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But it is said that He who made the Bible made the human mind; that truth revealed by him through the one channel can never contradict truth revealed through the other; that, therefore, the Bible cannot reveal any thing contrary to the intuitive decisions of the human mind. But to say nothing further, What are intuitive decisions of the human mind?those things which the whole race intuitively perceives to be true, with as much certainty as they perceive their own existence? But this cannot be applicable to the denial of any of those great Christian truths which rationalism rejects: for the people of God, a multitude whom no man can number, have believed them, and thousands have sealed their faith with their blood. If any one says that the mysteries of godliness are denied by his intuitive convictions, he simply mistakes his own sinful prejudices, and the pride of his narrow intellect, for the intuitive decisions of the human race. They are truly rational who are satisfied to take the attitude of learners, not of judges, before the Infinite and Unerring Mind; who take the yoke, and learn of Christ. They find that the truth of God, however mysterious in some aspects, alone satisfies the wants of their moral, intellectual, and spiritual being; that it harmonises with divine providence and devout feeling; that all departures from it, for the sake of shunning difficulties, do but multiply the difficulties they would thus shun, going from labyrinth to labyrinth, "to find no end in wandering mazes lost!"

These two dangerous routes, two principal tracks of the broad road which so many travel, have their origin in that evil heart and evil conscience which inhere in fallen humanity; a heart averse to God and propense to all evil,-a conscience charging guilt and threatening the wrath of the Almighty, which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. According as one of these predominates over the other, while neither is cleansed by the blood and Spirit of Christ, will the drift of the soul be towards either superstition or infidelity, which, mixed with Christian truth, respectively become formalism or rationalism. So far as the conscience is active and charges guilt, so far it will crave some method of appeasing God; and so far as the evil heart persists in its love of sin at the same time, it will crave some method of propitiating God, which will not interfere with its sinful indulgences and idols, but rather sanctifies them. Therefore it will crave superstitious rites and ceremonies, hoping to atone by strictness in these things for licence in all others. Such are the beggarly elements to which mankind in all ages have been driven, who have not bowed to Christ's easy yoke, pacified their consciences through his blood, and by faith purified their hearts, thus cleansing them from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the

fear of God. And in this state of mind people will not stop to inquire whether the yoke of ritual and hierarchical bondage under which they come is reasonable or scriptural. They prefer to assume it with a sort of blindness, since they deem ignorance the mother of devotion; and if their religion be scrutinised too narrowly, it may be found not to serve their purpose. "Man," says a celebrated writer, "cannot renounce either his sins or his God." His evil heart binds him to sin; his evil conscience makes him afraid directly to approach, and yet afraid altogether to forsake his Maker. Superstition is the result. The same causes in other circumstances generate rationalism, which usually prevails among those who have learned how senseless and worthless rites and ceremonies not ordained of God must be, and how vain any rites, even divinely authorised, must be, when divorced from moral purity. In these circumstances, what will he whose heart is averse to the God of the Bible, but whose conscience will not suffer him utterly to break loose from God and Christianity, do? He will make God altogether like himself; i. e., he will in a sense accept the Bible and Christianity, while yet he will contrive to explain away and repudiate so much of them as is repugnant to his own unhumbled mind and heart, meanwhile flattering himself, and as many others as choose to believe it, that he still accepts the substance of the whole; at all events, that he accepts enough for the soul's salvation. This may be true in some cases; it certainly is not in others. But whether true or not, he will be sure to think it is so, and to esteem all in the highest degree intolerant and bigoted who do not agree with him. He can tolerate all forms of religious belief in others; for there is truth hid under them, which he is largeminded enough to perceive and acknowledge. He is only disturbed when others have not a like charity for his own views, when they deem the principles he assails so important that they will not receive him within the circle of Christian fellowship. In its full development, in modern Pantheism, rationalism leads men to avow that they can believe every thing, "as many creeds as are offered;" i. e., that they in reality believe nothing; and this more especially, because it is a radical principle with them, that moral evil is a stage in man's training for goodness, and so that in its place it is in itself good. As rationalism is essentially negative, denying positive truth, instead of having any thing positive itself to propagate, so it lives comfortably amid all forms of belief, so long as it is itself quietly tolerated It takes no offence, till it is itself condemned and disowned. And disowned it must be wherever there is a living positive faith, which in its very nature strives to live and reign, and overthrow all antagonism to itself. Says

M'Cosh, "A negation can exist anywhere; it is slippery, easy, accommodating; but that which is positive must have space and room, and it would drive out that which resists it."

Every man is by nature something of a rationalist and something of a ritualist, for every man is by nature sinful, and so guilty, blind, averse to holiness and truth, which yet his conscience will not suffer him utterly to repudiate. So long as the best of men are imperfectly sanctified, so long they will need to watch, lest some residuum of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees still work within them, to turn them from the simplicity that is in Christ. The difference between those who, calling themselves Christians, respectively belong to Christ and Antichrist, is often not that one class holds fundamental truths which the other rejects, or that one class holds errors while the other is free from error; but that the one class, whatever may be their errors, hold them in such proportion and subordination to the truth as not seriously to impair its integrity, vitality, and authority, while the other hold errors of such magnitude and in such admixture with the truth as to paralyse it, and turn it into a lie. This criterion will hold good even of those merely speculative believers of the most orthodox creeds, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; for all these discern not, and of course believe not in that divine beauty of spiritual truths which alone can attract the heart. So, rejecting what is most vital and essential in them, they turn the truth of God into a lie.

It follows from all this, that an individual, or a communion, may cling to fundamental saving truth and hold fast the Head, while yet weakening and deforming, but not destroying that faith, by manifold errors and "doubtful disputations;" and, on the other hand, that the truths of the gospel may be held in name and in a sense, but so held with superincumbent fatal errors as to be utterly subverted. Hence the plausible and universal plea of heretics, that they hold so many precious truths in common with the orthodox that they ought not to be disfellowshipped, or that by spreading a drag-net through Christian literature, they can fish up nearly the whole brood of their own heresies, one here and another there, is of no account. The question, Ought not those who hold in common a great number of fundamental truths to walk together? is too much loaded with ambiguity to admit logically of an unqualified affirmative or negative answer. Like many other questions ad captandum, put by partizan sciolists in ethics and divinity, we can only answer them safely after the manner of the old theologians in such cases, neither yea nor nay, but distinguimus. The mere theist holds a great deal of precious fundamental truth; is he, therefore, to be recognised as a Christian? The Socinian holds

a great deal more in common with us, albeit he denies that our Lord is God, and hath purchased the church with his own blood; shall he then be brought within the sacred circle of Christian fellowship? The Papists hold vastly more, even most of the distinctively Christian mysteries; shall they then be countenanced as true Christians who turn the truth of God into a lie, by making all grace dependent on the intervention and pleasure of the priesthood for its efficacy, substituting ceremonies for holiness, and making all subservient to hierarchical domination? Or suppose that all else be held "according to the straitest sect," but that vicarious atonement, or spiritual regeneration, or eternal punishment, be contemptuously abjured, does, or does not, one such heresy so derange all associated truths as to turn them, either at once or ere long, into a lie? There can be but one answer to these questions in the light of Scripture, history, or logic. It is possible out of a hundred related facts to state all accurately, only omitting a single one, and by that omission to falsify all the rest. What sort of an account would he give of man who should state every thing truly about him, except simply that he has a moral nature, or, stating this, should ignore its fallen state? The question then in these cases is, not merely how many and what truths others hold in common with us, but whether they so held them, or other things in connection with them, as virtually to neutralise them. In our present imperfect and fallible state, there surely is a broad field in which Christians must agree to differ. But there is another sacred enclosure which cannot be invaded. To reject the fundamental doctrines of Christianity is to reject Christianity. Here there can be no compromise. It is well, the very instincts of the gracious soul demand it, that those who have hereunto attained, and agree in holding the Head, should walk by the same rule, and combine their strength in a common cause against a common foe. In this behalf, and pro hac vice, they may well forget their differences, justly feeling that their points of agreement are vastly more important than their points of difference. When the friends of God summon us to associations of this sort for the purpose of promoting our common Christianity, but not of protecting its impugners, we hear their voice, for it is not the voice of a stranger, but of the true Israel. Then will we gather to the "sacramental host of God's elect." But how often do heretics and reckless innovators make the welkin ring with the same watchwords, for the manifest purpose of screening their heresies and arts from detection and exposure! These we will not hear; for although the voice be the voice of Jacob, the hands are the hands of Esau.

As we have seen, the truth is turned into a lie by being incor

porated with positive or negative errors which produce the transmutation. It is a necessary consequence, that the surest defence against and remedy for this fatal tendency, is to hold and teach the truth as it is in Jesus, in its utmost fulness and simplicity; for all parts of the system of divine truth mutually support and brace each other. The removal of any part, therefore, although it be not the foundation, weakens and imperils the whole edifice. This must be so, as God is its author. It is so, as all experience testifies. We are persuaded that such could be shown, historically and logically, to have been the effect of losing faith in doctrines so remotely connected with Christian experience as the imputation of Adam's sin, and the scriptural idea of the church. Therefore, whatever connections we may form, for promoting our common Christianity, with those who cannot yet digest the strong meat of what is peculiar to the system called Calvinistic, we must not in any wise fetter our liberty to maintain them boldly in every appropriate sphere. To bind ourselves not to teach all things whatsoever Christ hath commanded us, is treason to him and his truth, therefore, to our common Christianity. We sum up all in the celebrated aphorism of Augustine:-In necessariis unitas; in non necessariis libertas; in omnibus caritas.

ART. IV.-Spirituality of the Book of Job, as exhibited in a Commentary on Chapter XIV., examined in connection with other Passages.

THE chief point of interest in this portion of Holy Writ is found in the touching interrogatory contained in the fourteenth verse,-- If a man die, shall he live again? It was to be expected that the unevangelical or Grotian class of commentators would give the least spiritual view of this and other similar passages. Critics of this kind generally profess to be, beyond all other expositors, free from any bias that may lead to results not sanctioned by the most legitimate principles of hermeneutics. And yet it may be maintained, that even they, with all their boasted claims to fairness and freedom from prejudice, do actually start with a prejudged theory, which modifies, controls, and, in many cases, suggests the very interpretations on which they so strongly insist as arising directly from the usus loquendi, or strict philological examination of the

text.

They too, we maintain, have their prejudged theory. They start with the assumption that neither the writer of the book

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