ple neglect of it; just a neglect of its provisions, a passing them by untouched; that is enough. And that, viewed aright, comprehends a guilt, of the greatness of which we have no adequate conception. To think that the great God of the universe should interpose in pity to our lost, helpless, desperate condition, and interpose in such a way, at such a cost, with such infinite love, in so mighty a scheme of redemption, by the assumption of humanity in the person of his Son, and the death of that Son upon the cross, to hold back the retribution from our souls, and make the offer of deliverance both from sin and retribution forever, and that we, on our part, should treat this amazing arrangement and offer of infinite compassion with just as profound a neglect, just as heedless an unconcern, as if we had no interest in it! Ah, there will be retribution for that! If nature herself calls for the punishment of guilt beneath the light of nature, then all the powers and beings in the universe, all justice, all piety, all goodness, will call for and secure the reward of such ingratitude and contempt.

The problems of Natural Theology therefore may be stated thus. Given, the constitution and course of nature, to find out God and man, with their mutual relations. The grand known quantities resulting from this are, God, in his righteousness, man in his depravity. This found, the problem stands thus. As the course and constitution of nature are to the Divine and human attributes, with their relations, so these attributes and their relations are to the course and constitution of the future world. Or in other words, given, the righteousness of God and the depravity of man, with their relations, as gathered from the present course and constitution of nature, to demonstrate, from that righteousness on the one hand, and that depravity on the other, continuing as they are, the course and constitution of the future world. Now there being no shadow of evidence, promise, or expectation that either that righteousness or that depravity will change, but every proof that both will continue, and become clearer in their eternal relations, the demonstration hence resulting from guilt in this world of retribution in the next, is as strict and firm as the demonstration of God's and man's existence.

Now, then, let infidelity have its course in regard to Revelation, or the doctrines of Revelation: let it have its desire, and let Revelation be as though it had not been, and what is thereby gained, either to the race, or to a single individual of it, but absolute certainty of inevitable retribution? Undoubtedly, the reason why men ever wish to cast off the claims of Revelation, is because Revelation so clearly condemns and sentences mankind as sinners, and throws the whole race, as a lost race, upon the mere sovereign mercy and grace of God in Christ Jesus. But suppose you get rid of those claims, and throw yourself back upon the mercy of Nature, without a Revelation. Are you more secure?

You have got rid of a Saviour, but the condemnation of Nature remains. If, in throwing off Revelation and its terms of mercy, you could also throw off that condemnation, and establish your innocence, then indeed it were something for a wicked man to get rid of Revelation; although a good man would choose the Revelation with its Saviour, rather than Nature with its innocence. But while you have thrown from you a Saviour, the condemnation of Nature falls back upon you. You have denied and rejected Christ, indeed, but you have Barabbas on your hands, notwithstanding. Is it not plain that your condition is incomparably more hopeless? A demonstration which you cannot evade, a demonstration in yourself, in your race, and in God's providence, shuts you up to the conviction of guilt and the certainty of retribution. Without a Revelation, the certainty of retribution is the most perfectly demonstrated certainty in all your circle of spiritual knowledge. You are not more certain that there is a spiritual world, and that there are spiritual beings besides yourself in God's universe, than you are that in that world the attributes of God and of your own being will be more fully developed and clearly mani fested than they are in this world. And such development can result in nothing but a more perfect retribution than is experienced here. Such development promises for sin nothing but retribution. Out of Revelation you are shut up to retribution. The system of Nature itself cuts you off from everything but that. Out of Revelation you have no claims on God but just only that he should do justice upon you for your sins.

We see, then, that the system of Revelation is infinitely more kind and merciful, with all its severity, than that of Nature. The system of Nature reveals guilt and retribution; the system of Revelation opens a world of grace and mercy. The system of infidelity is more gloomy and dreadful than the most extreme caricature of Calvinism ever yet invented, for it cuts mankind utterly off from hope, and leaves nothing but the blackness of darkness forever. If the selfishness and malevolence of human depravity are shown in one thing more than another, they are in the attempt to put out the light of Revelation; and if the madness of human depravity is anywhere especially manifested, it is in the rejection of Revelation, because it republishes the unmistakable condemnation of Nature. And hence the intense terms of detestation and contempt in which the infidel is branded in God's Word, as a creature whose light is turned into darkness, is putrefied into a glare of corruption, leading down to hell.

ARTICLE VI.

THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF INTELLECT TO RELIGION.

By Rev. CHARLES WHITE, D. D., President of Wabash College, Indiana.

THE value of intelligence and intellectual power to individuals and communities, has been the theme of constant discussion and eloquence in this country from the earliest foundation of our Institutions. Education has become here a household word. That extensive popular instruction and prevalent cultivation of the higher branches of learning lie underneath, as a large part of the effective basis of true liberty, of social order, of political eminence, is emphatically an American idea. Not more characteristic and national are even our scenery, our cities, our manners. Mental treasures and mental power open their influences into our republican society chiefly through their action on the great social reformer, true Christianity. By ministering largely to the potency and the diffusion among men of this powerful agent, they minister most effectively to a radical and general regeneration of the community. Here is suggested therefore an important subject of discussion viz., The Contributions of Intellect to Religion. This is a matter of deep interest alike to the Christian citizen and the Christian scholar. It constitutes a noble justification of the large appropriations of liberal-minded Christians to the cause of sound learning: it presents a great and constraining motive to the church to encourage liberal studies with a generous and hearty patronage.

I. A superior understanding is capable of making an essential contribution to religion by settling satisfactorily its evidences. This is to be done, first, by direct argumentation, and then by clearing away all opposing objections. These labors though two in name converge to the same great result, the establishment of Christians on a "foundation of God," immovable forever.

The proofs of religion do not lie in relief upon the surface, do not force themselves upon observation, do not compel conviction. In respect to internal evidences, it is true, a sincere, full-hearted piety affords such assistance to a just appreciation of the value and power of religious truth as partially to supercede research and reasoning. So rich in this case is the spirit's own experience of the Scriptural things of God, it either sees no need of following out elaborate argumentation, or, if such argumentation be followed, it admits conclusions with an unusual readiness, satisfaction, and heartiness. But the very communities, where an es

tablishment of the truth of religion is specially important, are always those essentially deficient in godliness, and of course in needed heart-responses and confirmations of what God has revealed. Even in this department of the argument, therefore, Christianity must undergo the severest examination, and its internal proofs as well as others, be stated and urged by the profoundest skill, and under the forms of the fairest logic and the fullest elucidation.

The direct evidences of religion involve several important preliminary discussions. One of these respects the need and probability of any revelation from Heaven. This comprehends elaborate inquiries, philosophical and historical, in relation to the possible and actual influences upon man and society, of all other meliorating causes besides a direct Divine communication, as science, literature, government, human systems of morality. Another preliminary inquiry respects the being of a great First Cause. This includes a question in reference to the existence of spirit at all. In the direct establishment of the great fact that there is an uncreated, independent, eternal Creator and Upholder of all things, instruction and proof are to be sought from all reasonings and knowledges; from all matter, pebble or plant; from all mind, infants' or angels'; from outward handiworks or interior mysteries. Even these matters merely introductory to the evidences of Christianity, lead into very wide fields and demand much intellectual acquisition and ability.

In proceeding immediately to the evidences establishing the Scriptures as a Divine revelation, there meets us first, the extensive subject of the Genuineness and Authenticity both of the Old and the New Testaments. This includes a laborious and critical examination of many varieties of external proof. It comprehends the question of Authorship, and the whole subject of language, style, historic coincidence, uncorrupted preservation.

Next comes the Credibility of the Old and New Testaments. The discussion here embraces, the moral character of the sacred writers their incapacity of being deceived or deceiving in relation to the facts which they declare: the admission of the same facts by thousands, both friends and enemies, who could at once have disproved them if false: collateral confirmations from Natural and Civil History, coins, medals and marbles.

Then follows the great subject of the Inspiration of the Scriptures. This involves an examination of all the miracles of the sacred Record, in respect to their nature, design and credibility, as also of all popish and pagan pretences to miraculous power. It also involves an investigation of the whole body of Prophecies included in the sacred Volume, along with their dates, interpretations, fulfilments. Lastly are the Internal Evidences alluded to as improper to be omitted in the discussion. This is no less a

subject than the character and power of all the doctrines and precepts which Infinite Wisdom and Goodness have revealed to the world.

This is but a mere allusion to subject-matters claiming attention in treating the evidences of religion-but a rapid reference to general heads, chiefly in the way of simple enumeration. Each topic here referred to, runs out into a great number of subordinate branches, and these subordinates have themselves their many ramifications. The most insignificant theme of the whole has thoughts for a volume. No department of human inquiry presents a field of greater width to be traversed and deeper mines to be explored than the Christian Evidences. There is no subject which requires to be more studied, more questioned, more argued. To be sifted, canvassed, scrutinized, by the most powerful minds of every age, was evidently the allotment designed for Christianity by its great Author. So he intended it should win its way and make its triumphs. Desiring for it no alliance with the State, no stipend from the public treasury, no authority from legislative decrees, Heaven committed it in a world of enemies to the sole advocacy of voluntary friends. This advocacy is itself an intellectual labor, massive and important enough for the most eminent talent which Divine Providence has already given or may be expected hereafter to bestow on the church. Whoever reads Warburton, Bently, Jones, Butler, Lightfoot, Watson, Michaelis, Eichhorn, Lardner, Marsh, and authors like them, numerous and illustrious, will be satisfied that the proof of religion demands more intense thought, more profound study, more accuracy and compass of learning, more power of argument and illustration than any other one subject, Divine or human. The connection of intelligence with Christianity in the matter of its evidences, is therefore indispensable, vital. As the earnest and able labors of intellect in settling the Divinity of Christianity settle the question of its existence, its acknowledgment, its power among men, the value of their labors can be measured only by measuring all the spiritual good on the earth attendant upon revealed religion. There is a vast debt already due from the people of God to gifted intellect, for disclosing to them what foundations lie immovable underneath their Christian faith and their eternal hopes. That debt is more likely to be augmented than diminished. So long as there shall be believing men and devout, of increasing zeal, there will be infidels and scoffers waxing bold and bitter against the truth. Whatever other labors of mind shall cease to be needed, therefore, these that settle and fortify Christianity can never be remitted. Whatever other intellectual achievements may be attempted or neglected, whatever other mental victories may be lost or won, the practical achievements and victories of mind in the sphere of Christian evidences will bear just the importance