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materialism upon the average uninstructed mind. Its author does not say there is no soul behind thought or nerve power, in man, yet his expressions of description are as unqualified as if there were none. As regards nerve force, his conclusions extend beyond any known premises of fact. He affirms electricity and nerve force to be different forms of the same thing. Without denying this, it is sufficient to say that it is not proved by him or any one. But supposing the future shall show it true, yet have all these theorists failed to tell us what gave the nerve the form and function for so transmuting electricity, and what it is, behind all, that uses the nerve and its product.

So too as regards thought. Prof. Barker simply shows what was in the highest degree probable before it was shown, viz., that the organism of the brain under the action of thought displays heat, and that, therefore, thought processes, as far as the material organism used is concerned, are dependent upon some form of the physical forces. But the language of the lecturer holds a tone nothing justifies unless he believes that thought is nothing but physical force transformed by the brain as instrument, just as heat is electricity transformed. In fact, his implications here beg the whole materialistic question. He speaks of thought, the highest manifestation of power in God's highest creature in this part of the universe, as if it were simply an inflow and change of physical energy in a merely physical receptacle. His thought seems to be that, as the electric current is conducted into the wire of platinum and there undergoes a change, putting in a new appearance as light and heat; so some form of physical force, electricity say, is conducted into the brain, and is there transformed and reappears as emotion, will, and thought. Now all this may not be this author's meaning. If not, he has certainly been careless in the tone and implications of his teaching. But if it is, then we unhesitatingly affirm that it is wholly unwarranted by anything yet known in science. That the brain, the immediate agent, or organ, of the mind, as it is called,—that the brain uses the physical forces in manifesting thought, is doubtless as true as that the lungs, or the stomach, or the muscles, use them in their functions. But that the action and transmutation of physical force within the brain constitutes thought, is another thing entirely; and, as either an

affirmation, or implication, is wholly gratuitous. It goes far beyond any known premises of fact, and as a complete theory leaves a whole host of psychological facts unexplained behind it. What it is that holds this brain in trains of thought, choos ing for it, and guiding it into what channel it will, this theory says not.

Prof. Barker does clearly prove that the thinking power uses the physical forces as agents in its work. But, not content with this, which is all that his facts allow him, he impliedly, almost expressly, proceeds to unify into one identity both agent and principal in the business. We have long known that the brain was used in thought. But that fact was never considered proof that the brain was the sole cause of thought. To this Prof. Barker adds another fact, viz: that both brain, and a form of physical force, are used in thought; but does that make it clear that the physical force is either the ultimate cause or the material of thought? Obviously not. The great generalization mo lern discovery really warrants is simply this: wherever matter, under any form, is active, some known form of physical force will be sure to display itself, if rightly looked for. But to say there is nothing behind the physical phenomena of thought, causing the activity of matter and this display of force in its manifestation, is the same as saying that there is nothing within the tree that uses the earth, air, and sunbeam, to make it grow.

In brief: Modern physical research has done nothing yet to scale even the lowest outward barrier set up by a circumspect spiritualism against the incursions of a recklessly theorising materialism into the realm of life and thought. Correlation and conservation have much to do yet before their generalization shall put a girdle round the known universe.

1. Among the physical forces Gravity stands obstinately refractory and refuses not only all correlation, but also refuses us sufficient insight into its single and simple mode of working to avoid contradicting these highest known physical principles by our modes of stating it.

2. What the inmost, invisible, forming, constructing power within herb, shrub, and tree is, we do not know, nor can we

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reduce them in the least under the laws of conservation or correlation.

3. What the inner, forming, constituting, life-giving power within the animal is, we know not; neither can we in the least bring it under these laws.

4. What it is that thinks behind, or within, the physical agencies of thought, being the bottom cause of all the phenomena shown by those agencies, as a scientific cognition, is yet utterly beyond us, and, as completely as the others, refuses to fall under these highest physical laws.

But all these powers, or forces if you will, affirm themselves as plainly as the equally unknown force within the earth af firms itself by the quaking that it causes and the fissures it opens, and the elevations, depressions, and volcanoes that it produces.

These inscrutable powers state themselves, and prove them. selves, in the phenomena they produce; and, while men are so constituted that they must believe all that appears has a cause, however inscrutable it may remain, they will ever so state themselves. And, however intimate may be the relation science shall ultimately show as existing between them and the physi cal tools they use, however closely dependent for manifestation they may be shown to be upon them, they will stand exponents and proofs of the spiritual and inscrutable in God's universe, to every opened eye forever.

ARTICLE III.-CURRENT FALLACIES CONCERNING

ORDINATION.

THE Church of Rome makes ordination a sacrament. Dens, in his Theologia, vol. ii, p. 36, Dublin edition, 1832, asks: "Quid est sacramentum ordinis?" The answer is, "Est sacramentum novæ legis quo spiritualis potestas confeter et gratia ad ecclesiastica munia rite decenterque obeunda." It is a sacrament of the new law by which is conferred power and grace for duly and appropriate discharge of ecclesiastical functions.

By the Episcopal theory: "It is the act of conferring holy orders or sacerdotal powers, by means of which office-bearers are made a spiritual order, consecrated to the service of the Most High in things wherewith others may not meddle." According to the "form and manner of ordaining priests," "The bishop, with the priests present, shall lay their hands on every one that receiveth the order of priesthood, and the bishop saying, Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest committed unto thee, by the imposition of our hands: whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained."

The Presbyterian doctrine is thus stated by Dr. Hill in his Lectures on Divinity, vol. ii, p. 439, 3d edition, 1833: "Ordination is the appointment of Jesus Christ conveying a character by the instrumentality of the office-bearers of his church. "Every one who is ordained by the laying on of the hands of the office-bearers of the church, becomes a minister of the church universal. He is invested with that character in a manner most agreeable to the example and directions contained in the New Testament; and by this investiture he receives authority to preform all the acts belonging to the character."

The Provincial Assembly of London, under the head "Divine right of the Gospel ministry," say: "Ordination makes a man a minister that was not one before; and consequently the essence of the ministerial call consists in it, not in election." The universal practice among Presbyterians releases the ordained person from all responsibility to the particular church of which he

was a member, and that church from all watch over him. He is responsible only to his Presbytery, and if he becomes an offender he can only be tried by his peers. Thus he belongs to a superior order, separate and distinct from the brotherhood of the church.

The Congregational view is thus stated in the Cambridge Platform: "This ordination we account but the solemn putting a man into his place and office in the church, whereunto he had right before by election: being like the installing of a magistrate in the commonwealth." "As for ordination," says John Milton, "what is it but the laying on of hands, an outward sign or symbol of admission? It creates nothing, it confers nothing; it is the inward calling of God that makes a minister, and his own painful study and diligence that manures and improves his ministerial gifts."

Thus the Papal, the Episcopalian, and the Presbyterian theories maintain that there is something mysterious which metamorphoses a layman into a clergyman. The method is not clearly defined; nor do they all hold to the same exact process; but they agree in this, that something is received by the ordained man which he had not before, and which is communicated to him only in the external act called ordination, effected by the laying on of the hands of the proper office-bearers in the church.

If such are the teachings of the New Testament, it will appear by a careful examination of the original Greek. There are thirteen words which in the received version are translated ordained. Seven of these have no reference to the plac ing of men in office, viz:

1. diατάoσ occurs sixteen times, and only thrice ordain; 1 Cor. vii, 17, "so ordain I in all the churches;" ix, 14, "even so hath the Lord ordained; Gal. iii, 19, "It was ordained by angels." In neither is there a setting apart to office. It is generally rendered command, appoint, set in order. Robinson's N. T. Lex., to arrange throughout, to dispose in order.

2. κατασκευάζω is found eleven times and only once is translated ordain, Heb. ix, 6, "when these things were thus or dained," that is, the things of the tabernacle. It is usually rendered, to prepare; Robinson's Lex., prepare fully.

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