other is he than the bearer of that form of the Christian sentiment which is expressed in his Gospel-of the absolute idea of Christianity, as it is adequately conceived and expressed in John's doctrine of the person of Christ? Why should it seem strange that in the position which John and Peter seem to stand toward each other, may be recognized the high significance which that form of the Christian sentiment represented by John had assumed in the historical relations of the time?

As Peter is the representative of the twelve apostles, the position which the evangelist gives himself in respect to Peter, points out the relations in which he placed himself towards the other apostles. This deserves, however, a somewhat closer consideration, in order to place what has been before remarked in a still clearer light. A contradiction, a polemic attitude, like that which we perceive in Luke, does not here manifest itself; but so much. the more does the evangelist represent the entire degree of knowledge and spiritual capacity which the apostles had attained during the life of Jesus, as one so low and imperfect, that it stands at an infinite distance from that standpoint, from which he looks back upon this earlier period. Here belong the texts in which the evangelist expressly affirms that the disciples did not at first understand the true and proper sense of what was said and done by Jesus; but only subsequently, after his death and resurrection. (Compare 2: 22.) After his resurrection the disciples remembered what he had said (verse 19), and then for the first time understood his meaning, and then believed the Scripture and the word of Jesus. So also (12: 16) the disciples did not at first understand the Messianic import of what occurred at the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem; but after he was glorified, it is added, then they remembered that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. Of the numerous misunderstandings of the words of Jesus, of the so often inept questions which they put to him, how many are laid to the charge of the disciples. (Compare 4: 31 sq.; 5: 5 sq.; 11: 8 sq., 16). The last discourse of Jesus to his disciples, especially, contains proofs of how little able were they to comprehend his meaning, and the evangelist seems to have. taken pains to make their spiritual incapacity manifest. How unappreciative is that question of Thomas, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?" (14:5). How incomprehensible is the demand made by Philip, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us" (verse 8). How humiliating to the disciples the reply of Jesus, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?" (verse 9; compare also 14: 23; 16: 17, 29). At so imperfect a stage of their spiritual life the disciples at that time found themselves, because they had not yet received the Spirit, which Spirit could only come after the glorification of Jesus (7: 39). The whole

scope of the parting discourse goes to indicate a period when the Spirit imparted to the disciples had raised them to quite another stage of knowledge and of spiritual sentiment. But the greater is the difference between this later and that earlier period: the greater is the more everything which raises the Christian sentiment to that higher standpoint, belongs to a period subsequent to the earthly life of Jesus; at so much greater distance does the evangelist stand from that Jewish view which would have the entire capability for the apostolical office conjoined to the earthly life of Jesus, and to the converse of the disciples with their immediately present Lord. Judaism took its stand on the personality of single individuals as conductors of the whole; on the apostles, and of these especially, on the apostle Peter. From opposition to this view arises the gentle irony of the evangelist towards the apostle Peter. In his view the Spirit, as the universal principle of the Christian faith and life, stands above the personal in the apostles; and the greater is the fullness of that spiritual life which had developed itself in the Christian church from this principle, first become operative after the departure of Jesus, so much the more do the apostles retreat into the background, for they who believed on him should also receive the Spirit (7: 39); and in the parting discourse it may hence be seen how the idea of the apostles passes over into the broader idea of the disciples, for the greater part of what is there said accords with the latter as well as with the former. In this respect it may here be worthy of notice, that the solemn title of anoσrolo does not occur in this Gospel, and the twelve are only named where something depends upon their name which can excite no very high regard for them. Thus (6: 67) Jesus asks the twelve whether they also will go away from him; and honorable as is the confession of Peter, it is just here that the evangelist notices that Judas, the betrayer, had been one of the twelve. Thomas also, in the scene characterized by his unbelief, is introduced as one of the twelve.

Taking all these things together, we look upon the evangelist as an author who already stood at a distance from that oldest circle of Judaism.

ARTICLE V.

THE DEMAND AND DEMONSTRATION OF A FUTURE RETRIBUTION

IN NATURAL THEOLOGY.

By Rev. GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D., New York.

It is a curious thing to compare the apparatus of Natural Theology with that of Revealed, and the idea of progress in the one with that of progress in the other.

Natural Theology is that which may be known of God from the things that are made, and from our experience of God's government. In considering the things that are made, we have, not only our senses, but our scientific apparatus, our instruments of examination. In considering our experience of God's government, we have to examine the moral nature of the creatures governed, and their relations to the Creator and Governor.

Now in considering the question, How far can Natural Theology go?—we have to remember that our admirable increase of means for examining the works of God, and our facilities of accurate and universal investigation, are greatly owing to the effect of Revealed Theology itself. Natural Theology can go farther now than it could in the time of Plato, as to minuteness and universality of demonstration; but it cannot go a whit farther as to the great points demonstrated. Plato could see those points-the goodness and justice of God, and the righteousness of his government, though he could not have written a book like Paley's Natural Theology.

And yet, from insight glances at conscience and God, and from meditation on the good and evil as related, Plato could perhaps have written a more powerful book than that, more overwhelmingly convincing than Paley's, more directly and triumphantly appealing to every soul's own convictions and intuitive certainties.

Progress in Natural Theology is of two sorts; first, the knowledge and comparative anatomy of facts, which men, with all the apparatus given by Christianity, and a science under the light of Christianity, can gather in regard to Nature discoursing of God; and second, the knowledge of the utmost and highest conclusions which men, under the light of Nature merely, and without the light of Revealed Theology, ever have drawn, or would draw, or could, from the same facts, so far as they have known or could know them.

Progress in Revealed Theology is simply the increased knowledge of the facts in God's Word, together with comparison and interpretation of them under the guidance of God's Spirit. Pro

gress in Revealed Theology is shut up to the Divine Word, and the Divine Spirit in and by that Word.

And just so progress in Natural Theology is shut up to the study of the creation, and of governed creatures, which, together with experience of the government of God, is the Word in Natural Theology. Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. And we remark in regard to this progress also, as before, that it is not possible except under the guidance of the same Spirit of God; for except by Christianity, by the light of the Bible, and the teachings of God's Spirit, there could be no real, fundamental advance in Natural Theology, from the day and the light of Plato. The apparatus for the study of creation, and the apparatus for the study of the Bible, are both, in the ordinary acceptation, a series of mere external instrumentalities, dependent, for the manner of their use, upon the state of mind in the observer. The great important thing in both cases, is the inward apparatus in the state of the feelings, the habits of the soul.

And here comes in the fact to be considered, that it is the creatures themselves who are their own judges or jurors on the question of the sentence of Natural Theology. The guilty examine the guilty, the condemned of conscience the condemned; set a thief to catch a thief. It is impossible here to expect a fair, unfettered, unbiassed conclusion. The conclusion rests upon the examination of facts in our own consciousness and inward nature, as well as in our sight and knowledge of external nature. We know confidently, therefore, beforehand, that the conclusions of a Natural Theology made up by such critics, if they took into view at all the moral nature of man, and his relations to God, must be imperfect, to say the least, and would be most probably deficient in such a way, as to be actually some of them untrue. There would be a coloring of the facts, and a special, dishonest pleading in regard to them, except with beings in strict friendship with God, seen as he is. And if they did not take into view the actual moral nature of man, and its relations to the Divine government, that neglect alone would be enough to falsify the conclusions of a partial examination, because those conclusions would be still applied as universal, whereas they cannot cover the providence of God in regard to fallen creatures.

There is a Natural Theology in God's Word, especially in the Old Testament. David broached the highest province of it in the 139th Psalm. The Book of Job is a grand, glorious, mystic hymn of Nature and of Providence to God. And Solomon entered upon some of the knottiest and deepest questions and intricacies of Natural Theology, in the Book of Ecclesiastes. And when he "spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall, and of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes," he must have made

such a work, that if that book had remained, it is likely that Paley and the Bridgewater gentlemen would have been spared the time and labor given to their treatises, as a work in science quite of supererogation.

They went much farther and deeper in Natural Theology in those days, than most Natural Theologians have ever dreamed of doing. They grappled with great questions, and generally, when they erred, seem to have erred in defending God, rather than excusing man, which indeed they did not seek to do. Pursued with something of their spirit, the study of Natural Theology, to a mind that loves to behold God in his works, becomes, next to the pursuit of Revealed Theology, the most comprehensive and interesting study in the world. The definition of it, as a science, is simply this, according to the interpretation of terms as well as things, the Word of Nature in regard to God, or Nature discoursing of God. Comprehensively conceived, its study includes that of all other sciences, as necessary or subservient to its thorough prosecution. An extensive and profound knowledge of Natural History is requisite, not merely the history of all known living creatures and their habits, but the history and classification of ascertained facts in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and of all revolutions and phenomena in the earth, the air, the sea, and the heavens. All possible histories of Nature, animate and inanimate, and all possible philosophies of natural history, furnish materials for the studies of the natural theologian.

A knowledge of Natural Philosophy is requisite, or the scientific investigation of the causes of material phenomena in the universe, the laws by which they are produced, and the harmony in which they are united. This department of Natural Science includes the divisions of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, Optics, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, and indeed the investigation of all forces that affect the senses, or are perceived to affect the external universe. Then comes the science of Chemistry, so filled with interest and crowded with discoveries, and elevated in importance by the investigations of the last half century. The science of Anatomy, individual and comparative, of man and of all creatures, and the researches of Physiology as to the nature and laws of life, and its connection with matter and spirit, are of the greatest importance. Last of all the natural sciences must be named Astronomy, the noblest, sublimest, and most perfect of them all, opening to the mind such boundless prospects of the glory of God in his created universe, in scenes of wisdom, power, and love, whose magnificence is indescribable and inexhaustible, and whose extent baffles all conception.

These are sciences, and departments of science, concerning the works of God in creation, exclusive of the science of the soul. And yet Natural Theology, as it has for the most part been pur