without guile. On the contrary, his whole life would be an outrageous lie. The exterior would contradict the interior. His visible conduct would be a practical acknowledgment of what he ought to be; and his heart, could it be laid bare, as it will be at the day of judgment, a development of what he is-thus showing that the woe denounced by our Lord against the Pharisee rests with all its weight upon

him.

The perfect and upright man is, then, one who is pure internally as well as externally; who respects the rights of God as well as of man; who gives to his Maker his due-his constant, devoted, supreme affections. He is one in whom the love of Christ is the controlling and impelling principle, placing its restraint upon every unhallowed propensity, bringing every thought into obedience to it, swaying the entire affections of the soul-guiding the conduct, prompting to abstain from the appearance of evil, to act with sincerity, integrity, justice, and kindness, and to consecrate those high powers which divine grace has renovated to the promotion of the divine glory.

A single word or two on the origin and the degree of the perfection to which we have referred, must close this paper.

First, then, let it be remembered, that there is no perfect and upright man by nature. We need not merely to be born, but to be born again -converted to God by the special influence of the Holy Spirit-ere we become possessed of that exalted attribute of character of which this paper treats: That which is born, of the flesh is flesh." No instrument but the Gospel can effect the new birth; and no agent but the Divine Spirit can so apply this instrument as to secure the certain result of its action. cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

"Ex

Secondly, let the degree of this perfection be recollected. I need scarcely remind the reader that it is not absolute but comparative perfection-maturity of Christian character, evinced by unblamable and holy conduct. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." The acknowledged experience of the most advanced Christian, and the general tenor of divine revelation, are so utterly at variance with the dogma of sinless perfection, that it is difficult not to apprehend that the few *There is a considerable amount of popular misapprehension regarding this doctrine as held by the Wesleyan

Methodists. The reader will find an explanation on this point at p. 118 of this volume, from the pen of our esteemed correspondent Dr Bennett.

individuals who lay claim to it, mean, after all, no more than we do, or that they have brought down perfection to their level, instead of rising to the height of perfection! In that case it is very easily obtained. When a mountain is reduced to the size of a mole-hill, the slightest effort will place us on its top.

THE SINGULAR COMBINATION OF THE ENEMIES OF CHRIST AND OF HIS CHURCH-THE UNION OF INFIDELITY AND POPERY.

BY THE REV. J. G. LORIMER, GLASGOW. tent himself with knowing in general that he has THE Commander-in-chief of an army does not concertain enemies with whom to contend. He seeks to know their number, their position, their character, their relationship to one another the possibility or probability of their combination against him. It enables him There is wisdom in this course. much better to provide against danger-more skilfully to marshal his troops, and with greater certainty

to take the steps which may be expected to issue in success. As it is with the earthly warrior, so it is with the individual Christian and the collective visible

Church on their higher field. Both are essen- | tially militant. The Word of God takes this for granted, and encourages them, by exhortation and example, to be well informed of the character and combination of their foes, and to make their arrangements for defence or war accordingly.

In accordance with this idea, we propose to throw out a few observations, not on the distinctive character of all the enemies of the Redeemer and his Church, but only on the remarkable union of two of them; these, however, leading adversaries of the truth. We allude to Scepticism and Superstition; or. to speak more popularly, Infidelity and Popery. All' are aware that Infidelity consists in a denial of any written revelation from God, and a consequent reliance, for all moral and religious light, on reason and natural conscience; while Popery admits a divine revelation, but adds to it such traditions of its own. oral, written, and in ordinances, as substantially to subvert divine revelation, and bring back the great mass of its adherents to the same position as if system believes too little-believes nothing; the other believes a great deal too much, and what it believes is inconsistent with itself. Christ and his Church occupy the centre between these extremes. They constitute the divine, as against the human, whether in the form of reason or superstition. Now, an interestat the present day, is, that these extremes meet, and ing and withal important point to notice, especially combine together with all cordiality against those occupying the middle position-in other words, ar ray themselves against the Lord and his Anointed. One would naturally have expected, that scepticism and superstition-the believing nothing and the be

no such revelation had been vouchsafed. The one

lieving too much-would have been sworn enemies. They are evidently entirely opposed to each other, and there has always been sufficient proof, in frequently recurring outbreaks between them, of their native and mutual enmity; but this renders their combination against another system, which does not provoke reason nor reject revelation, the more marvellous.

We shall first shortly state the fact, and then attempt to explain the cause. The union of scepticism and superstition (whatever may be the parties ranged under these general denominations) against the Son and kingdom of God is no matter of accident -we find it as a matter of fact in every age. The combination is too uniform and regular to be unobserved or explained away. Who were the great enemies of the Redeemer in the days of his flesh? Passing by others of minor consequence, were they not the Pharisees and the Sadducees? And who.were these? Were they not substantially the representatives of the two principles to which we have alluded? The Pharisees received the entire Old Testament revelation-they did not reject a single book; but along with it they combined the traditions of the fathers, which, both in regard to Law and Gospel, to faith and practice (as our Lord's teaching and denunciations clearly show), subverted and neutralized the truth of God. This party laboured, by every means in their power, to entrap, weaken, and destroy the Christ. It was they who at length succeeded in delivering him to the Roman governor for crucifixion. The Sadducees may not have professedly rejected divine revelation-they may have received some, at least, of the Books of Moses, but they held sentiments which were entirely subversive of their truth. They were Materialists, denying angel and spirit, and the resurrection of the body; in other words, they were Infidels. John the Baptist warned against them as ja generation of vipers. Christ denounced them as hypocrites; and no wonder-not outwardly rejecting revelation, and yet really trampling its essential truths in the dust.

Now, how did these parties stand to each other? As might have been expected from the opposition of their creeds, they were keenly hostile. When Paul wished to create a legitimate diversion in favour of his own safety and deliverance, all that was needful in a miscellaneous meeting was to exclaim: "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, called in question for the doctrine of the resurrection of the body," and immediately there was an uproar, and wide-spread confusion; the Sadducees were expelled, and the apostle saved by the hands and voices of the Pharisees. But how did the same parties stand affected to Christ? They were bitter enemies, and combined in their enmity. While in the murder of the Son of Man scepticism was represented by Pilate, who contemptuously asked, "What is truth ?"-plainly conveying his own conviction, that there was no such thing as truth-it was represented also by Caiaphas, who, though high priest, was generally reputed a Sadducee, and who pronounced sentence as well as Pilate. The mob, who were under the influence of he Pharisees, as well as the Pharisees themselves,

255

may, in the meanwhile, be regarded as the representatives of the superstitious or self-righteous principle. Their cry was, Crucify him, erucify him." Here was a remarkable combination of enemies-not to refer to Herod and Pilate, long hostile, being on the same occasion reconciled. What a meeting of extremes!-the men who believed nothing, and the men who could and did receive everything, however absurd, combined as devoted friends. All that was necessary to harmonize them was the mutual pleasure of slaying Him who was emphatically "The Truth.”

The Redeemer intimated, that the servant was not better than the Master-that his disciples were to expect not only to be persecuted, but to be persecuted in the same way in which the Master had been called to suffer before them. Hence, in fulfilment of the prophetic intimation, the confederacy of foes against the living evangelical Church of Christ-the only Church which he acknowledges-has ever since been substantially the same.

After the resurrection, the infidel Sadducees, wounded with the increased preaching of that doctrine, grew in their violence. In spite of all pretensions to superiority to prejudice, liberality, and love of reason and candour, Peter and John were very soon called to endure their intolerant and persecuting rage; while the old superstitious and self-righteous Pharisees were awfully represented by the young Saul— the straitest of the sect of the Pharisees-to whom violence and bloodshed seemed to be at once a principle and a pastime. Here was a union of the same parties in the same atrocious work.

Do any imagine that the combination may still have been accidental-the exhibition of a peculiar case at a peculiar time? What is the testimony of John, at nearly the latest period in the history of the sacred canon? He informs us that in his day there were "many antichrists;" and the definition which he gives of an antichrist is, "one who denies the Father and the Son." Without excluding other errorists, who can doubt that the sceptic and the self-righteous superstitionist are included under it? The antichrist spoken of by John is evidently not a single individual, but a succession of individuals, forming a system. Moreover, it is an apostate system, bearing the Christian name. The context (1 John ii. 18) teaches that the parties had belonged to the true Christian Church, but had gone out of it-thereby showing that they had never been really of it. To what party can the description better apply than to those described by the Apostle Paul in the 2d chapter of Second Thessalonians? in other words, the superstitious system of RomePapal, which by that time had begun to work, showing itself in affected humility, and worship of angels, aud distinction of meats, &c. This is eminently "the falling away," or apostasy. Then, again, in regard to the Infidel antichrist, we read of heretics denying that Jesus had come in the flesh-denying the Lord who had bought them. It is plain that though such parties continued to wear the Christian name and observe the ordinances of a Christian Church, they were not truly entitled to the designation of Christian. If a man, by sceptical and Socinian errors, denies what

is most peculiar and vital in the person and work of the Son, he really falls under the denomination of Antichrist. He denies the Son in the sense of Scripture, and, doing so, he next denies the Father also, in the same sense, for there is no Father to the sinner but God the Father in Christ. Thus may there be real infidelity under a Christian dress; and, probably, such was one of the parties referred to by John under the name of Antichrist.

It is to be remembered, too, that in that age, agreeably to the intimations of prophecy, there were many open and avowed Infidels-men who had no hesitation in denouncing Christianity as a fable. All the unbelieving Jews belonged to this class; they were Infidels, and that of the most bitter and determined character. "Many," says Jesus, "shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many""There shall arise false Christs and false prophets." Without any straining, we may fairly include these under the antichrists spoken of by John. They denied the Father and the Son; nor can it be questioned, that whatever may be the faith of many individuals in the Church of Rome, however superior to that of the external communion with which they are connected, that Church also denies the Father and the Son. Her idolatrous worship of the saints, particularly of the Virgin Mary, raising her far above the Son, interferes with the doctrine of the Trinity, and substantially deprives the Father and the Son of the homage which is due to them as divine. The divinity and claims of the Son may be as truly overthrown by a creature being raised to equality with, or superiority over him, as by being directly robbed of his Deity by the denials of scepticism and Socinianism, whether Jewish or Gentile.

We may not be able to appeal, during the dark days of rising superstition which terminated in the supremacy of the Church of Rome, to direct evidence of the combination of the different antichrists of whom we have spoken against the faithful followers of Christ. The very darkness was adverse to evidence; but we cannot doubt that the prophecy was fulfilled. The Apostle John assumes, that however numerous the antichrists, they were all governed by one principle, and we may believe, therefore, would pursue a common line of operations. The infidel Jews may, at this time, have been hateful to all parties bearing the Christian name; but, doubtless, when it came to be a question between Christians, superstitious and self-righteous, like themselves, and humble and holy followers of the Lamb, who renounced self-righteousness and exclusively built upon grace, the Jews would throw the weight of their influence into the scale of the former against the latter. The rise and rapid spread of monasteries, which, in the first instance, were, to a great extent, refuges of the faithful from the impiety and persecution of the world, implies that the true friends of Jesus had many enemies, and enemies who knew how to act together against them. On passing through the middle ages, and approaching the dawn of modern times, we meet with sad evidence of the union between Popery and Infidelity. Ecclesiastical history informs us, that in the 13th century the very Popedom was filled with Infidels.

Though the age was deeply dark and uninquiring, i could not resist the dissent which a caricatured (ris tianity called forth; and hence many, including lead ing members of the priesthood, passed into the r of Infidelity. The character of the age ma be gathered from the fact, that the only writings of any consequence were writings in defence of revelation Neander, the well-known Church historian, relate that, in the 16th century, at the opening of the Re formtion, nowhere were there so many Infidels as i Italy, nor more Atheists than in Rome, the very sea and head-quarters of the Church. Scepticism and superstition went together, and combined, by tortur and blood, to suppress the Reformation. The reade need not be reminded that, in more than one quarter they were unhappily successful. In Paris alone, i 1623, it was estimated there were 50,000 persons o Atheistical principles. A similar union may b traced in Britain in the latter half of the 17th cen tury. With the re-introduction of Popery unde Charles I., and its increased progress under the Re storation, there was a marked development of Infi delity. Writings of avowed Infidelity, which ha been unknown under evangelical Protestantism now appeared, and laid the foundation for other of the same school both at home and abroad, in the next generation. No one needs to be reminded o the close and terrible connection between Popery an Infidelity in revolutionary France. After Protes tantism had been expelled, the whole country wa divided between the two forces. A vast body, not only of the people but of the priesthood, as the Revolution showed, passed into Infidelity, and wen not ashamed publicly to declare it. No doubt here as in some other cases, the two parties of scepticist and superstition came to a deadly struggle with each other; but this was no more than what prophecy would have led us to expect. Besides, throughou the struggle they discovered a still more deadly hatred of everything which savoured of evangelical religion than they showed for their mutual errors. It wa not till living Christianity had been well-nigh extin guished, that they went to blows, the one against the other. Spain at the present day proclaims the same strange combination. Evangelical religion was sup pressed within her borders by the unheard-of horrors of the Inquisition. What was the result? For gene rations the population has been divided between scepticism and superstition. In our own day, in the space eight years, 25,000 copies of the writings of French Infidels, translated, have been eagerly circu lated and greedily devoured. The present state of Italy might be appealed to in proof of the same point. For one avowed Infidel or Atheist in Britain or in Holland, there are twenty persons of this character in Popish lands. An intelligent French writer has lately stated, that not above a twentieth part of the immense population of France can be regarded a genuine believers and adherents of the Church of Rome, the prodigious remainder are divisible among different shades of indifferentism and Infidelity. Traces of the same combination appear in other quarters. German Infidelity is not confined to the Protestant Church of that country, it includes the