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Divine impersonality than was possessed either by Bishop Butler or Mr. Rogers, teaches the same doctrine concerning miracles. In Sartor Resartus the question is asked, 'Is not a miracle simply a violation of the laws of nature?' 'I answer' says Teufelsdroeck, 'by this new question, what are the laws of nature? To me, perhaps, the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these laws, but a confirmation, were some far deeper law now first penetrated into, and by spiritual force even as the rest have all been, brought to bear on us with its material force. They (the laws) stand written in our works of science, say you, in the accumulated records of man's experience? Was man with his experience present at the creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the universe and guaged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His council; that they read His ground-plan of the incomprehensible All, and can say,-This stands marked therein and no more than this?' Alas! not in any wise. These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we also are, have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the Deep that is infinite without bottom and without shore.'

We must predicate human attributes of God, and yet we must again deny that any human attributes can be truly predicated of Him. He has them, and yet He has them not, for the mode of His possessing them transcends our knowledge. God is not a person as we are persons, yet, as Schleiermacher says, 'the pious soul craves a personal God,' and the very conditions on which we know God, carry with them, in some way, His personality. We may deny Him will, and yet He wills. He is not intelligent. He is intelligence itself. He has no designs, the idea of infinite wisdom excludes that of design, and yet to us He is the vast Designer. He is not hoary with time, for eternity is ever young, and yet He is the Ancient of Days. He is not our Father, because we are not infinite as He is, nor consubstantial with Him, and yet He is most truly Our Father in Heaven.' He is not He sits

a king, for that is a human term, and a human office. on no material throne. He holds in His hand no material sceptre, and yet He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is incorporeal, without body or parts,' and yet He fills heaven and earth. He is without passions;' yet He is a jealous God, and angry with the wicked every day. His name is love. is an immutable will to all good, yet to all workers of unrighteousness, He is, by the necessity of His nature, a consuming fire.

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IV. Pantheism is sometimes defined as a doctrine which denies the distinction between good and evil. But this definition is too indefinite to be of any service. Religious philosophy invariably interprets the Mosaic account of the fall of man as a mythical form of a fact of human nature. Evil or sin is generally identified with imperfection. Man comes short of the supreme good, and therefore evil exists, which is only the negation of good. Every explanation of sin which has been made virtually denies that there is anything positive in it. Even the Greek word, which the Apostles use to express it, is said to mean primarily 'failure' or 'short-coming,' omission rather than commission. The theory of Leibnitz, which is adopted by some writers on Natural Theology makes sin nothing more than a metaphysical imperfection. In this, Leibnitz did not differ from Spinoza, nor Spinoza from S. Augustine, though the Abbé Maret boasts that 'Leibnitz and the Catholic theologians' have settled the question of evil long since. They have settled it only by showing that 'whatever is, is right,' and that partial evil' is universal good.' S. Augustine; had no other argument but this against the Manichean Dualism; and rational theology has, as yet, found no other vindication of the ways of God to man' Instead of leading to the Catholic doctrine of original sin, it leads where it led Dr. Pangloss to the denial of sin altogether. Pantheism in this sense is nothing more than the theology of reason-the theology of all for the best' as taught by Pope in the Essay on Man, by Archbishop King in his sermon Ion Predestination, by Thomson in his sublime Hymn on the Seasons, and by Emerson in one of his 'Pantheistic sermons' where he says that the Divine effort is never relaxed; the carrion in the sun will convert itself into grass and flowers; and man, though in brothels or jails, or on gibbets, is on his way to all that is true and good.' *

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V. The question of the existence of evil is inseparably connected with the doctrine of predestination which, with the old philosophers, was called 'necessity,' or 'fate.' If evil has not come into the world through the free will of man, it must have come from the will of God, or through necessity. The ancient

This subject is treated of at large by Dr. Julius Müller in the second book of his treatise on the Christian doctrine of sin.' There are some judicious remarks on it in Principal Tulloch's 'Burnett Prize Essay.' The author says it is clear that this theory (that of Leibnitz) pushed to its fair logical results, only escapes Pantheism by making sin eternal. Man only ceases to be a sinner by becoming God.'

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philosophers were strong predestinarians. Predestination entered into their conception of God. It was God's providence considered absolutely. They did not always distinguish between the Divine will and necessity. And yet each is distinctly acknowledged. The union of them, if in any way they can be harmonized, would correspond to the free-necessity' of Spinoza. The recognition of a Divine will is the recognition of a personal Deity. Fate is the silent impersonal power through which the purposes and designs of God are accomplished. This Fate is often identified with the being of God, as in Seneca, where he says, Will you call Him Fate? You will call Him rightly, for all things depend on Him. He is the cause of causes.' It is sometimes called law. Seneca again says, All things go on for ever according to a certain rule, ordained for ever.' To this agree the words of Cicero All things come to pass according to the sovereignty of the eternal law;' and those of Pindar, where he calls law the ruler of mortals and immortals.' But this fate or law was yet in some way the expression of a mind. 'Nothing is more wonderful in the whole world,' said Manilius, 'than Reason, and that all things obey fixed laws.' The reason manifest in the world is so inseparably connected with the laws that the one seems to be always assumed when the other is mentioned. I am firmly of opinion' says Sophocles, in the Ajax, that all these things, and whatever befals us, are in consequence of the Divine purpose. Whoso thinks otherwise is at liberty to follow his own judgment, but this will ever be mine.' Chyrsippus, the Stoic, defined fate as that natural order and constitution of things from everlasting, whereby they naturally followed upon each other in consequence of an immutable and perpetual complication.' The Stoics, more than all the philosophers of antiquity, connected the Divine Being with the universe. He was the active principle in nature or the first nature, corresponding to the 'nature-producing' of Spinoza, while created things were 'nature produced.' Laertius says that they defined fate as the Logos whereby the world is governed and directed.' God Himself is subjected to fate, yet He is the maker of that fate to which He is subject. The same necessity' says Seneca, binds the gods themselves. The Framer and Ruler of all things made the fates indeed, yet He follows. He always obeys. He commanded once.' And Lucan to the same effect. He eternally formed the causes whereby He controls all things, subjecting Himself likewise to law.' This interpretation of the fate of the Stoics has the sanction of S.

SPINOZA AND TOPLADY.

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Augustine, who says we acquiesce in their manner of expres sion, because they carefully ascribe this fixed succession of things, and this mutual concentration of causes and effects to the will of God.' Nothing could be nearer Spinoza's necessity than that of the Stoics. The very words of Seneca enter into his definitions of freedom and necessity. A thing is free,' said Spinoza, when it exists by the sole necessity of its nature, and is determined to action only by itself.' "Outward things cannot compel the gods,' said Seneca, but their own eternal will is a law to themselves." God acts by a free necessity,' said Spinoza, and Seneca, to the same effect, said God is not hereby less free, or less powerful, for He Himself is His own necessity.'

In the doctrine of predestination as received by Christians, the idea of a necessity which binds the Deity is eliminated. God Himself is absolutely free. All things proceed from IIis will, and are directed by His will in all apparent contingencies. With the old Calvinist divines of the Church of England this was a tangible doctrine of the special providence of God. A sparrow,' says Bishop Hopkins, whose price is but mean, and whose life, therefore, is but contemptible, and whose flight seems giddy and at random, yet falls not to the ground, neither lights anywhere without your Father. His all-wise providence hath before appointed what bough it shall pitch on; what grains it shall pick up; where it shall lodge, and where it shall build; on what it shall live and when it shall die."' All things are predestined-every event and every action in the life of every individual. It is unchangeably determined to whom salvation shall be offered, who shall accept it, and who shall neglect it. But does not this destroy all distinction between good and evil? Does not this take away responsibility from man, and make God the Author of good and evil, salvation and condemnation? Yes, according to our reasoning. And is not this the very jection which was made to Spinoza? And what was Spinoza's answer? Nearly in the words with which Toplady answered Wesley. The wicked must be punished because they are wicked, just as men destroy vipers because they are hurtful, though it is by no choice of theirs, but by their nature, "Zeno, the founder of the Stoics,' says Toplady, one day thrashed his servant for pilfering. The fellow knowing his master was a fatalist, thought to bring himself off by alleging that he was destined to steal, and therefore ought not to be beat for it. 'You are destined to steal, are you?' answered the philosopher, ' then you are no less destined to be thrashed for it,' and laid

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on some hearty blows accordingly. What is objected to the predestination of Spinoza may be equally objected to the predestination of the genuine Calvinist.* Christ, according to Spinoza, was good by necessity, but He did not, therefore, cease to be good. Judas was predestined to betray Jesus, but he was not, therefore, less Judas, or less culpable. This was virtually leaving the question where Bishop Butler left it when he said, 'And, therefore, though it were admitted that this opinion of necessity were speculatively true; yet, with regard to practice, it is as if it were false, so far as our experience reaches; that is to the whole of our present life. For the constitution of the present world, and the condition in which we are placed, is as if we were free.' †

VI. The question of Pantheism involves the question of immortality, not, indeed, as to its reality, but its character. Our first thought of the life everlasting is that of dwelling as conscious individuals in the immediate presence of God. And as we cannot conceive that the sum of our being can be less in the eternal world than in the present, we cling eagerly to the hope of the resurrection of the body.' But how can the same body be raised again? We change the materials of the body many times in the course of our lives. Yea, the same materials which constitute our bodies have constituted other bodies, and will constitute yet others, we know not how often. In the resurrection day whose shall the bones be, the particles of which have formed the bones of many individuals? The physical fact destroys belief in the literal resurrection of the body. Thou fool,' says S. Paul, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, but God gives it a body, to every seed its own

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*What is here said of predestination refers only to the philosophical part of it-that which relates to necessity. Christians who receive this doctrine, generally receive it because they find it, or think they find it in the Scriptures. Supposing it is there in any absolute sense, either Sublapsarian or Supralapsarian, its reception or rejection becomes then a question of authority or reason. Wesley, in his celebrated sermon on Free Grace, says that no scripture can prove predestination.' He means that the doctrine of election-the choosing of some to eternal life, and the preterition or reprobation of others is so opposed to the character of God as the good, the merciful, the just, that no external authority can establish it. So far as we can see, it is not justified by reason. Hence all rational theologians who have been predestinarians, such as Erigena, Spinoza, and Schleiermacher believed in the predestination of all men to eternal life. This is the only view that consists with reason.

'If,' says Spinoza, we look to our nature, we shall understand clearly that in our actions we are free. But if we look to the nature of God, we shall see as clearly and distinctly that all things depend on Him, and that nothing exists but that which God has decreed eternally should exist.'