demand of our position, they emerge from the depths in which they were buried, and become subject to our use. There is an analogy, also, in the latency in us of powers of achievement, of which we are unconscious until, in some emergency of life, they spring into helpful activity. They are as really ours, however, before as after their manifestation. They were in our nature, though we knew it not. But our Lord himself suggests the most perfect analogy when, in his intercession for his people, recorded in the seventeenth of John he prays thus: "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they, also, may be one in us that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." From this language it appears that while the two cases are not exactly parallel-Christians are not divine — nevertheless the union of Divinity with humanity in Christ was a model and pledge of the union of Christ by his Spirit with his people. The Spirit of Christ, then, is actually dwelling in every believer. And yet the full power of the Spirit is not known to him in whom he dwells. The child of God, just born of the Spirit, knows far less of his divine energy, and exhibits far less of his fruits in his life, than does the mature man of God. The Christian, hence, prays for the Holy Spirit, not that he may come to him- he is already within him in all his fulness-he prays, rather, that his presence may be more fully realized, and that the fruits of his presence may more manifestly appear in his character. Moreover, it is the experience of Christians, that in the emergencies of life in sickness, in sudden demands of duty, in imminent peril — the presence of the Spirit comes into the consciousness with a vividness entirely unknown in the ordinary course of life; the soul acts consciously in a higher spiritual plane; while at other times the Divine Spirit sinks out of the consciousness, and we seem left alone. Inasmuch, then, as the indwelling of the Spirit in us is similar to the union of divinity and humanity in Christ, our experience may afford us a clue to the correct apprehension of his. The

analogies suggested, at least vindicate the theory which we defend from the suspicion of unnaturalness, while the theory itself appears to afford us a solution of the mystery of the apparent contradictions which appear in the unfolding of our Lord's earthly life. We have an explanation of the fact that although divine, he increased in wisdom; although divine he, at one time, could not see whether a distant fig-tree bore fruit or not, but must approach it to discover; while, at another, he could say to Nathaniel, "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." Now distance is nothing to him, and anon it veils his eyes like the eyes of other men. Our theory explains the facts that, though divine, he could assert his ignorance of the day of his second appearing; that, though divine, he could cry in the anguish of his apparent desertion by the Father on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"; and very soon thereafter, in full consciousness of his triumph, exclaimed, "It is finished." We feel secure in the possession of a Divine Saviour, while we have, also, a brother who was tempted, actually, in all points like as we are, yet without sin, that he might succor us who are tempted. There is reality in all his experience. He was really God. He was really man. We cling to him for human sympathy. We cling to him in unshaken trust in his Almighty power to

save.

ARTICLE III.

ADMISSIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM.

BY REV. RANSOM BETHUNE WELCH, D.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR IN UNION COLLEGE, SCHENECTADY, N.Y.

PHILOSOPHICAL scepticism, not content with occupying the neutral ground of doubt, prefers to be polemic. Studiously avoiding the defensive, it adopts an aggressive policy. Affecting the hauteur of positivism, it boasts that along its march lie tattered creeds and theologians slain. By this dialectic legerdemain it has been wont to divert critical attention from itself, and impose the burden of proof upon Christian theism.

Christianity has never shirked the burden of proof. The Master assumed it, as a divine Teacher pointing to divine credentials, saying: "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matt. xi. 4, 5). "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me" (John x. 25), "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works" (John x. 37, 38).

The apostles, as they proclaimed the gospel of Christ, accepted the burden of proof. Peter declares: "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, ..... but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. . . . . . The voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount" (2 Pet. i. 16, 17, 18). "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen" (John iii. 11). And they charged the disciples," Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Pet. iii. 15).

But while Christianity, in the spirit of the Master, is always ready to take the burden of proof, and frankly answer the inquiries of every candid mind, it has a logical and a moral right, after eighteen hundred years of recognition by the best and the most intelligent individuals and nations, — it has a right to claim the presumption in its favor, to challenge the strength of its modern adversary, and put philosophical scepticism upon the defensive. The inevitable reply to this challenge is the acknowledged inability to prove that there is no God. This acknowledgment, however reluctant, is universal. The attempt, persistent and repeated, has issued not in demonstration, but in denial, supported evermore by negative premises, like the assertion of La Place, that "No God could be seen within the range of his telescope." But, as every logician knows, negative premises prove nothing. The telescope of La Place could not survey the universe; and if it could, yet would it discern only material bodies, which appear in space. God is not such a being. The telescope of La Place could not detect the mind even of its maker, much less of Him who created the heavens and the earth. Neither the telescope nor the microscope can detect mind and thought. Such denials are only argumenta ad ignorantiam. This first admission of philosophical scepticism is fundamental, and reveals its essential weakness, and yields to theism a matchless advantage both for attack and defence.

But the admission is not exhausted with this statement. The very attempt to prove that there is no God has been rebuked by the school of sceptics as unauthorized and rash. The latest attempt of this kind, that of the intrepid Dr. Büchner, is referred to by the Westminster Review (Oct. 1872) in the following words of friendly, but significant warning: "Dr. Büchner seems to overstep the limits of scientific argument, in that he endeavors to prove the Unknowable [Herbert Spencer's nomenclature] to be untrue-a position which seems, on the face of it, to be self-contradictory."

Here, not for the sake of the argument, but to relieve the

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mind of some unfledged sceptic who may deem this warning gratuitous, it may be mentioned that Mr. Spencer affirms the existence of the infinite, the unknowable as source of all that is. "The ultimate religious truth of the highest possible certainty"is"that the power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable." And again: "Appearance [manifestation] without reality is unthinkable." Therefore "the inscrutable power" is "a reality"; and still again, according to Mr. Spencer, "to say that we cannot know the absolute [or inscrutable power] is, by implication, to affirm that there is an absolute," and more to the same effect.

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Mr. Darwin declares: "The question whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe has been answered in the affirmative by the highest intellects that have ever lived." Again he says: "An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence which results from the law imposed by him"; and again, referring to natural laws: "An omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything."

Sir John Lubbock, speaking of "The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," says: "The whole exhibits one grand scheme of progression, ..... having for its object the continual manifestation of the design, the power, the wisdom, the goodness of Almighty God." Thomas Paine inserts in his creed: "I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life."5"The Journal of Speculative Philosophy" (William Harris of St. Louis, editor), the modern representative of the Hegelian school in America, vindicates Hegel against the charge of irreligion, "Not only in not denying God, freedom, and immortality, the three cardinal points of religious faith,but in affirming them as the highest consequences of his speculations, rejecting atheism and pantheism in the clearest words." And, not to extend this line of admission, "the

* Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. ii. p. 431. 5 See Frothingham's "Beliefs of Unbelievers."