selves do believe the miracle of Mary's virgin conception simply because it is no more difficult than any other miracle, because it was manifestly believed by the early Christians, and, especially, because it is in keeping with the great and startling fact that God did wondrously send forth Jesus to be a unique Son of Man, to constitute the greatest epoch in the world's history, and to be in effect the second father and founder of our race. That He, who was thus exceptionally a man, should be exceptionally introduced into the world and should again exceptionally rise from the grave and leave the world-these unique and exceptional facts, of which one at least, namely the moral change effected by Jesus, is undeniable, seem to us to be in perfect harmony and keeping with each other and one of them not more difficult to reconcile with ordinary experience than another; and, therefore, we reverentially and thankfully believe them all as instances and manifestations of God's infinite and fatherly love for us and all his creatures. We believe these grand and Christianly consistent points whilst we gravely, though humbly, think it possible for a good Christian to doubt whether the evangelists were not misled by their own angry recollections, or by the error of such traditions as Luke tells us he followed, when— of Him, who said "Bless and curse not," and of whom it is recorded that He reviled not even when He was reviled, and, again, that He gently prayed for his crucifiers "Father, forgive them for they know not what "they do"-when of Him they say that he blasted a fig-tree with his curse because, as is specially recorded,

it had no figs on it when "the time of figs was not yet' (vide Mark xi. 13.)—when of our blessed Lord they say that He caused swine to be needlessly and uselessly destroyed in thousands, that He upset the tables of the money-changers and drove men out of the precincts of the temple with a scourge, and that He designated the rulers of his country "foxes," "hypocrites" and a "generation of vipers."

SECTION 3.-To believe the morally contradictory as impossible as to believe the physically contradictory.

SURELY there is no impiety, nor any disregard of, nor opposition to, Jesu's glad tidings, in thus disbelieving what does not commend itself to a man's most anxious judgment in reason, to his most careful exercise of conscience or to his firmest belief of the general evangelical portraiture of Jesus. Protestants do not excommunicate Luther or Calvin or others, the fathers of the German or the Swiss reformation, for such lax views about the Canon as it is notorious they entertained. If those men might reject whole books as "letters of straw" (so Luther called James's Epistle) and yet be deemed good Christians, must we be forbidden to style those Christ's disciples, and brothers of all who believe in Him, who while they love the dear old words and notions of all the Bible, yet feel constrained to deny the authority of such portions of Holy Writ as do not approve themselves to Christian consciousness, that is, to the best and purest knowledge which the teaching of Christ has made to

become a part of these men's very selves? The idea is too preposterous to be entertained for a moment. Any man might as well be called a disbeliever of Christianity or of the Bible because it is impossible for him to believe that Paul's companions, on his famous journey to Damascus, both did hear the voice (Acts ix. 7.) and did not hear the voice (Acts xxii. 9.), both saw and did not see. To call men unbelievers, because they cannot credit what, in their judgment, is a moral contradiction of the Bible's own glorious description of Jesus, is as wise and as charitable as to defame a man for not being able to assent, at one time, to any two contradictory assertions.

Let us, who believe the Bible to be fallible, inspired and authoritative, be tried by any New Testament principle and it will be found that we believe all that ever was required to be believed by Paul or Philip or any other teacher whose mode of procedure in admitting men to church membership, is made known to us in Scripture. Thus, then, we are clearly entitled to enrol ourselves, and to be recognised in the number of those who profess and call themselves Christians, or who, in other words, constitute the universal church of Christ.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE MINISTERS OF ANY

DENOMINATION.

BUT next arises the question whether those, who deny the infallibility of Scripture and yet acknowledge its inspiration and authority, can and should remain in the ministries of the several churches. It is quite impossible that we should argue out this question with reference to each individual community even of English Christians but we shall perhaps do enough to meet the wishes of all readers if we offer two general considerations that apply to the ministers of all sects alike, and if we then lay down a few observations with special reference to that section of Christ's church with which we are ourselves connected and which is by law established in this realm of England.

:

A. WE DO NOT DENY THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.

OUR first general observation is that so far from denying the Inspiration of the Bible, we strenuously assert that Inspiration; and our attempt is to vindicate for the term "Scriptural Inspiration" its real meaning in order that we may both preserve the general historical credibility of Holy Writ and also raise the popular

idea of Inspiration, away from its present untenable notion of infallibility, high above the conception which often confounds "divine inspiration" with "genius" if not with "cleverness." Thus then, if any minister feels. himself constrained to agree with us that the Bible, though inspired and of great authority, is not infallible, and if he feels, also, that the formularies of his church, to which he has pledged his assent, either imply or assert the doctrine of the Bible's Inspiration, such a minister need be in no alarm. He has only, with prudence and fidelity, to teach a truer and better doctrine of biblical inspiration than he before knew or dared to entertain, in the same manner as he is surely accustomed to teach every other doctrine better and more clearly in proportion as his own views of it are enlarged and corrected by reading and by reflection. This remark is, we think, sufficient to satisfy most cases: but, if there be any reader who while he agrees with our view of Inspiration and Infallibility is pained by a consciousness that the formularies of his church either explicitly declare or otherwise imply the infallibility of Scripture, in such a case our second general observation may be worthy of

attention.

B.-JESUS WOULD NOT DISSENT THOUGH HE DIFFERED.

IT is a truth full, as we think, of importance yet seldom, if ever, noticed that although the Jews expunged from their synagogue one at least of Jesu's disciples merely because he glorified the Lord by whom