tinctly declared, "the righteous shall hold on his way." The citation, too, from Peter, may describe nothing deeper than a reform from heathenism to a decent, outside Christian life. Besides, another of these minatory texts most relied on (Hebrews iv. 4-8) proves too much, if, which is by no means certain, even it refers to inward piety at all: for it unequivocally states that they who fall away, as it intends, can never be recovered to repentance. Our argument does not require of us an exegesis of this passage. This much it evidently conveys — a fearful caution to men enjoying unusual means of grace and the special strivings of the converting Spirit, that, if they resist and fall back into a careless life, their hearts will grow hard beyond all further agencies of renewal; a thing not altogether unknown among ourselves. But if the apostle does refer to persons in a state of salvation, then we maintain it to be another instance of hypothetical admonition put in the most forcible terms. And if it be replied, that, to suppose a case which never will occur is beneath the dignity and wisdom of God's revelation, we answer; not so, if the prevention of that occurrence hinges morally and voluntarily on the restraining power, among other spiritual forces, of just such cautions as these. We answer again, not so; for the Bible does adduce supposed cases which are equally unsupposable as the loss of a regenerate soul. Here is one: "But though . . . an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed"; Gal. i. 8 ; — a supposition, to say the least, as violent as any which we find in these threatenings concerning a Christian's apostasy from holi

ness.

The expression in Galatians-"ye are fallen from grace"has done as much as any one thing to popularise the dogma which we oppose but it has no connection whatever with the subject, as the slighest glance at the context (ch. v. 1-4) determines. The reasoning of the apostle is this: if, abandoning Christianity as a system of salvation, ye will be justified by a legal obedience, thus going back for your ground of hope from Christ to Moses, from Calvary to Sinai, ye, by that act of repudiation, exclude yourselves from Gospel mercy and redemption; ye are sons of Abraham according to the flesh, not according to the election of grace.

But Judas was given to Christ, and Judas was lost. He was an apostle, having freely accepted this responsible station. He was not given to Christ as a friend, for from the outset Christ knew that he was a son of perdition, a devil. John xvii. 12 and vi. 70-1. He was not given to Christ as were the other disciples, for they had kept Christ's word, (xvii. 6,) and of them he said to his Father, "they are thine," (ver. 9.) Judas had not done, and was not, this. His connection with our Lord was that of a nominal follower; and from this official station, and not from a state of grace, he fell; Acts i. 17, sq. "For he was numbered with us"-how? by having "part of this ministry." "His bishoprick let another take." Another must be chosen to "take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression (by official delinquency) fell, that he might go to his own place."

The severance of the fruitless branch from the vine has been supposed to militate against the doctrine of perseverance in holiness; John xv. But could Christ intend to represent a regenerate soul as absolutely without fruit, when he himself has laid down the Christian law, "by their fruits ye shall know them." Is there, by Christ's own test, such a person as a wholly fruitless Christian, that is, one in a condition exactly parallel to this dead branch? Dean Alford gives the true meaning of this similitude: "The vine is the visible Church here, of which Christ is the inclusive Head: the vine contains the branches: hence, the unfruitful, as well as the fruitful, areEv XPLOT." This visible Church is made up of the renewed. and the unrenewed, thus professedly in Christ. We accordingly utterly resist, on this commentator's own concession, his. handling of the sixth verse of this chapter: "If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned: which he writes: upon 66 This verse is a most important testimony against supra-lapsarian error, showing us that falling from grace is possible, and pointing out the steps of the fall. Observe this is not said of the unfruitful branch, which the Father takes away (in judgment): but of one who will not abide in Christ, becomes separate from Him," etc. We observe nothing of the kind, but only that the learned biblicist.

has just here allowed his theological proclivities to crop out, though generally accepting the orthodox confessions. The attempted distinction between the fruitful branch and abiding in Christ is without foundation: they are equivalent states. There is no more of judgment, in taking away the unfruitful branch, in verse 2, than in casting forth the soul who does not abide in Christ, in verse 6. This last is cast out of the vine (the visible church) just as is the other, and for the same reason. There is no transition from a nominal to a real alliance with the Head of that Church in the ones so exscinded from him in these respective verses, as if, while the first was a merely professed disciple, the latter has been, but is not, a regenerate man. The warning of the commentator against "supra-lapsarian error" is gratuitous by his own rule of interpretation in this place. That excluded one is not, then, a true member of Christ, but a merely superficial adherent, through the recognized church. Yet if we should concede the vital connection of one so characterized with Christ, what has just been said of the supposed cases by way of warning for spiritual restraint, will amply save our doctrine of grace from falling. We do not, however, yield the point. The entire address was to a church just organized who, for the first time, had partaken of the eucharistic supper, where one, at least, had been who was only just such an ally. The words were most timely; that he whose life conforms not to Christian virtue proves himself to be simply a disciple in name, and, sooner or later, he shall be severed from the visible body of Jesus with which alone he had any connection. His case shall add another to the number of those described by the apostle John; "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for, if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." 1, ii. 19. The cause of their going out was evidently that they never had entered far enough in.

We have treated this subject controversially because of the hard, and as we think ill, usage it has encountered from its opponents. But practically and experimentally it is one of the choicest clusters of the vineyard which our Lord has planted, for the refreshment of Zion's pilgrims. We never recite, with

out emotions of peculiar tenderness and joy, this brief article of our church-confession of faith: "We believe, that all whom God renews by his Spirit, he will influence to persevere in holiness to the end of life." Should any one ask us our reason of personally expecting immortal glory, the answer would find its solid ground in this—that eternal love has purposed to secure to Jesus Christ an inheritance of regenerate souls, without which unalterable covenant, neither we nor any of our fellowmen could have assurance of life everlasting. It is much, it is everything, in a world so imperilled by spiritual adversaries as is this, to know that the final redemption of some, yea, of a multitude whom no man can number, is made certain by God's solemn pledge, and by the impossibility that he should lie. We love, as well, to think, that from the beginning, “the Lord knoweth them that are his;" that, "we love him because he first loved us; and that He, who loves his own that are in the world, will love them unto the end. They who charge a selfish spirit upon this habit of mind, as if, being itself in the life-boat, it cares nothing for the drowning swimmers in the deep waters, have yet their first lesson to learn in the school of Christ.

ARTICLE II.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.

THERE is scarcely an American writer of note who takes so little pains to conceal his personality, his persönlichkeit, to use the expressive German word, or who in concealing his personality, would be more shorn of his strength than Dr. Holmes. Whenever he retires behind the shelter of the style of writing in common use among the scholars of our time and language, his genius no longer appears; there is nothing that raises him

above, or sinks him beneath the honored place to which industry combined with average talents can raise any man. Let him stand upon the common vantage-ground of thought, divest him of what is unique in his expression, and American literature would be deprived of one of its best known names. There is in him an unusual combination of qualities which gives to almost everything which he writes a color of its own; but in the single quality of thought, we do not think that he goes before scores of other men who are not known in their own county so well as he is throughout the land.

It is an ungracious task to criticize in an evangelical journal a man who has taken the position which Dr. Holmes has assumed of late years: the fairest judgment here will be considered by him and his partisans as the flings of theological bitterness, as the index of unconscious narrowness. And we would not dare to take up our pen and sit down to compute his elements of weakness and of strength, were we not believers to some extent in certain of his views which have been sharply assailed. We go with him so far, that we regret to see one who has spoken so much that is true, laying himself open to the eye which, so indulgent now, will ere many years, find much to seriously regret and blame. We are very far from presuming that we can convince Dr. Holmes, at the height of his popularity, of his weaknesses and failings, but we do feel certain, that in the hour of his apparent triumph, he needs a wise, stern censor to sit in supervision on his words and strike out those which a mature common sense would find unworthy of the man. Dr. Holmes is strong in the public approbation in consequence of certain weak points of characterpoints which are made to look bright and attractive when glanced at, but which will not bear being seen too long at once and are repulsive when viewed out of the atmosphere of books. The "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" would not be tolerated in real life we would not board where such a conceited pedant, however witty and full of new fancies and quaint bits of learning and ideas not yet adjusted to the common thought of the age, tyrannized over us common mortals. We would not bear for three days that cynical smile, that assumed omniscience, that patronizing condescension. Much as we should pity