she comes as an angel, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto men.

But there is infidelity! Yes; and what is infidelity? It is a negation; it has no system. Where are its temples, its schools, its hospitals? What did it ever try to do for man anywhere, or at any time, as an organised system? There was one nation, and only one, that ever tried this system of infidelity. France decreed, "There is no God, and death is an eternal sleep," and the result was that the streets of Paris ran with blood. Society was upheaved from its very foundations, and men were glad to go back even to poor temples, for the sake of finding some relief from the error and terror into which infidelity had thrown them. Infidelity has had its era. Voltaire said he lived in the "twilight of Christianity;" and so he did. But it was not, as he fancied, a twilight deepening into darkness, it was a twilight opening up into the brighter day; and the Sun of Righteousness shines now in spiritual beauty over our entire world. England, a century ago or more, was under the dominion of infidelity. The result was a degradation of morals and of general society. But as a reaction there came forth those works of Butler and Godwin, and a host of others who defended the principles of Christianity. And we have to-day a purer and clearer and stronger Christianity because of those attacks of infidelity. But who survived? Where are the infidels of that day? Where are their writings? They have scarcely left a mark. But Christian Churches are all over England and America.

The times are full of promise. I look over the earth, and nearly everything is hopeful. Christianity is growing stronger. It is visiting heathen nations and raising man to his full height of stature before the throne of God. Where are our discoverers? Where are our inventors? Where sit power, wealth, and learning? In Christian lands. All these are gathering around Christianity, and they make us hopeful for the future.

We have our mission stations; we have our Bible translated. Our missionaries know the way to the very ends of the earth, and there have been more converts this year than in any other year since the Gospel was preached in Galilee. No danger of Christianity falling. No! Dispel all fear. There is no danger of Christianity. It is standing securely. The glory of God is on it. In the last days there shall be scoffers walking in their own ungodly lusts. If there were no scoffers at Christianity, I might doubt its truth. I know there are such scoffers, and I hear them around; but they are few and far between. A lecturer might come and occupy a hall, but the churches are full. There are crowds of the nations gathering around the Cross, and the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ is atracting more and more (H. E. I. 979, 1166-1168).-Bishop Simpson: Christian Age, vol. xix. pp. 115-117.

Some say Christianity is a failure— others that it will never convert the world. Take the text as replying to both. Two standpoints to view the

text

I. That occupied by the prophet him self. Seven hundred years before Christ. So his predictions, as well as all that was written concerning Him, had to cover that space. From Isaiah's standpoint, He shall not fail-1. To appear as the promised and predicted Messiah. From the Fall He had been promised. He did not fail as to time, place, or manner. 2. In the great offices and work He would fulfil. Teacher, Prophet, Priest, and Lord. 3. Notwithstanding the opposition and sorrows of His life. 4. To survive and set up His kingdom. Hence His resurrection. Preached in Jerusalem. Reigns in the midst of His enemies. Triumphs of His grace.

II. First Church did not fail. Success everywhere. Now let us take our stand in our own age, and see some reasons for reiterating the declaration of the prophet.

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no power in the universe but thought. God thought: "He spake, and it was done," &c. It is Christian thought that is to conquer the world. Christ is represented as having a two-edged sword proceeding out of His mouth. (2.) Every man that receives Christianity seeks to communicate it. It is like the spread of fire (H. E. I. 1162). When we think what Christianity promises, and the unseen spiritual influences that act in harmony with it to give it efficiency, we find the means adequate.

IV. The sure future of Christianity. 1. Christianity has already made a great change; and the future conquests of the earth, so far as we

can see, will come under the control of the Christian nations (H. E. I. 1161). 2. Christianity has this peculiarity, that it takes up childhood in its arms. Infidelity and Paganism neglect childhood. "Give me the rising generation, and you give me the world." 3. Out of the work Christianity is doing there comes a feeling of peace. The principle of arbitration is spreading among the Christian nations of the earth. Such is the blessing of Christianity to men. It shall not fail; for our great Leader is at the right hand of the throne; the power of the Father is His.-Bishop Simpson: Clerical World, vol. i. pp. 290–292.

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I. That religious investigation should be characterised by the spirit of docile inquiry. Want of humility vitiates the methods by which men form their religious opinions. In science, it is settled that docility of inquiry is the one spirit which can lead to scientific discovery; in religion many feel at liberty to create their opinions. Especially is the faith which men think they derive from revelation often formed arrogantly. We bring to it a burden of habits of mind, of purposes of life, of usages in society, of the demands of science, the necessities of philosophy, and of authorities in theology. Pursuing our researches thus, we do not discover our facts; we make them (H. E. I. 558, 559). What is the reception which the civilised world now gives to the old astronomy of the Ptolemies, which mapped out the heavens like a Chinese atlas ? The truth which we infer as indisputable from the fact of the oneness of the

God of nature with the God of revelation is that the disclosures of God in the one should be received in the same spirit as the disclosures of God in the other.

II. That in revealed theology will be found a definite and positive system of truth. Side by side with Christian dogmatism there grows up a Christianised scepticism within the range of Scriptural thought. On the one hand, it is claimed that a revelation shall teach this; and on the other, that this revelation, properly speaking, can teach nothing. We begin with inquiry, we end with inquiry. It is refreshing to turn to the confidence with which, in the natural sciences, men express their convictions. How courageous is the etymology of the very word "science!" It is power, because it is knowledge. It even believes that it knows things which are not demonstrable. But our God is one God. We must look for a theology which is a system, not of inquiries, but of answers. We must presume, especially, that in the Book of God we shall come upon certain verities which shall be patent to unperverted inquiry. We do not so much find them as they find us. They come home to the heart of a child as readily as to that of a sage,

just as the facts of nature do. Moreover, we must presume that these Scriptures contain a theology that can be positively preached. It must be free from self-contradictions, as other sciences are, so that an athletic faith can use it. It must be such as can show its strength in its methods of working; such as can penetrate and agitate and instrumentally regenerate souls.

III That the facts of these two departments of God's working will never contradict each other. The trial which Christianity has undergone from its imagined conflict with the discoveries of science has now a history. The history of science confirms the faith which we should cherish, that there is a oneness of God in revelation and in nature. Science itself has established it as an axiom that there are no insulated departments of inquiry. When men think they discover in nature something antagonistic to revelation, we may safely reply, as did the three men at the mouth of the furnace, "We are not careful to answer thee," &c. (Dan. iii. 16, 17).

IV. That we should expect to find the revealed government of God to be a system characterised by sacredness and uniformity of law. In the natural world we find no such thing as caprice. Disease, even, has laws which are as beautiful in their operation as the laws of health. Law in nature,-Decree in religion. The two revolve around each other like twin stars; both are developments of one truth-that God acts by plan, and not by caprice (Matt. x. 29, 30).

V. That from the unity of God in nature and in revelation we have

reason to expect the occurrence of mysteries in a revealed theology. Science, in the world of matter, is thwarted in all its investigations, sooner or later, by insoluble mysteries; and just so, and no otherwise, is it with certain problems in religion. Nor is it any more marvellous that revealed theology does not solve such problems in the one realm of thought, than that natural science does not in the other. Is the connection of the race with Adam one of the hard sayings of a revealed theology? But is it more easy of solution that the vices of a father become a poison in the veins of his children and children's children?

VI. That from the oneness of God in nature and revelation we may infer a confirmation of our faith in the certainty of this world's conversion to Christianity. The creation of this world and its redemption are, in a truthful sense, parallel acts of omnipotence. It is as certain that the one will occur as that the other has occurred. The necessity of law in nature, -the certainty of law in redemption. The heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water; He turneth it whithersoever He will. Who has not observed the profusion with which the natural world is made emblematic, in the prophetic Scriptures, of the final triumphs of the Gospel? (chap. lv. 10, 11, lx. 21; Ps. lxxii. 16; Isa. xxxv. 2, ii. 2, lxvi. 12, xi. 9; Ps. lxxii. 7, 17; Isa. lx. 6, 7, xi. 6-8). The mountains, &c., become not only the emblems, but the pledges of the mighty works which He will do for man's recovery, -Austin Phelps, D.D.: Exegete and Homiletic Monthly, vol. i. pp. 281-292.

Some of the most wonderful words ever uttered. It is God speaking to His own Son. It is as if we were secretly admitted into the counsel of God.

I. God provided the Saviour. "I have called Thee in righteousness"-I have asked Thee to do this work of righteousness; to work out this salvation, which shall show me to be a