entire mind of Scotland, (not now to speak of any wider influence,) and he so moved and so moulded that mind as to issue it forth anew, other than it was when he addressed himself to his task, and greatly amended.

LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.-We must here refer to a former article (in No. XXXIII.) as conveying briefly, but with deliberate conviction, our opinion of the high merits of this Exposition. It is our part now to say that further acquaintance with it has confirmed and enhanced that opinion. Yet this is not all. Chalmers' Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans have, in the years that have run out since they were delivered, acquired a new relative position, regarded as exponents of a form of Christian belief from which several highly accomplished writers have been, and are still, laboring to disengage the religious mind of this country. This is not a place suitable for entering upon a criticism of the recent philosophic Christianism; but it is a place, as we think, and we shall use it accordingly, for setting forth, in its fundamental principle, Chalmers' Christianity, as conveying implicitly a protest against these unsubstantial parhelion gospels.

In expressing, as we do, the hope that Chalmers' Discourses, and especially that these Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, may long hold their place in the esteem of the Christian laity, and be regarded also as models of biblical interpretation by the rising ministry, we must be understood as doing so on the ground of a principle of biblical interpretation, which we consider to be at once definitely ascertainable, and clear of any such ambiguities as would render it nugatory, or slenderly available in practice. What then is this guiding principle? or otherwise to put the question, What is it that is tacitly assumed as unquestionable by this expositor, and which he takes for granted as between himself and his hearers or readers? In answering this question, let us shut off all grounds of exception; that is to say, let us exclude those exegetical principles in advancing which we should ask leave to differ from Chalmers; as, for instance, when, as in the closing chapters of the Essay on the Christian Evidences, he propounds his belief as to the inspiration of the canonical writings: we think his assumptions in this case are quite untenable; in truth, that they become unintelligible

when they are brought to bear upon the facts, such as they are; or rather, when these facts are brought to bear upon those assumptions. We think, moreover, that a belief so crude and so impracticable would at once have been abandoned by a mind as free and as large as was that of Chalmers, if only there had been placed before him the alternative of a consistent and integral DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION, which, while it should save the authority of Holy Scripture in the most absolute manner, should allow scope for, and should invite, the freest methods of historical criticism. He had no such saving doctrine within his view; and therefore, conservative as he was in temper, and reverential too, and moreover, as a theologian, more of the Scotch than of the English school, he went over bodily to what he thought the safer side; not staying to adjust difficulties in the rear, or to square his belief with the stern realities of criticism. All this ground of difference we set off, therefore, as well as several other matters in relation to which, if the books before us were the work of a living author, we might think ourselves bound to take exception, or to make a protest. But further, although Chalmers does in various instances give his reader the benefit of his own acquaintance with the Greek text, yet, as we think, he might well have done this more frequently than he did; and also with a more precise regard had to the much advanced practices of modern biblical criticism—and especially to historical criticism. And again, to take another step forward, we imagine ourselves to discern, in certain of his doctrinal interpretations, the too binding influence of the national confession. There is a theological straitness, from the entanglements of which English churchmen, who are bound only to their Thirty-nine Articles, feel, or believe themselves to be happily exempt.

These several grounds of difference, more or less important as they may be, and open to discussion as they are, being allowed for, then we are at one with Chalmers on the vital question of the authority of the canonical writings, in matters both of moral conduct, and of religious belief. Or, instead of taking this wider range implied in the term, the Canonical Writings, we may confine our thoughts just now to that portion of them which is before us, namely, Paul's Epistle to the Romans; and, to give the greater preci

sion to our averments, let us state the case | as it touches the religious belief and the behavior of the individual man; even of every one who professes himself to be, in any intelligible sense, a Christian. If I call myself a Christian, I must believe that Christianity is, in a sense peculiar to itself, a conveyance of religious and moral truth from God to man; and if it be so thought of, then this system must be held to differ essentially from any of those other (real or supposed) leadings of the human mind toward truth and virtue, of which sages, and the founders of ancient religious systems, may have been the instruments. In a word, I must believe that the heavenly descent of the Christian doctrine was attested by the accompaniment of supernatural events; or to put my belief into the fewest words, I believe that Christ died, and that he rose from the dead. But then I believe that those principles and those precepts which are peculiar to the Christian system, and which stand out as characteristic of it, were, by the explicit authority, and (in whatever method) under the sovereign guidance of Christ, consigned to writings, even to the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament canon. Further, after taking due pains to convince myself that, among these, the Epistle of Paul to the Romans is entitled to hold a place, I must believe that it conveys the mind of Him whom I regard as having been sent of God, to be at once the Saviour of the world, and its Sovereign Teacher.

To this writing, therefore, supposing that I read and interpret it in the sense intended by the writer, there attaches, in my view, the sanction and the caution conveyed in the words, "See that ye refuse not," or fail to listen to, "him that speaketh from heaven." It is in this persuasion, then, that I give myself to the perusal of the Epistle before me. I hold myself bound to gather thence my religious belief, and to be governed by its precepts, (rightly understood, in the spirit of them.) If thus I am governed in temper and in conduct, it is well; but if, wilfully, or from negligence, I fail to do so, it will go ill with me, here and hereafter.

On this ground we have before us what is perfectly coherent and intelligible, and what is practically available on all those occasions of the Christian life when a sure support is the most needed-when the VOL. XL.-NO. I.

conscience is troubled, when the understanding has come under a cloud; and especially on those trying occasions when perplexity attaches to our path-morally considered. Differ as we might from an expositor such as Chalmers, we can imagine no shadow of difference to come between him and ourselves on this ground. We need to know authentically the mind and will of Him with whom we have to do; and we look to Holy Scripture that we may know it.

But is it so, at this time, that all who "profess and call themselves Christians," thus think, and thus acknowledge themselves to owe submission to the apostolical Epistles? Far from it: there are those and they are not Unitarians, for they assure us that they are not; on the contrary, they call themselves orthodoxwho admit no such obligation as this. How can they do so, for "modern modes of thought" refuse to conform themselves either to "Jewish" or to "Pauline notions"? Besides, if the Pauline Epistles are to be regarded as exhibiting the spiritual life in its highest and its normal state, then does it include certain extreme modes of feeling which (so we are assured) no calm and well-disciplined mind at this time can imagine itself to pass into, or could even wish to realize. This being the case, something must be done for the relief of those who, resolved as they are, from whatever motives, to remain within the Christian pale, cannot tolerate or listen to say, an expositor of one of these epistles who takes the ground that is here taken by Chalmers. What, then, can be done to meet the difficulty? We apprehend nothing; or nothing which will bear looking into.

It is alleged that, in the course of a twenty years' ministry among heathen nations, barbarous and civilized, the religious opinions of Paul underwent many changes; or that they were so much moderated as that, at the time of writing the Epistles to the Thessalonians, he had held articles of belief which, at the time of writing his later epistles, he had seen reason to discard. If this were granted, then the consequence, if we are to take up this hypothesis as our guide in understanding these writings, is this: that we are free to choose, nay, we must make a choice, between the earlier Pauline belief and the later; we must do so if we propose, in any way, to gather our notions of

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apostolic Christianity from the New Testament. But to which of these Christianities shall we give the preference? The later-dated theology may be that of a matured mind-its early extravagances and its exaggerations having been corrected by a more enlarged knowledge of the world. But, in fact, it may be the earlier-dated theology that is the very truth-even a bright and unimpaired impression of the heaven-given original! This pristine Gospel, perhaps, in the course of many toils, sufferings, perils, and mental depressions, may have lost its sharpness and its lustre. What we have before us, therefore, is an evenly-balanced alternative; and if we are free to choose the one of these theologies, and to reject the other, then are we not free also to reject both? If A. B. may take the first, and may refuse the second; and if C. D. may elect the second, and may disallow the first, how can we refuse to F. N. the liberty to spurn as well the first as the second? And if this be done, then it is certain that the Pauline Epistles must henceforth go to their place among other curious remains of ancient religious literature; they are indeed singular compositions, which the philosopher and the historian will think themselves bound just to look into, if not to peruse with care.

As far as the east is from the west, so far is any hypothesis of this sort remote from the principle assumed, and so religiously adhered to, in the Lectures before us. But are there not exegetical theories of an intermediate kind, by aid of which we may effect some sort of coalescence between the apostolic writings, and "modern thought"? We answer there are several such theories, and each is apparently available for saving our Christian consistency on the one hand, and our philosophic integrity on the other. Yet if this were the place for attempting such a task, we might undertake to demonstrate that every imaginable hypothesis which may be put together for serving a purpose of this sort, will bring us round, by a more or less circuitous route, to the same point, the issue of all being this, that the canonical writings have, in the process, been stripped of every claim to our regard, beyond that which may still attach to them as records of the opinions of a re

argument of the kind here specified, there would be room to put the previous question, and to ask, At whose challenge is it that we are required to debate this question at all, between Scriptural authority and its formidable antithesis, Modern Thought? An answer to the question is to be obtained by submitting Modern Thought itself to some analysis. What, then, are its elements, and whence has it come? How old is it? and who are the men that give it their support? To dismiss the last of these queries first, we must say that, as we are not intending to enter upon criticisms foreign to our subject, we abstain from introducing names, and shall simply express the wish, that those who believe themselves to have reached a position much in advance of that occupied by their educated contemporaries, and who designate themselves, and each other, as "the most advanced thinkers of the age," would be content to speak of themselves, individually, and not of any others, when they assure us, that no man who is not encased in obsolete prejudices, will now attempt to defend such and such positions. Let these "advanced thinkers" be content to say-if indeed anything so nugatory be worth the saying-that none of those who think precisely as they do, think any otherwise! If they would condescend to look about them, they might convince themselves that men who are every way their equals in power of mind, in freedom and independence of spirit, and in accomplishments, do profess, and are well prepared to maintain, those principles and doctrines which themselves have so inconsiderately rejected.

How old is Modern Thought? A few years only-we think ten years-in this country, will include the time within which this peculiar tendency and feeling has distinctly shown its characteristics. But whence has it come, and what is it?

Modern Thought, regarded as the opposite and the antagonist of an unexceptive submission to the authority of Holy Scripture, is, as we think, the indication, and it is the measure too, of that silent progress which Christianity has very lately made in embracing and in surrounding the educated and intellectual classes in this country, and in Germany. In times that are gone by, men of the very same class, and who did not come over to Christianity, allowed themselves either to assail it as an imposture, or they covertly

scorned it; and in society, as often as occasion served, or whenever none of the ""cloth" were of the party, they put forth their rank ribaldries, and their stale morsels of atheism. No doubt there are those still who do the same thing; but they are the malign, the paradoxical, the ambitious, the overweening. One knows them in a moment by their flippancy and cant: there is no depth in them, no honest intention, no seriousness; they are scoffers; they have been such from their boyhood upwards; they blaspheme Heaven; they mock whatever they have no comprehension of; they vilify human nature in the concrete, and deify it in the abstract: they have a foul mouth whenever they can eject poison with an aim, and the mouth of adulation when praise is destined to come round to themselves.

Men of this class are becoming every day fewer; and they are descending lower in the social scale. But if persons such as these are set off, then there are everywhere to be met with, even in the best society in and around colleges-and throughout the professions, (must we not admit it? and in truth in the clerical profession,) men who are highly cultured, who are correct in their habits, and nice in their tastes, and who might be pointed at as samples of intelligence and good feeling: they are the "elect" of the world of mind. At length Christianity has made these men its own, at least, so far as this, that they regard it, and speak of it, with respect they have ceased to think it possible, or even desirable, if it were possible, to call in question its historic reality. The difficult problem of its supernatural attestations, they relegate. Among these persons there are differences on this question; some avowing their belief in the resurrection of Christ, and many of them wavering, from day to day, in their own convictions regarding it. There are those, still coming under the general description, who step forward much beyond this negaposition, and who even profess a faith that is ample enough to warrant their subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Nevertheless, as often as the undisputed grammatical sense of any doctrinal passage of Scripture is pressed upon them, as if it were authoritative, they draw back, and ask to take a position on much lower ground. Holy Scripture, with these ambiguous persons, is of authority in a broad or universal sense; but it is of little

or no authority in any particular instance to which it might be applied.

Historical criticism, in many cases, and philological criticism also, in many, and often the two conjoined, afford grounds enough of exception, which come in between any given passage of Scripture, and any one interpretation of it which should command our assent, as if it might rule, or overrule, our religious opinions. These special exceptions, founded on the criticism of the canonical text, considered as a merely human composition, are not of the substance of "modern thought:" they are its defensive weapons only. Modern thought, in its substance, is a congeries of all those refined theistic speculations, of all those baffled aspirations, of all those deep and distracting surmises-those exhalations of the abyss, and those miasmas of earth, to which Christianity itself has given intensity, and toward which it has rendered intellectual and sensitive natures cruelly alive. Or, if now we were to express nearly the same meaning in the old theological style, and after the fashion of our puritanical grandsires, we should say, that modern thought is "the striving and the wrestling of the natural man against the things of God when the conscience has become enlightened." Though it be so, yet we must exclude Christianity altogether from the regions and neighborhood of a highly developed intellectuality, and of refined moral feeling and taste; we must confine the Gospel strictly to the masses whose culture, from childhood, has been biblical only, if we would free ourselves entirely of this spectre, this modern thought, which, in a word, is Christianized thinking and feeling-short of Christian thought and feeling.

But we return to Chalmers' Lectures, which suggest a comparison full of significance at the present time.

Let an intelligent reader, who has himself passed through exercises of mindthrough conflicts, the deepest and the most trying-let such a reader take up any of those recent books-we need not name them-in which Modern Thought has uttered itself-some covertly, and some boldly. We appeal to him, Will he be able to gather, out of these volumes, an intelligible and coherent religious system, as put together by these various laborers on the same field? We think he will not be able, with his best endeavors, to achieve any such task, nor even to