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on Scriptural and not rationalistic stems. Very little in our sceptical literature which sets forth grand principles and hopes for the governance and stimulation of society has "a purely natural origin," very much is "due to the influence of Christianity." By the aid of the polariscope the astronomer can determine whether a celestial body shines in its own light, or whether its beam is merely the reflection of some other orb: if we could introduce a similar instrument into the intellectual sphere, one whose delicate action would discover how far the light of any system was original or derived, would not our proud reasoners be startled to find that many of those doctrines which they regard as the independent illuminations of reason, are but the reflected beams of the great Scriptural luminary they affect to despise? Mr. Huxley in criticising the system of Comte says: "I could not distinguish it from sheer Popery, with M. Comte in the chair of St. Peter, and the names of most of the saints changed." (Selected Essays, p. 94.) Indeed the whole thing is borrowed from Christianity, and the disguise is most transparent. The grand principle of the Positivist system, "Live for others," is, of course, pre-eminently Christian, and M. Comte would never have penetrated to such a sublime idea, except with the teaching of the Church before him. And J. S. Mill in a similar way coolly appropriates the teaching of Christianity, "seizes upon the grand distinctive principle and peculiar characteristic of Christianity, and puts it forth as a new thing." When scepticism boasts of the great truths it inculcates, the Church may answer, "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out" the riddle. The Servian legend declares that when the evil spirits were turned out of heaven, they took the sun with them, the devil carrying it stuck on a lance across his shoulders, and the archangel Michael had a good deal of trouble before he could rescue it, and restore it to its sphere. One is often reminded of this legend in reading rationalistic literature; there is constantly so much foreign light, and sometimes it seems as if the writer had carried off bodily the radiant luminary of the Church. We have heard a good deal lately of "mimicry in plants," of the resemblance which some plants exhibit to others of an entirely different character, but in the philosophies of scepticism is a far more surprising "mimicry;" strangely enough the weeds of earth have caught something of the shape, and colour, of the flowers of heaven.

3. We may predict the fruitlessness of these various doctrines when separated from the Christian system. It is a grand idea with several rationalistic writers to accept many of the distinctive teachings of Christianity, but to place these doctrines on a new basis, the basis of reason. Now what will be the result of taking these doctrines

out of Revelation, and planting them in the grounds of philosophy? We answer, those doctrines will be powerless and fruitless. Take away the central idea of Christianity-the Divine and crucified One-and all the doctrines of the New Testament which range themselves around the Cross, and which are all vital and glorious in that relation, become impotent and worthless theories. Christian truths in the hands of rationalism lose all their reality and efficacy, and are no longer what they were.

"There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists;
And cunning alchemists

Could recreate the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume."

So the philosophical alchemists of our day, in the crucible of criticism, have reduced the Word of God to dust and ashes, and in its place they present us with a thin, spectral, wavering reproduction of Heaven's plant of healing, all the beauty, fragrance, and virtue of the Divine original having vanished for ever. No, we must have all the truths of Christianity, all in just proportion, and resting on their Scriptural basis, and then, and only then, will these truths prove "the power of God unto salvation."

4. We infer the duty of the Christian Church to hold fast the Gospel in its integrity.—"The foundation of God standeth sure." Our enemies testify to the strength of our Rock, let us honour that Rock, and abide in its shelter. Let us not sacrifice anything to the hasty demands of sceptical science and philosophy. We have the truth; and their literature shows it. There is a readiness in us to adopt the theories and language of anti-Christian thinkers. It is a mistake. Meaner birds will imitate the notes of other birds, but the woodlark, as if aware of its own matchless song, will not take one note from another bird. To us belong the majestic harmonies of Heaven; the world may borrow from us, we cannot from them:

"A glory gilds the Sacred Page,

Majestic, like the sun :

It gives a light to every age;

It gives, but borrows none."

W. L. WATKINSON.

THE PRAYERS OF ST. PAUL:

THE GLORY OF THE INHERITANCE.

"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in

my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come."- EPHESIANS i. 15-21.

THE Epistle to the Ephesians is, more than any of the others, written in devotional language. It begins with a long doxology, which glorifies the Father of Jesus Christ for the predestined eternal sonship of His saints, for the bestowal of grace upon them in the Eternal Son of His love, and for the dispensation of the fulness of times which brought the accomplishment of redemption. Thus while "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (i. 3) receives the tribute, the "Beloved," in whom the decree was eternal, and the "Spirit of Promise, the Holy One, who is the earnest of that inheritance," (i. 13,) complete the Trinity of the mediatorial economy. The grace which was bestowed freely in the eternally beloved Son is in the first mention of it described as the "glory of His grace," (i. 6,) whereby the redeeming work is connected with the supreme Divine attributes. This "glory" recurs again and again in the prayer which we have before us. The same is true of the "inheritance," which is twofold: first it is God's inheritance," in whom we became His inheritance,” (i. 11,) or that "purchased possession" which is hereafter to be redeemed; (i. 14;) then it is "our inheritance," of which the Holy Spirit is the earnest. (i. 14.) In the prayer that follows it will appear that both senses of the word are retained: God's inheritance in us and ours in Him are profoundly and eternally related and one in Christ.

The doxology can hardly be said to end until verse 14; and even then it ends only to begin again in the thanksgiving which the Apostle ceased not to present, but which passed immediately into prayer, that they might experimentally know the glory of the Christian inheritance. The petitions offered on their behalf, and in behalf of the whole Church, cannot be understood without some reference to the state of those who are thus prayed for. They are first spoken of as Gentiles introduced to the common hope which had been revealed to the ancient people who "first trusted in the Christ:" that this is the allusion of the Apostle seems evident from the tenour of the Epistle and from the force of the word "before; " but it is equally obvious that the allusion is a very covert one, and too faint to be pressed. The emphasis of the thanksgiving falls, not upon the extension of grace to the Gentiles, but upon their "faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all saints," (i. 15,) that is, if the words are strictly rendered, the faith belonging to them as a people now found in Christ is acknowledged, and the fruits of it in brotherly love. Going back to the preceding words, we must interpret the "wherefore as resuming the beautiful description of Christian privilege which the Ephesians had attained. This moves in a series of pairs. They heard the "word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation:" truth as from Christ and salvation as for them. They

believed, and in believing, were sealed: faith and its assurance are here united, as also faith towards Christ and sealing of God for Himself. Then the seal becomes an “earnest of our inheritance" until the Lord redeems His own "purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory." The Christian inheritance in God and God's inheritance in the Christian are one, though the term is different in the two cases for the sake of propriety.

Thus we are introduced to the Prayer, which must be viewed in its one leading idea, the revelation to experimental knowledge of the glory of the Christian inheritance. This divides into two parts: the Father is invoked, through the Son, for the Spirit of revelation to enlighten the eyes; and the effect is described as the perception of the hope of our calling, or the riches of the inheritance generally, and particularly the personal experience of it through faith, which apprehends the might of the exalted power of the risen Saviour. There is, however, a certain unity in this prayer which renders close analysis impossible or superfluous.

The invocation introduces the Holy Trinity; and this must be remembered in the interpretation of the terms employed by the Apostle. With this key in our hands—which must be used throughout the Epistle, and especially in its prayers-we have "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory" addressed as the Giver of all knowledge; "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation" is then asked for us, both the gift and the medium of it; and "our Lord Jesus Christ" is the sphere of that knowledge, the full "knowledge of Him" being the revelation of the Triune God.

The title by which the Head of the mediatorial Trinity is addressed has no parallel elsewhere. He is the God of our incarnate Lord, both Divine and human; but His God in a relation derived from His human nature. Let not this, however, be supposed to mean that He is the God of Jesus Christ as the Being whom He worships, and to whom He prays: He is the God of whom Jesus and Jesus alone bears witness, the God whose definition is that He is revealed in His incarnate Son. He is the Father of glory, as the eternal Father of our Lord, in a relation derived from His Divine nature. Though "glory" does not mean precisely the Divine essence as in the Son, it approaches very near that meaning. St. John says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father; " (John i. 14;) and St. Paul: "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord." The ancient glory of the Shekinah was the symbol of the Divine residence in humanity through the incarnation of the Son; and now the symbol has become a reality in one sense the "God of glory" (Acts vii. 2) has become "the Lord of glory;" (1 Cor. ii. 8;) that is, in Christ : in another sense," the God of glory" has become "the Father of glory," inasmuch as all His glory is enshrined in the Son. Thus the two designations are only one under two aspects. It is God revealed in Christ who is addressed, not, as we might have expected, "the God of glory" and "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; " but inverting the order, and thus laying a stumbling-block before superficial exposition, while giving to faith an adorable mystery.

"The Spirit of wisdom and revelation" is the special burden of the VOL. XXII.-FIFTH SERIES.

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prayer; and is introduced in such a manner as to define that Spirit in His personality as the Giver of revelation objectively and the source of wisdom subjectively. Immediately before, the Apostle had said that the Holy Spirit was the seal of their consecration in the temple of God, and that as a Person: "Who is the earnest." When, therefore, the supplication asks conditionally that the Father "may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation," it is obvious that the emphasis lies on a specific influence of the Holy Ghost, already indwelling in the heart. What the precise blessings are, which we are taught to expect, will appear from a combination of the three terms: wisdom, revelation, and knowledge of God. Their combination: the arrangement of the two former words in the original shows that they were most closely united in the Apostle's thought, while both have their further explanation in the third.

The Spirit is in every believer a revealing Agent, unveiling or showing the things of Christ. In the Church generally, He executed that office once for all as the Spirit of inspiration, revealing the mind of God through the Scriptures; and continually executes it by interpreting those Scriptures to the common mind and heart of the people of God, who "have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things." (1 John ii. 20.) But it is evident that the Apostle invokes that Spirit here as the Revealer of truth to the individual Christian; and as this is the strongest and clearest instance of the mention of such a privilege, it must be riveted on our minds. The Holy Ghost dwelling in the believer may be to him a perpetual internal oracle; "the word of Christ" dwelling in him "richly;" (Col. iii. 16;) that is, the very voice of the Word secretly teaching him what he could not otherwise know. For we must not lose here the proper meaning of the term revelation: it is more than the mere direction of the understanding in the meditation of truth; it is no less than the secret disclosure to the contemplation of truth concerning Christ which is not written in words. Unless this be so, revelation is no more revelation. The logical understanding may weave into systematic doctrine the Scriptural teaching concerning the Person and work of the Mediator. But that is not all, nor is that enough. It is the privilege of every believer to have the anointing from the Holy One, which makes Him a personal Saviour revealed over again to the heart. The same Spirit who presides over what must be called the external revelation of the Christ, presides also over what may be called the internal revelation to each. Nothing less than this will satisfy the language of our prayer; nothing less than this should satisfy the aspiration of the Christian. It is true that he has already, by the very terms of his discipleship, received already such an internal manifestation of the Saviour. He has already "trusted in Christ," and his union with the Lord has been already "sealed." He has received an internal assurance of acceptance which no theoretical belief could bring him; he has beheld the Lord by a light not kindled by human agency. But he has before him a glorious future of revelations; according to that word, "Thou shalt see greater things than these." (John i. 50.) There remains yet the fulfilment of the great promise: "I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” (John xiv. 21.) And it is concerning that unlimited future of new and ever-deepen

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