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E have endeavoured, in our two previous chapters, to show that the foundation of all true religion is an acknowledgment of the absolute unity of God, thus that the Divine Trinity is not a Trinity of persons but of essentials, which, in all their fulness, dwell bodily in our Lord Jesus Christ (Col. ii. 9), combining to form but one Divine Person, just as the Trinity of soul, body, and their conjoint operation, form but one human person. In Jesus, indeed, the Father, or essential Divinity, is the soul; the Son, or Divine Humanity, is the body; while the Holy Spirit is their united operation, or the Divine Proceeding of their energies to regenerate and bless. Thus the Incarnation was a manifestation of God to man, who, by reason of long continuance in evil, had lost all true knowledge either of His character or requirements.

But to afford a fuller revelation of Himself, was not the only purpose for which Jehovah assumed a humanity like ours. He came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke xix. 10); to rescue our race from the abyss of spiritual ruin towards which it was hurrying, and to ensure a free possibility of regeneration and consequent salvation for every soul. Thus, as the Creed implies, the "One God," in whom is the "Divine Trinity," having, from infinite love, become the "Creator," likewise assumed, as human necessities required, the character and function of the "Redeemer and Regenerator." It now behoves us, therefore, to inquire in what manner His Incarnation contributed to His accomplishment of the works of power and mercy indicated in these titles.

:

Firstly, and most obviously, then by His appearance as a Man amongst men, the Lord afforded, to all generations of our race, a perfect Pattern for their imitation, and an unerring Standard for their aspiration. This was a most real and most gracious benefit. For the world was fast losing, not only the love and practice of real goodness, but even all true knowledge of the principles and conduct which form genuine virtue. Morality was degenerating into an organized system of selfishness, the highest excellence of which was inspired, not by reverence for duty, or respect for the rights of others, but by vainglorious pride and ostentation. The qualities in greatest honour were wholly superficial-such animal bravery and endurance as are surpassed by the brutes; logical acuteness in profitless argument, utterly irrespective of practical advantage; or the delineation, by pencil or chisel, or in the impassioned language of poetry, of the mere outward charms of physical and sensuous beauty. Amid the darkness of this skin-deep philosophy and barren hypocritical estimates of good and evil, shone out the brightness of the Divine "Light of the world" (John viii. 12). Instead of the prevalent ethics, which inculcated at best an outward conformity to law and order, He insisted on purity of thought and motive, and condemned, with most solemn emphasis, those who made clean the outside of cup and platter, while leaving them,

within, filled with extortion and excess (Matt. xxiii. 25). In place of the self-exaltation of the chief contemporary teachers, whether Jewish, Greek, or Roman, He was "meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. xi. 29). "When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not" (1 Peter ii. 23). Amid crowds eager for earthly gain and pleasure, He declared, with sublimest self-denial, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John xviii. 36), and attested His truth by living here " a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa. liii. 3), who, while obscene foxes and carrion birds had holes and nests for shelter, had "not where to lay His head" (Matt. viii. 20). More than all, in contrast with the universal self-seeking and self-indulgence, He exhibited a life in which selfhood had no share; spent, during its brief continuance, in going about, doing good (Acts x. 38), and closed by voluntary submission to a cruel and ignominious death, because, good Shepherd that He was, He freely laid it down for His lost and wandering sheep (John x. 11, 18). Most literally, therefore, He fulfilled all righteousness (Matt. iii. 15), and thus afforded a clear and perfect Pattern of every claim and requirement of the Divine law. Whoever follows His pure example, not by the mechanical imitation of isolated actions, but by drawing from His practices and precepts the guiding principles of conduct, will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John viii. 12). For in Him

"the Word had breath, and wrought,
With human hands, the creed of creeds;
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought;
Which he may read who binds the sheaf,

Or builds the house, or digs the grave,

And those wild eyes, that watch the wave,
In roarings round the coral-reef.'

But great as is the help afforded by the example of the Divine Humanity, it is perhaps the least of all the benefits effected by the Incarnation. Indeed, had this been the only practical assistance furnished to mankind, it would have proved utterly in vain. A perfect pattern is, no doubt, a valuable advantage if there are eyes to see it, and hands and feet to work out an imitation; but to the blind and paralyzed the most faultless models will be wholly useless. And such was the spiritual condition. of our race at the time of the Saviour's advent; a state not of simple ignorance, but of entire inversion and depravity. The law of moral heredity, by which parents transmit to their offspring tendencies towards practices and habits similar to those they have themselves exercised—a law beneficently intended to facilitate the onward and upward progression of humanity, and certain eventually to fulfil this grand design-had, for ages, operated in the direction of evil. Each generation handed to its successors dispositions more stubborn and inveterate than those to which its own members had succumbed. The very organism of the human soul was distorted; those affections which should be exalted above all others being degraded and suppressed, while the actual empire of the life was committed to the baser and more violent appetites and passions. Instead of loving the Lord above all things, and his neighbour as himself (Mark xii. 30, 31), man loved himself supremely; his next devotion was expended on the world, while duty to his neighbour and the Lord was entirely forgotten. Thus the sad condition was reached of which we read in Scripture: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores" (Isa. i. 5, 6).

* Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxxvi.

Nor did the mischief stop here. Each generation of corrupt and wicked men and women, when its allotted span of life was spent, passed, by death, into the unseen world. But while the earth was thus relieved of their evil presence and example, are we to suppose that their pernicious influence had ceased? Rather was the scene of its activity transferred to a sphere whence its contagion could operate with more treacherous cunning, and to deadlier consequences. For the spiritual world, though invisible to mortal eyes, is associated with the present by bonds of the most intimate conjunction, and for results of the weightest moment. There abide those angels who are all "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. i. 14). There, too, are congregated the infernal powers of darkness, "hellish foes, confederate for our harm," the agents of temptation, each of whom strives his wicked. worst, by exciting to rebellion our bad passions and false imaginations, to reduce us to his own misery and degradation. And since all who quit this world join eventually one or the other of these great rival forces, it inevitably follows that a prevalence of evil here strengthens the malign influences which operate on man from the inner side of his complex nature, and thus tends to destroy the spiritual equilibrium necessary for the preservation of his moral liberty. In consequence, therefore, of the long period of decadence which preceded the Incarnation, the hosts of hell were augmented by ever-increasing legions; the force of their temptation, their profoundly subtle arts and deceptions, gained each day mightier and more audacious strength, until they at last obtained ascendency not only of the minds, but over the very bodies of their victims, who, in the familiar, but most awful language of the New Testament, were indeed possessed with devils. Thus the injury from which humanity was suffering was far more than the mere negative privation of ignorance. It was the positive infection of spiritual disease, vitiating every faculty and capacity of the soul; the absolute and most real tyranny of infernal enemies, which shut out, as by a dense cloud, every ray of heat and light from the Divine Sun, and immured the lost and perishing race of men in a slavery which threatened the entire extinction of their rationality and freedom.

The question is, then, how did the assumption of human nature enable Jehovah to break these bonds, and thus to restore to men their spiritual liberty? We answer that it provided a common ground on which to meet and conquer the adversaries of the soul. In Himself, "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy" (Isa. lvii. 15), is, of course, infinitely above the highest heaven. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity (Hab. i. 13). “His angels He charged with folly"! "Yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight" (Job iv. 18; xv. 15). Yet the work of our redemption required that He should reach the lowest hell, and the humanity assumed through the Virgin rendered this possible. In Jesus Christ the First indeed became the Last (Isa. xliv. 6; Rev. i. 17); since in Him Jehovah took upon Himself the tendencies of human nature in its extremest degradation. For, as we have seen, the Incarnation was accomplished at the very crisis of our race's history, when the cup of man's transgression was full to the brim, and a single step further in his downward course would have plunged him in irretrievable destruction. But the Most High not only clothed Himself with humanity during its lowest period; He also chose, as the vehicle of its assumption, a family in which the most violent and debased of human passions had reached their utmost developments. Thus "Jesus Christ our Lord was made of the seed of

David according to the flesh" (Rom. i. 3), and the seed of David sprang from the incestuous stock of Judah (Gen. xxxviii.), so that His humanity inherited all the tendencies to evil involved in such a lineage. In this manner, and not by any forensic imputation of human sin to the Sinless, was fulfilled the Old Testament prediction, "Jehovah hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. liii. 6); or, as a more literal rendering of the Hebrew would express it, "hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in Him." Inheriting this fulness of human dispositions, therefore, the humanity of the Saviour could admit a fulness of temptation, and could thereby provide the needed arena on which to encounter the entire force of hell.

That the nature received by our Lord through Mary did actually thus share our infirmities, must be obvious to every attentive reader of the New Testament. His body suffered hunger and thirst, cold, fatigue, pain, death; His mind knew the sting of grief, and the pangs of an anguish protracted almost to despair. His character included, by birth, susceptibilities to which infernals could present their insidious allurements and their delusive sophistries. Hence He speaks of sanctifying Himself (John xvii. 19), which, if He were originally in all respects holy, would have been an unmeaning phrase; and an apostle says He was made perfect through suffering (Heb. ii. 10), which, unless His constitution included, at first, imperfect elements, would have been alike unnecessary and impossible. But let us always discriminate between a tendency to evil and actual wickedness. There is no guilt whatever in the mere fact of possessing a nature open to seduction and liable to fall. Indeed, if bravely resisted and consistently suppressed, an infirm proclivity becomes a means of moral discipline, and an occasion for the exercise of true nobility. With our Lord Jesus Christ such resistance was always instantaneous, thorough, and entirely triumphant. Never, for one instant-never in the least single thing-did any tempter gain the advantage of His immaculate purity. Therefore, while "in all points tempted like as we are," He was yet "without sin;" and "in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb. iv. 15; ii. 18).

In the humanity assumed through the Virgin Mary, therefore, Jehovah was able to meet and overcome our foes, and, throughout the period of His manifestation upon earth, He was engaged in this Divine warfare. The details of this contest are but dimly shadowed forth in the Gospels, but they are presented, with great force and fulness, in the spiritual significance of many parts of prophecy and of the Psalms. Indeed, it was in this sense, and not in the carnal, political manner expected by the Jews, that our Lord fulfilled the predictions of a warlike and victorious Messiah. His life, outwardly so tranquil, and save for a few conspicuous episodes and for its tragic termination, so obscure and free from violent excitements, was, within, one continuous battle, by no means to be measured simply by the deeds accomplished visibly on earth. He was also active in the spiritual world, restoring order there, restraining the licence usurped by the infernals, reducing them to subjection, and releasing from their influence those whom they had too long held in bondage. Hence the devils so often knew Him, and confessed His Omnipotence and Divinity in terms surpassing the acknowledgments even of His chosen disciples. "I know Thee, who Thou art, the Holy One of God" (Mark i. 24; Luke iv. 34). iv. 34). "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God most high?" (Mark v. 7; Luke viii. 28.) They had witnessed His victorious might in their own

world, and well knew how vain it were to resist His decrees. Thus, as the Apostles' Creed truly says, "He descended into hell," or Hades; and there, in the realm of spiritual causes, He reinstated the discipline and order essential to the liberty and wellbeing of men upon the earth. By this Divine warfare, therefore, Jesus reduced our enemies to subjection, and dispersed the thick clouds interposed by the evil and falsity prevalent in the spiritual world, between our souls and God. Henceforth none can be tempted beyond the strength to resist graciously afforded by his Divine Helper. For, most literally, For, most literally, "in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb. ii. 18). Indeed, thanks to His subjugation and continued. restraint of the powers of darkness, their utmost malice is now tempered into a salutary trial, whereby we obtain. a knowledge of the evils lurking in our natures, and thus are enabled to oppose and expel them. Such was the stupendous deliverance wrought for man by the Divine Incarnation. When, in consequence of human evil, the beneficent design of creation seemed in peril of entire frustration, Jehovah the Creator interposed for its rescue, and, as the Creed asserts, became also our Redeemer. JOHN PRESLAND.

CAUSES OF THE CHANGES OF OPINION IN RELATION TO THE NATURE OF HELL AND FUTURE PUNISHMENTS.

HE doctrine that God confines His affection to a small and select portion of His creatures, and condemns all the rest to hell, inflicting upon them to all eternity the inconceivable physical torture of fire, arose in one of the darkest ages of the world, when a little band of Christians, feeble, ignorant, and fanatical, were attempting to impose the gentle religion of the cross upon the barbarous and degraded Pagan of Europe. Intimidation and terrorism played even a larger part in their plans of conquest or conversion than the kindlier agencies of reason, persuasion, and prayer. The false interpretation of Scripture, so early begun, was greatly intensified during the middle ages, until, in the language of a great historian, "the agonies of hell seemed then the central fact of religion, and the perpetual subject of the thoughts of men. The whole intellect of Europe was employed in illustrating them. All literature, all painting, all eloquence, was concentrated upon the same dreadful theme. By the pen of Dante, and by the pencil of Orcagna, by the pictures that crowded every church, and the sermons that rang from every pulpit, the maddening horror was sustained. We (who live in a happier age) can never conceive the intense vividness with which these conceptions were realized, or the misery and madness they produced."

The most baneful effect of this doctrine was upon the mind and heart of the Church itself, at that time the great central power in Europe. The dogma, that God is The dogma, that God is an exacting and vindictive Being, who created the vast majority of His creatures, foreknowing and, according to some, foreordaining their eternal misery, and that He tortures them in hell for ever with actual fire, little infants included, has been shown by philosophical historians to be largely responsible for the prolongation of barbaric life in Europe, for the insensibility to human suffering, the cruelty and tyranny of the times, the despotic spirit in Church and State, the torture of criminals and prisoners, and especially for the long, bloody, and fiery persecutions of unbelievers and heretics, persecutions carried on with a devilish ingenuity and atrocity un

rivalled before or since in the history of mankind. The indignant revolt and struggle of the human mind against this dogma-the Archimedean lever of the Church—was one of the most essential starting-points of that vast intellectual movement which has brought so much better light, and larger liberty and nobler thought, to modern times.

All this has been said by the philosophical historian intending to derogate from the great and sublime merits of the Church, the piety, devotion, and self-sacrifice of its members, and the enormous service it has rendered the cause of civilization. Its various false doctrines are like the tares which were bound up with the wheat, not to be separated until the end of the world, which, in the symbolic language of Scripture, means the end of an old dispensation and the beginning of a new.

Leckey, in his "History of Rationalism in Europe," says, "Toward the close of the last century the doctrine of a material hell-fire had passed away, for though there was no formal recantation or change of dogmas, it was virtually excluded from the popular teachings, though it even now lingers among the least educated dissenters, and in the Roman Catholic manuals for the poor." We think Mr. Leckey is premature in this statement, for although the majority of thinking people have discarded the hell of the middle ages, the great mass of orthodox believers receive it in some modified form with a trembling and unquestioning faith. Individual ministers here and there have repudiated it openly; many more do so in the secret chambers of the mind; but the mass of the clergy, if pushed to the wall, will cling to the old doctrine with the utmost tenacity. The reason is, that they are committed and pledged to a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, and they are afraid that if they surrender to a spiritual exegesis upon one great point, they will open a floodgate of spiritual interpretations, which will utterly transform the system of theology received from the fathers of the Church. This illustrates another remark made by Mr. Leckey, "When an opinion that is opposed to the age is incapable of modification, and is an obstacle to progress, it will at last be openly repudiated; and if it is identified with any existing interests, or associated with some eternal truth, its rejection will be accompanied by paroxysms of painful agitation."

One of these "paroxysms of painful agitation" is upon us now. A great English divine declares that the words "hell," "damnation," "everlasting," are mistranslations, "hell," and should be eliminated from the Scriptures. One party clamours for strict construction and a preservation of the old faith; another party contends for liberal interpretation. The majority are silent or indifferent. We may judge how far the new ideas have advanced when we see them leavening the old lump of Calvinism-the hardest, sternest, most stoically logical of all in the religious world.

At the examination of Rev. T. T. Munger, candidate for the pastorate of the Congregational Church of North. Adams, Massachusetts, a long paper was read by him in which he said :

"I utterly reject the opinion that the great masses of mankind are subjected to endless pains in the future world; the heathen, the ignorant of Christian lands, the simply moral who fall short of a technical standard, the unchurched masses, the common run of humanity. I have no belief in inflicted punishment except as they come through the laws inherent in our own nature and conduct."

After much discussion, the council, of which exPresident Hopkins of Williams College, President Porter of Yale College, and Rev. Dr. Buckingham of