Appendix

Note I. — P. 21.

“Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John xv. 3); that is, made clean through believing the word. “The washing of water by the word” (Eph. v. 26* );

that is, the washing which is accomplished by the belief of the word. “Washed, sanctified, justified” (1 Cor. vi. 11); three steips of the great process, making clean, consecrating, making us righteous as Christ is righteous.

Note II. — P. 22; also p. 10.

God’s “fatherhood” is an expression much in use at present, and is assumed by many as a great truth, and as the foundation for the liberalized theology of the day. This fatherhood is affirmed to be universal; and its universality is made the basis of a new and, as is supposed, a larger gospel. As, to this universal fatherhood, universal sonship is the necessary correlative, — the preachers of the new gospel proclaim to every man that he is a son of God, and that it is the belief of this already existing sonship that introduces him into peace. Now, certain it is that God as Creator is Fathers and thatj’S. in this sense, universal fatherhood is a necessary truth; a truth recognised by Scripture. Heb. xii. 9, “Father of spirits;” Acts xvii. 29, “We are the offspring of God;” Luke iii. 38, “Adam, who was the son of God;” Mai. ii. 10,

“Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” Num. xvi. 22, “The God of the spirits of all flesh.” Besides

/ * The passage should run thus: “Christ loved the church and gave / himself for it, in order that he might sanctify it (having cleansed it / with that washing of water which comes through the word), in order [ that he might present it to himself, glorious, the church which has no spot nor wrinkle that is, the church spoken of in the Song oi Soloinou.

irp 7

this fatherhood of creation there is but one other, that of redemption. See John i. 12, “As many as received him, to tJiem gave Ee power to become the sons of God Rom. viii, 14, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” These, and many other passages, shew that this sonship begins with faith, and has no existence previously, save in God’s eternal purpose. Incarnation did not make us sons; nay, even belief in the incarnation does not make us sons; for the formula, “he that belie veth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God,” assumes not incarnation merely, but the whole Messianic character and work. Besides, to affirm that sonship is constituted previous to faith, is to gainsay the explicit words of Scripture, such as Gal. iii. 26, “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus;” ib. iv. 5, “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons;” 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18, 4 4 Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters;” 1 John iii. 1, ‘‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God;” Rev. xxi. 7, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” I need not cite more passages to shew that the “new birth,” the being “begotten again,” with the sonship consequent on these, is not the universal heritage of humanity, in consequence of the incarnation; but a privilege secured by faith in a dead and risen Christ (1 Pet. i. 3). To make sonship co-extensive with humanity, because of incarnation, is to introduce a worse error than that of Thomas Erskine, when he made pardon the universal property of the race, because of the death of Christ. The Bible affirms creation-sonship, both in the case of men, as we have seen, and of angels, as we find in Job xxxviii. 7 (“the sons of God shouted for joy); and it affirms redemption- sonship; but incarnation-sonship and, its correlative, incarnation-fatherhood, are the figments of human speculation, the roots of a modern theology, so far 4 4 advanced” as to have distanced, not creeds only, but Scripture itself.

Note III. — P. 38; also p. 14.

The twofold references of certain expressions in Scripture ought to be studied, as the means of clearing up some of the

confusion which one-sided teachers propagate. We find, foi example, “redemption,” “saved,” and “salvation,” used sometimes in reference to the commencement, and sometimes in reference to the consummation of the great deliverance. “Who hath saved us” (2 Tim. i. 9); “we shall be saved” (Rom. v. IU). We find sanctification spoken of sometimes as a thing past and done, — “Ye are sanctified” (1 Cor. vi. 11), — and sometimes as a thing going on (1 Thess. v. 23), “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” The old man is sometimes said to have been put off (Col. iii. 9), and sometimes Christians are exhorted to put him off (Eph. iv. 22). Sometimes that which is new is said to have been accomplished (2 Cor. v. 17), and sometimes the exhortation is given, “put on the new man” (Eph. iv. 24). Sometimes we are spoken of as having life (John iii. 25); while elsewhere we are told to lay hold on it (1 Tim. vi. 12). A Christian is one who has been filled with the Spirit (Acts xiii. 52); and yet it is said, “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. v. 18). Sometimes we are said to have been transformed and renewed (2 Cor. v. 17); at other times we are exhorted to be “transformed” (Rom. xii. 2), and “renewed” (Eph. iv. 23). Sometimes it is said, “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John i. 8), and sometimes “whoso abideth in him sinneth not” (1 John iii. 6). Sometimes David blesses God for having removed his transgressions from him as far as the east is from the west (Ps. ciii. 12), and speaks of the blessedness of pardon (Ps. xxxii. 1-5); and again he says, “pardon mine iniquity” (Ps. xxv. 11), “blot out all mine iniquities.” Sometimes the Holy Spirit is referred to as given, once for all, at Pentecost (Acts ii. 33); at other times (and this far more frequently), as coming down from time to time in answer to prayer, and along with the preaching of the Gospel (Acts ii. 38, iv. 31, x. 44, xi. 15, xix. 6). Sometimes we, as those whom Aaron represented, place our hands on the head of the sacrifice, and lay our sins on Christ (Lev. xvi. 21, xxvi. 40, 1 John i. 9); at other tiines it is Jehovah that is said to do this (Isa. liii. 6).*’ These are but specimens of the twofold manner of speech in Scripture, ignorance of which has misled many.

* Yet the Hebrew word (to strike upon with violence) and the connection, indicate that it is the punishment of sin, not sin, that is referred to in this verse of Isaiah.

NOTE IV.

In going to the cross we went with all our guilt, to deposit it where alone it is lawful so to do; to bury it in a grave, out of which there can be no resurrection for it for ever. We gave our heavy burden to God, and he took it from us most lovingly and without a grudge. We “laid both our hands upon the head” of the great Surety, £ ‘ confessing over him all our iniquities and all our transgressions, in all our sins, putting them upon his head he “bearing upon him all our iniquities into a land not inhabited” (Lev. xvi. 21, 22), and we, then, “coming into thE tabernacle as accepted worshippers (ib. 23), nay, going into the holiest of all, through the veil that has been rent, to present our worship in “the cloud of the incense that covers the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony” (ib. 13).

Having heard the voice that spoke of the great burnt-Sacrifice, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, we looked to it, went to it, and laid our sins upon it. That which we then believed was not anything about ourselves, save our sin and need; God’s testimony to the slain Lamb was the one thing on which our faith rested. We read that “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (that is, hath inflicted on him our punishment); that the “chastisement of our peace was upon him” (Isa. liii. 5); that “the Lord was well pleased for his righteousness’ sake” (Isa. xlii. 21); and upon believing the report we realised the transference, — our sin passing over to him, and his righteousness passing over to us. JJiis was the exchange we made when we believed. In God’s purpose, no doubt, all tins was a certainty” from eternal ages; and when Christ “carried up our sins in his own body to the tree” (1 Peter ii. 24, see Greek), this purpose began visibly to unfold itself. But this is only the divine. not the human side of the great question. In the eternal purpose we see God pre-arranging to do certain things when the time for doing them should come; and in the cross we see the righteous provision made for carrying these pre-arrangements into effect. But the human side is that which takes up events, as they emerge, and individuals, as they come into being and action. Hence the personal trausferennft ta.Vps place uyon our believing, not before; and we might as well speak of eternal conversion and eternal appendix.

faith as of eternal justification.* Both are equally true in one aspect; both are equally untrue in another. The purpose to convert and justify belongs to the past eternity; the carrying out of that purpose i an act of time, a fragment of personal human history; and to say, as some do, that because God laid our sins upon Christ from all eternity, therefore it is wrong for us to speak of our doing so in time, is to misuse words, to confound things which differ, to identify the purpose with the execution of the purpose, to obliterate the distinction between the human and the divine, to look at one side only of a subject, forgetting the twofoldness of all truth, especially of that which involves the relations between the finite and the infimte, the unrolling of eternal purposes into events of time.^lf our sins were so laid on Christ eighteen centuries ago tlmt we do not require to lay Them on him now then or course his righteousness was reckoned to us then; and so we were justified eighteen hundred years before we believed, we were pardoned before we sinned, we were born again before we were born at all.

From the moment we believed, we could count ourselves forgiven men, and God began to deal with us as such. We had learned from the Epistle to the Romans our justification in law before God, and we learned from the Epistle to the Hebrews oub justification in conscience; that is, our conscience was “purgea from dead, works to serve the living God,” so that we, being “once purged, had no more conscience of sins” (Heb. x. 2). Neither of these things, however, could mean that our future sins were actually pardoned m the same sense* as our past, and at the same time. A sm cannot he pardoned ‘till it has been committed. If it can be pardoned before being committed, it must be pardoned before it is repented of, or it must be repented of before it is committed, or else repent-

* “Aliud est decretum justification, aliud ipse justificatio, ut aliud est voluntas salvandi et sanctificandi, aliud vero salus et sanctificatio” (Turrettine, Inst. xvi. 9, 3); that is, “God’s justifying decree is one thing, and our actual justification is another.” It is not my belief of the justifying decree that justifies me, nor is it my belief that the Lord laid my sins on Christ eighteen centuries ago, or from the eternal ages, that brings me pardon, but my belief of the faithful saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. One-sided statements on this point do much harm; want of clear views as to that very thing which is to be “most surely believed by us mixing up the divine and human, the decree and the fact, and treating the latter as coeval with the former, — these have introduced confusioD and unsound doctrine, both in our own and former days. ance and confession are mockeries; and they who sneak of all sins, past, present, and to come, being’ f proven at once unon believing, are losing sight of tha real, meaning of words and things, and might as well affirm that we were converted Before we were born, or that our disease was cured before we were sick, and that the one act of faith put forth at our conversion is enough for us, without our having recourse to such a lifetime’s continuous believing, as is indicated in our Lord’s expression, “He that believeth (not has believed) hath everlasting life.” ‘I*o say ill at, from the day we believed,

God regards us as forgiven men, men not under wrath but under grace, is one thing; but to say that all our sins are actually pardoned before being committed, is quite another.

The apostle certainly did not think that all our future sin was actually pardoned at once, when he said “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”

(1 John i. 9); nor did the Lord think so when he taught us J to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” making daily pardon as needful as daily bread (Matt. vi. 11, 12).

JjL John v. 24. where our version has “shall not come into condemnation,” some would read, “shall not come into judgment,” contending that it is not possible that they who have died and risen without Christ could ever need to have it said of them that they shall not come into condemnation, when they shall not so much as come into judgment. But the apostle says else, “we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Rom. viy 11b; “so then every one of us shall give in his account to God” (Rom xiv. 12); we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ” (2 Cor v. .10); and in these three passages- he is speaking of himself and his fellow-saints. Besides, though the word primarily

means simply judgment, yet in the New Testament it more frequently signifies “condemnation.” See Rev. xviii. 10,

“In one hour is thy judgment come;” Rev. xix. 2, “True and righteous are his judgments John v. 29, “They that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation Matt, xxiii. 33, “How can ye escape the damnation of hell.”

Thus the refinement on the word xitris comes to nothing, having no basis either of Scripture or criticism to rest upon.

No less unscrip tural is the refinement of some, that the saints are to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and the world before the judgment-seat of the Son of Man. To say that this is a distinction without a difference might suffice, but the distinction is negatived by the very passage quoted (Rom.

xiv. 10), which quotation is from Isa. xlv. 23, where the reference is clearly to the world in general. Besides, how is a saint to be recompensed for his bad deeds (2 Cor. v. 10). Is the judgment-seat of Christ for the punishment of the saints?

Note V. — P. 64.

I need not quote much from the olassics to prove the above; that touching passage from the old Roman poet is enough. It shews the best side of Paganism

“Non est avarus? Abi. Quid, csetera jam simul isto Cun, vitio fugere? Caret tibi pectus inani Ambitione? Caret mortis formidine et ira,” &c.

Hor. Ep. ii. 2.

The whole eight lines we venture to translate for the unlearned reader: —

You love not gold? ’Tis well. Has every sin Vanished, with avarice, from its seat within?

Ambition, has it perished from your breast?

Is dread of death, is passion all at rest?

At dreams, spells, portents, wizards, can you smile;

The nightly spectre, the Thessalian wile?

Thy birthdays count.’st thou with a grateful mind,

To friends art thou forgiving still and kind?

Art thou, as age upon thy front appears,

Gentler, and better with declining years?

What Vails one thorn pluckt up, one evil slain,

If in thy breast ten thousand yet remain?

Note VI. — P. 71.

There are some among us who shrink from what they call “strong statements” on the doctrine of free and immediate justification. They say that they fear the effect which such statements may have on sanctification, and they protest, in the name of morality, against the idea of such an unconditional justification, as would exclude the sinner from any share whatever in working it out. To us it appears that unconditional justification is the real basis of all morality, and that any attempt to give man a share in helping on the justifying process is destructive, we do not say of morality merely, but of the power to become moral. No justification will truly serve the interests of morality, &ave that which at once places the sinner on a footing in which he can do good works, such as God will accept; in other words, any justification that would result in good works, must first deal with the person who is to work them. The harp must be tuned before it can play; and it would be folly to speak of playing it into tune. Ho the person must be justified before one good work can be done. Our consciences must first be purged by the blood before we can serve God acceptably; and they are to be purged, not only from works which in themselves are bad, but from “dead works” (Heb. ix. 14), that is, from works which, good in their own nature, are without life, because done by one whose conscience is not pacified towards God.

The homilies of the Church of England state this well. “Faith giveth life to the soul; and they be as much dead to God that lack faith, as they be to the world whose bodies lack souls. Without faith, all that is done of us is but dead before God, although the works seem never so gay and glorious before man. They do appear to be lively works, and indeed they be but dead, not availing to the everlasting life; they be but shadows and shows of lively and good things, and not good and lively things indeed. For true faith doth give life to the works; and out of such faith come good works, that be very good works indeed, and without faith no work is good before God. We must set no good works before faith, nor think that before faith a man may do any good works, for such works, although they seem unto men to be praiseworthy, yet indeed they be but vain, and not allowed before

God Faith is that which doth commend the work

to God; for as St Augustine saith, whether thou wilt or no, that work that cometh not of faith is naught; where the faith of Christ is not the foundation, there is no good work,

what building soever we make All the life of them

that lack the true faith is sin As soon as a man hath

faith, even he shall flourish in good works; for faith of itself is full of good works, and nothing is good without faith...

.. As men, that be very men indeed, first have life, and afterwards be nourished; so must our faith in Christ go before, and afterwards be nourished by good works; but first

he must have faith Faith by itself saved him (the

thief), but works by themselves never justified any man.” — (Sermon on Good Works.)

There are some in our day who, while denying imputed righteousness, would, in a certain sense, acquiesce in the

above statements. They would say that a man must trust God before he can do good works. But then they hold, (1.) that the doing of good works necessarily indicates faith already existing. (2.) Faith is in their theology merely a right state of mind toward God. (3J Our recognition of the universal fatherhood of God fits us for doing good works. (4.) We do not need to be judicially or forensically justified, ’ because we were never in that sense condemned. (5. ) In so far as any justification is needed, it was accomplished for every man, when the Son of God took flesh; and faith is simply our coming to know that such is the case. (6.) Any other personal justification is simply God acknowledging and rewarding the good deeds done by those who trust his fatherhood, and refuse to believe that he could be so stern a judge as to demand life for life, in order to the pardon of a sinner. God’s character, as judge, has no place in their theology. Hence his dealings with sin are not judicial or legal; and his actings about pardon are not forensic, but fatherly, or rather the result of what in man would be called good-natured softness, and easy-minded indifference to the distinctions of moral rectitude.

But the faith which is the parent or root of good works, is not a mere change of opinion or heart, as to the character of God, though it includes this. It is the belief of something which is designed to alter the man’s legal standing, as well as his state of feeling; for before a man can do good works it is quite as indispensable that his condemnation should be reversedl, and his conscience pacified, as that his thoughts of God should be set right. To those who believe that the sinner never was under condemnation, or under wrath; but that all his uneasiness arose from not knowing that there is no such thing as condemnation or wrath; the above statement may seem an absurdity; but to those who take such expressions as these, sin, and guilt, and wrath, and condemnation, and judgment, in their natural and literal sense, — a judicial acquittal from a legal charge, a judicial pardon of a judicial sentence, in consequence of believing God’s testimony to the work of the Substitute, will be recognised as that without which the sinner is not in a position to do good works, not in circumstances even to begin to be holy.

The Bomish doctors and creeds do not go quite so far astray. They believe in guilt and condemnation and pardon; and though they mix up the judicial and the moral, the sinner’s standing and the sinner’s character, the work for us and the work in us, they recognise the judicial element as constituting the basis of the moral, and do not so ignore the teachings of Scripture as to depict their Deity as a God of benevolent weakness, such as the “advanced theologians,” imbibing, as far as may be considered safe, the subtle infidelities of the age, are now learning to do. Romanists have always held that sin and pardon were real things, and matters for judicial action, though the grounds of the judgment they have thoroughly mis-stated. The modern theologians referred to have withdrawn sin and pardon from the judgment-seat altogether, and yet, strange to say, have retained much of the Romish confusion, and on the point of justification have adopted a creed more Trentine than Trent itself.

Rome holds that we are justified by infused righteousness, but then she holds that this is in consequence of Christ having satisfied divine justice by his death. The advanced theology maintains that the idea of such a satisfaction is an affront to the divine fatherhood; and that, as it is from sin :>nly, as a disease, that we need deliverance, our one remedy is assimilation to God by belief and contemplation of his fatherhood, to which deliverance the belief in a judicial pardon, founded on a legal substitution, is a fatal hindrance, not a help at all! Thomas Erskine started this thought in his work on the unconditional freeness of the gospel. John Campbell took it up, and enforced it from the pulpit. Edward Irving wrought it into his later theology, and expounded it at length. Maurice, Kingsley, and the recent divines of progress, have been indebted to these three for all that is essential and attractive in their systems. The righteousness for which God accepts us is (writes Irving) “a real substantial purification of soul and body, but not self-originated, not self -supplied, derived all from Christ, by him wrought out, and out of him derived to us. Like other precious truths, Satan hath converted this to his own false and unholy uses, making men believe that, because it is derived from Christ, and by him sustained, it is therefore not really a righteousness wrought in us, but only a garment covering us, and that withal we continue under the cloak to be the same filthy creatures as before, whom God, for Christ’s sake (as they, with seeming piety, express a most impious sentiment) is pleased to look upon as righteous. If this be what they mean by the doctrine of imputed righteousness, and it is what they commonly express, then it is the vilest of all vile doctrines, comforting and encouraging a sinner in his

wickedness under the false notion that faith entirely covers and protects sin from the judgment of God. The church never meant to assert that, because it was of Christ’s working out for us, and of God’s serving out to us, it was not therefore true righteousness, heart righteousness, righteousness in the inward parts, and in the outward also, holiness of body and holiness of soul. The church never meant to convey by the word imputed that the righteousness was only skin deep, or, if we may so speak, only cloak deep, while all beneath was as foul as ever, or that it was only a supposititious righteousness, and not a real and substantial, or that it was only a transfer done over from Christ’s folio, in the great book of accounts, to ours” (Irving on the Revelation, vol. ii. pp. 889, 890).* From the above extracts the reader will see whence the “new school” theology of the present day gathered their denunciations of the “legal fiction” of imputation, though they have gone far beyond their teacher. Of the subtle deism underlying these attacks on substitution and judicial dealing with the sinner, and this zeal for the universal fatherhood of God, combined with denial of full inspiration, that is, of divine accuracy, to the language of Scripture, this is not the place to speak. But one would be disposed to argue that the fatherhood of a being who allowed his children to pine away with poverty and grief for six thousand years, when he might have made them all so happy; who gave them, as his only expression of sympathy, and their only guide, a miserably imperfect volume, with hardly one word in it which they can strictly call his own, is an idea, a myth, which they themselves can only believe in as a refuge from the dreary negations into which they are step by step descending. Let them who believe in God’s universal fatherhood say if such a half-inspired and inaccurate Bible, as they ♦will have it to be, is worthy of such a Father.

* The author of the above must have forgotten that he had subscribed a confession which teaches that “those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them.... Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all who are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf.” — “Westminster Confession,” chap. xi.

In our conflict with sin and pursuit of holiness, we must take our stand, not upon sensations or intuitions or impulses, or the experiences of others, but upon a true and accurate Bible, one for whose truth and accuracy we have divine security. If in that Bible we have merely the words of a man sketching and illustrating and abridging the thoughts of God, we have no security for the absolute correctness of any one statement in Scripture; and therefore no foundation for faith to rest on. Our ideas of sin and pardon and holiness must be mere guesses, approximations to the truth it may be, no more. Peace with God, consciousness of pardon, sense of reconciliation, become impossibilities. For the resting-place of the soul as to these, and the one basis of faith as to all religious truth, is the naked word of Him that cannot lie.

The sinner asks the question, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?” and God answers it in His own words. On these words we rest, in drawing near to God. He whose conscience has never asked this question in thorough earnest may be content with any response, however indefinite, and conveyed in words, however loose and vague; hut he whc has put it forth from the depths of his trembling spirit will be satisfied with no answer that does not come straight from the lips of God.

Note VII. — P. 73.

To say that assurance of one’s salvation is of the essence of faith, and that it is the first part of the gospel, is to depart from Scripture as much as from common sense. For to believe that I am saved before I am saved, or to be sure that I am pardoned in order to be pardoned, is a contradiction such as only incoherency could announce. But to say that assurance of salvation is the immediate and necessary result of faith, is to follow the teaching of the apostles, and to give ‘he true interpretation to their gospel. For if the belief of tfhat gospel does not forthwith assure me of my own acceptance, it must make me thoroughly miserable. The more that its blessings are apprehended, the more wretched must I become, if it can bring me no present certainty as to my share in these; if the first result of my believing it, is to land me in an interval of doubt, from which I can only extricate myself by years of effort. To keep a prisoner waiting for twenty years in his cell before assuring him of the royal APPENDIX.

pardon, would not be half so cruel as to keep the awakened sinner for a day uncertain as to the pardon of his sin. Every hour’s uncertainty would be a foretaste of hell. Yet this uncertainty is all the good news which many preach. They proclaim a gospel which merely sets the sinner a working for salvation, a trying to believe! They tell him that if he will only go on thus, doing his best and trying to believe, for twenty or thirty years, God will take pity upon his laborious endeavours, and shew favour to his earnestness! They call on him to sum up his good feelings at certain seasons, and on that summation to build his hope of becoming by degrees at last an accepted man! But all the while what is the poor soul to do, with an awakened conscience, and terrors of doom, and thoughts of the possibility of being lost after all? This surely is not the gospel of Christ and his apostles. It is not the gospel which brought such immediate joy, as soon as believed, to the sinners of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Philippi. It contains no good news, because no certainty of pardon to the sinner, no present purging of the conscience through the blood.

The want of assurance has frequently been defended from the Psalms. On this point we suggest the following thoughts: —

There are two extremes of interpretation in the case of the Psalms. The first almost sets aside Christ from them, and understands the expressions of bitterness and grief as merely David’s utterances; as oftentimes the utterances of doubt, and unbelief, and want of assurance. That they were truly the utterances of David’s feelings in the circumstances in which they were composed, is most true, and ought to be taken as the basis of all interpretations; but that they were not meant by the Holy Spirit for a greater than David is a serious error; that they are the utterances of doubt, or unbelief, or non-assurance, or want of faith, is even a more serious error, for not only does it make the Holy Spirit put words of distrust into a believer’s lips (nay, we should say, into Messiah’s lips), but it overlooks this notable fact, that even those psalms which are darkest throughout, and read most like doubting, begin with “My God,” or similar words of assurance; nay, that the very bitterness expressed is, occasioned by the thought that this God, about whose relationship to them no doubt is entertained, is giving them over to the will of their enemies. The second interpretation exhibits Christ in them as the true speaker, though the voice and pen at first were David’s. But though this seems to us, note yin. speaking generally, the correct view, we should not like to see it supersede the use of the Psalms by Christians, as in many parts expressive of New Testament experiences as truly as of Old. To speak of Jewish saints as occupying lower ground and inheriting a lower kingdom than we do, or as liable to an experience of conflict from which we have been delivered, is to exhibit a one-sidedness of view and an ignorance of the Christian warfare hardly to be expected in men who have studied the whole Word of God. To tear away the Psalms from us as obsolete, and to deny them to be the proper utterance of Christian worship because of the sorrow which breathes through so many of them, is to deprive us of the means of identifying ourselves with Old Testament saints, and to shut us out from the use of language which best embodies the feelings of one wrestling, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers; and of one who “groans, being burdened” (2 Cor. v. 4), is in “heaviness through manifold temptations” (1 Peter i. 6), oppressed with “infirmities,” pierced with “thorns in the flesh,” and buffeted by messengers of Satan (2 Cor. xii. 7-10); troubled on every side, fightings without and fears within (2 Cor. vii. 5). Let those who have soared above Paul and David, who call conflict bondage, and treat the cries of Old Testament saints as something which it would be sin for us to listen to, reject the Psalms and their experiences, those who know something of the warfare, will welcome them as suitable and precious above measure, — the breathings, not of the spirit of bondage, but of liberty and adoption.

Note YIII. — P. 79.

It will contribute to some clearness of thought, on this point, to bring together the passages which speak of the new and old man. They are the following: (1.) Col. iii. 9, 10, “Ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man” If, then, the whole old man (in a moral sense) be literally put off, and the new put on, the man is perfect, sinless. (2.) 2 Cor. v. 17, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away! behold, all things are become new.” How then does the “old man” still remain unchanged and unchangeable? (3.) Gal. vi. 15, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a, new creature, i. e, the whole man

is created anew. (4.) Eph. ii. 15, “To make in himself of twain one new man. (5.) Eph. iv. 22, “That ye put off the

old man;.... and be renewed in the spirit of your mind t and put on the new many (6.) Rom. vi. 6, “Our old man is crucified with him.”

Are there no figures here? Or is not the purging out of the old leaven a figure (1 Cor. v. 7)? Is not “the putting on of Christ” a figure (Rom. xiii. 14)? Is not the “putting on of bowels and mercies” a figure (Col. iii. 12)?

Though the putting off the old man, and putting on the new man, is in one sense an act done once at justification; yet that there is an inner work flowing from this is evident from the expression, “the inner man is renewed day by day” and the exhortation to the saints, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. xiii. 14); while it is said elsewhere, “as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. iii. 27). In one sense, then, the change is complete (“ye are complete in him”); in another it is incomplete. Nor is there any contradiction here, but only two sides of one great truth, which some overlooking have erred from the faith, and said strange things concerning flesh and spirit, the old man and the new man, which Scripture warrants not; all founded upon a one-sided view of truth, and defended by carrying out literally and extremely the figures of the apostles and our Lord.

One figure used is that of an indwelling Christ. “Christ in you” (Col. i. 27); “Christ liveth in me” (Gal. ii. 20); “that Christ may. dwell in your hearts by faith” (Eph. iii. 17); “I will come in to him, and sup with him” (Rev. iii. 20). But Christ is in heaven, and therefore cannot actually dwell in us, body, soul, spirit, and Godhead, as the Romanists maintain regarding the sacrament of the supper. Everything that Christ could do for us and be to us, if he were actually inhabiting us, that is implied by this figure of an indwelling Christ, as done for us and in us. The language is figurative; and the apostle did not mean that the new man in us is Christ himself.

Another figure used is that of the Holy Spirit making us his temples, his Habitations, uertamly he does Ewell in ua ’ “and iill us; he occupies us as his temple, in so far as Godhead can inhabit man. But there is a limit to the use of the figure. The Holy Spirit is not the same as the new man, nor does he make in us a new personality; but occupies us in every part, and, in occupying, transforms and purifies.

He does not create a new individual, spotlessly pure like himself, and insert it into us, leaving the whole of our old being untouched and unchanged, to wage warfare with the new individual which has been thus dropped into us. What he does is to quicken the man, be it Abraham, or Paul, or Luther; to renew the man, the whole man, the whole of this Abraham, this Paul, this Luther, so that, though renewed in every part, spirit, soul, and body, he is still very Abraham, very Paul, very Luther, just as before.

Note IX. — P. 80.

Let us note this passage more especially, because of its importance. The apostle says, in verse 19, “I through the law am dead (died) to the law, that (in order that) I might live unto God.” But how or when did he die to the law? How or when did the law slay him? When he became one with Christ in his death. As the law slew his substitute, so did it in that act slay himself. As the power of the law over his substitute ceased, when he died and paid the penalty, so did it cease in reference to himself, when he became one with him who died. Thus, Paul died to the law in order that he might live unto God. But how, and where, and when did this death of Paul take place? On the cross? In God’s purpose, and in the eye of his law, all who should throughout the ages believe in Jesus, are looked upon as gathered into one around the cross, when Jesus was fixed to it; nay, as nailed to the cross with him. Hence Paul as one of that company says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” Yes, Paul, the whole Paul, was crucified. But Paul, the very Paul, is yet alive. The crucified man lives! He rose with his Surety; with him who was “delivered for our offences” (or rather, “because we had sinned”), and raised again for “our justification” (or rather, “because we were justified”). There is a change, not in the person, for he is still Paul; but in the nature of the person. He has got a new life, new feelings, and new capacity of feeling, new sympathies, new sorrows, and new joys, new loves, and new hatreds, and this newness is through an indwelling Christ. Paul is now alive through the vitality of another life than his own; strong through the strength of another; wise through the wisdom of another; holy through the holiness of another. He thinks, feels, and acts through the energy of another. Hence the

apparent contradiction of the “I live, yet not I;” “I, yet not I, but the grace of God that is in me.”

Note X. — P. 90.

God, in the record of his dealings with the Old Testament saints, leads us to connect all blessings specially with Himself.

He speaks of Himself ’, not merely as giving the blessing; or as being the source of it; but as being the blessing; being it, in such a way that he who has Him, has all of blessing that is in Him; being it, in such a way that the only means of getting it is by getting Himself. What He is and has is the exponent of the nature and the measure of the amount of blessing.

Men call this a mere figure of speech. Be it so. It is a figure which, with all its boldness, falls far short of the real thing which God would have us understand by it; for human speech, though strained to the utmost, cannot adequately utter the great thoughts of God.

When God would give Abraham the promise of security here and recompence hereafter, he does not simply say, “I will protect and reward thee.” He says far more, “lam thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen. xv. 1). And when lie reminds Israel of their dependence on him, he says, “He is thy life, and the length of thy days” (Deut. xxx. 20). To say God is my “treasure,” my “rock,” my “fortress,” my “light,” the “health of my countenance,” is not only to make use of a more “poetical” expression; but it is to utter a far greater and more blessed truth than to say, God enriches me, defends me, enlightens me, heals me.

In the New Testament we have the same form of speech; and there it becomes even more expressive, because it is made use of in connection with the person and work of the Son of God, with him in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell. Related as he is to us, and we to him, — he the Word made flesh, and we the members of his body; He partaker of our true and real humanity, and we the “partakers of the divine nature,” — it may be said that the “figures” above referred to assume a personality, a meaning, and a power, such as they never before possessed. In Jesus Christ, who is at once the substitute, the surety, the sacrifice, the sin-bearer, and no less the brightness of Jehovah’s glory, and the express image of his person, all these forms of speech find their true filling up and complete significance. ‘ ‘ I am the resurrection and the life,” “I am the light of the world,” “I am the bread of life,” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he says of himself. And his apostles say of him, “He is our peace,” “He of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” All that he is and has of life, peace, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redenqffion, are ours; for he is ours, and we are his; we are “made partakers of Christ,” one with him in all that he possesses, or of which he is the heir.

.Christ is “our peace.” for that which he is and has, and has done, secures our reconciliation with God, and in the knowledge of him and his propitiation, we are delivered from all disquietude and dread of wrath, once and for ever; God is at peace with us, and we at peace with God.

“Christ is the wisdom of God,” and he “of God is made unto us wisdom.” This does not mean that Christ is the divine attribute of wisdom, or that he is made unto us this divine attribute, or that this divine attribute becomes ours, as some would have us to infer. It means that all the wisdom of Godhead is embodied and exhibited in Christ’s person and work, nay, is deposited in him as a fountain for us. All that Christ is and has, as the wisdom of God, is placed at our disposal. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; out of his fulness we all receive; we are “vise in Christ.” As partakers of Himself, we are made partakers of his wisdom. Our heritage from the first Adam is foolishness, from the last is wisdom.

-Christ is “the righteousness of God.”. and he “of God is made unto us righteousness.’1 As the term “the wisdom of God” did not mean the divine attribute of wisdom; so, as we have seen, “1%e righteousness of God” cannot mean the divine attribute of righteousness. It must mean something communicable, something transferable, something of which we become possessors in being made “partakers of Christ;” something in regard to which a legal exchange takes place between us and him; ‘ 4 He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Of course, there is a difference here between the way in which the wisdom and the righteousness are applied to us. Wisdom cannot be imputed to us, save in the sense of all our foolishness being covered, and we regarded by God as one with Him who is wisdom. But righteousness can be imputed; so imputed

that the law will treat us as righteous; so imputed that God will deal with us as entitled to all that his righteous Son is entitled to. In being identified with the Righteous One, with him who is the Lord our Righteousness, we receive all the favour, and love, and blessing, and recompence, here and hereafter, which he, as the Righteous One, can claim from the Father. Our sin is transferred to his account, his righteousness to ours. Being thus legally justified, the inward process begins; and we are gradually made by the Holy Spirit inwardly that which we are in law by “the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Saviour.” The two things are inseparable, the legal and the moral, the outward and the inward. is vain to talk of an inward holiness, of which the root is not justification through the righteousness of the substitute; and it is no less vain to speak of a justification of which the fruit is not inward holiness, the renovation of the whole being.

Christ “of God i made unto us sanctification.” Some from tins have inferred that there is such a thing as imputed sanctification. If they merely mean that, as one with Christ, the Holy One of God, we are treated by God as at once set apart for his service, they affirm nothing new. If they assert that, in consequence of Christ being our sanctification, our sins are no longer accounted sins, whatever they may be, then they are the enemies of all godliness, and the advocates of crime. If by that which they call perfect sanctification, they simply mean complete consecration, like that of the priests of old, through the blood, they are playing with words, and confounding simple minds. Every believer iv the blood of Christ holds “perfect sanctification,” in the sense of every believer being “a saint,” a “sanctified” one; one set apart for God and his service, by the sprinkling of the blood, from the moment he believes. But perfect sanctification. in the sense of nerfect freedom ffoih sin,’ from the ftioment of believing, is nowhere taught in Scripture. sided teachers may mystify the minds of the simple by appealing to this and the other passage of Scripture, but let the distinction above pointed out between consecration and holiness be adverted to, and mystification vanishes.

Some have held that the expression, “the righteousness of God” (Rom. i. 17), means merely “God’s method of justification;” a very meagre, to say the least of it, equivalent for such a powerful phrase. Others have held that it means God’s attribute of righteousness itself; an interpretation as unscrip tural as it is wholly unintelligible; an interpretation which, by refusing to identify the exhibition of God’s righteousness with the life of the Son of God on earth, deprives us of that gospel which bases itself on the imputation of the sinner’s sin to the substitute, and of the substitute’s righteousness to the sinner. If, by the “righteousness of God” the apostle meant the divine attribute of righteousness, then his reasoning as to the disobedience of the first Adam, and the obedience of the second, is a fallacy throughout: his gospel is made void; the mutual transference of sin and righteousness between the sinner and the Sin-bearer is set aside; and Luther’s joyous gospel of “Christ our righteousness” is proved to be a poor human fiction, a false gospel, which spoke of peace to the sinner when there was none. Let us test the meaning by a few texts: 2 Cor. v. 21, “He, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Are we made the divine attribute of righteousness; or does that attribute become ours? Rom. i. 17, “Therein (in the gospel) is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” Is it the divine attribute of righteousness that the gospel reveals to faith? Rom. iii. 22, “The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.” Can this mean the divine attribute of righteousness? Or in what sense is it by faith of Christ? Rom. v. 17, 4 ‘ They which receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness.” How can we receive the abundance of the gift of the divine attribute of righteousness? Rom. x. 3, “Have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” This cannot mean that they have not submitted to the divine attribute of righteousness.

This 4 4 righteousness of God” is clearly that referred to in Jer. xxiii. 6, “This is the name by which he shall be called, Jehovah our righteousness;” in Dan. ix. 24, “Brought in everlasting righteousness;” Isa. lxi. 10, “He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness;” Rom. x. 4, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;” 2 Peter i. 1, “The righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Rom. v. 19, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” These quotations prove that by “the righteousness of God,” the apostle did not mean the divine perfection of righteousness, but the embodiment of obedience seen in the surety life and death of Christ. God, in and by the life and death of his incarnate Son, provided that righteousness which is called “the righteous

ness of God.” It is called “the righteousness of God;” not simply because it is the righteousness of Christ, who is God, but because it is the righteousness provided, recognised, approved by God; and so distinguished from and contrasted with that got up and approved by man; as the apostle distinguishes them, “That I maybe found IN Him (not in myself); not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law (which comes by the doing of the law), but that which is through the faith of Christ (which comes by believing in Christ); even the righteousness which is of God by faith.”

Note XI. P. 119; also p. 65.

There seems to be some confusion as to the meaning of ‘ ‘ flesh” in this theory; or something of the old Manichaean doctrine as to the necessary sinfulness of “flesh.” Flesh in Scripture is used figuratively, (1.) for the body, Col. ii. 1; (2.) the man as he was before conversion, legally and morally, Eph. u. 3; (3.) that part or element in the regenerate man which is not yet purified, Pom. vii. 25. Nowhere does Scripture speak of some mysterious person called the old man, as an unchanged and unchangeable being. It rather speaks thus as to the way in which we are to deal with that which it, in figure, calls the flesh, “mortify your members which are uxion the earth” (Col, iii. 5). Whose members? Those of the “old man” or tlesia, sucn as fornication, uncleanness, covetousness; “ye put off all these, anger, wrath,” &c.: “He not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds;” which texts imply that there is a gradual “mortifying” or getting quit of what belonged to the old man, which is to continue until we have got rid of all his deeds. The source of this strength against sin, of this daily victory over the lusts of the flesh, is that which was done to the old man when we. were r.r unified with Christ, and when we ceased to seek justification from the doings of the natural man — (see Haldane on the Homans, and his remarks on the 8th chapter), — or, as the apostle expresses it, ceased to have “confidence in the flesh” (Phil. iii. 3). The crucifying or nutting off the old man is the setting aside of our old 7e(/’, a,s condemned, sentenced, punished in Christ. Just as the law was set aside in the matter of our pardon; so was self, which was the doer of the law and the seeker of justification through these doings. Both law and self were nailed to the cross; not in order to be annihilated; but to come forth in a new form, the one to be the rule of a holy life, and the other to be the doer of holy deeds. Thus “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ J esus makes us free from the law of sin and death.” The crucifixion or putting off the flesh or old man, refers primarily to justification; to our legal, not our moral state. So long as our old self was at work, it could only bring forth its own fruits; but when we renounced both it and the law (in the matter of pardon), we became attached to a new root, and came under a new influence, for the bringing forth of new fruits. In the statement that the old man is unchangeable, the reference must be to legal condition, not moral character.

Note XII. — P. Ill and 135.

In this passage (1 Cor. ix. 21), the apostle brings out his relationship to the law very pointedly. He was not vnav’opov, “under the law” verse 20); nor was he “without

law;” but he was ?»» opos, “in the law,” or “subject to the law,” as the word means. See Acts xix. 39, “A lawful assembly,” i. e. an assembly regulated by law. Lexicographers give the word thus, “inlex, pro qui est intra legem, eadem forma qua exlex qui est extra legem, lege carens; intra certain legem et prsescriptum coercitus; justus et legibusconsentaneus; obnoxius legi” (Stephen’s Thesaurus). A Christian man then is swopos, a man not “under the law,” but “within the circle of law.” It is “to Christ” that he is now “in law;” but this implies, not an altered law, but the same law placed on a new footing, enforced with new motives; issuing not from Sinai, but from Sion. The “law of Christ” (Gal. vi. 2) is not opposed to the “law of God,” but a carrying out of all its precepts. Hence the apostolic injunction here, “Bear ye one another’s burdens,” is only a new and more specific application of “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” As in the 5th and 6th chapters of Matthew, the Lord took the law and brought out all its breadth (and what he said to his disciples he says to us) so the apostle here makes a similar use and application of the law; not adding something which the law had omitted, but drawing out of the law the holy riches which it contained; and thereby rendering it almost impossible for any one to say, “W< e have nothing to do with the law.” Nothing xo do with

statutes so full of holiness, so fraught with love! As the Lord and his apostles thus illustrated and applied the law, so let us learn to do. To shrink from the law looks very like loving the darkness rather than the light, very like an unwillingness to be instructed in the ways of righteousness. “I will nut mv laws into their mind” (Heb.. xviii. 10), is connected with “iiieir sms and their iniquities will I’remember no more;” and he who knows forgiveness best and most, will not reckon this a return to legalism or bondage. It is the essence of the glorious liberty of the latter day; a part of the new covenant (Jer. xxxi. 31; Heb. viii. 6-13). This new or “everlasting covenant” is mat wmcii the cross comj-deted, which the blood sealed, and which at Pentecost was so fully proclaimed.

We cannot get our consciences enlightened, or our steps guided straightly, or ourselves taught the full knowledge of good and evil, without the good and holy law of God. “I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Kom. vii. 7); “by the law is the knowledge of sin;” “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful” (Kom. vii. 13). That the life of Christ is the embodiment and exposition of the law is true; but it is to be remembered that the four Gospels do not contain the thousandth part of the life of Christ (John xxi. 25); and that therefore there are many parts and details of the law on which the revealed life of Christ does not bear. We are not therefore to confine ourselves to the incidents of his life; nor to say that unless we find such and such a precept exemplified in his life we are not bound to obey it, which would be the case were it true that Christ’s example is to us a substitute for the law. It is far amiss to say we are not to learn the evil of sin from the law but the cross alone. We must have both; the law to teach us what sin is, the cross to teach us the condemnation attaching to it.

P God’s appeal to Israel in behalf of his laws and statutes’ are not to be evaded by us. They were addressed by a redeeming God to a redeemed people, that “knew the joyful sound” (Ps. lxxxix. 15), and had tasted the blessedness of pardon. These appeals were not- meant to bring them inti? bondage. Obedience was liberty to them as to us. Israel stood upon the blood, just as we do. Abraham is Paul’s model ci a justified man; and David his model of a man enjoying the blessedness of righteousness without works.

NOTE ym.

The freest proclamations of pardon and life, in which we rejoice, are those addressed to Israel. Old Testament believers did not occupy a lower level than we do; nor did they walk in legal bondage because they had not yet seen the cross. They were “saints” as truly as we are* (Exod. xix. 6; Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2; Deut. xxxiii. 3; Ps. lxxxix. 5-7); dwelt in, and filled with the Holy Spirit (Exod. xxviii. 3, xxxi. 3, xxxv. 31; Num. xi. 17, 25; 2 Sam. xxiii. 2; Prov. i. 23; Isa. xliv. 3, lxiii. 11; Mic. iii. 8; 2 Peter i. 21); sons of God (Exod. iv. 22, 23; Prov. iii. 11; Jer. xxxi. 9-20; Hos. i. 10; Heb. xii. 5); God’s royal priesthood (Exod. xix. 6); God’s portion and inheritance (Deut. xxxii. 9); heirs of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. viii. 11); strangers upon earth (1 Chron. xxix. 15; Ps. xxxix. 12; Heb. xi. 13); partakers of the first resurrection (Heb. xi. 35); members of Christ’s body (Isa. xxvi. 19); his spouse and bride (Ps. xlv. 10-14; Cant. iv. 8; Isa. liv. 5, lxii. 5); partakers of the heavenly calling (Heb. xi. 10, 16). In short, there is nothing affirmed of New Testament saints that is not affirmed of Old Testament ones; and to say that because Israel as a nation had the earthly things, therefore the saints in Israel had not the heavenly, is to overlook some of the clearest declarations of the word. The mystery or secret which the apostle announces (Eph. iii. 6), was not that a new thing called the church had commenced at Pentecost (there is no hint of such a thing), but that into the old and well known body, the church, so often spoken of in the Old Testament, and symbolized in the Song of Solomon as the church without spot or wrinkle (Cant. iv. 7), the Gentiles were to be introduced and set on the same level as the Old Testament members. “That the Gentiles should be felloio -heirs (with the ancient saints), and of the same body” (with them), is the fair interpretation of the apostle’s language.

Note XIII. — Pp. 132 and 159: also 76.

The word which our translators render “sound doctrine” is properly, healthful or healing doctrine, fyytouvoOffa bidav-

* The words of the apostle are very explicit. The “far off” Gentiles were not only to be brought nigh, but to be made fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph. ii. 19; i e. fellow citizens of the heavenly city., along with all the saints of old.

“«aX/a. It occurs several times. 1 Tim. i. 10, “Contrary to healing doctrine;” ib. vi. 3, “And consent not to healing works;” 2 Tim. i. 13, “Hold fast the form of healing words;” ib. iv. 3, “They will not endure healing doctrine.” See Titus i- 9, 13, ii. 1, 2. T|he doctrine that heals the soul’s hurt, is Paul’s faithful saying. Everything else but heals it slightly, or introduces poison into the wound. It is remarkable that this is the word by which the Greek translators of the Old Testament have rendered the Hebrew word “peace.” See Gen. xxix. 6, “Is he well?” according to the Hebrew, “Is there peace to him?” See also Gen. xxxvii. 14, xliii. 27; Exod. iv. 18; 1 Sam. xxv. 6.

Note XIV. — P. 147.

On the one hand we see philosophy appropriating religious phrases, and on the other religion appropriating philosophic terms and epithets. We feel suspicious of both. Not that we would fling away a word that is true, or fear to adopt one that honestly expresses our meaning, because these may happen to be fashionable in a certain school. We need not inquire on what anvil the sword was hammered with which we fight. We may ask no questions for conscience’ sake. But this interchange of terms is of questionable benefit. It tends to mingle together the true and the untrue. It sometimes indicates, and at other times produces, friendship between parties who ought not to be thus agreed (2 Cor. vi. 15). There is danger to the truth of God when philosophy tries to patronise religion, or religion to patronise philosophy. It is assumed by those who are called “thinking men,” and still more by their disciples, that any theological system which is to command the respect (not to say the belief) of modern minds, must be, more or less, a compromise, — a concession to religious prejudice on the one hand, and a concession to the advanced opinion and higher criticism of the age, — the theologian doing his best, with very unmanageable materials, to construct a system which shall not greatly shock old schodls, nor excite unnecessary contempt among new, — softening down or apologising for tlffe angularities’ of Scripture, — endeavouring to keep it abreast of the improvements of the age, — evading the trammels of doctrine, and either rejecting prophetic truth or transmuting the prophetic word into mere symbols for the oracular utterance of commonplace truth, or the mysterious record (in disguise) of well-known history.

Note XY. — P. 155.

The impossibility of the supernatural is the real idea, latent or announced, in much of the philosophy of the time. From this as the secret basis many have started; to this, as the inevitable terminus, many are moving. Rejection of the Spirit’s personal agency, denial of miracles, dislike of inspiration, Darwinian theories of self-elevation or “natural selection,” are the offspring of one father. Hence, also, the worship of human intellect, the contempt for goodness apart from genius, the unconcealed suspicion that great spirituality is incompatible with great talent, and that a life or book intensely religious must be weak and shallow. Yet, while one large section of modern philosophy goes off in this direction, a considerable part diverges in another, cultivating the supernatural, professing to associate itself with the invisible world, and to fill up imperfect knowledge with the superior information of spirits. Thus, on both sides, there is departure from the divine anchorage, the Bible; the one taking from it, in order to have no supernatural world at all; the other adding to it, in order to have a supernatural world of their own. Truly was it written, 44 1 will choose their delusions” (Isa. lxvi. 4); and again, “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. ii. 10, 11).

Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies,

He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;

And he that will be cheated, to the last,

Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast,

Thus we see, in our day, sometimes the oscillation between credulity and scepticism (the poor distracted spirit flying from the one extreme to the other in its search for a basis of faith); and sometimes the amalgamation of the two. The result of this is, that singular fermentation or effervescence, called “progress,” which is shewing itself everywhere; according to the advocates of which, religion is in a transition state, and all modern movements mere experiments or feelers. The intellect of the age, like Columbus, is supposed to be steering humanity to an unknown but golden realm. All is unsettled, and must be so viewed when we judge the chaos

of modern opinion! Hence the flippancies of free-thinking, the insincerities of an ill-adjusted formalism, the cravings for innovation, the incoherencies of self-willed religionism, the puerilities of amateur- worship, rebellion against theological systems, and the dishonesties of subscriptions to creeds not believed by the subscribers, save as the means of livelihood or as a certificate of character.

Note XVI. — P. 163.

Because of making such statements, we are sometimes pitied as always preferring the shady aspect of things and persons in the world; looking round us with a melancholy smile; unwilling to take the comfort of any good that life presents. The preceding pages, however, will shew this much, that we believe that a Christian man ought always to be joyful, cheerful, genial. But must there not be something lacking in this gladness, or at least a shade flung over it so long as that awful verse remains in Scripture, “We are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John v. 19). If the way to life be as narrow as ever, and the way to death as broad; if sin be still what it was when God poured His flood over earth; if Satan be still ruler of the darkness of this world; if error and evil hold hundreds of millions in their sway, and truth and righteousness be still upon the losing side; if pain, and sickness, and sorrow, and death, still spread themselves round our globe, and enter all human homes; if there be such a place as hell, towards which so many are moving, and in which so many already are; can it be wondered that a Christian’s eye is sometimes wet, and his heart not seldom sore? Is it so very unaccountable that all the beautiful things of which earth is full, with all the rich affections and sympathies of life, should be unable to stay his tears? Paul was no gloomy man, of moody spirit, though he said, “I now tell them, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” Surely, in this unreclaimed world, and amid the broken, bleeding churches of God, we have objects which (unless we are wholly selfish) may sometimes bring a cloud over our sunniest noons.