all times. There is no obligation in the word of God fortified by more powerful, or urged by more persuasive considerations, than the obligation to. grow in grace; and I do not know that in the sight of God there is any deeper impiety, than indifference to this reasonable and sacred obligation. In all their desires and efforts for sanctification, the people of God have the promise of divine assistance. The promised influence of the Holy Spirit, does not, we are free to confess, lay the foundation of their obligations to advance in holiness; and yet this gracious influence furnishes the most happy encouragement to every desire and effort. Does God say to his people, "Wash you; make you clean ?" he also says, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; and from all your filthiness, and all your idols will I cleanse you." "Blessed are they," says our divine Lord, "who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled." At his triumphant ascension, this Prince and Saviour "led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men, that the Lord God might dwell among them." Hence before his ascension, he told his disciples, that he would "ask his Father, and he would give them another Comforter, that should abide with them for ever. And now he gives his people the strongest encouragement to expect this divine influence. "Ask, and ye shall receive," says he, "seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him!" To enable his people to fulfil their obligations, and them to fulfil his purpose, he will send his Spirit, even in such measures as they desire, and in every time of need. And whose heart shall not such a truth animate? Whose courage shall not such promised influence inspirit ? Through Christ strengthening me, I can do all things." Well then may the disciples of Jesus watch and pray; well may they surmount all opposition and difficulty; well may they mortify the world with its affections and lusts, and under the guardianship and patronage of such power, and the encouragement of such promises, go forward till they lay hold on eternal life. The personal advantage of high attainments in holiness, is also a motive that ought not to be disregarded. Men who are advancing in holiness are comparatively secure from the snares of the world, the flesh, and the Devil; and have the best reason to believe they shall be delivered from reproachful apostasies. In increasing grace there is also a perrenial source of the purest joy. If a little religion is the spring of consolations superiour to all the pleasures of the world, greater degrees of it must be an overflowing fountain, an ocean of delight. The reason why Christians are so often sad and melancholy, and derive so little comfort from piety, is that their piety is of so slow and stinted a growth, and their graces are so feeble and languishing. The people of God may make religion the source of few consolations or many. They may make of it just as little, or just as much as they choose. There is enough in it to make them supremely happy; and if they fail to draw from it all the comfort they need, or all that it can impart, the fault is their own. We know so little of elevated piety, that we have never proved its joys. True happiness is to be found only in living near to God. Here, the most enlarged desires, be they ever so eager and grasping, and extend ever so far, may be gratified without harm and without satiety. This is the good for which the soul was formed, and to which its exalted capacities are adapted. This is the plenitude of bliss. "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee ?" The more we are like God, the more we are loved of him, and the more significant are the expressions of his love. Darkness and doubt embarrass the minds only of enfeebled Christians. "He that followeth after me," saith our Lord, "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." That peace and comfort of which the heart is so often robbed by inconstant affections and besetting sins; that light of God's countenance which is so often withdrawn, as the necessary discipline when we depart from him, would soon be restored, if the soul were intent in the pursuit of holiness. And that depression which so often weighs down the spirit; those clouds which so often hang over the mind; and those temptations which are the source of such bitter and pensive anxiety, would soon be removed, if the heart were imbued with the spirit of Christ, and absorbed in God as its best and only portion. Nothing in this miserable world would come amiss, if the people of God were more holy. They would be happy to live and ready to die; and would rejoice both to do and suffer the will of God. Large measures of holiness are a necessary qualification for distinguished usefulness. The great end for which the people of God were created and redeemed, is attained in proportion to their increase in holiness. Some Christians accomplish very little for the honour of God in the world. They are little better than withered branches, and unfruitful trees in a well cultivated field. And but for here and there a leaf they show, or some solitary cluster of grapes when the vintage is over, they would be cumberers of the ground. "Herein is my Father glorified," saith the Lord Jesus, "that ye bear much fruit." Would we put honour on the name of the Great God, our Saviour; would we redeem the pledge given to him in our self consecration to his service; would we be something more than cyphers in his redeemed creation; we must press toward the mark of the prize of our high calling. Many eyes are upon the saints of God; and as they are quickened in their course, or become languid and weary, so religion is honoured or disgraced. They are a "spectacle to God, angels, and men;" and their fidelity and diligence will be commended and applauded, or their inertness and unconcern will be censured and accused. O then with what unexhausted, exhaustless, ardour ought we to run the heavenly race! With what moral heroism ought we to fight the good fight of faith! With what high and holy ambition, ought our bosoms to be fired in aiming at the crown? There is no danger of excess in this enterprise. If pious men were as active in the pursuit of holiness, as wicked men are in the pursuit of sin, how would they be hurried forward from one degree of grace to another! how would the glory of the Great Supreme become the end of all their conduct! how would the lustre of piety shine on this ungodly world! how would the tribute of praise be brought to their redeeming God and King from afar! how would they make it manifest to the world, that they had not as yet gained their object, and that their sacred and loftiest desires were unsatisfied till "Christ were magnified in them, whether it be by life or by death!" I will also remark, that large measures of holiness, ensure a large reward in the future world. If such is the economy of divine grace that no holy affection or act will be unrewarded hereafter, how immeasurably urgent the encouragement to aim at high spiritual attain ments! The most holy man will have the largest capacity for joy; will be the best fitted for the presence and service of God, for the fellowship and society of holy beings, and for the employments and felicity of that spiritual and sinless state of existence. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Every new attainment in holiness here, is the commencement of a series of causes, every one of which, in eternal succession, is productive of effects, rich in joy, and elevating in their influence on the mind. There will indeed be no wandering star in the celestial firmament, and all shall shine there in the beauties of holiness: but yet "one star" will "differ from another star in glory;" while those who have shone the 'brightest here, will be most brilliant, and move in the largest orbit there. No doubt there are methods within the resources of his own wisdom by which the Moral Governour of the Universe can express the delight he takes in holiness in direct proportion to the degree in which it exists in the soul. To some who were eminently holy and self denying men, Jesus once said, "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom." Some there will be who will "sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." As it is impossible for us to predict all the ruinous effects of sin, as they are no doubt indefinitely diffused and extended throughout eternity; so we know not all the happy effects of holiness, diffusing and extending themselves immeasurably and forever. As the most sinful man will be the most miserable, so the most holy man will be the most happy. Who then will have respect to this high reward? Who will stretch forth his desires for this infinite recompense? Who will fix his eye on the brightest jewel in heaven's diadem? Whose bosom will glow with irrepressible desire for the purest pearl in the crown of righteousness? Christians were elected to be holy. They were redeemed to be holy. They were called to be holy. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that "he might sanctify and cleanse it." And when by the varied dispensations of his providence and grace he shall have purged away its dross, it shall be presented before him glorious in holiness, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." "Having therefore these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in Let us live the fear of God." Let us excel in holiness. no longer at "this poor dying rate." Men who fear God, who have an enlightened and tender conscience, who know any thing of the blessedness of being like him, and constrained by his love, will pant after still greater similitude, and never be satisfied, till they "awake in his likeness." ART. VIII. THEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCIENCE, OR A Translated from the German, BY THE EDITOR. [The following article is taken from the "Evangelical Church Journal," published at Berlin, under the direction of Dr. Hengstenberg. It was written principally in reference to Bretschneider's "Letter to a Statesman," which has excited much attention in Germany, and has been regarded as the most able of the innumerable statements and vindications of modern German Rationalism, which have been called forth by the attack lately made upon it, in the journal from which this article is extracted. In this letter, Bretschneider takes the ground, that there must be some compromise between the antiquated doctrines of theology, and the results of modern scientific pursuits. To effect this compromise, he regards as the office of Rationalism. "Rationalism," according to him," designs to restore the interrupted harmony between theology and human sciences, and is the necessary product of the scientific cultivation of modern times.' He goes on to specify instances of disagreement between the established articles of the Christian faith, and the latest results in the various departments of natural philosophy. Selecting uniformly those results which militate against the Bible, rather than those which agree with it, and presuming these results to be infallibly true, (though they are notoriously hypothetical,) he arrives at his conclusion, that the doctrines of theology must be so modified as to agree with the progress of science, or fall into contempt. In a full refutation of Rationalism, as thus explained, it would be necessary to show, that Revelation is an independent source of knowledge, and not merely co-ordinate with nature, but superiour to it; so that its truths, instead of being liable to modification from any alledged discoveries in nature, are rather the standard by which the truth of the latter should be tested. It is indeed to be presumed, that Revelation and Nature, when rightly understood, never really clash, having God for their common author. But in case of an apparent discrepancy, it is certainly wrong to make Nature, which is lower, the measure and criterion of Revelation, which is higher, and more immediately and directly from God. But the writer of the following article descends from this vantage ground, on which the theologian is entitled to stand, and meets and conquers infidelity on its own level. Saying nothing of the right which might so easily be vindicated to the theologian, of at once condemning as false any doctrines of natural science, however confirmed, which should conflict with the positive doctrines of Reve • Bretschneider's "Sendschreiben," p. 78. |