regarded as the embodiments of historical facts and living experiences, if they are recognised as truths that have abiding life in themselves, and on this account furnish the proper sustenance of the soul, they cannot be rejected or neglected without grievous harm and loss. The solidarity of life, both in the way of co-existence and succession, is a Christian conception as well as a natural idea. But in order that this may be realised and felt in conscious experience there must be a process of transmitting and transfusing going on. The history of the past as a record of Divine manifestations and human activities is nothing to us unless as it enters into our breathing life, and is wrought out not merely in the community but in the individual sphere. However richly full and widely-spread, it requires to be gathered up, so to speak, in some complete and practical form, or its power to influence and enrich is dissipated and wasted. Just as the rays of light are concentrated and intensified by the medium of a burning-glass, or the varied colours mingled together in a pencil of light are caught and separated by means of the prism, so the faith and life of the past alike in their unity and diversity are received by us, and act upon us, in character and conduct, not less but more powerfully, through confessional books and dogmatic utterances. Truth in its undefined amplitude affects us little. History as a mere record of facts, apart from its exemplary teaching and philosophic application, wields little influence over the individual or collective mind. In order to make them effective as enlightening and educative agencies they require to be summarised and directed to a certain end. This process takes place to a greater or less extent alike in the domain of the secular and the sacred. The truths and facts of religion cannot be left vague and isolated in shape and sphere. It is when they converge or become condensed into the form of doctrine that they are most easily realised in life-reaching what is their highest and worthiest development, the living reality of experience.

The true place of doctrine then is intermediate between the revelation of truth in its historic form, as generally and universally applicable to man, and the realisation of it as a personal and practical possession by the individual. Nor can we regard the connection in this chain of thoughts and

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events as temporary in its duration or arbitrary in its character. Facts, doctrines, and experiences are linked together by strongest and closest bonds in a complete and reasonable whole. They lend not merely the harmony of beauty, but the unity of strength to each other. Our moral and spiritual condition is made to suffer through the neglect of the study and appreciation of the Christian system of doctrine—it runs the risk of being weakened and diseased unto death by the rejection in thoughtless ignorance or foolish waywardness of the facts of Christian history. And yet the purpose and use of these have often been strangely misunderstood, and more strangely perverted. It has been attempted by some to accept the ethical teaching of the gospel, and yet deny the facts of Christ's life upon which such teaching is founded; by others to distinguish between life and doctrine as essential and nonessential elements, the latter being of little value at any time, and of no value at all when the life is fairly enkindled. Such separation of history and philosophy in Christianity as a religious system, such disintegration of faith and character in the individual Christian, is unwise in itself, and unwarranted by the relation in which the human mind stands to Divine truth. The utility of facts and principles is not to be unduly limited by time, or injudiciously narrowed in sphere of action. Truth does not become effete through age or impotent by diffusion. The form may become antiquated, but not the substance, and even the form does not become worthless when it has served its more immediate purpose. It remains something more than a mere relic of the past, a body of words from which the soul has fled. Like the living seed found amid the dust of ruined Egyptian sepulchres, and wrapt in the mummycloth of forty centuries, God's truth retains its vitality unimpaired, and may be sown in another soil and sprout afresh in later ages.

The idea is abroad that dogma is but a dead-weight dragging down and making burdensome to the heart and mind of man the Divine revelation that is his sustenance and strength in life. Instead of giving help to the better understanding and fuller acceptance of Christianity, its doctrines have been regarded as hindering the true apprehension of its character and power, by demanding an unenlightened and unreasonable

submission to authority, and testing the intensity of affection and thoroughness of obedience of those who wilfully or witlessly are thus enslaved. We find Renan, for instance, complaining of the doctrinal encumbrances that burden and mar the beautiful morality of the Sermon on the Mount. And others take up the cry that the mysteries of our holy religion must be swept aside, as at best useless, at worst troublesome and perplexing to the believing soul. If such plaints and outcries arose only from those who have no faith in the supernatural, either in revelation or in life, perhaps there might be no special call to soothe or satisfy them. But one cannot resist the impression that doctrinal views are regarded as difficulties and discouragements by many who affect no denial of the Divine. Does not such an attitude of mind, however, spring from a false conception of the meaning and purpose of dogma?-from the idea that truth is the fetter of the slave to keep him in constraint, rather than the guide of the freeman to help and encourage him as he travels earnestly and happily onward in the path of life.

Law rightly understood is the true expression of liberty. It takes cognisance of our conditions and relations, and sets forth, in a form permanent and easily remembered, directions for our governance and guidance. Each sphere of life and action must have its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and these, arising from the very fact and mode of existence, require to be affirmed and to some extent formulated. Whether we regard ourselves as members of a family or citizens of a country, we are forced to recognise the interdependence of persons and things, the correlation of authority and protection, and the action and reaction of interests and duties. To know our true position is to know under what obligations we lie to ourselves and others. And what is this but to accept the fact that there are truths of faith and practice wherever our lot is cast, doctrines for the development and discipline of manhood in all its stages and circumstances? Now it is equally evident that the religious life has its connections and corresponding rules of action. Christianity confesses, and claims for its living disciples, a place in a glorious familycircle, a right of citizenship in an everlasting kingdom. Its doctrines are the statements of the conditions under which it

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has sprung up, and the laws according to which it is regulated, -the explanations of the varied relations in which the Christian finds himself with regard to spiritual realities. man must understand where he is, and what he is, before he can learn the range and character of his duties, or hope in any measure to perform them. Does it hinder any one's enjoyment of, or labour in, life to acquaint him with its great and guiding principles, or does any one consider the reception of these as hampering his liberty of will or action? And are we not bound to look upon the dogmas of religion in the light of guides and helps in the spiritual sphere, not to be accepted with hesitation and suspicion, but to be rejoiced in with. gratitude and confidence? True as spiritual facts, they are reliable as essential principles. The necessity of relationship involves the necessity of formulated truth as a means of instruction and a rule of conduct. And the more fully and faithfully such truths and principles stand expressed, the more intelligently will they be apprehended and used as ready aids and incitements to the becoming practice of piety.

The revelation of Divine truth in its dogmatic form has clearly as its great purpose the awakening of holier aspirations in the human bosom, and the strengthening of purer habits in the human life. And it is strikingly fitted to accomplish these ends: indirectly, by making known the reason and reasonableness of its commands and ordinances; and directly, by its intrinsic power and beauty as a manifestation of the character and will of God. Such a disclosure rightly appreciated cannot fail to influence the heart. To know God and realise our relationship to him must excite the longing and striving after likeness to him. The Christian character grows by the fuller apprehension of truth, alike in its abstract form as a guiding principle, and in its full embodiment as a living. power in the person of Christ. Doctrine thus acts as a cause as well as a reason, explaining how and why we are won to the faith and practice of godliness. In the adaptation of means to ends the wisdom of God is equally apparent in providence and in grace. Causes and effects are not more closely and certainly connected in the natural than in the moral world. The gospel is not merely suitable to, but satisfactory in, the accomplishing of God's purpose of mercy to man.

"It

is the power of God (Súvaμis coû) unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. i. 16). The expression means more than a sufficiency of capability to command this result, if awakened, and directed into the right channel. It gives the assurance of an efficiency of energy actually put forth with this intent, and infallibly having this issue in the case of the believer.

That the doctrines of the gospel are fitted to work out the ends of the gospel may be argued from the following considerations :

(1.) In the very nature of things, truth received must have an outcome. Man is not a mere dead sea, getting but never giving. Rather he is a living lake, into which the rich treasure of streams is ever pouring, freshened by the ceaseless play of sunny breezes upon its bosom, and overflowing in a deep, full current. Truth is vital and pervasive, permeating the whole manhood. And the acceptance of it not merely gives the opportunity, but prepares the way, for its effectual inworking. The power to affect and mould is acknowledged alike by him who is conscious of the process in his own personal experience, and by him who studies its results in the case of others. Whatever the dogmatic truth may be, the natural and necessary consequence of its belief becomes apparent.

(2.) The nature of religious truth is of such a kind as to warrant the expectation that it will exert a wholesome influence over the life. Christian doctrine is not like scientific statement, contented with simply commending itself to the intellect. It has a moral force that makes it effective upon the emotions and the will-a spiritual authoritativeness that lays hold of the conscience, and claims to form and fashion the character. Beyond the speculative interest awakened by the gospel-and this is invaluable as a stimulus and a discipline to the mind-lies the more important, nay, all-essential, practical bearing of its truths upon the heart. The principles of Christianity are active powers. They do not merely inculcate opinions, but prescribe rules, and furnish motives for right conduct. In setting forth what is to be believed, they reveal at the same time how and why the articles of faith become the foundation and strength of morality.

(3.) The higher warrants and stronger motives afforded by