feelings and weaknesses he does not comprehend, and he lacks a necessary element of real effective critical power.

"The specifically human character of our views lies less in the breadth and clearness than in the warmth of coloring imparted to them by the constant co-operation of the emotions." It was the failure to recognize this truth, that gave rationalism a blow from which it has never yet recovered. The religious feeling under proper and careful discipline becomes the most productive of all the faculties, being not only fruitful in larger and more human conceptions, but corrective of the steady and often heedless flow of the stream of logical formulae. But this feeling is found in its purest forms, in the assemblies of the church, at her sacramentalsupper, and in her ordinary life and work. In social science, this law has already been discovered and applied. It is being appreciated more and more by the church. Hence criticism must have the practical touch which makes the critic, coworker with the expositor, and the fellow-laborer with his brethren in the church. It is this practical power which connects the critical product naturally with the religion whose interests it is intended to further, and the truth which it is to fully reveal. What the limit of the practical element will be, is of course determined by individual and local considerations.

THE COMMON ELEMENT IN CRITICISM AND LIFE.

"All history and our own experience tell us," says Principal Caird, "that there are irrepressible instincts which point to something above the domain of nature-to a realm of mystery which transcends the finite and phenomenal world."2 This common experience which belongs equally to all rational minds, is the link which ought to bind criticism and the common life together. After all the various

1 Lotze, Microcosmos, ii. 306.

2 Philosophy of Religion, p. 8.

sources of human knowledge have been searched through, whether satisfactorily or not, the retreat is upon the personal life and the inward witness. This personal element is one factor always common to criticism and the common life. The recognition of the value of the personal life with its infinite capacity and yet its singular dependence, constitutes the most unique of all the forces which move the mind of It is the one recurring theme of the poets and prophets of the Old Testament, it is the perpetual reminder of Christ to his disciples, it is the one subject around which the apostolic preaching continually revolves. It eludes the definitions of science, and is comprehended only in feeling, by its effects. It is the common hope and pain which makes for human fellowship. There is no more pathetic plea in the New Testament than that which urges discipleship on the ground that "we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are," and then little later represents Christ as "enduring the cross, despising shame," for the [sake of] the joy that was set before him. The humanness of both these appeals is striking in the extreme. There is here the most naïve expression of perfect understanding of the discouragement and the causes of it, of hope and the motives that inspire it, that one could desire. This unity of all life in a common dependence and looking to a common redemption should be the ruling element of criticism, as it is already the dominant thought in the common life. The brotherhood of all men, and their common banishment from the favor of God through sin and transgression, are mighty motives to a man who, under the fear of God, undertakes the interpretation of the Bible. Faith under the best of conditions is never too strong, and the religious grasp upon the personal saving work of Christ, as the mediator between God and men, never too clear to be beyond peril of weakness and loss. The thoughtful minds

over.

in their best moments have always observed this the world When this has governed his thought, and the Christian critic has come to the work of interpretation, then have been the great currents of spiritual insight which have illuminated the world. It does not require a pietism which obscures the judgment, or limits the critical power, though it will modify and enrich both. It is the demonstration to the church, that all have received the Holy Ghost alike, and in that enlightenment are proclaiming the truth. Every man will thus hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of God. Pietism without critical insight must produce intellectual degradation, but criticism without piety means sterility of thought and lifelessness. The common life is the great storehouse of the facts that most nearly relate to life and its culture and nurture. It should be the place where the critic can with most freedom and most safety present his deepest thought and rely securely upon a sound and abiding verdict. It is the plebiscite by means of which he asks for endorsement or rejection. The technical forms out of which his knowledge comes, must indeed be thrown aside, and the thing stand bare under the scrutiny of all. But the eye that looks upon the new thought is kindly and tolerant. It is more ready to include than to exclude. It has sympathies and patience. But its judgment is true and from it there is no appeal. This the Bible has been doing ever since it has asked the submission of the world to the Lord and Master whom it proclaims. What the Bible has done before him, the critic must do likewise. He must come with the marks of fellowship and wear the insignia of a common brotherhood. There are no heretics where a common peril threatens and a single hope moves all alike. Filled with the joy of a discipleship alike derived from a crucified and risen Lord, they both go from glory to glory in the common task of working out their salvation with fear and trembling, God working in both, willing and doing his good pleasure.

ARTICLE IV.

SOME HOMILETIC USES OF THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.

BY THE REV. HERBERT W. LATHE, DENVER, COLORADO.

IT was Theodore Parker who said that Reason acknowledges no unnecessary or useless truths. With even greater force can it be affirmed that Revelation discloses no superfluous doctrines. The theory that the doctrine of election is of value only to the speculative theologian, as throwing light upon the modus of redemption, but not "profitable for instruction" to the church at large, is perilously near the affirmation that portions of the Scriptures were written to satisfy human curiosity. Certainly the apostle Paul does not embalm this doctrine in the wrappings of religious philosophy. It is as dear to him as the doctrine of the Cross itself. It fires his soul, and flames out in his epistles. It flashes at points, here and there, unexpectedly, in a word or phrase, showing how fully it possesses his mind. Take the letter to the Ephesians. It is keyed to this high pitch in the opening note: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." Then how the eager words tumble over one another through three chapters, as the impetuous pastor seeks to inspire his flock with the glorious conviction which is burning in his own soul, that he and they are picked men, divinely selected and ordained to the Christian life and inheritance. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." "According to the

eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." So in Romans ix.-xi. Although his aim here is more clearly doctrinal, and his method is polemical, the electing grace of God is evidently far more to him than a necessary factor in a theological system. His logic is on fire with it. In defending the Gentiles against the objection that to the Jews exclusively belong the covenants of promise, he is pleading for his converts, not for an abstraction in dogmatics. He is not offering the fact of predestination as a happy solution of a theological problem, but is arguing the exceeding riches of divine grace in the salvation of the outcast nations. And so the conclusion of the whole matter is not the quod erat demonstrandum of the logician, but the exultant pæan of the gospel herald, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”

It is a significant but not a strange fact that Paul, of all inspired writers, should be the most fervid expositor of the doctrine of election. His very introduction of himself to his readers is in terms of the doctrine. "Paul, an apostle by the will of God." The doctrine describes the man. Indeed, the doctrine may almost be said to have taken on a Pauline personality, so instantly do we think of the apostle when we speak of this truth. And why should Paul, rather than another, be the foremost champion of electing grace? Because of his exceptional religious experience. A fascinating volume might be written on the relation of the Pauline theology to the personal dealings of God with the apostle. It could easily be shown that the truths on which he lays stress in his epistle are those which had been emphasized in his conversion and subsequent Christian growth. Especially would the fact of election appear to have grounded itself on his personal history. It was the wonder of his life that he, of all men, should have been selected of God to be saved himself, and to be a chosen vessel to bear Christ's name be