law, and the difficulty of believing a miracle would seem to be proportional to the amount of scientific culture received. In such minds the banishment of the miraculous does not proceed from any irreligious impulse. They see more clearly the operation of divine beneficence in and through law than in any force exerted upon it. The uniformity of natural order is to them a more convincing evidence of divine supervision than the apparent subversion of that order, and so by a large array of modern thinkers the impossibility of miracles is argued from the inviolability of Law. Nature appears to them a perfect organism, whose consistency is maintained by the universal prevalence of law, and to violate its principles in one particular would imply the subversion of the whole. What, therefore, would seem to invert the order of nature is not a real but apparent inversion, arising from our imperfect knowledge of matter, and the laws by which it is regulated. New and wonderful phenomena relative to our intelligence, may arise, but as the range of that intelligence becomes enlarged these will diminish in number, and to a perfect intelligence their abnormal character ceases to exist. Nor is this line of argument without some show of reason. Science now explains beyond the possibility of doubt, numberless phenomena, which to the ignorance of earlier times seemed quite as certainly miraculous. But it does not belong to my present purpose to examine the logical grounds upon which this argument rests, nor to discuss the logical reasons that may be urged for its rejection. I am concerned with it simply as a feature of the times, as a theory which contemporary events has rendered probable. Now, whatever modifications a more enlarged and perfect intelligence may make upon the explanation of what has hitherto been thought miraculous, need not, I think, disturb our belief in the miracles of Scripture, nor change our views as to the purposes for which they were wrought. It is not impossible to suppose that Christ's miracles of healing were effected in

conformity with natural law, and that they were intended to be symbolic of the redemptive work which formed the object of His mission. If we should yet discover that to raise the dead to life or to turn water into wine required not a real but only apparent suspension of nature's laws, we could still as now regard these seeming wonders as symbols of a deliverance from the evils which sin had introduced,— of a restoration of order and beneficent design. Truth is ONE; we must accept the results of Science as well as the facts of Scripture, and it may be reasonably concluded that to the truly spiritual mind the former shall only add additional weight and significance to the latter.

This brings me to notice very briefly, as a third and less pleasing feature of the times, the apparent collision between the Scripture narrative and the conclusions of scientific men. In the proceedings of the British Association, there has of late years been manifested an unquestionable animus against the acceptance of Revelation. Advancing Science seems continually to render less probable much that Old Testament history records, and the Pentateuch is represented as the primitive production of uninspired and ignorant men. But to condemn the Scripture narrative because it has been superseded by the extended knowledge and discovery of these latter times, seems to result from an erroneous conception of the object which the Bible is intended to serve. If men go to the Bible as they would to the pages of a merely secular history, they will no doubt feel disappointed with the meagre and somewhat improbable character of the information it contains. But if it be looked upon as an account of the relationship which has always obtained between man and his Creator, and of the changes in that relationship which from time to time have occurred, it will be found that to detail in full the history of creation, to anticipate all that Science would subsequently evolve, is altogether aside from its object. The Bible was written for those who first received

it, and supposed no higher scientific knowledge than they possessed. Science can in no way supply the want which the rejection of Scripture would involve. It may theorize on subjects such as Creation and the Deluge, but as to sin and a Saviour its voice is silent. When, therefore, it seems to clash with Revelation, we have only to say that it has departed from its natural province. Scientific results, when clearly proved, are always acceptable, but they must be kept apart altogether from Scripture, which is neither a manual of science, nor a text-book of history.

Having discussed the decline of dogmatic theology, and the growth of natural religion, I now propose to trace the secularizing of politics, as a fourth and very special characteristic of the age. It will readily appear that the increasing desire to remove the ecclesiastical element from civil government, naturally proceeds from an extended liberalism in matters of religion. When we look back to the history of the Crusades, and the religious wars, we witness the zenith of ecclesiastical power. The kings and civil rulers of Europe then bowed before the superior sway of a hierarchy which claimed authority to excommunicate and depose. Political affairs were entirely regulated by theological considerations, and men were stimulated to the most daring enterprize by the force of religious enthusiasm. During these dark and troubled times we find that any glimmerings of social progress always proceeded from the clergy, who did much to ameliorate the evils of serfdom, and protect the people from the violence of their chiefs. The oppression of the priesthood only dates from the time when the revival of learning gave birth to the spirit of independence, which is contrary to the genius of the Catholic church, and which in modern times has done much to effect its decay. The English Reformation inverted the positions of the civil and ecclesiastical powers. There was a time when the Church in virtue of her Divine commission had bowed to acknowledge the State; when

kings and civil potentates derived authority from her pale. There was a time when the voice that issued from the Vatican determined all temporal authority, and when the sentence of interdict was sufficient to sweep it away. But the times had changed, and early in the sixteenth century the will,-nay the passion, of an English king was sufficient to break the bands of a foreign allegiance, and appropriate the supremacy which the Roman Pontiff had usurped so long. Upon the ruins of the hierarchy was reared the reformed relationship of Church and State. Its principles are too well understood to require more than a passing reference. It has always been maintained by its advocates that it is the duty of every nation to support, in recognition of Divine supremacy, some one form of religion. The object of its choice should be endowed and exclusively recognized by the rulers of the State and the representatives of the people. On these fundamental principles the constitution of the Anglican Church was based. The ecclesiastical, as well as the civil supremacy was vested in the person of the king. The clergy could no longer oppose

their sovereign and claim the protection of the Pope, for the sovereign was now their lawful protector, and their purposes were best effected by submission to his will. This change

in the clerical interests occasioned the change in its tactics to which I have referred. The champions of progress in the middle ages and the sole promoters of social development, the clergy were now the strenuous supporters of royal prerogative and the divine right of kings. They saw in the movement that craved the distribution of political power, and a fair representation of the people, the danger that immediately threatened and imperilled themselves. Impelled by mere selfish motives, they were the unflinching abettors of every intolerant measure. They surrounded the throne with adulation that they might secure the persecution of dissent. To quote Macaulay-"The Church of England continued to be for more than 150 years the

servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held those tenets firmly through times of oppression, persecution and licentiousness, while law was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the people were eaten as though they were bread. Once and but once-for a moment and but for a moment-when her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission she had taught." Now, it is perhaps to this retrogressive influence which the Church has always sought to exercise, that the desire to reduce her political importance, which seems now to be near attaining its object, is to be traced. It is not difficult to see that liberty in politics, and an extended franchise, are incompatible with ecclesiastical power; and to determine how far the Church has been her own enemy we have only to consider how far she has induced the recoil from Conservative principles. Perhaps what, more than ought else, stimulated Charles I. to the despotic policy which occasioned his frequent ruptures with Parliament, was the approving countenance of the Church. She exalted the range of his prerogative; she justified his prevarication and faithlessness; she demonstrated the duty of absolute and unqualified submission to the king, but her policy only led to the English Commonwealth. Thrown from her lofty position by the triumphant authority of the popular leader, she fostered in the period of her adversity her former antipathy to progress. When the Restoration had once more reinstated her in the seat of power, her voice was raised more loudly than ever in the cause of despotism, and she launched, with redoubled violence, her anathemas against the leaders of democracy.

During the reigns of William and Mary, Queen Anne, and the Georges, her policy has remained the same, always obstructive, yet always impotent, before the current of Liberalism, which, like a natural stream, increases in volume