is, that in man's regeneration, the work man has to do is the personal work of his own victory over bad habits, and as he accomplishes this, with divine help, the Saviour purifies his motives and his sentiments, and makes him a new man.

The Lord Jesus was a Divine Man, interiorly divine from the first of His life in the world, but clothed with our impure nature from the mother, that He might live as a man, be tempted in all points as we are, and do the work of God-man; redeem the world, found his Church anew, and glorify His Humanity, so that He might be a Redeemer for ever: for ever have the keys of hell and of death (Rev i. 18).

As the Lord finished this external work, the work He had given Him to do, so GLORIFICATION proceeded within. In Him Divine Truth descended first, the Word was made flesh. Divine Truth dictated and inspired in the Human degree of our Lord's mind all His works of deliverance, of mercy, of tenderness and love. His Word cast out the devils, His Word healed the sick, His Word stilled the tempest, His Word founded His Church, His Word cleared the intermediate spiritworld, for the Word is quick and powerful, and sharper than a twoedged sword (Heb. iv. 12). His fan was in His hand, and He thoroughly purged His floor (Matt. iii. 15). He beheld Satan like lightning fall from heaven, and gave His disciples power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy. These were the works He had to do, and as these works were effected, so the inner glorification of His manhood followed and was accomplished. They were the works which Divine Love demanded to have done, and they could only be done by a Divine Man, Jehovah clothed with a human natural mind (a psyche) and human body: but, with such a human mind and body as had a Divine element in them, because the Divinity was their Father, and which therefore could be glorified, so as to be completely one with the Interior Divine, the Father Jehovah.

man.

The connection between the Father and the Son in the Lord, was like the connection of the spiritual mind and the natural mind in a The work of regeneration takes place in man's natural mind in proportion as he obeys the Lord's commandments. The work of glorification took place in the Lord's natural mind and body, in proportion as He effected His Divine victories over the powers of darkness, and thus redeemed the world. The Lord's consciousness while He was performing the work of redemption was in His natural mind, as man's consciousness during his spiritual struggles, and indeed during his whole life in the world, is in his natural mind. The spirit

ual mind is within, in man, but as a mind that supplies power to all below, it imperceptibly suggests the ideas, sensations and efforts of the natural mind, which derives all its power from the spiritual mind, though it modifies it in itself.

The Father, who was within the Lord, did the works He performed (John xiv. 10), but did them by infusing secretly and imperceptibly all the power, the perceptions, the emotions, the ideas, the desires and appetites of the Man Divine.

When the Lord said, "Now is My soul (psyche) troubled," it was the natural mind that was troubled. Temptation could penetrate there, for there Jehovah could meet the iniquity of us all (Isa. liii. 6). When the Lord said, "I lay down my life (psyche) that I might take it again" (John x. 17), it was the life of the natural mind which was subdued and purified, and then filled with divine life, and so glorified and taken again. Thus the human and the divine in the Lord became one,—one Divine Person,-One self, as declared in the second verse quoted above: "Glorify Thou Me with Thine OWNSELF." The same truth is expressed when we read, "If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in HIMSELF, and shall straightway glorify Him" (John xiii. 32).

In the Old Testament, the works of redemption and salvation are usually attributed directly to Jehovah alone, yet always either expressly or impliedly by means of a Divine Humanity. "For thy Maker is thine husband; Jehovah of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel: the God of the whole earth shall He be called" (Isa. liv. 5). "Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father, our Redeemer; Thy name is from everlasting" (Isa. lxiii. 16). "I, even I, am Jehovah, and beside Me there is no Saviour" (Isa. xliii. 11). "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else" (Isa. xliii. 21).

Yet redemption and salvation are always to be accomplished by the assumption of humanity. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace" (Isa. ix. 6). "A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel" (Isa. vii. 14). "A MAN shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isa. xxxii. 2). "In that day there shall be a ROOT OF JESSE, which shall stand for an ensign of the

people to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious." (Isa. xi. 10).

"Thus saith God Jehovah, He that created the heavens, and stretched them out: He that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it: He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I Jehovah have called THEE in righteousness, and will hold thine hand and keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles: to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house. I am Jehovah; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another” (Isa. xlii. 5-8).

All these declarations, and indeed all the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the Advent of our Lord, teach that Jehovah would Himself effect the redemption of the world; which was a work equally divine with the creation of the world; and He would redeem by assuming and glorifying HUMAN NATURE. In that nature, He would be a Divine Man in the last and lowest conditions of Humanity, even to the very body; as He had from eternity been a Divine Man, as to His Infinite Love and Wisdom. Men would then learn more truly and tenderly to adore their God than before; because He had become God manifest. He was no longer the hidden Deity, above human thought, but Love immeasurable and embodied; Jesus Christ the Redeemer. In His Human character, and as a Man, He had Divine Human works to do, and in the words which are before us, He declares He had finished them.

His Divine Human works are enumerated on several occasions. They are the labours of mercy and pity announced by Himself when He commenced His ministry. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon ME, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18). These works, in their fullest significance, He had done. He had preached the Gospel, bringing good tidings to all people, to the poorest in heart and in portion; to Jew and Gentile. He had healed the broken-hearted; the children of sorrow, whether suffering in body or in mind, had obtained His compassion and His help. He had even raised the dead. He had raised dead bodies, as a symbol that dead souls could be quickened by Him, and being quickened and believing, they would never die. The captives of the powers of darkness were

delivered. The blind in body and in soul were blessed with new and hallowed light, and all the bruised, the weak, the heavy-laden, and the despairing, heard a blessed voice inviting them to accept refuge and hope, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary, and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

These works the Divine Man had finished. I HAVE FINISHED THE WORK THOU HAST GIVEN ME to do. He had not finished His suffering. This would only be finished on the Cross. But His sufferings were not given from the Father; they were from sin in its varied forms. These sufferings would be more than mortal could bear. A purity ineffable had to be brought into contact with iniquities most loathsome, and most terrible. Crowds of those described as bulls, dogs, and lions, would compass Him about. The assembly of the wicked would enclose Him. They would pierce his hands and His feet (Psa. xxii. 12, 13, 16, 20). But the pains they inflicted were not from the Father. And hence He says, the work the Father had given Him to do HE Yet He had not sustained that suffering on the Cross, which so many at the present day imagine was the sole purpose of His coming into the world, to satisfy the Father; and which they say is the only object of the sinner's hope.

HAD DONE.

J. B.

RATIONALISM WITH ITS AIMS, AND REASON WITH ITS DUTIES, IN RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

(Continued from page 22).

THE scholars of Germany who have ranged themselves on the side of rationalism have not been a united body: they have had no common creed to influence their inquiries. The independence of their minds would not permit them to be trammelled by a symbol. The only thing on which they appear to have been agreed was their determination to see, if possible, where the truth lay amidst the many astounding departments of theological teaching. Hence there have been a Philosophical Rationalism, a Literary Rationalism, and a Critical Rationalism. It is from this latter that some of the sentiments of faith (which Church authority and common credence had supposed to have been settled) have received their chief shocks; the others may have followed with some aid, but it is critical rationalism which has wielded the power in which the greatest danger to conventional Christianity is supposed to reside. This is the form in which rationalism has invaded England,

and fascinated a considerable number, not only of Anglican clergymen but educated laymen. Professor Jowett and Bishop Colenso are among its living representatives. Disciples of this school have published some of the results to which their criticisms have conducted them. They may not be agreed about these results; nevertheless, they have all become more or less detached from the orthodoxy of ages, but hold no one responsible for their opinion but themselves.

Still, as a system of thought brought to bear upon Christian teaching, it says to the Church that the final test of truth must be placed in human consciousness, obtained either by logical deduction, moral judgment, or religious intuition. Its adherents do not think they are bound to maintain that a Divine revelation of religious truth is impossible. Neither are they prepared to deny that such a revelation has been accomplished. If any admit that such a revelation has been provided in the Bible, they claim to accept only those portions of it as of permanent authority which may have been submitted to the tribunal of reason and consciousness, and pronounced to be true by their decision.

This is the position with which they approach the Church and the documents on which she professes to be founded. They claim the widest liberty of thought, and refuse to be bound, in matters of faith, by anything outside the intellectual authority they have set up. Of course, they know that reason, conscience, and intuition are faculties which have no uniform activity among mankind, and also that they differ in their quality in every individual, according to the state of his education, habits, and genius. But they do not seem to think of this knowledge as embarrassing their position. Those differences are not considered to be of such a nature as to fatally affect the authority of such faculties, when engaged in contemplating the great question set before them in Holy Scripture. For it is urged that Revelation, to be of any use to mankind, should be conformable to reason, and that its believers admit this in some measure when they say that its most difficult subjects are not contrary to reason, but simply above its reach.

Such being the ground on which rationalists approach Revelation, they at once come into collision with the supernatural. They not only contest the Divine origin of the Sacred Books, the truth of some of their histories, the reality of much of their prophecy, but they take special exception to the miraculous element in them which so frequently appears. They admit, in common with those who accept the Bible as the sole authority in matters of the Christian religion, that God cannot be thought of except on the supposition that He has made a revelation