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Mr. Garbett seems to do here, but as he does not habitually. He speaks of "dogmas of man's making" and "dogmas of God's revealing" in the same breath. He contends vehemently for man's right to be dogmatic, after importing into the word as applied to the teachings of truth, what Scripture confines to the requirement of action; and couíounds authority with reason by saying "at every step a dogmatic faith appeals to reason." The Church of Rome, he declares, "is trebly dogmatic, dogmatic by virtue of the truth inherited from the days of the Apostles, by virtue of the doctrines (?) she has herself added under the plea of development to the Apostolic and primitive teaching, and by virtue of the absolute jurisdiction she claims over faith and conscience." As these three are all placed on an equality we do not see why, "by virtue " of them, and of the admirably Romanesque confusion of mind he must be in, the man who can so write does not fall into the Church of Rome. He is dogmatic enough for her certainly.

One is half-disposed to excuse all this palpable blundering in view of the vagueness of dictionaries and books of synonymes on these two words-doctrine and dogma. But then Scripture is not vague. Even Smith's "Synonymes Discriminated," the latest of these books, confounds doctrine and theory with each other. A more legitimate excuse for a churchman is the fact, as Garbett himself states it, that the Church of England "declares what is contained in Holy Scripture, and what is gathered from it and proved by it, to be of equal authority,”—allowing nothing for human fallibility in the process of gathering. But then one is under greater obligation we imagine to be an intelligent Christian than even to be a good churchman! "Iemploy the word dogma," he says on one page, "for a revealed truth and for ecclesiastical formulas, so far, and so far only, as they express the mind of God in His word." "For " "For "dogma is only another word for a positive truth, positively asserted." Who shall decide whether a dogma, so called, does express the mind of God in His word? Shall we take the judgment of

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one who goes in the face of God's Word in the use of the very term dogma? But on a later page he admits that "in the full sense of the word there can be no dogma beyond the circle of divine revelation," an admission he constantly disregards. If the admission is correct, however, then there can be no authority of dogma beyond the circle of revelation, whether the term is used in its legitimate sense of the practical requirement or in the unwarranted unscriptural one of doctrine." It has pleased God," he sophistically argues, " to deliver the faith once for all to the saints, and the formulating of this faith into definite articles has necessarily been accomplished by their hands." There is a palpable substitution, in the last clause, of the "saints" who drew up the XXXIX Articles and others of later times, for those of the Apostolic age who were the channel of Scripture. Is it necessary to say that the faith was in no sense whatever delivered to the same "hands" that formulated the definite articles? Is it necessary to say that any man who can so write must have been made a Boyle lecturer in 1863 and a Bampton lecturer in 1867-to put it softly-by sheer mistake? But let us go on. "Whatever authority, therefore, is due to the Scriptures, is due to the doctrines generalized from them, in the same way that the accuracy of a scientific conclusion depends upon the accuracy of the data from which it is drawn." Neglecting the rhetorical and logical reversal of the order of thought in this curious sentence, let it be noticed how the relations of observation and reason in the one casedata and conclusion-are asserted to be just like those of inspiration and reason in the other. Notice, too, the confounding of accuracy and authority. Generalization, (by which he seems to mean inductive inference !) carries with it the accuracy of immediate observation or perception, and in the same way the generalizing of dogmatic formulae carries with it the authority of Scripture! Can absurdity farther go? All this, however, is by no means strange in one who can declare that there are no truths "acquired by the intuitions," and can define philoso

phy as "the knowledge of the moral," while science is "the knowledge of the physical causes of things." But this is not all the absurdity of this most absurd Bampton lecturer. He even adds: The Scriptures and the doctrines (dogmas, like the XXXIX articles are meant) have an equivalent authority. If the truth of Scripture be called into question, then the truth. of the doctrines (formulae, or articles) may consistently." Which holds good if, and only if, the formulae are generalized by the same authority that dictated Scripture. Still more explicitly the monstrous churchism of the man is set forth thus: "The dogmatic doctrines as formulated by the church are no more than the Scriptural truths in a technical statement. They therefore rest on the same authority-that is, on the authority of God. Hence they are clear, definite, positive, and unchangeable as their Author.

We were going to say that the imperative quality of a Divine command--the only authorized sense of "dogma "can be imparted to a human statement, article, or formula, only by the same Divine authority; that if a doctrine is received for its perceived truth, i. e., its correlation to reality in things, it is just not accepted on authority; that the authority which God gives to a doctrine, is manifestly not of the same sort in itself, nor addressed to the same thing in us, as that which He gives to a decree, command, or dogma, and can be imparted even to the divinely revealed doctrine only by God himself; that the evidences of authority appeal to reason, but authority itself, once evidenced and accepted, is above reason; that wherever the work of uninspired human reason appears in the construction of an objective "faith"be its pretensions to be "dogmatic" ever so high-its standard is reason itself, for it must be, and reason cannot rise above reason; that the reasonbleness and truth of divinely authenticated doctrines are to be presumed while not yet perceived, but even when they come to be perceived, the doctrines still rest on the Divine authority from which they came--other

wise that authority is displaced and dethroned; that to ascribe the same authority to the human copy, digest, or statement of doctrine, is also to displace and dethrone the Divine authority; and that it does not mend the matter to argue that the same truth is contained in the original and the copy, and therefore the same authority, for this is to substitute the perceived reasonableness of truth for the authority of God in the first instance, and for authority as such throughout, dethroning God as well, and ascribing a false origin to doctrines beyond reason and not first received as her dicta. But what can be said to a man who holds that the Articles of his Church, or sect, have, as was said of truth-its very self-"God for their Author?"

RECOMPENSE.

Blessed He whose gracious will
Left this living chronicle-
Though the heavens flee away,
Truth shall never know decay;
Smite the temple of the soul-
Three days shall rebuild the whole.

From the downward flowing rills
Mists, rebounding, climb the hills;
From the ever wasting flower
Fragrance riseth hour by hour;
From the life that now we see
Grows the purer life to be.

Sorrows bend us to the dust,
Grief doth bow, and ever must;
But distilled from falling tears
Upward-winging hope appears,
And alone to downcast eyes
Comes the light of paradise.

If a lion stop the way,
Wrestling with him valiantly,
We shall learn, in earnest fight,
Faith is heavier-armed than might;

And when patience conquers wrong
Out of sorrow springeth song.

So when days of peace shall be,
And we turn aside to see

Vestige of our conquered foe,
Sweetness from the scene shall flow;

And to make the joy complete,

From the Eater cometh meat.

THE BOOK TABLE.

THE HOLY BIBLE according to the Authorized Version, with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary, and a revision of the translation. By Bishops and other clergy of the Anglican Church. Edited by F. C. Cook, M. A. Canon of Exeter, Vol. I. The Pentateuch. New York: Chas. Scribner & Co. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 928. 8vo.

This is the first volume of the "Speaker's Commentary." It is one of the few books which the student will wish larger; although, perhaps, for the general circulation in view its present bulk is sufficient. Perhaps the best description of it is to say that it is an excellent outline and basis for the study of the Pentateuch. The explanations, though brief, are usually to the point, and while exhibiting full acquaintance with the latest scholarship, they are free from pedantry. They are written from an evangelical and conservative position. A student will often desire fuller discussion and evidence; but the results given will usually furnish him a good point of departure for further investigation. The collateral discussions are extremely valuable-perhaps the most valuable feature of the book. They comprise a great amount of information in a very compact form, and place the reader in more complete and convenient possession of the diversified topics which stand associated with the study of the Pentateuch, than any one volume we know. No student and no intelligent Christian will make a mistake in buying it. We could offer criticisms; but to do it satisfactorily would require more space than we can now devote to lt.

Hodge, D. D., Professor in the Theo-
Vol. I. Chas. Scribner & Co., New
Pp. 648. 8vo.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. By Charles
logical Seminary, Princeton, N. J.
York. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.
Dr. Hodge here gives the matured results of his life's thinking. The
entire treatise of which this is the first installment will command wide
attention for two reasons: first, because it is the long elaborated work of a
clear, strong thinker: second, because it is so comprehensive and exhaus-
tive in its aim. There is nothing in the English language which approaches
it in this latter respect. The author has endeavored to pass in review the
whole field of theology, and to meet all its questions down to the present
time. No man will hesitate to concede to it singular ability, and remark-
able condensation. Nor will any man, whether on particular points he

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