some of the chief doctrines of the Gospel revelation have been enumerated; before entering, however, into the particular subjects to be discussed, it may be right briefly to enumerate the revealed doctrines according to the Catholic, that is the antirationalistic notion of them. They are these: the Holy Trinity ; the Incarnation of the Eternal Son; His atonement and merits; the Church as the medium and instrument through which He operates on the world in the communication of them; the Sacraments, and Sacramentals, (as Bishop Taylor calls them,) as the principal channels through which His merits are applied to individuals; Regeneration, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of the body, consequent upon their administration; and lastly, our faith and works, as a condition of the availableness and success of these divine appointments. Each of these doctrines is a Mystery; that is, each stands in a certain degree isolated from the rest, unsystematic, connected with the rest by unknown intermediate truths, and bearing upon subjects unknown. Thus the Atonement, why it was necessary, how it operates, is a Mystery; that is, the heavenly truth which is revealed, extends on each side of it into an unknown world. We see but the skirts of God's glory in it. The virtue of the Holy Communion; how it conveys to us the body and blood of the Incarnate Son crucified, and how by partaking it body and soul are made spiritual. The Communion of Saints; in what sense they are knit together into one body of which Christ is the head. Good works; how they, and how prayers again, influence our eternal destiny. In like manner what our relation is to the innumerable company of Angels, some of whom, as we are told, minister to us; what to the dead in Christ, the spirits of the just perfected, who are ever joined to us in a heavenly communion; what bearing the Church has upon the fortunes of the world, or, it may be, the universe.

That there are some such mysterious bearings, not only the incomplete character of the Revelation, but even its documents assure us. For instance. The Christian dispensation was ordained, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the Church the

manifold wisdom of God." Eph. iii. 10. Such is its relation to the Angels. Again to lost spirits: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places." Eph. vi. 12. In like manner our Lord says, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" the Church, Matt. xvi. 18. implying thereby a contest. Again in writing the following text, had not St. Paul thoughts in his mind, suggested by the unutterable sights of the third heaven, but to us unrevealed and unintelligible? "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us (that is the Church,) "from the love of God, which is in CHRIST JESUS our LORD." Rom. viii. 38, 39.

The practical inference to be drawn from this view is, first, that we should be very reverent in dealing with revealed truth; next, that we should avoid all theorising and systematising as relates to it, which is pretty much what looking into the ark was under the Law further, that we should be solicitous to hold it safely and entirely; moreover, that we should be zealous and pertinacious in guarding it; and lastly, which is implied in all these, that we should religiously adhere to the form of words and the ordinances under which it comes to us, through which it is revealed to us, and apart from which the revelation does not exist, there being nothing else given us by which to ascertain or enter into it.

Striking indeed is the contrast presented to this view of the Gospel, by the popular theology of the day! That theology is as follows;-that the Atonement is the chief doctrine of the Gospel ;-again, that it is chiefly to be regarded, not as a wonder in heaven, and in its relation to the attributes of God and the unseen world, but in its experienced effects on our minds, in the change it effects where it is believed. On this, as on the horizontal line in a picture, all the portions of the Gospel system are placed and made to converge; as if it might fearlessly be used to regulate, adjust, correct, complete, every thing else. Thus, the doctrine of the Incarnation is viewed as necessary and important

to the Gospel, because it gives sacredness to the Atonement; of the Trinity, because it includes the revelation, not only of the Redeemer, but also of the Sanctifier, by whose aid and influence the Gospel message is to be blessed to us. It follows that faith is nearly the whole of religion, for through it the message or Manifestation is received; on the other hand, the scientific language of Catholicism is disparaged, as having no tendency to enforce the operation of the revelation of the Atonement on our minds, and the Sacraments are limited to the office of representing, and promising, and impressing on us the promise of divine influences, in no measure of conveying them. Thus the Dispensation is practically identified with its Revelation or rather Manifestation. Not that the reality of the Atonement is formally denied, but it is cast in the back ground, except so far as it can be discovered to be influential, viz. to show God's hatred of sin, the love of CHRIST and the like; and there is an evident tendency to consider it as a mere Manifestation of the love of CHRIST, to the denial of all real virtue in it as an expiation for sin; as if His death took place, merely to show His love for us, as a sign of God's infinite mercy, to calm and assure us, without any real connexion existing between it and God's forgiveness of our sins. And the dispensation thus being hewn and chiselled into an intelligible human system, is represented, when thus mutilated, as affording a remarkable evidence of the truth of the Bible, an evidence level to the reason, and superseding the testimony of the Apostles. That is, according to the above observations, that Rationalism, or want of faith, which has first invented a spurious gospel, next looks complacently on its own offspring, and pronounces it to be the very image of that notion of the Divine Providence according to which it was originally modelled; a procedure, which, besides more serious objections, incurs the logical absurdity of arguing in a circle.

§ 2. Remarks on Mr. Erskine's "Internal Evidence."

THIS is in fact pretty nearly Mr. Erskine's argument in his Internal Evidence an author, concerning whom personally I have no wish to use one harsh word, not doubting that he is better than his own doctrine, and is only the organ, eloquent and ingenious, of unfolding a theory, which it has been his unhappiness to mistake for the Catholic faith revealed in the Gospel. Let us now turn to the Essay in question.

Mr. Erskine begins in the following words:

"There is a principle in our nature, which makes us dissatisfied with unexplained and unconnected facts; which leads us to theorize all the particulars of our knowledge, or to form in our minds some system of causes sufficient to explain or produce the effects which we see; and which teaches us to believe or disbelieve in the truth of any system which may be presented to us, just as it appears adequate or inadequate to afford that explanation of which we are in pursuit. We have an intuitive perception, that the appearances of nature are connected by the relation of cause and effect; and we have also an instinctive desire to classify and arrange the seemingly confused mass of facts with which we are surrounded, according to this distinguishing relationship." pp. 1, 2.

He then speaks of two processes of reasoning which the mind uses in searching after truth.

"When we are convinced of the real existence of a cause in nature, and when we find that a class of physical facts is explained by the supposition of this cause, and tallies exactly with its ordinary operation, we resist both reason and instinct when we resist the conviction that this class of facts does result from this cause." p. 2.

Again:

"There is another process of reasoning... by which, instead of ascending from effects to a cause, we descend from a cause to effects. When we are once convinced of the existence of a cause, and are acquainted with its ordinary mode of operation, we are prepared to give a certain degree of credit to a

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Mr. Erskine's main Argument, as grounded on the notion

history of other effects attributed to it, provided we can trace the connexion between them." p. 3.

Presently he says,

"In [all] these processes of reasoning we have examples of conviction, upon an evidence which is, most strictly speaking, internal,—an evidence altogether independent of our confidence in the veracity of the narrator of the facts." p. 8.

Now, before explaining the precise argument he draws from the contents of Scripture, be it observed, that in these passages, he countenances the principle of "believing or disbelieving in the truth of any system which may be presented to us," according as it contains in it or not, a satisfactory adjustment of causes to effects, the question of testimony being altogether superseded. Accordingly he says a little further on of the Apostles; "Their system is true in the nature of things, even were they proved to be impostors." p. 17. And it will appear from other passages of his work, that he does not hesitate to receive the other alternative contained in the original proposition with which he opens it, viz. that that professed revelation is to be rejected, which implies a system of causes and effects incongruous in man's judgment with each other. To proceed :

His argument is as follows:

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"The first faint outline of Christianity," he says, 'presents to us a view of GOD operating on the characters of men through a manifestation of His own character, in order that, by leading them to participate in some measure of His moral likeness, they may also in some measure participate of His happiness." p. 12.

Again :

"If the actions attributed to God, by any system of religion, be really such objects as, when present to the mind, do not stir the affections at all, that religion cannot influence the character, and is therefore utterly useless." p. 23.

"The object of Christianity is to bring the character of man into harmony with that of God." p. 49.

"The reasonableness of a religion seems to me to consist in there being a direct and natural connexion between a believing the doctrines which it inculcates, and a being formed by these to the character which it recommends. If the belief of the doctrines has no tendency to train the disciple in a more exact and more willing discharge of its moral obligations, there is evidently a very strong probability against the truth of that religion. . .. . What is the history of another world to me, unless it have some intelligible relation to my duties or happiness?" p. 59.

Now in these passages there is, first, this great assumption,