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prayer. The real gift of Him has anticipated the efforts of both alike. The awakened soul is sure to find, with a ravishing surprise at last, that while he has been imagining himself seeking, he was all the while being sought by the object of his search, already his. And if the theistic logician does not receive a similarly glad surprise, it is because his eyes are not yet sufficiently open to the truth of the case. Hastening, as he supposes, toward the fact of God's existence by his reasonings, he is liable at any moment to have the discovery burst on his eyes that his logical appliances already involve and rest on the fact which he is seeking to make rest on them. The inevitable reality and presence are already there. The thought of the thinker, like his practical life, can only live, move, and have its being in the God whom he is feeling after. All this is but simple assertion,-simple affirmation of one sole mode of evidencing the fact of God's existence,-simple negation of all others. Questions radical and immense remain,-questions not always dealt with, or even always acknowledged as pending, when such assertions are made. It is not enough to assert that God is an intuition. If the fact of God's existence be intuitively known, we must be able to lay our hand palpably on the divine intuition in the mind. We must detect the mind in the act of intuitively knowing God. Such an analysis must be made as shall show in what process or processes it acts on the presupposition that God exists,-acts in such a manner that the recognition by it of His existence is seen to be the very condition of its action. By this the question put to the intuitional theist by Dr. Flint and Dr. M'Cosh, whether he can point out a separate definite intuition of God, will at the same time be disposed of. It may be also asked,—if it be found that we get God in multiplied mental data, how are these many and varied voices of intuition unified into an intuitive recognition of one Being? Then, too, as to those many, grand, and far-gathered facts of the universe, and those sublime truths and thoughts of the mind, out of which theistical demonstrators have been wont to draw their a posteriori and a priori arguments, what is the real relation in which that material stands to the fact of God's existence?-what is its function with respect to our knowledge of that fact, since we assert it is not that of logically proving it? These are questions which he, who asserts an intuitional and denies an inferential Theism, must consider himself bound clearly and satisfactorily to answer. Meanwhile, the one regret in reference to the 'Baird Lecture' on Theism is, that its author did not make the assertion and denial thus signalised, and build the system of theistic evidence on the altered lines which should thus have been laid for it. The damaging element in the whole discussion is that there is faltering at this critical point. So far as the stern necessity for a choice between the inevitable logical alternatives has been discerned, the wrong choice has been made. Dr. Flint is professedly an

inferential theist.

(To be continued.)

MACBETH; OR GROWTH IN EVIL.

BY REV. WILLIAM TURNER, EDINBURGH.

A GOOD drama is a true Christian parable, full of spiritual meanings and holy lessons. Like the parables of Scripture, it is a fragment taken from the quarry of ordinary secular history, and so polished and set as to show the veins of divine order and moral law whereby all human history is permeated. By the clear exhibition of these, rather than by the pity and

terror it excites, does tragedy 'purge the soul.' The dramas of Shakespeare, inasmuch as they are pre-eminent in their truth to nature and in the power of their delineations, yield themselves with peculiar facility to parabolic uses; and I make no apology for thus attempting to turn to account, for the purposes of moral instruction, the great poem of Macbeth.'

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That there is a process of growth in human life and history is a truth illustrated in several of the parables of Jesus Christ, specially in those recorded in the 13th chapter of Matthew. In these, as also in Bunyan's well-known allegory, it is growth in goodness which occupies the foreground. But there is growth in evil as well as in good. In the one moral condition as in the other, there is first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.' In the career of the wicked as well as of the righteous, 'it doth not' at first appear what they shall be;' and many, like Hazael, have in the comparative innocence of their earlier days spurned from them with indignation the picture of that which thay have at last become. It is this growth in evil which I wish now to contemplate. For my sermon I find a text altogether suitable in James i. 13-15: 'Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.' 'Macbeth' shall furnish the commentary on this text, and it is hoped that the natural darkness and repulsiveness of the theme will be in no small measure relieved by the force and beauty of the poetical illustration.

In 'Macbeth,' as in the corresponding prose poem of Bunyan, we have one principal character, the growth of whose moral nature is set off by juxtaposition with various other subordinate characters. Macbeth is one of the most distinguished and trusted of the generals of Duncan, who is king of Scotland at a period when the country is exposed to the assaults of Norwegians, Danes, and other invaders. He has approved himself not only a valiant soldier and skilful leader but also a loyal subject, and he bears throughout the kingdom an honoured name as the bravest of the thanes and the best support of the throne. We first meet Macbeth as he marches at the head of his troops, in company with another distinguished captain, Banquo, on their return from victorious fight with the Norwegians. The country over which they are travelling is a blasted heath,' and a tempest is shaking the heavens. 'So foul and fair a day,' remarks Macbeth, referring at once to the victory and to the storm, 'I have not seen.' On such a day, ‘a bairn might understand,' according to Burns, that the prince of the power of the air' was abroad; and so it proved for the two generals. As they struggle on through the fierce wind and rain, separated by the darkness from their army, a strange apparition presents itself. Three frightful hags stand before them, the famous witches which, like so many other marvellous beings, owe their existence in the world of fancy to the genius of Shakespeare. These witches do not belong to the class of the weak and much-abused creatures who currently bear this name; on the contrary, they are beings potent and dreadful, veritable ministers of darkness and denizens of the pit, armed with might to raise storms, to inflict diseases, to foretell the future, and to tempt men to ruin. According to the Bible, temptations to sin come not from above but from beneath. It is an enemy '-the adversary and destroyerwho sows tares in God's field. Infernal agencies, we are given to understand, are constantly at work,-'principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world,' under the command of the god of this world, the prince of the

power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,' who 'goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,'-and by these many of the children of men are blinded, infatuated, seduced, and led captive' to destruction. 'O foolish Galatians,' says Paul in his expostulation with the erring, 'who hath bewitched you?' As it was with Eve in the garden in Eden, with Job amid his abundance in the land of Uz, with David on the throne in Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ in the wilderness of Judea, the steps of the Scottish chieftain are now waylaid by infernal agency, presented in a form such as it suits our poet to call into being out of the 'vasty deep' of his imagination.

'Speak, if you can,' says Macbeth to the 'weird sisters,' 'what are ye?'-to which in succession they reply,

All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis !
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!.
All hail, Macbeth! that shall be king hereafter!'

Now this threefold salutation is a 'prophetic greeting;'- for in all temptation prophecy or at least promise is involved. Ye shall be as God,' said the serpent to Eve, 'knowing good and evil.' 'All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,' said the tempter to Christ, I will give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.' Macbeth had learned, but a little time before, that by the death of a relative he had become thane of Glamis; but the thane of Cawdor lived, and the king lived, and yet by these high titles is he now saluted! The manner in which our hero is affected by this prophecy gives us a deep insight into the secrets of his heart, and demands special notice. Says Banquo to his friend, as the sound of the witches' salutation dies upon the air,

'Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,'

he continues to the hags,

'Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
Ye greet with present grace, and great predictions
Of noble having and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal.'

This starting and raptness of demeanour discernible in Macbeth are tell-tale. It is plain that the witches' salutation has touched him on the quick, and that the prospects which it opens up exactly meet the ideas on which his thoughts are secretly brooding. He is startled, alarmed, amazed, gratified, to find the wishes that have been nestling in the very home of his soul thus proclaimed aloud, so unexpectedly and so authoritatively, by supernatural visitants.

In the heart of Macbeth, as of all men, there exists the instinctive desire of greatness,—a desire which, like all our natural principles of action, in so far as it is instinctive, is of course not criminal. These natural desires, however, require the jealous oversight and firm control of reason and of conscience, lest they transgress their due bounds and hasten with blind force to seize their objects. To these desires outward things appeal, and to them the god of the world addresses his temptations. But the appeal is vain unless the desire be in an active and excited state. The soil is fertile only when it is prepared for the seed. The lust conceives only when it is eagerly alive and ready to embrace the offered good. So long as our natural ambitiousness is curbed with a firm rein and held in check by the dominance in the soul of the principles of righteousness and the affections of brotherly sympathy, it

NO. I. VOL. XXII. NEW SERIES.-JANUARY 1878.

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presents no hold to outward temptation. It is when this principle, instead of being mortified and controlled, is cherished and pampered, and especially when the imagination becomes its minister and it is allowed to conjure up and to revel among the images of the possible and the probable in the way of selfish attainment, that it becomes a soil prepared for the entertainment of the temptation. Now, such, I conceive, was at the time the moral state of Macbeth. His natural ambitiousness, instead of being repressed, had been inflamed by his own brooding thoughts, and was in an eager and susceptible condition. The greatness he had already achieved had inspired the notion of higher greatness as now within his reach, and his mind was prepared to receive confirmation of its own secret desires and suggestions as to the methods by which they might be gratified. His lust had been warmed into active life, and the greeting of the witches comes upon it to aid the conception and to give it definite form. Hitherto his ambition had groped in the dark; now it has eyes given to it, and assumes the shape of a determinate purpose. This picture of the quickening into an evil purpose by means of external evil suggestion of a desire naturally innocent, when that desire has been inflamed and fostered in secret, which is here given, is as true to Scripture as it is to nature and experience. In every case of transgression, the lapse into sin has its real origin in the sinner's own soul. The course consummated in my act takes its rise in my heart. 'We are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lust.' External agency may be, and has constantly been, appealed to by transgressors in the way of excuse or palliation, the agency of God, or of the devil, of our parents, or of our circumstances,—but the appeal is vain. Nothing external to ourselves could act upon us as an effective temptation, unless the desire to which it is addressed were quickened by our own indulgent thoughts into active life. Shakespeare elsewhere shows that he had a deep discernment of this truth. We are, he says, ' merely our own traitors.'

'We are devils to ourselves,

When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,

Presuming on their changeful potency."

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In the history of the first sin, the woman, we are told, gazed upon the forbidden object; and when she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.' There has appeared during the course of the world's history only one man who was guiltless of tempting himself, and who in reference to all evil suggestion was able to say, 'The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.' It is instructive to mark the contrast drawn by the poet between Macbeth and Banquo. It is the contrast between the man who under temptation falls, and the man who under temptation stands upright. Banquo, too, like all men, is not without ambition,' and when the witches address their words of promise to his companion, he is curious to understand if they have no promise for him :

'If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak then to me who neither beg nor fear

Your favours nor your hate.'

He, too, has temptation addressed to him by the hags:

'Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.'

And afterwards Macbeth also becomes his tempter, intimating to him a wish to speak with him in regard to the witches' prophecy, with the hint that if he will follow his counsel,' it shall make honour for you.' But the heart of

Banquo is a garden better kept than that of his fellow-captain, in which the rank growth of sin is carefully watched and restrained. We learn that he habitually wrestles against the dominion of evil thoughts, and we hear him. by night offering up the earnest prayer,—

'Merciful powers,

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!'

Hence to Macbeth's hint about receiving increase of honour, he rejoins,

'So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,

I shall be counselled.'

Thus does our poet, in his parable, teach us that everything pertaining to character and life depends on whether we hate or whether we choose the thoughts of vanity.' It is the entertainment given to those desires which nature has implanted in us, especially when stimulated and appealed to by outward temptation, that determines our career and our destiny.

As the story unfolds, Macbeth gives more and more evidence of the predominance which the ambitious lust has obtained in his spirit. Banquo sees the witches vanish from sight with no feeling save that of natural astonishment, remarking simply but finely,

'The earth hath bubbles as the water has,

And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?'

Macbeth, on the contrary, seeks to detain them, and is eager to hear more regarding the dignities they have predicted for him: Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.' Evidently he is greatly interested and moved. The hags may be bubbles or not, but he is fully possessed with the idea that there is something substantial and important in their words. Recalling with incipient envy that a royal progeny had been promised to his companion, he says, 'Your children shall be kings;' to which, when Banquo replies,' You shall be king,' he rejoins, And thane of Cawdor too! Went it not so?' Thus anxiously does he brood upon the cockatrice' egg' which his lust has conceived, and we may fully expect that it will break forth into a viper.

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It is noticeable that often events fall out so as to blind those who are willing to be blinded. When men's hearts are full of some favourite lust and are eager to be confirmed in the thought which it prompts, God in the arrangements of His providence often gives the occasion for the hardening they seek. Thus, in the language of Scripture, He sends them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.' Thus did he harden the heart of Pharaoh, and thus also is it now with Macbeth. While his mind is yet in a state of eager excitement about his great prospects, the thanes of Rosse and Angus appear as messengers from the king, conveying the royal thanks and congratulations upon the victory that had been achieved; and says Rosse,

'For an earnest of a greater honour

He bade me from him call thee thane of Cawdor,

In which addition hail, most worthy thane!

For it is thine.'

What!' says Banquo in honest surprise, can the devil speak true?' This unexpected and speedy verification of the prophecy is so much new leaven poured into our hero's fermenting spirit:

'Glamis and thane of Cawdor!

The greatest is yet behind.-Thanks for your pains.—
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those who gave the thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to thee?'

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