ness of His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like Him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me: for I will tread them in Mine anger, and trample them in My fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me; and My fury, it upheld Me. And I will tread down the people in Mine anger, and make them drunk in My fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth" (Isa. lxiii. 1-6). They knew that these also were Messianic prophecies, and they expected the Messiah would thus take external vengeance on the desolators and oppressors of His literal people Israel. It is not therefore so surprising that they should have regarded the "meek and lowly " Jesus as an impostor. The cause of their error was their literal understanding of prophecy.

Because of their erroneous mode of interpreting prophecy, they could not, and did not, comprehend that Jesus, the true Messiah, had a spiritual warfare to accomplish, or that, most marvellous of all, His greatest victory was to be achieved by His submitting to be crucified, and His most memorable triumph was to be effected by His consenting to die, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage" (Heb. ii. 14, 15); or, as John phrases the same thought, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8). To such conflicts and victories Paul refers in another statement,- Having spoiled principalities and powers, He (Jesus) made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in Himself" (ev avτw) (Col. ii. 15). Of such an internal conflict, or of such an internal triumph, the Jews had no conception. As to prophecy, they dwelt mentally in the letter "which killeth," and not in the spirit "that giveth life" (2 Cor. iii. 6). Their literal interpretation of prophecy prevented them from understanding, and led them to reject their Lord. How again, according to any literal system of interpreting prophecy, was it possible for the Jews to rightly understand the very first prediction concerning the coming of the Messiah? Jehovah declared to the serpent which tempted Eve, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. iii. 15). Why enmity between the serpent and the woman, or between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent? What was this serpent, and what was to be the nature of its "seed"? How should the seed of the woman bruise that serpent's head, or how should that serpent bruise the heel of the seed

of the woman? If the "seed of the woman " meant some future offspring of the woman, did the "seed of the serpent" mean some future offspring of the serpent? What, again, was the real nature of the curse pronounced upon the serpent-"Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life"? Any attempt, Jewish or other, to interpret these symbols according to any merely natural and literal method cannot fail to land the student in confusion. The Jews, however, knew of none other, just as so many Christians will acknowledge none other; and when one compares the various results of the application of this method, one cannot be surprised to find confusion as the consequence.

There is, therefore, an antecedent probability that the true method of interpreting prophecy must be something other than merely natural and literal. If we copy the Jewish erroneous method of interpretation, we shall inevitably be led to Jewish misconceptions, and it may be to repeat the Jewish folly of rejecting the Lord when He comes a second time. (To be continued.)

HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.

THE popular notion of responsibility applies chiefly, if not wholly, to the wicked and to the commission of evil. The idea entertained is, that God has prescribed certain laws for man's observance, and has appended to the violation of them punishments, and on this condition is based human responsibility. But man's responsibility does not depend only upon laws given for his observance, it is based upon an order to which his very existence is subject, and from which he can never release himself. The doctrine of responsibility is the doctrine of consequences; it is grounded upon the relation which exists between cause and effect, or between man's determinations and the effects thence produced; which effects, be it observed, are not external or outside of man, but they are in him, and consist of states of mind, which are good or evil, according to the orderly or disorderly determinations by which they are formed. States of mind follow the determinations of the will as effects follow their efficient causes, and answer precisely to the determinations which produced them. Those states, whether good or evil, are indelibly fixed in the mind, and remain for ever; if so, then man's responsibility attends the good he does as well as the evil, and he must experience a consciousness of the state he has formed as a consequence of having formed it. This will follow of necessity, states of mind being effected in the good equally as in the wicked, and that by an order over which man has no control, and with which he cannot interfere; and of those states he must take the consequence, there being no choice in the case. Man wills, and a state of mind is formed as the result, which is permanently fixed in his mind; the will is the cause of the state, and the state is the

ground of man's responsibility. The responsibility of each individual is consequent upon the determination of his will, and the quality of the state is called respectively merit or demerit, one following the will's determination equally as the other. The doctrine of responsibility being the doctrine of consequences, it is a result of man's existence; and however averse he may be to being subject thereto, he can never escape from it; and each one is at this moment forming in himself a state for which he will be responsible.

Now does man possess any good which he can justly call his own? It is customary to ascribe all good to God, and in an absolute sense it is right to do so, He being the source of all life as well as the former of man's powers. But although we ascribe all good to God as its absolute source, still there must be a distinction made between good as it comes from God, and the good which exists in man; in the former case it is Divine, in the latter it is human. Good, as it proceeds from God, is not ascribable to man; nor is the good as it exists in man ascribable to God, there being an essential difference between them. All human good originates in human powers, and it exists only in human beings, the good of each existing in him who is its originator. From this it will be seen that it is not meant that man is the absolute origin of any good, but only a relative origin, or the origin of that particular modification which characterizes it as his good. Good as it proceeds from God is one and invariable; but as it exists in men it is various, it having assumed a mode in each in agreement with his form and the exercise of his powers. The peculiar mode assumed in each individual is that which characterizes it as his good, and at the same time makes it human. The good of each man being characterized by a mode which is given to it by himself, it is peculiar to himself, and in that sense he is its origin. That human good has a human origin, and is a human possession, will further appear from the fact that man is exhorted by the Lord to do good; for instance, "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well" (Isa. i. 16, 17). And that he has merit in doing good is evident from the promises of reward, even eternal life, held out to those who will keep the commandments, or will do good; the eternal consequences of doing good are just as certain as are the eternal consequences of doing evil. Hence the good and the wicked are equally responsible for what they do, they both having states of mind formed in themselves as the results of the voluntary exercise of their own powers, in which they will experience happiness or misery. Good or evil may be considered in two senses, viz., as action, or as the result of action. The former is the sense in which it is generally understood; thus evil is said to be the breaking of the moral law, and good the keeping of that law. But these are more properly doing good or evil, than good or evil itself. A more correct idea of good or evil is, that it is a state of mind effected by human powers; and a still further and more definite idea of good or evil is, that it is happiness or misery, and

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these are the ends to which the others lead. The former is the end for which man was created. The action is the means by which a state is formed, and the state is that of which man is conscious; and it is the ground of his happiness or misery,-of the former if the state be an orderly one, and of the latter if it be a disorderly formation. Man's consciousness of a well-formed state is happiness, and this is his chief good, which will be evident from the following consideration: if a well-formed state of mind existed in man and he was not conscious of it, where would be the good of it? It is for the sake of consciousness that the state exists, and it was the end for which man was created. Man's happiness is therefore his chief good, and his greatest happiness is his greatest good; it is the end after which he aspires, and beyond it he can never pass, though he become the most perfect angel in the highest heaven.

Now, although God's design in man's creation was that he should be happy in heaven for ever, still He could not make him happy unconditionally, otherwise all would be made happy. The condition devised by Divine wisdom was, that man should live according to an order which God Himself would prescribe, because living according to that order was the means which would lead to the enjoyment of happiness. Happiness is consequently the greatest human good. Keeping the moral law is said to be good on account of its use, which is to lead man to his chief and final good, and whatever contributes to the attainment of that good is called good. Anything short of the realization of happiness is not man's supreme good; if, therefore, man kept the law, and an orderly state of mind was formed in him as a consequence, and he did not experience the consciousness of it, which is happiness, the good thereof would not be realized. All that precedes happiness is for the sake of happiness, and is only the means to an end. All preaching, public worship, and private devotion are for that end; and if they do not serve as means to the attainment of happiness the end is not obtained. Happiness being the end of keeping the law, and also of the formation of orderly states of mind effected thereby, it was the end designed in man's creation, and nothing short of it is man's real and final good. And as man's happiness is the conscious enjoyment of an orderly state of mind, so, on the other hand, the consciousness of a disorderly state of mind is misery. And that state being man's own, and being that alone of which he is internally conscious, and being in perfect harmony with his will, it affords him delight and pleasure; but with the wicked, the indulgence which yields delight and pleasure being disorderly, it tends to annoy and injure others. It is therefore restrained by external laws, which is a source of misery to them.

Be it observed, that the exercise of man's powers in the formation of his rational mind consists, not simply of the choice of one thing in preference to another, but in choosing one way of acting, or one way of living in preference to another, by which states of mind are formed, in which resides the whole of man's acquired quality, whether

good or evil. A state is so much of the acquired or rational mind as is under the influence of one motive, and it consists of as many of the mental forms as are arranged into one aggregate, and conspire to the same end.

We now arrive at the issue of what has been advanced respecting human good, without which all that has been stated on that point might be considered irrelevant. Man's consciousness, although in his will and understanding, is not of the will and understanding; but it is of the forms which have been effected by his powers, which in their aggregate constitute the rational mind: hence, whatever be the quality of that mind, such will be man's consciousness. This being the case, and man's happiness or misery being in his consciousness, it is clear that his responsibility will be such as is his rational mind; and as that mind is the result of the exercise of his will and understanding, his happiness or misery will also be a consequence of the exercise of those powers. Man's happiness or misery in his final state is a consequence of his own free determination and thought, which is impressed upon his mind by an unerring order from which he can never escape, any more than he can escape from himself, it being one with himself.

Every determination of man's will, whether it be good or evil, and whether it be actually brought into effect or not, is deeply impressed upon his mind, and securely registered in his book of life, and when so registered it remains as a ground of future consciousness; his consciousness will therefore be one of happiness or of misery, according to the preponderance of good or evil contained therein. Man's consciousness is everything to him, and that of which he is not conscious is to him as nothing. If, therefore, that mind of which he is conscious (the rational mind) be formed according to the order of heaven, his consciousness will be such as is experienced by the angels, viz., one of happiness; but if it be in the order of hell, his consciousness will be one of misery. From which it will be seen, that man's happiness or misery does not in any way depend upon the things and circumstances by which he is surrounded, nor upon the persons with whom he is connected, but upon the orderly or disorderly arrangements of his rational or acquired mind, which he himself has effected. And it will be further seen, that those arrangements having been effected by the man himself, he is responsible only for what he himself has deliberately determined; and even if it has not been brought into external and actual existence, it is really and permanently fixed in his mind, and would have been brought into outward act had he possessed the means and opportunity of doing so.

The state of mind formed by man's powers is itself a response to the life he has lived, it being an effect thereof, and answers exactly to its cause. Such, therefore, as is the life, such will be the state formed; and such as is the state, such also will his responsibility; this being as previously stated, the consciousness of that state. The case being so, there can be no error in man's final judgment, it being according