due allowance for constitutional differences of temperament, the high walk of these holy men is that to which all are called in virtue of their standing in Christ Jesus. If in Him, united to Him by a sincere and living faith; then all follows, and it is to us according to our faith. God the Holy Spirit is with us and in us. He seals us unto the day of redemption. He occupies us with His gifts and graces, His "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." What He is, we are, or may be, in our measure. The Christian is not one of those dead, non-reflecting substances which absorb all the light they receive; but a polished and reflecting surface, that lives to radiate and repeat all around the exact image that falls upon him. "His light so shines before men, that they see his good works, and glorify the Father which is in heaven." It is as our Blessed Lord had declared in His intercessory prayer: "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as

we are one."

I. It only remains to observe two or three sacred corollaries from all this. First, we have here absolute confirmation of the Deity and Personality of the Holy Ghost. For here is God and none else; and at the same time the hypothetical distinction of the sacred Person. And so we find Augustine praying,"O Holy Spirit, love of God, powerful Advocate, and sweetest Comforter, infuse thy grace, and descend plentifully into my heart; for in whomsoever thou dwellest the Father and the Son come likewise and inhabit that breast. Oh, how happy is that breast which is honoured with so glorious, so Divine a guest!"

II. Again, if this be so, away with that other blasphemous assumption of the head of the Papacy, that he is "the Vicegerent of God, and the Vicar of Christ upon earth." The only Vicar of Christ here below is the Holy Spirit. It is His right and title and office, as that "other Comforter," expressly appointed, to fill and lead the Church during the personal absence of her Lord. And God giveth not His glory to

another.

III. But again, we need to be doubly cautious in the use of this truth on account of its majestic spirituality. Perhaps, there is no subject on which true believers are more tempted by Satan to go astray in one way or another, than on that of spiritual influences. Some, like Irving, have asked themselves why there are no miracles now-why, since we have the Holy Ghost, we miss that power which was manifested in the early stages of the Church? "No," they have hastily concluded, "the age of miracles is not past, the gift of tongues has not passed away, the baptism of the Holy Ghost is not upon us." But we contend, that all that constitutes the essence of God's work,

true power and glory, is ours now, and ever will be, in the ordinary operations of the Spirit. The Antinomian likewise abuses this doctrine of the Dispensation of the Spirit. He pretends that it must be derogatory to such Almighty working for us to think it necessary to use the means of grace, and either to invite sinners or sanctify ourselves; forgetting that it is part of the Divine arrangement, and one of the Spirit's own revealed ways, to use feeble man as an instrument in his own sanctification, and toward the conversion of his fellow-men. Others are apt to misrepresent the truth before us by pushing it beyond its just and present application. Not content with the wholesome and precious assurance, that Jehovah is with us, a "very present help in time of trouble," they would make out that the Christian ought not to feel any trouble whatever. Hence, they sometimes speak peace to the presumptuous, and frown upon the poor desponding soul surrounded by temptations. But this is to make religion appear rhapsodical, and to mistake carth for heaven. A more perfect glory yet waits to be revealed, where there is no sin, no sorrow, no temptation. At present, with every advantage, we groan, being burdened, and are probably never in so advanced a frame of mind as when we are most humble and contrite, and can say from the heart, with the Apostle himself,-"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" However exalted, therefore, in position we are, we must walk warily, remembering that the loftier a ship's masts, and the more sail she carries, the more need is there of ballast below, and of watchfulness around.

IV. But then, lastly, what of present privilege is clearly ours, let the Christian wisely use, and not esteem his heavenly supplies "light food." The thought of future glory, and the brightest prophetic anticipations, are not to dim the rich Gospel feast. We may now enjoy as God's dear children. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." "And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." Perhaps few of us rise up to the sober realization and enjoyment of the privilege, and holy liberty, and spiritual strength-the promises of grace to help, as well as mercy to forgive-in a word, that though miserable sinners in ourselves, we are already saved in Christ, and filled with His Spirit. How glorious to have entered even here the kingdom of God's dear Son, and to stand complete in His righteousness! How glorious to have free communion with the Father of our spirits, in a way of perfect reconciliation and love! How glorious to have a worthy object in life, to serve God, and to do work which even Archangels cannot do; to live a life, if not outwardly distinguished

by the decorations which the world showers upon its favourites, is yet distinguished by the approval and blessing of God! All this comes to us through the Holy Spirit.

"Wherever it is," says Howe, "that we find the souls of men bettered, and anything done to form and prepare meet subjects for God's kingdom, we are manifestly to ascribe all such work to His blessed Spirit. It is His appropriate office to refine the spirits of men to such a pitch, that they may be capable of their own name again, that is, to be called spirit; whereas, before, the whole man is called flesh. What a high as well as holy calling is ours, then! And if we might be allowed to indicate one special means by which this elevation is to be attained, we would point to that Word of the living God, now so much assailed. The Bible is the realm and region where the Spirit loves to dwell, and where He will always be found by those who humbly seek Him. As He himself is the great agent, so the Divine Word is the chief instrument in performing the work of glorifying the individual soul, the church, or the nation. We have an interesting illustration of this in the 2nd of Chronicles. Jehoshaphat had a prosperous reign; and why? He sent Levites and priests, it is said, who taught in the cities of Judah, and had the book of the Law of the Lord with them, and went about through all the cities of Judah, and taught the people. And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat."

May this be still the case with our own beloved land. May the Bible be our glory, and then upon the glory there will be a defence.

B.

DEAN GOODE'S WARBURTONIAN LECTURES.

Fulfilled Prophecy: A Proof of the Truth of Revealed Religion. The Warburtonian Lectures for 1854-1858. By the Very Rev. W. Goode, D.D. Hatchard and Co. 1863.

DEAN Goode's Warburtonian Lectures cover over precisely the same ground, and aim apparently at precisely the same results, as Dr. Keith's well known treatise, "The Evidence of the Truth of Revealed Religion derived from the literal Fulfilment of Prophecy." There is some difference in the plan of the two works, occasioned probably by the necessary form prescribed by the Lectures. Dr. Keith has treated the subject comprehensively, and illustrated it by the narratives of travellers and his own personal investigations of the scenes described. The Dean has selected the more prominent features of the subject, and brought his great scholarship and learning to bear upon their special illustration. In these days of rapid change and onward progress, the phases of opinion and the

Vol. 62.-No. 310.

5 B

currents of literature partake of the general inconstancy, and undergo perpetual transformation. These Lectures were delivered in 1854. The six years intervening between their first delivery and their publication were productive of so much change, that it seemed necessary almost to reconstruct them. In 1860 the Essays and Reviews broke silence on topics which had been fermenting in the minds of many for years, but which then for the first time were avowed as the deliberate opinions of ministers of the Church of England. It is true, these opinions are not new; substantially they may be found in the works of Spinoza, Dr. Priestley, and many other writers of the same school. In the form in which they then appeared, they have been answered and refuted over and over again within the last fifty years. It cannot be denied, however, that there is much novelty in sceptical opinions as now presented to us. They are put forward in defence of the divinity of Holy Scripture, with much impassioned and eloquent eulogy of the venerable antiquity of its history, the sublimity of its moral teaching, and, above all, the expression of religious life and feeling which it gives. The great sorrow of the new teachers is, that this Divine Book should have been suffering, for these eighteen hundred years past, from ignorant interpreters, who have never taken the pains to separate the human element from the Divine; so that, in fact, all the instances which it contains of human infirmity, error, and passion, are charged upon God! It is to obviate this evil that the distinction is made between the letter and the spirit, the temporal and the eternal; and with this fact borne in mind, we may investigate and criticise it, as we should any other book, remembering that when we discover in it anything wrong, and reject it on that account, our deed is not sacrilegious, but holy; we are not the enemies, but the friends, of the Bible! It is most unfortunate, however, for this class of critics, that when they are going about (to their mind) this most religious and pious work, they uniformly act and speak and write the very things, and apparently in the very same spirit and temper, as the Bible's worst enemies. There seems to be some powerful influence which overmasters them. When they set to work to detect mistakes, to point out contradictions, to show up the weakness and folly of a legend, or the want of fulfilment of a prophecy, they do it with an animus which no one can distinguish from that of Spinoza, or Priestley, or any sober and serious Socinian and Deist of former times. Strange to say, the almost devotional earnestness of a preface, the intensely powerful struggle between conscience and unbelief, which we witness with deep sympathy, and prayer to God for their deliverance, are exchanged, as soon as ever the fight is begun, for a species of critical Quixotism which sees myths and legends in the

plainest history, and contradictions everywhere wholly imperceptible to men of only ordinary common sense. And these idols, which they are at such desperate pains to demolish, alas! their nearest and dearest friends reverence and love.

If the reader wishes to see the most complete and perfect summary of modern doubts and modern belief, he may find it in De Wette's Introduction to the Old and New Testament,* and the English reader may peruse it, too, with a fair opportunity of thoroughly understanding it; for, in the translation made by Theodore Parker, the limits given by the author have been expanded, his obscure references and allusions to other writers have been illustrated by quotations from the writers themselves, and such additions have been made as will put everybody in possession of all that we find followed out in Bunsen, or Dr. Williams, or Professor Jowett, or Dean Stanley, or Dr. Colenso. It is all here, and all in a convenient form; we very much question whether, for comprehensiveness, for logical arrangement, for plentiful scholarship and learning, there is any Introduction to the Holy Scriptures at all equal to it. We notice it with special reference to the question of prophecy. Many of the apparently dogmatic assertions in the text (as is common in German writers) are really replies to objections. The theory of prophecy there given is intended to contradict the argument for its literal fulfilment. Theodore Parker especially, in his definition of prophecy,† intends to answer all such arguments as Dean Goode's and Dr. Keith's by quietly cutting away the foundation on which they rest. The gift of prophecy is by De Wette thus explained; we give the substance of his argument and the quotation below.‡ (1.) The prophets were influenced by a spirit of burning zeal for God and their country, for their religion and their home. (2.) They were inspired and raised up to teach the great doctrine of RETRIBUTION-that all injustice and wrong, especially of the giant despotisms of that time, would meet with certain punishment. (3.) They denounced these judgments, not in general terms, but in circumstantial details,

* A Critical and Historical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, from the German of W. M. L. De Wette. Translated and enlarged by Theodore Parker. Boston, U.S. 1858.

See his Works, vol. i. page 223. Trübner and Co.

"The predictions of the future were occasioned by, and founded on, the idea of retribution and on the unshaken confidence in the love of Jehovah towards His people. Consequently, their predictions had a moral and religious meaning, and might be recalled. These ideas

were applied to the circumstances of the time, and in this manner the predictions were occasioned by the historical phenomena of the age. Their predictions are in part to be regarded as HOPES and WISHES, menaces and expressions of anxiety; and therefore the fundamental rule of giving them an historical explanation is to seek the occasion of an oracle in history, rather than its fulfilment. Particular caution is necessary in respect to predictions against foreign nations. These prophecies are almost always indefinite and fluctuating."-De Wette. Soc. 204, Vol. ii.