in the present age of the world, with its brighter lights, and surer methods of observation, and numerous aids and instrumentalities; then, emphatically, may we pronounce upon human responsibility in relation to a sanctified knowledge of nature. We shall urge upon ourselves and all men, that this is one of the most incumbent duties of our daily life, as well as one of its highest delights. We shall not take shelter under a presumed incapability of tracing God in his works; we shall not magnify the difficulties, or rest contented under an endless night of human ignorance; while we lament that we cannot know more, we shall study to know what is really knowable. We shall be deeply sensible that we cannot here expect to see God as He is, but as He chooses in His wisdom to be seen by us; and that if we wilfully close our eyes to what He here shows of Himself and of His attributes, it will be but a just judgment upon us, if in another life we should be far removed from His glory, and consciously responsible for our distance from the Source of light and love.

Men have too long been accustomed to regard responsibility merely in a religious sense, and as limited to the sphere of what is termed Di

vine grace, and to overlook the fact that responsibility to God is as extensive with his entire manifestations of Himself. Let us freely admit that responsibility is broad and universal, and to discern that it is so, we have only to read St. Paul's words in Romans 1. 18-20. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." If gentiles and heathens were thus without excuse for not observing the Divine light shining in the "things that are made," what greater degree of inexcusableness must attach to Christians of this age for averting their eyes from the multiplied lights of centuries of observation, and the broad beams of this century in particular, which most brightly illustrate the "invisible things" of God."

This responsibility we may term natural, in order to distinguish it from spiritual responsibility, which latter may be held to have regard

to the revelation of grace as commonly understood; although in truth all responsibility must hold in reference to the individual, and to the Personal God to whom the individual is accountable for all that he is and all that he enjoys. And of natural responsibility be it observed that it clearly rests upon voluntary and on remediable ignorance; the willingness being judged of by the opportunity of removing it, and the remediableness by the faculties, and the position of every man in relation to existing knowledge. He who is frequently engaged in studying the constitution of the world of matter -the student of science in general, and of any natural science in particular, by neglecting the light that such studies should throw upon divine truth, and on his own standing as a dependant upon, and a worshipper of God-may be incurring a solemn responsibility upon which he has seldom duly reflected, and which perhaps he has never rightly estimated. He, again, who is not professedly conversant with such studies cannot on that account cast off all responsibility, for he is accountable for what he might attain, if he would fairly and fully exercise his natural powers of observation and reflection.

It must continually and strongly be im

pressed on the good, though half and scarcely half-informed men of Christian Churches that a serious responsibility rests upon them on their side; and here I prefer to quote the words of a great Christian writer, rather than to appear to presume in my own. On this topic Coleridge pointedly observes: "If acquiescence without insight, if warmth without light; if an immunity from doubt, given and guaranteed by a resolute ignorance; if a mere sensation of positiveness substituted-I will not say for the sense of certainty-but for that calm assurance, the very means and conditions of which it supersedes; if a belief that seeks the darkness and yet strikes no root, immoveable as the limpet from the rock, and like the limpet, fixed there by mere force of adhesion; if these suffice to make men Christians, in what sense could the apostle affirm that believers receive—not, indeed, worldly wisdom that comes to nought, but the wisdom of God that we might know and comprehend the things that are freely given to us of God? On what grounds would He denounce the sincerest fervour of spirit as defective where it does not likewise bring forth fruits in the UNDERSTANDING ?"

IV.

THEOLOGIES AND NATURAL SCIENCE.

THE

'HE course of human studies has separated between ecclesiastical and natural theology more for reasons of convenience than from any really necessary distinction. There is only one God in Nature and in Grace, the same author of Natural and Biblical Revelation. He manifests Himself to us in divers manners, but always in divine characters. In the universe and in the Bible He is the same, only two revelations display themselves to us from one source.

Natural and Spiritual religion are therefore two branches from the same root. An old tree will sometimes (and one in particular, a singular thorn-tree, suggests this analogy to the writer), send up divided trunks and branches, which soon fork out in opposite directions, and seem to be distinct growths. In winter, a