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and deformity—arrogance and sensuality-wrath, without mercy or remorse-lust, without love or shame

great spectacle in the standing evidence of his works-large in scale, and diversified in appearance. Thus the proposition in the soul was sus--dependance, without reverence or tained by the majesty and variety of external testimony.

affection--reigned and revelled in saturnalian orgies.

4. Such was the real condition of Rome, the lauded and glorified Empress of the Nations. Her vaunted wisdom was folly, over which pitying angels might have wept crimson tears, and shed them all in vain. Well might the ardent and beneficent Apostle desire, in that sink of infamy and wretchedness, to testify the righteousness of God, as unfolded in the salvation provided by the gospel. He was not ashamed of his mission, or his message. He knew that the just could only live by faith in the testimony concerning the Redeemer. With

2. What, then, was their guilt? They held, or detained, the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing God, they did not give him gratitude or glory. Through vanity of imagination and coldness of heart, they fell into folly, darkness, and impiety. Desiring not to retain the sublime conception of one spiritual God as a salutary restraint over the heart, imagination, and conscience—they brake into shapeless and monstrous fragments the living Unity, changing the glory of the uncorruptible God into images like corruptible men, birds, beasts, and creeping things. From the sub-out that, life could not be restored, tle energies of nature to the fanatical passions of the heart—from the stars of the blue abyss to the heroes of human history, and from thence to the bats of midnight and the reptiles of the slime-divinities swarmed in troops and legions, until they became intolerable nuisance and unutterable

woe.

3. What was the punishment of such mental and moral perverseness? They were abandoned by God to their voluntary vileness, until they began to have actual pleasure in things which they knew were worthy of death. Malignancy, murder, lying, vain-glory, pride, covenant-breaking, disobedience to parents, became common among them. Nor was profligacy bounded by sins against God in the excess of privilege; but depravity was stung into madness, and ran wild into the infernal and the beastial. Transgressions against nature became rife in methods of monstrous and un- | speakable pollution. The spirits of men became fiendish in calculating vindictiveness-their bodies brutal with strange defilement. The fire of hell burned within the leprosy of uncleanness spread without. Passion

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nor disease arrested. The stupendous works of God had not even conserved the Divinity in the human mind, and could not relume the ancient fire after it was extinguished. That which did not save from destruction, could not rebuild and enthrone. Nothing less could establish the existence, and reveal the character of God, than a positive testimony substantiated by supernatural works. A record of facts inspired with love— supported by evidence sublime with power, and carried onward by counsel unsearchable in wisdom.

5. We may now sum up our remarks and conclusions on this chapter of holy writ. We must not impute to God a procedure which would be absurd and unreasonable in man. When man spreads before his brother an accumulation of documentary evidence—a volume of proofs and illustrations—he has in view a proposition already in the field of enquiry, which requires to be fortified by strong bulwarks. He chooses his position, and seeks to entrench himself by an array of authorities. The truth of his proposition, the security of his stronghold, must then be tested, by

enquiring whether his documents are authentic, his authorities valid; and if so, whether the evidence amounts to proof, or falls short of moral certainty. But man does not lay before his fellow records and testimonials without announcing the cause which is pending, and the principle which is at stake. Neither does that Being who is the Reason of all reasons. He had supplied man with the glorious proposition before he directed his attention to the ample volume of seals and confirmation.

Suppose a man disciplined in mind, and erudite in knowledge, but utterly dark concerning a Creator. Will it not require a divine impulse to stimulate him in seeking the mystery of life? All the natural theologians have floundered here. They have forgotten, or failed to observe, that the beginning of the labour, the mere prosecution of the research, would imply that the great idea was already dawning. Suppose this difficulty surmounted. Man can only reason from his own knowledge concerning the order of nature. He perceives in every visible province upon earth a chain of sequence-an established relation of cause and effect. Every effect looking back to its cause, and every cause to a prior or antecedent cause. By travelling in this track, if he even reach the conception of a hidden cause which originated the wide universe and all its phenomena -he cannot find repose there, but must journey on in the awful darkness of the infinite multiplying spirits and gods, without the prospect or possibility of a resting place. This would be climbing with dire labour a mountain which has no summit-sailing up a black river that has no spring-head -sweeping over an ocean which has neither bottom nor shore.

In mercy to man, the God who has disclosed himself gives us to understand that he is from eternity to eternity-underived and life-creating. Faith rests upon this, though reason

cannot explain it. And thus while man is borne aloft into a region which he never could have scaled without a heavenly chariot-insatiable speculation is arrested by a flaming boundary wall, over which no adventurous spirit must seek to soar. The city at which we have arrived is so glorious, that we need not roam any further in search of happiness. From every green vale and sapphire brook, joy shines and sparkles-and the sheen is from the wings of the Cherubim.

II. In a letter to Corinth, of almost equal importance, we find the following statement :- "But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them who love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual (explaining spiritual things in spiritual words.) But the natural (animal) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."(chap. ii.)

1. Corinth was the intellectual eye of Greece--the place where human wisdom was lofty in pretension, and where rhetoric was both a passion

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and an art. But Paul was not sent | The former passage has profound there to found a school of philosophy significance when we keep it in the and oratory. His mission and cre- light of its own context. It is exdentials were from above-his work plained by the following:for eternity. Hence, in that city of natural man receiveth not the things literary glory and renown, he deter- of the Spirit of God, for they are spimined not to know (not to make ritually discerned." The animal man known) anything among them save of Paul is a diverse man from the Jesus Christ and him crucified. And natural man of modern divinity. It though he did this work heroically, is true that the animal man is likeyet it went not forward without an- wise alienated and impure, but it is guish of spirit. There was weakness, in the aspect of incapability, not of fear, trembling, and many tears; but depravity, that the Apostle is pourjoy in the Holy Spirit ascendant over traying such a being. He has before all. Depravity and polish, wicked- his mind man in the great hall of naness and refinement, had gone hand ture, with his five senses, and his unin hand in Corinth. It was as much aided understanding, as inlets of disnoted for enormous profligacy as for covery and channels of communicaintellectual splendour. It was a serious tion. In such a condition man has thing to labour among men who would no faculty to reach the invisible. His be stumbled with an impure accent, eyes, ears, and inward reason comor a barbarous tone, or an ungraceful mune with visible creation, but cannot attitude; but had no scruple in out- hear voices from the supernal world, raging all the charities of the house- or discern the glory of the spiritual hold, and all the moralities of life. landscape. It is true there are lessons We may understand well how the of heavenly import in that open Book Apostle, valiant as he was, would, in of Creation; but the learner has such a place, weep and tremble, but neither the power, the object, nor the still labour on. method of fruitful labour, until a divine teacher takes him by the hand. That such is substantially the meaning of the Apostle is evident from the entire tenor of the chapter. For instance- "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." In other words, man cannot even search the spirit of his fellow man. He cannot discover the thoughts, passions, and purposes of his brother, until they are manifested by intelligent words and works. The inner spirit of each man must be its own revealer, or the chamber of thought and emotion remains dark and fathomless. Even so-and emphatically so-the things of God are hidden from the inquisition of man, and can only be revealed by his own eternal Spirit. The existence and the purposes of the Ancient of Days must have for ever remained in darkness,

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2. Nevertheless, he spake wisdom among the perfect-the justified, regenerated congregation-yet not the wisdom of this world. Deep wisdom, hidden from the world and its rulers --as was manifest by their blindness when they crucified the Lord of glory, and persecuted his saints by banishment, proscription, famine, and fire. What had been written in ancient time was verified. eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." In the textual system of exposition unfortunately prevalent, this is always referred to the felicities of heaven, which, we are informed, are inconceivable. However true this may be in itself, it is certainly not the particular truth before the mind of the Apostle. He has not, in the context, the slightest reference to such a question. The things which eye could not see, nor ear hear, nor the understanding conceive, "God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit."

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and his relation to him by the energy of his understanding and the yearning of his heart. No! he enjoyed personal communion with his Creator, walking serenely with him, and talking to him with the sacred freedom of purity and love. But since man has fallen from his original holiness and happiness, whatever we may conclude respecting "natural religion" in Paradise, it is certainly entirely out of the field now. An attempt was made by Cain to approach God as if the first relation was standing; but, as we know, his attempt was unsuccessful and disastrous. May we not consider him as the father of the modern system of natural theology? No one has any right to call in question either the sincerity of his worship, or the beauty of his offering. The fruits which he presented might be luscious and ruddy with the sap of the earth and the kiss of the sun. But still no

had he not disclosed himself in a testimony which we can receive by faith. The Holy Spirit has taught us by explaining spiritual things in spiritual words divine ideas in congruous diction, ministered by inspired men supernatural truth in appropriate language, supported by corresponding evidence. The pinions of natural reason were not strong enough to lift and bear us into the azure of eternity. The chasm between the visible and the invisible was too wide for the sweep of human faculty, however ample and daring. By the power and mercy of God, a bridge has been reared over the dark gulf. The shores of time and eternity are united; and however impetuously the stormy waters may dash and foam below, the pilgrim who is travelling Godward may securely pursue his journey with songs of gladness on the road. "We have the mind of Christ," who, dwelling in the bosom of God, has reveal-fire-angel descended from heaven to ed the wisdom and will of the Father. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by him. Many of the unreconciled, after purloining the conception of God from a volume which they despise, profess to have sentimental raptures while they meditate upon God in nature. But we tell them that until they come to the cross of the Redeemer in contrition, reverence, and wonder, their stolen property is of no moral service. The brand of Atheism is upon them in heart and brow, and the black stains can never be washed away, until they lave in that purple fountain from which the penitent rises unsullied into the atmosphere of a high and holy region.

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receive the splendid offering. The spirit of man, and the temple of nature were both desecrated by sin. And it was only through a mysterious arrangement, that man would have the privilege of becoming religious. When wrath was deserved, and punishment impending, an amnesty was proclaimed by the Sovereign, and the perishing subjects re-bound and reunited to the glory, grace, and immunities of his paternal empire. Revelation, reason, and etymology are one in declaring that religion is supernatural and divine.

G. GREENWELL.

INTERPRETATION OF THE
SCRIPTURES.-No. I.

3. "Natural religion" is a misno- THE revolution which has been acThere is no such thing in our complished to so great an extent fallen planet. If ever there was any throughout the religious community natural religion, it was in the garden within the last few years, may be of Eden; but even there it was not readily traced to a single principlenatural, strictly speaking. For man the right of private judgment in matin his primal strength was not sub-ters of religion. It is to this inestijected to the task of discovering God mable privilege that we owe all those

another in the very same city or village, and will be even honoured and caressed by them, if the opinions which rendered him obnoxious to the censure of his party happen to coincide with theirs. Here, then, exclusion involves scarcely any unpleasant consequences, and is therefore but little cared for or regarded. The readiness and impunity with which men may change their religious sentiments, gives to the Protestant world, regarded as a whole, an appearance of liberality which it does not possess, when considered in re

discoveries of divine truth which constitute the distinguishing tenets of the disciples, and have restored to us the gospel of Christ, in its primitive simplicity and power. Had not those with whom this effort at reformation originated, boldly claimed the exercise of this right, they would never have ventured to dissent from the established doctrines of the societies to which they belonged; but, content with orthodoxy, would have kept the faith prescribed by authority, and contended for the doctrines and commandments of men. We do not affirm that the Protest-spect to the communities of which it ant communities deny to their members theoretically the right of private judgment. Romanists refuse it both theoretically and practically; but it is the boast of Protestants to concede this right to all. Yet the latter are found to be almost as much averse to the practical exercise of this privilege as the former; and the pastor or preacher proves often as intolerant of any difference of sentiment on the part of a member, as the cardinal or priest. And the reason of this is obviously that each party has equally adopted certain points of doctrine and theories of faith and opinion as absolutely essential to salvation, and that, couched, as these are in unscriptural language, and framed by the human mind, they exact a more punctilious conformity to them than to the word of God.

It is true, indeed, that this authoritative prescription of matters of faith, does not appear so conspicuous, nor attract so much notice in Protestantism as in Romanism; but this is easily explained. The Roman Catholic communion is one-that of Protestantism is manifold. A heretic excommunicated by the Romish Bishop becomes at once the object of odium and persecution to the whole of that vast community in every part of the world; but an individual excluded from one congregation of Protestants, may be gladly received by

is made up. The Roman Catholic church, although containing to some extent discordant elements, and composed in part of heterogeneous materials, is nevertheless a unit—an aggregated mass. The Protestant world is a loose heap of disconnected fragments. The former is a consolidated rock, though it be but a puddingstone-the latter merely the loose pebbles of which such rocks are formed. If there be more freedom of motion amongst the heap of pebbles, it is because they are disconnected from each other. The influence of cohesion remains as powerful as ever in each of the pebbles of which the heap is composed; and in like manner the spirit of party is as rife in each Protestant community, however small, as in the aggregated mass denominated the Church of Rome. Indeed, we may go even further, and say that the spirit of party, the spirit of prescription and of proscription, seems, among Protestants, to increase in intensity in the inverse ratio of the size of the community. A large and flourishing establishment may afford to be generous sometimes, and allow a reasonable dissent; but woe betide the unfortunate member who indulges the slightest difference of opinion in an isolated, independent, and impeccable congregation of eight or ten persons, whose peculiar views and practices constitute, at least, in their

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