baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," hereby proclaiming in unmistakable terms His essential and absolute oneness with the Deity.

In proving the Divinity of Christ, to confine myself as I have done, by way of reply to Renan, chiefly to the words and teaching of Jesus on the subject, I have been labouring at a manifest disadvantage. To have proved it from the Epistles and the Scriptures generally, in connection with the Gospels, would have greatly multiplied the evidence, and therefore rendered the argument in its favour still more conclusive. This will not be denied. But the candid reader will, nevertheless, it is believed, have observed in the foregoing abundant evidence in proof of this all-important Scriptural doctrine.

In M. Renan's frequent reference to what he styles "the favourite phrase of Jesus"-" the Kingdom of God"-has he overlooked the fact, we may ask in conclusion, that Jesus also called it His Kingdom?" My Kingdom is not of this world,"1 He said; thus again, by His asserted unity of possession with the Father, making good His claim to the title "God Incarnate." Paul so understood Him, and likewise associates Him with the Deity in its possession: "No unclean person, covetous man," &c., he writes, "hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God."— How readest thou, Renan? "Blind leaders of the blind," are very apt, as Christ says of them, to fall, with those they would lead, into the ditch. You must read again, and then perhaps things will appear that have hitherto escaped your notice. In the language of Him you so much admire, I would say, "Search the Scriptures," not only of the New Testament, but also of the Old; for it was to those He alluded, they being the only Scriptures in existence at the 1 John. xviii. 36. 2 Eph. v. 5.

time. In them as well as in the New, are contained “the words of eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me," Jesus says. Now don't say, "This is false; they did not really testify of Him." Do not, as you are wont, make your hero a liar, by saying that He knew better, but that He was guilty of this fraud, this "evil, that good might come❞—whose damnation, according to the Apostle, is just. This were to subvert his own teaching, and prove himself destitute of the morality be inculcates. Rather fear for yourself, and for your school that has imbibed such principles; and allow the sentence of Paul, whom you call “a true son of God," to ring in your ears until it shall have produced saving effects-"whose damnation is just.

But whatever you do, if only for consistency's sake, do not thus mar the character of Him whose life you have been endeavouring to adorn with your gifted pen-whose life you have studied to honour by endeavouring to paint it in a manner more in conformity with the freethinking rationalism of modern gentlemen. Do not, I say, for although you would win the applause of philosophers, "the great, the noble, and the wise" of the earth,—the lowly ones whom you aver Christ did not despise, and who hunger for the pure bread of life alone, may be injured by it. Besides, the great and wise ones of the earth, you will perceive, can be in no need of a picture painted and varnished by a Renan, as they are capable of applying such a colouring as they may severally desire, for themselves. But the humble and the lowly whose tastes do not lead them to aspire to anything beyond the unadulterated truth, cannot of course feel at home among such aristocratic polish. Be merciful therefore, even as our Father in heaven is merciful, and deny not to the famishing multitude the bread of life as Christ

When you

Himself dispensed it to them. make a feast, be it intellectual or otherwise, and call the rich, the great, and the noble, do not forget the teaching of Jesus upon the subject; nor that, even proportionately to their numbers, the rich and the noble are, "according to the calling of God," greatly in the minority; and this doubtless because their proud natures prompt them to so far overstep the boundary of pure truth, that their free-thinking wisdom becomes folly in the sight of Him whose judgment is perfect.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCH AND AN INSTITUTED FORM OF WORSHIP.

HE visible Church is a Divine institution, the Divinely appointed repository of all that is sacred and holy. It is represented in Scripture as God's "building, an holy temple in the Lord, and the pillar and ground of the truth;" and as it is God's own in a most peculiar and emphatic sense, having been redeemed and "purchased with His own blood," the blood of Him Who was "God manifested in the flesh," so it has the special promise of His unceasing care, protection, and blessing. Men, therefore, who think they can live as holy, and die as safely, without the pale of the Church, as they can by living and dying within its communion, are deluded. As well think that a wayward, erring child would be likely to live as morally, and be as safe from vicious contamination while disobediently wandering away into the world from the sanctuary of home, and beyond the reach of the benign. influence of parental love and authority. Christ, Who is the head of the Church Militant, has given commandments relative to its extension and establishment in the earth, and requires all who would be His disciples to enter its pale, and show to the world their badge of discipleship by becoming self-denying, fearless, and consistent "soldiers of the Cross." The sentiment of respect, veneration, and homage, which we have, or should

have, for the Deity, must, according to divine requirement, be evidenced by external acts of worship. And to the intelligent and candid reader of the Scriptures, as a revelation from God, this must appear a most obvious duty. All the promises of God in Christ, relative to Divine influence and saving grace, are made to those who are willing to deny themselves, renounce the spirit and fashions of the world, follow Christ, and enter His fold, the Church. But there is not a particle of Scriptural ground for the belief, that they are made to those who choose to remain without, practically despising the commandment of God, in "neglecting the assembling of themselves together," refusing to "come out from the world and be separate," and slighting the Divinely appointed ordinances and sacraments; thereby showing that they prefer the maxims and friendship of the world to the observance of God's law; that they have no heart sympathy with the truly religious; and that they are, therefore “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."1

Another consideration--which is of the utmost importance to the secular state-is, that church-going people will be found in general to be a law-abiding people, and the best of citizens. The Sabbath, and an instituted form of public worship, are the most effectual support of virtue's cause and the public morals, and should, therefore, irrespective of their spiritual and primary design, be regarded as indispensable pillars of State. In the mere interest of State policy alone it should be looked upon as a grand and a necessary institution, not to be lightly set by and despised, as advocated by M. Renan, but being essential alike to national and individual prosperity and well-being, to be encouraged and 1 Eph. ii. 12.