which have sprung the characteristic effects and tendencies of Christianity. The truth coming from God and taking full possession of the soul of Paul was this;-that there is a heavenly future, towards which we are all advancing-to which Christ has gone before us-and where he will receive to himself all the followers of truth and right on earth; and that in that eternal world, the just and merciful principles of his religion will be applied as a test of character, and determine the future condition of every son of man as he comes from his course of earthly discipline. Happy for men, that in the anticipation of that solemn futurity, they have a Father of Mercy in whom to trust, and will be tried by the principles which He taught and exemplified on earth, who was a revelation of the Father's benignity and love.

We anticipate an objection to the principles here applied, which on the ordinary theory of revelation possesses, we admit, great weight. If our minds are thus left to separate the spirit from the form, and are not bound to admit any conceptions but such as accord with our reason and moral feeling—what becomes, it may be asked, of the authority of revelation, and what evidence do we possess of the truth of doctrines, that is not ultimately derived from our own minds? To this it may be replied, that the value of a revelation is derived from that which it actually communicates and that we may accept that on the test and assurance of reason and moral feeling, which the same reason and moral feeling could not of themselves have originated. But further, the ground on which the truths of the New Testament are offered to our acceptance, is not authority-but faith-the free surrender of our hearts and wills to that which we feel to be right and true, and which reason follows up with its approval. This in fact is the great distinction between the Law and the Gospel; authority is the principle of the one, as faith is that of the other. When it is said of our Lord, that "he spake as one having authority, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees," it is clear from the context, that this refers rather to the manner than to the matter of his teachings-that he uttered his truths with the commanding earnestness of full and present conviction, and not as conclusions to be supported by the sophistical distinctions of the Rabbinical expounders of the Law.

It is of course not meant to be denied, that there are objective truths in religion-i. e. truths which have a real existence, independent of the ideas in our minds-such truths are the being of God and the reality of a future life. But these truths, notwithstanding this objective reality, can only be conceived of subjectively by us-i. e. must take their form and colour from the actual condition of the conceiving mind; neither can we attain

to any evidence respecting them, which is not ultimately subjective; in other words, derived from the mind within. A predisposition to form ideas of the invisible and spiritual world appear to belong to the original constitution of the human mind; and a consciousness of spiritual relations exist much stronger in some minds than in others. Such minds naturally acquire a religious ascendancy among men; their zeal and earnestness are contagious; they stimulate the fainter consciousness of other minds, and pour into them the light and warmth which fill their Now the feelings so excited constitute faith, and the particular direction given to them disposes the mind to contemplate religious objects under a definite point of view.

But if such feelings be the foundation of religious belief-what criterion, it may be asked, do we possess of truth, and how are we to distinguish the suggestions of the eternal spirit from the delusions of enthusiasm? Precisely in the same way that we guard against the chances of error, and look for the marks of truth-on the usual theory of revelation; by the evidences of conformity to reason and our natural sense of rectitude; by the felt and observed effects of what is thus delivered to us, on the heart and life; by the perpetuity of its influence, and its increasing power with the increasing civilization of the world; by its adaptation to transfuse its essential spirit unimpaired into various outward forms according to the changing circumstances of society. These are the outward marks and signs of a true religion-conveyed in the first instance, not by reasoning, but by the power of the spirit, into the human mind; and these all combine in Christianity. What is called the historical testimony to a religion only establishes the existence of certain facts, but cannot determine the religious interpretation of them. Different minds see the same facts in a different light. Even miracles, when the mind is fully convinced of their reality, only lend the sanction of outward authority to doctrines, the truth of which must be established on independent grounds-but cannot add to the reasonableness and credibility of the doctrines themselves. That this is the true view of miraculous sanctions appears from this simple consideration, that no such external authority, how impressive and stupendous soever, could compel the assent of a sound mind to any doctrine that was repugnant to its moral sentiments or subverted the first principles of reasoning.

When the moral standard of the human mind has been purified and fixed by the operation of the spirit of Christianity-developed and cultivated according to the principles we have now explained the more freely reason is exercised to unfold new forms, and devise higher applications for the spirit, the more active

and vigorous will religion become, and the more intimately will it blend itself with the inward life of the character. The retention of a form, whether in words or in action, when it has ceased to be expressive, when the life of conviction has gone out of it -from a fear of undermining the authority of religion-appears to me to imply a total misconception of the nature of religion, and to be the chief cause of the hollowness and conventionalism that now prevail. If we were to point to the most irreligious periods in the history of mankind, it would be precisely to those in which men had been fettered to forms, with which their free convictions had no longer any sympathy. The superstition to which our popular Protestantism is wedded, is a blind worship of the letter of Scripture-reverence for dead and senseless forms-mere Bibliolatry, as Coleridge expressively called it.

When we have grammatically ascertained the original meaning of Scripture, our task of inquiry is not yet completed; we cannot yet be reduced to the alternative of an absolute yes or no, upon the authority of the doctrine thus primarily yielded to us:

we have still to separate the form from the spirit; and an enlightened Christian will here apply the criterion of truth, which a cultivation of the spirit expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus has established in his mind. We need amongst us a more discriminative use of the Scriptures, that we may read them with an open, free, unscrupulous, and feeling mind-in the same spirit, and with the same unbiassed exercise of the understanding, as we apply to the interpretation of the works of God. We shall never thoroughly enjoy and comprehend the Scriptures, till we perceive that a large portion of them, and some parts even of the New Testament, are poetry-the highest and most glorious poetry, touching on the sublimest themes that ever inspired the lips or pen of man; and that it is only as poetry, from which all the technicalities of our dry and powerless logic must be excluded-that their true spirit can come into our hearts, and quicken the elements of a divine life within us. We cannot conceive of any thing more utterly destructive of the enjoyment of the divinest of books, or more fitted to blind the mind to a perception of its real significance-than the joyless and ungenial scrupulosity with which some commentators have gone through the sacred volume-in every page finding nothing but the reflection of their own doctrinal system, twisting, torturing, and paring down, every passage that seemed at variance with it, and converting, with remorseless cruelty, the warm and breathing life of a rich Oriental poetry, into the fixed and rigid death of the coldest European prose.

When we have embraced the principle, that it is not the form of religion, but its spirit, that giveth life—the Bible at once becomes a new book to us; the fountain of its poetry and its eloquence is unsealed, and its waters flow over into our hearts in streams of refreshing and unfailing copiousness. Through the forms of different ages and of different minds, which rise up before us in delightful and animating variety, we can trace the working and development of the one eternal spirit, which fashions all hearts and minds for its own high purposes. In the child-like simplicity of the patriarchs, in the wisdom of Moses, in the fervent thanksgivings and plaintive melodies of the psalmist, in the inspired majesty of the prophets, in the sublime devotion and philanthropy of Christ, and in the rich unction of the spirit of St. Paul-we can feel, penetrating to us through various channels, which all terminate equally in the primitive source of light -the power of that divine truth, which ever finds a ready audience and a grateful response in every pure, simple, unprejudiced and unscrupulous heart.

When the servile prejudices by which we are now fettered shall have subsided-when we shall have learned to think more of the sense intended to be conveyed, than of the manner in which it was expressed-we shall probably find it desirable and convenient (without incurring the charge of profaneness, because we cannot regard the Mosaic account of the Creation, the Song of Solomon, or the visions of the Apocalypse, of the same practical importance with the Sermon on the Mount, or Christ's parting address to his disciples) to introduce a more exact classification of the books of Scripture, for the purposes of private reading and public edification, under the different heads of history, poetry, morality, devotion, and doctrine; and recommend them to the study of our youth, and use them in our places of worship, with an intelligent reference to their contents and to their relative value and importance, that will better serve the purposes of religious instruction and true piety, than that vague sentiment of reverence with which some people recur to the Bible, as if its mere words exercised a sort of mystical influence, apart from the spirit of truth and wisdom which breathes in them.

Amidst the apparent tenacity with which different sects adhere to their hereditary faith, traces may still be discovered of a preparation for a more enlarged and catholic conception of Christianity. To its realization a freer use of the Scriptures is indispensable. The point of union which all good men are seeking after, is not to be found in the letter, but in the spirit; not in the caput mortuum of creeds and confessions and worn out con

troversies, but in the living power of a hearty faith and universal love-prepared to adore a Father's presence in all things, and to reverence his image, as a title to honour and affection, in every child of man.

Meanwhile, it is the inevitable condition of such a state of transition, that great and perhaps painful differences of opinion should arise between the best men and the sincerest lovers of truth. To some we shall appear to be advancing too rapidly; to others, to be lingering behind. Let every man be true to his own convictions, and fearlessly do that which his conscience tells him is right. We are at best but instruments in the hands of a higher Power; and all he asks from us, is fidelity of purpose and endeavour in the exercise of such talents as he has entrusted to us. Children of the same Father, fellow-workers in the same great scheme of moral and intellectual discipline-let us not aggravate the toils and difficulties of our course by mutual distrust and alienation for differences of opinion, which God has decreed should exist, and which it is impossible for man to prevent. Let us possess our minds with a supreme love of truth, and a steadfast confidence in its final results; and let us esteem in each other that earnest desire to discover it, which we trust exists in ourselves ;-convinced that, if we live and act in this spirit, we shall each fulfil the particular task of duty assigned us by God, and that, when this short life is over and gone, we shall meet as fellow-labourers under happier influences, and in a wider field of activity, where no differences of opinion and collision of interest shall ever more interrupt the friendship and the sympathy of the virtuous, but every effort they make, and every aspiration they indulge, will be directed by the light of heavenly certainty, and cheered by the influences of pure and unbounded love.

J. J. T.