higher law, do we employ the term law in the former sense, or in the latter? do we mean, a law which actually exists in the knowledge of God; or one which, in the progress of science, may come to the knowledge of man? one which might be discovered by a better acquaintance with the Divine Counsels, or one which might be inferred from a larger experience of natural phenomena? If we mean the former, we do not know that a more perfect acquaintance with the Divine Counsels, implying, as it does, the elevation of our faculties to a superhuman level, might not abolish the conception of Law altogether. If we mean the latter, we assume that which no experience warrants us in assuming; we endanger the religious significance and value of the miracle, only for the sake of removing God a few degrees further back from that chain of phenomena which is admitted ultimately to depend upon Him. A miracle, in one sense, need not be necessarily a violation of the laws of nature. God may make use of natural instruments, acting after their kind ; as man himself, within his own sphere, does in the production of artificial combinations. The great question, however, still remains: Has God ever, for religious purposes, exhibited phenomena in certain relations, which the observed course of nature, and the artistic skill of man, are unable to bring about, or to account for?

I have thus far endeavored to apply the principle of the Limits of Religious Thought to some of these representations which are usually objected to by the Rationalist, as in apparent opposition to the Speculative Reason of Man. In my next Lecture, I shall attempt to pursue the same argument, in relation to those doctrines which are sometimes regarded as repugnant to man's Moral Reason. The lesson to be derived from our present inquiry may be given in the pregnant sentence of a great philosopher, but recently taken

from us: "No difficulty emerges in Theology, which had not previously emerged in Philosophy." (33) The intellectual stumbling blocks, which men find in the doctrines of Revelation, are not in consequence of any improbability or error peculiar to the things revealed; but are such as the thinker brings with him to the examination of the question; -such as meet him on every side, whether he thinks with or against the testimony of Scripture; being inherent in the constitution and laws of the Human Mind itself. But must we therefore acquiesce in the melancholy conclusion, that self-contradiction is the law of our intellectual being;—that the light of Reason, which is God's gift, no less than Revelation, is a delusive light, which we follow to our own deception? Far from it: the examination of the Limits of Thought leads to a conclusion the very opposite to this. Reason does not deceive us, if we will only read her witness aright; and Reason herself gives us warning, when we are in danger of reading it wrong. The light that is within us illuminate that which is be

The

is not darkness; only it cannot yond the sphere of its rays. The self-contradictions, into which we inevitably fall, when we attempt certain courses of speculation, are the beacons placed by the hand of God in the mind of man, to warn us that we are deviating from the track that He designs us to pursue; that we are striving to pass the barriers which He has planted around us. flaming sword turns every way against those who strive, in the strength of their own reason, to force their passage to the tree of life. Within her own province, and among her own objects, let Reason go forth, conquering and to conquer. The finite objects, which she can clearly and distinctly conceive, are her lawful empire and her true glory. The countless phenomena of the visible world; the unseen things which lie in the depths of the human soul;— these are given

into her hand; and over them she may reign in unquestioned dominion. But when she strives to approach too near to the hidden mysteries of the Infinite; — when, not content with beholding afar off the partial and relative manifestations of God's presence, she would "turn aside and see this great sight," and know why God hath revealed Himself thus; the voice of the Lord Himself is heard, as it were, speaking in warning from the midst: "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."1

1 Exodus iii. 5.
16

LECTURE VII.

YET YE SAY, THE WAY OF THE LORD IS NOT EQUAL.

HEAR NOW,

O HOUSE OF ISRAEL; IS NOT MY WAY EQUAL? ARE NOT YOUR WAYS UNEQUAL? -EZEKIEL XVIII. 25.

"IF I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor." This text might be appropriately prefixed to an examination of that system of moral and religious criticism which, at the close of the last century, succeeded for a time in giving a philosophical connection to the hitherto loose and floating theological rationalism of its age and country. (1) It was indeed a marvellous attempt to send forth from the same fountain sweet waters and bitter, to pull down and to build up by the same act and method. The result of the Critical Philosophy, as applied to the speculative side of human Reason, was to prove beyond all question the existence of certain necessary forms and laws of Intuition and thought, which impart a corresponding character to all the objects of which Consciousness, intuitive or reflective, can take cognizance. Consciousness was thus exhibited as a Relation between the human mind and its object; and this conclusion, once established, is fatal to the very conception of a Philosophy of the Absolute. But by an inconsistency scarcely to be paralleled in the history of philosophy, the author of this comprehensive criticism attempted to deduce a partial conclusion from universal premises, and to

1 Galatians ii. 18.

exempt the speculations of moral and religious thought from the relative character with which, upon his own principles, all the products of human consciousness were necessarily invested. The Moral Law, and the ideas which it carries with it, are, according to this theory, not merely facts of human consciousness, conceived under the laws of human thought, but absolute, transcendental realities, implied in the conception of all Reasonable Beings as such, and therefore independent of the law of time, and binding, not on man as man, but on all possible intelligent beings, created or uncreated. (2) The Moral Reason is thus a source of absolute and unchangeable realities; while the Speculative Reason is concerned only with phenomena, or things modified by the constitution of the human mind. (3) As a corollary to this theory, it follows, that the law of human morality must be regarded as the measure and adequate representative of the moral nature of God;-in fact, that our knowledge of the Divine Being is identical with that of our own moral duties;-for God is made known to us, as existing at all, only in and by the moral. reason: we do not look upon actions as binding because they are commanded by God; but we know them to be divine commands because we are bound by them. (4) Applying these principles to the criticism of Revealed. Religion, the philosopher maintains that no code of laws claiming divine authority can have any religious value, except as approved by the moral reason; (5) that there can be no duties of faith or practice towards God, distinct from the moral obligations which reason enjoins; (6) and that, consequently, every doctrine to which this test is inapplicable is either no part of revelation at all, or at best can only be given for local and temporary purposes, of which the enlightened reason need no longer take any account. (7)