But the fault lies entirely with man. Instead of humbly and earnestly seeking to ascertain the original meaning of the Scriptures that which the writer intended to convey-the practical object he aimed at, man first forms a purpose of his own, and then twists the passages to support it. Again we will repeat what was said before-that no one is a searcher after truth, who does not carefully look for all the appearances, that he may reject them; and for all the facts, that he may infer from them alone. There are so many appearances both in the Old and New Testaments, that whoever desires to find contradiction shall assuredly find what seems to be such. God, the all-wise, in his sovereignty has taken care that in the Scriptures we shall get what we want. There is everywhere obscurity enough to mislead the perverse, and light sufficient to guide to salvation the meek and willing heart. If so few Jews understood the Old Testament in the days of Jesus, let us not suppose there are many Christians who understand the New, even now. Truth is one and uniform, how then are there so many sects and denominations? But what is truth, and how shall we find it? Speculative truth is the knowledge of things as God would have us to know them. Practical truth, is obedience, in such a manner as to please God. To obtain saving truth, the heart must first be given to God. When under a sense of our blindness and weakness we imploringly kiss the feet of the Holy Ghost-the only enlightener of the soul, we observe the countenance of the Eternal Father, to watch his every look, and obey his every wish-to haste joyfully to anticipate His every desire, when we are on the outlook for the first tidings of whatever is pure, lovely, of good report, and at the same time with laborious diligence bring all possible knowledge from every source before a calm judgment, and a renewed and loving heart, then truth shall stand before us in a living form, and we shall gaze with delight on her lovely brow, that is fairer and brighter than that of Michael, Prince of the Hosts of heaven.

We have said that the church much requires a complete treatise on the "Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Heart," of the heart before and after regeneration-on the influence which the body has upon the mind-on the power which all those manifold agencies which act upon the heart in daily life possess -on the manner in which those varied agencies can be employed to strengthen grace and weaken indwelling sin. Another book which she much needs, is one on the doctrines styled evangelical; showing that all the facts are on their side, and that, while they are beautifully rational, the opposite opinions are not only erroneous, but completely irrational. The time must, and will come, when the divided church shall see eye to eye, when, as there is union in the branch of the family above, there will be unison of opinion and feeling in the branch below. It is a pity that the appearances in the Bible should have kept Christians so long

separated. God, from the beginning, saw what would be the effect of those appearances, and yet He permitted them. He foresaw that men would be deceived, and be divided into many sects. But they have themselves to blame. The writers of the Bible wrote, as we have seen-in wisdom, they gave a special prescription for a special disease, and nothing but spiritual blindness and unwillingness to learn the truth, can prevent the different churches of our day from arriving at the original intention-the true meaning. God, the Holy Spirit, we are persuaded, will throw sufficient light upon the Scriptures, and sufficient love into the heart to scatter all the illusive appearances, and bring belivers into one fold. We would like these two books to be written by laymen, and that for many reasons. The dry style, called the orthodox one, will not do. Unless they are made as interesting as a story book, by numerous and apposite analogical illustrations, they need not be attempted. The style of a layman may be far more varied and easy than that of a clergyman. We have used a freedom, boldness, and almost recklessness, which we would not recommend a minister to adopt, as society would not tolerate in him what would be permitted to a layman. And, again, society will more readily accredit sincerity to a layman than to a clergyman. If a minister were to write the second of these books, men would declare he was merely defending the creed of his own party, and if he said anything against the belief of his party, it would be down upon him in indignation. A layman may be much more independent in his thinking and writing than a minister. It is a shame that the mind of the laity has so long remained dormant. They are quite as capable of writing religious books as the clergy; and the talents they possess should and must be employed. When they begin to use their powers, let them avoid the ecclesiastical style that which is after a set model-that which is frigid, lifeless, soporific. Let every man retain his individuality.

We have several times used the word gracious sense; what is its meaning? In spiritual matters, it is as necessary as common sense is in the worldly affairs of life. Gracious sense has by far the widest range of signification, since it includes common sense and a great deal more; it is composed of the earthly and the heavenly that which is natural to us, and that which is bestowed by the Holy Ghost. Common sense may be defined to be "judgment to form a sound decision," "sagacity to propose that plan, which, in its ultimate consequences, shall give proof it was the best that could have been adopted." Gracious sense is common sense spiritualised, endowed with the capacity to judge rightly of heavenly things. Common sense is a sound reason joined to a fallen, unchanged heart; gracious sense is the same reason joined to a renewed heart. There may be great common sense in conjunction with a hard, a harsh, unfeeling, or a putrid

heart; but there can be no gracious sense without a regenerated heart. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His," Rom. viii. 9. Every sane man possesses some degree of common sense, and every believer has some share of gracious sense, which is given him in the day of conversion. We say of such a one he has little common sense, and of another he has strong powers of common sense. The same variety exists among true Christians with respect to gracious sense. Both common sense and gracious sense, require time and experience to bring them to maturity. In common sense, we depend most upon our reason; in gracious sense, most upon our heart. Gracious sense must have the head and the heart in due proportion; the two elements must always exist together, and at the same time; wisdom and love, fidelity and compassion, truth and liberality. Gracious sense is what Adam lost by the fall, is what Jesus Christ restores to us by His grace. Gracious sense is seen to perfection nowhere but in the life of Christ. His wisdom and love form the ideal of gracious sense. This is the indispensable quality which is needed alike by the church and the world. When God bestows it in abundance at the voice of humble loving prayer, then the church shall be led into all truth, then the jubilee of the world is at hand. We shall give a few illustrations to show how much it is required every where and by every one. It will then be seen that two lights are needed to conduct us to truth and happiness; one from the intellect, the other from the heart, and that the greatest, the purest, and the surest of these, is the light from a heart filled with love by the Holy Ghost.

Instead of a sweeping reflection upon the mass in the church who are destitute of gracious sense, it will be better to single out a few of our representative men in the different branches of learning, and fearlessly criticise some of their recently published opinions. If we show little reverence for them, we offer our old excuse-that we cannot help it; because veneration is one of the phrenological organs we do not possess-that part of our cranium being a complete hollow. The world, unfortunately, has always been like a flock of sheep, following the leader; it is time that the leaders were put into the scale and weighed, that men were not deceived by the influence of names.

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1st. While we do not agree with the Scotsman in supposing that Dr Candlish means mischief" in his recent views on inspiration and revelation, we cannot but condemn the very unguarded style in which he expresses himself. It is not so much what he has said, as his careless manner of saying it, that has encouraged infidel Unitarians, and Church of England sappers and miners, to pat him on the back as a liberal thinker, and a fellowworker with them in their mighty efforts to liberate mankind from the thraldom of creeds and superstitions. The great defect

in Dr Candlish's thinking is, that it is only intellectual. Only one light, that of reason, shines on the subject he is investigating; and the principal light, that of the heart, being awanting, not only are the thoughts often false, but even when correct, they are harsh and dry. We have space only for one quotation.

"There must be on His part a certain measure of accommodation. He cannot in His word, any more than in His providence, have things precisely such, and so put, as the standard of absolute perfection would require. In legislating, for instance, for ancient Israel, it was not possible to have the ordinance of marriage, the usages of war, the rights of captives, the relation of master and servant, and other similar matters affecting domestic order and the public weal, regulated exactly as absolutely strict principle demands.

He may resolve to lay Himself under restraint, or, in other words, may accommodate His procedure towards them to their state and circumstances. Perhaps if He has to deal with them as still rational and free agents, He must do so. That, at all events, seems to have been our Lord's opinion when He told the Jews of His day, that Moses allowed their fathers a liberty of divorce, inconsistent with the original ideal of holy marriage at its first institution, because of the hardness of their hearts. Mark x. 2-9. I firmly believe that God was the author of the Mosaic law of marriage, as well as of the Adamic, and the Christian. And I explain the admitted imperfection in the Mosaic law in this particular, by the consideration that God, having thought fit to assume the character of civil and political ruler and legislator over the Jews, did not scruple to adapt His law and policy, not always to his own perfect standard, but sometimes, and in some respects, to their state and circumstances, and that He must needs do so, if He was to rule over them and legislate for them as rational and free agents. Is this limiting God? Is it at all derogatory to His absolute sovereignty and infinite perfection? Is it not rather a simple assertion of His unlimited power and discretion, as being at liberty to do always what in the view of the case before Him, He judges to be right.

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In determining the manner in which he is to reveal Himself to man, and have His revelation recorded, God must, of very necessity, lay down a plan, and in accordance with it, lay Himself under conditions; and it is a perfectly fair and legitimate subject of enquiry-what is that plan? what are those conditions? Once in giving the law from Sinai, God spoke the words Himself, and wrote them Himself on tables of stone. Even then He must needs adapt His revelation to circumstances. He gave the law otherwise than He would have given it to angels, or to man in paradise. He gave it as made for the lawless and disobedient, (1 Tim. i. 9); nay more, when some forty years after, He gave it again by the mouth of Moses, (Deut. v.), He gave it, as it were, in a new edition, somewhat modified, at least in one of the commandments, to suit the condition in which the new generation of Israel was placed. May not this example show that God reveals His mind and will not as revealing His own perfect ideal of optimism, but, as in an important sense restrained from doing so. And, in truth, is He not thus necessarily restrained if He is to deal with men and things as they are; and so to deal with them as to effect his object in a way accommodated to them, as well as worthy of Himself. What is this but saying that a father must communicate with his children, not according to his own powers and attainments, but according to their capacities and circum. stances. Is it not simply what is said of our Lord: "With many such parables spake He the Word unto them, as they were able to hear it."

A grain of gracious sense if awake, and in exercise, (we do not say Dr Candlish has none) would have prevented the Free Church

Principal from writing all this nonsense. One grand delusion runs through all we have quoted; which is, "the condition and circumstances of the Jews were such, that they were not able to receive a purer, clearer, fuller revelation than that then given; and that God was constrained to legislate in such a manner as to meet their inability." The inability of the Jews was not in the slightest the cause of a gradual revelation. Man, in no age of the world, is prepared for the moral law in all its extent and spirituality. Why? "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be," Rom. viii. 7. We are confident that Abraham was as competent to receive the New Testament as any of his descendants in the time of the apostles. We are certain that the Jewish nation, when Jesus Christ appeared, was less qualified to entertain the clearer revelation then vouchsafed, than their forefathers were some 1400 years before; for it is said that these progenitors "Served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua," Judges ii. 7; while their descendants in the time of Christ were the most unbelieving, cruel, and accursed rabble of that race which ever lived. If man's condition and circumstances render a gradual revelation necessary, why do we go with the full light at once to African savages, Asiatic blinded idolaters, South Sea cannibals, &c.? Why not begin with revelation to them exactly as it was given to the Jews, and advance to the New Testament slowly by degrees? A Jew direct from Egyptian bondage, was surely as intelligent as a Hottentot, or a negro slave. If the "condition and circumstances" of these last do not prevent the New Testament being given to them at once, neither did the inability of the Jews constrain God to give revelation as He gave it. The truth is, God is not the Being to be constrained by man, or anything about man. This is another of Dr Candlish's most monstrous suppositions. We shall see the true reason when we come to lay down the canons of interpretation in part 4th. God was under no obligation to give fallen man any light whatever. For His own eternal purposes, and to manifest to all creation, how a fallen being cannot of himself return to the point from which he has fallen, He resolved to give little by little. After He gave the complete revelation, He has allowed the universe time to be convinced that knowledge of itself cannot restore the fallen. The state of Christian lands at this hour, proves that the mere possession of the Bible cannot regenerate society. God we know will soon (and yet not suddenly, or to a great extent at once,) give grace to show what He can do. At the end of the thousand years, that grace will be withheld, and again it will be seen what man is without the help of God.

Dr Candlish deserves a sharp reproof, and we are not in the least afraid to give it. We advise him to refrain from his most