sees power in every secondary cause. Hence its first object ought to be to resolve all causes into their great original First Cause. This would truly be the science of pure metaphysics, for every finite mind is in itself a finite first cause, and hence it is to itself a veritable proof that a greater Mind than it exists. All power belongs to God, but he in his wisdom hath seen meet to give unto man more understanding than mere brutes possess. It is so that man might know his own Creator, and thereby become even a fellow-worker with his God. He was sent into this earth to dress and to keep it, and this was Adam's pleasant life. Man's sin brought death into the world— the sting of death is sin; hence for man's sake the “ unfeeling" earth was cursed, and labour became a toil! It is only by the sweat of his brow that man now must live. Still, man is a fellow-worker with God; the thorns and thistles he can root out, but the sin of his soul he cannot, by any act of his own, destroy or wash away. Hence, if he refuse to till, and sow, and weed the ground, no harvest shall he ever reap-the very luxu riance of bountiful nature would soon check its every growth. It is only after man's duty is done, whether in the kingdom of nature or of grace, that he can reap the rich reward of faith. "Be gracious, heaven, for now laborious man hath done his due." Man lives by faith even in his fallen state. When justified by grace, he has the same freedom by God's royal law of liberty," the just shall live by faith." Faith is an original gift to man. God also gives man power; then it becomes the gift of faith with power conjoined. Man has always work to do. His duty is to obey, that even by faith he may surely live— work out your own salvation, for it is the free gift of God. is by faith, that it might be by free grace, else it would not be sure to all the "seed" who " ask, and knock, and seek" for power to enable them to work; then work with "fear and trembling," for ye are so weak, "that without Christ's Spirit of power ye can do nothing," "It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do according to his own good pleasure." He hath no "pleasure" in our death; why, then, should any die? God willeth all men to be saved. Believe is man's work. The gift of life is mine, "saith the Lord." Faith is a faculty of the mind, without which its freedom would be of no possible use. "Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Every command with a penalty annexed is a simple command to choose-faith necessarily believes in truth. A mind with free will alone can choose; it necessarily obeys the "force of truth," unless when its judgment is deceived, or when it is more pleased with a lie. Conversion is the Spirit's work: it convinces of sin, for it judges every man. It stands at the door of every heart, and knocks.

It

It says, Open, and I shall come in. Thus we may grieve the Spirit, resist the Spirit, yea, quench the Spirit. So also we may listen to the Spirit's cry.-Ho, every one, come without price, and buy. I quicken to life, then receive my instruction. now. Not a moment delay; my voice obey, and thus “make your calling and election sure.'

"

Necessity is physical law; it acts inherently in sticks and stones. Moral power is suasion—that is, it is the law of love, all physical force it spurns. On no other just base is it possible for the doctrine of election to stand, and be consistent with God's revealed will. God cannot possibly be the first cause of man's damnation-God never willed it; hence, by responsible free will, man actually and justly damns himself. No infant can possibly be damned; of such is the kingdom of heaven. They are all partakers of Christ's baptismal sufferings. This was Christ's legacy even to every sanctified soul. It is through suffering that we must enter the kingdom of heaven.

Physical science can teach how fallen man may best live among the cursed thorns which everywhere beset his path, but it cannot possibly teach the way by which he can return to his first and still loving God! The sky may lower, the lightnings may flash, and the tempest may sound its trumpet alarm, by which the swelling floods often arise to desolate the earth; these all agree, and speak one truth, to make the simple wise. They cry aloud to all—“Be still, and know that I am God!" Again, the pestilence which walketh at noontide unseen may decimate mankind, and man's hand-which is God's sword-may slay even the bravest of the brave! We may, too, hear the widow's wail--it may be for her child, or it may be for her only son. Death enters into every house-the poor man's cottage as well as each baronial hall. The sweet singer of Israel must sound his living harp no more; yea, the wisest Solomon must die. There is in every death, or twitch, or pain, a voice; one solemn truth it cries,—"The wages of sin is death—the soul that sins must die!" God's word is everlasting truth.

For death there is no physical cure: its recipe is vain. The vis medicatrix can only unite a broken bone, or cure a sore, or other physical wound; and well it is for man. It is called the law of instinctive life. I call it God's providential law, for without his care no man could live one hour. What else is digestion, assimilation, absorption, disintegration, and all other secret workings within our bodily frame, so marvellous, and so obscure? Alas! there is no such curative law inherent in the living soul by which the leprosy and stain of sin may be for ever cured. "The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear? All sins are mortal in their issues; even venial sins are cancers in the soul. Man,

morally, from head to foot is full of putrifying sores; hence man's need of a religious cure-a name derived from ligo, to bind, and re, again. Religion is a vis medicatrix, a recipe of great renown; it is the only true specific prescribed by the Great Physician of souls! There is, thank God, still balm in Gilead, and a great Physician there. Christ is that physician, who tenderly binds up all our wounds, and heals them every one. His living word was written in his own blood. It cleanseth from all sin. His spirit of truth is his messenger of peace, to tell us that God is love!

one.

THE BRAIN.

A materialist cannot see or feel the "force of truth." It is not physical, it is moral power. The brain, you say, is not one mind, but many; and yet, without hesitation, it never fails to speak as one. You say each organ has a separate will; and yet all organs, great and small, act as perfectly as if they had but How all this should be true without a central organ, is a difficulty no phrenologist has ever been able to explain. The central power, I hold, is the Ego revealed in consciousness. Thus I think, I reason, and finally I judge. The will is the mind's energy; hence I think that I may will correctly, and I will that I may think-that is, I choose my very thoughts. Each mind is like a musician; the brain is his harp of many nervous strings, although sadly out of tune. The Ego tunes it to a proper pitch, and then the master orator plays his variouslymeasured airs. The higher notes fully express what is usually called the sublime, the less lofty express the beautiful—they are more plaintive, hence more sweet. It was that measure by which the stripling David soothed the wretched mind of Saul. The latest experiments seem to prove that neither the brain nor nerves possess any inherent sensational, far less any intellectual, feeling in themselves, and it may yet be found that the motor and sensational nerves are so connected, that they form one circulating medium, somewhat akin to what is exemplified by the circulation of the blood. I do not believe that all the power which is generated in the brain flies off at the points of our fingers. If so, perfect exhaustion would soon be the result. The nerves seem to end in loops. The fact is as holy Scripture hath declared, that our physical life is not inherent in the brain at all; it is in the blood, and it is nourished by organic life, as is proved by those innumerable monads called "cells," which swim or rotate in our coloured fluid. But why should we speculate on such a mysterious subject, without having before us the certainty of facts on which to ground our conjectures? Is it not highest presumption in you to have set yourself up

as a dogmatist, as if you were the only Sir Oracle in the world, before whom all men of science must necessarily bow? I think I have shewn the utter groundlessness of your vain assumptions. I here close my hastily-written Refutation, and humbly trust you will, like Calvin, add a codicil to your last testament, declaring that all you have so foolishly written is not only false, but totally without any foundation. "He that steals my purse, steals trash," &c.; but he who calls God's book a lie, "robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." Why so? For without the Bible, and by your inane philosophy, man's present condition would be nothing else than utter despair, and his future the blackness of darkness for ever!-I am, yours faithfully,

ROBERT DEUCHAR.

HENNELL ON the GospeLS. *

" The histories which have come down to us of the life of Christ are scanty, still they present to us a character so peculiar and so strongly-marked, as to force upon us the impression that it was a real one. Even though the supposition that there never was such a person as Jesus Christ were not manifestly absurd in an historical view, the existence of the books before us might be sufficient to convince us that it must be abandoned; for invention generally falls into some well-known track of ideas; and it is in the highest degree improbable that several writers could concur in an accordant and well-sustained delineation of a singular but yet wholly imaginary character. The attentive perusal of the four gospels leaves, then, the conviction that Jesus really lived; and further, that there was in him a combination of traits which do not frequently meet in the same individual, the result being a character which has few or no parallels in history. It has been often said that this singularity of character does itself afford an evidence of the divinity of his mission. But the inference is unwarrantable, unless it can be proved that the character contains something necessarily superhuman; whereas it may perhaps be shewn that each feature of it is resolvable into the operation of feelings and powers common, more or less, to all men, influenced by the circumstances in which he was placed. The supernatural character and offices attributed to Jesus have generally prevented Christians from examining this question freely; any other language than that of panegyric or homage has been deemed by them unsuitable and irreverent; and a kind of halo has thus been thrown around

the founder of Christianity, which has contributed to the difficulty of seeing him in his natural aspect. Let us be on our guard no less against the over-strained admiration of his followers than against the attacks of his opponents, and endeavour to penetrate through all that confuses or dazzles the sight, in order to gain a distinct view of the carpenter's son of Nazareth."

HENNELL REFUTED.

Hennell was a materialist, and the most learned of all sceptics; his Rabbinical research was never equalled. Emerson, Parker, Newman, Carlyle, et sic de similibus, Colenso, and Renan, are not worthy to be compared to him; and yet while he vilified our Lord by calling him an impostor, an enthusiast, and a revolutionist, he had the candour with make many important admissions, several of which I have already quoted, p. 110.

FIRST, the supernatural in Christ did not rest entirely on his miracles; although these were so numerous, and so openly performed, that even Julian the apostate never denied their reality. There seems to me to be a still higher ground to warrant perfect conviction. We have Moses and the prophets. Before Phidias executed his perfect and inimitable statue of Venus, he must necessarily have had ideal perfection of form, derived either from the rules of certain proportion, or from the native conceptions springing out of his own mind, as Pallas sprang from the head of Jupiter. So also, before the prophets could have predicted the character of "the Christ," they, and each of them, must either have had a Divine revelation to direct them, or their own minds must have conceived of themselves all that their pens delineated. That they could not of themselves have conceived what they recorded, must be palpably evident, for neither they nor their hearers understood the meaning of the words which they employed. Of whom does the prophet speak, said the eunuch? "Is it of himself, or some other man? Isaiah liii.

Not one of the prophets gives a full and complete delineation of the offices and character of the Messiah; each only furnished a part. The Messiah of prophecy seems to me to have been like a broken pillar of an order peculiar to itself. Each of the prophets seem to have got, as it were, several of the fragments into his possession, and these they have handed down to the present day. Thus Moses describes the Messiah as a prophet, David as a universal and everlasting King, and also as an everlasting High Priest, and yet as a worm, and no man; so mean, as to be spitten upon, and so barbarously treated, as to have his hands and feet pierced, his raiment divided by lot; as receiving gall for his drink; as crying, My God, why hast thou