utterly subversive of the work of the Holy Spirit. On this most important aspect of this commentary, there is not room to dwell. In proof of the charge, one or two sentences will be sufficient. On page 394, the following sketch, as opposed to the orthodox theodicy, occurs :

"But admit, that involved in the very creation of responsible agents is the inalienable power of resisting God's holy will, and continuing obstinately in that resistance in despite of every means used for their recovery, and all our most formidable difficulties vanish. We remove from God, and attribute wholly to the creature, the origin of evil-the limitation of the atonement-the ruin of lost souls-and the eternity and irreversibility, even by omnipotence itself, of the fearful doom of everlasting destruction which they bring upon themselves. preserve intact all God's perfections, and dissipate the dark cloud which rested on the sincerity of his professed desires and offers for the salvation of all, and on what he claims as the highest glory of his name and nature, the boundlessness of his mercy and love."

We

The difficulty of the task of recovery, as sketched by Dr Forbes, is simply this :

"To induce them, while their minds are still in their natural estate of aversion to holiness, to consent to God's renewing their hearts, and reversing the corrupted bias of their wills, so as that they shall renounce all that they have hitherto so dearly loved."

His doctrine is a combination of the moral suasion theory, with that of an omnipotent, miraculous renewing power :

"It is a moral, not a miraculous power, which God puts forth in inducing sinners to consent to their spiritual cure, and to the rectification by his miraculous power of the perverted bias of their will, and the regeneration of their depraved nature. God's miraculous power, like his physical, cannot be resisted. His moral power can, and alas! is resisted every day."-(P. 395.)

The reader will not regard the foregoing as anything new. It is neither more nor less than the old theodicy, which refers the origin and continuance of moral evil to the freedom necessary to responsible agents. The reason why God permitted evil to enter the universe, or to continue in it, is to be found in the nature and conditions of free agency. It is therefore the creature which has determined the entrance of sin-the extent of the atonement-and the eternity of future punishment. God could not, without interfering with that freedom which is necessary to the responsibility of his creatures, have prevented the entrance of sin, nor can he, without infringing upon the prerogatives of free agency, remove it, now that it has entered, until he has obtained the consent of those who are the subjects of it. Such is the theory of our author in regard to free moral agency and its consequences, and it is hereby

Subverts the Work of the Holy Spirit.

719

pronounced utterly subversive of the sovereignty of God as the moral ruler of the universe, as it is subversive of the glory of his grace in the regeneration and final glorification of sinners. A being who sustains to the moral intelligences of the universe, the relation assumed in this theory, is neither the God, nor the governor of it. It is only discursively that he can know what the history of the universe shall be, and over its destinies he can have no control, except such as may be conceded to him by the workmanship of his own hands! He may see the evil day coming, but he cannot prevent the dreaded disaster except by moral suasion or by the dethronement of a sovereign of his own creation; and, rather than do this, he hands over to this uncontrollable autocrat the governmental reins of the entire empire of mind! How refreshing is it to turn aside from the arrogancy of such a theory, to the reverent humility and adoring awe of the apostle, who, after a review of the whole subject of the entrance and removal of sin, exclaims, "O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" There let the origin of evil rest, and let no irreverent hand attempt to lift the veil from the unsearchable judgments, or inscrutable ways of a sovereign God.

It is, however, chiefly because of the bearing of this theory on the work of the Holy Spirit, that attention is here called to it. According to this theory, there is no influence except mere moral suasion, brought to bear upon the sinner in inducing him to consent to his spiritual cure, by the miraculous rectification of the perverted bias of his will, and the regeneration of his depraved nature. On this theory it is remarked,

1. That it is unscriptural. To consent to one's spiritual cure, is to consent unto the gospel. Such consent implies a sense of our sin and misery, and an apprehension of the remedy provided in Christ Jesus, and a full acquiescence in what the word of God alleges in regard to both. He who has such views of himself, and of "the things of the Spirit of God" as this implies, has been the subject of more than mere moral suasion. The Scriptures declare that no man in his natural estate can obtain such views of the things of the Spirit of God. Such things are spiritually discerned, and the natural man cannot receive them, nor know them. To all such things he is dead, and no mere moral suasion can awake him from that deathsleep, until it is broken by that voice which wakes the dead. Dr Forbes contradicts all this, by placing the change by which the soul is renovated, after the consent to the spiritual cure is obtained, by means of sheer moral suasion.

2. The theory is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural.

The cure to which the man, in his assumed unregenerate estate is represented as consenting, is nothing less than the rectification of" the perverted bias of his will," and "the regeneration of his depraved nature." That is, the man consents to a thing against which his will has a bias, and against which his depraved nature revolts, whilst the bias and the depravity remain unchanged! This may be a species of philosophy, but it is certainly not the philosophy either of Scripture or common sense. It would certainly be interesting to know under what division of the phenomena of the soul, Dr Forbes would place "consent." Is it a cognition, or is it a feeling consequent upon a cognition, or is it a conation consequent upon both? If, as is manifest, it must come under the head of "conations,” the question arises, How comes it into existence in opposition to a depraved nature," and "the perverted bias of the will"? Must not the conations be as the feelings are, and the feelings be as the nature is? Can a moral agent, with a depraved nature, have feelings such as a holy being alone can have? or can a being, possessing only such feelings as belong to a depraved nature, experience desires which are at war with such feelings, and urge him to seek their extirpation?

Nor are we to tarry in our inquiry with the feelings and conations. As the soul is a unit, the moral virus which affects it in one of its powers, must affect it in all. The soul is not a series of sensations or exercises, nor is it a congeries of independent faculties. It is a spiritual essence, endowed with attributes through which it reveals itself. The faculties of the soul, therefore, cannot be affected for good or evil, as isolated entities. The whole powers of the soul are the heirs, in their respective spheres, of the evil or the good. There can, therefore, be no such thing as "a depraved nature" and a spiritual understanding, or a will with "a perverted bias," where there are, nevertheless, unbeclouded cognitive powers. In a word, there can be no moral suasion where there is "a depraved nature," or "a perverted will."

This indissoluble connection of the powers of the soul is recognised in the Scriptures, which speak of the thoughts and the understanding of the heart, and which recognise no moral feeling apart from an intellectual apprehension of the object to which the feeling is correlative, or moral apprehension apart from a corresponding subjective feeling. And in conformity with all this, is the Scripture doctrine of spiritual illumination. The eyes of the understanding are enlightened, and the heart is opened to apprehend the truth. The renewal which the sinner undergoes, is not simply a renewal of his will, or of a depravity which does not reach to, or affect his understanding, but one which enlightens the eyes, removes the veil from the

Is Antiscriptural, Antipsychological, and Suicidal. 721

heart, and renews the man in knowledge, after the image of him that created him. Thus it is manifest, that this theory, which places moral suasion prior to spiritual renovation, is both anti-scriptural and anti-psychological.

3. But in addition to all this, the theory is suicidal. It assumes that God could not preserve a holy free moral agent from sin, without destroying his freedom, and yet teaches that he can restore fallen free moral agents to holiness, without infringing upon the prerogatives of free agency! How can a man hold in his mind, at the same time, principles which are so manifestly at war with each other? And the man who holds this theory, comprising these antagonistic elements, let it be observed, admits that the only difficulty in the way, either of the preservation in holiness, or of the restoration to it, is the obtaining of the consent of the free agent concerned! The agent can be subjected to the operation of a "miraculous power" (this is Dr Forbes' term), that is, a power which operates, not in accordance with the laws of his nature, and yet remain free, provided only that his consent be obtained prior to the forth-putting of this power upon him. If so, does not the question arise, and is it not the sole question at issue, "Could not the consent of a holy being be as easily obtained to the undergoing of an operation which would preserve him in holiness, as the consent of an unholy being to an operation which is designed to restore him to holiness"? Can any intelligent moral being hesitate to say, that the difficulty lies entirely within the conditions of the latter case? To affirm that a holy being would refuse consent to an operation proposed by a holy God, the effect of which would be his confirmation in holiness, is simply to say that he has no love for holiness, or for the perpetuation of a holy estate, which is all one with saying that he is unholy. In the other case, however, as has been already shown, the obtaining of consent by mere moral suasion to an operation, whose avowed end and aim are utterly repulsive to him to whom it is proposed, is altogether impossible. Dr Forbes' theodicy, therefore, contains the premises of an a fortiori argument against his own theory of the origin of evil; for it teaches that an unholy free moral agent can, by the mere influence of moral suasion, be induced to consent to his restoration to holiness. If so, his opponents can triumphantly reply, much more may a holy being be induced to consent to his preservation in a holy estate. And if so, it of course follows, even on our author's own showing, that sin could have been prevented without any infraction of the rights or prerogatives of free moral agents. In a word, it follows, that the solution of the insolvable problem of the origin of evil is not to be found in the conditions of free agency.

It is painful to be under the necessity of uttering a wholesale condemnation of a work which evinces much scholarly refinement, and which has unquestionably cost its author much thought and labour; but the interests of truth demand such a verdict. It is utterly wrong in its philosophy, and false in its distinctive theology. In its fundamental principles, it is subversive of the work of Christ, and irreconcileable with the Scripture doctrine in regard to the office and work of the Holy Ghost. R. W.

H

ART. III.—The Norwegian Church.

[AVING lately spent some time very pleasantly in Norway, we eagerly embraced the opportunity of inquiring into the constitution and actual condition of its national church. Since our return to this country, we have continued these studies with the aid of such books, in English or Norsk, as as were within our reach, and now give the result.

The Norwegians are almost our nearest neighbours, and are in many important respects more like us (especially the Scotch) than are any other continentals. We trust, therefore, that these notices will be found somewhat interesting, especially at a moment when a considerable body of the English clergy is endeavouring to bring about intercommunion between their own church and that of Norway.

Norway and Sweden, though forming one realm under the same sovereign, are merely confederated, not amalgamated. Sweden has an altogether aristocratic government, whereas Norway is essentially a democracy, in which the mass of influence rests with small allodial proprietors, who, as they love to express it, hold their land "free and by, at least, as good a title as that by which the king holds his crown." Each country has its own flag, laws, and local management, and jealously maintains its own absolute independence in all such matters. Hence a knowledge of the church in Sweden gives one no idea of the state of things in Norway, and vice versa.

The Norsk Church is Lutheran, consequently episcopal, but, as will be seen from what follows, the bishops are regarded rather as clergymen having a higher status as civil officials, than as possessing, in virtue of their office, more exalted spiritual powers than those inherent in the ordinary clergy. În fact, Motzfeldt, in his standard work on the subject, lays it down as an axiom, that the church of Norway is a mere department of the state, like the military and civil services; consequently, like them, altogether under the control of the crown.