works of his, mentioned by Eusebius, and referred to by himself, are now lost. Of those that remain, the Exhortation to the Gentiles is a powerful exposure of the follies of heathenism, the Pædagogue is a rule of life for ordinary Christians, and the Stromates is a guide to gnostical perfection. Eusebius says that he composed this last during the reign of Severus, and accordingly we find that the chronologies in the first book all terminate with the death of his predecessor Commodus. The same author mentions also, that it consisted of eight books, and that number occurs in our copies: but the eighth is a dissertation on dialectics, I think, by another hand. Clement is best known as the tutor of Origen. The time and mode of his death are not to be found in any author.

DOCTRINAL ERRORS,

&c., &c.

CHAPTER I.

NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION.

THE human mind was not created for a state of entire independence of all communications of knowledge from the great Author of its existence. We might easily point out its incapacity of attaining to certain truths which it is, nevertheless, needful for man to know, and to know assuredly; and by referring to the monstrous absurdities in religion which, in all ages of the world, have arisen out of this incapacity, triumphantly demonstrate the necessity of a divine teaching. But the enquiry would be foreign to our present purpose, for which it will be sufficient to show that such has been the divine economy, by a very superficial glance at the early history of the human race.

In the paradisaical state, the intercourses between God and man were so constant and familiar as to evidence

B

that man, in maintaining that communion, was fulfilling a primary purpose of his creation. It was only when, by man's disobedience, sin entered into the world, that he hid himself from the presence of his Heavenly Father. And, notwithstanding, we are taught by his subsequent history, that even sin could not frustrate this purpose of his most benevolent Creator. It did not comport with that inscrutable wisdom, which condescends not at all to our unhallowed curiosity, to reveal to us many particulars regarding the nature and frequency of the intercourses between heaven and earth, during the long period that intervened between the fall and the flood. Thus much, however, we easily gather from what is written ;-that the direct revelations of the divine will to mankind were of very frequent occurrence, and that the providential dispensations of God then assumed a decidedly judicial character; much more so than at any subsequent period :—that is, viewing the general tenor of God's providential government at that time as compared with any other period of equal duration, and excluding, of course, those particular epochs when, to effect some great change in the theocratic notions of mankind, the Omnipotent unveiled for a season the hidings of his power; and said to the functions of nature, as well as to the consciences of men, be still, and know that I am God.

Under this aspect we shall find, that the visible dealings of God with man have been regulated by a law exactly analogous to that which governs the rise and growth of all beings within the range of our observation, both in the physical and moral world. Their earliest mode of existence is a very crude and imperfect one; rendering them dependent, at first altogether, and for a longer or shorter subsequent period in great measure, upon assist

ances external to themselves for its continuance: and they attain to that degree of perfection which enables them to become self-existent, as it respects their fellow-beings, by a process of gradual development.

Exactly after this manner hath God dealt with the human race. When man was first driven from the presence of his Maker in paradise, to wander over the earth that was cursed for his sake, he was dependent upon the direct agency of the Supreme Being for the supply of his every want; the very coats of skins that clothed our first parents did the Lord God make, Gen. iii. 21.

This direct superintendence appears to have been long continued; and to have been gradually withheld, partly, because men had so far profited by the instructions which had flowed to them from the fountain of all wisdom, respecting the common arts of life, as no longer to require it,—but principally, because they had rejected the word of the Lord, as it regarded the far more important concerns of the life to come, and sinned against him. And if we trace the divine economy downward, through the succeeding periods of the human history, we shall find the Almighty slowly withdrawing himself behind the veil of providence -every successive departure hastened by that fatal cause which first began the separation between man and his God, sin but all harmonised by the skill of Omniscience into an entire subserviency of his great purposes; until, in the fulness of time, God was manifest in the flesh, the great atonement for the sins of the whole human race was offered upon Calvary, the gospel of the kingdom was preached to all the nations of the Roman world, and the last breath of inspiration refreshed the fainting spirit of the aged exile of Patmos, and closed, finally and for ever, the book of God's revelation to mankind.

The subsequent history of the world informs us, that the economy of the divine dispensation had now attained to that state of perfection for which the long preceding series of supernatural interferences had been disciplining and preparing the human mind. The whole will of God to man, and all things necessary for him to know regarding his future state of existence, were upon record; and that record was capable of authentication, by every mode of proof which it was possible for his understanding to require. God then altogether withheld any more direct display of his power, or even existence, than the standing miracle of universal providence, whereby the invisible things being clearly seen by those that do appear, men are left without excuse; and those hidden miracles of grace, which the Holy Spirit, by the ministry of the word, works from time to time in the hearts of men, convincing the happy subjects of them of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and witnessing with their spirits that they are the children of God. But though the believer knows, with the full assurance of faith, that God speaks to his heart, yet a stranger intermeddleth not with his joy,-the evidence hereof is for himself alone. He departs from the evil that is in the world, and walks with God in newness of life; and these are the only demonstrations he can offer to his fellow men of the reality of the blessing he has received.

Miracles, then, ceased, because the Divine Revelation, and human society, were now placed in circumstances which obviated the necessity of further miraculous interposition : and therefore it inevitably follows, that the Bible is the substitute which God hath appointed for those interferences with the established orders of Providence, wherewith, in the infancy of the world, he manifested his will to man