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the thinkers of Tubingen were the founders of a new rationalistic school. Neander, Tholuck, and Ebrard have done much to revive a purer German theology. But there are also able supporters of rationalism both in America and Britain. We may mention Theodore Parker, Emerson, Newman, and Mackay, authors respectively of "Discourses," Essays,' Phases of Faith," and Progress of the Intellect."

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Space will not permit notices of the offshoots from these schools; but, leaving revelation out of the question, we see a little progress indicated: the idolater deifies the brute; the pantheist, nature; the physical rationalist, reason; and the theological rationalist, virtue. We think we have fully illustrated our position; we have given quotations of teachings which all rest on some so-called scientific principle, and then we have shown how they lead to doubt and disbelief on the most important subjects. The scriptures of the sceptics are much more difficult to understand reasonably than the Scriptures of inspiration. They offer us nothing clearer after all their boasted illuminism. It is quite true that faiths will not take us to heaven, but it is also true that an indubitable belief must have or ought to have some influence on our actions, which are the real index of a man's moral and religious nature. Physical science is making rapid strides and infinite conquests; metaphysical science seems to turn on precisely the same pivots as it did two thousand years since. The true principles of natural and revealed religion must always remain the same. Physical science is not opposed to true mental science, nor both these to Christianity; they ought to be considered as three handmaidens, each ministering in her proper sphere to man's numerous wants, but, nevertheless, so mingling their duties as to render a complete and purifying service. Although the present unsatisfactory state of mental philosophy and religious belief is to be lamented, yet, looking back on the past, we may be almost inclined to assert that it seems to be a law of the human mind. We will illustrate. Among the Jews we find the Pharisees with their respect for tradition, the Sadducee with his rationalistic logic, and the Essenes with their asceticism, but with a nearer approach to simple faith in revelation and practical piety than the other two. Among the Greeks the corresponding parties were the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Pythagoreans. Among the Mahometans the Sunis are the traditionists, the Sufis seek their religion in internal sensation, and the Sheas adhere to the plain sense of the Koran. In the Christian world the parallel is plainly seen in the Romanists, the Rationalist, and the Evangelical. Each of these sections condemns the other. How easy it is to avoid the faults of others, and yet possess some, no less fatal, of our own! CAPILLORUM SECTOR.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

In the debate, one side of which is opened by the present paper, it is to be hoped that the writers will take especial care clearly and without reservation to avow their respective positions, fairly to follow out the consequences of their own arguments, and to give full and honest diligence to ascertain the standpoint of their opponents, and the precise purport of their reasoning. Let it be felt that the combatants wage a serious and momentous battle, or rather, are engaged in passionate, earnest strife, not for victory, but for truth, on a question of the deepest possible personal interest and importance. The flippaney of mere cleverness and the scorn of assumed superiority will alike be out of place, for it is holy ground upon which we tread. Christianity and hostile science stand here confronted, the one professing a divine origin and permanent authority, the other emphatically denying either; and the claims of each are to undergo a searching, though reverential examination. No less vital issue than the reality of the Christian revelation is presented for consideration in this debate.

The terms need little previous definition. Science is the aggregate of ascertained facts, and the laws or prior facts deduced, or supposed to be deduced, from these. Scepticism is not a mere temporary disturbance of belief, but a state of settled doubt respecting the truth of the Christian religion. The Christian religion involves, as its main fact, a revelation from God, which itself necessitates the idea of the miraculous; and essential to the revelation is the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God as the man Christ Jesus.

It is admitted that much of the so-called science of the present day is hostile to revealed religion, but it is quite within the bounds of fair criticism to express the opinion that such science is self-styled only, and wanting in ali the characteristics of true science.

What is generally understood by science, the investigation of facts, may be divided into two parts, best distinguished as pedantic and philosophic. The one ignores all facts but those within its own limited range, and argues hastily from them; the other takes in the whole compass of nature as the basis for its teachings. Pedantic science alone is antagonistic to Christianity. The other may, as it has done in the past, and is perhaps now doing, modify some human readings of the great redemptive scheme and the revelation in which it is embodied, but before the great mysteries it will bow, and confess that these are beyond its province. Only the conceit of pedantic science dares to stand before these covered and unabashed, denying their reality because they do not square with some conclusions it professes to have found irrevocably established in the little corner of the universe which alone it explores.

"Searching the edges of the universe,

(They) leave the central fields a fallow part; To feed the eye more precious things amerce, And starve the darkened heart.

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As an illustration of the mode in which this pretended science proceeds in the formation and promulgation of its theories may be cited the unwarrantable assumption of the impossibility of the miraculous-an assumption for which not even the shadow of a proof can be adduced, but which is yet put forward with the utmost assurance as an axiom which cannot be gainsayed. Perhaps no public manifestation of this narrow pedantry has been made equal to that afforded by the now well-known society of anthropologists. Their special study is the differences in the races of mankind, more particularly as these affect the question of the origin of the human species. But so far from seeking facts on the widest area possible, and reasoning from these according to the true canons of induction, their course seems to have been first to form opinions and hypotheses, and afterwards to use these as tests by which to judge of the truthfulness of all testimony and observation in connection with the subject. The physical and mental status of the negro, and the results of missions to the heathen, are two questions which they have lately been considering in a manner amply to prove the charge. Their president read a paper at the 1863 meeting of the British Association, in which the African race was stated to be far more nearly related to apes than to Europeans. Unfortunately for its author, this was replied to by a genuine negro, in a speech characterized by the keenest analytical and sarcastic power, which amply proved the possession of gifts above the average men in that select assembly of British intellect, and certainly superior to those of his assailant. But such a palpable demonstration of their utter falsity and absurdity has not in the least altered the anthropological conclusions, for these have since been asserted and reasserted with increased vehemence and intensity.

Nor on the question of missions has the course of investigation been at all more fair. Many persons interested in, and intimately acquainted with, missionary operations, attended one of the society's meetings, professedly devoted to the discussion of this topic, and gave clear evidence in favour of the results of Christian teaching upon the tribes of Africa, and the character of the missionaries.

But so far from their testimony assisting in the inquiry, it was set aside as interested or untrue, and the cry of persecution was raised against those who had vindicated an important religious work and its agents from serious charges of uselessness, inefficiency, and immorality.

We decline, then, to recognize as true science that which, instead of accepting the presence of William Craft at Newcastle in 1863 as a weighty fact coming within the scope of its inquiries, could meanly and spitefully complain of his admission on terms of equality by the authorities of the Association.

Representative of, perhaps, another phase of pseudo-scientific dogmatism, may be cited the assertion of two medical men at Birmingham last year, that illegitimacy was looked upon too seriously, and, being entirely in accordance with natural laws, ought scarcely to be considered as a sin. To this utter materialism of sentiment, which ignores the mental and spiritual nature, and the power of the will over bodily desires, we also refuse the name of philosophic science, which would calmly consider the whole facts, and form its conclusions by impartial reasoning from them all.

Intelligent believers in the Christian religion find such force in the merely external testimony to its truth, in the transcendent greatness of the plan therein set forth, its freedom from human imperfections, the manifest clearness and honesty of its records, the constancy of its first propagators in the face of unparalleled dangers and persecutions, the marvellous progress it has made, the power of its influence upon the nations, and above all, its adaptedness to every faculty and condition of the soul, testifying to a common origin and author, that they justly require all hostile scientific teachings to be unmistakably the result of candid and philosophic inquiry before even admitting them to be worthy of serious consideration. Much more is this the case when they rejoice in the evidence within, so well expressed by a living author,- To the Christian the debate with scepticism is a tedious and worn-out speculation. He enjoys what we are asking him to believe."*

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But it is not only needful that the facts should be established as such above all reasonable doubt, and the inferences from them be clear and beyond dispute; these inferences must be shown to bear upon and prove the weakness or falsity of the more important evidences, or to contradict the essential principles of Christianity as distinguished from the human element in its records, and mere possible or probable additions to its system. Furthermore, the contradiction must be decided, and not simply the presentation of a difficulty, which is never a conclusive argument, and often no argument at all.

The items of religious faith and of collateral belief which are supposed to be endangered by the discoveries and conclusions of modern science may now be considered, and the true character and logical worth of the hostile evidence investigated.

*Davison on Prophecy.

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The fundamental thought of all religion is the existence of a personal God. By some it is contended that science is slowly but surely blotting out even this conception from all minds of true candour and intelligence. But it is certain that philosophy, when it passes beyond the laws which scientific research has shown to govern all known phenomena, is compelled to rest in the idea of a great First Cause, the origin of all things. Despite some recent assertions to the contrary, experience can never extend far enough to prove that no Deity exists. As to the assumption of the eternity of matter and the laws which it obeys, this is but an assumption, unsupported by the slightest proof, not to say that its absurdity is utter, inasmuch as it makes eternity a series of beginnings without a beginning, life a chain of separate and easily distinguished links, but in which no link is first. The results of mind, in the magnificent adaptation of all things to each other and to man, have been manifested from everlasting, without a mind to be their author. Glorious conceptions are embodied in the worlds around us, and in each of their unnumbered parts, yet these were never thought, for there was no consciousness in which they could arise. They own no origin whatever, but are, and always were, and will be. In the words of one of the most eminent of our scientific men,* accustomed especially to control of external forces and the expression of ideas in mechanical combinations, "surely our minds would in that case be more oppressed with a sense of the miraculous than they now are in attributing the wondrous things around us to the creative hand of a great presiding intelligence.

The miraculous, by which is understood manifest suspension of, or action apart from, ordinary laws by the Divine Being, whether directly or connected (of course voluntarily) with the will of His accredited messengers, is the next essential element of Christianity. This may be opposed on two grounds, improbability and experience. Its impossibility can scarcely be alleged, for whoever or whatever had power to create the world must certainly be credited with ability to control or modify, or to introduce new elements of force into its phenomena. It may certainly be supposed improbable that God would require ever to readjust the modes of His operation. But even this might be if sufficient cause could be alleged. It is for hostile science or philosophy to show that such sufficient cause can never be. Christianity asserts a cause, and surely if ever there might be reason to expect the special and direct action of Deity in human affairs, it is in connection with the redemption of the race from guilt, misery, and inevitable ruin. But there is not the least necessity to carry the thought of the miraculous so far as to require a readjustment of the plans of the divine Ruler. It may, after all, be but the action of laws belonging to a higher sphere than that of matter, which, by regular sequence of cause and effect, interpose between, or interfere in, certain cases, with the operation of those governing the inferior world.

*Sir William Armstrong.

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