to measure, nor eye able to behold, no, nor heart to conceive. Just because we are not able to behold this perfect view, we are compelled to take many reflex views, that by these our comprehension of the divine nature and goodness may be enlarged and rectified; and that we may attain to a just understanding and a sufficient faith. To ensure this result, God exhibits himself in many forms of goodness, and reveals himself in many modes of testimony. No one view of God or of Christ can disclose all the divine perfections.

Rightly to apprehend the fulness of their grace and the greatness of that divine providence, it must be considered from many points of view. As light appears As light appears under different manifestations, in the mild colors of flowers, in the beauty of the rainbow, in the full beams of day, in the softened twilight, and in the ineffable splendor of the noonday sun, so God, and Jesus, appear under many aspects of grace, power, and grandeur, each of which gives us a new conception of him, "whose fulness fills all in all." Among those views, is that of Jesus, as the ever-living advocate and intercessor; and surely this view is calculated to meet some wants of the human soul. We ought to notice especially how all the scriptures we have adduced, connect this office of Jesus with the sins of men,even of the faithful and good. That man does not live who is not conscious of having offended on some one point, to make him "guilty of the whole law." consciousness presses painfully, often, on the best and purest minds. It pursues many who have made religious. professions, and who ardently desire to walk worthy of their high vocation,-who tremble at the thought of bringing any stain on so holy a profession. It is felt by the young and innocent, who are called to die. They have lived secluded from the world; its breath has hardly dimmed the lustre of their purity; they scarcely know what its great sins mean. But the river of death is a dark-flowing river; they cannot know what is beyond it: no friend or neighbor, none of their nation or age, has ventured back to disclose its secrets. All that they have is faith; and that faith needs to be strong. They find, moreover, a sense of sinfulness, and of the need of reconciliation. We point them to the grace and goodness of

This

God, the good Father. It is sufficient if they can realize it, so as to see God as he is. But faith needs much aid, and gladly accepts any efficient auxiliary. Now, beside the general assurance of the grace of God, can we point any such anxious inquirers to any specific source of rest and assurance? Thanks to this blessed revelation of Jesus, we can. We can bring up before them the image of Jesus, who "ever liveth to make intercession." The effect, of course, is not logical, but sympathetic. It touches not the reasoning faculty, but the feelings. This seems evidently the design of the revelation of Christ as an intercessor; and to this design it is completely adapted. Those who feel it, will not undervalue it. It will not strike them as being superfluous. It presents the same great idea of grace, but from a different point of view. If the Scriptures were given to direct, help, and strengthen human faith in the highest truth, if the divine revelation has regard to effects on earth rather than to the delineation of abstract truth with respect to heaven, then this doctrine is worthy to have been given; for it does exercise on multitudes of minds a benign and salutary influence. Let no one misinterpret this last sentence, as containing an admission that the doctrine in question is a pious fiction. To the heart it is true,-really and sweetly true; we pity the Christian heart that does not find it so. If any man shall read these lines, who does

not know that the intellect must often take the law from the heart, and submit implicitly to its domination, he need go no farther; we can do nothing with him; but with all others, we trust our views will be found just and satisfactory.

That we need such auxiliaries to our faith as that contained in the view before us, is abundantly manifest. There are multitudes who are anxiously seeking to in crease their faith. This is to be done not only by convincing their reason, but by enabling their feelings to lay hold upon God and Christ. Apart from all doctrines, the sense of sin, and of unlikeness to God, produces in the human soul a feeling of estrangement, and of unreconciliation with regard to him. Our conscious guilt naturally tends, unless counteracted, to debar us from his blessed presence. While we say, then, scripturally and

truly that it is the office of Jesus to reconcile man to God, and not to reconcile God to man, it is yet a profound truth that man must feel that God is propitious to him, before he can be reconciled to God. What can he have? He cannot see God. He cannot doubt that his sins are offensive to the infinite purity of the Divine nature. He cannot let go his hope in the merciful regards of his creator. He needs to have that hope strengthened in such way as to weaken and subdue the power of sin in his soul. To this almost universal state of human nature, the idea of Christ's intercession is most effectively adapted, and we believe that, practically, men so feel it. It may justly be added, that while God is a Spirit whom no eye hath seen or can see, Jesus is among even earthly realities. He walked the earth; men pressed his hands, heard his words, beheld his smiles, listened to his prayers. They can imagine his appearance on earth, and this helps them to conceive the august union of majesty and grace, in which, enrobed, he sits at the right hand of the majesty on high, and intercedes for them. The whole conception takes form and life; it forms a picture which a blank abstraction could not do, and faith feels something in her grasp. Who can say that the thought and image of this blest Advocate and Intercessor has no value to him? Who can say that heaven would be just as warm and real to his apprehension without it? When, as the minister of Christ, he stretches out the rod of his word to part the river of Death, that a dying fellow man may pass over, can he think unmoved of Jesus as

"Our advocate before the throne,
And our forerunner there?"

When he deals with the deep problem of human sin, and contemplates God as "just," and yet as "the justifier of him who believes in Jesus;" is not that thought more easily realized through the image of Jesus as the intercessor, than it would be without it? As the hearts of men respond to these questions, we believe that our views will be justified by their answer.

Of what we have written, this is the sum. That the doctrines of Revelation are designed, not to give us philosophically accurate views of abstract and ultimate truth

in regard to heavenly intelligences, for that is impossible; but to give us such views, true in spirit, as shall create the desired feeling in us. That these views generally,

are not intended to serve as data for abstract and severe logical deduction, but as warm and sympathetic helps to our hearts, affections, and faith. That our imperfect vision involves no distortion or violation of truth, unless it is by our error in taking the apparent to be the absolute truth. That the doctrine of the intercession of Christ is of this kind, and is not designed as an absolute fact to aid the Divine nature through a perplexing crisis in the administration of the economy of the world, but to aid our faith by multiplying the images of that divine goodness which "is ever waiting to be gracious."

Thus, in the conclusion of our inquiry, we find, that without any interference with our great doctrines of God's fatherhood, and of his infinite love toward all his creatures, neither supposing that love capable of increase or diminution, we yet may welcome, with hearts full of faith, the doctrine of Christ's intercession; feeling, with joy, that "he ever sitteth at the right hand of God.'

ART. IX.

The Deliverance from Doubt.

E. F.

MALEBRANCHE.

Veritas filia Temporis, non Auctoritatis.
Dubitando ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipi-
ABELARD.

mus.

WE cannot think that doubt is only a satanic element in thought. We must view it, rather, as a natural and healthy force, having its origin in the divine appointment, and holding a beneficent commission towards the race. Like the primitive allotment of labor to mankind, which history shows to be a blessing, and not a ban, so, also, doubt is no vengeful curse, but has, as declared in the consciousness of each earnest thinker, its kindly errand.

In philosophy there is no final and infallible authority. Not any antiquity of doctrine, not any wisdom nor multitude of teachers, can consecrate a system, having no foundation deeper than the device of man, with inviolable honors. In matters of opinion, there must be freedom, and only freedom. For to faith only, does obedience belong. Before faith, when the two confront each other, opinion must surely yield. But within her rightful terri tory, on the hither side of her appointed landmarks, she is purely free. Only at the confines of the higher realm of revelation, does the sovereignty of authority begin. Here speak the venerable oracles of God. These oracles are the only commanding voices. They are those imperial precepts against which the mind may not rebel.

But revelation does not disown reason. A genuine faith cannot reject philosophy. For a vital and true philosophy is organized reason. Nor can a veritable philosophy become, in any wise, the foe of faith. For she finds the fulfilment of her vague and yet hopeful aims in a faith which meets her at the boundary of her search, and, receiving her mighty and significant questions, carries them to a solution in the unapproached domain beyond. The friendship between the two must be, however, a frank and honorable alliance. They must be peers, for both are royal. In their amity, there can be no degrading homage from one to the other. Each has its own high office to perform. Each has its proper and undiminished dignity, and neither can hold to the other the relation of a vassal.

The fatal fault of the middle age appears, therefore, in this. In its endeavor to reconcile the sharp dispute between philosophy and faith, whose angry tones had. rung down to it along all the Christian centuries, it not simply gave to faith an ampler dignity, but, in the spirit of an overweening reverence, it made philosophy her slave. Scholasticism, in recognizing reason, at the same time bound upon her the fetters of religion. Against such a bondage the revolt was sure to come. There soon appeared a determined and intrepid doubt. Before its stern challenge the hollow phantom of authority fled shrieking away forever. Philosophy, now liberated from the monastic servitude, walked forth, thenceforward, erect and free and strong.