## Dialogues on the Essays and Reviews, section c.

Christianity and the Education of the World.

J. N. Darby.

<09001E> file section c.

59 There are a few points it may yet be well to take notice of. Can anything prove more completely how moral intelligence is lost, or does not exist, in the minds of these teachers, than the following statement? — "The Pharisees had succeeded in converting the Mosaic system into so mischievous an idolatry of forms, that St. Paul does not hesitate to call the law the strength of sin." Nothing could shew more ignorance of the human heart or of Paul's reasonings. His principle is that "the carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7, "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died; and the commandment ordained to life became to me death." Rom. 7:9, "If a law had been given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Gal. 3:21. He sees an external exigence of righteousness, which imputes sin and gives no life. He goes to the very depths of our moral being; he shews the law to be spiritual, and our flesh carnal, and takes man out of the flesh, makes him dead to the law by the body of Christ, that he may live to God. All this which ploughs up the whole moral nature by its word, "thou shalt not lust," sinks in these eminently superficial men into the effect of a mere converting the Mosaic system into a mischievous idolatry of forms. The Lord Jesus did judge the neglect of substance for form, but, once the flesh had fully proved itself by rejecting Him (for lawless sin and lawbreaking were complete when He came), then its nature is judged, instead of the law educating it. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And how even our hearts feel that Paul is truer, knew more about it, than the rationalists, if one morsel of spirituality be in us! But, turn on whatever hand you will, you are met by the superficiality of these pretenders to progress. Do you think, my dear W., that grace overcomes the lusts of the flesh?

60 W. So we have learnt, through mercy.

H. Not at all; "The moral toughness of the Jewish nature, which enabled them to outlive Egyptians, Romans, Mussulmans, was well matched against the baffling evil." And so it has been communicated, I suppose, to our natures, which are not tough at all. Is it not deplorable? There is only one more principle produced in this essay, but an important one of the rationalistic school, on which I would make a remark — their view of the Bible; for they boast of the Bible and of Christ in their own way. "The Bible, from its very form, is exactly adapted to our present want. It is a history; even the doctrinal parts of it are cast in an historical form, and are best studied by considering them as records of the time at which they were written, and as conveying to us the highest and greatest religious life at that time." It has its value "by virtue of the principle of private judgment, which puts conscience between us and the Bible, making conscience the supreme interpreter." Now that every man has a conscience is a truth of the last importance. God has taken care that man, falling into sin, should, in and with the sin, acquire the knowledge of good and evil — a profound and admirable ordering of divine wisdom, as it was impossible he could have that knowledge before. The knowledge of good and evil, in one necessarily above all evil in nature, is the sphere of, and inseparable from, holiness. In man this is impossible. He is in innocence, or with a conscience in sin. But then if conscience come with sin, while in itself it is the knowledge of good and evil, i.e., of the difference of right and wrong, it may be deadened, perverted, gives no motives more than approval and disapproval, no power, no living object, save as fear of judgment may come in.

61 To man in this state a revelation of God is made from the beginning a promise of deliverance in another than himself; the all-important principle we have seen of the mind being taken out of self — affections, thankfulness, adoration of heart, introduced in contrast with judgment, while the truth of judgment is owned, law confirmed, but deliverance given from it. But God gives a full revelation as to the whole of His relationships with man, in responsibility, and in grace. That is, He either puts Himself in relationship, or shews a relationship which exists, with the being who has the conscience. We must consider it in both these lights. The latter is law, the former grace. Both were already seen in Paradise. In and out of Christianity, men have sought to reconcile them. Out of Christ they never can. But there they were, responsibility and life — a command (not knowledge of right and wrong, but a command), and free communication of life — responsibility and giving of life. Man took of the first tree, and never ate of the second. He goes out a sinner, with death on him and judgment before him — the promise of a deliverer, but in another (no promise to him, for he was in sin, but for him), the Seed of the woman, which Adam specifically was not. The first creature, man, flesh, was no longer in communion, or heir — he was lost. Then came God's witness to men, and temporal judgment of the world on that footing (i.e., the flood); then promise unconditional, again confirmed to the Seed, to that one only, as Paul says, and as is strictly and profoundly true. (Gen. 22) No question of responsibility is raised; God would bless all nations in the promised seed. But could the question of righteousness be left as indifferent? Impossible. It is raised by law, obedience and blessing, disobedience and the curse. This is broken before it is formally given in its first and chiefest link — that which bound man immediately to God. They made other gods — turned their glory into the similitude of a calf eating hay. Then, after various dealings in mercy, and Christ presenting Himself to the world's responsibility, the work of God comes, not dealing with the responsibility of men, but recognizing it; grace, which brings salvation, sealing the truth of all the previous responsibility (for otherwise salvation were not needed), but going on another ground and meeting the case. Christ takes the effect of the broken responsibility on Himself, dies for sin, and is the source of life, and that according to righteousness. The whole question of the two trees of paradise (life-giving, and good and evil, and man's ruin in this) is settled, for those who receive Christ, for ever, with the largest — yea, a perfect — revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in all His riches and ways.

62 Two points come before us in what Dr. T. says: — how we are to view the Bible, even the doctrinal parts of it; and conscience being between us and the Bible as supreme interpreter.

The whole question is, Is there a revelation? Is anything heavenly to come within the scope of man's thoughts? Has God to be known, or merely right and wrong discerned? And if He has to be known, must He not reveal himself?

Now I say, if we are to be blessed, God must be known. If I am away from God in sin (and so the scripture treats man, and conscience cannot deny it), doing right and wrong cannot be settled but by returning to God. If a child has wickedly abandoned his father's house, he may leave off particular faults, but he can never be right till he returns and submits to his father. But the true knowledge of God is lost, and the more man reasons in sin, the more it is lost. It will be said, God must be good. I can say this when once He has been revealed; for heathens did not know this as truth, though instinct looked for it — wants looked for it: but they did not in their notion of God rise above the passions of men. When they did rise above them, they held that God could have nothing to say to men. But now God has been revealed, even the poorest man knows God must be good. But if I begin to reason, what do I see? An innocent child perishing in agony, the mass of the world degraded to the lowest degree by heathenism. How is He then good? An infinitesimal part of the race for centuries alone knowing the unity of the Godhead, and they almost worse than their neighbours; sin having power over myself; brutality in families, wars, tumults, and miseries — how is He good? If I say, Ah! but that is fallen man departed from God: then I ask, How then can he be received back again? I cannot with any sense deny that he is a sinner; and if God did not make him bad, he is fallen. The cravings of nature prove he is. How can he be back with God, whom I must then think to be holy and pure?

63 A revelation from God and of God is the first necessity of my nature as a moral being. I get both in Christ. "He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God." John 3:34. I set to my seal, on believing Him, that God is we; but then it is not only the word received from above — that a prophet, that John, had, and spoke of earthly things, moved in the sphere in which God dwelt with man as a creature on earth responsible to God; but He came Himself from above. God spoke in the Son; His words were, in a personal and complete way, though a man, the words of God. They were spoken by the Lord. Now he that receives His testimony sets to his seal that God is true. And note how this is stated: "No one is ascended up to heaven, but he who is come down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven," John 3:13, and "what he hath seen and heard that he testified." John 3:32. Oh! what a blessing is here, which none else can give! for none else has gone up to heaven to tell us what is there. In this poor distracted sin-beset world I have the sweet and holy ways and divine objects of heaven brought down to my heart, by One who is the centre of its glory and delights, and come to bring them to me in love, yet without leaving it.

W. But is there not a conscience which must and does judge what is before it? For instance, if a God were revealed who was not good, or who was not holy, how could I possibly receive such a being as God?

H. How long has that been the case with man? Was there ever a case where conscience made a difficulty when a revelation had not been given? Was there ever such a thing as a holy God thought of, or the need of holiness in God dreamt of, in any religion but a revealed one? We may find partial traces of goodness as to human need and deliverance from tyranny in India, in the avatars of Vishnu, in that otherwise monstrous idolatry; but all idolatry everywhere proves that the notion that goodness and holiness were required in a divine Being by the conscience of man is utterly false. The gods were the reproduction of men's passions with a superior degree of power. When revelation was given, and redemption was made known by God, then holiness and goodness were made known and estimated, but nowhere else. That is, instead of the conscience being between us and the Bible (or a positive revelation), there must be a revelation between God and us, and our conscience, or if you please, between God and us, in order that the conscience may feel that God must be good and holy to be God at all. When the revelation has been given, the conscience recognizes it, but never before. Now this is essential and conclusive on the question before us, and shews us that conscience within is wholly incapable of judging. But there is a conscience, and when a divine revelation or light comes to it from God, it is susceptible of impressions from it, so as to have a right judgment, but never without, as to what is divine. Modern infidels are reasoning from the effect of divine light to deny its necessity. As when light comes in, the eye can see; with none it cannot, and would never know it could. Scripture is true; when men had the knowledge of God, they did not discern to retain God in their knowledge.

64 W. I had not weighed these facts, or rather I had not thought of them; but they are true, and they certainly put the pretensions of infidelity and of man's mind in a very peculiar light. They are really vaunting themselves as competent to judge Christianity; whereas the only light they have to judge it by, they have got from it or from Judaism. Without it man's mind sank into the grossest idolatry and moral degradation. A revelation alone enabled them, by revealing what God really is, and so forming their understandings, to judge of what He ought to be. There is another point strikes me in our conversation — how little their themes bear the test of history and facts! They make boast of philosophy; but it is well known that up to Socrates it was little but cosmogony, and Plato's morality was communism, and his theology demonism, and in truth metempsychosis. This argument from conscience was what I felt least able to meet, for I was conscious that an unholy God, or one that was not good, I could not have borne for a moment.

H. You could not, I am sure, because you have a revelation. It is their great theme abroad. But it is always useful to meet infidels on their own ground — I mean on its untenableness. I have already referred to this. If God is simply good, and the fall and redemption are not God's truth, explain to me this state of this world, three-quarters heathen, and of the other, a great part mussulman or papist, and every kind of misery and degradation dominant, and selfishness the dominant spring of all its activities, where lusts and passions are not so. If man be not fallen, where is God's goodness? And if God be not good, what is? Christianity tells me man is fallen, and reveals to me God in goodness in the midst of misery, and redemption as an issue out of it: and the history of man, not succeeding generations, sacrificed to rationalists' theories of progress of the fifty-ninth century; but revelations of this goodness and deliverance for faith to lay hold of from the day of man's fall, though the time was not come to accomplish the thing promised.

65 And, allow me to ask you, if man be so competent, how comes it there is so much difficulty, and conflict, and uncertainty? Why is there so much difficulty in finding out God? Why any question of discovering Him, if men have not lost Him? Why men believe in Jupiter, or Siva, etc., or Odin king of men, or Ormuzd and Ahriman, or Khem, or a host of others which it is useless for me to follow? Why have they such difficulty, when it is owned God must be good and holy, in coming to Him and walking with Him?

No; it is evident man has got away from God, many horridly, degradingly; and that the fairest of Eve's daughters are caring more for a pretty ribbon, and of her sons for gold or a title, than for all which God presents to them to win their hearts in the Son of God's sufferings, and offering up Himself in grace for them. No; man is fallen, has lost the sense of what God is, and of His love — has not his heart's delight in that which God is, or what is supremely good. Nothing proves it more than his not finding it out. God has given a conscience, but it does not judge the word: the word of God judges it. In one sense, every man must judge; but his judgment reveals him in presence of the word. A man's judgment of other things always reveals his own state. He is certainly lost, condemned, if he does not receive the word. God speaks, and gives adequate witness of who He is. "He that believeth not is condemned already." John 3:18. Light is come into the world. If men prefer darkness, it is not their conscience. Their will must be at work. Dr. Temple professes to believe, I suppose, that the Son of God is come. I ask, Is man bound to receive Him or not? There He is, to test every man's soul by His reception, or the contrary. It does test the soul. He has a right to judge, you tell me. If he does not receive Him, he proves himself bad, bad in will. He has to judge; but if he rejects what is perfect in goodness, his own state is shewn. He is judged by his approval or disapproval of what is there, because perfection — because God manifest in the flesh — is there. Because God is speaking, woe to him who does not hearken! Yes, he has to judge. It is not his right: he is a lost creature; but he is tested by it — it is his responsibility. How he can meet it, I do not enquire here. I believe the grace of God is needed; but there is God speaking — speaking in grace. Is He received or not? The two things John speaks of, in the passage I allude to, are the words of God, and One come from above who is above all. Am I not bound to listen? am I not bound to receive? You ask me, Must I not judge whether they are His words, and whether He came from above? I answer, Yes; but you are judged by the result you come to, because God knows He has given a perfectly adapted and gracious witness; yea, that He is it. If you have rejected this, you have rejected Him, and remain in your sins and under wrath. To them that believe He is of price, as He is to God; to them that are disobedient, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. It is a savour of life to life, and a savour of death to death; and the presentation of the truth and words of God and of the Son of God must be so, because their present rejection is the rejection of Himself.

66 Talking of conscience between us and the Bible is all foolishness and nothing else.* The Bible is God's word in direct contact with us, telling to our conscience all that ever we did; that God is holy, but (blessed be His name!) that He is grace and a Saviour. What is conscience as distinct from us? It is that on which the word of God acts. If light comes (and God is light, and Christ was the light of the world), it makes all manifest, and acts on the eye. If the eye is in an ill state, it avoids the light; it does not judge the light: its state is proved by it; it judges colours, forms, and so on, by the light. But a conscience that is not "us," or a conscience between us and God, is an utter delusion. Conscience is the knowledge of good and evil in us: that it is, without any further revelation of God. It has the sense of responsibility, and, though obscurely, of judgment and the consequences of sin (at any rate, as far as vague fear goes). But if Christianity be true at all, the Son of God has come, and speaks God's words. The moment He is received (that is, that there is faith in Him) the first judgment of conscience and heart is to bow to Him; the first right thing (for right is the just maintenance of the duties of relationship) is to listen, and obey that word; the most essentially wrong thing is not to bow and receive His word. To judge God, when I know it is Him, is the height of sin.

{*It is really a question between faith and infidelity. If I believe the Bible to be the word of God, the judgment is formed; I have only to bow. If I reject it, I am an infidel; my judgment of it is formed. I may be ignorant of it, then there is no judgment to be formed; though I am sure, if a new nature be in us, it will be received by us as light is by the eye, and known. The rejection of the word, it being what it is, is the judgment of what rejects it.}

67 If Dr. Temple or these rationalists do not believe that He has come and spoken, I will seek to prove to their consciences that He has. There is God's way of doing it. They must judge whether He be come. To be sure; but this I tell them with certainty, from His own lips, that He is come, and if they do not believe in Him, they are condemned; if they do, they have eternal life. But if He be there, if they do believe He has spoken, their part is to listen to Him, not to judge Him. With the blinding of conscience by passions, ignorance, education, it is of the utmost importance to have a sure witness of God's mind, not dependent on the varying views of man. If I lose the Bible, I lose communications from God; I am infinitely, irreparably sunk. Dr. Temple, it seems, does not like God's word — does not like He should reveal Himself. If he has a professed revelation, he "likes to consider it as records of the time at which they were written, and as conveying to us the highest and greatest religious life at that time." That man should be developed, that may be allowed; religious life, that too; but communications from God — no. Now there have been such — God's word spoken in this world, or Christianity is all a falsehood from beginning to end, a holy imposture! which there is nothing like in the world. But if there have been such, have we lost them for ever? Are we returned to darkness? for since the true light shone — shone in one speaking the words of God, am I to have them no more, no more this revelation from God, no more any communication from Himself as such? I have lost all that was precious and elevating in the world; I have lost communication with God. I may speculate about Him — may know something of right and wrong, but I have lost all communications from Him — wretched man that I am! What was man when he had not it? What is man when he has not it?

To reduce divine communications to apostolic life is to shew a will not to hear God directly, not to have to say to Him — a dislike to have to do with the words of His mouth. It is not, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and they were to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Jer. 15:16. If God have spoken, and if we deny it, we are infidels; to exalt the conscience of man above it, as a judge, is to set corrupt sinful man above the authority of God. I read that the word discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. It makes its truth and the authority of God known by its action in the conscience; it tells a man all that ever he did; but it reveals a God of grace not that the conscience judges the word. Christ did speak the words of God. Are they lost to us? If I have them, is my conscience to be between me and them? What profound nonsense such a sentence is! If you do not know them, I will not call you an infidel, but you are an unbeliever. You have not yet set to your seal that God is true. Do not, at any rate, pretend to teach others, when you admit that God has spoken, and you cannot yet tell what is His word, and what is not.

68 W. I am glad you spoke of this question, for it is one of the practical difficulties to my mind in their way of speaking; because I feel I have a conscience, and yet I recognize the supreme authority of the word.

H. But do you not see, my good friend, that the whole object is to get rid of revelation, and its authority over us? If God has spoken, if there be a revelation, would not the first act of conscience be to turn and bow to it — of the heart to delight in what God has revealed? for He has surely revealed Himself.

W. Of course it would be the proof that there was conscience in activity, and not will, a heart to taste the blessedness One alone can tell of.

H. That is the very point, at least a very principal one; and it is connected with the fall, which is always ignored in this system. There are two parts of conscience: one, the knowledge of right and wrong; the other, sense of responsibility, and that to God. The first, sin has practically greatly darkened; the last, will resists, though it cannot deny. The word of God comes in, gives perfect light to the conscience, and much more, and presents the authority of God to the will. Men plead conscience as a competency against God and His word, saying they must have conscience supreme. God will settle that question, whether His light and word is perfect for conscience, His authority in it sufficient to claim obedience and submission. A child has departed wickedly from its father's house, and thrown off his authority. He professes to desire to go right; his father sends a message, yea, comes and speaks to him, communicating to him his mind, and will, and grace. He replies, "Oh, all that is a thing external to me; the real thing is the inward disposition in me." My answer to him is, "All very fair, my good lad; but the trial and test of your disposition is your submitting to your father's word, and receiving and bowing with a thankful heart to his testified kindness."

W. But suppose he were to say, But I must know if it be my father's word.

69 H. All quite right. But I reply, If your heart were right, you would be only too glad to know it is. And when you say, that, even if it be, it is only an external thing, and my conscience after all must judge, I see you take your own judgment still, and do not want your father's word. I know your disposition, your will likes to be master yet. Besides, let me tell you, had you been staying in the house, you would be familiar enough with your father's voice and words to know them at once. You are proving your own incapacity and evil. If you do not receive and understand his words, you will remain without, and prove that incapacity — that is all. If your disposition were right, rebel as you have been, a word from your father would be heaven to you, and the heart would delight in bowing to his authority; and this very readiness is the disposition which, directed towards his own words, is that which, morally speaking, gives capacity to receive them; for the heart is right, and the will broken. If any man will (desire, be willing) to do my will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. If you talk of your conscience being supreme, when your father has spoken, it is quite clear that you wish to be independent of your father; the first proof of the true return of heart and conscience is the self-subjection to your father's declared mind and will. You are not returned to him yet. Your whole place is wrong, conscience and all.

There is the knowledge of right and wrong as a faculty without God; but where God speaks, conscience is proved by bowing to it. See Saul: "I thought I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing also I did." Acts 26:9. There was conscience. Once he has to do with the Lord, once he is right, it is "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Acts 9:6, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." 1 Sam. 3:9. All short of this is alienation from God. A conscience that wants to be away from God, to judge for itself, is not an upright conscience. It is will and sin. Conscience is not only judgment, it recognizes the authority of God (we are sanctified to obedience) and loves it, because it is true conscience, and the will of independent self is given up, the soul restored to God. For the word has authority as well as light. It tests the truth of conscience by giving light, but it speaks with the authority of God. Hence the Lord says, The word that I speak unto you, the same shall judge you in the last day. Judge it now, if you dare. I do not believe in the conscientiousness of a man who pleads his conscience against the word of God.

See how the apostles speak: "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; he that believeth not God hath made him a liar." 1 John 5:9, "He that heareth my word hath everlasting life," John 5:24, says Christ. "Why do ye not understand my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word." John 8:43, "Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." John 8:45, "He that sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things I have heard of him." John 8:26, "As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." John 8:28. Because man has abandoned God on his original created ground, God has sent the testimony of heavenly things to bring him to a higher relationship with himself. And he — the wretched sinner — tells me he must listen to conscience, because this revelation is an external thing! To be sure heavenly things, and the record of them, are very external to him. He has told the truth. He is out of Paradise. This world is the scene which has grown up in man's exclusion from God, who comes with the revelation of what is divine and heavenly to bring him out of that, and into what is heavenly; and he puts it off, and says it is external to him. He is right. Only if he does not receive it, he will be external to it. He will have a conscience too; he is all right in that, and it will tell him what he has done, when the time of gracious reception is past. His sheep hear His voice. "But ye," says the Lord, "believe not, because ye are not of my sheep." John 10:26.

70 The word and confirming works are given, adequate testimony is given. Woe to him who does not receive it! He will die in his sins, and the same word will judge him in that day. If God has come and spoken and revealed Himself from heaven, and we do not receive it, He and all that is heavenly is external to us, and there is nothing but self within. But even in this notion they only shew their ignorance; for "he that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself." 1 John 5:10. The measure of the conscience becomes divine, which natural conscience never can be, even when it is right — it must and ought to be human; whereas, when born of God through the word, on receiving the word I receive Christ, the revelation of God, and of what is heavenly. He is my life, He is within; and I am called on to be an imitator of God as a dear child, and walk in love as Christ has loved us, so that I am, if needed, to lay down my life for the brethren; for Christ has thus proved His love to us. My measure of conscience is divine, acting because I have both seen and received what is divine in receiving Christ by His word. So that, speaking of its fulness, the apostle is not afraid to say, filled with (up to) all the fulness of God. Hence, John says, "which thing is true in him and in you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." 1 John 2:8. And all this heavenly revelation of and by Him, who came down from heaven, I am to give up, to have patriotism from the selfish and treacherous Romans, whose patriotism was the deceitful oppression of the world; and to learn that courage, which I may find in a cock or a bull-dog, has been ignorantly forgotten by Paul! It is hard to have patience with such contemptible stuff.

71 W. But we ought. The Master you speak of had.

H. You are right. He was perfect in everything, and fleshly and unchristian feeling is apt ever to mingle itself with our state in such cases. Still though we are imperfect in it, indignation in itself is not wrong in such cases.

W. But there is still a question which I should like to put to you here.

H. Well, do so.

W. I enter into your feelings as to Christ. He whom God had sent spoke the words of God, and he who received His testimony set to his seal that God is true — an immense principle evidently every way. I see plainly that, in receiving the word the very name given to Christ in this respect, I receive truth, submit to divine authority, am restored to God, enter in a heavenly way into a new relationship with Him, according to that which is revealed, and know grace, and indeed glory. But then the apostle's words — how can I regard them? because the personal speaker is, so to speak, lost.

H. As regards Christ Himself, the ineffable loveliness of all He said and did, of course, necessarily bears the stamp of heaven, of one who came thence, and yet could say, who is in the bosom of the Father — who spoke what He knew, and testified what He had seen. This is necessarily wanting in the subsequent communications; but, on the other hand, there is gain. "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go I will send him unto you." John 16:7. Besides the perfect expression of divine good in Christ on earth, the question of good and evil was settled for ever. Christ being made sin, and God perfectly glorified by His offering of Himself, and His being the sin-bearer, the question of good and evil was morally settled. Thereupon man takes a place in heaven. This was a new thing. Thus you will find that characteristically (for, of course, the same truths are found in both) John gives us the divine thing, the heavenly thing — God Himself manifested upon earth, Paul, on the ground of sovereign grace, man brought righteously into heaven. Now Christ must have suffered, risen from the dead, and gone to heaven, to have this before us, and the message or testimony of it given. Yet it must be divine testimony to have any value; and that I have through the Holy Ghost sent down.

72 W. You mean, that the New Testament gives us a witness and a record, with, of course, many accessory truths, of the divine — God Himself, Θεότης as well as Θειότης manifested in man; and man brought in a new and heavenly way completely to God.

H. I do. The former, as to its fruit in us, takes the character of life; the latter, of righteousness (but divine life — that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us, and by which, Christ being our life, we now live; and divine righteousness). It is thus wholly a new thing — a life that was with the Father before the world was, manifested in Jesus, communicated to us — not in Adam innocent more than in Adam a sinner.

W. But, then, this becomes a kind of independent life — at any rate, once it is received.

H. In no way. The character of this life, even in Jesus as man, was the perfection of the condition in which God has given to us eternal life, and that life is in His Son. "He that hath the Son hath life." It was obedience and dependence, and a constant heavenly regard. He was the ἀρχηλὸς and τελειωτὴς faith, a Man with His eye always out of Himself on God. So with us. When I say Christ lives in me, I must add always "the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20. Divine life in a creature nature is always objective; that is its essential excellence, as indeed we have already seen.

W. Let me ask you what place you give Peter, then?

H. What there is of connection in this life with the previous ways of God he pursues. It is government; and this in the strongest way confirms to me the authenticity of the second epistle. The first is government in favour of the just; the second, as regards the predominant and licentious wicked. Hence he goes to the consuming of all things in the stability of which they rest. The saint for him is a pilgrim. I he great fact of redemption, of course, is fully stated for this. But we are not risen with Christ, but He is risen, and we have a living hope through His resurrection; meanwhile the government of God is displayed in favour of His people upon earth. This evidently connected it with the Old Testament, though on new ground. Hence the quotation of Psalm 34, "He that will love life," etc.

73 W. Have you ever thought of the likeness of Jude and 2 Peter? There is something strange in it.

H. How it came about may be a difficulty — perhaps a difficulty never to be solved, as many such external questions, after eighteen hundred years — interesting in their place, but immaterial. But the difference as to divine teaching in them is clear and important. Peter speaks of wickedness, and God's dealings with it as such, God's government, as I said: Jude, of apostasy, or leaving the first estate, going briefly through all the characters of this, angelic, the natural man, ecclesiastical, and final rebellion against Christ, on which actual judgment will come; especially, of course, tracing it as regards the Church from false brethren first creeping in, till Christ comes to judge ungodly men. Thus Peter speaks of angels that sinned; Jude of angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. Thus scripture fills all parts of moral truth up. Like a dissected map, it proves its own perfectness.

In the gospels, which these ignorant wise men are talking about, as to be harmonized and compared, and synoptic and supplementary, we get in Matthew Christ presented to the Jews, Emmanuel, Messiah, and the result of His rejection, but still referring to the Jews (hence no ascension); in Mark, Christ the servant prophet; in Luke, Christ the Son of man in grace, leaving them, on going to heaven, under the blessing of His thence outstretched hand (that is, the various revelations of Christ on earth as man); and in John, out of all dispensational relationship, Christ, God manifest in flesh, the Word and Son, and divine life displayed, and the giver of the Comforter, but even here no ascension, because it is not man in heaven, but God on earth. Hence we shall find another distinct characteristic of John. The three so called synoptic gospels present Christ to the responsibility of man to receive Him. In John He is seen unknown or rejected in the first chapter and becomes the divine object of divinely given faith to those born of God, the Holy Ghost the Comforter being given on His going away. Were we to enter into details, we should only find this admirably, and of course perfectly, brought out. I confess when I read rationalistic views of the books (I do not mean, of course, criticism of the text, though even this be influenced by their state), I am astounded at their absolute moral incapacity. Eternal it is to them, sure enough; at least, all that is in it, all that is divine. They have hit here on the right word, condemned out of their own mouth.

W. But as we are speaking of this, what do you make of James?

74 H. It is equally admirable in its place; not a high revelation of what is divine, but the fruit of the patient and perfect grace of God towards us. When Paul had been in the third heaven, after all he was a poor mortal; and as, speaking reverently, God had put him in the danger, though by blessing, He sent him a corrective. It was Paul's evil, no doubt, that needed it; but it was God's own goodness, which thinks of all our evil in grace, that sent it. And Paul, as you may see, got profit and advantage through it (that is, as an occasion). Now I do not say that James' epistle is a thorn in the flesh, but it is an excellent corrective of it; it is a girdle about the loins. Our loins are girt about with truth by it; the exceedingly high and heavenly truth into which we are brought; the elevation to which faith brings us; its being faith (that is, a principle which takes us out of ourselves to rest on what is in God and His revelation) might lead us, not by its own nature, but by our utter perverseness, like Paul, not to be out of the flesh as it ought, but to be puffed up in it — to use liberty for a cloak of licentiousness It is dreadful it should be so; but such we are, poor wretched creatures that we are.

James, that is really, God, comes in and meets us, and with an appropriate moral energy which is mighty in the conscience, shews that the real power of faith connects it with life. Its reality is shewn — that is the testing word — by its fruits. And no one speaks of this as more of sovereign grace than he, in all its Pauline excellency, so as to show the connection. "Of his own will begat he us, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." James 1:18. He too connects it with the law of liberty — that is, when the nature, the new man, and the prescribed will, go together. If I command my child to go where he longs to go, and tell him the way, it is obedience, but it is the law of liberty. He speaks of three laws, or law in three ways. First, the law as such — here, if guilty in one point, guilty of all. The authority of the law given has been despised in the point in which lust was active. We are wholly guilty. Secondly, the royal law of subjective perfection: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. That is doing well. Thirdly, the perfect law of liberty into which I look; that is, the revelation of the path of the divine nature, of which I am made partaker. Revelation shews me the perfection of it, the divine nature gives me the delight in it. I am as a present thing blessed in the doing it.

That James speaks purely of fruits of faith in justifying by works is evident from the fact that the examples he takes were no examples of the fruit of natural conscience at all. One was a father slaying his son, the other a harlot betraying her country. I do not know what the Romans or Dr. Temple would have said to her. But one was giving up everything, even the promises according to flesh, to God, in absolute obedience, counting on Him even to have Isaac again, according to His word; the other identifying herself with the Lord's people when they had not yet gained one victory in Canaan over their mighty enemies. No one pierces more deeply by the word than James into the principles and workings of the human heart, or takes grace and faith as all; but he will have it real and practical, not speculative knowledge. And we need this, and delight in it, if true of heart. Nothing shewed more the really weak side of Luther than his calling this an epistle of straw. And I have no doubt at all that it greatly hindered him entering into the blessed excellences of Paul himself. But you have led me away from our subject.

75 W. I do not know that I have. The natural flow of our delights in divine things is itself a testimony, and a powerful one. Besides, I apprehend, the positive production of what is good is an argument for it (it makes its very beauty), as well as, at least as strong as, mere reasonings against objections.

H. Well, I believe so; besides it keeps charity alive as regards those who do not taste them, which there is danger that reasonings which occupy themselves with evil may not do. You cannot be filled with the blessedness that is in Christ and the word, without both loving the persons of those that are simply wrong, and desiring they might partake of them. There are adversaries. This is somewhat different. There is such a thing as righteousness as regards wilful evil, and it is charity; but we have to watch ourselves close as regards this. If you saw a deliberate sinner seeking to corrupt a young practically guileless mind, would you not be indignant, and charitably indignant?

W. I should.

H. It is not reflective but it is right, and a high kind of right. It shews a soul living in what is right and caring for it. Seeing the connection between souls and God, which the other is disturbing or hindering, a millstone about such a one's neck and casting into the sea would be better for a man than his so doing; and that is felt. How far these rationalists are thus guilty I leave to God.

But to turn to our subject — the word of the apostles as compared with Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 states the change from one to the other. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. There was the direct witness of God Himself in the person of His Son in grace; and when asked who He was by the Jews, He refers to His word: ἄρχηυ, in principle, utterly and entirely, what I am saying to you (or, as in the English, "from the beginning"). His words expressed Himself. Then we have a third point, committing unto us the ministry of reconciliation. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us, we pray in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God; for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

76 God had Himself in Christ testified perfect grace in His words and ways with man — revealed what was heavenly as one who had come down from heaven, and was the Son of man who was in heaven. It was the blessed gracious revelation of what was heavenly to men, meeting all their wants and sorrows withal. But man would none of it. "No man receiveth his testimony." John 3:32. He then accomplishes the work which was to bring His redeemed into heaven. "Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am;" John 17:24 and He goes to prepare a place for them. But thus His ministry by the word was closed, and He, having secured everlasting righteousness and the glory of God in their admission, sends down the Holy Ghost to be to earth a witness of it in chosen vessels, and, practically, in all who should receive their testimony. He tells them that it should not be they that spoke, but the Spirit of their Father who spoke in them; and so far from inferior was that testimony, that He encourages His disciples, by saying that a blasphemy against Him who spoke in it would be unpardonable, while a word against Himself as humbled might be forgiven. (Luke 12:10-12.)

Hence John says, "He that is of God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us; hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." 1 John 4:6. And the apostle Paul: "If any one be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." 1 Cor. 14:37. Again: "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which 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 Ghost teacheth, comparing," 1 Cor. 2:13, or, as I have no doubt is the sense, using a spiritual medium for communicating spiritual things.

77 That these things animated their life too is true; but where did they get them? The Holy Ghost was come down from heaven, as the Son had come down. He was to shew them the things of Christ; to guide them into all truth; shew them things to come. I suppose, if they lived in the things, they must have learned them somehow. What wretched pleading it is, to say it is the expression of the highest and greatest religious life of the time! To be sure it was. But where did they get the things to communicate on which they lived? What was the power in which they communicated them? Can Dr. Temple, who fancies he sees this life clearer than his neighbours — can he tell us anything he has not got from their revelations? He, we may hope, is living on what they communicated; but who communicated them for him to live on? All this is shuffling about the matter to deny revelation. No one could testify of what was in heaven directly but one who came thence. Christ did, and says so; the Holy Ghost did, and communicated through suited vessels the glory of Christ and the Father's love in Him.

Thus it was. After the law, the rule of God's government on earth, the prophets shewed the coming Messiah, His sufferings and glories; but it was as seeing it afar off, and recalling to the law, not announcing the kingdom as then coming — the law and the prophets were until John. By him the kingdom is preached. He goes before the face of Jehovah to prepare His ways. He receives from above his testimony and place; but his testimony was of the earth, repentance, judgment, the kingdom — Messiah coming amongst them. Then Christ comes, but does not receive from heaven, but comes from heaven, and can tell directly what He has seen and knows and has heard. He is in the bosom of the Father, and can declare God; and He does so. "No man receiveth his testimony." Man wills not what is heavenly.

But what an infinite blessing is this of which these rationalists would deprive us — the positive revelation of what is heavenly, the blessed communication of what is there above! To talk of life and religious life is all simple nonsense. Can religious life reveal what it has never seen, the blessedness in which it has never yet been? True religious christian life is formed by this revelation; and think of reducing men to mere conscience! and rejecting the revelation of what is heavenly even to conscience! What a lowering thing it is! No; the Son speaks what He knows, and testifies what He has seen. It is the very essence of Christianity, and sole source of blessing. But, man being so evil as to reject it, God is not frustrated in His love; the need of it as above all is made manifest; redemption is accomplished, and thereon man takes his seat on high on the throne of God, and the Holy Ghost is sent down the witness and proof of it, and testifies of the glory he (man) is in, his relationship with God his Father, all the wisdom and glory of the counsels and work by which he is brought there; the Church's place with Christ, founding a perfected and purged conscience on the work of Christ, so that holiness is righteously connected with the entrance of a sinner into the glory he had come utterly short of. This links the heart to what is heavenly; while the testimony of the Holy Ghost is the sure foundation on which the soul can rest for the certainty of it as truthful, and thus a living enjoyment. God's will and counsel; Christ's accomplished work; the Holy Ghost's testimony (Heb. 10); that is what gives liberty and boldness to enter into the presence of God. The scriptures are the recorded testimony for all times. Ministry does not cease, but revelation does, when all is revealed. The word of God is completed.

78 W. I see the divine system in what you say, and its wisdom and completeness, while we have to live by faith. But there is a question I should like to ask you in connection with this — What place do you give to criticism in this?

H. I use it with all my heart. If my father had left a will of his, copied for the various members of the family, which we felt bound us all, in which all had an interest, and were all subject to; of course, in copying, some errors might have crept in. So in the scriptures, the oracles of God were committed to men (mark the expression — the oracles of God, it is formal; that is, not mere life expressed), while Providence watched over them. But there was as to this the responsibility of man; as in all God's ways with us, there is this connection of responsibility, and yet security by grace. Well, errors have crept into this will; but we are all desirous of knowing accurately our Father's mind, assured that it is in the will. We compare copies to have it as accurately given as possible. I do so, because it has authority, absolute authority, over me the child: had it not, I should not do so. The multiplication of the copies which has so far multiplied occasional mistakes, quas aut incuria fudit aut humana parum cavit natura, has also multiplied the certainty that the whole will is right, and has enabled me to correct isolated errors in each one copy by comparing it with the others. If a word or two remain illegible, or not to be ascertained, I must leave that word, I lose its force, if the same disposition be not elsewhere. But it is evident I should, if I attached value to my Father's will as such, carefully compare all to have it exact. This has been done by men skilled in it, proving how little was uncertain, and that little affecting doctrine nowhere.

79 W. This I see very distinctly. The proofs of the divine record lie elsewhere. This is mere care for its correctness, because it is so estimated, in which providential care and divine faithfulness are to be trusted, as in everything we are blessed in.

H. Just so. There is no divine blessing but by faith, nor can be, when it passes beyond mere temporal enjoyments, and they are never divinely enjoyed but by faith. This is the necessary link between the soul of man and an unseen God. In truth it was needed when He was manifested; for no man can see God, morally speaking. Therefore it was said then, "He that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, hath everlasting life." John 3:36. Were it possible to see His glory and live, it would be no moral link of the soul with Him. If man were even kept from sin by it, which outwardly he might, it would be no real enjoyment of Him, nor living spiritual fellowship.

I think we have pretty well exhausted the subject of this essay, and enjoyed some excursions by the way to scenes it opened out to view as we passed. Many details might be taken up, but I do not know that we should gain anything material by referring to them; such as the habits of false moral estimation introduced by the heathen apprehension of things often current. His three witnesses quarrelled, but that proves nothing, if they had different partial elements of truth. It is seen every day in poor human nature, so that I do not insist on this; but some I will refer to. Two of these witnesses — Rome and the early Church — disliked each other. Yet that dislike makes little impression upon us now. What an advance through indifferentism to an anti-christian state! For so absolute is truth, is Christ's claim, that "he that is not with me is against me." This dislike, that Dr. Temple and his school remain unaffected by, is the deadly persecuting hatred of Christians, of the saints (certainly, whatever faults there may have been, the excellent of the earth), by the heathens — the hatred of Christ and His people by the worshippers of idols and devils — the enmity of man and Satan (for we are not going to give up our belief that Jesus was the Christ of God for these gentlemen) against the Son of God and all that owned Him. This makes little impression on them, no doubt. In the fourth essay we read, "It was natural for a Christian in the earliest period to look upon the heathen state in which he found himself, as if it belonged to the kingdom of Satan, and not to that of God; and, consecrated as it was in all its offices to the heathen divinities, to consider it a society having its origin from the powers of darkness, not from the Lord of light and life." And what do these clergymen and professed teachers of Christianity believe?

80 What were the heathen gods and goddesses? I read in the first essay, "The natural religious shadows projected by the spiritual light within, shewing on the dark problems without, were all in reality systems of law given also by God, though not given by revelation." No doubt, they say, they distorted and corrupted, etc. But can you for a moment believe that the worship of Jupiter, and Venus, and Bacchus, and horrors which are simple facts as they may be read in Romans 1 (which after all, though in just language, passes over the surface of turpitude, not to defile itself by sinking into details I cannot here refer to either), were systems of law given by God? The worship of passions and devils, gloating in the unutterable degradation of God's most wonderful creature, a system of law given of God!

And it is false as to its history. Heathenism was, even in this aspect, the departure under devilish influence from the knowledge of God: Noah had this; and they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and God gave them up to dishonour themselves. They degraded God to a brute, and themselves to worse after. It never was a training parallel to, and contemporaneous with, that of the Hebrews — a system of law given of God, and then corrupted. There was the knowledge of the true God, and men gave it up — as far as the history of these dark ages can be traced, a system deliberately taken up in Babel, to leave God, and separated into two hostile branches: — the Sabaeans, who did not go farther than taking fire as a representative of God, as the modern Parsees; and Ionism, a system of horrible wickedness and idolatry pervading India, Egypt, Phoenicia, and thence Greece, which made (possibly through Orpheus and the Cabiri, certainly in Hesiod and Homer) pretty poetry of it, and so passing on to Rome, and, I have little doubt, far and wide elsewhere, modified according to the spirit and character of nations — at any rate, in historically known nations, a common universal system.

It is a perfect iniquity to say as to the principle of it, and false as to the history of it, that these were systems of law given of God, though not by revelation. There was a knowledge of God departed from. This was corrupted, and man with it. Devils and deified passions took the place of God in the heart. To say, "Ultimately the gospel was to have sway in doing more perfectly that which heathen religions were doing imperfectly," has only to be stated to revolt every divinely taught mind. What did heathenism do? Hold the State together. Be it so; but they admit this only decorated the surface of it. But morally in relationship to God, what did it do? That these educators of the world do not, I suppose, care about. Christianity, they say, was not only to quicken the spirit of the individual (what is that?) but to sanctify civil institutions — heathenism decorated the surface. But even as to the Church, heathenism, they tell us, had its national churches.

81 This defence of heathenism seems to me, dear friend, as immoral in its character as it is false historically. In heathenism there was, as there must be in man, an instinct as to God, but laid hold of by Satan to pander to the passions of men — God, with some instinctive remains of a supreme God (testimonium animae naturaliter christianae), turned into calves, cats, and monkeys, and beasts!

There were four principles as it seems to me at work in heathenism: — the instinct of a supreme Being, or a superior one, at any rate, above man, impossible to be got rid of; heroism, or the deification of ancestors, traceable everywhere, and connecting itself, in its earlier and oriental phases, with Noah and his family and the ark (the idea is carried to excess by Bryant, but it seems to me incontrovertible); thirdly, the stars, as something wonderful, instinct with movement, and acting on the earth; and, lastly, what led to such horrible corruption, the sense of a generative power of nature, partly abstract, partly running through every sphere of thought and connected with the ruin of nature, and a certain resurrection in power, which linked it with day and night, and summer and winter. This, helped by various traditions, formed various systems; but all of man without God, to be found if at all, as the ἄγυωστος Θεὸς in India, in certain respects, the most elevated, but the most monstrous, more of God's interest in man and His coming down, though there was Apotheosis — in Egypt one more wise and applied to human morality and organization, yet the same system thoroughly, with more of the sentiment of a definite judgment of God, and conflict of good and evil, in the history of Osiris, Amenti, and Typhon, dead men not execrated were called justified — in Greece, the lowest and poorest of all, which made man and poetry everything (gods became men, or swans, or bulls, to indulge their passions). It was the deification of man, and morally more contemptible than all. No gods but gods of human passions, money, war, corrupt lusts — gods in which there was no single association with conscience, except a dreary Tartarus for those who might despise them, and an Elysium so poor that Achilles complained bitterly of being there It is the system of the deification of human passions, and another world only used to make gods of them, and these gods, that is devils, important, and this world the only excellent place. This was a system of law, we are told, given of God. I am silent. I fear I should be rebuked by you for something contemptuous and bitter, and say nothing of what I feel.

82 As to Rome there was nothing new, they were not poetical, but political; and their religion too. The god Terminus was immovable. Can these clergymen shew me one single proof of any heathenism being a system of law given of God? The instinct that there is something above him is in man — cannot be eradicated; a conscience accompanies him, in spite of the devil. Is there anything to be found in heathenism besides this fact, perverted to men's offering the things which they offered to devils, and not to God; and the consecrating the worst passions, and their most intolerable effects to these devils or dung-gods, as scripture calls them, so as to destroy that conscience, if it had been possible? Do our Essayists think their judgment of heathenism, or that of scripture in the Old and New Testament, the most correct? Their admirable Trajan they must view as a heathen to admire. They turn round the other side, and see that the subduer of Dacia, the mighty emperor, is with heartless indifference of character the cool persecutor of those who owned the Son of God, and the restorer of sacrifices to devils. "They are so eager for light, that they will rub their eyes in the dark, and take the resulting optical delusions for real flashes." Excuse me I quote this not very elegant image of Dr. Temple's, as a singular but not inapt description of a state of mind in which, of course, he has not described himself.

In fine, the foundation of the whole system is false. There was progress in the revelation of God's mind, because of the alienation of man from God, and the ignorance that was in him; but it never was the education of the world at all. It began, not by law, but, as became the God of all grace, by promise, yet not by promise to the world, though in favour of it, and for all that should believe it at all times; then law, yet not given to the world, but to a people separated out of it because of the horrible state the world was in, and a careful separation made between them to keep at any rate, in one little corner, the knowledge of the true God, that all might not be wholly debased; then the Son of God coming into it, but the world knew Him not, His own received Him not, and they joined in crucifying Him. He was the Shepherd of a little flock. Then the Holy Ghost sent, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but given to those who believe; but with the fullest witness of grace to all who do believe the record God has given concerning His Son. Does Dr. Temple believe these facts, or deny them? Is he, that is, a Christian or an infidel?

83 Heathenism was not different contemporary systems of law given of God, but the giving up the knowledge of the true God, and plunging into devilish idolatry and bestial corruption, though God did not allow, let Satan do what he could, that they should destroy the instincts that there was a God, nor flee from the torment of a violated conscience. The whole system is historically and actually false. I believe, dear friend, in Christianity, not in the reveries of those who (to use their own somewhat vulgar simile already quoted, which I only do use as theirs) "are so eager for light [not having God's and reflecting it, Christ come as light into the world in darkness], that they will rub their eyes in the dark, and take the resulting optical delusions for real flashes." It suggests to me the word addressed to poor Israel on lower ground than ours, for the true light now shines: "Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have at my hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow."

You know well, your heart knows, dear friend, how utterly far my spirit is from an ungracious feeling towards the authors of these essays, of whom I have no knowledge whatever, and desire unfeignedly from the bottom of my heart their good and blessing. But such is their path. I speak of the system — a system so hard and unfeeling, that it has no idea but of beginning with law; that even a mother's tender care of the fruit of the womb is known only as correcting wilfulness of temper, and germs of wanton cruelty; that it sees no promise, no grace, but God beginning with a law to repress already ripened wickedness — a system which ignores the fall, yet sees only wanton cruelty and wilfulness of temper in an infant; and begins God's history after some two thousand five hundred years resulting in a plague of wickedness, to ignore the flood.

84 I believe in a revelation which contains an external law, brought in by the by to test man, and shew him what he was, but in a revelation of grace, life, redemption, the revelation of the Son of God, of God Himself, bringing down heavenly things which the human heart cannot spell out or divine if unrevealed; which brings a revealed God and light to man; and man, made fit for it by love, into the perfect light by redemption, and gives him a new nature capable of enjoying it, and soon (how soon One only knows) glory out of this world; a revelation through which (to close what I have to say in the blessed words of scripture — how does it meet everything!) those who have received it, instead of learning from heathens, own in moral uprightness the ruin of the old man, and have put it off, "and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him; where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all."

W. I am uncommonly glad I met you. The system is a judged one for me. It is not of God. It is evidently exalting man and heathenism at the expense of Christ. I am not master of all the points to which you have referred, but I see enough to have the distinct conviction of the hollowness of the system, even as to facts. But how happy it is that the scripture itself gives so fully all that is needed, not only to save, but to make a man wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus, and then thoroughly furnished unto all good works!

It must be distracting and defiling to wade through these mythological systems, with all their aberrations and pollutions, but, with the holy judgment of God, the word of God in a few short verses tells us all its history. How admirable this is; how evidently one sees the hand and Spirit of God in it! There certainly is a stamp in the word of God of what is divine, which is unmistakeable, even where it is most human.

H. In truth there is — a simplicity, a dignity: no one ever produced anything like it. You have only to read apocryphal books. There is effort in them; there is none in scripture. Not once do you find an epithet attached to Jesus (that were a human feeling, perhaps a right one), but what He is to tell its own tale of what He is. What human writer, in recording His history, would have kept uniformly to this? Yet how it becomes a divine person! Every epithet would lower. They may be put as the expression of my sentiment, but not as the cause of them. And how it has forced man to deal with it! Infidels or not, they must deal with it where it is. It is God telling us in grace, but telling us of Himself, telling of heavenly things, and for man. What can man do? It concerns him. He may be angry with the grace — angry to be forced to say he does not like what is heavenly, he may exalt heathenism which has been tired of itself; but there it is, and he has to say to it. Blessed they who have tasted that God is in it — speaks in it, and that have found Him to be holy, as He must be, but love in revealing Himself to them, and in bringing them by redemption and divine righteousness to Himself to enjoy Him for ever! But we must part, dear friend, in the common enjoyment, I trust, of this hope.

85 W. Shall we not meet again, and take these questions up? There are more of these Essays, and we may find means, through God's grace, to get profit in weighing them in the light, particularly as these questions are current.

H. Perhaps God may permit it to be so. We have gone over, I believe, the fundamental questions as to it. I am, as you know, constantly occupied with more direct work. Yet I fully recognize the importance of these subjects. These Essays, which seem to me very superficial, are but the sign of a state of feeling of a large class, or they would not be worth notice. It is an effort of Satan to pervert and really heathenize the country, and swamp revealed religion. It is going on everywhere in Christendom. The attempted counteraction of ordinances, whether Stahl and Hengstenberg in Germany, or what is called Puseyism in England, cannot meet the wants of a soul, even though there may be personal piety, which is anything but required for that system. In France it is the ultramontane system, which is the counterbalance. In the feeble Protestantism which is there, there is none. It is infidelity, or the new evangelical party infected with rationalism, with many individually pious persons. But I shall see you, and, if leisure permits me, will take up any further questions that may occur.

I would refer you in parting — you who do believe in the word of God — to 1 John 5 where the exactly opposite view to Dr. Temple on every point is given. For this is the will of God, that we keep His commandments. There is obedience to a commandment, the proof of love; and His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. There is a new nature, and the world not educated, but overcome. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? There is faith on a perfect external revealed object, the only means of obtaining the victory. At the end of 1 John 3 you will find, as in Romans 8, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost given, carefully distinguished from the spirit or conscience within. Christianity is a deliverance sent by God to form the spirit according to a new life on an object supremely blessed without, so as to take out of self, and fix the heart on that supreme object of blessedness. Dr. Temple's or the rationalist's system is a rejection of it, for the spirit or fallen nature of man to form itself by heathenism and Christianity as pretty nearly on a par, the latter being reduced by him to within a shade of the level of the former.

86 If you would have blessing or holy and divine affections, hold fast the revelation of a divine object, and the divine revelation of that object.

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