tion of the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, these promises began to be fulfilled in relation to the Jews. Their application to the Gentiles was made known, at a subsequent period. When Peter had been taught by a vision from heaven, "that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, partakers of God's promise in Christ by the gospe!, then," says he, "remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." To both Jews and Gentiles, then, the gospel secures the agency of the Spirit; an agency purely gracious, and, therefore, not contemplated in the Law. This is a marked and important feature of the dispensation of mercy; and it ought to awaken gratitude, and inspire hope. "When he, the spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."

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4. Is not the sanctification of men to be ascribed to the agency of the Spirit, which is unknown to the law, but peculiar to the Gospel? "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." He shall convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." "Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes." But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." "Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." It were easy to multiply Scripture, in which regeneration, and all the steps of progressive sanctification are ascribed to the Spirit. But this is not necessary. Those already cited prove that it is his work to convince of sin, to restore to spiritual life, to beget hope and joy, and adorn the soul with the temper of heaven. Without his aid, all efforts and agencies, though wisely and efficiently put forth, will be ineffectual. Could you place the sinner in the focus of the universe, and concentrate upon him all the light which is reflected from its different parts, you might burn his conscience and inflame his heart, but you would fail to make him a new man, a holy being. So deeply sensible was the prophet of this, while standing over the dry bones, in the valley of vision. that the burden of his message, consisted in supplications for Divine aid. "Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophecied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army." The coming of the

breath of heaven was connected with the prophecying of the man of God; but the living and moving of the dry bones were caused by the breath itself. It is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the living God, that sinners are quickened into life, and made fit subjects of heaven.

Of this every renewed soul is conscious. He renounces all dependence upon mere truth" as the effectual means of sanctification," and flies to the mediation of Jesus Christ. In this mediation is secured the efficacious agency of the eternal Spirit. Hence we see why" sanctification cannot be expected from the law; but only from a dispensation of grace." Did the Gospel only reveal the plan and proffers of mercy, without the doctrine of the agency of the Spirit, it would afford no securer ground of expectation than the Law. This expectation arises, not from the intrinsic power of truth, nor from the known laws of mind, but from the revealed and established fact, that the influences of the Spirit are secured to this fallen world. Observation, experience and revelation, all unite to prove that this is the only ground of hope. Though man is a complete moral agent, yet in his madness he refuses to yield to the claims of truth. While the Law pronounces condemnation, and leaves him to eat of the fruit of his own doings; the Gospel lifts the pall of death by introducing a mighty Agent, even the spirit of truth. Touched by his life-giving power, the indifferent are aroused, the sceptical convinced, the stubborn bowed in submission, the dead made alive.

5. Does the Spirit employ the Gospel more than the Law in the work of sanctification? Truth is the means of sanctification. There can be no holiness where there is no knowledge of God, or of his Son Jesus Christ. Remove all moral truth from the mind, and you render it incapable of holiness. Hence truth is the sword of the Spirit. It is an instrument, without which he never slays the carnal heart, and liberates the captive from the chains of death. "God has chosen us to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." "Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth." Here the agency of the Spirit and the instrumentality of truth are both asserted. But we are not told whether this truth is peculiar to the Law, or the Gospel. Nor is there anything in the Word of God which settles this point. The apostle says, “I have begotten you through the gospel." Again he declares, “The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." David also affirms, "The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul." And with his eye surveying the whole compass of revelation, the apostle again says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." From the Bible itself then we can gain no evidence,

that either the Law or the Gospel is useless in causing the sinner to bring forth fruit unto holiness: on the contrary, both are eminently adapted and indispensably necessary to the accomplishment of such a work. Nor are we at liberty to conclude, that the one has any pre-eminence above the other.

Shall we appeal then to the nature of sanctification to settle this question? Here we find ourselves equally uninstructed. "Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." In its progress, there are increasingly clear views of God, more fervent love to his character, deeper repentance for sin, a more vigorous faith in Christ, and more ardent desires for holiness. Christian experience is enlarged, and Christian duty more regularly and cheerfully performed. To sanctify is to make holy. Now the elements of holiness are love, repentance, faith, submission. But are not some of these feelings founded on doctrines peculiar to the Law, while others are founded on doctrines peculiar to the Gospel? The very nature of sanctification then requires the belie! and practical improvement of those truths, which unfold the principles of justice and mercy. Without this there can be no conformity to the image of God; no preparation to join in the song of Moses and the Lamb. Who then has a right to say, that the Holy Spirit, in preparing souls for heaven, does not put equal hono upon the Law and the Gospel? He brings their combined influence to bear upon the heart; and by this means reconciles the creature to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

It follows from this discussion that we are not at liberty to neglect any portion of the Scriptures. Many seize on a particular doctrine or duty, and undervalue others of equal importance. But such a course produces limited, and often erroneous views of the Divine character and government, enfeebles the intellect, prevents a harmonious development of the Christian graces, is conducive to pride, bigotry and censoriousness, and multiplies the dangers of deception. From this practice have arisen the most alarming heresies; such as Socinianism, Universalism, and Antinomianism. Besides, it is offensive to God. The whole Bible is his work. Both the Old Testament and the New bear the impress of his hand, and by him are honored in the work of saving men. Is it wise then, is it safe, to depreciate or neglect any part of the Scriptures? God's justice is as dear to him as his grace; his Law as his Gospel. Destroy the former, and what becomes of the latter? The desire of pardon cannot be cherished till the equity of justice is acknowledged. The holiness of the Gospel is founded on the same immutable principles as is the holiness of the Law. If therefore the latter is regarded as useless in the work of regeneration and sanctification, the same feelings will be cherished towards the for

mer. To say, that the Law cannot be the means of sanctification, is to abandon it as a rule of duty: but when this is done, the Gospel is virtually abandoned as the ground of pardon. But this is lifting the government of God from this fallen world, producing universal freedom from the restraints of holiness, and giving unbounded license to every evil passion. Let us pause before we unchain the tiger, before we uncap the volcano, and let its heaving billows roll upward and onward, till its flames strike the stars, and its burning lava submerge the earth.

ARTICLE IX.

LITERARY AND CRITICAL NOTICES OF BOOKS.

BY THE EDITOR.

1.-Two Lectures on the Connection between the Biblical and Physical History of Man. By JOSIAH C. NOTt, M.D. New York: Bartlett & Welford

1849.

DR. NOTT is a practising physician of Mobile, Alabama, and delivered the substance of this book, in the shape of Lectures, by invitation, from the chair of political economy of the Louisiana University, and before the Legislature of that state, in 1848, an incident worth noting.

We have certainly fallen upon strange times. Some great and many very little minds, are trying hard to subvert the Holy Scriptures, some by corrupting their fundamental doctrines, and others by attacking their historical veracity from the standpoint of "pure reason," or 66 pure science." Our author is among the latter, and so good, and learned, and scientific a man as one Paul, long since characterized the school to which he belongs, in those words, which never had an intenser meaning than now-a-days: "Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which some professing, have erred concerning the faith."

The author starts with the theory, that the white and black races are so essentially unlike, that they could not have had a common origin. But finding much in the Scriptures to controvert his position, he has carried the war into Africa, and seeks, in this volume, to set aside their testimony as spurious and worthless. He professes to revere those parts of the Bible which are genuine, but let him take away all that he finds fault with, and, in the expressive language of another, "he may have the rest for two-and-sixpence." Carrying out his principles to their legitimate results, not a vestige of revelation remains. We regard it, therefore, as essentially infidel in its reasonings, conclusions, and tendencies, and of that class of infidel speculations which are most dangerous. The author is not more rash and presumptuous, than self-confident, in this puny attempt against the Scriptures. "I ask no quarter from critics as to the matter of these pages; it is the result of much reading and reflection, and I stand armed with authority and with facts to sustain me." His main authority is manifestly the "Ethnological Journal" of London, which he specially commends, as containing "more solid learning, more bold, original thought, and more useful knowledge, than any other periodical of the day." But what says

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a competent authority of this same Journal, into whose spirit our author has so deeply drunk? It may not be amiss for Americans to know how it is regarded at home. Says the British Quarterly: "Luke Burke, Esq., the editor, and almost the sole contributor to the work, prides himself on being a man of pure science. He subjects the Hebrew Scriptures, in common with all other sources of evidence relating to his subject, to the most rigid scrutiny of this so-called pure science. The result is, that the accounts given in those Scriptures concerning the origin of the world, the origin of the human race, the great landmarks of ancient chronology, and the early distribution of the great families or races of men-all are worthless, worse than worthless, a huge accumulation of rubbish, which has to be swept out of the way before science can perform her office unimpeded by the impertinences of superstition. Our most scientific writers on this subject-such as Usher, Hales, Pritchard, and the gentlemen of the Edinburgh Review'-all are puling, timid souls, who are vainly endeavoring to prop up a theoligical assumption' taken from their Bibles, but against which the stream of modern science is bearing with a force that must, ere long, prove irresistable. No attack has been made in our language on the historical veracity of the early scriptures of the Old Testament more undisguised, more thorough, more determined. In this respect, the Ethnological Journal' may be placed beside Bayle's Dictionary,' and the French Encyclopædia.' So much for his chief authority in science. In theology he seems to revere only Channing, Norton, Parker, Palfrey, etc. "It is men of this stamp," he says, directly referring to those just named and to the German commentators of the school of Strauss,-" men who alone possess the knowledge requisite for deciding such questions-that dare to teach that the old Bible мss. have not come down to us untarnished by human hands; and that the Pentateuch is an anonymous production of unknown origin, compiled many centuries after the time of Moses, and consequently of no authority in settling matters of science."

We will string together a few more detached sentences, giving our readers an idea of the drift of the book and of the anthorities and facts which the author speaks of so vauntingly. After quoting the testimony of Mr. Gallatin in regard to the improvement of the Cherokees, he says, "Not one word of which is strictly true," the labors of our honored missionaries among both them and the Choctaws are a total failure, according to him. "The whole history of creation, and of the human race, down to the epoch of the flood, is compressed into the first five chapters of Genesis, and human ingenuity could hardly originate anything more confused and contradictory than this account." "He (Hales) fell into the old error of supposing the Mosaical records to be the oldest records of time extant." "The discrepancies are great and utterly irreconcilable. We have said already that the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek texts, rest upon almost equal authority, and we might add, no authority. We do not give this as our individual opinion merely, but have no hesitation in asserting that the most competent authorities in the Church, and out of the Church, deny the strict authenticity of any copy of the Pentateuch which has reached us." chronology of Egypt, even for some centuries beyond Abraham, is no longer a matter of speculation, while that of Genesis vanishes before it." "We have shown that these writers were not directed by Divine inspiration in their geographical, historical, chronological, geological, and other scientific facts and it cannot be proven that their information touching the physical history of man was more exact." "What becomes of Christianity, when its holy records are thus polluted and mutilated?"

The

These are fair specimens of the author's facts, reasonings, and conclusions. And such things are put forth as the teachings and demonstrations of modern science! The Bible is not only become antiquated—it is at length found to be

British Quarterly, London, May, 1849, pp. 566, 567.