Large measures of holiness are a necessary qualification for distinguished usefulness. The great end for which the people of God were created and redeemed, is attained in proportion to their increase in holiness. Some Christians accomplish very little for the honour of God in the world. They are little better than withered branches, and unfruitful trees in a well cultivated field. And but for here and there a leaf they show, or some solitary cluster of grapes when the vintage is over, they would be cumberers of the ground. "Herein is my Father glorified," saith the Lord Jesus, "that ye bear much fruit." Would we put honour on the name of the Great God, our Saviour; would we redeem the pledge given to him in our self consecration to his service; would we be something more than cyphers in his redeemed creation; we must press toward the mark of the prize of our high calling. Many eyes are upon the saints of God; and as they are quickened in their course, or become languid and weary, so religion is honoured or disgraced. They are a "spectacle to God, angels, and men;" and their fidelity and diligence will be commended and applauded, or their inertness and unconcern will be censured and accused. O then with what unexhausted, exhaustless, ardour ought we to run the heavenly race! With what moral heroism ought we to fight the good fight of faith! With what high and holy ambition, ought our bosoms to be fired in aiming at the crown? There is no danger of excess in this enterprise. If pious men were as active in the pursuit of holiness, as wicked men are in the pursuit of sin, how would they be hurried forward from one degree of grace to another! how would the glory of the Great Supreme become the end of all their conduct! how would the lustre of piety shine on this ungodly world! how would the tribute of praise be brought to their redeeming God and King from afar! how would they make it manifest to the world, that they had not as yet gained their object, and that their sacred and loftiest desires were unsatisfied till "Christ were magnified in them, whether it be by life or by death!"

I will also remark, that large measures of holiness, ensure a large reward in the future world. If such is the economy of divine grace that no holy affection or act will be unrewarded hereafter, how immeasurably urgent the encouragement to aim at high spiritual attain

ments! The most holy man will have the largest capacity for joy; will be the best fitted for the presence and service of God, for the fellowship and society of holy beings, and for the employments and felicity of that spiritual and sinless state of existence. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Every new attainment in holiness here, is the commencement of a series of causes, every one of which, in eternal succession, is productive of effects, rich in joy, and elevating in their influence on the mind. There will indeed be no wandering star in the celestial firmament, and all shall shine there in the beauties of holiness: but yet one star" will "differ from another star in glory;" while those who have shone the brightest here, will be most brilliant, and move in the largest orbit there. No doubt there are methods within the resources of his own wisdom by which the Moral Governour of the Universe can express the delight he takes in holiness in direct proportion to the degree in which it exists in the soul. To some who were eminently holy and self denying men, Jesus once said, "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom." Some there will be who will "sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." As it is impossible for us to predict all the ruinous effects of sin, as they are no doubt indefinitely diffused and extended throughout eternity; so we know not all the happy effects of holiness, diffusing and extending themselves immeasurably and forever. As the most sinful man will be the most miserable, so the most holy man will be the most happy. Who then will have respect to this high reward? Who will stretch forth his desires for this infinite recompense? Who will fix his eye on the brightest jewel in heaven's diadem? Whose bosom will glow with irrepressible desire for the purest pearl in the crown of righteousness?

Christians were elected to be holy. They were redeemed to be holy. They were called to be holy. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that "he might sanctify and cleanse it." And when by the varied dispensations of his providence and grace he shall have purged away its dross, it shall be presented before him glorious in holiness, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." "Having therefore these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in

the fear of God." Let us excel in holiness. Let us live no longer at "this poor dying rate." Men who fear God, who have an enlightened and tender conscience, who know any thing of the blessedness of being like him, and constrained by his love, will pant after still greater similitude, and never be satisfied, till they "awake in his likeness."

ART. VIII. THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE, OR A BRETSCHNEIDER'S "LETTER TO A

OF

REVIEW
STATESMAN."

Translated from the German, BY THE EDITOR.

[The following article is taken from the "Evangelical Church Journal," published at Berlin, under the direction of Dr. Hengstenberg. It was written principally in reference to Bretschneider's "Letter to a Statesman," which has excited much attention in Germany, and has been regarded as the most able of the innumerable statements and vindications of modern German Rationalism, which have been called forth by the attack lately made upon it, in the journal from which this article is extracted. In this letter, Bretschneider takes the ground, that there must be some compromise between the antiquated doctrines of theology, and the results of modern scientific pursuits. To effect this compromise, he regards as the office of Rationalism. "Rationalism," according to him," designs to restore the interrupted harmony between theology and human sciences, and is the necessary product of the scientific cultivation of modern times." He goes on to specify instances of disagreement between the established articles of the Christian faith, and the latest results in the various departments of natural philosophy. Selecting uniformly those results which militate against the Bible, rather than those which agree with it, and presuming these results to be infallibly true, (though they are notoriously hypothetical,) he arrives at his conclusion, that the doctrines of theology must be so modified as to agree with the progress of science, or fall into contempt.

In a full refutation of Rationalism, as thus explained, it would be necessary to show, that Revelation is an independent source of knowledge, and not merely co-ordinate with nature, but superiour to it; so that its truths, instead of being liable to modification from any alledged discoveries in nature, are rather the standard by which the truth of the latter should be tested. It is indeed to be presumed, that Revelation and Nature, when rightly understood, never really clash, having God for their common author. But in case of an apparent discrepancy, it is certainly wrong to make Nature, which is lower, the measure and criterion of Revelation, which is higher, and more immediately and directly from God. But the writer of the following article descends from this vantage ground, on which the theologian is entitled to stand, and meets and conquers infidelity on its own level. Saying nothing of the right which might so easily be vindicated to the theologian, of at once condemning as false any doctrines of natural science, however confirmed, which should conflict with the positive doctrines of Reve

• Bretschneider's "Sendschreiben," p. 78.

lation, he shows that there are no well established results of scientific investigation which do thus conflict with the Bible, and that the highest oracles of the sciences themselves have pronounced in favour of the doctrines of Revelation, and in opposition to the hypotheses of an infidel philosophy. This article is not one of great pretensions. Its chief merit consists in a sprightly and popular style, and in the ample testimonies it adduces from the highest scientific authorities in favour of the doctrines of Revelation.-EDITOR.]

THEOLOGIANS are beginning to take more notice of the natural sciences. And it were very much to be desired, that they would do this with the disposition of the pious naturalists of former times, who, while they loved the revelation of God in his works, regarded with still higher affection his revelation in Christ. This, however, is not the case with many of our modern theologians; on the contrary, they call in the natural sciences, to aid them in the war which they have declared against the Bible.

It is with the greatest reluctance, that I must name Schleiermacher among these theologians. But how can I pass by in silence the opinion of such a man, especially as it has of late excited so much attention! He says in his second letter to Dr. Lücke: "When you consider the present state of natural science, and how it is advancing to a more complete knowledge of the world, than could have been anticipated a short time ago; what think you is likely to be the fate, I will not say of our Theology, but of our evangelical Christianity itself?" He then goes on to say, that to him it is plain, that we must learn to dispense with many things which many are accustomed to consider as inseparable from the essence of Christianity. "I will say nothing," he continues," about the six days work; but as to the whole notion of the Creation, as it is commonly understood, (irrespective too of the Mosaic chronology,) how long will it be able to hold out against the influence of that view of the world, which is formed from scientific combinations, the deductions from which are inevitable: especially since this is an age in which the method only and the detail of the sciences remain unrevealed among the arcana of the initiated, while the great results become at once accessible to all persons of any curi osity or reflection, even among the common people. Our New Testament miracles too, to say nothing of the Old,— how long before they must be subjected anew (though on better premises than those heretofore adopted by the inflated Encyclopedia,) to the dilemma, that either the whole history

to which they belong must be considered as a fable, in which it is impossible to find out how much historical basis it has; or, allowing them to be historical facts, that so far at least as they took place in nature, analogies from nature must be sought for them? What, my friend, will be the result then? I shall not live to see that time, but can lay myself down quietly to sleep. But you, my friend, and your contemporaries, who are of the same mind with us, what will you do? Will you still entrench yourself behind the outworks, and suffer yourselves to be blockaded by the sciences? Shall the knot of history be so untied, as to couple Christianity with barbarism, and science with infidelity?"

When I read this passage, I could not help thinking of what was said by the Israelitish spies, when they returned from Canaan: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers; and so we were in their sight."* Is it true, then, that theologians are so disheartened, and so destitute of heroic faith, that they will quit the castle which they have sworn to their king to defend, even before they are summoned by the enemy to surrender? And must Theology, who was a princess among the heathen, and a queen over the nations, now become a servant?

It will not be possible to make any reply to Schleiermacher until he expresses himself more definitely, and mentions what are the results of modern science which come out so overwhelmingly against the Bible, results, I mean, which depend upon positive experiments, and not upon hypotheses and ingenious deductions. But what can be the reason, why Schleiermacher should treat the miracles of the Bible so contemptuously, and so overrate the natural sciences? Has not science rather reason to wonder at these wonders? Has the medical art ever succeeded in raising the dead by natural means? Bacon says, Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt.† Our Lord who stilled the sea, and raised the dead, certainly knew more of the elements, and of the human body, than all our naturalists and physiologists taken together. Their impotence is the best proof of their ignorance. Had they found the living source of truth, they would at the same time have reached the original fountain of all power, since the God of truth and of power is the + Novum Organum, I. 3.

* Numbers, 13: 32.