ing prerogative; but by way of leading the natural mind as near as can be to the truth as it is in Jesus; and by way of furnishing fellow-believers, who may have reflected less upon the subject than he himself has, with the means of meeting the cavils, and answering the objections, of ungodly men. The author knows well, and all who with him believe the gospel know well likewise, that faith is itself the evidence to us of the truth of the divine testimony, Heb. xi. 1; 1 John v. 10, 11; and that, so far from any one's naturally understanding that testimony implying his belief in it, it is only by our believing in it that we truly and spiritually understand it. 1 Cor. ii. 14. It is not by understanding we believe, but it is by believing we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Heb. xi. 3. Merely verbal as, to the natural mind, this distinction must ever appear to be, it is nevertheless, as all believers know, a most important one. And yet, the moment it is once fully apprehended, that faith or belief is the turning point at which the views of the mind change from natural to spiritual, how clear is it, that the belief, and the knowledge or understanding of divine things, are necessarily synonymous terms. Thenceforward, we find no difficulty in conceiving why it is, that belief and knowledge are used interchange

d

ably throughout the sacred volume. Isaiah liii. 11; Mat. xiii. 23; John xvii. 3; 1 John v. 19, 20.

Perhaps the meaning of the last paragraph, and of the following work itself, will be more readily apprehended, if the author observe, that the essential distinction between the natural and the spiritual mind is, that the former is mind accommodated to and overcome by material objects and present circumstances; whereas the latter is mind overcoming material objects and present circumstances, and accommodating them to itself. In other words, the natural mind is passive, being subjected to present circumstances; whereas the spiritual mind is active, as triumphing over present circumstances. 1 John v. 4, 5; see also, Heb. xi, throughout, and Rom. viii. 3, 4. When a man, then, understands divine truth naturally, his mind brings down divine truth to the level of its own natural notions of things; that is, not understanding divine truth as such, it does not understand it at all: but when divine truth is understood spiritually, being understood as divine truth or as what it is, it elevates the mind to the level of itself; or, rather, it becomes itself in the mind a new, divine, and spiritual understanding. A natural understanding of divine truth, is no understanding of it at all; nothing deserving to be regarded as the understanding of divine truth,

but the understanding of it as divine truth, that is, faith in it as of divine origin. 1 Thess. ii. 13; see also, Mat. xiii. 23, compared with 19-22.

The man who, taught from above, is able to comprehend the view just presented, will at once perceive why it is, that the author insists so much on divine truth not receiving its evidence from without, but containing its evidence in itself; and carrying that evidence home to the conscience of every one, by whom it is in reality understood.

But, quitting every thing that has even the remotest appearance of metaphysics, the author would observe, that as the cross of Christ is the constant subject of his own glorying before God, so is he desirous to keep it before the minds of his readers, as the only fitting subject of theirs. And as all who glory in that cross are Christians indeed, by whatever names they may be known among men, and however lightly they may be esteemed by the world, so with all such he desires to claim spiritual kindred, and to engage in spiritual communion. But he puts away from him with disgust, the idea of having any religious fellowship with those, who virtually deny the cross of Christ by alleging, that, although believed in by them, it has left them labouring under doubts and fears respecting their own personal

purgation from all sin. The fearful, and the unbelieving, are enumerated along with the other characters, who have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; Rev. xxi. 8; and as the author, being neither fearful nor unbelieving in regard to the perfection of Christ's work, and the consequent gift to himself personally of life everlasting, 1 John v. 11, has no communion of feeling or fate with such persons, he leaves them to seek for and derive sympathy from the naturally religious portion of that world, to which, whatever may be their pretensions to piety, they prove themselves by their scepticism never yet to have ceased to belong.*

Let not the sentiments avowed in these volumes, be the means of compromising any man or body of men. Such as these sentiments are, they are the author's own. He alone is responsible for them. He protests, especially, against the highly respectable body of Scotch Universalists being involved in any condemnation which he himself may incur. Contending so strenuously as he does for the doctrine of election ;-nay, glorying in the fact, that but a small number of the human race, comparatively speaking, either have known or shall know the joyful sound; Matt. xi. 25—27 ;—he is aware,

The character of such persons is thus admirably described by the apostle : ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Tim. iii. 7.

that he must be regarded by many who profess Universalism as holding sentiments, dreadfully inconsistent with the nature, and calculated to impede the progress, of the cause. But he cannot help his views with regard to this matter. The same scriptures which, shewing him that the reign of sin is destined to be swallowed up in and superseded by the reign of grace, satisfy him that the unregenerate part of the human race shall ultimately be created anew through the Son of God; satisfy him, likewise, that very few human beings are fore-known, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified. Rom. viii. 29, 30; Matt. vii, 13, 14; Peter iii. 20. Indeed, the election of God's people which, although always regarded by the author as a true, was nevertheless once to him a gloomy and repulsive doctrine, is now felt by him to be peculiarly sweet and refreshing: the circumstance of a few human beings not perishing, but having everlasting life, being seen by him to be the grand, the indispensable medium, through which the love of his Heavenly Father ultimately reaches to and embraces all. John iii. 16. 17; James i. 18.

Many Universalists, he is likewise aware, will object to his representation of the personal certainty of everlasting life being the characteristic feature of genuine Christianity. This he cannot help. Opposition from