respecting realities as distinct from phenomena, and respecting God. The facts of conscience which have furnished to Kant and Hamilton, and to deep-thinking philosophers generally who have advocated the relativity of knowledge, a foundation for belief in free-will and for faith in God, meet with no adequate recognition. Little account is made of moral feeling, and its necessary postulates are discarded as fictions. The rescue of philosophy from its aberrations must begin in a full and consistent recognition of the reality of knowledge. Intuitions are the counterpart of realities. The categories are objective: they are modes of existence as well as modes of knowledge. Distinct as mind and nature are, there is such an affinity in the constitution of both, and such an adaptation of each to each, that knowledge is not a bare product of subjective activity, but a reflex of reality. Dependent existences imply independent self-existent Being. The postulate of all causal connection discerned among finite things is the First Cause. From the will we derive our notion of causation. Among dependent existences the will is the only fountain of power of which we have any experience. It is natural to believe that the First Cause is a Will. The First Cause is disclosed as personal in conscience, to which our wills are subject. The law as an imperative impulse to free action and as a pre-appointed end implies that the First Cause is Personal. Order and design in the world without not found there merely, but instinctively sought there corroborate the evidence of God, of whom we are implicitly conscious, and whose holy authority is marifest in conscience. CHAPTER IV. THE POSSIBILITY AND THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLES WITH A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COMMENTS ON HUME. CHRISTIANITY, from its first promulgation, has professed to have a supernatural origin and sanction. It has claimed to have God for its author, and to be a revelation of him and by him. Nothing in history is more certain than that the apostles denied, and with all sincerity, that the religion which they were proclaiming was the work of man, or owed its being exclusively to natural causes, unmixed with divine intervention. That the Founder of Christianity preceded them in propounding this claim admits of no question. At the same time, Christianity allows and asserts a prior revelation of God, made through the consciences of men, through the material creation, and through the moral order to be discerned in the course of history. The Scriptures in which Christianity is authoritatively set forth do not undervalue the natural revelation, however misinterpreted, and practically ineffectual, they may declare it to be. Its comparative failure to accom plish its end they attribute to the power of sin to dull the perceptions of mankind. Yet the discontent, self accusation, and yearning for a lost birthright, which constitute a preparation to receive the new revelation. are pronounced the effect of the earlier revelation through nature and conscience. - To Nor is there any thing incongruous between the two revelations. If a miracle-for example, the healing of a man born blind- brings God vividly to view, it is not another God than he whose power is exerted in the natural growth of the eye, and in the cure of disease when it takes place by natural means. Christi anity partly consists of a republication of truth respecting God and respecting human duties, truth which the light of nature makes known, or would make known if reason were faithful to her function. take a single instance - the obligation of veracity is more or less felt by men who have never been taught the gospel. There have been whole nations, like the ancient Persians, who have been celebrated for their abhorrence of falsehood. Even the forgiveness of injuries, though not so commonly inculcated or practised outside of the pale of Christianity, is not confined within this limit. Forbearance was enjoined by certain heathen sages. Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca and Epictetus, are earnest in their laudation of this virtue. There is a large catalogue of particular duties - duties of the individual to himself, to the family, to the state, even to humanity at large which were known to mankind, were to some extent defined, and more or less practised among men. The virtues of character which have shed lustre on individuals or communities that have lived in ignorance of Christianity are, to a large extent, identical with those which Christianity enjoins. The difference here is, that these duties appear in Christian teaching in a different setting they are ingrafted on new motives, are connected with peculiar incentives to their performance; and they come home to the heart and conscience with a force of appeal, which, as long as they were disconnected with Christianity, never belonged to them. Thus the obligation to forgive, when linked to the truth that God for Christ's sake has forgiven us, or as we find it expressed in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Lord's Prayer, is vastly aided in its fulfilment. Ethical justice an benevolence are placed in vital connection with religion: the obligations of man to man are illumined, as well as re-enforced, by being seen in the light of the common relation of men to God, and of their united participation in an inestimable gift bestowed by him. But the essential part of Christianity is not contained in the doctrines which belong to it in common with natural religion, or in the ethical precepts, which, if not actually discerned, are still verifiable, by the light of nature. If we would understand what is signified by the Christian revelation, we must consider the end which Christianity aims at. This end is the restoration of men to communion with God. The purpose is to bring men out of the state of separation from God into the state of reconciliation and filial union to the Being in whom they live. The broken connection between God and man is to be re-established. God is to make such an approach to man as will place pardon and purification within his reach, and will found upon the earth a kingdom of righteousness and peace. In such an achievement mere doctrinal communications are inadequate. The manifestation of God is primarily in act and deed. Christianity is an historical religion; that is to say, its groundwork is in events and transactions on the stage of history in connection with which the supernatural agency of God is manifestly exerted, and the outcome of which is an objective salvation from sin. Indeed, the method of Revelation is pre-eminently historical. God manifests himself in events which evidently spring from a commingling of supernatural agency with natural causes. These are not isolated occurrences. They are connected with one another; and they are of such a character as to awaken a living perception of those attributes of God which are fitted to attract to him, and to purify, those with whose lives this course of supernatural history is intimately concerned. A current of history is established, and carried forward in a channel marked out for it. A community is created, evidently owing its origin and preservation to supernatural power and guidance, and so ordered that in it true religion may be kept alive and perfected. The merciful intention of God to save men shines with an increasing brightness through that long course of historical development which attains its consummation in the death and resurrection of Him who is the image, or complete manifestation, of God. When Stephen, the first martyr, stood up before the Jewish council to defend the Christian faith, he began his argument with referring to the separation of Abraham, by the call of God, from his kindred, and proceeded to describe the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage by Moses, whom God had supernaturally designated for this leadership, and at length came to the divine mission and the rejection of the "Righteous One." Paul at Athens, having set forth the first truths of natural religion, asserted the resurrection of Jesus in proof of the commission given him of God to judge the world. Every one knows that the recital of facts formed everywhere the basis of the preaching of the apostles. The same thing is true of the prophets of the Old Testament. Connected with all rebuke and exhortation, |