safely be left to judge for himself whether Macaulay's imputation of vacuity means anything more than his own deficiency; whether he who regards revelation as a mere book,' and cannot give any precise or intelligible explanation of so grand a phenomenon as Christianity itself considered as an essentially integrating element in the concatenation of mental development, can be a perfectly safe guide in discussing the history of philosophy.

D.-(PAGE 165.)

A New-old Plea for Miracle.

A certain doctrine is offered for acceptance; a miracle is wrought to prove its truth. But we are now told that the miracle is no satisfactory proof at all; it may be a diabolical miracle," the tricks and juggleries of Antichrist and his organs,"

a horrible warning devised by an ambassador of the bottomless pit;"" only when I am already convinced of the soundness of the doctrine can I admit the genuineness of the miracle. But then what is the use of the miracle? We are answered that it is for the purpose of determining the character of the performer as a divine messenger. But then why should God employ a mode of attestation confessedly liable to so awful a mistake? especially when the only use of so attesting the nature of the performer is to guarantee the authenticity of a message already accredited and guaranteed before these precarious credentials are presented.

The following renewal of an old excuse is from a book entitled "The Bible and Modern Thought," by the Rev. T. R. Birks, M.A., published by the Religious Tract Society, Paternoster Row, pp. 63, 64:

"It is a wholly false view of inductive science that it is occupied with the investigation of laws which are necessary and

"Natural theology is not a progressive science;―nor is revealed. All divine truth is, according to the Protestant churches, recorded in certain books;hence in divinity there cannot be a progress;-a Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is neither better nor worse off than a Christian of the nineteeth with a Bible."-See Review of Ranke, p. 8.

2 Trench on the Miracles, p. 23. Olshausen's Commentary, i. 262.

unalterable. The very reverse is the truth. Deductive science alone is occupied with necessary truth; applied or inductive science deals with phenomena, and through these with laws, of which the essential feature is that they are not necessary, and that they repose on the basis of multiplied testimonies; so that deviations from them and even their reversal are quite conconceivable, and demand our faith if sustained by due evidence. "Again, the objection involves a total misconception of the order of nature and the constancy of natural laws. It is true the progress of physical science enables us to refer to some law or property of matter many phenomena which were once inexplicable; nor can we doubt that further advances in the same direction will yet be made. But this movement, by which the horizon of science perpetually recedes and enlarges, instead of proving the inflexible constancy of natural laws, proves exactly the reverse. It transfers the certainty from the physical laws of nature, as now defined by our present knowledge, to the scheme of universal providence, as it lies open to the view of Omniscience, and thus resolves itself into a philosophical rendering of the doctrine of the Bible, 'known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world!' Our own experience reveals the constant action of the human will upon the body; we count it absurd to speak of mere physical law deciding the movements of the ball, the marble, or the orange, when once placed within the grasp of a human hand. Once let us conceive spiritual beings whose power bears the same proportion to ours as the mass of the earth to an orange, and the seeming immutability of physical law disappears."

The writer proceeds to argue that miracles are not infractions of law generally, but only instances of the suspension of a lower in obedience to a higher law; using the not very happy illustration-already but too familiar-of the suspension of the law of gravitation when wood floats on the surface of water (p. 66).

Man's ignorance of essential causation is then adverted to as affording room for belief in exceptional agency on the part of God (p. 67). In regard to this, Kant has already replied, in the passage above cited (p. 165). The sophist proceeds to avail himself of the ambiguity between empirical laws, and the absolute or ultimate law of universal order, in order to displace the idea of the latter; but the artifice is easily seen through.

E. (PAGE 199.)

Lechler and Ritschl.

It is naturally a main object with the opponents of the Tübingen School to distort the plain meaning of the second chapter of Galatians, and to force this formidable chapter into seeming harmony with Acts. A recent effort of the kind by J. C. K. v. Hoffmann is discussed at length by Dr. Hilgenfeld in his "History of the Canon," p. 190 sq. It will suffice here to give a specimen of the style of argument adopted, taken from the above-named authors.

The aim of these advocates is to disclaim absolute antinomianism in St. Paul, and indiscriminate rigorism in the older apostles. All that the latter required in Gentile converts was, according to Ritschl, the conditions of the apostolic decree mentioned in Acts xv.,-by this writer supposed to have been an original compact refused only by extreme parties, and which, as concerning Gentiles merely, tacitly implied the continuing obligation of Mosaic law on Jewish converts. Disagreement first arose in consequence of certain extreme views varying from the moderation of this compact; the stricter Judaists insisting on more than the requisitions of the decree; while the free principles of St. Paul tended through their unavoidable extension from Gentiles to Jews' to introduce an unwarranted laxity, such as that of the eaters of dwλo@ura at Corinth,2 or the Nicolaitans of the Apocalypse. These latitudinarian practices were no more approved by St. Paul than by St. John; but the circumstances of mixed communities in Gentile countries caused inevitable complications. The preponderance of the Gentile element tended to absolute freedom; while the rigorous Judaists pressed only the more pertinaciously for stricter observance. Hence the dispute at Antioch; the emissaries of James there admonished Peter to adhere to the stipulations of the decree; while Peter in an excess of obsequious servility went even beyond those stipulations in accommodating himself to the requirements of the strict Judaists. The sole difference between the apostles was as to the obligations of Jew-Christians in Gentile lands; even this

partial disagreement was of short duration; and illiberal Judaistic rigorism never had apostolical support.

This theory rests on the assumed authenticity of the famous apostolical decree, which Baur, Zeller, and others have so conclusively shewn to be apocryphal; secondly, it assumes an erroneous notion of the relation of the older apostles to St. Paul, founded on a misinterpretation of the second chapter of Galatians.

1st. It has been proved by Zeller in his work on the Acts that the account in Acts xv. and that in Gal. ii. refer to the same circumstances. Now in one of these we have the unquestionably authentic account of St. Paul himself, in which it is impossible, in spite of all the efforts of ingenuity, not to recognise disagreement among the apostles and incompatibility with the account in Acts.1 The attempt made to place the attempted circumcision of Titus solely to the account of the "false brethren" fails entirely. St. Paul is narrating the results of his negotiation with the general Christian body in Jerusalem, especially with its apostolic leaders; and it is wholly incredible under the circumstances that an assault on the freedom which he advocated could have been made unknown to or unsanctioned by the apostles. This is indeed at last admitted by Ritschl himself3 where he says that the "false brethren" had "succeeded in imposing" on the apostles; who are thus declared by the most unimpeachable testimony to have insisted in the case of the Gentile Titus on a condition which, according to Acts, they had definitively abandoned.

The same inference in regard to the older apostles which results from this incident, altogether omitted in "Acts," follows from the sequel of St. Paul's statement. And it may be asked how could St. Paul have here said that "they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to him," if, as related in Acts, he undertook, in consequence of their representations, the obligations of the decree in regard to the Gentiles? Why pass over those stipulations in entire silence on an occasion when, if they existed at all, he was bound to have mentioned them; especially when he does mention one stipulation (ver. 10) as to which "Acts"

1 See Hilgenfeld in the Zeitschrift für Wiss. Theologie, i., p. 77. 2 See the remarks on the Rev. Mr. Rauch in the same magazine, p. 317. 3 Page 150 of the last edition of his "Altkatholische Kirche."

are silent? The supposition of the existence of the decree leaves the second chapter of Galatians without purpose or motive; and indeed what on that supposition had been more obvious than to have refuted his Galatian adversaries in their attempts to introduce sabbaths, circumcision, etc., by referring to the solemn judgment of the apostles? These adversaries pretended that St. Paul himself preached circumcision; yet not a word about the solemn and public renunciation of that obligation and general acknowledgment of Gentile freedom by the highest authority! We are constrained to believe, in contradiction to Acts, St. Paul's express declaration, that he made no concession whatever; that the older apostles in "conference added nothing to him."

The hostile collision of Paul with Peter at Antioch vanishes in the Acts. Peter at first disclaimed Jewish prejudices by eating in company with Gentiles; but after the arrival of the emissaries of James, he "withdrew and separated himself, fearing them of the circumcision;" and thus proclaiming that belief in Christ was not alone sufficient for salvation. Here we have a renewed attempt to compel the Gentiles to Judaising compliances which is entirely inconsistent with the so-called apostolical decree, and in regard to which it is altogether impossible to distinguish the immediate agents from the apostles at Jerusalem whose emissaries they were. What say Ritschl and his fellow apologists to this difficulty? Why, that it was to prevent the infringement of their favourite "decree" by the illegal license of the Jewish converts at Antioch that these emissaries were sent; they were sent, says Ritschl (p. 145), to re-establish the separation of the two classes of Christians according to the meaning of the decree as understood by James. But then this, if intended by James, was not the whole of what he intended. For we are expressly told by St. Paul that the object was, not merely to re-establish Judaism among the Jews, but to force Jewish institutions upon Gentile converts." And it should be particularly noticed that communion at table was the especial token of Christian association.3 So that here we find James, as head of the Christians of Jerusalem, endeavouring to enforce Jewish observances, including

1 Galatians v. 11.

2 Galatians ii. 14.

3 See 1 Cor. v. 11. Justin's First Apol. i. 65. Irenæ. in Eusebius H. E.

v. 24.