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revulsion. If there has been any divine utterance on earth which can really be distinguished as such, this theory is wrong. Its God is a God that cannot speak, and that imparts, not light but darkness,' not in the way of dispensation, and in an improper sense of the word, but literally and in his ordinary manifestations. We common Christians think it more reverent, more philosophical, and more intelligible, to ascribe absolute perfection to the Almighty, and to His acts toward man, and to believe that He permits imperfection and even contradiction in His works, yet always overrules the acts of every finite will to His own all-wise purpose. Certainly there is no proof to the contrary adduced in the work before us; rather the evident shifts to which the author is put, when he would bring down revealed truth to a level with human imaginations, serve to establish the fact that truth differs not only in measure and degree, but in kind and in its essential conditions, from the semblances of revelation which are found in erroneous systems of religion. At the same time what is acknowledged is good against the destructive hypothesis, as a fact which requires to be accounted for, and the most rational account of which may be that of a divine reality and a divine truth.

These restrictions are not, perhaps, adhered to by modern Jews, because it is supposed they are not now required; but they are sufficient to prove the fact of an interdict upon Israelitish art, for they forbid the exercise of artistic talent in its most exalted forms.

'But this restriction was not absolute, neither does it apply to all the arts, for this would have reduced the people to barbarism. In poetry and music the Hebrews not only enjoyed great latitude, but their religion was adapted for enriching these noble arts with the most sublime and beautiful imagery and melody. The sacred music of the Hebrews is, no doubt, the source of that of the whole Christian world. Our own sublimest songs and strains may be traced back to the Temple and the Tabernacle. There is nothing more elevated in the whole world of poetry than the Hebrew Psalmody. Modern poetry only reaches the sublime, by using the imagery of the ancient model. "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully; he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob! Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle." The grandeur of such a pæan as this so greatly surpasses that of all pagan songs in honour of gods or heroes, or the pretty juvenilities of amorous passion, employed in the worship of Divine Humanities, amongst the heathen, that it could not fail to give an elevation of mind to the sages of Israel of a very peculiar character, amid the surrounding poetry of the nations. And nothing has ever yet surpassed it. The richest subjects for modern oratorios are still to be found in the history of Israel, and the richest phraseology in the writings of the Hebrews. They stood on the summit of the mountain. They sang the praises of the Eternal One. The

highest idea is that One, and we have not yet discovered a phraseology or an imagery more perfect than theirs to describe His perfections, or exalt our ideas of His greatness. Mingled as it is with great and self-evident imperfections from which our feelings revolt-such as curses uttered against enemies, and fearful representations of God as a man of war delighting in battle-perfectly intelligible and beautiful in the estimation of the ancients, but requiring translation into a higher meaning to give satisfaction to modern feelings-there is, notwithstanding, nothing of our own that we can substitute in preference; for the Psalmody of the Hebrews occupies the throne of music, and even its very defects must be treated with reverence, until its final translation be effected by a successor as highly commissioned and authoritative as itself. It comes from the Mount, and only another mountain, elevated still higher, on the tops of all mountains, can ever supersede the native mountain of sacred music.'—Pp. 80-82.

There is nothing said in the Psalms of the Lord as a Man of War,' from which our feelings need revolt. While there is evil to war against, war there must be, and God will have His servants fight withal, and will fight for them.

However strong the faith of Reformers that God was with them, the faith of the Catholics was equally strong, and justified by facts, that He was on the side of the absolute, conservative principle. God is universal. He is on both sides of every debateable question. He is both in the desert and in the field; for wherever there is a portion of truth He is there; and He cannot forsake it, nor leave it utterly desolate. Now, no cause is without a portion of truth; hence the moral necessity for fluctuation, and the ebbing and flowing of success and failure in all great controversies.'Pp. 461, 462.

There were sincere and good men in all parties, Catholic and Protestant, in the great struggle of the Reformation-men actuated by strong faith and the martyr spirit, and therefore men who were justified by their faith according to the standard doctrine of Protestantism, when unexplained by a critical restriction. But as Protestant divines could never agree about this critical restriction, and as we have seen that there is none to the doctrine of Justification by Faith in the Bible, the most charitable meaning that can be put upon the doctrine is this: that whensoever a man believes that he is doing right, he is justified in his conduct. This justifies all sincere men and parties, and God himself assumes the responsibility of the government of the world. "He bears our sins in his own body."'-Pp. 475, 476.

There is something rather more revolting to a religious mind in this justification of human aberrations, than in the assertion of God's right to war against and exterminate evil, and the consent of His saints to that work, fearful as it is. Surely even the Old Testament view of the great battle-field of the world is more intelligible and more rational than the notion that men are simply set to fight for principles one by one, and that there is no divine system which combines all principles of truth, which is the thing they ought to fight for. If fighting were wrong, God could be on neither side, except in defence. Doubtless there is a truth, even in this view, but it is distorted and exaggerated in a far higher degree than that of the Jewish com

batant for Judaism against the world. We do not want any false hypothesis; we do not want any substantial indifference of systems, in order to find place for charity. If thine enemy 'hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing 'thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.' God is for the right, and vengeance is with Him; He will repay. But the lesson to be learned from this is as the spirit of the learner. God teaches us as we are able. What we learn, now, from this truth is, to pity one who does us wrong, and desire his repentance that he may be saved. Under the law the doctrine of peace and love was not made clear, yet it was practised in some measure by God's servants; where a different spirit prevailed, it was of man, and not of God. His severity was indeed shown forth, but it was needed, and it was ill for those who were fiercer against their own enemies than against His. The execution of righteous judgment in God's name does not make men vindictive. A commission of judgment may in some degree harden a heart which is already hard; but even this is rather the consequence of inattention to the true principle of judgment than of the act of executing it. The Israelite was commanded to execute judgment on his nearest relative or friend for certain offences; and had he done so faithfully, he would have learned a lesson not unfavourable to gentleness and humanity. He would have learned to unite pity with severity, and they would not have been so easily separated afterwards. It is easy to trace a humane feeling, for instance, in the judgment of Achan, although his punishment was severe and strictly executed. The same appears in the final result of the war of Benjamin; and after all that has been said of the cruelties and the vindictive spirit of the ancient Hebrews, we suspect that the counsellors of Benhadad said no more than truth when they suggested to him in his extremity that the kings of Israel were merciful kings.

The principle of mercy is not wrought out by mere latitudinarianism, or indifference to offences against religion; it has been gradually matured by that very religion which is unjustly charged with delaying its progress. The work of religion has been from the very first to separate judgment from man's revenge, and in so doing to reduce the vindictive feelings within narrower and narrower limits. Here and there, even down to our own times, will be found those who have stood up for the wrath of man on principle, and have maintained that its exercise was lawful, and even laudable, to an extent which is shocking to civilised ears. Some of their paradoxes, indeed, come very near to truth, for the vindictive principle is not without its ground in truth; but so far as they have been wrong, their error has arisen not from believing in judgment, but from some

prejudice which has made them apply their belief in Divine judgment, and in man's duty of concurrence, to the wrong cases and occasions, or in the wrong measure and degree. A good hater' is better, after all, than an indifferent person, who has no great love for what is good, and consequently no great horror of its opposite. All that he requires is to have his hatred rightly directed, and whenever there is room for it, to learn to hate the evil principle, rather than the unhappy person who may be considered in a manner its victim rather than its representative. Surely the Spirit which could foresee the future, so as to utter all the mysterious hints and foreshadowing representations of things, which Mr. Smith quotes with apparent belief, must have had power to foresee the higher meanings which would in coming ages be put by analogy upon the Psalms of David. If the words of the Old Testament really contain the meanings in which he constantly quotes them, most certain it is that the whole Bible is a work of one vast counsel, extending through a course of centuries. And if this is so, there is but one source from which that counsel can have come, to be right, consistent, and true. It is certain that the Prophets did not comprehend it. And if not, who made them say more than they comprehended? Was it analogy? But who made that analogy? Who gave the impulse to speak, so as constantly to hint at that analogy? We do not think that those who allow the mysterious coincidences of prophecy can be very philosophically consistent, without allowing also a God who can hold actual, moral, and intellectual converse with men. Even the typical analogies between the structure of the human skeleton and that of the whale, are more rationally explained as proceeding from an infinite Intelligence, to which the type is clearly present, than as elaborated by a kind of crystallisation from unconscious matter, moved by the impulse of some undefined vital tendency independent of any distinct mental action. And so the mysterious shadowings and reflections of events far distant in time, in the prophetic visions and utterances, are not to be accounted for save by a Power which can, if it will, speak plainly to man, and tell him what to hope, what to fear, and what to do. They imply an act of that power, at least, in the direction of such communication, and, so far as they are truly apprehended, extending to a species of such communication.

He allows, and even maintains, that the moral law communicated to Moses was an absolute Divine Law, and that the Bible is full of prophetic hints, at least of things to come. His book places events before us in such a light as to make it very difficult to a fair mind to resist the conviction that it is so indeed. Then why not acknowledge, further, the absolute truth.

of the Christian doctrine? The reason seems to be, that nothing can be absolute to the rational man which is not based on grounds within his own nature. The Gospel implies facts of history. Can our faith depend upon these? The moral law is absolute; it approves itself to the conscience. The belief in universal Providence is absolute; it appeals to the individual reason. But the creeds assert a number of facts known only by testimony, and can therefore have no such certain basis within the mind. The final unitary faith which is to banish sectarianism must be something more universal, must not stand in need of any such helps, must take its rise in the free action of the human faculties amongst themselves, and not be perplexed and disturbed by dogmas.

This is plausible in one way, but in another way it goes against all reason and experience. It is plausible, as it pretends to promise man a perfectly clear ground for all his most important convictions. It is against experience and against reason, as it separates his belief from his history, and makes his religion independent of facts. Now, all progressive religion, all that comes into the course of human development with any powerful operation, is founded on facts, and acknowledges what God has done in past times for the species, or for some part of it which has been chosen to receive His influences. Yet, for the final state of religion, we are to throw off our belief in the acts which God has done, even because they were done amongst us and in our sight! The history of our race affords sufficient evidence that it is man's nature to believe, and to be taught historically, and, through such teaching and such faith, to make progress in morals and in wisdom. The history of prophecy makes it clear that this progress is not fortuitous, but preordained by One who foreknows the result, and has foretold it. And we have such evidence as man can have of events long past, that God has spoken to us in an articulate revelation, and by acts as well as words. But the freedom of man requires that it should not be so, and refuses to submit to any articulate faith. A faith that is articulate will be refused by some, and therefore cannot be universal.

'It is the Law that makes Israel. Wherever the Divine Moral Law is,. and wherever it is united with faith in its Divinity, and revered and obeyed by the conscience as the rule of life, there is Israel, the unitary people restored and gathered, the lost ones found, the scattered ones collectedthe one Church and the one Temple. This is the people to whom all the promises were made. They were not made to the Gentiles and the divisional, disruptive nations. Search, and see if you can find a promise to any but the one united and at last universal and sole nation. It is impossible. God could not make a promise to antagonistic nations. To Israel only the promises are made. The Gentiles become one with it by the Common Faith and the Common Law, and to those who are not collected.

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