theist sees no such necessity. For him nature is sufficientmatter is eternal and its motion is force. His divinity--if we can call it such-is an all diffused, and all pervading, but impersonal power-if power it be a definite order or "reign of law," which is at once self-originated and self-sustained, and which, lifeless and unintelligent itself, is still the source of all the life and all the intelligence which we behold. Could rank atheism go farther than this? Atheism and pantheism indeed, so far as nature is concerned, are one creed, only they arrive at their conclusion from opposite methods of reasoning. The atheist denies the existence of a personal God, and therefore says, Since there is no God, he could not possibly be the author and sustainer of nature; while the pantheist, after surveying the universe, says, It contains within itself a sufficient cause for its origin and continuance, and therefore there is no necessity for a God, and to introduce such a hypothesis is only to darken that which is clear, and complicate that which is simple.

It is true there are many men, who are tinged with pantheistic views, who will not venture so far as this. They hesitate before they make the final plunge into absolute negation. They shrink from the logical conclusion of their own arguments, and content themselves with asserting, that nature gives no answer to the question whence it came, and how it is sustained. They say, "It is as unphilosophical to deny, as to assert, the existence of a personal God;" so they quietly shelve the question and dismiss God from their thoughts.

For them the heavens have ceased to declare His glory, and the firmament to show forth His handiwork, and they have installed in His place a creature of their own imagination, which they shroud from the mental eye with a thick cloud of scientific nomenclature, amidst which we hear of "order," "law," and "force;" force;" as if there could be order without a director, law without a lawgiver, and force without a first

cause.

Let us examine this pantheistic divinity, if we can find it. Since it is not supernatural, it must be found within nature itself. All the force which is manifested, all the order observed, all the contrivance and adaptation exhibited, all the advancement which has been made, is the result of sufficient causes, which were antecedent to the phenomena, and which causes were latent, so to speak, in the condition of things, before the things themselves were. At each stage there must have been contained within the existing arrangement the potentiality of all existing stages and arrangements. The universe exhibits

signs of onward progress, but at no step in the line of progression was there the introduction of a single fresh impulse, or a single fresh design.

"It is impossible," the pantheist asserts, "to conceive of any modification whatsoever in the existing condition of material agents, unless through the invariable operation of a series of eternally impressed consequences, following in some necessary chain of orderly connection; or that, "a state of things could exist, or at any time have existed, which could not be rigorously deduced from the preceding state."* The all of nature, therefore, lies hidden in its primordial form, and as we go back and back, through the long ages of geological, and afterwards of astronomical time, we must find in the first condition of things the potentiality which has unfolded itself in suns, and life, and finally in man. We say condition of things, because at that time there were no suns, or life, or intelligence, or personality. All these are, however, manifested in the universe at the present time; and to satisfy any pantheistic doctrine therefore, we must find the sufficient cause of them all in the lifeless, unintelligent, and impersonal atoms, which atoms, in a universally diffused cosmic mist, long before any chemical combination occurred, form the ultima thule of scientific vision. All action since then has only been the working out of "natural law"-" a gradual development"-" an evolution;" and the same cause which, with "selective affinity," drew the elementary atoms into combination, made them also blossom into life, and sparkle with intelligence.

This is what we are asked to believe. If we accept such a belief, one thing is certain, we must endow these atoms (for there is nothing else) with all the attributes which we usually ascribe to the Deity, and without a single experimental foundation, give to them qualities which transcend the license of imagination. We must believe that the force, which is the outcome of the atomic activity, is omniscient as well as omnipresent, and equal to the production of all the contrivance, aptitude, and design, which we behold in the visible cosmos, since it must have foreseen and provided for all ultimate possibilities of the self-development, before the indications of coming requirement were manifest at all. Is this easier to believe than the existence of a personal God?

As a metaphysical question, is it easier to present to the mind the idea of star mist condensing into brain activity. without any external cause operating upon it, than to believe that conscious personality, and intellectual or moral power, came from a personal and moral cause? Does it simplify our

* Essays and Reriers (Baden Powell)..

idea of the modus operandi which we behold in the physical universe, to be told that its infinite beauty and variety are the result of "molecular activity and evolution," and complicate it if we believe that a divine intelligence and oversight has planned and sustained its countless variations? Is it childish to believe in a personal God, infinite and eternal in His power and resources, while it is philosophical and scientific to transfer the self-same attributes to a primeval force," which rolls its music through the ages," and of which "all terrestrial energy, the manifestation of life, as well as the display of phenomena, are but the modulations of its rhythm?"* What is this force which we are called upon to accept in the place of God, and revere as the author and the sustainer of all? "to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away-the sum of whose energies is a constant!"*. which has no life, no intelligence, no choice, no volition, and yet which, when it falls upon atoms and molecules, as devoid of all these attributes as itself, can crystallize them into suns, and fill their attendant planets with everything of which both matter and force are themselves destitute.

It cannot see, and yet it formed the eye; it cannot hear, and yet it planned the ear; it cannot think, and yet it is the source of Shakespeare's Plays and Newton's Principia; it has no moral purpose, and yet it has produced man, who has spiritual aspirations, and who has dared to conceive of a God.

If force and matter alone be there, whence came the first beginnings of all these things? At what period in the history of the grand development did the first real life begin? How came it to pass that atoms which, for countless ages, unnumbered as the sand upon the sea shore, had arranged themselves into inorganic forms, suddenly became organized? There must have been a pregnant instant when life began; when, for the first time in the history of the universe, a new condition of things occurred, self-power-self-growth-self-propagation. Between the highest manifestation of physical power and the simplest manifestation of life there is an impassible gulf. No mental process, no arithmetical computation can measure the distance.

The difference is not one of degree, it is one of kind; and yet we are asked to believe that all this is the result of the "rhythmical play of forces upon concentrating atoms," and nothing more. The new requirements of life necessitated a new order of things, which differed entirely from the requirements of all preceding time. There was a co-ordination of parts never witnessed before-a reciprocity of action which was marvellous to behold.

Heat considered as a mode of motion."-Prof. Tindall, F.R.S.

To the pantheist, however, all this fitness of things is spontaneous. There is adaptation, but no design; fertility of resources, but no intelligence has presided over the arrangements; all is only the result of the same energy which has moulded the form of the planets, or which builds up the atoms into a crystal. The wonder is great, but it does not end here; there is a greater marvel still. There came a time in the history of the mighty progress, when even life itself ceased to be the highest manifestation of power. The life became associated with will-with conscious personality-with moral feeling. Whence came all this? Is it only a day dream? Are we to believe that the thoughts which burn, and the feelings which move, are but the blind motions of the same force which causes the blade of grass to grow, or urges the blood through the vascular system? Are we after all only automata; and is human responsibility only a fiction, and our hope of immortality a delusive snare?

Is this the coming creed of the nineteenth century which is to supersede the superstition of past ages? We venture to say that before men will accept it, nay, before the common sense of mankind will tolerate it, there must be a better reason for its reception furnished than has ever yet been produced. F. H. B.-H.

(To be concluded in our next.)

THE CONTROVERSY IN THE U. P. CHURCH.

SINCE we last referred to this important subject, the discussion among the United Presbyterians on the doctrines of the Confession of Faith has by no means died away. Both the Rev. David Macrae and the Rev. Fergus Ferguson have preached and published special discourses on the debated points, and made, or attempted to make, elaborate statements in their respective presbyteries. One remark that occurred in a speech which Mr. Macrae was not allowed to deliver by his co-presbyters, but which he afterwards published in the Glasgow Herald, we thought to be a theological gem, and have pleasure in reproducing it here. In replying to the objection that, by his liberal views, he was nullifying the grace of God, he exclaimed, with warmth, "Does not the man who limits. God's grace really detract from its glory? And does not the man who makes it wide enough to embrace the whole world glorify it rather than dishonour it?" In that one thought, thus felicitously expressed, lies much of the entire doctrinal position which we of the Evangelical Union have been seeking for upwards of thirty years to fortify and maintain.

Mr. Ferguson made a very long and complete statement of his doctrinal belief, at the September meeting of the Glasgow U.P. Presbytery, in reply to questions which had been formally put to him. His transparent honesty of heart, as well as his manly courage, were signally displayed on that occasion; for he told his critical and eager judges far more about his personal creed than he needed to tell them. There are just two points in that remarkable statement on which we wish to make a few comments, not of an unfriendly nature, but by way of explanation as to our own sentiments on these subjects. While demanding a Gospel wide as the race of man in its provisions, Mr. Ferguson observed, as to the view of the atonement's extent held by Arminian theologians, that if you say that all that Christ did was to make salvation possible to all men, the cross really accomplished no positive result. He was therefore disposed to say that, besides opening the door of mercy for all, the cross of Christ actually procured that immortality for the race which had been forfeited by Adam's sin. The second Adam, according to him, delivered us from that gloomy heritage of annihilation which the first Adam brought upon us. Here, of course, the whole controversy turns upon the interpretation put upon the threatening of the Garden of Eden, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." There is no real difference of an important character here between Mr. Ferguson and ourselves; for he holds, we suppose, that the annihilation threatened was immediately removed by the protevangel which was preached in Eden. We, on the other hand, generally believe that the threatened death was the downward descent of death temporal, spiritual, and eternal, which began in Eden, and which God is seeking to stem in every human being by the provisions of Calvary. Mr. Ferguson's gospel is characterized by contingency as much as ours; for he holds with us that only believers go to heaven, while the impenitent sink to hell. But is not the opening of the door a most important fact for a prisoner? And did not Christ achieve a most important triumph when he threw open the door of mercy to mankind, and provided the Holy Ghost for the race?

We now approach the second point in the statement of the minister of Queen's Park, on which we wish to touch-viz., his now famous eschatological dictum, that "the good or the elect are like sons in heaven, while the wicked are like servants in hell, where they lead a useful and tolerable existence." We cannot say that we have been shocked by this statement, as some have professed to be, for we receive with thankfulness any representation of the judgments in the world to come,