indicating what was erroneous in these notions superstition might be conquered. Those erroneous views were not accidental, but necessary; they had a deeper foundation, and a foundation in truth. It was of no use, though it might succeed for an instant, to convince these unhappy men that they tortured themselves with groundless fears. As long as their not merely imaginary, but real inward malady, was not healed, so long must new images of terror be constantly rising before them. It was in vain to say that the gods were not envious, hostile beings, that nothing but good was to be expected from them. Their consciences spoke a different language, and caused them to dread an unknown, offended power. What an impression would the gospel make on such men! It no longer tortured them with requirements which they felt themselves unable to fulfil, but announced to them first of all the free grace and compassion of their Father in heaven, who, out of pure love, had sent his only-begotten Son into the world, and caused him to endure the greatest sufferings for their sakes, in order to free them from their misery, and to bring them as fallen children to their reconciled Father, who was willing to regard all their transgressions as if they had not been committed. The Son of God, crucified for sinners, was presented to their heavy-laden souls, who himself sinless, the Holy One, bore their sins, and was a personal manifestation of the love of a reconciled God. Now the burden was at once taken away from their hearts, all the spectres of their guilty conscience vanished before the filial confidence in God, and joy filled their inmost souls. They no longer dreaded evil spirits, for they knew that Christ had taken away their power; that no power could wrest from the hands of their Almighty Father those who were united to God through Christ: they had indeed the confident assurance that the kingdom of evil must become subject to them in the name of Jesus Christ. From this point of view the Apostle Paul combated superstition, attacking it in the stronghold, in his Epistle to the Colossians: "How can you any longer dread evil spirits, since the heavenly Father himself has redeemed you from the kingdom of darkness and translated you into the kingdom of his dear Son-since he has exalted him victoriously to heaven to share in the divine power of his Father, with which he now operates on humanity-since by his sufferings

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for you he has reconciled you to the heavenly Father, has freed you from the domination of all the powers of darkness, has conquered all their attempts against his kingdom, led them in triumph, and exposed them in all their shame before the whole creation? How then can you be the slaves of a wounded conscience, since Christ has taken from the cross and destroyed the indictment which your consciences testified against you, and has won and ratified the forgiveness of all your sins?

"How can you be afraid of being defiled by earthly, transitory things; how can you entangle yourselves, by ordinances relating to such things, and attribute to them an importance for your inner life, since you are dead with Christ to all earthly things, and are risen with Christ in your inner life to heaven? Your faith must be fixed above, where Christ is at the right hand of God; your life is hid with Christ in God; you belong no more to the earth.”

As the intercourse with publicans and sinners of Him who came to call sinners to repentance, was made a matter of reproach against him by hypocritical and self-righteous Pharisees, so the educated heathen regarded it as a disgrace to Christianity, that it exerted its saving influence on those who had been sunk in vice. Thus Celsus says, "Let us hear what people were called by Christ. Any sinner, or unintelligent person, or a minor, and, in a word, any miserable mortal, is received into the kingdom of God. They say that God receives the sinner, if he humbles himself on account of his unworthiness, but that he will not receive the righteous, though he has from the beginning acted virtuously." The example of this man, who, with all his acuteness and cleverness, was blind in divine things, and (what is most important to man) knew not himself, confirms the declaration that the natural man knows nothing of the spirit of God, that it is foolishness to him, because it must be spiritually discerned; that in ridiculing it he only manifests his own blindness; that his own inward being is an unknown world to a man, until the word of God, which pierces through joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, lays open the real condition of his inmost soul. Certainly, it is a truth testified by the gospel, which Celsus could not comprehend, that man must recognize himself to be a sinner,

must feel his misery, must regard his supposed wisdom. founded on a false estimate of things, as folly, and must receive the kingdom of God, to which he is called by grace, as a little child, if he would enter into it. If there were indeed a man whose whole life entirely agreed with the law, written on the conscience by the finger of God, such a man would need no Redeemer, and he would, as Celsus says, be able to behold God with joy. But a truly holy man would, least of all, be tempted to wish to be something of and by himself; his life would be a life in God, and hence grounded, in humility, in the consciousness that he was altogether, through and from God, the original source of all life and all goodness. But man, as he now is, must die to his ungodly nature, before he can attain to a life in God. Origen justly remarks against Celsus :-" We hold it to be impossible that man can from the first look up to God in a virtuous manner; for evil, first of all, makes its appearance in man." And the man who, according to the notions of Celsus, can confidently look up to God in the consciousness of his virtue, will be further from the kingdom of God than he who humbles himself on account of his sins before God; as the Lord places the publican who smote on his breast, and said, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" far higher than the Pharisee, who "thanked God that he was not as other men, extortioners, unjust, or adulterers." For all men, only one way to God is possible the way of humility; not merely that humility which belongs to every created spirit, even the holiest and happiest, being the necessary and indispensable condition of holiness and happiness for all created spirits,-but that peculiar form of humility which suits the position of a fallen spirit, that self-humiliation before God which proceeds from the consciousness of sin and a longing after a righteousness which is available before God, and is only to be granted by himself. And very justly Origen says against Celsus,— "Sometimes the sinner who is conscious of his own sins, and who is penitent and humbled on account of them, is to be preferred to him who is reckoned less a sinner, but does not recognize himself as a sinner, and takes credit to himself for some good quality which he fancies himself to possess."

Celsus regarded the conversion of a man who had grown old in vice, as an impossibility, for he knew not" the law of

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the spirit," (ò voμos Tоû TνevμATOs, Rom. viii. 2,) which is more powerful than the law in the members," (vonov ev Toîs (νόμον μéλeo, Rom. vii. 23,) the power of God, which is mightier than the power of flesh and blood, the supernatural and transforming power of Christianity. Hence he adds to the words above quoted, "It is manifest to every one, that those who are disposed by nature to vice, and are accustomed to it, cannot be transformed by punishment, much less by mercy; for to transform nature is a matter of extreme difficulty." He utters in these words a great truth: law, fear, punishment, can only repress and check the outward overflowings of evil; they cannot produce a real amendment: it is indeed a truth, that it is a matter of extreme difficulty to transform the nature of man. But here again he is mistaken in supposing that only certain men, in whom the power of evil is manifested in palpable vices, are naturally disposed to sin, and require conversion; for selfishness, in whatever intricate windings, or under whatever specious appearances it may conceal itself, has the ascendancy in every man, until it is found to yield to the power of divine love. And this was his error, that what appeared impossible for man, he regarded as also impossible for God; he had no confidence in the divine mercy that it could effect what no severity of punishment, no power, in short, that cannot penetrate the very depths of human nature, can effect; he did not acknowledge the power of love over the heart, which can effect far more than all outward compulsion and all fear. Christianity imparted a knowledge of human nature very different from what Celsus professed. It first of all disclosed to those who surrendered themselves to it, the depths of self-knowledge, in order to reveal to them the inexhaustible riches of divine grace, by which they might find a remedy for all their maladies. It grounded the consciousness of the highest dignity on selfhumiliation; and conferred on all, without distinction, however much they might be bowed down by the burden of sin, provided they were willing to accept the gift of grace, the highest of privileges, to be born of God, to become children of God, and partakers of a divine life.

"The corruption of nature," says Tertullian (De Anima, c. 41)," has become to man a second nature; yet so that goodness, the divine and original, that which is properly natural,

still dwells in the soul; for what is from God cannot become extinct, but only obscured. It can be obscured, because it is not God himself; it cannot become extinct, because it is from God. As the light which may be blocked up by a surrounding obstacle, continues to exist, but is not visible if the obstacle is dense, so also the good in the soul being obscured by the evil, according to its various constitutions, is either altogether inoperative, so that the light remains concealed, or it shines through where it finds liberty. There are some very bad and some very good, and yet all souls are of one race. Thus, in the worst there is something good, and in the best something bad. For God alone is without sin, and among men Christ alone, since Christ is also God. When the soul attains to faith, and is transformed in the second birth by water, and by the power from above, it sees itself, after the covering of its old corruption has been taken away, in clear light. It is received by the Holy Spirit into his communion; and the body follows the soul espoused to the Holy Spirit, as a servant given to it as a dowry, which no longer serves the soul but the Spirit."

A heathen writer of the third century, the learned physician Galen, who, like Celsus, was prejudiced against Christianity, says in his treatise respecting the diseases of the soul, comparing the education of children to the planting of trees, "The cultivator can never succeed in making the thorn bear grapes, for its nature is from the first not capable of such improvement. But if the vines, which in themselves are capable of producing such fruit, be neglected, they will produce either bad fruit or none at all.' Now, on the Christian stand-point we must admit, that natural endowments and education must be combined in all mental development; but as to what concerns the truly moral or divine life, for which man was created, we shall find human nature everywhere estranged from it, and requiring redemption and restoration; yet no one is excluded from it, no one can be regarded as being incapable of being made a new man through the power of divine grace. From this point of view Tertullian says, "The bad tree will bring forth no good fruit if it be not grafted, and a good tree will produce bad fruit, unless it be cultivated; and the stones will become children of Abraham, if they are formed to the faith of