eventual home in heaven. Nothing could be more impartial, nothing more uniformly just.

The consistency of design between the Old and New Testaments is a remarkable characteristic of them both. This is most clearly perceived when they are perused consecutively from beginning to end. Whatever else they may record or contain, all has more or less reference to the one great burden of its teachings. But one paramount aim is admitted there. From the record of Moses, detailing the birth of virgin nature, with all her glorious wonders; through the history and vicissitudes of God's chosen people; in the allusions to cotemporary nations; in the prophecies of the Old Testament; in the history of the Redeemer; the founding of his church; the propagation of his religion; the profound doctrinal disquisitions of the apostles; up to the last recorded glance of John into the dark folds of futurity, when the river of the water of life burst forth from the throne of God, and the ransomed nations assembled on its banks; from first to last, one main, consistent object harmoniously preponderates throughout this whole book-how men might be brought from darkness to light, and from the service of Satan unto God. A careful study of the Sacred Writings, with the purpose of discovering this relation of all the branches with the main stem, will clearly vindicate their inseparable connection throughout. The Scriptures are consistent in their figurative and allegorical representations. Many truths are conveyed to us in this way, according to the prevalent usage of Eastern countries. But never do these terms contradict themselves. The kingdom of heaven is likened unto ten virgins; but never with the wise at one time provided with oil, and at another, unprovided. Sometimes it is compared to a house; but never to one built upon the sand. Truth may be variously re

presented, but it is never, either through inadvertence or design, contradictorily represented.

Thus viewing the consistency of the Bible in all these, its most important particulars, we may infer its harmony universally. Whatever individual part we choose to examine bears the most rigid test. When we raise these individualities into a generality, combine these parts into a whole, the once dissevered strength of the various parts now serve to augment its united energies. If, therefore, contradictions seem to exist; if we appear able by our ingenuity to extract such conflicting statements from the Bible; it will be well cautiously to weigh the evidence, before we hastily draw an inference. By pursuing a proper course of investigation,-not a hasty, superficial and inaccurate one, as is usually the case with those who make the charge of inconsistency; but a thorough, patient and profound one, they will arrive at the clear conviction, that the Bible is consistent with truth, and consistent with itself.

If the question be asked, on what would Christians agree, were the investigation alluded to made, and the Scriptures be properly examined; we suppose, first, upon the three great primitive symbols of Christianity, the Apostolic, the Nicene, and the Athanasian; while, as they descended to minor particulars, continued harmony would accompany them, in proportion as they observed the rules of impartial, consistent and intelligent interpretation, and comparing Scripture with Scripture. Hence it appears, that at every new genuine Reformation of truth, and of doctrines in the Church, the principles adopted and developed were radically the same. Thus a similarity exists among the main views held in the apostolic age, and those entertained by Huss, Wickliffe, Luther, Zwingle, Cran mer, Latimer, Wesley; while the differences which did

prevail among them are attributable to other appropriate and sufficient causes.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the vain charges of modern unbelievers against the Bible on this ground, it may safely challenge every assault, it will triumph in every contest, it can defy every peril. It is no huddled up and temporary contrivance. It is the solemn voice of the past eternity, resounding through the present, and passing onward to the eternity yet to be; proclaiming, with unvarying consistency, momentous truths, in which every inhabitant of earth and every heir of immortality has a deep and vital concern. God has always guarded and watched it with special care to preserve it from error, as the authorized herald and organ of his revealed will. The final conflagration of earth may destroy the material repositories of its truths; but those truths themselves will survive in the records of heaven, mirrored in the mind of God, engraven on the hearts of the redeemed; and will become the eternally revered text-book of the children of God. It is now the strong defence of the truth, against which earthly tempests may beat, yet how impotently! It is the frontier bulwark of the church; all the armies of error in every age have assaulted it; but the friends of truth who hold it for God, have received it with this proclamation:-Here stand fast, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against you. On this eternal rock we may plant our feet. Upon it we may wage the last mortal struggle with the embattling hosts of error; and if needs be, there would we fall and there only. We believe that the divine word is throughout harmonious and consistent, if for no other reason because it is the word of the Most High; capable of leading no one astray, and in full accordance with this plain Scripture: God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent; hath he said, and

shall he not do it? hath he spoken and shall he not make it good? We may not despise such a monitor, or permit the enemies of all good to pervert our conceptions of its value. In every age it has issued from the same sublime source, it has given the same wise admonitions, and invited our dying race to secure the same heaven. Of old has the Great Father of all seen the moral gloom of a world filled with wanderers from the paths of peace, into the domains of delusion and error. He issues his commands, summoning the nations from their sins, and inviting them into the abodes of bliss. That paternal voice is first heard in the umbrageous bowers of Eden; then in words which were wafted by eastern breezes over the plains of Mamre. It is heard in the far-echoing thunders of Sinai; in the prophet's appeal on Zion's Mount; in his lamentations amid Babylon's stately palaces and idolatrous fanes. It is heard in the acclamations of shepherds in Bethlehem's vales; in the celestial teachings of the Son of God; in the suppressed groans and intense agonies of Calvary; in the fearless and moving preachings of inspired apostles and martyrs. Consistently from age to age, these lessons have been repeated, these truths have been developed; and the providences of God have progressively elucidated and confirmed them. Shall we charge these truths with inconsistency? Shall the frail creatures of yesterday derogate from the merit of the venerable work of ages, from the approved offspring of the mind of the Eternal?

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CHAPTER XI.

THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL
DEFENDED.

AMONG the other assaults made by Modern Infidelity against the teachings of the Bible, one has been directed against its account of the origin of evil, or the mode of the entrance of sin into the world. It has been urged, that, according to the biblical account, God is the author of evil, inasmuch as he created a world in which sin was produced, and where he knew sin would exist; and man is represented as suffering the punishment of an act which was absolutely foreknown and hence wholly unavoidable. We grant that this is a subject of great difficulty. Philosophers and divines of every age have speculated in reference to it. They have endeavored to answer two questions: What is evil, and Whence is it? The believer in the Bible may indeed affirm, that man was the agent in the introduction of sin into the world; and that, as existing here, it is the violation of God's promulgated law. But though this answer is very good and true as to history, it is very inconclusive as to philosophy. For an objector may justly answer, that as Christians we believe in the supreme sovereignty of God, and believe that nothing transpires in the world without his direct or permissive agency. Hence God must have at least permitted the existence of sin, which, had he chosen to exert his almighty power, he might have wholly prevented. Hence also, in one sense,