God to create it, nor a God to govern it. And, strange to say, a portion of the new philosophy-for there is a new philosophy in our day as well as a new theology, par nobile fratrum,”—maintains a something not very different from the philosophy we have called old. One writer of the new school says, "Matter cannot be created." Another says, " Matter neither comes into being nor ceases to exist." Again he says, "The creation of matter is unintelligible, a mere Hebrew idea; it is impossible to think of nothing becoming something." This, and such as this, is the language of the new school, both in this country and in America. The difference between this system and that of Epicurus, if difference there be, seems to us of little moment indeed. Epicurus would not be called an Atheist, but his God was not required for either creation or providence. And the new philosophy would not be called Atheistic, yet it says, "Duty requires us neither to affirm nor deny the personality of God." How then would these men of the new philosophy, who have no personal God, and allow of no miracles in creation or providence, account for the phenomena in and on our earth? One says, 66 Evolution and the development hypothesis will account for it.' Another says, "Either development or spontaneous generation will account for it." Again they say, "Force is the ultimate of ultimates; and all is ascribed to, "the persistence of force." But their evolution, development, spontaneous generation, and persistence of force, is a groundless hypothesis. They can neither give organization to a plant, life to an animal, nor conscience to a man. Yet such as this is all these wise men give us in the room of God. "I would rather be a dog and bay the moon," than have their creed. "I had rather," said Bacon, "believe all the folly in the Legend, and in the Talmud, and in the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." Pearson says, "Geology has established the fact, that before the era of man there were several successive creations of animal life. Their remains are embedded in strata anterior to our race. Whole groups were swept away, and new races supplied their place. Our present race of animals and vegetables could not have existed in their temperature, nor could they in ours. There must have been a new creation, and for this we demand the interposition of God." "We place," says Chalmers," the argument for the interposal of a God on firm vantage ground, by asserting that, were all the arrangements of our natural history destroyed, all the known forces of our existing natural philosophy could not replace them." Newton says, "The growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of divine power, is absurd."

J. F.

And

ON THE DECALOGUE.

WHENEVER the Westminster Confession of Faith states explicitly some particular doctrine, it may always be inferred that at some date prior to the formation of the Westminster Confession that particular doctrine had been called in question, and an opposite view maintained. The matter must have been subjected to thorough discussion either before or during the sittings of the Westminster Assembly, and the divines of that assembly must have deemed the views which they regarded as Scriptural to be of sufficient importance to receive a place amongst the professed articles of the Church's creed. Applying this to the case of the Ten Commandments, we will find the Westminster Confession stating very explicitly and fully that the Ten Commandments constitute a code of moral law perpetually binding on the Church on

earth, and the inference from this is that some person or persons must have previously maintained that this code of law was not perpetually binding. Turning next to Church history to discover who these opponents of the perpetual obligation of the Decalogue may have been, we will discover the most prominent of them to have been the Socinians of Poland and the Antinomians of Germany. And upon further consulting either the writings of the Socinians and, Antinomians, or those treatises of their opponents which contain full quotations from their writings (as, e.g., Hoornbeek's Socinianismus Confutatus), we will make the further discovery that the floating objections which have been urged of late against the doctrine of the perpetual obligation of the Decalogue, are precisely the objections which were then urged, met,

discussed, and considered by the West- Decalogue was intended to be of authority minster Assembly to have been thoroughly refuted. It is interesting and satisfactory to know this; and therefore we thought it right to advert to it, before proceeding to state succinctly the grounds upon which we regard the Decalogue as still of authority in the Church of Christ.

as if there a totally new community-the celebrate this and other Divine interposiNew Testament Church-had commenced, tions in ancient days, are not mere national and a totally distinct community-the Old odes, but inspired hymns of the Church. Testament Church-had terminated its 2. Even assuming that the motive career, but that we are to keep tracing implied in the preface to the Ten Comstraight on until we reach the covenant mandments was a motive fitted to tell exmade with Abraham, and even beyond that clusively upon the Jews, it would not folon to the recipients of the first promise in low from this assumption that the code to Eden. There may have been changes in which it is prefixed was intended to be the outward constitution of the Church, in binding exclusively on them. The Scrip-. its laws and administration, in its divinely- tures are made up of a great many separate appointed modes of worship, and in the revelations, given at different times and at sources from which its constituent members different places: "God spake at sundry have been drawn; so that at one period the times and in divers manners.' These visible Church is co-extensive with a family, separate revelations were addressed in the at another with a nation, and at another first instance to particular persons or to drawn from almost every "kindred, nation, particular portions of the Church, and the and tongue;" its course, like that of some greater part of them contain references to river, now narrowing into a silvery thread the special circumstances of the person or of light, now widening into a broad ex-persons to whom they were in the first panse, now parting into separate parallel instance addressed. The principle of instreams, and now uniting; yet it is the terpretation which would relieve us of all same community, marked off from other obligation to keep the Sinaitic code on the communities all through, however at times ground of the motive urged in the preface it may have wholly or partially coincided to that code is a principle which, if fairly with some of them. The deliverances from carried out, would relieve us of all obligaEgypt, from Babylon, from imperial perse- tion to obey almost any, either of "the cution in the early Christian centuries, and words spoken by the holy prophets," or of from Popish corruption in the sixteenth"the commandments of the apostles of our century, are all events in the history of a Lord and Saviour." Just let us open the community to which we belong. Should a New Testament and see. Let us open at Jew in David's or Isaiah's day have ob- the end, and take the books in reverse jected, "I never was brought out of the order. Remember, that the principle we land of Egypt," the answer would have are opposing, when stated concretely, is been, "The nation and Church to which this:-"I was not brought out of the you belong were brought out." Similarly land of Egypt, therefore the Ten Comwe reply to professing Christians of our mandments are not a code of duty for me." day, who claim exemption from the obliga- Very well. "John to the seven churches tion to keep the Sinaitic code on the ground which are in Asia" (Rev. i. 4). I am that they personally have not been brought not a member of any of these churches, out of the land of Egypt: "The commu- therefore the book of the Revelation of nity to which you belong-the visible St. John was not meant for me. "Jude... Church of God-was then delivered." Just to them that are sanctified by God the as an English Protestant of the present Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and day is bound to be thankful for that re- called" (Jude i.). If I can be sure that formation from Popery which passed over this is a description of my character and the Church centuries before he was born, so standing, then I may, though even then ought a member of the Church of God to with some hesitation, regard this epistle as look back with thankfulness to that won- addressed to me. "The elder unto the drous crisis in the history of the Church, well-beloved Gaius" (3 John i.). I am when God delivered his spiritual ancestors not Gaius, and therefore this epistle is not "with great power, and with a mighty meant for me. "The elder unto the elect hand." The deliverance from Egypt con- lady," &c. (2 John i.) I who write am stitutes one of a long and ever-lengthening not an elect lady, and no lady now living is chain of deliverances wrought for, and the particular lady here mentioned, and mercies bestowed upon, His Church by therefore this epistle is not for any lady God, and therefore one of a great and ever- now living, nor for me. The First Epistle increasing accumulation of claims which He of John is addressed to no person or church has earned upon our gratitude and obe- in particular. I may, therefore, regard it dience, our confidence and regard. Apart as addressed to me. But, alas, as I peruse then from any typical significance which its chapters I find that of all the apostles the preface to the Ten Commandments may it is he who is termed by pre-eminence the possess, we deny that, even in its literal loving apostle that keeps insisting most significance, the motive which it urges is pertinaciously on the necessity of showing inapplicable to us. The Psalms, which the genuineness of our love by keeping

all God's commandments, and declares
that these "commandments are not griev-
ous!" The Second Epistle of Peter is
addressed to the same persons to whom the
First Epistle was addressed (2 Pet, iii. 1),
and these were "the strangers scattered
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Pet. i. 1). As I
have never been a traveller in these regions,
these epistles are not for me. "James.
to the twelve tribes which are scattered
abroad" (James i. 1). It has not yet
been conclusively proved that the inhabit-
ants of this country are the lineal de-
scendants of some migratory portion of
the ten lost tribes, and therefore this epistle
is not, in the meantime, for me. For the
same reason, the Epistle to the Hebrews
must be dismissed; and, moreover, this
epistle leads those to whom it is addressed
to expect a visit, which it would be sheer
madness in me to look for (xiii. 23), and
conveys a salutation from persons who
never knew of my existence, and could
have no possible interest in my welfare.

both of the Old and of the New Testaments, with the exception of a few scattered fragments.

II. There is no evidence that the Decalogue has ever been repealed by the authority by which it was promulgated.

1. The ceremonial law, as a whole, and the leading provisions of that law in detail, can be shown to have been repealed or abrogated; but the Ten Commandments formed no part of the ceremonial law. They were not given exclusively through the instrumentality of Moses, as that law was, but directly by God himself: the King deeming this message of such transcendent importance that be dispensed in this case with his official messenger, and came in person to declare from his own lips this part of his will,-that he dispensed with the instrumentality of his official penman, and inscribed it with his own finger on tables of stone.

2. Expressions of this kind-"We are not under the law, but under grace," do not prove that the Decalogue has been repealed. It can be shown that such expressions not merely admit of, but demand, an explanation quite consistent with the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments. Expressions of this nature occur in the New Testament only where the method of a sinner's justification before God is discussed or referred to, and their import can be shown to be this, viz., not that we are no longer under the law, as prescribing authoritatively the duties which we are to discharge, but that we are no longer under the law as prescribing what we are to do in order to be justified. The conditions of eternal life which the law dictates are an exhaustive obedience of its precepts, and, in addition to this, if we have broken them, an exhaustive endurance of its penalty. This can be shown to be the sense in which those who are in Christ are no longer under the law. They do not require to render in their own persons a perfect oberlience to its precepts, or suffer in their own persons its penalty, in order to be justified. They are under grace, or a gratuitous system of justification. They are "justified by faith, without the deeds of the law." They are "justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." this does not amount to a proof either that they have no longer any duties to discharge, or that the authority of the law as a rule of duty for them has ceased.

A continuance of this survey of the Scriptures would bring out the fact that the overwhelming majority of its constituent parts were originally addressed to individuals or communities which have long since disappeared, enjoin what it is totally impracticable for us to carry into effect (e.g., Col. iv. 15-17), appeal to motives the force of which we cannot feel, return thanks for services which we never rendered, raise hopes the fulfilment of which it would be sheer madness for us to expect, and imply a personal acquaintance and intercourse with parties who have long ago left the planet. It forms one broad feature in the structure of revelation that the general is expressed in the particular; that immutable principles are inculcated amid references to existing and transient circumstances; that truths of permanent and universal application are addressed, in the first instance, to particular communities, and revealed in union with historical and temporary conditions. The principle on which the word of God is constructed is, "What I say unto you I say unto all;" and any process of reasoning the validity of which depends upon this principle being ignored is fallacious. We deny, of course, that the motive urged in the preface to the Ten Commandments, though fitted to tell more forcibly upon the ancient Jews than upon us, was fitted to tell upon them exclusively; and we further deny that, even though it 3. No commandment of the Decalogue were exclusive of all but them, that circum- has been separately repealed-e.g., the stance would detract from the universal Fourth Commandment has not. There and perpetual authority of the Ten Com- has been an alteration in a circumstantial mandments; for it could only do so on a detail of this commandment. The subprinciple of interpretation which would stance of this commandment consists in sweep away the authority of the Scriptures, those things, viz.-1st. That we are to

But

count our time by weeks of seven days; and, 2nd. That every recurring seventh day is to be a day of religious rest. Whether, in counting the days of the week, we are to count from that day of rest as the first towards the other days of the week, or to count from the other days of the week towards that day of rest as the last, is a mere matter of circumstantial detail. We have Divine authority for a change in this detail. The recorded practice of our Lord and his apostles, after the resurrection, is sufficient evidence of such authority for this change. But this change, in a circumstantial detail, does not amount to a repeal of the statute itself, or affect the substance of it. It rather reflects additional sanction upon the authority of the statute.

days, then Paul said, “By all means observe them. There is no harm in doing so; only don't insist upon others seeing it to be their duty to observe them also. Let others judge for themselves." Did a convert not simply feel bound in conscience to observe those days, &c., but imagine that the observance of them was meritorious before God, and transfer to these observances the confidence which should repose exclusively on the finished work of Christ, then Paul without hesitation denounced the observance.

There is thus no evidence sufficient to substantiate either of the two positions, one or other of which would require to be established, in order to prove that the Decalogue is no longer binding. The evidence that the Decalogue is a code of moral law originally imposed by Divine authority is clear and unambiguous, and the evidence that such a code, so promulgated, has now been withdrawn, would need to be equally clear and equally unambiguous. When, however, we call upon those who maintain that the Decalogue has heen abrogated to produce the evidence, and when we examine piecemeal what they adduce as such, instead of finding ourselves furnished with clear and conclusive proof, we find that what is adduced as evidence of the abrogation of the Decalogue resolves itself into a confused assemblage of irrelevant quotations from Scripture, of statements that ignore the most elementary principles of Scriptural interpretation, and of extracts from the unguarded sayings of distin guished men. Of course, in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary, the present and perpetual authority of the Ten Commandments remains intact. And we might rest satisfied with this. We might rest satisfied with having shown that no valid reason has yet been assigned in support of the view that the Ten Commandments have either long ago reached the limit of the period during which they were to be in force, or have been canceled. But we are prepared to go further than this, and, while those who disown the authority of the Decalogue can produce no sufficient evidence in defence of their position, we purpose on our part to produce in a subsequent paper positive evidence that the New Testament teaches us to regard the Decalogue as still in force under the Christian dispensation of the Church of God.*

The passages in Gal. iv. 10, Rom. xiv. 5, 6, Col. ii. 16, do not amount to a repeal of the Fourth Commandment. In the first of these passages Paul positively blames those to whom he writes for "observing days," and in the two other passages he tells them that it is in itself a matter of indifference whether they observe them or not. A close study of the context shows that in neither case is he alluding to the observance of one day in seven as a day of religious rest. He himself both practised the observance of one day in seven as a day of religious worship, and he sanctioned the practice of it by the Churches under his care; and it is not to be supposed that he would pull down with the one hand what he was building up with the other. In these passages it can be proved that he is referring to the practice of many of the Jewish converts and of others whom those Jewish converts influenced, of observing the seventh as well as the first day of the week. Many of the Jewish converts believed, and succeeded in persuading some of the Gentile converts to believe with them, that they were still bound to observe the ceremonial law of Moses, and accordingly they practised and persuaded some of the Gentile converts to practise with them both circumcision and baptism, both the Passover and the Lord's Supper, and the observance both of the seventh and of the first day of the week. They waited on the ordinances of the Old Testament mode of worship on the seventh and other sacred days, and observed the Jewish festivals, and they took their place in the Christian assemblies on the Lord's day. The former, and the former only, are the days, as well as "months and years," to which reference is made in the passages quoted, and the apostle speaks of the obA masterly ventilation and treatment of the servance of them, now in a permissive and questions that have been discussed of late regardnow in a prohibitory tone, as the circum-ing the Decalogue, will be found in Book II. of stances of the case might happen to de- Mr. Macgregor's recent work, viz., “The Sabbath Question, in its Historical. Scriptural, and Pracmand. Did a convert conceive that his tical Aspects" (London: Nisbet & Co.). duty to God required him to observe these