rough battle, as God made him, needs to be daily civilized. He may go forth in the morning from the bosom of his home with the love of kindness upon his heart, his garments all fragrant with love; but he mingles with his fellow-men in the market-place and the exchange; and the turmoil of business, and the inevitable strife with unprincipled cupidity and inordinate, remorseless rapacity, shall burn up the last particle of that early dew, like a terrible scorching sun, and harden him to the mood of the world's universal selfishness, sending him back in the evening with garments soiled and covered with dust, to be again reclaimed and softened and refreshed by the pure, loving presence of woman.

Woman's rights, and woman's power! The strong wind and the earthquake are impotence itself in comparison with the dew, which falls so gently that you can neither see nor hear it ; or the light, whose presence you can only apprehend from the warm tint of life and beauty which it imparts to all the multiplied forms of the material world. God hath ordained woman to be great, not as the earthquake or the storm, but as the light and the dew; not thundering in the senate, or leading armies to the field; but making a country's homes the well-springs of its purest joys, the nurseries of all its manly virtues and pillars of its strength; the centres of its highest civilization, and symbols of its proudest fame.

ARTICLE III.

OBLIGATION AND ABILITY.

The Youth's Scripture Question Book on the New Testament. By H. HAMLIN, Author of the "Explanatory Question Book." Boston: Henry Hoyt, No. 9 Cornhill. 1862.

Ques. Ans.

What are we commanded to be?

Matt. v. 48. 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'

Ques. What is the meaning of the word perfect?

Ans. As here used it means finished, complete in all parts, that perfection where no part is defective, or wanting. In the original the word is applied to a piece of work, or a machine that is complete in all its parts.

Ques. Are we all required to be thus perfect?

Ans. Certainly we are; and we can be, or we should not be required to be. Duet. xviii. 13. Coll. i. 28."

Specious reasoning, but fallacious. Perfection which is " finished, complete in all its parts, where no part is defective, or wanting," must be absolute perfection, that which shall satisfy completely the law of God, and perfectly meet all his claims upon us. To such perfection Christ without doubt referred in the words under consideration. God's perfection is "finished, complete in all its parts," with "no part defective, or wanting." It is therefore the standard by which the perfection of his creatures is to be tried. They are required to come up to that standard. In whatsoever respect they fail of doing so, they are imperfect, they sin.

The perfection here referred to is moral perfection—a perfect conformity to the character of God, and to the moral law, which is the expression of his will. It has no respect to the strength or weakness of our powers. The child may be as perfect as the aged saint, so far as the strength of his powers is concerned; the unlettered Christian as the philosopher. The question relates to conformity to the character and law of God, or the want of such conformity. Where this conformity exists, there is perfection "finished and complete in all its parts,' whether in child or adult. Where it is wanting, whether in sage or savage, there is imperfection.

If this is the meaning of the terms in the answer to the second question quoted above, we accept it as a correct statement of what God requires of all his creatures. All men are under obligation to be thus perfect. God therefore commands it. In this morally perfect state he created the race, and he has never released it from obligation to be as perfect as he is perfect. We accept the definition. But when our author goes on to say "We can be thus perfect, or we should not be required to be," we feel bound to dissent. The reasoning is eminently fallacious

"We are required to be as perfect as our Father in heaven, therefore we can be."

When reference is had to natural ability or inability simply, the reasoning is just. The father may not require his son to do a work that demands for its execution a man's strength. The master workman may not command his employés to lift a weight which can be moved only by the use of mechanical powers. God could not righteously require the race to do what they had no natural power to do-see without eyes, labor without hands, discern truth and duty without reason, or love without affections. But the moment we have respect to moral ability and inability the case is changed. The child that will not obey, or that voluntarily maims himself so as to render obedience impossible, is not released from filial obligation. The obligation is enforced by the visitation of penalty. All feel that there is guilt in this case, that he is not absolved from obligation, even though he cannot obey. Albeit, had the maiming been accidental and unintentional, he would have been released from obligation, and been the object of commiseration. The citizen, who, to avoid a draft, cuts off his first finger, stands in no such relation to obligation, as he who loses it by accident, and unwillingly. All minds discriminate instantly between these two states, and this shows the fallacy of a course of reasoning that takes no account of this discrimination. In the latter case

obligation is commensurate with ability. In the former, obligation continues, while the ability is destroyed. The man is justly accused of a want of loyalty, and is worthy of penalty.

Now the relation of man to the divine law is of the former type. We have broken that law voluntarily, and brought ourselves into a position where perfect obedience is impossible. We have willingly made ourselves morally impotent, and therefore are without excuse. The obligation remains, though the ability is lost.

We know it is contended by some of the advocates of perfection that we can keep the whole law of God, that the ability as well as the obligation remains. Thus the Rev. Asa Mahan opens his work upon "Christian Perfection" with this definition of the holiness which he thinks attainable in this life. "Perfection in holiness implies a full and perfect discharge of

our entire duty, of all existing obligations in respect to God and all other beings. It is perfect obedience to the moral law."

This is well said. This is perfection in holiness, provided we are allowed to interpret the phrase "perfect obedience to the moral law" with the fulness of meaning which naturally belongs to the words, and which we have indicated above. But he who should assume, with that interpretation in mind, that man can, and that many do keep the law of God perfectly, would show a most lamentable ignorance, both of the history. of the world, and of the corruption of the human heart. Mr. Mahan does not fall into this error. We have but to read a few pages farther in his work, to find his language so qualified, as to rob it of more than half its meaning. Here," says he, "our powers are comparatively weak. The saint on earth is perfect when he loves with all the strength and intensity rendered practicable by the extent of his knowledge, and the reach of his powers in his present sphere."

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The "perfect obedience to the moral law," for which he contends as "perfection in holiness," is merely the best obedience we can render in the "comparatively weak" state of our powers. If, therefore, we do, at every moment, the best we can, do all that is "rendered practicable" by our circumstances, we shall keep the law of God perfectly, and be perfect in holiness.

This, as any one will see, is narrowing down the infinite law to an infinitesimal point. For, according to this reasoning, the more men sin, and weaken their powers, and unfit themselves for the perfection of the unfallen man, the less the law of God requires of them, the nearer they come to perfect obedience, to the standard of holiness. The shortest, certainly the surest road to perfection, in this view of the subject is the highway of sin.

This heresy seems to lurk in many minds. For we hear them say"I try to do as well as I can." Or, more selfrighteous still"I do the best I can. I have no fear of the result. God will not require of us more than we are able to perform." This, it will be seen, is only another statement of the final clause of the Catechism at the head of this article. It is the form in which many a dying sinner appropriates it, to

blind his eyes, and quiet his conscience, just as he is to appear in the presence of God, to be judged, by an infinitely pure law, for a life spent in rebellion.

ners.

Multitudes seem to cherish the idea that the law of God is plastic, shaping itself in its requirements to the ability of sinAnd this matter is carried to such a result in the minds of great classes of men, as that they see no great difficulty in keeping the law, and appearing justified in the presence of God on the ground of works. Hence, they make little of Christ. They need no Divine Saviour. They need only an example to stimulate them, and teach them the possibility and method of doing all that is required of them. They will not feel the need of an atonement. This will be discarded. They will be led naturally to deny the utter depravity of man, because he is accounted capable of obedience perfect and complete, and may be supposed to have done many things that come up to the requirements of the moral law. As naturally will they be led to embrace the doctrine of the final salvation of all men, because in their view the race will have done nothing worthy of eternal death. While multitudes more, entertaining yet lower views of the standard of universal obligation, claim to have gone beyond its demands, and laid by a store of good works. These are ready, like the pharisee and the papist, to open a traffic with the world in works of supererogation.

Could we lay bare the hearts of men, we should find a vast amount of this practical Antinomian feeling, all of it growing naturally out of the assumption, that God requires no more of us than we are able to perform; that he graduates the requirements of his law to the weakness and depravity of the subjects of law.

It is not true, as we understand the Scriptures, that God requires no more of us, in our fallen state, than we are able to perform, or than is "rendered practicable by the extent of our knowledge, and reach of our powers." He requires us to be as perfect as he is perfect. He has placed the race under a perfect law; and it can accept of nothing less than perfection the most absolute and complete. We readily admit that such was the nature of the law under which the race was placed at