tellect and erudition; they are of priceless value in the study, both of the evidences and doctrines of God's Word, when animated by genuine and fervent piety. But I mean this, that of themselves they cannot communicate a right disposition of heart, nor can they compensate for its absence. Perhaps these days of dispute and rebuke have been permitted to come to lead us to a more devout and obedient method of pursuing Christian truth, as the one God has most honoured, as it has certainly proved the safest path to religious conviction and tranquillity. The experimental guide, the sanctifying and sustaining influence of the Gospel, is blessedly sufficient for thousands, but instead of tasting of the bread of life, and drinking at the stream of salvation, too many seek to be satisfied in their own way, and ply unreasonable demands and trifling objections. They refuse to cultivate the soil till assured of its certain fruitfulness by an inspection of its strata, and an analysis of its properties, and this requires labour and research.

ALIQUIS. I conclude you believe theology to be a true science, and that a knowledge of God is open to us. The position of the atheist I plainly see is untenable, and further, that his notions are of a ruinous tendency, "shattering the authority of conscience, sowing despondency on personal progress, casting the affections in narrow and selfish type, and dispelling the highest fascination and grandeur of the conception of truth." As another writer has said; "There is no being eloquent for atheism; in that exhausted receiver the mind cannot use its wings, the clearest proof that it is out of its element." I do not subscribe to the dogma that there is no God, but rather to this aspect of the question, that He is unknown and unknowable. As Mr. Maurice has shewn; " all beliefs about God are but inadequate intellectual attempts to justify belief in Him, which is never a merely intellectual affirmation, but rather a living act of the spirit, by no

means

confined to those who consciously confess his presence.*"

NEMO. You have learnt from our previous conversations that I am a believer in the strength of Common Sense. Of course my notions will not be welcomed by the mystified and transcendental, and will be the snuff, as Shakespeare writes;

"Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses

All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere feathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions."

It is

What a jumble of things you have just given me. true that beliefs about God are quite different from belief in God. In the one case He may be a dark mystery to us, while having faith in Him implies a revelation of Him, however imperfect in degree. Then belief can never be a mere intellectual affirmation, but the act of a living spirit. Yet while defined to be a living act of the spirit, you say it may be exercised unconsciously, since this living act of the spirit is "by no means confined to those who consciously confess His presence." How cloudy is such theology as this, and more than cloudy, for an unconscious living act of the spirit is a palpable contradiction. Two truths let me here insist upon. One that all faith, in a scriptural and personal sense, is a known and intelligent belief in God, and in His Son whom He has sent as the means of salvation. How can there be belief by a man unless there be a consciously exercised act of trust or reliance? Because God's Spirit is universally and continually in contact with humanity, it does not follow that a man while in sin and rebellion may be in accepted communion with this Spirit. The act of faith in the villager, to whom we have referred, was a conscious act of his spirit in the truth and provisions of the Gospel, and so must that faith ever be which bringeth salvation. This is the teaching of entire Scripture, and the burden.

"Essays Theological and Literary." By R. H. Hutton, M.A. Preface and

Essay First.

of its frequent and fervent exhortations. I well know what may here be said by those who identify the faults of professing Christians with Christianity itself, they find so much goodness without faith, and so much faith without goodness, that men had better be left without an objective revelation, and religious dogmas and profession. But all readers of the Holy Volume well know that such faith as it requires produces fruit after its kind. "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth," and these virtues cannot be true, in a divine sense, without faith in the Gospel. The second truth is, that while we cannot think adequately of God, we may know Him in part, and think of Him as Infinite. We may know God without fully comprehending Him. "There is nothing in our mental constitution to prevent us having an indefinite conception of an object. of which we can form no adequate conception. On the contrary, our experience presents proof both abundant and convincing, of the possibility of indefinite and inadequate conceptions of objects not fully realized." We have no adequate notion of time and space, yet we have some notion of time and space, and can further think of them as lost in illimitableness. We may know God, and have intelligent communion with Him, without possessing faculties for constructing (as Dr. Mansel unfortunately suggested) a theory of God. How can we account for the disclosure of the God of the Bible, a God of inconceivable majesty and infinite perfection? As we shall presently learn, this must not only be accepted as proof of the Inspiration of the Scriptures, but also of the truth that man's moral nature is a revelation of God. Before either atheism or pantheism can destroy our belief in a spiritual and personal God, they must destroy the testimony of the consciousness of our own spirituality and personality. Our knowledge of even finite things is far from being clear and adequate, and what hinders that we should have a real, though still more indefinite knowledge of the Infinite? Here

then we reach the two main divisions of our controversy; I ask for faith in Holy Scripture because its spirit witnesses with our spirits, and experience verifies its truth and preciousness; and because on sufficient historical evidence it can be established, that the holy men of old who spake in all its parts, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. From the internal evidences, from the spirit and tendency of Christianity, we may be sure the Bible is true; and from external evidences also we may arrive at the same conclusion.

ALIQUIS. Not forgetting the theological and experimental aspect of the Word of God, I should like more satisfaction on the external proofs of its truth. We cannot hide from us the fact, that philosophy and science in the present day stand aloof in unfriendly attitudes, whilst literature gives currency to a thousand speculative opinions unfavourable to the old established beliefs. It is obvious that the theology of former ages. cannot be permanently maintained, and that the mass of society is anxiously seeking a creed which shall not be at issue with the moral sense of educated men.

NEMO. I pray you not to think so much of such representations. Christianity has among its rejoicing believers educated men. There is a great deal of dust in such observations, perhaps not intended to blind, but certainly calculated to mislead. Even the writer you have just quoted does not go so far in his dissent from Christianity as his words seem to imply. He affirms the genuineness and authenticity of the early records of the Christian religion; his words being, "The scepticism of a former age has been refuted by the criticism of a later period; the imputation of forgery and fraud made against the evangelists by writers in the last century, has been dispelled by a more careful study of the Gospels. One remarkable characteristic of these books is the simple truthfulness with which the evangelists record the traditions therein collected, even when these traditions are unfavourable to their own con

clusions." In another part of his book he writes, "The early history of Christianity may be in many respects inaccurate, exaggerated by credulous devotion, and even falsified by legendary traditions, but some Divine and indefeasible truths must be contained within its doctrines. These could not have lived through so many centuries, and spread through such various forms of civilization, if they had not their undying roots in the heart of man.*” This, you will notice, is not the surrender of the Christian religion. Many who have written critically and animadvertingly on certain portions of the Bible, are still believers in its authority, and are ministering at the altars of our holy faith. It is true, nevertheless, that some advanced minds have eliminated the idea of a personal God, and regard Christianity as a mere product of human thought. But these are not so many in number and ability as I think you suppose.

For one, I could not ignore any portion of the Bible, and have no faith in an accommodating eclecticism, my position being this, we need not abandon Christianity on the one hand, nor seek on the other to conciliate scepticism by giving up essential points. The only choice in this matter is between a Divine Revelation and universal scepticism. Christianity is either true and Divine, or it is an imposture. If we have not a Christianity sustained by authentic documents, we have none. It claims to be a Revelation of Divine truth, and of a Divine Incarnation. Divinity sympathizing with fallen humanity, identifying Himself with it, and bearing its sins, that He may consistently with the claims of Divine justice pardon men, and make them partakers of the Divine nature; Christianity is all this, or a fabrication and delusion. I own to a surprise in reading sceptical books, that with much free handling of the Bible, and denial of some of its details, there should still be found respectful views of its claims in general, and no positive denials of its Divine origin. This appears to me incon

*"Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism," by the Duke of Somerset.