them anywhere. "All great ages have been ages of faith," the strongest impulses have been given to the world by Religion, which, as Virtue or Power, originates in conscience. That where a certain moral and intellectual height has been gained, unspoken revelations of the mind and will of God have found voice in utterances so large as to "make the whole world kin;" which, reaching soonest those on the same level, can yet penetrate the lowest depths, and find access to the reason from its dawn to its decline; affords presumptive evidence in favour of a universal tendency towards a conviction that the end of all things is GOOD; that suffering, seeming evil, is to this end a means; a conviction so desirable as in itself to form strong motive power for following best guidance, which, as instinct for light given to the lilies that they may grow; for self-preservation to the brutes, that each may find its proper food and safety, is surely not withheld from man that he too may fulfil his destiny. The universality of this guidance, denied in the dogma of the formalist, is ever recognised by the true Christian, though his professed creed may be narrower than that of the Apostle Paul, or George Fox; and is thus confessed by Bishop Kenn and by Cowper:

"Great God, Thou art my Judge, my Guide,
My witness when I fall or slide,

*

My monitor to point at snare,
And rouse my care.

To Conscience, Thou in every mind,
Thy deputation hast assigned;

And Conscience, who are all sincere,
Next Thee revere.'

“the partial light men have,
My creed persuades me, well employ'd may save,
While he that scorns the noonday beam, perverse,
Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.
Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mind
Left sensuality and dross behind,
Possess for me their undisputed lot,

And take, unenvied, the reward they sought.

Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law,

That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,

Led them, however falt'ring, faint, and slow,

From what they knew, to what they wished to know.”

Can we doubt, that if we too follow faithfully what we do know (not what we hear said) to be right and true, we shall at last come to be sure of much that we "wish to know;" and what is more, to be what we must be, if action is to tell on character,* so that the world shall

* By purity of motive. As evidence that the "conscientiousness," supposed capable of misleading, is merely a scrupulous sense of propriety, varying with education; we may take the strong confidence ever placed in persons of all grades of culture and opinion, who are believed to "act from principle," a guidance felt to be higher than moral and religious calculations of advantage; more trust-worthy than virtuous sentiments induced by training and association; and so sure to lead to right action and just laws, that in its acknowledgment alone consists the righteousness which "exalteth a nation."

be the better for that we have been born into it. We should not doubt it, when we know how God's "good spirit" has been "given to instruct men, giving them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments;" we shall not doubt it, if we recognise in the voice "not far from every one of us," in the “word nigh us, in our heart;" the voice of "the everlasting God, calling the generations from the beginning, the Lord, the first, and with the last;" whose "spirit is good," and will infallibly lead all who follow it "into the land of uprightness."

C.

Page 219, note, line 2.-" the spiritual conception of Christ's resurrection entertained by Paul."

Allusion to the words of Paul, in Acts xxvi. 8, 9, as indicating this "spiritual conception," is, I am aware, open to the two objections, that we have them on second-hand report; and that Agrippa would be more likely to regard a corporeal resurrection than a spiritual change, as "a thing incredible." Such, however, is the thought expressed by Nicodemus, in reference to Christ's assertion, "Ye must be born again;" yet is there reason to believe the theory of regeneration as familiar to him as "the hope of the promise" to Agrippa. And what was the object of that hope, cherished, Paul says, by "the twelve tribes?" "That Christ should shew light to the

people and to the Gentiles;" this he had done, by "breaking down the middle wall of partition;" "the law of commandments contained in ordinances," which severed Jews from Gentiles; "for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God." Not thus had the Jew expected the conversion of the world; but surely we may take his proselytizing reputation as token, if counterfeit of a genuine desire existing in the minds of the "just and devout," for "a light to lighten the Gentiles;" that "God's way might be known upon earth, his saving health among all nations." This "hope" we must count spiritual; if characterized by unreality in the expectation of its fulfilment, which could only be brought about by the "opening of the eyes" of Jew and Gentile to see, not only that "God had made of one blood all nations of men," but also how conscience, which "lighteth every man," testifies to "ohe Spirit, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." To feel this oneness of man with man, in God, needs a great spiritual change; such an awakening of selfreliance out of superstition, as will be confessed by all who have experienced it to be like "life from the dead."

"He that believeth in me," Christ says, "though he were dead, yet shall he live ;" and Paul exhorts his fellow men, as “baptized into Christ's death,” to “walk in newness of life," "like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father," ("declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holi

A A

ness, by the resurrection of the dead;") and to "yield themselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead." The great purpose of Paul's own conversion he states to be "to turn men from darkness to light;" to lead them as children of God to share Christ's faith, and to claim their "inheritance among the sanctified.”

In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul brings forward, to confirm his own recognition of universal guidance, the intimation given of such recognition by Moses and the Prophets; who acknowledge, among the Gentiles, the hearing of the Word of God, and the faith which is awakened by it. This recognition ever marks religion as life, and distinguishes it from the dead faith of the Formalist; who prefaces his creed with, "Whosoever will be saved let him hear this and believe it;” while the Prophet can affirm of "the word nigh him, in his heart," that "verily" all have heard, and that "Whosoever shall call on the Lord," fear Him, and work righteousness," shall be saved:" a liberality of view not based upon reverence for "lords many, and gods many;" but upon a knowledge that "an idol is nothing in the world ;" and that "the Lord our God is one Lord." Before Agrippa, Paul pleads that he has been "saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:" among which things we find no hint of a corporeal resurrection. In Romans x., Paul expressly states that "the righteousness of faith saith not, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it?