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be wrought out by natural means alone; that by a Divine Revelation, and in a Divine relation with the creature of an abiding and universal character, man's salvation is secured. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed upon Thee."

§ 10. Thus, if Christianity be indeed the "salt of the earth," it must needs be purgative, and is ever tending to throw off the accumulations of worldly impurity; an impurity which reaches to the lowering of heavenly doctrines, as well as to the marring of their realization in practice. The its protest- Christian idea, the imitation of Christ, made possible by the Incarnation of the Word, will always, in a manner, protest against the defects inherent and immanent in its manifestation in the world." At varying epochs this antagonism could not but show itself forth. The conflicts to which all human progress seems liable, its corruptions, its hindrances, must needs attend equally the action of Christianity upon mankind. Yet "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." And this self

1 "It was necessary that the Gospel, which had once already proved the preserving salt for the world, where putrefaction had begun, should again penetrate in its original purity, power, and leavening influence, into the hearts and lives of the people."-Dorner, I. 40.

2 "The Protestants did not get that name by protesting against the Church of Rome, but by protesting (and that when nothing else would serve) against her errors and superstitions."-Laud, Conf. with F., xxi. 3: viz. at Speier, April 16, 1529; where it had been decreed by the Papal party, "contra novatores, ut omnia in integrum restituantur."

quickening, self-renewing process will not be wanting even to the end, while there remains among men the opposition between truth and error, between holiness and sin, between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world.

LECTURE VIII.

THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED FROM ITS MISSIONARY CHARACTER AND PRESENT STANDING.

"Ex quo intelligimus Ecclesiam usque ad finem mundi concuti quidem persecutionibus, sed nequaquam posse subverti: tentari, non superari. Et hoc fiet, quia Dominus Deus Omnipotens, sive Dominus Deus ejus, id est, Ecclesiæ, se facturum esse pollicitus est: Cujus promissio lex naturæ est.”—HIERON., Comment in Amos, sub fin.

"Is it possible to expect a further and more perfect manifestation of Religion, as we may expect a further and more perfect manifestation of Art, or Science, or Philosophy? No. Never, either in our days or in the remotest future, can any religious progress hope to rival the gigantic step which humanity made through the revolution effected by Christ." -STRAUSS, Life of Christ, Vol. II. p. 49, 3rd ed.

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