humanity. This view appears to me to contain the elements and basis of a truly rational monotheism. This is, I believe, the monotheism of the Bible, and furnishes, I venture to think, the true test by which to try the real value of any "estimate in which the Deity is held," especially in certain modern scientific speculations, which too often present, at least, the appearance of conscious and determined hostility to the very foundations of divinely-revealed truth. Mr. A. V. NEWTON.-Are we to understand the last speaker to say that monotheism had its origin in the Bible, and was not known before?

Mr. GORMAN.-This question introduces a new element into the subject before the meeting, and one which it would be impossible for me now to discuss. Suffice it to say, that from the Bible itself it may be shown that the Word, or a Divine Revelation, existed among men before the Scriptures written by Moses, which we now possess. The law as given on Mount Sinai was the commencement of the Word, as we now have it. When I speak of THE WORD, I mean Divine Truth, as distinct from the clothing of the peculiar language in which it has been handed down to these times, and adapted to the capacity of man, specifically, to that of the Israelitish people. There once existed among men a Paradise state, a golden age, of which mankind is at this day, in general, profoundly ignorant.

Mr. NEWTON.-Do not the fire-worshippers or the Parsees claim a much higher origin than any of the other idolaters?

Mr. GORMAN. The worship of the Parsees, even in its most enlightened forms, is nothing but a remnant of the primeval revelation, more or less corrupted and perverted into an idolatrous worship.

Mr. TITCOMB. After having listened to the debate that has been raised upon my paper, I can only express my regret that Sir John Lubbock had not some advocate present to have shown fight on behalf of the system which he has taken up. There are two objections which have been advanced against the paper; but both are very mild. The Rev. Mr. Badger did not mean to attack me, but what he said was, in a certain sense, a sort of criticism upon my paper, when he found fault, or expressed astonishment, because no argument had been drawn from Scripture. He seemed rather to put it to me why, as a clergyman, I should not stand upon the platform of Scripture. Mr. BADGER.- Excuse me. I should have done the same as you have done; what I said was about your opponents.

Mr. TITCOMB.-But I should like to explain why it was that I did not go upon the platform of Scripture. Supposing a Roman Catholic wanted to confirm the truth of the tradition that St. Peter lived as Bishop of Rome for five-and-twenty years, would it be of any use to quote that tradition as a proof? It is obviously absurd, and therefore a sort of thing to be avoided. If anything is urged against the Bible, it is of no use to appeal to the Bible to prove the contrary. The only thing for the clergy to do is to meet these people on their own ground. The other point, brought forward rather smartly by Mr. Row and Dr. Fraser, against my paper, was that I had constructed it on a sort of misnomer, because where there is no history there can be nothing historic.

Mr. Row. I did not mean you; I referred to Sir John Lubbock.

Mr. TITCOMB.-Very well, but I will just read again a short passage from the 10th paragraph of my paper :

"The entire discussion consists in our fairly grappling with those loose and disjointed evidences which crop up here and there, either among those savage nations which have no history at all, or else among those anciently civilized nations which flourished before authentic history begins."

My idea is, that as these men try to show the prehistoric times of savages, so we must try to show the prehistoric times of monotheism. My title, therefore, is the counterpart of theirs; my object being to show that among those nations where history is wanting, there are glimpses in our range of view which throw us back into the past gulf, and give us ground for supposing that monotheism then prevailed. We believe, for instance, that Egypt flourished before authentic history began; indeed Manetho gives us a history of events before the 18th dynasty, at a time coeval with Moses. But there is nothing authentic, or very little that is authentic, before the time of Rameses the Great. The monuments of Egypt, however, go back much farther, and we get much that is prehistoric from the drawings or sculptures upon them. These representations are not historic in the proper sense of the word; they give us glimpses of the prehistoric. Anything that alludes to something past anything, in fact, which gives the first point of contact with history, and which contains a shadow of reflection on previous history, would be prehistoric in my view; and it is from such glimpses of the past that I have endeavoured to make out my case. I only hope that this line of thought will fructify, and that we shall be more and more confirmed in the truth ourselves, and better able to confirm it in the minds of those who are waverers and doubters. (Cheers.)

The Meeting was then adjourned.

VOL. VI.

ORDINARY MEETING, MARCH 6, 1871.

JAMES REDDIE,* ESQ., HONORARY SECRETARY, IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the following elections were announced :

MEMBERS :-William Day, Esq. (Life), Westwood Park, Forest Hill; Charles Lloyd, Esq., Merton Lodge, Chiswick; James Jardine, Esq., M.A.. LL.D., 1, Whitehall Gardens; Rev. George Warburton Weldon, M.A., Vicar of St. Saviour's, Chelsea.

ASSOCIATE :-Rev. Robert Nicholl, M.A., The Chantry, Norton, near Sheffield.

Also the presentation to the Library of the following works :

'Ancient Pillar Stones."

From Dr. E. Haughton.

Ditto.

"Remains of Roman Baths in England." "Molecular Archetypes of Organic Forms." By the Rev. J. G. MacVicar, D.D., LL.D.

From the Author.

The Chairman, in the absence of the author, then read the following paper :

ON BIBLICAL PNEUMATOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. By the Rev. W. W. ENGLISH, M.A.

TH

1. HERE is an obvious connection between the philosophy of human nature and the professed objects of Revelation, and the enlightened Christian would expect to find agreement between them; he would expect to find in Holy Scripture a correct statement of psychological and ethical facts. But why discourse on the spiritual part of man's nature should so generally be called psychology rather than pneumatology is not apparent, unless indeed it be assumed that Pneuma and Psyche are different names for one and the same thing, the point I shall feel it necessary in this paper to controvert. Sir W. Hamilton thought no competent objection could be made to the general adoption of the term psychology, while

*The late.

it affords, what the various clumsy periphrases do not, a convenient adjective. This may be so, but truth must not be sacrificed for the sake of convenience. Taking the New Testament as a text-book in regard to the science of Pneumatology and Psychology, I find that Spirit, the immortal part, whether as referring to God, to man, or to demons, is there Pneuma, never Psyche. Discourse, therefore, on man's spiritual part, strictly speaking, should be called Pneumatology.

2. Delitzsch supposes the soul to be the outward expression of spirit the view is Platonic, but not Biblical, and it is to this confusion of thought that we owe the confusion of terms in common use. But Holy Scripture distinguishes between spirit, and soul, and body, and I venture to think it has a consistency and philosophical accuracy in its use of terms that we fail to meet with elsewhere.

3. The Old Testament stands, however, upon a different footing to the New. It was composed by men unknown to each other, and living at different and widely separated periods of the Church's history. They were in a sense compelled to use the language of their times. And, moreover, we find in their writings an obvious adaptation of language to the wants of the age in which they lived. I will here give an illustration of this from the different names applied to God. In the Pentateuch, in Joshua and Judges, we never meet with the title "the Lord of Hosts," but in the books of Samuel, Chronicles, and throughout the rest of the books of the Old Testament, it occurs frequently. Here we find in the introduction of a new title the adaptation of Church teaching to the wants of the age. When the "hosts of heaven" came to be worshipped, the Church of that age rebuked the idolatry by connecting God's name with that which was worshipped. And were it not that I should be digressing, I might here point out that those who assume that the title Jehovah belongs to the times. of Samuel, and that therefore the Pentateuch which contains that title is not older than the times of Samuel, would do well to set themselves to work and explain how, upon their own principles of criticism, it comes to pass that the book of Samuel contains the name "Lord of Hosts" not less than seven times, while the Pentateuch, which has been fathered upon his times, is wholly silent as to the existence of such a title. But I proceed. This adaptation of terminology in the Old Testament, of which I am speaking, bends itself in another direction. Natural religion was anterior to that which is revealed, and it is of wider extension; it belongs to the world, while revelation: is peculiar to the Church. But just as the Church came in contact with what remained that was good of the world's

religion, she took up, as wisdom itself would have directed, the terms of that remnant, and made them her own. Thus another name "the Most High God," which embodied the simple, original, primeval thought of man as he looked above him and saw one far off, was incorporated into sacred phraseology. Melchisedek, the Priest of the older religion, was "Priest of the Most High God." The earlier Canaanites were of course familiar with this title, and hence as they came upon the scene it re-appears. And so throughout the Old Testament we find variety and adaptation in the use of terms. There is unity of thought and sentiment, but with this a conformity with historical law and usage in the employment of

terms.

4. The New Testament writers were differently situated; they belonged to the same generation, were personally known to each other, and they had most of them been with that great inspiring Master who promised to guide them into all truth. Baptized into one body, they were inspired by one feeling and sentiment, and spoke the same thoughts, in a wonderfully strict and philosophical language.

5. But before entering upon a particular analysis of New Testament language, I would observe that mind is not strictly synonymous with spirit. The attributes usually ascribed to mind connect it very closely with our bodily organization. Most writers, as Morell, and the Germans, as Beneke, adopt a triple division when speaking of the attributes of mind. Sir W. Hamilton arranged the phenomena of mind under the three heads of knowledge or cognition, feeling, and conation or desire and will. The intellect has been regarded as the thinking portion of mind, including memory, abstraction, reason, judgment, &c., as modes or varieties of intellect. The sensitivity has been regarded as the feeling portion of mind, including all such modes or affections as arise from external action and internal reflection. And the will has been called the moving portion of mind, the faculty of spontaneous power. Almost all writers have included, in modern times, thought, feeling, and will, in their classifications of mental phenomena. But it is obvious that in all this there is cross division. Body, soul, and spirit are included in these phenomena. And I wish to mark that spirit, strictly speaking, is not synonymous with mind as thus understood, and that what is called psychology, but ought rather to be termed pneumatology, despite Sir W. Hamilton's difficulty about finding a "convenient" adjective, should be kept clear of these modern classifications of the mind's powers and affections. Spirit, soul, and body, in the New Testament, are prime factors in human nature.