made to ultimately culminate in the Church's complete emancipation from every form of religious profanation, unholy ceremony, and unchristian service. It is certainly encouraging to find that a memorial against ritualism was signed by some sixty thousand lay members of the Church, and presented to the Archbishops of York and of Canterbury; and that in reply their Graces expressed their "entire disapproval of any such innovation, and their firm determination to do all in their power to discourage it." It doubtless augurs well also for the future of the Church, that we read in the public journals of "anti-confessional meetings" being held in Exeter Hall under the presidency of the Earl of Shaftesbury, followed by similar meetings in the provinces, and a meeting, at which this truly noble Earl also took a prominent part, to "unite Churchmen and Nonconformists" with a view to "the maintenance of the Reformation in the Church of England," and which resulted in the formation of a Protestant "Vigilance Committee," whose business it will be to adopt such measures as may be judged best calculated to counteract the "Romanizing tendency" of the Church. Also that Dr. Temple of Exeter, the Bishops of London, of Cork, and many other distinguished prelates, unite in entering a solemn protest against the antichristian proceedings of those ritualistic innovators who to the extent that they have thus forsaken and backslidden from the right way, have fallen from grace, and, in the language of the Bishop of London, proved "unfaithful to their office, their vows, and their Master, the Lord Jesus. Christ."

CHAPTER XVIII.

MAN'S INHERENT DEPRAVITY, REGENERATION, UNITARIANISM, AND A SUBSTITUTED SACRIFICE.

A

S men's views of what is right and wrong widely differ, according to individual disposition and

character; so, it is evident, there can be no universally recognised "rule of right" if the Word of God be rejected. And were the universal recognition of such a rule possible, it would still want the sanction and authority of the Supreme Being to make it to be regarded as universally obligatory. The "universal conscience" or "moral sense," of which M. Renan speaks, besides being wholly wanting in the authoritative or binding element, is notoriously anything but uniform, even among civilized nations, in the recognition of the elementary and practical principles of right and wrong. And not only do nations and communities, civilized and uncivilized, vary in their judg ment in this respect, but the natural conscience or moral sense of individuals of the same community, and brought up under the same course of training, very frequently widely differ; thus showing, from the want of uniformity in this moral principle inherent in man, that a revolution of his moral being has taken place since its creation; that it does not at present retain the pristine perfection of a natural and universal instinct; that hence arises the necessity for a Divine Revelation, setting forth the eternal principles of

right and wrong, and authoritatively demanding an observance of the laws therein laid down in relation thereto; and that hence also arises the necessity of a regenerating Power out of and above himself to restore the disorganized faculties of his moral constitution to their original state of harmony and just appreciation of what is truly right, virtuous, and good, in the sight of God; and, approving it, to be enabled to practise it, as in Scripture enjoined.

But man's moral elevation, says the free-thinking rationalist, is to be brought about by a process of self-culture as based on the laws of "natural progress." Gradual development, through the operation of nature's laws, is, in his judgment, to rectify all the evils that are in the world. The history of civilization as such, however, in connection with the progress and spread of immorality and vice, public and private, national and individual, coupled also with the testimony of the profoundest of heathen sages who were destitute of a Divine Revelation, is against such a doctrine. Recognising the inherent sinfulness of man's nature and his natural incapability of true moral self-renovation, Plato says, "It is implanted in man to sin-the prime evil is inborn in souls. If in this whole disputation, we have rightly conceived the case, virtue is acquired neither by nature's force, nor by any institutes of discipline or teaching ; but it comes to those who have it by a certain Divine inspiration over and above the mind's own force or exertion." Similar testimony, evincing the same justness of conception on this important subject, might be adduced from other heathen writers; thus confirming the fact that the heathen world is not wholly devoid of Divine enlightenment, and forcibly illustrating the passage of Scripture which declares that Christ, through the divinity of His

1 See the writings of Seneca, Socrates, and Plato.

moral nature, is "that light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world."

"The prime evil" is indeed "inborn in souls." Of this, not only the heathen philosopher, but every man who examines himself even by his own acknowledged rule of duty, must be conscious. The practice of what he himself esteems virtue is often contrary to his natural inclination. The performance of known duty is difficult and irksome, while the neglect of it is easy and pleasant to nature. He finds that when he would do good from a sense of duty, evil is frequently present with him. The plain reason is, as the Scriptures set forth, that man's moral and spiritual nature is wholly disordered: naturally, therefore, he is entirely destitute of the power to will and to do that which is truly right and good as a creature sustaining moral and accountable relations to the Creator, and whose duty it is to love God supremely, and his fellow-man sincerely and ardently as a co-partner with him in the race of life, and a candidate with him, by Divine invitation and call, for the immortal glories of the eternal state. As there is, in its essential purity, an entire absence of this principle of love to God and man in the natural heart, in a Scriptural sense while remaining in a state of nature there is no man truly virtuous-"There is none righteous, no not one." Christ came to seek and to save those who were 66 lost," those who were dead in trespasses and sins;" for, as it is further written, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and, "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin ; that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."-Galatians iii. 22.

The tide of evil in man's nature, then, can be reversed, and the original harmony of his being restored, by the power

of God alone. True self-conquest and spiritual liberty can be attained only through the direct supernatural agency of the Spirit of God. Failing to recognise such agency, men's efforts at effecting a moral renovation of their natures will ever prove fruitless and unavailing. Their unruly tendencies and passions, bidding defiance to all such radically defective efforts, will maintain their dominion, and assert their tyranny in a thousand imperious forms.

Of the virtuous and their ultimate reward, according to his peculiar idea of such, Renan thus speaks: "It is certain that moral and virtuous humanity will have its reward, that one day the ideas of the poor but honest man will judge the world, and that on that day the ideal figure of Jesus will be the confusion of the frivolous who have not believed in virtue, and of the selfish who have not been able to attain to it."1 As to the nature of what he styles, "The favourite phrase of Jesus," "the kingdom of God," which embraces every form of virtue, Renan describes it in one place as "the highest form of good," and in another, as "the moral judgment of the world, delegated to the conscience of the just man, and to the arm of the people. . . . The idea of the 'kingdom of God,' and the Apocalypse which is the complete image of it, are thus in a sense, the highest and most poetic expression of human progress." A definition. this of "poetic" mysticism, or of anything else, rather than of the kingdom of God," we should say. But as to the means of attaining it, he says: "Jesus often declares that the kingdom of God has already commenced; that every man bears it within himself; and can, if he be worthy, partake of it; that each one silently creates this kingdom by the true conversion of the heart." Every intelligent reader of the New Testament must be aware that this is a 1 Page 208. 2 Page 205. 3 Pp. 206, 207. 4 Page 205.