, like the house of Saul, will wax feebler and feebler; the power of good, like the house of David, will wax stronger and stronger. The grand constituents of a Christian life are three-charity, faith, and good works--the trinity in religion; and, like the Divine Trinity, these three are one. He who has charity in its strict and proper sense, that is, the LOVE OF GOODNESS, will have faith in goodness, and in the Lord the Source of goodness; and he who has love and faith will no GOOD. Charity rejoiceth in the truth, and believeth all things (1st Cor. xiii. 6, 7).

True faith is not a conviction or some one truth in which we suppose we see some selfish advantage, but a living confidence in all truth founded in the LOVE OR TRUTH, and going forth into obedience. Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works (James ii. 17, 18). Works, then, are the embodiment of faith and love. Such as the faith and love are, such are the works, and vice versa. Where there are no holy love and holy faith, there will be no good works; where there are some love and faith in the soul, there will be some good in the works; like fruit not ripe, the works will not be of that pure character they ought to be, but they will be improving. When love and faith reign in the soul, the works will be truly good; and while the Lord approves them, by them men will be led to glorify our Father who is in
heaven.

Good works, truly good works, are never alone. They presuppose two other things which underlie them: FAITH, which believes in the truth that the Lord is, and that He concerns Himself with us, and requires our obedience; and under this, there is the LOVE of truth, which disposes us to accept and obey it. Those who are condemned, are so because they received not the love of truth, that they might be saved (2nd Ep. Thess. ii. 10).

Good works are not saving because there is any merit in them, but because they manifest the inner life which fits the soul for heaven. The fruit-tree has no merit that it bears, but because it bears it is fitted to be part of an orchard; and if it did not bear, or if it bore worthless fruit, it would be fitted only to be cut down and cast out.

A man has, of course, far different capabilities and powers from those of a tree, but he has no merit in the use of any of them, however wise he may be in such use, for in every good use he makes of them the greatest advantages fire with himself, and all he can do is to fit himself for higher and higher blessings. What have we that we have not received, will be the confession of the highest angel as well as the lowliest Christian. By the grace of God we care what we are.

Good works, though not meritorious, are essential to the salvation of man; for as a man is what his works are, when seen in their real character, if good works; are not present in it mans life, the man himself is not good; and if he is not good, he is evil; that is, NOT SAVED. The Lord is a Savior because He saves His people FROM THEIR SINS (Matt. i. 21).

In every stage of mans religious life, he is required in the Word of God to keep a steady eye on his works, as the evidences to himself as well as to others of his inner state. When he first begins the life of religion, and confesses himself a sinner, he should not do this in technical phrase and set expression, without examination and without reflection, but he ought really to compare himself with the Divine commandments, and see what his failings are, and pray to the Lord for power to overcome them. He should repent of the sins he sees in his conduct and feels in himself and be especially on his guard at those times and in those circumstances when they are most wont to beset him. Too many are betrayed into the idea that they are saved, because they are persuaded at some meeting they are saved, although their leading faults are the same after this fancied salvation as before.

The whole of the religion of a large number of persons, including especially the abettors and the attenders of revival meetings, consist of two states of excitement, each equally based on false persuasions, the one an excitement grounded on the idea that God is full of wrath, and is threatening them every moment with death here and horrors infinite in hell, and the other that as soon as they believe in Christ their sins are wiped away, and they become suddenly as white as snow. They are raised to a phrensy of terror by a false description of Deity, and then transferred to a phrensy of delight by a false confidence that all their salvation is completed, when the real work of changing their characters has hardly yet begun; while the mischief is increased by the assurances of the spreaders of this superficial religion, that man has nothing to do, no commandments to keep, no repentance to effect, no works to perform. How different is this from the calls of the Word, any sincere render of the Scriptures will readily perceive. A religion popularized at the expense of its truth and honesty, loses in depth and worth what it gains in breadth, and becomes an elaborate deception.

The code of worldly honor, artificial as it is, and overlooking as it does the detestable dishonor of betraying weak women to self-degradation and a loss for them of lifes brightest, purest treasures, is yet safer to be trusted in monetary matters than that spurious sanctimoniousness which teaches a man to believe he is saved, but leaves him selfish, keen, and greedy. Such a man will be honest where he MUST, and slippery where he CAN. He has merely altered the form of his sin. He may no longer be among the outwardly profane, but be is among those who betray the Son of Man with a kiss. He may be severed from the hell of the boldly bad, but he is fast as ever to the hell of the ill-tempered, the deceitful, the avaricious or the covetous, or some other of the more decent, but not less deadly sins. Little children, let no man deceive you; he that DOETH righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest; and the children of the devil; whosoever DOETH NOT RIGHTEOUSNESS, is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and DO those things that are pleasing in His sight. And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which he had given. us (1 John iii. 7, 10, 22, 24).

The works of a sincere religious life may be regarded as threefold, not because there is any essential difference in them, but merely for convenience and orderly arrangement.

There are, first, those which regard mans personal life and duties; secondly, those which regard his domestic life and duties; and, thirdly, those which regard his public life and duties. Though we have noble germs of the Divine Image in us, yet by our fallen nature we are prone to evil; and all, more or less, in one form or another, have fallen into actual evil. When, therefore, the voice of religion begins to make itself powerful in the soul, and the eternal concerns of a man begin to affect him as they ought, when truth comes home to him and asks how he stands as to the things that belong to his peace, the light that flashes over him discovers his failings, and presents him to himself in an entirely new point of view. He is convicted of sins; he feels wrong in everything; he does nothing rightly as it ought to be done.

He sees sins of temper, sins of omission and sins of commission, sins of forgetfulness and sins of purpose, sins of habit and sins of passion. He who cannot discover what he has done and is doing amiss, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. The true penitent sees himself stained with sin all over. He feels himself convicted of sin, and he feels himself helpless. He may, perhaps, be some time before he comes to the sense of his helplessness. He tries a variety of resolutions and expedients, like the woman in the gospel who had tried all sorts of physicians for twelve years, but in vain, and then came to touch the Saviors garment, and was made whole. So with the real penitent. The voice of Divine truth, like that of John the Baptist, cries constantly within him, Bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. He continues to feel a helplessness, a faultiness, and a hollowness in all he does. A sense of need of a Savior grows upon him, or perhaps flashes suddenly upon him. He is blind, and needs some one to open his eyes; he is deaf, and needs some one to make him quick to perceive, and docile to obey; his hands are withered, and he needs some one to give him power to stretch them forth; he is palsied altogether, and cannot walk; he is drowning; and he wants a hand to save him; or dead, spiritually, and bound in grave-clothes, and needs a voice Divine to permeate through him, and give him life to arise from the dead, and to command that the disciples shall loose him and let him go. To the real penitent these are real states, though spiritual. He does not confess himself a sinner without knowing himself to be so. He sees in what he sins. He sees he cannot regenerate himself. His want of a Savior grows daily more and more upon him, and at length arises to yearning, overpowering demand, Lord, help me, or I perish. To a soul in this state the Lord Jesus surely comes, sooner or later, and his fears are turned into joy his weakness into strength, his diseases into health, his death into life, and, as far as he can yet bear, his hell into heaven. His feet are placed on the path of life, and he goes on his way rejoicing. He feels the Saviors love as the balm of love infinite, as that of One who lived and died for him. All doubts fly at the feeling He died for me, and ever lives, with all power in heaven and earth to give repentance, remission of sins, salvation, and peace to all now effected is a real change. If he were sour, sulky, or peevish in temper, he will have become loving, gentle, and kind.

If guilty of the ruder sins, he will resolve to sin no more, and will feel new power to do so. He will feel pity for the faults of others, but be unsparing upon his own. In the exultation of the time, he will conceive much more has been done than could possibly be effected; this, time and Divine working within him will correct, but there will be a sincere, honest change is his habits, and especially in relation to the errors of life in which his weaknesses chiefly consisted. He will be sensitive as the mimosa to the touch of his old evils, and be impressed with the incalculable value of the prayer, Lead us not into temptation. There will be no mistake in his demeanor. He will sit at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. He will exult, like the Israelites when they had crossed the Red Sea and suppose that all his work is done, because his early fetters are now completely broken. But no matter for that, let him rejoice in the Lord. He has become a freeman of heaven, a disciple of the Savior. And, though future toils, and labors, and combats will come, let him live awhile, mature himself, and gather strength and healing from the sun of righteousness, and when future wrestlings come, as his days, so shall his strength be.

Our Lord says, Make the tree good, and his fruit good (Matt. xii. 33). And, what we are especially anxious to urge now upon the young disciple of the Savior is, that he must look to his Lord for power to live, and look to his life that it be a genuine obedience to the commandments, from love to the Savior and faith in Him. If the fruits are not altered, the tree is not altered. The fruit will be young, and small, find immature for a time; but it will be honest fruit. It is described by an apostle thusThe fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal. v. 22, 23). Whatever were his faults before, now, in meekness, gentleness, and goodness, he will strive to keep the commandments of his Lord and Savior. The young soldier of Christ will take up his cross DAILY, but he will rejoice in his cross; he will see it is surmounted by a crown. His salvation will be salvation from sin. His new life will be evidenced by his works; not, indeed, the works of a Judaising spirit, which Paul condemned, but the Christian works of faith, which he enforced--the faith which works by love, the holy works of loving obedience.

Paul said, For circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God (1 Cor. vii. 19). In self-denying devotion to real usefulness, is temper, in rectitude, in temperance, in punctuality to word and work, in patience, he will be a new man. This will be seen by others, and he will feel himself that he has the inestimable treasures in himself of love, joy, and peace.

As he advances in his spiritual growth, and the early fervors of his blessed life pass away, he will discover defects in his obedience, and new interior foes to be encountered; but will a new heart nod a right spirit, he will persevere, and be another illustration of the Sacred promiseThe steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and He delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand (ver. 23, 24).

There are, however, 2ndly, household works of true religion, by which a Christian ought to be tested, and may test himself. The relations of home are inestimably important. An unhealthy sentimentality in religion which supposes that excitement is salvation, oftentimes absorbs the professors so entirely in self, that all others, and their duties to others, are of no account. They slight father, mother, husband, wife, sister, brother, servants their masters, and masters their servants, and all the duties embraced by these sacred relations are treated as trifling, or worthy only of contempt. Intoxicated by excited feeling, they undervalue the great laws of mutual relationship, sad mutual responsibility, in which we are placed by our Divine Creator, and the more religious they are, the less faithful they are to those great charges which result from the ordinations of the All-wise. But, in this respect, also, By their fruits ye shall know them. It was once said to me, by a sincere young Christian, who had been much hurt by the proceedings of many she had known, Can you tell me, sir, how it happens, that the people of God (to avoid mistake, I must remark, she meant on this occasion, excited Calvinists), have such very bad tempers? I fear, was the reply, that it is because they are not the people of God; they only think they are. So, often, zealous parents, excited by a fanatical religion, will neglect their duties to their children and their homes, under the idea that their own salvation depends upon this absorbing attention to means, instead of attention to duties.

But nothing of this kind has the slightest sanction in the Word of God, or in reason. The man who prefers himself to his duties, is not denying self, and he who does not deny himself is not following the Lord. They who give good reason to their immediate connexions to complain that their just duties are neglected, are not serving the Lord by doing justly. We are placed in families to minister especially to the regeneration and happiness of those with whom the Providence of the Lord has placed us, and if we are neglecting this, and depressing them by our avoidance of our sacred duties at home, and to our home relations, we need much to distrust ourselves, and our excitements. We are offending our brethren for whom our Lord died. We are preferring feeling to DOING, and our Lord says, So likewise ye, when ye SHALL HAVE DONE all these things which are commanded, you say we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do (Luke xvii. 10). The religion that does not make fathers and mothers more loving, attentive, gentle, kind, faithful, and self-sacrificing to their children whom God has given them to train for heaven, the religion which does not more truly conjoin husbands and wives in the tenderest bonds of considerate affection, and blend them and more into one, the religion that does not make brothers and sisters deferential to each other, and heartily and generously helpful, the religion that does not invest all duty with the sacred charm of delight, this is not the religion of Him, who said, Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, shall in NO CASE enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. v. 21).

True religion remembers that heaven is a grand home, and seeks by every art and act of loving duty to make the home on earth like heaven; earthly brothels and sisters like brother and sister angels, and love and minister to them for the sake of Him who is the Father, and seeks to become the Savior, of them all.

Oh! Be kind to each other,

The nights coming on,

When friend and when brother

Perchance may be gone.

Then, midst our affliction,

How sweet to have earned,

The blest recollection

Of kindness returned.

Oh! Be kind to each other,

The nights coming on,

when friend and when brother

Perchance may be gone.

3rdly, In the order of good works which constitute the Christian life are the duties of our office, position, or employment.

We have already observed that different and varied uses and employments in the world are beautiful ministries, ordained by the Infinite Worker, who, from Divine love, operates to bless all His works, and who seeks to bless man by making him a loving worker.

The man or woman without any useful work in hand is the pitiable slave of ennui. Hard work is far better than no work. Hard work absorbs in useful toil the boiling energies of the masses, which otherwise would flow over into excesses destructive to the world. But, no doubt, as true Christianity wills the working classes to thought, to improvement, to spirituality and self-control, long bouts and heavy toil will both give way, and cheerful labor and enlightened relaxation will make human life easy as well as happy, while machines will multiply production and almost destroy fatigue. The head will do more and the hands less. This is evidently the whole destiny of things now. Bunt never will work cease; never should it, happy will it be when our children are all taught that work is a sacred thing inspired from the Most High; that in heaven even, the angels, that excel is strength, no His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His Word. All His hosts are ministers of His, that DO His pleasure (Ps. ciii. 20, 21). The seraphs are burning ones, who glow with love to do what the Lord has gifted them to perform. The cherubs are guarding ones, who keep sacredly the truths of heaven from being perverted or profaned. Every work on earth is a ministry from heaven. Can that be any other than a sacred change which turns barren wastes into smiling corn-fields and beauteous gardens? Can that work be any other than a sacred thing which builds and embellishes cities, forms beauteous mansions, which evolves and constructs the wondrous miracles of our machinery, connects counties and kingdoms by magnificent roads and rapid conveyances, which covets the ocean with countless fleets, each bearing its varying height, and all multiplying the blessed links which bind the whole human family in mutual benefit and mutual blessing.

What would man be, what would the world be, without this glorious ministry of work? A selfish reptile, coiled up in his miserable waste, driven at intervals to fiendish exertion, to seize and prey upon the plunder which would satisfy his hanger, and, when glutted, then sink down again. Can that, again, we say, which transforms the human serpent-savage to a man, be other than a sacred thing, an inestimable blessing?

While labor, for the good, is a blessed ministry; for the bad, it is the only amelioration. Benedict was compelled to provide work in the sixth century for his works, for without it these pseudo-pious men had become the pests of the church. Our criminals, without work, become moody and insane. Well, then, has religion no duties in relation to active life and business? What then, did our Lord mean when He said, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (justice), and all things shall be added unto you? Is it not clear that we should seek the Lords kingdom, and justice in everything? he workmen should seek it in honestly and sincerely doing the best that skill and sincerity will permit him, and do it cheerfully, loving to think he is serving God by serving his fellow man. The employer should seek by every skilful arrangement to promote the well-being of his workman, and, by cheerfully giving the best wages he can afford, to contribute to the comfort and well-being of his family and home.

The capitalist, the merchant, the statesman, the legislator; all, from the highest to the lowest ministries of life, should strive in justice and judgment to bring religion into life, and remember that the measure by which they do this is the precise measure of their personal religion.

Religions path they never trod

Who equity condemn,

Nor ever are they just to God

Who prove unjust to men.

By this we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. The want of these good works in life is precisely the one want of this age. It is precisely the want which prevents the will of our Heavenly Father being done on earth as it is done in heaven. It cannot be light for religion to disclaim this regeneration of the world, and profess to have nothing to do with these outer works.

Oh, no. By faith in the Saviors love and providence; by conscientious devotion to right; by lovingly seeking to perfect our talent and skill by increasing intelligence, and spreading it into every cottage; by a just performance of our duties, by seeking through prayer every help that we need, we shall feel heaven already within ourselves, know it in our homes, and spread it through every avenue of society and relation in life, until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.

Oh, that every reader of these pages would ponder well upon the unspeakable importance of DEEDS in human life!

An act of fraud in an employer who provides bad materials or stinted strength in a building, or an act of dishonest idleness, or careless incompetency in the erection of a building, often issues in a catastrophe which makes many a wife a widow, and many a child an orphan. An act of fraud in the commercial world may ruin a firm, stop a manufactory, send want, misery disease, and it may be death, to the cottage of the industrious artisan. An set of violence on the part of a despot, may lead, as in the late terrible instance of the Northern Autocrat, to the destruction of a quarter of a million of men. Acts of trickery, spread through all departments of society, fill life with suspicion and distrust and rob it of half its joys. Business, as it is, destroys that happy confidence, that loving reliance on one another, which would come from genial upright transactions, and make trade, what it is really intended to be, a blessed interchange of mutual good. Trade is a noble thing, a holy thing. It links man to man, family to family, kingdom to kingdom, by mutual needs and mutual benefits. Trade is no gambler, who only gains when another loses, and only rejoices in anothers distress. Gambling is akin to hell; but trade blesses all who partake in it. Both sides are givers and receivers. If one gains by honest trade, two gain, or it may be thousands. It is heavens own mode of civilizing, of raising, and blessing man. Can, then, those mean frauds which poison and degrade a thing so beneficial, and so sacred, be venial faults, or matters neutral? Real truth, and candid integrity in trade, would double at least the blessings, and the enjoyments of life.

Let us regard dishonesty in business in relation to the doer. If a man over-reach another in the duality of the article he makes or sells, or in its measures or genuineness in any say, why is it? Clearly he loves dishonest gain, more than he loves his neighbor; nay, more than he loves uprightness itself, or duty. He loves his own least gain more than he loves his neighbors prosperity, or comfort, his health, or life.

If he knowingly persist in undermining the commands of God, does he not love himself and his will more than the Divine Commandments, or the Divine Love that gave them?

And if he cherish in his heart and act in his life self-love, and the unjust love of the world, is he not retaining and strengthening in himself the very essence of the lower kingdom? Will not the Searcher of hearts say, The kingdom of hell is within you?

What must the real belief of any one be who persists in corrupt acts in business? Must it not be a faith in cunning, in fraud, in over-reaching, in love of gain, in love of self? He may say, I believe the Savior died on the cross for me. And so he did. It was precisely to save us all, from every iniquity, that the Savior died. He lived and died, that we might have the perfect assurance from His own act, and His own lips, that He, the God of the universe, has conquered all hell, and will save us from all evil. But if a man believes that his well-being depends upon evil, that evil is still more powerful than good, he does not believe in the Savior; he dares not venture his all on Him; his faith is vain.

Life is the test of our faith. Our works reveal what we are. The Savior said, When the Son of Man shall come, shall he find faith in the earth? And, truly, if by faith we mean a full trust in Him, and His commandments, then must it be confessed that it is small and weak in the earth, and especially so in its business relations. Yet it is rising. There are germs in many n conscience, of a higher life in business. The snow-drops appear above the wintry chill. There are here find there men who pray not to be taken out of the work, but to be kept from the evil.

Oh, for the increase of this goodly reformation! Oh, that every Christian man would look at his business, or occupation, as the circle he has to make like heaven, and remember that his success or his failure is the measure of what he is.

Is he not true in his business? he is not a lover of truth. Is he not true in his business? he is not a lover of justice. Justice and truth are essentially emanations from the Divine Nature, and are like the Lord Himself. He who does love them, does not love Him.

To carry the Christian life into each mans work and occupation, should be the daily prayer, and daily effort of every one of us. What wonders might not then be achieved, what a happy life would business-life then become. Each trade would be ennobled, each workman would be a man of honor; an active co-operator with the Lord, higher, far higher, than the worlds men of honor.

The young workman, true and energetic, faithful and generous, with a holy love to the Lord, as the God of all that is useful, would go cheerfully to his labor, and do it as and act of religion. He would pray for strength to be dutiful and sincere, and to bring out in his work the greatest excellence, and the greatest beauty. When age had matured him, his habits would have become those of willing goodness, of entire trustworthiness. The employer would regard it as a work of religion to do justly by all in his service, to regard them as intelligent and worthy companions in life, as fellow-immortals, and each one as important is his sphere as himself, or the capitalist in his. The poor man would then be a noble man. There would be sympathy and association amongst all classes. The head and the hand, the heart and the feet, would cheerfully serve each other. The world of trade would be regenerated, and be truly a happy world. This would be the motto of all, One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. The workers in metals, the workers in stones, the workers in wood, as in old time, would know that they were inspired by the Lord, and filled with wisdom and intelligence from Him, and were doing daily what He commanded them

The employer, the merchant, the commercial man, the artist, the poet, the philosopher, the legislator, the divine, each working from love and faith, each inspired from Jesus Christ, the central sun of the soul,--the Divine Man, infinite love manifested, each round Him, like the several planets, doing their daily duty, each receiving and imparting the affection and the light, in which they live and move, and have their being, would labor for holy ends; and whether they are able to do little or much, they would do it oil for Him, who has done all for them.

Every work when pursued from a lofty end, is a work most noble. Every use, however humble is dignified, when done from love and duty. The poorest shed where some great work was done, becomes thereby dignified. So every duty of life, however apparently insignificant in itself, when regarded as the part appointed us to do by the Lord of Life, and done from love to Him, becomes a grand work, and it is only for lifes whole duties to be performed in that spirit, and all the world would become truly blessed.

Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,

And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.

Pray heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind

To this thy purpose--to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fixed, and feelings purely kind,

Strength to complete, and with delight review.

And grace to give the praise, where all is ever due.

Rouse to some work of high and holy love,

And then an angels happiness shall know,

Shalt bless the earth, while in the world above.

In many a branching stream, and wider grow

The seed that in these few and fleeting hours

Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow,

Shall deck thy gave with amaranthine flowers,

And yield thee fruits divine in heavens immortal bowers.

The true method of carrying religion into every department of life, into the warehouses and workshops, and overcoming the obstacles which stand in the way, the pulpit can only vaguely indicate. The workers themselves can far better do that. They know the details of wrong, and can, with divine help, best see the road to right. It should, therefore, be the aim of each man to tarry the lamp of divine truth into his own operations; to pray for the love, the faith, and the courage to do right; to be content with what his Heavenly Father gives him by right doing, he it little or much. The gaudy gains of unrighteousness are but gilded misery. In the race of fraud, he loses most who wins most. A corrupt soul can only carry its corruptions, not its gains, into its everlasting home, and cannot enjoy its gains, even here, as a human soul should. Innocence gives contentment and peace, and energy and intellect will always give comfort.

Let all men trust in God, live virtuously, and cultivate their powers, and all may say, in a ripe and virtuous old age, I have been young, and now am old; but I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

There is a custom among the miners of Saxony exceedingly valuable and exceedingly interesting. They assemble before descending their pits, either of coal or silver, and sing a hymn, hear a psalm or chapter, and utter a short prayer to the Lord, for His protection and blessing. I have been with them at four oclock in the morning, at such a service, lasting about twenty minutes, when relays of workmen have been needed to keep the works constantly in operation, and four hundred stalwart honest working men have shown piety and labor in loving union; and health, order, and happiness have been the goodly result. Why should not every trade have essentially the same thing? These men come along cheerfully, with their tools and their hymn-book; one of their number leads the service, and concludes by wishing them success in their labor in the name of the Lord; and these workmen, though their occupation is rude, are intelligent, polite, virtuous, self-reliant, trustful, and cheerful as any class of men can be. Why may not our miners and iron-workers do and be the same? Our hardy workmen, noble in their skill, and noble in their usefulness, and often noble in their good-will to one another, and their love of fairness, need only the purifying and hallowing influences of an intelligent religion, to make them as great blessings to their class as the work they do is a blessing to their race.

How grand it would be to see the workmen of our metal trades polish themselves, as they do their steel; make their own intellectual powers as thorough for their work as their steam-engines are, and advancing in self-progress as vigorously as the trains and vessels of whose machines they are the makers, and the life and soul! They would all be mutual supporters then, and their thousand comfortable homes would give a ready fund for instant help in the few cases of temporary sorrow. Let each man pray for this to the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in the workmans class; who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and who now dignifies work by ministering unto all.

Oh! that the working classes would lay this seriously to heart, and follow the advice of one of our poets in their own ranks, whose bunting words are words of wisdom, as well as words of poetic fire.

O youth! Flame earnest, still aspire

With energies immortal;

to many a heaven of desire

Our yearning opes a portal.

And, tho Age wearies by the way,

And hearts break in the furrow,

Well sow the golden grain today,--

The Harvest comes tomorrow.

Build up heroic lives, and all

Be like a sheathen sabre,

Ready to flash out, at Gods call,

O chivalry of labor!

Triumph and toil are twins, and aye

Joy suns the cloud of sorrow;

And tis the martyrdom today

Brings victory tomorrow.

One thing we must finally urge; the work of bringing religion into life is not a moments work, nor to be attained by a thought. It is a life-work. But it is our great work for eternity. By laboring to enter the strait gate, to put our house in order, to eat the meat that perisheth not, we shall find difficulties and temporary defeats, but not so great as sin finds. It is expensive sometimes to be good; it causes sweat of heart and brow; but it costs much more to be evil. In this worlds wealth, sin is a costly thing, though not worth having. To get a bloated body, full of disease and often-times racked with pain, it frequently costs a man his whole fortune perseveringly wasted, his time mis-spent, his character ruined, his soul demonized, his everlasting happiness impossible. What cost can be so tremendous?

To get health, competence, and happiness, would only have cost the throwing away of sins that are worth nothing. The labor to be good, is labor paid in lime, and blest in eternity. Let us all gird up our loins to the sacred work we have to do. Let us overcome our especial evils: We can well do it, if we are earnest. Let us, by communion each morning with our blessed Savior, abide in Him, and have Him abide in us. Let a portion of His Word, however small, and thoughts of Him and His kingdom, be with us at the beginning of each day, and in all our struggles His power will be perfected in our weakness. We shall triumph in Him.

He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and He will take away ours. If we fail in temper, if we fail in truthfulness, in candor, in a holy life in any respect, let us go again, again, and again, to the same great God our Savior, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all evil, and we shall find progress being daily made. We shall be on His side from the day that me begin. Failures from weakness, but not from purpose, do not divide from Him, but bring the soul to a deeper sense of its wants, and a closer clinging to Him who is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.

The duty that was difficult at first will become easy by habit, for the commandments of the Lord Jesus are not grievous. Acts of love, faith, and persevering obedience will bring heaven into the soul. The genuine disciple of the Savior knows that heaven awaits him; he has it here. He has his changes, and droops as well as exults, but his cross is wreathed with crowns. He has heaven within and heaven at home, and at length the time comes when perfect love casts out fear, and death is awaited as the herald of his Master to call him to the palace.

A surface religion has no deep peace. The flimsy gilding of excitement wears off. The wild beasts of disorderly lusts and passions which have been hidden for a short period, soon begin to growl again, and excite their old fears. Nothing but sincere fighting with them in the wilderness of temptation and trial will destroy our lions and serpents, and cause the blessed bees of holy thoughts to make honey in the carcasses of slain sins. But each genuine struggle will be blessed with victory, and unite us more closely with the Lord Jesus, the blessed Conqueror, the Divine Hero, who fights in and for us. In Him we shall have peace.

Begin it, beloved learner of this great truth of Christian life, begin it. Wait not for others. Be a true servant of the Lord Jesus in your heart, in your home, in your circle of life, in your trade, in your position. Heaven is near you, will help you, and will be in you. Angels are near, and will rejoice over your heart-faith and heart-struggles; when in your deepest gloom, they will bear the cup that comforts. But oh! be true for the Lord Jesus; be honest for the Lord Jesus; be gentle for the Lord Jesus; be studious for the Lord Jesus be patient for the Lord Jesus; be temperate for the Lord Jesus, and Old things will pass away, and with you All things shall become new (2 Cor. v. 17).

The leaf-tongues of the forest and the flower-lips of the sod,

The happy birds their raptures sing all in the ear of God,

The summer wind that bringeth music over land and sea,

Have each a voice that singeth this sweet song of songs to me,

This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;

And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

But beyond all other excellencies of the Christian life, and affecting every class and every station, is the sacred reverence for marriage.

Marriage, originating in the infinite union of love and wisdom in the Lord, and prepared for by creation of male and female minds as well as bodies, is the central safeguard of society, the focus of true morality, and the very home and defense of religion. In true and intelligent marriages there is provision made for the orderly extension of the Lords kingdom, by pure-minded and well-trained men and women; end thus, for the multiplication of angels. The heartfelt sympathies, the genuine confidences, the mutual aid, the thorough trust, the complimentary commingling, as it were, of thought, affection, and joy, in those whom God has joined together, forms so vast a fond of blessings, associated with true marriage-life, that it may well be regarded as the stem and center of all other excellencies in time and in eternity. A true, sensible, and well-trained man is a goodly representative, as he is a receiver, of intelligence from the All-wise; a true, gentle, and cultivated woman is the purest symbol on earth, as she is the receiver, of the Divine Love. Such a woman represents and exhibits the beauty, the gentleness, the joy, and the pity of Divine tenderness. When two such possessors of virtues at once human and heavenly, of firmness, intelligence, and moral worth in the man, of grace and goodness in the woman, feel the attraction of powerful feeling for each other, and form the sacred bond of marriage, then is exhibited earths most sacred union, societys most precious pledge, lifes most charming condition, religions most hallowed safeguard, heavens truest image below, the perfection of human character and human bliss. In the mutual joys and mutual sorrows, the mutual efforts and the mutual cores of the husband and wife, the honored names, and sacred relations, and deep responsibilities which come in due time to the married home, the Divine Bridegroom and the Lord and His church--are ever represented.

A true marriage, then, from religious motives, is sacred, beyond all other sacred things. And, to preserve the mind in pure thought and in chaste feeling in religion to marriage, is one of the highest aims of the Christians life. Heaven rests on a pure marriage home.

The important character of this sacred relationship, and the importance of the principles upon which it rests, should, then, be carefully taught to the young; and the pure thoughts, the preservation of chaste emotions, the attainment of virtuous manhood and womanhood, the essentials; to that full unity of heart and mind which constitutes the perfect soul and charm of marriage, should be ever present to the minds of the young, and the opposites shrunk from and dreaded, fouler than the serpents breath, more deadly than his poison.

Chastity in mind as well as in person will be given by the Lord Jesus, to those who seek it, and this more than any other virtue raises man, and will raise society from the crimes of all kinds which pollute, degrade, and destroy it.

Let then the young pray for this virtue as the choicest gift of heaven. Let the faintest approach of impurity awake repulsion, and the upward prayer to the fountain of all-good. Let them avoid temptation and cut short the intrusion of a tempter as hells subtlest snare; and the deadliest lure to its loathsome deeps. The touch of this sin makes spots in the souls central principles, more corrupting and difficult to efface than sins which affect the body or the fortune only. Again, a then we say, by prayer, by solid thought, by reverence for the Divine commandments, by purity in thought as well as in practice, let the mind and body be prepared for that happy circle where all the virtues find their home, and are crowned by true religion. In His good time the Lord will provide for their fulfillment. Life is a serious thing!ours will be continued for ever. We are laying its foundations in every daily act and word. We have now passed many years of it. What progress have we made? Happiness in heaven is the result of heavenly principles in the angels, and these will produce happiness anywhere. They do produce happiness where they exist. To love the Lord Jesus Christ as our Maker, our Savior, and our Friend, with our supreme affection;--to love goodness and truth as divine things, that flow from Him,--to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to be careful of His rights as we are of our own,--to love to do good and be just, as the genuine tests to ourselves and to others of the angelic life we have attained;

--to love the Holy Word and to desire its spiritual wisdom as treasure beyond all price,--to be content with the share of Divine blessings which falls to our lot as that which the All-good deems best for us,these dispositions make heaven, and they make happiness wherever they are. If you have not the frequent presence of happiness and peace within, be very jealous of yourself. Suspect your life-principles. It is an eternal truth--The kingdom of God is within you. If you have it not there, you will never find it anywhere else. You are yourself in formation a little heaven or a little hell. Which are you? Do not deceive yourself. Do not trifle. Honestly answer in the sight of the Lord, and happy will you be if your reply can truly be, I seek to be an angel, and I strive to live the Christian life. Hear your Heavenly Father say, O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa. xlviii. 15).

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC. BY DR. BAYLEY, of Argyle Square Church, Kings Cross, London.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4. The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement.
8. Difficulties on the Atonement.
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

By the same Author. Second issue.
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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. XI.

THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, IN WHOM DWELLS ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILYTHE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRITTHE ONLY HEAD OF THE NEW CHURCH, SIGNIFIED BY THE NEW JERUSALEM.

For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power --COL. ii. 9, 10.

THE church of prophecy, the church of the latter days, the church into which all other churches should merge and culminate, is always described as one that should be blessed by a full knowledge of the Lord, and the worship of one God, Jehovah, only. How clearly is this set forth by the prophet ZechariahAnd the Lord (Jehovah) shall be King over all the earth. In that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one. (Chap. xiv. 9.) It is, indeed, the burden of every prophetic announcement. The consecrated seers saw the glory of mankind in the love and knowledge of God, and they incessantly pointed to this, as it really is the foundation of all other well-being and happiness. The Lord would be the sun of a new heaven, whose splendor would never go down (Isa. lx. 20); of a new earth, free from injustice and wrong, of which it could he said, Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls salvation, and thy gates praise. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord (Jehovah), as the waters cover the sea. (Isa x. 9.)

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and above all the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. (Isa. ii. 2.)

These, and a multitude of confirmatory testimonies, obviously unfold the truth that Divine Providence will, in the progress of mankind, lead the notions of the earth to states of righteousness, wisdom, and virtue, all founded upon a true knowledge of (Jehovah) God, and a holier love for His will. Seer and sage, the one by direct disclosure from the Highest, the other by reflections on the tendencies of men and things, alike unfold the glorious ending of the weary ages of the worlds conflicts in a paradise renewed, when our Heavenly Father would be adored by obedient children, whose love for the universal Parent would be shown in the service they render to His sons and daughters, and the reverence they yield to His laws. Earth would be a preparation for, and a resemblance of, heaven.

The Lord Jesus confirmed this feature of the latter-day glory. The time cometh. He said, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I will show you plainly of the Father. (John xvi. 25.) This knowledge of God is the most glorious of all knowledge; for it the soul most deeply seeks. To know God in His infinite love, in His fatherly care, in His watchfulness, and His wisdom, in His Word, and in His mercies,--this is life eternal. It is to be had, and only to be had, as we believe, in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest to man.

The knowledge of God is presented to us in the Scriptures under three aspects.

1st. Jehovah as He was known to the Jews, before His incarnation.

2nd. As Jehovah, in the humanity, during the progress of its glorification, as He was known during the period of His incarnation under the name of Jesus Christ.

3rd. Jehovah in His glorified humanity, the only God in human form, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; Him in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

These three aspects belong to three periods, which should be kept perfectly distinct the pre-incarnation, the incarnation, and the post-ascension periods.

Let us regard Him in His first aspect--Jehovah, as He was known to the Jews. He was their only God: their all in all, their Father, their Savior, their Redeemer, their King. The Jews themselves believe that they were a nation selected and set apart, to testify to all other nations and to every age, the unity of God. And though their dispensation had; no doubt, other collateral aims and uses, to hold up to all the families of mankind the sacred truth of the Divine unity, does seem to be one of the great ends of their mission. Hence, the incessant assurances to them, and through them to us, that Jehovah was one God, only. No one can read the Old Testament without noticing the remarkable prominence of this great truth. It was, as it were, the head stone of the corner throughout their dispensation. Moses said to Pharaoh, That thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord (Jehovah), our God. (Ex. viii. 10.) The commencement of the Divine law was, Hear, O Israel, the Lord (Jehovah) our God, is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thins heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deu. vi. 4, 5.)

The books of the law are continually offering to us declarations such as these. The Lord (Jehovah) He is God: there is none else beside Him. (Deu. iv. 35); Know, therefore, this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord (Jehovah) He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is none else (v. 39): See, now, that I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me. (Deu. xxxii. 39.)

These declarations of the law, are reiterated in the Psalms, and in the prophets. What can be more express and emphatic than such declarations as these: That men may know that then whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth. (Ps. lxxxiii. 16.) Thou art good, and doest wondrous things, then art God alone. (Ps. lxxxvi. 10.) For who is God save the Lord (Jehovah), and who is a rock save our God? (Ps. xviii. 31.)

What at a later period was ascribed to different Divine persons, is in the Old Testament, in this pre-incarnation period, attributed to Jehovah alone.

Jehovah is the Shepherd of His people: the Redeemer, the Light, the Salvation, of those who trust in Him.

The Lord (Jehovah) is my Shepherd, I shall not want. (Ps. xxiii. 1.)

The Lord (Jehovah) is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Ps. xxvii. 1.) And they remembered that God was their rock, and the High God their Redeemer. (Ps. lxxviii. 35.)

In the prophets, this ascription to Jehovah, of all that man seeks for in God, is at least equally evident. He is the only source of help and blessing, the only Fountain of good. He alone is the Creator, the Provider, the Lawgiver, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Spiritual King of man. How numerous are the declarations to this effect he can only know who gives himself to the search. We would affectionately urge all to read, with a deep conviction of the importance of the inquiry, the prophetical books; and let each render open his mind to the sacred impressions the Divine language will make, and me are assured he will arise with the devout conviction that the disclosures of Eternal Wisdom they give, center all faith upon one Divine person, one Everlasting God. He is the Omnipotent Ruler of all worlds, the only Deity there ever has been, or ever will be. He is the Savior, and Redeemer of man as well as the Maker of all things. He has been sufficient for all His peoples wants, and he will be sufficient in all future time; He would come into the world as a man, to be our Savior.

Let us listen to these prophetic teachings, and mark this defined character. Ye are my witnesses saith the Lord (Jehovah), and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am He; before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord (Jehovah), and beside me there is no Savior. (Isa. xliii. 10, 11.) How common is it for many to regard the Creator as one person, the Savior as another; But surely language cannot more positively declare their unity. There was no God before Jehovah, there would be none after Him, and He would become our Savior. To the same effect we read in the following: Surely, God is in thee, and there is none else; there is no God, verily, then art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel the Savior. (Isa. xliii. 14, 15.)

Again and again is the same truth proclaimed. I am the Lord (Jehovah) thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. (Isa. xliii. 3.) There is no God else, beside me: a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me. (Isa. lilv. 21.) Look, unto me, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else. (22.)

Can the Unity of God, and His character of Savior, be more strongly enforced then we find it in these declarations. We cannot conceive of language more positive and clear. There is no trace in these descriptions of any demand on the part of the Father of mankind of any satisfaction to vengeance which only another Divine person could supply. On the contrary, Jehovah, Himself, is always the Savior and Redeemer. Hear Him: I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions FOR MINE OWN SAKE, and will not remember thy sins. (Isa. xliii. 25.) For thy Maker is thine Husband, the Lord (Jehovah) THY REDEEMER, and He that formed thee from the womb,; I am the Lord (Jehovah), that maketh all things, that stretched forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. (Isa. xl. 24.) Doubtless thou art OUR FATHER, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, thou, O Lord (Jehovah), art OUR FATHER, our Redeemer; Thy name is from everlasting. (Isa. lxiii. 16.) Now, what shall we any to these things? Is it possible to doubt that Jehovah Himself declares that He blots out mans transgressions for His own sake, and not for the sake of another? Can hesitate to believe that He, the Lord of hosts, the God of the whole earth, was our Redeemer; that our Creator, who made all things alone, would become our Deliverer? Can we imagine that any one else would redeem mankind, but their heavenly Father Himself, when we hear the churchs pathetic acknowledgment through the prophet, Thou art our Father, our Redeemer! Surely we must admit, once for all, the Divine declaration in another prophet: Thou shalt know no God but me, for there is no Savior beside me. (Hosea xiii. 4.) Which is reiterated again a little further on in the chapter, I will ransom them from the power of the grave (hell), I will redeem them from death.

O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave (hell) I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. (v. 14)

These testimonies are so direct, and so conclusive, that me see not how any one who meditates upon them, and believes their authority as the Word of God, can do otherwise than gratefully accept their lesson,--that in the pre-incarnation period, Jehovah, the Creator Himself teaches that He is the only God, the only Redeemer, and the only Savior.

Besides all this, me may truly say, the reader will look in vain through the Psalms, and the Prophets for any trace of the Deity conceived in mediaeval times, who stood sullenly off, demanding the infinite sacrifice due to vengeance, excited by Adams sin, and refusing to be appeased except by the infinite punishment of some one. The God of the Psalmist is merciful, tender, pitiful, consolatory, to whom the soul can say, Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none on earth that I desire beside thee. But we have stated, also, that it is declared in the prophetic records that Jehovah Himself would come into the world, as A MAN, to save and redeem it.

The prophecies upon this subject are very full and striking. Take the first, indeed the first prophecy on the subject, in the Bible. It (the seed of the woman) shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise His heel. (Gen. iii. 15.) Divine Love filling human nature, assumed and glowing through it, could alone put down the selfish soul of which the serpent was the symbol. Hear. again, the prophet Isaiah, Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and thou shall call His name Immanual. (Isa. vii. 14.) A prophecy that is both applied, explained, and enforced in the gospel. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (Matt. i. 22, 23.) Take, again, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, THE MIGHTY GOD, THE EVERLASTING FATHER, and the Prince of Peace. (Isa. ix. 6.)

Thus we learn that the everlasting Father would, once more say, to them that are of a fearful heart, fear not; behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense, He will come, and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and springs in the desert. Here is not only the promise that God Himself would come into the world, but the signs are given by which the time of His coming might be known, signs which were fulfilled only in the period of the gospel, but mere manifest then, and to which the Great Savior Himself appealed in the reply to the disciples of John. (Matt. xi. 4, 5.) In the 40th chapter of Isaiah, there are some announcements especially forcible. Take the first, The voice of Him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord (Jehovah), make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (v. 3.) Every gospel refers to this passage and applies it to our Lord Jesus as being the person whose way was to be prepared, and John the Baptist as the one whose voice would be heard crying in the wilderness. (See Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4; John i. 23.) But the declaration of the passage is that it was the way of Jehovah Himself OUR GOD, which was to be prepared; and in the same chapter there is another passage equally pointed and clear, Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold his reward is with Him, and his work before Him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; His shall gather His lambs in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (v. 10, 11.) The first part of this prophecy is alluded to, as fulfilled in the Savior, by John the Baptist, (Matt. iii. 15); and the second part by the Savior in person (John x. 11.) The Lord Jesus was undoubtedly the great fulfiller of both, but in the prophecy it is the Lord God who would come as a shepherd. Call we avoid affirming the direct conclusion, that the Lord Jesus and the Lord God are the same.

One more passage we will cite, as it shows the mode by which the Divine manifestation would take place in the world; it would be as a man, a Divine Man.

Behold a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a MAN shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of waters in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. (Isa. xxxii. 1, 2.)

Our hope is to draw mens souls to this manifested God. He has assured us that He stands at the door of every heart and knocks. If any man will open the door He, will come in and sop with him. Where He is, the Godhead is. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The Christians God, the Christians Redeemer when truly understood, supplies all that the spirit wants. He blesses early youth, He soothes and sanctifies latest age. Suffer little children to come unto me, He says, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Be thou faithful unto death, He says to the suffering tried believer, and I will give thee a crown of life. Address Him in prayer, and the heart will surely obtain an answer of peace. I am the door, He declares, by me if any man will enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out, and find pasture. (John. x. 9.) He is the God of the philosopher as well as of the simple. How finely does Hugh Miller recognize this sublime truth in what is virtually his autobiography. The true center of an efficient Christianity is, as the name ought of itself to indicate, the Word made flesh. Around this central sun of the Christian system, appreciated not as a doctrine, which is a mere abstraction, but as a Divine Person, so truly man that the affections of the human heart can lay hold upon Him, and so truly God, that the mind through faith, can at all times and at all places be brought into direct contact with Him; all that is really religious takes its place, in a subsidiary and subordinate relation. I say subsidiary and subordinate. The Divine Men is the great attractive center, the sole gravitating point of a system which owes to Him all its coherency, and which would be but a chaos, were he away. It seems to be the existence of the human nature, in this central and paramount object, that imparts to Christianity, in its subjective character, its peculiar power of influencing and controlling the human mind.

There may be men who, through a peculiar idiosyncrasy of constitution, are capable of loving, after a sort, a mere abstract God, unseen and inconceivable; thought as shown by the air of sickly sentimentality borne by almost all that has been said and written on the subject, the feeling in its true form must be a very rare and exceptional one. In all my experience of men I never knew a genuine instance of it. The love of an abstract God seems to be as little natural in the ordinary human constitution as the love of an abstract planet.... The true Humanity and the true divinity of the adorable Savior is a truth equally receivable by at once the humblest and the loftiest intellects. Poor dying children, possessed of but a few simple ideas, and men of the most robust intellects, such as the Chalmers, Forsters, and Halls, of the Christian Church, find themselves equally able to rest their salvation on the man Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever.* So, in like manner, confess the chief authors of the Essays and Reviews. It must be confessed that amongst the many redeeming features in that celebrated compilation which. tend to compensate for many things to be regretted, one, and that no slight one, is, that our Divine Redeemer is ever referred to as God manifest, the Divine Human center of light and life to the Church and to the world. Thus, Dr. Temple, The second stage, therefore, in the education of man, was the presence of our Lord upon the earth. Those few years of His Divine Presence seem as it were to balance in the systems, and creeds, and worships, which preceded all the churchs life which has followed since. Saints had gone before, and saints have been given since; great men and good men had lived among the heathen; there were never at any time examples wanting to teach either the chosen people or any other. But the one example of all examples came in the fullness of time, just when the world was fitted to feel the power of His presence. (p. 24.) So, again, Dr. Williams on Bunsen. The unity of God as the Eternal Father is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. But the Divine consciousness or wisdom, consubstantial with the eternal will, becoming personal in the Son of man is the express image of the Father, and Jesus actually, but also mankind ideally, is the Son of God. (p. 89.)

And lastly, Professor Jowett. The noblest study of history and antiquity is contained in it (the Scripture); a poetry which is also the highest form of moral teaching; there, too, are lives of heroes and prophets, and especially of one, whom we do not name with them because he is above them. (P. 428.) rejoice to notice these recognitions of the Divine Person of the Savior and the oneness of the Eternal, for He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. (John xiv.) Soon will the mourning heart of the world find peace, when it finds Him in whom the Father dwells: and in Him sees the Father (John xiv. 9); and, permeated by His spirit, obtains a true salvation from evil, by its victories over self. Oh, when shall every one of us hear in the spirit of faith and love the Divine words, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matt. xi. 35.) Rest is His, and will become ours if me abide in Him. Light is His, life is His, power is His, and will be ours if we worship, love, and abide in the manifested God, the adored Divine Man.

* My Schools and Schoolmasters, p. 182, 183.

This promise of the appearance of God as a man, a Divine Man, promised through all ages, and really yearned for, by the highest inmost feelings, and the purest reason of all generations, as the hope in which, when realized, all nations could be blessed, has excited in the lower nature, and in reasoning founded upon that, the sternest opposition How can it be, it has been said, that God could become a man? God and man, it has been asserted, are antipodes. What is Divine cannot be human; what is human cannot be Divine.

But of this reasoning, it may well be doubted whether it is sound either in principle, or in form. The foundation of all true reason either on spiritual or secular subjects, is fact. It takes on scientific subjects the facts which nature discloses, in a spirit of childlike trust; takes them carefully and conscientiously, weighs and compares them duly, and then reasons upon them, and arrives at conclusions or in other words, perceives, and states the principles which underlie the facts, and are their causes. So, on spiritual subjects, true reason never sets itself up against Revelation, and declares what must be, but with childlike faith, grounded in childlike love, enquires what is revealed, enquires confidingly, rationally, conscientiously, carefully, certain that what is truly revealed, will be reasonable, as it flows from the highest wisdom.

This is the true order of things. It is not the province of reason to dictate facts, but to learn them, and accept them. simply. If therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. (Matt. vi 22.)

He therefore, who permits himself to assume what facts there should be, or what not, is himself pursuing a method altogether irrational; and ought rather to pause, and ponder upon his position, than to presume to dictate what will be in accordance, or what not in accordance, with Divine Revelation. True reason goes to be illuminated by Divine Light, satisfied that as He who made the natural eye has made it in accordance with the laws of light, and he who lawfully, that is naturally, uses his eye, may safely trust it, so with the mental eye, or the rational faculty, God, who made it, has formed it for the perception of truth, if it is used lawfully; but he uses it most unlawfully who attempts to make it see without objects, and without illumination. This is done by those who form fancies of themselves, and declare what Scripture must teach or what it must not, instead of ascertaining what it does teach. We have seen it does teach, even in the Old Testament, and thus in the pre-incarnation period, that Jehovah Himself, and Jehovah alone, was and would be the Spiritual King, Redeemer, and Savior of his people, as He was their only God, and further, that Re would manifest Himself as a man. But we go farther, and we beg to say, that God has always manifested Himself as a Divine Man, though before the incarnation, in first principles, only, dimly and distantly, to fallen man, who had departed from those heights of holiness and purity, in which inner things are distinctly and clearly seen. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

To an impure nature, God is distant, repulsive, darkened by the atmosphere which surrounds it, and faintly beheld. He feels God opposed to him, and he concludes that God, in all respects, is entirely opposed to humanity. An irreligious and rebellious reason may do this, although the life of its possessor may be morally correct; the reason may not be humble and teachable, but haughty and dictatorial, and there, may be the fountain of error.

But the truth is, there is no refuge from the idea of God as a Divine Man, but in Atheism, God is Love: love is a human feeling. God is wisdom: wisdom is also human. Goodness, holiness, purity justice, mercy, rectitude, tenderness, providence, are attributes of God, and these are all human. True, in God they are all infinite and underived; in man they are all finite and derived. Mall is the imageGod the underived and eternal original. Yet it is only because God can be regarded as a Divine Man, distant or near, that we can regard Him at all. When a man has resolved he will put away from his idea of God all human attributes, and will not assume to Him the possession of the human form, he has simply shut his eyes, and he sees nothing.

If any one says he forms an abstract idea of God, it is still human, for abstract ideas are human. If any one regards God as infinite power, it is still human, for power exists from order, intelligence, wisdom and energy, and these are all things human. Hence, in all religions the Divine Being is worshipped as human. Brahma, Zeus, Jupiter Omnipotent, Allah, all are conceptions of God as a Divine Man. The universe echoes this. It is such a creation as a Divine Men would have formed, man is its highest type, and comprehends every other. Animals are perfect, as they most nearly resemble man; trees are perfect, as their circulatory systems most nearly approximate the human; minerals are the servants and supplies of the higher formations. Take the especially distinguishing duality out of every animal that exists and recompose them into one form, and you would have a tolerably correct resemblance to the affections, appetites, and instincts, which form the lower degree of one human mind. All things announce their origin from one Eternal Infinite, Divine-Human mind, and whenever the Eternal mind reveals itself, He must reveal Himself as human.

But one who objects to God being thought of as an Infinite Divine Man, may do so chiefly because he imagines manhood has mainly to do with shape. He thinks of infinity as infinite space, and he thinks of God as omnipresent, that is, filling infinite space; and if a person has a form, he has a boundary, and there is something outside of that boundary, and, therefore, the enclosed form is not infinite.

He would, however, do well to remember, that infinite space is itself a contradiction in terms. Space is that which is enclosed between boundaries, and infinite that which has no boundary. Space and time belong to matter only, and have nothing to do with spiritual existence, still less should we connect them with the Divine Being. Infinity is not a thing of space and size. but of interior fullness, and perfection without end. Human principles produce the human form; but the greatness or littleness of a man does not depend upon the space he occupies. The grandeur of some men seems almost to approach the Divine, but it has been the grandeur of their goodness, their intellect, and their virtue, not at all of their size.

The infinite grandeur of God manifest, would be the grandeur of infinite goodness, wisdom, and purity, not the grandeur of infinite size. God, must be the same in least things, as in greatest. Such is the character of all things: water is the same in a drop, as in an ocean. God manifested to one heart, is in the same infinite fullness as God manifest to all heaven in that glorious sun of which the apostle speaks, the light which no man can approach unto. (i Tim. vi. 16.)

It may he said, that the reason why we can only regard God with Divine Human attributes, is, that we are human beings, and from the constitution of the human mind, we cannot do otherwise than clothe the objects of our thought with human properties. But what then? Why may not this be the true light in which to regard them? Man is undoubtedly the being formed to know, love, acknowledge, and worship the Divine Creator, and surely we cannot do wrong in concluding that He who gave us faculties of apprehending Him for these purposes, has made them so that we can apprehend Him rightly. That character in which our best faculties behold Him must be His real character. To judge otherwise would be to charge idolatry upon our Maker.

Instead, therefore, of there being any good reason to object against God manifesting Himself as a man, we conceive that sound reason acknowledges that God from eternity must have been a man in first principles in that love, wisdom, and power, which are the essence of true manhood; and when the necessities of His creatures demanded His presence in a more external and personal manner to redeem them, and will them back to Himself, no other than the human form could possibly have been the means by which our Divine Immanuel could present Himself.

How could the love of the Divine Shepherd he revealed, except in the infinite tenderness of a Divine Man? How could the infinite spiritual wisdom of Jehovah appear, except in the utterances of Divine-Human lips? How could the infinite mercy, goodness, loving-kindness, and purity of Jehovah as a Savior appear, except in the acts of One who went about doing good, and who would lay down His life for the sheep? No man had seen God at any time. He had shone and spoken in the personality of an angel when it was required from time to time; but now a Son, an only-begotten Son, would bring Him forth to view. God would be in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. (2 Cor. v. 19.) The power of the Highest would overshadow a virgin, and that Holy One who should be born of her; would be called the Son of God, (Luke i. 35.) The Humanity by which Jehovah would come into the world and save His people from their sins (Matt. i. 21) would be called the Son, and when the infant Lord was brought; forth, well might the angels sing Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. The incarnation period had begun.

But in all our research thus far we have met with no trace of any other, but one Divine Person. In the language of the prophet Isaiah, Jehovah is oar Judge. Jehovah is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King; He will save us. (Isaiah xxxiii. 22.) True, there is the passage in Gen. i. 26, Let us make man, in our image, after our likeness, but this has been abundantly shewn to be addressed to the angels, who are ministering spirits in Jehovahs hands when He makes man, and there is also the plural form of the word God, Elohim, but this can give no difficulty to one who knows that the singular, El, means power, and the plural consequently expresses those powers by the name Elohim which belong to the laws and truths by which the universe has been formed and is governed.

By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. But the truths of the Word are many--are, in fact, infinite; and that plurality is expressed by the word Elohim; but innumerable as are the truths and powers which flow from the Divine Wisdom, they are all the outflowings of that Divine Love which is Jehovah. God is Love; and from the one Adorable Love came Creation, came Redemption, and has come and will come Regeneration for every soul of the unnumbered and ever-increasing multitudes of the saved. Before Him, there was no God formed, neither would there be after Him.

THE INCARNATION PERIOD.

This period, which embraces the Lords life in the world from His birth to His ascension, has laws and circumstances peculiar to itself, and which are needful to be remembered. In this period, the Divine clothed itself with the human, as it existed on the mothers side, in fallen humanity. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He had no human father. In an ordinary human being there is an inner spiritual organization from the father, a body and a mental organization connected with it, from the mother. What man has from his father, in the Savior was the Everlasting Father Himself: what man has from his mother, the Lord had from the Virgin Mary. And, thus, because it was the common heritage of our race, He had our infirmities, that He might be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, yet, without sin. (Heb. iv. 15.) He had our hereditary tendencies. He had also our weakness, wants, and limits, but also accompanied with a Divine Human germ in the lower degree of His Humanity, and in the body, from the very first. That He might lead us in the regeneration, and teach us to be victorious in all things over sin, Jehovah caused to meet in him (according to the marginal reading of Isaiah liii. 6), the iniquity of us all. The intention was, that Jehovah should take our nature upon Him, so far as the mothers part was concerned, that He might in our nature be tempted, in our nature conquer, consecrate, and glorify that nature, reveal himself more and more in that nature as our Heavenly Father, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Teacher, and our Infinite Friend.

Our nature glorified would form a Divine Humanity. Thus He would form a center from which the Holy Spirit would proceed, to defend, to attract, to illuminate, and to regenerate, all who were willing to be saved.

Now, when we say the Lord assumed our nature, we must not forget that human nature is a willing and thinking nature. Though there was a Divine element in it, yet there was every human quality in it. He had all human sympathies. He would hunger and thirst, sleep and wake, want and will, with a certain likeness to human acts of the same kind, but also with a Divine, quality in them, so that every act of His was representative of the Divine dealings with man in his spiritual life. The lower degree of a mans spirit lives from the life that flows through the upper degree; yet that life gives to the degree below, the appearance as if it lived of itself. The body seems to live of itself, although it lives entirely from the soul; so each little vessel seems to have its small independent life, and take from the circulating streams, the sustentation requisite for its strength and reparation. The soul does not use the body, as a mere garment for itself, but it communicates to the body a capability to live, through all its organisms, through all its myriad vessels, to feel, speak, and act, as a human body only can, as if the power to do so were self-derived. So the spiritual degree of a mans mind, the pneuma, does not use the natural degree, the psyche, as the swordsman uses the sheath, or a hand uses a glove, but so as to give it what seems like an independent power to will and to think, in all their innumerable applications and varieties of will and thought, as if the power were self-derived. Each human person has within him two great degrees of mind, each enclosing innumerable principles and particulars, called in the Scriptures, the inward man, and the outward man. The outward man is the seat of the corrupt lusts, passions, and appetites, which, when a person indulges them, enslave to ruin; it has however from the Lord the commencement of better things, the good ground, into which the seed of heaven can be sown, and when, its willing conscious power is adjoined to these heavenly things, ability is given from the Lord, to man, in this degree, to work out his salvation with fear and trembling.

He must, however, pray as from himself, fight as from himself, learn as from himself, labor as from himself; and the natural man must, as from himself, offer himself up to be a holy sacrifice to the angelic affections and interior purities of the spiritual man. It is thus that at last we are regenerated, by the natural man being purified and restored to the order of heaven in perfect freedom. The struggle in the human soul is not that of the purely spiritual degree against the natural, but in the natural degree, a new birth takes place, a new man is formed, and gradually grows and increases in power, and vanquishes all opposition, until no temper, no wish, no thought, remains, that is not in harmony, willingly in harmony, with the spiritual degree; the earth, in man, smiles in unison with the heaven. All is now spiritual, not because the natural man has been abolished, but he has been spiritualized, consecrated, and sanctified with many a struggle and many a sacrifice, but with his own constantly free consent. Man is never so free as when he is striving against himself, or in other words, his lower self is striving to become like his higher.

During the struggles through which man passes, there are constant aspirations, prayers, yearnings, breathings, after the purity, the wisdom, the innocence and order, he inwardly sees and longs for. On the other hand, there are deficiencies, infirmities, pronenesses to evil, and a thousand defects in the old man, which struggle against the new. For a long time the struggle is precisely that described by the Apostle; For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate that do I. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh (the carnal mind) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good. I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after THE INWARD MAN: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity, to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. (Rom. vii. 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24.)

Here, there are two wills, two classes of thought, two antagonistic consciousnesses, in the same person, in the same mind; and this continues with more or less of distinctness, and vigor, through the whole period of mans regenerate life. Sometimes this state approaches to unity, sometimes the antagonism is most opposed and marked, as if two powerful men, or kingdoms rather, were struggling in one; at length in the regenerating person the better mind increasingly prevails, and the soul in order, at the termination of the spirits labors becomes, like Canaan in the reign of Solomon, a kingdom of prosperity and peace. Like Bunyans city of Mansoul, brought under the government of Immanuel, all is then harmony, unity, and peace. This series of struggles, is seldom: concluded, long before the conclusion of life. The Apostle wrote the Epistle to the Romans when he was an aged man, and still later that to the Philippians, but in both he describes himself as struggling, and as not having yet attained to the perfection which he sought, of everlasting unity, and everlasting peace. Such, we believe, is the experience of all true Christians. The human soul is a wondrous structure, far more wondrous than the human body. To restore and build it up for an eternal state of happiness, is a wonderful operation, which only the ignorant and inexperienced can suppose will be quickly done. It is a happy thing however, to know that whenever we sincerely begin, we are on the Lords side, under His care, and in His hand, and shall in good time, if we persevere in co-operating with Him, complete that most sacred and important of all works, the formation of the soul for heaven.

In this description of the soul, its degrees, and its regeneration, we have all that is necessary to illustrate and explain the duality, and sometimes the diversity of the Father and the Son during the Lords life in the world. The diversity we cannot too often repent, and impress upon all, was one exhibited only during the Redeemers life on earth, during the struggles of temptation, and the imperfection of the Son, for the Son was made perfect by suffering. (Heb. ii. 10; v. 9.) It ceased with our blessed Lords ascension, after which there is no prayer described from the Son to the Father, and no speech between the Father and the Son, but the one glorious Jesus is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb, as before the incarnation the one Jehovah was the Creator, the Savior, and King of his people.

The circumstance of the Lord having no human father, at once indicated the distinction between Himself and any merely human being. He was a Divine Human being. What any one or anything is in whole, so is it in every part; this is an universal law, and as the Lord Jesus was in His whole being God-man, so was He in every part, in every act, Divinely human; He was Divinely human in affection, thought, learning, and suffering. Regard every circumstance of His life and actions, and you find the human, but touched with, and manifesting, the Divine. It was Jehovah manifesting Himself in all the circumstances of a human and redeeming life. And the mystery of the incarnation, and the hidden wisdom (1 Cor. ii. 7.), the true definition of mystery, which is associated with all the words and deeds of the Word made flesh, becomes revealed to the adoring gaze of the thoughtful worshiper of the Lord. The infant Lord was a true child, born of his mother like other children; but He was a Divine child from the Father the Son of God was there, as well as the Son of Mary. Not only wise men worshiped him (Matt. ii. 11.), but the angels of God also. And when He bringeth the first-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of good worship Him. (Heb. 1. 6.) When He was a boy in the temple, learning and observing as a boy, He was still about His Fathers business. He was a Divine boy, and while He sat amongst the doctors hearing and asking them questions, all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and His answers. (Luke n. 46, 47.) When on the Sea of Galilee, and after a toilsome day, He slept on the troubled waters as man, until the raging sea threatened to engulf the little bark, and the terrified disciples exclaimed, Master, carest then not that we all perish? He arose, and the Divine Man was manifest in the tranquil and majestic power that accompanied the words, Peace, be still! and compelled all who saw the sudden calm, by which nature recognized Her Lord, to say, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?

In His friendship for Lazarus and his sisters, in His sorrow for their sufferings and his death, we see the human sympathies of the Savior but in the might that broke the bonds of death, and restored the dead to life, at the simple command Lazarus come forth, we cannot fail to see that God was manifest in the flesh. There was a Divinity as well as a humanity even in the sorrows of the Redeemer. Weeping is often regarded as a sign of weakness, but there is more strength in the manly tear which is wept for the sorrows of others, than in the sordid joy which is delighted only for self. While the Great Savior groaned and wept, while He suffered and died, we see the Human in weakness, distress, pain, and death. But in the freedom with which the bitter cup was undertaken and exhausted to the dregs, not for Himself but for every man, in the extent and depth of his sorrows, in the Divine Tenderness of the Infinite Sufferer for the salvation of all men, even of His taunting, bitterest enemies, we recognize a Divinity in His sufferings as much as in the unutterable perfection which appeared in the risen and glorified Savior. In all things He was a Divine Man. Every act, too, in Him had this peculiar Divinity, that it was representative. His birth, life, speech, actions, miracles, death, resurrection, and glorification in the world, were all symbolic of His dealings in the human soul, when the heart has opened to his invitation, and He has become Christ in us, the hope of glory. (Col. i. 27.) The Father was manifested in the Son, the Father glorified the Son, and was glorified in the Son.

But while we thus speak of the Divinity of the Humanity, the Son, in the Lord, we would never cease to inculcate the all-important truth, that it was the Divinity, from the Father, and, of the Father, manifested in the Son. It was not the Divinity of another, separate, co-eternal, Divine person called the Eternal Son, revealed in the human Son, it was the Divinity of the Father, the only Divine person who was from eternity, a Divine Human Being in first principles, and who had become for the Redemption and Salvation of His creatures sunk so low, as to make it necessary, a Divine Man in last principles, down to the very body, so that He could say to the intelligent universe; Fear not, I am the first and the last. (Rev. i. l7.)

The Father out of the Son is the Divine Love and Wisdom, so infinitely pure and exalted that no man hath seen him at any time (John i. 19.), no man could see Him and live. (Exodus xxxiii. 20.) Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. (John v. 37.)

The Father, however, the Infinite Divine Love, out of which the universe originated, who is therefore rightly called the Father, and who created all things that He might form immortals, and train them in ever-increasing multitudes for heaven, and bless them as their Father, must be revealed. Nothing but the revelation of their Father in His love, tenderness, and desire to bless, as mans Savior, could melt obdurate hearts, sunk into the depths of selfishness, and win them to unselfishness and to Him. To reveal the Father there must be the Son, an Only Begotten Son: a Humanity from the mother, capable of coming into contact with men, and even with fiends; yet, a Humanity interiorly Divine from the Father, and whose progress would reveal the Father more and more, until He became the embodied Divine Love, His countenance shining as the sun shineth in his strength, whose head and whose hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes flames of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, and His voice as the sound of many waters. (Rev. i. 14-16.)

This is the Only Begotten Son, in whom the Father is fully manifest, who has brought Him to view [scanner unable to insert phrase], in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

The Son, thus begotten of the Father, thus Divinely Human, had a capacity of receiving the Father, and manifesting Him; such as no merely human being, saint, or sage, could possible have. No man knew His wondrous capabilities. He could say, No man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. (Matt. xi. 27.)

No man knoweth the Son, but the Father! what majesty of nature, what depth of capability do those words impart! Scarcely more conceivable is the full import of those further words, no man knoweth the Father, but the Son. He who can grasp, can comprehend as it were, the infinitudes of the Divine Love, must be Himself Divine.

No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and, he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. But wondrous as is this Divine nature and character of the Son, it must not for a moment be forgotten that it is derived from the Father, the Divine Love with Him. All things, He said, are delivered unto Me of my Father. This office of the Savior to reveal the Father; who was His inner Self is exhibited in the whole Gospel. His Divine deeds, were not the manifestation or revealing of any other Divine Person, any second, separate Divine Person. They were the manifestation of the Father. When men truly understood the Son, they would truly understand the Father, for the Son was the express image, the very Person of the Father. (Heb. i. ,2.)

At first, this manifestation was somewhat straitened and limited, for our infirmities were taken into His Humanity, but as these were cleared away by temptations, and victories; temptations from all the powers of darkness, and victories by His own Divine strength, He came into that fullness of Divine possession, to which He refers in those memorable words, All power is given unto me, in heaven and on earth. (Matt. xxviii. 18.)

All these views, which are the plain teachings of the Gospel, and so completely enable us to have a comprehensive faith, which embraces all the declaration of the New Testament, and sees their application to the one Divine Person of the blessed Jesus, who was Jehovah manifest, will possibly become still clearer, if we refer to the sacred teachings somewhat more in detail, and illustrate them by the light of the constitution of man, who is the Divinely created image of God (Gen. i. 26), and whose spiritual constitution of finite humanity, will best serve us to comprehend the Divine Humanity, from which it sprung, and of which it is the likeness. Let us draw this parallel, then, in its leading particulars; and we venture to hope it will enable us to sec that the Lords life in the world only conducts us to one Divine Person, as the center of all love, faith, and worship, as we trust was seen in the doctrine of the Old Testament respecting God, before the incarnation.

First, then, the Savior plainly teaches that the Father was in Him, as the inward man is in the outward man, or as the soul is in the body. He says, The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me; He doeth the works. (John. xiv. 10.) Again, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man cometh unto the Father bat by me. (John xiv. 6.) I am not alone, because the Father is with me. (John xvi. 38.) I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfect, in me. (John xvii. 23.) God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. (2 Cor. v. 19.) There can surely be no doubt that these words plainly teach the same lesson which was taught by prophecy that He who would be seen among men as a Divine Child for our Redemption, would as to His inner nature be the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. (Isa. ix. 6.)

Secondly. The Father gave to the Son, all the life, power, and capability, He possessed. It was not ally second Divine person, an eternal Son, who did so. Although the Son was capable of doing all things for oar redemption, and salvation, it was from the Father within Him, He was so. This may also be illustrated by the reflection that all the life that displays itself in our outward man, and in the body, including tempers, affections and thoughts, not only distinct from, but opposite to, those of the inward man, from whom the life and power proceed, is derived from the Lord, through our inward man.

Let us attend to this Divine teaching The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do, for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John v. 19.) Again, the Savior said, I can of my own self do nothing, as I hear I judge, because I seek not my own will, but the will of my Father that sent me. (John v. 30.) Again, As the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son, to have life in Himself (John v. 26.) Again, Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee; as thou hast given Him power over ALL FLESH, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. Thus it is clearly taught, that all the power of the Son is from the Father.

The distinct consciousness in the outward man, often expressing itself in soliloquy, in speech, in addresses to our better self, or from our higher self to our lower, as seen in Davids address to his soul, Why art thou cast down O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me (Ps. xlii. 11.--xliii. 5), was paralleled in the players of the Savior;

and His addresses to His Father. As David and His soul were only one person, and the outward and the inward man in the daily experience of every individual are only one person, notwithstanding these diversities of consciousness, so the Son and the Father within, were only one Divine Person, notwithstanding the very distinct consciousness for a time of the Son from the Father.

Thirdly. In the regeneration of man, the outward man has to learn knowledge from an ability as if it were his own, and as he does so with zeal, the light of truth descends through his inward man, and illuminates him. So the Son increased in wisdom, was subject to Joseph and His mother, and thus prepared Himself to receive the Divine Wisdom in all fullness from within, for unto him God gave not the spirit by measure. (John iii. 34.) It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell (Coll. i. 19.)*

* Professor Jowett, Essays, &c., 355, refers to Mark xiii. 23, respecting the Son not knowing the time of Judgment, as a great difficulty, but offers no solution. Yet, if the Lords Humanity obtained knowledge and grew in wisdom, there could be no great difficulty in recognizing before the humanity was perfected, there would be some things externally unknown, although afterwards he knew all things. (John xxi. 17.) We all know many things by interior intuition, which we do not yet know as scientific facts. Besides, the spiritually-minded will remember that the Lord does not KNOW the workers of iniquity, that is, has no conjunction with them. And He will perceive that at the end of a church, the Son, the Divine Truth, in the spiritual sense, the manifestation of God to the soul, is rejected and does not know or conjoin itself with that state of the church, only the Divine Love, the Father still knows it, and provides for its restoration by new methods of mercy, and a new church.

Fourthly. As the Divine truth was unfolded in the Son, there would be opened also, as from Himself but really from the Father the constant yearning to do good, and to perform the work of redemption, by casting out evil spirits, healing the sorrows of men of every kind, thus glorifying the Divine Love upon earth (John xvii. 4), by doing its dictates constantly, and bringing Himself day by day more perfectly into harmony with the will of the Father, which was the desire of Infinite Love for the salvation of man.

This performance in Him of redeeming works, both in the world of spirits and the world of men is referred to by the Baptist, when He said, He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to wear; He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor. He will gather the wheat into His garner, and He will burn up the chaff with file unquenchable. For their sakes, He said, I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified by the truth. (John xvii. 19.) Those redeeming words none but God Incarnate could do. No man can redeem his brother. Thy Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall He be called. (Isa liv. 5.) The Lords baptism represented the purification of His Humanity, and when He came out of the water, heaven opened to Him, that is the Divine Love flowed fully down into His external man, and a testification that so far it was glorified. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

The Divine Truth from the Father in the Son, and which therefore had been with the Father before the world was, excited the prayer for full personal union with the OWN SELF of the Father. (John xvii. 5.)

In mans case, the daily performance of duty in outward life, and the rejection of evils as they present themselves, is what symbolizes this portion of the Lords work, and as it is done faithfully, the outward man prepares for union with the inward, and the inward man opens and blesses him with love, light, and joy. In the Lords case, He acted for the universe. Man acts only in and for His own little world.

Fifthly. The terrible ordeal of the temptation in Gethsemane brings out another manifestation of the Father in the Son. The will of the Son shrunk from the appalling test. To come into contact with falsehood in its most malignant form, the human will shrunk from for a moment and said, Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me, but soon felt that it must be endured, and so conquered. The perfect Divine Love of the Father suggested everything to be endured which was essential to Mans Redemption, and the Son said, not my will, but thins be done; and so the will of the Son became as the will of the Father.

All was dark, gloomy, and appalling, but the Son must endure it as if of Himself

In the case of human beings the outward man is often deeply tried. False accusations, scorn, contumely; are heaped upon Him. He is misunderstood, and misrepresented. He has to drink the cup of sorrow to the dregs, and no cheering ray from within; all is gloomy. If however the disciple is as His master, and he manfully endures and works, and waits in faith, all will be well. His trial approaches its end, but yet another and a deeper is to be endured by him who would be perfect, before the inward man fully shines forth in the outer.

Sixthly. The Cross. This was the trial most terrible of all. This too, must be endured apparently alone. The direst fiends tried their utmost malice. It appeared that life itself must be lost in the terrible struggle, if the will of the Divine Love must be carried out. Every feature of hate, that earth and hell could exhibit, was brought out by the powers of darkness (Luke xxii. 52). These horrible disclosures were to be brought into contact with tenderness the purest and the best. The Son was to endure this not for Himself, but for the world. He would not have a thought or feeling contrary to the Divine Love, and though at the extremity of His trial the despairing cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, was uttered, yet He endured on, and at last would have nothing, and be nothing, but what the Divine Love, the Father, would, and said, Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. Then was the terrible agony over, the worlds Redemption was worked out, and the Son was finally prepared to be glorified by complete union with the Father. He had willingly laid down His life for the sheep. No man taketh my life from me, He had said, lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father: (John x. 18.) He had obeyed, and revealed the Father to the very last, and now He was prepared for everlasting personal oneness, the Father being visible in every word, work, tone, and appearance, so that He who saw Him would see the Father.

The Lord said to Mary after His resurrection, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father to my God and your God. (John xx. 17.)

These words relate not to ascent in space, but in quality. They mean, that entire and everlasting union with the Inmost Love and Wisdom of the Divine nature had not yet taken place. All was prepared for it, and it would be speedily consummated; but, no doubt, the redeeming works which the Lord was still engaged in completing, in the world of spirits, where the spirits in prison referred to by Peter (1 Peter iii. 18, 19) were, and required to be fully prepared to ascend with Him to heaven, required that the display of the full glories of Godhead should be moderated and restrained. But soon this full union, which He had been prepared for on the cross, and which had thus virtually been accomplished then, would manifestly be accomplished by the Son being for ever one with the Father. The distance was not one of space, but of state, for the Father was with Him. (John xvi. 32.) And the distance of state was about to cease, for He said, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

The full union between the Father and the Son in the one Divine person of the Savior, was accomplished through successive alternations of state during the Lords whole life in the world, just as the full regeneration of a man is accomplished. When he has attained a victory over one evil, and is in peace, he feels quite angel-like and happy; one with heaven; and as if his whole work were done; after a time some fresh infirmities of his nature infest him, and he is cast down, seems distant from all that is heavenly, and as if his state were not at all improved.

Thus did the alternations of state proceed with the Savior-only with Him the struggles He underwent were with all the powers of darkness, through the medium of hereditary evils assumed in His Humanity from the mother, and at each successive victory there was union, not with an angelic state, but with the Father, the Divine Love and Wisdom within Him, in all fullness. These struggles and victories, with the states involved in each, and imaged by corresponding states in a finite degree in mans regeneration; fully explain those sentences uttered by the Redeemer from time to time, and so different in their character.

At one time, My Father is greater than I: prayer to the Father, and the despairing My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. At another, I and the Father are one. (John x. 30.) All things that the Father hath are mine. (John xvi. 15.) He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. (John xiv. 9.) That men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father: All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth: Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. (Matt. xxviii. 18-20.) Language which manifestly imports that now, and henceforth for ever, all power in heaven will radiate from the Divine Humanity, the Son glorified and made Divine by the Father, who is, indeed, the revealment and the embodiment of the Father. In Him is the whole Divine Trinity, therefore, all the power of Godhead is in Him. His name, Jesus Christ, is the name of the Divine person in whom is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He would be present with His people always, while that dispensation lasted (until the end of the world), and when a new dispensation would commence, it would embrace Him more fondly deeply, and adoringly than any before; it would, in all fullness, be the bride, the Lambs wife.

When, therefore, the disciples went forth and baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts x. 48, xix. 5), they obeyed their Lords commandment, for that name was the name of Him who was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When they preached Jesus and His resurrection, they preached the only name given under heaven by which men could be saved (Acts iv. 12); the name above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and in earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. ii. 10, 11.)

The great truth, we would humbly hope, has now been clearly shown that the Lords life in the world was the manifestation, not of a second Divine Person, of whom the Scriptures never speak, but of the Only Divine Person, the Eternal Father, by means of a Humanity called the Son, which He assumed and glorified, that He might reveal Himself to man, in the only way in which the Eternal Love could reveal Himself so that the human heart could be touched, and changed, and at the same time, the human race delivered from those powers of darkness which inwardly enslaved and debased them.

The varying character of the Saviors language, we have endeavored to show, was the accompaniment of the varying states of His Humanity during the course of its glorification, and described those states only during that period, and are not at all descriptive of the Lords state since His ascension. The states of inferiority to the Father, of distinct consciousness from the Father, of prayer to the Father, all ceased when the glorification of the humanity was perfected (Luke xiii. 32; Heb. ii. 10; v. 9); and He rose far above all heavens, as the apostle says, that He might fill all things. (Eph. iv. 10.)

Let the student of this sacred subject bear this well in mind, and it will deliver him from much perplexity him think of the Lord of all things, to whom he is now to address his prayers and adorations, not as He was in the changing states of His Divine Human life, but as He is, the Glorious One, on whose shoulder is the government of all things; the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.

The one great aim we have had is to relieve, from the idea of a divided God, from the incomprehensible perplexity of a Trinity of separate Divine Persons, all who will, in deep and earnest thought, study this subject in the spirit of prayer to the Lord for His aid, and faith in the truth, with a desire to divest themselves of any views which have prejudices, and not Scriptural principles for their support. We wish to bring the hearts of men, for help and blessing, direct to their Savior; not to ask Him to pray to another Divine Being for them, but Himself to heal their sorrows, restore them to the image of heaven, and prepare them for the celestial abodes. Even in the days of His flesh, He heard the prayer of the afflicted, and healed them at once. He removed disease, He raised the dead, He forgave sins, He fed the multitudes, and stilled the waves, directly by His own command; not by promising to entreat another Being to do so, nor by a power rival to the Father, but by the simple utterance of His own I will, because He was the Father in the Son.

If men were blest THEN by appealing to Him alone, when occasionally there seemed to be a Father distinct from, and above Him, how much more might restoration and blessing be confidently expected to follow prayer to the Blessed Savior, when it may be so fully understood, that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

THE POST-ASCENSION PERIOD.

We come now to the Lord in the post-ascension period. And, so far as worship is concerned, it is evident that it is with Him as the risen Lord we are especially concerned. We noticed the Saviors words to Mary immediately after His resurrection, in which He says He has not yet ascended to the Father, and we suggested that these words should not be regarded as implying any local distance between them, but only that the external was not yet fully transfused by the Inmost Divine Love and Wisdom. This state seems soon to have been changed for eight days after, we find the Lord Jesus receiving the worship of Thomas, as His Lord and God. (John xx. 28.)

The apostles evidently regarded the Lord as the only visible Deity, the Lord of all (Acts x. 36.), the Lord of the dead and the living. (Rom. xiv. 9.) Not, let us unceasingly repeat, as a rival Deity, or to the exclusion of the Father, but to the inclusion of the Father, as, in fact, the Father Himself in a Divine Human Form. Hence Paul calls Him God over all, blessed for ever (Rom. ix. 5); the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ (Tit. ii. 13); and gives that synopsis of the mystery of godliness which we find in the Epistle to Timothy, not the perplexing and contradicting mystery of three Divine persons, each by himself being God and Lord; but the comprehensible mystery of the incarnation, which when revealed is seen to be full of wisdom and mercy; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory (Tim. Iii. 16); and lastly the words of our text, In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power.

Can anything be more comprehensive than these last declarations of the Apostle? In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. Infinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite power, omnipresence; whatever constitutes the fullness of the Godhead, the whole Divine Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all are in Him, all the fullness of the Godhead. Ye are complete in Him: all your necessities and your wants will find in him a supply. You were created by Him (John i. 3), you were redeemed by Him (Tim. ii. 14), you will be saved by Him (Matt. i. 21), you are complete in Him. Whom then, do we wish for more? The position we take is, not that there is no Divine Trinity, but that the Trinity is not a Trinity of persons, and that it is all in the Lord Jesus, the Father is the Inmost Soul, the Son is the Divine Humanity, the Holy Spirit is the outflowing spirit of the Lord Jesus. The Savior is spoken of after His resurrection, not only as having all power (Matt. xxviii. 18), but as knowing all things (John xxi. 17), and being everywhere (Matt. xxviii. 20).

In the book of Revelations, the Savior presents Himself for our adoration in the most complete and comprehensive manner; I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending saith the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty; and subsequently in the same chapter, Fear not He pays, I am the First and the Last. (Rev. i. 8, 17.) Can any person seriously admit these words to be true, and not admit what we have endeavored to show is the doctrine of the whole Word.

He is the Alpha, the Beginning, the First. Can any one be the first, but the Eternal Himself--Jehovah. But He is also the Omega, The Ending, The Last. Is not this, to announce that He has manifested Himself as the Son down to the last and lowest forms of the Universe, even before the eyes of men. WHO IS. He is the all in all of His people; the Ruler of angels and men. Who is the Creator; the Redeemer and Regenerator, the Shepherd, the Pardoner, the Sanctifier, the ever-present Revealer of peace, of light, of power, of joy.

WHO IS wherever His children need His help, in darkness their companion, in hunger their bread, in weakness their strength, in death, their life and resurrection. WHO IS King of Kings and Lord of Lords. (Rev. xix. 16.) Wherever His children may be, there He is. (Matt. xviii. 20.) Their Omnipotent and Omnipresent helper. WHO IS.

But He is no new God. He is the Eternal Father manifested. Before Abraham was I am, He said. (John viii. 58). He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. (John i. 10.) HE WAS. But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth to me, that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, FROM EVERLASTING. (Micah v. 2.) HE WAS, Jehovah, our Father, our Friend, our only Savior. And it is He WHO IS TO COME. Who is to come for the church on earth; who is to come for the church in heaven. The especial glory of the church of the future, as we have previously said, is to be, that the Lord Jesus, according to His promise, would show it plainly of the Father. (John xvi. 25.) And when He Himself is seen to be the Father, He then shows us plainly of the Father indeed. And this is truly, everywhere represented as the relation of the Divine Savior to the crowning church among men. Hear another announcement: And, the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever. (Rev. xi. 15.) Lord and Christ mean the Essential Divinity and the Divine Humanity both in the Lord Jesus. God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts ii. 36.) The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of Him, who is Lord and Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

The Lord Jesus will also be the Rewarder and Blesser, whom we had all adore in heaven. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. (Rev. ii. 10.) HE WHO IS TO COME. All the angels are progressing, and ever will be, but they will lever equal or exhaust the Divine fullness; He will always be, He who is to come--the Revealer of fresh stores for all, of wisdom, glory, and blessing.

And, lastly, He is the Almighty. There can only be one Almighty, no other is possible. Jehovah is Almighty, Jesus is Almighty. This can only be, if Jehovah and Jesus are one.

An exception has been taken to the eternity of the Saviors reign founded on the words of the apostle Paul, 1. Cor. xv. 24-28, Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

The apostle himself teaches elsewhere that the reign of the Lord Jesus, yes, of the Son, shall be perpetual. But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. (Heb. i. 8.) Jesus Christ, the same today, yesterday, and for (Heb. xiii. 8.) The prophet Isaiah wrote, Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth, even for ever. (Isaiah ix. 7.) And the angel said to Mary, He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His Kingdom there shall be NO END. (Luke i. 33.)

The Lord Jesus, we have abundantly seen, is both the Father and the Son. The apostle, therefore, cannot intend, against his own teaching, and against the other Scriptures, that the Lord Jesus will absolutely resign His government, and leave the reins in other hands than His. But this may be done in relation to the church. Mankind hitherto have not seen Him in His full, true character, of the Eternal Father manifest in the Son, notwithstanding His own plain, direct teaching. The rule they have submitted to has been a subordinate rule--the rule of the Son only as Mediator and Vicegerent. But a, grander light is opening upon the world. The New Jerusalem is gradually descending. Her glory is to acknowledge the glory of God as her light, and the Lamb as the lamp thereof. (Rev. xxi. 23.) She is the bride, the Lambs wife.

The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb, in one Divine Person, are her one central temple, the source of all her graces and her blessings. In her, and by her, mankind will learn to know that the Son was but their Father, who had stooped to veil Himself, to reveal as much of His nature and person as they could bear; and now He is unveiling His greater splendors, softer and deeper, and opening eyes and hearts to behold and embrace the Father in the Son. They who have loved Him and been ruled by Him as the Son, will now bow to His paternal scepter, and hail Him with another, sweeter name--their Father; and a Father who has been to them everything--their Prophet, their Teacher, their Priest, their King, their Shepherd, their Guardian, who has been afflicted in all their afflictions, who sought them in all their wanderings, and now is found to be that Glorious One whom they supposed was infinitely far off. Surely they will say, as the patriarch said of old, God was in this place, and I knew it not. This is no other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. We thought He was the Son only; but we find His own words have a meaning in them we never before perceived. If ye had known the Son, ye should have known the Father also. (John viii. 12.) He that believeth me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me, and He that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me. (John xii. 44, 45.)

And lastly, let us listen to the Saviors own teaching once more near the close of the volume of Revelation. I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these things unto the churches. I am the root, and the offspring of David, the bright and the morning star. The Trinity placed before us by the adorable speaker, seems the precise equivalent of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For what is the root of all things, but the Divine Love, the Father? what is the offspring of David but the Divine Humanity, the Son? and what is the bright and morning Star, but that Holy Spirit which beams upon the benighted soul as a star of hope, to usher in a new day, and gradually gathers splendor as the heart and mind open to the Divine Redeemer, until it blazes at last as a sun that will never withdraw itself and the days of our mourning are ended.

The Holy Spirit is given when Jesus is glorified. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His (Rom. viii. 9.) Even so come Lord Jesus.

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC. BY DR. BAYLEY, of Argyle Square Church, Kings Cross, London.
1. Genesis and Geology.
2. Miracles.
3. The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4. The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6. True Spiritualism.
7. The Atonement.
8. Difficulties on the Atonement.
9. The Life of Heaven.
10. The New Church Religious Life.
11. The Lord Jesus Christ.
12. The New Church.

By the same Author. Second issue. 7s. 6.
THE DIVINE WORD OPENED. Illustrating the spiritual interpretation of specimens of every portion of the Scriptures, but especially of the events of the early chapters of GenesisThe CreationGarden of Edenthe Fallthe FloodThe ArkNoahThe Tower of Babel.

GREAT TRUTHS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 2s.
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TWELVE DISCOURSES
ON
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
BY THE
REV. DR. BAYLEY.

DISCOURSE NO. XII.

THE NEW CHURCH, A NEW DISPENSATION, NOT A NEW SECT.

Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts: the holy mountain. Zech. viii. 3.

THE world is on the move, is the confession of all thoughtful and observant men. The old state of society is broken down in ten thousand directions, and rapidly disappearing, while now elements are visibly presenting themselves, elements of health and strength, of hope and progress. This every one admits, in science and social changes. But it is equally obvious in social arrangements, in morals, in benevolence, and in religion.

What greater sign of progress can be afforded, than the contrast of Professor Jowetts description of Christian feeling now and the state of things even two hundred years ago, when every announcement of an opinion by either council or ecclesiastic was accompanied by anathema against all who were of a different view. The Professor writes: No intelligent man seriously inclines to believe that salvation is to be found only in his own denomination. Examples of this sturdy orthodoxy in our own generation rather provoke a smile than arouse serious disapproval. Essays and Reviews, pp. 424.

Selfishness in the form of intolerance, and darkness, under the name of mystery, are both rapidly losing hold of mens minds, and giving way to the two grand substitutes announced in our test: a city of TRUTH, and a mountain of HOLINESS.

A state of society in which TRUTH shall be the element in which we breathe and by which we speak, TRUTH the law which we obey, and the light which we follow; TRUTH our walls of defense, and the only path to every virtue; TRUTH, the rock on which we build, and the only means by which we communicate with all the nations of mankind, A CITY OF TRUTH. In this announcement by the other words, a state of things in which love to the Lord, and charity to our neighbor shall raise man up to all that is elevated in purity, love, and goodness; a mountain of holiness, lifted up above all that is mean, depraved, and common place; a mountain of holiness, raising up the soul to divine things, and on whose glorious breast the sunlight of heaven should shine for over. Such a city, a city of God, formed of the good and the true, who in every nation love and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, is the crowning issue of all prophetic revealings.

To the believer in the New Testament, nothing can be more definitely plain than that its spiritual dispensation was altogether to supersede the Jewish. The Christian Church was the Jerusalem that was to be. Our Lords conversation with the woman of Samaria, altogether sounded the death knell of that localized form of religion that fixed it to certain places and forms. The woman exactly described the Jewish feeling. Ye say that at Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Christianity, there are still great numbers of those who call themselves Christians, not Jews, who are dreaming the same thing, and subscribing large sums to realize their dreams. Ye say that at Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Mistaken dreamers, look inward for peace--not outward. Did not the redeeming Teacher say, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship, the Father?

Did the place benefit the Jews when they were there? Were they restrained from idolatry, and from every kind of sensual madness? Oh, when will men accept the great principle opened by the Divine Savior, when He said: The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him; God is a spirit, and they that worship Him MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Jews themselves are awakening from their delusion, and large numbers are urging upon their brethren that the time has come to rise from the letter of their religion to its spirit, from a small gathering of tribes to universal brotherhood, from outward laws, respecting meats and drinks, to inward laws respecting the influences we receive on the soul; from being a small clannish section of mankind, to becoming a recognized and spiritually-minded portion of the great family of man, all contributing to the universal good, each with its variety of mind and work, but all animated by charity, ruled by justice, and taught by celestial wisdom.

Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. (Gal. iv. 26.)

Henceforward, according to the apostle, He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. Ye are come, He said, to all true followers of the Lord Jesus, unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.

This, then, is the Jerusalem of our text, a city of the living God, a city of truth, in which the souls of men can live, and joyously act out their purified delights, in blessed works of good. This is the mountain of holiness, around whose sacred heights the truly sincere, who overcome their evils by strength from the Redeemer who is seen at ii summit, have their spiritual abodes. This is the Jerusalem to which men are invited, now, the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, surely coming down from God out of heaven. There is not ONE WORD, we venture to say, in the New Testament, respecting the return of the Jews to their former land, not one word.

And in the Old Testament the prophecies which speak of their restoration were uttered before the return of the captivity from Babylon, and were fulfilled in their letter by that event, which was the return to their own country of the Jews a second time. Jehovah said, He would set His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Patros, and from Cush, and from Elam (Persia), and from Shinar (Babylon), and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea, (Isa xi. 11.), and HE DID. There is no promise to bring them back a THIRD time.

What remains now is that they with us, and all mankind shall rise from ancient errors, and modern iniquities, and enter into those states of thorough and loving obedience to the divine commandments, into that abhorrence of all selfishness and wrong, that admiration for the good, the true, and the beautiful, in all things, which constitute a living disciple of the great Savior Jesus Christ. In Him, there is neither Jew, nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. iii. 28.)

Jerusalem was constituted according to the Old Testament under David and Solomon, a true type of a Church. The name signifies a sight of peace. Its temple, its sacrifices, its ordinances, its laws were the symbols of those great principles and doctrines which do five man a sight of peace, and bring him to that Divine Savior who is the Prince of Peace. In Him alone there is peace. (John xvi. 33.)

The spiritual meaning of the prophecies respecting Zion and Jerusalem is all that concerns us now.

The Church, then, is the spiritual Jerusalem, of which the literal Jerusalem was a type. The first literal Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon, but afterwards a second Jerusalem was built, and the glory of the second temple was to be greater than the glory of the first. (Haggai ii. 9.) This was literally fulfilled. And the second temple and the restored city were standing when the canon of the prophetical books was closed.

According to the New Testament, the Christian Church would be a spiritual Jerusalem, it would also be destroyed by its Babylon, a spiritual Babylon, the embodied lust of spiritual dominion (Rev. xvii. 18.); and this latter Babylon would at length he destroyed, and a new Jerusalem, a new Church, descend from heaven. Has not all this taken place?

Can any one doubt that in the career of the Christian Church a Babylonish spirit became engendered, and grew until it transformed the religion of the adorable Jesus, the very home of humility, self-denial, rectitude, and wisdom, into a tyranny the most hateful, a corruption the most impure, and into a dark ignorance as childish as that of Paganism itself? Shall not the Divine Deliverer again say, Behold I make all things new? Has He not done so? Look around, life is renewing itself, and freedom unfolding itself on every side. The old world, with its selfishness, mystery, and crudeness is disappearing, a new world of knowledge, light, and love is opening into view.

Here, too, one cannot but be astonished at the continued literal interpretation of the language of the Scriptures, in which the end of one dispensation, and the beginning of another, is represented by the ending, or passing away, of one heaven and earth, and the commencement of another, while the use of such language is so evidently that of figure, and the Scriptures so unceasinsly teach that the Lords kingdom on earth is to endure for ever.

No person can read the Scriptures with moderate care, but Ire will see that the end of a Church, or dispensation of things, is there spoken of as the end or dissolution of the earth, or of the universe; the outward is the image of the inward change.

When the Jewish Church was a moral wreck, from the iniquity which Saul, in his decline. headed, rather than checked, we find it written by David, The earth and all the inhabitants thereof is dissolved, I bear up the pillars of it. (Ps. lxxv. 3.) What earth was then dissolved but the spiritual earth? the Church, as to its outward life and institutions. Again, They know not, neither will they understand, they walk on in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are out of course. (Ps. lxxxii. 5.) Surely such passages speak for themselves. Not the foundations of the natural earth, but the spiritual foundations; the great principles of religion are out of course, when men will walk on in darkness, and will not understand the things that belong to their peace.

In the prophecy of Isaiah we have many striking instances of a similar style of speaking. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. (Isa. xxiv. 6-8.) Again, in the same chapter; The earth IS utterly broken down, the earth IS CLEAN DISSOLVED, the earth is moved exceedingly. (19.) Here, not only are we informed that the earth was mourning, and languishing, and at length clean dissolved; but FIRE is described as one of the agents employed; the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. Yet it is perfectly clear that no material catastrophes happened at that time of which these could be considered a literal description. Wickedness burned like a fire, so the same prophet says. (Ch. ix. 18.) Violence, transgression, covenant-breaking, ordinance-changing, burning hatreds, contempt for God and goodness, these prevailed everywhere, and the Church from her own corruptness, was utterly powerlessclean dissolved. In the writings of every prophet we might select similar illustrations. Jeremiah says, My people is foolish, they have not known me, they are sottish children, and they have none understanding, they are wise to do evil; but to do good they have no knowledge. And having thus described their spiritual and moral condition, he proceedsI beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. (Ch. iv. 22, 23.) Who can imagine that this is language to be understood otherwise than in that spiritual manner, in which all things of the outward creation are regarded as the symbols of mans inner life.

The Prophet Joel has a prophecy that has quite as much the air of announcing the end of the material universe as any literalist could desire. And I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered. (Ch. iii. 30, 31.) Yet this passage is quoted by Peter, on the day of Pentecost, and declared to be fulfilled in what then took place. The Jewish Church was ended, all its bright lights were gone, the Christian Church had begun. Hear the Apostle.

In reply to the mockers, who had stigmatized as the aberrations of drunkenness, the strange proceedings of which they were witnesses. Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said mite them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken unto my words: for these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in THE LAST DAYS saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants, and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the, earth beneath, blood and FIRE, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and notable clay come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts ii. 16-21.) Let anyone examine the prophecy and the fulfillment, and he must come to the conclusion that such language has no bearing whatever upon the great bodies of the physical universe upheld by the laws of unerring wisdom which are based on Infinite Love, but that they are figures descriptive of the wreck. of all that is good and true, love, faith, knowledge, when a Church is in ruins, and the tender mercy of the Lord, which provides for a New Church, at such a time, amongst those who call upon His adorable name.

That the end of the world, is the end of a dispensation, or the end of the Church, according to the use of the term in the New Testament, is so manifest, that no one who gives a careful examination to the subject can fail, we conceive, to admit it.

The word [scanner unable to insert word] rendered world, means, as the ordinary dictionaries say, an age, a period, a generation the world, in the sense of society. The plural is rendered ages in the English version in Eph. ii. 7, That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of His grace.

The end of the world, therefore, means the end of the age. It was the end of the Jewish world, or dispensation, when our Lord came, and, therefore, the apostle says, Now, once, in the end of the world, hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Heb. ix. 26.) And, in another place, Now, all these things are written for our examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world ARE come. (1 Cor. x. 11.) It is evident that the apostles thus designated the time, nearly two thousand years ago, the end of the world; but of what world? The Jewish world. The new heaven, and the new earth, are the beginning of the Christian world. For the same reason, me find them so often calling the close of the Jewish period the last days, not, certainly, the last days of the material world, for this still wont on, though the inhabitants upon its goodly surface have been changing, time after time, from one dispensation, or world, to another. Jacob, in his prophecy at the close of his life, said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what will befall you in the last days. The latest thing mentioned in the prophecy is the coming of the Lord. (Gen. xlix. 1.) Peter, in his Pentecostal sermons, called those days, the last days. Paul, in the beginning of the epistle to the Hebrews says, God, who at sundry times, and in divers places, spoke in times pest unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days, spoken unto us by His Son. (Heb. i. 1, 2.) The apostle John said, little children, it is the last time--we know that it is the last time. (1 John n. 18.)

But, again, we ask, the last time of what? We know that the natural universe has continued with ifs wonted regularity, now nearly two thousand years since those words were spoken. Is it not, therefore, evident that these forms of speech were used, not of natures world, but of that world, the Jewish church and society, which had become thoroughly corrupt, and was about to be swept away.

Over this, the highest authority said on the cross, IT IS FINISHED.

If we have rightly interpreted the meaning of the terms, then, there will be no difficulty when similar terms are used in the New Testament, and concerning the Christian church. When we are told again by the apostle John, That he saw once more, a new heaven and a new earth, and that the former heaven and the former earth were passed away, (Rev. xxi. 1) we are again assured that a change would become necessary. The Christian church would become corrupt in principle and in practice. That dispensation also would be removed, and new principles and anew society would be formed, and these should last for ever.

This interpretation, which commends itself to the student of the Divine Word, from a perusal of that Word itself, is of the highest consequence, to save the authority of the Scriptures from being discredited by the extravagancies of fanaticism. Often, indeed, has the cry been uttered by Scriptural calculators and literal interpreters, that the time was close at hand, in which the universe was to be burnt up. The time has come and gone, and the interpreters have sunk into oblivion. In days gone by, the poor simple people were teased and frightened for a time, but the Scriptures were little known; the false prophets not the blame, and the Scriptures were unscathed. But, in these days, the condemners of the declaration, The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life, (Cor. Iii. 6) so mix up their fanatical fancies with the Scriptures, that when these writers of the prophecies are found entirely to have been wrong, the Scriptures themselves are, by the blind followers of these blind, in thousands of instances, made to bear the blame.

It was said in the American papers, in 1843, that two hundred thousand Millerites in the United States had declared that if the world did not come to an end in that year, or the early part of the following one, they would burn their Bibles. What has become of them, or of Father Miller, as he was called, we know not; but it is lamentable to think of multitudes, who have first been alarmed almost to frenzy by such delusive dreams, founded upon conceits which are cherished in defiance of the Divine declaration of the Savior, The kingdom of God COMETH NOT WITH OUTWARD OBSERVATION, neither shall men say, lo, here, or lo, there, for the kingdom of God is within you.

These men are continually saying, lo, here, and lo there. The very essence of all their interpretations is, The kingdom of God will come with outward observation. They and the Savior are in entire opposition.

The chief source of their strangely-fallacious spiritual arithmetic are the days mentioned in the Book of Daniel, understood naturally, and interpreted by reckoning, a day for it year, a rule arrived at by a strange misapplication of the command for Israel to wander in the wilderness a year for each day, the spies had misused, in obtaining their miserable reports. And, of the intimation to the prophet, that he should lie on his side a day for each year, in being a sign to Judah and Israel; therefore, say these interpreters in prophecy, a totally different subject, each day is to be reckoned for a year. Nothing can be more unfounded. The two things are entirely different. To fix a day for a year, or it year for a day, as a sign, or as a punishment, is obviously one thing; to reckon a year for a day in the computation of prophecy is another, and a very different thing. When a prophecy is given which is intended, from the nature of the case, to be fulfilled literally, because, falling within the literal dispensation of the Jews, we do not find the time mentioned by this rule of a day for a year; but when it meant years, it says years. When Hezekiahs life was to be lengthened fifteen years, it was said so by the prophet Isaiah; when Israel was to be in captivity is Babylon seventy years, the prophet said years, not days. Indeed, the whole ground upon which the literal interpreters of prophecy blow their bubbles, is of the flimsiest possible character. And, when our Lord said, Of that day and hour, knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father, thoughtful persons minds would have concluded that it could not then all be got at to a year, by adding and subtracting the days in Daniel.

Our Lord, on another occasion, gave a similar warning, when the disciples asked anxiously after the times and seasons, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put into His own power. (Acts i. 7.)

Discontented man, untrusting, and full of fear is ever prying and anxious to know times and seasons. Only, as he becomes loving and trustful, is be content, with blessing the wise and tender Providence which hides from him the future.

There have not been wanting fanatical minds during the whole course of the Christian centuries to raise the cry, the end of the world will shortly be here. The continual failure of their predictions has, no doubt, put out one will-o-the-wisp after another, but fresh fanatics have arisen in due time to affright the timid once more, and gain notoriety for a time, to be as usual, at length extinguished. They spring like mushrooms in the night, and are nearly as short-lived as they.

Let us notice a few of the most prominent periods when the world has been affrighted for a time, and then has laughed at the prophets of alarm people and prophets alike looking outside of themselves instead of within themselves, for those changes which alone can bless either themselves or the world. Make you a new heart, and a right spirit, or ye cannot he happy either in this world or another. Love the Lord Jesus Christ, have faith in Him, and obey his commandments; this is the way to have the Lord come to you, abide in you, and bless you. Let this simple plan he adopted by all the world, and all the world will arise from its sorrows, and rejoice in its Savior.

External minds, however, turn away from this, and tacitly laying the blame of the worlds wretchedness upon the Lord, say, Oh, that the Lord would come upon the clouds, make himself visible to all the world, then all mankind would be converted, the Jews restored, the reign of sin ended, and all the world made right. Until this great spectacle is afforded, they imagine the world must go on as it does. This world, they conceive, must be unquiet, selfish, and iniquitous as it is; sin cannot be conquered, the reign of love and truth cannot be begun. There is infidelity at the bottom of this, but many know it not. the Savior is always near. Change of heart is alone necessary, and then, this beautiful world would become a blessed threshold of the better home, where we shall dwell for ever.

Without regeneration, no outward scenes, comings, or changes could do anything but dazzle and die away. We must be born again.

The year one thousand, the Cummings of that time had long determined would be the year of the worlds destruction. The people really believed them, and an immense amount of property was made over by the owners to the Church, especially to the monasteries, to cause the donors to stand well at the expected great judgment, on account of their generosity to the Church. A vast number of deeds of church lands about that period are said to commence with the words, In the approaching end of the world. The alarm spread was so great, that enormous tracts of land were left idle, and a famine of a most serious character was the result.

Michelet, in his History of France, says: It was the universal belief of the middle age that the thousandth year from the nativity would be the end of the world. .... This fearful hope of the arrival of the judgment day grew with the calamities that ushered in the year one thousand, or that followed hard upon. It seemed se if the order of the seasons had been inverted, and the elements had been subjected to new laws. A dreadful pestilence made Aquitaine a desert. The flesh of those who were seized by it was as if struck by fire, for it fell rotting from their bones. The high roads to the places of pilgrimage were thronged with these wretched beings. They besieged the churches, particularly that of St. Martins at Lirnoges, and crowded its portals to suffocation, undeterred by the stench around it. Most of the bishops of the south repaired thither, bringing with them the relies of their respective churches. The crowd increased and so did the pestilence, and the sufferers breathed their last on the relies of the saints. In this general despair, few enjoyed any peace, save under the shadow of the church. Men crowded to lay on the altar gifts of lands, of houses, and of serfs, all of which acts have the imprint of the one universal belief. The end of the world draws nigh, so they ran, Each day brings fresh destruction, therefore, I, count, or baron, give to such and such a church for the benefit of my soul, &c., &c. (Book IV.)*

* Those who have been in the habit of thinking very highly of the wisdom and happiness of our ancestors in Church and State, would do well to ponder the condition of the Old World about the end of the tenth century, as given in Michelet, from Rad. Gluber. (Book IV. ch. 4.) In the course of seventy-three years there were no fewer than forty-eight famines and epidemic disorders. In the year 987, a great famine, and epidemic disease; in 989, a great famine; between 990 and 994, a famine and the burning sickness; between 1003 and 1008, a famine and great mortality; 1010-1014, famine, burning sickness, and great mortality; 1027-1029, famine, so that men eat each other; 1031-1033, a cruel famine; 1035, famine and pestilence; 1045-46, famine both in France and Germany; 1053-58, famine, and great mortality for five years; 1059, seven years famine, and corresponding mortality.

There was a sect arose among the Lutherans, who proclaimed a sort of fanatical system, strikingly similar to Mormonism, of whom DAubigne gives the following account in his History of the ReformationWhen a great religious fermentation takes place in the Church some impure elements always mingle with the manifestation of the truth. One or more false reforms proceeding from man rise from the surface, and serve as a testimony or countersign to true reform. Thus, in the days of Christ, several false Messiahs attested that the true Messiah had appeared. The reformation of the sixteenth century could not be accomplished without exhibiting a similar phenomenon. The place where it appeared was the little town of Zwickau.

There were some men who excited by the great events which agitated Christendom, aspired to direct revelations from the Deity, instead of simply seeking sanctification of heart, and who pretended they had a call to complete the Reformation which had been feebly sketched by Luther. What use is there, said they, in attaching oneself so strictly to the Bible? The Bible, always the Bible! Can the Bible speak to us. ....

A simple weaver, named Nicholas Storck, announced that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him during the night, and after having communicated to him things him, Thou which he could not yet reveal, had said to shalt sit upon my throne.*

* These fanatics have always a grand part for themselves to play. True religion humbles and makes its disciples self-forgetful. Fanaticism inflames and inflates self-hood, and fills its possessor with great ideas of his own importance.

An old student of Wittemberg, named mark Stubner, joined Storck, and forthwith abandoned his studies, having, as he said, received the gift of interpreting the Holy Scriptures immediately from God.

Mark Thomas, also a weaver, added to their number, and a new adept, Thomas Munzer, a man of fanatical spirit, gave a regular organization tot his new sect, Storck, wishing to follow the example of Christ, chose among his adherents twelve apostles and seventy-two disciples.

Shortly after, the new prophets, pretending to walk in the footsteps of those of ancient times, delivered their message. Woe, woe, said they. A church, governed by men so corrupt as the bishops, cannot be the Church of Christ. The wicked rulers of Christendom will, ere long, be overthrown. In FIVE, SIX OR SEVEN YEARS, universal desolation will burst forth. The Turk will seize upon Germany; all the priests, even those who are married, will be put to death. No wicked man, no sinner will be left alive; and, set up his kingdom in it; STORCK will be put in possession of SUPREME AUTHORITY, and will commit the government of the nation to saints. Henceforth, there will be only one faith and one baptism. The day of the Lord is at hand, and we are touching ON THE END OF THE WORLD. DAubignes History of the Reformation. (Chap. vii.)*

* In reading this description, one might almost imagine oneself presiding at the early efforts of Mormonism. The end of this outburst of fanaticism was the utmost profligacy and a bloody war, quenched only in the destruction, at last, of Munzer and his associates.

Bengel, a famous mystical writer, calculated that the millennium would begin in 1836, and last two thousand years.

In 1844, Mrs. Child, in her beautiful letters from New York, writes that, Oct. 21.

Many of the Millerites believed that last week was appointed for the burning of the world; not, positively for the last time this season, however, for a majority suppose it will occur tomorrow. Their system of theological navigation is supplied with elaborately prepared charts from which they learn that the lord will certainly leave the Mercy Seat on the 13th of this present October, and appear visibly in the clouds of heaven on the 22nd. Alas! for every one of us, sinners and saints, if our Father should leave the Mercy Seat, even for so brief an interval!

About the same time, Prince and his associates were preaching a similar delusion in Bristol and its neighborhood, which has since eventuated in the follies and blasphemies of the Agapemone. They proclaimed, however, that the Almighty had left the Throne of Mercy, and was on his way to the earth, which he would reach in about three years.

It was stated some time ago, in the papers, that Mr. Miller had given it as his opinion, that if the prophecy was not fulfilled, as expected, last spring, it would occur soon after the autumnal equinox. Meanwhile, even the memory of this excitement seemed to have passed away from the ever busy crowd. But with the autumnal equinox, it returned with new fervor. Mrs. Higgins, a young woman from Boston, I believe, is here preaching with that enthusiasm and earnestness of conviction, which always imparts a degree of eloquence. She and her zealous coadjutors are creating a prodigious ferment, and making many proselytes; all of whom are welcomed to their ranks, as brands plucked from immediate burning.

A man, who has tended an apple-stall near the park, went to hear her, and straightway gave away all his fruit and cakes, to the great delight of the children, who became warmly interested to have this faith spread through all the cake-shops and apple-stalls. A vendor of stoves, near by, has shut up his shop, with the announcement that no more stoves will be needed on this earth. A shoemaker in Division-street, began to give away all his stock; but his son came in during the process, and caused him to be sent to an insane asylum, till the excitement of his mind abated. A shop in the Bowery mounted a placard, on which was inscribed, in large letters, MUSLIN FOR ASCENSION ROBES! I know now whether this was done for waggery, or from that spirit of trade, which is ever willing to turn a penny on war, pestilence, or conflagration.

Thousands of minds are in a state of intense alarm, but I have heard of very few instances of stolen money being restored, or falsehoods acknowledged, as a preparation for the dreaded event.

One man, of whom I bought some calico, took two cents a yard less than he asked. When I thanked him, he said, I suppose you are surprised that I should diminish the price, after you have bought the article; but the fact is, I have been hearing Mr. Miller, and I thought he proved his doctrine clear enough to satisfy anybody. If we are all to come to an end so soon, it is best to be pretty moderate and fair in our dealings. But we cannot come to an and, said I. Oh, I meant the world, and our bodies, he replied. And if they come to an end in 98 instead of 44, is it not still best to be moderate and fair in our dealings? said I. He admitted the premises; but as one admits an abstraction

A prophet, who appeared in London, many years ago, and predicted the destruction of the world, from Scripture authority, produced a much more decided effect in driving people into good works. Under his preaching, very large sums of money were restored, and seventy thousand persons were married, who had formed illicit connexions.

What matters it to me whether the world is destroyed in 1844, or in 18,044? For me it must soon cease to exist, even if nature pursues its usual course. And what will it concern my spirit, in the realms beyond, whether this ball of earth and stones still continues its circling march through space, or falls into the bosom of the sun? Let spirit change forms as it will, I know that nothing is really lost. The human soul contains within itself the universe. If the stars are blotted out, and the heavens rolled up as a scroll, they are not lost. They have merely dropped the vesture that we saw them by. Life never dies: matter dies off it, and it lives elsewhere.

Dr. Woolf, of Bochara fame, and a most active missionary for the conversion of the Jews, was another very diligent calculator of the prophecies, which he imagined taught the end of the world, and strenuously insisted that the true period was 1848. He alludes to this in his autobiography, when relating his interview with the Havelock family in India in 1849. Some one asked him how he came to make so serious a mistake, when he said, With a frankness highly creditable, although we cannot say much for its elegance, Because, I was a great ass.

Professor Jowett observes, It is an instructive fact, that Joseph Mede, the greatest authority on this subject, twice fixed the end of the world in the last century, and once during his lifetime. (Essays, &c., p. 341.)

Dr. Adam Clark mentions in his Commentary, That Lord Napier, the discoverer of Algebra, had made out that the end of the world would take place in 1810. And in the Commentary of the New Testament, published under the direction of Mr. Wesley, the period was fixed at 1830.

Dr. Cumming has been at great labor to fix the period of material destruction to the date of 1867, but seems already to be somewhat trimming his sails, and preparing to escape from the results of exploded delusions as completely, though without the blunt sincerity of Dr Woolf.

We might have added very considerably to this list, but it is surely long enough. Can any one fail to see in it a melancholy illustration of the Scriptural declaration, The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Sure! if religion had not been altogether of Divine origin, and constantly the object of Providential care, its alliance to such, and so many miserable failures, must have subjected it to universal rejection.

All these bubbles arise from the unwillingness of the natural man to submit to the pure Divine commandments of the Divine Savior, which give happiness now, and would transform the earth now into a likeness of heaven. He virtually throws the blame of his unrighteousness on the Lord. He is bad, he thinks, because the Lord is so far off, or does not make demonstration enough in the air. The kingdom of heaven must come with outward show, according to him. Sin is in the body, and so long as he is in the body, he must sin. Sin is in the earth, and so the earth must be burnt up, or there will be nothing right. Poor self-deluding man, when will he leave these accusations of his Maker to their own worthlessness, and seek first, the Kingdom of God, and its righteousness, confiding in the promise of his Savior, that all other things will be added unto him. Gods world is all right. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handy work! Gods world is full of beauty and of excellence.

We are only beginning to understand its wondrous worth and capabilities, and use it as me ought. With man regenerated, doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with his God, what would stand in the way of human happiness? Oh, no; the world is a good, glorious, and beautiful world. Let him who thinks it otherwise, cleave in heart and life to his Savior, and he will find the apostles language true. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. (8 Cor. v. 18.)

It is mans wicked world, the world that hates the Savior and His kingdom, that needs to come to an end. The old Christian world, which grew out of the corruption of the Christianity of the Lord Jesus; the old world of selfish denomination and mystery, instead of love and truth, the old jarring world of strife and war, of denunciation and persecution, instead of obedience, virtue, and charity. The old world, the heaven and earth, which arose from truth perverted to serve selfish ends, from institutions full of injustice and misery, has ceased from being a heaven and earth recognized by the Lord, and a new heaven and earth. in which will dwell righteousness, have begun.

The world has had a long and dreary winter. The dark ages through long centuries, have been ages of misrule and misery, of ignorance and slavery; the night has been long, but the dawn is appearing. Long have the hearts crushed down by oppression, cried out, Lord, how long? Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of night? The answer now is, the morning cometh. Now is the evening, at which there is light. (Zech. xiv. 7.)

The dispensation foretold by so many prophecies, is now breaking forth front heaven into the world. The Lord has breathed over the earth, hardened with the mists and fogs of mental winter, and lo new forms of life are bursting on every side. The spiritual fig tree is putting forth her buds, so we may all know the summer is nigh. (Mark xiii. 28.)

The Church that is to be, is described in prophecy as having these four distinguishing features.

1. It should be the Church of Jehovah in His Divine Humanity.

2. The Church of genuine love to our neighbor.

3. The Church of knowledge, light, and truth for the sake of practice.

4. The Church of justice and peace.

There is a very full description of the Church of the last days in Isaiah ii. 1-5, and it is corroborated in so many other declarations, that it is truly surprising to find that such a body of divine testimony has been overlooked, and people have been led to suppose the material universe would be destroyed, while all these prophecies are confessedly unfulfilled. No one pretends that they ever have been fulfilled, and if the earth mere to be now destroyed of course, they never would be.

I. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says the prophet, the mountain of the Lords House shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.

The House of Jehovah, is the Divine Humanity of Jehovah, the glorified body of the Lord Jesus. He spake of the temple of His body. (John n. 21.) The mountain of this house, is that celestial love of the Lord Jesus, which, when He is supremely regarded, rises above all other affections of the heart, and sanctifies and blesses them all. Jehovah in His humanity; God in Christ; Jesus the first and the last, would be center and head, the one God over all, in this dispensation of the last days.

In Isaiah xi. 10, it is written, In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious. Jesus is the root and the offspring of David, the bright and the morning star. (Rev. xxii. l6.) To Him must the Gentiles seek, and His rest is indeed glorious. In Him, God manifest, the knowledge of the Lord is possible, to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. In Jesus we know God. We know how loving He is; how tender He is; how condescending and compassionate He is; how pure He is; how wise He is; how righteous, true, and how unchanging He is; yet how considerate and full of loving-kindness. In Him, mankind can adopt the language of the prophet, And it shall be said in that day, Lo this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord (Jehovah), we have waited for Him, me will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (Isa. xxv. 9.)

In Daniel it, is written, when the Church is described as completing its declension and restoration; One like unto the Son of Man was brought to the Ancient of days,--a description of the exaltation of the Lords humanity in the minds of men until it was adored as One with the Father--and then there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (vii. 14.) In the Revelations, at the description of the last days, it is said The seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

The kingdoms of this world, are not to be abolished, but transformed, to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and HE, not they, but He, one Divine person, shall reign for ever and ever.

The new Jerusalem, the symbol of the new Church, was to be the bride, the Lambs wife. (Rev. xxi. 9.) All these prophetic announcements show that the first and chief mark of the last, and crown of all dispensations of the adorable Father of the Human race to man, would be that in it He would indeed show His creatures, according to His promise, plainly of the Father. He would be fully revealed in the All-sacred Humanity, which to see and truly know, and honor is to see, and know, and honor the Father. (John xiv. 9; xii. 45; v.23.)

Some find great difficulty in thinking of God as a Divine Man. Cut this arises from their thinking of man from space and shape, instead of from essence of principle. It is not the human form that makes humanity, but humanity that makes the human form. How different in the grandeur of goodness, sentiment, and power are often human beings who are very little different in size. Take a coarse and untutored Indian, in whom the animal nature predominates, and you will see this expressed in head, face, and whole constitution.

Let him become receptive of the sacred principles of true religion, of intelligence, and virtue, and you will see the animal tone gradually retiring, and the features gradually becoming humanized, until, as interior perfection increases, you have a beautiful man. Love and Wisdom, when they become thus embodied in human beings, form spiritual and celestial men--images of the Divine. He in whom these Divine principles infinitely embodied themselves is an infinite Divine Man, Jehovah, the Incarnate God, in whom Divinity is Human, and Humanity is Divine. Oh, let our hearts look to Him and adore Him. Let Him be the object of our prayers and worship, for in Him is all power in heaven and on earth. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. (Phil. ii. 10.) Let us follow Him, study Him, and obey Him, and we shall own that His pure yoke is easy, and His burden light. Then will the Church of the last days share the first grand distinguishing feature. The mountain of the Lords house will be established on the top of the mountains, and above all the hills, and all nations shall now unto it.

2ndly. Mutual love is the next prophetic mark of the New Dispensation.

This is expressed by the hills, or second class of heights in the symbolical language of the prophets. Mountains indicate the highest class of affections in the regenerate soul, those Of love to the Lord; hills the next in order, those of love to the neighbor. The one class, when real and true, generates the other. He who truly loves God, loves his brother also. (1 John iv. 21). We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. (1 John iii. 14). If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. (1 John iv. 12). He that loveth his brother, abideth in the light. (1 John ii. 10).

How little of true charity has there been in the Church of the past. What schisms, what separations, what heart-burnings, what wars, what slaughters, what wholesale desolations have there been, even under the name of religion, and on the pretense of serving the cause. But in the dispensation that is opening upon us, charity will have her place as chief of heavenly graces. The greatest of these is charity. The hills will be there as well as the mountains.

The hills will flow with the milk of tender simple truth (Joel iii. 18), and the mountains as well will drop down the new wine of cheering, inspiring wisdom. Genuine love to God will be displayed in genuine love to man. If my brother thinks differently from me, I shall not on that account scowl upon him, shun him, and do him harm. I shall respect him, strive to see and give heed to the reasons that induce him to think as he does, and take the course he does, and in all cases to servo him, when consistent with the public good. If the in error? I must keep open the avenues by which he can be better informed. I must associate with him, and let him see my truth in action. Is he right, and am I in error? I must associate with him that I may understand his truth. A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. (John xiii. 34, 35). The New Jerusalem was to be a golden city as well as a clear one, clear as crystal. (Rev. xxi. 18): Love, the golden principle, permeates it in every direction. All its principles are love wrought out. Love upwards to the Lord supremely, love around to our fellow-creatures, and love onwards to all the blessed arrangements of heaven. The hills in this church will melt (Amos); that is, there will be a tender love to all mankind, as descended from the same Heavenly Father, and heirs to the same glory.

3rdly. The new dispensation will be one of knowledge, light, and truth. In it the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. It will not be said in this Church, that the Lord cannot be known, but, on the contrary, to know Him is life eternal. Our text says Jerusalem shall be a city of truth. The New Jerusalem should he clear as crystal. Not misty, dark, and mysterious, but clear as crystal. In the passage of the Prophet Isaiah, to which we have previously referred, this is expressed by the words: He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isa. ii. 3.) And, again, O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. (v. 5). Of the New Jerusalem, it is written: The nations of them that are saved, shall walk in the light of it, (the city). (Rev. xxi. 24).

To unfold the spiritual sense of the word of God so that its difficulties may become clear, and its diviner wisdom manifest. To walk in the light, to live according to the truth. To seek truth, that we may practice it. This is the order of true life; the order of true manhood. To spread knowledge, then, to induce men to think, to reason, to judge and decide intelligently and righteously, this will be a grand distinctive feature of the new dispensation, and will go on diffusing the hallowed splendors of divine intelligence, until of every home all over the world, it may be said, as it was of ancient Israel, light was in all their dwellings. Light, more light, said the dying German philosopher. Here is light from heaven, says the New Dispensation, walk then in it. Light is now given to illuminate mans walk in time, to explain his nature to himself; light to illuminate death; light over the spiritual its well as over the natural world light over heaven and hell. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord hath arise upon thee. (Isa. lx. 1).

And, lastly, the New Dispensation would he one of justice and peace.

Hitherto, selfishness has been too much the role with both individuals and nations, hence incessant strife, cruel wars, never true and real peace. Cut of the last dispensation it is written: He, the Lord, shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isa. ii. 4.)

In a religion, having as the supreme object of its faith and adoration, the God of love, the blessed Savior, and its rule of life His divine commandments, as indispensable laws, this reign of justice and peace is possible. It is well-known that not the slightest approach to this blessed abolition of war, the old Christian world has ever realized. And, while God Himself was regarded as harsh, strict, severe, and terribly exacting, it may not be difficult to give the reason; but, from grander principles, results more in accordance with Christian love, will doubtless be unfolded. Let justice he regarded and believed in as the supreme and indispensable law. Let the work of regeneration, of actual regeneration, be insisted on everywhere.

Let heaven here be preached as the preliminary to heaven hereafter. Let the opened Word in its Spirit; and Life he brought incessantly to bear upon the evils of men and nations. Let the cry of Christianity, not be Believe, believe, believe, and you will be saved, but Live, live, live, justly, humbly, lovingly, and the golden age will return again, and men will LEARN WAR NO MORE. The hope of all ages, the song of poets, the vision of prophets, the end of civilization, cultivation, and religion, universal peace will come as the issue of this grand Church now beginning when the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death (to be carnally minded is death), neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

We have now endeavored to describe the nature of the New Dispensation, and it will be seen to be no narrow sectarian denomination, but universal principles me have in view. New principles, which build up heaven in the human soul, and which will form society into harmony with themselves, thus making a new heaven and a new earth. We rejoice to observe these principles making their way, not only in the formation of a definite body of men, who designate themselves the New Church, or New Jerusalem Church, but also in the more enlightened and liberal doctrines, and loving activities which are leavening all churches.

A hundred years ago, religion seemed almost entirely dead, but now the signs of resurrection multiply around us. Compare the Church of England of today, though loaded with the grave clothes of old times, earnest, thoughtful, active as she appears in a large number of her ministers and laity, liberalizing her institutions, chafing against the old forms, and old creeds, as she appears from time to time now, in her meetings for reforms, and in her noblest productions, compare her, we say, with the half sensual, half formal, miserable mass, which bore that name a century since; and we have a spectacle most delightful to contemplate.

The icy incrustations of ages are moving, the refreshing spring of a new era is making its warm breath felt, and its brilliant light be seen. It is so in all churches, and out of all churches. There is movement, life, everywhere. An increasing number, a minority perhaps, yet, but a large minority, are as earnest to inculcate love to God and man, and the absolute necessity of good works in mans salvation, as if the article which declares man to be saved by faith alone, did not form one of the thirty-nine. Vast numbers, both of clergy and laity, join with Professor Jowett, when he observes, It may be said that the Spirit of Christ forbids us to determine beyond what is written; and the decision of the Council of Nice, has been described by an eminent English prelate as the greatest misfortune that ever befell the Christian world; and the Revd. H. B. Wilson, who pleads for the omission of that one unhappy creed, the Athanasian. (Pp. 420, 150.)

We have noticed in these discourses how many points of general principle there are in which the essayists unmistakably approach those grand views which we have seen to constitute the Scriptural meaning of the New Dispensation. They plead that God is love:--l. That the Trinity is consistent with One Divine Person, the Savior. 2. That justification by faith only, was never the doctrine of the Church before the Reformation. 3. That the Resurrection of man takes place at death in a spiritual body. 4. That Salvation is deliverance from evil through the Spirit of the Savior. 5. That the miracles of our Lord had a spiritual meaning. 6. That the rituals and articles of the Church should be altered so as to include all who unite in these great principles, and to reject mysterious and persecuting statements. Their sentiments are more or less endorsed by an immense number both of clergy and laity.

These seek for change in these matters, and in others, in which the advance of science has exploded untenable opinions as the resurrection of the material body, the acceptance as literal of the early chapters of Genesis, not in the spirit of unbelief, but in the spirit of faith, a holy faith, that truth may ever be safely followed, for it leads to goodness and to God.

We will add one more extract, to show the harmony of the Essays and Reviews with the leading principle of this Discourse. There may be a long future during which the present course of the world shall last, instead of its drawing near the close of its existence as represented in Millenarian and Rabbinical fables, and with so many more souls, according to some interpretations of the Gospel of Salvation, lost to Satan in every age and in every nation, than have been won to Christ, that the victory would evidently be on the side of the Fiend. We may yet be only at the commencement of the career of the Great Spiritual Conqueror, even in this world. Nor have we any right to say that the effects of what He does upon earth shall not extend, and propagate themselves in worlds to come. (p. 158.)

The one great desideratum of the Church of England has long been, a hearty acknowledgment in her colleges, halls, and pulpits, of a spiritual sense in the word of God, as constituting its true divine character, and inherent in its nature as a Revelation from God, who is a Spirit. The want of this is the one weak element in the Essays and Reviews. You feel no absolute recognition of a thorough Divine Revelation in any strict and proper sense. The writers of the Essays, however, only share, in this respect, the general condition of the Church. But, happily, now there are decided marks of change, not only by individual writers, but from one of the leading preachers in Christ Church Cathedral, at Oxford, do we hear now such teaching as the following.

This manifesto is the cloud about the size of a mans hand, which indicates the coming glorious showers, in truth, great showers of blessings.

Ought Scripture to be interpreted like any other book, or not? Thatis the real question! Has Scripture only one meaning, or more? That is the point in dispute! Above all, What is the true principle of Scripture interpretation? That is the only thing we have to discover!

The lecturer in treating of these questions, repeatedly and emphatically denies that Scripture ought to be interpreted like any other book, or that it has only one meaning; and he observes (p. 168):--

If GOD made this world the particular kind of world which He is found to have made it, in order that it might in due time preach to mankind about Himself, and about His providence:if He contrived beforehand the germination of seeds, the growth of plants, the analogies of animal life,all, evidently, in order that they might furnish illustrations of His teaching; and that so, great Natures self might prove one vast Parable in His Hands; why may not the same God, by His Eternal Spirit, have so overruled the utterance of the human agents whom He employed to write the Bible, that their historical narratives, however, little their authors meant or suspected it, should embody the outline of things heavenly; and, while they convey a true picture of actual events, should also, after a most mysterious fashion, yield, in the hands of His own informing Spirit, celestial Doctrine also?

Accordingly, the lecturer observes (p. 174):--

Our purpose has only been to vindicate the profundity, or rather the fullness* of Holy Writ; and to show that under the obvious and literal meaning of the Word, there lies concealed a more recondite and a profounder sense: call that sense mystical, or spiritual, or Christian, or what you will. Unerringly to elicit that hidden sense is the sublime privilege of inspired writers; and they do it by allusion, by quotation, by the importation of a short phrase, by the adoption of a single word,--to an extent; which no one would suspect who had not carefully studied the subject.

* Adoro Scripture plentiudinem.TERTULLIAN ado. Ilermog. (C. xxii.)

The lecturer afterwards states how that method of theirs is to be applied by ourselves. He then speaks (in p. 167) of the veil upon the face of Moses, signifying mystically the nations inability to look steadfastly to the end of the dispensation, and to recognize in the Scriptures the Messiah. And he adds:--

Now, I gather from all this, and many a hint of the like kind, that the whole of Scripture is of the same marvelous texture, the Old Testament and the New, alike,--whether we have eyes to see it or not.

Again (p. 185):--

Under the evident, palpable signification of the words, there lies, concealed something grander, and deeper, and broader; high as Heaven,--deep as Hell.

Again, and lastly (p. 181):--

Those who are for eluding the secondary intention of Prophecy, the obviously mystical teaching of Types, the allegorical character of many a sacred narrative,--are no less dangerous enemies of Gods Word than those who frame unworthy theories, in order to dwarf Inspiration to the standard of their own conceptions of its nature and office. I say it is only another way of denying the Inspiration of the Scripture, to deny what is sometimes called its mystical, sometimes its typical, sometimes its allegorical sense.Revd. Mr. Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation: Seven Sermons preached before the University of Oxford.

Regard the spread of education by the efforts of the clergy, both in Day schools, Sunday schools, young mens Christian institutions, and other means of progress; consider the opening of the universities to persons of all creeds, and of no creed, and observe the tone of liberal, generous, charitable feeling which is daily more and more visible among the clergy, as well as the laity; and, though it must be confessed that much, very much remains to be done, that the Spirit of the Lord Jesus shall be seen to be triumphant over sect and party in the Church of England, yet wonders have been wrought, and transition to a condition of enlightened charity and spiritual faith, will make her a home for numbers who were once repelled by formality, mystery, and intolerance.

But the advance of light, liberty; and love is by no means confined to the Church of England. Other bodies of professing Christians have long been gradually softening their religious differences, and cultivating those sentiments of faith, love, and virtue, in which they can agree. They have been looking more for life, and less for dogma. The views of the ministers have been enlarging themselves, and the narrow Calvinistic spirit has been long decaying, and dying out. Goodness of life, reality in religion, the great value of a living personal faith, the small value of mere doctrinal denominationalism, the progress of education amongst the people, and learning amongst the ministers, the multiplication of colleges, and of benevolent efforts to banish ignorance, repress crime, promote philanthropy, order, piety, and virtue, all impel the observant mind to say, What hath God wrought?

The Baptists and Congregationalists are preaching, in very numerous instances, a religion of love and light, of spiritual-mindedness and genuine obedience, immensely beyond that of Owen and Gill, of Toplady, and Hill, whose flinty gospel was the monopoly of Gods love to a handful of mankind, and whose hard faith kept the gates of their narrow heaven fiercely bolted, not only against Jews, Mahometans, and all who never knew the gospel, but also against little children.

On the subject of the Resurrection, the idea of the earthly body being wanted again, is so generally discarded, and the resurrection of the man in a spiritual body immediately after death substituted in its place, that Mr. Spurgeon, in one of his Discourses lately published, states that he thinks not more than one Christian out of fifty, now believes in the resurrection of the outward body. Not long ago, being in company with a Unitarian minister, he remarked, that he knew fifty ministers of that persuasion, but he only knew one who believed that the body would rise again. That idea, which a due consideration will discover to have rested only on a misconception of a few passages, intended to be spiritually understood, but taken literally, will be the first of the old series of doctrinal errors which will be universally discarded. The more the dust is laid aside, the more the man will be appreciated.

The Unitarians, to whom we have just referred, have certainly received the elevating, quickening impulse of the New Age. Compare their views and yearnings now, with the materialism of Priestley, and others of his time. The spiritual eloquence of the two Channings, of Martinean, and others, with their general appreciation by the people, abundantly prove that the Spirit of the Lord has breathed upon the dry bones. They are instinct with life looking to the sun of righteousness, and hailing the glory of His new morning.

The Roman Catholic religion, despite its dogma of unchangeableness, has changed. There are a few dark corners where narrow, persecuting minds scream forth their anathemas still, but with the masses of the people bigotry has entirely broken down.

The liberal-minded, Christian will find is any Roman Catholic country in Europe, with a few exceptions, perhaps, in Spain, that liberal and kindly sentiments prevail on every side. Where bigoted Protestant meets bigoted Catholic, in Ireland, or in England, one hears noise and animosity; but it is no longer the feeling of the masses, its the spleen of the bitter, who would be much better employed in proving they had any religion, by a loving spirit, and a just life, than in reviling the ideas of their neighbors.

In France, religion is free, with very slight exceptions; and every day these are disappearing; in Austria now this is equally the case, and, at last, Italy also has achieved her liberty. Let her nobly form a national Church, and allow the Pope, if he will, to become one of its bishops, or leave, as it may please him, and the world will have seen the last of what was once a superstitious power, permitted to hold dark barbarism in awe, then the dread center of every despotism, now an old trunk, whose root is gone, and whose bare and withered branches mar the living beauty of the earth. This sight the world will see, and the sooner it comes, the better for the Pope, and the better for mankind. The infallibility of principles of truth are now seen by the enlightened and sincere, and the mock infallibility of a blundering old man, out of harmony with an age of light, liberty, and love.

Can there be a greater proof of the immense change in the spirit of the time than is afforded in the remarkable fact that Garibaldi could speak at Naples, and lose not one atom of his influence for speaking, these remarkable words:

But before fighting against this enemy outside, you have internal enemies to beat down, and I will tell you that the chief of these is the Pope. If I have acquired any merit with you, I have acquired that of telling you the truth frankly and without a veil. In using this privilege, I tell you that your chief enemy is the Pope.

I am a Christian, as you are; yes, I am of that religion which has broken the bonds of slavery and has proclaimed the freedom of men. The Pope, who oppresses his subjects, and is an enemy of Italian independence, is no Christian; he denies the very essence of Christianity--he is the Antichrist.

This truth you must spread among all those who are near to you; for it is only when all Italians shall he thoroughly convinced of this truth that Italy will be free and united.Garibaldis speech at Naples on laying down the Dictatorship.

The humanizing influences of light and love, because they ore from the Lord, are universal, and are affecting all mankind. There are evidences of change amongst the Mahommedans, most cheering to observe. All men of every religion are now equal before the law under the scepter of the Sultan. Hatred of others, because of their religion, is now rapidly disappearing from the dominions of the Crescent, and when the Turks are brought into contact with the Christianity of the Lord Jesus, instead of the Christianity of the Greeks, they will probably learn to revere and love the religion which, when deformed by superstition and hate, they had known only to oppose and to despise.

Among the millions of China, too, there is no longer uninquiring apathy. For many years all has been changing there. A form of Christianity, mixed, perhaps, with much that is spurious, but including the New Testament and a recognition of the Savior, is evidently commanding the attention and acceptance of large portions of that empire; dividing power with the imperial government, destroying idolatry, and preparing the way of the Lord. Earths darkest corners are receiving some rays of light, and motion and change are opening the avenues of knowledge, that knowledge which leads to wisdom, to virtue, and to peace.

Even infidelity is not the blasphemous defiance to all things holy of former days. The Secularists of the present time are a great improvement; upon the old disciples of the coarse blasphemies of fifty years ago They are men of doubt, men who seek to make society elevated and happy without religion; many of them honestly revolted by absurdities styled religious truth, and hypocrisies covered by the profession of sacred things; but when these have blown their bubbles with sincere vigor for a time, and discovered in the realities of life how vain and hollow are all attempts to be happy in Gods world without God, when they see divine truths in their proper harmony, weight, and beauty, and men whose lives illustrate their power and worth, numbers will follow where a few even now are won to take their stand to say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. (Zech. viii. 23.)

Nor must we close our view of this portion of our subject without noticing that besides the great changes in sentiment that are notoriously perceptible in every department of the Church and of the world, there is, in analogy with the Divine dealings in all former time, a definite new organization formed, taking the name which Divine Revelation offers, the New Jerusalem Church, and having either societies or individual adherents in Great Britain and America chiefly, but also in France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, in Asia and Africa. The principles of this Church are precisely those which prophecy has indicated as those of the coming age, as will appear from the following digest of them lately published:

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW CHURCH.

1.--Love to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the one God of heaven and earth, in whom is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Col. ii. 9.)

2.--Faith in the Lord Jesus as the only Savior from sin, and the true object of prayer.

I am the Door, by me, if any man shall enter in, he shall be saved. (John x. 9.)

3.Obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ in diligently keeping his commandments, by strength from him, obtained by frequent prayer.

If ye love me keep my commandments. (John xiv. 16.)

4.A profound belief in the inspiration and divine authority of the Scriptures, as the foundation, in their literal sense, of all doctrine, in their spiritual sense, the fountain of wisdom to angels and men.

My words, they are spirit and they are life. (John vi. 13.)

5.Resurrection immediately after death, when man will go to heaven and live in an angelic body, if by regeneration he has become angel-like; and if by a life of wickedness, he has made himself a fiend, he goes to his like in hell.

He is not God of the dead, but of the living. All live to him. Luke xxii. 38.) 

6.That the Lord is now raising mankind of all classes and nations to higher states of knowledge, wisdom, virtue and happiness, and calls upon each man to help on this gracious cause, by advancing education, by doing his duty from love to God and man, especially in the station or employment in which Divine Providence has placed him, and cultivating good will to all.

Behold I make all things new. (Rev. xix. 6.)

7..--That all good men, of every name and denomination, are saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only God of all, by whatever name he is known, and His Spirit is the Holy Spirit. (John x. 16.)

They have ministers, public worship, and active institutions, with probably as many adherents as the first Christian Church had at an equal period of its progress.

We are apt to magnify the numbers of the Church in the early centuries, but accurate observation amply justifies the remark of Guizot. The Church had long been under the emperors, obscure, feeble, a mere child, so to speak.* Their churches were small and few, the people obscure, glad to meet in secret and on sufferance. Guizot says again; To judge merely from the great part they play, and, permit me the expression, from the noise which they make in the fifth century, one is disposed to imagine the priests a very numerous body. Such was not at all the case, we have positive indications, historical proofs, which show the contrary. In the commencement of the fifth century, for instance, we meet with a question as to the number of the priests at Rome; and we find it mentioned as an illustration of the peculiar wealth and importance of that city, that she possessed eighty churches and seventy-seven priests. This is a state of progress which may be fairly said to be more than equaled by the actual condition of the organized New Church in the last fifty years. Her literature, her liturgies, her prayers, her institutions, her schools, her action upon society around her, all portend an increasing and important future. But, some say, why have separate congregations at all? Since the Church and society are altering, why not continue in your previous religious associations, and so leaven the whole mass?

To this the reply must be, let each mans conscience guide him, as to what it is his duty to do. While the New Churchman grants that spiritual life and salvation are attainable by the Word and prayer to the Lord in connection with all the various denominations of the Old Dispensation, and therefore looks with genuine respect upon the sincere of every name, he may certainly fairly claim conscientious freedom to worship the Lord in prayers, and hymns, free from ancient errors, dishonoring to the Majesty and Goodness of the Savior, whom alone he adores, and to hear the Word opened in accordance with its genuine truth, and its Divine and Spiritual beauty. He is not sectarian because he hopes he forms part of a section of a Church of Universal Love and Truth.

* History of Civilization. Lecture 3. Civilization in France. p. 323.

Ibid., p.328.

Let each section of the Church do its part, to purify itself, and to perform its Masters will, respected by all others. There would then be no sectarianism, though many sections. All ought to be brethren, who love the Lord Jesus, and are men alive to all Christian virtues. The, human body has innumerable parts, indefinitely varied, but all in harmony. Sectarianism does not consist in either an individual, or a society, working and worshiping according to the views of love and truth, sincerely deemed right by themselves, when this is accompanied by a respect for all others, and a disposition to agree with others, and unite, as far as possible, with them. Where there are many things in common, and few of difference, charity will lend to union and peace. Where love unites, small differences will disappear, or constitute: harmony by variety. But a sectarian spirit strives about trifles, dwells upon disagreements, overlooks excellences in others, and magnifies defects. The sectarian spirit, in the apostles, James and John, saw one casting out devils in the name of Jesus, and found him, because he did not follow them. But the Divine Savior said, Forbid him not; He that is not against us, is on our side.

Sectarianism is the selfishness of sect. Like Procrustes, it would measure all by its own bed, stretch or break them in the vain attempt to torture them to its own size. Sectarianism divides where there is no principle at stake.

It disintegrates and disperses until every member of a community, like a particle of sand, has no coherency with others and yields none. Charity is the uniting principle. True Christian love combines into one, like heat which blends the parts, that remained separate, when cold. The man of true charity seeks not to be alone, but to be united to others, that he may do them good, and to this end he seeks peace and pursues it. His motto is that of the apostle, By this we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. Some men are illiberal from an exaggerated regard for liberality. We have heard of one who declared that he was such a liberal in religion that he would not go into an orthodox place of worship on any account. Sectarianism sometimes takes the form of an excessive concern for unsectarianism. Out of a dread of being sectarian, a man will sometimes unite with nothing and nobody, and persist in that smallest of all sects, the sect of only one member, himself. Cromwell said of Colonel John Lilbourne, that he was so essentially antagonistic and disputations that he believed, if he were the only man left, John would divide against Lilbourne and Lilbourne against John. There was not long ago a sect at Chatham which had dwindled down to two persons, who were said to meet, nevertheless, every Sunday, and anathematize all the rest of mankind. A person may be most uncharitable under the name of charity, and most sectarian under the name of unsectarianism.

The New Dispensation, however, is altogether unsectarian. Like the proclamation of the angelic host at the first advent of the God of Love, its tones are to all, Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. It is a dispensation of love, of wisdom, of light for all, and light over both worlds. It rejoices at the progress of true philosophy, true literature, true science, true education for all, true benevolence for all, true freedom for all, true dignity for labor and commerce, true piety springing from love, faith, and obedience, and directed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This Dispensation smiles at every sign of progress which indicates the increasing influence of the spirit of love and wisdom from the Lord. The early flowers of the new year of the redeemed are seen, and gladden the hearts of the loving and the good.

The ice and snow of a long winter are rapidly giving way before the genial beams of the sun of righteousness. The day is dawning, the shadows of night are passing away; and the good time coming, which seers have prophesied, and poets have sung, even now throws before it those gleams of glory, which assure us That the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion (a state of supreme and holy love), with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

TWELVE DISCOURSES ON ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, ETC.
1.Genesis and Geology.
2.Miracles.
3.The Grand Miracle.The Resurrection.
4.The Inner Sense of Scripture.
5.The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
6.True Spiritualism.
7.The Atonement.
8.Difficulties on the Atonement.
9.The Life of Heaven.
10.The New Church Religious Life.
11.The Lord Jesus Christ.
12.The New Church.

By the same Author. Second issue. Price 7s. 6d.
THE DIVINE WORD OPENED. Illustrating the spiritual interpretation of specimens of every portion of the Scriptures, but especially of the events of the early chapters of GenesisThe CreationGarden of Edenthe Fallthe FloodThe ArkNoahThe Tower of Babel.

GREAT TRUTHS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 2.
ALVEY, 36 Bloomsbury-street; HODSON & SON, Portugal-street, Lincolns Inn Fields; and PITMAN, Paternoster-row.