The Method of Divine Government, Physical and Moral. By Rev. James McCosh [pp. 598-624]

[OCT.
ART. II.-The Method of the Divine Government, Physical
and Moral. By the Rev. James McCosh. New York:
Robert Carter & Brothers.
SAYS Lord Bacon, "the declinations from religion, besides
the primitive, which is atheism, and the branches thereof, are
three; heresies, idolatry and witchcraft: heresies, when we serve
the true God with a false-worship: idolatry, when we worship
false gods, supposing them to be true; and witchcraft when we
adore false gods, knowing them to be wicked and false."
Wherever the influence of the Bible has been felt, it has exorcised the two latter forms of false religion. Idolatry and witchcraft sooner or later vanish before the faintest rays of scriptural
light. It is true that Mariolatry and the worship of saints and
images, defile some apostate Christian churches. But in these
communions the Bible is a sealed book; its light is extinguished
by the edicts, and its authority supplanted by the spiritual despotism of the hierarchies that have usurped its office.
Aside from this, through Christendom, the true religion is
confronted by atheism or heresy, and is compelled to contend,
not against those who worship false gods, but against those who
ignore or deny the very being of a God, or those, who, confessing his existence, worship him falsely.- Atheism, however, unless
in times of tumultuous popular excitement, is too cowardly to
avow or display itself. It usually preserves a prudent silence,
or masks itself under some disguise, which it labels "liberal
and improved Christianity." The same is true also of most of
the infidelity in Christian countries. It shrouds itself in like
plausible disguises. Denying everything that constitutes Christianity, it still comes forth in the guise of a reformed Christianity. So of all attempts now made to undermine the Christian
faith. They claim to be attempts to reform that faith, and
relieve it of the crust of errors with which human dogmatism
has gradually overlaid it. Hence, the great conflict of the
Church in our day, is with heretics, who assuming the Christian
name, make war against the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, on the plausible pretext of improving that faith.
Many of these conceal their infidelity from the view of shallow
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