never read; and yet his "Age of Reason" is filled with long quotations from its blessed word. He taught Hennell those three names, impostor, rebel, and enthusiast, by which he characterised the "great Galilean," as well as the "good Nazarene.' e." Paine would have called Christ a Samaritan, and a devil too, but this he could not well have done, for even he well knew that those names did not belong to him who was, as Hennell and M'Donald said, "the very best of men, God's Son."

It is also evident that you have borrowed your new notions of man's natural perfectability from Plato. Marriages must now be proclaimed, as Plato taught, by phrenological law,-the beautiful only with the beautiful-the good only with the good -and then each cause will have its own veritable effect. This is the way that even cattle, by high feeding, may have their breed improved. Lord Monboddo was a learned man. He said men once had tails—hence to the perfection of a man an ape or monkey may attain. But this can only be when they shall have got an organ of good sense to teach them the way to throw off their ugly tails. There is no end of learned inventions, and yours is only one of these. Society, by your wise scheme, must ultimately, although by slow degrees, attain to absolute perfection. The present race of wretched men must, from lack of your "new" knowledge, first necessarily die out; for, as Plato said, "virtue cannot be taught." Man is just as nature made him—one is good, another bad. Hence he cannot even teach another, or alter one iota of his own conditionhence also no progress.

You admit that you deserted your worthy father's Church because of its high Calvinistic creed. That certainly was no just reason for your also denying your father's God. But is it not more marvellous still for me to find that you have deliberately plunged yourself into the same identical slough of despond? Fatalism is the false foundation of your own unhallowed creed. And hence your whole system is like to an inverted cone without a base to stand upon. Ignore moral freedom, and you instantly annihilate sin. Physical law necessitates obedience by its physical force. Moral law, too, has power-moral suasion-the force of truth. No moral law -no moral transgression-are necessary and universal truths. Sin is the transgression of God's eternal and unchangeable law, which is necessarily the best which wisdom could devise— hence it is "holy, just, and good." Man has transgressed,therefore he had the will to act and freedom to transgress. he could thus transgress, he had also the power and freedom to obey. The human mind is the noblest work of God. How it should be possibly free is far beyond our ken. We only know that our minds are free, from the facts revealed in conscious

If

ness, and we cannot have a better or a higher proof. The mind is thus free to think, compare, and judge of what is best for its own interest. The will is the mind energising itself with power, hence it, too, is necessarily free. Edwards held that the strongest motive always ruled the will. He knew no better, hence his theory has been justly exploded. What are Edwards' motives? They are abstractions; that is, nothings in themselves, hence, ex nihilo nihil fit. But when we see them as judgments of the mind resulting from comparison, they become necessarily either true or false. If true, they have the force of truth; if false, the mind, so deceived, is ever in a doubting mood. Men often act without any motives at all. They shut their eyes, that they may exclude every motive, and take up a thing by chance. The casting of the dice is only an appeal to chance. You have clearly proved that Calvin was a bigot in theology. In philosophy he was far behind his age. He repented on his death-bed; and by his last will he demolished the basis on which all his institutional law was made to rest. This fact has been overlooked by all commentators. I now point it out. "I most humbly pray that I may be (not that I am) so purified and washed (now ye are washed, now ye are clean) by the blood of this great Redeemer, SHED FOR THE SINS OF MANKIND." So said St Paul, St Peter, and St John, So also said our Lord himself. A whole includes every part within its fond embrace. His will records what he called his true Confession of Faith. In his Institutes he had said those sufferings were for the elect alone. Calvin at first, like Lord Brougham, should have been a Turk; for by his Institutes God is declared to be the primary cause of all evil and of all sin. This is also Lord Brougham's printed opinion in his inquiry into the origin of evil. (See Appendix to Paley's "Natural Theology.") Calvin was in heart a pope. No marvel that he burnt Servetus. There is one God: I am his prophet-believe or die was Mohammed's law. I am infallible: Christ's vicar I am on earth-believe, or die the death, is every pope's infernal creed. I preach damnation sure to all infants that die at birth. Hence in hell there are infants of a span long; and I damn all whom God created to and for that special end-was Calvin's fatalistic creed. Toplady justly calls this "Christian fate." Hence Calvin burnt Servetus, who was a better man than himself. Servetus taught, "Thou shalt not kill," but "love thy neighbour as thyself."

True, man is powerless by his fall; but God, in mercy, can raise him up. Hence he can ask that power which is necessary in every time of need. God's promise of grace is made to faith, else even the elect could not be saved. The promise could not otherwise be sure to all the seed. Ask then the

Holy Spirit of power, and God will freely give this gift of love.' He never said to any, "Seek my face" in vain. "Seek, and ye shall find." Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else." "I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me." Amen. These truths lie at the base of every true elective creed. God necessarily is just,—hence he wills all men to be saved, and has confirmed, by his great oath, the truth of his most holy word. It is, as Wesley said, highest blasphemy to hold that God's secret will, which no man can ever know, is ever inconsistent with his solemn sworn oath. "Secret things belong to God: those that are revealed belong to us and to our children." There is no mystery in faith-it is a faculty of the mind. Man necessarily believes his senses, as well as his very neighbour's word. The witness of God is greater. Man therefore can more surely believe God's veritable word. Believe and live, is God's and Christ's command. If ye believe not, ye shall die. There is no merit in faith. Man lives every moment by his faith. When justified, he still must be saved by his hope, for hope is the specific object of true and simple faith.

You make a short work of man- -an image any man can make. You are a mere statuist, and nothing more, as I shall by one sentence prove. "The human body—that is, soul and ́all-(for you have said that man has not a soul) appears to be a mechanism, constructed to grow for a certain number of years, to remain stationary for a certain time, then to commence a process of decay, and finally to suffer dissolution, all its parts reverting to the inorganic state." Hence you say, death is only like the blowing out of a candle. Is life not an elementary principle? Read Sir Charles Bell.

Logical conclusions from these premises :

I. Man is a material physical being,—hence he is not a moral or an accountable creature.

II. Sin is an impossible thing, for all men are at first so born and constituted by God that they cannot sin,-hence fatalism.

III. Heaven and hell are, you say, superstitions invented by a lying priesthood to keep the vulgar in subjection to tyrannical rule. And, lastly,

IV. If there is a God, he must necessarily be a material being-hence scepticism, which is absolute atheism. And yet the Grecian oracle had wisely said, "Man, know thyself." It might as well have wisely said, "Man, also know thy God."

PHYSICAL, INSTINCTIVE, AND MORAL LAWS.

I do not require to go at length into any discussion with you in regard to the fixed distinctions by which these are characterised.

I. Physical laws are dependent on the will of God. They are fixed and unalterable by man. Had they not been so fixed, man could neither have lived nor moved nor breathed. Hence he could not have had his being in his physically conditioned form These laws are not necessarily immutable. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Hence the things that are made were not made of things which do appear; that is, the material creation had a beginning in time, and it may thus possibly arrive at an end. Hence also its laws are, in God's hand, clearly revocable. Physical substances have no inherent intelligence. Hence they have no will or power to violate the laws of their being and action. Physical law rules the mineralogical kingdom.

II. Instinctive law is, in many respects, similar to physical law. It regulates and rules all organised beings or things as seen in the vegetable world, and it is also inherent in man and beast. The bee exemplifies instinctive action in the construction of the beautiful form of its honey cells, So also the spider in the construction of its airy web. And so of others. The bee excels even Euclid. These instinctive laws are, hunger, thirst, &c., in man. They are active at an infant's very birth. The emotional laws are of a higher order of instincts. They are lawless, and are subjected to reason's sway. Hence they war against the mind, and yet lead to much good when directed in their proper action. A wise man governs his passions: a fool becomes their slave. The passions are blind forces, and are not subject to God's law, neither indeed can be, because their cravings know no bounds, Rom. viii.

III. Moral Law is, in its very nature, immutable. It is the law of intelligence, and it is so highly important in itself, that God is, if we may so speak, necessitated-that is, self-subjected to its supremacy. All things may change, but God hath said, "I change not-my word eternally is sure." God therefore is not a man that he should repent. He cannot possibly lie. The reason for the eternal fixation of moral law is clear. God's understanding is infinite. Hence absolute wisdom cannot but choose and devise what in itself is best and good. God's law is therefore perfect. It cannot admit of modification, neither is it possible that anything can be added thereto. "I, the righteous Lord, loveth righteousness." "God is love." "Love worketh no evil." Hence love is the spirit of perfect law, and the fulfilling of it as well. Hence God's law is abso

lutely holy, just, and good. Christ taught the spirit of God's law. Its spirit, said John, is love. Whence had this poor fisherman this wisdom? Aristotle had it not.

CONSCIENCE,

It is the moral law of God written in the heart. The law given at mount Sinai revealed the one true God, and was a transcript of the divine mind in regard to justice,—that is, it was and is holy, just, and good. Do we make void the law by faith? God forbid! yea, we establish the law. How else could God judge the world? Hence Christ magnified the law and made it honourable. He died that God might possibly be just when He forgives our sins.

ALL SIN IS MORTAL.

Sin is the transgression of the holy, just, and Man sins not only against the best of all against his best and highest interests; that is, soul. He chooses death rather than life. sinneth it shall, and must of necessity, die. truth.

good law of God. beings: he sins against his very The soul that God's word is

The great and important question I at first submitted to you has not been answered by anything contained in your elaborate and self-contradictory essay. It would indeed have been a marvel to me if I had found in it even a semblance of a solution; for as God is truth, so also His word is truth,-and hence it cannot stand any contradiction at all. I now see the real value of Euclid's fourth proposition. His two triangles could only agree and be the same, if every line and angle of each did truthfully coincide. God's law is our right-angled triangle: man's laws and crooked lines never truly coincide with it. Every sewing girl works by Euclid's rule when she stitches the original design on her cloth, and cuts it according to the original shape, because she cannot herself design. And what is design? It is the artist's ideal conception of the beautiful reduced to form by the fixed laws of just proportion. Thus the mind of Phidias first concepted beauty in ideal perfection, -and hence his perfect Venus. All that was to his mind lovely he reduced to fixed physical form called artistic shape. We see in this the marked distinction between matter and mind. Mind is a point having position without magnitude. That is, it has a spiritual existence independent of physical shape, which is necessarily circumscribed by space. The cube is the origin of our first idea of solidity, only known by its impenetrability. It incloses it within six surfaces, which have