St. Paul's vivid description of the aroused and restless consciousness, with its dim discernment that its struggle is one against itself, that what is opposed to its natural inclination is really its own higher and truer nature, that what seems a check upon its freedom is really alone that freedom's self,-is familiar to us all: "That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. . . . I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" It will be perceived that there are two aspects of the moral antinomy, a speculative and a practical. The dialectic which formed the first part of this paper contemplated only the speculative aspect; in this description of St. Paul's, the practical aspect is chiefly prominent. He cries out for a practical deliverance, for a power to perform that which is good. It would be of no use to him to solve the difficulty in a merely speculative way, and say that there ought to be no struggle here, for the truth of the matter is the concrete unity of abstract freedom and abstract law,—— that just this is the nature of the freedom of spiritual being. He would still call for some power to enable him to realize this ideal nature. We merely note this to say that this practical aspect of the matter, and the consideration of the Gospel as the power unto salvation which is needed, is not the subject of the present paper, but of a following one. At present we adduce St. Paul merely to confirm the positions we have taken as to the insufficiency and contradictoriness of the merely moral stand-point, and the escape from this through the principle of spiritual freedom. This is that of which Christ said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." How it shall make us free, we have not now to consider.

Here, then, it is simply to be noted that St. Paul's practical result is inclusive of and based upon that speculative truth. He answers his own despairing question, "Who shall deliver me from this death?" with the exclamation: "I thank God (who has delivered me), through Jesus Christ our Lord. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God (did by)

sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." And a little further: "Christ is the end (object or aim) of the law of righteousness." Now, as the practical escape from the death of sin is through the Gospel of Christ, so through that Gospel is the speculative escape from the moral antinomy. Christianity centres in the person of Christ. His words, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," stand in vital connection with His other words, "I am the truth." The solution of the whole moral problem is the revelation of itself made to humanity in Christ. In His single person truly God yet perfectly man, Christ reveals the "truth" that human will and Divine will are ideally identical. The Divine will, or the moral law, is not a stern fate opposed to our will,-it is the ground and substance of our own will, it is our own inner spiritual self. No less, therefore, can be affirmed of human nature, considered in its original ideality, than its essential oneness (living union) with the Divine nature; and this the Apostle declares: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. . . . The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. . . . For whom God did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.". This declaration, that we are the children of God, and brethren of the Only Begotten, expresses most fully the result arrived at by our dialectical consideration of the ideality or external nature of will.

It follows from the Apostle's declarations that "what the law could not do in that it was weak, God did by sending His Son;' that "Christ is the end of the law;" and that we are "not under the law, but under grace," that the law, as law, is done away with. We find that he insists upon this course. The law, he says, is binding only during the lifetime of those whom it controls. For instance, death dissolves the legal obligation of marriage, and the survivor is free to marry again. In like manner the death of Christ has dissolved the legal obligation between the law and us, for in His death we too are dead, having been "baptized into His death," according to His previous words. He concludes: "Now we are deliv

"Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren."-Hebrews, ii. 11.

* "For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God."-Hebrews, vii. 18, 19.

ered from the law, having died to that wherein we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.”1 This language seems to justify my statement, made above, that in the light of the Christian principle, the old relation of obedience to law dissolves and vanishes. It is true the Apostle has said before: "Do we then make void the law? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." And to the same effect Christ said: "Think not I am come to destroy the law; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” But just this is the effect upon the law of the dialectic we have pursued. By that dialectic, law is not abrogated as to its matter, but merged as to its principle in a higher. Not what the law commands, but that it should command it; not the right, but the right as an obligation (something bound upon freedom) is done away with by the truth of the unity of subject and object in spiritual being. The law is "fulfilled" when it is seen to be properly not law, but the will's own freedom.

This point of the worn-out worthlessness of the law is the main subject of the Epistle to the Galatians. Indeed, that Epistle reads like a commentary on the parable of the old garment. As Archbishop Trench remarks, it was just the patching that the parable condemns which the Galatians attempted, and for which the Apostle rebukes them. The Apostle opens with warning against, and condemnation of, any retention of the Judaic system, which he calls a "perversion of the Gospel of Christ," and solemnly declares : "Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed." Nor is it Jewish ceremonial, as such, that is in question, but ceremonial as significant of a moral position which Christianity leaves behind. “I say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you who are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." ("Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than . John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.") The whole argument of the third chapter is a forcible restatement of positions taken in the Epistle

Romans, vii. 6. The rendering of our version: "That being dead wherein we were held," tangles the thread of the Apostle's argument, which, it is plain from v. 4, rests on our dying with Christ, and so being freed from the law. It is satisfactory to know, therefore, that the English renders not St. Paul, but Beza, who "conjectured" ȧñovavóvros in place of the ȧπovavovrεS of all the great MSS. Alford, in loc.

to the Romans. Those under the law are under a curse, for it pronounces a curse against those who do not perfectly keep the injunction. From that curse Christ has redeemed us, having Himself become a curse for us, according to a symbolical saying of the law itself, as to the manner of his death. The purpose of the law is stated in similar language to that used in Romans: "It was added because of transgressions. . . . If there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness should have been by the law. . . . The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. (I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.') . . . But after faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster, 'for ye are all children of God by faith in Christ JeThe fourth chapter returns to the heirship of Christians under the Gospel. During his minority the heir is in some respects as much under subjection as if he were a servant. Thus, hitherto, men had been under the bondage of the legal dispensation. But Christ came to give them their inheritance of sonship. "Wherefore thou

sus.

art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." ("The servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth ever; if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.") The argument closes with the exclamation: "After ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" and the exhortation to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

Hasty and superficial as this glance at Scripture has been, it yet may serve to indicate—what thorough study will make abundantly clear that even here in its moral teaching, that sphere in which is sought the identification of Christianity with other religions, there is to be found a ground of essential difference; much more strikingly, then, it is to be expected, will the distinctiveness of Christianity appear, and the consequent futility of all attempts to class it with other religions as substantially alike with them, when attention is directed to another sphere of content, which such comparisons have overlooked, and which belongs to Christianity alone. It will be the purpose of a following paper to treat of this central pith or marrow of the Christian dispensation; and the reason that Christian morals have first been considered is that in morality the transition to spirituality takes place. The moral law is the schoolmaster that leads unto Christ, in a speculative as well as in a practical

sense.

1. The Pope and the Kingdom of Italy.

2. The Austrian Concordat.

3. Prussia and the Bishop of Ermeland.

4. Father Paul's Rights of Sovereigns and Subjects. Translated from the Italian. London: 1722. With his life prefixed.

5. The History of the Quarrels of Pope Paul V. with the State of Venice. Translated from the Italian of Father Paul. London: 1626.

6. Foulis's History of Popish Treasons and Usurpations. A folio of 726 pages. London: 1671.

"THE

HE thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun." So said Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. And so said he, we apprehend, as a student of his own and of bygone times, as a reflector upon a much-checkered life, and as a political prognosticator for the future. The Book of Ecclesiastes is never contemplated under a fitter or more intelligible theory than when regarded as a tract in autobiography, or as embracing what has since been called one's confessions. We are even disposed to fancy that St. Augustine wrote his confessions, looking back to the confessions of Solomon.

Now, as a confessor for the past and the present, and a diplomatic conjecturer for the future, we are inclined to believe that Solomon is eminently and profoundly right as to eventualities