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Inspiration.

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redemption was a necessary complement of the creation, the notion of a Saviour must have existed ever since the fall of man. Hence, also, the notion of a revelation, that is to say, a book in which the coming of a Saviour is announced, and in which is contained the realization of this promise. A revelation must be in part divine, in part human. The divine part of a revelation is called inspiration. To the idea that parts of the Scriptures are inspired, it is objected by some that God in creating man must have given him faculties which would enable him to discover truths without any subsequent Divine intervention. Those who reason thus for-get that man is not what God made him. If man had followed the path which might have led him nearer and nearer to his Creator, he would have required no assistance from above. The necessity of a redemption is the sole cause of this mysterious communication between God and man. Without sin, no redemption is requisite; without a redemption, inspiration is unnecessary. Others object to inspiration on the ground that it is an inexplicable mystery. How presumptuous are those who reason thus! Do they not see, that, in order to understand how God transmits his thoughts to man, it would be necessary to know how God thinks?

There is another objection to inspiration, which, at first view, seems to be better founded. It has been asked, — What proof have we of the truth of inspiration? It were indeed vain for a man to declare himself inspired, and to pretend to speak in the name of God, if he could give no proof of the veracity of his statement. An assertion so extraordinary requires some evidence. This evidence cannot be internal. A man may call himself inspired, and may believe himself so, and yet be a madman. Some external evidence is necessary. This evidence may be of two kinds. The truth of inspiration may be proved by a prophecy or by a miracle. The annunciation of coming events has been considered as a violation of human liberty. This is but another view of the great question of human liberty, and does in no way render the mystery greater. If God is God, that is to say, if he is an omniscient being, we must admit that none of our actions are hidden from him. If, then, at times, for some great purpose, he makes known to the world events which would otherwise remain hidden in the future, we cannot conceive that the liberty of man is more affected than if these events were not foretold. God knows that the Saviour has a false friend

who is about to betray him, and the Saviour himself announces the crime of Judas. We do not see in what way the liberty of Judas is more affected than if this event had not been announced.

The power of prophecy must of course be considered as a great proof of the truth of inspiration. But this proof is not sufficient. Such evidence can be conclusive only for those who live, not at the time when the prophecy is made, but at the moment when it is accomplished. The contemporaries of him who calls himself inspired must also have some proof of the veracity of this assertion. If he possesses the power of performing miracles, he will be believed. A miracle has commonly been defined to be a momentary suspension of the laws of nature. This definition is evidently erroneous. To declare that an event has taken place in virtue of a momentary suspension of the laws which govern the world, it would be necessary to know all these laws. Where is the man who would presume to pretend to so much knowledge? The views of our author on this important subject are as follows. As the object of the redemption of mankind was to lead the world back to the state it was in before the fall of man, it must have the power to revive for a time those forces which existed in the world prior to that event, and which since then have remained latent. A miracle, then, is simply the result of these forces brought into action by the regeneration of the world. Miracles thus become a necessary portion of a revelation. They not only prove what we have already said, that physical suffering was the result of moral evil; they moreover prove the efficacy of a redemption which has the power to revive the hidden forces of nature. But it may be objected to this theory, that some of the events which are related in the Scriptures as miraculous are in perfect harmony with the well known laws of our nature. This is true; but they are nevertheless miracles, because they occur by the order of some inspired man. A violent wind might blow and separate the waters of the Red Sea; but that this event should have happened at the order of Moses, so that the Israelites might pass through the sea, it is this that constitutes the miracle. No miracle occurs except on the order of one inspired; and the reason is obvious. If the miracle was in contradiction to the laws of nature with which we are acquainted, it would be considered as an extraordinary event, as a phenomenon; if, on the other hand,

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it was in perfect harmony with the laws of nature of which we have a certain knowledge, it would pass unnoticed. In either case, it would be without use. By this theory it will be seen that M. Coquerel takes nothing from the importance of the miracles. He not only believes in their truth, but even denies that a redemption could have been effected without their aid. They form an important, an essential, part of revelation. They are the evidence of the right of the ancient prophets to announce the coming of the Saviour; they are, moreover, the guaranty of the truth of his mission.

Thus, by a natural and simple train of thought, we are led to the notion of a redemption, which we find realized in history with abundant proof. But were we left to our own reason, we should still be convinced of the truth of Christ's mission. Who, if it were not a fact, could have imagined a life so perfect as that of Jesus, under circumstances similar to those of every human life? Who could have imagined the Son of God, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, under the humble garb of Jesus of Nazareth? The mind could undoubtedly have pictured to itself the ideal of human perfection; it could have clothed a being with all the attributes which it would desire for itself; but it could never have imagined the solemn, yet simple, scenes of the life of Christ,his birth in a manger at Bethlehem, his pure and holy life, those scenes of his mortal career in which he showed himself so similar to us in all things excepting sin, his tears for the death of Lazarus, his joy at the success of the preaching of his disciples, his humble bearing towards his mother, his slow and painful death on the cross, his touching farewell to his mother and to the beloved disciple, and, finally, his glorious resurrection! No. Left to itself, the mind would have overdrawn the picture. An ideal Christ would have been either too distinct from, or too similar to, those amongst whom he was to live and die.

Now that we have arrived at the notion of a redemption, and find this notion has been realized in the world by the mission of Jesus Christ, let us examine, with our author, into the manner in which we ought to understand revelation. The first thought which presents itself here is, that the Christian religion, as revealed in the New Testament, has been commonly considered as mere instruction, as a theoretical collection of doctrines. To this view M. Coquerel objects. According to him, Christianity is something far better, far

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more practical. It is a new and salutary impulse given to mankind. It addresses itself alike to all the faculties, to all the tendencies, of our nature. Had it been but a cold and lifeless system, like the philosophical systems of antiquity, it would have addressed itself to but one of these tendencies; it would have addressed itself to the intellectual power alone. In other words, Christianity is not theology. He, who reads the Scriptures with a view merely to examine certain theological points, understands them not. He takes a part of religion for the whole. He considers it merely as a science, forgetting that the Saviour himself has said, "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." In the Scriptures, instruction is never considered as an object, but solely as a means of attaining to a more spiritual life, and to a better knowledge of God. The method employed in the revelation is either to make truth visible by means of indisputable facts, or to present it as certain, or to state it as an axiom, or to leave it in so dim and vague a light that our reason cannot entirely understand it.

There are but few truths taught in the Scriptures by the first of these methods. The greatest of these is, unquestionably, the resurrection of Christ. In an age when the external appearances of death had hidden from the general eye the truth of the immortality of the soul, it was necessary to show by a fact that man rises from the dead the same as when he descends into the grave, that is to say, that his identity is preserved, that he knows his friends, and that they know him..

All those truths, which are so intimately connected with the Infinite as not to be susceptible of demonstration, are considered as certain in the Scriptures. These truths are the attributes of God, our creation, our liberty, and Divine Providence. Here is another proof that revelation was not intended as a didactic work. The Scriptures are full of these truths; they form the very basis of our religion; and yet, throughout the Bible, there is no demonstration of them.

The truths which are considered as axioms are those which relate directly to our condition in this world. Not a word is to be found in the Scriptures on the organization of the family or of society, on personal freedom, political order, or many other questions which form the object of so much of our speculation. If the Gospels were the work of man, and not of God, they would be replete with theories on all these

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subjects. How different is the work of God! To all the errors which existed in the world with regard to these important questions at the time of the ministry of Christ, the Gospel opposes no argument, no vituperations. It does not attack despotism as the most flagrant violation of all human rights, or polygamy as the subversion of all morality. The only arms it uses against them are the fundamental principles, the spirit, of Christianity. "Our religion," says M. Coquerel, is the first and only religion which has shown this astonishing confidence in the authority of truth, to take the world as it found it, without directly attacking any of its forces, to throw truth, as by chance, into the midst of it, like the invisible seed which is sown by the wind, and to predict that this seed will certainly take root and grow into that large tree under the shade of which mankind may take refuge against every error and every evil."

There are, finally, some truths which are left in so vague a light as to be incomprehensible to us in our present mode of existence. To the following questions, some of which have been the cause of so much strife in the Christian world, the Scriptures give no satisfactory reply: What is the divine nature of Christ? How are the soul and body united? Does all communication cease between the living and the dead? What will be the organization of man in another world? What is the nature of angels and demons? These questions remain unanswered, it is true, because in our present condition the solution of such problems is entirely unnecessary for our progress. We do not mean, however, to say that an examination of these curious and interesting problems must necessarily be dangerous. Philosophy and religion may alike speculate on them, provided they do not attempt to give to the results of their investigations an importance which they cannot really possess.

In this rapid sketch of the work under review, we have now arrived at a point where it becomes necessary to inquire into the future destinies of our religion. We must now endeavour to ascertain what are the triumphs reserved for Christianity both in this world and throughout eternity. The first thought that naturally strikes us in connection with this subject is, that Christianity is the final religion of mankind. Jesus Christ is the only Saviour who will ever be given to the world. We have two guaranties of this fact. First, the Christian religion is entirely independent of