of its substance. The fault of the system of thinking and believing of which Mr. Frothingham is eminently the representative, is not that its assumptions and conclusions are wrong as details of a system fundamentally correct, but that it is wholly and fundamentally wrong. Its God is not He whom the Bible reveals; its Christ is not the man of Nazareth and Calvary; its Spirit is not the divine one, but it is human; and its whole substance is not of heaven, but of the earth. It may, indeed, embody some things in themselves not unlike what may be found in the Gospel, just as similar details may be found in the most diverse specimens of natural history; but these in neither case disprove the essential distinctiveness of the two objects. In this case they are Christ and Belial. This may be seen in what are Mr. Frothingham's ideas of the nature of conversion and what are its conditions and resultant phenomena; which, though nowhere expressed in single phrases, are clearly enough seen in the course of his remarks. As it is simply a "turning," it may or may not indicate repentance in the writer's own naturalistic sense of that word, for he who has not gone astray need not turn again. Essentially, it is simply a good education—intellectual, æsthetical, and moral. Its only necessary conditions are opportunities and teachableness, and its results are good character and conduct, estimated according to conventional standards.

These, it will be seen, ignore and practically disallow all of the distinctive Christian characteristics of the subject. The "holiness" which, according to Scripture, is the ethical ideal of the divine character, subsisting in burning intensity, is reduced to the shadowy and uncertain, and at best unelevated, "virtue" of the Roman stoic. "Sin," the opposite pole to God's holiness in the ethical cosmos, appears simply as a more or less widely "missing the mark," by falling short or going beyond, or by aberrations to the right hand or the left-only an incompleteness, to be regretted rather than censured, and certainly not to be avenged. Such notions of the fundamental doctrines upon which all practical religions must be based render void, preposterous, and often odious, the distinctive doctrines of the evangelical Churches. The minified estimation of sin reduces guilt to a minimum, and so makes a deep and pungent "conviction of sin" the fancy of a disordered mind-perhaps the effect of a disordered liver. The only allowable atonement for sin is found in reformation and restitution, which become "vicarious" wherever there is a community of interests either good or bad, and in the exercise of kindly offices among men. For the Christ of the New Testament and the Church there is no place in such a system. If the historical Christ shed his blood for others than himself, so have thousands of others, perhaps quite as freely. If he died a martyr to his own teachings, so did Socrates to his; and so, in less conspicuous ways, have done untold multitudes of men and women. And because the Christ of the Gospels was at best only one of the great and good men of the world, Mr. Frothingham and those of the same way of thinking do well to refuse to specially honor him by consenting to be called Christians.

It is especially noticeable that in his crusade against the Christian doctrines, of which that of "conversion" is among the most considerable, Mr. F. found himself opposed to all parts and divisions of the Christian Church; and that by closer inspection it appears that between Catholics and Protestants the teachings of the latter are to him much the more objectionable, and among Protestants those are most astray, and most to be antagonized, who hold closely and tenaciously to the specifically evangelical doctrines. And yet he finds the nearest approach to the real. ization of his ideal in a "school of thought" in one of our less numerous nominal Protestant sects, "the Broad-Churchmen," whose title to this partiality may be the fact, assigned by another for a like preference, that they never trouble themselves about politics or religion. They "welcome every kind of culture;" are "indifferent to the current topics of theology;" and their "conception of Christ" is altogether "spiritual," so making him only a spiritual man in their own low sense of spirituality. It is, however, a real and valuable service rendered to the truth when the irreconcilable difference between the doctrines of the Gospel and those of rationalistic naturalism are thus clearly set forth in their essential antagonism.

"THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONVERSION."

The startling announcement made by the young Prophet of Galilee to the learned Jewish ruler, that in order to be found within the kingdom of grace a man must be "born again," elicited from the great man an expression of wonder and perplexity which took form in the question, "How can these things be?" From that time onward that question has continued to be asked, but it has never been answered. The fact that such a work is necessary is conceded by very many, including not a few of those with whom that young Galilean has not been accepted as a competent instructor; and though some have made tentative but abortive attempts toward the detection of its impulsive force, and of its processes, the more rationally thoughtful have conceded its practical insolubility.

In an article in the October number of the "North American Review," whose title stands at the head of this paper, Mr. O. B. Frothingham discusses this subject with characteristic acumen and force; but he reaches results that can be satisfactory to very few of his readers. Incidentally, however, some notable concessions are made, with some of which we are now chiefly concerned. Respecting the inconceivableness of the processes of a fundamental moral transformation he remarks, with a degree of force and clearness that may be commended to some dogmatizing philosophical theologians who profess to be able to solve all mysteries, but who so flatter themselves only because of the superficialness of their views:

Nothing is more incomprehensible than the moral process of reformation. To change one's mind permanently and resolutely; to take a new view of human

nature and human life, of providence and duty, of the world of causes and effects; to turn about and face in the opposite direction-is an altogether unaccountable thing.

This is strong language; and yet it is noticeably in agreement with what we read in the Bible—as when the prophet likens the perversity of the heart, in its unchangeableness, to the leopard's spots and the Ethiopian's skin, or when Joshua says to Israel, 'Ye cannot serve the Lord," or when Paul recognizes the invincibleness of the law of sin "in his members," effectually constraining him to do "the evil that he would not." Our Lord, in reply to the doubting query of Nicodemus, makes no attempt to solve this mystery, but concedes its inexplicability, while he reaffirms the fact itself. Like the phenomena of the wind, which are certain but inexplicable, so are the processes of regeneration. The claim which some make in favor of the sufficiency of the human will to effectuate such a change is simply nonsense of the most arrant kind; very much as if one should pretend to be able to lift himself by his boot-straps.

Any fundamental and essential change of moral character, in either direction, can be effected only by a power operating upon the subject ab extra-from beyond himself. As the stream cannot rise above its fountainhead, so the forces by which the established substratum of the moral character shall be removed and replaced must originate in a source beyond and above the subject of which such a moral nature is a predicate. Even Pelagianism did not assert the possibility of self-conversion; for, by disallowing that the human heart is so really bad as to require any essential change, it obviated the necessity of conversion; and, therefore, if any finally fail of eternal life, their falling away occurs in themselves individually, and not as the consequence of coming short of an originally necessary spiritual transformation. The problem of conversion is only one side of the broader one which includes all and any possible fundamental changes of moral character in either direction. The beginning of moral evil—that is, SIN, in the divine dominions-is a mystery, not only of the divine administration, but deeper still of essential possibility. Man, created in God's moral likeness, fell into sin; not by the spontaneous action of his free will, but by yielding to an impulse originating beyond himself. Nor is it possible to conceive that a moral agent, all of whose impulses are essentially good, and tend only to righteousness, could begin and prosecute and consummate a process of sinning against himself, as well as against God. And now, being alienated from God, first in character and afterward in life, to reverse the eccentric and downward course of his nature to change its polarity and turn its gravitation Godward—is certainly beyond the soul's inherent powers. As to its originating force, therefore, the work of conversion is not only beyond the range of our philosophy, but it is directly contrary to its certain requirements. Mr. Frothingham, who represents a not inconsiderable school of thought, even after granting the inexplicability of the beginning of the process, assumes to teach what must be its rationale, in doing which he most inconsistently reduces the whole matter to a system of naturalism.

His references to the methods and practices of religious teachers of various schools to promote conversions, which are in some things pertinent and judicious but usually quite otherwise, have no bearing upon the subject covered by the title chosen by himself for his discussion; which is not about the methods used to bring about that work, but the nature of the work itself. Respecting this process the following excerpt, presenting Coleridge's doctrine of "The Redemption of the Will," may not be out of place. (See "Methodist Quarterly Review," April, 1853.)

We are thus brought to the consideration of the conversion and regeneration of the will; its emancipation from the thralldom of original sin by the destruction of removal of that principle or power from the soul. If indeed the depravation of the will is complete, such a restoration can be effected only by a power operating from beyond its own being. This, in theological language, would be a redemption by free grace. Whether there is such a redemption provided beyond himself for man, is primarily a question lying outside of the range of philosophy. That it is a possibility, though it is not susceptible of proof, a priori, no one can deny. Though we are at no time conscious of the presence of such a renovating power acting upon our spiritual being, that negative fact is no argument against it, since the point of its access is beyond the range of self-consciousness.

Here again Coleridge shall speak for himself:

If any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of the divine Spirit should be deeper than our consciousness can reach, it must arise from the not having attended sufficiently to the nature and necessary limits of human consciousness. For the same impossibility exists as to the first acts and movements of our own will-the furthest distance our recollection can follow back, the traces never lead us to the first foot-marks; the lowest depth that the light of consciousness can visit, even with a doubtful glimmering, is still at an unknown distance from the ground.— Works, vol. i, pp. 153, 154. (American Edition.)

But although the efficient cause of the conversion of the soul is beyond the range of philosophical inquiry, there is nothing in the supposition of a divine agency in that work to conflict with reason. The divine Spirit operates in secret, but the effects are manifest; and as in all other manifestations of the divine power, in nature no less than in grace, these things become assured to us by their phenomenal results. We know nothing of the secret causes of any thing, but only the facts, and in this the mysteries of the spiritual cosmos are no greater than those of the material. If through its own lack of spiritual power the soul has become enslaved to the depraved elements of the personal character, the power even to will what is good must come from an extraneous source. For this lack the scheme revealed in the Gospel makes provision by postulating the presence and efficiency of the aids of the Spirit, emancipating the will, and inclining it to choose the better part. And herein is seen the basis of personal responsibility in the case; and when the force of the will is united to those of the divine Spirit, the work of conversion is then and there effectuated, and the sinner, delivered from his own carnality, becomes through grace 66 a new creature." All the efficiency is divine, and yet it is conditioned on the will of the subject; and whenever these concur conversion ensues, at once and completely. "If any man be in Christ, he is [now, at once] a new creature" (Kaivǹ) Kríσis.)

RIGHT AND WRONG USES OF THE BIBLE.

A very suggestive paper appeared not very long ago in "The Christian Advocate" (New York), written by one of our younger ministers, entitled "The Microscopic Study of the Bible." Though shut up to the narrow limits of a newspaper article, the writer successfully points out some of the obvious infelicities of certain largely practiced and much-praised methods of studying the Bible. His aim is to show that minute criticism of the words and phrases employed is unfavorable to the adequate understanding of a discourse or any writing, and therefore that in that direction the kind of criticism which he described by the epithet "microscopic” is unfavorable to right interpretation; a position which he fortifies with abundant proofs and illustrations.

The fault aimed at is found chiefly among pretenders-purposed or otherwise—to superior skill in biblical interpretation. There are many such, who are nothing if they are not critical; whose lack of thorough learning unfits them for what they attempt, or who, if sufficiently learned in certain minor points, having attended only to the verbal forms of Scripture, have failed to appreciate its teachings in their aggregate completeness. The whole process is one of dissection, and the examination of the dissected parts, by tracing the etymology of words, and drawing out the rhetorical contents of phrases and sentences; a process which some one compares to that of an anatomist who should hold up an excavated eye-ball as an illustration of the beauty of the human face. In opposition to this method it may be said that words and sentences, wrought into discourses, are not simply isolated signs of ideas, but constituent elements of a composite thought, and therefore the whole taken together must determine their specific sense in each particular case. Too much attention to minor details to single words and individual sentences-may operate adversely to the proper understanding of the scope and purpose of the discourse as a whole.

The misleading tendency of this form of criticism is so manifest that it needs no demonstration. It is well known, however, that it has been extensively employed in the interpretation of the Bible, and its destructive results have been ostentatiously proclaimed; and it has also been successfully combated, and its power to do harm has been largely neutralized. But the evil deprecated appears also in a modified form among the uneducated. The use of the Bible "in the vulgar tongue," by the common people, with the accompanying right of private judgment, all of which must be accepted and approved as of the very essence of Protestantism, is not without its possible dangers. The Anabaptists and the "Fifth Monarchy" men were great Bible readers; but coming to the Bible with strong but unintelligent preconceptions, they of course found abundant proofs to sustain the opinions they brought with them. The same thing was seen in the Adventist (Millerite) excitement of forty years ago, and the Premillenarians of the present day, though more sober,