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lectual and moral qualifications to enable him fairly to represent the culture and faith of his fellow Christians. His epistle bespeaks him to have been a thoughtful, sober, and conscientious man. There is no great force in his writing, but it is far removed from feebleness, and his judgment is on the whole mature and wellbalanced, obviously a judgment upon which men may rely. He is comparatively free from all fanciful interpretation of Scripture, and indulges in no foolish speculation or unwarrantable conjecture. An earnest, sober, practical aim governs all he writes. His exhortations are exceedingly judicial and replete with wisdom; and, when he rebukes, an exquisite tenderness mingles with his severity. His illustrations and examples are carefully selected and exceedingly apt; while his Scripture quotations and allusions are admirable for pertinence and point. This freedom from exaggeration and puerility; these evidences of a thoughtful, sober, and practical mind, warrant, at least, the conclusion, that in Clement we have a writer, who, in reference to all questions affecting the belief and life of Christendom, furnishes a fair representation of his age.

The circumstances which led to the production of this letter are also deserving of consideration here. A deplorable schism had rent the Church of Corinth, a schism having reference to pre-eminence and rule. Under these circumstances the advice and friendly offices of the Church of Rome are solicited by either the one party or the other, and Clement, in the name and with the sanction of the Christian community in Rome, writes to the Christian community in Corinth, with a view to promote and establish harmony. Now what was written under these circumstances must have coincided with the views and practices of the Church of Italy, and must also have been generally acknowledged by the Church in Greece. Any dogma, or usage, not commonly received or practised, would have required proof, and it would have been necessary to show either in the case of one, or the other, that it was in agreement with the acknowledged side of christian belief and practice. But there is an utter absence of all ratiocination in Clement's letter, nothing is argued, nothing demonstrated; all doctrine introduced is simply stated as what was generally received; and passed almost, if not entirely, unchallenged in the Christian communities; and every usage and practice is referred to in the same way. Taking into consideration the circumstances under which the epistle was written, and its characteristic features, that all doctrine is taken for granted and not philosophically reasoned, and that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity are introduced allusively, and not by direct and formulated statement, we are justified in concluding, that though not written for the purpose it may nevertheless, and probably with greater reason on this account, be regarded as a representative production; not merely a

writing in harmony with, but a writing embodying the theological and ecclesiastical thought of the period.

In support of this conclusion, it may also be added that any writing which can fairly be relegated to the same period as the epistle of Clement presents the same general features. There is an absence of the theosophising philosophy and ratiocinative form characteristic of later writings. With the doctrine and practice of which we have any account in these early writers, as well as with all reference to Christian doctrine and ethics found in anti-christian writers of the same period, the Clementine epistle is in substantial agreement, showing that Clement writes not merely his own views, but the concurrent views of Christendom.

We may now briefly summarise the results gained with a view to determine their apologetical value. The first epistle attributed to Clement is undoubtedly a genuine production, and dates from the latter part of the first century. It contains in a positive and unratiocinative form the fundamental facts and doctrines of orthodox Christianity. And owing to the favourable opportunities which Clement had for becoming acquainted with the theological thought of his times; also considering his mental endowments and personal character, as well as the circumstances under which the letter was written, and its characteristic features we are justified in accepting this letter as a fair representative and embodiment of the facts and doctrines generally received, and the moral obligations generally recognised in all Christian communities.

By these realised results we are warranted in saying, that the age to which this epistle belongs was an age which did not originate any of the facts or doctrines commonly received, and which did not speculate with a view to account for any of the facts or doctrines which it possessed. Intellectually it was a non-productive and a non-speculative age--an age in which men who accepted the facts and doctrines of Christianity were satisfied simply to possess and practically to apply them. But this age so thoroughly acquiescive and practical, was rich in the possession of truth relating to the highest interests of men. Concerning this truth, subsequent ages speculated and philosophied, but there is no such tendency revealed in the epistle of Clement. It obviously belongs to a period which was neither productive nor ratiocinative, but pre-eminently acquiescive and practical.

We also consider ourselves warranted in concluding that it must have been immediately preceded by an intensely active and intensely productive period. Connected with any great and radical spiritual change in individual life there may be traced three distinctive periods. There is the productive period, when the altered conditions constituting the change are originated; then follows a period of acquiescence, in which the results are accepted

and applied to the great questions affecting life and destiny; then comes a reflective period, in which the intellect demands satisfaction, and the results embodying the change have to realize a philosophical justification. Through this process all real advancement is secured. Similar phenomena, without any stretch of imagination, may be traced in any great and radical change which takes place in humanity itself. There is, first, convulsion, then a brief period of acquiescence; then, the imperative demands of the intellect follow; and, if the results developed by the previous convulsions cannot be justified, reaction at once sets in, and a condition in its general features not very dissimilar from, if not exactly coincident with the previous state, is reached. Now it is upon this ground we affirm that the acquiescent period to which the letter of Clement obviously belongs, must have been preceded by a period of intense activity and extensive production. We measure the intensiveness of the activity by the lofty grandeur; we determine the extensiveness of the production by the multiplicity, clearness, and richness of the truth possessed. Here, in this Clementine age, we have a vast treasure of grand and lofty truth, embracing every question of vital importance in relation to God, man, and destiny. This treasure of truth is held under such conditions, that it must stand in immediate connection with producing phenomena. If it were far removed from them, there would be traces of effort to furnish a philosophical justification; but no such traces are found, and hence the connection must be immediate. Antecedent phenomena there must be; and where are we to seek for them? They are furnished in the New Testament writings. Accept these, and there is at once order and harmony; reject them, order and harmony are impossible; for the very conditions necessary for the explanation of later phenomena are castaway.

Occupying this ground, we consider ourselves justified in rejecting the results reached by the Tubingen school of critics. It is a fundamental position with this school that the New Testament writings, except the four great Pauline epistles, viz., Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians, the Apocalypse, and the substance of the first Gospel, though not that Gospel as we now possess it, all belong to the second century, and most of them to about the middle of that century. It is also maintained, fundamentally, by this class of critics that these writings were, most of them, the result and expression of a compromise between two antagonistic principles-a legal principle represented by Peter, and a libertarian principle represented by Paul. A conflict between Judaic and Hellenic forms of thought produced most of these writings. These results we regard as philosophically untenable. The criticism by which they are developed provides no

place for the order and sequence characteristic of all thorough and radical change, nay, it renders any such order and sequence impossible, and is thus wanting in the primal conditions of a safe and reliable criticism. Such a conflict as Baur and his disciples describe, in varying form, might perhaps account for results produced in the speculative period when the intellect demands satisfaction, but the conflict itself requires its antecedent, productive, and acquiescive periods. Without these, supposing it actually to have taken place, it cannot be rationally explained, and these the Tubingen criticism does not supply. It is conflict from the beginning, and conflict throughout, a position which in reference to any great and radical spiritual change, in the individual or in the race, may safely be pronounced philosophically unsound.

But the Clementine epistle furnishes other reasons, fatal to the Tubingen theory. There is in it no trace of any conflict between Judaic and Hellenic elements, and yet it proceeds from a church, and is addressed to a church, in which this conflict is supposed to have progressed somewhat keenly. Certainly, if there had been any such strife of opinion, some indication of it would have been found in this letter; for it dates, not only from the scene of the supposed conflict, but from the very time when it was in progress. This silence we consider fatally significant. But, though silent concerning any such conflict as Baur supposes produced the greater part of the New Testament, it is not silent respecting the writings forming the New Testament. In the fifty-nine short chapters of which the letter consists, there are more than forty references and allusions to the New Testament writings; and these references and allusions are not to a few of the books merely, but to almost every book contained in the Canon, showing that when Clement wrote his letter to the Christian community in Corinth these books were in existence, and that they were generally received among Christians then as the standards of faith and guides of practice. And, if Clement wrote, as there is every reason to conclude he did, before the close of the first century, then all the New Testament writings, at least, to which Clement refers, and nearly all of which the Tubingen critics relegate to the middle of the second century, were written before the close of the first century. Thus, the results arrived at by the modern advanced criticism are not only philosophically unsound, but also false in fact.

A. J.

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“T°

ART. VII. THE ARGUMENT-A POSTERIORI.

IN RELATION TO THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY.

"Between these paths how difficult the choice!
Ah! might I find some smoother, easier way.
'None such exists,' whispers a secret voice,
'God is, or is not own or slight his sway!""

10 demonstrate anything à priori, means to do it on grounds or reasons preceding actual knowledge, or independent of it. Mathematical proofs, for example, are of the à priori kind; on the contrary, judgments or proofs, founded on knowledge previously acquired, such as the conclusions of natural history, and of all experimental science, are termed à posteriori,” (Imperial Dictionary). "A priori and à posteriori, two logical terms, signifying, literally, from a thing before,' and 'from a thing after." They are applied to distinguish between two different methods of reasoning; the first, à priori, in which conclusion is drawn from previous arguments, which render it unnecessary to examine the particulars of the case in point; the second, à posteriori, in which the thing to be proved is examined, and made the source out of which the reasoning is drawn."-(Penny Cyclopædia.)

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Truths are known to us in two ways: some are known directly, and of themselves; and others, through the medium of other truths. The former are the subjects of intuition, or consciousness; the latter, of inference. The truths known by intuition are the original premises from which all others are inferred; our assent to the conclusion being grounded on the truth of the premises, we never could arrive at any knowledge of reasoning unless something could be known antecedently to all reasoning.' In these words, the great logician (J. S. Mill), in common with many others, admits two sources of knowledge. At present we wish to review the question respecting the source of our knowledge of that grand and all but universally received dogma—the existence of God. Having, in a former article considered, in reference to this subject, the Argument à priori, we now invite the reader to review the Argument a posteriori in its bearings upon the same point. How do we come at a knowledge of God's existence? What premises justify the vast conclusion? What reason can we assign for the faith that is in us? In attempting to answer this question we pretend not to any new discovery. Nor do we expect to satisfy every objector, or to relieve the subject of every difficulty and every doubt; we rather consider it our mission to call attention to some old landmarks, that we may remember more fully their real worth and utility, yet without

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