New Testament Evidence. 315 bound therefore to put every evil-doer to death. But if you understand the "sword" figuratively, you have a sense which sustains the authority to punish without prescribing the special mode of its infliction. We reply, that the apostle was writing to a people whose laws admitted of degrees of punishment, and he evidently had special regard here to those offences to which the sword applied. The Christian converts at Rome might imagine that they were under no obligation to obey a heathen government; but the apostle expressly enjoins upon them the duty of obedience in such circumstances, with a solemn injunction not to resist "the powers that be." It was peculiarly seasonable that he should warn them against the sin of rebellion, and it has never been denied that there is but one punishment for an offence of this grave character. But we maintain that the sword represents all degrees of punishment, as it represents the highest form of it, that which, if all other punishments fail, must be resorted to. According to Dr Carson's principle of interpretation, it might be inferred that because the word "suffer" is applied equally to all the four forms of transgression signified in the passage, "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busy-body in other men's matters," that therefore the suffering or the punishment was exactly the same in all. Another passage often adduced to prove our views is Acts xxv. 11, "If I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die." Here the apostle supposes there are crimes worthy of death. It certainly seems, at first sight, a plausible answer to say that the abstract right to inflict capital punishment does not here come into consideration at all, for the apostle is merely protesting his innocence in the light of the Roman laws, without saying whether they were right or wrong. There might be some weight in this objection, if we did not remember that the same Paul, who now stands in presence of the Roman magistrate, did at another time. speak of the very same magistrate as "not bearing the sword in vain." Let us also consider the light which is thrown by the New Testament upon the use of the sword in war. If it is inconsistent with Christianity to kill on the scaffold, it is equally so to kill on the battle-field. Yet John the Baptist did not question the lawfulness of the soldier's calling, when interrogated as to the soldier's duties, for he merely said—“Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." It may be objected that the Baptist belonged to the old dispensation; but what can we make of the fact that our Lord Himself, when He commended the surpassing faith of the centurion, neither denounced his calling nor urged him to forsake it, though He must have known that the wars of the Roman power which the centurion served were almost always aggressive? And what are we to think of Peter, after the dispensation of the Spirit had opened, preaching to Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and yet dropping no hint as to the unlawfulness of his calling, or its incompatibility with the genius or spirit of Christianity? Or what shall we say of the counsel addressed by Christ Himself to His disciples-" He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one"? Not to be used in defending Him against Judas or the Roman soldiers, but in defending themselves against the robbers and wild. beasts that infested the public roads in the countries they should afterwards traverse. Dr Carson does not deny the right of man to kill in selfdefence, neither does he condemn strictly defensive war, but he attempts very ingeniously to turn aside the force of the argument taken from the right of society to kill murderers in self-defence. Indeed, he rather throws ridicule upon the idea of several millions of people being unable to overmaster a single offender, and keep him from committing fresh murders, without putting him to death. It is strange, however, that the Divine Author of the Mosaic laws never thought of such a thing; for the Israelites in Canaan could easily have overmatched a single murderer, and they might have had prisons strong enough to hold him. In fact, if there be any force in this consideration, there ought never to have been capital punishment in any settled society. But Dr Carson defies us to carry out our analogy: he says, we ought consistently to kill all our prisoners of war as we kill our murderers. And so we do, if the prisoners are rebels, which murderers unquestionably are against the order of society. Every argument, therefore, which goes to sustain defensive war is equally legitimate as an argument for capital punishment. Luke iii. 14. 2 Luke xxii. 36. T. C. The Doctrine of Creation. 317 ART. VI.-The Doctrine of Creation proved from the Relations subsisting between Internal and External Nature. "You say that Design never leads to the Infinite, and it never yields the idea of Creation. I would add that it never gives me the Infinite, because it never gives me Creation. If I reach the fact of Creation I reach the Infinite; for the infinite power alone is creative. The origin of an atom, equally with that of the Universe-(i.e., what I may call the Universe, but then my Universe may be God's atom)—gives me the notion of power that is truly and perfectly infinite."-Dr JOHN DUNCAN, MAN ANY distinguished writers on natural theology have set forth the evidences afforded by the works of nature for the existence of a God. The adaptations and arrangements lying everywhere around us compel the sincere and reasonable mind to conclude that not by chance nor from eternity, but by the power of an intelligent Spirit all things have their order. This is, however, the utmost that many of them have even attempted to prove. They have shewn in the most convincing manner that the world and its organisms must have been planned and arranged by an understanding of transcendent power; but they have not shewn that the materials must have been called into being by a will of infinite power. They have proved that everything must have had an Architect or Builder, glorious above all conception, indefinitely, immeasurably great, not a Creator absolutely perfect. Chalmers has even asserted it to be impossible to prove by natural reason the creation of things. He flings aside the abstruse metaphysical arguments which have been alleged, as unworthy of being received. Many who perhaps are not prepared to reject these, would yet prefer something more tangible on which to rest their faith. The argument by which we prove the world to have had a glorious Framer is so simple that the humblest understanding can appreciate it. The principle on which it is founded is so clear that every healthy mind can rest on it with fullest assurance. We believe that the same principle and the same kind of argument, when applied to the relations of matter to mind, or of external to internal nature, will prove the existence not merely of a glorious Framer, but of an absolutely perfect (Jehovah) Creator. In those relations, we have on the one side a nature pos The corre The one So far as sessed of the various senses of seeing, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These it exercises by means of various organs, but these organs we may ignore without affecting the validity of our argument. We shall only take into account the capacities of perception in the living soul. We have corresponding to these faculties certain objects on which they are exercised, colours, sounds, tastes, smells, and the sensations of touch. spondence of these two natures cannot be necessary. does not necessarily exist because the other exists. the perceptive nature is concerned, there might have been no such things in existence as colours, &c. No power goes forth from it to produce them. And in like manner, so far as matter and its qualities are concerned, there might have been no perceptive nature. The existence of these qualities does not in any way cause the existence of that nature which perceives them. If then they correspond, it must be either by design or by chance. If each nature finds its correlative actually existing, this is not owing to itself, but to a wonderful coincidence. Let us note more particularly the facts. Take the power of seeing. By the eye we perceive a variety of colours, such as red, yellow, green, blue, black, and white. It matters not that some of these may be resolved into simpler constituents, or that they may be formed by the conjunction of two or more primary colours. To the eye they are wholly distinct. They are altogether different perceptions. A perceptive faculty capable of seeing the constituents, might have been incapable of seeing the colour resulting from their combination. Again, by the ear, we perceive a variety of sounds. The impressions they make are totally different; each one has a character of its own distinct from the others, and therefore requiring a distinct feature in the character of the perceptive power, in order to its being perceived. We might have had the power of perceiving the one without the power of perceiving the others. The same thing is true of taste, smell, and touch. But still farther, take the case of any one colour. What a variety exists in its intensity. Beginning at the faintest, it rises to the very deepest dye. It is in one object so very feeble, that we can with difficulty perceive it; in another, as in the sun, it is so brilliant as to dazzle us. It loses its distinctness by becoming too faint or too bright. Between the extremes there are countless degrees. Our perceptive power Correspondences involved in Sensation. 319 thus operates within a certain range. It might have been much smaller or much larger. It might have been limited to its present medium, and to a few degrees on each side. It might have gone much higher or much lower. Or it might have occupied the same range as at present, but with a discriminating power so coarse, as only to distinguish between two or three degrees. Each degree therefore of the perceptive power, and of the intensity of colour perceived, is a separate correspondence. So of sounds. They may go so very low as not to be heard by us; they may go so very high as to overwhelm us, or become so shrill as to be above perception. The range is very great. We can perceive the feeblest whisper, the faintest murmur, the highest note of music, the roar of a thousand cannon, or of the waters of Niagara. Between these are innumerable degrees, each one of which is a separate adaptation. The same remark is applicable to smell, taste, and touch; and thus we obtain a countless number of correspondences. In order, however, to see the force of this argument, we must make three observations :-(1.) Our senses might have been of a totally different nature. They might have been as different from the present as hearing is from seeing, or taste from smell. The range of possibility is infinite. We cannot conceive any other kinds of perceptive capacity besides those with which we are endowed; still we cannot but acknowledge the possibility of their existence. And a priori there is as great probability of their existing in some nature from eternity as that our own should exist. There is surely no reason why the senses of sight, of hearing, of taste, and smell should exist, any more than countless others. And, in the same manner, the properties of matter might have required entirely different perceptive faculties. These two, then, might have been wide as the poles asunder. Yet, amid the endless variety of senses possible, we have those which correspond to the classes of the qualities of matter. And amid the endless variety of the possible qualities of matter, it is characterised by those which fit in the most admirable manner into the nature of man. Again, (2.) We might have been endowed with the same faculties of sight, hearing, &c. And in outward nature there might have been found colours, sounds, &c., yet our sense of sight might have been capable of perceiving entirely different colours from the present. In this, also, there is room for endless variety. The |