they present, we believe, no difficulties which an honest mind will find insuperable.

In the endeavor we have thus made to place in their true light the doubts inseparably connected with Christianity, we have attempted the general consideration of the question only. Obviously it is not our place to undertake its application to even a portion of the very many particular cases arising. This, each one, in view of the results of the most enlightened criticism, must do for himself.

It may be, however, incumbent upon us to show in what degree Christianity is likely to be affected by the proper application of the principle laid down, and how much will be required to be given up. The natural and instinctive jealousy, which every good man feels in questions where his faith is concerned, requires this at our hands.

First of all, then, this view of Christianity as a faith system fully recognizes and maintains its character as a supernatural revelation. It would be hardly worth the mentioning to say that a man believed the great moral truths developed in Christianity. How can one help in this day believing them? There is scarce an infidel who has not attained to that degree of faith.

But the faith we have been speaking of, the technical FAITH of the gospel, is the reception of Christianity as a religious system; a great, manifold, and unquestionable revelation of God, given for man's recovery, and supported by abundant evidences of the divine power. By our very supposition, it is doubt as part of such a system that we are seeking to explain; and the argument, so far from threatening the great truth of a divine interposition, rather rests upon it as its very basis. This, then, is at once a sufficient defense of the doubt or faith character of the gospel, against any dangerous tendency, or tendency favorable to infidelity, which it may be supposed to contain. For the single test of infidel tendency in anything, is whether it abandons, or looks toward the abandonment of the great doctrine of a supernatural interposition. This, in every case, is the one question to be asked; for this is the sure touchstone of infidelity.

Neither, is it to be observed, does the view of faith we have considered weaken, or in any respect threaten, any of the great fundamental doctrines of the gospel. Man's natural depravity, the incarnation, the atonement, justification by faith alone,-a chapter might be written to show how each of these is not only confirmed, but set in a clearer light and upon even higher ground by the view we have taken.

It is true, indeed, that whilst thus securing everything essential to Christianity as a religious system, our doctrine does give a certain play and freedom to the mind, adapting itself, as it were, to each man's individuality in its reception. Thus, if there be one of such a make by nature, that some matter, involving to his mind a very absolute inconsistency or improbability, affords him infinite trouble, and he can make no progress till it is somehow disposed of, he is enabled to throw it aside as unexplained, indeed, but at the best unessential, and so proceed on his way. Or if there be another who wants, for the satisfaction of his spirit, only the profound truths of Christianity, and to whom petty questions are only an annoyance, there is left to him the liberty of the spirit.

But the play and freedom thus given are not given to a dangerous extent, nor are they liable to be run into license. On the contrary, it is the natural and necessary tendency of our doctrine to lead the mind to accept the truths of scripture even in their minutiae, wherever it does not feel itself compelled to reject them. The Christian, under the influence of the faith we have described, comes to the contemplation of the scriptures with the feeling, as we saw in our opening remarks, that there is no improbability in the fact itself of a divine revelation, or of miracles, but that these are rather, under appropriate circumstances, probable. He comes also with the feeling that though there should be apparent deficiency in the amount of proof of any scripture statement, here is not evidence against it, since this may have been a part of the very plan of God. He comes still again with the feeling that though there should be apparent inconsistencies, that is no proof that they are really such; since we cannot properly claim of God, that He should set forth every circumstance in all the light pertaining to it. And

The Bible is so full

in all these cases faith inclines to believe. of light, so full even in many of its slightest touches, that faith longs to appropriate it all. It can see and rejoice in probabilities merely, nay in possibilities. It comes with the very spirit of a child. It is only when the inconsistency or improbability is so great that it cannot in any way be brought into accordance with reason, that it is finally rejected. This is the true Christian faith, and if there be a Christian man whose confidence in the consistency of God's blessed gospel and the fullness of its light and truth is so small, that he fears the results of even this degree of liberty, we beg him least of all to blame the faith of any other man for its precariousness or poverty.

We know that these remarks apply with greatest force to the New Testament; and it is no disadvantage to our mind, in our doctrine, that it gives to the interpretation of the Old Testament a larger liberty than some have been willing to accord. On the contrary, we believe it would be one of the most beneficent of its results, if it could but reconcile, in many minds, two feelings that seem to be both true, and yet inconsistent with each other; the feeling that the earlier scriptural records present distinctly a revelation from God, as do the later; and yet that there are many things in the Old Testament, its history and even its moral presentations, which, judged by the Christian standard, cannot be received as highest and perfect truth.

The former feeling, that the Old Testament is inspired, most essential arguments go to confirm; the reverence which Christ and the Apostles had for it; the declaration of the New Testament that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and most of all its evident foreshadowing of the gospel, and its deep meaning as preparatory to the Saviour.

The other feeling, that the Old is not to be placed on a par with the New Testament, is supported both by things in it, discovered not for the first time by Bishop Colenso, which stagger faith, and also by the Saviour's own declarations, that the morality, allowed, at least, if not approved, in the Old Testament, admitted of improvement under the system of His truth, and that "the law" found its fulfillment in Christianity.

We can but believe that the very statement of the case, as thus made, presents the solution to which faith will come. There is gospel truth richly and abundantly in the Old Testament. It declares the existence of a holy and just God, maker of all. It declares the fall and ruin of man, and God's gracious presence with him still; especially it exhibits his great and merciful design to save man, setting forth the promise of a Redeemer with ever increasing clearness; this last is woven into much of its history, ritual, and prophecy; and in all these, in many of its lofty expressions of worship, indeed in its chief parts, the Christian does not fail to find God's own blessed truth as preparatory to His glorious gospel. It is a portion of the same system, and in like manner divinely given. As such he appropriates it, loves it, cannot do without it. In other parts this exists, to say the least, in far less proportion. Some of the records of Jewish history seem to be of little more than a national interest. Some of the moral writings concern to a great extent worldly matters, and profess to give largely the results of a worldly wisdom. Some of the prophecies appear to have concerned events obscure and long past, and in these parts, what though men shall prove to their entire satisfaction, or even to our satisfaction, inconsistencies. Where the peculiar evidence on which faith alone can rest is wanting; where it is not even professed that the vital truths to which of its very nature it belongs are involved, there, surely, the same claim does not exist upon it as in other parts, neither need it concern itself, though it should be entirely established, that a full and perfect revelation from God is not there contained.

We believe, then, that the Old Testament will present no insuperable difficulties if only the faith of the gospel, as Christ himself gave us the example, is set to interpret it. We believe that its substantial importance, as an essential part of God's great revelation, will not then be seriously threatened. If there are dangerous tendencies in the position of some of the writers in the "Essays and Reviews," or in the book of Bishop Colenso, upon this subject, and that there are is not to be denied, they arise from the fact that in the minds of those writers, the improbabilities in the Old Testament have come to have a disproportionate importance; and, in a measure, to outweigh the

evidence that it forms a part of the Christian revelation. It may well happen that even in the mind of a good man, if he have devoted himself long to the critical rather than to the general study of the Bible, doubt may turn, especially in the case of the Old Testament, to the part of scepticism rather than of faith. With the church at large this can never be. The earnest and thoughtful Christian man is in little danger of having his reverence for the Old Testament shaken. He may not, indeed, find it necessary to force all of its history, all of its chronology, all of its morality even, on minds that cannot fully receive them; but he will never cease to love it as a part of God's precious gospel, nor will he cease to demand that it be preserved at least in all the fullness of its relations to faith, unimpaired.

At the present moment there is taking place among Christians who speak the English tongue, a movement, such as was never known before, upon the great questions, what shall we do with the difficulties presented in the Scriptures, and what ground shall we take as to the nature of inspiration? The efforts of Infidelity have succeeded in accomplishing what in the end will prove to have been a great service to Christianity; they have succeeded in establishing the fact that there is room left in the Bible for doubt, and that it even contains apparent discrepancies and improbabilities difficult to do away. The minds of scholars have long acknowledged this, and they have been preparing for the issue. The Essays and Reviews, and the book of Bishop Colenso,tend to hasten it.

The general application of our subject to these great questions is plain, and has been in a measure expressed. We shall not attempt to present it more particularly.

A single thought presses itself upon us, with which we conclude. Whatever may be the assaults which Infidelity shall, in the future, make upon Christianity, or should it even, as some fear, come to prevail largely in the church itself, it is time for every Christian mind to rise to the full measure of a Christian's faith, and to realize the great and absolute security of his cause. Infidelity is but the natural result of the doubts which inhere in Christianity, and of the opposition of the heart of