doubt is to reject the truth; to deny it is to put one's self beyond the Christian pale.

4. "At the last day." That last day should be the most potent reality in the world of our thoughts. It is a tremendous something in the Confession-those three meaningful words. It comes. It will be the summing up of all realities. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the revelation to men of the life and power of God. It was natural that he should rise. The resurrection was but a stage of his endless life. He could not be holden of death. Those who believe on him receive the resurrection power into themselves. They cannot die. Since the Crucified rose this has been a new world, a new power has infolded it; a new life has been regnant in it.

ARTICLE IV.

OF THE HOLY GHOST.

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.

The nature and relations of the Holy Ghost were considered under the First Article; but the phrase, "proceeding from the Father and the Son," must claim attention here. It is the Athanasian formula, and grew out of the reprobation of the denial of the Deity of the Son by the Arians. They allowed the procession of the Spirit from the Father, but not from the Son. The Greek Creed of to-day disallows the "Filioque" (Latin, "and the Son"). These "forms of sound words" were fought for through the ages and handed

down to us a precious inheritance. Acceptance of them puts us in the succession of the defenders of the faith.

The work of the Holy Ghost is referred to in other parts of the Confession, this particular part being devoted wholly to the statement of the orthodox doctrine of the being and nature of the third Person of the Trinity. The gift of the Holy Ghost to men is the communication to them of the consciousness of God, as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was the revelation to men of the life of God. This is the office which makes available the fullness of the Life revealed in the Son.

GENERAL EXPOSITION.

II. THE CANONICITY AND SUFFICIENCY OF HOLY

SCRIPTURES.

Bring not human reasonings and syllogisms: I rely on Scripture.-Theodoret.

The new element in the reforming principle consists in marking off Holy Scripture from ecclesiastical tradition, and setting the former above the latter. It consists in the rule expressed by Luther in the Smalcald Articles: "Ut Verbum Dei condat Articulos fidei et praeterea nervo, ne angelus quidem.―Julius Kaftan, D.D.

It is God who speaks to us there, but it is also man; it is man, but it is also God. Admirable Word of God! it has been made man in its own way, as the Eternal Word was! God has made it come down to us full of grace and truth, like unto our own words in all things, yet without error.-Gaussen.