pression designates in general, in our sphere, only the confident conviction accompanying a condition of the higher selfconsciousness, which conviction is consequently something different from, but precisely on this account also, not less than that which accompanies the objective consciousness. In the same sense was our discourse before this, of faith in God, which was stated to be nothing else, than the confidence with respect to the absolute feeling of dependence as such, i. e. as produced by a Being (Wesen.) external to us, and as expressing our relation to the same. But the faith mentioned in our discourse is a matter-of-fact confidence, only however that of a perfectly internal fact. That is, it cannot be in an individual until through an impression which he receives from Christ, there has been formed in him a beginning, although only an infinitely small one, yet a real anticipation, of the annulment of the state of needing redemption. But the expression, faith in Christ, is here, as faith in God there, the reference of the condition as effect to Christ as original cause. Thus also John describes Him. Thus from the beginning onward, only they have united themselves to Christ in his new community, whose pious self-consciousness was distinctly stamped as a neediness of redemption, and who now had become assured of the redeeming power of Christ in them.' So that the more strongly both these things appeared in any one, the more also could he himself through statement of the fact, to which also belong the description of Christ and of his efficiency, call forth the same inward experience in others. They in whom this took place, became believing, the others not. Herein, always since then, has consisted the essence of all direct Christian annunciation and preaching which can take the shape always only of testimony; a testimony of one's own experience, which might awaken the desire in others also, to have the same experience. But the impression, which all persons later upon this way receive from what was effected through Christ, viz: from the common Spirit communicated through him and from the whole community of Christians, supported by the historical statement of his life and being, was precisely the same impression which his contemporaries received immediately from Him. Hence also they who remained unbelieving, were blamed not on this account, because they had not perhaps suffered themselves to be moved by arguments, but only on account of the want of selfknowledge, which must be at the bottom where there is an incapac ity to recognize the Redeemer as such, when He is truly and rightly set forth. But this want of self-knowledge, i. e. of a consciousness of the need of redemption, Christ himself had already declared as the limit of His operativeness. And thus is the ground of unbelief as also the ground of faith, the same at all times.'

John 1: 45, 46. 6: 68, 69. Matt. 16: 15, 18. Acts 2: 37, 41.

We conclude these specimens of Schleiermacher's doctrinal views, which however alone, seen out of their scientific connection, and in such comparatively scanty proportions, afford but imperfect data, for an intelligent judgment upon his theological system and Christian stand-point, with the following all-interesting and at least very thought-awakening propositions, the 96th, 98th 100th, 101st of his "Christliche Glaube," viz:

1. "In Jesus Christ the Divine Nature and the human nature were united in one person.

2. "Christ was distinguished from all other men by his essential sinlessness and his absolute perfection.

3. "The Redeemer admits believers into the efficacy of his god-consciousness, and this is his redeeming activity.

4. "The Redeemer takes believers into the communion of his untroubled happiness, and this is his reconciling activity."

ARTICLE VII.

ARGUMENT FOR THE BEING OF GOD FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

By REV. JAMES M. MACDONALD, Jamaica, L. I.

It would be presuming too far to undertake to offer much that is new on the evidence of the Divine Existence. The ancient philosophers, and such writers as Clarke, Locke, Ray, Derham and Paley, and the authors of the various Systems of Theology, may be supposed to have exhausted the subject. And this, to a certain extent, is true. But it has appeared that something essential is lacking, in the argument for the existence of God, as it is commonly presented;-which it will be our object to exhibit as succinctly as possible. Several valuable contributions, on this subject have, within a few years, been given to the public, which, as well as works that have been longer known, afford most important aid to the student in Natural Theology.

To enter, in a formal manner, on the proof of the being of God may be thought by some as superfluous, if not irreverent. But even admitting that men generally are not open to doubt on this subject, and that it has been most amply discussed, there are, it is to be feared, very many, who, if they were called upon by an ingenious skeptic, to give a reason for their faith, would find the task a difficult one, from having never given the subject, in its argumentative form, a special examination. Moreover, it is worthy of consideration that the subject possesses an intrinsic importance and dignity, and is so fitted to produce a deep and ever-present impression, as completely to repel the idea of the discussion being

either irreverent or useless. But the argument we regard as peculiarly important, because it is adapted effectually to expose the fallacy of those pantheistic and materialistic notions which have prevailed elsewhere, and which there is some danger, may become fashionable in America and Europe. This latter is the principal reason which leads us, at the present time, to invite attention to this subject.

We think it is Chalmers, who somewhere remarks, that it is impossible for any man to assert positively, that there is nowhere any evidence of the existence of an infinite, eternal, and incorporeal Spirit who is the Maker and Upholder of all things. All that any man can do is to declare that he has failed to discover the evidence of the existence of such a being. And this is saying very little-indeed amounts to nothing-when we consider how very limited is man's knowledge of the universe. The survey which he is able to make, in respect to the whole of the Divine works, is comparatively, hardly greater than that made by the "little ant." of the general landscape, from the top of his tiny hill. A thousand stars glitter in the evening sky, not one of which has he ever visited, and where, for all that he knows to the contrary, the being of God, may be luminously inscribed to the eye. So that it is a "fool" indeed, according to the expression of Scripture, one who shows how little he knows, by his very ignorance of his ignorance, who declares positively that there is no evidence of the existence of a God, who is infinite, spiritual, and eternal. Let him wait till he has quarried through every strata of the earth to its core, till he has sounded the depths of the skies, visited and explored the other planets, the great central orb, and every star and planet of other systems, and ransacked every corner of the wide creation; nay, till he has read every line, and knows every item that belongs to the history of our world, written or unwritten, for the whole period of its existence, and has even searched the records of a past eternity, before he dares to assert that space and duration have, nowhere and never, borne up the clear and undeniable inscription that there is a God.

The argument à priori, and its value.

To Dr. Cudworth, unquestionably, rather than to Dr. Clarke, belongs the honor of being the author of the argument, from necessity, as it has been termed. In his "Intellectual System," he labors to prove that we can have no proper or distinguishing idea of God, which does not include necessity of existence in it. And John Howe, whom Macaulay so justly styles "that great man," in his Living Temple, while he waives the argument, because some had objected to it as a sophism, expresses the opinion that it admits of being managed with demonstrative evidence. Bishop Stillingfleet, in his Origines Sacræ, also argues that necessary ex

istence doth immutably belong to the idea and nature of God; and that therefore we may with as much truth affirm that He exists as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones. Archbishop Tillotson labors to prove that the possibility that there should be a God, is a foundation for proving the existence of one. By possible, he means not contradictory to reason. And if not contradictory to reason that there should be a Being existing from eternity, there necessarily must be one. And Dr. Emmons reasons that if the world might have had a cause, then it must have had a cause. The bare possibility of its beginning to exist by a cause amounts to a demonstration that there was some cause of its beginning to exist. But Dr. Clarke is justly regarded as the chief advocate and expounder of the argument à priori, for the exist ence of God. He reasons in this manner, that there must be in nature a permanent ground or reason of the existence of the first cause; otherwise its existence would be owing to or dependent on mere chance. "The existence, therefore, of the first cause is necessary; necessary absolutely and in itself. And therefore, that necessity is à priori, and in the order of nature, the ground or reason of its existence." That is, he begins with the cause and infers its effects. And he has displayed, it is admitted on all hands, the greatest metaphysical ingenuity, and learning, in managing this argument. But almost the utmost that can be said of it is, that it is so obscure that it is extremely difficult, even for those who are familiar with metaphysical disquisitions, to follow him through the intricate mazes of his reasoning; so difficult that it must certainly fail to convince the skeptic, and may greatly tend to perplex and unsettle the believer. If there is any force in Dr. Clarke's celebrated argument, it is because, instead of being à priori, it is strictly speaking inductive. What leads us to search for a First Cause? Is it not the existence of other beings who could not have made themselves, nor have existed from eternity? In his correspondence, Dr. C. endeavors to prove that something must have existed from eternity, independent and self-existent; or that the existence of space and duration, which are not themselves substances, proves that there must be an infinite, incorporeal, eternal Deity. In this he followed Dr. Cudworth, who argued from the consideration of space and immensity, that there must be an infinite, incorporeal First Cause. But what is this but the argument à posteriori? The existence of space and time is assumed as real, and independent of our conceptions of them; and the process therefore becomes an inductive one.

Very few have ever felt satisfied with the argument from necessity; in fact, few have ever professed themselves able to comprehend its nature. Mr. Locke says, "that it is an ill way of establishing the existence of God, to lay the whole stress of so important a point upon that sole foundation, and take some men's having the

idea of God in their minds, for the only proof of a Deity." He regards the proofs which our own existence and the sensible parts of the universe offer as so clear and cogent that it is impossible for a considering man to withstand them. Mr. Stewart, after citing the opinion of " the coryphæus of Scotch metaphysics," Dr. Reid, that he was unable to determine whether these speculations were as solid, as they are sublime, or whether they were the wanderings of the imagination, in a region beyond the limits of human understanding, remarks: "After this candid acknowledgment from Dr. Reid, I need not be ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficulties on the same subject." And Lord Brougham remarks that there is a "great inaccuracy in denominating the argument in question, were it ever so sound, an argument à priori, for it is a reasoning founded on experience, and it is to be classed with the arguments derived from the observation of external objects, the ground of our reasoning à posteriori as to matter, or at the utmost, with the information given by consciousness, the whole ground of our reasoning à posteriori as to mind." Mr. Stewart has well expressed the merits of the argument à priori (and we refer to his opinion with greater satisfaction on account of its bearing on a part of the argument which we propose to present) by observing that the fact of our ideas of immensity and eternity forcing themselves upon our belief seems to furnish an additional argument for the existence of an immense and eternal Being; that after we have by the inductive process of reasoning, become satisfied of the existence of an intelligent cause, we naturally connect with this cause, the impressions derived from the contemplation of infinite space and endless duration, and hence "clothe with the attributes of immensity and eternity, the awful Being whose existence has been proved by a more rigorous process of reasoning."

The Cartesian Theory.

Descartes, to whom Mr. Stewart assigns the honor of standing at the head of the modern movement in metaphysical philosophy, was the author of a famous psychological argument for the existence of God, to which we deem it important in these preliminary remarks, briefly to refer. This philosopher showed the application of the principles of the inductive philosophy to the science of the human mind, as Bacon had shown the application of these same principles to the investigation of natural science. He assumed human consciousness as the starting-point, and established the principle that all true science of the mind must rest upon inductions drawn from the world within. Having shown that our own existence is implied in our consciousness, he maintains that we have no idea which consciousness renders more distinct and clear than that of the existence of an all-perfect, and infinite God; and he further maintains that this idea must have been im