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fically similar, when a man invents a watch or an electric telegraph, on the one hand, or, on the other, receives, whether by extraordinary illumination (such as the Apostles had) or ordinary (such as other Christians may have), communications of fresh religious truth; or to speak as if the spirit' in the same sense led men into all truth.' And we object, therefore, to the expressions (as easily liable to be misunderstood) in the following passage, which immediately precedes that last quoted, in which our author discriminates clearly enough between the two kinds of religious illumination. The passage that follows is the more strange on account of the words we have marked in italics; for surely there have been enough 'inductive' philosophers who have been infidels, to make the statement erroneous in fact; not to mention that, if there had been but one, it would have shown that there is a valid distinction to be made between the divine influences which are necessary to lead us into religious truth, and that providential concurrence with the human faculties which sometimes insures even to the infidel genius that may hate the very name and idea of God, the most splendid physical discoveries.

And here do we take our stand; these laws which man's intellect cannot find out, God reveals. He reveals them to childlike men now, as He revealed them to childlike men of old, as He revealed one such to Peter. We are encouraged to attribute this success, wherever it is found, in every branch of human study, whether of physics, or philology, or mental philosophy, or religion, success in this we attribute to God. We deem that God is actively and directly working. Our conclusion is supported by the fact to which attention has now been drawn for many years, that few, if any, inductive philosophers have been unbelievers: it is supported by the language which discoverers use, rejecting all claim or merit of their own, save that of grasping at a thought which came into their minds.' Yes; this is the true account, they come into our minds.' And from whom do they come, my brethren ?'-p. 50.

There is yet another point in which we fancy our author's meaning may be misunderstood; if indeed he can be said to have fairly developed it. We have conceded that the analogy between the progress' we may expect in theological and scientific discovery is so far true that the series of additions in each may be perpetual; but are both series (to use mathematical phraseology) equally unlimited, or, though the terms of both be infinite, does the one tend to a limit? In other words, if the discoveries in astronomy or chemistry may in time be such as to render all present knowledge in those departments, quite small in comparison, both in volume and significance, are we at all entitled to *Not a grammatical sentence; but we copy literally.

Discovery in Theology and Science.

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assume the same of theology? This, we apprehend, impossible: what is no paradox in the one case would be intolerably paradoxical in the other. Since the Gospel was given for the very purpose of redeeming lost man, its main truths and doctrines, its essence, that which involves the object for which the Revelation was originally designed, cannot surely be imagined to have tarried till, during many generations, the tardy intellect of man had slowly puzzled them out; any more than we can suppose that men would be allowed to be five thousand years on earth (if that had been possible) without discovering the essential uses and properties of air, fire, and water, though their chemical composition and laws might well remain unexplained for as long a period. Now here we feel persuaded there would be no essential difference between our author's views and our own; yet a passage now and then occurs which looks as if he thought that blocks of truth, large as any that have yet been quarried, might be still discovered in the Scripture; that not only gold-dust might be plentifully drawn from the mine, but nuggets as huge and precious as when the task of searching for them first began; that not minute fragments of new truth, or corrections and rectifications of old truths, might alone be expected, but discoveries parallel in magnitude and importance with those of physical science. This we are sure he does not mean, yet more discrimination than he has always used is, we think, desirable. Apart from such cautious statement, the following passage would, we think, be liable to be misconstrued:

'Surely it is not a misapplication of a Scriptural thought, that in the bosom of creation there are yet waiting to be revealed 'things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man.' Surely it is not a perversion of a Scriptural analogy to hold that in the holy volume there remain, undiscovered as yet, antidotes to moral poisons which may yet be spread, treasures of wisdom which will be revealed when they are needed. Surely we may hold that when it is necessary God will purge away more and more of the film that mars our vision, that we may see more and more what is the hope of our calling, what the riches of our inheri tance; that as years roll along the Spirit of Truth may enable us to put together this promise or statement and that, which now lie severed and separate in the holy volume, and then flash a new truth, a newlydiscovered truth, upon our intellectual or our spiritual vision-a truth which shall fill our hearts with wonder that we never observed it before.

'May we not pray that God will give unto us, too, the Christians of our own time and generation, 'the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the acknowledging of Him, that the eyes of our understanding also may be enlightened, and we too may know more and more what is

the hope of His calling, and what His power to us-ward who believe!' -(p. 100.)

And so we believe the Spirit is working now, working now as He ever has worked, 'preventing us with His most gracious favour, and furthering us with His continual help.' And when we affirm that the work of the apostles and evangelists was peculiarly the Spirit's work, that they were inspired by Him for their special office, let us never deny that He inspires men still. Only let us remember that their work once done, was done for ever; their work, once completed, can never be done over again.'—(p. 103.)

The last sentence seems to be designed as a guard against misapprehension; but we wish the restrictions with which the former passage must be taken had been stated.

There is yet another point on which we could desire greater clearness in Mr. Swainson's views. He tells us, and justly, that a complete induction from the entire statements of Scripture, in relation to a given doctrine, must yield conclusions which will harmonize all those statements; but he seems to us both to underrate, in a very extraordinary way, the principal texts, which enable us to see the meaning of the more minute and oblique proofs, and which, in fact, give us the key to the harmony he requires; but in some passages he seems to confound the complete induction from Scripture, which will warrant a given conclusion (as distinguished from one founded on certain proof texts) with that spiritual illumination which, whether a just conclusion be founded on a few decisive texts or on all, is alike needed to give us 'spiritual discernment,' to make religious truth a vital thing, animating the heart as well as enlightening the intellect. But we will first quote the passage, and afterwards make a few remarks upon it. Speaking of the proofs for our Lord's divinity, he says:—

'And here again, my dear brethren in the Lord, it seems that the call is on the spirit of man,' on his higher reason animated and guided by the Spirit of God. For this truth (the divinity of Christ) comes to us, not merely or chiefly on the testimony borne by one or two, or twenty texts of Scripture; it is not to be regarded as deduced only from the words of the evangelists or apostles of our Lord. Of course I do not deny that these texts and words are most important, or that they are fully sufficient to prove to the unbiassed and unprejudiced intellect that the Church's view is correct; but I repeat, that we require a deeper hold upon the Christian than that gained by the conviction of his intellect, we need to have his heart and his higher reason, his 'spirit' convinced also; and so we appeal to our inductive proof. We say that the truth that Christ is "God manifest in the flesh,' will alone account for hundreds of expressions that we meet with in the holy volume; that it will alone account for the holy

Authority of Scripture—what is it?

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volume itself; and so we appeal to numberless passages which bear no appreciable part in the deductive logical proof. For an instance, we take the first ten verses of the first Epistle to the Corinthians: we notice that in these ten verses the name of Christ is ten times introduced. We do not say that any one is sufficient to prove the Deity of our Lord, but we do say that several of the passages are inconsistent with any Socinian, Arian, or semi-Arian hypothesis. We ask you to apply to the language of St. Paul these hypotheses in succession, and to try whether the keys which they offer will turn in the lock of Scripture. We read, for instance, that it was to the coming of Jesus,' to the day of Jesus' (verses 7, 8), that St. Paul looked forward; that it was to the fellowship of Jesus' (v. 9) that the Corinthians had been called; that in Jesus had they been enriched with all utterance and all knowledge' (v. 5); that in Jesus had they been sanctified and set apart (v. 2); that by Jesus had the grace of God been given to them,' (v. 4); that of Jesus-not of God-did Paul call himself the apostle' (v. 1); that upon the name of Jesus Christ, 'in every place were people calling' (v. 2); that from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ,' does' grace and peace come down' (v. 3); yea, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,' as in an oath, did the apostle beseech his brethren (v. 10). The question, then, is this: will any other but the catholic faith explain these words? On any other belief but this can they be justified? And as passages such as this can be multiplied almost without limit, so to us is the testimony in favour of that belief overwhelming. Remember, I do not say this is its only proof; I do not say that the Deity of Christ was not taught by every apostle in every church; but I do say that, supposing history were silent on this subject, and every passage, such as the first verses of St. John, were disputed or lost, we have yet evidence to an overwhelming amount that the faith of the Church is true. We may, therefore, calmly discuss the questions, whether Ocós, or "Os or "O, is the reading in the passage of the letter to Timothy (1 Tim. iii. 16), or where the period closes in the fifth verse of the ninth chapter to the Romans. Our belief that Christ is God' does not hang upon these two verses.'-pp. 81, 82.

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Here we are told first that the truth of Christ's Divinity comes not to us chiefly or merely by one, two, or twenty texts of Scripture, but that we require a deeper hold upon the Christian than that gained by the conviction of the intellect. Very true; and, therefore, you would say the author must mean that a spiritual influence must apply this evidence admitted to be fully sufficient to prove to the unbiassed and unprejudiced intellect' the truth, and so apply it as to defecate the intellect from its prejudices; but no, our author proceeds to say, we appeal to induction,-to that which is in fact but an extension of the same kind of proof, and of inferior force; to 'numberless passages, which bear no appreciable part in the deductive logical proof; (though this cannot

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be said of the ten verses in 1 Cor. i., here referred to.) Surely the 'twenty texts' are a part, and a most important part, of the supposed induction;' they carry the very meaning of the numberless passages' of scarce appreciable significance in themselves; they alone enable us to see the confirmation of doctrine in the minor and oblique proofs, the validity of which is derived entirely from the plainer passages, and is read by the light of them. How the taking into the account the inappreciable part of the deductive evidence (which must itself be seen, like the rest, by the intellect) involves any spiritual efficacy which is to give a deeper hold upon the Christian than that gained by the conviction of the intellect,' we know not. The inferences from the verses in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, are surely but an indirect confirmation of the same truth still more clearly brought out by the 'twenty' plainer texts, and which, indeed, alone enable us to see that these others have their true significance in relation to the given conclusion. The perception of the harmony of these with that conclusion involves no appeal to man's higher reason,' 'the spirit,' so far as we can see. It seems to us, as we have already said, that our author confounds two things totally different; a more or less perfect 'induction' of the proofs which establish a given religious truth, and that spiritual illumination which is necessary alike (whether the mind rest contented with the two or twenty texts, or takes in the minuter elements of evidence also) to render such truth vivid and practical,-felt and active, as well as perceived and admitted. As the passage stands it would lead to the supposition that, in the author's judgment, the evidence, which was to do more than convince the intellect,' depends on the quite minor elements of the intellectual induction itself; that the passages which really carry the meaning and force of the minor passages are of little worth in comparison, and that something peculiarly spiritual,' some instrument or condition of 'spiritual discernment,' belongs to the completeness of what is in itself a purely intellectual process! For our own parts we do not think the intellectual' and the spiritual' in the matter at all thus divided; whether a man believes fully this dogma of our Lord's divinity (as the generality of men do, and as the early church did) from the twenty' plainer texts which throw light on the more obscure, and give force to the more oblique, or whether he has attained all the light of the more complete induction, to which Mr. Swainson attaches so much importance, nothing can be more obvious than that in either case (as facts too plainly prove) the most plenary intellectual conviction of the truth may co-exist with an entire

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